Transcripts
1. Introduction to Class: Do you love painting florals? In this Procreate
illustration class, you learn fun creative
techniques to bring vibrant leaves and flowers to life with stunning
watercolor effects. Perfect for adding warmth
and personality to your art. Hey there. I'm Yifat Fishman I'm an artist and illustrator. I specialize in portraits
and vibrant compositions, and I love incorporating
florals into my work. Flowers play a key role in my more intricate
client projects, plus their endless colors and shapes make them
a joy to paint. Join me in this class as I share The fun and creative process of painting vibrant leaves
and flower arrangements. The techniques you learn
here can be applied to future projects to create
stunning watercolor effects. You’ll learn how to
illustrate buds, leaves, and a variety
of expressive flowers. Instead of relying
on reference photos, we'll use our
imagination to create florals that reflect
your personality. You’ll learn which brushes
are used and why they work best for different
parts of the project. By the end of class, we'll
explore the option of creating a poster with
your class project. This is a hands on class, and I'll be guiding you through every step of the
creative process. You'll need experience with The Procreate app to
follow the lessons. This class is perfect for
anyone looking to bring warmth and personality to
their digital floral art. I'm looking forward to
seeing you in class, so let's get started.
2. Project: In this hands-on class, you'll create stunning
watercolor painting of wildflowers. The class lessons walk you through the creative
process using a step by step approach to make it fun and easy to follow along. We'll illustrate buds, leaves, and expressive flowers,
starting with a loose sketch. I'll cover all the techniques you'll need for this project. And by the end of class, we'll explore different ways to bring your
illustration to life. And I'd love for
you to find ways to make your class
project uniquely yours. You can transform your artwork
into a beautiful design, experiment with vibrant colors, whatever makes it truly yours. Once your floral
illustration is complete, share it in the class gallery. I'd love to see your work, and I always leave
encouraging feedback. With that said, let's begin. I can't wait to see
your beautiful florals.
3. Sketch: All right, we're ready to begin. Your first step in creating your floral illustration is to sketch out the composition. Start by loosely marking where you want your
flowers to be. When planning your composition, keep your sketch loose. Don't worry about details yet. Just focus on placing each
element and defining its size. Pay attention to scale. We want a few larger
flowers to serve as focal points and smaller
shapes for the flower buds. To create a balance and
dynamic composition, place each element at
slightly different heights. I'm sketching simple
shapes to get a feel for how I want to arrange the
floals on the canvas. I'm planning two large flowers and loosely mapping out space for their petals
because I know that each flower will have
four big petals. And finally, sketch stems, and they'll be extending
from each flower. This step helps establish the structure of
your illustration, and it gives you a clear guide to follow as we move forward.
4. Blend: I've set up my color
palette directly on the canvas using
the same palette available to you in
the class resources. Of course, feel free to explore other colors that
resonate more with you. Now let's lower the
sketch layer's opacity to make it less distracting
and add a new layer. As a general rule, try to create a new layer for each
element in your project. It helps keep things organized. Next, I want to show
you the main technique I'll be using
throughout this class. I'm placing two
colors on the canvas. Then selecting the finger
icon in the top menu. This is your blending tool. If you're not
familiar with it yet, it allows you to mix
colors seamlessly. I want to choose a wide, soft brush for blending. If you experiment
with that tool, you'll find that using
highly textured brushes or rake brushes will give you very coarse blending and sometimes you really want those textures. But for now, we
want the wide and soft brushes for the blending. Now, watch what happens when
I blend those two colors. The soft brush picks
up both shades. As I mix them together, they create a smooth gradient. Now since my brush
has a bit of texture, the result is a soft
natural blending effect. We can also blend
colors within a shape, giving us full control
over how they mix. This is why we do it manually using gentle
intentional strokes. I can add more of the
lighter color to bring out highlights or keep more of the darker shade while
softening its edges. It all depends on the
direction of my blending.
5. Buds: So let's start by setting up a new layer for drawing
the flower buds. I want to pick a slightly
textured brush with a fine tip. I'll be using a
brush that I created specifically for
illustrating flowers. I love how sensitive
it is to pressure. Feel free to use your own brush. All you need is a
brush that is lightly textured and that you can
achieve fine tip with it. The flower buds that we'll be drawing today are
divided in the center. They're going to
come out so cute. I'm starting with painting
in half of my bud. Then I layer a darker shade and gently blend its edges in. I'll keep going and
pick a new color for painting in the
second half of my bud. And let's see how a textured
brush will work here. I'm going to pick a dry brush. Watch how its texture adds so much character
to the flower bud. We want to blend
its edges in very gently and leave some
texture in place. We want it visible. For the second flower bud, I want to go back
to my first brush and color in one half. Since I picked a dark color, my second color layer will
be in a lighter shade. Then we'll blending the
colors together very gently. Let's keep going
using this color, but pick the dry brush to
layer darker shade on top. To add definition and texture, I'll use the dry brush with a lighter color for touch ups. If needed, I can refine
the bad shape by erasing and reshaping the tips. So throughout, I will use my brushes and then
switch to the eraser if I need to refine the
shape and give that bad a nice sharper tip. Let's repeat this process
for the next bud, switching between
brushes, blending colors, and refining the
shape as needed. Things to keep in mind
while drawing your buds, switch between your
fine tip brush and your dry brush for
different effects. When using the blend tool, try to keep your brush strokes within the shape's boundaries. But don't worry
if you go beyond, just refine it with the eraser. If you're like me and love
working with textures, add highlights with
your dry brush. Blend them slightly
for a seamless look, but leave some textures
visible for added character. Enjoy the process and have fun experimenting with
colors and textures.
6. Flowers: In this lesson, we'll finally
start drawing the flowers. First, let's make sure we add a new layer for
our floral blooms. I'm choosing the
same brush I use for drawing the buds for my flowers. I love how it responds to pressure and has this
wonderful subtle texture. For my flowers, I want to
create four big petals. Each petal begins at
the flower center, starting with a fine tip that expands into
an abstract shape. You can refine each
petal into a rounded, smooth form, or give it an
organic expressive edge. Varying the shapes of
each petal will make the flowers look more dynamic
and visually interesting. Next, I'll lock the layer
in alpha lock mode. Now, let's choose
a darker color and apply it along the
edges of the petals, painting a larger area on each petal center
to introduce depth. And now for the fun part, let's pick up our blending
tool and gently blend a darker shade into the
lighter color base. This creates a soft
textured gradient. To enhance the
shape even further, I'll add highlights with my
lighter color for this step, switching to a textured
white brush strokes, it's so beautiful. I'm using my dry brush here. I love how just a few strokes bring so much character
to these petals. A To create a fuller flower head, we'll add a second layer beneath our main flower and paint
additional petals in the gaps. I'm adding two extra
petals on each side, and then repeating the process, painting the edges with a darker shade and blending
it for a seamless effect. Now let's move on to
our second flower. Again, we want big
expressive petal shapes. And once the base petals are
drawn, we'll lock the layer, paint the edges with
a darker shade, and blend in our colors. When we blend, we want to retain the darker colors
and the lighter colors. So we blend just the area where the colors meet and
make sure that we leave the edges of the flower dark and keeping the main area
of our petals light. We don't want to create a
complete gradient look. We really want to keep the difference between our darker shade and
our lighter shade. Now by now, you feel
more comfortable with the process and
allowing your hand to move freely and enjoy
the flow of painting. Adding highlights with
a dry brush is so satisfying and it's such
a creative process. I might leave some
visible brush strokes for added texture or blend
them in for a softer look. Go with what feels right in the moment and trust your hand. For the final touch, we'll add secondary
petals behind the flower, blending in darker tones
along their edges and center. Here are the key things to remember when drawing
your flowers. Use a pressure sensitive
brush to create expressive petal shapes
with soft texture. The brush that you use for your buds should be
perfect for this job. Vary the petal shapes for a more dynamic and natural look. Remember those
interesting edges. Another thing to remember
is to lock your layer in alpha lock before adding
darker shades for depth. And blend gently to create soft gradients while keeping
some texture visible. Then add the second petal layer behind the flower to
give it a fuller look. Use a dry brush for
highlights to bring character and dimension
to your creation. It's looking so beautiful. Now, if you'd like to reposition your
flowers on the canvas, you can merge both
petal layers into one flower layer to keep things tidy and
easy to move around. That's it. We've now completed our beautiful flowers and buds. With their expressive
petals, soft blends, and textured highlights, they're full of
life and character. Next, we'll bring
even more charm to our composition
by adding leaves.
7. Stems: To draw the stems, add a new layer to your
canvas and start extending lines from your blooms down
to the bottom of the page. Try to keep a steady hand, but don't worry if your
lines are a bit shaky. This adds to the hand drawn
field that we're going for. I want some stems to be parallel
and a few to intersect, creating a more visually
interesting composition. Also varying the pressure
on my pencil as I draw, so the lines have
different weights, transitioning from thin
to thick along the stems. Next, we'll lock the layer in a mask and pick a
darker shade of green. Then draw along the stems to
add shading and dimension. Pay attention to how this process affects the
areas where stems meet. Those intersections are
really interesting. Be sure to leave long stretches of the stems in
the lighter green. If you end up covering too
much with a darker color, you can always repaint those
parts with a lighter green now let's release the mask so we can add details to this layer. I'll go back to my
golden Glade brush, the same brush I used
for the flowers. I created it specifically for drawing flowers and
petals and leaves. You can use any brush
you have as long as it's highly responsive to
pressure and has some texture. Now I'll start forming those beautiful leaves that
cap the buds and flowers. I'm sure they have a name, but I don't remember
it right now. This is a wonderful
opportunity to add extra charm to your project. We want to draw four to five of these leaves under each
flower bud and flower head. Take your time and
enjoy the process. Each stroke adds
personality to your piece, making your floral
illustration uniquely yours.
8. Leaves: For drawing leaves, I'm using the same brush I used
in the previous lesson. You'll want to adjust
the pressure on your brush when
creating these leaves. Start with light
pressure at the base, increase it at the center, and then release it towards
the end of the brush stroke. I first form the
shape of each leaf, then fill it with color. When needed, I can always use the eraser to refine the
tips for a clean finish. I'm drawing only a few leaves, allowing the flowers and buds
to remain the focal point. When drawing your leaves, make sure that each leaf
has a different shape and give it a slightly
different size to vary the look of your leaves. To keep the
composition balanced, I make the leaves smaller
near the top of the stem and slightly larger towards the
base for a natural look. Keeping the same brush for all the leaves
regardless of size, helps maintain the
consistent texture throughout the artwork. Once you're ready to refine
your leaves further, lock the leaf layer with
alpha ok and add highlights. Working with the mask preserves the natural transparency
and textures of the layer. I love how the light green
adds freshness and shine. So I'm going back to
my stems layer to add some light greens as highlights to the leaves
that cap my flower blooms. This is one of the things that I love most about the
creative process, how one detail can
inspire another, allowing our artwork
to evolve naturally. Now let's pick a smaller
brush to draw fine lines. I'm adding a few
simple brush strokes to create definitions
in the leaves. I want to keep it
fresh and effortless, ensuring these details enhance the piece without
overworking it. With the leaves in place, your floral illustration
is really coming to life. They add movement, depth, and a natural flow
to the composition. Take a step back and admire your beautiful
floral illustration. Every brush stroke reflects
your unique touch.
9. Design: Turning your floral
illustration into a poster is an optional
step in this class, but I think it's an
exciting one and a fun way to explore
your creativity. Start by duplicating your
illustration so you can experiment freely while
keeping your original intact. Before we begin, the
first step in designing our poster is to group all
the projects layer together. Then add a new layer
for color exploration. It's important to place
this layer inside the group for the final
steps of the design process. Now let's have fun with color. For this project,
I want to explore different color
combinations based on the florals we
created in class. Playing with colors
is a great way to discover new looks
for your artwork. I feel that it often
opens my mind to possibilities I hadn't
considered before. Start by experimenting with
different background colors. Watch how each one
interacts with the flowers and creates
a different mood. Take your time to see how
each option makes you feel and consider making multiple versions with
different color palettes. For the next step, I'll
use the transform tool. I'll make sure
snapping is active and keep that transform setting on uniform to prevent distortion. This allows me to resize my project while maintaining
its proportions. Since snapping is active, I can easily check that my artwork is centered
on the canvas. These horizontal and vertical
orange lines guides you through the process of centering your elements
on the canvas. Next, let's import
the paper texture and place it above
all the layers. You can use the same
texture I'm using, which is available in the
class resources and make sure the paper texture covers the entire canvas and
resize it to fit. Then experiment
with blending modes to find the one that
enhances the texture best. Some will create a refined
look while others will add rougher fill Let's
take a closer look. Sometimes it's hard to choose, but I really like this one. Okay. And that's it. Your beautiful floral
illustration is complete. I hope you enjoy
experimenting with colors, textures, and brushwork to
bring your flowers to life. Whether you keep it as a standalone artwork or
turn it into a poster, you've created
something truly unique. I hope this class
inspires you to keep exploring and have fun with
digital watercolor floals.
10. Final Thoughts: I hope you had as
much fun painting these wild watercolor florals as I did guiding you
through the process. By now, you've explored
different techniques, experimented with
colors and textures, and brought your own unique
floral illustration to life. Remember, the more you practice, the more confident you'll become in your digital
watercolor painting. So be bold and play around, try new brushes and color combinations and make
these techniques your own. I'd love to see
your final project, so be sure to share it
in the class gallery. I always enjoy leaving supportive feedback and
celebrating your creativity. If you enjoy this class, please take a moment to
leave a short review. It really helps me improve and lets others know what to expect. Thank you for joining
me in this class. Happy creating, and I'll
see you in the next class. Bye for now.
Yifat Fishman, Artist & Illustrator
