Sketch & Paint Autumn Compositions with Watercolor

1. Class Introduction: Hello and welcome to my skillshare class painting Autumn Scenes with Watercolor. My name is Sandra Herman, and I'm a watercolor artist and surface designer from the Netherlands. Autumn is like my favorite season. First of all, I love to go to the forest. I love to go hiking and I love nature. The thing about the forest is that I also love woodland creatures like foxes and squirrels. They really make me very happy. It's a big inspiration for me to paint In autumn, the forest is even more beautiful than normal because of all the color changes in the leaves. And there also are mushrooms and toadstools everywhere. It's such a big inspiration for me. This video, I like to paint autumn scenes with you that are easy. If you're beginning watercolor artist, then this video is perfect for you. But also when you're intermediate, or even a professional watercolor artist. This steel is a really nice video to watch and follow because it's just very inspirational and with cozy vibes, perfect for an autumn evening. So if you're interested, not only grab your paint supplies, but also grab a cup of tea, get some nice chocolate or cookies, light up a candle, and get together with me in this cozy autumn watercolor exercise. 2. Class Outline: Hello and welcome to my skill share class painting autumn compositions with watercolor. I'm so happy that you decided to join this class. And let me tell you now what we are going to do. First of all, I'm going to tell you what materials you need to be able to follow along. Then we are going to look at how we can find inspiration to create autumn compositions. There will be some sketching as a class project assignment. I also like you to post your sketch results in the project class environment. And then once we've finished with that, of course we are going to work on the three compositions. First, for each composition, there needs to be sketching. When we finish the sketch, it's time to start painting with watercolor. We're starting out with the simple design and then moving up. Every composition is a little bit more challenging. I hope that you're into this and of course, grab your candle and your cup of tea and make this a really nice and cozy exercise. Let's start and dive into all the other materials you're going to need as well. 3. Materials: For this close, we're going to need some materials. Of course, we need watercolor paint. You need two jars with clean water. I also use metallic watercolor paint. If you don't have it, not a problem. But if you want to go get I can recommend it because it always gives such a really cool touch to your painting. It's optional, but it's really highly recommended. Then you of watercolor paper, you need brushes. Two round brushes, size six, size one. A pencil to sketch with recommend to use an HB pencil soft eraser and you need a kneading eraser. You also need old regs and paper towels for final finishing touch. You can use some white quash if you don't have any. White gel marker also works also recommended to grab some candles, some nice tea, and some chocolate to make this really a very nice and cozy autumn experience. 4. Inspiration: Where do you go for inspiration? Well, of course you can go outside. You can go to the park or to a forest and take pictures yourself. But you can also go on the Internet and for example, go to Pinterest. Might go to Place when it comes to finding inspiration and collect the images that you like. 5. Sketching: Before we go to the fun part and the easier part and start painting, we of course, need to start with sketching and create the composition. I already made three compositions that we will be working on. I made the outline available. They're in a PDF format and in the project description you can download them and use them to either trace the files or use them to copy and draw the composition yourself. Of course, you can also decide to create your own composition. Just be inspired what we're doing here and try to do a little thing. You like yourself to exercise sketching with you. I will be sketching on my ipad so that the lines that I'm drawing will be easier to watch for you. If I will be working with a pencil on paper, you won't be able to see the lines for this for you. It would be best if you grab some paper and a pencil and eraser and just join me in trying to sketch what I'm doing. And we will be exploring the shapes of the leave and other auto related objects that we can use for the final compositions. This is a very practical exercise for when you're a beginner in sketching or creating compositions. But it's also very nice to follow along if you're just looking for inspiration. What I'm doing here is drawing the basic shape of leaves, starting with the easier designs, and then working my way up to get some more variation. What I also like to do for this sketch exercise is to draw the inside of the leaves. But when we're going to create the composition, we won't be doing this because this is something you will actually do when you're painting with the watercolor. It's just part of the study we're doing right now on how leaves are shaped. It's a great exercise for you to get the hang of drawing leaves without even have to think about it. Acorn leaves are one of my most favorite leaves to use in the composition. Though they might look difficult, it's just a really curvy line, Don't think about it. Mix a match, try it out a few times until you feel like you have the hang of it. Also, don't hesitate to post the video if it's going too fast and you would like to try out a certain shape more often. Also, you can re watch this video several times while you're just follow along and trying out the sketching of the beefs. Now we're getting to the more difficult leaves. For example, the chestnut leaves or maple tree leaves. They've got these pointy ends. They're basically like star shapes. Now we're not going to be drawing like the really realistic version, but more like an illustrated version of the leaves. It's easiest to start out with the basic line and then sketching very loosely some big triangle shapes like the star points. Once you feel like they are all balanced out equally, then you can draw over the lines with some smaller pointy bits. Like each star point has got like three separate points, one larger and two smaller. I also pay attention that at the bottom of the leave, those pointy bits are a bit smaller than the star shaped ones at the top. I draw here with the blue lines to show you the basic form of the leaf. Just try this one out a few times. I always love to draw in branches in my composition, and they're very easy to do. So you just draw one straight line and then you can draw the smaller leaves all alongside of the bigger line. Now once you're painting with watercolor, you don't even need to sketch this. You can just draw a line with your paint. And then use a bigger round brush to create the leaves with watercolor. As you can see with this brush, I first painted stripes marking the place where the leaves needed to be. You can try this out as well. This one is shaped like a heart, with the top part of the heart placed at the bottom. This one is curve shaped, just like an acorn leaf only with a little few curves and a pointy end. We will not only be drawing leaves in our composition, of course we need other autumn related shapes as well. It's time to try and sketch a pumpkin. The easiest way to start out is by drawing like an oval or like a flat circle. Then draw in the shapes of the pumpkin, like the really curvy lines and the bigger shape in the middle, and then smaller when you're going outward. And then draw the stem of the pumpkin on the top with some pumpkin leaves. Let's do that again. This time I won't start by drawing an oval or a flat circle. I start out by drawing the reaches of the pumpkin right away, starting out with a bigger one in the middle, and then making them smaller going outwards. Also, I try to diverse the pumpkin shapes like you've got the big pumpkins, but you also have got smaller ones. You have them more vertical. So try to really diversify your pumpkins. Now this one, I changed the angle that we're looking at the pumpkin. This one we're looking from above. You see it actually looks like a flower only drawing in the stem from this pumpkin is a little bit more challenging from this angle. Now I'm trying it out with another color so you can see what I'm doing and I'm drawing in like a star shape middle and then drawing in the stem. Let's move on to sketching another autumn theme subject, mushrooms and toadstools. With this, you see we start out by drawing something that looks like a leaf, this is like the top of the mushroom. Then draw a few layers underneath. And of course the base of the mushroom, you can draw in some details. And you can also draw circles on top of your mushroom to make it a toadstool. Try out sketching a few of the mushroom in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Other things that would look really cool in our autumn compositions are flowers. Let's sketch a few of these. I hope that you enjoyed the sketching part and that you're now filled with inspiration. Before we start by creating our compositions, of course, I'd love to see what you've been sketching. Please take a picture or scan your result in and post it to your class project. Now we'll be moving on to the compositions. 6. Composition 1 - Sketch: Yes, here we are going to start with our first composition. For this, you can use the outline that is included in the project resources folder. You can trace the outline or you can copy it. And you can, of course, also create your own composition. And you can use all the things that we have been practicing in the sketching part of the video. So I will be retracing the lines of the composition that I've created so you can see the way that I'm sketching it. And keep in mind you don't need to exactly copy what I'm doing. Of course, if you're tracing the file, but if you're sketching it yourself, you can be creative and add in your own leaves and other things that you like to add in the composition. Also, you can use your Pinter board. If you created one or the Pinter board that you've been using for me, you can just use all the inspiration you have and add it into your composition. So if you're feeling confident, then you can immediately create this composition on your watercolor paper. But if you feel like you need to try it out several times, then use cheaper paper instead. But when you're working on your watercolor paper, then keep in mind that it's the best way to sketch with an HB pencil. And make sure that you don't use hard lines. Just soft lines so that it's easy to erase. You don't want too much pencil lines on your paper. It will, well, I don't want to say ruined, but it doesn't help the outcome of your illustration. Of course, this is a hand creation. A hand painting, you will always have some flaws. Personally, I always like that when you're with watercolor, you're only human and you're creating something. And it just needs to be imperfect, to be perfect somehow. Again, sketch with an HB pencil and try to have soft lines. If you feel like you need to erase something, your soft eraser, I really love to work with soft erasers on watercolor paper because they usually erase the pencil lines and don't ruin the paper too much. Now we're almost done with the sketching part for you. If you aren't there yet, then you spot the video before we move on to the painting part. 7. Composition 1 - Painting: Now there's one thing that I always do before I start painting. Of course, make sure that your paper is fixated to surface. But what I always do is use my kneading eraser to lift off the pencil lines from the paper. First, we're going to start with painting the text atoms here on our composition. For this, I use a small round brush and some dark gray paint. Make sure that you use enough water and paint pigment on your brush and only use the tip of your brush to paint. If you'd like to try it out a couple of times first, then use some practice paper before you do it on your final paper. As you can see, this is a very delicate exercise and I use slow and controlled movements. Sometimes I prefer to draw a really thin line and then come back later to drop in some more paint to make the line a little bit darker. Take your time for this part of the process. I believe this might be the most difficult part of our entire composition after you've successfully created the text. Then from there on, it's just easy going. I'm quite satisfied with the results. I'm only adding in some paint on certain places where I think the paint is too light or I'm not quite satisfied with the shape yet. I hope that you're satisfied with your own result. When you are finished with the text, we can move on to the rest of the composition. Yes, so now we are going to start with the easier part and perhaps the mindful part, so you can really feel the autumn coziness at this point. At least I do for me because we made the composition with pencil. It just feels like coloring in coloring book. And you only need to think about which colors you are going to put where in the composition. Now for me, this is a very mindful exercise. I can imagine that for you it might be more difficult to pick the colors or you don't feel confident enough with it yet. In this case, again, you can follow along with what I'm doing. I like to use autumn colors because of course, we're making an autumn composition. Keep in mind the colors like orange, yellow, brown, and of course, green and reds and purples are all perfect autumn colors. What I do suggest is that you pick one subject, like for example, the flowers that appear multiple times within the composition, and paint those right after each other using the same colors. If you work this way, then the colors that you're using are balanced out on the composition. As you can see, I'm also doing that now with these brown brunches. For all the painting that we are doing right now, you can make do with a size five or six round brush. For the smaller parts, you use only the tip of your brush. If you'd like to paint leaves, you can use your entire brush. Another thing that I like to suggest is to add in colors in painted areas where the paint is still we. As you can see, I did it with the corner leaves. When you drop in colors while the paint is still wet, the paint blends in really smoothly and you get this really cool and beautiful color effects. This is a great way to paint autumn leaves that are showing beautiful color changes since we are painting in our composition. So basically coloring in a color sheet, you want to avoid touching the pencil lines. If you don't paint over the pencil lines, then once the painting is dried, you can erase all the lines so you won't be able to see them. Also, when you paint this way, you make sure that the wet paint of the different objects don't touch each other and don't blend in where you wouldn't want it to blend in if you leave space between the subjects that you're painting. If you leave space between the objects that you're painting, you don't need to wait before the paint has tried to move on to the next part. For this, you do need to use the tip of your brush and work really slowly and controlled. I hope that just like me, you also made it really cozy at your home. Right now you grab a cup of tea, lighted a candle, and are just enjoying this really nice mindful exercise. I must say, it is raining here right now. When I'm recording this, I really feel the Autumn vives. There's not much more that I can say at this point. I think I'm just going to put on some music and let you paint when you're finished with painting in all the areas of the composition. Then it's time to let the paint dry. When the paint is, we come back to add in some details. Here we are going to paint the details on top of our composition. For this, I recommend that you use a smaller round, like a size one. Always make sure that you've got enough paint and water on your brush. Very gently paint the lines on the inside of the leaf. It's very mindful exercise just starting with the bigger line in the middle and then painting the smaller stripes going outwards, especially in the acorn leaves, but also on other leaves. The lines don't have to be very straight. You can make it very playful. Also, you can play around with the amount of stripes you want to put in a leaf. You can paint leaves with a lot of stripes and just a few of them just mix and match. That makes the composition more interesting. I must say that this is my favorite part of painting, because at this point, the composition really comes together. And it's also a very mindful exercise adding those details. I also like to pay attention to the color that I'm using. For light green leaves, I like to paint them in with a darker green. And for the orange leaves, I like to use a darker orange, a red, or a brown. So I'm grabbing my metallic paints now. If you do have metallic paints yourself, then please join me and if you don't. No worries. This is optional. You can just leave the details as they are right. Now, with the metallic paints, I just go over some of the details that I already painted to give it this nice shimmering effect. I like to use my dark green metallic paint, and I also like to paint with gold or copper. And we're done. So I really hope that you enjoyed creating this painting and that you are satisfied with the result. And now moving on to the second composition. 8. Composition 2 - Sketch: Hello, Autumn. I'm so happy that you're here with your beautiful colors, your beautiful nature. I really love this season, Very much so. I feel so much inspired to create this composition. So for this, again, I created an outline that you can download from the project resources and you can use it to either trace or copy. And you can also decide to follow along as to what I am drawing. At this moment, I am retracing the outline that I created to show you the sketching process. First out, we start with the text in the middle of our paper. Now for this, I am tracing the lines. But if you are starting out without the tracing, then you want to measure where in the middle of the painting you want to start. Perhaps you find it easier to, again, start out on some practice paper before you start on the watercolor paper. The shapes that we're drawing right now, we practice them in our sketching video. When you're not tracing but sketching them yourself, then keep in mind all the things that we've been practicing in that video. If you think that you need some more practice, then just go back and try it out. One thing I like to pay attention to when I'm creating a composition is that I start out with the centerpiece. That's like the aim focus of the composition. And then I create some bigger designs surrounding it. And then trying to make it all balanced so you don't have all the big items on one side of the composition and then items on the other side. You want to have it balanced out. I start with the bigger items and then I move towards the smaller ones surrounding and filling up the empty space leftover. My main goal for this class is to have an easy watercolor exercise that you can just jump right into. That's why I already created the compositions for you. And then all you have to do if you want to keep it simple is trace the outlines. Then you have a composition, just like coloring page that we can go color in, sketching really is a whole other thing. And creating compositions, I can create an entire around that. I hope that for now that this video will help you to create your composition so that we can move on to the water coloring part. 9. Composition 2 - Painting: Just like with the first composition, when you are finished with drawing your composition, it's time to get the kneading eraser and lift off all the pencil, the pencil lines from your paper. Now it's time to start by painting. In the text for this, I chose a different color. We're painting with a more brown red paint. I also love it. It's such a beautiful autumn color. I'm just painting in between the lines. For this, we're using the same round brush as that we used in the first video, like a size six. And also paint with the tip of your brush. Make sure you have enough pigment and water on your brush to make it easier. So for the first composition, we mainly used leaves and some flowers. But for this composition, we also use other autumn objects, like pumpkins and mushrooms. Basically, Just like before we are painting in our coloring outlines, you can really play around with the colors. I like my pumpkins to be really bright and orange, but you also have got the ones with the green color. Again, drop in colors while the paint is still wet to get really nice color blending. Same goes for the acorn leaves. I like to start out with, for example, green. But then later on, while the paint is still wet in some yellow or light brown, and you get these really nice autumn leaves. So I think we're all doing a very good job at this point. And I don't have so much to say for now. So I'm going to put on the music again and let's enjoy this really cozy painting moment. When the first layer for this composition is finished, when you painted in all the pieces of the composition, then it's time to let it dry. And once the paint has dried, we can move on to add the details. For the details we are using a smaller, like the size one. And again, just add in the stripes for the leaves and play around with the shapes and the sizes for the green leaves. I like to use a dark, really dark cream. You can also add some details on the mushrooms. And it's time again to get out the metallic watercolor paint. So again, I like to use the dark green metallic paint to add on the details of the leaves. And I'd like to add some red metallic paint on top of the red autumn leaves. It looks nice on top of the berries too. We are done. I am really loving this autumn composition and I hope that you enjoyed painting it and that you are satisfied with your result. Of course, don't forget to share the result of this one and all the other compositions that you're creating in the project, because I love to see what you're creating. So now let's move on to our final composition. 10. Composition 3 - Sketch: So yes, here we are again for the final composition. And of course, I saved the best for lest, and this is also the most difficult composition that we will be working on. And of course, if you are a beginning artist, you might think like, oh hell no, this is not going to work. But that's why I created the outline for you. So I suggest that you make sure that for this one, you definitely trace the lines of the outline that I've already created. You only need to focus on the painting parts. If you are more advanced artist, then of course, just sketch along and do your thing. With exception of the create and the fox, we covered any object that we'll be using in this composition besides from the fox. I think this composition will be very doable. Foxes truly are like my favorite animals to paint. I think I will be creating an entire class just about sketching and painting foxes some day. If you are sketching this, then I suggest that you try it out first on some regular paper before you make the final composition on your watercolor paper. And if you are tracing the outlines on your watercolor paper right now, then I'd say just enjoy this mindful exercise and I'm going to put on some music right now. 11. Composition 3 - Painting Part 1: Yes, the sketch is finished, so we move on by first lifting off the pencil lines with the needing eraser before we continue painting for this composition, we won't be painting any text straight on. I start with painting the pumpkin again. At this moment it's just like this mindful exercise and we are painting in our coloring sheets. Focus on the colors that you're using. Try to drop in some colors in your layer where the paint is still wet. To add this really nice color, blend or shadow, this makes the composition so much more interesting. Of course, try to remember to paint inside the lines and don't touch the pencil lines. Now, this is not always easy to do. I also paint over the lines at times. But if you want to be painting several different objects close to each other, then it's a very good way to avoid unnecessary unwanted blending of colors. If you paint securely, gently a smaller brush, and make sure that the paint doesn't touch at this moment, when I'm painting the crate, I really don't want it to touch the pumpkin. And you see how closely I am painting next to the pumpkin. Same goes for the wooden planks within the crate. You don't want the lines to touch each other to make it obvious that those are separate planks. I really like this effect of painting with watercolor and keeping empty space between the things that you are painting. And now, because the lines didn't touch each other, I can easily drop in some darker brown to make really nice shades. And don't have to be worried that the paint is going into the pumpkin. Moving on towards the fox, I always like to start out by painting the fox bright orange. And then later on, I'm going to drop in some colors like brown and reds and darker orange. Moving on to the fox, I like to paint the fox with bright orange. And then later on drop in some colors like dark brown and darker orange and red to give it really nice shade and nice colors. Now I'm really trying to follow the outlines of the composition that we made, because there are certain areas that I want to keep white. Later on we are going to be painting those, but we want to keep them white for now. This moment I'm letting the paint dry and moving on to some other pieces of the composition we're really building up. You need to think about the layers. With this, I mean that there are certain parts of the composition that you don't want the different objects to blend into each other. I always like to be smart and paint areas of the painting where I won't be touching other parts and make sure that they're dry before I move on. At this moment, I see that I am forgetting to drop in some colors into the fox to make it more interesting. But no worries. I'll be fixing that later on. But as you can see in the leaves of the pumpkin, I am dropping in some really nice and dark green. Because it really makes it look more interesting. Sometimes when you have been erasing your pencil lines too enthusiastic, then it's difficult to see where you need to be painting in this case. No worries. We've got the composition available as a PDF. Just go look back at PDF and see where are those images. We are those objects that you need to paint in. It makes it a bit easier. But again, I often am struggling a bit to see where I need to paint, but still I prefer the effect of having less pencil lines in the finished result, so I keep on raising. Anyway, so at this point we've got some autumn leaves to paint. I am going to put on some music until I get back to you. 12. Composition 3 - Painting Part 2: Here we are, back at the Fox. And as I said, I forgot to drop in some colors while the paint is still wet. So, I need to shade the fox on a different way. For this, I have some dark brown on my brush, and I'm retracing the outlines of the fox. Now I'm wetting my brush. And I am retracing those paint lines and blending out softly and gently, that you see it's a very smooth looking fox. Now, adding in some other colors, some darker orange basically, it turns out just fine. But the effect would have been better if you drop in the paint while the paint is still wet. Now, for the white parts of the fox, I always like to use very light blue instead of just white. I am gently painting the hairs, in this case, on the outline of the fox, and then with some water on my brush, I'm blending it out gently. It might seem unusual to use blue on your white, but I like the effect and it makes the composition very interesting. I like the red of the berries, and also the berries make the composition more playful. I'm deciding at this moment to add more dots covering the entire composition, very randomly, placing some dots. I chose to paint these with a light brown because I think the color suits the rest of the composition. So when we're done with painting in the entire first layer of our composition, it's time to let it try and then move on to painting the details. For the details, I can recommend painting with a smaller round brush like the size one. I don't like to paint with black for the details on the fox. Like the eyes and the nose, I go with indigo blue paint the eyes of the fox very gently with the tip of your brush. Same goes for the nose. I smooth out the nose a bit with some water on my brush. And then with even more gentler lines, carefully paint the mouth of the fox. The small brush is perfect to paint the small hairs of the first of the fox with indigo. Paint the top of the ears and the paws of the fox. Paint the inside of the ears of the fox with some light pink or a light red. Time to paint some other details. For example, on the stem of the pumpkin, you can paint some brown lines. You can also paint the nails in the crate, and of course, the dark green outlines inside of the leaves. Now we've reached the point where you can use your white or your white jail marker to very gently paint white dots on the inside of the eyes of the fox. Yeah, it's time to grab our metallic paints again. So I am painting red metallic paint on top of the berries and the red autumn leaves. And of course I'll be painting some green metallic paint on top of the details in the leaves. For that extra shimmer, I decided to paint some blue green dots surrounding the entire composition to make it extra playful. We just finished the third and final composition for this clause. I hope that you enjoyed yourself very much of. I hope that you are happy with the result. This was the most challenging, the most difficult composition in this clause. I can imagine that it must have been challenging for you. Either way, I hope that you gave it a try and that you are happy with what you've created of. I love to see what you made. Please share it in the clause project. 13. Final Thougths: Yeah, we did it. We just created three autumn compositions with watercolor paint. I hope that you had a really nice and cozy autumn moment and that you really enjoyed creating these compositions. Of course, I also hope that you like the result and I would love to see what you have created. For the project assignment, I'd like to invite you to post your sketches and all three of the compositions. If you'd like to only post one or two, that's also fine. But I love to see everything that you did. And if you've got any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them. And I would love to give you feedback on your creations. So thank you for following this class, and I hope to see you in a future class.