Painting: Bird painting in Watercolor! (Flamingo Bird)

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to this class. Here's a fun fact for you. Did you know that there are more than 10 thousand board species in the world that flamingos and get their pink color from their food with the long neck, angle beak. And they're well-known pink color. They are a perfect inspiration for watercolor paintings. Hello, my name is not. I have been sketching and painting for as long as I can remember. But I took up painting seriously since the last 15 years. I fell in love with watercolors. It's transparent and organic nature. I prefer to paint loose, that allows me to express myself freely. As part of this class, I will be teaching various fundamental watercolor techniques, including creaming the subject, sketching this object, preparing the paper using a watercolor wash, wet in wet technique, using a graded wash and splattering of colors. I sincerely believe that learning these skills are critical. By the end of this class, you will be able to appreciate and understand the various techniques and also apply these techniques and create your very own paintings. My goal is to enable others to also experience the true beauty and magic of watercolors. This class is created and suitable for anyone. You do not need any specific prior knowledge or experience. You can use whatever watercolor, paper, and paint you have at your disposal. This class is divided into small, bite-sized lessons explaining each and every step with very easy to follow demonstrations. Additionally, the class project at the end of the class will help reinforce the learnings from this class. As a class project, you will be creating your very own flamingo painting. Okay, enough of the talk. It's time to paint. What are we waiting for? Let's get started. 2. Sketching the subject: Okay, So we've a beginner painting with sketching. As you can see, I'm using very basic colors. Mixture of red and white to green, the pink that flamingos are so well-known for. And we'll have to start the painting with a basic sketch. So let's start with that. Basically the flamingos shape can be thought off to parallel S's. That's the letter S in English. As you can see. It's slightly narrower at the top of the neck and starts getting broader as it approaches the body. For drawing the head. The easiest way to think of an ellipse, circular form. You could think of it as an egg shape. Just try to draw that so that that would help you to actually give shape to the head. Now we'll try to draw the beak. Again. Notice that the beak is not uniform. Curve it straight to begin with. And then it takes a shark of inwards. That's one of the other typical forearms that one could observe. Now we'll give the beak its shape and observe how the shape of the beak, the lines actually reach out all the way to the eyes. And like with any subject, the eyes are really the focal point off the subject. So make sure that those are drawn prominently and do rounded off. We'll also draw some feathers, Stuart said off the body that you have your subject sketch done. 3. Preparing paper with water wash: Now that we have created a basic sketch, which will be the guideline for us to start painting. We'll need to have to do one small step before we actually start painting the body of the flamingo that says you can see applying a wash of water, as you can see, I'm also using a fairly large size brush to be more efficient with the wash. You can feel free to use a smaller wash. But the basic principle is that all the idea is that we are trying to wet the surface of the paper. Now what's that going to help us with the even spreading of the color once we actually apply that layer. 4. Painting the bird: Now that we have the base water layer applied, will try to fill the load, the brush with a decent amount of paint, and just start tapping. The water layer that has already formed underneath. As you can see, it will start spreading on top of that base layer. Again, try to be as efficient with your brushstrokes and not to be too bothered about getting into the details. We're just trying to set the very basic color scheme at this point in time and we will be getting into detailing as part of the next step. So just relax and enjoy the entire process. And when we see water mixing with the color, that's part of the magic of watercolors. Now, we'll be applying some darker shades of the color. The neck on the right side of the body. Just to give it some contrast. Try to be a little careful on the edges because getting that garb off the neck is so important to identify it with a flamingo. You can be playful in the way you want to drop some of those darker shades because that is going to create contrast. I have taken a slight hint sheared off yellow, just to give it a little bit of more interest, but that's optional. Just trying to complete the shapes, being very careful not as two over the boundaries of the sketch that we have already drawn. You could use this bladder technique. Just load the brush with the decent amount of being turned. Do a similar procedure just to add some additional interest to the painting. Now to add some more fun elements, I've just loaded some different color. In this case, I've just used a blue shade. It's always fascinating when you see different colors, especially in watercolor and mixed with each other. And let watercolor do its magic. And many times we lend up with these happy accidents that really difficult to replicate intentionally. But that's one of the reason that watercolors is such a fascinating medium. 5. Adding details to painting: Now that we have got the basic shape and the basic body of the flamingo done. It's time to get to the details. Being very carefully here, as you can see, you can switch to a smaller brush that's more finer. And basically what that is going to do is it's going to give you a much finer control. Broader brush for an efficiency and covering large surfaces of areas. And a thinner brush for the detailing work. Now we're moving to a slightly darker color, specifically the black color, giving the beacon scholar. So take your time and make sure that the finer lines are in alignment with the anatomy of the beak, on the shape of the beak. Because we also want to make sure that it looks unbelievable. Now I'm just adding a hint of water and just dragging that paint along because we do not want that entire beak to look very monotonous. So just adding some water in their ads. That interesting gradient. That's one of the other watercolor techniques. It's called as a graded wash or a gradient wash. You start with a darker shade and then you gradually change the actual value of the cheered. Moving to the eyes. This is one area that you want to be very careful because the eyes are like I mentioned earlier, the central focal point of any subject. One interesting thing if you observed, we have used very basic minimal colors, musically, just three colors, but we have used the variation in those colors to add interest. 6. Finishing the painting: Okay, Now it's time to add the finishing touches. Just adding some background naughts of color just to make the painting look a little bit more interesting. And not to make them background look absolutely white and monotone us. This is again an optional step that you may or may not want to do. But feel free to play around and explore how you can add different effects to the background, because that's really the whole purpose of watercolors. The idea is just to enjoy the process of doing the watercolors and express yourself. Every artist has his own view of expression, different brush strokes. So feel free to have fun. Painting is almost there now. One of the things with painting is you don't always need to add more and more. You'll always want to add rather more and more details, but you need to control yourself had some time of knowing when to stop a painting. Just adding some very final touches before painting is done and ready to frame up. It's also sometimes important to connect the shapes because the entire painting needs to have some synergy between the ships. Also. Rather than thinking of it like in subject, we also need to think of it. The painting rather as series of forms and shapes and how they are interacting with each other. 7. Final Painting: Congratulations on completing the painting. Me, this is one of the most fun parts to remove the tips. And sometimes it just reveals this fantastic lines that you get of the color and the whitespace. Whitespace also plays a very important role in how the painting speaks to you and also gives the subject prominence. There you go. This is beautiful flamingo in watercolors, painted in watercolor, wet in wet technique. So feel free to paint your own flamingo posted out to the world. Thank you. 8. Project Work: Once you've completed the class, it's time to apply your learnings and have some fun painting. Your class project is to draft flamingo and paint it in watercolors. You can also refer to the handy reference guide under the resources section to help you through this glass and practice your skills. Before we begin, here's a quick summary of the materials that you'll be needing. Use whatever pencils, watercolor, paper, and colors you have available. I would recommend using a pencil that's light and shade so the pencil marks do not show up in your final drawing. Watercolor paper that is at least thick enough to take the watercolor washes. Ideally, I would recommend thicker paper, close to 300 GSM. You won't get any paddling effect. Even with heavy washes and multiple layers of colors that we'll be using in this particular painting. Note that a lower thickness paper should also be just fine, but you will need to work of EBIT carefully. If using heavy watercolor washes. For the watercolors, you can use any brand new like. Also feel free to experiment with other colors and shades to express yourself. For the watercolor brushes, you can use any brush you have. If you already have one, then I would highly recommend using a larger size brush for applying the larger washes and one thinner brush to add the details. You will also need two water containers, one for clean water and another one to wash up the US brush. Optionally, you will need a masking tape or something to keep the paper stretched. If you are using a watercolor pad, which comes with those removable sheets, then you might not need this. The idea here is to keep the paper stretched. Once you have this applies in place, it would be time to get started. I would recommend you review lesson one for sketching and choose a flamingo shape to use in your sketch. You may draw a similar shape as per the lesson, which is to parallelize shapes or draw your own flamingo shape. You need to draw just the outline for your own reference and don't need to be super detailed here. It is just for your own purpose and reference and it will help you paint the subject in your later steps. Sample outline is also provided in the project guide under Resources section. You can also download the reference guide from the resources section to print out for your quick reference. If you're stuck for a flamingo shapes, I would recommend you research the flamingo pitchers and take inspiration from them. Once you have sketched your flamingo, start adding the colors. Just like in the class. You can break this activity into three parts. The first part is the water wash to prepare the paper surface in the areas that you want to add the color, like the body of the flamingo. I recommend a larger brush that can hold more water. Who help you be more efficient with the washes? If you don't have a larger brush, a smaller one would work just fine. After this step, the next step would be adding the colors. Try experimenting with wet-on-wet technique first on rough sheet of watercolor paper. If you're not used to it, as it will need some practice if this is the first time you're doing it. But you can feel free to directly get to the painting. If you feel comfortable. I recommend using a larger brush that can hold more water and paint. Here's a quick tip. Try to keep the colors as fresh looking as possible. One way to do that is to mix the colors directly on paper instead of the palate as shown in the class. This will avoid murdering the colors. The next step would be adding the details, switch to the finite in a brush to add the details. Then the last step would be finishing touches. You can add any finishing touches to complete the painting. But remember not to overwork the painting. Once you've completed with your painting, it would be time to share your work. I would highly recommend you share your final painting and progress shots with the class by uploading to the your project section. If you have any questions or need any help, please let me know. I'm happy to help. For reference. I've also included a sample example of the painting that I have painted as part of this glass. I hope you enjoyed the class and you're painting. Thank you.