Painting by Erasing - Lift the Color to Paint the Shape, a Loose Watercolor Exercise

1. Welcome project: Hello. My name is Ivgeni and I'm happy to welcome you to this practice class. This lesson lets you discover the nature of watercolor. We will shape and sculpt our sketch without any previous pencil drawing. Just immersing ourselves in the battery touch of watercolur on paper. The class is very suitable for beginners to strengthen their confidence and help them understand watercolor. At the end, we will paint the finishing touches, completing a catch still life with bright Chinese lanterns. In the project and resources tab, you'll find a detailed description of our project, as well as all the resources you will need for the class. You can download them and use them as a reference or inspiration. Additionally, you will find your painter's board with photos that can serve as references. I encourage you not to copy the photos you find on the Internet, but always change them so that the sketch or painting will be your own creation. Now we can start getting ready before painting. Jump to the next lesson, and let's begin. Discover free watercolor tips and tutorials by following me on Instagram and YouTube. 2. Get Started - Brushes, Colors and Paper: Let's look at the materials you can use for this practice. The size of the brushes will depend on how big or small your sketch will be. It's nice to have a variety of round brushes with pointed tips. A big flat brush is useful for wetting and smoothing the paper. For the lifting or raising technique, I use filber brushes, those flat brushes with rounded corners. I find it easier to leave the color and shape the strokes with them. But if you don't have any, you can still use a regular flat brush. I also use a very fine rigor brush to paint the stems. That said, let's look at the colors. I won't make a separate color sheet. As for this class, you can choose your own colors. My basic color for the background is indigo. I add a bit of pins gray and a touch of blue violet. In some areas, I add fall green, which I mix with indigo. For the lanterns, I use Azo yellow medium. It's a more orangish yellow than Azo yellow light. You can also use orange or another yellow. I combine it with vermilion or permanent red. I love how it mixes not only with yellow, but also with blue violet or indigo to create darker red accents. If you watch the painting lesson, you'll also see me using lemon yellow to paint the stems. But you are free to use a mix of yellow and indigo or another ready made yellow green. For those who keep a watercolor practice sketchbook or love to paint Pineir, you can use this little painting trick. Place a simple plastic file under your paper to protect the other pages from moisture. Then place a thoroughly wet and squeezed out piece of tea towel on the plastic file. I cut mine to fit the size of my sketchbook. This will help keep the paper wet for longer. I will be painting in the class without a previous pencing drawing just intuitively. Firstly, I wet my tee towel and place it on my placement, then smooth it out nicely. You can wet the paper in a basin of water for smaller sizes or simply under the tap as I demonstrate in my other classes. Let it soak in the water for a little while. When you can easily fold it, it's ready to paint on. Take a big flat brush, slightly damp, and smooth the paper. If you look at the surface or touch it with your hand, it should feel wet but look mud without any puddles of water on it. If you are ready, jump to the next lesson and let's start painting. 3. Painting Background and the Vase: Let's start to paint yellow spots where we want our Chinese lanterns to be. It will make it easier to paint the bright details later. Take a deep yellow or orange and paint loose spots where you'd like them. I'd make not too many. Here would be the stem. Two more, I think. That's it. And here we'll shape the vase. In this step we'll paint the background. We will cover it with dark blue. It has to be dark to fully benefit the raising or lifting technique and make those interesting strokes in the background. I start by covering the background loosely and go with my brush around the yellow spots. Do not mingle the yellow and blue too much if you go around them, but a little bit of touching is okay like this smoothly in between. Use the tip of your brush as you go around the yellow instead of the belly of the brush that you used for the background. I mix in some viridian or blue violet, but you may choose your own colors. Just try to make them sufficiently dark and rich. With this, we cover the last piece of the background. As watercolor will lighten up, I purposefully at most red to reach dark color above. As the paper is damp, the layers will mingle simultaneously together. I go slightly over the yellow with dark blue to shape the Chinese lanterns a little now we come closer to painting by raising. Let's create our vase first. Take a small round brush or rig a brush and a very dark blue or the color you use. With it paint the mouth of the vase and its neck. Use the color directly from the tube or pan to help maintain its richness. Paint the shoulders and like this, complete the shape of the vase. You are absolutely right that you don't see the vase very well on the dark background. But now we can start erasing and conjure the vase outline. Don't forget to lay stain for the shadow as well. I like to lift with a filbert brush, but if you don't have one, you can use a flush instead. I'll start with a flat brush. Place the dry brush next to the vase neck and with one movement. Try to drag the bristles outlining the shape. You'll see the lighter paper here, dab the brush on a paper tissue, lift the color again and dap again, slowly shaping the vase. Touch the background around in short movements to lift some strokes. The paper feels battery and you have a feeling of sculpting you sketch loosely. Now we'll do the same above, touching the vast mouth. In one movement, outline the shoulder of the vase. Some light touches on the background. When you touch the paper, drag the brush and lift it up at the end for soft strokes. The technique shows the purest nature of watercolor, the possibility to shape it the way you want it. And the secret is very simple to wet the paper on two sides. If you do it only on one side, the paper would buckle, dry fast, and you will be disappointed at the end. Preserving the paper's dampness is crucial with watercolor if you want to paint longer to shape to achieve soft blurriness and softness. And when the paper is dry, you can paint on dry paper, building the shape and adding details. Paint a horizontal line to indicate the table sage. Lift some color above the shadow. Shape the lanterns, lifting the unnecessary blue on their edges. Just the same way we did it with a clean, dry or damp brush. Lift and d, lift and d. The shaping is possible because the paper thoroughly wet, all its fibers, not only those on the upper surface. You can repair the color too. Just take some blue and paint around the yellow, creating the shape you'd like. Shape the background a little bit further by lifting and adjust the vase outline if needed. At this stage, we can indicate the stems. I mixed yellow and indigo and with the green painted the first stem. That will serve as the basis. Take lemon yellow richly with a fine origa brush and draw the stems. The lighter color will appear in contrast again the dark background. The paint is now set in and holds its shape better than in the beginning. But the paper is still damp and the color is flexible. Perfect moment to paint the vases highlights by lifting them. Take a smaller flat to rig a brush. A somewhat stiff round brush will do as well. A short stroke and then one more on the neck, a spot and some other vertical lines. Also one on the vases edge and on the right below. Now let's add more dark blue to make the created highlights pop out. Indicate the mouth of the vase. Take the color directly from the tube or pan and paint around the highlights. Some bright white watercolor or gouache to paint the brighter spots on the glass. It changes the appearance directly, elevating the shape. 4. Painting Chinese Lanterns: The paper is almost dry. You see that your newly applied dark blue doesn't bleat a lot. It stays and holds its shape. The paper is still a little bit damp, though the applied color is easy to remove or adjust. I love the intense color of the orange, red Chinese lanterns. Sometimes it's easier to have two brushes. One wet, the other with color. Take a color you use for the lanterns. It can be yellow, orange or red. Start painting on one side of the lantern red and smooth the edges with the other wet brush. Then define the edge with red and with a bit of red on your wet brush, cover the other side. Transparent red on yellow will give a soft orange. You can mix indigo and vermilion for a darker bordeaux color to paint the shadows. I do it lightly in the corners and smooth the color with my wet brush. As this exercise class focuses on painting by raising, I will not demonstrate the painting process of every lantern, as you could have fewer or more. If you find the yellow shape underneath a lantern has too much blue, you can easily raid the color by rubbing a wet brush on it and dabbing the place with a tissue. The lifting technique is always handy, whether you paint on wet paper or on dry, it gives you the flexibility to control watercolor the way you want. After the lanterns are painted, take some bright yellow, like lemon yellow or maybe yellowish green, and with a very fine brush, paint the stems. When you are ready, jump to the finishing touches lesson, and let's complete our sketch. 5. Finishing Touches - Adding Details: To finish the sketch, you can optionally add some colour splatters for a loose artistic effect. Now you can take the painting of the tea towel and either dry it with a hair dry or leave it to air dry for some time. Afterwards, if your stems seem too dull or lack contrast, you can accentuate the highlights by lightly rubbing and lifting the color with a slightly wet flat brush. Dab the area with a t shirt to dry it. Finally, use some dark green mixed with indigo and yellow and add a tiny shadow along the stems. This will help them stand out. Congratulations on finishing your sketch and completing this practice. If you enjoyed the class, I would be really grateful for getting your review on it. I hope to see your artwork after you put so much hard work in it, and I love to hear all about your painting process if you had any difficulties or what was the most enjoyable part of the painting process. Share your artwork in the StudentPject gallery by clicking on Submit Project under the Project and Resources tap. Every piece of art, no matter the level, represents time, effort, and personal expression. But most importantly, it's a part of your artistic journey. It's a visual record of your growth as an artist. If you have any questions, I'm happy to respond and to help. Just post your thoughts in a discussion thread. If you prefer to share your artwork on Instagram, please tag me. I would love to see you painting. Skillshare would also love to see the artworks of my students. So please tag them as well. I hope you enjoyed this exercise. Found it helpful. I can't wait to see sketches and experiments in the project gallery. See you soon in the next class. And bye for now.