Painting Colorful Animals and Florals Using Fun Gouache Techniques

1. Intro: Hey, guys. I'm Sebashni an artist, illustrator, and service designer, and a Skillshare teacher. Welcome to my class, and let's paint some colorful animals and florals using fun gouache techniques. I mainly work with watercolor, gouache and inks, and I license my work to fabric companies, greeting cards companies, and other stationary manufacturers. Today, we are going to paint colorful cats and florals and some cute bunnies and florals. Inside the class, I'll share the supplies that we need, and I'll show you how I prepare my color palette. I'll teach you how to simplify the animal from your reference photos, and I'll teach you some fun techniques that I use in my painting process. So please come join me, and I can't wait to share the joy of painting animals and florals with you guys. I hope that you join me and learn some playful gouache techniques. See you inside the class. 2. Supplies Needed: Now, let's see the materials that we are going to use in this class. I have here the Shinhan professional gouache set. Actually, I bought a set A and set B. I have arranged the colors in groups so that I can easily pick them up. I use a lot of colors in my artwork, so these work great for me. So you'll be needing extra tubes of white, as you can see, I have run out of the white. So I bought two extra tubes, and you'll be needing three brushes from large to small. And we need a palette for mixing or colors. And we need water container, and we need a spray bottle to reactivate or paint if they are drying. It's very, very handy when you want to dilute the paints on your palette. And we need watercolor paper. This is 300 gsm. We need paper that is at least 300 gsm so that the paper won't buckle. And I prefer hard dressed paper for my gouache artworks. And you'll need a masking tape to tape down our paper. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I prepare my palette before I start painting. 3. Preparing Our Palette: Now I'm going to show you how I arrange my colors on my palette. I squeeze a little bit of paint from the tubes and I arrange it in groups. This makes the color mixing job very easier for me. For example, I mix a lot of pink and yellow, so I've placed them close to each other, and I add a little bit of white to each group if I want to make lighter shades of any color. And I put all the greens together and the blues together and all the earthy colors together. So I can see all the colors that I use in front of me. I mix colors intuitively. So this palette setup really works for me. Now we are all set to start painting. 4. Cats and florals Medium bitrate: Now, let's paint cats and florals. I'm keeping the reference image that I collected from unsplash in front of me. We're not going to copy the cat exactly. I'm just going to keep it as a loose reference, and I'm going to refer to only the silhouette of the cat. And I'm going to use the color of my choice. Of course, I pick the pink. If you don't have pink in your palette, you can mix crimson red and white to get a nice pink. I'm starting with the pointy years We don't have to look at all the features and details, the forms. Adding a little bit of yellow and kind of blending it with the pink. And you can always come in with another color, and blend it while it's still wet. So for this cat, I'm going to use all the pinks and some yellows for the accent. And let's make him a little bit chubbier. So now I'm taking yellow. And kind of blending it on the body. I like it when the paint strokes are seen, whatever subject I paint because that gives a nice hand painted look. It doesn't necessarily have to be too flat and opaque. I believe a balance of opacity and a little bit transparency makes a whole painting very interesting and fun. I'm adding the front leg with a darker pink just a simple long stroke. And now I'm taking yellow to paint the tail. If you see my hand going out of the frame, that means I'm reaching for the water to dilute the paint a little bit. I'm making the tail fluffier and changing the color and just nice curve. And I'm coming in and making the back leg a little more defined. Now, I'm painting the curve that the back leg makes when the cat is sitting. And we are almost done with our first cat. I don't know why I painted the pointy thingy. I'm just going to try and fix it. You know, some weird things happen when you paint. We can come back and add the features to the cats, once you finish painting all the silhouettes of the cat and the florals. Finally, we can paint the features. Now let's move on to painting our next cat. I'm going to use the shades of blue and maybe a little bit of purple later. So I'm mixing different shades of blue from light blue and the darker shades. I've chosen the reference image of the cat, which is a different pose from the first one. All our three cats will be different. I'm going to simplify it just like how we did with the first one. So we're starting with the pointy ears. With a light blue. And if you don't have light blue in your palette, you can always mix some white and make any of the color to a lighter shade. And of course, you can choose the colors that you prefer when you're doing your project so that you can make it your own. Also, if you are searching for a cats reference image, you can just use the keyword silhouette cat so that it'll be easier for you to focus on just a outline and take the techniques that you have learned from this class and apply it in your own animal paintings. I'm using the side of my brush and applying little pressure and making the tail bushy. If you're new to painting animals, cats are great subject to start with. It is so simple to draw cats, and not only that, it's so fun to draw this cute animal. I'm going to add some lavender. I don't think that's working, so I'm going in with purple. You know, that's the fantastic thing about gouache. If you don't like a color, you can bring another color and paint just right on top of it. It's not a big deal, and the opaque nature of the paint helps us to do that. So I'm using a dark blue to paint the legs. Just simple stroke, thin strokes. And with this, we are done with our second cat. And now it's time to paint a cute third cat. So I'm starting with a creamy color and taking a little bit yellow. Even though its head is tilted in the reference picture, I'm making it straight and go to paint it super simplified, grabbing a darker color for the body. It's an yellow ochre. You know, I haven't used pencil lines as a guide, but you can always sketch your sketch and outline of the cat, if you want. I use pencil lines only if I paint something more structured and very planned, very precise. It really helps you loosen up a lot when you practice without the pencil lines. And just focus on the shape of what you're painting. I'm grabbing some white and mixing a lighter version of the brown because I don't like how dark the edges are. And I'm just toning it down because the sides have become too dark. And now let's add a tail, and I'm dabbing in with pink because I don't know, there should be pink on everything. I guess I have an obsession with pink. I just have to put it everywhere. Let's add some colour to the body. And the legs front legs with the deepest brown. And now we are done with all three cats. So next up, we're going to paint some gorgeous florals. I'm grabbing some red for the center of the flower. Gonna be totally imaginary florals. I'm taking a lighter peachy pink and just adding some simple short strokes. Grabbing in slightly darker pink and adding another round of short petals. Grabbing more pigment and repeating the same simple strokes, mixing a nice bright fuchsia color. You know. Instead of using the same color for the whole flower, I like changing the colors slightly within the flowers, so the flowers look more interesting with all the beautiful variations. We are going to fill the rest of the page with beautiful florals and leaves. So I'm mixing some few different shades of green. You have to play by mixing some greens, blues, and browns and even yellow ocher to get different shades of green. You can even add white to tone it down. I'm painting a tiny branch of leaves coming out from the flower. You can just use the side of your brush to make some simple strokes and change the angle and one tiny leaf facing down like that. For our next flower, I'm grabbing some brown to paint the center of a flower. I'm mixing some yellow ocher, slightly darker yellow ocher and painting an abstract circle around the dark to add some depth. I'm mixing pale yellow by adding a little bit of yellow to the white, and I'm using the side of my brush to make broader strokes, adding more white to the yellow and mixing a nice cream color and kind of using the side of my brush to make a nice round shape, suggesting it's a flower. I'm grabbing a little bluff pink and adding it to the edge. I'm grabbing some more colors, and I'm adding a few marks. I'm drawing a few marks on the petals just to make them interesting and add some character to it. I'm taking some pink and adding it, and it's blending beautiful with the underneath layer, making a beautiful effect. Also, we can add blue, and you can see it's kind of turning into a greenish blue. You can just play around with gouache. It's a very versatile medium, and you can see all the colors that we added on top is kind of blending with the underneath layer and making a beautiful effect. Now let's dab some bright yellow that yellow really pops out, and I really love it. Now, let's paint our third large flower at the bottom, right. I'm going to paint a flower which is facing up. I'm just using marks, a few marks to suggest the flower is facing up. I'm just loosely painting with my brush, and it's kind of tapered at the bottom and broad at the top. I'm bringing in a darker colour, a deep purple. To add the center, just a few strokes that are facing up and adding a little bit of yellow at the bottom, and maybe add some red to make the center more interesting. Next, I'm mixing some lighter blues to paint a fan shaped floral on the top right just with a few small strokes. And now connecting the petals with bright orange. O and adding a little bit of contrast using dark pink and adding a stem maybe make it a little bit darker and adding another stem branching out and using the same process to paint another fan shaped floral facing the right connecting all the petals. It's fun to draw these abstract florals. These are imaginary. If you ever get stuck with not knowing what floral to paint next, you can just use the keywords, wedding bouquet or just floral bouquet on Pinterest, and you'll get tons of options with all the florals beautifully arranged. You can see a variety of florals arranged in a bouquet from big sized florals to the smaller size. So it'll be easier for you to use those as inspiration for your floral paintings. I'm grabbing some green, and I'm going to add a couple of leaves, large leaves here. It doesn't need to be perfect. I'm using some brown to paint another leaf. Let's make it a little bit darker. I'm painting a few brown dots here to paint some small florals, daisy like florals. I'm mixing some pink here and just painting a tiny daisies and filling up this space. Now that we are done with larger florals, our job is to only focus on filling the rest of the white space. So we are going to keep adding flowers and foliage. I'm drawing a thin stem for this flower with some tiny leaves, adding another leaf here. I'm grabbing some fuchsia and dabbing on top of this leaf. I like how it turned into a nice, rusty color. I like the transition happening within that leaf. I'm just going to fill the white space at the bottom left, and I'm adding a thin branch. Painting a thin branch, and I'm grabbing some yellow and just scribbling, suggesting some tiny flowers coming out of the thin lines. And with the same yellow, I'm drawing a center of a flower, grabbing some lavender and adding long thin strokes to make a flower. I usually avoid placing two flowers that are same, colored. Here I have placed it next to the pink and lavender. But it doesn't look pad because both the flowers are totally different. So it looks fine. I'm grabbing some green and adding it in this white space. Actually, it looks too muted, and I'm going to make it a little brighter. So it's so easy to change things around with gouache. And now I'm going to draw a trumpet shaped flower here. I'm taking yellow and drawing a flower, which is trumpet shaped and grabbing some pink. Actually, my palate is so dry. Gouache dries so fast, and you need to mist it so that it stays moist. And just two simple shaves. We have created a beautiful flower. And let me add one more here and fill up the space. I really love this part where you challenge your brain to come up with different variety of flowers and keep on filling the white space. I drawing elongated petals. Just few simple lines, and you'll get a nice flower and I'm going to make the center. I'm going to make a little contrast to the center. And let's add another flour there with mixing and mixing some turquoise, and then I'm going to just draw an outline of the flour with the tip of my brush and I'm going to fill it with thin lines. You can hold your brush upright and make it very thin lines with very little pressure. And let's make the center dark. Okay, I'm grabbing some yellow, and oh, I actually forgot to wash my brush, and the turquoise blue that I had in my brush turned the yellow into a beautiful green, and it really pops out next to that blue cat. And let's connect all these tiny daisies with a deep brownish black. And let's add tiny leaves with green. You know, when I first bought this, gouache set from Shinhan, I wasn't really sure about the quality of this gouache, but I'm really, so, so happy with this paint set. I'm glad I bought these because the colours are so rich and the pigment flows very easily, and it gives excellent coverage. Now I'm going to paint a simple abstract flower in the top right. And with just a blob and a few circular shapes, you'll be able to create a simple abstract flower. This is a fun way to paint florals. Leaves are very good to fill up the spaces. Anywhere you see white space, you can fill it with a simple leaf or a tiny flower, a simple flower. It's good to step back and see where you still need to add the leaves or the florals. So the overall painting is more balanced. And let's add an abstract leaf shape here. And now I'm taking green to paint a fan shaped leaf. There's so much green going on here, so I'm breaking it up with some pink. My palate has gotten very messy, but I love that, and we need not worry about that. Missy palate tells that we have had a happy time making art. So I'm adding extra petals to our main flower here and mixing some pink to turn these into pretty looking birds. You know, when I started painting with gouache, I was under the assumption that gouache is used to create flat graphical looking artworks. But once I understood all the characteristics of this medium, you know, how it behaves with more water or less water. And when I played with the consistency and figured out how it worked, only then I started to enjoy this medium. Since gouache has the qualities of both watercolors and acrylic, you know, it's so easy to take advantage of those qualities. Once you understood this, it is so, so easy to paint with gouache. Now that we are done with our florals, let's move on to adding features to the cat and mixing some white to paint the eyes of the cat. So the idea is to draw a white dot, and then once it's dried, you can come back in with black and add another dot to the center of the white circle. I usually do it with white marker and black pen. It's so easier when you do it with white marker and black pen. And now let's grab some pink and add blush to the cheeks of the cat. Since we can do light on dark and dark on light using gouache, I'm going to go ahead and add some details to the body and the tails of the cats. I'm using a variety of colors to do this. You can add lighter mog on the dark areas and some dark dashes on the light areas, we can just play around and add the details. The results will be so interesting. And with some simple dashes, you can make interesting details on the cats. Okay, now let's add some mid ribs to our leaves. I'm using a contrasting color to add the mid drips to each leaf. I like that lavender and lemon green combo and maybe another petal here and fill the space. And some yellows on these leaves. And I'm just as seeing where I can add the yellow, and I'm seeing a space here, and I'm still stopping and seeing where I can add more yellows, maybe some here. So let's fill that up. I know I said we are done with the botanicals, but I see the possibilities of adding more things. Okay, now let's add the black dots to the eyes. You know, like I said, it's very easier when you do it with a pen and just a white pencil or a white pen. You can use a white marker, but I don't know why I'm doing with a brush. Maybe I like to challenge myself. Okay, now let's add some whiskers to the cats. Just use a tip of your brush. And with a few flex, it can easily paint these whiskers. And now let's add nose. Just a small inverted triangle. You really need to have very little water in your brush when you are adding these precise details. Otherwise you won't be able to control your brush. And yes, if you really mess up anything, we can always paint on top of it and change things. But just make sure the bottom layer is dry. This is the wonderful thing about gouache. It's a very forgiving medium. If you're done with your painting and if you still have leftover paint on your palette, if it gets dried completely, might be a little hard to get the paint back to the original buttery consistency, even though it's a water based medium. In such cases, you can use the leftover paint. To use it as a wash for background of your future paintings, or you can just use it like how you normally use a watercolor. I do that a lot. Or another thing that I recently tried is to put my whole palette in an air tight box, and I kept it in the refrigerator overnight. And to my surprise, the paint didn't dry at all. I just sprayed a little bit of water, and I was able to carry on with my painting. So here we go. We are done with our colorful cats and florals, and now it's the time to take the tape off. Always pull the tape away from your artwork in an angle. Do not pull it vertically. It might damage your artwork or the paper. So here we are with our happy cats and happy florals. In the next lesson, we'll paint some bunnies and florals. 5. Bunnies and Florals: Hey, guys, welcome you all back. Now we are going to paint bunnies and florals using gouache. We have a reference image from Unsplash ready. And let's make some pink and grab some yellow, and I have a nice peachy pink in my brush now. And now I'm visualizing in my brain where to put the bunny, maybe one on the top right and another one maybe here. I'm going to start with the top right one now, and I'm starting with the face of the bunny. And loosely referring to the inspiration image we have here. I'm adding darker pink and adding variation to the face. And now I'm going to add the years. Bunnies have nice long years. I'm just going to exaggerate and making it long. And let's add a second one here. You need to start with the tip of your brush and then apply a slight pressure and drag it really simple years. We are done with the head and years, and now let's move on to painting its body and grabbing some yellow for its torso area. I'm just loosely painting some pink and add that round areas, and I'm adding the feet. So now I can fill the body. It's slightly darker pink. And adding a dark color to define the round areas. You can sketch your bunnies before you start painting. If you want to challenge yourself and have some fun, you can jump right in and start painting loosely. It doesn't have to be perfect. It gets so much easier with practice. Okay, now it's time for the fun part. My favorite part is adding tail, adding short fluffy tail to a bunny. No matter what animal I paint, it's always my favorite part to add tails. I'm rounding up the back a bit. Okay, now we are done with our first bunny, and it's time to paint our second bunny with some yellow in my brush. I'm painting a jumping bunny. You don't have to exactly copy your reference image, and you can take artistic license. You can really simplify it or modify it a little bit, and you can stylize them however you want. Okay, now I'm starting to worry that it's looking like a turtle. But I know once I add the long ears and fluffy tails, it's gonna look like a bunny. Just kidding, I'm going to focus and make it look like a bunny. Madding the back leg and painting the outline of this belly area so that I can fill the body maybe make it a little bit darker. And I'm taking a orange to add the second feet. And add this front feet. And now it's time to add the years to her bunny, giving it a slight wiggle and adding the second one, slightly hiding behind the first one. I'm going to add a little bit of contrast with the dark color. I love this guy. It looks like he's happily jumping. Next I'm gonna paint a third bunny. I want it to be different from our first two bunnies, so I'm trying something different. I'm referring to the head of the bunny image on the left. And I'm going to refer to the body of the other bunny image on the right. I'm doing this for the first time. I hope I get it right. The bunny's head is facing right, and it's like it's looking back over his shoulder. I'm mixing some purple to paint his leg so that it stands out and going back in with lighter blue to cover the front area and maybe making it a little bit lighter. You can use the color of your choice to paint these bunnies. I'm fixing that feet a little bit and rounding up this part. Now it's time to add fluffy tile to our bunny, and I'm taking turquoise for this. I'm using the same color to paint the second year. Gouache tends to dry quickly, so I'm using my spray bottle to spray a little bit of water on my palette to stop them from drying. With blue in my brush, I'm painting the front leg, just like two hands coming from either side. Okay, that leg has become a little bit broader, so I'm going to make it thin by using a darker blue. I love how the front legs are popping out against the dark blue. And we are almost done with our bunnies, really super simple bunnies. And now it's time to start painting our botanicals. I'm going to keep it very, very loose and starting with yellow archer and painting the stem of our first flower, grabbing some cream to paint the petals using simple long strokes. I'm going to go back in with different colors for each petal and just dab in my brush, using the tip of my brush and matching it to the pointy edge of the petal, not fully painting the petal, just on the top of it. I don't want to put red and pink together, so I'm skipping a petal, adding blue in between them. It's really so much fun to paint abstract flowers. There are no rules. You don't have to follow any rules. You can just play and have fun. I'm finishing this by adding a bright green. And let's add an abstract branches coming off of this stem. And let's move on to the next flower and starting with the wiggly lines, wonky lines, loosely drawing with my brush. Now grabbing some pink and adding a blob that will make our flower. Just adding short strokes on top of it with different colors. I'm going back and forth to my water container and washing the brush while I switch the colors each time. I'm taking some yellows and dabbing on the wet area of this flower, adding some interesting marks to make the flower so fun and add character. Painting some thin leaves coming out of the stem, and I'm planning to add some leaves. I'm grabbing gray stones in my brush and starting to paint the wiggly outline of the leaf. And going back in with lighter gray and filling the inside of the leaf and adding one more leaf here. Just a simple one. And now I'm going to mix pink and going to add mid ribs and veins to the leave. It's a nice contrast against that gray tone. And I'm going to fill this space with an abstract flower. Just scribbling a few marks here, and then I'm going to grab some yellow and paint an abstract flower. I'm going back in with the same yellow and painting the center of a flower, and I'm grabbing some pink to paint the petals. Not very perfect petal, but just some abstract shapes, varying the colors. Grabbing some cream and painting the outer layer of the petal, now switching to green and continuing with the outer layer. I love how a variety of botanicals are filling up our page with varied shapes and colors. I'm grabbing some blue and adding a tiny stem for this flower, and then adding a darker color just for a little bit of contrast. And I want to extend this stem so that the overall composition looks more connected. I want to paint a flower here and I'm going to grab some yellow and painting a scrively line and painting tiny leaves coming out of it. Not the perfect leaf shapes, suggesting those are some botanical shapes. And I'm grabbing some purple and painting a flower at the top and just using the lighter purple to drag the darker purple and painting some petals. Now, let's move to the bottom right area. I'm just going to place a dot and then paint the petals around it. You start with the tip of your brush and then slightly apply pressure, you'll be able to get the perfect petal shapes. I'm going to repeat the same process and placing more dots and painting more of those flowers and fill this part up. I'm just enjoying this process playing with variety of brush techniques and painting techniques. I hope you are also having fun. I'm going to grab some orange and connect these flowers. And now I'm grabbing some blue and painting a blob and I'm going to go back in with green and painting on top of the blue to make it look like a flower. And now I'm painting a leaf on the top right using green. Just some abstract leaves. I'm stopping and seeing where I can add things, maybe a leaf here, and then one more leaf here. And scribbling on top to make it look like a flower. And I'm grabbing some blue and painting a simple flower with some simple petals and adding muted green for the stem. I'm filling the spaces as I go and adding couple of leaves. And I'm going to fill the space on the left by adding a pink dot and then adding a simple petals in a variety of colours. I'm adding a green petal and then grabbing some blue and adding another petal. Okay, I just want to slightly modify this flower. Um, I'm just going to add some yellow and defining the edges. Oh, now I love the transition of colors on these petals. And adding a yellow leaf for the flower at the bottom and grabbing some black and adding a stem here. Just want to add some organic shapes to our painting. And I'm just using my brush and using the color pink, adding some flower like shaves at the top left. And I just love how our whole painting is turning so pretty. I'm going to add a couple of daisies here, so I'm using blue for the tiny thin petals. I'm going to add one more daisy using the same colors. And now I'm gonna connect these two flowers using a stem. And then adding another tiny branch here. Adding a leaf here, using black, and then adding tiny mocks on the stems to add some interest. And adding one more tiny leaf. That part is looking too black, so I'm dabbing it with some blue. Let's add a super thin branch coming out of this flower, using the tip of her brush. And then I'm grabbing lemon green and adding tiny flowers to the stem. And I'm going to paint a blotchy flower here, just a round shape and then going back in with a contrast color, adding some pink at the center to make it look like a flower and adding some marks on this flower to make it look a little bit detailed. And I'm mixing some dark green for adding marks. Now, our painting looks almost full. And we can step back and see which areas need some filling up. Even add some marks on your botanicals. There are no rules with guash. You can go light to dark or dark to light for adding your details. And I'm grabbing some yellow and adding thin lines for this flower. No, the highly concentrated pigment of the guache gives us a very vibrant colors. And since the colors are so saturated, it works perfectly to create a very colorful artworks. You can add subtle colors to some parts of the flowers. Layering is so much fun and easy with gouache. And also, I love how gouache is very flexible. You can use it to do very precise artworks and also we can use it to paint very loosely. It's a very forgiving medium. Okay, now it's time to add eyes for our bunnies. I'm going to use my black pen to add the circle for the eyes. And then I'm going to come back with white pencil and draw an outline around the black dot. The matte finish of Quach helps us to use other art materials on top, so it's easy for us to do the eyes using pen and pencil. Also, you can add wonderful details on top of Quach using color pencils. I use the technique all the time. Grabbing some pink to add blushes, to our bunnies and I'm going to add some whiskers. You can use a very fine brush for this. Or you can do it with the color pencil too. Oh, my God, these guys look so adorable once we have added the features. And now you can grab some paint and add tiny details on the body of the bunny. All the bunnies can add some accent color to the ears. Just play by adding tiny mags on their bodies. And you can add some details on the tail if you want. I'm grabbing some pink to add details on this yellow bunny. While I have this color, I'm also adding details to its tail, and I'm going to go back in with blue and adding details to our pink bunny. And yes, like I said, you can do this with color pencils also pink and adding a dot for the nose of the bunnies. They look super cute, aren't they? You can go ahead and add leaves on the white area if you see any and I don't want to overdo it. I'm just adding some mid ribs to the leaves, and I better stop adding more details. I'm just going to grab some pink to fix this feet a little bit. And that's it. We are done with our bunnies and florals. I hope you enjoyed. I just want to do one final thing and add a little depth to this flower by adding this dark pink. And here we go. Our joyful bunnies and flowers. I hope you had fun painting this with me, just like I had. And please feel free to ask if you have any questions. Thank you. 6. Thank you and Keep Going: Thank you so much for staying with me and painting along. You can go ahead and make some patterns and play with colors using the paintings that we made today. I hope you really enjoyed. And if you want to see more of my works, you can follow me on Instagram at Subashn dot art factory. So thank you so much again. Bye bye.