Transcripts
1. Introduction: When learning a new
skill like watercolor, it's very easy to fall into the trap of chasing perfection. But what if there's
a gentle voice reminding you to
focus on relaxation, the freedom of making
your own choices without being over critical
about the end results. Then this new skill
becomes more than a creative outlet and starts to benefit our
mental well being. With this series of
Relaxing Watercolors classes, I'll be that gentle
voice for you. Hi, my name is Garima Srivastava. I'm an artist and illustrator and a top teacher
here on Skillshare. I've been painting since
2011 and with Skillshare, I've taught thousands of
students my relaxed way of making beautiful art minus the
overwhelm. With this class as the first of the
Relaxing Watercolors series, I'll be teaching
you how to paint three beautiful floral
illustrations on watercolor backgrounds
with a vintage look. I welcome both beginners and experienced
artists to this class. Apart from the relaxation that comes with repeated
brush strokes, you will also learn important
concept of color layering, glazing, painting wet on dry, and adding some metallic
gold accents to turn these vintage style illustrations
a little more festive. We will start by looking at the art supplies I've
used in this class, followed by a small
introduction on how optical color mixing works with layers of watercolors to help those of you who
are new to watercolors, we'll also look at the
basic brush strokes and important watercolor
concepts that we have used in this class. We will then paint a few
watercolor backgrounds to later use for our
floral illustrations. For the main project
of this class, I will show you how to paint
an offset illustration of a few cone flowers on a watercolor background with detailed step by
step instructions. You will have two
more choices of mimosa and salvia flowers to paint as a project
for this class with detailed instructions
for them as well. The goal of this
class is to encourage you to try a different
way of painting flowers while giving
you enough space to find your own comfort
level with this technique, if you like the
sound of this class, come and join me in
the next lesson. Let's paint together.
2. Your Project: Your project for this
class is to paint one of the three floral illustrations
I've shown in this class. Feel free to choose your own
background colors or you can also decide to paint
some other flowers for this class project. If you would like to paint one of the projects from this class, I do recommend watching the
lesson once to get an idea of the basic brush stroke
and also to know where you would like to make some changes to suit
your own taste. The finished project
photographs, line drawings, and inspiration photographs for all the three flowers can be found under the
resources of this class. To show your project
here on Skillshare, click a photograph
of your art under the Projects and Resources
tab of this class. Click Submit Project under
your Project section. To add that photograph, I would love to see
what you create and give my feedback
on your projects. Please do submit them.
3. Art Supplies: Let's have a look
at the art supplies I've used in this class. But please remember,
I want you to start painting
without any stress. So feel free to
start with what you already have and use your
favorite brand of paper, brushes and colors close
to what I have used. Let's talk about paper. You can start with your
favorite cold press, 300 GSM watercolor paper, which usually has a
slight texture on it. But if you're like
me and would like to try painting on a smooth paper, you can give hot
press paper a try. I've used two or three
different brands of hot press watercolor paper. Some of them are this Fabriano Studio Watercolor
or Clairefontaine. These papers usually vary in
what they are made out of. Student grade watercolor
paper has 25% cotton, while the Clairefontaine
one has 100% cotton. But feel free to use the watercolor paper
you already use. It can be cold
press or hot press. Just make sure
that the weight of the paper is close to
300 GSM in weight. Since we'll be adding a bit of background for all
of these projects, I further chop down my pages into smaller
sized pieces that I attach to a cardboard piece using some scotch tape
or a masking tape. You can easily paint
these projects on sketchbook or your
watercolor blocks, which usually have one
or more sides that are glued together to prevent
excess buckling or warping. You can fix all the four edges
using some masking tape, washi tape, or a scotch tape. Let's have a look at the brushes I'm using to mix my colors. And sometimes to
lay the background, I use one of my older
natural hair brush. It holds lots of paint. It's a round number six to
lay some background washes. I also use a flat
splatter brush, it's almost 1 " in size. Since I'm painting small to
medium size floral elements, I use a synthetic pointed
round number two brush. Also a triple zero or three by zero synthetic detail brush to paint some smaller elements
or add finer details. For colors, you can use your favorite pan
colors or tube colors. I've squeezed out my
favorite tube colors into this smaller
ceramic color palette. Once the colors have dried, you can spray some water on them using a spritz bottle
to activate them. I personally prefer to use professional grade
water colors for their vibrancy and
color strength, But there are also really good quality student grade
watercolors available now that you can
try. To mix my colors, I use this porcelain
color mixing plate, but you can also use the
plastic color mixing plate or a white dinner plate. Along
with my usual watercolors. I'm also using a silky
pearlescent gold called Orient Gold to add some metallic
gold touches in the end. Apart from this, you'll need a few more supplies
to get started. If you're painting on
loose sheets of paper, you will need a cardboard and some masking
tape or scotch tape, or washi tape to fix that paper. You will need a spray bottle
to activate your color. If you'd like to draw
some guidelines before you get started,
you will need a pencil. I use number 2B pencil, and a kneading gum eraser to
remove the excess graphite. If you need your
background shapes to be precise geometric shapes, you might need some
geometrical tools like rulers or maybe a compass
to draw a circle. You will also need some
kitchen paper towel to remove excess moisture from your brush and two jars of clear water. One to wash your dirty brush and another one to
mix fresh colors. The whole list of
color names, swatches, and other add supplies is available under the
resources of this class.
4. Watercolor Techniques: Let's have a look at some of the watercolor techniques that we have used in this class. To help those of
you who are new to voricolors get started easily. I had squeezed out
my tube colors into this smaller ceramic color
palette and I've just spread some water on top of
them to activate the colors. You can do the same
to the pan colors. To pick the color, I
will rinse my brush. Pick some color and depending on how dark I want
or how light I want. I will add water to my
color mix. In a little bit I'll explain a bit more
about water to color ratio. For now, we have
picked some color. Let's discuss water
color application. There are quite a
few different ways to apply water colors. The first one we are going
to see is wet on wet. What that means, you're applying wet color on an
already wet surface. Here, I have a small area that
I'm adding clear water to. This will make the paper wet. Here, I'm applying some wet
color directly on the paper. In both of these cases, the paper is still wet. Now, if I will pick
another color, I'm picking this indigo we had mixed earlier. It's quite wet. I'm going to apply this
wet indigo color to this small wet area.
With the help of water in the moisture
present on the paper and also in my brush,
this color flows. You can see how fuzzy it looks. You can do the same to
this area which is wet, with the underlying
layer being still wet. If I'll add wet
color to a wet area, it's also called wet on wet. Whatever you'll do on wet on
wet will become quite soft-looking. Now we'll talk
about wet on dry, what that means, you're simply applying wet color
on a dry surface. The paper is dry, I'm applying some wet pink
color on top of it. This is wet on dry. It can also mean I'm applying some wet color on top
of a dried layer. This layer I had
painted earlier, it's dried and I'm adding
color on top of it. This is also wet on
dry application. You can see how
wet on wet looks, a bit fuzzy and soft while you get sharp edges
with wet on dry. Now let's talk about
color to water ratio. With my clean, rinsed brush, I'm going to pick equal
amount of color in three different puddles.
To the very first puddle I'm not going to
add too much water, just the moisture in my brush. And with that, I'm painting here. You can see how
dark the color is. To the next one, I'm adding
just a brush full of water. You can see that the color
is a bit lighter here, I had a bit more
water in my brush. Now to the third puddle, I'm going to add
quite a bit of water. Now, I'll paint with that. As you can see, as we
increase the amount of water, the color became lighter based on how much water you
are adding to your color mix. You can go from dark
value of the color to medium and all the
way to very light value. There is barely any color
in here. Lot of water. If you would like your
color to be really light, you can add a lot of water to your mix and if you would
like to go dark and you don't want your
color to bleed too much, You can use a thick
consistency by directly picking the color or just add very little
water to your mix. To control how much water
you have in your brush, simply pick the color and then touch the bottom of your brush
to a kitchen paper towel. It removes excess moisture and then you can paint with it. So I had picked water consistency, but I had removed
excess moisture. You can see my brush did
not have too much moisture. It wasn't completely out of
control in terms of moisture. Still able to paint
very lightly, but without too much water
coming out from my brush. This is how you control the
moisture in your brush. Now let's talk about glazing. Glazing means applying
a transparent layer of color on top of an already
existing color layer. Here I have a small shape
made out of yellow, and this one is indigo. Both of these shapes have dried, so we can easily paint
another layer on top of them. I'm going to pick some
ultramarine blue. For this yellow, I have enough water in my mixture so that it's nice
and transparent. With that, I'm going to
paint a small line here. I'll continue that line outside so that you
can see the color. You can see where the color
is directly on the paper. It's blue where it is sitting
on top of the yellow, it looks a bit like a green. Yellow plus blue gives you
an impression of green. A transparent layer
of blue sitting on top of a yellow will give
an impression of green. With the help of glazing, you can shift your color. You can change it
from yellow to green, or yellow to orange. If you use a stripe of
red here on top of it, it will become orange in color. For glazing to work, it's important that the bottom
layer is completely dried and you're applying the color without disturbing
the layer underneath it. You don't want the colors
to mix with each other. They are sitting on
top of each other and they have enough
transparency in them. That's why you get an impression of a different color here. Another use of glazing
is to build value. I've got here a small
layer of indigo. I'm adding a thin bar
here on top of it. You can see how it is already darker than
its surrounding. It has already
darkened the value. So by adding same color transparent
layer on top of each other, you are also able
to build the value. I'm able to go from
light to dark value, as I keep adding layers of
the same color on top. Again, it's important for your
bottom layer to dry completely before you add
another layer of color on top. I'm going to add
another layer here. You can already see
three different values, light, medium, and
darker among the three. With the help of glazing,
you're able to shift the color and also build value. Another technique
that we might be using in this class is
softening the edge. If you will paint your brush
stroke just like this, leave it like this,
it's going to dry with these very
well defined edges. We are painting wet on dry, wet color on dry paper. It will dry with
very defined edges. At the same time, if
you would like to soften up one of the
edges or a small area, as soon as you paint it, rinse your brush, remove
excess moisture and quickly, move the color near
the edge you want to soften. Rinse your brush
and soften further. With the help of clear water, you're able to soften up the very harsh edge
that was forming here. The top one is
very well defined. The bottom one is
now softened a bit. This is called
softening the edge. Now let's look at some of the basic brush strokes we'll
be using for this class.
5. Brush Stroke Practice: Let's get to know the brushes I've used in this
class a bit better. But feel free to use the ones you already
feel confident with. I'll be mixing my colors using
an old natural hair brush. You can also use this
brush to apply color. It has lost its point, but it is still very good to
apply color to a large area. For bigger area, I like to
use this flat splatter brush. It's a synthetic one. Simply rinse it in water nicely
before picking the color. And holding its edge at
an angle to the paper. And dragging the brush, I'm able to make a wide mark, as wide as the chisel
of this brush. You can also drag it
vertically, like this, to make a thin line or
horizontally just the edge to make thin,
horizontal line. Or press on the brush, change the width,
give it a wave. So quite a few versatile marks
you can paint with it. It comes handy when
you want to paint a very geometrical shape, a box. You can even paint circular, round shapes with it. It's a little difficult, but you can still manage to paint a nice oval or a
circular shape with it. Quite a versatile brush you can use to make fine
lines, little dabs. The other two brushes I'll be
using today mostly to paint the flowers will be number
two, round pointed brush. This is a synthetic brush and triple zero detailing brush. I'll be painting mostly small
flowers or small petals. I'm using a number two brush, but if you're painting
a bit bigger, you can increase the
size of your brush. Simply pick the
color in your brush. With this, try practicing
straight lines, some wavy lines,
some vertical lines. Slightly curved ones
are straight ones. Then practice varying the
pressure on your brush. This is just painting with
the tip of the brush. No pressure on the brush. Now, pressing my brush down, look how wide it becomes. Then lifting the pressure, pressing it down again, lifting it up again. Practice this variation
of pressure lifted, pushed, lifted, pushed, lifted. The more you practice, the better your leaves
and petals will become. Let's see how to
paint a simple petal. Let's say this is the
center of the flower. I've picked some
magenta in my brush, starting from the
center, touch and lift. If you want to make
the petal wider, you can make similar brush
stroke right next to it. Touch, push and lift. You can also go from
outside towards the center, touch push and let go, touch
push and let go. It just gives a
slightly different look between the two directions. Decide whichever one
is comfortable to you. You can use similar
brush stroke to paint leaves. To make elongated leaves simply touch, push, drag
it as long as you want, and then gently
release the pressure. Let's see it one more time
to push and gently release. You can give them a
bit of wave to push, give a bit of wave and let go. To paint a leaf that is a bit wider
touch push and let go. Similarly, another
brush stroke right next to it: touch push and let go. You can see this leaf is a bit wider made out
of two brush strokes. Or you can use a
bigger number of brush to make this leaf
in one brush stroke. You can also use this brush
to add little details, curved marks, fine lines. I'll mostly be using this
round number two brush to do my flowers and leaves. For any finer details like
application of some gold, you can use a smaller
detailing brush like this. It works similar way to
the number two brush, it's just as very fine, smaller brush, and you can make
quite fine details with it. These are some of
the brush strokes that I've used in this class. I've kept them quite simple. With just a little
bit of practice, you'll be able to
achieve similar look.
6. Painting the Background: Now let's add the background
color for our paintings. There are different
ways in which you can add the background color. You can obviously paint the entire sheet of
paper, Let it dry. If it has warped a bit, place it in between a heavy book so that it can get flattened. Once it's flat, then
you can paint on it. What I like to do is add a swatch of the
background color in the middle of the paper
and let the white of the paper frame it already. I have taped all the edges of this paper to my
cardboard piece. I've used scotch tape. You can also use masking tape. We won't be adding
a lot of water. I'm not worried too much
about the paper warping, but it is still important to fix the edges to keep the paper
as straight as possible. I will show you
three different ways to add this background color. For the first technique, we'll be using this
flat splatter brush, it's a synthetic one. Before picking the color, rinse it nicely with water a couple of times so that
it's no longer dry. Now let's mix the
color for our project. I want to mix a very light
color, a peach color. I'm picking some Opera Rose. You will need good
amount of color mix. The consistency is going
to be very watery. To this Opera Rose, I'm going to add just a touch
of cadmium free yellow. Add some more pink. Look how much water I'm adding. Let's try this color. As you can see, there's a
lot of water in my mix. We want enough to
cover the area we are intending to paint this
background layer on. Prepare enough mixes for your brush to go a
couple of times. I think I have enough
for this technique. I want to paint a rough, rectangular shape Here I have very lightly marked
a rectangular shape, but if you would like to keep
the edges sharp and crisp, you can measure the shape, add some washy tape to
keep the edges sharp. I'll be using this
flat splatter brush. Rinse it in water,
remove excess moisture, and then load it with the color. I'm not going to
worry too much about the shape being
perfectly rectangular. I just want to lay a
simple rectangular wash. I want to keep this process
simple and relaxing. No need to worry about having this wash
completely uniform. Don't worry if there
are little blotches. Don't worry about all of that. Simply paint a shape
of your choice. Load the brush and gently
glide it over the paper. Don't worry if the
color is pooling at some places or not
drying evenly. Don't worry about all of that. Here we have a very
rough, rectangular shape. Like I said, if you want
to keep this shape sharp, add some washy tape around it. Now, we will let this one dry. For this second project, I have marked a slight oval
shape here with my pencil. Remove the excess graphite line. Now I'm going to mix
either a pink or a yellow. We can start with
some permanent rose. Add enough water. Our aim is to keep this layer quite light and transparent. Add enough water to your mix. Check the saturation level. This is nice with my
round number six brush, which holds good
amount of water. It's an old natural hair brush, I'm going to paint
this oval shape. It's a bit hard to paint
an oval shape with a larger splatter
brush so I'm using just this round number six old brush. Or you can also use a mop brush
paint this bigger area. Again, don't worry about making this shape perfect or laying
the perfect wash. It's all okay, because we'll be adding pretty little
flowers on top of it. You can do this
exercise and paint multiple shapes like this in one go and then use it every
day to paint something. We have painted this oval shape with slight pinkish color here. Now we will let this one dry. For the very last one, I would like to paint a
very rough swatch of color. Let's mix an olive green color. I'm picking some sap green. To that I will add a touch of permanent Alizarine
crimson, a bit more green. So the trick is first
to get the color right and then add enough water to get the
consistency you want. This color is okay. I will add more water for these backgrounds. Always prepare enough mixture
that you can use freely. I will again be using
my flat splatter brush, rinse it with clear water, remove excess moisture,
load the brush nicely. Now starting from left, putting the brush down, going left to right, just make up rough
swatch of this color. You can see how I'm keeping the edges intentionally
quite rough. Just back and forth, left
to right, right to left. That's it for this one as well. It's quite rough,
but you can see how the paper white is
framing it already. Now let it dry completely. The backgrounds we painted
earlier have dried. Since we had taped all
the edges to a cardboard, they have dried completely flat. We are not going to worry about the uneven drying or some
of these blotches for now. These backgrounds are
ready to be painted on, I also painted a few without attaching the
paper to a cardboard. Once the paint had dried, I had put these in
between a heavy book. Within a few hours, they have also become almost
completely flat. We can also use these as well. Now we can get started
with painting the flowers.
7. Coneflower I: Let's paint a main project
featuring some cone flowers. Now that our
background has dried, we can get started with
painting our cone flowers. You can create a
few rough sketches, like I did to decide on how you want to
place the flowers. You can paint the whole
composition inside this box. But how I would like to do
is paint some of the flowers inside and some of them
slightly outside this shape. Sometimes I put just a small
light pencil guideline in the shape of a circle just to remind me where I
want to place the flowers. And sometimes I just
directly paint them. Now let's see the colors we'll be using to paint these flowers. For the petals of these flowers, I will be picking three
different colors. Opera Rose. I will add just a touch
of cadmium free yellow. Sometimes pick some
permanent rose. You can see I'm not mixing these colors because I will sometimes be double
loading my brush. What that means is
I'll pick one color and then just touch the
tip of my brush into another color to create a petal which has a slight
variation of colors in it. I will show that to you later. Let's see the colors we'll be using for the center
of the flower. For that, I will be picking some permanent
alizerine crimson, some burnt umber, maybe just
a touch of quinacridone gold. To paint the flowers,
you can first paint the flower head with
the darker colors. And then add the petal
like shapes called brats coming out from it
in the shape of umbrella. Or you can also paint these brats first and
then add the center. Let's try to do that. For our very first flower, I'm going to pick
some permanent rose. Just touch the tip of my
brush in cadmium free yellow, starting away from
the flower head. I will move in one more time. Again, rinse my brush.
Picking it again. Opera Rose, followed by some
cadmium free yellow touch, push and lift and go back in. This gives me a little variation
of color in my petals. You can also paint
the petals coming from the center outward. It just changes
the look slightly, but paint whichever way
is comfortable to you. As I come towards the edges, I make the petals
slightly thinner and smaller as well. Some smaller ones at slight
angle towards the two edges, touch, push the brush down and lift. Now that we have
painted the petals, I'm going to pick some
permanent Alizarin crimson in my brush without
adding too much water. And then just a touch of burnt umber without
mixing the two colors, starting from the center, pushing my brush
down and letting go, Adding a few dots at the base, adding a few more dots, letting them slightly
bleed into the petals we had painted, rinse my brush. Now I'm going to drag this reddish brown color on the petals a little bit to add a slightly
muted vintage look. Not all over the petals, sometimes just
towards their edges. I will pick some
Quinacridone gold. Add a bit of it on this area where we left the
background color visible. This gives a nice color
variation on the flower head. You have the reddish brown on the center and the left side, and a little bit of
this quinochrodone gold towards the right
side of the flower. I will pick some burnt umber without adding too much water, and add a few dots all
over this flower head, giving it a bit of texture. Once the paper has dried, it won't bleed too much at
this point and these dots give a nice texture and
feel to the flower head. If you would like
to fix some petals, you can add another thin
layer of color to them. You can do that at this point. This is how we painted
our very first flower. I will be painting a few more around it in the next lesson.
8. Coneflower II: Now I'm going to continue
adding a few more flowers, some of them within this
painted background shape and some slightly outside it. If you would like to
watch me paint all of these flowers petal by petal, let this lesson continue on
the current playback speed. But if you would like
to go a bit faster, then please change the
playback speed accordingly. So my five flowers are ready. In the next lesson, let's add some stems and
leaves to these.
9. Coneflower III: Now we can add a
few guidelines to place the stems and the leaves. I want the stems to start from outside this
background shape. Now let's paint the
stem and the leaves. For that, let's mix some sap green with
our burnt umber. You can also add some
red to your green. Since I already had brown, I've just added some
sap green to it to get a nice olive green color. With my same number two brush that I've been using till now. I'm going to pick this color with the steady
pressure, paint the stems, keeping the stems a little
darker where they are, starting near the flowers. Now to paint the leaves, we need almost the same color
but slightly thicker consistency. I'm picking some green. You can
simply use just sap green. But for a muted vintage look, you can add some permanent
alizerine crimson or burnt umber to your green. I'm adding some permanent alizarin crimson
to my sap Green. Here's a bit darker
version of the same color. With that, let's add a few
thin leaves starting near the stem touch push and let go touch push and let go. You can also move
towards the center stem, dragging the leaf color down on the stem to make it all unified. As the stems have
started to dry, I'm adding just a line of this darker leaf color
on one side of the stem, giving some slight color
variation along this stem. This part is optional, but if you want pick some of the same mixture
with which you painted the leaves a bit
thicker consistency with a small detail brush, you can add some central lines
to some of these leaves. It's up to you how you prefer the look
of the leaves here. For a project like this,
you can spend hours adding little details
and final touches. What I like to do is go around and see if some of the
petals are looking a little fused. In that case, I pick some more color and
add a gentle glaze on top, giving some definition. You can also add a
few extra brown dots. I always add these dots without too much
water in my brush, so that they come out
nice and crisp With this, our project is ready
in the next lesson, let's add some optional
metallic accents to this. But if you do not like
the idea of that, then you can stop at this.
10. Coneflower IV: Welcome back. Our
painting is almost ready. At this point, you can add
some extra finishing touches, but they are optional. If you prefer it at this
stage, then you can stop. I would like to add
some metallic accents to some of the petals. For this, I've got
this Pearlescent gold. It's called Orient Gold. You'll find different kinds of gold based on your
personal preference. Use the gold that you like. With a smaller detailing
brush like my triple zero, I'm going to add just
a few thin outlines to some of the petals and
not complete outlines. This part is
completely optional. If you are not liking
the look of this, don't try it with your painting. But I do feel that this takes your beautiful painting
from pretty to wow. It might be a bit
difficult for you to see the lines since it's
a metallic color. But I'm not adding this metallic
color to all the petals. Just a thin outline to some of the petals and a few golden dots to some of the flower heads. Especially on the
lighter right side. It's literally
quite difficult to stop using a gold like this, But I will stop at this
and let me try to show you where I have added, so just on the outside
of some of the petals, not all of them, and
not entire outline, just a few gaps and a few lines and a few dots
on the flower head. With this, our project
is finally ready. I really hope you
enjoyed painting this project right from the start where we
painted the background, followed by these
relaxing brush rokes for the petals and leaves, and then in the end, adding a
touch of shimmer and shine. I can't wait to see how
you create this project.
11. Mimosa I: Let's paint another
project featuring mimosa or silver bottle flowers. For this one, I want to paint
a branch of mimosa tree loaded with fluffy
ping pong ball like yellow colored flowers. For this project, we'll be using this shape we had painted
earlier using permanent rose. It has a bit of imperfection here because of
some uneven drying, but we are not going to worry
about that because most of it will get covered with
some flowers and leaves. You can also use a light
yellow base like this. I painted this with
cadmium free yellow with a touch of burnt umber in
it with a very watery mix. Before we get started, let me show you a
reference sketch or two that you can use to
paint a mimosa branch. I'm going to draw
some rough guidelines for the mimosa branch. You can paint them without
pencil lines as well. This is just to remind me the direction in which I
want to add the flowers, where I want to add the leaves. It's okay for flowers and leaves to come out of the background that we
had painted earlier. Just some rough guidelines. Now let's look at the
colors we are going to be using for the flower. We are simply going
to use cadmium free yellow in
medium consistency and slightly thicker
consistency. If you're painting on
a white background. You can paint these flowers with a different kind of yellow, like winsor yellow
or lemon yellow. But my choice of yellow
is cadmium free yellow. For our greens, we
have sap green here. I prefer not to use it directly. I will make two mixes. To the first mix, I'm
going to add some cadmium free yellow to make it
slightly lighter green. To the other mix, I'm going to add just a touch of permanent alizarin crimson. Let me show you the two colors. This is sap green plus
permanent alizarin crimson. And this one is sap green
plus cadmium free yellow. Having a few different
kinds of green with you helps create some interest. Let's also mix some burnt umber with some sap green. Here, we'll use this for the woody part
of the branch. Now with my number
two round brush, let's start painting starting
from outside of this shape. First, I'm painting
the central branch, making it thinner
as I'm going out. As you can see, I'm not painting
the branches completely. Rather adding a few dashed lines for now. This much is okay
for the branches. Let's start by placing
the flowers first, some cadmium free yellow, just little dabs
around the branch. You can paint it as
dense as you would like. If you want the dots
to be more saturated, pick the color directly
or add very less water. If you would like them to
be a bit more transparent, then use a little bit
more water in your mix. Just simple dots placed
around the branch. We'll later connect them
with fine light green lines. But for now, just place as
many dots you would like. For now, I have added
enough flowers. Let's add some leaves. You can see I've left
a few branches here. I'm going to add
using the mixture of sap green with some
permanent alizarin crimson. Let's add some
fern like leaves. I'm using my triple
zero brush to make these fine lines
like little spikes. There is something
so relaxing about repeated same brush strokes. Take your time. Use
this moment to relax. No need to worry about
making them perfect. So just like this, add
a few leafy branches.
12. Mimosa II: Now that I have
placed enough leaves, I'm just going to go around
and add a bit more sap green to my sap green and
Alizarin crimson mix. Just add a few more
darker green spots on some of the leaves
that look a little faded. Just giving a little bit
more variation in the green. Still using my
triple zero brush. Now with the lighter green, which is sap green,
cadmium free yellow. Simply connect some of
these mimosa flowers to these branches with fine lines. You don't need to
connect all of them. Just show a few
connecting lines. We're almost done. I
would like to just add a few more round mimosa flowers. A few of them look
a little faded. Make some of them
nice and round. Since we are painting
on a pink background, the yellow and pink make the flowers slightly
orangish looking. The actual flowers
are much more yellow. If you want to, you can
try painting them on lighter yellow background to keep that brightness
of the yellow intact. We're almost done just going around with some
of the burnt umber and sap green mixes to reinforce some color on the stems
joining the branches. I'm just making some of the
flowers a little bit more rounder. I had painted them with
just dabs of the brush, just giving them a
bit better shape. You can stop at this
point with the project, but if you would like to, you can also add a touch of gold. This is my triple zero brush. Just adding a layer of gold
to some of the round flowers. It might not be very
clearly visible where I'm placing the dots in
the camera lights, But I will show you
in just a little bit. I'm not painting all of them, just a few on each
of the branches. With this, our project with a mimosa tree branch is ready. I really hope you enjoyed painting this beautiful project. And I can't wait to see
how you paint this one.
13. Salvia I: For this project, let's
paint a few strands of salvia flowers, ornamental sage. These tall and spiky clusters of flowers come in a variety of
colors ranging from white, pink, vibrant blues and purples. Since we'll be
painting the flowers on a slightly
greenish background, the colors will come
out a little muted. But with the saturation
of our colors, we'll still be able to
achieve a beautiful look. Before starting,
I'm just creating a small guideline just to remind me how I want to place the
three vertical strands. Now let's see the
colors we'll be using for the colors
of the flowers. We'll be moving between
Quinacridone magenta, a purple made out of mixing quinacridone magenta
with the blue, you can use ultramarine blue. This is Quinacrodone magenta
plus ultramarine blue. You can also some ready to
use purple dioxizene violet. We will also be adding a touch of quinacridone gold
at a few places. For the greens, I
will use a mixture of sap green mixed with some
permanent alizarin crimson. A mixture of burnt umber
mixed with a little bit of permanent allzarin
crimson for the central stem. Now let's get started. I'm first picking a number
two round brush. With that, I will pick some
quinacridone magenta. First, starting where I want to start the flowers with just a little dash and a couple placed
together. Very roughly, just like you would
paint lavenders flowers. Rinse brush, pull some of the earlier placed color
a little bit to its sides. With just the wet brush giving a bit of variation
of pink in there. Make the top a little pointy, go back in, add some more pink. Now, just with the clean water, spread this pink around a bit. I'm moving between
simply applied pink and at places just that
pink spread with water. Now while this is still wet, I'm going to pick my triple
zero brush with that, pick the purple mix, and add little dabs. We are painting these
flowers quite loosely, so don't worry about painting
individual flowers here, I'm just laying some of
this purple in the form of long dashes while
they're still wet. I like to add a touch
of quinacridone gold along the central line just to add a bit
of light in there. It pushes the color
away a little bit, creating a bit of light. We will be adding
more purple marks once this dries a little bit. For now, let's paint the remaining two
strands just like this. Now that this first
one has dried, I'm adding another layer
of these dabs of purple, just small dashes or oval shapes to give an
impression of small flowers. When you paint flowers wet
on wet like we did earlier, they tend to become quite faded. Adding another layer of some brush strokes brings
back some details in it. But even with that, we are not adding any
difficult details, just an impression of
some flowers and petals. Let's do the same
for the second one, making the top of the whole
cluster quite pointed.
14. Salvia II: Now that we're almost
done with the flowers, I'm picking the mixture of burnt umber and permanent
alizarin crimson. And with that I will add the central stalk also
in between the flowers. At some places I'm using triple zero
brush for this. Now let's paint
some simple leaves, although the actual leaves
have a bit of serration. But here we will just
add some simple, slightly elongated leaves with my number two round brush starting
close to the central stem. Press, release, touch,
press and release. You can also come towards
the central line. I'm just adding a bit more
color to some of the leaves. We are almost ready
with the project, just like our previous projects. Let's add some optional
metallic touches. Just a few dabs on the flowers, little dots to the flowers. I will show you in a bit
where I'm placing them, as it might not be very clearly
visible with the lights. These flowers are
looking a little muted compared to the
other two projects. But that is also because it's been painted on a
slightly greenish background. We're almost done
with the project. I just want to add a
few final touches, just some central lines
for some of these leaves. With my triple zero brush and the same color with which
we painted the leaves, sap green, permanent
Alizarin crimson. I'll also add a few
green bits up on top giving an impression
of some flower buds. I can spend endless amount of time adding little
details like this, but for now, I think we are
done with this project. With this, our
project is finished. I really hope you
enjoyed this project, and I can't wait to see
how you paint this one.
15. Closing: With this, we have reached
the end of this class. I really hope you enjoyed
this technique of painting flowers on
colored backgrounds, giving them a vintage look. I would love to see what
you create with this class. Please do share your
projects here on Skillshare. If you have any queries, you can write them under the discussion tab
of this class, and I'll try my best
to answer them. If you enjoyed this class, please consider leaving
a Skillshare review to help this class
reach more students. You can connect with
me on Instagram to share your project and
progress with this class. Thank you so much for watching. I'll be back soon with
another relaxing class. Until then, stay creative.
Garima Srivastava, Artist and Illustrator
