Painting Botanical Mushrooms: Gouache & Coloured Pencil Techniques

1. Welcome to Botanical Mushroom Illustrations: Hi. Are you passionate about nature and admire botanical style illustrations, but find them too intimidating or challenging to paint. With guash and color pencils, I'll guide you step by step through my process for creating beautiful, realistic mushroom illustrations. By the end of this class, you have a set of beautiful botanical mushroom postcards or a decorative paper eco friendly garland. My name is Joe, and I'm a full time artist and illustrator based in the UK. My expertise and knowledge comes from using watercolor and gouache to create nature inspired illustrations and using them on products such as fabric, greeting cards, and stickers. This class is appropriate for all levels of artistic experience. I'll take you through my process for creating realistic mushroom illustrations step by step from the easiest to the most complex, each designed to improve your skills. Join me in this fun and accessible class, and let's bring the beauty of nature to life through your own beautiful botanical mushroom illustrations. 2. Art Supplies for Botanical Mushroom Illustrations: Let's talk about materials you need for this class. I'll be using a watercolor paper that has been cut into approximately seven by 5 " pieces to create a mushroom postcards. If you prefer, you can also use just a normal pad and paint on your normal pad pages, or you can cut them into half, and then you have also a very nice size A five size for your mushroom postcard. I'll be using watercolor paper, but you can use mixed media paper as well. You can use cold press or hot press. It is totally up to you. It just personal preference. I like my paper with a little bit of texture, so I'll be using a cold press paper. In terms of gouache paint, I'll be using Windsor and Newton designer gouache paint, but you absolutely don't have to use this particular brand, you can use any brand you already own, as long as it's a good quality student grade paint or even better an artist grade, and you will just need four colors. Warm red, warm yellow, and dark cooler tone blue. I have ultramarine blue, I have yellow ocher, and I have something called spectrum red. I also have permanent white, which is basically titanium white. As long as you have similar color to these ones, you'll be able to mix all the colors we need for this class. At the side, we need some brushes. I'll be using synthetic, very ordinary synthetic brushes. These are round brushes, one is size six, one is size four, and I also have a size eight filber brush. Again, very inexpensive synthetic brush. Please don't use your watercolor brushes because the guage paint might destroy them. For adding details, I'll be using color pencils. These are just ordinary drawing color pencils. These are happened to be by their went, but you can use again any color pencils you have on hand. Try to find a similar colors to what you see here. I. For mixing the colors, I'll be using the ceramic color palette. You can use plastic one, is absolutely fine. I'm also having the spare dish is like a very old plate just to mix extra colors if I run out of space here. I also have a kitchen towel just to wipe my brushes. If you decide to go with a second option of our final project, you'll probably need some twine or a ribbon, so you can tread your mushrooms onto and build a garland. You also need scissors to cut out your mushrooms and probably a hole punch to make holes to thread the this yarn through, or you can maybe use something sharp like a sharp pencil or a needle to make the holes afterwards. I think this is it. This is all we need for this class. I look forward to see you in the next lesson. 3. Choose Your Class Project: Postcards or Garland: You have two creative project options for this class. First is to turn your beautiful mushroom illustrations into botanical postcards. Perfect for gifting, scrapbooking, or framing. The second one is to turn your illustrations into eco friendly paper garland, like this one behind me to decorate your office space or bedroom or anything you like. Choose the option that sounds more exciting to you, and I'll see you in the next lesson in which I talk about how to find photo references for our mushroom illustrations. 4. Finding Free Photo References for Mushrooms: In this lesson, I'll show you where to find free photo references for your mushroom illustrations that don't require a license. If you're looking for botanical illustrations, one of the best places I found is the biodiversity Heritage library.org. You can explore the extensive catalog by simply typing in the search bar what you're looking for. For example, I typed in fungi, which is the scientific term for mushrooms. Check out the results. There are so many publications available. You can narrow your search by clicking on one that seem most relevant to your needs. If you want to focus on just illustrations, there is an option in a side menu to select only the pages with images. Another fantastic resource for photo references is splash. You can create a free account and dive into the vast database of photographs. You can create collections of reference images, browse through collections made by other users, and follow your favorite contributors. You can also explore similar sites like pixels.com or pixabay.com. I'll leave the links to all these resources in the project section of this class. Although most of these websites have creative commons licenses, please don't forget to read the details and terms of views for the images. In the next lesson, I'll talk about ash painting basics, and we do a warm up exercise. I'll see you there. 5. Gouache Painting Basics: Warm-Up Exercise: Let's talk about Gouache paint and do a quick warm up exercise before we jump into painting our mushrooms. Gouache is basically an opaque watercolor, and it became popular with artists, illustrators, and designers because of its versatility. Like watercolor, traditional guage can be reactivated with water once it dries unless you're using acrylic guage, which dries permanently. But don't worry, in this class, we'll be working only with traditional guage. If you don't have gouache paint, don't worry, you can still follow along with watercolors. One of the key skills in working with any water soluble medium is controlling how much water you mix with the paint. Let's practice and see how different amounts of water affect your results. Pick a color and squeeze some onto your palette. Now, take a brush and dip it straight into the paint without adding any water. You'll notice that the paint is quite thick, making it tricky to create a smooth line, but you'll get a lot of texture. Next, dip your brush in just a tiniest bit of water and repeat the stroke. It's smoother, but still has some texture. Now, add a little bit more water to your brush and mix it with the paint. This time, the line should be completely smooth with quite even coverage. Do the same thing again, but with a bit more water. You'll start to notice the pain becoming more transparent. Finally, add even more water, and you'll see the paint behaves more like a watercolor. Keep in mind that the thickness of the guage straight from the tube can vary between brands and sometimes even from color to color. That's why it's a good idea to get a feel of how the particular paint works. I hope you found this warm up exercise helpful. Feel free to try out with other colors that you'll be using in the class. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to mix some beautiful hues from these three primary colors to prepare for our first painting. 6. Colour Mixing for Earthy Mushroom Illustrations: Let's make some beautiful earthy colors before we dive into our first illustration. I've got our three primary colors here along with some titanium white. I've already added ultramarine blue to my palette, so now I'll just add remaining colors. The colors straight from the tube look quite strong, so I need to tone them down a bit. I'll start with warming up this red with a little bit of yellow ocher. Maybe I added a bit too much yellow ocher. Let's add some more red. That's better. Let's test it on the paper. Looks good. Next, I'll make some nice brown by combining all three primary colors. I'll start with yellow ocher and ultramarine blue. Let's see how that looks. Yeah, that's a lovely brown. Now for a natural looking green, I'll use yellow ocher and ultramarine blue again. I'm running low on yellow ocher, so I'll add a bit more to my palette. I also want to mix a warm purple color by combining red straight from the tube with that ultramarine here that I already have. The purple turned out quite dark. I'll test the yellow ocher too. And then dilute the purple a bit with water to get a better look. Finally, I'll check the green. What do you think? Isn't it amazing how many beautiful hues we can create by using just primary colors, and we haven't even added white yet. By mixing only primaries for our palette, we ensure that all our colors work together. In the next lesson, we'll finally start to paint. We'll paint our first room. 7. Painting a Porcini Mushroom in Gouache: Let's paint our first mushroom. In this lesson, I'll show you how to sketch and paint a Portini mushroom, also known as Sep or King Bullet. If you have your art supplies ready, feel free to sketch and paint along with me. We'll be using the colors we mix in a previous lesson. I'll start by sketching with my HB pencil, marking where I want the mushroom to sit on a paper. Setting the initial boundaries makes the whole process easier. I'm beginning with the umbrella shaped cp. The bottom part of the cup has a wavy line and I'm not making it too symmetrical, since we want this to look quite realistic. After a quick check, I realize the cup should be more rounded, so I adjust that. Let's draw the mushrooms underside, called hymnium. Unlike other mushrooms with gills, but let's have sponge like texture here. By adding this wavy line, we can show some volume to that part. Now I will draw the stock, which is quite thick and sturdy. I'm happy with the sketch. I'll use my eraser to clean up any extra lines and gently lighten the heavy lines, so they don't show up through the paint. Now it's finally time to paint. I'll be using my fill bed brush, but feel free to use your bigger round brush. We already mixed our beautiful warm brown for the cup. Let's start with that. To show some variation, I'll add a little bit of yellow ochre and blend it with a brown while it's still wet. G like water color can be reactivated with water, making it easy to blend the colors. While the cup is still drying, I'll paint the stork using yellow ocher mixed with a little bit of titanium white. I notice it's a little bit too yellow, so I'll cool it down with a tiny bit of that purple we mixed earlier. Since purple and yellow are complimentary colors, this will tone it down nicely. Oops, I got some paint on the postcard from my hand, but no worries. I'll can gently dab it with a wet paper towel and then dry one to clean it up. Now I'll just add a little bit of water to my brush and finish painting the stalk. Since the cap and the top of the stalk are dry, I can move on to the spongy underside using the small round brush for the precision. A mixing yellow ochre with a touch of titanium white for this part. Now that we've colored blocked the whole mushroom, we will wait for it to dry completely before adding details with colored pencils. I'll show you how to do that in the next lesson. 8. Adding Details to a Porcini Mushroom: Now that our mushroom is completely dry, we can start adding the final details with the colored pencils. I'm starting with a swarm gray pencil to shade the spongy underside of the cup. I'll switch to dark brown pencil to define the crease here and darken the shading a bit more. Using the same dark brown, I add some texture and contrast to the mushroom cup. The bottom edge of the cup is darker, so I'll shade that area a little bit more, and I'll add some texture to the top to balance the shading. Okay. Now, let's move on to the sk. I'm using a light brown pencil to gently shade one side. I'm not pressing too. Just using the side of the pencil for soft shading that lightly touches the paper. If you want darker shading, you can repeat the process a few times in the same area. S As I shade, you notice the beautiful texture of paper coming through. To add more texture, I press a little harder and use tip of the pencil. The stork isn't perfectly smooth, so I want to capture this slight pattern on the surface. Okay. Finally, I use black pencil to add few dark strands of soil at the base, giving it an even more realistic look. This is it. I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and I really hope you enjoyed the process too. In the next lesson, we will paint striking mushroom called the Devil's Bullet. 9. Painting a Devil's Bolete Mushroom: Let's sketch our next mushroom. The devil's bullet. The name sounds pretty sinister and rightly so. This is a very poisonous mushroom, so never try to forage or eat it. This time, we will use different colors and create a beautiful gradient with a guash paint. Let's start by marking the size of our sketch. All bold mushrooms have a round cup and thick chunky stalk. So we begin by drawing that. O. I'll lighten the lines using the flat side of my eraser. Now it's finally time to paint. I'll use my fiel boat brush again and mix the color for the cup. I'll start with the green we mixed in a color mixing lesson, adding a bit of titanium white. This looks a little too though. I'm going to adjust it by adding yellow ocher and ultramarine blue to deepen the green and then gradually adding white. It's very easy to overdo it with titanium white since it's quite opaque, but I'm happy with this new color. I'll fill the whole mushroom with this green and to add some color variation, I'll blend in few strokes of yellow ocher. Next, let's paint this very beautiful red underside of the mushroom. I'll use the warm red we pre mixed earlier. This was a spectrum red mixed with a little bit of yellow ocher. To add shadow, I'll blend some of the purple into the red, adding a little bit more depth into the back and the edges of the underside. O H Now, for the stalk, I'll start with a light mix of yellow ocher and white. Then I'll create the grading by adding darker colors as we move towards the base. I gradually add more warm red to the yellow ocher mix, as I get closer to the bottom, I will mix in purple to deepen the color further. I'll blend everything to make the gradient nice and smooth. And that's it for the painting part. I hope you enjoyed the painting along with me, and I'll see in the next lesson where we add the final details with you guested colored pencils. 10. Detailing the Devil's Bolete with Coloured Pencils: My Devil's bullet is completely dry now, so it's time to add the final details with a colored pencils. I'm going to use a darker gray green pencil, but if you don't have one, a dark gray will work just fine. I'll start with a cup, adding some shading to the edge, just like we did with the Poriushroom. Now I'm switching to the dark brown pencil to shade the underside. We added some shading with a gash earlier, but I want to give it a more definition and texture here. Next, I'll take the light brown pencil to add shading and texture to the mushroom stalk. For the darker parts of the stalk, I will use dark brown pencil to deepen the shadows. I'm also going to use black pencil to add few earthy strands at the base. That's it. Our Devil's ballet is finished. In the next lesson, I'll walk you through sketching and painting the hantrel mushroom. 11. Painting a Chanterelle Mushroom in Gouache: In this lesson, I'll show you how to sketch and paint a beautiful battery anteel mushroom. This mushroom has a very different shape compared to the last two we painted. It might seem quite intimidating at first, but don't worry. I'll show you the easy way to capture it on paper. Let's start by marking where we want the mushroom to sit on a paper. I'll begin sketching from the top. The cup is like a turned out umbrella, and it's very irregular in shape. The easiest way to approach this is by drawing an outline that looks a little bit like cloud or a paddle. The stalk of the chanel is thick at the top and tapers down towards the bottom. This mushroom has gills and you see them underneath the cup. To show that the cup is inverted, I will add a line here in the middle. This area will be darker later on. Now that we've got our basic sketch, I'll erase the extra lines and lighten every before painting. No. For this mushroom, I'm going to use just one color, yellow ocher. I'll start by painting the darkest areas on a cup, which are in the middle and along the outer edges. Then I'll add a little water to my brush and spread the paint to fill the rest of the cup. Next, we paint the stork using the same color. I'll start at the top, adding more pigment where the shadow is. And then I gradually spread the paint down to the bottom with water, leaving the base a little bit lighter. That's it. We've got our basic shape and shading done. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to add details to make it look even more realistic. 12. Adding Details to a Chanterelle Mushroom: Now that my Chantel mushroom is completely dry, I'm gently checking to make sure it's ready for the next step. I'm going to add some details using colored pencils. I've chosen this lovely yellow ochre, and I'll likely use a slightly darker warm brown as well. First, I want to define the shape of the mushroom cup. We want to make sure it has a rounded look. I am adding the details that I didn't really get to do with a paint. I'll focus on defining the edge and giving it a little texture. The mushroom has this inverted umbrella shape, and I'm following the natural curves. On this side, the curves go this way and on the other, they go the opposite direction. By following the shape, I can recreate a natural three dimensional effect. I'll add a little bit of moon shadow here with a color pencil. It is easier to get these details with pencil and it adds beautiful texture. You can already see how this mushroom is starting to look more three dimensional. I will add some more lines here and there just to give it a little bit more depth. Now I am switching to the darker brown pencil to define the gills. I think this part should be der to show that this is sitting slightly below the outer part of the cup. You really want to press down with the pencil, especially if you are using textured paper just like mine. I will add a little bit more shadow on the side of the stalk. I'll switch to an even darker brown to bring out the mushroom connections to the mycelium. I will also add more definition to this area, following the lines of the gills and pressing a little bit harder. And that's it for our chant mushroom. In the next lesson, we'll be moving into one of my favorite mushrooms to paint the Toast mushroom. 13. Painting a Toadstool Mushroom Step-by-Step: T. This lesson, I'm going to walk you through sketching and painting one of the most iconic mushrooms, the toadstool. As always, I'll start by marking where I want the sketch to begin and end on the paper. I want the toadstool to have a big red cup. I'll sketch a large umbrella shape for it. The stalk isn't too thick, but it has a skirt around it, so I'll draw that too. I'll keep the shape a little irregular, so it doesn't look too symmetric. The stool gets a bit thicker below the skirt and ends with a mushroom sack at the base. Now that I've got the sketch down, I'm going to lighten the lines before painting. Next, I'll mix up a nice bright red for the mushroom cup, and I will use my large brush to cover the whole cup. Okay. To create those natural looking spots, I'll show you how to gently remove some of this pigment. I'm just going to use wet brush to rub the area where I want the spots. Then I'll dry my brush with a paper towel and away the excess of paint. Once the cup is d, I'll refine the spots. I noticed that the bottom edge of the cup is a little light, so I'm adding more red to darken that part. Being careful to leave the spots untouched. In the reference photos, the stalk is almost white. But because I wanted to stand out against the white background, I am going to mix a red, purple, and white. Okay It's looking a bit too dark. So I lighten it up with adding a little bit of white. Just a quick tip. Remember, the guage dries a than it looks on a palette. It's good to keep it in mind. I'll add a little bit of shadow with a darker tone to give the a bit. And that's it for the painting part. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to add the finishing details. 14. Finishing Toadstool with Colored Pencil Details: Let's add final details to our toadstool mushroom. First, I'll use white gouache to lighten the spots on a mushroom cap. I'll allow them to dry for a moment. I'll select the color pencils I use for the finishing touches. I'll be using a burgundy red, black, and a warm red. I'll start with a warm red to paint the top of the mushroom cap and the bottom edges as these areas should be the darkest. I will also add shadow underneath each of the white spots using the same color. The spots on a stro are really flat. They stick out a little bit from the cap surface. By adding shadows, we can create a three dimensional effect. Next, I will use my burgundy red pencil for the final details on the stalk. Since my stock has a pink hue, the burgundy works perfectly here. But you could also use warm brown or even warm gray colored pencils. I add few creases to the mushroom skirt giving it a free like appearance. Finally, I will darken the shadows underneath the white spots on the mushroom cap. Here you have it. Our to mushroom is complete. In the next lesson, we will sketch and paint the final, the morale mushroom. 15. Painting a Morel Mushroom in Gouache: Let's paint our final mushroom, the morale mushroom. The morale scap is very unique. With its hollow conical shape, at first glance, it might seem challenging to paint, but don't worry. I'll show you how to simplify it and make it easy. As usual, I'll start with a sketch. The cup will look a little bit like a cloud but position vertically rather than horizontally. The stem is very simple, straight down and slightly wider at the base. That's the sketch. Now I will lighten the sketch lines before I begin painting. I decided to clean up my palette since some of the colors became a, I'll mix fresh colors again. I will create two brown tones, one light, and one dark. I'll start by mixing the three primary colors again, yellow ochre, red, and ultramarine blue to make a lovely dark brown. To create a lighter tone, I'll take some of that dark brown with my brush. I'll transfer it to the new well and add a little bit more yellow ochre. Now I will use that light brown to fill in the entire area of the mushroom cp. For the stem, I'll need an even nighter color. I'll mix some titanium white with the brown. I'll fill the entire stock area with this light color. That's our base painting complete. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to transform this melted ice cream on a stick into a beautiful morale mushroom. 16. Adding Final Details to a Morel Mushroom: My morale mushroom has dried and now it's time to add some details to really bring it to life. I'm starting with my dark brown pencils, but I'll go back to the guash paint and use that brown mix we made earlier. First, I need to add hollow areas on the mushroom cup. They are very irregular, and if you look very closely at the reference photo, you will notice that they narrow on the sides because of the cone shape of the cup. I'm going to begin with the edges, keeping the holes narrow and uneven. As I move towards the, I will make the hose a little bit wider, but still irregular, just like we see in the reference. Now I will switch back to the gouache paint and use the lovely dark brown mix. With a smaller brush, I will carefully paint ad each of the shapes I sketched earlier with a pencil. I'm applying the paint thickly and smoothly on one side, and then I'm going to go over again with a clean damp brush to drag the color down and fill in more of each hole. I will keep it random and irregular. The holes along the edges will be slightly darker than the ones in the middle. Since I got some brown paint left on my palette, I'll add a little bit of water to thin it out, and I'll use it to paint the shadows on the top of the mushroom stalk. No I'm going to add some creases, so it doesn't look too smooth. Now that the painted holes have dried, I'm going to go back with a dark brown pencils to define them even. I'll start at the top of the cp, darkening the shadowed areas and outlining edges where needed. Oh. I think it's really starting to look like a moral mushroom now. No more melted ice cream. Finally, I'll add a little bit of shadow and texture to the stem of the mushroom. There we go. Our final mushroom illustration is complete. I hope you enjoyed painting along with me. In the next lesson, we'll finish our mushroom postcards by adding names at the bottom of our illustrations. If you prefer to turn your illustrations into a mushroom glad, you can ski this lesson. 17. Completing Project 1: Mushroom Postcards: Let's finish off our botanical postcards by adding the mushroom names at the bottom. First, I'll grab my ruler and mark some light pencil lines. I want to keep the text level and uniform across all postcards. I want the names to be aligned and at the same height on each illustration. For the lettering, I'll be using my own hand lettering style. If you want to add more authentic touch, you could trace land script lettering or even use a Latin names for the mushrooms. I'm happy with a pencil sketch. I will go over the letters with my black colored pencil. You could also use ink pen if you prefer. Now I will carefully erase the pencil guidelines. I'll be mindful not to smash the text. Now, let's remove all the extra pencil marks from the finished postcards, and it's done. 18. Completing Project 2: Mushroom Garland: I'll show you how to turn your mushroom illustrations into mushroom glad. First, I'll need to cut out each mushroom. I will draw a light pencil line a each mushroom to guide me as I cut. I like to leave a thin white border around the shapes, like you see on the stickers. But if you prefer, you can cut it right up to the edges. Now, I use my whole punch to make two holes at the top of the mushroom cup. I'll do this for all the mushrooms. Once they all cut out, I'll lay them out and arrange them in the order I like before stringing them onto the twine. I'll grab my twine and thread the mushrooms on. It's a bit like sewing, but without the needle. Once the garland is finished, you can hang it wherever you like. I decorated my office by hanging it under my bookshelf. If you want a longer garland, feel free to paint more mushrooms and add them. Now that you finish this class, you should be able to confidently paint and draw any mushroom you like. 19. Upload Your Finished Mushroom Illustration Project: Thank you so much for painting with me. I really hope you enjoy exploring gouache and colored pencils. I'd love to see your beautiful illustrations in the project gallery. Please remember your art doesn't have to look the same way as mine. Feel free to put your own style and use the techniques you learn in this class. Sharing your work is a great way to celebrate your progress, get the feedback from me, and connect with a fellow students. Head over to the project section of this class and follow the instructions on how to upload your artwork. If you enjoy this class, I would love for you to leave a review so others can also find it useful. You can also follow me here on Skillshare for future nature inspired art tutorials. Thank you again for watching my class, and I hope to see you next time. Bye. 20. BONUS 1 Amethyst Deceiver Speed Painting: A 21. BONUS 2 Oyster Mushrooms Speed Painting: [No Speech] 22. BONUS 3 Parasol Mushroom Speed Painting: [No Speech] 23. BONUS 4 Saffron Milkcap Speed Painting: [No Speech]