Painting Sweet Treats with Watercolor

1. Intro: Do you love chocolate and barbie and sweets as much as I do? Well, if the answer is yes, I think you will enjoy this class. Hi, I'm Emily Naine, freelance illustrator, watercolor artists and creator of elainecreate.com. In this class, we will play with watercolor and create beautiful illustrations of your favorite dilutions, desserts. I will show you all art materials that you need for this project. We'll start with very simple sketches of desserts. Then we'll practice different brush chops, basic water quality techniques that will help you to understand water color bar and improve your painting skills. I will show you step-by-step how to draw the illustration, how to find the perfect color combination, and then add layers and textures. When you use the right tools and techniques, watercolor is so foreign and easy to work with. This class is designed to make the painting process very joyful and easier to approach. I hope you will enjoy this class and get inspired to paint something today. I'm always so excited to see what you come up with. Please upload your projects here or share on social media. #Irena phase can share. Get your brushes ready and let's paint some delicious desserts. 2. Art Supplies: I will show you all art materials I use for this project and you can consider using them as well, but you don't have to use the same brands. It's really up to you and what art supplies you love and feel comfortable working with. Let's start with paper. You will need to watercolor paper or mixed media paper. I would highly recommend using a watercolor paper that is at least 140 pounds. When you work with paints and add a lot of water, your paper doesn't ripple. Let me show you the difference between 140 pounds and 98 pounds paper. Here I have 98 bonds mixed media sketchbook and you can see that I painted with just a few light layers, I didn't add too much paint and water and the page stayed nice and flat. Here I worked with more paint and more water and you can see that paper isn't flat anymore and if I add more layers on top, the page will ripple a lot. That's why for this project I recommend watercolor paper that is at least 140 pounds and when we add a lot of layers, the page will stay nice and flat. Here I have a few brands that I really love and I already mentioned them in my previous classes. The first one is Arches. Arches is very high-quality paper. You can find it online or in art supply stores. It comes in watercolor pads like this one or in large sheets, so you can cut them in smaller pieces and it also comes in three grades, hard-press, cold press and rough. Cold press paper has a little texture. Rough is really textured and perfect for abstract work and wet and wet technique. Hard press is my favorite because it's very smooth and perfect for illustrations where you want to add small details and that's why I will use it for this project. As I mentioned before, Arches paper is a beautiful quality and it's great to work with this paper, but it's expensive, so if you're not ready to spend extra money on paper, I will show you other great options. Here, I have Fluid for Bryana and Canson. These brands are affordable and the quality of the paper is a really good. So it's really up to you. You can use any of these brands or paper that you already have and love to work with. Now let's talk about brushes. I have a handful of brushes in different size and shape but these two, I use all the time and when I travel or plan to paint outside, I can only take this two brushes or maybe just this one because it's very versatile. Watercolor brushes have very soft bristles and they come in synthetic or natural hair. This is Sable da Vinci brush in size two. It looks big, but look what happens when I add some water. You see how tiny the point is. This brush is very good quality and I can create from very small details to large brush strokes. Here I also have very old synthetic brush for applying masking fluid. Later I will tell you more how to work with masking fluid and how to keep your brushes safe. Now let's talk about paints. Any water color paints you have will be fine for this project. I will just quickly show you what paints I use and what brands I love and recommend. You can use a pan set or watercolor paints in tubes. Here, I have a palette and most of the colors by Mijello and Mission Gold, which I absolutely love and I also buy paint in tubes by different brands and then squeeze them on the same palette. Here I also have pencil eraser, two containers with water and paper towel. For highlights and creating glossy effect, I have some supplies here and they are optional, so you can choose what works better for you. For example, acrylic white paint, white gel bang or masking fluid. When it comes to working with masking fluid, make sure to use very old or unexpensive synthetic brush, because masking fluid can ruin your brush real quick. Don't forget to wash your brush right after using masking fluid, because when it's dry, it's really hard to get it off from the bristle. Also when you work on big projects and use a lot of masking fluid, I would recommend to keep a jar of soapy water and clean your brush every 40 seconds. So, that's how you can keep your brushes safe. I also love using simple toothpick or vegetable pick and in this case I don't have to worry about cleaning my brush and when I'm done, I can just throw it away and next time I can use new one. It may look like a lot of art supplies, but basically, all you need is watercolor paper, paints, one pencil and brush, water and paper towel. Get your supplies ready and let's get started. If you are new to watercolor, please check out my previous class, Watercolor for beginners. We will start with basic introduction to watercolor tools, I will walk you through color theory, we will learn how to blend and mix colors and create different brushstrokes. Then come back to this class and we'll put it all into action by creating fun watercolor illustration. 3. Inspiration Board: One of the best resources of delicious looking desserts is, of course, Pinterest. It's totally okay to go online, look for some references, and get some inspiration. What I would do for this project is, first, I start searching for images that I can use as a reference. Let start, for example, with cupcakes. Here at the top, I will type cupcakes and you will see a lot of great photos. Next, I will find a few images that I really like and put them in separate Pinterest board. When I'm ready to sketch, I'm not going to copy the exact image. What I will do is I will combine small details from all of the photos. For example, here, I love glossy chocolate, and here, I love the contrast between red and green. Maybe I will also find something to put at the bottom. That's how I usually do it. I created an inspiration board with beautiful dessert photos. I will leave the link in the class description. Feel free to check it out and get some inspiration as well. 4. Reference Images for the Class: As I mentioned before, when I work on illustrations especially for those situations, I don't use just one photo as a reference. I love collecting a few images and put them altogether in one painting. In this class, I'm not going to copy just one image. Instead, I created a Pinterest board where you can find a lot of beautiful photos for you to use or you can use this illustrations. That's what my final illustrations will look like, and I will attach all the photos in the class description. I also love mixing up the process a little bit, so I can draw from live subjects and then add details from photos I like. I encourage you to experiment and don't limit yourself. It's not about creating detailed realistic drawing. This class is more about letting go and just enjoying the process. 5. Brush Warmup: Before you start painting, it's great to warm up your hand, play with the brush a little bit and mix some colors. It will help you to be more confident when you paint, get more control of your brush, and get to know your art supplies better. What I'm going to do is I will create different brush strokes with this brush, and see how versatile it is. I will fill out this whole page with different lines and marks in no particular order, just to warm up the hand. For thin lines, I barely touch the paper with the tip of the brush, and when I put some pressure, this stroke gets thicker, and the bigger your brush the bigger the stroke will be. Play with the brush, try going from very thin to thick lines by putting some pressure, and then slowly pulling up until the brush barely touches the paper again. To see what lines your brush can do, don't be afraid to experiment. Just let go and practice using it, and even if this page is a complete mess, you will learn something new about your brush. I will add a lot of random marks, very loose and fast brush strokes. This page is not about composition, is just about practice. Since the body of the brush is so large, it can hold a lot of water pigment and you can see I continue painting without dipping my brush and paint and there is still paint on the brush. It's just great for big watercolor washes, abstract work and wet on wet technique. On this page I will just play around with the brush, put from tiny dots to large marks, this way and we'll see the full potential of the brush, and when I'm ready to paint, I know exactly what to expect from it. When you are shopping for brushes, it can be overwhelming to choose only one because there is a really big variety in different shapes, sizes, brands, and prices. My advice is don't stress about what art supplies other people use, and how fancy these supplies are. Get on with one or two good brushes that you can afford, and by saying good brush I don't mean expensive brush. To me good watercolor brush is in the brush that holds a lot of water and pigment, which should be versatile and very comfortable in my hand. Now I will show you the basic watercolor techniques that we'll use in this project. First one is wet on wet technique. Wet on wet technique is when you apply color to wet paper. You can see that when I add paint to wet surface, the pigment just flows around on the paper. When it tries, it creates very soft marks. Second one is wet on dry technique. Here I paint on dry paper. In this case, you have more control over the pigment and your brush and when it dries, you get crispy lines. The last one is glazing technique. It's when you add another layer of paint on already dry painted area. This technique is great for creating shadows and layers. Watercolor is transparent, so when you add another layer of the same color, you will get very intense shades and great textures. If you combine two different colors, you will get the third one in between, like here. As you can see, there is a lot of different brush strokes and marks you can make using just one brush, and it's a really good warm-up practice that will help you to be more confident with watercolor. Give yourself at least 5-10 minutes, and after some practice, let's paint delicious cupcakes. 6. Cupcake: Pencil Outline: Okay, guys, let's draw the cupcake. I will start with pencil outline. First, I tried to picture and kind of plan where I want the illustrations to be on the page because I don't want it to be too small or too big. Before I start working on watercolor paper, I get a scrap of regular office paper and do a quick sketch. I draw the frame, and think of the composition, and how I want to fill the illustration. For example, if I want to draw a one big cupcake in the center of the page, I will draw the line right in the middle. It will help me with the symmetry. I want the bottom part of the cupcake to be much smaller than top part. I will put some marks here and quickly start drawing without any details because it's just a draft sketch. For the top part, I will draw the frosting covered in chocolate, and the frosting will have some kind of three levels, so I will divide this line in three parts and just draw the frosting. On top, I will draw a big strawberry. Also, I will cover the cupcake with chocolate, and you can put something at the bottom if you want to. When I'm done with the sketch, I know exactly what I want to draw and what my cupcake should look like, so now I can go back to watercolor paper. At the beginning I draw very lightly, and maybe it's hard for you to see all the details now, but I will make the sketch darker so you will see everything better. First, I will put some marks for top and the bottom of the drawing, and next I will draw the line right in the middle. It will be the balance line, and it will help you with the symmetry. Lightly, draw the outline for the cupcake. Do you remember the quick sketch that we did at the beginning? Even though we spent only few minutes on it, it will save us a lot of time while working on this drawing. When you draw rough sketches before the actual painting, you can quickly try out different compositions. You can change the proportions, angle, and different details. While working on this quick sketches, you kind of start picturing, what do you want to see on your final illustration. You think of the color combination, where the light and shadows will be, and it really helps during the process. This will save you a lot of time once you're ready to work on watercolor paper, and it will also help you to avoid a lot of erasing. Because if you start directly on good paper and the sketch doesn't fit on the page, or the proportions look awkward, or maybe you want different background or details, you will start erasing non-stop and it will ruin your watercolor paper. Some types of paper are really sensitive to erasing, and when you erase a lot, you can ruin the surface of the paper. It may look fine, but as soon as you apply paint, you'll see tiny crumbs everywhere, it may look messy, and also the paint will not be as bright and vibrant. Is there anything more yummy than a chocolate drip on a cupcake? I'm talking about the sweet glaze running down the edges of the frosting. So let's try to achieve the perfect drip effect in this illustration. When little chocolate or glaze falling down the sides, we need to copy the movement of the frosting, and this way, it will show that the cupcake is not flat and it has low and high points. When I'm done with light outline and everything looks fine, I can go darker so you will see everything better. Also, keep in mind that watercolors are transparent, and if you paint with very light colors, this pencil marks will show up on your final composition. So if you don't want too many lines, try to draw very light and don't press too hard. Now that you've created a pencil sketch, you can polish the drawing, and carefully remove the lines you don't need, and it's ready for watercolor. 7. Cupcake: Color Palette: Before we start painting, let's find the color combinations that will be great for this composition. For the frosting and strawberry, I will take permanent rose, crimson and red. You don't have to use the same colors. Feel free to play with your favorite ones. When it comes to chocolate, I love playing with different colors and mix them together to get really interesting tones. Instead of using just one brown color, play around with your paints to get a really interesting look of your chocolate painting. Here are some basic colors for light areas. We can use brown sienna for darker spots, burnt umber, and for really dark, we can use sepia. Here's a trick to finding more colors for your chocolate painting. Let's take purple and mix it with these three colors. Sienna itself is light and orangey. By mixing it with purple, you can get this really nice brown color. The mix of burnt umber with purple will give you another really nice brown color with cool tones. The mix of sepia with purple is really intense and dark color. Now instead of purple, I will mix up the same three colors with crimson. You can see that instead of cool tones, you will get warmer colors. Also keep in mind that by adding more or less water, you can get variations of colors from intense and bright, to very light and diluted. What it means is, if you add more water, you will get lighter colors. If you add more paint, you will get brighter and more intense colors. Also, when it comes to watercolors, while the paint is still wet on the paper, it may look really bright and intense, and when it dries, it doesn't look as colorful as before. So just keep it in mind. 8. Cupcake: Applying Color: Let's add some color to the cupcake. I will start painting the frosting, and we'll take a little lighter rose color and cover the whole surface. For darker areas on any of the chocolate, and close to the edge of the frosting. I will mix rose with crimson and add some shadows here. It will give the illusion of 3D look. Right now, I paint a wet and wet, and when the layer dries, it will have really nice and soft gradient from light to darker rose colors. If you have too much water on paper, you can easily remove it with dry brush or paper towel, just easily dab around and the brush will get all the extra water you don't need. Before painting chocolate, I need to wait till the pink frosting is dry because if it's still wet, and I add dark colors the paint will go on light area and it will look a little bit messy. Now, let's add some color to strawberry. I'm not adding too many details for now. Just a few loose, brush strokes. While it's drying, let's find the spots for highlights and shadows. This [inaudible] will be covered in chocolate and it will have a glossy look. If the light comes from this side, we'll have a very big highlight here on this spot. This area will be in the shadow from the strawberry and it will be really dark. The cupcake has curvey lines and it also has high, and low ones. To create this round look of the frosting, we need to keep in mind that high points will be light and low points will be dark. When the frosting layer is dry, let's add some colors to chocolate. I will start with very light mix living some spots for highlights, and let's cover the whole area of chocolate glazing with this light brown mix. I will get more paint and go around some areas just to show you what spots will be really dark, and what spots we need to live lighter. Now, let's add more layers to the frosting. By drawing the line here, we are showing that this is the darkest spot, and we're dividing the frosting in separate levels. I added a lot of water and just a tiny bit of paint. So the mix is a little light and delicate, and when the paint dries it will be almost transparent, and later they'll add more layers to create this 3D look for the frosting. Next, I will take some purple diluted with water, so the mix is really light not too dark for this delicate pink frosting, and add some brush strokes here. I'm not going to touch the middle part because it's at the lightest part of the frosting. I gently dab around adding some shadows. You can also add some purple to the highlight on the strawberry. It will give the illusion of reflection. To make the edges a little bit softer, just take our wet clean brush, and gently pull the paint, and if it's too much water on the painting, you can easily remove it with paper towel. We need to leave this part out really light, because this is the highest point of the frosting. I'll be adding some purple around and this part will be untouched. Now, I will mix darker color and add another layer on top. You can use the mix of sepia and purple, or both amber and purple, and for really dark spots, I will mix sepia with purple with less water, and add some layers here. In watercolor, we always go from light to dark and you can create really nice textures by adding many layers, but if you start with dark color and later you decided to add lighter tones. Unfortunately, light paint will not show up on dark paint, But it doesn't mean that you can't use other medium. You can paint with jell pen, acrylic or oil paint on top of watercolor. Just keep in mind that when you work with watercolor, it's always great to start with light layers, and then build the shape by adding darker tones. You can see that while working on this illustration, I use a lot of water and paint. I add a lot of layers and the page is still nice and flat, and If I would work on a thinner paper, the page would ripple a lot. I will paint the wrapper in light pink, and then I will add more layers once completely dry. This part of the strawberry is really dark, and will be nice to show the contrast. I will add a really dark mix of Sepia and purple. Now, I will take Crimson and with one brush stroke I will add dark lines, and you can see that I'm leaving some space between them. Next, I will take darker color and add another layer. It will give 3D look to this wrapper. The gaps between dark lines are too big. I will soften up the edges by going around the wet clean brush, and if you want to give a cartoonish look, you can take black liner or gel pen, and add the outline to the cupcake. Now, the illustration is almost finished. I'll just go back and forth, and we'll add small details. In some areas, I will add dark color and in some spots I will add a white gel pen to show the glossiness of the chocolate, and here you have fine watercolor cupcake. I hope you enjoyed painting it and now, let's create something else. 9. Let's Draw Ice Cream: Now let's draw ice cream. Just like we did with cupcake, I want to see how the illustration would fit on the page, so I will take a scrap of paper and do a quick sketch. I will be drawing a waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream. I want to fit the whole illustration right in the middle of the page. This will be our waffle cone. You can see a small part of one scoop of ice cream and another scoop of ice cream right on top. No need to be too detailed or accurate here because this is just a draft sketch. After the sketch, let's draw the ice cream on watercolor paper. I'm going to put the marks for the top and the bottom part of the ice cream. When I draw outline, I don't press too hard and draw very lightly, so if I need to change something, I don't have to do lot of erasing and I will go dark later so you can see what I'm doing. I will make the top ice cream a little bit bigger. Next, I will polish the sketch and erase the lines that I don't need anymore. Before I start painting, let's find the color combination that will be great for this illustration. The first one is yellow ocher. Next one is burnt sienna. Little bit darker, is burnt umber and for really dark spots, I'll be using sepia. When you use just one color, the painting may turn out really flat and boring. If you use several colors, they will blend together and create really beautiful watercolor effect. 10. Ice Cream: Applying Color: Let's paint our ice cream. I will start with the cone. What I'm going to do, I dip the brush in clean water and cover the whole cone with just a clean wet brush. Try to change your water as often as possible because when you work with mady water, your paint will look mady as well especially when you work with light colors. I build work in wet on wet technique to get very soft edges and smooth gradient between different colors. For the first layer, I will take yellow ocher and cover the whole cone. Feel free to take any color you like. You can take yellow or orange colors. Where the paint is still wet, the color looks a little bright, but when it dries, it's not going to look so intense. I will go around the edges with a clean brush to make them a little bit softer. Now let's add some burnt sienna to the mix. While the paint is still wet, I will add the layer right in the middle. It will give us a really nice blend of warm colors. Then I will add some purple to the mix for darker tones and add another layer right in the middle. The gradient from light to dark. will give the cone, a 3D look and also collide with the waffle, is crunchy and almost burned. [MUSIC]. I have a few water paddles here and I can easily remove them with a piece of paper towel. [MUSIC] Now let's create the pattern of this waffle cone. While the layer is still wet, I'm going to lighten up some areas by lifting colors with a paper towel. For this technique, you can also use your brush. Just gently scrap the area with the brush and wipe the color with your paper towel. For soft edges, you can use soft watercolor brush and for more crispy lines, you can use acrylic synthetic brush or you can just do it like me with a paper towel. To give the cone around look, just follow the movement of the ice cream and create this lines in one direction. Now that we've got the base layer for our waffle cone. We will use darker tones to develop the form and add more complexity to the texture. But first, we need to wait for when the layer is completely dry. While the cone is drying, let's add some color to the ice cream. The first scoop of ice cream will be pink, and I only use light rose color. In the areas that are closer to the cone, I will add some darker tones. Ice cream has a very interesting texture, and by dipping around with darker color, we can achieve the look [MUSIC]. The top part is lemon ice cream. I will start with very light color again. If you want to use different colors, go for it. It doesn't have to look exactly like my illustration. Here I'm not going to wait till the layer of first scoop of ice cream is dried because even if this two colors touch and they will blend together, it will still look interesting, just like you could look at ice cream. Let's get back to the waffle cone and add some complexity to the texture. I will get sepia and add some lines here showing the age of the cone. Now it's time for one of the most interesting parts of the project, which is adding more texture to the waffle cone. To create the illusion of crunchy and crispy cone we need to build the volume. We need to add more intensity to the areas that's supposed to be dark. For that, you can use just clean wet brush, paint little squares just like I do and then drop a little bit of paint inside the squares. The current will flow around where you added water and will give really soft look, or you can take very light brown color and cover the whole cone with a little squares. Next, I will take darker color and outline some of the corners. [MUSIC] We also have this part uncovered and this will be the inside part of the waffle cone. I will paint it a little bit dark. [MUSIC] The ice cream is almost done. We just need to add a few little details like shadow between two scoops and maybe a few strokes here. [MUSIC] I also want to add tiny pieces of chocolate chips, and for that, I will get some paint on the brush, cover the part of the illustration but I don't want to myself and gently tap on the brush handle. Here you have it. Hope you enjoyed this delicious ice cream. 11. Let's Draw Macarons: Let's draw cute little macaroons. If you look at macaroons closely, you can see that it has several layers, and really interesting texture. Here's a quick guide how I usually draw macaroons. I start with an oval shape. Draw one line closer to the top, another line closer to the bottom. Then curvy leased lines on both sides. Then at the filling part, or gem, I will draw about five or six macaroons, but feel free to draw as many as you want. I start sketching the composition on a scrap of paper, so I can figure out the best size and angle. This way I will avoid a lot of erasing on my watercolor paper. When I'm done with this quick sketch and look at watercolor paper. Now I see that macaroons are too small and I want the illustration a little bit bigger. I will do another sketch, really quick and loose drawing. You don't have to get too detailed here just to see what the composition will look like. Now it looks much better just perfect for the size. Let's draw on watercolor paper. Here's work with tip. If the light comes from this side, the highest point of macaroon shell will be really light. The opposite side will be dark. The area on the macaroon, there will be the shadow from the top macaroon, this part will be really dark. Now I start sketching the composition with pencil. I draw very lightly to avoid theorizing. That's why it's so important to think of the composition and plan ahead before you start drawing. If you practice this quick sketches a lot, later you wouldn't need them anymore because you'll be able to picture that composition in your mind. I will finish the sketch, keeping the pencil lines very loose and light. When I'm done with the sketch, I can see that proportions look fine. I like the composition. Now I can add more details or make the lines darker. I will also want to make the macaroons a little bit around there. I will change at the top parts. Next, I will polish this sketch, erase the lines I don't need. Now it's ready for the color. 12. Macarons: Adding Color: When I paint macarons, I start with the top one, then I skip one macaron and start painting the next one. It doesn't make any sense now, but when you start painting, you will understand what I'm talking about. I do this so the paint from the top macaron and the next one don't mix up. Macarons come in different colors, and here you can go crazy and choose the brightest colors you have, or maybe the colors that you really love. For the first one, I want to find pitchy colors and I start very light. Cover the whole area with just clean wet brush, and then I will add some color. I will dip my brush in paint, get a lot of pigment and just dab round and see how the paint flows around on the surface. It blends really nicely, creating this very nice soft look. If the light comes from this side, this part of the macaron will be the lightest. If you feel that you added too much paint or maybe it's too dark, just grab a little piece of paper towel and gently dab around, it will get this extra paint. While the layer is still wet, I will get more color and add more layers on this side of the macaron. When we work wet on wet technique, paper dries slower and when you add pigment, the edges are very soft. This technique is perfect for painting macarons because we can get a really nice and soft brand that will make our macarons look really delicate. When the paint is dry, I'm going to add more darker tones. This technique is more about layers, and that's how we're going to build the volume and texture of macarons. I'm going to do the same steps with all macarons, starting with very light diluted with water paint and then adding more pigment. I want to paint next macaron in light green color. But I don't want orange color of the first macaron to get mixed up with green, that's why I'm going leave it for now and work on the third one. That's the reason why I skip macarons in between. If you noticed, I use only two brushes for all projects. I've been working with these toothbrushes for quite a while and they're still in great shape. So taking a good care of your brushes is really important. Taking care of watercolor brushes is quite easy, all you need to do is clean them in the water after painting session. Use cold or warm water, never clean them in hot water because it will ruin them. Then after washing your brushes, just let them dry on a paper towel. I start with very light wash, and the beauty of watercolor is you can add many layers from light to dark, and by adding this layers on top, you can get a really nice effect. I just keep adding color to all macarons. The paper is wet where the paint is, and when you add more pigment, it spreads out very nicely and doesn't create harsh lines. If you're not quite sure about the composition, what color to choose, how to place your macarons on the page, feel free to look at the reference images on Pinterest. There you will find a lot of beautiful and inspiring photos and they will also give you an idea of where to place highlights and what spots will be darker. Next, I will add some color to the filling of the macarons and feel free to choose any color you want. I will let the illustration dry a little bit before creating some texture. When the first layer is done and dry, I'll be creating the texture of the shell by adding a really dark and intense colors. For that, I will load the brush with pigment with less of water. Then I'll be dipping around, leaving very lose marks and creating the texture. If you feel that you need more details and contrast, you can go back, load the brush with more pigment and just add on top. Here I make very lose marks, just a few wiggly lines that give us very interesting texture of macarons. As we decided earlier, that the light comes from this side and this corner will be a little bit darker, so let's create the illusion of depth here by adding another layer, and this time I will use less water, and more pigment. I encourage you to play with watercolor, don't be afraid to experiment and mix different colors. For example, you can add some red tones to orange, purple to pink, and yellow to green macarons. I will do pretty much the same with all macarons. I will add some purple to the mix and add a few layers here, so it looks like there's a shadow coming from the top macaron. What I love about watercolor is how versatile it is, and you can get from really light and transparent layers, to dark and saturated marks. Play with the watercolor and enjoy the process. Here I added too much paint, so I will put some color from the corner and gently dab around on the edge of the shell. After adding many layers, darker tones and shadows, the illustration is coming to life, but I still want to add some contrast and for that, I will take sapphire and add some really dark wiggly lines here. As the paper continues to dry, the paint of strobes spread less and less, and when you paint on dry paper, paint dries quickly and you can get a really hard and sharp edges. You can see the colors are more saturated because we didn't build the paint with water. For a bigger contrast here, I will use sapphire. I like the overall look and we can stop here or we can add some paint splatters and drops, to add some dynamic to the illustration. So let's just play around and do that. If you've never done paint splatters before and you don't want to ruin your painting, try on a separate piece of paper first, so you can see what kind of pattern you can get with your brush. What I'm going to do is, I will add a paint splatter close to the macarons in the same color. By gently taping on the brush, I will get really nice paint splatter. I will cover the illustration with a piece of paper till with the mess, because I don't want too much paint and splatter to get on macarons, just around them. I love adding some splatter around my illustrations, it just makes the painting look more fun, loose and dynamic. To get really nice and big drop like this one, I'm going to load the brush with lots of water and pigment, hold the brush high and then you can see how pigment and the water gathers at the tip of the brush and then gently tap, and here you have it. I hope you enjoyed playing with watercolor and had fun painting these macarons. 13. Final Thoughts & Class Project: I hope you enjoyed this class and had fun painting the sweet treats. Now it's your turn to paint your favorite desserts. So get your brushes ready, have fun with watercolors, and don't forget to share your project. I would love to see what you come up with.