Snowy Watercolor - How to collaborate with your paper

1. Welcome to Class! : Hello, dear friends, and welcome to class. I'm Lisa. I'm an artist and a teacher and also a coach and a performer, and in all of my creative endeavors, I try to make things easier so that the threshold is lower to do what I want to do. So in this class, we're actually going to take the threshold a little bit up. Another class of mine that I made back in 2021 features a kind of stylistic, small scene with little house, and we're keeping the white of the paper as the snow and then making a splash in the background. This is an intermediate version of that, where instead of using kind of that stylized little house scene, we're using more complex reference photos. You can choose your own or use the ones that I've provided, and I'll show you two different versions so that you can use the same techniques, same approach, but use it into more complex photos and more complex scenes to level up. Your watercolor skills. You only need one paint as this is another one of my monochrome classes. I love painting in monochrome. You can see some of my artwork here. This, actually. This is closer to the kind of scene that we're making where the point is to collaborate with your paper. Everything you see here that's white is paper. We don't paint the white areas. We use the white of the paper to make the illusion of snow, we paint everything else, which makes watercolor really unique and really special and interesting to work with. And that's what I'll give you tips and tricks and techniques for. Today. If you've taken any of my other classes, you know, I usually refer to splashing and the flow of the paint when the water is wet. That's also the technique we're doing today, which is called a wet in wet technique, which is when the paper is wet and you put wet paint on it, you get that unique watercolor effect of the paint spreading, but there is a way to do it that doesn't frustrate the life out of you, and I'll give my best pointers on that. You can also find all of that information in the other class. You can go back to that first and you don't have to. If you're more of an intermediate painter and you know your supplies well enough to go straight in, do. I'll be showing you how to paint two different scenes. You'll find the reference photos in the photo gallery. And also, I want to mention if you're worried about hyperrealism, which you never have to worry about with me, I'll be sharing how I think when I look at a photo and I change it to monochrome so that I can see the range and the difference between the light and dark. But I also want to simplify it a little bit. What am I looking for to make it easier for myself to paint a scene? Because I don't want to make a perfect, realistic rendition, 'cause the goal is to make something to enjoy the process of painting in for me, it's more enjoyable to paint something that's finished than it is to paint something that takes me hours and hours, and we're different there. If you love that, there are beautiful other classes on that subject. This is not that type of class. Here we go through pretty quickly only two layers of what we're painting so that you end up with a finished artwork, which is what I love when you sit something and you're like, I created this and this thing didn't exist before I made it. The feeling of creating is one of my favorites. So I'm really glad you're here, and I hope to see you in the next video where I'll talk about our class project, what that looks like. Welcome to class. 2. Class project (and pep talk!) : Welcome to your class Project. As suspected, probably, your class project is to finish a scene either with the photos that I've provided or with a photo you've chosen yourself. But I would love you to make a wintry scene where you really collaborate with the paper of keeping the paper white to represent the snow and then paint everything else. See if you can make the difference between the light and the dark parts really, really clear, get a lot of contrast. And to get that, it's a good idea to choose a color that's pretty dark. If you choose a yellow, the difference between the darkest yellow and the lightest yellow is not as big as the darkest dark, blue or green or purple up to the lightest lightest pastel almost not there shade of blue, purple, neutral tint, paints gray, anything you like. I recommend choosing paint that has a really dark, darkest shade. Class project gallery, you can share your artwork. You can also share it on Instagram, if you like, if you're so inclined to share your art there. I love seeing my students projects. It makes me very happy and to see how you also inspire each other. I'm inspired right back by the images and the ideas that come into your brain, which is completely different from my brain. And I've seen images of people expanding on ideas that I've had that make me feel incredibly fortunate to have shared this idea and sparked an idea in someone else's mind. I love it. So feel free to use the techniques in any way you like. You can't. You do it wrong. You can't do art wrong. You can't do creation wrong. You can't do playful watercolor explorations wrong. You can make something you don't like, which is normal and perfectly fine. And you'll learn a lot from that. Maybe your supplies were wrong. Maybe for the technique that you're using, maybe your water dried up too quickly on your paper. Maybe your house is super warm. The difference between the situation that we're in when we're painting can also impact the results, and don't let that discourage you was my main mission to say, so that you keep exploring and playing and not take it so seriously that you hinder yourself in even trying. Yes? Deal? Okay, perfect. So share it in the project gallery. You can watch through the entire class, or I'm going to paste it so that you can follow along. We'll paint the different layers. You can see it on the lessons on the side, and then you can share it afterwards. You can paint your own. You can paint two versions. You can paint it in different colors. You can also, if you want, keep exploring and keep playing and change up the colors and not go monochrome, but use different colors with the different parts of your painting. You want to make a blue, beautiful forest in the background, and the houses are red, what's I'm not going to hinder you in doing anything that makes you create more and paint more and have more creativity and art in your life. And I also love to say that your watercolors and your paper and your supplies and your brushes want to be used. They want to be used by you if you're worried about starting because you think that you don't deserve or you're not sure that you make something beautiful that you like, and it's a waste of supplies. I want you to take that thought and put it in the trash. Please know that anything you create that comes from you is perfect. It doesn't matter if it's ugly. It doesn't matter if you don't like it. You've put paint on paper and you created something and it changes the way your brain works. It changes the way you confirm your identity. I also have some classes on that. If you're interested on creative habits. What does it mean to be a creative person? And you can check those out if you like. But my main point is to not be so worried about starting, so worried about the result that you don't try, that you don't explore. If this class, when you're going through it feels like too much, feels like too high of a level if I'm going through it too fast, please know you can always go back to the first class where I go through the techniques much slower. I also have my watercolor splashes class, which is more of a watercolor one on one if you're a true beginner. I'm not saying you can't take this class. I'm saying there's information there that might help you build more of a foundation to know what I'm talking about in this class that we establish the vocabulary so that you understand what I'm talking about, so that you have a better time, which is all I want for you in this class. In the next video, I'll talk about our supplies and how I use them and how I choose them, and then I hope you find your supplies and join me in painting today. 3. Supplies : So if you've already watched the other winter's splashy, snowy class, you'll know all the supplies that we're using. I'm just gonna show it to you one more time. These are my favorite paints. These are some Roman Schmaltz and some white knights. I love that they're in full pants. I will never finish these. I do have a backup for this one, actually, the Aquarius green, which is lovely. But you'll want something with a bit of a range. And by range, I mean, something that's dark enough so that you have a big stretch from the lightest to the darkest. Yellows, light oranges maybe won't give you that same effect. And while that's being said, you can, of course, use any color you like. Use your favorite one. I'm probably going to use my indigos over here. Make sense with the snow, but you can also make, you know, brown, dark, spooky ones, purple ones, maybe a nice green one for spring spring and snow. Strange. But you'll choose the colors you like the most. I always encourage you to use plies that make you happy. So I want to use some of my favorite colors. These are magnetic. Just always recommend having your swatches available because these, how would you tell these apart? If you didn't know what they referred to. Get your paints. I always like having two jars of water and I like having lids on them so that I can store them without spilling. I like having one for clean water that I pick up clean water with to make my clean splashes, to put clean water on the paper, and one for rinsing off my paint brush. Often, I'll keep a separate brush, which is only for clean water dripping. And also keeping them as clean as possible. It's nice to have two. We need watercolor paper. Paper is one of our most important supplies. I like this is a rough one. I like the ones with a bit of texture. So we have cold pressed and rough. Today, I'm going to show you two different examples. And this cold press one has some nice texture that will give us more like granulation. If you're using a paint that splits, these are glued on the sides, and then you open them where it says open. You open them where they're not glued by sticking a ruler or something not super sharp in between. Taking it off. The reason they're glued on the sides is we're going to use a lot of water. Water and paper are not friends. So the water will make the fibers expand on your paper and make it a little wobbly. And then when it's glued on the sides, when it dries, it kind of stretches it back out into shape. But if it doesn't have anything glued or taped down, it kind of stays a bit wobbly and when it dries, it can dry, not flat, which is not an issue, but I like my flat paper. You can also stretch them out. Afterwards, you can tape them to your board, if you have singular pieces of paper, tape them onto something. But it's really luxurious to have some that are taped on the sides that have glue around the sides. I also like paper wise to bring a sketchbook, something to, like, doodle on or test colors on. This is an old 2022, an old splatty one, a really beautiful granulating obsidian brown. I've taken my rainbow class, that's where those are. So having something a sketchbook or some scrap paper and also a rag to wipe your brushes on it's nice to have, as well as a selection of brushes. I like to have a fluffy one and put this pencil away. This is for our sketch. Fluffy one for clean water, a smaller tapered one, a pointed round brush. This will get more pointy when it's dipped in water. It doesn't look super pointy now, but it will be. This one's for clean water, and then I like a rigor brush. We're going to make some trees today as well, and I'm going to use this one just to show you how to make branches. You can make it with this one. Just practice your water control, your brush control so that this one has a really nice, fine tip. This one holds a bit of water because it's long, but it also gives you that nice. It's very easy to make branches that look like branches and not just a log line. So I'm going to show you how I use this one as well today. This is just a normal mechanical pencil. I'm not going to draw a lot, but I will make some outlines to know where the line for the horizon goes where my splash starts. This one has an eraser with it. Or I actually recommend having a needed eraser so you can pick up. You just push it. It's like rubber. You push it down 4. Tips for reference images: Just wanted to show you quickly some examples of some imagery that you can use. I try to find photos that have a clear horizon line. That way, there's a lot of snow and I also keep the edges of the paper white. This is a nice one that has a nice big splash, use a softer splash for this big one, branches and the trunk and then have more of a tighter splash down here and something like this where there's a horizon line. There's some other splashes, and there's a lot of white. With a photo like this, what you could do is go to Edit on your phone and then you find where it says, adjust and you adjust the saturation. And when you take the saturation, all the way down, you get a black and white photo. With a black and white photo, it's much easier to see the contrast. If you're working in Monochrome, it's much easier for me to see the contrast than if it's different colors. This one has super different colors. It's just blue and white. But still, this gives me a much better idea of how dark is that person, how dark is that shadow, how dark would the splashes be, and I'm not distracted by the light in the sky as well. I think this is the one we're going to be working with today. This is one of the ones we'll use for our scenes. I'll make two different ones. I also recommend is going on royalty free sites and you can find lots of beautiful image there. This is a bit of a strange one because this house is completely covered. But you see what I mean with there being a lot of white space. A lot of white, we're going to collaborate with our paper. Let the paper be the white. Here as well, we have kind of two horizon lines, and we need to arc person. And then this is one of the examples, and it's made out of this photo. This is a photo I turned black and white. It had a bit of color in it, and then this is the imagery. This is the painting that came out of this one. You see it's not exactly the same, but you see the idea of trees in the background. This one has splatters of white snow. You can add that with a gel pen if you like, or ink or quash. But I really like to splatter some extra snow on top. Afterwards such an option as well. But it was made for this one. Yeah, looking for some imagery, maybe you have some on your phone. Here's a nice one. The splash would be tight around the back there, and then some splashes here on the sides. We're back at that first one. Find some imagery, find an image you want to try. Or you can follow along with mine. I'll add mine to the resource gallery so that you can work on the same exact image as me. Let's do it. 5. Blue - First layer - Wet in wet: I'm gonna find the reference photo we made earlier. Which is this one. And I want to make I'm not going to make a perfect perfect reference. But I want to find going to find the middle and make sure that one's left pretty clean. And then slightly down from the middle, up to the side, I'm gonna make a horizon line with my pencil. I'm gonna make a lead a bit of a horizon line here. A little swoop here looks like a little half of a heart. I'm going to do a splash here as well, but this bottom line will be a little bit looser. So, find the middle, slightly down. Loosely up here. And then that one. Further out. I want to try to make a person here. Later, I'm just making the sketch that I need. Don't need that much. I also don't need to make the person. You don't have to. I kind of want to make splash and splash. Besides. So what's also a good idea is to start activating my paints first and get some water on my brush. What are we going anyways, guys? Let's do indigo. Feel like this is my painter identity. So getting some indigo in my brush, now, that's just ready because what I'm going in with first is just clean water. Taking the clean water brush. And I'm going to make these splashes at the same time? And what you need to know about watercolor is also that you need to work. Go white fast. So we need to make sure our water stays our water stays, our water stays on the paper, that our paper stays wet. This can be tricky because sometimes we're scared of going in with too much water, and we feel like we lose control with too much water, and we can. But what we're looking for, what I want you to look for is a sheen on the paper. And you can also fix your mistakes. You're going back and forth with the water until the, the paper is saturated, but it's not dripping wet. I'm going to show you what I mean. A little closer. So what I want is that type of sheen without it being dripping wet. And then I'm going to adjust how much water is in my brush, how much water and paint that indigo is pretty thick now. I'm going to put it down where I want the most paint, and the darkest color, the darkest range, which will be along this edge first. Oh I what I meant. It's fine. This one also has a bit of color. It's gonna be along this edge first, and then I'm going to do some splashes of these trees, and those are going to be accentuated with more like trunks afterwards. We're going to do wet on wet first, where the paper is wet and the paint is wet. When everything is dry, we're going to do wet dry, which is exactly what it sounds like of putting wet paint on dry paper stays exactly where we need it. So now comes moment of truth. I'm going to get a little bit more water on my brush because that indigo is so thick. And then my favorite part of all paintings. So we're going to start making that top bit. There's a tree up here. We can add some more water into some of the trees if we feel like they're not spreading in the way we like them too. I can also see up in that corner. It's a bit too much water. It's a bit too wet, so that took some of its paint, took some paint with it. I'm going to make a trunk here so that I can stay like that. Over here, I'm actually going to add more water to my paint to make these splashes. A little more a little lighter in color, actually. Whereas at the bottom here, it's gonna be quite dark. This is still all wet enough. You can add some more there if you like. This is all still wet enough. And then slightly outlining the, like, general shape of trees. And, of course, I'm interpreting I'm interpreting this reference photo. It's not going to be an exact replica. I'm also like, I'm going to add some trees here that are not really there because then we get this, like, swoopy effect. I want makes some tdle trees up here. See how it's kind of coming together. Do I want this all the way to the edge? Yes. Right. I'm getting it all the way to the edge here, and that feels like it needs to be all the way to the edge there, and then I'm getting some of that lighter splashy effect here and some of the darker splashy effect elsewhere. As you see, I'm working pretty quickly. Look at this beautiful spading and splashing. Yeah, I'm not going to do anything with this dry patch this dry area yet. If at any point, look at beautiful water, at any point you feel like for example, this tree supposed to be a little bit in the background, looks quite dark. I'm just going to go in with some clean water to soften that a little bit. I still want there to be play, color play. I want to be able to layer trunks on top of this and then it can't be at maximum darkness. Does that make sense? I can't put another trunk on top of this, but here there will be trunks and branches in the lighter area with a darker shade of indigo afterwards. I can't do that if it's already at its maximum darkness or here, it won't matter if I layer more paint on top. Because it's already so dark. And that friendly friends is our first layer. Good luck with yours. I'm gonna let that dry completely. 'Cause also, it's starting to dry. The paper is starting to dry. See, there's still that sheen on it. This is the joy of cotton paper. You can play with it for a long time. But it is starting to dry, so I'm gonna leave it so that I don't mess with it. I just messed with the floor. That's okay. This is also why watercolor is so nice because you can just clean it off. I'm going to leave that, and we're going to come back to it after. What you can do in the meantime is make a second version. Make another background, make another starting point of another image if you would like to. With another one of your reference photos, you can make a similar one in a different color. You can try both at the same time. You can see if you want to try this one, but on a different paper. Up to you. I'm going to try another background on the rough paper, actually, so that we have two backgrounds to play with. I try out. I'm gonna try a different color. All right. I'll see you in the next one. 6. Blue - Second layer - Wet on dry: So we are back, and this is entirely dry. You can see that there's no sheen on the paper. It's gone back to being entirely flat. Isn't that nice. So now we have our background. We have our soft splash, the splash that we've used. The second part I want to do on this painting is everything that has, like, a really light value, like, where there's lots of water, this type of value up here. And I want to do that on the road and on this triangle part here that's in the shadow. Little bit of dry brushing here. After that, I'm going to go in with my trunks, my branches for this tree. It's going to be up here. The point isn't that we're going to make a perfect replica of a realistic painting. That's not where we're going with this, but to have that imagery. What I also want to measure is how much of the painting is that person in the foreground? It has a perm and has a shadow, and I do want to have that in this. You can also take anything out. This is your choice, artist, friend. You can take out anything you don't want to paint in a painting. You can take a reference photo and you can stylize it the way that you want. You can take out the people, you can take out the houses, you can take out details, especially details that scare you, you're allowed to take those out. You know. So what I'm going to use to help me get this very light part is I'm going to use the lid of one of my water jars to mix a really, really light shade of blue, and I'm going to test it on these little It doesn't super matter. I mean, you can go in with a light shade of blue, lots of water in your brush and just go for it, which is what I often do. But if you wanted more control, you can mix your paint in this in advance and test that you have the shade that you want. If you're unsure of how dark you want it, always start lighter. You can always make it darker, but it's really hard to make it lighter and take paint away, depending on how tinting that color is and you can scrape some off. But always a good idea to start with the light. So I'm going to keep this as my clean water brush, and I'm going to go in with my lighter brush brush. And since there is going to be blue on it, I'm just going to put it in the blue water because it doesn't matter. It's going to be blue anyways. So getting some of that indigo, mixing it, adding some more water. We're getting a very light shade. I always recommend having palettes that are white or lightly colored. If this had been on a black palette or a black bowl, I wouldn't have seen the color and the shade as clearly. See, that's pretty light. Then not too much water in my brush. I can see if that is the type of shade that I would like. It's really light, but that means it gives me a good base and then I can add more color on top. So let's look at our reference photo again. You brought it up here. So this is the second kind of light shade. I want to put it here, and I want to put it in this triangle part, and I want to do this shadow, and then I'm going to put in the person at the very end. That's gonna be really dark again, like these parts and these parts. So just leave that there for us. Yeah, it's starting to take shape. So using this, I can mix more if I want to. I'm gonna make I didn't make a line here, I'm gonna start in this corner here. I go to make this entire area. And if I like dry brush a little, like over here, there's some lighter parts, not to make it too, like, super um like, it's not cut with a ruler, you know, it's just snow bunching up here on the sides. And there's a little more color up here. That's also where the trees start. If I wanted to, can add some more paint. My palette, make a bit of a medium shade and, like, drop in some more. Some, like, a little bit darker. Gonna do the same thing on the other side. Get that really watery shade first. As you can see, I'm going back and forth because I know I have the opportunity to adjust it. And as my brush runs out of water, I get those nice dry brushing effects. Starting to take shape, let me show you a little bit closer. And then I know that there's a shadow from this person, and that shadows pretty sharp. Sharp as in the lines are pretty clear because the shadow the person giving the shadow is very close to where the shadow is landing. Does that make sense? If I put my hand here, that shadow is sharper than if I put it here. Does that makes sense? Because that person is standing here, that shadow has clear crisper edges and a more like direct, a more direct shadow. So what we can also do here is add in a little bit more more of that medium shade into this part. That's now op. As you can see, I'm going back and forth, adjusting as I go, trying to see where my lights and darks are in my reference. And if I make something like, Oh, that looks a little dark to me. I could just add more water. I can still keep lending while everything is wet. Also so that this part doesn't look as sharp, but still show that there's snow. And we can keep layering forever, obviously. This is your artwork. But I also like when the strokes are quite loos. Like that. See what I mean? Yeah. So I'm not going to mess anymore with these two areas. What I'm going to do now is go into these dry areas. I don't want to mess with these because if I put in the shadow now, that's close to a wet part. It's close to a part that's shiny, and I don't want it to bleed. So I don't want to do anything close to this part, but I do want to make my branches and my trunks into these two areas. Not going to make all of them, not going to make every single trunk and every single branch. We would be here forever. But I do want to make some of the details. Okay. Whoop. Some of the details up in those trees, especially on the left side and a little bit on the right. So that's what we're going to do now. I'm going to take my rigor brush. You don't have to have a brush like this. But this just gives really thin lines that can keep going for quite a long time because this brush, because it's narrow, but it's long, it'll keep more paint in the bristles. Whereas if you have a very, very short, very thin brush, that'll run out of water really quickly, which is why I prefer these ones. So this type of brush can give you really, like thin lovely lines. And by working kind of straight down, putting it straight down on the paper. I'm not dragging it like this. Putting it straight down kind of helps me with kind of jerky movements, helps me get more like the type of branch feeling that I want you see what I mean, that top one. So it's not too smooth, if that makes sense to you. This is my brush. This is the one I'm going to use, and I'm going to show you how only if I only had a brush like this, I would make sure that I had very little water in my brush and then I'll flip this around so you can see the difference. Here we go. I was going to put that in my mouth and then I realized, you won't hear what I'm saying. With very little water, the tip on this brush goes very sharp. That can also be used to make those branches in those trunks. See what I mean? But you need to make sure that your water control is on point. Yeah, so that point stays nice and thick. Nice and thick, nice and not thick. If we get too much water, I just dipped this into water and didn't take anything off. The brush will release, more water, and it will also not be as dark. It's harder to control when there's a lot of water in the brush. That was my point. So. Here's the brush you have. Let's get our reference back. So I'm going to make like four maybe trees here, five, one on the edge, and then a couple of small trees over in this area to get into this blob and this blob, which will be the indication that there are other branches there. Stop. Getting quite a dark shade and not too much water on my brush. Always want to start on the thickest, darkest part. La start down into this one. I'll get pretty. Like, holding it pretty straight down. I can always again, you can always go lighter, sorry. You can always go darker, start light and you can always go thicker branches, but it's hard to take the branches back if you've made thick branches and thick trunks. We're going to start very narrowly up here and then you can add more water if you want thicker trunks. You want to start something that is little bit thicker. I'm just making why shapes and trying to balance out where those are coming from, how thin, how thick, so that it doesn't look too much like a cartoon tree. It starts looking like actual trees. And then you can also, if you like this, it's not the best brush to make this kind of tree. But if you wanted to make any pine trees, you can also do that, I like working from the top down to make some of those pine trees more pronounced more pronounced in the background. See how that disappears into the rest of the growth, the androgrowth. Then you can see if you feel like you need to go darker. Add some here in the foreground, even though it's not super easy to see because they're on top of something else. But it gives the impression that there's more going on. Little pine tree. So we have the effect of more trees and do one more on the other side. There's a really tall one over here. Ots of little branches. I also try to not have branches start in the middle of nowhere, which is easier said than done. They don't disconnect from the tree. Here there are also a couple of small trees here at the front. And as a general rule, anything that's closer to you in a painting will be darker. So what I'm noticing now is that this tree is a little darker, which is strange. Like, perspective wise, that doesn't make sense because these are closer. So I'm going to darken some of these with more paint in my brush, more paint in my paint mix, so we have that contrast making sense in how far away something looks. Which is also why it's nice to turn things black and white because I'm like, Is this green, darker than this pink? I don't know. Then you turn to black and white and you're like, Oh, yeah, know it is. Making those front trees a little darker brings them closer to you. See how I mean, see how I mean, you see what I mean? Then having maybe a little bit more water for the trees here in the background that are further away. I don't want to overdo this. I don't want to make 7,000 branches. I will be here forever. You can, if you like. But I challenge you to also see how little you can get away with and indicate to indicate where the trees are. I can bring these up a little bit more, but I'm also like, I'll see if I like this. It's harder to go back. I'm going to stay here for now. And then what we'll do for our last step is just bringing this person which I do want to sketch first just so I have a better idea of the shape that I want this person to be. So just got one more step and then you can keep adding details and you can keep adding texture and you can keep adding, but you can also see if it's uncomfortable for you to let it stay like this. You know, now that I'm seeing it go all the way up, I'm tempted to make some that go all the way up and out of the frame. And as a reminder for ways when you're painting, it's not that serious. I mean, it can feel like, Oh, but I wasted this time or I wanted this to be really good or it's a present or it's a commission or it's something. I'm like, Well, yes, but you can also I just realized I did that, like lending it into this bottom part. Making it nice and smooth. Seeing if there's anything else I want to change, bring it closer. Yeah, add little grass, little somethings. They're a little they're tiny little trees out into this snow as well. And here, there's there's a fence. You can see that. Like a little fence for here now that this part is dry. Some details just to have some more interest there. So we're gonna leave that for now. I'm going come back to this person in the last part. But this is where we're at after the second round of this. 7. Blue - Final touches and details: Last part of this one is going to be the people, the humans. I'm not very good at painting humans, but this kind of silhouette makes it a little bit easier for me. So I'm going to draw them in. I actually want to do the two tiny people at the back. Those two up there. But I really want to do this one, it's okay if it's a little abstract, it's a little imperfect, it's all right. Joy of painting. I want to draw them in, and I want to make sure that he's is that this person is ish the same proportions as on this. I can actually because this paper is not very large, I can zoom in for this to be about the same size as my paper, a little bit more. To help myself, see how big this person is, it's about the same size as in this photo right now, see if I can show you how much I'm cheating. I want to do a little head up here in the up into this portion up here, there's a bit of shoulder ridge. There's actually a little triangle opening here. And then there is a tram, a tram, a tram, a trolley. So there's an elbow sticking out here, and then that actually is pretty flat area. So I'm trying to get the silhouette. And trying to keep the parts open that are open. These two and the very black are very small and they have to be moved a laid weight to the side. The main thing I can see in these two is blob on top and I can see that their legs are separate, that they have two legs. That's the only thing I'm doing. See what I mean? I'm only sketching that they have two legs. I'm sketching the wheels and then this line here and this opening here trying to keep those. If they get locked, that's okay too. That's the only thing I want to do on this painting for the very end. I'm getting a really dark indigo on my rigor brush so that I get the details. I could have gone in with this pointed brush as well. I feel like, I'll get a lot of control to get those thin lines and the thin lines of the legs if I go in with this one. So, learning from my mistakes, I'm gonna go from left to right so I don't put my hand into it if I start here and then put my hand here. I'll put my hand into paint like I already have. There's green there. But I'm gonna do these little humans first. We wee little blob, two little legs. Little blob. Blob. And two little legs. And basically just using my brush, like a pencil. So they're quite far away. And then this, I'm just coloring in my own sketch. And here, as well, it's easier to go smaller and then expand out than it is to start too big. I'm getting the prim. What I could do as well, is going with the other brush when I'm filling in, I can do the outlines with this. This one goes pretty much straight in. Pretty much straight across to this wheel. MGs keep on turning. Running. Rolling. Well, now we have that outline, and then I can actually use the other brush to help myself make it easier to fill in the rest of that. Which looks like right now, it looks like a very large penguin. Um, making sure that I keep that opening open, that triangle there so that it looks like a tram when I finish, and then I'll see if I need to adjust anymore. So I'm going to use this brush, go into my nice dark indigo mix here and just fill this in keeping both of those little triangles that I talked about earlier, open. And if you can't, it's fine. You will not be arrested. Ah, there's actually a bit of an angle out on that elbow. If I feel like anything looks strange, I'll just keep adjusting. Yeah. What does this wheel look so angled? Sometimes it's easier to see, like, if I'm looking straight on it, I'm kind of keeping it this way to show you here. I'm like, Yeah, I see in the monitor, I see on my camera. But that wheel looks a little strange. To exaggerate the way that looks. But that it feels pretty good. And then also see how that light opens up, and there's a little bit of opening in the shadow. Magical. And that my beloved friends is actually that one finished. I'm not gonna mess with that one anymore. I could add more here. We can add more of that dry brushing on the sides. I could reinforce this fence, make that darker. But I actually really like the way it looks now. You can also splatter some snow on this if you like. You have some white ink. But I'm gonna call this finished. Oh, never forget. To sign your artwork. I really like, like, the visual of signing with a pencil. 2025. But also, feel free to sign with a pen. It just makes it all come together and look very much like artwork. Look at that. Cute. Beautiful. I love it. And I hope you enjoy yours too. And if you don't, you can always start over. It's it's all new. Alright. We're gonna do one more full painting with another color, another reference photo. So stay tuned for that. 8. Green - First layer - Wet in wet: I wanted to do one more example for you because this is one of the favorite paintings I've ever done. I still have it in a frame in my home, and it's this one. And I was so proud at this, splashy background and how I've kept the white on the roof. It's such an efficient way of working with the white on the paper. So for this one, I wanted to try to use a different color. I want to try to use my favorite green, and it's pretty neat to see this with its reference photo side by side. This is the reference photo. It's from Unsplash. I'll leave it in the resources. I'm going to have to make a sketch for this to keep those houses. And then there's some of that fence at the beginning. I did Splatter snow on this. Don't have snow today, but that's in the first video. I really, really love this one. I wanted to show you how quickly you can make something like this. I love finishing a painting. I love when a painting is done and, you know, one sitting, makes me feel very accomplished. So recommend. This is a photo by Robert Themen it's from Unsplash. You go find royalty free pictures. Don't go on Pinterest. Don't go on Instagram. Don't steal someone else's photo. Photographers are working as well. So if it's just for your own practice, sure. But for something like this, I really wanted to make sure that the photos I'm showing you and using for my references are either taken by me or from a royalty free site. Just a little artist tip there if you're establishing your artistry. So this one. Now we're going to use the rough paper. This has even more texture. I'm excited to work with this. I can see that the texture of this surface has more texture. I'm going to use my pencil to map out the horizon line, the fence posts, and the house. So it's a little bit above the middle. Starts a little bit above the middle here. And then it goes slightly downward. Here. It doesn't have to be perfect. We're gonna splash color over it. And we're gonna make one little house. And since the houses are gonna be so dark, it doesn't really matter if my pencil lines are a little dark, as well. So there's a little roof here. There's a splash on top of that house. And then there's darkness from the walls of this house kind of overlapping going out this way. And as per always, it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be seamless, doesn't have to look like mine. Yeah. And then this middle fence post. About in the middle about halfway up. So we get that fun perspective. I'm just going to make one line. I'll fill it in with my paint afterwards. And there's one that's a little angled. And then there's two quite close to each other, a little angle that way, up. And then they kind of go back up and then there's one more tree up here on the side. That's all I'm going to do. The rest of this, I'll just fill in as I go. Let me show you the bare bones of my sketch. Look at this artistry. Glorious. So I just have my fence posts. I have my horizon line, and I have my houses, and that's really all I need. So what I want to do first, like always is put my clean water on. So I'm going to start along this line. In my experience, rough papers soak up a lot of water. So I really want to make sure that I saturate this. And because my paper is glued, this block is glued, I have I have the opportunity to go in with a lot of water. What you want to make sure you're not doing is getting any water onto the roof, really staying away from those roofs because that's what's staying entirely white. That's apart from the bottom here. That's the whitest part of that top part, which will be really beautiful contrast to that splash of the trees. So following along my horizon line, it's okay to go a little bit over the horizon line so that the pencil line isn't showing. So if you want to go just over it, you can. Just along it just so the pencil line is hidden. See how I'm just crossing over it, I'm getting that nice sheen on the paper. As long as there's sheen, as long as it's wet, we can work. Now for this one, unlike the other one, I don't want to go all the way up. I just want to go here, but I want to give my paint space enough to flow. See that? I want to give it space enough to flow. And I also don't want to make a very dark splash in the background. I want to make it quite light. And what I want to do, now for this, you can also use the top of the lid if you want. But I'm going to go in with my aquarius green and make it a little bit thick, but not super thick. And since time is of the essence, I'm going to go in with a splash. Now, so you know, there's one splash over here. I want to not mess with it very much. There's one splash here, and I realize I realize that this having the contrast of the green with the snow, I realize it's a little bit strange because then it looks like it's springtime, but there's also snow, so maybe this is like freshly fall and snow. And you can always add whoop little bit more water. You can see how this is, like, bleeding and blending. And you can obviously work with the colors you like the most, go full, you know, artist vibes and make it purple, make it whatever you like. Then I can also I can reference the reference photo, but I can also reference my old painting. So I'm going to make it a little bit darker down here towards the horizon. And I want to make sure that these trees, 'cause they're not pine trees, they're kind of fluffy trees. And by fluffy, I mean, they have leaves and not pine needles. So that's also where I want to make sure that it's not too dark because I know that I want to make trunks on these. But I do want to get that. See that seamless blend upward. And it is now covering that pencil line at the bottom. We're getting a nice foresty line. And to hide that pencil line here at the bottom, even though on the photo, there's no trees right there, I am going to make it because I'm the boss. You decide. It's your painting. It's your artwork. So now while all of this is wet, it's important not to mess with. It's important not to then start going in with a really, really dark green that I'm going to put on the houses. I'm just going to work with one color here as well. But I don't want to go in with the green in the house because that's gonna bleed out into the wet parts here. What I can do is work on this bit down here at the bottom. Sticking with my choice making green snow. So for the fence, I'm going to use this brush for the beginning of the fence. And then for these little like the wires between the fence. I'm gonna use the rigor brush from earlier, that really long thin one. But for these ones, I'm gonna go in with a tip of my brush. A pretty dark shade of paint. And like we said earlier, anything that's closer makes sense to dark So I started on the wrong end. Hot tip from artist. Start on the right side. If you're left handed, start on the left side if you're right handed, and you'll drag your brush across the paper just so we don't put your hand into your paint and do this all the time. I apologize. Actually, I don't apologize, but it's a little little honesty moment for you there. Um, I got too excited to start with this big one at the start, you know? So can make some of that. And then I can also help myself by looking at my reference photo and see if there's anything that I did. So I see that I have blended a little bit off the sides of those. To get that the effect that there's snow on these. So the way to do that is to go in with a clean brush. I'm not gonna give the water a lot of space to flow. So these are still wet. They can still flow. Not gonna give it a lot of space to flow, but I am gonna give it a bit of clean water here on the sides. So make sure they're not very thick to begin with. That one looks a little too wet. Did you notice that I did the exact same thing and started on the right. So that gives the effect of there being some kind of little bit of snow on the sides of these. See what I mean? Just on the right side on all of them. Then I'm gonna go with my rigor brush. This is one I'm gonna use for the wires on the fence and also for all of these little, like, grass parts. And then at the very end, I'm gonna make these, like, dunes. There's one little gress over there. We're gonna do him as well. So gonna get my rigger brush. This is my green now. And this is just drying and having a good time in the meantime. You can use a sketch here. I'm just gonna try to not be a perfectionist. And it's okay if these are a little imperfect. So there are two lines of wires, and you can't see both of them on every single one because of the snow. So I can't really see the ones between those. Then I can only see one going from that one to this one. I can't see the bottom one at all. There's non there. Then I get two that just go off the edge. So get down diagonal T two, right? And then you can make the little crosses. Where their little ties, just details. Try not to put my hand in the paint, like, adjusted and make a little mark there. Each okay. And as far as like foreshortening goes, which is when something is further away, when something is angled towards you, there's a foreshortening effort. Like, my hand looks like this this way. If you're drawing my hand from this side, would just draw my fingertips, you know? So that means if we're seeing this from the side, these are further apart. But when we get to see them, they're further apart like this when we see them from that side. But when you see them from an angle, they look like they're closer together. So coming up the year, they'll be smaller, of course, because they're further away, but they'll be because they're angling this way. They'll also be closer together on the wire. I'm just using the very tip of my brush for that. And then I'm getting my grass ready. And here I'm just playing. And this is very, like, wherever you feel like there would grow a bit of grass. There's some grass here. Just recently, there's our one guy over there recently covered with snow. So you can see if you want to add more of these later. This is also the brush I'm going to use for the trunks for this. But as you can see, you see how wobbly this part is. You see how much that paper has expanded. So what we're going to do with this, we're going to let it dry. Then I'm going to go in with the wet on dry for these houses. Go to go in with a little bit of soft pillowy snow down here and the trunks of all the trees as well. That's where we're going with this painting. We'll see you in the next one. 9. Green - Second/final layer - Wet on dry: Right. We are dry. And we're coming back to do the trunks and the house and the pillows of snow down here. Is it called pillows of snow in not in English, I think, but it is in Norwegian. I'm going to start with the houses because it's very satisfying. I'm gonna get a really dark shade of green. For houses and for anything with texture, you can also go in with dry brushing, but they're so far away that I'm just gonna go in with the paint where those houses are. See that first little house actually has a tiny, tiny chimney. And next to the big house on the right side, there is a little part here. I'm going to do those as well. Gonna start with the walls all the way up in these corners. Carefully, carefully tracing what I'm really I was gonna say worried. Not worried. But what I'm really taking care to not do is get anything up on that roof. The roofs staying white are such a big part of this, of this work. So I'm being very careful, I have a lot of control on my brush because there's not a lot of water in the paint. And because it's wet on dry, the paint is not going anywhere other than where I put it. Now, as you can see, as you can maybe see, as I will show you, when I'm dragging it out further this way, the water that's further up in my brush is actually coming down so that it's getting a little bit of a lighter green. It's not an issue. It's just good to notice if you want to refill your brush with more paint for the whole house to be even darker, beware that you might want to go back in and fill your brush up with paint. Again. And now I'm considering if I want to go all the way down to the pencil line that I made. And since that hasn't been painted over, I have another option, which is, um, to erase it when the building is dry. When the houses are all dry, I can see if I want to go back in and erase a little bit of that paint. But I can also pull this house down to that line and also to that little square thing on the side here that I don't know what is. I don't know what that is. There's actually a little fence over here because I had some paint on my brush. And then that tiny, little square chimney. Alright, there. And that. That's all we're gonna do with the house. Now, in the monitor, I saw that this one needed to come out a little bit 'cause it wasn't it wasn't matching the side here. That is where we're going to leave the house. Lovely. See how nice that contrast is? That is really, really dark. Now, I could go in with this one. I could use the same brush to make my trunks. Go to mix myself a really dark, nice green here and making sure I can get that off on my palette. I can also get some off on my cloth here and using my brush straight down onto the paper. That's when I'll get the thint most delicate lines. It won't be as thin and delicate. Well, maybe my nose also a little bit too wet, but I find it much easier to make these thin and delicate lines. Oop with my rigor brush. So that is what I'm gonna do. I just want to give you the option. If you don't have a rigor brush, you don't have to have one. Just make sure you have a really dry Brush. So that the tip stays really, really sharp and gives you those thin lines thin lines, those thin lines that you want. So I'm actually gonna change brush. Tools one. Making sure that it's clean. Let's have any other color on it because 'cause there was blue on it earlier. Here we go. Getting all of that delicious green, making sure this is also not too wet, but it just makes for a more elegant line. And I'm not just like on the other painting. I'm not going to attempt to make every single branch, but I am gonna make enough branches that I feel like it's giving the same illusion. Getting balancing out. I'm kind of I'm trying to shake my head a little bit, which might sound strange, but that is what I'm doing, to get those kind of erratic natural lines because I don't I don't like it when the trees are too perfect. So getting trying to keep the same darkness, making some trunks thicker than the others. But this is all I'm doing just going back and forth and you can add as much as you want or as little as you want. You can also just keep it as a splash, if you'd like. That's all so fine. Like not add any trees and details and branches at all. Those are our options, too. You are the artist. You get to choose. It's not supposed to look like mine, and it won't because you're a different artist. And you have different supplies and different preferences. And that's, you know, the peut we have it. There's actually also a little fence over here. I have never seen before. Gonna make little lines for that one as well. Now, for the sake of argument, I'm going to leave it there. Then we have that nice row of trees. Last thing you want to add. Astasn final. No, it's like, Well, this is the last thing I want to add. Um, I want to make it really, really, really light shade of green. You can again test this on your scrap piece of paper. See if that feels light enough. I'm actually gonna add some more water. Just almost just lit a bit of colored water to make these, like, dunes of snow softly making So like so that it makes sense that those that the grass is growing out of somewhere. And there's just a little bit over here, as well, if anything gets too dark, you can always use your cloth to wipe it off. A little bit up here. Little bit of shading to get some texture. And that my lovely artist is prints all we're gonna do. If anything gets too dark, you can also, like, tap it, and then you can go darker after. But you want to stay pretty light this whole way so that you know what so you know what you're dealing with. No, so you know what you have to work with. And then All we're gonna do is sign, and then I'm gonna show you how I open this and take those paintings off. Gonna sign it with my pencil because I love pencil. Right, 2025. Well, there. That's all we're gonna do. That I love it. I love the contrast between the really dark. This is all just one color. Hm, aticals that. This is why I love watercolor so much. Let me get the reference without it being a perfect match. See, I can go darker here down in this corner if you like. Just want to give you the options of how you can play with making something out of a reference photo that won't look exactly the same, but you'll see that it's inspired by something and you get the effects of the watercolor doing its job, you know, making those beautiful blends. And those, like, soft spo slashes. Gorgeous. Perfect. 10. How to remove watercolor paper from a block: My favorite thing to use to get these off of their block is a plastic ruler, but I do not have that. So we want to get something that's not too sharp in between there and then just cut it off. Like this. Maybe we'll need to peel some of that glue off this takes it off the block. Perfectly. I want do that one more time. In there, cut around the edge. L so. And there, you have your painting. So, of course, we're gonna take these off. For the perfectionism. There you have. Your paintings ready. I hope you've enjoyed this class. We'll do one more it'll video at the very end. There you have your reference photos monochrome using the splash technique to get different types of results. I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next lesson for some fine oak parts. 11. Before you go! : Just like that. You've finished the whole class. You've gone through every single lesson, or maybe you haven't, but how would I know? I'm just filming my own apartment. But I hope you had a really good time. I hope you learn something new about yourself and your supplies and your watercolor preferences. And anytime you take a class, anytime you make something, you update what you like. You learn more about what kind of painting you like, what you don't like, what you'll take with you, and what you'll leave behind. And that is the goal. The plan is for you to give this a chance and then get the information that you need from it and take it into your artwork and your practice. If you're like, Oh, I don't like that at all. I don't like using this type of brush. I don't like using this type of paper. I I hate working in Mona Chrome, I always want to range with 100 colors at the same time. Perfect. Isn't that good information to have, you know? So now what I hope happens is that you leave your artwork in the project gallery, that you upload a photo, tell me how it went, tell me what you struggled with, if anything, and I'll comment back to you. I always respond and gush over all of my students' artworks. And if you leave a review, it'll help other students know what to expect from this class. They're just coming to a class. They're just clicking on one of the thousands and thousands of classes on this beautiful site that I enjoy very much being a part of. And why would they choose this one? How would they know what to expect if other students don't tell them? So it's really, really helpful for me and for others and also because who doesn't like feedback? How would I know what you like and what type of classes you like if you don't tell me? Do you like it? Perfect. I'll do more of this. Don't you like it? Cool. Let me see if I can tweak something to help you better in class. If you want to tag me on Instagram, that's Elisa Obachin. That's also where I do my coaching and my other stuff. So if you're like, Is this an art page? Yes, it is. That's how you get ahold of me. If you want to send me a message, if there's anything you're wondering about. Related, life related. It's been such a big part of my life and my development as a person to have this type of creative practice, figure out what I like, not to feel embarrassed about the way that I paint, which is, sometimes I can feel like the way that I paint is really easy and that must be cheating if it's easy and it makes a beautiful result with not lots of hard effort to practice. I want you to make beautiful artwork immediately. I want you to make something that you're proud of. One of my favorite feedbacks that I've ever gotten from one of my classes was someone who's like, I'm a beginner artist, and the results from this class these are the first paintings I've really wanted to show someone that I've made. I'm gonna try not to cry. I cry in every single class. It makes me so happy to see my students change the perspective on themselves of what they're capable of, of what you're capable of. If you painted something throughout this class, please know that your brain has already changed. It's too late. You can't help it. You've already grown in a new way because you did something that you haven't done before. That's how our brain develops. That's how our brain grows, as well, is new input. And then filtering it through what we need, taking what we want, leaving what we don't like, which is life, but also taking the time to be a creative person, taking the time to confirm your identity to yourself as someone who takes the time for creative practice, who uses their art supplies who creates in a world where there's a lot of destruction. Let's not go into that. Creation, art, joy, play is the opposite of that. We can only do that when we're not in survival mode, so it makes me very happy to know that you're here. Signing off on that note. I'm really glad you're here. I really hope you enjoyed this class. I hope I see your artwork in the gallery or on Instagram. Now see in another class, another time.