Painting the Year: Seasonal Projects for Artistic Growth And Discovery

1. Introduction: Hi, and welcome to this sculpture class where we will celebrate the whole year with art with illustration, and we will celebrate each and every season with illustrative project. My name is Anya. I'm a Polish artist based in Italy. And I thought of this class because right now here it's New Year when I had the idea of making this class and I thought to work with you throughout the whole year with new artistic challenges and projects. So we will celebrate every season with art with an illustration. And in this way, you will have a kind of challenge throughout the whole year. And in the end, you will end up with at least four beautiful illustrations. In this way, you will push your art throughout the whole year and also, you will see how to apply different techniques that I teach here on Skillshare, on my profile with new projects with new illustrations. So if you took my other classes with the specific techniques, then you will have a possibility to test them in new contexts in new projects. So I cannot wait to start this journey with you, this journey that will last a whole year, and I hope you will join me. Let's get started. Do. 2. Class Project: So for the classes project, we will work during the whole year and create at least four projects at the beginning of each and every season. We're starting out with winter because right now it's the new year in Europe and it's winter. But whatever season you're at right now, maybe it's summer. Then feel free to start with the season that you're currently in right now. But disclaimer, if you're watching this class when I'm making it, probably there's still no spring and summer projects yet because I will make them when each of the seasons will begin. So let's recap for every season, we will make one illustration. To celebrate the season. You can make just one of them, or what I really invite you to do is to do the whole year with me and make for each season at least one illustration. As I told in the intro, we will apply specific techniques for each and every season. So at the end, you will end up with at least four illustration, and he will develop different techniques. Invite you to share your projects within the project gallery. You can start with the first season and you can publish new season with a new project or you can simply update your old project with new seasons with new illustrations. So I cannot wait to see what you will come up with. Let's start our artistic year. T. 3. Winter - Theme For Your Project: We start our artistic year with winter. At least in this part of Globe, January means winter. So you can start with winter or with other season. And since winter means snow, even if usually lately, there is not a lot of snow, but at least we will represent it in the illustration. We will use different supplies, oil pastels, watercolors, and water soluble crayons and pencils in order to use two kind of techniques that I teach here on my channel, and I will explain it in the specific lesson, and we will create whimsical scene. So I want you to pick the theme. I will explain and show you the classes that explain better the techniques. But as for the theme, think of some favorite place or image that represents winter. It can be your photo. It can be your memory. It can be something you saw, something you saw in real life, or maybe in a movie or maybe a photo. So think of what you want to draw, and let's dive in. I hope you will enjoy. 4. Winter - Supplies: For the winter project, we will use two techniques based on oil pastels, water soluble crayons and water mediums such as watercolors and guash. So as for the oil pastels, whatever brand you have at home, I have different brands here, and those are all oil pastels. The important thing is that they are white or translucent. For example, I found also this big senalea translucent bar or in the set of Chinese cheap pastels. Those are very oily pastels. I have this white pastel, so it will work as well. And for the details, I have this Holbein artistic pencil, which is really greasy, really oily, so it also will work as well. And also, I will use watercolors. You can choose whatever watercolors you have at home. I will use also a little bit of quash. If you don't have watercolors or if you prefer to work with quash, you can use it as well. And for the wild details, I will use there are different possibilities you can use, for example, white quash, white ink. The one that I showed you before from doctor Martin's or maybe acrylic color, acrylic ink. And also we will use water soluble, pencils and crayons. Those are Caran dash, neo cool water soluble, and I have different brands of water soluble pencils, watercolor pencils. For example, Faber castle or Caran dash museum, and as for the brushes, I suggest you to use synthetic brushes and don't use anything fancy because we will work over oily surface oil pastels. Therefore, oil can dirty your brush. You can wash it out with soap. But still, don't use your best brush that you have. Maybe try something cheaper or some brush that is not precious for you. 5. Winter - Techniques: For our winter illustration, I thought of one specific technique that is perfect to represent snowy wintery scene. And this is optll technique. I explain better how you can use Opastels in fun way within this class. And you can watch it if you haven't seen it yet to see many different techniques, also, the one that we will explore right here. I will show you briefly anyway in this lesson, what is this technique? And if you want to dive more deeply into oil pacels and this technique and more of them, then I invite you to the other class. And the second technique that we will apply in the winter illustration is using water soluble crayons in order to create textures and paint lovely textured elements. So if you want to explore as well, this kind of technique then I invite you to my class, creative adventures, exploring art textures, and you can see specifically what is it about. And now I will show you really briefly those two techniques that we will use for our final project. So let's start with oil pastels, as I explained to you in the ad lesson with art supplies, use different brands. You can use different brands and kinds. Important is that the color will be white or translucent. And we will test both extels and the technique. So if it's the case that you have different pastels, then I invite you to test them all, and this way, you will see which one will work better for you, and then you can pick the pastel for the best, the favorite pastel for your final project. During whatever you want, I will doodle some trees, some strokes, and test both white and translucent frants that I have. You can also use other light colors. I figured that other colors can fit into my wintry scene. White obviously will be for snow, but you can use some other colors that you think will fit to your wintery scene. And once you're ready, we will use watercolors or you can also wash, but use it as it would be watercolors so very diluted. And reveal your oil pastels. I'm sure you know this technique, but if you don't, then you will see the magic that happens once you paint over your white or translucent pastels. Since they're very oily, they will repel water and they will leave. They will stay untouched. And also, it will create really lovely texture because it's greasy, so some dots of water will remain and other will be repelled, it really creates lovely effect. It's really cool technique to use with kids, with children, because you can really create a magical kind of workshop. And use the colors that you want. I will go with bluish grayish color. The thing that I have in hand right now that I used before is water soluble graphite, and I use it often. It works like watercolor, but it's graphite, basically. So I'm trying to do some colorful textured background. And, yeah, you can see that there's not so much not so many different effect between the pastels, but I can tell that some of them are more visible and that I will probably use. I think the one on the left in the bottom, which was the transducent big oil bar from canalia doesn't repel water the color so much. So probably I won't use it. Other oil cells are more or less equally good. So yeah, I'm so I know I can use all of them. Try test your oil pastel, see the effects that it creates. Maybe there will be something that you prefer and that you want to exclude and avoid. And also, it is also a good warmup exercise. I also wanted to use colored pencils that are quite greasy. They are not oil pastels, but since they cover really well, they're very, very soft, and I guess they have a little bit of wax inside or some oily ingredient. And they are great to work with mixed media to paint over watercolors or gouache or other mixed media. And I want to see if they also will repel watercolor. So what will happen if I paint with watercolor over them. And if you have this kind of pencils, then you can test them as well. Let's see the result. So the spoiler is no. The effect is not showing through, maybe a little bit on the whole binds, which is the light one, but it's really minimal. So I decided to test also this greasy, oily pastel. I tested white, and it worked good, so I tried with yellow one and still no effect. So Anyway, you can test your pencils. Maybe you have greasier pencils and the effect will be better. Now let's test the other technique that involves all the water, color, pencils and crayons that you have at home. I have different brands, fabre castle, Albretu or Darwin, different kinds. Usually, if there is a brush on your pencil, it means that it can be you can paint with water over it and it will dissolve. I can also use this graphite stick. It's also water soluble. And the thing here is to create textures both with drawing first with your crayons or pencils and then diluting it with water. And the second step would be to draw with those kind of pencils and crayons on the top of the wet surface. It can be the surface, the background that you painted with the same crayons or with watercolors. And when you draw over the wet surface, they really create really lovely textures and strokes which are more blurry and more soft. But you can see only by testing and trying, I often use it. In my art. I often draw over the wet surface, and I really like what happens. When you do it when you draw on the wet surface. Right now, I diluted my crayons with water. I added a little bit of watercolor and it already created love texture. And now I will draw on the top of the textured background both with crayons and pencils and I just play around I try different strokes, different lines. As you can see, they spread a little bit. They are softer, and I really love this kind of effect. So test your crayons, test your pencils, try different strokes. You can draw something specific or just play and warm up by doodling whatever comes to your mind. Also, you can see that drawing on the wet background creates this kind of engraving, maybe I can say etching. And you kind of engrave in the color while it's still wet. So you move the pigment, you create white spots, and it is really something interesting. So play around. These different crayons, as you can see, for example, with this one, the defect is different. It's more soft and floor. The other one is the other pencils were harder, so the strokes are thinner. It's really something worth to explore. Since we will use white also to paint snow, we will achieve it with oil pastels, but you can add extra snowy effect to your drawing with white wash or ink. I invite you to test how your white medium works with different backgrounds. I mean when it's dry and when it's wet. I usually like when the background is still wet. For example, here, it's still humid and wet. And in this way, your brush strokes will be more soft, and I think it's a great thing to paint snow. You don't want this crisp. I mean, you can do it as well if you prefer crisp strokes, but I think it gives better effect. Better atmosphere for the snow to make it more soft and blurry. So obviously, the more your background is wet, the softer and blurred, your strokes will be. You can also try to paint snow and your dots will spread as well. So you can try it or you can test it on the dry background as well and see which effect you will prefer. Well explore those two techniques. Explore your materials, and when you're ready, we will start our final illustration. 6. Winter - Final Project: We will start to paint our winter scene. And we already explored materials and techniques. If you haven't decided yet what you want to paint and do it now. I decided that I will paint a classical theme winter little house in the woods. A theme that I painted before, maybe a couple of times, but never with pastels. So I thought that it's something that I want to explore now with this technique. So think of something that excites you. If you're a beginner, then you can obviously follow my steps and do the same kind of illustration, but I always invite in my class to explore your own imagination, your own theme. Think of something that you would like to paint, especially if you're not a beginner. Um and explore your theme. So the first step is to paint with oil pastels, white, translucent or the colors that you will use for your scene. This is the time to use it before painting with watercolors or gouache or whatever wet medium that you will apply over the oil pastels. It is a little bit challenging because if you paint with white on white, then you obviously don't see a lot. There are ways to see it, maybe try to move your paper and see where did you paint already? You can sketch it before, but then it will be impossible to remove to cancel the pencil stroke. So order it in a really light way or try try maybe not to do it. I mean, challenge yourself and just put those pencils away and try a free hand style, try to challenge yourself on so in this kind of way, and take off all the pressure. I always repeat the same thing. And we are here to explore. And even if you don't you won't like your first outcome, then you can try another time. Maybe you can try on a smaller piece of paper, maybe you can make a wind turbostcard or yeah, just other format that you can explore several times, as many times as you want. Um and also, I think I forgot to talk about the paper during the art supplies lesson. Sorry about that. So I'm using quite cheap watercolor paper. It's not a fancy paper, and it's textured. So it's okay. It's a decision that you have to make because the textured paper oil pastel over the textured paper will give you extra rough texture, and you will have to use a little bit more of oil pastel. You will have to insist because the oil pastel won't attach to textured April immediately, and there will be some spots of paper that will show through. So maybe for this kind of technique, the hot pressed paper, smooth paper will be better, easier to paint on, but it depends also on the effect that you want to achieve the cold pressed paper that I use here is okay as well. The most important thing that your paper must be thick because we will paint a lot of water. We will put a lot of water into it. So that's the basic thing that you want to have. And once you are ready, once you paint it you drew with oil pastels, go ahead and paint with watercolors. I will use watercolors. You can use diluted quash as well. Your colors. For winter, you can use bluish white. You can mix it with white as well if you for example, don't have this kind of colors, so you can mix your watercolor with white or your wash with white. And I have those granulating Sminka colors. This is glacier green, which is really lovely. And I think it's perfect for wintery scenes. It's granulating and it's creating those gradients of bluish turquoise and a little bit of violet colors. I'm adding white oil pastels right now because I see that by painting over this cold pressed paper, a lot of spots of paper are showing through, and I wanted my old pastel to create a thicker layer of white. So I'm just adjusting it and adding an extra layer to the first layer of oil pastel. And what I'm doing now there is I'm painting the first layer of watercolor, which is really diluted. And later on, I will add the more dense color into it or darker tones with wet on wet technique. So you can do it as well. You will have to paint a diluted layer of color. And while it's still wet, then you want to add another color into it. You can see I covered all the surface. So remember when I told you that I will show you how you can paint snow so you can do it in this way. So if you're using watercolor or very diluted guash, while the color is still wet, pick tissue or water or paper towel, sorry, and dab into the wet surface. And you will lift the color up, and also you will create really lovely texture with it. So I think it's also a very nice idea to create snowy texture. And this is what I mean when I add extra layer of color while the color is still wet. And I'm talking about it a lot of times in my other classes. So you can watch one of them, for example, the magical watercolor world. I explain how to do this kind of effect. It's great to paint skies. And here I'm adding granulating moonlight from Daniel Smith, which has this violet and blue winds that are granulating and dividing. So yeah. I will also add a little bit of green later on twice. And here I'm adding a little bit of brownish color to paint house. And since the roof is made from the oil pastel, it will avoid from blending the color I want spread into the sky. So the thing is if you paint the white oil pastels and a lot of snow, you want to search for a contrast in order to see the effect in order to make the white show through. So night scene is easier because you use darker colors. But you can paint a day scene as well. Just use very saturated color, blue or other color that you want. Or go for a night scene because the contrast is easier to achieve. Well, you can paint whatever color you want. It can be something abstract, not realistic. You can use the colors that whatever colors that come to your mind. And as you can see the texture of oily layer beneath is showing through, you can paint over it as well. So the texture will be more visible and the dots of wet paint will be will be some of the dots will remain on your oily greasy background. You can control this effect by adding later on the color on your oil pastel. It's up to you. If you want to have more of this texture, you should paint over the oil pastel. Otherwise, you can dap with a tissue later on and it will disappear. And I'm basically here adding darker tones to contrast the branches, the white, snowy background. So here, for example, I'm painting another layer of watercolor on the white oil pastel and you can see that it remains and creates a little bit of contrast in this lovely texture. I also dab with a tissue to create more white space, and also I want to improve the chimney smoke, white texture, and while the paint is still wet, I can do it. Okay. Also while the paint is still wet, we can try our technique both of painting with white ink in order to have those blurry soft strokes and also to apply our second technique with watercolor pencils and create those lovely textured strokes. I will draw trees with my watercolor pencil and the paint is still wet. But I also decided that I will add a little bit of darker color to the sky because I think when it will dry, it will become even lighter, and I want the sky to be more dark. Some white details and snowflakes while the background is still wet. And also, I will paint draw other trees in the background. I often try to add a little bit of story telling, a little bit of story to my illustration. So I will draw an animal, and I will paint deer. So you can think as well to add some element that will tell the story what you want to tell us about in your wintery scene. And later, I will add just the final details, light in the window with yellow and silk, and I will also in the trees in the background to add further depth and contrast. And very last details, colored pencils. A here, while the paint is still wet, when you throw, for example, pencils on the top of your wet white gouache or other colour ghering, you can carve out really lovely plain strokes, and you can play with this effect to add extra texture to your frosts and ic elements. And alla, here you can see how beautiful textures you can make with this technique with those techniques that I showed you, and I'm really glad and satisfied with the effect. So I hope you will enjoy your process as well, and I cannot wait to see what you will come up with. For your inspiration, I will show you other illustrations that I did with the same technique. I just used ink instead of watercolors. So as you can see, there are a lot of possibilities, a lot of inspirations. And again, I cannot wait to see what you will come up with. Enjoy the process. And in the next lesson, I will share with you extra bonus, another illustration that I will make with the same technique, so you can see how many things you can create. I hope you will enjoy. 7. Winter - Bonus Project: Welcome to the bonus lesson. And here I will show you another illustration that I would do with the same technique. That's because I really enjoyed making the final project, and I was in the flow, and I wanted to do something different, as well and explore and experiment. And also I wanted to pick another theme this time, personal theme based on the view that you can see right now. I was hiking in the mountains, and I saw this beautiful group of birds flying, and also another element will be trees, my favorite theme, which is the forest. So you can obviously do it as well, or you can choose this kind of theme for your final project as well. And again, I invite you to explore your themes, your own voice, the things that inspires you and excites you the most. So again, techniques will be the same. The process will be the same. So first, I will draw with oil pastels and the different thing here is that I wanted to see what will happen when I will paint draw with different colors. Those are light gray colors. And I will draw trees first, and we will see what will happen when I will draw darker colors. And obviously, white colour is perfect for winter racing. But this is also the reason that I want to see different colors to apply them for different scenarios, different themes, and just, you know, to experiment and explore. So if you want, you can do it. You can do it the same and see what will happen. So again, right now, I will finish to draw the trees with oil pastels. And again, second step is to create a very light layer of color of diluted water color and cover the whole sheet, be generous with watercolor, use a lot of liquidy, let's say, layer. And if you're covering the whole surface, especially if it's bigger sheet of paper, maybe you will work on the smaller format, but still try to make it wet. And then I add gradually more saturated colors. I play with different colors. As you can see, I use different jades and hues. Basically blues, greens, something that would give this atmosphere of winter. And as you can see, at this point, the effect is not so spectacular. It seems very unfinished, undefined. And I must be honest that I thought that maybe I should start from the beginning that's not the very good effect. But I thought that I will continue to draw because you never know. Well, I mean, this kind of technique, don't use so very often. So it's good to go ahead. Don't stop and continue with your drawing because maybe something good will come out at the end, and you never know if you want to try what will happen. Well, I continues with the process, and my process doesn't follow the steps. Obviously, you have to follow the main steps, for example, first oil colors and then watercolor. But during the drawing, I often make one step forward, one step backward, and so on and so forth. So here I will continue, for example, to add trees, then I will skip to add, again, a little bit of watercolor. I'm just deciding in the moment, what I want to add, what will work best. Yeah, that's more or less the process, but the main steps are the same as in the other illustrations. I will continue by adding watercolor texture and so trees later, I will add branches with white quash, and I also add quash details. I will add dots that can be snow or leaves. There will be light turquoise dots. And I will continue to add a little bit of branches in order to make the trees pop more because right now they really not defined It just continue to draw my forest. Forest is more two dimensional now, but still there's too little contrast. So I thought to add other elements. As in the other illustration, I painted deer. Here I will paint draw, actually, the birds. This is something that I draw really often. I'll also here on Skillshare in my different projects are very important element in my illustrations. So I add extra contrast and dimension by painting them as really dark spots of color. And I think this helps a lot to make the dimension and to create contrast. I'm using ink tins, water soluble pencils. I dip it in water before, so the color is really intense and dark, and that's something I think it really helps the composition. I decided at this point that I want to add a little bit of different colors since I use very colorful watercolor background. But this time, I will use guache because I wanted to add some more opaque color that will cover both oil pastels and watercolor. So I will see if the guache will stick to oil surface. So it basically work the same as the watercolor. So shouldn't stick. But since it's also acritic then maybe it will be easier to cover the oily surface. So the rule here would be that it shouldn't cover oil pastel, but, you know, it's good to test and see. I will use very dense color. I want to paint it on the trunks, but where the branches are. So I think there will be more possibility to cover the oily pastel. So, you know, rules are rules, but sometimes you just have to test and see on your own what will happen. And I guess that when the oil pastel is really thin and you can basically cover it Yeah, basically works. And also, I'm painting. I'm not sure if I'm painting over branches that were made with old pastels or with gouache, but basically, it works, so I'm happy. And I'm using this blue to paint other birds because I wanted to add some other dimension. The lighter birds can make this effect of the background that they are not in the foreground, but they are farther away. Therefore, there are more light as color. And also, I wanted just to be more colorful, not only these black and white colors. I will also use light turquoise squash to add some extra details to my tree scent atmosphere. And I thought that I will use it to paint both leaves, and that that can be interpreted as snow or basically that will add the icy frosty texture to the whole composition. And also we'll add a little bit of color, more saturated, more vibrant color that will enrich colors of my palette. I will leave you at this point, and I will leave you to the process so you can watch it until the end, if you want, I will add some roasty details, textures, and I'm warming up myself a little bit with hot tea. So grab the hot tea, chocolate, whatever warms you, whatever you wish and enjoy the process. And enjoy the process of making your own art, your own illustration. I hope this one was inspiring for you as well. I cannot wait to see your projects. 8. Winter - Final Thoughts: So we finished the winter project. I hope you enjoyed the process that you learned a lot. Make as many illustrations as you want to celebrate your winter season. I cannot wait to see what you created. Ploaded to the class gallery and see you in the springtime. Bye. 9. Spring - Theme For Your Project: And so it's spring. The ever present colors that burst everywhere, the air becomes warm and fragrant, is fresh, vibrant green. Our senses are bombarded and we awaken to life together with nature. And at last, we can go outside and find so many things to discover and so much inspiration. And the biggest, of course, is the natural world. And not only the flora, new plants, flowers and colors waking up, but also animals, insects, butterflies, the return of wintering birds, everything comes alive again. So, I would like you just to go outside and find out what delights and inspires you, something you would really like to paint. It can be just a plant, a flower, or just an animal, maybe an insect or a bird or both of them. For me, it will be butterfly and the flower. That's because both of them give so many possibilities of interpretation of colors, forms and shapes. You can also paint a butterfly if you want or think of something that inspires you. Maybe it's something you noticed during your walk. Maybe you took a photo of it. So just simply go outside and be inspired by what you see. And for our project, we will use the theme that you will pick and we will paint it using the negative painting technique. So when you're ready, you can move on to the next lesson. 10. Spring - Supplies : Let's see the supplies that we will use. First, I will show you what I use, and then I will walk you through different possibilities that you have. So don't worry if you don't have the things that I will use for the final project. So what I will use are so called acrylic wash, acrylic wash. They call them in different way. It is all kind of quash that has acrylic in it. I will use it because lately, I like to work with quash and also acrylic quash has this quality that it won't get reactivated once it's dry. Let's say that I will first paint with this green and if I will paint with a pink or red above, it won't get reactivated, so the colors won't mix together. As you can see, there are many brands. I have these three brands, Liquitex, Turner and Holbein. If you have them at home, you can try them. But if you don't don't worry. It doesn't mean that you cannot work on this class or that you have to buy a credit guh. No, you can work, for example, with traditional Guash. If you're new to gouache, then maybe it can be a little bit more difficult for you to understand how to paint different layers one above another without reactivating them. So maybe if you're new to gouache, then I would suggest you to work with some other supplies that you usually work with and if you are comfortable with using guach then you can obviously use also traditional quash for it. The traditional gouache, if you're new to guache means that the colors will reactivate. So it means if I use, again, green and pink, if I will use pink over the green, the risk is that the green will reactivate a little bit more and will mix with pink. The other solution would be to use just acrylics. They won't reactivate never, ever the same as the acrylic gouache. So it means that if you paint pink over the green, you will have this pink, pure color. The other supply is watercolor. It is possible to use watercolor. I explain how to layer watercolors in my class about negative painting when we paint forest scene, and I explain you a little bit better the color theory. That's really helpful to know when you're layering with watercolors. Two things you have to have in mind, they're more translucent. They're not so opaque and gouache let's say, it's more opaque. It means it covers better. And watercolors remain translucent. It's nothing wrong. It can be even something that you prefer as the effect. Have a look at my class if you're new to watercolors and about the theory, because the second thing you have to have in mind when you're using watercolors is the colors that you use. If you will use for this project watercolors, I will just explain you here quickly that what I would like you to avoid is to use different colors. Let's say to mix worms with cool colors because the result can be that you will end up with a muddy colors. So I would suggest you to use, let's say, family of cool colors for your final project and layer, let's say blues with greens and also yellows, let's say, but don't mix reds and pinks and warm colors because you can end up with muddy colors. Watercolors are still a very great solution. I use them to the negative painting technique as well. If you remember only about this rule, then you'll be more dense spine. The other solution, something that I discovered lately, are the ink tense colors from the Derwent brand. The product is named ink tans. There are different types. There are also pencils and blocks of colors. But this is really cool because those are pens and they work like inks, I would say. They are like watercolors as well, but they're more translucent and vibrant and the characteristic of this paint is that they won't reactivate with water. So again, our example with green and red. So if you paint with green the first layer, you will let it dry, and then you will paint with red, then the green won't reactivate. They are not opaque. They are more or less translucent, the same as water colors. You won't have opaque matte red color over the green. But still, the good thing is that they won't reactivate. So if you by chance, have this at home, give it a try. So I'm sure you have at least one of those in your home. More important thing is to try and maybe fail rather than not trying because you think you don't have a good product in your home. You know, that's important for me. Don't freak out. Try what you have at home. As for the paper. Have also different possibilities. I will work with mixed media paper because I will work with quash. It's 200 grams. You can use thicker 300 grams, which is perfect, but 200 grams will work as well if you work with quash, and the big advantage of this paper is that it's cheaper than the watercolor paper. But if you work with watercolors and you have as well watercolor paper in your home, then that's maybe a better solution, usually for watercolors. I have, for example, this one, which is a cheaper watercolor paper. Well, you don't have to use nothing really fancy. And as for the sketches, I will use a sketchbook. You can use sketching paper. Here, the thickness of the paper is not so important. Maybe 90 grams, I would say no go lower because we will sketch with water as well. And last but not least Brushes, I will use more or less three or maybe two is perfectly enough. The most important is to have bigger brush to paint backgrounds and a smaller brush to paint details and where we will layer. With a negative painting, also sometimes we will paint detailed areas, so it's good to have one small and one big. If you have a medium as well. Just see what will work best for you. Synthetic brushes, round brushes. Again, nothing fancy. Watercolor maybe will be better. But if you work with acrylics, then acrylic brushes and also something you can add, but it's not required. Colored pencils to add some extra details, I will also sketch for the final project the outline of my butterfly, but you can also use regular pencil as well. Okay, so I hope everything is clear here. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments. I will be glad to help with any doubts or questions about the supplies that you want to use, leave it in the comments in the discussion panel. And let's get started. 11. Spring - Negative Painting As A Creative Tool: Before we will start, I wanted to explain you how we will use the negative painting. Most of all why we will use the negative painting. Right now, I will show you the sketchbook. So while I will explain you, you can see the images of the sketchbook that I drew during the course with one of my favorite artists and illustrators. His name is Jesus Cisneros. He's Spanish illustrator. And he taught us this too. So we will use the negative painting not only to develop and to learn this artistic technique and skill. But most of all, I will show you as this creative tool and exercise that I learned during the course of Jo Cisnero. So, later on, I will show you and do with you this exercise. But right now, I'm showing you the images. So this kind of technique is used as a tool to develop your artistic language and style. Let's say you don't know how to paint butterfly, or maybe you don't want to just simply represent the istic butterfly that you see in a photo or in real life. And you're searching new ways to paint it. Maybe you're asked me that you like really fun ways, not realistic ways to represent think whatever it is, it can be anything, really, not only butterfly. And this tool is really genius way to search new and fine and fun graphic ways to represent the subject to develop your artistic language and style. So let's get started. I will show you what it means because it's easier done than set. And now I'll show you what this exercise is all about, and we will apply it later on in our final project. First, before we will start, think of your animal or of the subject that you want to paint for your final project. In my case, it will be butterfly and flower. But right now, I will focus on the butterfly and what I want you to do is to pick the type of the butterfly or of the animal, search for a photo reference and take a good look at it. Take the time that you need, but don't exaggerate. Maybe you can use three to 5 minutes to just get familiar again with the shape of butterfly or of the subject that you want to paint. Once you did it, I want you to close all the references, all the photo references, and don't look at it anymore during the exercise. Then, grab your sketchbook. And divide your sheet of paper into the squares. They can be smaller, they can be bigger. I advise to divide it because this way you will create multiple quick sketches without losing yourself in details. So bigger images will just be too time consuming and maybe at the beginning, just focus on small quick sketches. So the technique here is about painting without sketching the outlines beforehand. So no pencils, no colored pencils. And this is the challenging part of this exercise, not only because obviously also painting without reference is already challenging. But here, I would like you to focus on painting your animal without an outline. So for example, when you paint, you would probably first sketch the outline or maybe paint it as I do. And then later on paint around it. So in this way, you carve out the negative space by painting not the butterfly, but all the space around it. So this is good as well. This is a good technique as well. But let's say you're this way, you're a little bit stressed about how to paint butterfly. And eight. This technique is all about the different thing. It's about painting butterflies without freaking out how to paint it and letting the process to help you to find new solutions. So what you want to do is to paint around, paint a negative space, paint all the things that are around butterflies, but without sketching it before. I know it sounds crazy. I know it's quite scary, but believe me, it works. So what I usually do before I will outline the whole butterfly, maybe I will start just with one part of the wing, maybe then I will paint the second bottom wing. So yeah, you can help yourself by outlining the single parts of butterflies. But it's about the process that will give you the solutions. So you don't have to be afraid, you don't have to be worried because you don't have to find the solution immediately. And you don't have to find also the perfect solutions. And my experience is that through this exercise, I'm finding really fun unexpected solutions that I wouldn't achieve by just simply trying to, you know, imagine and paint this butterfly. And usually, instead, I find funny ways by using this technique. I hope it is quite clear at this point, let's proceed. Right now, I will try to use this technique and steps to do four quick sketches, four quick butterflies. So that's why I prefer to use it in a small format at the beginning. It helps me to be quicker and not to distract me too much. Okay. So you can think of the way the butterfly can be. It can be with the wings that are open. Like I painted it above. Maybe the butterfly can be seated on the flower with the wings, not spread it. So think of the ways your animal can be if you're painting maybe ladybug you can paint it from the profile with the wings opened, closed, from above, maybe from below. And just don't freak out. Don't overthink it. Let it be a playful exercise. It's only for you, you know, you don't have to, as I said, find immediately the solutions. And since you're making it in a very quick way, you can make as much swatches, as much sketches as you want. So right now, I start again with this kind of butterfly with this opened wings form and this kind of shape, this is maybe more familiar for me. Probably it's something I saw in the photo and I try to and I have this image fixed in my mind. And it's a good starting point. Once I define the shape of my butterfly, I will draw the details inside. It's also a good way to explore different patterns, different detailed elements of your animal butterfly, whatever you draw. You can come up with really fun and not realistic solutions, play around, use your fantasy. Obviously, I have in my mind, more or less how the wings are made. But since I don't have a reference, I'm also improvising. I'm coming up with different solutions. And in this way, I'm creating something new, something that doesn't exist. It's something that can be really original and beautiful. I will repeat this process those steps as many times as I want. Probably the first solution won't be satisfying. Maybe they will be even frustrating because you have to warm up, as with all the exercises, all techniques, it's normal to try many times before you will find something that is fun, but I encourage you to continue to try, and you will see that you will find really fun sooner or later you will find f solutions that you will enjoy and like. And here I'm trying another form of butterfly, another way with wings that are closed from the profile, and maybe I will try different shapes of wings. So right now, I have the specific type of butterfly in my mind, but maybe I will try, you know, to exaggerate the forms, the shapes of the wings. So again, I'm trying the profile, but in a new way. And also, I can find I can search both for new shapes, but also for new details inside my butterfly. Right now, for example, I'm splattering the dots of the paint as the pattern. So this is the time to explore, to play, to try. And I really hope you will enjoy this exercise because this is something really, really liberating. And this is a place where you really can relax and shake off all the expectations of the anxiety of making a perfect piece and find new ways, your own ways to paint. I hope you will enjoy. I will show you other four butterflies. I will speed up the process without talking. So explore your animals as many times as you want. You can also apply this process to paint to find new ways and new forms of flowers and whatever subject you picked for your spring project. Here are the butterflies that I did for the final project, I will pick one of them to develop and here you can see some of the butterflies from the past. Maybe they're very simple, maybe not so developed, but they're always a good base to work on. I think overall, they have many different interesting shapes to work on in the future. You can also see, for example, the same exercise that I did with rabbit. I hope you will enjoy this exercise. 12. Spring - Final Project: It's time to start our final project. You probably already know what you will paint. Maybe you picked a flower. Maybe I took a photo of something that inspired you. I will personally use a photo that I took of this beautiful butterfly in the house for butterflies here nearby in Italy. And also, I will look as a reference for my negative painting exercise. I picked this butterfly that I liked, and it will be there as a reference. And you can do it as well. You can use one of your exercise swatches, or you can start from scratch and start a brand new negative painting shape of your subject. So let's get started. So as for the process, as for the technical stuff, prepare your materials. Since I will use the acrylic quash, I prepared the plate with the wet paper towel. And in this way, the colors will last a little bit longer. If you're using acrylic wash as well, or if you're using acrylic, then it's a good tip. The colors won't dry so quick because once they dry, then we won't reactivate. Maybe you have the special plate for it. There is this color palette for acrylic wash and the gouache. With the cover that really protects your colors to dry. Otherwise, this is something I do. Let's say this homemade solution. And right now, the first step is to prepare your palette and to prepare your background. Remember, we are working on the negative painting with a negative painting technique. So you can do two things here. You can paint the negative painting around the white blank paper. But what I show you here is another solution really cool and colorful, creative solution to the blank paper. And it is to create the textured background that you will use as a base. And that you will apply your negative painting on this background. So basically what I'm doing is that I randomly paint the colors. I just create this kind of colorful blobs, strokes, nothing specific. I just want to create the texture, the colors. So pick the colors you want to use. It doesn't have to be this range of colors, obviously. It can be something totally different. Maybe you want a green background. Think of something that you will paint. At this point, you probably already know what you will paint. So since I will paint flowers and butterfly, I want them to have this color pinks, oranges and yellows. And, um, you can also help yourself to use creative textures by using different tools. For example, I use this *** brush. It has those interesting brussels, and I really love it because it creates really lovely brush strokes. So explore, build up your texture. You can play with different textures, different tools. For example, you could also splatter the water on your color and create the dots of lighter colors by splattering water on it and so on. I will proceed. I will speed up the process. And once you're ready, let your background to dry. Once your background is dry, you can proceed and paint your image. So right now, I will do something that I advise you not to do and I will sketch my image, my composition before I will paint the negative painting. But this is for two reasons. First, maybe you really struggle and maybe you really need a guidance. So if you need an outlined guidance, outlines on your paper, then do it. And the second reason is the most important is not to use the pencil in the first part, in the first drafts and sketches that we did with one color in the previous lesson. And since I already discovered the shape of the butterfly that I wanted through this exercise, right now, I will just sketch the solution, the shape that I achieved within this exercise. So this is also the only reason I'm doing it. Otherwise, if I haven't found yet the shape of the butterfly that I'm interested in, then I wouldn't do that. So it will be easier for you also, in order to make a composition on your paper. So the other way we could have done that is that we could have sketched a thumbnail on our sketchbook, and later on, um, painted on our final piece without sketching, we would already have done the sketch thumbnail somewhere else. And then we would only have to, you know, to copy it in our final piece. So it's up to you guys. If you don't feel ready, then sketch your outlines. Otherwise, you can proceed without. It's up to you. The only thing I would recommend right now is to do it in a really light way. I didn't use, for example, the black pencil. I used colored pencil, and the color is warm as my background. So this way, it really doesn't show through. It's really light, and it will be easy to cover it. Especially if you're working with translucent colors like water colors, then be sure to use a really light sketch. Okay. So I already have my warm colors, and now I prepared my cool colors. So if you've seen the lesson about art supplies, maybe you're wondering, why am I mixing warms and cools? Since I told you not to do that, but I told you not to mix or maybe to be very careful to use worms and cools when you use watercolors. That's because by their characteristics, they will mix with each other, especially if you're using negative painting and worms and cools usually you create dull colors. So since I'm using acrylic acrylic Gua sorry, it won't happen. The layer underneath won't reactivate. Once it's dry, it won't move. And also, since the guache is opaque, it's not translucent, especially if you use dense color, and the colors won't result. Those are really vibrant acrylic guache colors. So that's why I'm mixing coals and worms. I hope it is clear. So right now, I will proceed by painting around my shapes, my outlines, shapes. If you don't have outlines, then just paint around as you did during the exercise. And what I will do is that I won't premix the colors. I will do something similar as I did for the background. Meaning that, I will use single colors and paint them next to each other. So I started with this kind of Prussian blue. Then I added this sage mint green, and now I'm proceeding with this warm lavender blue and this is something I really like to do. This is the way that I lately that I paint lately, by doing this patchwork colors. And you can do it as well. You can try this way or you can proceed by painting just one color, or you can premix or painting more regular parts of your painting, for example, you want your down bottom part of your image to be green, then you can do green. Let's say, other part, you can make a darker green because let's say you paint a field, and you see this foreground and background different kind of greens. It's up to you. Um how you will apply the colors. So you can explore this way, as well. It is really fun. Another tool for me, this kind of applying of color for me is also a tool to make really creative way to paint in a creative way. So right now, I'm just trying to paint the background of grass, of leaves. And I'm carving out piece by piece my flowers and the leaves. Once I'm ready, once I finish to do the first, let's say, layer, right now, I'm adding extra texture by dabbing with dry paper towel into the wet colour. This is something I use really, really often in my classes. So if you already took one of my classes, you probably know it. I really love textures, and I use different tools to add some extra textures into it. So right now, you see there are shapes of three flowers and the butterfly. So we will proceed to add right now the details. I'm sorry because the part of the video hasn't recorded. I already started to paint details. As you can see, I added this border. So even if I remember that my photo reference butterfly was met was this meant green. I thought since I have I wanted to make this orange and pink background, I decided to do another type of butterfly, and I have in mind, the monarch butterfly. And that's more or less something I'm trying right now to to paint. It's easier for me also because I already did this exercise within my sketchbook. From the course that I told you about, I was making this exercise with Monarch butterfly. So it's up to you what kind of butterfly you will create. You will paint. And what I'm doing now is really I'm just improvising. I'm just searching for interesting shapes. Right now, you can replicate the shapes and patterns that you painted in your exercise, in your thumbnail phase. If you found interesting solution, then go for it. Then just paint what you like from your previous exercise. Or you can proceed and continue your exploration of forms, shapes and patterns and improvisation. This is really artistic improvisation. Either way is fine, it's up to you. And as for the colors, also here, improvise, pick the colors you really like. You can use the one from the photo, or you can make it totally up. And find new colors, new solutions. It's up to you. So I continue to use wash here, but sometimes I will also use colored pencils, and I will use those two tools in order to paint details. If you're using colored pencil, be sure to use the one that are oil based because they work better, especially if you will use wash or acrylics. Example, those are Holbein artistic pencils. They're really greasy. Doesn't mean that they're pastels, but they are a little bit greasier, meaning they are very opaque and they cover really well, the color underneath, and they are great to work with mixed media. If you have different kind of pencils that are not so maybe they don't cover really well. Well, then just see what you can get with them. Maybe you can use wax pastels or oil pastels if you want and see what will work best for you. I will continue with this process of adding details, improvising. I'm just I'm not planning, I'm not looking at the photo at this point. I'm basically trying to recreate the forms and shapes that I already created during the previous process. And I will continue to build up the layers with the guash, I will continue to use gouache and my colored pencils. And since I'm using the guh, I'm able to build up those layers, and I could continue to build them up. Obviously, I won't do that because I also want to leave some background underneath and the vibe of the negative painting. And if you will use the watercolor or ink tans more translucent medium then just be aware that you won't be able to build opaque infinite layers. You will be able to paint on the top of the layer beneath, but you won't be able to work the same as you would with gouache or acrylic. So it's up to you how many layers you want to paint, how many details you want to add. You can really have fun with colors, play with colors, since it's a spring project. And if you like colors, then I really invite you to explore them and to make your project as colorful as you want. As for the colors that I use, as you can see, I continue to use the colors that I swatched already on my palette. And this is the warm and cool color palette. And this kind of palette gives you the opportunity to create really lovely contrast between warm and cool colors. It is a very vibrant and very strong kind of contrast. And also, you can create the other type of contrast, which is between dark and light colors. So I do both here, but mostly it is just playing with warm cool differences. The other thing that you can do is that you can add new elements to your composition. For example, I'm painting petals and leaves, and I also added some extra space to the wings of the butterfly. And you could do it also in the negative painting way. So let's say I could add some flowers by painting around the green background. It's up to you. So you can play around at as much as you want to your illustration, play with elements, play with colors. And I'm really satisfied with the results, especially with the shape of the butterfly, I achieved it by the negative painting exercise before. Also the flowers, I did the same to create the shapes of the flowers. So right now, I think I added too much details. So it's always tricky when to stop because too many elements can distract the attention, can unbalance the composition and an overall can be overwhelming. And I think this is what's happening now, but nevertheless, I really enjoyed the final result, and I loved the process. I think I wouldn't come up with this shape with this kind of illustration without the creative exercises and by just trying to figure it out by my own. Instead, the process of the negative painting really helped me to find the lovely creative solutions. And I hope it will be the same for you. I really hope that you will enjoy the process and that you will celebrate spring with new artistic projects. I cannot wait to see them. I cannot wait what you will come up with, what shapes you will create, what animals you will paint, maybe flowers and colors that you will use. Um, and yeah, let's celebrate the spring together. And here are the major steps for your final project. You can recap them here. So applaud your project. Maybe you will update the project that you already have from other seasons, and I cannot wait to see it and see you soon in the summertime. Bye.