Paint this gorgeous red & black Cardinal bird - in Gouache!

1. Introduction: Join me again for another fun art project where we take Gouache, do a colour swatch, and then paint this gorgeous little Cardinal. You haven't met me before, my name is Jane and my business name is misses Red's art room. I live on the Gold coast in Australia with my husband, two remaining chatts. They're the ones that are sort of twentiesh and haven't left home yet, a dog, two cats, three chickens, and an aviary of birds, and an awesome veggie patch. I also teach local classes on the Gold Coast. Grab your paint brushes and just sketchbook and let's get in to the art room. H 2. Class Project: To do this class project, you need to have a basic understanding of Gouache paint and how it works. There are plenty of videos that will teach you the basics to Gouache on Skillshare. To begin with, you'll need to go to the Project and resources tab and find the image of the Cardinal. You can print off the image as well if you want to trace the image down onto your chosen paper, and I will demonstrate both ways in the videos to come. This image has been chosen from Unsplash, a website that has royalty free images to use. The photographer is Joshua J Cotton. Comes time to painting the Cardinal, I would prefer you to have a reference photo on a second screen to my recordings. This is because our printers do not print color exact. The second screen could be your phone, an iPad, a laptop, or a second screen on a desktop. Of course, when you finish your Cardinal, I would also love you to upload in the same tab, project and resources, so I can see your work and give you positive and constructive feedback. The only way for me to know you have done my class is by uploading your work into this tab. So please don't be shy. It's also awesome to be able to see how others have answered the same brief in their own unique way. 3. Materials You Will Need: Alright. I'm going a little bit rogue for the material list for this one, because we need to do swatching of Guache and you have got different colors to what I've got, and we need to work with what we've got, make new colors with what we've got, et cetera. So the swatching of the Gouache paint will come after this video. I'll just reach in and grab Gouache out. So that is just an orange and it's an artist spectrum. I've mainly got Windsor and Newton. You use what gase you've got on hand. So what I'm going to be doing with all the gouache, which I'll show you, and this isn't my entire stagoache. This is the colors that I have chosen for doing this Cardinal painting. So I have a lot of gouache. I teach gouache classes on the Gold Coast. Um so I supply everything for those classes. So that's why I have a lot and a lot of gouache. I don't expect you to have as much as me. Anyway, let's start about what else we've got. Apart from the gouache, you're going to be using several brushes. Again, I haven't chosen them yet. These are all my brushes here, watercolor Gouache brushes. I haven't chosen them yet, but given that we're doing a relatively a five scale painting of the Cardinal, going to be wanting sort of this size brush, maybe a little bit of this one, the one that rolled off the paper here. We've got this one and maybe a larger one for the background areas. So have a variety of your Gach brushes on hand. I'll just leave that one out. Paper towel, a definite must when we're doing Gase. Have a few pieces. A pencil to draw up your template, sorry, yes. If you're drawing up from the template or drawing free hand, you need a pencil. You can have anything. This is to write down the color of each Gouache. So it can be a Bro pen. It can even be the pencil that you've been using. Don't worry too much about that. Have paper towel handy, have your bucket of water handy as well. And then sketchbook size. This is the PIP. I'm not sure of the actual size of it, but what I've done is I have scaled this to be a four or a five dimensions. Let's find out how this is let's say, roughly 25 centimeters long by just over 17 centimeters wide. So right in between A five and your A four, beautiful sketchbook. It is Do do do I should have looked at this before 200 GSM, and it's slightly off white paper, as well. Lovely to work on. So working on this side, doing my painting and working on this side to do all my swatching and recording of colors, which is just as important when you're doing a gash painting. So I will stop this video, and we will start a new one where I've got the gash all laid out, and we're going to start doing swatching, which is a lot of fun. 4. Sketching Your Cardinal: I so there are two ways that you can draw up your Cardinal. You can do it like I am at the moment where I am freehand sketching up the Cardinal, or you can do a tracing of it. So I'm going to show you both ways. Obviously, you can see me sketching up here. But the other way of tracing up is not going to be of the Cardinal. It's actually going to be of a sunflower. So I wasn't going to repeat a process that is easy enough for you to follow, even though the image is a different image. So as you can see, here's my sunflower. You will have a Cardinal that you can print out on your printer. You just need a black and white copy of it. So what I'm demonstrating here is that you cannot really see the Cardinal print out on top of my sketch paper. But as I show it up to the light, you can see it. So if you have the opportunity, go and it's daylight, go to a window to do this tracing. If it's nighttime, you just have to keep showing it up to the light and then putting it down. Now, you'll use the side of your pencil to do this, not the tip of your pencil because you don't want to you want to do a real messy tracing of this so that when it comes to going over your Cardinal, you have got everything out. So now you've got your printed Cardinal out. And as you can see, I'm using the side of the pencil. Do a nice, messy shading, nice and messy heaps of coverage, and make sure you're using a pencil that's possibly darker than a HB. So a two B is perfect, four B is even better. Nice and dark. I'm not looking for neatness. I'm looking for coverage. So just keep doing this going over all of your Cardinal. You'll see me show it up to the light soon as well. Um, I'm just doing the leaves of the sunflower here now, but you're doing the shape of the Cardinal and the fence that the Cardinal is sitting on. That's all that needs to be traced. Even the fence doesn't have to be too accurate. It's easier to draw a fence up than it is a bird. So you can see I'm looking at the image through the light. I may have been doing this in the dark or I did it as an example. This sunflower project is one of my other Skillshare classes that I've done. So it's a pen and ink one using lines and dots and squiggles to create the sunflower in black and white. So you can have a look at that one as well if you like. So once you have done the shading on the back, you position your Cardinal where you would like on your page, and then with your less dominant hand, for me, it's my left hand because I write with my right. Your left hand will hold the image down so that your right hand can trace everywhere that needs to be traced. And then it's just time to start that tracing. I have sped the video up here, as you can see, I don't draw that fast at all. But just go over all of your lines that you need to of the Cardinal and the fence post, and then you'll be able to remove your sheet from your drawing paper and or painting paper, I should say, so my mixed media or watercolor. Then you can move it off. I'm going to show you here, too, how to move it off without completely moving it off your paper so that you can check and see and make sure that you have put in all the lines necessary that you have to. So you'll see me with my left hand check that I've got everything Correct. However, you should be able to see your pencil lines as well on. And here, you'll see that I'm just checking. You won't be able to see my lines here. I do show you at a different angle. It's because of the light and the recording. But you should be able to see your pencil lines underneath your template and onto your sketchbook or paper for your gouache painting. So that is tracing the template onto your paper, as opposed to free drawing. So either way is fine because we're not doing a drawing class in getting perfect shapes for the bird. You're doing a drawing class for the gouache painting. Alright, so our next move is to look at all our paints that we've got and see what colors we need and what colors we need to mix. So I'll see you in the next video. 5. Colour Swatching: Okay, so when you are selecting your swatching, make sure you've got the image of the Cardinal up so you can do what I've done here and just get out what you've got. Plus, I've got black white and gray, as well, but I'm not going to swatch them. And that way, we'll be able to whistle it down. Like, we can choose which ones we're going to use the most of. Um, so I'm going to start up top here with yellows going to red. That should cover one line. Then I've got a lot of neutrals. So that was for the timber. Like, there's a lot of colour in that timber. There's a lot of dark. There's a lot of light. You can see a bit of green coming through. So I'm going to use two lines for those, and then the greens, they're really minor. There's a little bit of green in the background, but they'll go along the bottom there. And then from that, I can choose which colors I want to use. And I don't have to make the decision up straightaway, either. So with that being said, I'm going to just move my water bucket just there. It's still out of view, but I better hold onto my paper towel because I'm gonna need it. I might just also grab a piece of paper to put over the Cardinal so I don't get any paint on it. Okay, so I've got several sheets of just print copy paper here. So I'm just going to put them over there, and that way, it will stay protected from any splashing that may occur. It's not really in any particular order. It is a naples yellow deep, so it's sort of based on the neutral colors as well. Those natural ones. So I'm not going to sit here and go through every color with you. I'm just wanting to give you the example of what you need to do. So naples yell. Deep. You can abbreviate. Alright? And then I'm moving on to the next color. Make sure you give your brush a good wash in between. We know that gouache doesn't come out of brushes that easily. This one looks like a new tube. Okay. Okay, so I am now onto my last green, which has actually spurted out. I don't know what to do about that. Um, I don't even have a palette handy. And once it's out, it's out, okay? Let's painted down there without losing it. It's just gonna have to go in the bucket. Shame, but I didn't know that was going to happen. So dark green. Now you can see that if I have used another gouache that is not Windsor and Newton, I've actually put AS underneath it, SCH, for Miki. I don't really know how to pronounce that too well. So the only other colors that I've got, which I will swatch, I'll at least swatch the gray. It's neutral gray three. Different. Oh, that's got a lot of green on it. So I'll put that gray down. I love using this gray. I don't know why. I do. I use it a lot. And then I've got the lamp black, and I'm obviously not going to put the white down, but I want to tell you the difference between permanent white and zinc white, as well. I just have to pull it back up, so I'll put it on the screen, as well when I say it. There's a lamp black. It doesn't matter what black you use. Black is black. There is differences. Like there's a warm, there's a cool, there's a reddish one. There's a bluish one. Amp black. Let's just say is like a nighttime black. Alright, so the difference between permanent white, which I've got here and the zinc white here is opacity and mixing behavior. So permanent white is highly opaque. That's, yeah, this one, highly opaque, perfect for highlights. Zinc white is more transparent, cooler and ideal as a mixing white for producing cleaner and more vibrant tints without overpowering colors. So I am going to go, not because this one's almost done, but I'm going to go the zinc white because I'm going to be mixing the color lot of these colors to find those timber colors. And it'll be used for the sand the sand. That's because I live on the Gold coast. The snow, it'll be used on the snow as well, but we won't see we will see a little bit of the post coming through the snow there. So that is the big difference between the titanium, sorry, the permanent and the zinc white. Alright, so next video is going to be, actually, what I've got to do first, and I'll do it off camera. I'm going to go through all these colors that I've put down and eliminate ones that I just don't think suit. Something like this brilliant green. I know that that's not going to be used. So I will get that out of the mix. And also, I can kind of see where I'm going to go with my reds there. I think the flame red is very much going to be used probably as much as I want it to be used, it'll probably be used with a spectrum red, probably not so much lizarin uh, the red oak is a really nice color, too, so that could be mixed a little bit. We'll see, okay? We'll go to the next video. 6. Your Painting Style: A Okay, T two. I just filmed this and didn't hit record, so we will start again. Here is all my gouache. I've just put it into a little container so that it's not sprayed out all over the table. This is my pallet. My palette is a recycled container, which originally held meat balls in. So there's 20 little wells here. And it's what I love using when I'm doing a gouache painting both here or if doing a plain Air wm. I like to use it for that as well. I don't have I do have a travel gouache as well. So I do have color that is for travel only, but I prefer to use fresh Gouache if I can. Now, in regards to the colors, I eliminated one, two, three, four, five, six, seven colors. I eliminated a lot of the greens. I only ended up with two greens to be um in the end. And what we're going to be doing is starting with our background first. Just before I go to that, I just want to show you. So it is a good idea to always look at inspiration and the painting style that you want to do. Now, Clara McCallister, she does Gouache and oil painting. But what I love, this is a Gouache one. What I love is that there's no area that is just one solid color. She's very detailed like myself. So that's what draws me to her work is that even though if you're a detailed person, you can still get away with a beautiful painting. If I go down here and you can see those feathers, just every paint stroke has been done with intention. So the colors that she's used on every little area has all been done intentionally. And then this beautiful snake, which is on a pink background, just lovely, lovely work. The flowers. So I'm really drawn to her work because her work is similar to my own style, and I get frustrated with being so detailed. And when I see that, I think it's okay. I can use one of these tiny little brushes as much as I like. However, it must be noted, I'm not teaching you a class on my detailed style. I'm teaching you a class on color mixing, preparing your colors and the process of doing the gouache painting. So if you're watching this one, I do hope you have a little bit of gas experience in knowing that it's very much you can build up in layers, but there's only so many layers you can do before it starts picking the paint up and taking it back off. So we start thin and we can go to a thicker paint, but we can't go back to a thin paint. Um, so we're going to start with our background. So if you're looking at your image or I'll put it up on the screen as well just over here. We're going to start with background because when we get to our gorgeous little fat Cardinal, his little feathers are going to be delicately just wisping off the top of his head there, and we want them to be going over the background. He does have a little area just there, which is quite light, but we can paint that in. When we're doing the background, make sure that you go right up to your pencil line of your Cardinal and the fence. Don't be afraid to go over the pencil line because then you've left that room to be able to paint the foreground in with the background not disturbing it. So what are we looking at? We are looking at if we go from this side from the left to the right, we're looking at I'm going to be using the como green, and I'm thinking a bit of naples yellow deep with that mixed together to get that oliv golden color. Then we have a little bit of black introduced with gray. Then there's a little bit of gray with white introduced back to gray, and a bit of dark a bit of black again. Down here, it's very mid tone. And then there's just that hint of that olive color, which I'd say would have been some trees or something in the background. So a little bit of hint about olive again over here. So we'll go, well, I will. I'm going to go from left to right because I'm right handed, but if you are left handed, please go from right to left. Work in your comfort style, work with the brushes that are in your comfort style as well. So I'm going to pause this video now. This is what I did. I paused the video and then realize that I started the video. So I will pause this video, and I will put my the green, the naples yellow, and the gray black and white in here so that I can start making those colors and start doing the background. Really only want to do the background once. You don't really want to have to be going over it again, so we're going to be doing it quite thick. And I would love to get some of those snowflakes in as well. Don't know how we're going to do that, maybe with a brush and water cause water stains squash, so that might be a nice way to be able to do it. Alright, so I will stop this video, and I will start a new one with my palette ready to go, likewise, for yourself. 7. Background Part 1: Alright, I'm definitely recording. Okay, so I have mixed the chromo green and the naples yellow deep together. It ended up being one part green, two parts naples to get that colour. So I'm going to just run with it. I haven't done a test. We can always do that. And I don't know if that's coming up on your screen as well, but it actually looks very much like what I want. I just want a little bit of water. So if you do want to just have a little bit of water, I can't put this down on top of the actual artwork, all I do is just dip my brush in to the water and just get it a little bit more wet. I call it a consistency, one, two, and three, with three being very wet, two being in the middle and three being nothing. But these two colors were pretty juicy when I got them out of the tubes. I juice is the right word to use. Okay, so I'll just move that over. See what the other thing is, I've put this border in because that's the border of sort of the ratio for an A four, but, um, you don't have to. You can put some washi tape down if you want to so you get a nice neat crispedge. I'm not going for the Cris bedge look because I will if I scan this in, I will then crop it. Might do some cards with it. So I don't need to mix the blacks and the white. It's just this color here. Make sure I go over that line. I still feels pretty thick, I must say. Um, then there's just that there's a hint of dark in here, so I don't know what to do here. I should have mixed my gray a bit better. I've got a new tube of neutral gray and an old tube, and the new tube just ran Oh, what's it called I'll think of it and I'll put it up on the screen. But it just I'm trying to think of it. I can't. Yeah, all the fluid came out rather than the paint. So I'm sort of mixing, trying to get the gray to be nice and consistent because it's very, very pasty, bit dry. Trying to keep Clara McCallister in mind as I do this. Now, as we come up here, that color that's there. I can't open up another tube right now, so I'm just going to go with maybe just the gray. Dip my brush into there and contaminate it. I don't know if I've got any paint on there yet. Might be just separate. It's like a separator. What binds the two the color together? Some sort of separator. Okay, very quickly, we're going to be going into our color here. I feel like I'm using a brush that's a bit big. I'm just going to go over that there. How's that looking? It's looking very much like there's lines going on. And then under here, we're going to go into I'm I don't want to really wash my brush. I don't know if that's naughty. I get a tiny bit of black. Be really careful with you, Black. I really should have washed the brush. I'm gonna wash the brush. Just get the majority of that green off there. You got to work fast here because the gase will dry quickly. Depending on when you're doing this and where you are in the world, we are in what should be autumn, mid autumn, but it is still really hot here on the Gold coast. So we're still getting 30 degree days. So I'm just going to take a bit of that gray, put it there, and just get a hint of that black. Oh, look, so dominating. Such a dominating colour. Okay, let's get it down. Because we wanted to maybe I needed to have two brushes. You'd think I'd know. Gouache is very much a paint you cannot blend. You can put layers down, but it doesn't like to be blended. Okay, so I want to do something there. It's very harsh. I'm gonna dip my brush straight back into the green. I need to get rid of this linear pattern that's happening. Make sure you go over just over your pencil lines. We really need to be happy with our background before we go onto the foreground. And The first bit of paint that I put down has dried. That's not looking too bad now, though. I'm quite happy with that. I had two beautiful magpies outside whistling before. It would be lovely if they came back because you'd be able to hear them. Okay, so moving on. I'm liking what's happening there. I'm just gonna put a bit more of that gray colour that I mixed down. And then I need to come into a bit of the white. The white zinc, which was a new tube, I thought would have been quite runny and it isn't, as you can see. It's again, very quite a firm paste. I've probably gone a bit too quick on going light, or I need to add some water to that. That is too dry. You'll know if the paint is too dry, it just will not go down onto your paper. Feel scary working over your pencil lines because all of a sudden you're left without those guides, but it is okay. It's going to keep happening. Okay, so I got to get more white happening here. I'll put a tiny bit more water. Nah. Now, I didn't do It's actually the same colour, so I'm just going to fill that in now. Make sure you do that as well. I don't know how you're watching this. If you're watching it and you're painting along with me or you're watching it to then do and pause and everything, I'm not sure. But, yeah, I will just continue painting as we go along. I have to tell you a story or two, as well, I guess. Never shy of a word, though. Okay, how are we going there? All right, I'm just going to keep adding a little bit more white to my sorry, water to my white because of how dry it is. And we're right in that gray zone now. So you want to be mixing. Oh, that's right. Did I bring it up? Yes, I did. I did I drew the head, and then I put a little bit more height on the head. My computer thinks that I'm not working at it, and it just went to sleep on me. But I need the reference photo. Bit different when you're watching a video. I never goes to sleep on you, but um if you are doing what I'm doing, which is just recording, it doesn't think I'm there. Oh. Gotta be careful here. Okay. There is a kookaburra singing outside now, but I don't I think he's too far away. I don't think you'll hear him. My microphone's too good. Okay, so I've managed to continue with this brush, even though at first, I thought it was maybe a bit big. I think I just needed to wash the excess green off it. Um, come down here. Make our way back up to the top. Now we've got to start going into the Blacks again. So adding little that little, have a look at that for a little. Oh, that's Okay. Add a little bit of green to that again, then, which isn't going to be a problem. That is a definite you can see the obvious change in that, so I'll have to go around it again with a bit of white. But let's just get this down because it's on my brush. Um, yeah, I'm inclined to add a bit more of white to it again now. So, apart from just getting the excess green off my brush from mixing those two colors together, I haven't washed or changed my brush for the background. And yes, I could have done two brushes, one with sort of green colors on it, but it looks okay as it is. I want to add now. Oh, that shouldn't have happened. I was going to say I want to add now the green to it, but I really need to come down here and finish this little fence off and make sure that that all connects together. Looks like it belongs to the background. All I can hear is dogs barking now. Much prefer birds. I actually just saw my first Black cockatoo out in the wild. So I do live in the hinterland of the Gold Coast, so lots of birds, and I know the sound that the black cockatoo makes, and I've heard them, but I've never seen one. And I've lived here for 20 years, actually, 21 years. I'm going to go for a bit of that green now. Um yeah, so I just had to go down to the letterbox and was walking back up and heard it, thought it was going to be a white one. The white ones make a similar sound. And to my surprise, I'm just mixing straight green in here now, but I'm going to blend it. To my surprise, it was a black cockatoo that flew not overhead. It was a little bit off center. And it happened so quickly that I didn't even though I had my phone on me, I didn't have time to whip it out and take a photo. Or a video. That's very excited and quickly let my husband know. We encourage the birds. Lots of bird friendly plants and trees that they love. Okay, let's have a look at that on the screen. I'm looking at it on the screen, looking at it down. Find that it's probably not exactly where I'd like it, especially this bit that I'm working on now. So I'm going to go in with the white, which is looking very gray now and just go over these bits here and Try and bring it back. There's a little bit of green on my brush. I don't know if you can see that. There's a dog down the street that's not happy. Okay, now just work it in with this dark color. You just don't want to have stripes. You want it to look pretty blurred. So lots of cross hatching happening of the brush. Okay, I'm liking that more. No, I don't want to touch wear. Yeah. I want to get over there. Oh, am I gonna regret that? Maybe. Those areas just felt a bit thin as if I could see the paper through. Okay. So very cross hatchy style. Almost now got a dry brush and just pushing colour down. A dry brush is going to dry very subtly. So I'm able to try and blend as much as I can, while paint is still a little wet. Yes. Okay. And I think I will leave it at that. I'm just having a look at my reference photo. I don't have the light coming here, but I like how I've got the green coming in both sides very unevenly, as well. I I play too much with that, it's just like I'm happy with it. It doesn't have to be exact to what the reference is. That's where we can play a bit. And this red is just going to jump out of here and really brighten it up. Okay. Here goes my screen again. Hopefully I'm recording. Yes, I am. Alright, so I'm going to wash my brush, probably wash the water, um, so that we can come back and start on the Oh, am I going to go the Cardinal now or am I going to go this? Mm. I'll come back and I'll think about it, and I'll let you know. We'll start new um, a new video. That's what I'm trying to say. Alright. Okay. See you in the next video. 8. Background Part 2: Alright, so it is actually a week since I last worked on this project. So there's a couple of things. I'm not happy with how the background has dried. I wanted it to be a lot softer than that and not have those brush marks. I feel that I tried to blend the grass too quickly before, so I'm going to go over it again. I have refreshed my palette, so I've mixed the colors that I want. This color here is the naples and the chromo green coming together. And then I've got a little bit of the yellow up there just in case I want to put a hint up in the corner there. I'm going to start with Oh, sorry. I'm going to start with the darker color first. So if you've got the image in front of you, squint your eyes and have a look at the background, and you'll find that you can see some dark lines. And then there's the lighter line, which is right over the top of his feathers up the top there on his head. That light bit is also under like between the tail feathers and the fence and also down that little bit of the fence there. And then you've got that green coming in there. So I'm going to start with I've actually cleaned my bucket, so I've mixed all these colors, and the bucket got pretty messy. So I'm actually going to start with this dark area because that's the area that's the least important. So this is the neutral gray with a little bit of black added. It's probably going to go on a lot darker than like dry a lot darker than it's going on. And I'll try and keep it a little bit more smooth, too. And then go over to the side over here and do the same thing. Gouache is just not a blending paint. You have to mix the colour in your palette, unable to do it on your page. Okay. I feel like that's almost picking up a little bit, too. I'll just put a little bit in the corner as well. When I say picking up, it's picking up the colour below, reactivating the color below. Gouache does that. As does watercolor, acrylic paint doesn't. Okay. And then I'm not sure whether I'll probably try and go back to a bit of the green for there. So that's it for that. I'm just gonna give my brush a really quick wash. It's not clean, but I'll just get the majority of that color out so that when I go into this color, which is quite thick, so remember, if it's a week between sessions for you as well, you gas, put it in somewhere where it's dust free because you can reactivate the gase, especially if it's only been a week. If it gets to more than a week, say, a month or longer, I have a travel gouache set, so it's well over a year old. It can be harder to reactivate when the gase is that old. It still will work, but it's still a watercolor consistency, not a nice thick, creamy consistency. I did think maybe I should just make the background or one color because no one's to know what the background color is of this little Cardinal. However, I want to try first to see if we can get the maximum effect. Okay, so now I have to blend these two colors. So what I'm going to do is take the paint out of the brush, not entirely, but give it a wash. And then with just a little smidgeon of water on the brush, I'm just going to reactivate the two colors and see if this works. It may not work, and I might have brush strokes everywhere and we have to go to doing like just one color background. The other thing to also remember is we're painting the background. When we paint in the Cardinal and the fence, they are what is going to stick out the most, not so much the background. I just don't want to move forward with the background until I'm completely happy with it, because once we put the red feathers in, it's going to be really hard to try and not paint over them, and then it will activate those colors. Also, when you're doing this, it looks like you're stuffing it up to begin with, but then when it dries, you can't see it. Um, I've got to go this side yet, too. Okay, but I'm happier, happier. I'll say I'm happier. I've just washed the brush. Well, I didn't dipped it in and dipped it onto that. I can see that picture there looking a little bit. It doesn't look as harsh in person, but on the screen, it does. And I just fear that the screen's telling me things. Okay, I'm going to go to here now. M. Oh. Because I don't have anything other than a recording. Let's make sure I'm recording. Yes, I am. Oh, gosh, I didn't think I was then. It wasn't moving, but it is. This is really important stuff. I don't want to forget recording it. Okay, so I haven't added any paint while I'm doing this. I'm purely just getting the two colors to come together from a wet paint brush. Much happier with that. Finding there's a spot there that I'm not liking, but that can be done later. So now I'm going to put this green in again and then try and merge the two together. Not try. I'm going to merge the two together. I much prefer that over what we had. Okay. Oops, I might need to add a little bit of water. It does not matter that I just went straight over that border because as I said before, I am going to be cropping it when I scan it in. Okay, so I've redone that little spot as well. Now I'll give my brush a moderate clean. Let it be damp, and then get these two areas to come together. I didn't I think of doing this before. Sometimes you got to walk away to actually rethink things and work over them properly. I don't know what I just did there. Looking at it on the screen, it's not looking as it's looking worse than what I can see. Like, this looks really harsh, but it's not as harsh as, um, the camera is making out. My camera's meant to be my friend. The car with really big tread just went past. Very loud. May have picked it up. I'll just wash the brush quickly. Just a little rinse before I go on to this bit. Okay, I like what's happened there. That's all dried nicely. This is looking better. There is a bit of light there, but what I might do is just throw some feathers out over there. And not hating that little bit down there, but might just try and blend those two colors a little bit more. I put the tiniest bit of that green on my brush, but because it's only a tiny area, it's going to pick up pretty quickly. Okay, that I'm so much more happier with. All these little jaggedy bits here will be painted over with the fence, as well. There's a little bit there, and I'm pretty sure the paint is lifting. So when you put grass down, you have to go from thin to thick. It doesn't matter if you go light to dark or dark to light, but you have to go thin to thick. So the fact that I've put two I have a one, two, and three consistency, one being thick, three being watery. This here was done twice with like, let's say, two, and then I've put just water over the top to settle it all, and it just looks like it has started to lift the color back off the pate. So it's okay. We're going to actually, as it's drying, it just looks like part of the background, anyway. Probably happier with it there than I still am with a few areas here. But we will move on. I'm happy with the green merging into the gray. And this bit up here. But like I said, as soon as you start painting in the actual foreground, that's what's going to take the focus, and that background will become soft. Bonus points if you put those little flakes of snow coming down into it. I'm not sure if I'm going to. You can maybe add just a drop of water, and it's like it creates a water stain, but will it look like a water stain or will it look like a snowflake? We don't know. You can also, as long as it's not too thick, go over it with usually a watercolor pencil. Watercolor pencils are softer than just a colored pencil. So I can make some little snowflakes with water watercolor pencil if I choose to. Alright, so I'll finish this video, and we'll start a new one. Promise we'll start a new one this time. This computer just went off again. And we will start. Where are we going to start? Are we going to go with the fence or are we going to go with the Cardinal? We can do his feet when we do the fence, apart from that little leg there that goes up into the feathers. So I think we'll go to the Cardinal next and then we'll finish with the fence. 9. Cardinal 1: Alright. It's a bit windy here today, so it's actually lifting my page. I have now put down the red ochre, the flame red, which bursted out of the tube, couldn't wait to get out, and the spectrum red. So that is red ochre, flame red, spectrum red. They're the three colors that I'm choosing to do my little Cardinal in. Ignoring my favorite, which is a lizar and crimson. I've also, apart from that one, picked three brushes which are similar. They're similar. This one's are flat, whereas these are the forgotten. I'll I'll put the name of them. I want to say sable, but it's not sable. There's a name for the round brush. So we've got a flat and we've got the round brush. I also have a tiny brush here as well. That is going to be for those lines in the feathers, so I will not be using that immediately if you don't have one of these, and you have colored pencils, leave those lines for the pencils. I may do the same as well. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to use them. The reason I've got three brushes this time is because just like the background, we've got little areas to fill in, and I'd rather just fill in an area, change my brush, let it keep going so that they blend while you're doing it. Um, and not having to wash my brush in between. It's just gonna be easier. It's a small area. The paint's not going to dry so quickly. So I chose the yellow brush to be the red ochre. So that one, am I going to use that one first? Maybe I will. Oh, also, with the black so the eye and this area around the beak, we will do that after we've done the beak, and I didn't put a color down for the beak. What color am I going to do the beak? That orange looks really good, which I think was of spectrum. Yes, this one. So let me just put a tiny bit of that down, as well. For our beak and we can mix a bit of the other color with it as well. And I can use another brush or one of these. It doesn't matter. So the reason why we're putting down the black, hang on. Where's my little brush going. Putting the black down last is the obvious that if it goes over the red, it's not going to blend. But if we go right up to it with our red paint, the black will reactivate and we'll have black going everywhere. The other thing is that eye is tiny. So, the one thing I always say about an eye, whether it's a human or an animal, is that you must have a highlight, so I might just drop that in right now. Now, this little Cardinal has got two highlights going up there and down there way too hard for this project. So I'm just going to put in a little circle there. Kind of wish I put it a bit further back forward. No, it's there now. So what we're going to do for the eye, you can see that there's that sort of that greenish color around most of the eye. We will put that in first and then go over with black so that you get that little highlight there. Very hard. If you're not confident or you don't have tiny brushes, and you've got some colored pencils. Do the black part with colored pencils. You won't really be able to see the difference between the two. I tend to always use colored pencils on my gage paintings just as a finisher. Alright, let's get into this because I'm going to have to cut it as I go, as well. What were we starting with or starting with the red ochre? So I've just wet my brush, dipped it into. It's a nice consistency, this red ochre. There's actually colour coming through on that is far too deep. I need it to be a little bit waterier than that. I wasn't going to be able to spread paint around with that consistency. Okay, I've put in some dark areas so that I can go over the top of most of that with other colors. I might move onto this color down here actually lends itself into those dark browns. Looking see looking at this area here, you've almost got a bit of raw umber going on, which I can add down here, what have we got going on there? It's maybe, again, a bit of a raw umber. So I will add raw rumber. I won't add another brush. Let's find the raw rumber. It's gonna be harder to find. Oh, no, I just found it. Found it. So let's add that colour, just a little bit. Go. So that I can add that. I might add that now with this brush. So I won't actually clean it off. It's fine to go straight into that. Make sure you go over the lines as well. Don't go right up to it. Don't be afraid to go over because we want to go over. That's why we went in on the pencil lines with the background. So that's enough of that color. I'm just going to sit that in the bucket. Not a good idea to have a wet gouache brush out because they dry so fast. So better to just put them in the bucket, leave them soaking in there, you can go back to them when you're ready. Alright, I'm going to go what was it? The spectrum red, and then flame red is over the top. That is quite thick. When you're working with one color and you haven't mixed anything with it, it will go down very matt, very opaque, just like Gouache is meant to. It's only when you're blending or trying to blend like I was with the background is when you're going to have paint strokes can be obvious. The importance of doing this watch before to find out what colors you've got and what colors you've got to mix just is invaluable to the process rather than just having a go with a colour and seeing how it goes. Had I not done my colour chart first, I would have, for sure, gone in with my favorite red, which is the Alize and crimson. Try and get that red down where you're going to go over the top with the darks. Don't try to leave white areas to put the darks of those feathers in. You just go straight over the top of it. The beauty of gouache. Now, to do the little feathers, you're going to have to get all the water out of your brush. Add a little bit. I might try it soon because at the moment, the brush is too wet to give us little flickers. I do have brushes. Here, I'll show you one. One of the larger ones. I've got these brushes here. I think it's called a Filbert. They go to there, and then they have extra bristles. It's good for pet hair, but I'm not going to use that today because everyone doesn't have these. These are very unusual brushes. We won't use one of them today. Um, But yes, we need to make some feathers up the top there and the brush is too wet at the moment. I think I can I think I'd rather see if I can do it with a dryer brush. Let's go down to here. I'm not going to wash my brush, just added a little bit of water to it. So that we really make a nice new color here and go into the little fluffy bottom. Again, there's little area down here where you can see feathers flicking down into this area. So what's happened is the flame red. You can tell where it's sitting over the spectrum red. So I'm going to have to go over with the spectrum to bring the two colors together. I don't know if you can see that too well. It's looking extremely bright and one colour on my video. Alright, I might choose a smaller brush and then come up here and put those big colours in. So rush has gone straight into the water, taken So keep continuing just going over lightly, and I'll show you how to also do that hairline. You can almost see what I'm doing with this now. I'm just letting it touch the paper. Not too much. Looks like he's got a big bit of snow right in the middle of his little cute head. Every time I do a gouache painting, I just fall back in love with the medium even more. But then when I do a pen and ink drawing, I fall back in love with the medium. I'm very much which one was this? This was the spectrum red. I'm very much a mixed media artist. I don't stick to one medium at all. I am liking what's happening in here with him. It's looking really nice. I want to just put a bit more of that spectrum up into his belly. Okay, so this time we want to dry the brush, so the bristles really are separate. Then we're not even going to dip it in there. We're just going to dip it on the side here. So go around the outside or something and then with the paper towel, just separate them. Then I've dried it too much. A little bit more. Then dry it off on your paper towel. Now, this, I don't know if you can see, but it's making fine little brush hairs. That looks really nice. I might just try that again. We do the same down here. Still a bit wet. Still a bit wet. It's all right. There's still quite a bit of water on this brush. Probably didn't get all the water out like I should have. I wonder if I can do some of that down here. That's it. Just make his feathers look fluffy. Now, with this tail, how well can you see? It feels like it's not showing the color too well. Maybe the cameras not dealing with my colors too well. What I might do is I might stop the video and start a new one and we'll start doing the tail colors in 10. Cardinal 2: Okay. We're going to go on to the tail now. So I just I cleaned this brush. I don't think it was the one that I was using with the red ochre before. So I've sectioned off areas of the tail, and now to, I guess, brush across. I don't think that's going to work. I think we just have to go down. It's a solid color, so it shouldn't show. We just need it to look like feathers with some little highlight spots. That needs to be brighter there, I think. But I don't mind that, and then I want to get in here and do the same. Then this here I actually want to blend with a bit of the spectrum red, so I'm just going to dip the brush in I don't know if it's gonna make any difference at all. Need to be really, really soft, not putting too much pressure on your brushes for these little tiny, little detail areas. Okay. Um, does that look enough? I don't know. Ned some lighter there, but I don't have. Let me get some white. I almost want to touch the No, I'll just put a tiny bit of white up here. Tiny, tiny. You can barely see what I've done there. I've put the tiniest amount. Then I'm getting this I might even use this tiny little brush here, which is a three slash zero, so a third. And I'm just going to dip it in ever so gently into that spectrum red and get. Yeah, probably wasn't the color I was going for. I kind of need it to be a tiny bit of that orange. That's better. It's more of a salmon colour. Now, just so that it slides along nicely, I just added a tiny bit of water, which is when you're talking about a brush this size, you're adding tiny, tiny amounts of water. And some of No. All right, so I'm now going to go back to my tiny little brush. Oh, to my hand, which is good. I'll just give that a quick wash. Doesn't take much to wash or brush that size. And now I'm going to with this thin brush, go through and put the line in and also put a little bit of the spectrum red into the beak there. If you don't have one of these fine little brushes, then I recommend to use watercolor pencil. If you don't have watercolor pencil, but you've got colored pencil, just use that. So to begin with, I actually am going to go with the red ochre. I just need a little bit of water in there. Just dried out a bit too much. Okay, so this little beak, starts down here. I've probably gone up a bit high then. Okay, now I'm not going to make it that prominent. It's just to start with. Now I'm going to go with the spectrum red. And I might just mix it slightly with that orange so that it's not completely different. Stop. There's some black that comes over the beak, too. There's actually a little white highlight on the top of the beak, which I'm going to have to add. Now, where does it? The beak isn't as obvious down here, so just get that red off my brush and go straight into our orange. And just fade it out a bit. Um, I almost feel that I can have a tiny bit of light orange as well, is my white gone. There's just, like, a reflective light on the bottom of the beak where you can see that little white as well. Just a tiny bit of water. That's what I love about this palette is that I can use these little top sections for just like a smidge of paint. And then I've got all the wells as well. Okay, so this little can't talk and paint. I don't know if that will really show up too well. And then Okay, so what I've just done there is really fine detail. If that's too much for you, just don't worry about doing it. Although what I wanted to do is I wanted just a bit of a lighter colour, as well, and adding white to that orange makes it very much a salmon colour. So let's go with this marigold. It's probably the reason why I put it in. I I can find it. Oops. Marigold. I am going to I might even add a little bit of it down there, too. So I will add it to a well. Just a little bit. And go for this brush again. So this is a two size two brush. So it's one of my oldest ones, and it's just always been a good brush, bit of a no name brand, too, which is often the case, isn't it? Sometimes those no named items are your favorites. Mmm. Okay. I forgot to add the white. Let's put a bit of white up here, and hopefully it just turns into a richer gold, rather than a salmon colour. Mm, it's going a bit peachy again. Would have preferred it to go yellow. Oh, no. No, no, no. That did not work. I got to get that off. Okay. Got that off. So if I don't just put the marigold down by itself, then I guess I'd have to get a yellow out, and I don't want to at this late stage. So let's just go with a bit of this marigold over the top and hope that when it dries, it's just going to dry a little bit lighter. We will see. Just be careful you haven't got water on your arm. I dropped a little bit of water there. Oh, dear. It's going to paper stain. I don't know. Yes, you can. You can even see it. Oh. I should have just let it go. Anyway, that can be a little snow a little bit of snow. Um, right. What else? I'm just thinking, while I've got this marigold now. Feels like it's a bit watery. Um, where can I go with it? Let's put it down here. I just want to add some almost highlights, but I think it is half and half. So if the little box says is half and half, it means that it's not completely transparent. Was that spectrum red it got a completely black box. So it is completely transparent, whereas this one is not it's it's like reading the fine print. So I'm never going to be able to go over with this color and have it stand out over those other oranges and reds. We'll move on to the little black area next. I'm fairly happy with him. Not gonna say I'm completely in love yet. Takes time. Okay, so I'm going to start a new video, and we're gonna go on to the beak. So I will put the black. I'll put more black down. And I don't need to wash my bucket, but, yes, I will create a new video. So I've added a little bit more black there. But as I mentioned earlier, if you've got a tiny little brush, we're going to put in a little ring around the eye first. And I think we are probably going to be okay with this. What was that one? Raw umber. We should be okay with the raw umber. And it kind of goes from here. Where does it go? Right up to here. There we go. So that won't take a second to dry. I will go to my number two round now for the black I'm going to go out here first. There seems to be feathers going over the beak and also over up the other way as well. And I We go. That was very scary, but I just wanted to go around around the eye. But we have that little highlight better to just leave it now than have to try and do it in white pencil or white paint afterwards. Now, let's see if we can get a couple of little brush strokes going over this way. I'm pretty sure the lamp black is fully. It is fully opaque. There's no transparency in it at all. You wouldn't think there would be. You got to be so careful with black. It is a very dominating colour. I almost want to put a tiny little bit of gray in there, but I just want to resist it. I do want to I need to do a bit of fluffiness down the bottom here. I was going to say I'd do some more red 'cause this is such a tiny brush. I'm able to get those little feather marks in there. This looks like a bit of a mistake, so I need to neaten that up there and come in here and do the same there's nothing on the bottom, though. So I got to keep that finish that there. Okay, so looking at that, I am 90% happy with it. I think there's maybe something missing in the tail. And then I think it's just a matter of putting in the post and being able to look at it again and decide from there. Alright, so I will finish this here, and we will move on to maybe the post next, and then we can come back to those feathers there afterwards. 11. Fence: Alright. Welcome back. This has actually been a week since I've done this. So like I always say, the paints will dry out a bit. I can see catair there. But these ones I've just remixed. So these ones, you can see, is all starting to crackle and that's what some colors do. Other colours won't do that. So anyway, you can see I've put down paper towel on top of my artwork, which is there. The reason for that is because any splashing of water that you might do that comes near your painting will stain, just like that little stain there, which I'm leaving there for the moment, but water will stain. So what I've done, we're going to be moving on to a fence post, and I've got the colors mixed ready for it. So that's why we've got some fresh colors here and also this green. So over here on my chart, Naples and chromo green is the green I'm going to be using for the fence post. The naples plus white is those white bits in the fence post, and then raw umber and white for the actual timber. That isn't as close as I wanted it to be, but I'm happy to start it with that. What I do want to do is work with three brushes this time. So we're not going to go over everything with one color and then introduce the other colors. I'm going to try and work together. I haven't mixed that one yet, but I don't actually, I don't need three brushes. I only need two. The bits of green will definitely go over it at the end. So I shall begin. So I don't need to mix up that. Just get my paper towel. They're both nice and watery. I might start this way and move my way over. So pretty scattered bits of timber coming through. We do have a little ledge on the timber, which is kind of white, so I'll leave that so that we can actually paint that bit white and go down past where the snow is, as well. Mm hmm. Okay. Mixing, sorry, heading to my light colour. I actually put a little bit of the naples white into there as well. I didn't write it down. You can see I've done that in my palette there. Okay, so and the good thing about this is that they haven't the raw umber hasn't dried, so we will be mixing as we paint. For you and your colors, best to just mix the colors that you've got, make a nice big or not big, but a nice amount, so you don't have to try and mix them again as we go through. The creamy color is sitting on top of the raw rumba and looking a bit weird. So I think I need to make sure I've got enough on my brush so that doesn't look too watered down. It's just a slow process of doing this. Keep looking up at your artwork. I mean, sorry, not your artwork, your reference photo. Don't think you know all things about painting fences, because we need to get those colors worked out. And I can put a little bit of darker color in as well for timber grain. That can come afterwards as well. So just move along over your fence posts. And what I'll do is maybe end this video and come back when I'm near the end or ready to start the green over the top. We got everything happening today. We've got the birds talking or singing. We've got dogs barking. Okay, so I'll put those two in there. I'm thinking I will move to probably the sepia, which is the darkest brown I've got, and I will also move to some fine brushes. So the green I'll go for this one, which is a two, and the sepia, I'm going to go for this one, which is three point 3/0. I'm wondering if that was Sepia there. Not sure if I've used Sepia yet, so No, that's darker again. So we don't need much. Of that. I might go that first before I go for the green. So just wet your brush first. You never want to put a dry brush down into just paint. Always want to give a little bit of a lift. Then there is. I've got some lines going this way. That's going to really help lift it. So I will continue with this and then I'll do the green after. So I can put that brush down because I don't need that one right at the moment. Um, I'll do all these little edits here. Just with your darkest brown. Make sure it's not black. You don't need black. And my brush is feeling a bit dry, so just keep dipping it back into the paint. Okay, so really happy with that, want to go over the what was it? The burnt, raw rumba and the maples yellow with fineer brushes now just to not have this looking so obvious. But I'm going to start putting some of the green. So because this colour was mixed last week, I just need to give it a little bit of water again. Get rid of that little bit there, and then just apply Little patches of green everywhere. Just really, really finely. Don't put any pressure down on the brush. It's got to look like sort of a mossy green. Beautiful colour that comes onto that, fence post. So same technique. Just go over areas with the green, and then I'll come back with going over getting it all to blend together a little bit more. This is quite an easy part of the gouache painting because all the strokes can go in one direction. The colors are just sitting on top of each other. Alright, so I will come back when the green has been all applied. Alright, so I'm competing with a lawnmower over the other side of the road at the moment. I've changed to a new brush. This one is just a round four. It's got quite a fine tip on the end of it, so I don't know if that's gonna be a benefit or not. I will also get out my two. Yeah, this one just seems to have a lot of very long little tips on the end. So I'm going to use these two, and I'm going to go back to the naples and the raw umber for a minute. And just Oops. I better put some more water on that dry so quickly. And just add some more finer strokes. Oh, no. Okay, so I'm fairly happy with that. The lawnmower is right out the front now across the road. I'm going to put some neat zinc white down. And I'm going to I just saw the top of this bit here. I should really just neaten that up because it's going to have the snow over the top of it. So I just want to step in here and say that I'm now applying the zinc white as snow. I'm not making it too runny. It's very much that consistency, too that I talk about. So sort of creamy consistency. I just need to do a voiceover because the sound of the lawnmower has just stopped me from talking, and it would have been too hard to edit it. So yeah, we're up to adding the snow to the fence. And then I will come back and hopefully the lawnmower will have gone and we'll paint the snow at the bottom of the artwork together. Okay, so I'm going to just leave the snow on the fence at the moment. I still want to go back and put some more dark bits in. It's looking fence like, but it can look better, is what I'm trying to say. Especially up here, that's quite a dark area. What I've done is I have put some sepia? Was it sepia? No, burn umba Burn umba into here, and then some burn sienna into here. So what I'm doing is the little legs now. I didn't want to go the same as the sepia. I wanted to have a little bit more warmth in it. So that's why I went the burned humble. But the burned tumba, my tube of burned tumba is very hard, so it was very hard to get any color out of it. So I'm just going to go straight in. And then with the other colour, I will put color over the top and make it look a little bit more. Um, what's the word? Not flat. You don't want a flat. Don't want flat little fete. I can't talk and paint today. Okay, so I want to go in there now with a bit more dark. I won't keep the camera on for doing that. The next time I put the camera on, I can see a big blob of water just there. I've got a secret for getting rid of stuff like that afterwards. The next time I'll put the camera on is for doing the snow here, and then I'm going to show you my secret for getting rid of little paint. Sorry, water splashes. Alright, so I'll just continue back onto the fence post now. So we're on to the last bit before we do the little touch ups everywhere. So to begin with, I'm actually going to put down a very rough base so that the snow doesn't look just too completely white. I'm thinking I'll go the raw humber. So really watery. Add some more water. Doesn't have to be everywhere, just like that. Just so that the snow gets a bit muddier. And I've put more zinc white in here. I found that the zinc white is looking quite gray, so I may have to transfer Well, go for the permanent white, find that tube of white. I do have it. I just don't know where it is. Oh, well, I don't know if I've got any left. So for your snow, you will just be dabbing the white on. Mm hm. You'll have to go over this as a second layer as well. Otherwise, you actually see your paint strokes, which is not the idea. So we'll have to let that dry before I go over it again. But let's look, I've got a big water spot there as well. Let's clean up that color there. So I'm going to move back to one of the finer brushes. See how much of it I can just pick up. And return. This is a good lesson in how to wipe out a mistake. So what I will do there is go over it with the brown and the cream. I just need to get all the paint off. So I will come back when that is completely dry so that we can go over it again because you can see where my paint brush has been. Do I need to go to a larger paint brush, possibly possibly? Or would it be a smaller one? Might be a smaller one just to. Alright. Okay, I will come back when it's dry. 12. Finishing Touches: Okay, so it has been another week since I've been working on this little Cardinal. I have refreshed the white as input just some more in because I need to go over this snow. I know it looks like it in the image at the moment. You can see what looks like a bit of a fence coming through. But if I come up closer, you can see that it's just messy paint strokes. So I want that to hang on. We've got to get the Okay. There we go. So I want to make sure that that doesn't look like messy paint strokes and it looks like snow sitting there. The other thing I want to do is put a bit more texture into the fence post, the timber post, because it's not looking like it's right there yet. So what I've done, I've taken the raw rumber What I painted this color here, very coffee like colour was the raw rumber and the white. So I have just added fresh raw umber to the palette. Don't mind that it's going to blend a bit with the white that was in there. It's still going to be darker than what's painted there. So I'm just going to put a few more, little scratches and markings into there, as well. So the snow, the fence, then the tail. I want to just improve the tail a bit, get a bit more depth. The camera is showing this to be very flat. I go you can almost see it if I put my hand over it. It's it's the camera that is doing that, so there's a lot more detail in that than it looks like. So hopefully I can take a photo at the end and then show you as well. It's just red reeds really don't like cameras. They come out not to be the true colors. Then the last thing I want to do is go over a bit of the background and neat it up, make it a little bit smoother. I'm going to show you how I do that. We do have two little stains here. Now, I know there's snowflakes coming down. So I'm kind of inclined to leave that one there and even try and make another one, or make a few more. Don't know, it's hard because the snow has got a little bit of white in it, and it's a little bit transparent as well. So it might be too risky to do. Um and that's about it. Other than those little bits and pieces. So we're really just touching up now. So for the snow, I'm going to go with a round. I was using one of the Oh, geez, I can't remember the name of these again, talons when they're flat, but they're not but they've still got a curve. So I'm going to go just with a round. Put a bit of water on my brush. Because this zinc white is quite hard in the tube. It's definitely needing a little bit of water to smooth it in a little bit more. There we go. So I'm just going to smooth over it, basically. So we're going to go on to t now. I tried to blend some of the red ochre with the white, but a drop of water rolled down and splashed into it, and it's made it very, very watery. So I've started again here, and I'm just adding a little bit of this to that. I just wanted a bit of a lighter colour. M and I don't know if I've achieved that. I think I might have to add a little bit more white. Let me grab my paper towel so that I don't add any more accidental water to it. And I'll go with that. I was just wanting to get a little bit more definition in the tail there. So looking at my reference, there's this is really hard to do. I just think that getting these the detail of this blend, Guash is just not great at blending, so um it's just I don't know if this is going to work or not. We might have to put this lighter color down and then put a little bit more of the red ochre back over the top of it. It's also quite watery, so it may just sort of dry and blend straight in. When Gouache is watery, it will dry with a lot more transparency in it. I'm really just trying to bring the tail feathers together there. Yeah, I'm just looking at the actual camera image and it looks very light, and it certainly doesn't look the color that we are meant to be going for. So it might mean that I need to go over the top of it, but it is a light color, and it's watery, so it will be okay to go over the top of it. I'll just add a little bit more, and then we're going to Um flame ribs probably not it. It's probably spectrum red I want, and I don't know which one I've got here. Is that flame? And is that alizarin? Oh, goodness. I have no idea. It's been too long since I use these colors, so I'm going to put a bit of spectrum and I might add it straight on top of this one here. Okay, adding a little bit of water to that. And it seems like it was I just want to get my paper towel to put down over the rest of the bird so that my hand isn't on it. Um, I feel like I've got stripes happening, red stripes everywhere. I'm just pretty much just having to go here. Just trying to get the colour layers up. This color is good because it's actually very close to that red ochre when it's drying. So I don't know what it's looking. Yeah, you almost can't see what I'm doing on the screen. But the flame red sitting on top of the red ochre is not too different in colour. That lighter color that I just put on is probably a little bit strapping. Um, thinking there is no, I don't want to do that. Okay, so I might leave it at that. I don't really want to keep going. I'll just try and knock this light color out a little bit. Just make it a little bit thinner and along the bottom there as well. That was a bit distracting how light that was. Now I can't stop. Because there's paint on the brush. I'm finding areas I can actually apply. Okay. Et's stop there. Okay, so now we're going to go on to the background. So just keep the video rolling for this. There's no need to stop it. I do so much prefer that fence post. It looks so much more natural. It probably needs to be a bit darker, if anything, to match the colors that are in the actual photo. But I'm not going to do that. Alright, so what I've done, I've got my small round number one brush. I have taken the water out of it. But it is still damp, so I'm just going to do it again, removing the water, but keeping a damp brush. Just move that out of the way. So what we're doing with this, I don't want to put that down because it's a bit wet now. See this area here where you can see this gray line going up. We're going to go into that with a slightly damp brush. And hopefully I've zoomed in for this. And all you're doing is just picking up that paint and just giving it a nice little massage. Gas is not a blending paint, but when you just apply a little bit of water to your brush and move the paint around, it's as good as you can get to blending colors or just blending in general. You've got to let it dry. Once it's dry, you'll be able to see if you need to go back or not. Do wash your brush in between. So because you're picking up those colors, on your brush. So this area here was where the paint the grass was thinking, I don't want any more layers going down here, and it starts to take layers off. So I'm just smoothing that in. And by smoothing it in, I'm actually applying a small layer of paint over the top of it. Very delicate little part of the painting here. Up to you if you do it. Some people won't be so bothered about it. Me being one for detail. I almost have to. I'd love to be a little bit looser with my paint brushes and paint, but you can't fight your own style. Not when you get older anyway. You just have to live with it. Just going back into here now, pick up a bit of that dark and move it around. That's almost looking a bit worse for wear. So I'm going to go back into the gray, just wet it so I get some on my brush. Put some down, and then I will come back to it. And smooth it out. So don't worry. I'm not leaving that there. I'm going to move it down to here and do the same down here. While that's drying up there, just took the water out of the brush. You only want to use a little brush for this, as well, because little brushes I've just put a little mark there. Little brushes will hold only a little bit of water. Now, I'm going to go I'm going to go over there, but in order to do that, I need to wash my brush. We don't want gray going to be over there. Um, That should help that bit it there. And then I'm gonna do the same rinse the brush again. And I'm gonna do the same over here. I'm not going to worry about little snowflakes going down. I think that's getting a little bit too detailed. We don't need to. Oops, make sure you will just wash your brush in between different colors. I'm just waiting for that that has dried, so I'll go up there now, and I might just leave the brush. The color it is. It's just enough water on the brush to be able to work with the paint. That looks a lot quite light on the screen. I think I might have to add one of the dark grays because it's looking light when I'm looking at it, as well. It's not just on the screen. Just give it a quick blow. You don't want to have too much water down there. That's a better colour. That's what's so wonderful about grass and watercolor is that you can leave your palette as is and come back to it weeks later and use those colors that you've mixed again. So while it's wet, I'm just going to smooth it out. And then I think we will call our little Cardinal done. Okay. I might continue on and do a few more little bits and pieces in here just to smooth out some colors. But I think that's where we'll call it done. Now, remember to go into your project and resources folder for this project and upload your photos. Even if it's like progression shots and you've got a question or something that you want to ask, you can ask me that and definitely tell me how you went with your Cardinal. Um like when it's finished and all of that, because I'd love to see them. Love to see them. I've just noticed that the little Cardinals got some white up here, which is the snow. Am I going to add that or not? I'm not sure. Anyway, thank you for this project. Make sure you write your feedback in there as well, and show me a photo of your finished artwork of the Little Cardinal in the snow. And I'll see you in my next video.