Snowdrops in Loose Style: A Beginner´s Watercolour Class

1. Watercolour Snowdrops In Loose Style Intro: Are you looking for sun spring inspiration? Welcome to my new class. Hello, I'm Nina. I'm watercolor artist specializing in low style and art therapist. My mission is to inspire you to play with watercolors and to share with you this joy from the creative process. What could be a better subject to paint in spring as snow drops. This class is a quick and fun one, but you will see that it's also quite challenging because we will practice from the first point of view that they look quite simple brush strokes. But you will see that you will need quite a lot of paper in order to get them to be the way you are looking for. But it doesn't matter. I invite you to play. Just don't worry about the final result and concentrate in the creative process. Remember to follow me in order not to miss my next classes. So grab your brushes, watercolors and paper, and see on the next lesson. 2. Materials: Welcome to this quick and fun class where we are going to paint snowdrops. In this class, I will use watercolor paper for the final work round brushes. Try different ones size six, eight, and one size four or two. So we will need pencil and some sketch paper. For studying our subject. Water palette, Water colors. I will tell you later what kind of colors we are going to use and as well, kitchen paper to remove extra moisture, water, and also take quite normal office paper for practicing the brushstrokes. Be in that mood so to have fun. I see you in the next lesson. 3. Shape Study: Welcome to the new lesson. And as we are going to paint in loose style, which means that directly on white paper, then we need first to provide some kind of guidance to our mind so that we know which steps to follow. And usually, one of the main guidance is the shapes so that it's really useful to have a look and to study the shape so that once we will start to practice our brush strokes, they will have that kind of similarity for our mind, and it would remind exactly the flowers. Let's check the basic characteristics of snow drops that should be number of petals. There are three. We may see that here in the middle, there is one more, which is a shorter one, and it has pecularityT green edge. Then we can see that it has quite white top. Another thing that there is one leaf, which is usually going into that direction. So it's just like above the flower. And then leaves which are going in different directions, and stem stem is quite thick and straight. Here, I have already made this really simple structure and shape study. I invite you to do the same so that please do not skip this step because you will see it's really helpful. So I will do one with you so that you will feel more confident how to do it. For here it's going to be green. This part, which is also is going to be dark green. And then let's add this one looking into that direction. So it should be the stem quite thick. And one leaf on the top, like this. And the same with leaves. You can add just schematically. They shouldn't be really realistic ones, like this. And as well when they just start to appear on the snow that usually some kind of the drops. It's quite simple. And the next step is going to be to pass this guidance into the brush strokes. That is going to be fun. The image you can find in the class resources section, once you have this guidance introduced into your mind and your hand now that is the way how you're introducing it just by drawing. I invite you to pass to the next step. That is to practice brushstroke. See you in the next lesson. 4. Brushstrokes Practice: Are you ready for the funniest part? Because you will see that however, it seems really easy. This painting, but once you will start to practice with brush strokes, you will notice that, yeah, it's also not so easy and it's quite challenging. I ask you, please do not suffer this and try to enjoy this practice I invite you to take a different type of brush. So that they would have round ones, but so that they would have different points, and different shapes. Now I will show you so that you will see what could be the difference. And to use two brushes, one for making petals and another one with green in order to add stem and elements which are of green color. I will use two colors. One is cobalt turquoise. Here is the color. And another one is the mix of different greens, which I have. It looks like this. And I have mixed two greens. One is this kind of green. And I have added another color. I think it's called yellow green or yellowish green like this. And once I mix them, I get this beautiful green. You can use any kind of blue which you have. The thing that it should be really diluted one. Yep. One of the things, what we need to keep in mind that when we keep the brush totally perpendicular to the paper, so then we can get some really thin lines. Then once we start to press to add the pressure, we can get this kind of brush strokes. And what we will need for our petals is that we'll have to press, to lift, combine these two brush strokes. Another press left to join them in one point. And you will see that is the most challenging part to join them in one point. And what else you can get? What kind of difficulties. Is that, for example, this my brush, it has really fine tip and that I start to get this kind of petals. You see that it's really spiky. And it's not what we are looking for because they should be a bit rounded. And for this, I press, turn, and then move up. Press, and then of up and the same. So you see the difference. It's the same brush. But depending on the pressure, you will have to practice to find that position. You can get different shape of the petals. That's why I invite you that with some brushes, it could be challenging. But with others, it could be a bit easier. So let's see this brush, you can see that you can get them these petals in much more easier way. They are more like rounded shape. And here I have one more brush. And let's let's see what kind of petals I can get with this one. I think that this one gives the most beautiful. For me. It's up to you. So that is first part, what I invite you to practice is these kind of brushstrokes. So to join them in one point. Also, then we can practice a bit different type of flowers so that when they are looking like this so that to add more separation, or it could be like two petals and then the third one in the middle. And one more is when it's just starting to appear, then it's this kind of drop. I make it with two brush strokes. I invite you to take just many pieces of paper office paper, normal one, and feel free to spoil it and to practice these brush strokes. However, I show you only on one paper. Believe me, I have had many many already practiced, and I have spoiled quite a lot of have used. No, it's not spoiled because I have used it because at the end, I have learned only by practicing when actually you are learning. So that's why it's not waste of paper, but it's better to use this kind of paper, not a special watercolor one. What we need to add to our flowers. Here is this kind of green area of that another unvisible petal. It's going to be like this. Here I have my mixture of green, and here I will have Do you remember that they are quite straight. And for here, it's the same. I'm using the same brush stroke. The only thing that I have changed the direction. Yeah. So here another one. Just play and practice. Once you will have several sheets with this practice, you will see that it's really easy to paint these flowers. What we will practice? The next part is to it. Leaves. I will switch to another bigger brush because for smaller elements and in order to control better my brush to get thinner lines, I have smaller size of brush, and now I switch again to the bigger one because I need leaves to be quite wide. And I start to add the movement. Yeah. So that you edding leaves in different directions. But just practice. Usually, they are bending a bit. It's quite smooth. So I hope that you have had enough brushstrokes, practice, have found your colors and ready for the main piece of our class to paint snowdrops with snow. So I see you in the next lesson. 5. Work Analysis: Before we will move to our main project, I would like to commend you some things which actually sometimes we do not notice them, but they are really helpful, and that is something which helps us to grow and to improve our artworks. I would like to invite you to take your practice sheets and to see maybe you also will notice in your ones this kind of tendency. For example, this one, once I have analyzed it, I have noticed that if you will watch generally the whole tendency I have noticed that there is like this kind of rhythm, visual rhythma that is like straight line, straight line, straight line. And for me, it looks a bit like a fence, with this kind of and nature, quite often when we observe especially flowers, they are really flexible, tender. They don't have this tendency to be so straight as if I would have been using ruler to make them all perfect and on the perfect distance one from another. Maybe you also will notice something like this in your ones or maybe no. Okay, it was practice sheet, but that is that tendency which we have to allocate flowers, like in one row, no, and then probably to use the same angles once when we are painting leaves. This was another practice sheet, and I liked it much more because here, it's not so strict and straightforward. That kind of rhythm of all stems. There are different levels of flowers, and probably the leaves they are also a bit different on different levels. I really invite you to have a look at your practice sheet because it will give you more additional information. Something which you like your tendencies. While painting, you may keep this in mind in order to work and to do something in a different way compared to what you got used to do. No. For example, here, you can see that is definitely my wish to make them perfectly, each one in its own place. No. Having this in mind, I invite you now to move to the main piece. I will use cotton paper. And I have noticed another thing, one I have doing my first try that this brush, for me, exactly for this painting, it didn't work. However, with a practice sheet, yeah. Why, because this paper has some texture, it resists. That's why, in my case, for main painting, I will discard this one because it doesn't hold as much water as this paper needs. And I have taken other brushes or like, you can see that they hold much more water. Having said, have a look at your brushes, and also maybe you will have to discard some of them and choose the ones which are better suit your paper. And one more thing which I have decided to do is to add another third color to make my composition more interesting, that is going to be covered blue, which I will introduce to the leaves. And probably for leaves, I will as well, I will use olive green. Once you have taken my observations into account, now let's move to tainting our main pizza with snowdrops S in the next lesson. 6. Watercolour Snowdrops: Welcome to the new lesson and have your materials prepared. We will dive directly into the painting. And I will show you different approach to make this composition more organic and more interesting. So let's see later our observations, whether we like that kind of tendencies will be reflected in the main composition as well or not. Here I have already diluted cobalturqois, and I will start with placing yeah. Do you remember those brush strokes? My petals. I will go slowly one by one. This one. Probably this one, I would like to make it looking into that direction. This flower. Here we have with another brush. Now I will add one more. Mm. Let's place for here somewhere. This. And one which is just start to appear. One bad. And at the moment, that's all. What I will do the next? I will add leaves. And let's try to add them in more organic way. I'm mixing olive green with green. It's quite bright green. First, let's add some kind of big leaves. Parka and brownie. So that I'm interrupting the leaves, making them longer. I would like so that they would cross, another one. And now I will add a bit of cobbled blue into some areas of the leaves. And as well, maybe one of the leaves to make it different color, different directions. Remember different levels, and as well to make them different size, you know, so that would be some longer, others shorter, not so thick. Try to focus on this to make really interesting types of leaves. Add more movement, different directions. Let's see. How can I add one more leaf so that it will look in different direction. This way, and probably one more with this diluted cobal blue. I'm imagining that they are they are sprouting all those sprouts from the ground still covered with snow. Now I'm switching to the smaller brush, and let's add stems. Let's see. That could be for here. And I can add that little tiny area of rain showing over there. Oh, here, I can add another flower. And here one more. Here, let's add a bit of that green petal which appears. You can see that my green has got fused with flowers. I can remove just clean wet brush from some petals. And I think this one looks much more interesting than the previous composition. And we can see even if something is missing in some areas, we can probably I would add one more flower over here. Also, I would like to comment another tendency, which I sometimes observe in myself that I have a tendency to cover the whole sheet of paper full of something, so that it's also really important to leave areas of white space so that, um generally, that it could like a breeze so that it could be an air in it. So I will add for here one more flour and that will be probably into this direction. So here we have our snowdrops. And I think this time, I have been keeping in mind what could be improved in my painting, and this one looks much more organic one. What we can do, we also can add a bit of contrast to some of the leaves. The one if you see that they are still have like wet so that some of them they would be darker in the contrast but generally play don't overthink so much. But it's interesting, also, to have that conscious approach, knowing what could be challenging for you and what usually you notice in your works that could be improved and just pay attention to this while you are painting next time. That is also how you actually improve and you feel better with your creations. Every time when we practice the same subject, that's what we learn. And probably I will add a bit of snow with the same blue. And here, with lots of water to dilute it so that it won't look really blue with tendency to gray. So I'm much more happier with this composition, once I have taken into account what could be improved. I hope that for you also has been useful this kind of observations and that it also has helped you to improve your compositions and to make the practice more enjoyable. Thank you for painting with me, and please share your class projects in the class gallery. I'm really looking forward to see them. 7. Final Thoughts: Thank you for painting with me. I do hope that you have enjoyed the process, and really looking forward to hear from you, please upload your class project. Share your creation and tell me how was for you to practice all those. Brush strokes, whether you had a battle with them or you just experienced it more like a meditating process. Be very thankful if you could find a moment to leave me a class review. This really inspires me to create new classes and also helps others to find this one. If you are on Instagram, please share your artwork and tag me music card. I will be glad to share your work in my stories. And meanwhile, you can find a big collection of loose watercolor flowers and birds on my channel. Keep on enjoying and sharing your projects. See in my next class. Bye.