Peacock: A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Welcome along to this intermediate watercolor class. Today, we're going to paint this vibrant peacock together. Now there's an eye boggling amount of detail, but I'm going to show you how to simplify him so you can create a fresh flowing piece. I'm Jane Davis. I live, paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park, England. Over the last 15 years, I've taught myself the free flow technique that you see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun and sometimes daunting, but it has allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teaching others either on a one-to-one basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart of the South Downs. Also run a successful commission-based business, painting pet portraits and wildlife art in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real-time. I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over fasting. I have over 20 classes available on Skillshare. Now, if you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you. Then you will find over 20 masterclasses covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I'll share the techniques I use in my own professional work. We have a lot of fun together and you'll gain the understanding and confidence to incorporate everything you learned into your own work. Plus our share a few of my tips and tricks along the way too. As ever, I provided you with a fabulous reference photo along with a downloadable template for you to print out. The template gives you a stress-free drawing so you can just enjoy painting. I'll be showing you the joy and simplicity of placing paint onto wet paper and allowing it to work its magic. There's an interesting technique to curating that lovely, soft flowing tale that I want to show you. I'll be guiding you through adding detail. Still working wet-on-wet. Of course, our share many of my professional tips, tricks and musings as we work our way through the Cloud. If you'd like to learn more about me, all my work, please pop over to my website at Jane Davis watercolors.co.uk. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my social media pages, who I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress and tales of student life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages. As I love senior most PTs. And don't forget, I'm here to help if you get stuck or have any questions. I want you to experience that buzz of painting in this liberating wet on wet, loose style. So come and join me. 2. Materials: And a very jolly welcome along to this peacock class. As ever, I show unto all the materials I'm using today and all of these can be found on the projects and resources pages. I'm going to start with my collection of Daniel Smith plate. So I've got go flight. That is a brown ocher. I've got just a cadmium red. I've got a rich cold green. Hello, blue. And that is, I think as a green shade, obviously, a chocolate That's soda like genuine. And a little tiny bit of white gouache. Now, as ever, you don't necessarily need all these paints, but I found a Buffalo Blue amazing for this class. I'm such an intense blue color. Regarding the other colors, you could probably use other greens and other sort of brownie tones. The red really doesn't matter. It's only a tiny hint here. I've found so like genuine useful for the darkness here and just tiny bits here. But really, the only one I would say it was the most beautiful is the patella blue. So the other colors you could probably easily substitute for others you have. Now, I'm using my trusty Bockingford and I've actually stretched this. I didn't quite a good stretch for me. Sometimes my strategy is gonna be a little bit wonky. But it's 140 pound, not more water. I've got two lots of salt here today. I've got one that's been finely ground. Ground it up a little bit fine. It's just for the top and there's some chunkier bits for further down. Got a little. This is what I always use this to build a tilt my paper. But you can also, you may find you might need something a little bit taller. Again. At various stages, you might need more of a tilt. So find something that's just gone a little bit more height to it. Doesn't matter what is picked out. And I've got a pencil and four brushes. I've got a large number 12 now this really isn't that necessary if you haven't got a big one because it's just wet scenario down a bit quicker. So you could have easily done it with and number eight, which I use for most of it. I've got a tiny number naught. Again, this could, or you could have used something a little bit bigger. This is quite a small painting. I would love to see somebody do something a little bit bigger. I've had to squish some of these features a little bit to fit it onto this piece of paper. That's probably a I'll explain that in a minute. So yes, that's a number note. And I've got my eradicated brush, which just, is just brilliant for taking light out. Now, I have used a hairdryer, but a lot of this relies on it dry on its own. So the hairdryer is only useful just as it begins to go off and you can quickly with your oven, dry the last couple of minutes better. Not necessary by any means. Going back to the reference photo which can be found on the projects and resources pages along with the template. Because I'm a little limited to the space I'm working on and I had to squish his neck a little bit. So actually the reference photo has a longer, more elegant Nick. I will put a template of both versions on the, we'll find a template in both versions on the, in the projects and resources pages. So if you've got a bigger expanse of paper, I would love to see a larger and larger one with him, but I go through those techniques and the techniques apply exactly the same even though this little one has got a slightly squished and neck than maybe the reference photo has. And I don't think there's anything else I need to mention. So come on. Can sketch them out. 3. Sketching Out: I'm just gonna give you just a few helpful tips to getting into sketched out nicely. Now if you've used your template, you've gone round it carefully. You'll find you've got some sort of blunt areas, especially on points. So it's just worth, once you do that template away is to just check that you've got the shapes right. It's looking at your reference photo and just going back and looking at the two and just to make sure everything is looking Lovely and crisp. Now we don't want to put this right hand line of the tail. We're going to hopefully blend all that out beautifully, but we do want this left-hand side. You want to get your winging. Make sure that's got a nice sort of shapes. Again. Just sectioning off the little red area there. Puppies legs in. Now I put him on a slightly different shapes bow. I just found the reference photo looks a little complicated and kindly distracted, distracted from him. So I kind of made up my own. But that's entirely up to you on how on what you want to stand him on. You could be you could put them on anything. You could be adventurous. But i'm, I'm sticking with just a simple about for this class. Now I haven't popped the eyes in. I found when I drew them in, I was getting a little distracted and getting a bit regimented. But if you think that might help you, just very gently sketch them in. But again, my pencil lines are quite thick and strong is just more for you to be able to see. I would strongly suggest trying to keep your pencil marks as light as possible. So when you when the picture is finished and you rub them out, you can get rid of them and you're left with strong pencil marks. It's always distracted, distracted, distracts from the finished piece. So go lightly. Don't think there's anything else to tell you. But I think we should go and paint him. 4. Wing: Right onto the fun bit. Pick up your brush. I picked up my number size eight. Lovely and wet. And we're going to wet the whole of this. When I tell you what I do. This is just for you and a few people suggested this was helpful. Just to put a little bit of color on my brush, just for you to see the area of wet down. This is say only for me and hopefully a helpful tool for you so you can see where I've wet down. So you want yours lovely and clean with nice clean water? Yeah, that's probably probably helpful, isn't it? If you can clear enough. So I'm just going to refer to my paints as brown, green, dark blue, red. And the blue. Just to stop as me pronouncing things badly, you've probably got different colors as well. So I'm going to just pick up my brown. Help it, keep it a little more simple. And we're gonna nice amount on your brush and we're just going to tap right at the bottom. We're going to allow that paint to move up its own accord. I had a little bit more of it's not moving. Should carry on. With the peacock's ever so complicated. He's got such precise, beautiful markings, but we're going to try and avoid trying to get too detailed. So I'm just tapping, leaving some little brush marks, making sure I've got into the corners. Nice shape of the wing feathers. Just going round. Again, just sort of up here as well. And that is all we're going to do for the wing. And that's that a little bit done. Again, we want this to dry because we're going next, we're gonna do this big tail feathers. So this needs to dry because we don't want to tell further and running into the wing feathers. 5. Tail: Right then, big deep breath. I'm going to clear my DEXA little bit so I'm going to get rid of my knee, my two little brushes. I'm just going to put those to one side. If you haven't got a big brush, it doesn't matter, but I'm going to pick up my number 12, just I can wet the area down a little bit more quicker. And we're going to start right at the very top. And I'm going to pop a little bit of color on for you. Have a bit of the green. So we're going to wet. The color is only for you, so don't keep your brush nice and clean, nice clean water. We're gonna go probably about halfway down the body. And then I'm going to come out, square it off a little bit. And then we're going to run out to the edge. I'll put that color when again. Going to make my painting a little, little odd, but I think it's gonna be helpful for you to see the areas I've wet down. But again, this is just for just the purpose of you being able to see the areas I've got wet. Yours are gonna be lovely and clean. So I've stepped it as two steps. And then we're going to run it right up against that wing feather we've just painted, follow that nice curve around. And I'm going to run my feather, feather, tail feathers right off the board. I'm going to switch it all down. Okay. Make sure it's all lovely in wet. And where you've started the top, you may, may find it starting to dry a little bit to make sure you've got everything really good and wet because we were going to be relying on our on our paint to run. If he's not wet enough, you'll find it just sticks. Plenty of water, so it's almost sitting in puddles but not quite. Right. I can see there's no dry patches. Now I'm going to tilt this at various heights. I'm going to start off from my smaller I'm trying to get underneath it straight for you. I'm going to start off not quite as stilted. And I'm going to pick up my blue and I'm going to pick up my green mite. Let's pick up my smaller brush. I'm ignoring. We're going to mainly work. We blew down the side and green this side. It just felt a little bit better on my practice. Pts can try and soften my age a little bit here. That's just me right? Now. Item add color. Let's start at the top. Should all start running down little bit of green. Put that right on top, and we're going to allow that to run. And we want to keep mainly to the left-hand side. Don't want to put too much paint on the right. Just at the moment we're going to see how we're going to see how it all flows. If you feel yours is going too much into the right-hand side, you can always just gently tilt it back, vice versa, if it's not moving enough, we can, we've got the power to kind of move it around. This is going to be a little bit judging on your own piece and how it's all going. You're going to have to wing it a little, little more. Be a judge of your own piece and how it's going. I'm just out. I want to keep this nice and strong at the top, and I want that to allow that to run off. If you can see it's just starting to paddle a little bit on the bottom. I clean my brush and I want to get that off the ball to it's running off onto my table. A little bit more blue down here, just to strengthen that up that line down nicely. The mine is sticking very closely to this edge. So what I'm gonna do, just gonna give it a little bit of a tilt. See how that's running. Let's see if I can do something clever with this. It's now on a slight angle. You can see how that paint running. Now. I'm going to pick up my brown. I'm going to start putting some of this kind of brown markings you see running down. And you can see how that paint reacting and pushing the blue out. I'm going to have to be mindful. That doesn't go too far. I just want this to be lovely and soft and disappearing off. So I say, you're going to have to judge your own little pieces a little bit. I'm just going to put mine back at at a more of a tilts its running down the boardwalk across the board. And look what you're going to have to keep looking at your own piece and seeing how it looks. And having faith. Say that the idea, it just gently blend into, if you find it's gently blending in, then tilt it around the right way again. Where am I? Let's put a little clean my brush. I'm just going to put a little bit of brown down here. It's got a little contaminated with the green, but that doesn't matter. Strokes here. I like to keep it quite soft so I don't want to put too much color in and i'm, I'm conscious that he's actually looking quite nice. There are some bands aren't there that run down here. So I'm just, I've got my nice amount of paint on my brush and I'm laying it down on the side. Just popping some of those in. It will all blend. You'll just get a hint of a band down there. See some green on my Boston. Yeah, it's kinda put a little bit of trouble working out a tube sometimes bit of a contamination going on here. Give it up, squeeze, lift, put a little bit of brown. Let's better. I don't want to define this edge, but I also want to give it some body, some sort of idea. There is an end to that tail. I want to keep it as soft as I possibly can. Also, we're going to have to bear in mind that the top is going to dry quicker, obviously than the bottom end. And we need to put some flicks into the wing areas. And I'd like to put some salt. So there's a lot going on in this little lesson. Just running off the ball, just making sure that's all running down. Now if you find yours, mine is actually doing quite nice. I'm pleased with how that's running, but I've done. And if you followed me on Instagram, you may remember how many of them are these? You can eat, encourage this, paint it. That's sitting here on the left-hand side across to the right by using this wet area here. So I'm rewetting and wetting my step. I'm filling in that step part and I'm pulling it right to the edge and that will pull some of this paint over. Hopefully you can see that it's a very subtle way of getting that softness. The paint is just giving this paint here more space to run in. See if I can get rid of my little line there. Yeah, that's doing quite nicely. Again, if you find that sort of wheezing over to the right-hand side, you've got the ability to then you can even lift it up a lot higher and just allow that to run. And that will encourage you to start obviously moving downward and the cross. So you just have to tilt your board depending on way, on sort of how it's forming. Little spots here and it's just worth watching it for a little bit. See, we've only doing one layer, so we don't want to do too much on here. Just want to give an idea. There's something there but not a line. Very conscious of trying to keep this this right-hand edge of the tail feathers loose as I possibly can. Just using the Brown. Got my big brush here. It doesn't matter what size brush, whatever brush you're using. Just going to tap a little bit in. This is starting to dry up here, so I have to be a bit careful. I didn't add too much color in there now because it's going to give me some unusual marks. But this is nice and wet down here, still. A little bit of green on top. Just trying to keep everything loose. Stepper if you can step away or look away from it, That's always really helpful because. It's very easy to stand on top of it and I'll sit or however you're standing would be lovely for this, this little lesson. Because you can really keep, you keep you keep your head looking. You're really looking at it from a distance rather than sitting and cramped over it. You won't get a nice overview. So if you can stand, you get a nice overview of where you're working. A bit more water in there. If you're just looking for something nice and interesting patterns, yours is gonna look very different. All my practice T-cells are being very different. So this is a very much You're, you're looking for something, say interesting, a nice flow. There's no right or wrong to this. You just want to get something you're pleased with and what you quite how to explain it. Really lovely sort of flow. Now I can see up here, this is starting to dry and if I don't flick those out, we're going to be a little bit too late. So bring back my little don't need my pencil, bring back my little brushes. I've got my number naught, but just a small brush. We'll very carefully just going to flick a few little bits into the wing. Don't go crazy. Just a, just a few hints. And again, you can run down the tail. Again just doing a few bits. Yeah, that's looking good. Now I need I need to put my eyes in in here in a minute. We need to. But I need to catch it at the right time. It just needs to be going off. So it's just a little bit tacky. Might have a go at the top. Pick up my number size eight. I'm using the blue. Just going to pop one down as a bit of an experiment to see how it's moving. It's going a little bit too much, just a touch too wet. So it's all about finding the getting your timing spot on. Ideally, your brush needs to be fairly dry. You don't want too much water on that. And you need to pick up a nice amount that will have an influence on how much it moves. A little bit of salt on the top here because this is really starting to dry. So I'm going to use my smaller amount. So i've I've ground this up a little bit smaller. Just a little bit. Some of my practice pieces I've got a bit carried away with how much salt I added in it. It looked it looked a bit too much. That's all I'm gonna do there. Put that one down. Bit of a waiting game merely. I'm going to fingernails a wonderful it is doing some because they've got such wispy little bits of tail feathers, haven't they? So you can pull some of those out. So you just flick some of them out. Just a few. And we're just waiting for this paper to dry it. Actually, we can get some of those blue markings on. I've got a bit of a puddle. Be careful you don't have a puddle at the bottom here because it has that dries and if you allow a puddle, see that. If this part always allowed to stay there, it will quite often moved back up your paper and you'll end up with a rather nasty watermark. So make sure it continues to run off the board and just bring it down, allow it to come off. I'm going to pick up my little brush in readiness. Pick up blue. Already. Have another little go see how that's doing now. So again, nice thick amount. Doesn't it doesn't matter which brush you use. I was using the excuse me, the larger one but doesn't matter. Yeah, that's, that's starting to go now. So try to be pseudorandom because if they're, if they're very uniformed, it looks, it looks a little bit stuck. My paper has just began the buckle a little bits is actually the top where it's buckled is drier. So I'm going to pop one of those big eyes there. But I know this little dip here where it's dipped is wetter because obviously it's peddling a little bit there. Can you bob your head up and down, you'll be able to see the stages. Obviously, this is quite wet down here still, so I don't want to go down there. It will it will bleed out too much. I'm going to actually put a green eye in as well because again, it can all get a bit uniformed. So if I put a just a hint of green in there, we can play with those on the finishing off bits. See how that's just, it's really soft. I've got no, no sort of finish here. So it's ideal is drawing nicely. Let's travel, isn't it? You're standing here waiting and you're like, Oh, I could just do this or that. So I might put my hands behind my back looking at it now I think I'm going to put a little bit of salt in here while I'm while I'm waiting for this little area to dry, I think it's ready to have just a touch of salt. Think I'm going to use my slightly bigger one. Just a few grains though. Here's one or two. It's quite nice to have them in a sort of a band as well, rather than sprinkled all over. So just as a, just a little lighter than they're starting to dry nicely now down there. So I've got my brush again back with the blue. I'm going to put another dot bear in mind. Obviously they are round, but the angle you're working on, they're going to be more oblong. Kind of pop another one down here, see how that's spreading. Going. Keep it in, keep your brush quite dry and your paint as thick as you want, so it's neat, but you want it quite nice and quite thick. That's bleeding a bit too much. You can see that spreading. So I'm just going to pick up my bigger brush, soaked my thesis paper towel haven't done very carefully. I'm just going to bring that back in. Don't want it to spread too for perfect. I will go down here and this is looks like it's a might actually pick up the brown as well. Let's have a brown mark down here. Brown eye. I didn't want down there. There's some eyes are half covered. So there'll be a little moon shape. So I'm going to just pop a little moon shape one there. We just want these eyes to be as random as we can. And the trouble with standing here waiting for little bits to dry, it's very easy to to put them in very uniformed. I could see myself doing it. Now. Let's put another one down there. Just when I went down there, unless you're just starting to go off quite nicely now I can see I've just dipped my head up and down. I can see we're withdrawing nicely now. Again, I'm going to, I'm looking away at it. I think I got enough little blobs going on there. So I might call it a day. So what we need to do just, I'm gonna put a little bit more salt in down here. And we're going to have to leave this completely dry. Managed to put my looks like my finger there. So bear out in a minute. Right? Let's have the larger one again. Just a few little bits to say, don't go too mad. Actually, I might just as, as beginning to joy. It's almost a might've missed, might a little bit late to a little bit too late here, but I'm going to try and put a little bit there, just fill it'd be quite nice to have that area broken up. Again. Be a judge of your own piece. So just want to soften this one because a bit of a thing I've actually got a lumper painter rid of that. This stage. It's a very dangerous stage to be playing with your brush. So I'm gonna put that down right before you let that completely dry. It has been quite fun just to pull some of your little some of these little specs or I should say, your back, your nail, just pull some of those out and again, go through the tail and just just do some little marks. They gave quite a nice texture. Markings. Just run some of those just felt it just helped break, break some of the heaviness of the eyes. Again, don't get too carried away. So, um, yeah, let's see how that dries. 6. Tail Second Example: Right? Well, my main pieces drying. I thought it might be helpful for me to do this tail again for you just so hopefully I can come up with a slightly different scenario of how it's working, which will hopefully help you a little bit. So I'm going to do exactly the same. I'm going to wet it down. I'm also going to use my little bit of color on my brush. You can see where I've wet down. So, excuse the shape of the rest of the bird. It's a very, very rough just to hopefully you can see what parts I'm referring to. I'm not sure. I can not sure I can paint a headless peacock anyway. Okay. So I've wet halfway down the body, I'm doing that step out, say bear in mind the color here is just for you to see what I've wet down yours would be nice and clean. Then I'm coming down back out right to that edge. Then I'm going to fit it in. Following that nice sweep at the tail. Bit more paint on my brush you can see then wet everything else in that in-between. It all lovely and wet. This is an unstretched piece of paper, so it's going to buck a little bit more butter. Say I hope it will. I'm hoping something different will happen this time. So I can talk you through a different scenario right next. I'm going to tilt it. Hold the piece of paper. We're going to do exactly the same. Right? So picking up my number size eight brush and I'm going to grab the green and the blue. Make sure my brush is wet. And then I'm going to take it bit of excess moisture for my paper towel. And I'm going to start with a blue. And we'll say again, we wanted to keep this all the way down the left-hand side edge. Nice and strong. Add a bit of green in there now. Allow it all to one. We're trying to not interfere, trying to allow the paint to find it. You can see I've lifted tiny little bit of dry paper that's going around that spot. Fill that vacuum. One down this edge. Such a powerful color, this pathetic blue. Beautiful. But I have had, I've been permanently going around with this in my hands the last few days where I've been practicing this chat. It down here. You can see how that's moving out beautifully. So I can see if I can do something different. I'm going to raise my paper just a bit higher. I've got my tin of paint. Very pro here. Jeff, Go to use that to give me more of a tilt and hopefully you will have to see how it acts when it's got more of a tilt. Just keep adding color. Add a bit of water if you find, if you found your stuck, I can add water that will again allow it to run. This is probably not going to be overly helpful because you can see how it's running around the buckled piece of paper, buckling. Better. You see how much that's wheezing now because we've got more of a tail on it. I can man handle it. I can just hold it. You see how much that's giving you a really good strong sense of flow down their bit too much I think. But I can tilt it. Now, can then allow some of that to run into these steps. I can add water. It's all a case of just picking up your p.sit, seeing how your piece is doing. The minute you think it's flow too much, you can then put it down. I can get rid of my taller support and drift. Go back to my trusty little heart. Make sure I've got you on camera. You just got to be careful with this doesn't pull in the bottom here. Obviously because we've allowed that to flow. This is starting to, um, it's washed out a bit so I can add as long as this is still damp and Workable as in work. It needs to be wet still or at least good. It needs to needs to be wet or damp. I'm hesitating on damp because you don't want it. It's all just getting used to the stages of dryness. And he is the biggest trick I think in this sort of technique is judging how wet your paper is and how your paints are going to react to that wet paper. I know what's going to happen. This is going to be the nice-looking piece because it's, I'm not worried as much about this piece was my main piece. I'm obviously a little bit more worried it's going to work out. So it's that mind game, isn't it? That's looking nice. I haven't put in either Brown. Have I pick up some of the brown? We can add some of that in. You see how that's reacting to the particular paint, reacts to the other colors that are existing on there already. Add a little bit of water that run game. We always have to be careful mindful of catching fix as well. So we need to make sure that it doesn't dry out too quickly. We won't get time to flick out some of these into that wing. So that you need this deal to be damped to work for those flicks to work nicely. It's nothing really to stop. You're adding in the latest stage, but they tend to look a bit stuck. That has, the Brown has really pushed that color out at that stage of dryness. So let's add a bit more water instead, if I can get that flow back in again, a bit more, Blue's gone, a little bit green. Okay, It's lay this fat for a minute. Let's get rid of that heart and lay it flat and see what see what occurs. It won't be flat flat because it's the papers buckling. So it's a, it's a good class to do with stretched paper piece. You can see it's making it harder to get a nice result because it's buckling. I'm just lifting up again just to get some of that water to run, run off. You can see how easily you can manipulate these things. See how that's running. I can just pull that off the bottom. Preferably with a clean brush. You, if you've gotten lovely, nice clean water, you won't have got these steps of color. So they will be nice and clean. So you're just left with a nice soft edge. Let's see if I can pull that we did on the first piece. If I can wet this area and pull it right to the edge to allow some of this to move my Internet it a touch. Probably about right. A little bit too late. You can see how that's pulling it all across will be helped by me tilting it as well. So let's lay it out flat. That would drive just feed it with dry better at this stage with a little bit of a tilt on it. Again, those covered covered my blue. There it is. Again, we can put those eyes inch just making sure your brush is clean. It's not too wet, needs to be just damp and not wet though you don't want to add too much water at this stage because it would bloom and I'll show you. That will be easier, wouldn't it? If I do that, you're obviously going to get some marks in there. So if you use a very wet week, so the concentration of this paint, you're gonna get the same effect. So make sure your brushes sort of taken the excess moisture off. And you've got this quite a nice strong consistency. We can just have the two colors. Pop some of that. Green one. The green, they're a little bit too much. It's going to spread a bit too much. We get something like that where it's split. You feel like it's spreading, clean your brush. And you can just gently suck that up just a little bit. It's a tricky thing getting these eyes just to write, just to spread at the right time. And actually one of my very early classes, the butterflies is not doing a dissimilar technique actually. And we were putting eyes and markings on a butterfly. So if you want to practice this and getting the timing right, that class might be quite useful for you. That spread too much. And it's a shame because there's not a lot you can do about it at this stage because it's gonna go, you can keep sucking it in. But I was just being a little bit slap dash. And that's balanced between being loose and just going for it and being a little bit mindful as well while you're doing it. So it's a balancing act. And just catching your paper at the right time, really, that was probably a little bit too wet there. That's I don't know if anything. I don't have anything changed a lot on for my first piece, but hopefully I might have included something which I didn't include on the first one and it's just giving you a little bit more help. Just going to pull out some of these again, just using my little brush. And that's enough. This paper is wet enough. Enough paint just to pull some of them out. Again, you can do your fingernail. I liked the fingernail for this. It's also wood catches that captures the very wispy tail feathers. So fine. To just a few of those actually marks the papers who actually scratching the surface of the paper. Pretty much dry there and we haven't actually put any salt on either have ISO Let's just about just about wet enough. That's almost dry. So I've I've missed the miss my chance on that bit there. Probably a bit wet chunky one on the bottom. And actually, let's put a little bit out here as well and see how that drives. Because some of that worked. It was quite, it's quite fun or some of the other ones are practice pieces. And I'll see how that dries and show you show you later how that dries. 7. Head and Neck: I'm pretty pleased with how my main pieces dried, whether there's quite enough down here on this right-hand side, as I suspect, probably my little demonstration second piece I did for you is probably going to be the nicer, but that's the way it goes. So we're going to tackle their head next, but just be mindful that this is dry. Before you start, I've got little salt crystals, I think a little bit damp still. So I'm going to be quite cautious, but I'd like to sort of get on with the head. So just be mindful. You don't stick your hand in it and smudge it around. Ideally, clean your water. Because if you've used it, the fellow blue, it's a really strong color and we'll change the color, the paint to your water and your book. You want to have clean water and it will taint. Got a piece of clean kitchen roll. So let's let's crack on. So I'm going to use my number eight. Now. We're going to wet down the whole of the head, but not the white markings around her her his head. So nice brush, nice wet brush. And again, go really carefully with inside those lines. You can go right up against that, the age that hopefully some of that will just, just very gently bleed. This painting is fairly small. It would be lovely to do a really big one. So if you're feeling brave, I would love to say that the larger version, because the head gets a little bit small to tackle, it, makes it a little bit. I've just picked up my little brush because it's quite a small areas on the top of his head. I want to make sure it's wet. My brush is tainted with epithelial blue checking. Sure it's nice and wet right up to that. Sort of blue goes quiet way into the beak. So make sure that's nice and wet too. Okay. I'm going to put that one down. I'm going to use the blue and the green again. I'm going to use the green on top of the head. Just going to use both of them on top of the head. Let's do both colors. Just gently tap. Say it's a very small area, so I can't do much more than to attack the color into and then just allow that to run. It's very dark underneath these underneath these white markings he's chained. So we're going to use the two colors and I'm going to pick up my sewed light genuine is going to get a little outing on a lot of very large one, but just keep tapping. Let's pick up the solar light genuine, because that will give me the dark, darkness. And it also allows the colors to run it. So it's a nice granulating color and it also moves by. Wealth. Is no just happening. There's no brushstrokes, just tapping, coloring, clean off. Pick up some the blue and it gets at the bottom of the neck and round underneath the chin as those in the lower part of the neck. Again, just tapping. What we want is just to gently spread on its own so we're left with a nice area of light. Again, it will be a little case of watching the sea just moves up on it in on its own rather than me painting it on. Okay, I'm going to grab my little brush. Just gonna make sure I've got all that, all those colors. White far enough down. Make that a little bit more irregular. Just goes in a little bit, doesn't it? He didn't want to have a boring circle of color around those, um, ran that white face marking. Also want to put in that little, little nostril area. Let's use the soda like genuine. It's just a tiny say what's working? Very small here, so something larger would work beautifully. Just not so easy the way I have my desk and equipment setup to do anything to dodge at the moment. Now what we want to do, you can see the eye is all tense purposes is inside that dark markings. So we're going to touch the head color and then we're going to make up the eye will, in the next class, lesson subclass, we will, we will, sorry, the deconcentration went disappeared there. Well, we'll put some brown in there and we'll make the eye a better shape at the moment. We're just pulling in that dark. Just keep it on that reference photo. I'm thinking my eye move on a little bit too far back and I mistakenly joined that bit up there, but let me see if I can get rid of that. We'll gently bleed. They open the majority of out. Just keep an eye on that reference photo. Click UI back-and-forth. But they still don't superimpose themselves, so just keep keep your eye on it. Thank you. Sure you shape right. You can make sure the face shape is out of the head shape is right. And we can see that's moving. That's doing a brilliant job. Just before it completely dries. I just wanted to do a few flicks, but there's a little bit wet at the moment. I feel this is a bit green still underneath the chin, so I'm just going to add a little bit more. So like genuine. Just try them. Try to get that face marking. Quite sure if I did an overly good job and actually sketching out some of the shape is a little off and I can't quite see what it is. So it's a good lesson though I told you to make sure your sketches dead right Then. Haven't necessarily isn't to my own advice. I think I'm about there that off and say we will put the eye sits amongst, you can see really amongst that dark area. So we'll do that at a later stage. Obviously that needs to dry before we can do that. This is just about almost a little bit too wet, but I'm going to take a chance and I'm going to just pull out with little tiny brush, put up some of that. Just tiny bit. Breaks off, breaks up some other sort of some of those lines. Little bit of back of the neck as well. Tiny, tiny bit. And this as it dries, we'll want to keep some of the light there. If you feel like it's moving in a bit too much in the very gently, just coax it back. This is ideally why you don't want your pencil marks to show, because that will be lovely. Minor, quite strong. If you've done yours nice and light to build a rub that out and you'll have that lovely Lost and Found. Look. All right. I don't think there's much else we can do. I say it's always worth just watching that as it dries. So don't take you don't just disappear and leave it to dry if it's still quite wet and it's moving, it's this. If you're wanting to leave that area, nice light, it's just worth hanging on and watching it. It will get to a stage. You'll begin to learn that at a certain stage it won't be moving anymore. So you can then go, go off and leave it to dry on its own. But while it's still quite wet and moving, you can be with it and just gently tease anything back if you feel it needs teasing back. Fill it back in again because that was working quite well. But yeah, just watch it. And then once it's got to that stage and you can leave it and let it dry completely. 8. Body: Well, I'm pleased with how the hedge dried. I'm just see by allowing that paint to move on its own, it's created that lovely since a light on the back of his neck. Now you could have put some salt in here and had the painting being a little bit bigger, I think it would have worked really nicely, but as it's small, Crystal mark just made a little bit too chunky. So I prefer it being smoother, but it's another option for you if you if you felt there that's taught would have worked but not for me on this size. Okay, so it's onto the body. So what we're going to do, number size eight brush and we're going to wet down the whole of the body that she does do that bit of color again, didn't do it on the head today. Me being random again. Going to miss out the area where the red is. Go carefully right up against that brown wing. And down. You can see, you see that little hint of color and go right up against that blue body? Those are the sweeper, the top of the head. No body part. Just so it joined in, it softens. So we're just going to use the blue nice amount when you brush, give it a bit of a squeeze. And we're going to adjust again, similar to the head. We're just going to place it and hopefully allow that to gently move over to give us a nice sense of light. We're going to tap it all the way here. We're just making any shapes you, you think for the wing. Working at a funny angle here, so I don't get my heading. The camera shots are sometimes a little awkward for me. That's my excuse anywhere and I'm sticking to it. And carry on working your way down. Just tapping. No brush strokes. It's not moving. Not moving. You can get rid little tilt because this is such a small area, I tend to put more color in actually, and that generally makes it more likely to move over. You can always get it's looking a bit, little bit too dry because that's always another reason why it's not moving. You always add a little bit of more work, a little bit more water. You will find that will move and maybe even move too quickly. So it's a, I think this class is a great, a great one for sort of getting an idea of how, how you can add strong color and just allow and getting to know the, the difference in the state of the paper and it's how dry it is and how the paint will react to that dryness, wetness little bit might actually have a little bit of that. So light and that's part of pop a little bit of that, right. And the bottom, again, just tapping and keeping an eye on on the on this area. We don't want you to go right up against, although the reference photo oversee shows a very dark. I'm body is quite nice to just get that nice. It does it center light. Sometimes you have to use your reference photo and then go a little off pieced at times as well to get something you'd like. Sonya guide. Okay. I think I'm just going to allow again I'm just going to watch, allow that to to gently move its way over on in its own time. Little like the head is just worth waiting and watching. We just need to, this needs to dry almost completely and then we'll add a little bit of red and that will hopefully just gently bleed. But not. We put it in now it's going to be too much, it will spread. So I'm going to stand here and watch. I reckon we're about there. Grc just beginning to go off. It's almost dry, but I can still see if I put my finger in it, I can smudge it. Sat kind of dryness. So I'm just picked up the red. Just going to use my dinky little brush. I'm not going to wet because the risk is if I wet this area and touch it up against here, it will bloom up into that body and I don't want that. So I'm just going to do a bit of painting very carefully. I would start right on the edge there. You're kind of aware, So you're going right up against that edge. So hopefully it should just gently bleed. Clean your brush. If he touched that blue, you're going to find you've picked up a little bit of blue on your brush. You want it to keep it nice and fresh and clean your brush in-between them light up against the edge. With the intention it just gently bleeds. Going to use my bigger brush to clean. Make sure it's quite quite dry. Don't want it I don't want it wet. I don't want to risk any water running into this area. Again, I'm just going to just fill it in really. We can do a few little lines, so it's not sort of little bit broken up to two regimented with any of it. I think that's plenty. And now we just need to allow it to dry. 9. Legs and Bough: You make sure your body is nice and dry. It's always nice to draw the little sections off before you start a new one because it's just so easy to release for me to bunch it with your hand. So I've cleaned my water again. I've got a clean piece of kitchen roll as well. I've got my size eight brush the way. All right. I'm going to pick up a red and the brown. And we're going to do these lakes. So let's wet the leg down. Brown is a little bit for you to see where I've wet down, but I'm also going to be in the process making Leganto. Again. I'm gonna do the, do the back one a little bit. I just want to hint that I might just leave it at that. Better. Better, that would be better at a slight angle. Bit array with me angles. Let's talk that out in a minute. If I do any fight, then put the lake in again. The paint's going to find those damp areas and it's gonna go a little bit, a little bit murky on me. I'm going to pick up my little brush again, actually feels a little bit to have a bit more control with that one. So you will probably just wet this down with nice clean water so you won't have much color in there. So what we're doing, we're adding the brown and the red. We're just allowing that. You go right up to the top and we can almost pick up it actually a little bit of light genuine as well. We want that to run down and you're always again, you can tilt your board if you're not getting if that's not running on you or brushes escaped underneath there. We can add more water. If you don't. Simple trees, this is little bit like doing the, um, the trees, the trunks on the trees. All these, they will, they will have similar, similar set of techniques. Is that little spring he's got his legacy nets as quite nice to put in. Make sure they're chunky enough. They got quite big legs. I think a nice noble going on there to get that in as well. Then the foot back down, let's just put those colors down from an see where am I going to wet my bowels? I'm going to touch that bottom of that leg. If like me, I think I may have made that a little bit too long so I can actually shrink his leg up by making the bowel bit taller. And then I can just do a bit of random pressing. Quite good at doing random wetting. I'm left with a few dry patches. I think that might be quite fun. And we're going to pick up, I've got this old light, genuine green. And let's have the brown. Might put it a little bit blue in, but it's quite, quite severe color. And again, I'm just I really am here. Maybe try out a little piece of paper just to test your colors. It's like a little swatch of almost all you're doing. Just want something that just makes a few interesting marks. Well, I don't really want this to detract from the peacock, but equally feel he might be a bit lonely without being on something. Whatever it so like genuine in there. So again, I don't want to make this too heavy. Green load or water. Keep it all nice and soft. And again, you can run this off the board like we did with the tail. Just allow you pull that down. You'll be pulling some of that. All this paint here will be working its way down. A bit more strength in that. I do love so light, genuine, such a beautiful color. They act so lovely. Really good color if you haven't got it in your collection. I strongly recommend it. Had ties to see what this blue looks like in there. Yeah, I think that's a little bit too severe for that. I'm just typing a step back from it, having a little look at him or herself away so I can see what it would look like from a distance. I'm thinking I might leave that at that at that actually trying to pull some of the color there. Finger, I really want to again, this would all move and fill out some that some of the wetter areas. So I'm going to take a risk. I'm going to leave it at that and let it move and give me some interesting patterns. Now again, you can add a little bit of salt if you feel you want a bit of salt, I might because I haven't there's not an awful lot on on the on the tail feather would have liked it to work a little bit better. Just there. I think I lifted a bit too long, didn't I? So I might add a little bit here though. I think this time I'm putting onto wet, but see here we go. Salt if you if you struggle with your salt and getting it to work, It's really worth doing some swatches and allowing different little, little patches to dry at different times and add the salt and you'll get a gauge then when your salt is going to work best. It's a really good little exercise to do. One. I will probably wish I had done on this because I think I've done that too soon. But anyway, we're we're allow that to dry on its own. Good time. This back leg, I think what I would do in the finishing off parts, I will put it in. I'm a little bit worried. Well, I've taken it out with a damp brush. This paper is going to be a little bit damp still. And the Lego sort of spread and make a bit of a mucky mess. But for you, I'd suggest just being a just a hint of it or you can follow me. Yeah. When we do the finishing off bits and you can see me put the back leg in, but if you want to put that in now, I would just do a slight hint, but unlike me, I would try and get it a little bit of an angle. It would just appear that he's he's sitting back a little bit on his own. He waits a little bit further back. So it's a quite nice to get them in an angle. Lovely, right? We need to allow it to dry. 10. Eye Tuft and Beak: So before you start the head, just be aware, make sure your bow is nice and dry because it's, again, it's going to be right in your, in your way. So this should be a nice little fund less than because we're really going to bring to life with finishing off these little details around the head. I'm going to be mainly working with little tiny brush. And we're going to start with the zeal top, not sure there's a word for it. And I will look it up and maybe put it in the resources pages. Because I'm sure I'm not doing the word Tufte justice. But anyway, you get what I mean. I gotta pick up my brown this week this up. I'm actually just gonna do a few quick lines. So we're going to start at the top of the head, get the angle right. So what's that going to about 11:00. Always quite a good little tip is to look for angles. I'm sorry, I'm doing this on a funny funny angle and it's made a bit chunky. Thank you. I think it'd be okay. Ideally, you do a little lighter than that. Working at a, a bit of a strange angle there. Don't do too many, it's only just a hint. Let's put that down. I'm just going to pick up a slightly bigger brush. I'm on number eight. Pick up the blue. Get a nice, You want a nice amount along the bristle ahead and we're going to lay it flat, flattish at a slight angle. And we're going to just, just, just a hint is just an idea. So good a shape deeply along a little bit more strength and they might pick up the satellite genuine. Put a little bit the bottom. Keep flicking back from the back-and-forth to that nice reference photo. Yeah, I think that that will do. We'll tidy little bit on the finishing off and we'll take a little bit of light out and say my strokes have gone a little thick. Hopefully you will have some lovely fine once. Their next job is to find this. I, firstly, again, picking up the brown we're going to make, we're going to pop a little bit of brown in just to try and warm that area. Obviously, if you've got a different brown or richer brown, you sat and I just didn't want to add too many paints to this collection. So very carefully. And if you, if you haven't been standing, sitting there, nice time now to do this, you can get nice and close to it. To all quite relaxing. All we're doing is literally painting that in, not doing anything. Funny drip on the end. Either. The good thing about having markings like this a little bit. The pandemic you've done the panda. You have the markings are disguised within the eye. When I disguised within the markings or saying the other way, read that just kinda little bit of warmth there. We need that to dry first. So what we'll do, we'll work a cup. So light gentlemen, if you just try and do this, bill, obviously it's white, but it'd be quite nice to give it a, just a little bit of color so we can see, see it defined a bit more so tiny little bit of so like genuine. And I'm just going to go underneath. So going to that line in there, the blue line, and we're just going to backfill it onto a tiny amount. Let's say this is the the trouble we work in a little bit too small is a small, small area to work on. Trying to pull some of that back a bit a little bit too strong for a minute. And pick up my brown to see if we can make this a little bit. Okay, say lift your head up. If you're sitting. Just take a minute to raise your head. Have a look, see what it looks like. It's so easy to keep working away. And you don't look up and see the bigger picture. So I've just picked up a little bit of blue. I'm going to want to make sure I've got that at Blue runs quite a long way along that beak. So sometimes you think you know what it should look like and actually in actually when you look, check at the reference photo, it's different than sometimes you think it should be all you having a mind die of what it looks like in it's sometimes your mind's eyes. Always right? Okay. I'll get gain. I'm going to let that dry. I think the eye looks dry. If any doubt if you have a hairdryer and you've used a hairdryer at any stage in this, you can give it a quick wins over. And I might do that just to make sure it's nice and dry. Should do it. And I'm going to pick up my white. Again, just clean your brush, make sure it's nice and clean. It hasn't got a stalk contaminated with this blue. And take the excess moisture off. So you've got a damp brush. This to a nice creamy consistency and we're going to outline the eye in the white. Now this can be quite chunky at the moment because we can again, we can backfill it again. So if you look at the reference photo, really only runs underneath the eye. So we're going to depict the eye very carefully. Look at your reference photo. Get nice shape. So you can take your time on estimate. There's no nothing is drawing on. You were younger, were not playing around with wet paper or dry. Only wanted a little bit, don't make it to make it too thick. And if it does go a little bit thick, it doesn't matter because we can again, we're going to backfill it again in a minute. So I'm going to make mine a little bit chunkier so you can see what I mean. As you can see a bit just a bit clumsy and chunky. And we can neaten up any clean off again. If you've gone a little array on a little messy, you can just very carefully use the white ticks are closing some of those areas. If you think you have gone a little, I say little array with some of the blue tab listener needs to dry again. So I'm hoping this is dried. The top part of the witch going to do the top part of the beak. I'm going to use a little bit of the brown and a pop a little bit right at the tip. Clean your brush. You haven't got any paint on your brush and we're just going to work our way up. I just want the tiniest hint of color just so you can see it's attached to the bird. It's not a trouble working on a white background. You, you have to try in some way, just show there's something there. He moves only a hint. Say take your brush away, have a look. I think that's working right? And I've seem to have got blue on my hand and transferring onto paper. That blue is everywhere in my arm around my studio. That's looking away. And actually, while I'm sounding so surprised, um, that should have dried by now. So I'm going to use the soda like genuine. They clean my brush off again. And we're going to go underneath this I into the eyeball, but on the lower part of it, and we're going to close that white line down a bit. Again, very gently. Neaten up the other side if you want, if it needs to be neat and up. Are you going to do the bottom half and just hopefully give you an idea of bidder light, dark part of the eye and probably at the bottom. I'm going to swing it around a little bit. Neith, make your eyes go funny. You're looking at it, staring at it for too long. I think we're about there for the eye. You can keep fiddling and it doesn't necessarily make it better. I do want I'm just this has gone a little misshapen, so some paint on my brush to get this to work. This is just something I've done. And again, you can tweak if need be. If in your black bits are quite the right shape or don't look quite right in there. Yeah, that's a bit better. Silence, concentration. Little tiny bits that will make all the difference. Take your time with it. Yeah, that's looking good. Apart from smudging bits of blue around the place. Just need that to dry a little bit more. I think while we're waiting, as I said, we could have done this in the finishing off stages, but while we're over here and we're waiting, just going to take a little bit of light at the top of this. It's just with a damp brush. I cleaned it. Make sure it's clean. You can thumb or fingers quite good. It's got a squishes it around a bit. Rather than taking lots of color out. It would just sort of squish it. Quite like using a I think sometimes you can see the light sort of pinning there. I'm sure I won't fit Alyssa too long because this is probably the city declare I've made, but the little eradicated, but she's quite good for taking color out better. And say, I don't think you would probably have done such big chunky lines, but if you have, you can then gently take them out and you kinda get the idea. I'll spend, spend time correcting errors. Right? You reckon that eye is dry. So again, clean your brush back to the White. Get a nice creamy consistency. And we're gonna put that catch light in. Now on the reference photo, it shows it going right along. I'm going to put a little dot towards the front of the eye, to the top and towards the front. To get my head in a bit closer. I think yeah, I think that's a that's a that's a little catch light. It just brings it to life. We're a sudden doesn't eat amazing that little white dot, right? That Stan said, let all that area dry before you move on, but then we can finish off digital, finish you off bits. 11. Finishing Off: So it's onto their little, little, tiny little bits that GRS finished and pull all this painting together. So I think the first thing we need to tackle it is these eyes on the tail feathers. Now, if you happen to have some really pretty markings and you think, you know what? I think that's enough. I don't want to make this look, make it look too tweets. Very easy to get this over detailed and you lose that lobby sort of sense of light and looseness and just an impression of the eyes. But we will try on some of these too, just to emphasize a little bit more. So the best thing to do, we're going to pick up little brush. I'm going to pick up the green and the brown. We're just going to highlight just a few of them. Pick out your favorite ones and we can eat. You can even paint some in C if you feel you want to paint them in, paint something, Let's paint money. So we're gonna do a little bit of, little bit of blue dye is hopefully it'll give you an idea of, and you can sort of make up your mind whether you want to paint them in or whether you think it looks a little bit too much. So if I do this for you, Hopefully you can have an idea of what you would like to do to yours. That's a little bit of the green again, I try and keep it as soft as you can. And if, if when you paint it and you think, oh, that's enough, leave it. And I think he's very, very easy to overdo this. And I think the nice thing about this tail feather was just loose. It's just an impression. The heads quite detailed anyway. So we're just using the brown, we're putting a little brown on the really distinctive markings aren't they? Might find just need a couple just to the eye to be drawn in and go, oh yeah. Because they can see what that is. The brand that they're going to be slightly different as in nature, things are always a little different. None of them are gonna be exactly the same. The light or the lighter part of that, I can be taken out but we'll let that dry first. Just this is a softened some of that down. Just a wet brush. And again, you can use a finger to soften the edge of that wet patch. Like I'm not taking too much green out. Yeah, that's quite pretty. So we can start to make these little blobs into something now. Can they use it a little bit of green around? I won't do them all. I'll just do a few of them. And again, bear in mind that they're at an angle, so don't try and even make them irregularly, but they're obviously flowing down to try to look at your reference photo and sort of follow that shape. Circled it with a little bit of green, a little bit of the brown. If you happen to have sort of salt marks, you've been a little bit more extravagant where your salt marks, you can almost use one of the salt marks and it may lend itself to an ice. I have a look, see how your marks have. Sort of come about. Soften that down again. Let's pick another one. Let's do this one here. The blue whom you've got a blue, green gained go round it. Going to do too much of the greener, can concentrate a bit more on the brown, just to make them a little bit more irregular, irregular. When even use a fingernail and just pull some of those out. Say, I am always often something just doesn't look too regular time. So not all the same. Just want to pick a brush and getting all levels will get number nor there for doing this. Let's see if we can soften that down again. Again, I can use my finger to tap it away. As ever sort of pocket pop your head up, see what it looks like. I'm white. I think that's looking okay. Actually, let's do one of the ones a little bit higher up that she's having taken a little bit of color out first. So this one, it's quite a strong color already on the back here. So I've been around in their shows up. Maybe a little dark on here. Thumb. It's probably just enough. It's just a hint, isn't it? I'm inclined to almost leave these as they are. Um, let's do just one of them. I'm going to pick this one. I'm fearful. Did many practice PTs? Don't think I've practiced one of the Skillshare classes as much as this. But the eyes were the tricky part. Always. It was always getting a bit twee. It's very easy to get tweets. Hopefully you get the, get the idea. You can kind of work around, um, soften it again. Really don't be careful, you don't end up. I personally love that, just fading out. So I don't want to put any line or any sort of end to that tail feather. I just want it to blend out. And once this has dried, if there's marks we don't like we can always gently remove some of them. And you can see how that's blended and where we put the greens in. Just given a slight impression of lines, every splendid, very splendid a lot. Let me pop these down. Just try and take some of that color out to the color. Color comes out at the top of the blue. To my trusty eradicated. You wanna do is just literally just take a little bit out there like that. And I think that's a very obvious, the very telling sort of pot to these pheasant, a peasant, peacock eyes. Again, you might not want to do them all. So careful not to go around and make them all very uniformed. Maybe just leave one blue. I will just want to put a little bit of blue on that green one up there because to me, it doesn't really make a lot of sentences just green, so I'm just going to pop a little bit of blue. Just there. I think I'm going to stop there because I can see I mean, danger overdoing it. A little bit of light at the top there. But just because I like it in a certain way doesn't mean to say you can't put those eyes in as as you see them in a very detailed, It's entirely up to you. I don't want to tell you shouldn't. Just just how I like things to look a little bit looser. And it's I know from having done many practice species, I tended to ruin them when I got a little bit over over key on trying to put all the i's in, right? The other little part we need to do, There's a tiny hint, a wing feather. So we're going to pop that in there. Use my number eight. We're just going to wet just a little little round round crescent shape and we're going to pop that much. Yeah. So a little hint, just a hint. Again that will help around his body off as well, giving them the right shape. That's all you need to do. Nothing more than that. Don't, don't try and get too fussy about trying to. They've got such a detailed wing feathers. It would be terribly time-consuming and I don't know if it would necessarily help them get your painting. So I'm not going down that road. Right. I need to do that lake, don't I? So let's do that quickly. We I'm going to use the brown and the satellite genuine need to get it at that angle. So I kind of made it slightly the wrong angle didn't just a bit dark. And like I said earlier, they've got really big powerful legs. Want to turn, gives the illusion of that. But don't want to get too detailed that I think is enough. I don't want to do too much. Okay. Put those colors down. No, I'm just gonna go around him and take any any color that I think needs to come out. I'm going to start at the top of the head and we can gently take, because this is the patella, blue is very staining. So by taking the color out, we get another lovely sense of light. So tiny bit top of the head. This has worked really well. So I don't want to touch that, but you could very gently, if you found your users to a joined up, you can gently take a little bit of color out. Again, that applies to this area as well. But I'm pleased how that's worked. But he has got some fantastic blue markings here, has an e to work. Again, we're going to take this out with the brush. A little bit of kitchen roll. Just enough. I'm just going to very carefully using a little bit of this blue, strong blue and just consult, pull up a slight hint. Exaggerating the word hint of like a feather coming up into the medical brush a bit bigger. Just call me up and do the body. Just a tiny, tiny hint. That's enough. Okey-dokey. I'm going to rub out these pencil marks in due course. Want to make sure it's all dry. We can rub out the salt actually, nowhere haven't done that earlier. So make sure it's dry because it does take a bit longer to dry salt if you've got it down to just check pressure onto the floor. Let's take this out at the top. Because of course can be done right at the beginning of the. Just be careful if you've worked on these eyes and you're doing this along with me. You don't smudge the eyes. Might be easier to blow. The fellow blues, easy to transfer. Okay, I think, I think he's looking pretty good. Yeah. I don't think again, that this has worked quite well. I don't need to take any light out, but you could again, I'm not going to put feet in or I know some of you are really good at your feet, so do put feet in if you want to. But other than that, I really think he's he's there. The pencil marks can be very, very gently rubbed out and be careful again, if you've used the patella blue, It's quite easy to transfer as you can see, I've still got it on my hands. So when you come to rub it out, go very gently. You don't eat will, it will smear across the paper if you're not careful. Not to bad my pencil marks, but it's always lovely if you've managed to keep the pencil marks nice and light, get this one out here and you'll see how lovely it is to not have the pencil marks that are holding that lighting. Well, I'm pretty pleased. I think that's worked out. Well. I don't know what I was going to show you. Let me show you the other tail feather. I use it a demo. This is just about dried. Might have been a bit heavy handed with assault. But you can see it's given some quite distinctive markings. And actually if I'd, if we painted him in, that's a really loose, very bold impression of that tail feather, isn't it? It's quite nice and the distance closer up, it's not so good. But I'm hopefully having done this for you. I've included some other tips that I might not have said in the first run of the main piece. And it's giving, giving you another, another look at me painting it. Hope joke, right? I'm, I hope you, I hope you've enjoyed painting along with me. And as ever, please, please share these with me on the projects and resources pages. It's a real thrill to see them appear. So, yeah, thank you very much for joining me. 12. Final Tweaks: No, I just thought I would pop back and explain why the eyes look a little different on your reference photo of the final piece. Now when I looked at him the next day, which is often the case and a really good tip to take away is always assess your piece after the next day or even a few hours is sometimes enough and you will see glaringly obvious areas that need a little bit of attention. I found or thought my little blue blobs looked a little bit too sloppy and didn't have enough detail really to emphasize those beautiful eyes. So I went back in, used a slightly bigger brush and I damped the more like this one, a damped it down. I use my finger. Just run it down. So I've just smudging just to soften some of the area. Then I went back in with a smaller brush and use my white gouache. And I did, let me pick up my little brush and I just went around these. You'd see that one was actually done before. Better. Just to, just to make them look a little more detailed, add a little bit more brown and also some of the green again. Some of them I smudged again with my finger. Some are just gently wet down and again, just drew that down. I didn't want them to look like they'd been stuck on, which is often the case if you go back in and add detail. So the conscious or trying to soften the edges. So I hope that helps because it's a valuable lesson, as I say, is to always look at your piece after a few hours and and see what these altering, if anything, of course. Yes. Thank you for watching this last little lesson. I hope you enjoyed the class. 13. Final Thoughts: So I hope you enjoyed this class. Isn't he an amazing bird to paint with so many beautiful elements? Hope you enjoy creating his amazing tail feather water buzzer is allowing the paint to work its magic. I hope you found breaking them down into sections made the painting feel less daunting. Did you enjoy adding the crisp detail around the head? It's nice to get the contrast. A lovely flowing, loose tail. It's always worth stepping away for a couple of hours. I looking at him again with a fresh pair of eyes. It's amazing what you see. So we look forward to seeing you in the next class.