Transcripts
1. Welcome!: hi guys, more here and back with another class. So in today's class will be painting a ginger mirror had quite a few requests for this one , Um, and especially also for another horse themed class. So that's what we'll be doing today. So this is what the painting looks like. Um, it's another a four sized painting, just like the hydrangeas that we did in the last, of course. And I'm going to be following the same kind of format where I take you through the entire process, start to finish. I don't skip over anything. I don't speed over anything. So that does mean that the class is quite long, but you can always choose to skip certain parts if you're already you know, a little bit more aware about what you're doing. Or alternatively, if you're fairly new to water color, you can paint a long step by step and basically follow along in real time. Um, the first couple of lessons will show you how you can a make sure that you have sufficient supplies and be set up your paper so that we're ready to start painting. I hope that you enjoy the class as usual. I look forward to your feedback and also your class projects. So please do paint along and take a picture posted down below and just let me know. You know how you got on what you would like and future classes, things that you might be struggling with. I'll do my best to answer any questions that you have, um, on to get back to you within, you know, a reasonable amount of time. So I hope that you enjoy the class. I'm really looking forward to this one because I just love horses. So, you know, I love painting these and making these for you guys. For now. I wish you the very best. And I hope that you have a ton of fun painting with us.
2. Supplies: All right. So to begin with a walk us through the supplies list for the class, you can also download this on school share. Just make sure that your loved in on a computer so that you're able to access the files. The most important thing to talk about first is your paper. So this is the completed painting and it's a a four sized piece of watercolor paper. So what you need to do is to take whatever paper you've got at home and cut it to a four size that is 21 by 30 centimeters in size. And particularly, I would advise to use cold pressed watercolor paper. Somebody with a nice amount of texture, like you can see here. This is the arches cold press, watercolor paper and its 300 GSM and wage. No, I don't recommend for you to go thinner than this. Do invest in your watercolor paper. It will really help you achieve better looking paintings. Um, if you you something center than what I'm using and you can see here This is fairly started . A paper. It's almost like card for you. Something thinner than what I use. You will have to stretch it for the purpose of this class. All I do is stick it onto a chopping board like this. Um, so we mount the paper with masking tape into place, and that's how we keep the paper from buckling or, um, warping. If your paper stand in this, you'll have to stretch it the traditional way. So aside from these two things, so the board the paper also need masking tape over you sleep to be able to transfer the drooling in the first couple of lessons, you'll need surveil paper. So that's paper was a layer of graphite on one fight that will help us transfer our line, drawing that you can also download on the website onto our watercolor paper. You will need some tracing paper or baking paper, so baking paper it just lets you create a trace and then transfer them trees to Cooper. Um, aside from that, you will need a pencil and an eraser, particularly an HB pencil. That's important because softer lead will's much on and harder lead will leave dents and marks in your paper. Additionally, an eraser. This was one of these gummed artist erasers, so they're nice and screechy. They work really well for picking up excess graphite off of your paper. So I highly recommend for you to use one of these rather than a regular eraser. Because I from that for the finishing touches, you will need a, um, a fine liner. This is a 0.5 thickness fine liner for the whiskers and some of the fine little black marks any brand will do. But I do quite like stetler. The quality is quite nice. In addition to that, I use a white joke in this is a unit ball signal broad in white. Also again for some of the final white, um, details in the thinking, I can show you. So, for example, here along the ear, some of these little fine hair marks on a couple of details around the I I did with White Joe Pin. In addition to, of course, my beloved white ink by Winsor Newton. So I used this for the majority of the white details like we also did in the hydrangea painting. If you remember following that class, I used it around some of the little highlights and I do the same again with the horse um, I highly recommend using white ink over something like White Wash or Chinese, um, white. Just because it works better, it's more opaque. I find that the effect is nicer. It's cleaner and also easier to work with. And the way that I used us usually is that I just give the car shake. I opened up George, and I just go with my brush into the cap. I'm just pick up ink from the cap, and that works really well for me. But if you have washing, you're not willing to buy something else. You might be able to just use the white jump in or you know you some washing. Use the gel pendency how you go. This is just my personal preference. Whilst you are painting, you will also need a clean Tito toe. Dry your brushes on and wipe your brushes on as well as some tissue paper for blotting away excess water. And again also for taking some pigment off of your brushes. You won't need a pallet to work from. My preference is always for a ceramic palette, um, and ideally, something with sloping wells. So if I hold it like this, you'll be able to see, because what I do is that I placed my pain, for example, up here. And then if you apply water to it, the water will pull at the bottom of the well, and you have the choice to take your brush straight into the six pigment from your tube paint or go into the bottom of the well where you can pick up water re washes of, you know, very transparent paint. And in that way we achieve quite a few of the effects that I show you in this class. So I do highly recommend one of these pallets if you don't have one, or if you don't wish to purchase one, I would recommend for you to use a dinner plate just any ordinary play from your kitchen rather than a plastic pallet that works much better. Of course, you will need your pants. I'll go in more detail and also switch the paints in the next lesson so we'll just fly through the colors that we're using today. Um, from Daniel Smith, we've got Imperial Purple, one of my all time favorite purples, a pink called Ruby red by Schmidt. We've got ultra Marine finest. We have Payne's gray bluish. That's got a funny name, but that's the grave. I use quite a lot of transparent sienna for the red tones in the horse, a little bit of burned number here and there. I use C p. A. Brown, quite a lot Chad depth and show and the main body of the horse, the initial rounds of painter, mostly done in gold brown. I was watch them in. The next lesson in terms of fresh is you don't have to use as many as I've got here, but I will walk you through them so that you understand why I used um, You only need a handful of brushes to really be able to complete the painting, so I use two sizes of the Da Vinci mop brush, the zero and the three. These are great for picking of water, placing down water before you go in with paint. So working what and what? And what I like about them in particular is that they when they're what they have a really nice thin point. So for their size they pick up a lot of water. But they have, ah, controllable. Easy to use point. So these air definitely worth investing in. So I've got two sizes of those. I also have two sizes of the Divinci meister brush. Another brush that I feel like having one of thes can easily get you further than owning 10 other brushes. Because the fibres are lovely. The point is really nice within. You don't see it here now, because it's not which, but it gives you an extraordinary amount of control, which is something that is really necessary for the technique that we're using in the painting here today. So I would advise that you need to have at least one around brush that has a nice thin point to it. I use a size three in a size zero, then for a lot of detail work. I love these little move us these air synthetic fibre brushes. Um, so they're very scream. And here I've got the five year sir on the $3.0 and I used both of thumb for small details . Work around the eyes. Three years, things like that. But you could realistically just use one of these. Honestly, um, I used the Cosmo top spin liner brush $3.0. That's a pretty son little liner brush. This guy's great for hairs, um, working on the mane and tail and adding small, long, thin stroke. So, for example, around the mouth here, these little whiskers, um, hair marks, main fault tail and mane. Or, I should say, for look, these details I will created with the liner brush. Then I occasionally grew up for this guy if my other brushes of dirty. But he's not really necessary. It's just a regular round brush. It's a Casio. Um, he's just not as pointy as the other ones. Then, lastly, I also use this liner brush. It's a size one nova, and as you can see, I use it mostly with white ink. So that's how we create some of those final additions here at the edges, for example, where you can see a little bit of texture around where the ginger firm needs the white. For these things I have created using the, um, liner brush on using white ink. Now, realistically speaking, I would argue that you need something around this size minimally something around this size with a fine, so around a small round brush with a fine point something along the lines of either. It's like the larger around brush like this one or this guy. And you would need a detail brush, something like this guy, a synthetic tiny little detail brush and one liner brush. So that could be one of thes or really cheap novella like this one. Synthetic either. Or, um, if you don't have one of these, I would argue probably, Um, let's say you've got something similar to these three. That'll already get you very far, especially if you also have the White Joe open, because you could skip the white ink all together with the liner brush and then just rely on the gel pen. So at the very minimum, I would argue you need something that resembles this collection. Ideally, you would have one of thes so a liner brush and then, you know, if you've got versus to spare using something large like this for some of the areas of simply faster, because it just picks up more water than the smaller size round brush. So those of the brushes that I use in the class in the next lesson also swatch the pains for you. So I'll see you there
3. Paper and Paint Preparations: So as with any of my tutorials, we always start by transferring the drawing on her watercolor paper. So all that I've done here is that I've used some tracing paper to go over the picture. You can either do this yourself by printing the picture I provide and then tracing over it or just tracing directly over the line drawing that I've made available for you to download . Just remember that to be able to download the files, you do have to be logged into sculpture on a computer. You can't access thumb in the mobile version of the Web site on your phone or tablet anyway . So all I've done here is I've made the trace, and I'm just lining it up with my paper. This is just the a four size piece of watercolor paper, and I'm grabbing a little bit of tape, told it in place. Just make sure that it's positioned how you wanted to be in the in the end. So what I've done here is I've made sure that have equal space and equal border around all the edges so that the mayor is more or less centered and that the line at the bottom. There is straight horizontal. So here we go. After position turn. You can see I've got roughly even spacing on either side. And if I lift her up, you can see my piece of paper underneath. So what we'll be doing is placing some of thesis around paper, just one sheet of Sorrell paper. Um, between the drawing at the paper, this is what I've done in my previous classes as well. So I'm just laying it down. And the graphite that is attached, toothy active side of the Cyril paper will transfer through onto the watercolor paper. Um, when you push on it here, I'm just making sure my watercolor papers the right way up. So you should always use the river side of the paper facing towards you, placing down the swell paper, grabbing my drawing, placing it on top. And now all you've got to do is take either a pen or pencil or something else with a fine point and trace over your trace one more time. And that will push the graphite from this rail paper onto the watercolor paper, leaving you with a nice clean sketch of the horse that we can then paint over. So here I'm just making sure everything is secure it in place and flattening it out. And then I can get going with my trace. I'm just using an old ballpoint pen here. This one doesn't actually have any ink anymore. But if you struggle to remember where you've traced or not traced, you can use, for example, of blue um Bayrou, a blue ballpoint pen, and that will give you a little bit of an indication as to where you've already been. Um, so if you struggle with that, that's a good idea. I sometimes also use red pen. It just depends on what you've got on hand and what you find most convenient. And now all you want to do is apply even pressure and go all the way around your drawing. So go all over the lines that we've got in the line drawing. And if in doubt, go over twice. Um, I do take an eraser to the sketch later on before I start painting to lighten up the graphite. But I find that Cyril paper can withstand quite a bit of pressure. And I do appreciate really having, um, clean, crisp and clear lines to paint, Um, and it saves you having to add more lines and later. So in the painting process, you'll see that I miss a couple of things, which I then have to add manually. And I do prefer avoiding that one possible So everyone makes mistakes, and that's normal. But it's It does pay to be careful and vigilant here just to save yourself a little bit of the work later on, to hear him to speeding up my way around the drawing a little bit. You can really see that I'm applying a fair bit of pressure, and I'm holding my sketch and everything in place with my left hand as I traced over with my right hand. And I also make sure to take the bottom line into account there so actually trace over that edge there just because it will help us align our tape player own. So once I think I'm finished, I could just lift my trace on the paper, and we can have a look because we've held it in place. So there is the possibility of just laying it down again and tracing over anything else if needs be. But as you can see here, I pretty much got everything. I missed a few things which you'll see me add later. But this is our starting point. So at this point, I'm going to be mounting the paper onto aboard. This is just a chopping board. Any, um, plastic board will do anything that's water resistant, and I'm not going to be stretching the paper. So because this paper's thick enough, we don't need to. Anthee areas were painting or not very large again. We don't have to stretch the paper. Um, if you're using paper thinner than what I'm using, I would advise to stretch it. All I'm doing here is taping it into place. And I'm making sure also that the bottom edge there of the tape is nice and straight horizontal so that I get a nice clean edge at the bottom, and I'm actually doubling it up there just to get that nice clean edge and I'm wrapping it all the way around the chopping board. This will stop the paper from buckling too much. But if your papers thinner than what I'm using, so under 300 GSM, it will most likely buckle on you so just be aware, used as thick of papers you can afford. And if in doubt, pay more money for your paper unless on your paints, because your papers really something that makes a big difference. Once you've got a taped in place here, we're ready to make our final adjustments to get started. Um, I'm starting here with an artist Eraser. This is one of thes gummed Squidgy erasers, and I'm just using it to lighten up the pencil. So if you have a look here, it's really quite dark and a couple of areas I'm just going to lighten up because it's strong enough for me to be able to see you know, the line. And I'm trying to minimize the amount of graphite on the paper, some just rolling this eraser all over and just making everything a little paler. Um, because they're white areas to the mayor or gray areas at least, um, the graph I'd will really show up, and I find that I'm most happy with the result. If I use as little graphic as possible also because it can smudge. So I'm doing my best to keep it even and to just keep it light. So here you can see my palette that I've set up. And we'll just talk through the pains that I use, um, on the mayor for this course and also swatch them for you. Um, most of them are by brand called shrinker. That's kind of my preferred standard bread. But as you can see, the purple up there in the corners actually by Daniel Smith and, um, yeah, the rest, I think, is Leshchenko. I also make use of a pink that I'll mention in just a bit. I don't showed here because actually forgot to set it up here. So the first color that I make use of, um, is called gold brown, and this is what it looks like. It's just a orangey warm paled brown. I would call it more of a brown orange rather than an orange brown. Um, it's fairly pale, so you can use quite a lot of pigment without it, you know? Um, getting very dark. So I used that as a base color. Um, what I'm waiting here now is called sepia, which is just a very dark, um, dark, cool broom. Here it is applied very pale and here I am working the brush into it to pick up more pigment. And this is what I love about working with ceramic palettes like this. You can really control how much pigment you pick up and whether you want, for example, a pale wash of color or a lot of pigment. Like what I'm dabbing on now. I was giving the brush into the lush, and I'll actually darken up the gold brown. Here. You can see the brown coming through stronger Um, if you build up to pigment, whereas if you use a thin wash, it does lean very orange, Which is great for the purpose of this painting, right, Because we're painting a gender mayor. I'm just waiting a couple of these colors. Um, what I'm picking up here now is called Ultra Marine finest. It's an ultra Marine blue that does not granule eight, which is quite unusual for ultra Marine. Most ultra Marines do granule eight, which is not a problem. Um, I just chose to use something non granulated here. This is Payne's gray blue, so it's literally called Payne's gray bluish um, which just means that it's, you know, like regular Payne's Gray But it does lean a little more blue, which I prefer for the, um, white portions of horses firm. But I'm generally more drawn towards blue Caries than I am Warm grace here I'm wetting Daniel Smith Imperial Purple, which is a, um yeah, very dark, neutral purple, I would call it, and it does Granule eight. Here it is, applied fairly light. I'm just washing it out a little. It's a really beautiful color. I love this paint quite a lot, and I use it very frequently. I particularly like it for shadows. Um, because as you know, I prefer to use darker pigments for shadows rather than going in with too much dull grey or black or anything like that. Um, and I really like it for this. And then here we have a color called, um transparent Sienna. So it's a true sienna, but it is transparent and on granulated, which I really like. And I used that to really build up the ginger colors of the mayor over the main body and in the face. So the other color that I used later on that I don't show here is called a ruby red bush mink and it's very much like permanent Rose from Winsor and Newton. It's a very true pink color, even though for some reason the brand calls it ruby red. I've used it in some of my other classes as well, and I used that mostly on the nose off the horse to bring out those pink tones. Um, I'll show that to you on my palette at a later point in time.
4. Wet-in-wet Technique for the first wash of paint: So here I've set up my workstation with my painting, my palate and some clean water. Andi, I'll be demonstrating some of the main techniques that will be using in the painting process here now. So I'm just taking my brush and I'm waiting this portion of the horse here on the right. Um, so it's covered in water now, and you can see I'm just picking up watery paint with the tip of my brush and pushing it all over the area that we've just wet. So I'll show in close up again in a second How damp the paper should be. Um, but the basic idea is that you want to dampen the entire area and then go over it with your pigment. And I'm using the maestro brush here, which has a nice fine point, and it really lets me get a very crisp edge there. And it's very important to note that your paint will go wherever your water is. So you do need to be careful and vigilant when you apply the water and move the water around as though you were painting so really treated carefully and here couldn't you have just picked up a little more paint, and I'm just pushing it all over to create one wash off the gold brown over there on that ginger patch of the mayor. I've let that dry little, and here you can see I'm just waiting another portion here, towards the left of the body. Now I'm just using my mop brush, which is a little larger, and I'm just making sure the area that I want to paint is wet, taking it all the way up until the edge there. And I'm just waiting an area that has a size that is realistic in terms of painting. So I don't wet a large area that would dry before I'm done. That's how you create harsh edges in places where you don't want them. From this angle, you can see that my papers damp but not stopping. What? I don't have huge puddles on there at this point in time to get the nice, crisp edge there, I switched over to the smaller of the two maestro brushes. Um, if you have a look at the pencil line, you can see that it's a little jagged, right, because the um, areas where the white and the ginger for meat. Aren't you know, perfectly smooth edges. So I just switched brushes and I'm just making sure I pushed the water all the way up until the very edge to where I want to take it. And then I can go in and pick up some of his watery paint from the well of my palate. You can see I'm not going into the thick pigment just picking up watery paint that is not too dark yet. If I said my palate down again, I will be taking it all over the area. We've just dampened, and I'll make sure to leave a little bit of an edge of the top where we went the paper so that I don't get any harsh edges up there where I want to continue the shape. So that just means that, um, I have time to move the paint around, and I dont create any lines where I don't want them. I only create edges where I've chosen to place them, which is along the pencil lines and any other marks in the for. So I'm just taking along the edge to begin with, and I kind of let the pigment blend itself in words. Naturally, I'm just kind of pushing it all over, and I'm really focusing on the edges. And this was something that I do most of the time when I paint focus on the edges because I find that the watercolor has a tendency to figure itself out more or less towards the inter portion of any shape you create. But the edges can be a little finicky. So you have just picked up more pigment. I'm taking Richard pigment of the same color still gold broom. I'm letting that area up there fade out on its own, not taking rich pigment up there because I don't want any harsh edges up there. I'm just focusing on the edge and I'm letting the pigment do its own thing, letting it spread and figure itself out. And I'm just focusing on that sharp edge there and you can see that the maestro bushier really allows me to, um create a nice, sharp edge. It loads a fair amount of water in pigment. Um, not as much as the case in your brushes do. But this gives more control, which I'm a big fan of. I'm taking along the edge, and you can see that the pigment does fade itself out and blend itself as you go. So I've taken it up quite high there now, which means that I do need to be careful, but it won't dry on me like that before I continue. So just be aware of that. Um because the shape obviously continues upwards that patch of ginger. So we don't want any marks there, and I'll have to blend that or continue the shape upwards. So that's what I'm doing here. Now, I've just taken my mop brush again, just with water. No pigment. And I'm just extending the line of water there. And now I'm just waiting the next portion off the for that I'm going to be painting. And in this way you can also adjust for yourself how big of a portion you want to paint at once. Um, which can depend on you know what you're comfortable with, how fast you are and the experience that you have. So some people might find that these areas are too large for them, and others might think that this is quite easy. So just start small and adjust as you go. I'm just taking the water all along the beach there again. Just being careful with was fairly large brush. And I'll go back in with my smaller brush to really, um, be cautious around the edges and really push the water up until the pencil mark. That's something that this mop brush doesn't always let you do, even though at this size, since this is a size zero, I believe, um, it does give you a fair amount of control with a point. So here I'm going back into pigment back with my maestro brush businesses size zero, rolling it around a little, picking up pigment, and then we'll just do more of what we've already been doing. And this is the wet on wet technique that I used to cover most of the base coats of my paintings. So I'm just going around the edge again, first, with a fairly pale wash of color, and later olds will be picking up more pigment. No one is going around. The interests through is taking it along there around that shape and also joining it up down there, and you can see that it's starting to fade effortlessly into the area we've already covered . Um, thanks to impartial because we didn't create any marks there. We kept the area dump, and we've now also extended it with water and fill it out with pigment. We're just taking it all over. And while I'm doing this, I'm always, um, looking at the reference picture. I dont show it here right now just because I find that a little distracting to show the initial technique. But in the later lessons off the course, I'll always be showing the reference picture in which you can then also compare immediately . So here of what that area, Pierre and I'm going in with more pigment doing more of what we've already been doing. Taking that maestra brush into all the nooks and crannies of the edges and just pushing that gold brown wherever I intend to paint the ginger paint of the for of the mayor. So this is our base layer, so to speak. And anywhere where we're taking this color will most likely also be worked over with E Sienna. But I want this golden warm tone to peek through, so we will not be covering it all up with the CNN. It's more of a base coat, so to speak, and it will shine through and give the horse a very warm, sunny, um, earthy kind of appearance, which I really like, especially because the picture, I think, was taken in quite direct sunlight, which gives everything a very nice bright glow.
5. Initial wash of paint: Face: So I've let that dry as you see here, I can touch it, and I'm going to be wetting the cheek of the horse now to continue painting the base layer of the ginger for so here have just wet the area. And I'm just using my ma push for that. And once I'm satisfied with the size of the area that I've dampened, I'm just working more paint into my maestro bush. This is the larger of the two maestro brushes, and I'm going to be doing the same thing on the cheek of the horse. Now is really important that the previous portion of paint is completely dried. You can either dried using a hair dryer or letting it, you know, air dry for an hour or so. But if you don't let it dried, rule bleed and it will ruin the effect. So at this point, you know, it was completely dry bone dry. Here, I'm taking the pigment all along the edge of the cheek, and you can really see you know how what my paper is. It's fairly damp and was taking it all over that Porsche up until that edge where I've decided to create that shadow of the I taking all the way up to create that basically are up there, and I'm using the point of the meister brush to create my sharp edges. So even with the larger one here, um, the shape of the brush really does allow you to keep things sharp and clean, which I really appreciate. So I do think that the brushes air worth the money. Um, if you, you know, don't have too much to invest into brushes, just, you know, get a few that are good, including one or maybe two of thes maestro's um, I'm taking it around the ear and extending it down the face, and I've kept the center of the cheek pale for now because the paint is blending itself anyway there because areas with and I don't have to fuss with it too much at this point in time and really just focusing on getting the, you know, the lay of the land going. So the main shape up until the edge there, and I'm focusing on creating an even layer of color and finishing the portion or finishing their shape before dries so that I avoid any unwanted harsh edges or marks because this is something that can make watercolor look messy and you know you can use it to your advantage . Of course, it's just not the technique that I'm using here now. That's not to say that it's not, you know, a valid technique or anything like this. It's just not something that I personally look for in my paintings. At this point here, I've what the brush nipples are just blended everything out a little more, and I'm dropping in a bit of water so that the paint that I have applied blooms in those areas where I'm dropping water and blooming means that the water kind of disrupts the existing pigment on the paper, creating a highlight. So I've dropped a couple here and there, and I'm using more water to blend out that edge down here, enter something seamless, so in that sense, were blending from ginger toe white with no edges. So to do that, all I did was clean my brush, take it into some water and go over the area all the way up until the edge where we see the gray begin inthe e um, areas thumb nose down there extending up the ear. So for now, I have actually just picked up water. So I what? The ear taking it all the way up until the edge. Still, just with that larger meister brush up until the age of the pencil there, and you can see that because it's joining that portion off the face. I just make sure that there is a nice, smooth transition between the site of the face and then the year. And while I give that a chance to dry a tiny little bit because I did make it quite what I'm actually also just painting. In the other year I'm dropping and more pigment where the year is dark and I'm waiting my brush and blending up that pigment there. So I had taken just a little too much pigment on my brush earlier. And if you ever do that, you can just wash your brush, take some water and spread the pigment over a larger portion. And in that way, I've also just sketched in that other year with our base color of paint, just taking it all the way until the edge, picking up more pigment and then working my way down the side of the face there. Um, that's the I on the other side of the blaze that we hardly see. So it's just a little portion of ginger. But again, I'm just taking my time and focusing on the edge because the shape is so small, I don't bother wedding. At first, I just make sure that my paint is fairly damp, and I just cover the area in one even coat of paint. And I focus the pigment so that there's so that the darkest area of that shape is making contact with the blaze so that there's a nice amount of contrast between the white lilies and the ginger for, and it also is in line with the pictures. So if you look towards the picture there, you can see there's a little bit of a highlight on the I, which I respect by just blending the pigment upwards rather than applying anymore. And in this way we get a nice, even Grady int and a natural highlight at the top of the I there now, picking up more pigment. I'm going to be adding some depth to areas of the face that are darker anyway, the areas are still wet. I'm just literally patting on and just kind of filling out that shot over there, taking it along the bottom of the ear. And I'm just looking at the picture while I'm doing this and I'm holding my brush fairly loosely. I'm really just kind of patting and giggling some of that pigment where, you know, I see darker portions or shadowy portions of the face here. I've grabbed my brush further down for more control, and I'm working on the edge of the cheek, just making sure that that's nice and sharp and then liberally applying pigment where the face is darker and because it's still damp, it'll blended itself. Um, so if at this point to your paper has become too dry, I would actually say to let it dry completely and then re wedded completely. If your paper is at that stage where it's not quite dry and not quite wet, and you go in with damp paper, it will cauliflower and create blooms where you don't want TEM. So either work in smaller areas or let it dry completely before wetting again and working on another layer of paint. Um, here. My paper was about 80% dry, and I was still able to continue working on it. But like I said, if it's really almost dry, just let it dry completely before you continue here. I've now what? The area again. Bottom portion. This was completely dry. At this point, it's under stamping it again, picking up more pigment and then adding pigment where I see fit. So here, where there is that shadow on the side of the notes, I feel sort of loosely penciled that in. So that gives me a nice guide for where to apply the pigment and then known here as well to create a little bit of that shape and the dimension of the tenants and the other facial structures that throw shadows on the face. Here was taking it along the edge of the blaze, and I'm keeping that bottom portion of the nose fairly pale because it's more grey than it is brown, and it has a highlight on it as well, which we do need to respect. And once you've applied pigment, you can't really remove it. So with watercolor, it's always good to start pale rather than dark because you simply can't undo any of your actions now because I want the grey to blend into some of that brown. I've actually just dampened that great portion of the upper area of the mouth. I'm taking the gray color along the edge with the tip of my brush, and I'm going to be letting it bleed and blend up into the pail wash of gold brown that we applied. So everything still wet. I've just cleaned my brush and I'm literally just dabbing on pigment and then letting it mingle with the brown, picking up more pigment and also just letting a little bit of that fade around the eye, the darkest shadows of the I because it will be nice and soft. And I already begin to give sometime mention to the face, shading in some of those shadows, and note that I'm again holding the brush at the very end so that we get nice loose marks
6. Initial wash of paint: Mane 'n Tail: now, while that dries, I'm going to be moving on to the portion in the back here that we've already, um, done some work on This is where the tail of the horse meets the hawks and after switched to my detail brush and the transparency and a color to create that division again. So I've lost kind of that line off the leg where the tail hangs. So just sketching that and again with the paint and will be making some marks too. Um, create the shape of the hair there. So for now, I'm just softening the mark that I made with us. Like the larger brush just a blended and there in the picture, you can see what I'm talking about. So for now, we're just working on the tail end the hair, just blending that out and then going back into my transparency and a with the detail brush . This is a, um, a nova. So it's synthetic hair, and it really does let you create very fine little marks. Um, and it picks up a fair amount of water and pigment for its size, which I really like, So we've let this area I'm blending down some more paint to create that dark edge that you see in the picture. And I'm also dragging it down words here and there just to kind of start to create that, um, the texture of the tail where the hair hangs. So we'll be doing this in a couple of layers. And for now, all I'm doing is going in with a pigment and hinting at a few of those shadows and making sure that I focus on that edge to keep the shadow nice and dark and to keep the edge nice and crisp and clean. Well, that dries also work on the edge towards the white of the horse there. So after stamp in the area is going into some water, and I'm making sure that I don't connect us to any of the paint that I've just applied on the tail because I don't want that to bleed. So I've kept a bit of a gap there, and I'm now going to be going in with more of the transparency in a along the very edge there and again. Focusing on the edge is really something key to my technique. Um, it gives a lot of clarity and can help, you know, keep the painting fairly structured looking whiles the paint does its own thing more towards the centre of whatever shape your painting. So I do really recommend us. Um, and you can see that it's kind of fading out again because of what? The area. It's blending itself more or less. And all I'm doing is focusing on the edge and applying pigment where I feel that the value or the depth, um off the shape needs to increase. So, um, just blending that up and connecting it up there. Andrew's making sure that I don't connect the wet patch to the other paint we've applied now, while I'm here also at the tiny little sliver of ginger on the side of the lake. There, just with the same little detail brush. Um, just painting it in. It's just a little bit of brown for that. You can see wrap around the like there. I'm keeping it fairly dark because it's also dark in the picture. It's mostly in shadow, Um, so you don't have to overcomplicate this loading up more pigment again, as you can see and was taking that ginger further up the hawk there because in the picture you can see it just peeking out, just taking it up further. And I'm really taking my time with us to make sure it's a nice, crisp line. You're picking up more paint, and I'll be doing the same over here. Um, in the picture, there's just a little bit of ginger peeking through. So while I'm here and while I've got the paint on my little brush, I just add that in now, while that drives will be going back to my gold brown and painting in the first wash of color on the forelock of the horse up here. So I'm not going to be focusing on creating any hair like details. Yet all I've done is what the entire forelock and I'm going in with the gold brown like we've done before, using the smaller of the two maestro pressures, focusing again on the very edge and making sure that the shape is crisp and clean and that the paint blends itself towards the inside of the shape. And I'm just creating some hair like marks here for that flick at the end. Just making sure that I covered the entire area and paint, and that I create some of the base shadow so that I have more pigment in the darker areas and less pigment in the painter ones, so that I respect the highlights. And I focus on the edge there to make sure that we get a nice, crisp divide between the white background and the forelock. So here I'm just focusing, making those little marks with the tip of the brush. And then I'm loading up on more pigment to fill out most of that shape. I'm just moving the pigment around and again, the areas which enough so that the paint is blended easily and we don't get any harsh marks anywhere here. Just picked up water, just a planned the pigment that's already on the paper because I applied quite a bit there , and I'm just really focusing on the edge before I care too much about the center. The center will never be a problem if you wet your area well first, whereas the edges can become, um, scruffy looking if you don't attend to them before the paper dries. So once I'm kind of happy with that. I add in a few darker marks where I see shadows. And then I can also apply water to the other side of that forelock on the left side of the ear, keeping that line nice and clean again. I'm really careful with where I apply water. So do you know, treat your waters if it's paint and picking a pigment and then going in with the pigment just covering the area? There are no major highlights here, so you can cover the entire shape, um, and will be obviously painting in the actual here. Marks and shadows at a later point here have picked up more pigment because the area so dark and again you can see that it's easy to blend or well, it blends itself just because we've read the paper. Whenever you see me hesitate like that, it just means that I'm looking at the picture. I always have it open up in front of me and just assessing, you know, am I using enough pigment and we're using too much pigment? Am I focusing on shadows and highlights correctly and I might. Keeping my edge is nice and clean. Those are my key factors that I consider in these initial washes of paint. So there I noticed that, you know, the area down here is pale again. So I just gave the brush awash, and I'm just blending the pigment down to fill out the remainder of the shape, so I didn't pick up any more paint.
7. Initial wash of paint: "White" body: So at this point, I've let everything dry. It's actually had a chance to dry overnight, and I will now be working on the blaze. So the white portion around the front of the face here, um, now, this could be quite tricky, right? Because we can't really paint and white with watercolor. Your white does your paper. You just paint around the white, so to speak. So I've what? The area I'm picking up some of my great and I'm actually dabbling a bit of it off, um, and assure you this on camera so that you know, that I'm really not using a lot of pigment here at once at all. I'm just going to be shading in some of those shadows that you've seen the picture. So I'm really just holding my brush very far back, using a very light hand, and I'm just kind of dabbing it where we see a little bit of shadow and because areas wet little again blend quite easily, and all that I'm doing is creating a bit of shape here. I'm focusing on the edge there because it's quite crisp and sharp, but for the majority of this area, I'm staying very loose and not trying to create any harsh marks. So at this point I realized I had quite a bit of pigment on the paper, so I'm just going to be wetting the brush, drawing it a little on a piece of kitchen tell and then blending upwards. So in this way, I don't introduce too much more water. So I'm kind of blending up and then wiping some of the pigment on the paper towel. And in this way you can also lighten any pigment that you've placed down that maybe, you know, was just a little too dark. And then I'll go back in and continue shading along the site off the nose. There. I'm just following the picture and then also making sure that I define that edge very well because we wanted to stand out against the white background. So this is where I use a little bit of artistic license, and I make sure that all of my edges of pale areas are actually a bit dark just so that they pop against the white background. So at this point here now, I've actually just washed the brush. There's nothing on it. I'm just going to be using a damp brush to blend some of the pigment we've put down, so it's not going to move if you know it's not going to move very far by doing this, it will just soften the edge of whatever little mark you've made. So it just kind of washes everything over the little bitch. I'm just teasing it a little with water, and then if there's anything that I think is, you know, being moved too much or still too pale, I reapply paint there So the areas damp. And I'm just making sure that everything is very soft and loose, and I adjust the amount of pigment as I go to hear you saw that I applied some washed the brush and blended it, and I'll do the same here along the Edgware. Just want a little bit more darkness, so I'm just picking up more of the gray along the bottom. Here is the nose, and I was washing the brush and blending with a wet, clean brush. So down here towards the nostril, I'm not just adding a little more paint, taking it up and blending again with a wet, clean brush and I just keep repeating this until I'm happy. Note that with these darker pains they will dry little paler than you expect. So the general rule of thumb with watercolors that pale colors will dry darker than you expect them to, and dark colors dry paler than you expect them to. But for now, I'm going to let the area dry, and I will work on the bottom gray portion of the lip here. So I'm just going in around the edges and then I'll fill out the center there. And I'm still just using the blue gray color, keeping it very nice and simple, washing my brush, drawing it a little and then using that damp brush to blend the remainder of the pigment. So if we look at that a little up close, you see that the grays actually fairly pale at the moment. So while I'm down here, I noticed that I missed a couple of marks, so I'm just going to be penciling them in so specifically that shadow there on the breast. So I'm just pencilling it in, and then that way we'll be able to get a nice, clean shadow, going using more of that great paint. So here I've added the other line, and then I can go in and I can wit one side of that pencil mark. Um, and in this way you can blend the paint seamlessly into the white for but also have a nice sharp edge on the, um, portion of those shadow that is sharp. So here you can just see how damp actually make the paper. It's not stopping. What? It's just a little shiny with the water. And I've just went one side of that center line there so that I can take paint along the pencil line and it'll blend out into the white for using the little maestro brush. I'm just going to take gray, quit a quite pale water down, take on the great along that edge, and you can see how the water just does most of the hard work for me there. She'll do the same here again, so I'm creating that tried to the right of the market, just made. I'm watching the area just with clean water, and then I'll be taking the great paint along the edge there so that we have ah, nice, sharp line towards the left of the edge and a blended gray shadow on the right. You can see that my paint here is really quite watered down and going into the well, not in toothy, strong pigment, they're concedes, really, just a pale washes. Great, and we're going to be taken along that edge. So just having a look at the picture and then teasing that pigment all along the edge that I just made with the water and down the side, just assessing whether I want to add any more paint here. I'm just brushing it on and little more. Just depositing a little more pigment also improved the edge here. It's still damp, so I can still add to it. And if you look at the picture there, you can see what we're creating. I've just taken a bit of water down the center line to push some pigment out, and then I'm taking more of the gray for that last center shadow. I'm just patting on a little more where I want the color to be deeper, and then I'll let that dry and in the meantime, we can work on this shadow over here, so I'm just what the area. I use my mop brush because it's just a little more efficient, and I'm making sure that I keep a dry edge on the left there so it don't make contact with the gray that we've just applied. Then I switched over to my smaller brush, and I can take that along the edge again. And I can just let that paint do its own thing along the edge of that shadow. We're studying it. Blend, coaxing it along. And as I'm doing this, like I said, I always look at the picture. So I always have the picture open up and in front of me. I'm We're killing it along a little so that I get some of those lines. But I really also again just focusing on the edge, and I'm taking fairly washed down transparent paint here again, just like we did with the other shadows. Now I'm just creating some of those shadows up here. We'll add more detail to them later. I just want a little bit of a baseline down there, the clean brush. I'll just blend that out. The meantime of the shape on the lifter has had time to dry so I can know Take the water all the way up until the edge there and again. I'm just using my mop brush because it's good at holding water. It's fairly precise, and it has a good size for the job. So I put the area, and now I can also work here. So again, I'm just taking paint along the edge, kind of coaxing it where I wanted to go and then pushing it up along the edges. And I'm creating some of those lines and folds just, you know, a little hinge of that will be adding more detail to this later on. Um, in subsequent layers, this is just a little bit of a baseline. Um, and I'm taking it up and around because that entire area is cast in shadow and we need that to be darker than the remainder of the white, for that is, you know, in the sunlight. So I'm just taking it around and just kind of stenciling in some of those shadows. So here I'm doing the same thing and really just looking at the picture and connecting the shadow upwards. So here I'm just washing the burst, so I can blend that line I directed up all the way, even though that area there is dry because I wanted to make sure that the Linus straight and make sense. But now I'm just putting the area so that I can actually also, um, paint the remainder of to shadow up there. So I'm just going in with more of the gray wherever I see fit. So towards the edges there, that little shadow and the little creases they're and then I'll let that dry while I work over here. So this is just another one of those edges again. I've wet the area taking the watery grey paint along the edge, and I'm making sure that my edge is nice and smooth and crisp. And I'm just taking my time, looking at the picture and also taking along the bottom there. This was more so that when we removed the tape, we have a nice, clean edge to the painting. Um, it's another one of those things that I like to do, even if in the picture that area isn't necessarily very dark, it just helps the white for pop against the white background. Later, when we removed the tape
8. Layering to create shape and shadow: here. I'm just stenciling in that shadow in the picture. I haven't shown it here because I want you to be able to see a close what I'm doing. But if you look at the picture, there is a big shadow here on the hind quarter. So I've penciled that in, and I'm now just wetting the area so that we can continue painting there. And I'm going to be painting more of that great color up until the edge of the pencil line and down towards the bottom of the lake there, just taking my time and wetting the area. And then I can go in with more of that great paint. So I'm first just taking it along that edge there of the lake and up the side, that shadow where the leg meats the belly and then working my way upwards. I'm just dragging some of it through here and blending it so that it's not very harsh, but it just gives a little more shape. Um, animals such as really working on the edge there, so focusing on taking it all the way up to the pencil line, having a blend, keeping the line nice and crisp and just extending that upwards and then blending it down down here. I'm just putting in a little more paint down here is well, and up there just building the shadow. And again, I'm You can see it here, but I'm holding the brush very far up the pharaoh's so that it's nice and loose. And I'm not making harsh marks. And I'm able to just let the pain to do most of the work for me, just blending that out a little and also blending this little shape up there up into nothing with a little bit of water and then just dragging it up further, just patting the pigment into place. The patting motion will to help you get a little bit of that dappled effect from the uneven , um, surface layer of the horse so that will add to the texture. Hey, I'm switching over into sepia with my little detail brush. That's the $3.0 and I'm picking up not too concentrated of a version of it, and I'm going to take it there where the hawk meets the belly just starting it up. So we need to keep the pains relative right, so That means that a shadow that is darker in the picture needs to also show up dark in the painting. And because we've already used the blue to create the overall shadow off the lake, the sea Peotone will help us to distinguish that dark, folded shadow that you can see visibly in the picture.
9. Layering shadows and creating contrast (1): At this point in time, I've let everything dry overnight, so it's a new day and I'm going to be working on building some of the shadows and the details in the face of the horse. So I'm just taking my mob Russian wetting this area again. I was making sure that the edge down there is nice and clean again. And I'm just being very careful with where the water goes. So I say this again and again. But I can't stress it enough. Your paint will go where for your water goes. So do you know, be cautious and mindful about that? Um, the paint will release spread even over a longer period of time. So if you don't notice it at first, it could still spread as your paint is drying later on. So I'm not picking up more of that transparency and and I'm really working it into the brush, making it a very concentrated, thick paint. So you can see I'm really jiggling my brush in there and picking up quite a lot of pigment , and I'll be working on the edge down here because I want to build a the color of the entire face, of course, but B. I also want to improve the contrast down there so that there's more contrast between the edge of the face and the white for behind it. And this will help the horse's head to pop a little more. And it will, um, create more dimension as we build up the shadows and that mottled effect of the for. So the best way to do that just to now go in with fairly concentrated pigment. And again I'm focusing on the edges. So I'm making sure that my lines down there are crisp and clean, that I'm spreading the paint, that the water is doing the blending for me and that I load up my brush with nice, thick pigment to create smooth, sharp lines down there all along the edge of the face. They're so I'm just taking it all the way down and then going back up to start building the color on the cheek there, and ultimately we are not trying to cover up all of our golden brown. It'll peek through, but I'm using this transparency in a to build up the red tones and to shade in more of the shape and structure of the face. So here I'm just waiting this area a little bit again, taking the water up higher before going in with more of the Sienna all the way down and in this way will create, you know, a rich color that is still transparent and translucent looking because we're having multiple colors. Peek through, um, through the use of layering. And this could really, um, emphasize that transparent look of watercolor that I love so very much, um, the best way of doing that to work in layers like this and to make sure that you never covering up one layer completely unless, you know, it's a very particularly dark area or a small detail or something like this. So here I'm just continuing just building up the color and making sure that I focus on those shadows now. So I'm introducing structure to the site of the nose there by, um, letting you know the brown peek through in the highlights and creating some shadow with e transparency and a color. And I'm happy with that for now. So I've just with the upper area there as well with my clean mop brush just with water here all the way up until the very edge. So I'm really taking my time there. And then I switched to my other brush and transparency in a and then I'm going to be focusing on this edge up here. You can really see the pain to shoot across the paper there. It was just doing a lot of the hard work for me. I'm just taking it along the edge. And thanks to the fine tip of the brush, I don't really have to do very much here. And I'm switching back to my little detail brush, picking up more of that concentrated paint. You can see that I'm really going into the actual to paint there and really focusing on this edge here, and I'm creating little strokes. So these are little hair marks that create the texture along the edge of this, um, divide between the white and the red for so obviously horses have for its very fine. But to create the texture of the easiest way really is to introduce um, texture along these edges where you see a lot of contrast. So where there was a strong dividing color between light and dark because that's very eye catching and it will have the largest impact. So I just make sure that that's a little jagged and fluffy looking before. Then. Move on to this portion down here that I need to dark and a little bit. And here, the shadow that runs along the side of the face that leads down into the nose. I just picked up more color in the area, still damp, and I'm just working it up all the way up until the I to kind of spare out that highlight that runs all the way down the face along the blaze. So hear him again, just working out the shadows on the structure of the face. And I'm always looking at the picture and you can see me hesitate a lot. That's always just me looking at the picture and working their way down. And all this time, my paper is damp but not sopping wet. I don't have a puddle or pool of water sitting on the paper. It's just damp to the touch. So I let that dry. For now, while I work on this area back here, I'm just dampening it before I switch over to my small detail brush, and I go back into that transparency. Anna and I'm really loading up my brush with concentrated paint, really going into the actual little blob of paint that I've got out on my palette there and then just taking it along the edge all the way down the side of the face back there, just taking my time. And I drag the brush on its side because it produces a nice, clean, smooth line. If you run into the issue that you get jagged edges doing this, your brushes to dry and you need to either load up with you, no more water or you need to reload your brush more frequently with paint and water. Now, in the meantime, this area down here has had a chance to dry, so it's going to be going in with even more pigment, just adding a little more depth and darkness where I think you know we need it. So I'm building it up there, also along the edge, washing off my brush and then taking a damn clean brush to blend that out. So whereas we were working, went on what before, if now switched to a wet on dry approach, so I'm applying the paint and then blending it out. And that works if what you're doing is fairly small scale. So here I'm just adding a few shadows and shapes here and there on the face. And, um, I can do that and blend it out in time with larger shapes and larger areas. I don't recommend doing this just because you will not be able to blend everything in time . And you might run into the issue that you produce harsh marks or edges in places where you don't want TEM. Now, while that has a chance to try, I'm going to be working on the side of the neck here and particularly the shadow that runs all the way down the curve and much like what we've been doing before. I'll be wetting the area first after giving myself a little bit of a pencil mark. There I with the area and I go in with more paint. And again, I am focusing on a nice, sharp edge where the shadow starts and I let it blend out on its own accord through the water that's already on the paper, and I'm also working at along the site there, where overall the first was darker and around the edge of that patch, and I connect it up and then I switch over to my detail brush. So here you can see me load up for my brush again. I really do go into the paint, the two pain straight up with a damp brush, and I really work it into the brush to pick up a lot of thick pigment. And this will really amp up. Your contrast and contrast is eye catching and will make, um, you're painting pop. So sometimes if you paint something and you just think everything looks a little lackluster , try producing a little more contrast here and there, meaning that you introduce strong changes in value. So you connect areas that are very pale with areas that are very, very dark, and this could be eye catching. And it kind of adds drama in a way to your painting. And in that way you can have everything pop a little more, and it also helps to create dimension. So I'm doing this here again along this edge. Um, I've removed the picture for now, just so that you can really see what I'm doing. You just run it all along the edges there. And as you can see again, the paint pretty much blends itself so long as the area is wet. Now I've moved over onto this patch on the right there. That is not what, but it is fairly small. And I can pretty much cover the entire area without a drying on me, which is what I'm doing here now, because the pattern overall is dark in relation to the rest of the for of the horse. So I'm just going over it with one layer of that transparency, Anna, and then taking even more of that paint along the edges to produce, um, nice contrast along the edge of the patch and to add some depth that you can also see in the picture there, while the rest of that dries also work on the side. Here. I have not connected this up toothy left portion off the neck. So I've left a bit of a sliver of dry paper so that I don't have any bleeding. And I'm just taking the pigment all along the edge of that patch of ginger for and again, I'm kind of creating some of those for remarks to create texture and to capture the fact that you know it's not actually just a straight line. It's really just where two kinds of for meat so a little bit of a jagged edge will do a lot in terms of the realism of the painting. And it also adds again to the contrast. Next up I'll be extending this area up. So I'm just taking more water on a clean brush, planning out that little blip down there, washing my brush, switching my brush and then taking more pigment up all the way along the inch there just to again build up that contrast and little a bit of that furry texture by adding some here marks, taking it all the way down and then washing my brush and blending it out. So in this way you really only get sharp edges where you really want TEM, which is on the outskirts, or outsides of whatever shape you're creating, and the inter portion is very much smoothly blended.
10. Layering shadows and creating contrast (2): So I'm happy with that. And I'm moving on to the side of the neck here of what? The entire area. And I'm going to be doing the same thing again. Taking transparency. Anna, really rich pigment along the edge of the cheek there to build up the color and shadow that we see in the picture. And from this, you know, off center angle of the painting. You can really see that my paper is damp, but not stopping. What? And this is really important, because if your papers too wet, you lose control over where your pain goes and your pigment ends up traveling everywhere. So do, um when you went your paper. Take care to spread the water evenly, but don't apply so much that there are puddles sitting on top of your paper. It should just be shiny to look at and damp to touch. I am working the pigment up here, and we have a couple of pencil marks. Heroes that took guide us with the shadows. I'm just working my way up and you can see again that the gold Brown does peek through quite a bit, and that's exactly what we want here into spreading on, going all the way up until the edge of the cheek all the way down before moving upwards with a clean, wet brush and no paint here in Washington, brush again to spread the pigment that I've already applied to feather it out and again. In this way, we don't have any marks or hard edges where we don't want them. Now I've picked up more pigment, and I'll be repeating the same process here, taking the pigment all along the edge, creating some for marks down there, applying pigment here where the shadows dark stenciling in the shadow there and then also going up in a long the inch there. And that's all the shadow here. So just taking the paint up and then blending it up well here, switch back to the mop brush to which the remainder of that area it just dried on me a little. And then I go back in with more pigment to deepen up any area that I feel still needs it. I'm just looking at the picture, placing the pigment down, looking at the picture and placing the pigment down. So every time you see me hesitate with the paintbrush. That's me looking at the painting, looking at the picture, thinking about the positioning of the shadow and the depths that the shadow should be. And that's really the only thing you should, um, be concerning yourself with in the painting process. This is why it's so important to have a good line drawing in place so that you're not also worrying about the proportions and the shape. And in that way you can focus on the step that you're currently were working on, which is the painting and creating dips and shadow and interest in that way. Cameras blending, blending, blending with a clean, wet brush. Now, while that dries, I'm going to be moving down here with my detail brush and the great paint to create those folds in the neck. Um, so I'm just dragging some of that gray paint down, and it's hard to see here, but we do have feigned pencil marks there from the line, drawing that you can simply trace over with your paint and I'm using, I'd say, a fairly pigmented wash of the great. It's certainly more pigmented than what we used before, and I'm just sketching them in for now and placing some paint along the edge there where I need a little more pigment and contrast. And if you look at it from this angle here, you can see how dark it is. And then I'm just washing the brush and blending out those marks. So I please down the paint and then go in with a clean brush to blend it. So whereas we were working, what on what Earlier Now I'm working wet on dry, and this gives me a lot of control about the placement of the pigment, but does mean that I have to work fairly quickly to blend it out before it dries. Because if I please pigment in this way and it dries on me, I will be stuck with a harsh edge or mark that I don't really want. So if you're a beginner at this, I would make a single line literally one fold and blend it out before you continue with the remainder. Um, if you've done this before, you can easily do them all in one go the way that I've done them here, it just takes a little bit of practice and getting used to washing your brush quickly and making sure that your brushes clean and only slightly damp before going into blend again. So I'm still not quite happy with the amount of color I'm getting here. On the site of the neck were, um, we have the shadow with the cheek, so I'm just waiting the area and then loading up my brush with more of the transparency. Anna. Like I said, dark colors tend to dry paler than what you expect. So I'm going to be adding another layer of paint here now of what the area and I'm going on with a fairly liberal amount of the color, and I'm using a larger brush just to cover the entire area. I'm basically looking toe up the saturation and again to work on the contrast of the edge of the shadow. There. I'm just patting some of that color on looking at the picture, patting, looking at the picture, just taking the paint anywhere where I feel we need more color. Watercolors have a tendency to look more vibrant when they're what than when they're dry, so it does pay to work in layers and with time you also build, you know that amount of experience that tells you what the pain needs to look like when it's wet in order for you to be able to achieve the look that you're going for when it's dry. So here I am again just taking the brush on its very tip and working on that edge and patting on more pigment where I need it picking up more paint and literally just dropping it wherever I need it. I just keep going with this until I'm happy and then I'll switch over into the purple. So this is Imperial Purple by Daniel Smith loading up my clean brush. And now I'm going to be dropping in some purple, too up the contrast and to introduce more of that dark, bluish tone shadow that you see in the picture along the side of the face. And I find that this color is a beautiful color to create shadow, especially in red tones subjects, and it will create a vibrant looking shadow. I find that if you work too much with, um, black or grey or brown, depending on the shade of brown, your paintings can start to look dull, and I really wanted those red mayor to be a glowing red ginger painting. I really wanted a lot of vibrancy, so that's why I chose to go with the purple here. Any medium toned purple will do, but I do think that this particular shade is worth investing in. And then I'll just with the upper area here again as well. And I'll be upping the contrast at the edge where the edge of the neck meets the white of the paper. And like I've been saying before, this really does help have the subject pop up against the white background. So I'm just pushing more of the pigment along the edge there, and I'm just letting it blend down and again, dropping a little more here and there where I think I need it. And while that dries, I can start to work around the area of the eye now eyes air really important to paintings that involve either animal or human subjects, either the window to the soul. So I do take a lot of time when I paint eyes, and I tried to keep them soft and gentle looking, especially with horses, so it just with the area and I'm going to be going in with the small maestro brush and the transparency Anna to start to build more of the depth and shadow that is visible around the eye and in particular also the folds that make up the island area. That gives the horse its expression. And I find these expressions so important and my paintings, which is why I take a lot of time with them and they often take, you know, a couple of layers to build up. So for now, I'm really just working on the main shadows. So the larger chunks of shadow that you see in the picture So that's that area here around the eye, where it meets the blaze that edge there and then also that shadow underneath. Um, underneath the eye, I'm starting to connect some of those folds up now just was softer paint because I'm going to be building them up in layers. So for now, we're just adding a little bit of depths there and then also taking that upwards into that area of the shadow that will he painted later that is being cast by the ear. So I'm just blending that out with a clean, wet brush now. So I placed the pigment down, working what on dry than taking a clean brush to blend that out and downwards, keeping that edge nice and sharp, going into more pigment and loading up my brush with even more concentrated paint by going straight into the paint itself and then really working on the's few dark shadows around the eye, towards the cheek and towards the blaze, taking it down and along that edge of the highlight there and all the way down the face, washing my brush and then just taking a clean, wet brush to blend any edges. I was taking along the lower edge there as well, just with some water blending it all down until it's seamless. So well that dries. I'll be wetting this area down here once more to build up even more pigment and shadow. So I just went it. And then I'm picking up pigment and I'm really going heavy with the transparency, and I here because I just need to up up the saturation, more color and match it toothy depth of color that you see in the neck now. So I'm quite happy with the neck at the moment, but the cheek needed somewhere work. And once I'm happy with e level of pigment there from the red, I'm dropping in purple to create that modeled shadow from the uneven texture that's present in the cheek there. And once I'm happy with that, I can also just work on this little patch down here. So just what that little strip of white I did not connected to the red for. So I've left, um, a little strip of dry paper so it doesn't bleed. And I'm just taking the bluey grey color along the edge there, letting it blend up to create the shadow off the bottom of the face there. So at this point, I'll actually move down and onto the lips. Here I was wetting the area with clean water and then going in with the bluey grey color. I am just going along the edge there to improve the contrast in to build up the color. And I've picked up far more pigment this time around than it did the previous time that I painted this. So in this way were increasing the value, adding more color and pigment. And here you can see I'm really just pressing it into the paper there, and the water is blending it out for me. So I'm actually really taking my brush over earthy, dry paint at the top of my well, it's just out of frame here, but I'm really rubbing it over the blob of paint that I have on the palate so that I really pick up very pigmented color. And I'm introducing as little water as possible at this point. So I'm really keeping it very concentrated. The more pigment and the less water, obviously, the more cost traded the paint will be. And I'm just taking it along those edges, always looking at the photograph and just making sure that my edges are nice and sharp. So going around the front of the nose there or lips, I should say, and really taking that pigment up towards the nostril and also improving the shape of the dark patch there because in the line drawing actually smooth it out more than I should. It's more of that triangular shape that I'm kind of sketching, and now, So while I'm down here, I'm just improving that, making sure that the shape is roughly accurate and then with water. I'm just blending the pigment that I've already applied upwards and then blending it up to meet but transparent sienna just to playing more pigment here and just taking it up a little further there, blending upwards and then going in with some of that imperial purple to increase the shadow to create more harmony with the remainder of the shadow in the picture. So we've used some of that purple in the brown, and I also use it here around the lips to create shadow just to keep everything even and harmonious looking and because it adds more value again to the area. So once I'm happy with that, I also take some of the grey up and around the nostril there where we see that dark line. So far, if only we've only got the pencil mark there. So I'm just going over that with paint and also defining the edge there and adding a little more depth and pigment to that fooled with some clean water. I'm just blending it out, and then I'll let that dry
11. Initial wash of paint: Nose and hind quarter: So I'm going to be moving on to the nose now and to, um, get us going there. I'm going to be reaching for this color called Ruby Red. I don't have it on my palette gets all just get a little bit of it out. It's a true pink color. Um, it's very strong and vivid in color, and it's very much, um, similar to something like permanent rose from Winsor Newton. And I'm just taking the tiniest amount of that, too shade in a base layer of color around the nose here, where she's got a lot of pink showing, and I will say that you do have to really water this pigment down. It can be very bright, beautiful for flowers and roses, and I kind of think, But for the purpose of something like this, you do have to be cautious with the amount that you use because it could be very bright and it can turn a little Um, yeah, unnatural looking. But I'm just taking the smallest amount here with a lot of water and just painting on one even thin layer of the paint just covering the area. And because it's so small, I don't have to wet it. And because worlds are just looking for one even coat of paint again, I don't have to with the area if I'm working fast enough to cover the entire shape before any of it dries. So I'm just taking care here on along the edge. And I'm pushing that up a little further beyond the pencil line just to stay in line with the picture. I'm blending it down, and there you can see in the picture what I mean. There is quite a bit of pink kind of poking through that is hidden underneath a little bit of ginger and the little nostril. Here's etcetera, So this is really just kind of what's going on in the background. I'm dropping in a little more pigment now where I want to stronger pink. Just having a look at the picture, observing where a little more of that rosy color is visible and I'm placing that pigment wherever I think it's necessary. At this point in time, I'm erasing any you remaining visible pencil lines, especially around the back there, because we're going to be painting the body of the horse soon. Um, it's always good to do this in stages throughout the painting process, because once you paint over pencil, it is more difficult to remove. So, if possible, try to remove it before you paint an area. Unless that areas fairly dark, in which case the pencil line wouldn't really be visible to paint the body of the horse. Here I'm first wedding the entire area with water, clean water on my large mop brush, and then I'll be going into more of that blue gray color to create shape and dimension. So I'm gonna be starting up here, and I've mentioned this before but actually make the edges darker than what they appear in the picture. Just so that thesis object pops against the white background. Um, so this is again where I take a little bit of artistic license because I just find that I do struggle to have a white, um, subject pop up against, you know, white background. Then I would have to paint in some kind of background, so I just take it along the edges. I keep it fairly pale. I'm using very watery paint, and I'm also just making sure that it blends nicely because the pages wet. We don't really struggle too much with us, just taking more water and blending it out and loading my brush with more water. So I'm showing you that I really do take my time here. Um, and I make sure that the edges a really tidy before I go in with paint. So with my small mop brush here, I'm going in with more of that great, especially around the face, there to help the face pop up and forwards off of the body of the horse. So in a way, it's, you know, we're painting and shadows and we're painting around the highlights, and that's something that can be quite tough with watercolor. Um, because you essentially have to paint around the highlight. You don't really have the ability to place a highlight as such. Here. I'm working on the shadow of the belly, so I'm holding the brush quite far up the feral, and I'm just really wiggling the pigment around where I see some amount of shadow in the picture and again the waters doing most of the blending for us. I mostly just futzing with the edges and leaving the rest of it alone take it along pH. There, I pick up more pigment, and I just kind of pat some of it in for that modeled looking effect of the for and then with the tip of this brush. This is the beauty of these mob brushes. You can really be quite precise where you stamp you're pigment, and you'll see that over time, and we'll just kind of blend itself. So I'm just putting in more pigment where I think I need it, and also to finding that edge a little better. So you'll find that as you go, you might have to adjust certain portions so that, relatively speaking, the areas that are darkest in your painting correspond to the areas that are darkest in the picture. So here I've switched over to that CPR Brown and was going to be improving some of the depth here, adding more dark marks to those darkest shadows in the picture and also again in that fold , which is really quite dark and relation to the remainder of the body. And in this way you retain the true shape of whatever does your painting. I was patting a little on there, giving the brush awash and now with a clean what brush? And was going to be spreading that pigment a bit more by patting over it to encourage it to move around. So the water that we're placing down now will dislodge some of that pigment. And it'll just, um, move it a little further than you know what it was doing so far. So here you can see already that the body is coming together quite nicely and with my smaller brush. Now I'm just going to be placing a little more here and there where I see fit, shading in the belly some more. Also making that line of the shadow from the picture, picking up more water, blending the edge up there and also just blending that line a little. Now I'm searching over to my detail brush. That's Thea little over $3.0 um, or Triple zero. And I'm going to be just adding a little more contrast here and there where I think I need it. So here I am, just taking CPO brown, um, along the edge of that shape there, and I'll also be taking along the fold here was creating a very fine little mark, um, with a little bit of a jagged edge to it, so that it appears to be more like for and less like a smooth line. I also take it along the inch there, and in a minute I'll wash my little brush, give it a bit of a dry and then just blend that edge out. So I just gave it a little patch on some kitchen tell, and then I can blend the pigment there seamlessly into the great. So this just increases the contrast at the very edge of the shape and then blends it seamlessly down and into the shadow. And in this way we just add a little more interest and help again. For the subject of pop forward and off of the white background, I was washing the brush, giving it a dry, and it's really important to wash your brush here in between steps so that you remove excess pigment because you don't want to be making things look muddy. You want to just be blending them out and, um, trying to keep this little area as clean as possible. So the best way to do that is to keep a fairly clean brush. I also do that here along this fold the same thing again and then again blending it up, cleaning off the brush from blending it out again. You can add a few of those Fuld's purchased moving little pigment outwards washing my brush . I'm blending further again with the CPU. I haven't added any pigment here. This is just me wetting the brush and dragging existing pigment outwards. All right, while I'm down here also improved these a little bit with some of that CPM. I was creating a straight line down the center of each of the fools that we hinted at earlier in the previous layer of paint. So the darkest center portion of the fault that you created, that's where you should take this line and again. I've cleaned off the brush, and now I'm just blending all of those marks just that it's not a harsh mark or harsh line . I should say, um, but don't blend so far that, you know, you lose the contrast. So this is something that takes a little bit of practice and getting used to. I also realized that I wasn't quite happy it with some of those shapes. So I'm watching this area here with E my strippers to paint in that cast shadow that you see here. It's just another one of those folds, but it's larger than the others. So I'm just going in with some of that CPS, and I've just stabbed it into place to create that model look again and like the other fools off left one edge, nice and sharp, and the other is blended out here. I'm working on the other shadows well with CPS, and I've switched from to the smaller brush again, just at that detail there of that fold, which will blend out in just a minute. And it's these folds and nooks and crannies that do give a lot of character and softness to your subject. So I do think it's nice to Adam, however less is more so. If you're painting something else other than something like this horse, where you've got a lot of folds and a lot of marks, I would be specific about what I choose to paint. Um, some things are simply too complex to painting watercolor, and if you attempt to create too much detail, it can look messy. Very quickly. That requires really a really high level of skill to pull off. But lucky for us here we just got a few of thes marks and folds. So I think it's fine to paint the mall here. I'm just adding a little more CP to the shadow. It's very water here. So the areas which and then I'll move on to the underside of the face here while the rest of that dry. So I'm just taking more C p A. Along the very inch to create that shadow and to improve the contrast on the edge of the face there and in this way again, it just helps to face popped forward. And it gives it more dimension blending that out a bit, softening it, going in with more pigment now, still, just using that CP brown in creating a nice thin line on the edge there and again. Sometimes I don't show you the picture here because I want you to be able to see what I'm painting. But I'm always looking at the picture, and whenever you see me hesitate with the brush is usually because I'm looking at the picture and thinking and re evaluating what's on my paper versus what? Um, the picture shows me
12. Shading: Nose and hind quarter: so Well, that dries. I'll be working on the lips. I'm just waiting the area here now and then I'll be taking CPR to create some definition, and I actually make quite a big mistake here. So paint, as I say, not as I do. I take the pigment of too high here. Whereas I should have actually left space for, um that highlight that runs down the upper lip. So do take care when looking at the picture and trying. So I correct this later on, but you will not have to make the mistake. I'm not sure why I didn't pick up on this at this point in time, but you know, it is what it is, and I'll show you how you fix it later on, so that might be valuable to some of you. Um, yeah, it just goes to show that everybody makes mistakes, right. But, um, I'm also working on the nostril here again with CPS to create or to start to build that depth of color from the in our portion of the nostril there. There's letting a bleed out. Where of what? The paper. And then I'm also taking that down for a little tail Onda working on that edge there, taking it in words and then a witch, this entire portion here to create that modelled looking texture on the very tip of the nose. I was taking water all the way up until the edge. And then I'll go in with a little bit of CPL. Along the edge and a little in the center for that effect. I'm just tapping some pigment here and there and letting it move around in the water just anymore. Pigment up here and improving the shape of that nostril. And also adding more contrast at this point in time appeared because I'm realizing that I've left that area too pale in relationship to the other shadows around the mouth and nose . And then when I let that dry all just paint in this little sliver of the hind like that, you see, um, poking out from underneath the belly. So I'm just going in with some of that gray, just hinting at the shape and filling it in. I'm not going to be adding any detail to this. I just want to make sure that it's there because it adds to the proportions and the overall , um, harmony of the picture. Right. So this is just indicate that that leg is back there, and by not including a lot of detail, we also make sure that it doesn't catch the eye as much as the other areas of the paintings that do have more detail. So any area of the painting where you introduced detail and contrast and, um, smaller marks and details such as the mottling off the for our areas that thieve viewer will look at first. So those air eye catching And by keeping the leg fairly simple, we are making sure that it also appears to the viewer as though it's in the background, which acts in our favor in this case, considering that the leg is really just, um, hardly visible in the picture. So while I've been down here, I feel so which this portion of the ginger for, um to then improve the contrast along the edge there So you can just see me take that CPS tone all along the edge, letting the water blend it out for me and again, In this way, we improve the contrast off that edge there, and it becomes more eye catching, and it appears as though there is more detail in the painting. Then there may be actually, really is. So this is just one of these tricks that I really like to use to improve the sharp nature of my watercolor projects. And I find that this is a fairly easy way to improve just about any painting, actually, so focus on your edges and let the water do most of the planning for you. I've just gone in with a little bit of that transparent, um, Sienna, just to up the saturation of the color here, something that you'll notice is that if you introduce colors like CPL, which are a little dull, you might have to then go back in with more, um, pigment from your brighter colors to improve the balance again. So at this point, I'm just blending what I've done just going over that, stretching that CPR all the way out to the edge, washing my brush and then taking a bit of clean water just to smooth it all out. Now, while I'm here, I'll also work on the tail, so just wetting the area there, just with clean water and then I'll go back into that transparency Anna to just improve the edge of the tail. And I'm just pushing more pigment with mighty chill Bush all down the edge off that last hair off the tail, and I'm stamping some of that on there. Trivoli Increase the contrast, and I'm switching over now to that liner brush because it's better for producing hair like marks. You can really drag this brush over a long stretch of paper, and it will produce a nice, long, thin line for you. So I love it for hair. Um, I will be going in with more of that sienna color here, So I'm really working the brush and through my pigment there, really taking a lot of pigment, just rubbing it over the dry little piece of paint. And then I'll be taking it again along the edge, going back in for more water and more pigment, really loading up the brush and then dragging the very fine tip of the brush at quite an angled down to create a few loose strands of hair that will then add texture and detail to the edge here of the tail. So if you look in the picture. You can see there's just a couple of stray hairs that are, you know, not all of them together. And that's what we're creating here is Well, um, if you struggle with the liner brush, do try to use it at a strong angle so that you are almost dragging the long fibers of the brush over the paper. That really does work best. In my opinion, as you get used to them, the liner brush is that becomes easier. I do really recommend this particular range of the I think the fibers from the cosmic topspin Siri's lend themselves really well to liner brushes, and I find them easier to use than most other liner brush is that I own. So if you've never had one or you're looking to buy a new one, I highly recommend this particular one by Divinci or any others from the Siri's. And you know whichever size that you like. This is, I think, the Triple zero. So it's fairly fine, and I quite enjoy it. Four paintings of this size and even paintings. They're just a little bit larger. So you concede the little marks that I've been making their really fine and mimic individual strands of hair. I'm going into CPN l again loading up the brush with very strong pigment to introduce some of those darker, um, shadows that you see in the tail and to improve this cast shadow here at the edge where the leg ends and the shadows of the tail start. So I'm just running the brush along and then dragging a few of those shadows down and distress adds texture and detail. An interest to the tail and a few of thes hair like marks are enough to hint at the texture of the hanging hairs. Um, you don't have to, you know, paint every individual hair at the size because we're just painting a little a four, so less can be more most of the time. Um, as long as you have sufficient contrast in the painting overall going back into the Sienna . So I've washed my brush, dried it a little, and then I went back and true the sienna color. So I'm not introducing too much water here. If you drop in too much water, it will dislodge all of the pigment and, you know, ruined some of the little find detailed marks that you've made so work as dry as you can at this point in time and whether let that dry. I can also just add a little more contrast to the edge of this other ginger spot on the leg while I'm here. Just just a little bit of CPR taken along the edge, and I'll also introduce some of it appear just to help push the horse forwards off the background even more.
13. Initial wash of paint: The eye and ears: So we're going to be working on the area of the I hear now. And, um, I'm just going in with pencil to rework some of those core shapes and lines that we need to be able to paint in the eye. So some of them just got a little faded. I'm just looking at the picture and going over anything that I want to have a little more concrete. So that's mostly the shape of the eyeball and the eyelashes, because we're going to have to save and paint around some of the little hair marks that make up the eyelashes, and you'll see me do that in a little bit. For now, I'm just improving some with ease pencil marks so that I know exactly where the pain needs to go. I was looking at the picture and tracing over anything that's either a little faded or missing or just not quite how I wanted to be. Um, as I said, I tried to minimize the amount of pencil lead on my paper as much as possible, and I'd rather, you know, erase something and then go back in with more pencil if I need to. The way that I am now, rather than starting with too much lead to begin with because it will smudge. Um, it will smart and it will deter from the transparent look of the painting. Um, but at the same time, for areas like eyes, which I need to be correct and in proportion and full of contrast to be eye catching, I do prefer to use more pencil than you might expect. So at this point now, then I'm switching over onto my smallest detail brush, and I'm really loading it up with CPM. You can see here. I'm really working that dry paint into the brush. I'm taking off the excess, and then I'm going to be going in with the paint. So I'm starting on the actual eyeball, just painting in the shape, making sure to go around the very edge where the eyeball is darkest. So if you look out the picture, you can see that there's a little bit of a highlight and a little bit of a rosy brownish tone towards the center of the eye. So I'm just going around the very edge where the eyeball is darkest with that sepia tone, making sure that I get the shape right, and then I take to paint all the way up until that pencil mark. And because this brush is so small, it's quite forgiving. And you can be fairly slow with this process because it's a small area on. And even if your pain does dry on you here, it's usually not very noticeable because we're applying so much pigment to get such a dark color that if some area dries and you have to then continue on with more paint, it won't really show up as a mark, which is nice, because I do find that the eyes take some time, especially if you're a beginner and it's best to go slow because you can't really go back to fix something. You can't really go back to erase any pigment you've placed. So here now you saw me wash the brush and then go in just with some water to blend out the pigment that I had already applied. So in that way I'm creating a very gentle Grady int from the bottom of the eyeball, upwards and into the area where the, um eyelashes are, and I'm just taking the pigment around the eyelashes, making sure to save white paper where I needed to be able to paint some of those eyelashes while I let that dry I can with the area underneath the eye, just with a round brush and some water to them work on these shadows that you see around the eye. So I'm going in with CPR here. It's really watery for now. It's not very dark, just pushing it where I see I need more dips and shadow. So taking that along the edge of the I at the bottom there and also working at upwards into that area there, blending it down and improving the roundness of that shape, I'm taking it down into those marks at the bottom. There. Now, I gave my brush clean and I patted a dry, and now I'm using it to blend the pigment that I have already applied. So again, we're working wet on dry now. Whereas we were working went on what before? For the initial layers of paint, I've picked up more pigment, and I'm just going to be tracing over these fulls of the island. So I'm just looking at the picture and then tracing over and he clear lines and areas of contrast. So this is fairly pigmented pain. Now it's less watery than what I was using just before, and I'm just making sure that I concentrated where I really need the contrast in order for the eye to come together and the general shape of the eyelid to be clear, invisible now I felt so. I just picked up some water to blend that. And then I go in with more pigments to build up some of those dark areas slowly but surely so that the relationship between the areas of light and dark around the eye are preserved. Um, meaning that obviously anything in the picture that you see as dark or the darkest should also be the darkest of the area and your painting. So in our case, that's really that edge around the eyeball and some of these dark patches right around the center of the eye and around the edges of the I. So that's also where I'm focusing my attention to increase contrast and interest and to make sure that the viewer looking at the painting later on first and foremost, looks at the I. So this is where we really want to achieve the greatest amount of contrast. This technique has been used by many artists in the past. So, for example, you could look at work by the famous George Stubbs. His work. Actually, the eyes of the horses always featured the greatest contrast of the entire painting because he would apply small amounts of white paint onto essentially black areas of the I. And in that way, um, the eyes become eye catching to the viewer, and it also helps evoke more emotion. Um, in the painting, because people connect to animals and also other people through eyes. So this is why I devote quite a lot of time, an effort and energy to the eye and the area surrounding the I. So the soft folds and little marks that kind of give the horse character and show its age and create softness and suppleness, um, in the expression So some people will think that mouse or, um, the lower half of the face is more involved in expression. But really, actually, the eyes communicates most of the emotion that we feel as humans, which is also why we look at the eyes of animals to understand how they're feeling. So this is really why I spent so much time and effort in this portion of the painting. So here is picking up more of that sienna color, really working it into my little brush with a bit of water, taking the brush way into that pigment that has dried on the palate, making sure it's nice and concentrated. And while the remainder of the eyes drawing, I'm just going to be again improving the contrast of this edge here. So I just wasn't happy yet with how it has dried. I want strong color and more definition here. So it's going to be working that sienna all over where I think I still need it, building up those details and the contrast around the eye. So I was taking it into those folds of the, um, I lived off the horse and then also down here towards the shadow that is being cast purely by the shape off the way that the skin folds there and then also just taking it down along the side of the blaze again and then going back in with more CPL. Because this just wasn't dark enough yet, adding that little around a shape. There was little fold here and then addressed ing the depths down there, which I saw needed to be darker in relation to the remainder of the eye. So far. So I'm just really looking at the picture and working my way around in thin layers of paint , creating that edge here, where the eyelashes start more depth and darkness to the actual eyeball and then washing my brush and picking up more pigment again. This time again, CPL. It's working on those little shadows and folds, and again this is working went on dry, which gives us a lot of control. And if you were to make a mark that you are absolutely unhappy with at this point in time, you would be able to take a tissue and simply dab it off because the area is dry and you've just applied wet paint. So it'll easily lift if you need it to, um, which is one of the advantages of working with this particular technique for small, detailed areas like this. So I just grabbed a bit of water here to help me blend the c p. A. That I applied along the edge there for that shadow and if actually also just switched to a larger brush to help me blend all of this out, just taking the brush gently around the edges to keep its move and help the shadows blend. And now, if which the area appear so that I can take more of that sienna color underneath the four look, connecting it down towards and with that area of the eye that we just painted, there's taking it down all the way to add more saturation and color to the area. Inter introduced that shadow underneath before look, and then I'll continue doing that all the way down the side of the blaze. I'm really loading up my brush with really strong pigment just because I still didn't like how pale a dried, just build up the color all the way down. And then I'll let that dry and I will work on the shadow that is being cast by the ear here . I'm just waiting the area and then I'm going in with blue. So that's the gray blue, um, dabbing it here and there to start building up the color of their shadow and switching over onto a smaller brush to define the edges. And in this way I'll slowly start to build up the concentration of color in the shadow. Um, and once more, this is an area where we want to use quite a lot of pigment. But we don't want to cover up everything underneath because and this way we can harness You know, that power of watercolor that lets you work in transition layers that lets you have other layers peek through, you know, which was really very unique, actually, watercolor. And this way we can make use of that because it'll look more realistically like a shadow if we allow some of thief for and the actual color of the horse to peek through. So I'm once more focusing on my edges, looking at the picture and slowly building up color by using both the Blue Cray and C P A to create the shadow. I'm just kind of dabbing it in to model the color. And so that thesis Apia peeks through. I had a little bit of a spill. They're so I just wiped it up with my big brush, and I want to push some kitchen towel onto that area just to help it dry. And in that way it's quite easy to actually lift the paint. If you're working, what on dry? Um, at this point here, I'm letting the shadow dry little bit, and I'll work more on the actual ear. So if just going back to that sienna color and I'm working, what on dry here to create shape, to work on the edge there of the ear and to build up saturation of color where we need it. I was taking that down the edge with the tip of that brush and then also down the center, where the year's darkest and you can see that that pigment is bleeding out nicely, blending itself in the area that we've already went with paint taking it down and up the edge there down into their shadow and the area still damp. So it'll blend quite easily, taking it all the way up until the edge there and building up The color over here is welcome, and I'm making sure that I reserve a strip of pale paint for that highlight among the very edge of the year. Well, that has a chance to dry little. I can work on the other eras well, so I'm just loading up on pigment and then letting that pigment spread over that year that I've, which with clean water, taking the tip of the brush all the way up until the edge off the tip of that year, and also on the other edge there. And at this point, I had run out of paint on my palette so you can see I just squeeze out a little more, and I make sure I keep it out of the actual well off the pallet so that I can really choose if I want strong, thick paint or water down translucent, watery paint. So this is something that I reiterate in every listen or every class that I teach here. You do want to be able to control how much pigment you apply and how much water you apply. And those are two very separate things, so applying more pain shouldn't necessarily mean applying more water and vice versa. Here I'm taking strong pigmented color along the edge of the year. It's still a little damp, so it will blend for you. It's just at that stage where the paint will still blend, but it's nearing drying. So the thing with watercolor can sometimes be that you have to learn to tell at what point in time papers a certain level of dryness. That's something that comes with experience, I think Here I waited for about a total of 2.5 minutes before going on with this detail brush and this strong paint there. You can just see that that improves. The contrast on defines the edge of the here very well. Just loading up more paint again, going in for concentrated pigment. And I'm just patting that into place down there. You can see in the pictures really quite a dark area down there, animals just connecting that up to improve the shape there. So here I'm just wetting the edge of the shadow before going in with more paint, again defining the edge and increasing the contrast there and also just introducing more warmth and more brown tones into that shadow. So I had found that when it dried, um, it dry just a little too cool tone and blue for me at this point in time. Um, so I'm just reintroducing a bit more of the brown to the transparency in a and I'm also working on defining the shapes off the shadows in the year. So I'm just applying a bit of paint there, leaving a little highlight, washing my brush, taking some water and blending it out and up. So this again is the hallmark of the wet on dry technique, where you apply some paint and then blended out over dry paper. Um, and it gives you a lot of control. And assuming that you have decent brushes, it makes it fairly easy to blend from a dark paint all the way down to a transparent shadow or a transparent highlight. So it can be a really nice way to introduce more detail into your work. Don't Here, I'm just blending out what I've done so far and then going with more of the sea. Peotone appear for the next layer of paint on the year. So at this point in time, the ear appears dried. I was taking the tip of the brush with that C p a color into any of the areas that I need really dark. If you look at the picture that's mostly center portion, that's really cast in shadow all the way up until the tip there and then down the other edge as well. I'm just making sure that the Sienna still seeps through so that we don't lose any of the warmth, but that we create enough depth and contrast to make the picture. So I'm just going through the entire portion of the ear all the way down to the very tip there, just taking it along and then letting that dry while I work on the other eras. Well, so just move more of that. See Peotone painting in the shadow. And I'm working in a little bit of ah, wiggling motion here just to create a little bit of that, um, texture from the for because what we're actually painting is a shadow, right? So we're painting negatively around the highlight of the hairs of the edge of the year and to create a little bit of that fluffy texture, it's best just to wiggle your brush and create little strokes so that you get a little bit of detail in texture, and I'll just give it a little bit more of a fluffy look. Um, and here I'm just washing my brush now because I applied quite a bit of pigment down there . So I'm going to be spreading of the paint all the way up to phase it out so that, you know, you get a nice, smooth transition there. Um, I quite often do this where I apply pigment at the edge of something and then spread that pigment out to fade it and to smoothly transition from an area of dark to an area of light . So that's what I'm doing here. I'm just looking at the picture and blending it out and down and sparing that highlight that is being created by those pale, fluffy hairs that you can see in the picture and then just go in with a bit more water to blend that out.
14. Evaluating progress, building shadows and adding detail: So I've let that dry overnight, and I was like to take a step back and evaluate what's happening. Um, once a painting has dried to see what I still want to work on. So that's what I'm doing here. Now I want to improve some of the details around the eye. Um, the forelock obviously still needs painting. I want to improve the shadow and this around the cheek, the chest. And I want to include a little more dimension and shape to the body. So that's mostly what we'll be working on in the coming lessons here. You can see that I'm just re wetting my paints. So I'm just dropping in water clean water onto every well to reactivate thumb. Um, because obviously, if you leave them to set overnight, they'll dry. Andi, I'll be starting off with the shadow here, some just wetting it again just with clean water. And I really want to amp up the saturation. I want this to be quite dark. Um, so I'm taking that all the way up until the engine up the ear there before I switch over to my small brush and I go in with more of that imperial purple to build up the color and depths, and I'll be dropping this in quite heavily, and then also, I'm spacing it out to create more of that muffled effect from the for. So you'll see that I'm using a very small brush relative to the size of the area that we're working in so that I get more of that textured effect so that the paint doesn't blend too much with the other colors that also be adding in a moment. I'm just improving the edge there and just taking that pigment right up until the very edge that we've painted so far loading up more of it. And I'm just using enough water to wet the brush and pick up pigment. I'm really not introducing a lot of water at this point, So that is also why the pigment is not traveling very far on the paper, and I'm able to exert a lot of control about where it stays. So I'm really just amping up that the line and that shadow underneath the forelock to create a bit more of, um, a starker contrast between the for and the shadow. And here you can see now I'm kind of spreading it out here and there, making sure to leave some gaps for that model looking effect and also stretching it up a little further along the line off the ear there and improving your shape of that chatter just a little bit going in with more paint, creating that shadow, being cast by the ear there so you can see that really made the actual ear pop and come forward off the paper and then going in with some. See Piotre, just increase the depth here and there where I think I need it. So that's around the edge there of the ear, that very dark little triangular shadow underneath the forelock and some of those folds that, um, you can see in the picture just where the year is meeting the head. So at this point in time, I'm picking up a little bit of blue. This is the ultra marine color, and I'm going to be adding a few dashes of that to the shadow up here just to make a little more interesting and to cool it down a little bit more. And I particularly love the interplay of ultra marine blue with E Sienna because they're very contrast in color. So they really do, um, look very colorful together, they're very complimentary. And I'm just going in with a little more Sienna here and there in the gaps to up the brown and also to kind of Mary, some of thes patches of color in the shadow. And then I'm just planning that out with some water again, just with the little brush, because it gives me control. And then I can go in with more of the purple. Just add a few more dabs of that where the shadows quite dark again for those folds as well . They keep fading on me. So I keep coming back in with more paint, and then you just build it up in this way. And obviously it's your personal preference. You know, you could keep the shadow less colorful. You could use just the purple just blue. Um, I I'm always a fan of things that look bright and colorful. That's my style. But obviously you're free to choose to what extent you want to incorporate that style in your own painting. Hey, I'm just taking more of the CP along the edge and under the forelock again and again into that little triangular shadow, and I'm always just looking at are the darkest areas also darkest in my painting? So are the darkest shadows that I seen the picture around the ear. Also, the darkest areas in the painting, yes or no and if not trying to just accordingly. And then that way you remain true to the shape and the nature of your subject, because then the colors air and the value of the color is in relationship in a harmonious relationship. If you look at the picture, um, at this point in time now I'm just going to improve the era's well, so I'm just going to be taking more paint up that side of the year. So I'm just wetting it with clean water. And then I'll go in with a small brush and more of these dark colors to build up a little bit of that shadow, but travels up the ear and you can see it's fairly which, so the pigment is spreading out easily, and I'm just spreading it out a little even more just with my brush there and by using the same colors and all of these shadowy areas. So the blue, the purple C, p A. We keep it harmonious. And even though we're using quite a bit of color, it does not really start to look to comical, which is something that you know. I like to live on the edge, but I don't want my subjects to look as though I have turned them into cartoons. There. You can see I'm reworking that edge of the year just to make sure that it pops against the forelock in the back there and then also adjusting the depth of the color on the side of the air there, where the fur's kind of cast in shadow and connecting the shadow there. And with more CPN now adding more depth to that edge over there, I'm just building up the depth of color by pushing CP all along the edge where that here folds and comes up, and I'm taking it all the way around the tip of the year there as well. And like I've been saying before, this also just helps the subject to come forwards off of the white background and then, with more of that sienna color, I'm going through the middle of the year to keep it nice and vibrant and red, and to blend along that inner edge over there that just makes contact with the four look. I'm washing my brush and picking up more paint and also take that along the other year. So again along the edges, building up that color and making sure that I include a few Mark Sofer Mark's that give texture to the year, that kind of hint at the fact that it's a fluffy for a year. Rev. Oven paintings move lines the king more water along that edge there to build the shadow underneath the four look. So it's just not quite dark enough yet. So I switch over to my small brush, and then I can take more pigment along the edge to build a shadow, and then I can go back in with more water on the side of the face there, where I also need to introduce more contrast. So there I am, just taking that same dark color all along the edge and underneath the forelock on the side of the face there. We're just making sure that I go exactly over the previous line that I made. So I'm respecting all of the little jagged marks that I created to introduce that for texture, just overlapping all of that with the C P. A color too introduced more contrast. And also because the site of the faces and shadow so it should naturally be a little darker than the remainder of the face that's facing us. I'm just taking a little more Sienna to blend that all up without diluting the depths of color. So rather than blending just with a damp rush, going and blend with some of our reddish brown so that we maintain saturation and so that the entire area is just a little darker than it was before, Um, this is again what I mean when I say that you adjust the value as you go to try to harmonize the shadows right, and I'll be doing the same thing here at the bottom of the cheek. So just on a damp area with a little brush, I'm taking more of that sienna, also along the white patch to create some texture for the for just taking that all along the edge and adding more pigment where I think the shadow needs to be dark in here. You can see that my papers damp, but not something. What? So I'm really zoomed in here, and you can just see that the pigment moves around and kind of blend itself without, um without the pain shooting across the page too far. So again, this is damp but not wet Orwell damp, but not something. What? And with more pigment, I'm just building up shape and shadow, and I'm taking that up higher and further down. Now I'm going in with Scipio. So the area still dump taking CP along the very edge there and also along the edge of that white little mark again, This will help define it more and have it stand out more because we increase in contrast. And here just washed my brush. And I'm using a clean brush to now blend that sepia tone upwards so that it's more of a smooth transition. And so the majority of the pigment is really concentrated on the very edge of that cheek, the very line that defines the bottom of the cheek and that separates that from the remainder of the body behind the face of the horse. So here of switch back to the month brush and I can just go in with more water through what the remainder of the face so that I can introduce some more of the structure off the cheekbones and the other, um, highlights and shadows in the face that give it shape and dimension. I'm just taking the Sienna where I think I needed to kind of shape that cheek. So at the top here. So we're going to leave most of the center of the cheek pale as a highlight, but towards the top there and then also was sepia here and there. I'm introducing some shadow, just kind of moving it around over the wit paper where I think I need to build more shadow and just add more interest in shape. You can see that this was fairly watery. CPS. I've taken it from the bottom of the well, and I'm just gently pushing it where I still need to introduce some shape. And I've switched back to the Sienna for more of that red tone, and I'm doing the exact same with the Sienna, just blending it down towards the nose. No creating some of those shadows in the structure of the face there and also revisiting this patch up here. So that area there is dry, which means I have a lot of control about placing that shadow there. Where's the area down there that I'm connecting it to now is wet You consumed was kind of encouraging a bit of blending before taking more CP along the edge of the bottom of the face. There again, we're just increasing the contrast and then going up the side of the cheek and down those areas where you can see the shadows in the face just to define it. And because areas what I'm not fussing too much with it. I'm trying not to at least just letting the paper in the water blend out the mark. Um, but I am working fairly watery so that the marks aren't your strong because I just want soft shadows
15. Further shading of the nose and face: we'll continue on the lower half of the face and the nose then. So here I'm just waiting the area again. I've let it dry completely, Um, after the end of the previous lesson. So I'm just going to be taking more sepia watery CP along the edge here. If you look at the picture, um, she's got quite a interesting mark here where her faces kind of cast in shadow. Partially So this paler patches, you know, in direct sunlight. And I'm trying to just kind of introduced the shadow there. And I'm keeping everything quite watery and soft, but making sure that the edges well defined on just taking the paint along the pencil marks that we've already got to create a nice, sharp edge where earthy shadows start and end. And then I'm just going to be taking a little bit of the blue tone and then also the sepia tone to add more interest to the shadow and to also stencil in a few of those little quite marks not going to be painting every single white mark that she has, but to give it character and to capture some of that texture around her nose I'll just be painting in a few along with that one large rain. I'm just marking that in with watery three. I'm just going around a couple of thes round shapes. Do you see on her nose just to maps, um, into place and will be blending out the edges in a bit. Here. I'm just extending up the gray for that vein that, you see, I really just taking my time. And because we're working wet on dry, should you make a mark that you don't like, you can easily remove it by just patting the area with a tissue. It'll just lift the dump paint right off. So if you make a mark that you don't like immediately lifted, let the area dry and then try again. Don't do this on damp paper because you won't have enough control chickens here. I just went in with a clean brush Now to blend some of the marks that I made. Just help Faith, Um, a little bit. No. What's a pushing more if that sienna along the edge while I'm here just to build up the saturation of the color even more. And I'm also going to reap lending that down into that area over there so that it's not as gray before. I can continue down here. So if what? This area? And I'm just dropping in transparent Sienna and much like before, I'm just letting the wet paper through the blending for me, and I'm just concentrating on the edge of that vein, and it'll look a little stark right now, but we'll be softening and out in a bit. So don't worry about that. Um, just pushing the pigment over that area and also connecting it. Don't here with a little bit of C p A. And then I've just washed the brush to blend that again, blend to that edge there and also blend some of that sienna over the marks that we made. And over the veined, too. Tone it down a little bit before going in with more gray building up the edge of that shadow and dropping in some grey here and there to increase the depths and add a little bit of texture. Well, I'm done here. I'm also working on the shadow there. That's just another one of those cast shadows at the bottom of the face, and I can also darken up the lip with more of that great tone. So I'm working at it along the edge and then also building the depth of color in the nostril, which needs to be much darker. If you look at the picture, you can see how dark really the nostril and the bottom lip is, and that is what we should also aim to recreate here. So I'm just layering on a quite thick layer of the dark bluish gray, adding more pigment down here and then adjusting the shape of the shadow and the depth of the shadow down there. And then it just washed my brush to blend that out a little bit so that we don't have any harsh edges building up the tips of the nose here, just with some c p. A. I was getting a little too blue, so I made the switch. And then I'm also just going to be wetting this area again with clean water so it's dry. At this point, it's just being re wet. And then I'm going in with more of that sienna color to build up some of that texture and saturation, and I'm dabbing it mostly along the edges to create that modeled looking effect towards the center of the shape again. So I'm just letting the water do that for me. Taking around some of those white marks and the edge of the nostril there and then don't here is well, making sure to spare a bit of a highlight on the very edge between the grey and the sienna . Appear, I decided, you know, it was just a little too blue. So I'm blending in more the sienna color up towards the top of the nose there. And then I'm having a look whether anything needs more blending. So here I decided I wanted to soften this area a little bit and also bring that shadow of the nostril up to give the nostril more shape. Looking the picture, you can see there's a little bit of a shadow because the nostrils around it and lifting off of the face. So that's what I'm working on here. Also, just with the small detail brush and sepia, I find that CP has a really nice neutral tone for these shadows. If you I don't wish to introduce any particular color at all, Um, that's a very bland color, I would argue, but, um, it does work well for this kind of purpose. I just make sure not to use too much of it because I don't want the painting to start to look dull. I'm now revisiting the bottom edge of the brown patch on the face, and I'm going to be flicking in little hair marks. So I'm just using the detail brush, creating little strokes, overlapping the white patch at the bottom of the face there. And this will just add texture and realism to the painting and just creates more interest for the viewer. Um, and the best way to do that is to make sure that the edge there of that patch is nice and dark, and to then drag out little hair marks with the same depth of color. So you want that to be quite dark, you can see that I'm painting it in darker than what you see in the picture. Just because I find this is an easier way to make the effect work for me without having it look too messy here. I'm just creating more of those little furry, fluffy marks and, um, less is more with us, so don't overdo it. You can see I stopped there and I'm quite happy with e effect there. I'm going to be rewatching the face now, taking my detail brush along the edge again using Sienna. I'm just going over some of those marks again because I wanted more of thumb and I wanted them to be a little more pronounced so making them a little larger and also working on that shadow there, where you can still see the pencil mark peeking through. At this point, I switch brushes because I just needed more pigment, and I was getting a little tired of my tiny little burst show. I was using the point of the mop brush here to drop in pigment, where I need more shadow and, as you can see, the papers damp so it'll blend the colors for me, not futzing with it too much. Or at least I'm trying not to. I'm just dabbing color into place where I needed, also, partially because the pencil mark would otherwise pretty visible. But if you have a look at the picture, actually their shadows are fairly dark, so overall I just needed to adjust the depth of color. And here you can see I'm extending the water down. It's damp, but not stopping what? And in that way, the shadow down there gets to blend as the pigment bleeds down and in the meantime, I can build up depth of color around the eye again. So I still wasn't happy with that. And as you can see, I'm going around the painting area by area, letting certain areas dry while I work on others, just making small adjustments, right? So these steps will not drastically change the appearance of the painting anymore. But they will greatly improve the, um, overall effect and the three dimensional nature of the subject that you're painting Cam dropping in some of that gray for more shadow. That is that central shadow in the face that I have not yet painted at all. And I'm also just adding more depth again to that long shadow that we previously only really painted in. Brown and I can go back and add a little more brown here toe warm up some areas because that bluish gray is really a very cool toned gray. So should it ever start to look to blue. You can always warm it up with sienna and with a wet, clean brush, I'm just going to be blending about a little bit. So this is where we're at now. I'm pretty happy with the, um, painting so far, you can see the adjustments we've made, and you can also see that I've let everything dry, so the next step would be to be painting the forelock.
16. Painting the forelock: to paint the forelock. I'll first start with Sienna. So I'm really working my little brush and drew the water and then the paint with my little detail brush. I'm here to be wetting it and then really working it into the pigment. I'm showing you this so that you understand that this takes actually sometime. Um and I'm really very specific about how much paint I pick up for what? So for the forelock, what I'll be doing is dragging in some of the shadows that you can see in the picture. So I'm basically painting the darker areas that surround the highlights of the hair. So this is something that we call negative painting or painting around your highlight, meaning that you actually are painting around the thing you are trying to visualize A represent right. We're trying to represent here, and I'm painting the shadows that are being cast by the hair and that are in between the hairs. So this is the tricky thing with watercolor, right? We cont, um, go back the way that we can with oils or acrylics and add in highlights and whites. We have to paint around her highlights or papers or highlight. Um, there are some ways to cheat this, for example, with white ink, and I will also be finishing this painting off with a bit of whiting. But for the purposes of the majority of the hair, I'm just looking at the picture and then one by one painting in these little shadows that are being cast by the hair. So I'm starting at the tip at the top there, with the ear. It's kind of making sure that I get the direction right. And then, roughly in the middle, here is a long, dark shadow. So I'm just dragging that in and appears well. I'm just looking at the picture and painting in the dark areas so you can see me hesitate a lot because I'm looking back and forth between the painting and the photograph, and I'm adjusting as I go, dragging this shadow out because there's a tuft of hair kind of overlapping this portion. Here I was picking up more pigment, dragging the shadow down and extending that all the way out here. I'm now connecting a couple of these shapes because the overall area, but there's just dark and then I can continue any other major league dark areas, and you can see that I'm sometimes a little hesitant, and sometimes I pick up paint that's quite pale just because I'm not 100% certain about the placement of the shadow. So if you're struggling with this, do you know one layer of very pale and watery paint and then go over that with richer pigment? Once you've figured out the placement a little more, I was happy at this point with the shadow placement. So I'm just dragging in individual flicks of pain for a little bit of that hair like texture. And then I'm going in with more pigment, really loading up the brush, this time, picking up more color to then also work on this area back here. And you can see I just placed in that highlight. So I'm gonna be painting around that little round shaped on there because of the highlight in the picture. I'm just filling out the area that's dark stamping on more pigment because that area is what it'll also spread for me, and I don't have to do too much with it, taking it up the edge and around the side, connecting that shadowy shape and then dragging in some hair like marks where I think the shadow should go. And I'll also be taking along the very edge to help lift the hair off of the white background. Just dragging in. Some here marks connecting that shadow up into those marks and blending it a little on the edge there, making sure that the very first hair that you see making contact with the white background is fairly dark. And I can go back onto the other side, which is dried by now. And I could just increase the depth of color where I think it's necessary. So I've picked up more pigment and was going to be going over the areas that need to be darker. I'm not creating any new shapes here. I'm just going over areas that need to increase in value. I'm also flicking out the edge for more texture, more individual little hair marks, darkening up the bottom portion there. And while this area still which I'm dropping in CPN L to create that darker shadow because the area still damp, it'll kind of yeah, blend that for me again on the number to be taking the liner brush to drag some of those sepia tones through and up to create those darker shadows in between the individual hairs. I'm just dragging the point of the long brush over the paper, and this will create nice, long, smooth marks. So this is why I I I would argue that a liner brush is essential for this. You can get away with using something like that nova detail brush. But I must say that I find it much easier to create this effect with a liner brush. Um, and I would argue to invest in this particular Siri's over other, um, cheaper options. I think one of thes will do you better than three different sizes off. For example, the Novo liner brush is I think these ones are far superior for the creation of thes hair like marks, because the texture or I should say, the, um, nature of the fiber is just springer and smoother. I'm going to be doing the same thing here now, So I'm just taking sepia where I think I need to darker shadows, and I'm going to be just dragging that as thinly as I can to create and build the shadows between the individual hairs and note that I'm holding my brush really far down on the actual Farrell, the metal portion that's holding the bristles together because this gives me the most control. So whereas we were working quite loose earlier in the painting process, holding our brushes far back and letting you know the water on the paper to most of the work for us here we do actually have to exert a fair bit of control. At this point, I'm switching over back into a larger brush run brush, and I'm going to be shading in some of the areas that just overall need to be darker. So I'm going to be carving out a couple of shadows touch. I just want to, um, sent backwards and to tone down the contrast in between the, um, marks that we made. So this will smooth out the hair. It'll add color to the hair, and it'll also add a little bit more shape because we're essentially shading portions of their. It's under spreading a little bit of that brown all over. This was the transparency and of course, and I'm just moving that wherever I see tonal shifts in the picture. So again we're painting around. The highlights were sparing the highlights. So whichever areas you see is the lightest on Payless, and the picture should also remain lightest on pay list in your painting. And I'm just going around with the pain, keeping it very smooth and blended, but working on the shading of the shape of the four look. And I'll do the same over here as well. So with a thin coat of transparency. And I'm just going over most of the back portion of the forelock here, marrying some of those marks, reducing the contrast between some of them and introducing more shape. Then I can also go back with my liner brush if I need. You reintroduce a little bit of texture at the end there. That's what I'm doing now, flicking out a couple of earmarks, adding more depth to a couple of the shadows down there and along the bottom among the top there and towards the center as well. And again, if you don't like any of thes, you can easily lift Um, but just patting the painting with a tissue or kitchen tell, Don't rub it. It don't wipe it. It just patted. And most of the pigment should lift right off, depending on, of course, how long it's been sitting for. So do lift as quickly as you can if you need to. Just blending that again. It's a bit of water, introducing more CPS to that shadow. Just connecting some of those shadows again, just improving some of those fine little individual hairs. So I'm pretty happy with the forelock for now, and I'll leave it to dry before we begin the next lesson. All right, so we're almost finished. And this, um, lesson will just be adding a few final touches to the I. So you notice that there are quite a few white spots still visible because I'm I often tend to leave these details to the very end, just to be able to put them in perspective to the remainder of the painting so and to keep them in relation to the depth and the shadows that are around the eye and the remainder of the horse. So here I'm just taking the liner brush to thin out that white shape. So if you look at the picture, the white kind of highlight that runs around the eye is fairly thin. I'm just thinning out what I've got here. I'm usually CPU to do this. So I'm not looking to introduce color. I'm just working on the depth of color. So the value of the marks that we have meaning how dark they are, and I'm adjusting the shape there because it was just a little too rounded. I am adding value to that first fold of the eyelid. And I'm also doing that down here and up that shadow towards the outer edge of the I and the shadow just underneath and normal. It's just going over these areas that need to be dark and cool toned. So shadow tends to be cool tone. This is something that that Blue Grey is very useful for because it does cool down just about anything, including such a warm brown, Um, and I'll be using that also, just a carve out a couple of thes shapes a little more just because I find that the cool shadow looks a little more natural in terms of creating sunken in areas or shapes that, um, occur through the folding of skin and hair. So here I'm just placing it where I see fit underneath the eye, down to that shadow and up towards the temple. It was really an interest of, you know, process where you look at the picture. You look at where you're at and you keep going until you're happy with the placement and value. So here I've given the brush awash. I've picked up just a tiny bit of water, and I'm blending all of these areas that we just place down. So again we're working wet on dry meaning that if you do need to lift something, you can using, for example, a tissue or kitchen tell. And in this way we have a lot of control. It does mean, however, that the marks were creating could dry fairly quickly. So if you're unhappy was something, just make sure to pat it with tissue immediately lifted as soon as you can else. Your chance if it's staining, is pretty high, especially in an area where you've already applied a lot of paint. So here we have probably five or six layers of paint at the moment. So if I play more paint to an area that is already covered in a fair bit of pigment. It will stick and cling, and it will be tougher to lift, especially if you work with something dark, like CPS and gray. Nonetheless, it is possible, so just keep an eye on what you're doing and react immediately if you're unhappy. I've picked up some more sienna to build up a couple of the shadows and also the color, or I should say saturation of the area around the eye. So I just wanted to be more eye catching to be brighter so that the viewer is very much drawn to the I when looking at the painting. So I've just place the color down and I'm blending around it just with a bit of water, and I'm also taking the water down here underneath the eye. There's going in with a small amount of brown to tone down, Um, a few of these highlights there, just a little too large storm shrinking them down, taking pigment down the side of the eye here, down into that shadow. And then I'm going to be revisiting their shadow at the center of the side of the face there because dried, lighter and paler than what I wanted it to be. I'm just doing this with a little bit of the Sienna just placing it in and then blending around that with some water. I also just be working one last time on the edge here of the blaze. So I've wet it again and was taking CP along the edge there, building up the contrast. So, as you can see with watercolor, you do sometimes just have to layer it until you're happy with the results of this is probably the 10th layer of paint going on the edge of that blaze where the ginger for meets the white for and that's just how it is. But it does allow you to work intuitively and to, um, creation, build shadow in depth in stages so that you're able to evaluate where you're at, look at the picture again and continue making adjustments until you're happy. So if we zoom out, this is where we're at now.
17. Finishing touches & concluding remarks: one of their final adjustments I want to make is on the neck here, So I'm just waiting for the area and I want to improve the U shadow and the depth of shadow around the cheek side here. So I'm just taking the liner brush and really stamping on see Pia among the edge, and I'm wiggling the brush to create some for marks to break up with a smooth line that we created to begin with. So this just adds texture and interest to the side of the face and highlights effect that again it's for It's not a smooth line taking that all along the edge. I'm using really pigmented paint. So I picked up a lot of pigment to do this with, and now I'm going to be dropping in quite a bit of C p A two up the depth of the shadow. So I really wanted to boost it so that it would match the depth of the shadow that we created underneath where the year, um, cast a shadow above the I. So I'm just really, really placing down CPM and you can, depending on how colorful you've made your shadows, you could drop in more blue and more purple as you see fit. I'm mostly sticking to CP here because I like the, um, saturation of color I just needed, um, I needed more depth and definition here, and I'm making sure to do it in patches because that will help create that modeled look, the texture that also just let's the view or know that the horse is not completely smooth there bumps and lumps, and this just adds character and realism to the painting. Just switch to interest, like in Dr Brush to blend that a little bit. So next I've let the painting dry completely overnight because I will now be going in with the white ink by Winsor Newton for some white highlights and white details, and I'll be using both my smallest detail brush as well as a very slim little liner brush. To apply that with and all that we're going to be doing is dropping in a few highlights by taking our brush through the cap of think to pick up a small amount of ink, and the first thing I'll be doing is adding a few white highlights to the forelock. So these are thin white lines that will catch the light and just give more dimension realism to the hair. So I'm just dragging a few here and there where I see them in the picture and less is more here. So don't go overboard with think. I think, um, the ink is just something to add, you know, a final flourish to the painting. It should not, um, you should not lean on it to create shape or two. Um, adjust what you've done before. What I am going to be doing is something that I've also done in one of my previous classes , namely the black and white cat that I painted. I will be taking it along these edges here, creating little strokes of hair to make it appear as though, um, the white of the white hair or the white for I should say, is overlapping with the ginger for so this just creates more realism and creates more of that illusion of short for so here in the close up, you can see what I mean. I'm literally just taking it along the edge with my liner brush and adding texture to that divide between the two colors um you can also do this with, for example, white wash or something like Chinese white that you can buy. Um, comes with some water color sets. I do, however, find that the white ink is much, um, thicker and better edge covering other pains in an opaque way. So I prefer using the ink. But if all you have is quash, you can actually also use that. I would argue to try to thin it as little as possible. So use as little water as possible for you to achieve a smooth little hair like stroke. And you may have to, for example, layered up a few times. I also sometimes layer up this ink, but I find that I have to layer far less than I do with other products that are similar. I'm just creating strokes here and there and then also be adding in whiskers. So I've painted a couple already, but I'm going to be dropping in more here now. Um, I'm just dragging the ink down, and I'm making sure that I keep my eye on the picture so that I get the direction and length of the whiskers roughly, uh, accurate. That is roughly accurate and representative. So I'm just dragging the brush with e ink to create hair like marks. Um, and I find that it's much easier when you drag it towards you. Then it would be if you were to drag it away from you. So do position yourself around your desk or table or whatever you're painting on so that you can drag the brush in your direction, taking my time down here, making thin little hair like marks wherever I see whiskers in the picture motor running it along the nostril for the highlight there because I found that I've just washed over that a little too much with paint. And then I'm just dragging down another whisker from the top there, and another one there and there have just gone back into the cap to pick up more ink. And then I'll just drag down another whisker, and I keep going until I'm happy and again less is more. And it's also a little bit of question of personal preference as to how many of these details you wish to add here. You can see from another angle how I'm adding more texture to the edge of E bullies. So I'm just dragging in little for remarks with the white ink. And it's OK that it's not fully opaque, because if you look at the picture, you can actually see how the meddling off the two FERS creates a somewhat gray, um, edge. And that's quite natural. So I'm not going to be bothering with going over these little marks multiple times. I'm quite happy that it's not fully opaque here. If you were toe wanted to be opaque, you would have to layer it up, meaning that you would have to apply it, let it dry and go over it again. I'm not playing another layer of highlight down there for that edge of the nostril wherever he applied one layer. So I've doubled it up now to keep it nice to know, Pick and then also here around the other edge of the nostril to help build that rounded shape, taking it along the top of the other nostril. And then I'll be going back up here for a few little flicks of white hair, that kind of peak out and over the ginger of Thea, other side of the face that we can't quite see, I'm just going down the entire length of the face and also be adding in this little highlight read on top of the ear there, which I think is actually a little patch of white for that's then also catching the light. That's why that's quite bright, adding a few highlights where the forelock they're just caught the sun and a couple of highlights on top of the I. So this is where we're at now. At this point in time, I'm cheating a little bit by using a fine liner just for a few final touches. You could also do this with black watercolor, but I find actually that for a painting, the size of fine liner can be a little more convenient. So I'm just going to be taking it through the very darkest spots where I want to introduced just a little more contrast in the hair, sometimes creating a few strokes. And I've looked the ink dry completely before I'm doing this, just adding a few strokes here and there, where the shadow really does appear black in the picture, and these small touches can really help bring everything together and again to just increase the contrast. I'm just taking it along, looking at the picture and deciding where I think a little more contrast is valuable. For example, here on the edge off the, um side of the face with a blaze there, I just wanted a little more definition, and I'm also going to be taking it through the fools of the year here, just a make those pop a little more because they're very dark. And then I'll also be taken just through the creases around the eye. So that one there and the one underneath it before I go in with just a little more paint, just a just some of the depth around the eye again, because I've left some of the highlights a little too large. So I'm just decreasing the size of highlights by painting around it with more of the transparency. Enough just pulling that up further to give the I'm more of a rounded shape and to create more of that three dimensional illusion interest with a little more pigment, even go around the inter portion again, overlapping the shadow here, taking the shadow down a little further and also taking the shadow around the eye down a little further. So this was just framing the I. And again, I'm doing my very best to frame the I in a way such that the viewer is drawn towards the eye of the horse when they look at the painting. This is just a bit more of a shadow, where the four law kids that I connect down and then blend with water here I'm just taking the tiny is. But if CPS to connect with the fools up, just a shadow of the little creases around the eye, taking that shadow around that I a pyre because I just left the highlight too broad and again just building the depth up there near the temple until I'm happy. I've let it dry, and I've switched over to thief fine liner again to add some of the eyelashes that you see on the I. That's just out of vision. So I'm just flicking out some marks to create little hairs to hint at the eyelashes. I was like to exaggerate these a little bit because I find that they create lovely soft character and expression, but that's obviously your own choice. At this point, I'm also switching to my white gel pen just to improved the highlight of the island. You could also do this with the white ink. I just find that the pen gives a little more control. We're just pushing it along the island. So that little line of highlight just to brighten it up. And then I'm also going to be flicking it to create a few of those eyelash marks that you see highlighted in the picture where they just catch the sun. So it's a little hard to see here, but I'm just flicking at the way that I did the fine liner, and that just lets me create a couple of little hair like strokes that just finish off the I nicely. I'm doing the same on the other I as well. I'll also be adding a few little whiskers around the eye. You have to look at the picture real up close to see them. They're just little long pail hairs that catch the sunlight so they're easiest, just flicked in with a white pen. If you don't have the white pen, just use the white ink with a really fine little brush. Here, I'm improving the texture. There where there's quite a bit of overlap between the white and the ginger. And if we zoom out, that's what we're left with their. And now I'm going to be taking the fine liner to add a few dark whiskers down here. So actually the whiskers are fairly dark, but some of them catch the light, which is why I painted quite a few thumb and wait, because that's just how they appear in the picture. But I'm going to be going around and adding roughly an equal amount of dark, long, fluffy hairs and whiskers to complete the look. So I'm just taking it around and flicking out little hairs wherever I think I need them. I'm just looking at the picture, placing down a hair, looking at the picture, drawing in another one. You can also use a strict clean up any edges that you might have um, left a little messy in your initial pass with paint. So the final and are can sometimes save you a little bit of hassle. Um, I wouldn't rely on it, and if you use too much of it, it can look very comical. So just be careful with it and um, yeah Less is more definitely, but it can help to just add a couple of finishing touches Now. I had previously made a bit of a mistake with the mouth, so if actually just taken the white pen over the mouth to create the highlight, Um, hopefully, obviously, you won't need to do that if you follow the picture accurately. And I'm actually here switching to another white pen. That's a little better just to drag that highlight all the way down so that the highlight is congruent with a picture because I had placed the shadow too, Lo and show my mouth The mouth of the horse was off. Um, but obviously, if you followed the picture correctly, you won't need to do this. I'm just adding the final few whiskers around the other nostril. Well, I'm happy with the level of detail around the area, and it goes without saying, but these little hairs that had a lot of fine detail that adds to the realism off the painting without you having to paint every single individual hair or mark that you see in the photograph. So this is a nice way to cheat a certain amount of realism that isn't really there, but to the viewer, to the I humans always drawn to facial features. So that's the eyes, the nose, the mouth. So the more detailed Do you can make those the more realistic you can have your paintings look without having to paint every single hair and detail that you seen a picture. So now we're almost finished. I'm really happy with E um, painting over all. The last thing that I'm going to be doing is just finishing off the ear. Um, there's a highlight that runs along the ear that I painted over, so I'm going to be taking the white gel pensions to place it back. So if you look at the picture, she has a Finn long highlight running around the edge of the ear here, where the sun was just catching the tip off the ear. And also here, where the hair is being caught in the sunlight. I'm just adding a few little marks to hint at that amount of detail, also, just to help balance the years with e eyes and mouth, so the eyes and mouth currently have a lot of detail in the year for this. And in doing so, we helped balance it, which can also help improve the overall. Um, look off the painting and it keeps everything harmonious and sensible looking in terms of highlights and shadows, meaning that we have a roughly equal amount of highlight and shadow in all of the features of the face of the horse. So there aren't brighter areas in the I vs brighter areas in the ears, for example, and once we're done with that were actually finished. So this brings us to the conclusion of the class. I do hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear your feet back down below when I would absolutely love to also see pictures of your versions off the class project, which obviously is to paint along with me. All of the necessary materials can be found down below. Just make sure you logged in to school share on a computer so that you can access them, and I look forward to reading your reviews and your experiences with the class down below. Um, I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next class, and until then, I wish you all the very best and happy painting
Maura Leusder, Watercolour artist and lover of color
