Painting a Scene with Portraits

1. Intro.: Hello everyone and welcome to another easy watercolor class. This class I am going to show you how you can paint a face of color step-by-step, from the background to the hair. Painting the texture, the curls, to painting the skin and getting that skin tone just right. This is a class that can be taken from anyone starting from beginner to intermediate. I break it down slowly so anyone could participate. And to take apart what's you are going to need for this class. As a watercolor sets. What a colored paper weights between 150 GSM and 300 GSM. Pencil eraser and some clean water. I'm going to show you how you can easily paint all of the facial features from the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, the lips, even down to the chin and the neck. I'm going to show you how you can hit those shadow points. Just write and how you can layer your watercolor paint to create a beautiful portrait. I'm also going to show you how you can take a reference image and make it your own. So let's get started. 2. Painting Textured Hair and Creating Fullness: For this class, we are going to be painting tests at Thomson. If you'd like to follow along the image as below, you can just click and it'll take it to the link. I'm going to be using pencil, watercolor paints, along with Winsor and Newton watercolors from this pack, from the pencil pack, I'm gonna take black because the Winsor and Newton pack does not, does not have black. I'm going to mix the white along with the black from the other pack. And I'm going to create a light gray. When I looked at the image, I just wanted to interprets our reference photo in a different way. I want our painting to be a little bit more hunting them the reference image. And to achieve that, I want to paint this sort of Blache effect for the background. So it looks as if it's like drops are blotches of ink or very watery paint. To create this scene of slides. Hunted goodness type of effect. So as you can see, has that blotchy, almost as if the watercolor paint is like burning through the paper. You just achieve that by always using a watery brush. Just keep your brush watery and you'll get that blockchain us. But again, this is up to you with the background. You can paint however you want to paint it, you can make it solid or you can go for this blotchy effects. It really is up to you. Then now I'm going to start to paint the hair. And I'm painting it using a dark brown. I start off watering. And if you see those areas that I have drawn into my hair where I'm leaving clear. That's just me referring to the reference image so that I remember which areas are lighter, which areas are darker? And you always want to start with a light wash always, always, always, always, always. William Bass. And then the next wash is less war tree. The next swatch is much less watery and that's how I paint and I think it's the best way to paint if you are a beginner, because it will ensure that you will always have control of the overall image or the overall look of your painting. For Tesla's hair, it is quite thick and it is textured and it is curly. In order to have that effects, you have to have layers. And you have to have quite a few layers. Maybe we'll do three or four layers of watercolors in order to create that depth that it looks like it's thick hair. If that is how you wanted because you can make it much lighter. It's up to you, but I would like to go, I would like to go closer towards the reference image. So I'm going to add quite a few layers. So about three or four layers of paint will help you create that depth in the hair to make it really thick and full. You don't want to paint it flat. So that's why I have areas that are unpainted because that's where I'm going to make sure that those areas are much lighter than the other areas. It's makes the overall image just look less flat. We want to give it some shape, some volume. Do you want to sort of try and follow those curl patterns, the wavy. So try and paint in a wavy brush pattern. 3. Hitting the Shadow Points : Not that the hair is done for now. I'm going to start adding paint to my face. And in-between the hair, of course, so you can see the skin. Basically we're going to start painting the skin. I have painted have a class of previous class, which shows how you can create skin tones for people of color and how you can get that tone rights which colors to use from your watercolor pack. Here, I have yellow ocher and I have added a little bit of white because tests his skin is quite milky. And I start by painting the areas that have the most shadow. We're going to try to hit those shadow points. And usually that is around the face, on the sides of the neck, below the eyes. Around the eyes, I should say. The sides of the nose. You always have that going all the way down and you're going to have also around the chin. The first thing that I do is I make sure that I paint in those areas. It helps me maintain that control of my overall picture. Keep it very watery, keep it very light. When you're painting people of color you do not want to go into stronger LSU will just lose it. And you could, you will have difficulty later on because trying to remove those mistakes when you're working with a brown can be difficult. You want to start as light as possible. So over here, if you see out my yellow ocher and I just add a little bit of dark brown to just make it a little bit darker. And I apply that to the sides of the face for where the hair comes down and I have a few curls falling down across her face. Just following my reference image. I'm just filling in an M blending. And I'm keeping everything be really, really light. Again, if you want to follow and to draw the same image, the link is below it just click below and it will take you to the image, to the reference image. I keep everything really watery. When you're painting people of color, it is different from when you're painting Caucasian white people. Because if you make a mistake, when painting location faces, It's much easier to rectify because the color is closer to the color of your sketch paper, your watercolor paper where, whereas when you're painting people of color, that's not the case. You have to be very attentive and careful about how dark Hugo. I remember at the beginning when I started, I would immediately start with the darkness that I was seeing in the reference image. You don't want to do that. You want to sort of try and look at your reference image and try to imagine that face three shades lighter and then start with that shade. That is my tip for painting faces of color. If you start that way, you will have a much easier time. Because then you start to Bill shade by shade by shared until you get to that correct shade that matches your reference image or the shape that you have in your mind for your portrait. I'm hoping that this class will not kind of scare you away from painting dark faces, but will help you feel much more comfortable with painting dark faces. Because there aren't a lot of those watercolor portraits, especially like on Pinterest, if you look for them, it's kind of tough and I get why it can be very tricky. But I'm going to break it down for you so you don't feel overwhelmed. I have my paint around the face, a lot of the paintings around the face and around her neck and in the middle of the neck. I just keep that light. I keep that lighter to create the effect of roundedness so that the neck does not come across as flat. If you want something to look round, you paint around it. In other words, you paint the sides and then you paint the top and the bottom and you'll leave the middle clear or much lighter, and it immediately looks rounded around to the chin over here on the side of the face. Just always be constantly referring back to your reference image. 4. Filling in the Eyebrows : I'm going to paint the eyebrows. And I'm going to keep it very simple using a dark brown small brush, wispy strokes. Very simple. Just try and match the dark brown with the eyebrows with the dark brown that you've used for your hair. And then I'm going to go back and I'm going to add a little bit more paint and depth to the hair. This whole class really is a process and it's a lot of these actions, these brushstrokes, it is a repetitive process. Basically once you've not, I did the first time you do it again, he changed a little bit. Do it again, change a little bit by adding more things and we just layer more and more things until we creates this beautiful portraits. I'm adding more paint to the hair strands using the same dark brown. Then just make sure that you can clearly see the strands separate from her face. Like try not to blend the strands into the skin. And the way that you can do that is in-between those strands, use the skin tone color that you can clearly see the skin. And this is here. Then I'm going back to my eyebrows and I just add a little bit more paint and I blend it out. The reason why go back to design just wanted to wait until the first layer has dried. So I can just take a look and see what needs to be fixed, but it doesn't need to be fixed. And then I go back in and I add more paint. Below the eyes. Start to add more paint. Again, I'm referring to my image so that I know where there is the most paint. And that is dependent on the shadow points, which areas have the most shadowed? Those are the arrows that have the most paint. I'm using my smallest brush, size, one brush. I add the paint and I blend the side of the nose. Keep that really light so that you have control because the nose can be very tricky. At least for me. It is tricky that for me is the trickiest feature is the nose to try and get that shape right. Trying to add the shadows where the shadows should be. It can be quite tricky. So you always want to start this really light. Just give yourself patients and you will get it. You really well on the corner of the eyes over there. If you have a watercolor sets that doesn't have yellow ocher, I would advise you to buy yellow ocher separately. It just makes life so much easier when painting faces of color. If at the moment you can't, that's okay. Hopefully your watercolor sets has abroad, if it has a brown, you can mix that with white. 5. Painting Eyes 4: Now let's paint our eyes. We're going to fill the iris with a dark brown, very dark Bronx. You want to add a little bit of black to your Doc Brown, the same dark brown that you used for your hair at a little bit of black. The Winsor and Newton travelers pack that I'm using. The great thing about it is that it has this really dark brown That's sort of closer to the choco side. It's, that one is great, just on its own. When painting eyes, when you're painting the iris, if you look at any picture, you will see there are areas that are just white clear like small little dots of white. That is the light reflecting on the eyes. Of course. You want to leave three or two small circles in your eye. Just to give it a character, make it less flat, make it more realistic, more interesting. So just remember that when you're drawing eyes and when you're painting eyes, you will have the eye. It has the iris, excuse me, it has the pupil. Then you have the iris and then you have the whites of the eyes filling in the iris the moment. What I love about tests, as I said, they're pretty big and they are quite animated. Which is another reason why I wanted to paint this picture. I wanted to take this picture and sort of make it my own. You will see at the end it's not an exact copy of the image, which is great. I want you, I would love it if you could do that. Look at the reference image and think about how can I make this my own for me, I changed her smile, I just wanted because in the reference image that she has less of a smile, but I wanted to give her a smile. Gives this image online, makes you think What is she thinking? What is she looking at? So I ended up emphasizing more on the smile. But I would love it if you could try and make the reference image. If you try and change it and make it your own, whatever it is that you see when you look at the image, try and do that. It'll be a great challenge. And I think it would be fun. Now, I am just going to do the eyelash over here. I use black of course, and I use my smallest brush and I just paint right across. Try and keep your brush as flat as possible and how you do that as you dip it in water. Then in-between two fingers you just press and flatten your brush. Brushes come in different sizes and different shapes. You have those ones with the tip points and you have the ones who got a pretty flat at the top. So the ones with a flat top, perfect for doing straight lines such as eyelashes. I always buy two different types of brushes. The smallest brush I haven't with a pointed tip and one with a flat tymp. So don't forget the bottom of your eye. The corners. This is another thing also to remember. When you're painting Caucasian eyes, you will see that there's much more readiness to the eyes than when painting eyes for people of color. Unless they crying. Like if you look at the corner, the pink corners of the eyes, I feel like they're much more pinker. Caucasian faces. So you have to kind of keep that in mind. Don't make the corner of your eyes. So two pink try and match with a reference image. For faces of color. The pink minus is a little bit more towards like a new tone. 6. Painting Lips 5: Okay, so we have our eyebrows down, we have our ice done, and now we're gonna do our lips. For the lips, as I always, usually say, do what you want to do. Pick a shade that you want to pick. I don't feel like with lips, it's necessary to stick to the exact shade that you've seen, a reference image or even this exact shade that I'm using. I'm starting off with them with a pink, light pink, but I'm going to get much more redder as I proceed. But basically this is the moods. If you want to do something that seems light and airy and bright and just bubbly, I guess I would say you would go for a much lighter pink shade to the lips. If you're going for something that is much, that is much, I want to say darker but stronger. Because in this case, especially with the background that I've chosen, with the blotchy background, there is a certain type of scene that I'm trying to paint here. So I'm going to give her strong lips. I don't want them to be read. I want them to be like a red that is slightly more towards being a dark purple. But again, this is just when I look at the reference image. This is what I see for you to do the same thing when you're painting lips. I wouldn't say you never, but you don't want to use just one shade or one tone. You want to use quite a lot. The blips, I would say, the only feature where you can go crazy and you can paint and use as many shades as you want in lips and it'll still be great, I promise you. I shouldn't, I shouldn't say. I should say different types of tones of the same shade. In other words, you can use ten different types of reds tend different types of pinks if you want. And it will still look great. That's why I love, love, love, love love clips. And I have a class, or watercolor class that is just to show you how you can paint lips in a different type of technique way because there are different ways of doing it. For this class. I'm going to keep it quite saturated because I wanted to go with the scene that I'm trying to paint here. She's gonna have these deep dark flips. And I just Blair and I built and also always try to leave points specially on the lower lip that are clear, completely clear of paint. It does help with the overall image, but it is not necessary. I would say if you feel pretty confident with lead singer ago for a specific look, then you can skip that. But I always leave white areas in the lips. Just to make it a little bit more realistic. I'm just painting around the lips with the skin tone color filling those whitespaces in the white areas. I do it really light, of course, because we're going to build. 7. Painting the Top Layers : We are almost done. Now I'm going to add the top layers to the portrait. I start by lining my nose and filling in the nostrils with a dark brown. I'm just referring to the reference image. I look at the reference image, where is most of the shadow located? And I just follow that. I blend on the sides of the nose so that it doesn't just stick out and look like an illustration. I blend to create those shadows that you will see on besides of the nose. Take your time with the nose. Who really take your time? That is the best advice I can give her. The nose is just take your time. If you feel like you've made a mistake, just take a deep breath. Dip your brush in water, and then just slowly start to fix it. If you do make a mistake, it's always important to try to fix the mistake immediately. Wait until the paint has dried, and then dip your brush water and let the brush naturally soak up the watercolors. That's what I love about watercolors because you can fix the problems in the mistakes. Going back to the hair, I'm just finding the edges. I'm going to finish up the hair. With the hair I really needed to let it dry so I can see what else needs to be done again, if you can do it in one go, but I like to just take breaks. It's sort of like when you're painting a painting, you'd like to step away from it and then you can see clearly what needs to be fixed. So that's what I do. Over here. I just separate the hairs, the brush hairs like so. And then I dip that in paint and it creates these tiny hair strokes. The best way for painting hair. I just lie in the top of the head and I blend it, fill it in with those multiple strokes created by when you separate your brush back to the eyes. This is now we're just repeating that process and we're painting on top layers and making sure everything looks nice and crisp. If you see any mistakes, you can just try to start to fix those mistakes. I'm going to add the lower eyelashes. And then now for those curly patterns, for a hair, you want to paint like these curls right in there to create that waviness that we see in the reference image. Sides of the neck. This to add more shadow to go with what I'm seeing in my reference image. And then I blended. If you do try to paint the same portrait, definitely share it with the class. I'm really interested in seeing how you guys will interpret this image. You just blend, keeping it really watery. 8. Finishing Up : This is the last, last, last stage. Adding more shadows, more paint to your shadow points. Just remember everything that you've learned in the previous, the previous lessons and you just repeat it. And it's layering and we're starting to create the face that we want to create a game. This is an interpretation of the reference image. So if you want to change things, please do. Feel free to do that so that you can start to learn how to create your own faces. I did that with the previous class. I painted using the reference image of a Caucasian face and then I painted it as a black girl. So I just want you to feel free, relaxed, comfortable in changing your reference image in order to create faces that you want to paint and how you want to paint them, how you want them to look when now sort of going towards them. Creative side of this. So it's just a little bit more freeing and a little bit more fun. As you can see, I'm starting to add more paint and I'm filling in those white areas. Like I mentioned, when you're painting faces of color, you do not go in straight with the exact shade that you're seeing in the image. You want to start with three shades lighter, which we did. And now we're getting closer and closer to our desired skin tone color. Don't forget the cupid's bow and right below the nose mixture you get that shadow. Just blend these sweeping brushstrokes as the best way. You always want to have the white consistency of paint and water. For your watercolor paper, you want it to be no less than a 150 GSM. And if you're a complete beginner than I would say, just go to the 300 and that will keep you safe and you won't have an issues. Because the biggest reason for why a portrait does not come out with a tube wanted to come out is usually because of the paper. The paper can really mess you up. And then you probably thinking, man, I'm terrible, but it's the paper. Here is the portrait guys. This is the final, final, final, final image after I've added more paint, this is what we have. Thank you so much for taking part in this class and I look forward to seeing your versions, please share with the rest of the class. Thanks guys.