Aquarell-Botanicals aus Live-Referenzen in drei Kunststilen malen

1. Introduction: Experimenting with different techniques is a core step in finding your visual art style. Whether you are creating in a very realistic style or in a highly stylized way, I believe that drawing things from reference builds important skills of observation and understanding of form in us. In this class, we are combining two of these: style study and painting from a physical reference, and I'm bringing live samples. Hi. My name is Garima Srivastava I'm an artist, Illustrator, author of the upcoming book, Watercolor in 10 minutes a day. And a top teacher here on Skillshare where I have taught thousands of students my way of making beautiful art minus any overwhelm. These days, when looking for inspiration, we often find ourselves scrolling endlessly on our phones to look for that perfect reference. With this class, I want to show you the benefit of using a live botanical reference that you can pick from your garden or a grocery store and use that for your study and style exploration. We will be drawing a lot of reference sketches from these live samples. And then later use these reference sketches to explore three simple but interrelated styles of painting with watercolors. Since it's almost spring here, I'll be using some daffodil flowers and eucalyptus leaves for these style studies, but feel free to pick any other botanical sample of your choice. This class is best suitable for those of you who have played a little bit with watercolor already so that we can get started right away. But I equally welcome beginners because it's very important to learn how to use reference for your paintings. The three styles that I'll be sharing in this class will also be great for beginners to give a try. By the end of this class, you will have a good taste of drawing and painting from a live reference, and hopefully, a liking for one of the styles demonstrated in this class that you can explore further. As a project for this class, I would love to see your reference sketches. And an attempt at at least one of the three styles that I've demonstrated in this class, using either the reference of your choice or the ones from this class. Get your drawing and Watercolor art supplies ready, and let's paint from these beautiful botanical samples and explore three watercolor styles. You bring your tea and I'll bring the flowers. I'll see you there. 2. Your Project & Resources: For the project of this class, I would love to see your reference sketches and an attempt at at least one of the three styles I'll be demonstrating in this class. You can pick a reference of your choice or use the ones that I've shared in this class. Please share your progress in the projects here on Skillshare. Simply click some photographs from your phone and upload them under your project section in the projects and resources tab of this class. I have provided some useful resources for this class that you can download under projects and resources where you will find art supply list, color swatches and formulas to help you mix your colors, along with reference images and finish photographs of the projects. Now, let's get started. 3. Art Supplies: Let's have a look at the art supplies I've used in this class, but feel free to use what you already have. Let's start with paper. For our drawing exercises, I want you to use a paper that is not precious to you because I want you to draw as much as you feel like. For that, I'm using a budget friendly dollar store sketchbook. It's not even made out of watercolor paper. For the paintings, you can use any brand of cold press watercolor paper that you already have. I'm using Canson Montreal 300 GSM cold press watercolor paper. I had it in bigger sheets and I've chopped them down into smaller sizes almost 7" by 10 ". For one of the style exploration, I've also used a drawing paper. It's close to 200 GSM in weight, and it's slightly smoother compared to cold press paper. But feel free to use whatever paper that you already have that you use to paint watercolor paintings. Colors, feel free to use what you already have, whether it's in pan colors or tube colors. I've squeezed out some of my favorite tube colors into this small ceramic color palette, and I mix my colors into these porcelain color mixing plates. You can also use plastic color mixing plates or even dinner dishes. For a minimalistic style representation, I'll be using black watercolor, but feel free to use black ink or brush pen markers for this purpose. The brushes that I'm using for painting are pointed round number four, pointed round number three, pointed round number two, and a triple zero or 3/0 detail brush. I'm also using a number six natural hair brush, which is quite old, and I use it for my color mixing. For the drawing exercises, feel free to use any of your favorite pencils. I generally draw with a 2B pencil. But to make my drawings more visible here, I've used some color pencils. Apart from this, you'll also need some scotch tape to fix your watercolor paper to a hard surface like a cardboard. You can also use a masking tape or a washi tape for this purpose. You're also going to need some paper towel to soak up excess moisture out of your brush. Going to need a few jars of clear water. I prefer to keep at least two jars of clear water with me, and most importantly, you're going to need some live botanical sample or a reference image to use for your drawings. Under the download section of this class. I will be providing you with plenty of reference images and this whole list of art supplies along with the color chart and also a few color mixing guides for you to use. 4. Style & Drawing: As a beginner at art you'll often hear the word "style" being mentioned. Let's talk a little bit about what actually defines style, especially in the visual art language. What is style? Style is basically a distinctive fingerprint or unique voice of a visual artist. It's made out of techniques or themes and a combination of many other aesthetic choices that sets their work apart from others. What defines style? While style can be shaped by influences coming from personal experiences, cultural backgrounds, and artistic influences, it shows up through a unique combination of brushwork or linework, color palette, composition, and subject matter used while representing an artist's interpretation of the world around them. Some of the popular styles, you'll come across in arts are realism, where the focus is on accuracy and detail, capturing light and shadow perfectly, along with the actual textures of the subject. Impressionism focuses on capturing the light and colors through the use of loose gestural brush strokes. Abstract art uses line, color, shape, texture, and composition with a lot of freedom when expressing an artist's interpretation of a sensory stimulus from the world around them. Now the question comes, how do you find a style. I've got a few tips for you. Observe and study. Study the works of artists from different periods of time and varying across different styles. It will give you inspiration and increase your awareness of artistic possibilities. Experimentation. Exploring various techniques, subjects, and approaches will help you find what clicks with you or not. Self reflection. Self reflection is an important step in your journey to find your unique artistic voice. Because you need to decide on your own artistic preferences in terms of techniques and subjects. Consistency. Consistency in embracing the unique combination of elements that feel like you. Integrating them consistently into your work will bring out a more cohesive style. Today, I'll be sharing with you three styles of watercolor painting that even beginners can start with. But before that, let's talk a little bit about the importance of drawing. Whether you are sketching just the basic outlines or creating detailed renderings, drawing acts as a foundation for visual expression and helps you develop your skills on observation, composition, and form. The three styles that I'm going to demonstrate today are built on the importance of drawing your subject often and are interrelated. The first one, we will see minimal line drawing, where we will focus on one color and use basic simplified drawing as the base for a minimalistic style representation of our subject. Line and wash. With the use of pen or pencil sketch as a base. We will use colors in a suggestive manner to create a combination of line and wash representation of the subject. You can use colors quite sparingly or spend a bit more time and add more subtle color variations in there. Lose watercolor style or watercolor sketch. For this third style, we are going to utilize the benefit of drawing our subject often. To represent the shape and form with a very intentional placement of color without an underlying base pencil sketch. While keeping a representation a bit loose style, we will still try to capture important details. In the next lesson, let's have a look at how you can use live sample for your drawing practice and how you can also use photographs for that purpose. 5. Drawing from a Live Reference: When you have a live botanical sample in hand, it gives you a great opportunity to look at it from different angles, which is something you cannot really do with a single photograph. I have this tulip here. What I like to do before they wilt is try to look at the flower from different angles and notice how the leaves, stems, and the flower are attached to each other. Try to notice how the lines are flowing, how the petals are arranged and I like to draw little sketches like this. They are not very complex sketches. I'm not trying to capture too many details, but I try to put the flower and try to see it and draw it from different angles. Just to notice how the flower is flowing, how the lines are flowing, how the leaves are bent. You can simply turn the flower around to create an entirely different composition between leaves, stems, and flower. I've got a few sketches here. This is a simple sketchbook. You can draw on it with pencil ink, your marker pens or a simple HB pencil. What I like to do is simply turn the flower around and try to draw it from slightly different angle. I don't like to bend the leaves awkwardly just to get a different shape out of it because I like to see how the flower and the leaves are holding up when they still have the strength in them. You can capture the flowers at different stages of their life also when they are starting to wilt a little bit. Here I have very simple sketches that I drew with a pencil color. Okay. You can simply turn the flower around. And Draw very simple sketch, no need to capture too many details. No need for perfection. Just try to capture a simple flow of the lines, how the stem is flowing. If you don't feel confident with colors, simply feel free to use a pencil and eraser. Draw as many sketches as you like. This not only helps with your drawing and sketching skill, but also gives you a nice muscle memory to draw these flowers without a live sample just out of your memory. You can see how it's just a simple line drawing. This will give me a good base to further use and paint it in different styles. A good understanding of how the lines are going to flow is an essential base, no matter what style you're going to use to represent that botanical inspiration. Here, I have it slightly tilted. If you don't feel like committing to a sketchbook, feel free to use just a printer paper, just to draw. Don't worry so much about it being perfect or it being of being shown on social media. This is your safe space. Try to use this moment and utilize this beautiful botanical sample that's in your hand. Try to make the best out of it. So I'm not trying to make the proportions accurate. All I'm trying to do is concentrate on how the lines are flowing in general. I really hope you get to try this drawing exercise with any botanical sample that you can quickly grab. Try to turn it around, draw it from different angles. It will build a good muscle memory and improve your drawing skills and you'll be able to draw these flowers even when you don't have a sample. It doesn't have to be a perfect drawing. Try to concentrate on the lines and the movement of the whole flower. 6. Drawing from a Photograph: Many of us are not really comfortable drawing from the live sample, and that's why I encourage my students to draw from photographs, whether it's a digital photograph or something that you have gotten printed. I've got a few photographs of anemone flower here. When you're looking for flower reference and you want to create as many sketch as you want. Try to find reference photographs where you can see the flower from different angles. Here you can see the flower slightly bent towards you. This is right from the top of the flower, and this is from the side so that you can also see the bottom part here. When a 3D object is flattened like this, it becomes easier to draw all the elements that you've seen. You can use any of the photographs like this to draw free hand. Something like what I'm doing. I don't try to capture too many details. Okay. For simple sketches like this, you need to record different elements that you're noticing. I'm noticing this round center. Try to record what texture you're seeing. I'm seeing little hairy texture on it. Then this group of anthers attached with thin lines here. Try to record that. The anthers are quite dense. Now, let's add these petal like shapes. So smaller ones. Based on what angle you're looking at. Some of the petals that are closer to you and are bent will be smaller. And all of these things, you'll be able to learn to draw the more you practice. Okay. I started from the center, added the anthers and then went on to add the petal shapes. They are not very accurate, but that was not my intention either. This is just a free hand drawing of a photograph. You can do the same with other samples that you have. If you find it difficult to free hand draw from a live sample or a photograph like this, you can always use something like a tracing paper, a sheet of velum, or even a butter paper like this to trace the shape of the flower. You can capture as many details as you would like. The flower will be a bit more visible when you're using a traditional tracing paper, but this is just a butter paper and you can very easily use it to trace as well. You can also use your light box or your iPad to trace from a digital photograph. Whether you're sketching from a live sample or reference photographs like this, I do encourage you to draw the particular flower from different angle. Draw it multiple times. It builds a good muscle memory and you'll be able to draw the flower even without any reference with you. 7. Daffodil Drawing: For this first set of style studies, I'll be using daffodil flowers. Spring is almost here, and I've just picked some daffodils or narcissis from my florist. I thought it would be a good idea to use these for our style exploration. Before we start sketching the flower, let's have a closer look at it. This is the base. You can see how the long leaves are slightly curled. A long stem. Then the flower is actually attached to the stem at a slight angle. At the base, you can see this slightly greenish yellowish green part, that is called spathe. There are total six tepals which are a combined sepal and petals. Sepal is usually the green part you see underneath the flowers. They are combined, and they are called tepals There is two sets of three. There are some forward smaller ones, one, two, and three. And then slightly bigger one at the back, one, two, and three. This trumpet shape that you're seeing is called corona. Inside it are the anthers and this stamen. The flower color can be completely uniform, both the tepals and the corona being the same color yellow here, or you will also see the contrasting color where tepals are white, and the coroona is sometimes orange or yellow. Now, let's try to sketch the flower by looking at it at different angles. Based on how you're looking at it, you'll be able to see different numbers of tepals. I'm looking at it from an angle while you are seeing because of the camera right from the top. Try to hold your sample in your own hand. I'm starting with first the corona. The trumpet shape doesn't have to be perfect. The top part is a little frilly shape. Now I'm going to try to capture the tepals as I'm seeing them, starting with this one. Attached at the base. Next to it is this one. So one, two, and three. Sixth tepal is not visible to me from this angle, so I'm not going to draw it. And then, let's draw the base. Little wrinkly spathe at the base. For this one, I'm not attaching the leaves, but if you want, you can also attach the leaves. If you draw them a bit longer. So here the leaves. Let's attach it anyhow. Try to notice how the leaves slightly curled. Again, focus on the lines right now. Not the proportions or perfection. Now, let's draw it from its side like this. I'm starting here. A little bit of the corona, the trumpet. Okay. Okay. I should have made this slightly a bit bigger angle, but that's okay. Now, let's look at it straight from the front. This is where you will most easily see all the six tepals. For that, I like to usually start with the central corona. Make it ruffled. Okay. I'm not looking at it straight from top, but at a slight angle. If you look at it straight from top, you'll see the stamen right in the center, but I'm looking it at a slight angle. So the stamen is slightly towards the bottom, and I'm able to see the top wall. Now, let's first draw the first top layer closest to the corona of the teples , so three of them. One, almost at 120 degree angle. And now between them. Slightly bigger ones. You can also add the thin veins in between them or slight folds along the edges. I cannot see the bottom spathe very well from this angle. That's okay. Can just attach the stem. Now I'm going to continue drawing it from a few different angles. When you're drawing from a live sample, try to hold it steady or stabilize it with something else so that the angle at which you're looking at it doesn't change too much because it does change what you're seeing, the moment you change the angle at which you're looking at the sample. Try to simplify the object into simpler shapes that you're noticing. So you can see we've created quite a few simple sketches from our daffodils, and we are later going to use them for our style exploration. I've tried not to focus on too many details. I've just tried to capture the shape of the flower from different angle to see how the petals are visible from different angles. I hope you get to do this exercise with any flower that you can grab. I also encourage you to take some photographs of the fresh flowers from different angles just so that you have a good record of how the colors are when they're fresh on different parts of the flower. If you find it difficult to draw from a live sample like this, always feel free to photograph it and then use that as a reference to draw from. 8. Daffodil Style I: Minimal Line Drawing: For this style, we're going to focus on minimalistic line drawings of the Daffodil flower. For that, I will reference the sketches I made earlier, but you can also create some fresh sketches with a live sample or using some photographs. I'm going to reference this one and this one here to create the line drawing. I will be simplifying them just a little bit. For the line drawing, you can use black ink or any dark ink like this using a brush or a brush pen like this. It has a brush tip. It can make fine line, and if you will press it down, it will make slightly broader line. But if you don't have ink or markers, you can also create these lines using simple dark colored water color. I've got some Lamp Black here. You can use any dark color like Indigo or Burnt Umber, or you can combine Indigo and Burnt Umber to create this almost black color and use a fine brush. I've got number two round brush here. I've also got a few smaller brushes. This is number three round comes to a nice point, so when you will just use the point of the brush, you'll be able to make fine lines with it. This will be just fine lines. If you would like to increase the weight of the line, just press the brush down while you're making the line to make the line a bit broader. At the beginning, you don't have to worry too much, where to make the line thin, where to make it broad. But a general concept of the line weight in this kind of sketches is you increase the width of the line, make them slightly broader, where you want to show shadow or where you want to show thickness of the object and keep them light, where the light areas are there. We will be simplifying this drawing. You can create these simple line drawings on plain piece of paper or paint some abstract colored shapes like this and then draw these simple line drawings on top of them, and this will create a beautiful abstract wall art piece for you. I'm going to quickly create two flowers. For now, I'm using my 2B pencil just to create a basic drawing. Okay. I will draw another one here? Okay. So my basic sketch is ready. I've closed my reference because now we're just going to color. I've got here. I'm going to create a nice juicy mix. I want it to have good color strength, but it should be juicy enough so that my brush can create these lines in a nice fluid motion without getting streaks. If you would like to keep your lines really fine and thin, you can use a smaller detail brush like this triple zero brush. Or if you would like a bit more spontanity in your brush, you can use slightly bigger brush. Okay. So I'm picking this number three brush. And I'm just going to color these lines. Okay. If you're just trying out this technique for the first time, don't worry so much about the thickness of the brush strokes. Try to vary them around to create some interest. For example, here I want to show some shadow. I'll press my brush down. For fine lines, I'm gently holding the brush and using just the tip of the brush to create these lines. Feel free to turn your drawing around if it's easier to color it that way. When I want to make really thin lines, look how straight I'm holding the brush, and gently pressing it down if I want to increase the weight of the line. Okay. At first, it might be a bit difficult to make these lines continuous, but with a bit of practice doing your brush stroke drills, you'll be able to make these lines quite easily. Just practice how to keep the pressure uniform. Now most of our basic lines are already colored. I will now add some fine marks for some smaller details. Like these ridges in the petals, and also along the corona. Now, since it's an abstract piece, I will add some finishing touches. So abstract marks, some oval shaped dots. I will change my brush to this number two round brush to have a bit better control for these dots. This is just a additional touch. You don't necessarily need to do this. Once the color has dried, you can use an eraser and simply remove the visible pencil lines. You can use this directly as a minimalistic wall art or scan and then digitize or even vectorize this line drawing and later use for your other design projects. 9. Daffodil Style II: Line & Wash: For this style, we're going to be creating a line and wash representation of this daffodil. You can use your reference drawing or any reference photograph, or you can create a fresh sketch using a sample like this. I will be using my 2B pencil to create a simple sketch of this daffodil, but feel free to use other drawing materials like water soluble charcoal, colored pencils, ink pens, or marker pens to create your sketch. We will then later add some suggestive colors to our sketch. Let's first get started with this sketch. I like this angle. Now my basic sketch is ready. Now let's look at the colors. Try to notice the variation of yellow. You can notice that the color on the corona is a deeper yellow compared to more lemon or lighter yellow on the tepals On the bottom side of the tepals you can also see a bit of green in there. The spathe is greenish brown color, and then we have a bit neutral green here. And it gets lighter at the base. We don't have leaves on this one, but they will be almost the same color and their tips will be slightly yellow on top. Now, let's mix some colors. I will start with a few colors and then we'll mix a few more as we need them. For the corona, I'm picking some Cadmium-free Yellow as my deeper yellow color. For the Tepals. I've got some Lemon Yellow here. To that, I will add just a touch of Cadmium-free Yellow. Let's also mix a light green color. Using Cadmium-free Yellow with just a touch of French Ultramarine blue. For the base of the spathe here, we'll use a dull greenish brown color here and a muddy yellow for the top. For that, let's first make some French Ultramarine blue to that some Cadmium-free Yellow, and just a touch of Burnt Umber. For the stalk here, we will create a green out of mixing in Indigo with some Cadmium-free Yellow. Okay. That's nice. I've not shown this lighter green. Here it is mixture of Cadmium-free Yellow and French Ultramarine blue. Now, let's get started with coloring. Since the shape of the flower is already well defined with our sketch, we can just show the colors in a suggestive manner. I've got my number two round brush. Let's start with the lighter yellow made out of Lemon Yellow and Cadmium-free Yellow. Okay. Okay. I've just colored the tepals first. As they have come down, I'll pick the light green made out of French Ultramarine and Cadmium-free Yellow and add it to the base here. Just to suggest the green base of the flower. I can see the bottom side of this tepals I'll take this green a bit more also here. Okay. Let's use this brownish green color made out of Burnt Umber, Cadmium-free Yellow, and French Ultramarine blue to give color to the spathe here. Okay. Giving a bit more color where it's darker at the base. You can even add a little bit more of Burnt Umber. Now, let's color the corona. You can see I'm not covering every bit of the flower. Rather in a suggestive way adding color, not being very precise. Because a lot of suggestion is already made with our pencil sketch. We'll let the corona dry and let's paint the stock. You can create this sketch even outside. Just suggestive colors. You don't need a lot of colors for something like this. If you want to create some shadows for a color like yellow, there are a couple of ways. One of them is you can take some help from the complementary color of that color. Yellow is complementary is violet. If you have a ready to use violet, you can use that or mix your pink and blue to create a violet. Let's do that. Let's make some Ultramarine Blue and I've got Permanent Rose here. This gives me a nice violet. Just take a very small bit of it. You can directly paint the shadows with it or if you want them to be a bit more natural, pick the color for which you want to create the shadow and mix it with the complementary color, and then use that to add the shadow. I'm just using this shadow color to give an impression of the fine lines on the tall. We need a little bit more green at the base here. Just roughly adding it. Now let's do the same for the corona. To darken up some of the parts of corona, you can either create a shadow color for it or you can also use slightly darker variant of yellow by either mixing a bit of red in it or even brown with it to create a darker muddy yellow to create these top parts to show the ruffles I've got some Cadmium-free Yellow here. Let's add the violet that we had created earlier, and simply use that to show some ruffles and some fine lines for some of the ridges on this corona, trumpet here. Here we have shown the shadows with just a mixture of violet mixed with Cadmium-free Yellow. But if you want a bit more drama in there, you can use slightly orangish color. Pick your red. I've got Permanent Alizarin Crimson to that, I'll mix some Cadmium-free Yellow. And you can use that just to add to the tips of these ruffles here just to add a bit more drama in your sketch. But if you want to keep it simple, you can skip this part. Create the fine lines on the spathe with that greenish brown color. You can spend a long time adding these suggestive colors, but for now, my line and wash representation of this Daffodil is ready. 10. Daffodil Style III: Loose Watercolor (Part I): For this third style, I want to paint these daffodils just with water colors without any base drawing or sketch. We'll be keeping it a bit loose, but we will still add some recognizable little details. Since we had drawn this flower a couple of times earlier. I already know how different parts of the flower are placed. It becomes a bit easier to directly paint them without any base sketch. But you can take a reference from a live flower like this or any other reference photograph or your previous sketches. For the first one, I want to show you the top view, where you can see the corona and the inside anthers and all the six tepals For that, let's start by mixing the colors. For Corona, we'll directly be using Cadmium-free Yellow For Tepals we will mix some Lemon Yellow with a little bit of Cadmium-free Yellow Let's look at both of these yellows. This is Cadmium-free Yellow all by itself. Okay. This is Lemon Yellow with some Cadmium-free Yellow If you want to show some shadows on your yellow color, you can use the help of its complementary color, which is violet. For that, you can use ready to use violet or quickly makes a pink Permanent Rose here and French Ultramarine blue to create a violet here. We've got the violet ready here. I will show you how to create the shadows with it later. We will also need some green. For that, let's make some Cadmium-free Yellow with some French Ultramarine blue. I picked a bit too much blue. Let's add some more yellow to it. We will also need a brownish green color for the base of that wrinkly spathe. For that, some French Ultramarine blue, little bit of Cadmium-free Yellow and just a touch of Burnt Umber to make it duller. Here we have a brownish green ready for the darker stock, a green using some Indigo mixed with some. Cadmium-free Yellow. Now, let's get started. I've got my number two round brush since I'm painting pretty small, but feel free to pick a bit bigger brush. We're first going to paint the bottom layer of the three tepals They are almost angled at 120 degrees. This one, this one and this one, we'll start with the yellow we made out of Lemon Yellow mixed with some Cadmium-free Yellow Starting from top. Push the brush down and release. Let's paint one more. You can start from the center and go outwards. As you can see, I do not have a drawing here with me. I'm just directly painting these parts of the flower because I have the flower in my hand. But because of all the practice we did of drawing this flower, it's a bit easier to paint it now. Now we can add the top set of tepals in between these broad ones slightly thinner. If you don't want your tepals to be all mixed, you can wait for the first layer to dry. But if you want a bit more loose look, you can right away, paint the second set. Starting with just the tip and then push the brush down and release as you're coming out. I'm also adding some thin lines from the same color in the center of these tepals just to give an impression of the fine creases in it. At this point, you can wait a bit before we add the central corona. The tepals have almost dried, so I'm going to pick some Cadmium-free Yellow in my number two round brush and with that, let's first paint the outer part of the corona, the ruffles of it. Just wiggling my brush. Okay. I'll drag this color down a bit from top. I'm not looking at it directly from the top. That's why the anthers are not directly in the center but slightly towards the bottom for me. We will add the anther dots a bit later. Okay. But for now, I would like to add a bit of drama in there. For that, I will pick a bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson or any red that you have or even brown, if you would like to and combine it with the yellow that you used. Cadmium-free Yellow for me. I just add a little bit of it on the ruffles the corona. Okay. Now we will wait for this to dry. In the meantime. Let's add some shadows to some of these tepals For that, I will pick a finer brush. This is triple zero. You can directly add the shadows with a very light violet. But if you would like them to be a bit nicely blended in, simply pick the yellow with which you painted the base. For us, this is the yellow, a mixture of Lemon Yellow and Cadmium-free Yellow To that, just add this touch of violet, and it creates the perfect shadow color for you. Okay. Don't need to be too precise with it. It's a loose style, so you can even skip adding the shadows, but it's a nice touch. Adding fine lines along the tepals especially on the slightly pointy tip. I will drag some of the color from the ruffles of corona in thin lines towards the center to give an impression of the ridges along the trumpet. At the base, you can use either white or green to showcase the anthers. I've used just some of the green we earlier mixed using Cadmium-free Yellow and French Ultramarine blue. With that, I've just added a few dots. This way, we are almost done with this tapals I'll just pick this greenish brown color made out of French Ultramarine blue, Cadmium-free Yellow and a touch of Burnt Umber to add a little spathe that is visible at the base. A bit of yellow after it. And then the darker green made out of Indigo and Cadmium-free Yellow Holding my brush like this at a slight angle, keeping the pressure uniform on the brush. I'll use the same color to add the leaf and the other green for the top part of the leaf, With that touch of yellow for the tip of the leaf. So start with darker green lighter and some yellow on top. Because we drew the sketches, we know how the leaves are a little curled. That's why I've created this variation of greens. Now let's just add a bit more of that orangish yellow color to some of these ruffles This was my front facing daffodil. 11. Daffodil Style III: Loose Watercolor (Part II): Now, let's paint it while it's on its side. Something like this. We will start with again, some of the lighter yellow mix made out of Cadmium-free Yellow and Lemon Yellow. Let's say it's facing like this. I'm going to start from the base of the trumpet and first paint the tepals one, two, three, I can see the fourth one from the side here. Fifth, I can also see the sixth one, but for that, I will first to draw the corona. Now, while it is still wet, let's add some green at the base. The green made out of Cadmium-free Yellow and French Ultramarine blue, add it at the base. It's okay if it bleeds Now pick some of that brownish green color. Starting from the base of the spathe. Just a bit of pressure to make a petal like shape and then make it point on top, wrinkly at the base. Add some yellow at its base. While the tepals are drying, let's add the stalk Some Indigo mixed with Cadmium-free Yellow Again, brush at a slight angle and drag it down. Same color for the bottom part of the leaf, followed by the lighter green color for the top part of the leaf, and then yellow on top. Start from the base, your brush down and let go. Okay. Pick the lighter green color. Start from top, push your brush down and meet the two on the side, and then just add a little yellow on the tip. Now, the tepals have almost dried so we can paint the corona. Simply pick your Cadmium-free Yellow and with that, add this rich yellow color in the shape of trumpet, vertical strokes down like this. This repeated brush strokes will already create the ruffles But like we did earlier, if we want a bit more drama, you can add a bit of orange. For that, some Permanent Alizarin Crimson mixed with Cadmium-free Yellow for just the top ruffles of the corona. Now, with a finer brush some of that violet of the shadow color with the yellow for the base teples some fine lines on the tepals can also pick some of the lighter green you had mixed, add a bit more of it at the base. With some of the Cadmium-free Yellow mixed with the violet, you can add some fine lines for the ridges on the corona. With that brownish green, just fine lines on the spathe here. Bit more orange on the ruffles. This is how we painted our daffodils without any base sketches, but with a live sample and good practice of sketching them earlier. I really hope you enjoy painting these daffodils in three different styles, and I would love to see how you painted them, so please do make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare. 12. Eucalyptus Drawing: For the second set of style studies, we're going to use a eucalyptus twig. For this round of style exploration, I've got a fresh twig of round leaf eucalyptus here. it's got quite a few smaller branches. If something like this is too complex for you to sketch, you can break off a smaller branch, and concentrate just on that to draw the leaves and how they're arranged. I've also got a dried branch of eucalyptus here. Whenever I get eucalyptus leaves in bouquets, I like to preserve them. Simply dry them, and then later you can use them as simple props. Next to your art flatlay . It's up to you, whether you want to sketch from freshly cut branches like this or the dried ones like this. Just turn the leaves around, try to notice them, how they're attached. Try to see them from different angles. I'm going to break off this little twig here, and now we have something small to concentrate on. Now, let's get started and create a few sketches of this little branch of eucalyptus leaves. I'm going to start from the base. I just decide how big I want to draw it. Once you have an idea of how big you want your drawing to be, it becomes a bit easier to decide how to place the leaves. Okay. Okay. Again, the focuses is on the lines and not on details. You can first draw the things that are closer to you. So you can see how roughly I'm drawing them. It does take a bit of practice to get better proportions. But this is a great exercise to learn just that. Sometimes when you draw something like this, you run out of space or are not able to optimize the leaves. In that case, don't worry. You can skip one level of leaves. This is just a very simple sketch. When I'm looking at it by holding it in my hand like this. Now we can turn it around and look at it from a different angle and again. It just gives you a slightly different view. I won't give you a very drastically different view, but you can see how these round leaves look flattened when you turn the twig round. Practicing to sketch leaves like this will give you a good understanding of how to draw a branch of eucalyptus like this without a live sample with you. They're very small leaves up on the top. I can only see them when I turn it like this. I'll continue to draw a few more variations. So when you're drawing in different angles, try to hold the sample because if you will move it ever so slightly, it's going to change the way you are seeing the leaves. When you have a live sample like this in hand, it's important to also photograph it so that you can remember the colors, try to notice the little variation of color it is green, and then over the edges, it has a bit of red in it. I like to photograph them as well for my reference because they do change color as they dry. But you can also very easily simple sketches like this using some of the dried leaves. Sometimes you don't even need to sketch the whole branch. You can concentrate on the top part of the branch or somewhere you'll see a bit more variation or some other botanical elements that are visible. You can decide what part of the sample you would like to concentrate on when you're creating these sketches. We can try doing the same with this dried little twig. They do curl a little bit the way they dry. They will give you slightly different look than when the leaves are fresh. They become quite delicate when they have dried, so they need a little bit of care. You can see how I draw the mid stem of them with the dotted line because some of the leaves are in front of the stem towards me, so the stem is hiding behind them. And these are the simple things I like to notice. I'm not trying to make the leaves perfect. Just notice which part of the leaf or the way it's bent, are you able to see the underside of the leaf or not? I've got the bigger branch here as well. It has got quite a few smaller twigs in there. I'm not going to try and capture all of the leaves. Rather, I just want to capture how the branches are attached, how they over all flow. If it's any bit easier, feel free to take a photograph of your sample. Turning it into a 2D inspiration is sometimes easier for a lot of people. You don't always need to draw from real life inspiration. There's no compulsion in it. I myself often find drawing from photographs a bit easier. One, you don't need to worry about the sample wilting. So as you can see, I'm not trying to draw every single leave. This will give you a good idea how to sketch a slightly busier branch of eucalyptus. I'm going to hold the branch I had broken off to also make it part of my sketch. So now, with the help of these samples, we have created quite a few simple sketches here of these eucalyptus leaves. We can use these sketches as a base for our style exploration later. . 13. Eucalyptus Style I: Minimal Line Drawing: For this first style exploration of these eucalyptus leaves, we are going to be focusing on minimalistic style line drawing, which we will first create with pencil, and then later add color to those lines. You can use black ink or any dark ink for that or your brush pen markers with brush pen markers, you can make thin lines. If you press them a bit, you'll be able to increase the thickness of the line. We create the lines thinner, where the light is falling and where you want to show a bit of shadow, you can make the lines a bit thicker. But in the beginning, don't worry so much about thickness of the line. You can keep the line thickness uniform or vary it as you like. For our line drawing, you can use some of your earlier sketches to get a reference or use your live sample to create a fresh drawing. I will do a mix of both. You can paint this line drawing artwork on a completely plain paper, and that makes it easier to digitize and later use it for your digital projects, or you can paint it on simple colored backgrounds like this, some abstract shapes, Let them dry or something like this, a lot of different colors, wet on wet. It's up to you how you would like. I'm going to try to paint it on this one first. If you don't have ink or marker pens, you can use your darker water colors. I've got some Lamp Black here. You can use Indigo, Burnt Umber or any other darker color. I'm going to add just enough water to it. To create a nice juicy mix. It should be thick enough so that it has a nice concentration of color, but watery enough so that my brush loads properly without leaving streaky lines. I've got a smaller twig I had broken earlier here and I'm going to create a line drawing with it. You can use your earlier drawn sketches for this. I'm going to try to simplify some of these shapes. I'm using a 2B pencil at this point, drawing very lightly just so that I can see the marks when I'm going over them with color. I'm going to refer to this one here. I had mentioned earlier, you don't need to exactly draw like your sketches, take some reference. You can change the number of leaves or number of elements. My line drawing is ready. I can close my reference. I'm going to attach this paper with some tape to keep it straight while I'm adding the colored lines. To keep your line really thin, you can use a smaller brush like 000 or 3/0. If you would like to have a bit more spontanity in it, change the thickness, then you can use a picker but pointed brush like this. This is a number three. It's got a nice point, when I'll keep it really straight and I'll be able to paint with just the point, quite thin lines, and by just tilting it and pressing it down, I'll be able to make thicker lines with it. I'm going to start from the top. I'm keeping the lines a bit thin where I'm seeing the light hitting the leaves and where there is shadow, I'm giving the line a bit more wide like towards the bottom of the leaves. If I want to make thin lines, I'm just using the tip of the brush. If I want to increase the thickness, I'll just press the brush a little bit. Okay. Okay. Feel free to rotate the paper if it becomes a bit easier to color. You can start with just thin lines and then later increase the thickness where you would like. Fine lines with just the tip of the brush and thicker ones by pressing the brush ever so slightly down. Like I did with the other project in this style, let's add some abstract marks. You can make wavy lines or dots like this. Once this line drawing dries, you can take an eraser and remove the pencil lines. If you would like to darken up some of the lines, you can go back in with the color or ink. But for now my minimalistic line drawing work of the eucalyptus sleeves is ready. 14. Eucalyptus Style II: Line & Wash: This second style, we're going to create a line and wash sketch of these eucalyptus leaves. You can decide to paint from a reference photograph or a live sample like this or even dried leaves like this. Only differences, the dried leaves have a much more muted and silvery color than the fresh leaves. These ones are the freshest. This one has slightly dried and this is quite an old sample. It's much more silver in color. I'm first going to create a sketch with pencil. You can use any other drawing material like colored pencils, markers, ink pens, and later we're going to add some suggestive colors to our leaves. Let's first create a simple sketch. We won't be very precisely painting the leaves, we'll be adding just some suggestive colors. You can create these sketches quite quickly by adding a rough line drawing and then some suggestive colors quickly added on top of your drawing. Okay. Okay. Our line drawing is ready. This is just a normal 2B pencil. Since form of the leaves is nicely shown by the pencil lines. We can just add some suggestive colors. People often ask me how to mix the greens that are needed. The trick is not to ever use the green directly from the tube, rather mix your greens, either manipulate the ready to use green or mix them from scratch. Then for eucalyptus leaves, you have to make the green a bit muted. I've got a few mixing charts here that I created. I'll provide them to you along with the class resources. Here, I have a couple of greens that I've mixed with Quinacridone Gold, so some yellow. A blue, I've got French Ultramarine blue, and then to mute down that green, I add a bit of Burnt Umber to it. I keep mixing this mixture multiple times when I'm painting these leaves roughly and that gives me a variety of different greens that I add to my leaves. That makes them natural Because based on how you're looking at a leaf, you will see different kinds of greens on the top surface, on the bottom, If you tilt it around how you are seeing the leaves. Instead of just painting them with one color, try to vary your greens. I sometimes use a different yellow, sometimes a different blue. This is with cadmium free yellow. Here I have instead of Ultramarine blue, I've used Phthalo Turquoise for these greens. They are quite accurate to this one. We might use this mixture for now. If you would like them a bit more darker, then you can use Indigo as your blue. They'll be quite muted right from the start because Indigo is already a neutral blue. You can try to create a similar chart like this with your yellows and blues and this will give you a nice collection of different green that you can mix for your leaves. For now, we can decide to either go with Phthalo Turquoise, Cadmium-free Yellow and Burnt Umber and Quinacridone Gold, Indigo and Burnt Umber. I will show you both of these mixtures. We'll use them in different parts of the leaves. When you will see the leaves, you can see there's a little bit of deeper maroon towards the edges of the leaves also along the central line on the back side of it, it is light green. You can show that variation of color as well for our first green. Some Phthalo Turquoise, rinse the brush nicely, and then pick some Cadmium-free Yellow, and let's add some, Burnt Umber to this. Let's look at the color. Don't need to be very precise with it. This is already looking quite close. This is fine. Let's also mix a deeper red for that. I'll keep some Permanent Alizarin Crimson ready mixed with bit of Burnt Umber. To have a lighter variant of this green, we will simply add a bit more water. Now let's mix a bit darker green this time Indigo , Quinacridone Gold, and then add some Burnt Umber to it. I would add a little bit more Indigo to it. That's about right. If I want a lighter variant of it, simply add more water to have a nice light neutral green. We will also need a lighter green for the stem, for that simply makes some Cadmium-free Yellow with French Ultramarine blue here. That's nice for the backside of the stems here. Now. Let's get started. I've got my number two round brush. With that, I'm going to closely look at the leaves to decide which ones I'm going to give what color. I'm seeing some of the back sides of the leaves are quite light, but some of them are a bit darker where the light is not hitting. For the light ones, I'm using the Turquoise mix that we use with a bit more water. I'll just add the color to them. Wherever I'm seeing a bit lighter green, I'm adding this color. While the leaves are still wet, just add a touch of that red along their edges. Just to hint the little variation. I'm also seeing the lighter green here. It is quite roughly adding the color. Don't need to be precise with it. Adding the red while the green is still wet helps. Don't worry if it bleeds like this that adds to the look of the sketch. Most of these sketches are done on spot. You don't have time to wait for things to try. Now we can move on to the into mix that we created to use for the darker greens. Okay. You can be quite rough with this or take your time. Let's add some of that to some of these leaves as well. Now we can add some color to the central stalk. It's a mix of the reddish brown color. I'm just adding the reddish brown in a thin line. Then I'm going to pick that very light green we mixed with French Ultramarine blue and add it right next to the red we have added for the central line. Now, with a finer brush like triple zero, if you want to, you can add with that same red, the central vein, dilute it a bit if you would like to keep it quite light, and you can also skip it if you don't want to do this. If you would like to, you can go back in with some ink pens and reinforce the sketch lines to give a pen and wash look. But you can keep it like this as a simple line and wash sketch with your pencil lines visible. This is how we painted a line and wash representation of our eucalyptus leaves. 15. Eucalyptus Style III: Loose Watercolor (Part I): For this third representation of the eucalyptus leaves, we are going to paint them just with watercolors without any base sketch. I will show you two ways to paint these leaves quite quickly. One of them will take a little bit longer than the other. They will both be a bit loose in style. Let's first get started with our color mixing. Based on how you are looking at the eucalyptus leaves and how old your sample is, you'll be able to see different greens. On the underside and on the top side, also when there is a bit of shadow there and when the light hits the leaves. You can study them. If your leaf sample is quite old, it will look quite muted and silvery like this. But in general, all of these greens are quite muted compared to other leaves. Instead of using a ready to use green, you can either manipulate that ready to use green or create little mixing charts like this. Where you can try combining your different yellows and blues and mute them with a bit of Burnt Umber. You can decide which of the colors you like, and the trick to painting them quite quickly and still making them quite interesting is keep changing this mixture while you're painting. Start with one mixture and add a little bit more yellow in between, then add a bit more blue, add a bit more brown. You keep changing the mixture as you're painting the leaf and it keeps it looking fresh because you keep getting different variants of the green in there. Now, let's mix a couple of greens to get started and paint these leaves in two different ways. The first green I'm going to mix is made out of Quinacridone Gold, mixed with Indigo and then add some Burnt Umber to it to make it muted. Let's look at the color. It's a dark green. You can change its composition a bit by adding a little bit of Burnt Umber to it or a little bit of Indigo to it or even a little bit of Quinacridone Gold to it. This will give you quite a light golden green. We won't really need it for the actual leaves, but you can use this for the central stem. I'll just create a bit more of this mixture. Okay. We have got three or four different greens we can use here. But now let's mix another green. We'll use some Phthalo Turquoise, add some Cadmium-free Yellow and Burnt Umber to it. Needs a little bit more Burnt Umber. This is much better. Just like we did earlier, we can create a few variants of it by adding a bit more yellow a bit more Burnt Umber. Just try creating a few different variants that you like and keep changing them while you're painting the leaves. We will also mix a little bit of reddish brown, some Permanent Alizarin Crimson mixed with some Burnt Umber. For lighter green, we can either mix a new one with some Cadmium-free Yellow mixed with French Ultramarine blue. I've got this almost dry right sample in my hand. I will show you how without the sketch, you can paint this. Just have a quick look at the leaf and decide where you will be placing the darker leaves. Don't think too much about it. It will take a little bit practice to paint them without a sketch, but you will get there. I'm starting with the into mix first that we had manipulated by first adding a bit more Burnt Umber to it. I'll pick a bit bigger brush. This is number two to paint it more easily. I will pick my number four round brush. Picks up nice amount of color. I just have a general idea of how the colors are looking. I'm not thinking too much about how I'm adding them. Just try to vary them around a bit. There are some darker looking mixes. Just trying to generally recreate the shape that I'm seeing doesn't have to be perfect. There are some lighter greens that I'm seeing in my mixtures. Some are a bit more muted. Based on how you're looking at leaf, you'll be seeing them differently. So try to look at your sample. Again, we are not trying to be precise with this. Just try to record the general shape of the leaves. Only logic that I'm following is a little bit of which one are dark greens and which one are slightly lighter greens. You can obviously make a green lighter by adding a bit more water. But in all of these greens, there are some which are already a bit lighter and some are a bit in color. This is how we very quickly added color to these leaves. If you would like to, you can add a hint of red on the edges. Okay. But that's only if you would like to can leave them like this as well. If the leaves have already dried, then don't bother adding them because it will just stand there like dried edge. But if the leaf is still wet, you can add it, it gives a nice look. We're going to pick this same reddish brown color. With that, add the stalk towards the right side, I'm seeing a bit of red. You have to notice how you're seeing because for some of the leaves, you can see the stem going through them. Okay. Now with the light green we had mixed with some French Ultramarine blue and Cadmium-free Yellow. With that, let's add the remaining stock. Towards the left side of the earlier reddish line we painted. Let's add this stock. You can go back in and redefine some of the lost edges. For example, between these two, they were getting quite fused together. I have recreated that edge. If you would like to darken up any of the leaves, simply add the similar color, very gently over it so that you're not disturbing the bottom. And then this also gives you the opportunity to add bit of that red around the edges. Okay. I'm liking the look of the red on the leaves. I'm just adding a very thin layer of the similar color on top of the ones that don't have the red edge, and then while they are still wet with this new glaze, just add the red around the edges. Not all over the edges, just a little bit on the tip. Okay. Also adding very thin reddish veins to some of the leaves. And with this, our first way of loosely painting the eucalyptus leaves is done. In the next lesson. I'll show you another way. 16. Eucalyptus Style III: Loose Watercolor (Part II): Now, I will show you a fun way where we won't be thinking too much. Simply pick a bigger brush like a number four round. With that, let's make some leaf shapes in quick motion. Starting with just the tip of the brush, push it down and release a round of leaf. Change green, make a side thinner leaf. Change your green again. Again, make a rounder leave. Rinse your brush, change your green, thin one on the side. Okay. You see how I'm changing the greens because I have a bit of practice, I'm quickly able to make this leaf shapes. But you will also be able to. Since they are not very difficult, if you have a bit of practice painting any kind of leaves, you will be able to paint these que easily. Simply change the greens that you're using to keep these leaves looking interesting. Now, while they're still wet take a finer brush, number two round I have and simply add the stalk in between these leaves. I'm also adding a bit of color to the tip of the leaves. Some of them have it in their center already since we painted the stalk a bit earlier, can add a bit more green to the stalk. You can see how roughly I'm painting these. But this gives a nice loose look. I can show you one more time here. Okay. One, one flat, one round one flat flat, another one slightly flat flat flat. And smaller as they go up and then reddish brown in between them. Don't worry about the colors bleeding, that adds to this look. And there you have it a very loosely painted, but beautiful looking eucalyptus leaves. This is how we painted our eucalyptus leaves. This one, we used a little bit more details to cover time to add the leaves without the sketch. With these two, we very quickly painted them by changing the color of the leaves around. This really loose eucalyptus leaves work great for design projects. You can digitize them and keep their looseness intact when you're turning them into clip art, and then you can use them for your design projects. I really hope you enjoyed painting some eucalyptus trigs. They come quite handy when you're painting some floral bouquets. I would love to see how you painted them, please do share your projects here on Skillshare 17. Closing: I hope with these lessons, you felt encouraged to draw and paint from live botanical samples and to paint your subject in a few different styles. These exercises will not only help you improve your drawing and sketching skill, But we also help you get closer to finding the style characteristics that you actually like. I would love to see your projects and give my feedback. Please do share them here on Skillshare, and if you're sharing them on Instagram, you can tag me. For any queries, please use the discussion tab and I'll try my best to answer them. I regularly publish new classes, do follow me here on Skillshare to get updates about my future classes. If you like this class, please consider leaving a Skillshare class review. It helps me reach more students here on Skillshare. It was wonderful teaching another class here. Thank you so much for watching until next time, stay creative.