Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone. My name is Will Elliston and in
this watercolor class, we'll immerse ourselves in the vibrant world of sunflowers. Sunflowers make an
ideal subject for learning watercolor
techniques because they offer a rich tabestry of
hues and shapes that can enhance your ability to
create depth and texture. Laring is an essential watercolor technique
and we'll use it to add dimension and
a lifelike quality to our sunflower painting today. We'll explore how to
build up layers using masking fluid to allow light to play through
the petals and leaves. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and
countryside scames. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor. But when I started, I had no idea where to begin
or how to improve. I didn't know what
supplies I needed, how to create the
effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now I've taken part in many
worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough to win awards from well
respected organizations, such as the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Watercolor can be overwhelming
for those starting out, which is why my goal is
to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in
a step by step manner. Today, I'll be guiding you
through a complete painting, demonstrating a variety
of techniques and explaining how I use all
my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have some experience, you'll be able to
follow along at your own pace and improve
your watercolor skills. If this class is too challenging
or too easy for you, I have a variety of classes available at different
skill levels. I like to start off with a free expressive
approach with no fear of making mistakes as we create exciting textures
for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and
make it stand out. I strive to simplify
complex subjects into easier shapes that
encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn
mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress out of
painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with
my watercolor mixing charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in the
discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and respond
to every think you post. Don't forget to follow
me on Skillshare by clicking the Follow
button at the top. This means you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston
to see my latest works. You will not only leave with a beautiful sunflower painting, but also gain valuable skills essential for future
watercolor projects. So let's embark on this
creative journey together.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you so
much for taking this class. I'm thrilled that
you're joining me here. So today, we're going to
paint vibrant sunflowers. I've always found
the structure of sunflowers fascinating
with their large, eye catching centers
surrounded by delicate petals. Some flowers exhibit warm
yellows, oranges, and browns. By blending these
colors seamlessly, you'll learn how to capture the radiant petals and create
harmonious compositions. It's really an
opportunity to play with light and shadow to bring
these flowers to life. From delicate details
to bold strokes. We'll practice using
different brushes to achieve the desired effects. In the resource section, I've added a high
resolution image of my finished painting
to help guide you. You're welcome to
follow my painting exactly or experiment with
your own composition. As we're going to be focusing on the painting aspect
of watercolor, I've provided templates
you can use to help transfer or trace the
sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to
have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction
you take this class, it would be great
to see your results and the paintings you
create through it. I love giving my
students feedback. So please take a photo
afterwards and share it in the student project gallery under the project
and Resource tab. I'm always intrigued to
see how many students have different approaches and how they progress with each class. I'd love to hear
about your process and what you learned
along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend
that you take a look at each other's work in the
student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see
each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your
fellow students. So don't forget to like and
comment on each other's work.
3. Materials & Supplies: Before we start the painting, let's go over the materials
and supplies I use. Having the right materials can greatly impact the
outcome of your artwork. So I'll go over all the supplies I use for
this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and will make it easier for you
to follow along. L et's start with the
paints themselves. And like most of the materials
we'll be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow, yellow cha, burnt sienna, Cadmium
red, lysarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt
blue, cerliu blue, lavender, purple, Vidu black, and at
the end of the painting, I often use white guash
for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand. Although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Windsor and Newton,
or Holbein paints. So let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush like this escoda Purl brush
or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile, because
not only can you use them for detailed work
with their fine tip. But as they can hold
a lot of water, they are good for
washes as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few
in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for
broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth
transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details. But for really small details, highlights or anything
that needs more precision, I use a synthetic
size zero brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles
and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for
adding texture or creating dynamic lines
in your paintings. You can even fan them
out like this to achieve fur or feather
textures as well. And that's it for
brushes, onto paper. The better quality
of your paper, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to
rework mistakes. It's harder to create
appealing effects and apply useful techniques
like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, Not only allows you to rework
mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of mistakes
are a lot lower, and you'll be more likely
to create better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available
in my local art shop. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. It also allows you to
reactivate the paint if you want to add a smooth
line or remove some paint. I also have an old
rag or t shirt, which I used to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before divving it in the water will make the
water last a lot longer. It's always useful to
have a tissue at hand whilst painting to
lift off excess paint. Also, you never know
when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that
needs wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper
to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's
important to have them a similar consistency to what
they're like in the tubes. This way, it's easier to
pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful
to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the
dampness of the paper. And lastly, masking tape. And this, of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on
painting to the edge, it'll allow you to create
a very crisp clean border. There's also another thing
that I'm going to use in today's class that I haven't
used in a previous class, and that is masking fluid. It will help us when
painting different layers. And that's everything
you need to paint along. I encourage you to experiment and find out what
works best for you. Now let's get ready to
start the painting. I.
4. How to Sketch It Out: So before we even put
the lead to the paper, I'm just going to practice these circular motions
with my arm and hand just to get the
feeling and get a kind of spatial awareness of where we're going to
put these flowers. So I'm holding my pencil on its side like this so
there's not much pressure. I'm just gently going
over and over again now, very lightly, putting the
first flower head there, maybe a bud or two
around there and then I'm basically going
to do two open flowers, and then a couple of opening
opening flower heads. And I can see we're just
doing little small circles, different degrees,
different sizes, just to map everything out, and then I'm connecting
it with a few stems here. A very light. You
can barely see it. If I wanted to, I could
rub this out completely, and there'd be no
marks on the paper. That's why I keep
it nice and light and general for the time being. And of course, we can edit
it out, and we will do that. Now I'm switching my grip a bit instead of holding
the pencil flat, holding the pencil as if I'm writing because I was quite happy with where
everything was spatial lease. Now I'm adding the petals, going into the next
level of detail. So when it comes to
drawing anything really, you start off being broad and marking out
the biggest shapes, you simplify the biggest shapes, and then once you're happy with the placement
of those biggest shapes, then you gradually find
the next smallest shapes. The smaller shapes after that until you're going
into the very fine details. You should never really start with the fine details
and work your way backwards. You should only start
big and then go small. You can see these petals, some are overlapping, some
are, some are underneath. Keeping it nice and organic. Trying to connect everything
in a certain way. I'm trying to add
a bit of contrast, so I've got the jaggedness of these leaves at the
bottom in contrast to the more curvature and
swervy lines of the petals and the flowers themselves. Especially these bugs, they go a nice spiky little
edge, the green bits. I really like this
lead. You can see it's a mechanical pencil, but it's not your typical
mechanical pencil that has a thin lead. It's quite a thick lead. And I don't know whether
there's a specific name, but if you look online, you can see there's
all different types of different
thicknesses of leads, and you can experiment, which is comfortable to use. And I think I'm
using a nine B lead, which is quite a heavy lead. And because it's heavy, you don't have to add
that much pressure for it to mark the paper. So it doesn't stain it so much. So when it comes to painting, a lot of the lead will
wash away because we don't really want pencil
lines on the painting. So it's almost water soluble, but it's not branded as
that. It's not meant to be. But that's why I like it.
Now, I'm switching over to my classic thin lead
mechanical pencil, just to go into some of
the more finer details. And I can go back and forth rubbing out the
thicker lines and going back with these thinner lines until I'm happy with it. Now we're getting into the
very intricate details. There's lots going on
with this composition. You don't have to follow me. In fact, I always
suggest you don't. You watch this video to
see what the potential is, and you can just simplify the drawing
however you want it. You can take aspects of my
painting and drawing and then use it mixing and
matching, however you like. So let's get on to
the painting now.
5. Using Masking Fluid: In today's class and this
painting we're doing today, I'm going to use masking fluid. As you can see, I've already
applied a lot of it. And it's actually the first time I've used masking
fluid in the class. So I thought I may as well
demonstrate how to use it. I use it, as you can see from this little tube
this little tub that has a little tube like funnel that I
can just squeeze out, and I use a tuff pick just to move it around
because it's very wet, but it dries quickly. I use this cheap little tuf pick where I can just spread it, I can put it on
its side to spread it out quite quickly like that, or I can tip it over to its point and just get thin
little touches like that. And then it takes
a while to dry. So I make sure I use the hair
dryer to dry it completely, and you can see I just
squeeze it out in the tub. It doesn't come like that.
I don't buy it like that. I buy it from I think it's a glass jar it originally comes in and I pour
it into there, and it's quite liquidy
to start off with. But then it turns into
a transparent rubber. When it's wet, you can't see
the pencil lines underneath, but you can see on the left hand side
where I've already applied it, it's
gone translucent. Of course, this will protect
the white of the paper. Because there's quite a few
intricate parts on this, it's just easier to apply with maskin fluid. I
try not to use it. Only because it adds a bit
more time to the proceedings, but there's nothing
wrong with using it. In fact, it allows you to make a painting much more dynamic and makes a much bigger effect. For example, these little
scratchy lines here, it would be impossible
to do a paintbrush, or at least it would
take a huge amount of concentration and finess whereas you can just simply do this, and then you can have a very powerful effect
on top of that. Of course, if you don't have masking tape and you can't get it in time for when
you want to paint this, you don't have to. You can summarize it a bit. You can simplify the composition a bit or try your best
at doing it without. Because at the end of the day, I'm not going to be preserving the whites
of the paper here. I'm just going to be separating them from the background so
that I can keep this nice, vibrant yellow of the petals against the dark blue
of the background. So it can be done without it just allows for a little
bit more freedom this way. Now I've dried it
off completely, using the hair dryer, and I've really made sure that it's
completely transparent. And I'm starting the
actual brushwork now. It was pure water up at the top here because I want to
have a bit of a yellow, a yellow kind of background, I think, with soft edges, or not even need just kind of gradients of
white and yellow. I don't want there
to be any harshness or texture for this
top background wash.
6. Starting The Background: So I'm using a bum yellow, and I say abum yellow because
that's just a general term. In fact, I have about four
or five different colors that look so similar, even though they've all
got different names, but they're basically
Cadmium yellow. This particular one, I
think is Naples yellow, which is from Holbein. But I squirt all different tubes of paint into my palette. I think there's classic abum yellow from Daniel Smith
from Winds Newton. A Now that the paper is wet, you can see also
I've sped it up, so you can see how it's
interacting with the paper and it's flowing out
in a nice soft way. I think it's useful to
see the painting sped up because you can see a bit more
what I'm doing in context. If I had at normal speed, it might take too
long to acknowledge the kind of effect I'm trying
to achieve as I'm doing it, It doesn't look like how it ends in five or 10 minutes time. Adding a bit of red into this side to mix it
to make a bit orange. I'm using aman red. There. Red is quite
a powerful pigment. I only need a little touch
for it to have its influence. And it makes it
burst with vibrancy. Now, in this top section
that we just painted, we're going to be painting
yellow and yellow, so we have yellow
for the background and then yellow for the flowers, but we're going to be
exploring different tones. So that's what we'll
differentiate it a bit. I decided to add red
here and make it orange because
underneath a bit later, I'm going to be
adding a bit of blue, and blue looks so
lovely next to orange. So I'm always trying to find an opportunity to make contrast. And that's what we can do now. We're adding a little
bit of cerlian blue. I gave it a bit of time to dry, so it's got a nice soft edge. It's not going to bleed out
completely into that orange, but there's not going to
be a hard line there. It's a few dabs and in time, you can see that it
blends out softly. I'm adding pure water just
below this blue so that it helps fade out
that blue nice and softly rather than a sharp edge. I do that almost
subconsciously now trying to soften out the
edges with a bit of water. Because unless you
want a hard edge, that's what you have to do. You have to pre wet
areas with water or if you're
painting a new area, you have to go a bit further
than you want to paint and add pure water just to make up for that soft edge
you want to achieve. So now it's completely dry, I did that with the hair dryer, and I'm going back over. And I have added a bit of yellow ocher into this cadmium yellow to give it a golden look and so that it has
a bit more tone on top of the bottom
background yellow. Using the hair dry again, just to make sure it's dry. I didn't dry the paper
completely before, so it's got a bit
of a soft edge, so I'm going back now. It's completely dry and adding
a final line to this area. I've got a tissue in
hand just in case there's a bit too much
if I go overboard.
7. Dealing With Mistakes: With watercolor,
mistakes are inevitable. Even the best watercolor
artists make mistakes. It's not so much about
avoiding the mistakes, it's about how to deal
with them when they arise. That's why it's useful to
have a tissue in hand. In fact, the aim isn't
for perfection because the exciting thing
about watercolor is the beauty of imperfection. That's what gives its magic. So it's ironic
because we as humans naturally want to create
a perfect painting. That's what we desire, but the magical essence of water color isn't
actually that perfection. It's something else.
It's something ethereal. So now I'm going much
bolder with cobalt blue, and I'm connecting it with
this other blue that we did. You can really see the advantage of using that masking fluid now, how we can just go
straight over it and it just goes
inside all those gaps. You can also see that it's
not completely essential. You can do it without
the masking fluid. You just have to
be more precise, which takes a lot more time. And another reason I might
stay away from masking tape or masking fluid is because it could
damage the brush. But these brushes that
I'm using right now and throughout the entire
painting are very cheap. I think this one,
this brush cost less than dollar or threes
or about two pounds. Use this time to do the background and make
it nice and expressive. You don't have to paint it
at all, exactly like me. You can use different colors. You can put blue at the top
and yellow at the bottom. I'm really excited to
see how you might change it and follow your own
vision and make it unique. It's so nice to see
the project galleries and how everyone has
different influences. And that's how we learn
by seeing how each other have different directions. I decided to paint these sunflowers because I haven't actually
seen any this year, and I wanted to feel as it's summertime, while painting this. I wanted to get that
summer feeling going on. And they're so
expressive, I think, because they obviously
had quite large flowers. They go out so large with their leaves and their
seeds and the heads. They're quite expressive
in and of themselves. So down here, obviously, the tone is slightly
darker than the top. If you squint your
eyes, in particular, you can see that the blue stands out much more
than the yellow. And that's what I do.
I squint my eyes a lot of the time just to
simplify the tones. Now, this is quite
an intricate part. I haven't used masking fluid on these little
petals in the center. I have to be a bit careful
and use the tip of my brush just to go
in there like that. If you want to save time, maybe you can choose just
to paint half or just paint one of these flowers
rather than both of them. You can split the painting in two and just paint
one half one side.
8. Attempting Ambitious Paintings: Recently upon replying
to a student's project. She mentioned how
she's a beginner, but she tried one of my
classes that quite advanced, and it made me so happy to see that she gave
it a go and watched it, even though she thought
it was above her level because I believe that's the
right mentality to have. When I was starting out with
watercolor, I Of course, did a few simple paintings to begin with for my very first one just to get the hang of it. But after a week later, I remember just finding the watercolor paintings
that inspired me most, and even though I knew I
couldn't paint that way, I just gave it a go anyway. I tried to replicate
my favorite paintings, and I couldn't do it justice, but I wasn't expecting to. Just through the process, you learned so much by
doing it that way. And even by just
watching people paint, even if it's far above
your skill level, you just absorb the
information and you can see it come through in your own work because
a lot of watercolor is quite impulsive or intuitive. It just comes through
without you thinking. It's quite spontaneous that way. You can see next to
where the petals are. I'm actually making
the tones darker. I'm adding a bit more pigment
where the petals are rather than on the outside
because that's where I want most of
the contrast to be. Making that edge very defined. That's the good thing about
the masking fluid as well. We can paint very thick
and expressive without being rod that we're going to paint over the areas that
we want to preserve. This is nice fun wet and
wet painting at the moment. It's wet and wet
painting in a loose way that doesn't really
matter what we do really. It's pure expression
at the moment, but going to contrast this expression with
details later on, and that's what
makes it exciting. So at this first stage, this is where we can exert a lot of emotion and expressiveness. This is your time to
explore and have fun. I've added loads of
water up here so that it has a nice
wet and wet effect. Putting a few drops of
yellow ochre onto this blue. It doesn't matter if
it turns a bit green because there's
greens on leaves. Anyway, there's greens on
the stems and the leaves, having fun being a bit
loose with a few splatters. And yellow ochre is lovely, it has a kind of
golden feeling to it. But I think I'll add
a bit of red in there too, not just yellow, but before we do that, we need to dry this edge because I was a bit too over
enthusiastic with the water, and I need to protect the
edges of these petals up here. So I'm just honing it in. I tend to go through cycles
being very expressive and then I take that chaos and add a
bit of control to it. So I'm going back and forth
between chaos and order. Now we can add a bit more red
and splatter it in there. Then we can use the
tip of our brush just to fill in the gaps
where the petals are.
9. Paper Wetness: I'm always conscious of
how wet the paper is. I know on this left hand side, you can see how wet it is. It's got that shimmer
on it and it's wrinkled a bit compared
to the other side, which is pretty much dry now. You can go back and forth
between these levels of wetness to achieve
different effects. You can explore that
however you like. It's a whole journey. So you can practice
in this painting, and if it works out great, you know exactly what
works and you can put it forward into
your next paintings. If it doesn't work out, well then you've learned
not to do it. And or maybe it's something that doesn't work quite right with this painting, but you know that you can use
it in some other painting. It's in your brain in your back catalog with what the potentials
of watercolor can be. Now, I've dried it up, and now I'm going back for
a second layer over here, and I'm adding a few
artificial drips of this blue. By adding a few drips, I feel like these
horizontal lines that are perpendicular. They add a bit of
grounding context. And I use pure water at
the top of the edge again, because we need to think
about edges sometimes. And I decided I want a soft edge at the top
rather than a hard edge. Same with here, too, I want
there to be a soft edge, so I'm going to softening
it out with water. Whenever you want to soften it, you just got to
think about water. Of, with other mediums, you can blend it out with white. But with watercolor, we use water to soften
out the edges. And you might sometimes find, as I did as a beginner, that you try to soften out an
edge by adding pure water, and then 10 minutes later, the pigments made its way to the edge of that pure water too. And the reason that happens is because it's ironically too wet. There's too much water. So it's allowed the pigment
to run all the way through because there's too much water on the paper to stop
it from holding back. So when adding that pure
water to soften an edge, Make sure your brush isn't completely saturated and
dripping full of water. It only needs a bit of water. Now we've dried it
out completely again, and I'm using my finger just to rub away the masking fluid. Of course, you have
to make sure that you have completely
finished what you wanted to do with this
masking fluid before you rub it away because there's
no going back afterward. So you've got to look
at everywhere you've applied it and everywhere
where you want it to go. And then you can be confident
about taking it off. And you make sure that the
paper is completely dry. Sometimes the masking fluid
has little pockets of water that make it a
bit longer to dry, but you could use the hair
dryer and make sure there's no dampness at all because then when you rub away
the masking fluid, it'll pick up the dampness of the paper and tear the paper, which is of course what we want. Once it's completely dry, you can be very rough with
it, you can scratch it off. So it's always best
to be precautious when taking off
the masking fluid.
10. Starting The Leaves: And now we can go
over these areas, and I'm using a nice vibrant
green that I've made from Cadmium yellow
and cobalt blue. I'm adding a bit of yellow
ochre in there too. I'm trying to be quite
careful with these edges now. I don't particularly want
to overlap the blue, but because we're painting
with a much lighter pigment, and more translucent pigment, it doesn't matter so
much if we overlap. Because the white of the paper
will make it glow anyway. I'm trying to make
these leaves quite interesting by having
a bit of gradient, one side is a bit
more yellow ochre, and the other sides
a bit more green. And all these leaves and
petals, I'll try and do that. I won't make them the same. And a bit of a wet
on wet technique by dabbing more pigment
in whilst it's wet. The putting ultramarine blue and eran green to get a
nice dark green here. And use that same pigment
into the previous leaf. It's a bit too dark, so I'm
going to use what's already on the paper and spread it out a bit to lighten the
load, so to speak. If I connect the two, they'll wash out into each other two, making a nice connection. Taking a bit of burnt
sienna here onto this age. A few miscellaneous details
here adding a bit of yellow, yellow ochre for one of
these subtle details. They're quite abstract. Now I'm going to paint the stems that go all the way off the
border of the paper. It's nice painting things that lead off the paper
outside of the paper, especially when we have this masking tape that will create a nice
clean edge at the end. The most satisfying part of the painting process
is when you finish it and peel away that masking tape to
reveal a nice hard edge. These stems are
roughly connecting to the leaves and flowers. Then some of them
are overlapped and that gives a bit of
illusion of depth. You see by painting this pure yellow over
that blue, we made green. We didn't even have to
add any green ourselves.
11. Starting The Petals: Whilst you're watching this, I advise you have a photo of my final painting that I
have in the resource section. But if that's not easy to do, maybe you can just see the
thumbnail that I've used, which is the final painting, just to have a rough idea
of what it looks like, so you can have a context of it. Also, if you go to
about this class, I have a image of it there where you can
see the details and see how the final
painting looks so that you can see what context
and painting things. You can see when I apply a
brush stroke wet on wet. It looks differently when I first apply it to
how it ends up, and you can just look
at that final image to see how it relates. You can see which areas
I scin off or layer. So I'm using a very bold mean
yellow starting at the top. This is where there'll
be high contrast, so we're going to
paint dark petals on a light background
up the top here. And then that's going
to be contrasted with the bottom where you can see the blue is
behind the petals. We're going to have dark
background on light petals. So to simplify that again, we've got dark petals on light, and then at the bottom, we've
got light petals on dark. And that just makes
it so much more dynamic mixing these things in. Using the tip of
my brush just to get that point at accuracy. And whilst it's wet, just
adding a little bit of orange, which is again, the cadmium red. I don't own orange, I just use red and
yellow to make it. The background is muted. It's not a pure red
in that background, so it really makes the
vibrancy pop on the flowers. You can see how the
transition is happening from the dark petals at the top
to the light petals now. I decided to paint
this last petal darker because it's got a
lighter background. But now this one
and the one above it is very light and dark. There's two petals here, this one underneath that
I'm painting right now and then we're going to paint a
little bit lighter on top. Once it's dried. I'm making anything that needs shadow
on the petals orange, instead of just using
black as a darker tone. I'm using orange. Now working
the other way around.
12. Breaking It Down To Simple Steps: So this looks like
a complex painting because there's so many
different elements. But you can see we're just splitting it up
into smaller tasks, smaller individual tasks that are quite manageable
independently. Painting these petals
is just a matter of concentration and
patients, really. You can see that I'm
leaving the head of these flowers intact because we're going to do
that at the very end. Is doing fun little combinations
of yellow and orange. It's almost like every other one is yellow against orange. So you've got yellow, orange,
yellow, orange, really. And this is just
the first layer. We'll add a few more
touches once it's just to define some details
and add a bit of tone. Now now that that
orange bits dry, we can paint the layer
that overlaps it. Mixing a bit of
cerlian blue into this green to continue on
the leaves at the bottom. See, these brushes are
so versatile because you can use the edge of it to paint large areas
and fill in washes, or you can use the tip by holding the pencil
fully upright. You can get that point and
do quite a lot of details. You really don't need
expensive brushes. This is a cheap brush, and it does every that
I would ever want. Now, with this stem, I've
added a bit of a curvature, an illusion of curvature
by having it dark on the edge and then right
yellow in the middle. I find it easier painting these left side petals because
because I'm right handed, the point of the brush fits
in right at the tip there. On the other side,
it's a bit more difficult because I have
to tilt the brush around.
13. Interesting Tones: I'm trying to be interesting
with the tones here. I'm not necessarily trying
to make it realistic. I'm just trying to have a
bit of a variety in there. I'm trying to think of how
to add the different layers. I always start off
with light first and then darker second time round. The first layer is always easier because you can basically
just fill it in. Fill it in like
painting with numbers, and then the second layer, you can just take it a step
further with the tones just to make it a
bit more dynamic. Layers really do
help the process. They make complicated
things a lot more simple. Because if you look
at the final image, it looks quite overwhelming. But when you see that really, you're just painting flat
layers on top of each other, it adds that definition, that depth that is effective,
quite captivating. It's not like you
start from left to right and paint everything
as it is in one go. Of course, with oil or acrylic. That's mainly how
you do paint you. You don't so much
paint in layers. You blend everything in
the first go, really. I guess, especially with oil because it can take months
for oil paintings to. But with watercolor, you
can just get the hair dry out and in 3 minutes,
it will be dry again. Getting a little bit of green, I think on this leaf
because I feel like yellow is too similar
to the background. I needed to add a bit
of green there just to create the contrast. Just make this a bit darker so you've got dark on
light going on. Really, what takes the time and the concentration
is thinking about balance and the tones. Well, the whole
composition, of course, but the tones is one of
the more important things because we use tones to
differentiate different areas. So it can feel overwhelming when you have so many
things going on. But it comes quite intuitively. You got to think if one area
has got a dark background, then you have to
paint light on top, or if you're forced to
use the same tones, maybe you can use a different
color to differentiate it. And that's why
sketching helps a lot because when it comes to thinking of your
own compositions, if you're interested in doing your own original paintings, it's much quicker to just
work these things out with pencil and then adapt
it to color later on. It's quite impossible to just do a masterpiece without
any pre planning. But that's okay.
We're not trying to learn everything all at once. These classes are just to
practice what's possible and really just to
have fun exploring the medium and in time, our ability gets
stronger and stronger. You can see that when you look at different students projects, you can see how they pick up new techniques and collectively, We become better
artists because we have a bigger arsenal of techniques and effects and just a
general understanding of how watercolor works.
14. Making Checkpoints: It's fun, for example,
with this petal, incorporating different colors
and blending it smoothly. Again, we're not doing
everything in one take, we're breaking it down, so this leaf is just
a leaf by itself, and that's what we're focusing
on for the time being. There's no pressure for
anything else at the moment, so we can just in
whatever colors we want, and then when we're
happy with it, then we can move on
to the next thing. I think of painting
as checkpoints. I try and break everything
down into checkpoints. I look at what needs
to be done next and how far it will
go before I can next have a checkpoint or a mark where I can
just take a breather. I look at this petal
and I think, Okay, this is a small little section, all I need to do is fill it out. And most of the
painting is like that, the small little sections
that you go to fill out or even big sections
that you need to fill out. That's about 80%
of the painting. But sometimes there are a bit
more complicated sections where it's a bit more
dynamic and overlapping, and the checkpoints are
a bit more blurred. For example, the background, the backgrounds funny
and expressive. There's not so many rules
with the background, but it's quite a lot to do in one take really because
it's all connected really. It's all one big section. But again, the good thing about the background is that it is expressive and we're not being so realistic
of the background, we're having fun with it,
so there's less pressure. I think we need to add a bit more boldness down
at the bottom. The tones are a bit too light, so I'm mixing a darker
green here and going over it again, going over the top. Just to make it pop a bit more. I've got a hard edge
at the top here, and then I'm going to blend
it out at the bottom. Again, using that pure water. Then I'm going to
do a similar thing on this side with
a dark pigment. Yellow can be a
tricky pigment to use because when it's wet, it's so vibrant and you think it's going
to dry like that. But if it's diluted too much, even though it looks vibrant, once it's dry, it
goes muted again. Now, I've dried everything
off and going back over with a few more details,
a few more touches. Going in between the petals. Trying to define the
shape a bit more. Using tones to give
it a bit more depth. Using this vibrant orange to really make it
pop underneath. I want these petals to float.
15. Adding Shadows: And I make it a bit darker. The closer it is to the center. Because if you think about it, how shadows work,
darker the shadows are, means there's less light
in those areas obviously. When something overlaps,
it's going to be darker towards the center
because there's less light getting in there. These things make sense, but really it comes
down to observation. You don't have to
understand physics or science to paint these
things or anatomy. Just by observation,
you can notice these things The reason I'm going back over to
this section here is because there's to mid tones. There's not many highlights, and there's not many dark tones. So I have to go back
with some darker tones to increase the range of
tones that's going on. It's a bit too flat. And you can see when we
add these darker tones, it just makes it pop a bit more. The darkest tones we'll use will be in the flower heads and we
haven't painted those yet. The painting at the moment does seem quite flat in general, apart from a few darks we've got on the leaves and the stems. As we go closer to the center, we've got some darker tones like this red that we're
starting to in. Again, I've just got
pure red on my palette. But when I apply it onto the yellow that's already
been painted down, it automatically
turns into an orange. Then I use a bit of water
and just go back and forth for the brush just to soften it up, soften the edges. It looks kind of
striking against the white in the middle
that we've preserved. But again, when we paint
the heads at the end, it'll make more sense. I'm trying to have
a complete variety of hard lines and soft
lines in this section. Thin lines and thick
lines as well. I've got a bit of these petals. We're looking at
them at an angle. We're not seeing
them straight on, we're seeing them on
their thinnest side. I'm trying to convey
that at the moment. And painting this out, orange, leaving a little strip
of yellow in the middle. And I'm actually sucking
pigment out with my brush to create the softness. You have to use your judgment. Sometimes if there's
too much water and pigment on the paper, then it's not going to
have a nice smooth edge. You have to suck out some of
that water with the brush. That's why I have a sponge. You can see in the top
right hand corner, I have a sponge
there where I take all the excess pigments from my brush so that it's
fully controlled. But you don't have to use
a sponge for a long time. In fact, you can see in my
early skill share videos, I was using a T shirt and
old T shirt just to do it. But now I got a sponge because
it's a bit more efficient. You can see even now I'm finding ways to change
the way I work. It's a constant evolution
for every artist. There's no end. There's always different
ways to do things. And the most important thing, of course, is having
fun in the process. As long as you're having fun, that's the right
way to go about it.
16. Painting The Buds: So now painting this little head that's opening up at the top. There's a lot of spiky
textures on here, so a lot of using the
tip of the brush. I'm starting off
with a flat yellow. Pain sign to paint
the other one too. I'm not painting
all the way down. I'm leaving the bottom bit because that's
going to be green. There's basically three colors. I'm going to use the yellow. Then I'm going to use the
orange and then the green. While that is drying up there, let's paint some of the under leaves on
the second flower. The nice vibrant orange. Again, trying to get a contrast between the light tones
and the dark tones. Really making those
yellow petals pop by adding dark
pigment underneath. In some green into there. It's got a nice green
and orange transition. Using the rest of the screen
to paint a leaf underneath. Adding a bit of
blue, seran blue, and cobalt blue, and mixing
that into the green. A I'm leaving a little bit of a gap in the
middle of this leaf, just to add a bit of
sharpness into there. Does these tiny little
details do a lot. These little gaps
preserving the background. It makes it slightly
more eye catching. Now I'm just testing to see whether it's dry
this area. It is. So now we're going to paint
in between the two flowers, there's going to be a
green kind of background. I'm just going to I'm going to try and convey that
they're leaves, but I'm not being so
particular with the details. I'm just going to
fill it in with a green kind of block of color. Maybe be a bit more
adventurous with the tones, but I'm not trying
to think of leaves. I'm just filling in the color. I can't leave it white, so I'll have to fill it
in with some color, so it may as well be green. But also like with
every other area, it's not going to be pure green. I'm going to influence some
other color into there. I think I should
use burnt sienna. I need to make it a
bit more dynamic. I'm going to get some burnt
sienna and where the tip is, I'm just going to blend
it out into that green.
17. Balancing the Colours: Now let's connect these buds, these small little flower
heads using the stems, carefully painting because
it's the main flowers. So I have to be
careful and paint underneath to create
that illusion of depth. Same with the other one.
Although this one doesn't go under the petal,
it's a bit easier. I'm just using the green
because this yellow is dry now, we don't need to worry
about it blending. There'll be a nice hard edge. We need to make that section
a bit lighter down here. Using the orange again. You can see the main colors
that we're using are yellow, of course, that's
the main color. Then we've got orange. We've got green and
we've got blue. That's basically the palette, and we're in, to
make it dynamic, we're doing a combination
of all of them somewhere. So you can see my palette
has multiple colors, but I don't necessarily use
them for all my paintings. Those are just my stable colors, and I can mix any color
I want with them, but that doesn't mean
that I'm going to. I haven't touched
purple in there or lavender or alizarin crimson. Now you can see, I'm making
these petals a bit more dynamic by adding that second layer
that I was talking about. Second layer of details using almost a dry brush effect with the thickness
of this pigment, and then using water
to spread it all out. We're coming close
to the end now. We've just go to do
a few more details and paint the very
heads of the flower. Got about 10 minutes left. Now, of course, with
so much going on. When you spend time
on a painting, you can get very absorbed. And it's quite difficult to think about how to
finish a painting, or there might be a few
obvious things that you don't get around to painting because there's just so much going on. So what I tend to do
and what I'll do with this painting is just when I feel like I've
done everything, I'll put it away for a bit. I won't look at it for a few
hours or even a few days. And I'll come back to it
with a fresh eye and often that points out a few different
things that I can change. Maybe the tones need to
be corrected or something will tend to stick out if
I disconnect for a while. So now I'm planning to
paint these flower heads, so getting very dark pigment. I think I did use a
lizard crimson here, just painting the outskirts
of these flower heads. Just where the shadows get dark, where the petals reach
the flower heads. I still haven't touched the flowhad itself yet,
where the seeds are. Going back to these buds
with darker pigment. I'm just trying to
paint the gist, just trying to
imply what's there. These spiky little textures
as the flower curls outwards. They don't need to be
precise and you don't need to paint them exactly
the way I see them. The way you see them rather. Again, we're making
the use of laying.
18. The Flower Heads: Making sure it's
completely dry because now we are going to paint flower
heads and to do that, I'm going to pre wet them, Preet the white of
the paper here. Try not to touch the edge yet and then going in with
yellow in the very middle, and then towards the edge, we've got this orange, the same orange, and I want to keep that
yellow in the middle. Then I'm going to
use some purple on this bottom side because purple is actually a
complimentary color of yellow. So having a bit of purple in
this painting really helps. And this is where we're
going to apply it. A bit of blue because blue, of course, is part of purple. Because it's wet on wet, we have a nice smooth feeling, a nice little soft
aesthetic here. Because of course, really, when you look at the
center of a sunflower, it's full of texture and it's full of sharp lines
where the seeds are, but I don't want
to include that, so I made the creative
decision to try and soften it out and imply the details with
soft little strokes. So it's wet on wet there, and I'm just applying thick
pigment will bleed out, so the tones are correct, but the texture doesn't
need to be applied. And these little dabs
will softly blend out. It's like if a camera
took a photo of it, and you had the soft filter, so it wasn't focused on there. It was kind of a blurred focus. That's the kind of feeling
that I'm trying to convey. And then as it dries, I go back and forth
with flicking water as it dries to
create a bit more texture. Because if we went and we use the tip of the brush and try to paint every single detail of the seed that's in the
head of the flower, it wouldn't look organic. It wouldn't have that
athetic that watercolor has. So whilst I'm painting
the rest of the petals, my mind is still on
the flower head there. I'm just waiting for it to
dry and keeping an eye on it, trying to get it close, and then I splat it with water again. And then I'll wait a bit longer. I'll start painting
the other flower, but I'm not forgetting about that other flower head whilst I'm painting
this one because I'm going to have to go back
and sp it with more water later on to further bring
out a bit more texture. Same process. A nice rich
yellow in the middle. Maybe a bit of orange in this one and then
using purple and blue around the outskirts.
Having it blend in. I'm not overloading it with water so that it's not going to spill out completely and mix
and can combine completely. It's going to gradually blend and it's going to stay soft. In the middle I'm applying thicker pigment and
adding these little dabs. Again, I got the consistency
of the water on the paper so that it's only slightly damp so that all those dots, they're
not going to disappear. They're just going
to be softened. It takes a little bit
of experimentation to get that paper dampness correct. But it's okay. The
good thing about watercolor is as
long as it's wet, you can take your time, you can wait until it dries.
You don't have to rush. You can use a hair dry to
speed up the drying process, or you can use a tissue. Now you see we're
getting very bold by adding this very dark
pigment in the edge. It looks very dark
now because it's wet, but when it dries out, it
will lighten back up again. But it really does
add that depth having that full tonal range.
19. Adding Highlights: Going back another
layer onto these buds, still going back and forth
to these flower heads. Again, as you can see
because I've sped the video, you can see a bit more in context how the water
reacts with the pigment. You can see when I dab it with these textures,
how it blends out. Of course, the thicker
pigment you use, the slower it will
take to blend out. If it's pigment that's been diluted or reduced with water, then of course, it's going to interact with
the water faster. And for these flower heads, I want there to be
a bit more texture. So you see I use
the hair dryer to dry it up just so
that it was 90% dry, and then I flick it again, and I go back and
forth and creating that almost dryness where
there's hardly no water, and then you add
more water to it. It reactivates it in
an interesting way. It creates this unevenness, and that's what
creates the texture. And you can go on the more time you spend
going back and forth, the more texture
that there'll be. I think I've gone over
it back and forth, already four or five times now. And you can see each time, there's more and more texture. So now that it is dry, let's get the white gash. I use it directly from the tube. I do have it in my
palette as well, but it's not the right
consistency in my palette, so I'm just going to get
it straight from my tube. I'm for the first
time in the painting, we've switched to
a smaller brush, just because I only want to
do thin little small marks. I don't need the thickness
of the larger brush. So that's why I'm using
a smaller brush here. And I'm just adding
a few white dots to boost the contrast
in these dark areas. And that brings this
painting to her end. Like I said, I'm going
to disconnect for it. I'll take the tape off, and I'll come back and see what
needs to be done, but let's sum up the
painting in the next video.
20. Final Thoughts: Welcome back and congratulations on completing this
watercolor sunflower class. I hope you had a
wonderful time watching. And if you haven't already
given this painting a try, now is the perfect
moment to start. When we painted these
vibrant sunflowers, we focused on laying to add dimension and an expressive
quality to our artwork. We also explored how to use masking fluid to let light shine through
the petals and leaves. You can make this class your own and use different
techniques, different colors, and even experiment with your
own unique style. Throughout this
class, we've explored the rich hues and
shapes of sunflowers, blending warm yellows, oranges, and browns to capture
their radiant beauty. I hope that you feel more
confident in your ability to create depth and texture in
your watercolor paintings. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and
personal style. I encourage you to continue
exploring, experimenting, and pushing your
boundaries to create your own unique
watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the
end of this class, I hope you feel
more confident and comfortable with your
watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes
to improving your skills, so keep on painting
and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for watercolor
painting is so inspiring, and I'm honored to
be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. So please share your
painting in the student project
gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can
share it on Instagram, tagging me at Williston, as I would love to see it. Skillshare also love
seeing my students work, so tag them as well
at Skillshare. After putting so
much effort into it, why not share your creation? If you have any questions
or comments about today's class or want any specific advice
related to watercolor, please reach out to me in
the discussion section. You can also let me know about any subject wildlife or scene you'd like me
to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews
fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best
experience for my students. Lastly, please click
the follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means that you'll be
the first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. I hope you learned a
lot and are inspired to continue working with
this beautiful medium. I look forward to
seeing you all again in future classes until
then happy painting.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
