Painting Watercolor Tropicals with Water-based Markers | Charlotte DeMolay | Skillshare
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Painting Watercolor Tropicals with Water-based Markers

teacher avatar Charlotte DeMolay, Art | Writing | Nature

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:58

    • 2.

      Supplies

      2:09

    • 3.

      Your Project

      1:37

    • 4.

      Single Color Highlights & Shadows

      4:58

    • 5.

      Leaving White

      3:43

    • 6.

      Blooms & Blends

      4:41

    • 7.

      Simplifying Multicolor Images

      4:53

    • 8.

      Using the Background

      5:48

    • 9.

      Conclusion

      0:46

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About This Class

Use your water-based markers, like TomBow Dual Brush, to create easy, beautiful tropical flowers. This is a great technique for sketching on the go or those who are learning to control water media.

Got water-based markers sitting around in your crafting, lettering or stamping supplies? Let’s make some easy, watercolor paintings with them! You can even raid your kids' school supplies for this technique. This class will demonstrate how to use water based markers like watercolor paint. It is very simple and creates beautiful work.

The class project will be to use one of the techniques to create one (or more!) finished tropical floral painting.

This class is designed for the beginning artist. No prior experience is required.

If you like this technique, check out these other classes using water-based markers:

Painting Watercolor Botanicals with Water-Based Markers

Coffee Break Art: Brush Marker Watercolor Hollies

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Charlotte DeMolay

Art | Writing | Nature

Teacher

 

*I'm taking a break from Skillshare for a little while...if you need to contact me you can fine me on the sites below* 

click Facebook or @charlottebdemolay

click Instagram or @charlotte.demolay

click demolay.com for my website, email list and blog

 

I don't just see the world as it is, I see the possibilities.

Part of my passion for art is teaching others. I have taught students of all ages for over 35 years. I love teaching the creative soul who thinks they 'can't' do art as well as the advanced student wanting to push their work to a new level.

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I work in acrylic, wa... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Welcome to painting watercolor topicals with water-based markers. This is my third class on this subject. I have fallen in love with this technique. It's simple and it's absolutely beautiful. You can create an exquisite painting with just a few supplies, even inexpensive supplies. In just a few steps. I'm Charlotte demodulate. I'm an artist, writer and a little bit of an art world vendor. For me, art is as much about the process as the product. I love experiment and play around and see what my different materials can do. I currently live in coastal Florida. And the inspiration here is incredible. I'm a gardener and I love all the tropical flowers. I feel like I'm living in paradise all the time. And needless to say, it has given me a lot of inspiration in the studio. That's why it was perfect to pair this technique with tropical flowers. I cover some different techniques in watercolor botanicals with water-based markers. You don't need to have taken that class first for this class, they're completely independent and each one shows some different techniques to use with water-based markers. Will try using one color for highlights and shadows. We'll also explore leaving the white of the paper and how that affects your painting. We'll get a little bit loose with some color blending and water blooms. Then I'll show you how to take a complex flower, the bird of paradise, and break it down. So very, very simple and very beautiful. And then the last demonstration, we'll use the background to illustrate the flower, which is a great technique for white flowers or light colored flowers. So join me for painting watercolor tropical oils with water-based markers. Thank you. 2. Supplies: Let's talk about the supplies you're going to need for this class. First, you're going to need some sort of paper that is made for water media. I've been loving these Canson mixed media sketchbooks. I've been doing a lot of work and needs with the markers, but any sort of watercolor paper will do. Try and get something made for watercolor, not like card stock though. Or you'll get a lot of buckling while you're working. Next for markers, my favorite are the Tombow markers. I have a ton of things. I love using these. I think they have the most color and saturation, but you don't need to run out and buy something special, inexpensive. You can also use Crayola is one of our project. We'll just use this very inexpensive kids pack of Crayola markers not to paint with. You obviously need water. So you can have a water source and a regular paintbrush. I just get inexpensive brushes from Michael's. I don't spend a lot on brushes because a lot of times on teaching with kids. So I've just learned over the years to use what I have. You can also use these brushes that put the water in the handle. These are great for painting on the go when you may not have a cup or something, have water in. Now, for inspiration, I take a lot of photos myself, and I also use unsplash.com because it has a lot of copyright-free photographs that you can use as inspiration. Now word of advice on using photographs. I like to use them just as a guide, not as a straight copy. So you'll see my end product doesn't look exactly like a photograph. That's okay. That's part of my process. Abilene from Unsplash tropical collection over in the resource section, as well as the photos that I used, including one of my own personal photos that I use for the bird of paradise. I also have drawings of each of the flowers that we'll be doing and then demonstrations just in case you're a little drawing challenged. I don't want that to stop you from trying this technique and playing around and see what you can do with us. That's it for supplies. So now let's talk about your project. 3. Your Project: Your project for this class will be a finished watercolor painting from the water-based markers. The easiest way to do this as paint along during the demonstrations. That's why I'm telling you about the project. Now. See he gets set and ready and paint along with me. As we go through these demonstrations, it looks like I'm painting really fast. I actually have the video sped up to twice the speed that I'm actually painting in. I find for myself it's a little boring to watch somebody paint. And sometimes you don't have enough instructions to fill that in as you're going along. So I'll put the videos at twice the speed. But please feel free to stop them and catch up. It's what I would need to do if I was watching myself, I would stop. Catch up to that point, listen to the next set of instructions. Stop it and do it at the pace that you feel comfortable. If you follow along with me in the demonstrations, you'll have possibly four beautiful paintings at the end of this class. Please take a picture of at least one of them and upload them to the project section. I would love to see how you interpret this technique and how you paint tropical. And I will comment and like on each and everyone and if you have questions, please feel free to post and asked me about it. Also, if you could please leave a review for this class, It's very helpful for both myself and Skillshare to know. Is this a level of quality and instruction that you'd like to see here on Skillshare. Thank you. I hope you enjoy painting watercolor tropical oils with water-based markers. 4. Single Color Highlights & Shadows: We're going to start with a flamingo flower. And this technique is using a single color for both highlights and shadows. So we'll start with drawing the flower. I learned this yellow piece inside is called the speed x. So I'm going to draw this, but I won't go all the way around it. I'm just putting a little bit at the base, again where the darker part is according to our reference photo. Now I'm going to draw the petal or what is actually called the space. I think I'm pronouncing that right? Anyway, I'm going to draw each of those ridges that we see in it. And again, this isn't a 100% accurate drawing because the painting is our end goal, not the drawing. As we're drawing with the marker, we're laying down our pigment pole will be painting from. So that's why I added a little bit thicker on where the darker and the shadows show in our reference photo. The whitespace I'm leaving is going to create a natural highlight. Once we get to painting, I'm just going back and adding a little bit where it's darker, where the shadows are going to be. And remember to outline your speed x because we didn't draw it all with the yellow. Now, the stem, very simple. I'm not going to draw any leaves in the background of this. I kinda want the flower itself to be the main subject for this. So you can see this technique and we risk having a lot of bleeds and stuff with the background. We'll do that with a different demonstration. Okay, let's start painting. I'm using a loaded water brush. It gives me a little bit more control, not so much water, so that I can pull into pigment and not lose some of those highlights and shadows. And again, just kinda wet where the pigment is, pull it over, keeping it light in-between the ridges. And that gives that highlight look where the darker part gives the shadow look. And make sure it grew around all the edges. Because this keeps it looking like a watercolor, not like a marker drawing. Be very careful going around the edge of this Vedic so we keep the shape. They are. Like traditional watercolor. The white of the paper is part of the highlight for that. I'm having some issues with my brush. I'm just going to switch over to a paintbrush, but I'm using a very tiny ones so that can keep control of the amount of water in this painting. Again, go around all the edges so you lose that hard line from the marker and then pull from your pigment over into your highlight. And repeat this for the last flower. The same for this film. Pull it down, pull it a little bit further so you get the painterly effect. Now notice the red bleeds into it a little bit and that's okay. That kinda helps create that shadow and increases that watercolor look. In fact, I liked that so much. I'm gonna do it on purpose here under this flower. I'm going to go back and add just a little bit of yellow for the highlight as well. You don't have to do this. I felt like it sort of gave a little more dimension. This painting. And there you have a flamingo flower with single color highlights and shadows. Yes, cheated slightly at the end there with a little bit of yellow. Again, that's optional. Okay, let's move on and try a different technique. 5. Leaving White: I talked about leaving the white of the paper with the flamingo flower. Let's take that a little bit further with a lobster claw. Gave already got my reference drawing down in pencil. So I'm just going to start filling in with the marker. If you notice I'm not drawing completely around. I'm laying again, laying down the pigment where the color is darker in the reference photo. And you're not creating accurate drawing. You're just laying down pigment for the watercolor. Okay, it looks yellow and the reference photo on here, but it is a bit of green in there. And I'm just putting a line where this is and then adding some yellow again as well. Green is the darkest part of this. And then the yellow comes up on top of it. Okay, Let's paint. Try and use a small brush so you can keep control of the water and the pigment better. And remember this is our pigment pools. So go over the edges, get it watercolor looking. And we are going to leave some of the white work from your darker areas and then move inward keeping the insides lighter. You don't want a uniform look, you want to give it that dark and light effect like we used with the flamingo flower. I've never seen a lobster claw here in Florida. But they are fascinating looking. I'm going to have to see if I can find some in the wild or botanical garden or something like that. Be very careful as you're doing each piece and leaving the white before if you need to move to a smaller brush to help control the water. Another tip is when you dip your brush into your water, tap it onto a paper towel that takes some of the excess water. Okay, Now, with the green and the yellow, I am blending those in together because the green is the dark portion of the yellow and don't paint up all the way to the peak. You definitely want to leave white in-between the yellow and the pink. That's the whole point of leaving that white line in there is to keep it from bleeding and together and have a good delineation for each part of this flowers, especially this is a very, very crisp flower. Each segment of color is very bright, very crisp. Be very slow and use some control when you're painting and leave that white in there. There we go. We have a lobster claw. Three simple colors using the white of the paper, which is just beautiful. 6. Blooms & Blends: Now we're going to do one of my Florida favorites. So hibiscus, I have painted this so many times since moving here to Florida. Have them growing all over my yard. I have photograph them and I just love them. I think they are exquisitely beautiful. They bloom year round where I live, and they are most definitely my favorite. I've already got my pencil drawing on here. Now I'm going to lay down the pigment. I'm not going exactly by the colors in the reference photo. I'm going a little bit pinker really loved the pink hibiscus, although they come in many colors. This is where you can with any of this, and especially with a flower like this, use some of your artistic creativity. Grab whatever color that appeals to you. Just use your reference for the lights and the darks to kinda know where to lay down the heavier pigment with your marker. And this is gonna be a bit looser, inferior or not going to use the white of the paper like what the two previous ones. We're gonna be a lot more relaxed with our water and with our pigment. And we're going to work with those blends and bleeds instead of trying to avoid them like we were in the two previous paintings. Now I'm choosing a red color to use for my darker areas of the flower are my shadow areas. Again, I'm not doing a precise drawing. I'm laying down pigment to paint with. I am be more care from down here and what they call the stigma on the hibiscus flower. Let's paint. Again. I'm going around the edges. I'm going to start with a lighter sections and pull them towards the darker sections. So that way I don't get too muddied up up here and my picture is faded out, that's fine. I'm kinda, I'm using my imagination at this point anyway. You'll notice this peak is leaving some of the lines that I put down with the drawing. That's fine. Some workers dry a little bit faster. They don't blend as well. I'm just kinda learn to work with that. Let it leave some of the texture and interest in the flower. I'm going to pull the lighter pink down into the darker red color. And again, you can see some of my drawing lines. That's okay. That's kind of part of the disk is really as having some of these lines in here. This is a much looser, freer look than our previous two. We want our colors to blend. Want a lot more water on the paper. And point out that pigment. Again, always go over the edges so that it looks more watercolor than marker drawing. I am being a little bit careful leaving a little bit of white around that stems stigma. I get confused on the parts there, but that's centerpiece. Have just a little bit of purple here. They are in the center for the deep dark shadow. I'm not letting it bleed out too far, but I'm pulling it into it a little bit to give it, letting it have a little bit of that shadow look. Now at this point, my papers fairly wet, so the colors are going to start to bleed a little bit on their own. And that's okay. That's kinda the point of this one. I grabbed a much tinier brush to paint the stigma because I don't want it bleeding all over the place. I do want a little bit of control with it, but you definitely want to paint over it. So it looks like a painting, not a marker drawing. And I turn to my picture back on to show the pistol. I didn't draw the pistol out. I just pulled it out from the pigment that was already on there from the markers. And then now I'm going back and adding some yellow dots. Let's zoom in on this just a little bit. You can see a pit done yellow dots. And I'm adding just a little bit of water. Just a bit. It does again, have that watercolor look in there. Okay, There you have a much looser, more water was used. The colors were allowed to bleed together. Smith's White left, we lost a little bit of it. One point. That's okay. This is a much looser, freer type of watercolor. 7. Simplifying Multicolor Images: Okay, Now we're going to take an image that looks complicated, a bird of paradise. And we're going to simplify it down into just a few basic colors. So I took this picture of a bird of paradise, and I love it so much. I like it better than the ones I've found on Unsplash. So I'm actually providing it over onto the side for you to use. And for this one, I'm just going to use plain Crayola is just to show you that you don't need fancy expensive materials and paints to make a beautiful painting. But I have kids pack of plain washable Crayola markers. I'm just outlining on top of my reference drawing. And again, remember you're just laying down pigment, not doing a complicated drawing, leave lots of white because that transparency is what gives watercolor its signature look. And I know what the Tombow colors. I put up the numbers in the name in case you want to replicate it exactly. The Louisville silly doing this with Crayola. But just to keep it consistent. Crayola may have fancy names for these, but I was used on a basic apec and didn't seem very fancy domain. Again, this is super simple, super easy. That's what makes this a really great technique. If say you're at a garden to want to paint something right in front of you. You're in your yard, you visited a garden, you're sketching on the go. This means you can just take a simple pack of markers and create a beautiful sketch or painting. Now for the water, again, the same way we do the others just pull in the colors together. Keep control of your water. Go over your edges to erase that marker line. One thing I have found Crayolas have a lot of pigment, so you don't need much. That's why there's not much color in this drawing. There's a lot of white paper. But when it's done, it's gonna be very rich looking. And you can see it pretty much erases the drawing lines from the markers because the pigment is so intense. I clean off my brush and use some plain water around. Want the color lighter. And a switch to a tinier brush to keep control of this piece up here, I have no idea what the different parts of a bird of paradise flower is. So we're just going to say this funky pointed piece here in purple. With this one, I want to leave the intensity of that purple where I put it down. So I'm pulling off of it a little bit, but trying to leave that core base for the intensity of it. And then use a dryer brush to blend the colors together so you don't end up with a big muddy bleed. Water control is a key thing with this technique and with regular watercolors, the amount of water you have on the brush earn your loaded water brush can mean the difference between a beautiful blend and again, muddy mess. So be very careful when you're loading with water or choose your brush size is carefully tap off the water onto a paper towel if you need to. If you get too much water, it's okay to blot it, to dry it, take a little tissue or piece of paper towel and just kinda lay it down where you have water paddling or pooling. As we're moving through this, you can see the purple is dried a bit more. So it's leaving some of those lines in there. That's okay. They kind of gives it a texture look. Little things like that don't bother me. I think it's what helps make each painting unique and different. And may have 100 students paint the same flower and they're all going to look completely different from each other. So there you go. A bird of paradise, many colors, kind of intimidating looking, but we broke it down and made it simple. Just a few colors. You have a beautiful painting. Up to this point, we haven't really done anything in the background. So let's try a technique where you're dependent on the background to create the flower. 8. Using the Background: Now we're going to draw a plume, maria blossom. These grow on the oddest look and trees here, they look like sticks. And you can literally break off a piece of one, a branch or a piece of a branch and then just stick it in the ground and it will grow. I had a piece that fell off the neighbor's tree and I just stuck it in my front yard. It's already got leaves on. It was a little past blooming time, but I'm looking forward to getting some blooms on it next year. Okay, since this bloom is white, we're actually going to use the background to help us create the shape. So I drew a little bit darker this time. So you can kinda see it because I'll be going up to the edge, the painting. So don't mind the pencil being in there as much. And truly, I'm not one of those at the pencil bothers me. If you're a purist and you want to draw and then erase it out. Or you can see just the, just the very bare lines. That's fine. Leave the pencil however you wanna do it. Okay, so again, the background is going to create the shape of this. So I'm going in with this very dark blue. I want a lot of deep dark pigment in here because I'm gonna be using this for the background. I'm going to need a big pigment pull to pull up there that say that five times fast. I'm going to need a big pool of pigment to pull out with my water, my paintbrush. I just need a little bit inside the flower where it has that yellow in the center. And then some oranges. Well, you definitely don't want to go to the edge. I mean, this is a white flower and you're gonna leave most of that white on the flower. Okay, let's start painting the background. I've got my brush fairly wet. I'm using a bigger brush. Be very careful and want to go around the edge of the flower. But after that, I'm using a lot of water and pulling it out away from the flower. And in fact, you can see, I'm going for blooms in here now. I only used one color for this background, but you could do this with two colors and see how they blend together as well. Again, lots of water pulling it out on my paper. The same way we use the blooms and bleeds with the hibiscus. I'm counting on that and this background to get the background some interests. Just a fun fact. They use these flowers to create Hawaiian ladies. Okay, I'm going to touch in and add some drops of water to create some blooms in here. To me gives it a little bit more visual interests, a little bit of texture in the background, because there's no way to control a bloom. You touch it, it spreads. It's all dependent on how much water is already on the paper. How well the pigment spreads out. And it's probably why I love it. It's just adds a very unique effect to your painting. And take my tiny brush and going around all the edges to have a nice crisp edge and to be sure that it looks painterly instead of marker like. And you can see how those blooms have spread out in the background already. Alright, for the inside, I'm going to stick with my tiny brush so that I have more control, less water and more control. And you can see there's already a little bit of a bleed in there. That's okay. Again, that keeps up with that watercolor look. Don't stress about things like that. But also try not to go up to the complete edge of the flower petal because the background is wet and oblique. Then the other thing you can do if you want to prevent that, is wait until the background is completely dry. Either just walk away from it or use a hairdryer and dry it and had kind of a big bleed there. That's okay. I'm actually going to fix that after it completely dries by using a white pen. Just to go over it a little bit. It doesn't completely cover it. But it's enough that it doesn't look like a complete bleed or you can leave it just depends on how loose you want your painting. I felt like the center got lost a little bit. So I'm going in with a little bit darker red and join that back in there. And since the paper's wet, it blends in a little bit, but grabbing that tiny brush and blending it out a little bit more. Okay, to add the shadows around those petals and give them a little bit more dimension to their deaths. Not flat white. I'm going to use the tiny brush and dip into the pigment from the background just a little. And just add a little bit around the edges of the petals. Not all the way to the edge, leave some whitespace. And this gives that shadow that you can see in the flower reference photo. It doesn't take much. It just gives it just a little bit more dimension in there. And there you have watercolor botanicals with water-based markers. 9. Conclusion: Thank you for joining me for painting watercolor tropical oils with water-based markers. I hope you enjoy this technique as much as I do. If you do head over to my profile and check out my other classes. We'll also see where to find me on social media and you can follow me. So when I post more classes or discussions, you'll be the first to know. And please, please take a picture of your project. I can't wait to see what you do. And I will comment on every one of them and answer any questions if you'd like to see me demonstrate anything else, drop a line down in the discussion, give me some ideas because I loved doing.