Relaxing Watercolor Class: Painting a Winter Bullfinch Step by Step

1. Intro: Hi, I'm Anna and I'm so happy you're here. In this class, we're going to paint a bullfinch one of the most recognizable and charming winter birds. Together, we will create a soft expressive watercolor painting without focusing on perfection or tiny details. This class is suitable for beginners, but it also perfect if you already paint with watercolors and simply want a relaxing, mindful project. We will focus on simple shapes, gentle color transitions, and building the painting step by step. Will guide you through the whole process from transferring the sketch to watercolor paper through layering colors to finishing the bird and creating a soft atmospheric background. You don't need perfect supplies or advanced skills. Just take your time, enjoy the process, and allow yourself to paint freely. Grab your watercolors, make yourself comfortable, and let's begin. 2. How to transfer the sketch to papier: This class will start with the ready made sketch. I often get the question from you, how can you or do I do it? How do I transfer the sketch into watercolor Watercolor paper. I usually transfer it through I think it's called purple carbon paper. This is the way I do it because I don't mind the very harsh invisible trace on watercolor paper. So I usually do it like I have watercolor paper. I'll place my carbon purple carbon paper on it, and the sketch, I usually check, especially when the size of the paper is smaller, where it ends if the sketch is placed on the center of the paper, and then I'll use a Tig my micron usually all two or one or all three to trace it. I just drew on top of my sketch. But you need to be cautious not to move your sketch around. Still, I can check if I have everything from this side of drawing and then move on to this left side. Okay, let's see. If I traced everything. I see that I didn't finish this leave, so I will trace the inclines. Let's check once again. I suppose I have all. I'll just remove my sketch and remove the carbon paper and I have my sketch ready on watercolor paper. I know that you cannot raise it with eraser, but I don't mind. I just like the even darker sketches sometimes. I like even to trace them with my fine liner at the end. That's why it doesn't really bother me that this is quite visible. Is that you can't erase. 3. Bird's belly: So high, we will start to paint the bird. But the first part of the bird which we will paint is his belly. As usual, we need to mix some colors for our belly. I will spray the water on my paints. We need just two colors for the belly. The first one will be Ultramarine. This is my Ultramarine and I will mix it in 50 50 ratio, 50% of water and 50% of paint. This is my first color. The second one will be Alizarin plus rose. Alizarin is rather dark red. This is my Alizarin, and this is my rose. Rose is light red. It's like Sherry red, I think. I will mix them together to create just medium blend. I'm sorry at Rose. This is my final mixture. It's something between these two. We will only paint this area perhaps a little bit over here, but mostly this area to the side where the tail starts. I will use number four brush and it's soft brush and I will play some water on my bird. I see that my water is in reddish tone, but that's okay. I will start with this red color and add it in here and make this red flow. Here I will start not from the top, but a little lower and I will add this red to make it flow. The darker shade of red should be in here in the center of the belly. I'll just add more pigment to this part and leave the rest to flow by itself. Then I'll switch to my Ultramarine and I will add it at the bottom of the belly. And also allow it to blend with this red. Once again, I will take my Ultramarine and I will add it to the bottom because this area I want to be the darkest. Here I will just add once again, my Ultramarine. And perhaps I clean my brush and make it dry on paper towel and I will take my red again and I will add it in here because the cheeks I want to be the darkest to have more color and the same here in the center of the belly. I just add more color in this area. Now we need to leave it to dry. It was a very quick step. In the next step, we will move on to the wings. Of course, you can dry it with the hair dryer it to if you have, and we will go back to the wings. We see you in the next video. 4. Wings and tail: Okay, let's mix colors for our wings and also for the head and the tail. Once again, from a ring just like before. I have, but we need the second mixture. In here, I will mix Ultramarine with magenta. This is I usually use magenta from aquarlb from her. Well, it's not readable anymore. So I will just place a drop of this color. It's watercolor, but it has an acryl base. It says here that it's liquid watercolor acrylic base, in my opinion, it's it has more solid base. In this area, I will mix my Ultramarine with this magenta. But if you have some purple color like mineral purple, you can use it. Still, you can use it and it will be okay. I'm picking just a touch of this magenta because it's quite strong color and I'll test I think I need some more and I will test. Let's test. Yes, I need more purple than bluish. I need this violet to be more purple than bluish. That's why I usually test how it looks because it will be transitioned between this color and Ultramarine. That's why we need something in between. We have our two colors done. Let's start with the tail and with the head and then move on to the wings. Remember, this is the first layer, and let's start with the tail and on the tail, perhaps I will take smaller brush because I have a little area in here. This one is too big to paint it. It's easier to take a smaller. This one is number two and I will take this Ultramarine and paint my wing. And that's enough and I will paint with this number four soft brush, the tail, tail, the whole area with this Ultramarine after that, I will clean my brush, make it dry on paper towel, and I will pick my purple mixture and add it to the stop. And two both sides, this one. And I will take the smaller brush and also this purple color. And in the middle where these two like feathers met, I will add this color. Okay, and I will clean my brushes. Into the head I will take. Let's do a bit different. Let's change a little. I will take a smaller number three house because I forget about the beak. I will take Wood from a ring color, add it on a beak, clean my brush, and with the wet brush, move this color around. This is the first layer on the beak and I will leave it to dry. That's why I won't paint my head right now because afraid I'm afraid that the color will bleed on the beak or beak on the head and I want to avoid that. That's why we will move on to the wing. But remember that this bird have white area on the wing. But still, if something moves on the side, you can still um correct it with the guash later on. Don't worry if it happens and with the beak with the tail, I will start with the Ultramarine color and so I will here first layer with ultramarine. Remembering that this side is white. Okay. And in here, clean my brush, make it try and pick the sparple color, add it in here and place a very soft blend over here. With the wet damp brush, let's blend the edge of this color. I will add it slightly like that and still blend with the dump brush. Once again, I see that I thought it was dry now, but this is color. This paper is some cotton. That's why it is still wet. I will add my mixture in here and blend. I see that this area is too light for me. That's why I will pick my ultramarine and this is still wet, so I will add this Ultramarine once again. This part, I will ut. Perhaps I will lend this edge because it is too sharp. This part of the beak should be darker. That's why I will add my purple in here. I see that my tail is already dry. That's why I can do it. Clean my brush, make it dry on paper towel, and I will take my ultramarine and I want to darken. This part. Blend, we have soft edges. Take once again Ultramarine and draw the details. While this is still wet, we can add just a touch of the purple to the top of the side. I think we can move on to the head, but I need to mix more of my ultramarine. The head is quite dark, only the upper part of this bird on the head is a lighter one. The bird looks like it has some cap on its head. I will start with the Ultramarine here. Surround the eye. Make the darkest parts of the beginning. Let's paint it this way. I will take a slightly bigger brush so number four, make it dry and we this dry but wet brush slightly move this blue to the top part of the head. We have a lighter lighter head. If we want here, we can still add a touch of our Ultramarine. Okay. Wings are still wet, but I think we need to make this part a bit darker so we can do it with this one or this one color. It doesn't matter. Perhaps I will take Ultramarine, place this color like that. Make it and with the dump brush, blend it. Blend the edges of this area. It's similar on my previous birds. We can add this mixture with magenta while this is still wet in here. Okay. That's not all when it comes. That's not all when it comes with a bird. We need to add a second player on the wings. We need to finish our eye and our big. We will do that in the next video. 5. Bird second layer: Okay. Let's add the rest details to our bird and I forgot that we also need to paint his feet. We will do that in a minute. But first, let's start with the smallest details. The big. I'll still have ultramarine the rest of my ultramarine here. I'll take number three and this is more stiff brush. I will take this one or this color, it doesn't really matter, and I will draw a single line in the middle of the big perhaps it's too dry. I will draw this in my brush, make it dry on paper towel and with this dump brush, let's blend it a little. My big. Also, let's do the eye and for that, I will take black you can pick two colors black or pains gray, it's up to you, but I will use black mostly because I usually don't use black. This is still my first cube of black and this is a second and third of pains gray and I want to just reuse this black. That's why I mainly use it for eyes. I will pick it straight from the pan because I want it to be very thick. I only check with my brush on the scrap paper if I can paint a very thick and solid lines with it. Let's draw our I I know that I painted on this white, but still, I will make it white again with gouache later on, so it doesn't really matter. It's not a very big thing if it happens. When it comes to the feet, I will definitely use um Potter spink. This is my color just like with the eye, I will use it straight from my pen because I want this color to be rather thick and solid. With my potters pink and with a small brush, let's paint this feet feed spirits are not something I like to paint. Okay. Okay. They usually look quite strange to me. I also need to add more details on my wings, but for that, I will only use one color and it will be alizarin. That's why I will mix it once again here, and I want this color to be rather thick, so I will just check. Because I want to paint straight lines with a smaller brush, and I will take this one, which is stiffer and with a stiff brush, I can paint thinner lines. You can take if you have, for example, liner brush, you can use it. It's a perfect place to use. It's a perfect place to use liner brush. And let's paint the details. Okay. And I will switch to number four and soft brush. And I would like to make this part a little darker. That's why I will take my ramarne place it in here and with a d brush blend it. Okay. That's quite fine. I think that's all when it comes to the bird and watercolors, we will add some details later on with the white guash. In the next step, we will move on to the branch and to the background as a last step, we will add some white details to our work. See you then. 6. Bird details: Okay, so we will do a second layer on bird's head, and this will be just slightly changing the color of the bird's head. So we need a darker shade of blue. That's why I will use ultramarine once again. Ultramarine and to make it darker, I will add paints gray to it. I think I will make more of this mixture. I will add ultramarine once again and once again, paints gray. This mixture is in 50, 50% ratio, 50% water, 50% paint. I will take soft four and I will lay slightly darker in here, a layer. And with the dump brush, let's dilute the edges. I will take stiffer brush number three, it's smaller and stiffer and I will once again, add a touch of this mixture in here and here under the branch I will blend the edges in here. I only want this part to be armor in shadow and let's do similar thing in here we will create this shadow effect, illusion of shadow. I will place my paint, clean my brush, and with the de brush blend this color with the rest. I think I will also do the same trick in here, I will place my color. Clean my brush, and with the stump brush. Blend the edges. Perhaps I will add few lines on the wings to make it more interesting because we will have the illusion of different shades in here. Also with the same color, let's draw very thin line on the beak Something like that, and perhaps I will blend it slightly, with the very almost dry brush, I blend it, and let's darken the area here and under the beak and let's blend the edges. That's fine. This is all for the bird. In the next step, we will do the first layer on the background. See you then. 7. Background: Okay, for the background, we need a few colors. Colors for berries. I usually use two shades for berries, and one is just like always. If you watched my previous class, I used Alizarin and I usually use Alizarin and rose color for my berries. This is Alizarin. And I mix them in 30% more water, less paint. I need them to be watery to flow between shades. This is my first color. The second is rose. So Rose looks like that. We also need SNA light and I need it quite much. That's why I will spray water onto my mixing palette and then I will use my SNA light. This is my SNA light. I think I need more. That's why I will spray once more and I will also add the water to my ultramarine and magenta mixture because we will need it once again. We will need a purple or violet color. This is sienna light and I need to mix once again Alizarin once again ultramarine. And magenta. Check. Perhaps I will add more magenta to create more reddish tone than bluish. So this looks like color. If you have a mole or this purple in your palette, you can use it. For example, if you have mineral pink or violet, it would be also a good choice. I forget about one color. We also need a color for the branches and I will use Potter spink. I will use potter spink for that. These branches will be blur in the background, so we don't need much and it's not necessary to add these branches. If you don't have this color, you don't have to use it. You don't have to paint these branches. Right now, we need to change our water. I will go and change and I will come back. We will be painting wet on wet on the stage. We need to water our background with water. We need to water our background and to make it faster, I will use a spray bottle and I will slightly spray on some parts. I will use bigger brush. All my background. You don't have to water this area where the branches. Only around the bird. Around the bird. The harder is here where we have tail. We will start from the darkest color which we have and this will be the purple shade because we need it to flow from the bird like the bird is some casting the color to the background. Let's pick our purple and let's add it in here and make it flow and the same in here. Wow, how beautifully it flows. Then let's pick color for the berries. I will one or the second one, so the lighter one. I even forgot to switch my brush to mop one because I just love painting with mop backgrounds. I will say senate and I will add it in places between the rest of the colors. Okay. I'm trying to do it fast because my paper is drying. I see that I forgot to add the red colour in here and I will add rose because it's lighter and I don't want this very dark, perhaps maybe I will add just the toys. Yes I'm trying to pick my water from here because I don't want the water to create this edge. Still, I will use my purple and add it like dots in a few places. Let's switch to the smaller brush. I will pick my I will pick my number two and I will say or spin. For example, but it's not necessary. I see that a lot of is going on here, so it's not necessarily the step. I did it in here over here and over here and over here, but I didn't do it in my first work. It's up to you if you want to add it. Suppose I will add something in here. This will create the illusion of branches in the far distance of our bird. It's not necessary should be visible. I just love how these colors flow flows into each other. So I only in this stage, while this is still wet, I see that I didn't paint this area in this area and here. I'm trying to correct it. Here I will place my sienna light because it's the nearest color which is in here, and here perhaps I will take a mixture of ultramarine and the same here. Again, I see on a light and I will correct the places near the legs of my bird. And we need to make it dry. You can dry it with the hair dryer or you can leave it and paint the next step tomorrow just as you wish. The next step, we will add the branches and the berries and some details like this white around the eye and make this white more solid. This will be our last day. 8. Details: Okay, my background is dry now. So we need to finish the details. So just like before, we will use the same colors. So for the berries, we will mix Alizarin and rose. I will use the same colors which I have in here. I will only add more pigment because now I need the colors to be more solid and less translucent. That's why I will add more pigment to my colors. This is Alizarin and the same with the rose. I will add pigment for the rose. I also need two browns for my branches. Let's use the potters pink like we did before. The first one will be potter spink. The potters pink is perfect for branches and all kind of trees. I remember that when I was ordering this color, I thought it will be more pink than brown. So when I unpacked it, I was very disappointed some kind of disappointed that it looks like this. But after a few works few works which I painted with this color, I now see the potential of it. I kind like to use it in my nature painting. This is first as a medium brown and the darker brown will be brown. This is my darker brown. It's not very dark as you can see, but it's different shade than peters pink. I will use my number four and number four soft brush, and this one is from Princeton. We will start from painting the bees. We will only use these two shades of red. Let's paint with Alizarin first. And I usually paint with this darker red, the berries are under which are behind something. Red with alizarine. Let's switch color to rose. Also because I make too little Alizarin. I already finished it on my palette. That's why I will use rose and I will paint the rest of my berries. I I will add a rest of my Alizarin here. Well, it looks even more beautiful than it was before. I think in this work, the background makes the picture because it's so we have a lot of color in there, so the eye just wanders around and it's not solid and it creates very interesting effect. To LC. Right now I'm switching to smaller brush and I will take at the beginning, number two from Princeton because it's soft brush and after that, I will switch to number three from restor house because it's stiffer. I need stiffer brush to paint this very thin branches. I forgot to paint these two berries. Let's correct that. I forgot about these two berries. I'm starting with these bigger branches. That's why I will use softer brush and I will start from potter spink I know that it's the same color as the legs. The legs are already dry, so it shouldn't be a problem in this area. I will just lay the first color of butter spink Okay. And with the stiffer brush, I will take my darker brown and add it from the top. In the areas where there should be a shadow. I will do the same tric in here. With softer brush and with the potters pink, I will paint my branch because this branch is quite wide in here with the stiffer brush and with the darker brown, I will add some shadow. Okay. I'm putting down my softer brush and I will stay with the stiffer one and I will take once a potters pink and once the darker brown. I just Let's, for example, start from the top. I'm cleaning my brush between switching colors between changing my colors. Right now, I only have the darker brown, so I will paint the rest with this darker color. Perhaps I will slightly rotate my work because I don't want to smudge my colors because this area is still wet and I don't want to smudge it with my hand. That's why I need to rotate on the tomb. But still, if you want to have lighter shade of this brown, just lay some of this brown on paper, clean your brush, and dry it a little on paper towel and with this dump brush, move this color on a paper. The last one Okay. So I see that my berries are not quite dry yet, and I want to add this black dot sometime. That's why I need to wait while this dries. But while we have that time, we can add white details with the guash. You can use guash or you can use poscapen white alpin like Oscapen Like this Posca pen, but I don't like to use it because it's not working anymore. I have it, but it's not working. Me, that's why I will use guash. I will add a water to my guash to make it quite thick on my brush. I have this paper where I tested colors and I can check on it and I can check on it if my color is thick enough if I can draw the fin lines. If that's so I will make this white around the eye again. Correct the shape of this area on the wing and add just a slightly illusion of light on the wing. Perhaps I'll add a very, very thin line on the big. The only thing left which we need to add to our picture are these dots on the berries, and for that, I will use black or you can use paints gray and I don't mix it on a mixing palette. I just add a drop of water to my paint. And because I need this color to be very thick and not watery. I will check on my scrap paper if I can paint dots and I will paint these dots. Just look, we don't paint on this black dot on every berry. Look which berry is dry already and added only to the drip, but not for all of them, quite nice. This is all. We finished our bird. 9. Outro: And that's it. Well done. Thank you so much for painting this bullfinch with me. I hope this class help you slow down, enjoy the process, and feel more confident with watercolor. Even if your painting didn't turn out exactly as you imagine. Every bullfinch is different. That's what makes your artwork unique. If you'd like, I'd love to see your finished painting. Please share it in the project section. I always enjoy seeing your work and how you interpret the same subject in your own way. If you found this class helpful or relaxing, leaving a short review would mean a lot and helps me create more classes like this. Thank you for being here and I'll see you in the next class.