Puffins: A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Hello, Anna, welcome to this intermediate watercour class. Today, we're going to be painting these adorable puffins together. Now, do you struggle to create accuracy and looseness in your watercolor painting? Then this is going to be a brilliant class for you. I'm going to show you how to paint those two elements so they sit side by side to create the perfect watercolor for you. I'm Jan Davis. I live, paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park in England. Over the last 20 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 has allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teach 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. I also run a successful art business where two days are never the same from the thrill of exhibiting to painting pet and wildlife commissions in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real time, where I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without overfussing. If you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you with your first masterpiece painted in only 15 minutes. Then you'll find dozens of my master classes available covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I share the techniques I use in my own professional work. We'll have a lot of fun together, and you'll gain the understanding and confidence to incorporate everything you learn into your own work. You'll be amazed at how easy watercolor can be. I provided you with a wonderful reference of these two beautiful puffins and a downloadable template. The template will give you a stress free drawing so you can just enjoy the painting. We will be boldly adding paint using a lovely wet on wet technique that only requires one layer. I want to show you how to create those soft edges going from dark to light while still working on wet paper. And if all that neatness seems too much, there's a lovely, flowing, textured rock. I'll be demonstrating how best to create. And, of course, I'll be showing you how to adjust, and dare I say fiddle at the end to bring this complex painting to a brilliant finish. If you'd like to learn more about me or my work, then please pop over to my website at Jan Davis watercolors.co dot k. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I love to share my art and adventures, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress, and tales of judio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages. I love seeing your masterpieces. 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: So let me run through all the materials you're going to need to paint these rather delicious pair of puffins. And what took me so long, they are fabulous to paint. Quite precise, but fabulous. Right, from the top. So I have A's Daniel Smith, and these and all these materials can be found in the projects and resources pages, so they're all there for you to refer back to. But from the top, I have indigo, so delight Genuine, my absolute favorite. I might be raving about it throughout the class. You need it in your life if you haven't got it already. Ultramarine violet. Sepia. I have the Hansa Yellow Medium and Perylene red, and just a tiny little bit of white gash, only for the eye, dot, so nothing else. If you don't have these exact colors, please don't panic, like I always say, you will have colors in your collection that will be amazing for these. So I did the back puffing in Indigo and the front one in so light Genuine. You could either do both of them in Indigo, both of them in So light Genuine or another strong blue. I'm not sure if I'd go black, but honestly, it really doesn't matter. Black might be quite punchy. So have a play, see what you have, and work your work with what you have. The paper is arches, and it's been stretched on a perfect paper stretcher. I'll pop a link in the projects and resources pages to the perfect paper stretcher. I know a few of you have reached out and asked about those. Hot of water. Salt. Good hint here now. Don't put your salt too close to your water you drop water into your salt pot, and then the salt doesn't work very well. Um, I have a rubber. I have my trusty little heart, which is, if you haven't followed me before, um, you probably don't know about the heart, but it's just an inch high, and it allows me to pop that underneath my board or piece of paper and give me some tilt. I only use it for the ground, so we don't do a lot of tilting in this class. Kit your roll or paper towel, and there is a pencil, but I don't seem to have it. On camera. Pencil. And then I have a Dagger brush, which I use throughout the class, and I don't really use anything else. I'm honest, and that's just a quarter of an inch. I do have a I have it sitting beside me for most of the class, I have a number naught, which if you haven't got a Dagger brush, then that's great for doing a small detail. And, again, if you haven't got the Dagger brush, then a six, seven, eight brush would be great. These aren't very big. You get a rough comparison to my hand. So we're not doing these on a big scale, which does bring me to the fact if you want to do them big, I think these would be terrific big. I'm just a little limited to my painting size and the board I'm working on, so they aren't particularly big. Is there anything else? Oh, hair dryer, hair dryer is off camera. Again, I do stress throughout the class. It's not particularly useful because you don't want to be blowing a lot of these pigments around. But it was quite quick. It's quite useful to finishing off the very last little bits of drying, especially on the ground. There's the template and the reference photo again on the projects and resources pages, and say that template is just for you to get the correct drawing down. So do take advantage of that. I think that's it. Come on. Let's go skitch them out. 3. Sketching Out: Right then, before we can crack on to the painting part, which I know we all really want to, but we obviously have to sketch them out first. So let me give you at a few hopefully helpful tips. Firstly, and I quite often forget to say this, keep your pencil marks as light as you can. I know you're probably looking at mine going, Well, they're quite heavy. Basically, so you can kind of see easily what I'm painting. Um plus, it helps me see where I'm going because it's a little stressful anyway filming. So if I'm struggling to see my lines, it makes it harder. But it is beneficial in the end if you can't see any pencil marks, especially anywhere like the white, say, the white breast, you really you want to be able to let me show you my example here. You don't want to be able to see these pencil marks. And sometimes they're quite hard to get out, and then you start rubbing, and then you end up taking little bits of paint out. Also, it's quite it applies to the back of dark areas, too. If there's a strong pencil mark and you want to get it out and you rub, you can quite often take paint out. So keep your pencil marks lovely and light. That would apply to all my classes as well. But saying that, you obviously need some down there for a guide. So there is the template in the projects and resources page, which will help, and I'll put any relevant indicating lines on there as well. But just take your time. However you can get this image onto your piece of paper, there's lots of clever ways these days. Just make sure it's right. Again, this is probably why I always say step away. Just go and get yourself a little cup of tea. A break, wander around the garden, whatever, come back and just assess your pencil marks or your sketch and see whether that looks right to that reference photo. And once you're happy, really, we can move on. I'm happy with mine. So let's go and get these started. 4. First Puffin: So dead dead easy to start with. We're going to try trying to be organized. We're going to start with this Bbird first, complete him or her, and then move on to the next one that will hopefully allow everything to dry. So we're going to start very easily. Got my little Oh, actually, I tell you what? I'm going to have my tiny little brush. Move the rubber. We don't need that. And we're gonna pick up the red, and we're just going to go round that red eye marking. It's a tiny little brush. It's only a little bit. There's not a lot to see, really. Let's see if I can I'm actually wearing a pair of glasses, and funny enough, it's actually helping me see what I'm painting, although I'm still a little way away from my painting, but it's a bit of a game changer, aren't they Glasseed Who would have thought? Anyway. Yeah, go carefully round. There's that funny little blue mark up there, so we'll keep that clear, as well. Just goes tips into the front, and there's a blue mark under there. So it's literally just that. We need that obviously to do the y, we need the red to be dry and we need the red to be dry from when we paint these as well. So it seemed the obvious little bit to start with. Okay. Can you brush, and then we're going to move on to the beak. We're going to paint the whole thing, a very soft yellow. And then we can paint over the top of that. So obviously, when you look at that reference photo, it's mainly on this area here, isn't it? So what we're going to do? We're going to wet the bottom part of the beak. So where the join is. We're just going to apply color to the top. Topping font, probably would be an easier way of saying it. Honestly, just allow it to allow it to bleed. Ideally don't necessarily want it going into this area, but I don't want it to be look too blocky. So and then just gently bring it up. It comes over to this bit, doesn't it, as well. They're quite complex looking colors and shapes, aren't they? But it's something like that. I'm gonna w that? I've got quite a lot of water sitting here, so I don't need too much water. I have this beautiful, big disc light, which gives such a lovely light, it's quite flat, and I find it at times quite hard to see how much water I've got down, but Yeah, I think that's just that's all you need, I say, we'll fill all that in a little bit later. But we'll also do this little tiny and I think it's called a rosette. Now, I did look up some puffing facts, so I shall bore you with some of those as we work our way through the class, but I think this little funny area here is actually called a rosette and when they open their beaks, it allows them to open them wide so they can get them out of fish that they carry. So they're like a little funnier elastic thing. A little odd, so it's worth looking it up. While, see if I can remember to put a little picture of one. I did find one. So basically, sorry, I was picked up the red. I just swindled round a little bit. Gonna pick up the yellow. Gonna do the same. Don't get too wide. It's obviously quite orange, isn't it probably rattling away to you, telling you about what they are. I'm concentrating on my painting. I'll try to make that a little bit more orangy. Basically mixing the two colors together on the paper and just allowing. If that runs in, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I think that's enough. I'm not trying not to get too trey. I'm too worried. Again, if that runs, that's absolutely fine. That will stop it looking too, sort of, um, thick and sort of clumpy. That blooming too much. Suck some of that up. I've got quite a lot of water sitting there. Okay, ideally, we're just going to allow that to dry, and then we can move on to the little bit of the body. But 5. First Puffin Back and Feet: Right. So the body is really fun to do. And I've actually picked two different colors for each bird. I'm going to do the indigo for the back and sodalt for the front bird. Doesn't matter. You can either swap them round or just one. I just I liked how both of them worked, if I'm honest and how the paint gave us a different texture. So I thought I'd chuck both in. Why not? Okay, so what we're gonna do? Be careful. If this is still wet, mine is a little bit wet still, so it doesn't matter because we shouldn't join them up because we've got that lovely. They're very, very they're lovely birds to paint, they almost section themselves off as well, 'cause there's that nice white little line there, which I have actually forgotten to put in, but there's a nice white line that separates the head from the chest. So we're just going to put a little bit. I don't actually want to put any color here, but hopefully you can see I've just wet that little section. It doesn't it's not imperative how far down you go. It's just somewhere like that. And we're also going to do the same to the bottom. I'm actually just going to join them up. So I've wet a little V shape there. It's just cross there. Be careful, making sure you stay nice and neat because that's running into the second bird's white plumage, white chest. So make sure you stay nice and neat. And we're going to be really bold. We're going to put lots of paint particularly on the back the light's coming sort of this way, isn't it? So go and keep everything neat. It's quite a neat little painting this. There's not a lot of sort of lots of flow. That's why I want to do something a little bolder here, give us some probably nice to work with some nice watercolor flow, rather than it all being very exact, which it can become, I think. Ema bush doing exactly the same to this section down here. I got a little bit more water there. That's probably helpful. So staying really neat. And then, Hey, bush, we're gonna join them up. It doesn't matter how or which way really doesn't matter. Just allow this to happen, 'cause this is gonna give you a lovely just texture, randomness. Again, a little bit tight. We have to be careful. We go round this beak here, as well. And then join it up. I'm actually not sure if it's a beak or a bill. It's me looking all my little facts up, and I don't know which way around it is, actually, Beak or a bill. Probably whichever I choose is probably the wrong one. Say, just literally allow that to happen. Let's make sure we get a little bit of color in the front, and we're gonna pop a little bit of um spire in there as well. Warm it up. And almost actually, if you get little lines like that or diggle dots, I don't any that matters in this case. Normally, I'm always a bit of a I like I don't like to see any white patches, but that's actually quite nice. It's running beautifully. I'm going to do because I can actually see this is sitting. A lot of wood sitting here. Edge of my kitchen roll. I can just suck some of that up. That also encourages that to run. I hope you saw that whizzes whizzes it a bit further down. We've put some salt on here as well, which give us an extra little bit of texture. Now I'm saying, I'm not sure if I do like those little white spots. I might just fill them in. Don't know why I'm whispering now. Okay, I'm going to put just a tiny, tiny little bit of Sepia just to give a little bit of warmth in the front here. So making sure everything's really lovely and neat. Anywhere else you think a little bit of warmth might help? Lovely. I think that's looking right. Just a tiny bit of strength right in this corner here. Although it doesn't necessarily indicate it on the reference photo. I just wanted to get that real contrast between the two birds. Right. And now, very carefully, we're going to join the head up, as well. Just literally just wet the whole head. Just be kept. Just be a little mind for it if this is still a bit damp. I think we drew a tiny little dry line between the two cause Indigo is quite strong, and I don't really want that whizzing down into that beak cause Indigo is quite staining. We won't to get that out. It will be a bit disastrous. Okay, it's not actually running that much. I don't want to tilt it 'cause I love how this is flowing. If I tilt this bold, I'm gonna lose that nice sense of flow. So 'cause I'm just seeing all that water still sitting there. I'm going to put a little bit more paint on there. There's actually a little bit more paint towards the lower part of the head. Let's just add the paint at the lower part. Again, it's just tapping, taking your brush away, having a little look where you think you need that darker. They've been really mindful 'cause they're quite small. I would love to do it. One time, we do something bigger, but I'm always a little constrained with the filming and the sides we can actually get the board on the paper. The board on the paper, the board on this board on this board a little a little be strange with that way. Just want a tiny little bit of paint just up there, just so I can see the top of the head. But I want to keep that as I like that. I like that sense of light. And I can see that it's just creeping into that yellow telling you to be careful. I've actually taken my glasses off 'cause my glasses are a bit in betweene. They're not quite the right. Um, distance for should give me a good clear, um, view from where I'm standing, so I'm watching that. That's lovely. That'd be fine. Let's pop that back there. Let's get some salt in here as well before that dries because that's a really fun fun fun way to get some texture, 'cause indigo works brilliantly with salt wares. So genuine, because it's granulating, doesn't really work that well. So we'll get a nice contrast between the two birds with a nice bit of texture. Hopefully, a good tip is, I just noticed my fingers are a little bit damp is to when you've got salt, make sure your fingers are dry cause if the salt is already wet before you put that on the paper, then it's already doing half the job already, and it's soaked up moisture from your finger and won't work quite so well on the paper. Right. That just needs to dry a little bit. Um, before we can do the body. So we're going to crack on with a little feet. What I would ideally like is this to dry almost, and then we can do the body and we get a little bit of softness. But let's do the feet first while that carries on drying. But be mindful. If you're in a very hot place and you can see this drying now, then I would suggest doing the body and then do the legs later. I don't know if that's helping or just confusing matters, but let me just let me paint my own bird, but that's worth just keeping in mind. So I'm actually using the two colors, say we're mixing the yellow and the red together. I thought I would do this for a change rather than actually having an orange on the table, the table gets a bit clustered with paint, and I'm always mindful of having too much on here. So I put the two colours on the top of the leg. Very similar to this sort of thing, where we did the body, so a nice color there, and then we're just going to pull down. That little tiny gaps. Just be mindful that little gap. There's a gap between that back leg and this front one. That's quite nice to keep that. They be nice and neat, try not to make those legs too fat. I think one of my practice pieces, I had very chunky legs, so be careful. Won't put any sort of claws in a bit later. That's just I think that's worked right. Put a little bit of red at the back there just to give us a little bit of humph. Little tiny bit of yeo there. Just, again, just allow. We're gonna do the back leg. Same again, same thing. Nice and wet. I'm actually, it doesn't matter I'm just gonna run that into that front foot Okay. Keeping on the shapes. I make sure your shapes are nice. Lovely. Always just take your brush away. How ready to look. Ideally, you want a little bit of light on the top, a little bit of depth and strength at the bottom, so it doesn't necessarily show that on the reference photo, but it's still nice to put in cause I think it helps make sense to the painting. Lovely. Yeah, I think that's go. Now, let me assess the state of dryness of this chest area. I think it's still quite wet. Yeah, I'm gonna have to hang on for a little minute. Look as though I can still see a bit old puddle here. So this is gonna probably take, I'll have said two or 3 minutes to get to the stage of dryness. If I was to wet this now, all this would run into the chest, and I really don't want that, especially with indigo. So it needs to be just a tiny little bit tacky. And also, ideally the legs need to dry a touch. So, yes, I'm just going to be a little bit patient and watch it. I don't want to be hair dry over it. It's always an option in some cases, but for this, especially with the salt down there, it will just blow it around, so it needs to dry naturally, I'm afraid. 6. First Puffin Front: Okay, I'm thinking this is a good time. It's just starting to go off. It took a bit longer than I thought. I must admit, but I think I rather oversaturated this. So hopefully you've been haven't been quite so liberal with your water, although it's always a good thing, but, you know, you can have too much. Um, yes, I can just see it starting to go off. I have this sense if I wet this, it wouldn't move as much, but what we're going to do just to prevent any huge um, bleeds. I'm going to start wetting from out across the so the front of the chest. So I'm going to wet that down right at the very end, touch those soy, touch the body right at the very end and maybe just a few areas to see how that's looking. When I come down here, I'm quite happy if the leg bleeds a bit more, and I think that's dried. It's obviously not such a strong color, so it wouldn't matter. No see, that's nice. Softening. Had a little bit of a bleed. We gained this big really mindful. We've got a white chested bird here in the front. Right. Let's see how that's looking. Yeah, just a little bit. Indigo is a it likes to move around. And so if I give it a give the opportunity, it will certainly. You can see that's almost a bit too much still, so you are going to be a bit mindful, I might leave a tiny little white line here and join it up in a minute. I don't really want that. That salt starting to work beautifully. So if I start drawing a lot of this color here into the chest, it's gonna lose some of that. I just have a leave a little bit of something up there. What I want to try and avoid is this really stark line between the junction between that dark body and the chest, which obviously there is, if you look at the reference photo, but I still like it to look nice and stop. Let me just pull this one down again. I've managed to get the timing quite good there, and I just avoided that very hard line. Right. If I squint my eyes, I can personally see a little bit of violet, and we have a little bit of sepia. And actually, I might use a so light genuine just 'cause it's a bit softer. It's not quite so hard. And I'm just going to tap a little bit of colour in here. So squint and you can see those darker areas. And yeah, you can exaggerate them a bit. Sometimes it's quite fun to actually tinker with the reference photo if it's too It's a lively reference photo here, but you can sort of alter it just to pull up some more contrast or soften things down. We'll do that to sort of bring more detail in so sometimes you can sort of see where the shadows are if you tinker with the photos. Okay, just tapping, so I'm still leaving out little white lining. See see how much that's bled steel. I was probably a bit gung ho. I probably should have left it a tiny a little bit more. But I thought that's it. You've had enough now. Surely you must be dry. Even went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea. Okay, just putting a little bit of sepia there, a little bit of violet. Again, just to sort of give us a little bit of something there. We do those nice flicks. Now, flicks, I find a lot of people get these. They just do them a little bit too late. It's nice to do them. If it is still wet and we've got a nice bit of paint, they flick out and give you a really natural look. If we leave it too long and you do them too late, they look like they'd literally been stuck on. I doesn't look as natural. I put a little bit of violet in there. I think I've managed to contaminate my violet. This is the thing with working out a tube sometimes. You can contaminate the tubes. If you keep dipping your brush into different colours, just gonna squeeze that in there for a minute. I said, We It's quite a soft colour, this violet. Take the top off of that. But I still maintain it's not much different than contaminating it on a palette. That's better. That's a bit more violet, isn't it? But people find it up yet. I was easy to get carried away and add too much here on the chest because obviously, there is a white bird. We don't want to get too much color. But we do need something along this edge a little bit, I think, just a draw so you can kind of see where the chest finishes. I still like to leave it quite light, but just a little bit. Yeah, again, I've taken brush away, have a little have a little gander at it. A little bit more. There's a little bit more color here. You can see where the leg this leg join comes in, so a little bit a little color there to emphasize that. So a couple of little flicks here. Why not? Right. No. I'm gonna gonna clean a brush. I'm gonna take up a lot of the excess water upside. Brush is quite just damp. What I don't want to do is sort of spill some more water into this indigo. See if we can creep that closer. Obviously, what I don't want now is a white line, 'cause that's rather defeating my object of giving it nice and soft. So we're gonna just join them up. Yeah, that's a better stage. It's just giving a little bit of something. I can soften the edges. I'll be mindful it's up here as well. I'm just going to tie a little bit more that CP just here. Kinda got a little bit lost there. Is that nice flyer looked, as well. Right. I'm just gonna allow that to move and blend. We'll crack on with number true Bud, but we can also keep a mindful watch on this as we're working on the number number two bird sounds really boring, doesn't it? Sorry, little bird. Just giving you a number. Now, again, you can you can put a little bit of salt in there if you want a little bit more texture, but I think this is gonna be salty already, and it can be quite a lot of patterning, so I don't think I want to put that in there in that bird, as well. I can't do anything to the head to the head will have to wait a little bit. So I was going to be methodical, didn't I wait? So let me have a little look. Yes, no. I'm just gonna allow this to dry a little bit. I'm gonna finish him a cup of tea. And this is still a little bit damp on top of the head. Again, I quite like a little bit of softness, but I would like I would like, some of these elements to dry a little bit. I'm also really mindful of putting my fist there. So I'm going to let that little go off a little bit, have them a cup of tea, and we'll do that head. 7. First Puffin Face: Okay, so this is very nearly dry. So I'm going to crack on with a little face area. So what we're going to do, we're going to go carefully around these little settle blue patches go right up against that red, so it shouldn't bleed. It's not a great one for escaping. And then we're gonna touch the top of the head. I think I think mine is mainly dry, but we still might get that nice little bit of bleed, so touch it. And they have conveniently got this lovely little white line between the join of the body and the head. So although I haven't pencil marked it in, let just put a tiny little bit indigo on there, so you can see what I mean. Hopefully you can see that on the reference photo anyway, but they got a nice little white line that runs right up to the back. So I'm gonna wet the rest of that down. And there's also a nice cheek marking as well down here. I'm not sure. I didn't see that in my little facts about puffins, but what I did find out, bless them, they pair up for life. They actually winter out at sea, come back, pair up again. And they actually burrow. They use quite often use rabbit burrows, I think, to lay their one egg. They only lay one little egg, one chick per year. And both parents will help raise that chick. So yeah, they're really interesting little characters, actually. They're worth having a read about them. Right. I think Let me duck my head up and down, 'cause I need to make sure this is lovely and wet. It's gonna give that line a bit of rustle that wasn't ideal. But hopefully you can see what that little white line was. So what we do want is exactly that, actually, just a little bit of, um a little bit of cheek colour, get you see this. A nice sort of stiness. And actually, funny enough I probably was going to tell you the little tips on the beak or bill, whichever way round it is. But they do actually lose their color in the winter. Their beak color sort of fades. I don't think it actually goes completely gray, but also their face goes quite sotty, so this all sort of crisps up, I suppose. The white plumage becomes more white, and they get that beak colour in, which is really interesting. I suppose it's a mating kind of thing. Both female male and female, they're they're the same, so they're quite hard to tell the difference, apparently. They're. I think the males tends to be a tiny bit bigger. Anyway, I probably I've bored you with enough fax, so I've picked up soy a little bit of sepia. Obviously, can't do too much multitasking, can I fax painting and filming. And so I've got a little bit of violet there. I'm squinting my eyes. I'm trying to get in that the darker area, a little bit warmer up to the top. So a little bit more violet there. And there's a nice little bit of light here behind the back of the eye and on the cheek. So if we leave those colors out, then we'll, um Yeah, we reserve that white. Gain, keep take brush away, have a little gander. Well, Ganda's my word today, isn't it? If only I was painting geese. Okay, I think that's enough. I really don't want to lose that white cheek marking, so I think that's probably enough. But what I do want to get in and actually, I might use sol genuine for this, that little funny little cheek area. It's just here. It goes right up against the rousette. I wonder there, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be exact. I think each puffin will probably have their own sort of unique markings. You can cut this down or make this bit smaller if that's if yours got a little bit exaggerated like mine. Let's make that a little bit smaller. Okay, well pop those in in a minute once it begins to dry. So we had little blue markings. So then we add nice softness. There's a lot of segmenting on this puffing cast because we're dealing obviously with a very dark black markings and white. So trying to get that sort of juxta between the two to have it soft but not lose those quite hard lines is tricky. Obviously, if you've got two subjects, you can work on each subject as we go along. I'm trying to be methodical for you and not jump around too much otherwise it's going to get a bit confusing, but if you have watched this through once, and you're like, Oh, I, you know, when that's drying, I can, you know, crack on with doing the feet. So it would speed the process along. If I was painting this as a commission, that's exactly what I would do. I would allow some areas to dry such as this, and I would probably get on with other parts of this bird, but say for the sake of ease and not confusing either of us, then I shall work like this. We've always got this nice beak to do, so I think we can probably do that now, but just be a little mindful not to touch this sort of head color into the beak, and we also need to be mindful of the drying process in an ideal world, we put those little blue patches on once it starts to go off. It's not critical. We could put that in when it's dry and just soft of the edges. So we'll see how we go with it. I'm not going to get too panicky about it. Okay, so I've got a little bit of violet, and I'm going to have my so like genuine. I'm going to start with this bluey move marking here. So I'm going to try to keep the colors a little bit light at the top. I like a little bit dark at the bottom, so I'm just gonna wet both sections, top and bottom. And then a little bit so like genuine. A little bit of lavender, soy violet. And just tap, tap at the bottom and allow that to spread up to the top. If it's not moving, we can always put a little bit more colour in, but if we carry on tapping at the bottom. And this is where I quite like tilting norm in different circumstances, but I don't want to sort of shift anything around at the moment. This is just forming quite nicely, and the cheap color if I was to lift the board up, that would obviously allow that color to run so we don't want any tilting on this class today. Which I do love a bit of tilting. Okay, I'm gonna have to paw this up a little bit. I'm just being mindful push it back, so you hopefully get that you've got a nice slightly darker at the bottom, a little bit lighter at the top. Fabulous. Okay, so I'm going to put those down. Let's do that red. Just gonna squidge into my iPad a little bit more so I can see if you look at that reference though to the backboard is a little lighter, isn't it? Oh, sorry, not lighter. It's a little out of focus. So I'm not going to hopefully you can still make it out. It's almost quite good cause you can't see too much detail, so you have to be a bit bolder and just go for it cause there isn't the opportunity to be too, too neat and analyze it too much because it's a little bit fuzzy, isn't it? So you just have to go, Yep, it's just about there. So, again, I'm going to start at the bottom and work my way up, hopefully to give a little bit of dark at the bottom and a touch. Lighter at the top. That's two lines in there, so we're just gonna push those up. I try to keep a little gap. It fills in there, doesn't it? Is there something like that? Make that a little bit dark, 'cause they are rather splendid these, aren't they? They beaks or bills. Now I wish I had looked up. But I did find for you. Apparently, they can live up to 30 years. That's quite old, isn't it? Bless them, 30 years with the same partner, eh? Okay. Pull that up. Okay, keep taking your brush away, having a little look. I say, they're very neat. If you like neat things, you'll love this class. And if you followed this on from the buffalo, which was quite, quite free, quite freeing. There's lots of paint being sposhed around and lots of ugly stages. Whereas this is very neat. You can see where you're going, can't you with it? They are very adorable. I'm not sure why I haven't painted a puffing up till now. The lovely. Okay, then we're just gonna wet. Just down the bottom there. I'm gonna try and keep a tiny little dry line, 'cause that's quite pale at the bottom there, isn't it? It's almost quite tricky because we'd like to keep this lighter at the top to give the impression of light. But actually, this is lighter at the bottom, so probably I say by design, but it is a lighter color, isn't it? Take your little brush away, have a little. Let's try. I think I need to come up a bit more here. Try and close it down a bit. Say, it probably doesn't matter too much. I should imagine it's one of those identifying things where people could tell individual puffins from their beak colors. But saying that, if they do change their colors each year, then maybe that wouldn't be the case. Thinking out loud, sorry. There's a tiny little bit of red there, and again, be a little mindful you don't touch the red into the blue. And a tiny little bit of red here, and I think I can see that beginning to dry and if that blezer touch, it wouldn't matter either, 'cause it just had a little bit of softness. I think that looks right. We can always do a little bit more sort of tinkering, as we go along. I do that without say or say, yes, that's enough, and then straight away, go back in again. I've lost what I could have done with another line now. I've lost one of those lines there, haven't I? But I don't think that matters. Right. Let's down brushes. So I have a little look, see if that blue is ready. Well, let's give her a little go. I'm gonna lose so like Genuine again. Main, it's a little easier to control, generally. It probably won't run quite so much. I can see I've got a loopy bloom going on here. I see, I've probably put a little too much water in there. You see that bloom forming? And if something does happen like that, and you're like, Oh, I don't like that. That's not what I wanted to happen. It's gonna be interesting to see how that sort of forms. And to be honest with you, it's quite hard to alter things like that as they sort of settle, and it would be better to let that completely dry and address it. But I like anything like that, so I'm going to be intrigued to see how that actually finishes up. It's a joy as a watercolor, isn't it? You put it down. It's not how it ends up. You just have to trust the process. Okay, so a tiny little bit of so light genuine. A little bit up here, as well. And we'll do the we'll finish off the eye in a little minute, I think. Should all be dry. I'm still still a bit mindful of putting my fist in that. Okay, and then we've got that nice, really identifying puffing marking, which is that light streak from that comes off the blue into the Does it go? Yes, it goes right to the end, doesn't it? All right to the back of the hope what colour. B of the what am I trying to say, back of the head. And what I can do, if this is creeping up a little bit, this color here, I can always pop a little bit of water in there. Just tap that a little bit of water there, and that will hopefully either give you some, you know, potential bloomings there, just give you something interesting, always after something interesting because these are very exact little things. So to get something that's going to be a little makes it stand out a little bit from just being a very you know, dark color, white color, very exact bill markings. So to try and get something different is yeah, is is what I'm always after something unique. Disappearing on me. Might be a little bit too wet. I could see spreading a bit, so I can again, those that little line could be put on right at the end, you're finding like me, this is bleeding a bit too much. It might be better to do it when we do the eye. Which I think Oh, the editing team, AKA, my husband can have a lovely time with this one 'cause I'm jumping all over the shot. But, let's do that eye now. There's no reason why we can't really, say, This is still damp, yours probably is dry by though I should be, and by practice, pieces would have been dry by now. So just be a little bit careful. You don't put your fist in it. But very, very carefully, we're just going to start in the middle. We're just painting this in it's too small to try and do anything particularly clever with it. If for some reason, you're doing this larger, then you've probably got a little bit of scope to try and do something a bit more. Um, you know, trying to get the colors atop and let things run, but it's tiny. It's very hard to do that. But ideally, if you can leave a tiny little white line, I've just managed to achieve it so far. So if I may not lose it. It's the joys of having a pair of glasses. Can I actually see a bit closer. Take your brush away. Have a look. You know what? I think I'm almost there, actually. And I might cause it obviously needs to dry before we put that catch light in, but I can adjust when that all dries 'cause what I don't want is to come further out and then start getting into this, um drying face area. So I'm going to leave it at that. And see how that sort of pans out. I can't do much little fiddly bits. These will probably all be done in the sort of last stages finishing off stages where we put the line in the beak, we address any colors that maybe need strengthening. So I think we've got the main number one puffing. Sorry, little puffing. Maybe you can come up with some good names for them. Yes, so we've finished number one puffing for the time being. So we're going to move on to the second one. But what I will do first, I'm going to clean the kitchen roll, get some nice fresh water, and we'll start again. I 8. Second Puffin: Right, got myself a bit of clean water. Nice, clean piece of kitchen roll. Let's start again, and we'll literally rinse and repeat it as it were, so we're doing exactly the same. I will try to stay in the same order. I can't guarantee. So what we started off with was a tiny little bit of red around that eye. Again, it's just painting with no wetting down, nothing like that. Cut by little brush. I love these Dagger Bushes 'cause they've got such a fine point. Obviously hold a nice little water. Great for sticking in my tube of paint. So sorry. I've just abandoned that little lumber naked there, but if you haven't got a little dag of brush, then, you know, pick up your very small brush around the eye. Just take your time. There's no hurry with this. It's better to get that nice shape right, as well. It does create a loss of character the shape of this. I can see just looking at my bird over here. The eyeballs to me made it a little bit bigger and some sweeps. But I say, if you're looking at yours going, Oh, it looks a bit weird. So does mine, so don't worry. We'll address that in the finishing off bits. Okay, I think that's as round as I can get it over here, from where I'm standing. And then when we did the yellow, didn't we? So pick up your yellow. Be mindful. I can see there's a tiny little bit damp still here. So I'm gonna be yours is probably dry by now, but just be careful. I would ideally leave a tiny little dry line, 'cause what we really don't want that indigo running into number two puffins A beak or bill. Now I just looked it up actually while I was changing my water. It can be either. It seems to be, so AI suggests, it's referred as a beak or a bill. Of course, Mr. AI could be wrong. This has been known. Okay, so a little bit of that yellow right at the bottom, and just allow. Again, just be really mindful you don't touch that indigo. Just allow it to come up. If it's not moving, then you can always just drag it up. You don't want too much color 'cause it's quite pale at the top. I want to make sure there's a little bit there. Well, I think that's D's job. And then pick up a little bit of red. And then we're just going to sort of just swirl a little bit, so it looks like a little rosette, I suppose. And then pop a little bit of the yellow in there as well. I would go Yellow more yellow at the top we get a nice orange look. And if it run say if it runs into that big that's absolutely fine, but mine hasn't this time. Lovely. Take your brush away. I think I've achieved that. I seem to see painless. Lovely. Okay. And then we're going to move on to the body, exactly the same, but I'm going to use that Sodalite Genuine on this one. So it'll be interesting to see how that one goes. So same again, actually, what we will do. Let's do. Now, so I'd like genuine brush. It's quite It's not particularly wet. It's got a bit of dryness to it. I want to see if I can get this nice flick. So it's got a little bit. I brush it a little bit dry. Hopefully, I've achieved something like that. So then we can wet this area down. A nice little color here, especially with so light, genuine. It's not as punchy as indigo. You need a nice amount. And, of course, you've lot of ways to add it, as well, so then up to the top. Donde found the wrong way, haven't I? Just be careful. Again, it's just a little way down. Doesn't have to be no right or wrong all the way down. But I would say, be careful of touching your number one bird, number one puffing. And then, again, nice lots of paint. I would go heavier at the back again. Get a nice shape before we start wetting stuff down to a nice amount on there. And your bush. Let's join them up. Let's stay here. So pay aicularion attention to the shape. Work our way down like that. I say, allow whatever happened. Oh, you'd have a little tinker. Let's see if I can not add so much water this time around. You can see it probably gonna need a bit more paint. This is a slightly larger area than the number one puffing. I call it number one puffing. Should have thought of some names. Right. You can see that's a little bit too pale, so I can now start adding a little bit. By sort of pay attention to the I'm gonna towards the back a, you know, we've got that least impression that the light's coming from the front. So we just push it at the back. Actually, 'cause I've got quite a lot of water you can see, it's almost not moving because this is such a puddle here. It's sort of coming up against that wall of water. So I can actually edge my kitchen roll. It's suck a little bit of that up. Maybe I haven't got too much. Come back down. Don't really want any dry patches, particularly. But I would say the minute if you get something that you really love, and I'm still popping paint down, you're like, No, I love what I've got. Leave it. Um, 'cause, because be confident in your own piece, I say, it's um we all work at different stages. Slightly different paint and probably and paper, et cetera, et cetera, time drying time. So yes, sometimes you have to be a little bit of a judge of your own piece. Okay, I'm sorry, I picked up a little bit of violet. Just add a little bit of warmth, something different, another tone. Um, maybe a little bit of brown in there as well. So I had brown sepia. I can see if I squint. I've got a nice wings quite dark here, isn't it in the front here. So it's actually put a little bit of color in here as well. It's quite thick, so genuine. Keeping it nice and sharp. Take my brush away. Still, like, I love how this is forming. I just wanted to come down a little bit, so I'm going just pull down a little bit and add a little bit of violet and the genuine together. So light genuine is such a beautiful color. And if you haven't got that in your collection, you need it in your collection. It's so lovely. Look at that granulation there. Beautiful. And it somehow always seems to go with every other paint. Good, I had to say my favorite paint off Daniel Smith, it would be so light genuine and without much hesitation. Right. I'm gonna see if I can come up against that. Front bird. Maybe it's that nice shadow in, but we'll put that shadow in right at the very end. What I don't want is a white line, really. Even if that bleeds a little bit, it would be better than a white line between the two of them. I like how that's forming. I think it's still going to carry on moving as watercolor does. So although I haven't got a lot of color here, I still like that. If I carry on fiddling, although it's not a true representation of that reference photo, I really like it. I like how that's yeah, how those colors have sort of formed. So it's a good, sort of, I suppose, lesson that if you get something you like, but it's not the same as a reference photo, don't worry. We're not trying to copy a reference photo. They are just a guide for you. The ultimate thing is well, ultimate thing is to enjoy the whole precess, isn't it and come out with something you like. So there's no point slaving away, trying to get something to look exactly the same as a reference photo cause nobody's going to see your reference photo. It's slightly different, obviously if you're doing a pet portrait for somebody, and it has to look like the pet. But for this instance, this isn't the case. So yeah, I'm going to leave that. So I think what we Oh, no, we didn't we came over, didn't we? So let's nattering away. While this is still a bit wet, let's come back over the top of that head. Try not to put my hand in it. It's always a little difficult when I'm filming. I also have a bar that goes over the front of my desk, so I avoid putting my head into the camera, so I'm always working a little way away and having to work around different angles. Than I normally would. So that hasn't really run that much. So although, you know, it's created a bit softness so we haven't had, you know, a joining sort of line, but it hasn't also equally hasn't run up, so I'm going to add the painting now. Bear in mind, actually this bird, they have a puffinchh say. Colors more towards the back, isn't it? And there's the tiny little portion here, that's the front of the flip side of the head, probably where the eye started to come. So yeah, reserve that that would make sense to the painting. And then I might just wet that in allow that to move inwards. A little bit more color. Oh, put her little photo, if I remember of how the filming set ups here. Though when I'm going, I can't see. I'm too far away. You'll be able to see what I mean. Bush way that's looking nice. I know that will carry on shifting forward. So I think that's enough. It's very easy to lose light and harder to get it back naturally. So I shall leave that at that for a minute, and we'll do those feet in the sick. 9. Second Puffin Feet: Right. It is exactly the same, again, as we did for the first bird. Let's get the two colors on my brush at the same time. Gonna put my nice little splodge there. G in my brush. Then we're gonna wet the rest of the leg down and just allow that to run. If it's not moving, give it a little rustle. Say, make sure you stay within those nice lines, as well. Keep your eye on that reference photo to Woodworth flicking your eye back and forth. But a little bit more strength in there. Yellow at the top. Normally I would have pick an orange paint. I don't often mix, but as I say, for the sake of having so many paint tubes on my desk and confusing everything, then I figured, really, red and yellow, obviously, make orange, so let's do red and orange. That's why red and yellow. Well, then extra tube, but if you have a tube of orange, you particularly like what does a particular patterning you like, so use that. Okay, that's done exactly what I wanted. Nice and light, and we'll do exactly the same for the back leg. Nice, Blodge. Little bit yellow. Top, a bit more. Yellow on top. Hema bush. Come down. I just dropped a nice droplet of water in there. Suck that up. Come down. I can it either tiny little line just for a minute. So I can pour this out and get enough color. T Tai it's such a useful thing to step away, take your brush away for a second and see where you're at. I actually quite like that little gap. I think I might leave that there us 'cause that's formed something quite nice. Look, up, bit. You can do some flicks like that. The chance they will get lost anyway when we wet them down, but way, some might stay, so it's worth doing. Right. Let's see whether the body had dried a bit quicker so we can get on with the body, let me have a little look. Nearly there. I'm just gonna give it just a couple of minutes just allow This is quite wet down here. This is almost dry, but I'm going to just allow that to sort of just gently form. I'd say, same thing. I don't want to put a hair dryer over there, 'cause I will lose that lovely granulating or I could lose some of that lovely granulating, so I'm just gonna be patient. I 10. Second Puffin Front: Right. I reckon I am ready to go. I will try to avoid this little section here it's quite wet. Again, just be a judge for your own peace. You may find yours completely dried. Well, hopefully a little bit tacky, what we want is just a tiny little bit of dampness. So when we touch that body, it bleeds a little bit. This should be safe. I'm still going to be a little bit cautious 'cause it's for some reason, taking a long time to dry for me. I think I oversaturated it. But let's work our way down. By wetting this area before we wet the body, it just gives a little bit of barrier. It gives a water barrier in some ways. If we do touch that, it's not going to whiz as much. Whereas if I started wetting here, I'm encouraging it to pull out then. I'm down. We touched those legs again. There a rustle. Allow any bleeding far were you. So I'm gonna leave a little it's quite wet sitting on that edge there. Gonna come up. Actually gonna see how we're doing up here. I think this is almost dry. So dried at slightly quite quite obvious different rates, actually. It should be. I think I did quite well in my stretching of paper, but there's obviously some reason it's sitting down the bottom there. Okay, I'm going to leave that little line there just for a minute. Okay, and back up to that reference photo and look again for the slightly darker areas. And I've got the sepia and I want sepia and the violet. Pop and why Bush at the same time. I can see there's a nice little patch there, isn't it? Getting a little too violet for me. It's pop a little bit of Cepio just to make that a bit more bit more brown. There's quite a lot of violet there, and I've always got a violet up here, so we try to avoid too much more violet, I think. I just touched one with that a little bit. That's nice. It's dark underneath. The chest there, isn't it, where the legs are coming joining. Put that violet down at you. I'm just gonna pick up so light genuine. Stop me adding more violet. Say, pop that paint down, take your bush away. We, we look. A little bit so light genuine there. There is a little sort of plump breast line here, isn't there? You see my pentil mark there, so see if I can get a little bit of that so like genuine in there. Just to give that slight impression. I don't want to make it too exaggerated, but gonna pull that down a bit? I don't really want paint here stopping at the same line as the feather on this front bird's legs pull it down a little bit. Always when you step away, it's gonna look a little liny. Yeah, I think that's looking alright. You gonna pop a little bit more colour up top here? I'll have to be quite careful because this is obviously is the dark markings, but because I've left it to be quite soft, I don't want to add too much colour on the white chest less we're gonna get a reverse. The white chest is gonna actually look darker than the should be. Yes, I'm going to get the light the chest is going to be lighter than the the body's going to be lighter than the chest, so I'm concentrating and trying to think of multiple things. Obvious see lovely. I think that's probably enough, actually. I'm a little stepping away for a minute. I say, I don't want to add too much more violet in this front bird. He always put a little dobs of water because this one hasn't got any salt. You could pop up a little bit of salt down there. I probably won't think this is going to probably be salty enough. Let's let's join this up now, 'cause in some ways, it doesn't matter too much 'cause we've got a little bit of darker marking anyway underneath this tail. It's come down a little bit. Yeah, that's just bleeding quite nicely now. I want to add a little bit of strength underneath there just to give the impression of shadowing. So pickup so light, genuine. That might have the sepia back again. Just a little bit of a tap with the two colors. And we can do some little flicks, as well. Flicks coming down in the leg, and then flicks coming out. I had a bit paint on my brush to actually do some flicks with? Because my papers still wet, although I'm putting it on my brush, they're still looking quite natural because it's obviously, that's still wet. And the paint that's already there is obviously still wet, so it's all just merging in. Yeah, I think that's enough before I give it give it too many flicks. Just rustle that around a little bit so it doesn't become spotty. Just join that up a little bit. I did quite well getting some dry flicks, but let's get joining us it's a little bit odd if there's a white little white line. Just gonna go round round, make sure I haven't gone any other obvious white line to where I've left it to Yes, well, I've left her God, you doing very well at concentrating and talking today? Yes, I'm going round to make sure there's no white lines where I separated the two to stop that bleeding too quickly. So do the same to yours, make sure there's nothing there. I've lost a little bit of color still underneath there. I gonna be a bit bolder under underneath this lake. It's so like genuine. Should be a tapping. That's a bit better. Lost a little bit of umph underneath there. I sure it doesn't go into the leg. Pull it up a little bit, a little bit of sepia to stop. Looking too blue. Even have risky, I know. Tiny, little bit of red. Some of my lovely practice pieces, I had a nice bleed from the legs, actually, and that was quite a nice color. Make sure that they're nice and rounds nice little round birds, aren't they? Might do the same here, actually. A little bit tiny, little bit of red. Tiny, little bit of the sepia. I say, as we work our way through these classes, we all differ on what we would like to see what we need to work on. So I'd love to be able to see read work and help, but ultimately, I'll have to do my own piece and hope what I'm doing also guides you. I think that looks that looks fine. I don't want to Ofddle. As she says, just join those up. I can see there's a little bit of a gap there. Lovely. Right. We will do the face next. 11. Second Puffin Face: A nice bit of clean kitchen roll. My waters quite nice and clean, but if yours has got a bit dirty, I'll suggest changing. It's always nice to work with nice clean water. So again, exactly like we did with a front bird, back bird number one bird, puffing even. We're going to carefully it down. The face go round that round the little what will be the little blue markings. Touching the head wind quite dry, I think, actually now. But if you get any bleeding, that is absolutely perfect. What we want, just a little bit of softness. And we've got that nice white line to reserve, so we reserve that white line. Coming right up against the beak or bill around that rosette. Make sure you no dry patches. You don't really want to dry patches on this one they will only just go round the, you know, dry piece of paper and leave you a funny little marking. Now, I'm going to pick up sepia, I'm going to do the minutest bit 'cause we show you on this piece I quite like to this. Tiny little bit of yellow, just to give it a little bit of what most it different color, really. It helps to sort of follow through on certain elements. So I'm going to put the tiniest little bit of yellow there. Let's start with those two and see how we go on. So I'm going to use a SEPia first. It's definitely more sushi this bird isn't it all puffing. So let's be a bit bolder. I'm gonna put the tiny, tiny, tiny sand a little bit, just to see how that feels cause this hana does move quite readily, and I don't want to make it greeny, but it was quite a nice. I just liked the hint of color there. Yeah, that's looking nice. I might have a little bit so light genuine. Don't want to use any more yellow. I think I'm done with my yellow. So like genuine? Just, again, just staying on the bottom here and low. You can see how that's creeping up. The more paint I put on there, the more in theory, moves up. I've got that nice sort of patch here, so quite thick. Pop that in. Just allow be brave. It's a bit scary when it all moves, isn't it? But, you know, if it does move too quickly, you don't like it. Let me show you clean your brush. You can always just very gently guide it back down again. So it's always nice just allow things to move. And so you can very gently without panicking, sort of call and correct. Sure got a nice thin line? I don't want this too fat. And we can soften that down in a minute once, but I was a little finishing off bits, but I'm gonna leave that quite a nice start for the time being. Then we're working our way so I might have a little bit of a little bit of violet. Not too much, so I'm a bit bit mindful. I've got quite a lot of violet on my birds. Puffins. Pushes back down again a bit tiny bit at the front here. See how powerful that yellow weed, can't you? I put a little bit more spy in this soft from that as and it's tiny. It's a bit I don't use. It's not a color I'm that familiar with. I tend to paint animals. There's not a yellow in move animals, so you become familiar with what your each paint does in their own characters, but it's quite as quite a punchy color. Right. Oh, I think. We're about there, actually. I don't want to close it down too much. You want to try and keep that nice light around the cheek. Again, I can put a bobble of water there, but the moment, I think this is already quite saturated. I'd like to sort of crack on with that beak next. So I'm just going to keep pushing it down for a minute. Again, I could actually tilt this a little bit and to leave it, and that would obviously encourage you to run down. But I'm just gonna keep an eye on it. I think that's going to be alright. The worst comes the worst. You can always take color out right at the very end, and we may well do. So that's always an option. Right. Let me I'm go a little mess down here, I'd like to have these that blue at the top. I was like that, wasn't it? Bit organized. Right. Again, we're gonna do that little blue sort of marking on the beak. So we're gonna wet down. It's so like genuine, wasn't it? And the violet. It's wet that little section down. Be careful you don't touch this blue here on that little dark cheek marking. And colors and brush at the same time. Like genuine. Just gently pull it up. I just I do always stand to paint, and I am standing now. But actually, the puffin would be quite a nice one to sit, actually. I can see sitting would be advantageous. Take your weight off your feet and say it's all quite exact. Little sections, isn't it? To achieve that lovely Christmas, there's no tracking paint around on this one, 'cause it doesn't work. So yeah, it's quite a mindful, gentle piece. Okay, let's crack on with the red, and we'll do hopefully what we did last time. So we'll start. A little bit of red there. See if I can not. So if I can sort of keep some of those lost one of the stripes now I say probably doesn't matter too much, but quite nice to keep one of those back. Right, clean my brush. I want to try and keep this in theory, a little bit lighter at the top. So I'll just drag that color that's on the bottom to the top. I should be a little bit lighter. Come over and then come back down and create those stripes. This should be dry. She says, Looking at it. But yeah, be a little bit careful. If for some reason you're in a cool climate and it's not drying quickly, then be careful. Made that a little bit stronger on the tip here, work our way up. Again, it's a little bit reverse, isn't it? Again, 'cause this little area underneath the beak is quite pale, so just gonna allow those that color from there to run down. I'm like, leia don't want all this. It's quite a lot of paint here, so I don't want that particularly running into here, so Take brush away. I think that looks alright, actually. Close this one down a bit. Yeah, I think that's right. Come up a little bit. So this is a lovely class if you love being precise and gentle. Such mad fringing, allowing colours to flow and move and tilt it. They are quite Oh, my goodness. They are very rewarding to do at the end, though. When you step back, you're like, Oh, I love these. And I think they're such great characters in themselves. Lovely. I think that looks alright. So, we can always tinker, just like we probably may well do with this one, at the end, but it's probably better to let it dry a little bit. How's yours looking? I'm just gonna pour mine down a bit. Actually, I might put a little blob of water now use that will push it back. And also gets that eye. The trouble now with having added more water is we were going to do these little tips of blue. But what I will do actually, is just the eye. And then once I've done the eye, hopefully, that's dried a little bit, so Okay, in the middle. Swell you round. Nothing complicated, if you can leave a little white line at the bottom, it would be fabulous. Just be careful you don't go outside this red, because you will start touching the wet paint. I think that's right. I don't want to fiddle too much because I'm obviously my fault, that this is all still quite wet. Lovely. Okay. Put that down. Let's have a little look at this. What I actually will do. It's just a wet this little little part down, which the flip side. A little white part, isn't it? Other side of the head. Allow that so genuine, just to gently bleed in, and we can address anything that maybe needs doing on the finishing off bits if we need a little bit of paint here. But I'm just gonna allow that to bleed. How are we doing with the blue? Well, let's have a little go. Right. So like genuine, make sure your brush hasn't got any more Well, clean it first just to make sure there's no excess paint. Make sure itsn't nice, not dry dry, 'cause you won't ever get it dried, but there's no excess moisture there. Nice, thick bit of paint. We're just going to start. And if it's bleeding too much, that's bleeding too much, so I just need to hang on a little bit. A little bit too quick. But see what the tops like. Top might not be quite so wet. I think that's right there, isn't it? So if you ever get something like that, don't panic. 'Cause it can easily. I think that's what's so lovely about these Daniel Smith paints and probably other brands of Aunt Ollie's it's just I haven't used them for a very long time is so easy to pull out. You can see that's gone now. Obviously some paints in some Atayme and others, it's not just Daniel Smith paints, but so Genuine is a very lovely paint, and it also lifts out beautifully. So I think these little tinky bits are probably best done once this bird is completely dry, because I say, we're working slightly cautiously, because this is obviously wet here, and I don't want to. Oh, I don't want that to the eye mark is really to bleed too much. So I'm going to allow that to completely dry before we get on and do this rock the rock is fun, nice and lots and lots of paint flowing, and we can do a little bit of tilting and things. So, yes, but I would let that this little face dry because we don't want to tilt the paint and sort the paper and allow some and get some of this paint running. So allow that to dry. Then we can do the rock because we don't want the paint to run. 12. Rock: Okay, are you ready for a bit of paint flowing? So I've got my little trusty heart. I'm going to put this underneath a board, and which will allow that paint to run and flow. So if you've been dying to kind of let things go, then this should be fun. Right. Well, I'm going to wet and be really careful about the legs. Legs, legs and feet. You don't want the paint flowing over the legs, so be carefully wet around the legs, at least this top section here. We're only going to probably wet somewhere like a line there. On a sleep, it doesn't matter if you leave little dry patches, that'd be quite fun, so we're trying to create a sort of a rock, so bit in there. I did leave that little line there. D I between the feet coal down. Bit in here. Okay. Now, let me bring back this one. I quite like the red, so I'm going to be gonna have quite a lot of red here. They're so genuine, and the Sepia gonna be a mixture, too, and I'm gonna pop some salt down to see if we can get some nice salt. But yeah, if you don't like if you don't like those colours and obviously, choose the colours you've got or something may be different. But they'll be the ones I'm using. So, let's get I've got the red in my hand. Sepia a little bit of so light genuine. So let's start start with the red. Why not? No, we or wrong. I put the so light genuine on top. It's only gonna go it's only gonna flow to where you've obviously wet down. Use the dog, 'cause I might just pause this for a minute. I think that's the post. I guess there's nothing like keeping it real. That was the postwoman with the delivery. Right, where was I? All the times. So I had Sepia. Let's gather my paints again, the red. And so like genuine. As I was saying, I was going to put, I think, a little bit of sepia here. To check my paint paper hasn't. No, I think it's still nice and wet. Yep. As I was saying, I think I was saying. Anyway, the paint will only run to where you've wet down, so so you have a little bit of control there. Just seeing I've just gone over that foot, I'm telling you to go it carefully around your feet. Let's get a bit more paint. Gonna go slightly cooler to this side. Say say rock, so you can make it rocky shapes. A bit of sepa in there as well. Is a bit more rocky. Et's get that little bit in there, as well, before we forget. It's easy to forget that sort of thing. And you're suddenly like, Oh, I haven't got a bit of rocking between their feet. It's catful that's come down here. That's fab. It's a bit more red there, I think. A little warmer on the outside. It's an interesting rock, isn't it? I don't know where these particular puffins are. I guess if you're stateside and you're watching this, I don't think you have that many, but what I think I can remember, you have them on the main. Excuse me, if I'm pronouncing these badly, having never been to the states and not knowing it that well. But yes, I think you do have some. I think the main colony of them is, um, Iceland and the UK quite a few. Right. Let's put a little bit of water here, and then we're just going to pull out and just allow everything to run. Come down. We can whip a bit further down, if you want.'s come right out here. Give it somewhere to run into. Hasn't got a lot of room, really, 'cause we're off the page in a minute. Aren't wave. If I run it down here, gives it a little bit a little bit more room for that paint to flow. Then you can add color where you want to, really, it looks a little bit red in one place, so we can add a bit more there. Careful you don't go too mad. It's probably more of a p to myself. 'cause you don't want to you want that lovely sort of flow and lightness, so nice and dark at the top. And then flowing to nothing. Just be careful around the feet. I haven't done a particularly good job at. But we've got here so lenue' be so light genuine just there. Lovely. I think that's probably enough. So it starts running again. Say, couple of little drops of water. I'm gonna put a little bit of salt, and then it really does need to be left to dry. Around those feet while it's still wet. Actually. There's a little gap there as well, isn't it? I throw that in as well. Just gonna nick a little bit of paint from there. Out tiny bit. Oh, whispering, sorry. Bring it out a tiny bit. So, yeah, take your time, go round these little feet quite nice and neatly, and then put some salt down. I don't think you necessarily need to watch me do it, but you get what I mean to go carefully round. And then with your salt, say, make sure your fingers are dry. It might be one of the reasons this salt hasn't worked particularly well in that particular back puffing. So yeah, I think that's a thing. Yes, it might sticky and wet, so I'm going to get some dry. I think I've dropped droplets of water from my pot of water when I've been painting. So I will get some dry salt. But, yeah, I will literally just sprinkle it so you'll get Hopefully, this little bit of effect and you can see how well the socks worked on this particular bird, given that really nice sort of plumage. But, you know, that's the joy as a watercolor. Some things work out better than others, and you never get to the same. So be patient, put your soak down, and just allow that to dry. 13. Finishing Off: Well, I hope you like how your ground has turned out, quite like mine. Yes, quite like the salt to have worked a little more. It's obviously seems to be a running theme on this class, because this salt sadly hasn't worked particularly well on my little puffing at the back there. But never mind. Great. Let's finish this painting off and do all the lovely little tinkery bits that will pull the whole painting together. We need to take some light out. We need to finish the eyes. We just need to generally go around it and really tighten up the details. And this is when the painting really comes to life. But first, we're going to rub any pencil marks that might be might still be there, but be really careful that your painting is definitely dry. I'm going to start with that little one in there and go around here. Just nice to get rid of any pencil marks. It just holds it in, in my opinion, and this is why it's nice to then take little bits of light out because you're achieving the same thing. You're allowing somehow you're allowing lighting. It's a bit hard to explain. We can say we can get rid of any salt that might be remaining. So if you've got salt on your body of your Eva penguin, which if you decided to put some on here, get rid of that. I just gently sprush that off onto the floor. Lovely. Good pencil marks. But you generally get what I mean to go around and take any pencil marks off. It tends to wobble the board a bit, so I won't do too much rubbing out. So I think we should start off with the eye. Let's get that eye done because it always helps to pull the whole painting together, and then somehow you sort of see a more finished product. So glasses on. I've got my little bit of white Gerash here as well, which is always useful for doing eyes. I rarely leave any white dots when I'm painting. I always add it in with the white garage. So let's see if we can tidy these up. I would suggest going round and just let's have a little look excuse me while I scrawl in a little bit. Hand in the way, arm in the way. So my little red has gone it's a little bit too much, but what I might do to see if I can take a little bit of color out first, just to it softened some of that. This stage swap brushes. This sort of finishing off stage is all about just really gently. There's not going to be lots of paint flying around. You can sit down. You're just sculpting at this point and just tinkering and observing your piece and see how it's sort of shaped up. Now I can sculpt she said, hopefully. Just to get that liner. You see on that reference photo, there's, like, a very gentle curve here, which gives the impression of this white down on the puffing sort of gives a roundness. So if we take light out and just push that in a bit, let's use it a very gentle curve. I'm going to get rid of that little brush. I don't think I'm gonna use it until I suddenly decide I need it. But you can see that's just given a little bit of rounds a bit of light there. Oh, see, I've now taken out that line from the eye, but that could be put in. It's better to get the eye sorted. Now, God, a little raggedy. We were working with when that paint was still wet around the face, wasn't it? So it feels a bit easier now, doesn't it? Now it's dry. Be careful to try. If you manage to keep that little white line, be careful you don't lose it now. I think that looks right. I'm not sure if I want to add it. I'm going to look back from it. From the reference photo, it looks like that should be a little bit higher, but actually, I quite like the red. And I can always like I say, it's such a useful thing to Obviously, we've probably stepped away a little bit just to allow this to dry, but it's often the case. I'll come back and look at it, you know, with the next day and go, Oh, yeah, that needs a little bit tinkling. So these finishing off bits are nice, but they're not always necessarily the end. Right. Now, if you're very good and you can get close enough, and maybe you've painted this a little bit larger. But it's always lovely just to take a little bit of light out at the bottom of this eye, if you can. I know it's working very tiny, that. Hopefully, you can just see that. I think I probably, yep, taken enough out, and then with a tiny little bit of white gouache, nice, sticky consistency. I'm gonna put that little catch light in. I know there's not on that reference photo, but I think it always makes it look better. And if you've lost that little white line here, it is at a time you could put back in and then go back over the eye, if that makes sense. I'm not going to. I can see I've lost it a little bit, but I might think with it later. I don't want you to have to watch me do all these tiny things that might not be relevant for you. But yes, if you've lost it, you can paint it back in and then go back over it again with the eye colour. I hope that makes sense. It's only a little impression, anyway. I said, Yeah, don't get too worried. Right, let's let's do this birds as well. Um, yes, let's do this one. Always go the wrong way around, don't I? I should have done this to on thst. Same thing. I'm just going to let's put that down for a minute. Huh, put it over there. I'm gonna pick up my red. I think I've lost a little bit round it eye, actually. Little bit of red. Should do a tiny little bit of red up there. Almost a little bit misshapen. I say, Yours is going to probably be different than mine, so it gets a bit tricky to help everyone and all be relevant for everybody. But hopefully these little bits are let's take a little bit of colour out here. So left both my reds are actually a bit exaggerated, aren't they? So, What I might do. So like genuine. If I don't put my arm in there. I just close it up a little bit. What I can do is that makes it look too big, then to take a little bit from underneath. I almost then start to pour that out, as well, while I'm there. Get everything nice and soft. So when people say, Oh, watercolor, you can't it's down, it won't lift out, I think, particularly, say, Tiy lovely so light genuine. He's a very kind paint. And again, I can do the same. Just try and round that little part up, as well, to try and get a little bit of a curve if I can. Probably see it on a reference photo. It's just a little bit round. And lighter. Just by doing this, also, I'm making sure there's light as well, 'cause there's a nice lump of light. Lump's a horrible word to say, isn't it? But you get what I mean? Yeah, it's nice and light behind the back of the ear. Eye and little light the cheek. So if your cheek equally has got a little dark and a little bit too much paint just you know, what I'm doing here is actually taking colour out as well of this area. I give that a little naptchenll. Right. Again. Same thing with your eye. I can take, if you can. Gone too blue now up here. Anyway, I shall fiddle with that off camera. Um, right. Take a little bit of light out here at the bottom. Squige it. Fingers great. Just give it a little squige and that's just enough, it doesn't sing your finger squidges to paint a bit more than it does actually lift it out. So that looks quite good. So if these were painted bigger, you could really spend a little more time getting that nice detailed eye, which actually brings me to the point. There's a lovely artist called Nadine on Skillshare, and she has also done a pair of puffins. So I will put a link to her class on my projects and resources pages. We paint quite similar. But obviously, we're not identical, and I think you probably learn a few little bits of her. And I think she paints them a little bit larger, so she's had the chance to make these eyes a little more. She's a little more to move around. So just trying to bring back that little white line, which I lost on this one. Yeah. So yes, she's worth checking out, and her work is beautiful. She's got a few classes on Skillshare, so worth having a little look at her stuff. What? Let's not start fiddling with my own piece. Because that's probably not so relevant to you. Actually, while I'm thinking of it and little lines, let's put that little line on that number. Do puffing, 'cause that's a nice one there. Okay, literally just paint it in, clean your brush, and then soften that edge underneath. Everything's just very calm, very gentle. So we're not rushing to beat any drawing. Time, it's all a lovely time just to really observe your piece and get it right and crisp. Okay, I think we've addressed both colors on cheeks and stuff. I like how this paint sort of formed, but again, you could take a little bit of color out. Let me show you on this 'cause it's a bit unfair to say and not do it. So you could have a Again, you're just taking color out, you're scrubbing it away in some ways. And then you could dab the kitchen roll, and that would just lift and give you a little bit of light. But yeah, I'm really pleased with how the paint has formed really and fallen. Nothing's wet, is it? No. Okay, we can see if we can knead it up any beak areas. Um, I don't really want to necessarily try it on dry paper, but I quite like to make sure that there's really sharp and clean line that goes over the top. And I can just wipe down that little area. Again. Is that tip really tight, as well? One, I'm thinking of other artists. I don't know if I might have mentioned him in previous classes, but it must have been quite a while ago. There is the most amazing he would be. If there was ever somebody I have liked for a very long time and admired his work for a very long time. He's Carl Martin. He only does birds. That's not strictly true, actually. I think he started doing some wildlife, but generally it's birds, and they're exquisite, really worth doing. And it's a tiny little he's not on social media. There's not a lot of presence really on the Internet, but there is a little YouTube video, which I think I did link to at 1.1 of classes. Is him in his studio, um, basically he explains he works quite large, as well. A lot of them anyway. But he will spend a lot of time really taking the time to sharpen up beaks and eyes. They are his main thing. The rest of it is quite loose, but he will really emphasize a very tight, clean beak and bill. It's that lovely contrast between super loose, lots of salt and that super crisp, rural attention to detail that makes his work list in my eyes, just pink. It's magic. So worth looking him up, if I for some reason, forget to put that up on the projects and resource, go and have a look at his work. It's Cole Martin. Okay, I think I might have gone a little bit far down here when I was chatting away and just gone off pieced a bit, but never mind. I think he looks alright, still. And again, this is fine. I don't think I want to alter any of this, the colors. You know, I've got that darker area and it's a little bit lighter at the top here. So what I could do, although I've tightened the shape, I can take a little bit of colour out as well just to It's tricky because actually on the reference photo, this is the brighter part, isn't it? On the top. And it's lighter underneath, which doesn't help trying to capture light when it's lighter underneath bib design, as it were. I think I'm quite happy with that. I don't think there's much more tinkering. Oh, I know we need to do. It's a little line. I think I'm gonna use so light genuine. Say a really lema brush. I don't want to add much water at any point, probably doing the fiddling and finishing off bits. But there's that line what is it that joins the two portions of the beak bill up. Paper still a bit wet there. Yeah, that helps, doesn't it? I love it. Equally, you can actually take color out, as well. So you could achieve that with taking the color out rather than putting it in taking it out. Put no line stronger line in there. Lovely. Okay. I shan't fiddle anymore. If I'm going round, let's go stick with this little puffing first. The back puffing. Let's just soften this line. So all I'm doing is running a damp brush around that line. Nothing more than that. It's a little bit darker at the back, isn't it? So I've just rust it a little bit more, but careful. It's very easy to lose these lines, so that's probably enough. And then as I work my way around, I like this. I don't think I want to take much out, but I'll just get rid of one of those lines. They'll say, this is lovely, like the pencil marks, holds it in somehow. Be careful when you do lots of dabbing that you've got a clean piece of kitchen roll. Well, rather risking it here. Yeah, I think that's turned. That nice. I'm not overkeen on the way that way that's bloomed, but it's natural. It's how it's formed. I can't I don't think I could really alter it. I have to wet everything down. And I don't think I would achieve a better result at this stage because you're wetting another area down. You're muddying everything up. And it's just what it is. It's a certain plumage. So I will leave that. I won't personally alter it. I don't want to add, you know, any don't tape particularly any light out. My salt hasn't worked well, but hopefully yours has worked a little bit more. There's no aspect I want to change. So we're working down to the feet. Again, we take little bits of light out, maybe just a very top of that little leg leg foot. Excuse me, while I just scroll out so I can see what I'm looking at. Yes, then there's always the opportunity to put little veins in equally, little bit made a little bit of soda like genuine. You can put the claws in. I've been a little tatty with my feet. I will probably just aton these up, say off camera. But yeah, go around your feet. You can either gently add little veins in Dicker claws. Just make sure we sort of nice and tidy. So I won't I won't spend a long time doing these. Hopefully you kind of get what I mean when you're going round your piece and just tidy. Back to the top Bird again. Let's say, I'm happy with everything here. That little white area has worked quite well. But again, if you've lost that edge, you can always put these tiniest just wet that down that tiny little paint right on the edge just for the eye to see, there's a little section there. But overall, I think that's given quite a good impression of it. Obviously, we've tackled the I and I will neaten up. So if you look at this piece, which we'll be on the projects and resources pages and go, Oh, sort quite how you know, how she left it. Just like you, I will go over it and sort of alter and tidy things up and tighten things up, probably just relevant for me, and I can get a bit closer to my work. Okay, would you put that line in there for that beak does sweep over a little bit, doesn't. We lost the original pencil marks there that were there. It does have a little bit more of a sweep. Fab. And let's soften this join, as well. Is actually on the bird. It's not one of our funny lily joins, so just soften that down. And there was also that while I got so like genuine, I'm actually going to paint this in. There's a nice shadow, which is always the shadow of the beak orbil whichever way you want to say it. I just runs in here, doesn't it? I think that's quite a fun thing to put in there, so literally just painted in. Going round, we've addressed to sort of cheek areas, haven't we? Again, you can tidy anything up if that a little bit of that indigo has crept in somewhere along the line. So I can just tidy that up. Ideally, it I don't really want it to have been in there in the first place. You know, I'm just gonna get a clean pita kitchen right. It's got a bit sodden. It's better. Give a good old squig. Yeah, I I don't want to take any color out, but again, if you've gone a little bit heavy handed with the color here, you always gently take the little bits of color out. But there's nothing I particularly want to take out. Again, same thing with the feet. You can go around to put little veins in, add the little claws in, and kat in anything up if it's gone a little raggedy like mine has. When you put the ground or the rock in, you can always just go around very gently. You can tidy things up, so yeah, you're just painting neat. And you can just crisp everything up if you feel that's going to be beneficial. Don't overtwet, though. It's easy to get a little bit carried away, and everything's very tight and precise. And as I said to somebody, if you want exact replica of these two birds, obviously, you've got a photo of it. So we're trying to by painting it, we're trying to bring some sort of magic, something for your the mind to make up, as well. If it's all that information is on there, you've lost something. You may as well have the photo in my opinion, but that's only my opinion. Right. The rock, again, I think that is how it is. It's hard to then fiddle with that, really. Hopefully, you've put enough painting it down and you've got that lovely flow. Working our way around, there's no flicks. I want to add. They're tricky to add in once sisters are all dry, 'cause they tend to look like they've been stuck on which they have. I don't want to take any color out. This is all sort of blended, so I think I think they're about there, actually. I did contemplate some little splatters, which you could do if you're feeling brave. I don't want to on this piece. I wasn't sure, but it does add a little bit of movement to your piece, and it's quite a precise piece, so adding something like that can sometimes break it up. But if some of this hasn't made sense, or there's a little something you want help with Please pop that on the discussion section in each class. A few people have been popping on a review, and sadly, I can't reply to people's reviews. I can only reply to the discussion page where I can obviously help you. And if Bob obviously put up in the projects and resources pages, again, I can then see your work and comment and help you. So you make use of that, it's amazing to see your work. And it's corny as it sounds. It is I love it. I love going on there, seeing the projects pop up, but it's just so rewarding. So please do take the time, and I much appreciate it when you do to load those projects up. Um, Fabulous. I think that's it. I almost don't want to stop now. It's been a pleasure taking this class and taking this class, filming this class and teaching it. And I look forward to seeing the projects roll in. Thank you very much. 14. Final Thoughts: So I hope you enjoy painting. It's adorable, too. Aren't puffins just the best thing to paint? How did it feel to boldly add paint and join them up? A great technique to stop you fiddling and overworking. Did you manage to achieve nice soft edges between that dark body and a soft white chest? It's all about timing. Wasn't that rock fun to create, especially after being quite precise and neat on the puffins. It gives a great contrast to the painting. As I always say, it's worth stepping away, coming back and looking at your painting with a fresh pair of eyes. This simple act still amazes me. So we look forward to seeing you in the next class.