Painting Flowers with Watercolours and Charcoal

1. INTRODUCTION: Hello, I'm Vivian. I've been a professional mixed media artist in Scotland for 20 years. I'd like to show you how to paint beautiful and striking flowers using watercolors and charcoal. I use a variety of mixed media combinations of my art, and I find that watercolor and charcoal complement each other really well. You'll learn how to use watercolors and charcoal and how to layer them for maximum impact. I'll show you step by step how to achieve stunning results whilst encouraging you to develop your own painting style. This class is a small project you can put your learning to good use straight away. After experimenting the techniques I show you, I suggest you create a floral pattern of any kind with charcoal and water colors. Let's create paintings together where flowers come alive and where mixing up your art materials on paper becomes second nature. If you've never used two totally different art materials side by side on paper before, then this will be super exciting. This is going to be fun. 2. ART SUPPLIES NEEDED : I'll show you the art supplies needed for this class. You don't need a lot, basically just watercolor paint, brushes and charcoal. We allow you to create beautiful art, but I'll go over now, in more detail, the materials that will give you the best results. This is my selection of materials that will need for the class. First of all, we have the watercolor paint. You can use a box variety like this, or you can use watercolors in liquid form. And say for beginners, it's better to use the box version, it's easier and just more compact. You can also use these bits as a palette as well. It's more user friendly, but feel free to use the paint in liquid form if you prefer. Class title suggests we're going to use charcoal. You can see we have thick and thin pieces. We can make different marks with them. If you don't like the size, you can always snap the charcoal sticks. You can snap it into tiny little bits and rub it in. Even the smallest of pieces can be used in future art projects. I want to tell you about the putty rubber. You might know about these already, but I highly recommend you getting one, especially for any artwork that uses charcoal. There's brilliant and far better than normal erasers as they lift off the charcoal or graphite so much more easily, you can even mold them into a particular shape. When you warm up the putty rubber, it goes so you can shape it to whoever you like. I'll talk about brushes now. It's good to invest in a selection of different ones if you're going to paint regularly. However, for now, as long as your brushes have smooth and soft bristles, you'll be fine. Here we have our brushes. You've got your fan brush, which is a gentle one. It comes in different sizes and can be used to create a variety of marks. You've also got your flat headed brush. They create a marks and are good for drawing straight lines. A rigger brush, good for pulling the paint along the paper smoothly. It's got long bristles and it really is quite helpful for watercolor. This is just a general rounded one that is good for many things. This is probably my favorite brush. It holds a lot of water, covers a lot of space on the paper easily, and it's so soft. Lots of different brushes to choose from. As I said, you don't need to get all of these to start watercolor painting, but it's good to know what's available for your paintings to look their best. You'll need watercolor paper or mixed media paper. These can both handle lots of liquid. As they are thicker and more textured than ordinary paper, the water is absorbed down into it. The paper I have here is quite smooth, but you get watercolor paper that's quite textured. And bitty is the smoothest watercolor paper or mixed media paper that you can find, as this is the most compatible type for charcoal, despite the spelling of the word watercolor on this pad. This sketch book will be perfect for our projects because the paper is thick and it's also smooth on top, good for charcoal spray. Hold your materials in place on the paper. I recommend using this, especially at the end, to seal your painting once you're finished. That would be a fixative spray that's suitable for pastls or charcoal. In the next video, we'll look at what to do for the class project. Please check this out before starting the first lesson. 3. CLASS PROJECT: For this class project, I would like you to create a floral pattern using the techniques and tips that you'll learn along the way. After experimenting with your watercolors and charcoal on paper and learning about the different ways you can use them, you'll easily be ready to create your own floral pattern. There is a lesson devoted to pattern making. In this class, we'll give you extra ideas and even shows you how to use AI when you're feeling stuck. There are all sorts of floral patterns you can invent. Some will use gentle subtle flowers for camming effect. Others will include bold, striking flowers that grab your attention. Once you let yourself be free and just go for it and worry about it looking a certain way, you'll find pattern making a fun and addictive art form. You can download and print the floral template provided in the resources section has a good starting point and you can make it your own by using lots of different colors and add depth and texture to the painting. I'd love to see the outcome of this class. I would really appreciate it if you could upload some of the images of your work in the project gallery. The more artwork people share there, we can learn and be inspired. The next lesson, we'll look at why exactly do flowers inspire artists so much. This lesson allows us to pause and think about our subject in a bit more detail. Before we start to create our art, I'll give you six big reasons why flowers can be so captivating. 4. WHY FLOWERS INSPIRE ARTISTS : I love painting flowers so much so that I had a solo exhibition completely devoted to the subject called The Blossoming. You can see some of the paintings from the exhibition here the shapes, depth of color and the rugged beauty of them just fills my mind with inspiration. If I'm painting them outdoors, it can instill in me a piece. I love painting nature, It's very caning. I'm now going to name six reasons why flowers can lead artists to create amazing work. I'm sure you'll connect with one of them. Firstly, flowers are colorful. The depth and variety of color is immense and provide so much for artists to study. Second, flowers are beautiful. They will catch your eye and make you want to study them more. They have shapes, colors, and textures that combine perfectly and motor. Third, the scent of flowers can grab your attention and make you want to capture this in your artwork. Fourth, flowers have a natural ability to make you want to touch them. How can we grasp this concept on paper? Which painting techniques will work? That is for you as an artist to explore. Display shapes glow flat, curvaceous, rippled or spiky, to name a few. You could have fun painting these shapes as there are no boundaries. Lastly, flowers are often connected to memories or times of year, such as Valentine's Day. This may bring certain emotions, whether it's sad or happy, to the surface and that can spark creativity. I've just mentioned a few reasons why artists are inspired by flowers. What artists do with inspiration can lead to million different avenues. But in this class, we'll be using our inspiration from flowers to create a variety of paintings made from watercolor and charcoal. Continue onto the next video where we start to have fun experimenting with watercolor paint catch books. 5. WATERCOLOUR TECHNIQUES: Experience really does make a difference when using watercolors to paint with. This is where mark making in sketchbooks, before painting your subject for real can really benefit artists. In this lesson, we'll do mark making with our watercolor paints and see how many effects can really be achieved with this medium. I've created two workbooks that you can download and print out to help you this activity. You can find this in the resources section, I will quickly show you six main watercolor techniques that will help you greatly when it comes to painting any subject with watercolors. I'll go over these fairly quickly, but you can pause the video if you want to try out one technique before starting the next. Firstly, let's look at experimental mark making brushes by swirling, applying different amounts of pressure to your brush. Just getting to know your brushes can open up a confidence When painting. When you know the marks that you are capable of making in your sketch books, you'll be much better prepared for you to try to do a more polished piece of work. Look at these examples and have a try in your own sketchbooks. This is purely experimental, There's no right or wrong way of doing. Secondly, there's a famous wet on wet technique. I find this to be the most advantageous technique when using water colors. You can dampen the paper first with your brush or sponge, and then when you add another layer on top, the colors spread naturally. Can't create this effect, usually acrylics oils, but it's so easy to do here. This technique is perfect for things like skies or rivers, where colors blend smoothly into each other. The delicate nature of flower petals can be achieved by using the wet on wet technique. When the colors mix with each other or blend into the water, this is called bleeding. Basically the colors lead into each other, That's around with the different amounts of water in your brush and on the palette to see what's possible. Thirdly, there's the wet on dry technique. We simply use watercolors as you would any other to paint, just mix the pigment a water and apply it to paper. I would use the wet on dry technique for painting sharper detail. You can also use this technique to create deeper, darker colors. As with each layer of watercolor paint, you apply, when it dries the paper, it becomes bolder. Fourthly, I encourage you to try color grading. You can see how if you apply color at one end and then use a wet brush to guide the color one direction, the color is pulled away and it gets lighter and lighter, and the water helps make this flow. Remember that watercolor paint is translucent. The color of the paper will shine through when the paint is downluted. Fifthly, we have splattering. This could be used to create a speckled effect that sometimes see on petals, or use it as part of the background while painting your main subject on top. You can also flick the ends of your brushes for a similar effect but more messy. The last technique I want you to try is layering washes of paint. When using watercolors, you build up the painting layer by layer. You can use a hair dryer to speed up the process or to guide the paint in a particular direction. Do not rub the paint on as you can do with oils or acrylics. Let the paint easily come off the brush, let it flow onto the paper. You can see in this clip that if you apply a layer upon layer of washes, the color becomes darker over time. Paintings are made by combining all the different techniques you've learned by practicing in Sketchbooks. First, you'll approach your painting with confidence and continue to develop your own art style. I hope you have fun messing around with the watercolor paint. There are many more effects that can be achieved with watercolors. For example, you can use things like salt, cotton wool to create interesting marks on paper, But the techniques I've shown already all work well together for painting flowers. Join me in the next lesson where we'll do the same with charcoal and discover effects that can be used in your floral art. 6. CHARCOAL MARK MAKING: Within this lesson, I'll show you the different marks you can make using charcoal. I encourage you to look at my examples, but also to discover your own way of doing things with charcoal on paper. We are getting super close to, we can actually start painting flowers for real. I know you might be itching to just get started, but I encourage you to take a little time to mess about with your charcoal first. Charcoal is a much easier medium to use than watercolor paint. The mark making is much more straightforward. However, if you've never used charcoal before or even heard of it, then it's definitely worthwhile experimenting with it in your sketchbook. I hope you've found experimenting with both watercolors and charcoal in your sketch books to be useful. A lot more will be explored in the following lessons, but what you've achieved so far will stand in goods stead. 7. METHOD 1: USE CHARCOAL FOR FIRST LAYER: Now that we know more about how to use watercolors and charcoal, we can now move on to the exciting bit, creating floral art, using both at once. In this lesson, I'll show you how to paint flowers by using charcoal as a first. Obviously, you can use them as I win for this class will make charcoal the base layer. I'll show you four different examples where to use charcoal for my initial were. Each one is painted in a different style. I'm using the tip of the charcoal to draw the basic shape of the flower. You can see I'm drawing the lines in very particular directions. I don't just work from left to right. I'm drawing the picture while at the same time making it three D by smudging it where there is shadow on the leaves. This is giving my flower shadow and shape. Be experimental with your lines, just like it did in your skeptics. Some people are more expressive than others with their drawing. It's totally up to you how you want to do it. If you're thinking, wow, it's getting a bit dark. Now, I thought we were going to use watercolor paints, so I thought it would be nice and gentle. Then remember that most of this can be taken off easily with a putty rubber if it looks super dark. Just now I've smudged in most of the charcoal and reinforcing the deep, more important bits. Now that I've smudged in the dark bits, a few more wiggly lines here and there to give us some detail and some character. This is me just warming up the putty rubber to get it into the right shape. I'm just going to lift it off. See how clearly that lift off the charcoal from the paper. I'm using the putty rubber to draw it as well. As I go along, I'll keep smudging it to take bits away and to build up the picture. Gradually I'm just giving it a bit of background. Now, it's not a floating shape on paper. You can see that it lifts the image off the paper. If you give it a bit of background in shadow, just to put it in context, there we go. I'm just about to add the, this is exciting. I'm going to add color to our charcoal picture. I've already diluted the paint with water. Here we are. Nothing dramatic or crazy is happening. Everything's under control. The paint is just sinking into the paper. It's doing all the things that we experimented with. Our sketch books, you'll see all happening for real now. While you paint your flower, you can use tissue paper to dab and lift off any bits you don't like or if there's too much water, it's good to have the same colors in your background that you have in your flower. It makes the whole painting come together as a whole. The different bits, isolated incidents, they're all part of the same picture. There we go. There it is. My watercolor sketch book. I'm going to use my box paint. I'm adding water, just pure water, to my palette. And then I'll add as much pigment as I like until I get the color I'm happy with. Again, I'm applying it to my charcoal picture this time. I'm not aiming to add so much color like I did to the last one. I just want to give hints of color here and there, just so it's not a pure monochrome picture. Similar to the last painting, we use a quick and messy approach. We use a stronger color for the second layer. I really like charcoal sketches, but for this one here, I'm just giving it some added depth and interest by using some water colors as well. Similar to the last painting, we use a quick and messy approach. Use a stronger color for the second layer. I'll show you a quick and messy way to use water colors to paint a flower, draw a basic flower shape and charcoal, and use the wet on wet technique to give a messy but bold flower. The colors naturally bleed into each other, which means you don't need to do anything else. Just wait and see what happens to the painting. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to build up a painting by using water colors as the first layer. So hop on over to the next video and we'll get started. 8. METHOD 2: USE WATERCOLOURS FOR FIRST LAYER: Let's look at how to build a painting using watercolors first, then adding charcoals. We go a long, I'm just going to apply my first layer of watercolor paint. I've already mixed up my color with the water and I'm putting on fairly loosely, really worrying much about whether it's the right size or whatever. I'm making a nice fluid painting here. I'm using water to plead the color out. First, there was paint, Now I'm using water in a separate brush to pull out the colors, add in a second color while the paint is still wet. This will also bleed into the yellow, creating a nice natural effect. As you can see here, I've changed the brushes. This is the rigger brush, which is perfect for pulling the color in the direction that you want. You can see again that the paint is still wet. It's bleeding with the background color to make a natural petal look by adding water to your brush, pure water, You can drag out the color and you can see how fundamental the orange bits are in the middle. They really add to the shape and to the look of an asturtium petal. Just look at the strong colors and bold pattern found in these flowers. Watercolor paint can be used to capture this beauty. Use layers of paint and build up the picture. I'm going to add some green to the center. This is a wet on wet technique. Works well if you use the same colors throughout your painting, it unites the painting. I want to reinforce the yellow. Once it's dry, I'll put a separate layer on. This is also giving it depth. Deeper, darker color will make the petals look more shapely. The second layer will also adds more color as the colors have become lighter, as they dried and sunk into the paper. You can see already this is giving a three D effect. It makes the flowers stand out. You're using a variety of watercolor techniques to build up here. I'm using the water to bleed the color out that unites it. I'm now going to use charcoal to add clarity and depth of this painting. This is why I chose to use charcoal to complement water colors in the first place. Now that we've got out our basic flower shape, we're going to use charcoal to sharpen up and give you more shape, more clarity. As we've learned in mark making, there are lots of different ways to use our charcoal. I'm just outlining the petals here to give the basic shape. Some people might want to stop around here if they're happy with the look of the flower. You don't need to be so heavy handed, you don't need to apply. It's so dark. I like using charcoal. It's one of my favorite mediums. I think it can really add some spark. You can see by looking at this petal, the light and dark bits of the petal. That's what to look out for when you're painting. Keep an eye out for the lights and darks shadow here. I'm just using the colored water on the brush to add some background, a background color so it's not just floating the water. Even though it's being used with charcoal will still move the particles of charcoal in the way you like. The color won't bleed or anything. It will just reinforce the lines and the shapes with your brush. Here, I'm thinking I want to add shadow, but I want a bigger brush to give more bold and striking shapes or confident lines. The little brush was good to start with, but I want something bigger. Now I want to reinforce the green. I've already waited for the first layer to dry, and I want to add some more green again. By having it in the background, you can unite it altogether. Here I'm adding deeper, darker colors. On top, you can see more depth is arriving. Now you've combined hand in hand charcoal with watercolor paint. In the next lesson, we're going to look at how to make a floral pattern using watercolors and charcoal. 9. HOW TO CREATE FLORAL PATTERNS: In this lesson, I'll show you how to make a variety of different patterns and show you how to gain inspiration if you're struggling. The project for this class is to create a floral pattern and to share it in the gallery. This lesson will be super helpful. This shows a pattern done in pencil, more to fill. This pattern was just made by looking at a flower and repeating the shape in all different sizes and putting all of the paper. I'm starting with red. I've already got water on my palette. I've just added a bit of the deep red. This is dry paper using, I've not added any initial layer of water on. I'm just using a very light color to start with. This is a deeper color. I'm going to add this on top. It will bleed a little bit because the paper is already wet from the first layer of light color. This is me adding pure water to it. This is really going to make color bleed. This will fill out the petals. Instead of having one strong line adding water, it's creating the whole petal at this stage is felt like painting by numbers. I'm not doing anything very expressive or different right now. Here we see the bleeding technique. This is quite a subtle, delicate pattern. I'm using a little brush to keep it nice and neat and to fill out the edges. This can be quite satisfied. You're basically coloring in the areas that you've already penciled in. Then I'm going to add some yellow. We're just building up the flower. I'm using the rigger brush, which is perfect for doing thin, delicate leaves. Now onto an exciting bit, We're going to use the charcoal for definition. We're going to use it throughout the pattern so it's all united. Again, I'm reinforcing it and giving it even more three D effect. Even though I've already got shadow with the paint. People might be thinking, oh my painting. But since we've already decided to use mixed media, it's good to experiment. You could stop here if you want it. If you think that's enough charcoal, I've got enough clarity here. That's my finished pattern. I'm happy with that. I'll now show you a demo of me painting a more bold floral pattern. The color is added with less restraint and there is more contrast in this pattern. I'm going to use the liquid watercolor paint for this flower pattern. The pigment is often stronger in tube form, so you don't need a lot. Don't worry if your paint dries on the palette, you can still use it by adding some water on top of your brush color will come back to life. It's not like acrylic paint that drives super fast and can't be used if it dries, I'm adding the background first. Usually if you do want background colors in a pattern, it's easier to add this first and then you can focus on painting flowers on the top. The background will already be dealt with, it won't ruin your flowers if you try and fill it in later because we're doing an organic floral base pattern, greens and yellows will be very common. Background colors, you can just use the pleading technique to cover areas. The flowers are really the focal point. You don't want to give too much detail to the background. So we're going to build up the petals similar to the delicate pattern. We're going to do the deeper color. And then I'll use the water to pull the color, to fill in each petal. It's a quick and easy way, especially for painting a pattern. So here we go. The second color, pinks and purples often go together and they are a good combination for this pattern. See the we flower tip there? Add it to the tips, that makes it look three D. Now we're going to use the charcoal. We're going to give definition to the petals. You really can be as dominant or as light as you want with the charcoal, depending on how much you think. When I use charcoal for the first layer in the painting, it was much more dominant than when we use water colors first, more delicate. That's me giving definition to the leaves. Don't forget about the background. If that's important for the painting, you don't need to do much. Just a few real lines here and there. And that can be enough to give an impression of an organic background. I'll point out that the paint is dry at this stage, so it's safe to smudge the charcoal. The paper won't be ruined. I use the AI facility on Canva. For those of you that haven't heard of Canva is an online graphic design tool, is easy to use. Getting to Canva is a useful activity in itself as it can be used by artists for a whole number of things. Creating social media posts, blog posts, flyers. I use it to edit many of the video clips that I use while making classes like this. I'll see you in the next video where I'll show you how to use AI to get pattern ideas. 10. USE AI FOR PATTERN INSPIRATION: In this lesson, I'll show you step by step how you use the online graphic design tool called Canva to come up with ideas for pattern making. First of all, go to the Canva home page, go up to Create a design, and scroll down to Facebook Post Landscape. That will make a particular shape for you to fill with pattern. This is a good general size to fill in. You can choose any size to fill with pattern. Then click on Apps and scroll down and you'll come to one called patterned. I then type in a description of the pattern you'd like. I'm putting in a watercolor flower. You could put in flower pattern or flowers. You can decide how many patterns you'd like camera to give you. I'm just going to go for one click, Generate Pattern. It takes a few seconds and it will create a pattern for you. You can zoom in and out to get a better feel for the pattern. Click Add to Design. There it goes, it fills the shape, it fills the rectangle. And then you can just download it, so you can print it, or you can just leave it on the screen, Sketch your pattern from there if you prefer. It has given you a starting point. What I want to point out is that this can be a good tool to use for ideas. But for me personally, I find no joy in making a manufactured image. The final product. I want to create art that has been inspired by things around me. Yes, but the actual painting of it has to be done by me. I love getting my hands dirty and covered in paint. I would want to take this AI image and make it my own on paper. Join me in the next video where I show you how to seal and protect your artwork. You don't want your beautiful floral art to be destroyed within the first hour of making it. Find out how best to easily preserve your artwork, you and others soon. Joy in the next lesson. 11. WHY WATERCOLOURS & CHARCOAL ARE AN AMAZING COMBINATION: As we've learned, flowers are one of the most recognizable and beloved subjects for painters. When watercolors and charcoal are combined on paper to paint flowers, the results are often breathtaking and full of life. In this lesson, I'll give you a recap of why using this combination will help you to develop your own art style. First would be charcoal can be used to give definition to watercolors. If your watercolor painting needs tabs, clear lines and bits and charcoal is perfect for that. Having clear, crisp lines can be important when painting any subject. This is a handy tool to have ready to have on your desk. Two, using charcoal helps watercolor paintings look more. Three D, strong shadows, that charcoal mix easily. We'll give your flowers life and look like you just pick them off the paper. Three, charcoal helps to add contrast within a watercolor painting. You can create old marks with watercolor alone. But a much speedier way to achieve contrast is to use a medium like charcoal. The fourth, combining watercolors with charcoal is a good starting point for beginners learning mixed media art. You may feel intimidated by the thought of mixing lots of mediums on one piece of paper or canvas. Using charcoal alongside watercolors is an easy way to break free of thinking. You have to stick to using one art medium. Mattie. It's almost time for you to get cracking and start working on your own. I'll see you in the next video for the class round up. 12. SEAL AND PROTECT YOUR WORK: Once you're happy with your painting and have decided it's finish, which is often a hard decision to make, you will want to seal your painting with a fixative spray. This will hold the charcoal and place. If you don't seal your artwork, the charcoal smudge, you touch it or it'll come off the paper over time. You can buy fixative online that is suitable for charcoal and pastels. You'll be able to use it for other projects, but a cheaper alternative is just ordinary hair spray. It will hold the charcoal on to a certain extent, but often leaves a sticky residue and won't give a professional finish. I use this as a student, but I wouldn't do it for my proper art. Well, we've covered a lot in this class. Sadly, it's almost over. To recap on why using watercolors and charcoal such a fantastic combination, take a look at the next lesson. I'll give you four big reasons why using these mediums can work wonders for your art. 13. CLASS ROUNDUP: Hi, well done for completing the class. I hope you've enjoyed experimenting in your sketch books, exploring different techniques, and I've become more confident in mixing up your media. As we have seen, there's no need to stick to only one art medium. And it can be exciting to discover the effects that can be made when mix and match. I'd really love to see your floral patterns. Please share some photos in the gallery. It is amazing that after watching the same lessons, artists come up with such different artwork. I hope to see you in some of my other classes as well. You'll find the information on my skill share bio painting for it.