Painting Gouache Florals

1. Introduction: - Hi , everybody. I'm was trapped. And I'm so excited to share this class with you today I'm painting wash laurels. I'm an illustrator and service pattern designer from Columbus, Ohio, and actually have my undergraduate and graduate degrees both in painting. So I feel right at home here. So wash did somewhere in between watercolor and acrylic paint. It's water soluble, and it's very easy to use. And it has a lot of the tendencies that what color does, but it creates this okay, flat finish. So we're gonna be exercising this medium on some laurel teas today, and I just want to show you the type of style that we're gonna dio. These motifs are pretty popular right now. They're very illustrative and sort of vintage inspired. And that lends itself Teoh Very simplified shapes and really circular compositions that are actually quite easy to handle. So in this class, we're gonna break down the steps in painting out some of these motives. We're gonna start just by drawing some simplify floral motifs, how to draw leave, how to draw a rose in this style. And then we're gonna build up. Teoh are painting practice where we practice just singular motifs like these ones, and we'll get comfortable using wash, and then we'll start with but some of the pieces together. And in the first composition that we're gonna make, we will create some small motives like this one, and I'll walk you through having one, and you can kind of keep going and make a few of them if you like. And then in the second composition, we're going to put lots of these elements together and work our way through a larger, a larger composition. Here, florals never go out of style and are always really fun to work with, especially when the weather is terrible and it's not so floral e outside. This is a great bite sized way to spend an afternoon, and I look forward to sharing it with. 2. Class Project : For this project you'll be creating to floral compositions the 1st 1 you're going to use just a few elements to create a really small and simple motif. You can make just one of them for you to do what I did and put several of them together into a pattern or alarming. Sure, a larger proposition. But that idea with this is that we're just focusing on putting a few almonds together. Maybe a flower on a couple leaves for the second composition. You'll be creating a larger bouquet, so something that could stand on its own as wall art. And this is actually what I intend to do with this is is just a friend and put it up somewhere. But this sort of composition is a little more complicated. You can make it as simple. I think this is a pretty simple one, as I did, or you can make it a little bit more dense. If you really want intense bouquet, it's up to you and your aesthetic, but I love to see it. You produce both compositions, a smaller motif and a larger motif, and go ahead and upload them to the Project Gallery. On our skill share class. I really look forward to seeing what you create and finding inspiration from you 3. Tools & Introduction to the Style : so just a couple things I wanted to share with you about this technique. First of all, it's very illustrative. We're not going for a hyper realistic depiction of flowers, but rather this is pretty simple. It's illustrative, and it's something that can be either simplified even more. Or you can add more and more details and create complex image. It's just up to you and your aesthetic. I'll give you the tools to do it, and then you can decide. This tape of approach does have a few main characteristics. One of them is that the color palette is typically fairly limited. So in my color palette, I stuck with three pinks on and two greens for the most part. And then I have two shades of blue and these air quite common. You often see other sort of dark Richard green or blueish screen that will be used in the in the leaf part of that of the image, as well as a lighter leaf green or event. Or, in my case, I chosen olive green, and then a couple different pinks or peaches I serve include peach in that pink family. So I have a very light peach and then a richer peach color. And then just a more for believing. Torno offset those two, and that's pretty much what I stuck with it. And then I utilized sort of in the antique blue. It's just a little bit of a light blue, and you offset this with a darker blue color. But ultimately it. This is a really pretty limited color palettes. You can certainly make really bright, vibrant floral motifs. It's just if you're sort of trying to stick to the trend, you'll want a more limited color palette. So that is up to you. Other colors. You see, you wish I don't really include in my composition. But you see, a lot of mustardy yellows are golden rod sort of color also included in these, so that gives you one idea. So, aside from this limited color palette, you also have pretty simplified shapes. The roses, as you can see here, are really just sort of wonky ellipses. They're not, uh, I'm not showing you all the petals of the rose. It's just incredibly simple. If I didn't abstract it, and that's pretty typical for this style. So it's fantastic for the beginner who is just looking to jump into florals. And it's also great if you're in advanced painter and are just looking for sort of a breath of, uh, simplification to explore one project so simplified shapes a limited color palette and then , finally, a pretty flat and opaque color. Almost graphic. And actually, you see the style quite a bit completely produced on the computer as well. So affected Steven Idea. It's a pretty flat graphic style. There's not a lot of shading, and it certainly you can add your own flair to it. You'll see, as I paint that there are certain elements that make incredibly opaque. I don't mix much water with my paint. And then there are other elements where it makes a whole lot of water with my paint and sort of treated a little bit more like water color and create a more translucent and very stroke. And sometimes I do that on purpose, sometimes by accident. But I really just embraced the accidents, but I in cruise you to explore what sort of a static you like more and you can even vary it with in your composition. But overall, the trend is to have this sort of flat, opaque color tools that you'll need for this class. Grab a piece of paper just to practice your sketching. With a pencil. You'll need a palette for your paint. This one is a little could be clean, but you can do something simple like a plastic pallet like this issues different wells and then some sick caper. I recommend something at Utilizing Wash. I really recommend using a hot press paper, which has a very smooth surface. The other option is a cold press paper, which has a little tooth to it. Typically, if you're using a watercolor or an ink cold press paper, Teoh tends to work a bit better because that texture really helps. Died the liquid of the water color. But because washes a little bit creamier and a little bit more painterly in a way, the smooth surface tends to work out well, especially because we're really after this flat sort of graphic look that wash can give us that. The paper will reinforce that. So if you're in the market for paper, I recommend a hot pressed paper and something that's £140 or above, which means is a pretty heavyweight paper, and it won't curl if you are putting a water based medium like wash on it. I do like these legion pads, their blocks of watercolor paper, and I like them because they're actually glued at two ends the side and this side. So you work directly on the page in the notebook, and then when it's all said and done and your painting is strike, then you lift it up on detached from the notebook, and it's really hit Nice, because it just keeps it from from curling. So I recommend that, and then you'll need quash. There are a few different types of wash, so I'm showing you some examples here. One of them, this one is acrylic wash on acrylic Clash is just a tad more creamy than regular quash and also cannot be revived by water. So if you're gonna put both of these in a pallets and you put a lid on the palate the next day you come to it. You can add a little water, a drop of water, Teoh your regular wash, and it will realize that the pigment you can use it again if you're familiar with watercolor is the same idea. But acrylic wash operates a little bit more like acrylic paint in that once it's dry, it's dry. You can't revive it, so that's something to keep in mind. I encourage you to explore both if you're new to the medium. I really do prefer that acrylic wash, and part of that is because I have been painting with acrylic paint for like years and years, so it's a little bit more familiar to me. But I like the creamy consistency that it has, and it's slightly more opaque on the page. But either way, the nature of wash is that it's more opaque and flat. Water color is, and honestly, I do have some just regular glass. Sh and I often times just mix it in with my acrylic wash, so I'm not Teoh specific about it. So the type of acrylic wash that I'm using is by a company called Whole Body. Is the whole body acrylic a wash, and you can find these at your local art supply store, becoming lots of different colors. And then that's top of brushes. You want a watercolor brush. These are often sort of very soft But you can also use that for mediums outside of water color. They're usually good for any water based mediums, so that would include wash and acrylic or an ink. And I always recommend a synthetic that they were quite good at developing synthetic brushes. Thes days, and it's quite a bit better for you animal welfare. So consider a synthetic, if possible. I use for the most part around tip, and I really alternate between two sizes. I like a four. It's sort of a smaller size. You can see in comparison in my finger here, so I do recommend having a smaller brush it somewhere around before. But you can go look at him or look at what you have and see you see if there's something that you like. The round brush is nice because it comes to this tip, and so you can use the brush so it's thin, or you can use the side of it and create a thicker line. Then I use another round brush. It's a little bit larger. This is another synthetic around. This is my winter Newton first ones by distrust, a Dick Blick brush, which is liable for store This one, I find comes to really beautiful point when it's wet. So if you're looking for a little variation, I recommend that this is size 12 so it's quite a bit larger. So ultimately, I recommend to round brushes a smaller one and a larger one. And to be quite honest with you, I almost completely rely on this smaller one. If you wanted to dio background like a flat color in the background, I don't often do this. But if you were interested, the type of brush it would be probably most helpful for that is a filbert tip, which, you can see is a flat brush. And it has this sort of U shaped tip, and so that's good for laying down flat colors again. This is synthetic and 3/4 inch wide. That's the measurement here. So you can, uh, you know, kind of explore them and see what you're interested in 4. Drawing Botanical Shapes: All right. So the first thing I'm gonna do is take you through some sketching, so you kind of get a feel for the forms that you and maybe you saying so I'm going to start with some of the foliage, something that's nice. They have a little variety of leaves here. So I'm gonna start by showing you, um, how to do somebody sort of larger leaves like this one. So let's start with a stem. We like to make it curved a little bit and then but part way through this stem, Maybe here. I'm gonna go ahead and make the side of my leaf, which is sort of like a U shape that's really stretched out. Gonna do the same thing on the other side, and then you have an option here. You can just close the leaf off like this, or you can add a little bit of jagged nous to the leaf. And that's what I like to do for variation. So do skin. Can I add a little jagged eggs? That's that leaf. What I can do and what I tend to dio is when I'm painting it, I like to add the's sort of veins, and that's not usually something I draw in ahead of time, but it's definitely good to practice. So if you want to practice that make of Maine running down the center and then just see sort of a little curved can relax, curb March that come off of them at all, all right, and you can put these leaves together. So, for example, I would like to hear singing practice that it looks like a comment shooting their outer space. It's OK if it's not perfect, actually, really, I believe with everything, the more character you add in and the more sort of imperfection, the better the work. And that's because it really speaks to your style and your individual artistic. And so there's to write. The next thing I'm gonna dio is I like to have these sort of branches that I circle around my composition, kind of making it a little bit rounder and guiding your eye with this different scale of elements. I'm gonna show you how to do that. Start with the center line, and then this one I'm going to at the top. Just make a little leave. Shaved is not jagged and connects right back to that line, and then I'm gonna make the same shape. It's like a squeezed you. If you made a really long you shape and then squeeze the edges together, that's what that's like. And we'll make them going all the way down this stem and usually pretty directly across from each other so you can do that way. You can also practice if you want kind of like wispy er whisper your look. Same idea. I'm just moving faster and being a lot less precise. See, this is a little less flat out and a little less perfect, but actually think that effect looks quite a bit better, especially for the type of work that we're doing. Next thing I'm gonna show you are the use little, these little guys. I like to have little Lee use that I spread throughout the composition just to help move your eye a little. Sometimes I have a little white space. I need to fill it up for those. I just make this sort of big, long raindrop shape like that. Then I'll make like another one and another one off of it. Sometimes I'll connect two of them and then have the 3rd 1 do you start off on its own? Can add 1/4 1 is going a different way. I couldn't do them a little bit more like a little sprout there, is it, Play with it, Explore it. But ultimately you're gonna want a sort of larger scale. Leave one, that is it's your eye a little bit more and then some smaller scale ones. This painting I did the similar leaf, but I added another little element to it, and I was just really going for this wispy look. So I made this, like heart, almost did it on two sides like that and then a stem and then another sort of elongated heart. And then I had another Stam and another elongated heart, So I kind of like that really wispy way of doing things. I think it's sands in nice opposition to the more graphic flowers, so something to play with on then also think about leaving some a negative space in your flower or any relief. You can also explore relief that's a little bit spine near or wave yer. So that would go something like this. The center line down these often have a little buddy with them. Ultimately, you're gonna use a lot of fully edge. Many leaves toe help guide your I threw the piece. So it's a good ideas. Teoh practice a lot of, um so that you have lots of different types that you can that you can use. You don't want them all to be the same. Ah, good amount of variety is gonna make your painting really saying we show you one more, which is sort of like this, but has less leaves. And I'm just gonna kind of stylized these leaves a little more for this one. It helps to put the center line in the leaf as you're planning it out. Yeah. One of the main elements of this type of painting are these roses, and they're very graphic, and they're very basic, so I'm gonna show you how I mean them. So I start with that, um, center circle here does not have to be perfect. It's actually better if it's not. And then I'm just gonna make these three or four sort of large U shapes that are very, very relaxed, very stretched out in order. Teoh make this larger circle around the center of the rose and I say three or four because you just have to feel it out. Everyone, every flowers different there. So it's really subtle justice like variation on a large ellipse around here. These have full to now, and they just again make this really sort of relaxed you shape or C shape, and I can make it into layers that there never perfect and don't worry about placement too much. It's a good way to use this style. Todo it. Find your own style and find your own artistic hand. I'm gonna do another one. Usually they're a couple of in a bouquet of varying scales, so you have, like a smaller one. I always make sure in an image to try to dio some larger ones and then some small ones. The same flower. No play on this, which tends to look nice together. Painting is like a flower that is just a simple that has slightly more defined edges Should be your typical grade school flour. It's a lot of fun, and it works out really well just before little pedals there. Right next up, let's practice some of these daisy shapes has started the middle again. These have a little bit pointier, Etch my make almost all my decisions when it comes to flowers and flower shape. As you can see, I'm not working from life. I just kind of work from my head here, but I think a lot about just the variation in shape. So I like the idea that these aren't quite as rounded as thes shapes, which tend to dominate my images. So it's nice to have something. Break it up a little. The next one gonna show you are These types of flowers just have a different overall shape . You're looking at that side of the flower, and this one just make almost a V shape for the flower and then just ill scale of Dench here it's pretty, pretty simple. Can make a little another like a little U shape for the where it meets the stem stand down here. I like to put just some contrast in color in here. Sometimes I like to put some little dashes or dots just to kind of mix up. The imagery have some things that are more busy, some things that are really playing. Speaking of more busy. I'm gonna show you how to do this sort of flour, which has quite a bit going on. It's actually quite simple, but it definitely takes a little more time than some of these more simple flowers going to start with the new sheets. Oh, I'm actually just going to start with the little point. And what I'm referring to here is the point where the flower meets system just gives me an idea. Is toe wearing in a build off of? I have essentially three layers of petals, a smaller layer sin. Just gonna can make this in perfect, wavy little pedal. We can overlap each other sometimes that's really nice. And then I'm gonna go ahead and make the middle later. I'm gonna start at this point, and I'm just going to make a little bit larger flower petal coming coming up this side pillow wrinkle in the top of that panel makes it look quite nice. I'm going to do the edges first before I do the middle. I'm gonna do this centre here. Then I'm gonna build off of this room. I sort of last two layer of pedal and again, I like to work from the sides just helps me kind of keep in mind the shape of my flower overall. And then I make a little you shape and then bam your son when I paint this and what I'm gonna do is paint it all one color and then I just a little contrast ing streaks, usually just a darker or lighter shade. So I can if I want a practice. Aiken, just practice where you put those usually put him in varied order at the top of each pedal . Also, just a nice aesthetic. That sort of mix is up the look, so to show you how it kind of built this panel shape, it's almost like a rectangle that's tighter on one end than the others and has a curve to it. And then I just make a little sort of swirly line at the end there. So that's what I'm looking at as the pedal shape, and that's what I had just used again and again in different form. But this is another one. It's best not to worry too much about it. Just practice it and can't get it to how you want it to look that doesn't have to be perfect, this one. I actually looking at it, and I think it would be kind of nice to have a paddle that's like falling down a little bit . You think about things like that, which is another very simple one. Start with the center. Then I make four large pedals, and you can kind of dio whatever you want with the end of that pedal. And then I have just some paint in another color that I go in the middle there. So that's nice. Mixes it up a little. The final element I really like Teoh include in my paintings are branches with bloods on them, so an example would be here. And then These have tiny little flowers all over. And here's another example here you can see I used buds throughout here, so it's a nice way to add just little spots of color around without committing Teoh. A large flower. One of the best things about this type of painting is it's great to have variation in scale , so you want to have these sort of larger elements that dominate that I am mixed up with these smaller, teeny tiny little dots and little elements here. So I'm going to start with just a typical bud shape. I started the branch. These are really very simple. Just kind of make this leaf shape almost at the edge of the branch. And then I like, uh, give it a little, drank it edge, and then it's nice when you paint it. If you put a different color either at the top or the bottom. Usually I put, like, a little bit later color. It just makes white with whatever color I'm using to make it just slightly different. And then I will use that and you can see something. I did hear that I actually really enjoyed. Was I the part where the bud met the stem? I just used the lions instead of a flat colors. I can I did that. So there's a but just typical. But you can always had another part of your branch. Just a neat little point there if you like. All right, so but one but two, Start with this Sam, and I'm just gonna make some branches coming off of the stem. Cannot a little ending at the same place and more or less going the same direction. And then I just put, That's here. I When I paint this, I just make them in perfect little dabs of paint. Another idea is to make a but that has served long, wavy stamp. You put a little dab of paint at them like that. Maybe a leave sort of elongated and wispy comes off of one end. Maybe it connects Teoh, another wispy leaf. Another idea for buds. Just two branches. And then I just put dabs pink along the sides of each branch. Finally, to do something like this would, I would do is dressed, make some branches and then these air, just like almost like little hard shapes. But with the third Lupin. Um, so they look like this like that. They just the labor room up. You can have little Bunches, some that just have to loops. Obviously, perfection. Mingo saves in every video. Perfection is not the name of the game here. It's better to have Ah, through wonky, hand drawn look adds a lot of character and flavour to the work, and I'm all about that. Embrace your creative self, so that's like another kind of bud. So I recommend kind of walked you through the elements that I tend to return. Teoh. I recommend practicing that quite a bit. Get a couple of pages of sketches going so that you can really feel like you have a little arsenal of elements that you can use, and then we'll start building some little bouquets and you can, and I'm sure you will develop your own variations off of this A z Muchas you wish. And that's wonderful. Just keep keep going with it. So I practice thes and then, uh, see where you're sketching takes you. 5. Painting Single Floral Motifs: All right, So I am ready to paint and been practicing drying my my teeth. So I haven't ideas. Teoh, how some of these elements are going to be built. I've got my palate with my wash colors set up. Is that not very neat? But pallets usually never are. I'm going to start with just this olive green and just by practicing some leaf shapes. So what you want to dio when you're practicing motif is just think about what sort of line variation you can achieve with your brash and explore how much water you want to use with your quash. With the water cooler rows, add water to the pigment itself with Gua shi. Don't do that. I just add water to my brush and that utilize it with a pretty wet but not stopping brush and you'll be able to see once you start working. If that element that you're painting starts, so look transparent, then you have a lot of water in there. And if the paint strokes, it's on the surface a little more than you don't have quite enough water, and what you want is something in between. So I'm just exploring using the tip of my brash and then pressing down to get a figure line coming back up to the tip. You can make a branch that way, probably can't see super well because my hand is in the way but don't fit since their spiny leaves, where you can put two of those brush strokes together to make a big relief. If you are coming from a watercolor background, then you might be used Teoh leaving a lot of white in your paper or in your elements and in quashes to live to you. I don't tend to do that, but I know number of artists who dio gonna just practice the word your a leave, who would sat, do that outline first and then kind of paint my way inside and certainly feel free. If you're more comfortable drying your motifs out with a pencil first and then adding paint , that's totally fine. That's actually how I build the bouquets. And how we recommend doing that is planning out a little bit with your pencil, you know, mix up a darker green. When I do that, I like to use this sort of hunter Green Jamison's tales by right here. I like to say I had a blue like a dark blue oppression blue to actually just gonna mix it in Teoh. This existing color had just a little water. Your interests. This is ah, type of paint you can just mix with their pain prompts. You don't have to use a palette knife. It's actually not even thick enough for that. See how that looks? It's nice to have a contrast in your pretty much every element of your composition, so I can see that I was there alternating between having a really dry brush right here and then having Teoh much water through the center. That's really transparent. Singer is gonna go back in with a little more paint, a little less water. Try even it out. Okay, then really use that same color and just make another little branch with some sort of more round parts. I do recommend when you are working with colors, especially the greens. For some reason, it always turns out bit nicer, but I recommend just adding your own flair to the color. Like with this green. It's almost too brilliant to use it right out of the two, but it just kind of allows you to add your own signature to the work in and in another way . All right, I'm gonna practice one more, and this is sort of wispy. I'm gonna go back to this. I love these ones are just like heart. So most really elongated hearts like Teoh Branch, Canada coming up. It just adds a nice for idea form. This is almost a month, Chief. U N C N folk art. All right, I'm gonna show you a couple flowers. You start with the iconic Rose. And for that, I'm gonna use my light peach color to make a couple. So you can either draw out just a sort of wonky lem ellipse go from there, or I like Teoh, make three sort of along U shaped brushstrokes that all meet up with each other to form a wonky lips. And I am fill it in a little bit. This definitely would be a moment where I could use my larger round brush. But I like that I like sort of having these choppier brushstrokes. That's up to you. The roses have about three or four layers, so you have to let each layer dry in between something and move on, Teoh a little bit darker and just pulled my coral. I'm gonna make a smaller rose the same way. Do not have nearly enough water. This without that line A little. Okay. Also gonna show you a little branch, the bud or a couple buds on it. You have flowers is nice, Teoh. Have some sort of various buds and also get into another one right here. Draw a couple more branches because I want to show you some different options. You everything now has to dry before we can go into the next step. That was just every Wait a minute. You need your really simple flower just on its side. Blue sort of back powder, blue color skin counted transparent There, especially when you're working on paper as we are with squash. Keep in mind that the more you touch something, the more you think kind of dig up the fiber of the paper and it will become harder and harder to work. So you typically don't want Teoh be going over the same thing at too many times because it can really sort of damage that paper. One of my greatness this one. I'm gonna go ahead and start making, uh, flowers. So I'm gonna do just a couple petal shapes that really be sack. So they're almost like hurt triangles. Nice, usually to have one kind of falling were like pieces of pizza. And then you can do some layers if you want. Thies I can't let him fall apart into just some brush strokes. Is that a flower with blocks of pedals increases just a nice to have some variety in the way that you make your flowers. I'm gonna go back Teoh this branch and show you How did you? A pretty large bud. I'm gonna use this same light. Color it this bud shape which really mirrors the shape of the leave. This is very, very easy. Just some little sort of bright buds When that dries will just go ahead and add a little touch of peach alot glimmer there. It's great to have these really simple elements versus more complex on this one. I'm gonna go ahead just a simply we're gonna add just some dots of color going to use the mustard. I think the mustard yellow looks fantastic. With this olive, you should start out by giving each little brand Chabad and then I'll kind of more and don't have branches. Had some nice movement to your piece as well. All right, so I'm gonna handle thes roses. My water is getting super monkey, but I keep on going since richest practicing. So I'm gonna go ahead and adds increases Teoh these. And in order to do that, I'm going to start with this lighter flower. I'm gonna use my choral. That's just a little bit darker. Then the light peach Britain, Listen, color family, and I'm gonna start by adding three lines, which just sort of mirror the shape of the rose Pretty close to the outside. And I'm just going to keep the paints right at the very tip of my paintbrush. And you don't want to too much water for this. You actually, if anything, you want it to be a little bit creamier and I'm gonna start out really, lights. I have a wispy line that I'm gonna press down. Then we lift up again and I'm gonna do that again, taking it the whole It doesn't have to mash up exactly with the shape of your rose. It's actually better if it doesn't, it just sort of miers it in a way like that. Now, how many of these you add is up to you? I usually do two layers. Sometimes the more I think this one, I'm gonna do more. But there are two things to keep invite, and one is Teoh Stack that. So I have a gap in my outer layer that so I'm gonna have, like, the middle of my next line and then the other thing to keep reminders, we're gonna put a little dark center to our flower. So you don't want to go all the way in sending ago, like have the I just think this adds such a beautiful touch. Maybe one more layer for me. This sometimes it just takes some practice figuring out what you like, how you want yours to look and how to achieve that with this pain. So I think that's pretty good. We'll leave it at that. I'm gonna move on to this one, all right? Since I have the peach on my brush and is really not ready yet, but I'm just gonna add yeah, little dot their little doubt of peach to kind of brighten up that. But with these larger buds, I'm gonna go back to this coral color because again, it's the same color family just a bit darker. And I'm gonna add some wispy brushstrokes and I'm not gonna worry at all. Oh, this is stolen. So, actually, now the best. Yeah, I'm not gonna worry at all at the out, making it thicker and one side earth and just wispy is on after. So I have them coming from the bottom and then we have a couple commit the tab And then I like to think about the little scene when you have a but so trying to come in. Do you think of that? This one was too wet at the bottom when I went in, so shooter waited longer. But that is OK. It's just practice. And then I'm actually going to use almost the same technique with this, which is also still a little wet. But I can show you. You start by adding just some wispy lions, just if you to the bottom of each paddle and then you can stop there. Where can start to build opposite kind of defined the sides a little bit more. Maybe in between. At a couple, just a few at the top. You don't want to outline the pedals. You just want to emphasize this, uh, pedal has lots of creases. It's really full like that. All right. And the last thing I'm gonna show you just for practice. I like to mix up a nice start color haven't already mixed here. What I did was I just a mixed up some dark blue dark green and a little red just to try to get not black but close. Teoh black. The reason why I like to mix up my own and not just use black straight out of the tube all the time. Certainly, jokes sometimes is because usually end up with the color. It just has a nice tint to it. Because you're using colors are already in your palate. Ties back nicely. Zillow to Watari. Sometimes I get to water you when I start to mix my colors mixing too much water. Um, but that's OK as a nice contrast. And then I'm not gonna do it here cause it's just practice. But what I would do is wait for to dry and then go in with a little dab of white and put little tiny white dots in there. I would also add some sort of visual elements of this blue flower, like a little dotted texture, maybe dark blue or even this black color. And then I would consider adding veins, uh, darker beans to some of these leaves. Although I went to all of them. So this is a great just practice for your elements. We're gonna move on to our small bouquet now. 6. Composition #1: Small Bouquet : the next thing I'm gonna dio is make a small bouquet. So to make a small bouquet, you are going to just put a couple the elements that you already worked on together into just a pretty simple little arrangement like this one can see how they start to speak to each other. I have a new piece of paper here. I'm going to go ahead and just draw out some of the elements that I want. I'm going to sketch really lightly sometimes depending on what color quash you use. The pencil lines will continue to show up. You want to sketch lately and then actually, sometimes you could even go back and erase it Saves you said the ghost of the line, which is probably what I'm gonna dio so sketches out really lightly. I'm gonna go ahead and paints, and I'm gonna use the same color palette that I practiced with that I worked with earlier. I like Teoh. Start with the foliage. Usually when I'm painting, I think that it helps me pick out the colors for the flowers and think about how they're gonna be formed in a little bit more thoughtful way. When I can kind of see where I've already established in contrast, on the page. So I'm going to start with foliage and I'll get back to you when I'm ready to move on. Teoh blue flowers. And as I'm painting these branches, I am thinking about how I'm sort of alternating between the darker green and the lighter green and trying to sort of put, uh, some light elements in some dark elements on each part of my motif here. - Right now, I'm gonna move on to my flowers. I like to have this light peach as the larger flower. And even when adding my brush strokes to the middle of this flower, I'm still thinking about the direction that the flower grows, the way the lines I'm gonna athlete or will go and kind of moving in that direction because some of the brushstrokes are gonna be visible. And so it's nice to have some kind of mirror the the way you're gonna emphasize them. - Good thing about watches that because it's pretty opaque. If you don't love something, for the most part, you can paint over it. If it's pretty dark element, like this little blue flower, it might be better, Teoh. Just try altering it. But the pain can handle. Have the pink and handle some edits. You certainly can't. A race was already there, but you can pain over air changing. Just mixing up the same green used for this, but with slightly more blue in it. Teoh, add a little wien. Okay, so and kind of just waiting for a couple of these elements to dry, but, well, I'm waiting. I'm thinking that do once a little bit, kind of spicier composition. So I'm gonna add some small little flowers kind of coming out of right here. And I'm not even gonna put a stem because I'm just gonna make basically little multi part blobs. Julia exes. A little tease, little hearts just to add a little bit smaller element. I got a little sloppy. They're not perfect by any means. And that is the idea. All right? Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and work on these roses a bit. - Okay ? I did see a wet, but I still have on my coral, so I don't even go into my blue here and actually going to use a later blue just some little sort of dashes just visually break up this eventually, it'll have a nice contrast between large flat images and then some really small elements. So these dashes add some nice small elements. Yeah, all right. I'm gonna move forward with my coral rose, and I can't forget the highlights on my butt here. Que in the last thing we need you, the centers of these flowers. So I've got my motif that I made here and I decided just to add some other little elements here. And when I did that, I just thought maybe one flower a couple branches and they wanted them scattered throughout the page. So I have lots of little bouquets that make up one large composition. So, just as I did with this bouquet, I just sketched out what I was looking to do. And I'm starting with my foliage, and then I'm gonna go in and do the flowers 7. Composition #2: Large Bouquet: I am starting on my large composition. And just as with the last composition, I am going to start out by sketching out where I want all my elements ago. And with this and starting with the larger shapes the roses and then starting to add in some of the smaller shapes that will pull your eye around and filling in some of the, uh, sort of empty areas with smaller elements like little buds and smaller foliage elements. And now I'm gonna go in and mix up my darker green and start Teoh work on some of the fully edge. And I'm just starting with these larger, flatter leaves that are going Teoh, give me broader areas of dark color that's going to help me figure out the flow of my composition a little bit more, especially when it comes to selecting colors for that other elements I love adding these wispy er, um, strokes of foliage there, actually even a little bit more translucent. I'm not going to go back in and add more paint to them because I think they add a little bit of a nice variety to the image, and all I'm doing is starting with a really light touch and then pressing down harder to get a thicker stroke in the middle and then lifting up again on my brush. So it ends in this wispy, really light line. Now I'm moving on to my lighter green. I'm sticking with that olive green I used in the previous composition. I think that they contrast each other really nicely for the most part with that olive green and thinking about it as just an accent, I really wanted that darker green Teoh speak more within the composition, so I'm mostly sticking to smaller, um, little leaf shapes, some sort of viney leaves. But those big, blocky shapes are dark green for the most part. If I wanted a more autumn inspired composition that was a little bit more dominated by olives and mustard yellows, then I probably would have flipped it. So now I'm picking up the peach color, the coral color that I use, and I am using my larger brush, and I'm just starting to work through some of these really large shapes of the roses, just trying to get for the most part of flat coloring. I'm going to go ahead and work on a lighter rose. Now, I'm careful when I'm putting too wet shapes next to each other to try Teoh, Um, sort of manage that border in such a way so that the paint doesn't bleed from one element to the other. Using another pink here I used in my earlier composition in the smaller elements, I think it would tie the two nicely. After I'm done with the large rose shapes, I'm gonna go onto the base layer for my smaller flower elements. Some of the point to your flowers and the buds. So I'm just gonna work my way around. I remember him on my first layer. I have to let all of the strike before I go in and add my details. This is the flower that has all of the pedals, and we worked on it earlier, and this is kind of what it looks like in the composition, and it's actually in this composition. It's working a bit better for me to have a looser approach to it. So I really just sort of piled brush strokes on to one another in those general huddle forms. Now I'm working on the blue flower. That's on its side a little bit, starting to add in some of the smaller elements. Some of the buds remember to keep a good variety of little tiny buds that are just DATs versus of large, flat plains of color. Some of my larger elements air dry. Make sure you give yourself enough time, Teoh. Let those elements really dry out so you don't bleed the colors too much. And I'm just going back in with my dark or quarrel. And I'm starting to add some of the pedal creases and some of the details into the composition that are really gonna make it sing and really bring the whole thing together. For the most part, I'm using my smallest brush that I have for this project. And that's the number four around synthetic just so I can really focus on some of those finer details at this stage. Just as with the previous stage, I tend to work color by color, so I really think about everything. Once I have the coral on my brush, I think about everything that I want in that image that's gonna that's gonna use coral, and I sort of moved my way around that way, I'm going to move on to dio any details I wanted in that lighter peach color. So some of these roses gonna start out with those creases. For the most part, the majority of my detail came with that darker coral color. I didn't really have much left in the way of using this light peach. And again, I'm just using that brushstroke where I start out really lightly pressed down, hard to get a broad center of my line and then pull up again lightly. Now it's time to add some of the small details some of the dashes in that blue flower. And I'm just going back through my olive green and adding just some creases into those larger, darker leaves just to break them up a little. Now I'm gonna mix up my dark color That's almost a black. I use my dark blue dark green and red to do that, and I'm gonna go ahead and add the centers to these larger flowers in some of the smaller ones that point to your flower at a center to that and then because they did this with my smaller composition. And I really want these two to tie together. I'm just gonna go ahead and add these little dashes to the background and you add such nice visual variety and movement throughout the piece. Forgot a stem. There's is a good time, Teoh. Find anything that you had missed previously. You picking up my white, and I'm gonna add just some white dots to these darker areas of the larger flowers. And that's it. I think I've completed my larger composition and it looks pretty nice, Um, especially in relationship to the smaller one. 8. Closing : e just want to thank you so much for taking this class with me. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope that you really got to explore some of the potential of the medium of flash whether you have or haven't explored before. And just have a moment to lose yourself in some floral composition. So don't forget toe outflow your project to the projects gallery. I'd love to see your compositions that you made your smaller motif large and will be thrilled to give you feedback. So until next time, uh, enjoy. Thank you.