Transcripts
1. Intro: If you're watching this class, I'm sure you're inspired by nature around you. You're amazed by vibrant and alive flowers. You want to capture it on paper, but you don't want to spend days or even weeks on one piece. I found a way to enjoy the process of painting, and sometimes even enjoy the results. My name is Anna, and I'm award-winning artist based in Berlin, Germany. I'm also one of the teachers here on Skillshare. Today, I'm going to show you my way of botanical painting. In this class, I'll show you my very specific technique using acrylic inks and watercolors. We'll explore how, with just a few layers and two colors, you can show the true-to-life botanical depth. In the second part of the class, we'll be working digitally on iPad using appropriate app. But as always, you can use any software and any art supplies. The most important takeaway from this class is to focus on scene. This is the key idea to faithfully capture of the floral beauty. This time, Skillshare and I are also giving away one year of premium membership. All you have to do is post your project in the Project Gallery before 1st of September, and follow me here on Skillshare by pressing this button above. This part you can do right away, it's easy. Now, let's dig in, work hard, and have fun.
2. Field Notes: We're standing now in one of the most majestic gardens in Berlin. It's called a Rose Garden, and it's a part of a giant Central Park or a forest called Tiergarten. As you can guess, the choice is not random. There is nothing more inspiring than to appreciate the flowers in nature. To look at every tiny detail and be amazed by stunning colors and gradients. I usually take some notes and photo references, so I can preserve this feelings, and then work in my studio. This way I can paint it when it suits me and won't be afraid that flowers will just fade. Another source of inspiration is books. Let's see what I've got.
3. Inspiration Books: The first treasure I have is called "A Garden Eden", and it's small enough to fit in my bag, so I bring it along to the coffee shop. This way, I can relax and explore this beautiful vintage artworks. It's almost unscientific catalog of botanical illustration. This rose is as stanning. The sources are drawn from libraries in Berlin and Vienna. It's not only literalistic representations, but a true artistic masterpieces. Let's move to the studio and I will show you something else that I have. This is a book of flowers by Berlin-based artist Olaf Hajek. It's dedicated to floral symbolism. Olaf allowed me to show you the book, so I'm very excited that you can see all the studying details too. The variety of styles and flowers is so beautiful. Everything is very delicately drawn, and I really loved the folk feel of the horse. I have the whole class dedicated to folk art. Small details here and there. Fantastical themes and the representation of birds is lovely. Very beautiful hats and birds. You should remember this one for the second part of the class, you'll see what I mean. A really lovely book. Now I'm going to show you something really heavy. It weighs a tonne, so wait a moment, here it is. It's so tough, but it's awesome. This is a collection of amazing engravings by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, who is also known as "Raphael of flowers". How it's not surprising. The artworks are so impressive, all the small details, and it was so long ago. I'm sure you've seen this many many times on posters and postcards, it's a very popular artwork. These rose looks like the one we're going to paint today. His accuracy and beauty are so impressive. Very strange leaves, but very beautiful anyway, and the roses. This artwork is very famous till you've seen it on textiles and everywhere. A wonderful collection, and I always find inspiration in the vintage botanical painting. Now that we feel inspired, we can move to the next video and check out the materials.
4. Materials: Now that you feel inspired, hopefully, we can take a look at the materials. My specific technique is based on the combination of permanent inks and watercolors of almost the same hue. You'll see, I can't wait to show you. The properties of the inks allow it to dry super-fast and at the same time create a vibrant layering effect. Let's get into materials in more details. Here's what I'm going to use. Well, basically, just a bottle of permanent inks along with watercolor of the same hue like this would be enough, but let's get into more details. Brushes: for watercolors I will use these two brushes. This one is called a French brush or a moped brush. It has a special holder which allows it to keep more water. This one is synthetic brush with a hard tip. So it's very sustainable. Really nice option. Since we'll be working with permanent inks, it's better to have additional inexpensive synthetic brush of small size, so it's really nice. Let's talk about inks. This is my first secret weapon. These are Sherlock inks, so they are permanent like acrylic inks. I'll also be using this yellow one, but it's not necessary at all. Watercolors in tubes, it's like a candy shop. This will be my primary color and I will add this brilliant rolls, actually it's called Oprah rolls and the color is just dying. But please, keep in mind the characteristics of the pigment. This bright rolls is not that permanent, so I wouldn't use it alone if you're interested in long-lasting works. You can always see the pigment in for here, but the colors is, of course, brilliant. Now green, this one is soo lovely, but there is another way to get green. That's right. You can mix yellow and ultramarine or any kind of blue. So what's left? A paper. Where is it? Here it is. I'll be using a large format, 100 percent cotton paper. All the characteristics are always written on the cover, so it's pretty thick paper, 100 percent cotton. I just love the texture and feel of it. In the second part of the class, we'll be using iPad, and we'll talk about that later. Now, let's get to painting.
5. Rose Sketch: The beginning is always such an exciting and nervous moment at the same time. I prepared the sketch right on cotton paper. You can find it in class resources too. As you can see, I show every tiny detail, all the petals, all the leaves. I love to have all the things carefully explored and prepared. We don't want the drawing to be visible at the end, so the line needs to be nice and crisp. I also have a more detailed work in my sketchbook. Let's check it out. I used color pencils. You can see there are shadows and the direction of the patterns on every petal, so it's plain. For this technique, the flowers with the very defined patterns and designs will work best. This way, I have a very clean path, so I will enjoy the painting more. After this first step is finished, we can go on and start inking. Let's move on.
6. Inking Petals: I've mounted our sketch on a board using paper tape, and now I'll prepare the inks. I use two pallets because I love to have more dissolved inks. A few drops, here and I will add water to get a lighter hue. Like this. It can be really scary to work right on the original. So let me show at first a set of a test of what I'm going to do. It's the same sketch, I made it with pencil. It's the same shape of a petal with defined elements. What I'm going to do is paint these elements right away, with tiny brush strokes or big brush strokes, as you like. I start to define the pattern and leave the highlight in the middle. This technique is very effective for some flowers. I think you begin to see the shape. It really doesn't take a lot of time. So I follow the plan and define the edges. It's almost finished and it took me just a few minutes, and you can already see the finished petal. This will add the volume and we have three-dimensional effect right away. That's right. I think you've got the idea and it's time to work on our piece. Yeah, it's a bit scary, but we're super brave. Let's prepare. It's clean and I will start with a top-left. Yes. My plan is to work on all the petals and leave the middle white. It's a great idea to leave the white of the paper. This will make your artwork look lighter. So I draw this shadows. I always think about the general image of the flower; Not to be distracted by all the tiny details. Here, as you can see there is no outline. We create the 3D effect just by drawing this patterns. My plan is to work on every petal, but maybe it's more comfortable to work not on the closest one, but to skip apart so I will have a better understanding on the flower in general. I use different amount of water. It looks almost like painting, now, just how it feels. The acrylic inks dry very fast. So we can put another medium on top very soon, which is the principal of my technique. But we'll talk about it in the next part. Now we're falling into a painting trance and continue working on our rose. It's very useful to rotate the canvas so it would be more comfortable to draw. I use a sheet of transparent paper not to smash the paint. This way, you can also see the other part of the painting. This way I continue to work on our rose. I want to create a full composition. This way, there will be a few bots. I use more dissolved inks. You can see it's a very gentle color. This is now the center of our image. That's why we can allow it to be more transparent. Not so obvious. I will also work on lower petals. I'll have them here with a subtle strokes and get more paint. I really love how it looks like. We'll now move to the next video and we will work on the flower center part, it's going to be a focal point. So we'll make it more detailed. For now, I will leave this hints here. A few strokes like this. I think it's enough. We can move on to work on our focal point. This will be very interesting.
7. Inking Bud: Welcome back. Now we'll be working on the middle part of our rose. You can see all the petals are pointing to this focal point so actually, we don't have other choice than to make it look beautiful. I have prepared all the materials and I will start working like we did before. Basically, I will do the same thing like we did in previous videos. Working on each separate part. I always keep in mind the way this [inaudible] should point to the middle. I used to work point too many times. With tiny strokes, I define the edges. I also leave a lot of white. That's really important for this technique and it makes our artwork more light. I can skip some parts now just to get the impression. I think you can paint how you feel. It can be not so detailed. I enjoy working on small elements, but maybe you love to work on more large pieces. Shadows, sometimes I think it looks like a sculpture a bit. We are creating the whole world. The illusion of three dimensions, this way. I carefully work on the borders. I don't want it to look to cartoony. That's why I try not to draw any lines that define these borders, and my plan is to continue working on every small detail. Let see how it goes. We've got a beautiful result and now we can work on stamens. This will look like tiny dots something like this. As you notice, I use the same brush for large press strokes and for these tiny dots too. I just don't want to be distracted to change the tool. I make this tiny little elements and the middle should be a bit more defined. Let's see how can we do that? Something like this. That's right and we almost have this monochrome painting. It can be finished work for some style. We're almost done. Now it's time you should be thinking about your watercolors because we are ready to move to the next step. These move details are enough to move forward. Let's move on.
8. Adding Watercolors: Welcome to the watercolor part. Our rose is dry, and don't forget to wash your brush if you used permanent inks, it's very important. Now we'll work with watercolors, I prepared my two brushes and our sketch. You can remember it from previous videos. I will show you the technique of sketch first, so it wont be too scary. I prepare the color I love and a bit of opera rose. But of course, you can use any colors and you can paint totally different flower. It's up to you. I will make a mix, but before that, I'll put some clean water on our flower, and we'll wait till it's dry. Well, not so dry, but not so wet. Now I will mix the red, something like this and maybe a bit more red a bit more water. I play with this combinations. This looks nice. Then I put some shadows look over here like this, and here. It's very important that I leave a white of the paper untouched. I will add more paint and a bit more here, and you can see the sculpture of our rose is getting more realistic. Now with a clean brush, I make like this, and lift up the paint. Now you have the idea of what I'm going to do with our rose. My plan is to work on the whole rose, on every detail, on every separate petal this way. I start with the top left, like we did before, put some clear water, and then I'll do this process again and again. You can use another color if you want to have a brighter effect. But I really love this feel of the gentle color transitions. I add the shadow as we discussed. I keep in mind the direction of these lines too, gently working on the border, and I continue working all the general impression of our rose further. I also don't forget about the lower petals. We'll have them right here, put some clear water, and I have a very gentle mix for them. They shouldn't be very bright because we'll have a focal point in the middle, and this is just the arrangement to add some interest and nothing more. Let's draw a little bit like this. Always try to leave the white border, so it won't look too decorative. I will do the same here, some gentle strokes. There will also be a few bots, as you can remember, and I will just define them like this with a very, very light mix. I think after this part, I'll have to make a cup of tea before we move to the next step. Another bot like this, make yourself a hot beverage and let's move on.
9. Painting Leaves: Looks like you've done a beautiful job. You can leave it like this or add some leaves. I'll be using forest green color from my palate because I love it so much. But I got a small tip for you. Of course, you have a green in your palate tool, but usually it's better to make your own green by mixing yellow and ultramarine. The results will be more unique. Now let's get back to painting. Our magical rose is dry and I plan to add some leaves. I have green and I mix. Let me show you. By mixing yellow and ultramarine, yeah, not surprising, you can get the green color, but you can get a very special subtle tint and you can find that perfect one that you like. I will test some versions here. Maybe a bit more yellow. I'm not sure. Well, this is my favorite green. It's a mix of gray and dark charcoal color so it's a crazy mix. Now, let's prepare the working surface. I will use clear water to define the shape of a leaf first, this biggest one on top like this. Then I will wait a bit. It's pretty big with a pointed tip. Then I will make some unexpected mix of green and yellow and blue or without blue. It looks different every time. That's what I like about watercolors. Now I will paint this leaf starting from corners like this. I don't paint anything in the middle, only in the corners. Then my plan is to lift up the paint right in the middle like this. It can be not so accurate. Actually, it doesn't matter. Now I will lift up the paint and this way we will achieve a gentle transition. Look, like so. I can even control the paint which is left in the corners. My plan is to do the same thing with all the other leaves in our composition. The same technique works for these elements. They are not the center of our painting, so I use very subtle strokes. You will see that the paint will be a bit transparent. But of course, it's your choice. Maybe you want to have the bright full color illustrations. Now I add pigments here. This will be background, so I'm not very concerned with details and I don't draw any lines just so the shapes will be recognizable. The brushstrokes are pretty loose. This tiny leaf right here, it can be a bit brighter so we have it on foreground. I blur it with water. Of course, if we worked on the classical botanical painting, we would add tons of details, thousands of layers. But it's a modern method, so we can paint as we want and I think that's just great. I will add some more shadows, bit more details, something like this. I want to add some details to the leaves. Let's see how can we make it better. I will have my brushes ready and let me show you how I work on the leaves. At first, I use my unexpected green mix and make a few strokes. Let me show you. Like this. I think I need to rotate the canvas so it would be more comfortable with this angle. The stroke looks like this and I will repeat it a few times so you'll see it better. The next step will be to blur it with water. With a clear water, of course, like this. You can already see the details. If you add another layer with the same technique, the details will be even more prominent. My plan is to work on all the leaves in our painting this way. It's almost ready and I'll add a bit of green here, it's another tint with another pigment. Now, join me in the next video where we will add some magical fine details to our magical and fine rose.
10. Fine Details: Welcome back. Now I'll add some magic with permanent inks. It's a bit like Old Masters technique and glazing. These inks are semi-transparent so everything will shine through. I dissolve it with water a little bit and have the pure pigment too. Now let me try the perfect mix. That's right. You can see it looks so awesome. I will add a few strokes here and there just to add this beautiful glowing. We'll have it in the middle, and I will add some strokes here and here. Everything is close to the focal point. The most challenging thing is not to overwork this part. I try to keep this yellow glowing closer to center, and I fight myself not to paint everything with it. It's very important to leave the white space a bit here and here. They're drying super fast too so I have to be pretty quickly drawing my way. Now made a few elements here and here. It's almost enough maybe on top, a bit on leaves. Just a little bit. It's almost enough. I still have the inks though, I want to use everything, but we won't do that. We have another magical element to do. Which is this step is going to intensify the shadows. We will use the ultramarine color from the previous videos, mix it a bit with red so we'll have purple, and I will put it right here. But be careful. I painted just a little bit, and I wash it with clear water so there are no rough edges. I didn't speed up this part so you can see these tiny details. They are very important. They are important to have this general impression of the painting. Tiny elements. Of course here, we want the shadow to be darker like this and here. There is no plan at this point. I just put the ultramarine where I think it works best just to deepen the impression. Honestly, I'm really happy with the result. I hope you will try this technique too and even try something of your own. It's always so exciting to see. I'll rotate the canvas and intensify this part too so everything will lead to the focal point, which is our center. The white stays the white so I only use the darker areas. I think it's almost ready. Now I'm sure you can celebrate your success with another cup of tea or coffee, maybe decaf coffee. I'm super excited that you will join me in the second part of the class where we will paint digitally in Procreate app. But, of course, you can use any other software or just enjoy painting with me and use some advice from the class to apply to your own works. Now these tiny elements are fully rendered, and our magical rose is beautifully blooming. Super.
11. Digital Painting: Welcome to the second part of the class. We'll be using digital weapons this time. Looks like I have a Magic Wand. So I'll be working in Procreate, but you can use Photoshop or any free software. The principle will be the same. It actually doesn't matter. We'll focus on artistic scene of the subject. Making this shift is crucial. I'll show you my technique of working with shapes first. So you know that working digitally allows a lot of freedom. You don't have to worry about spoiling the expensive paper, expensive art supplies. You can make eternal amount of changes, which can also drive you crazy. But it's very useful for fun and commercial projects. I know what you're thinking, and I definitely agree. The feeling is different. So I'm really enjoying having this both options, traditional and digital. Check out the next video and let's explore the new way of painting.
12. Procreate Settings: Before drawing in Procreate, I wanted to show you some settings I usually use. I go to Settings, find Procreate. It's here. I switch off Simplified Undos. This way I have a better control over history. Then I find Apple Pencil, and I turn off this invisible touch button because it annoys me, honestly. I get used to working on it very commonly, it confuses me. Now I go to Procreate, create a new file. The size doesn't matter. Then we go to preferences here just to control. Make sure the Assisted Drawing is turned off. Then go to General and turn on Disable Touch Actions. This way, I'll have a comfortable drawing routine and enjoy it more like a traditional medium. So let's get started.
13. Iris Shapes: I create a new layer on my A4 canvas. Using selection tool freehand, I'm drawing the shape of a petal. Something like this. Then I can color it this way, just drag and drop it like this. Then I will go to layers and choose "Alpha Lock", which means only this layer will be affected by our actions and by using only these three brushes, you can find it in class resources and now I will pick this water color brush. I have some color palette and I will work on the edges. As you can see, our layer is alpha locked, which means I can draw only inside this shape. This brush is a mix of watercolor and gouache, I always try to find the perfect size or transparency and play with color. This will look better, I think. I work only on the edges. I keep the middle clean and I'm creating the illusion of shadows and the pattern or the flower. Yeah, it's really hard to find the correct size. I change it a lot along the way. The next step will be to use this famous smudge tool. But for now, I need to work on edges. Maybe lighter color will work better. It's almost time for a smudge tool. I will hold the icon a bit longer, so the brush will be the same and I will mix these two teams together. You can see the pattern appears already. But it will be better, I promise you. This is just the process. Now use a smudge tool and it's time for inks. I pick the ink brush, a darker color, and I will draw this pattern like so. Our layer is still locked so I can draw safely inside. My plan is to work all over this petal. Now I will use watercolor brush again and add some yellow tint right in the middle. It's a bit transparent, so not so bright and after that, the famous smudge tool will come into play. I will smudge everything together. Keep it in mind the direction of this pattern, which goes straight towards the middle, very subtle solution. Something like this. Now starts the crucial part, we turn off the after look. It was scary, but we have to do it. Now using the smudge tool and some preferences, I work on the edges. This part really turns our illustration in the beautiful artwork. Almost like a sculpture, we work on shaping our flower. I try to avoid perfect angles and just create this subtle forms and shapes along the way. It's almost like an old master technique, the shaping technique. As you already guessed in the next videos, I will do the same with the rest of the image. I will work on every detail of each petal. Like this. It's a very pleasant feeling. So join me in the next video.
14. Painting Iris Petals: Let's continue. We create a new layer for every new petal, and actually we'll repeat the process we did in the previous video. Here is my color palette. I use very limited color palette, so this works perfectly for our flower. Let's continue working. A freehand selection like we did before. I think about composition and the perspective. This is the shape, I color it by dropping the color, then have a look, and I can safely work with watercolor brush on the edges. It's really different every time, I need to peak the comfortable size and transparency of the brush. Sometimes this eternal amount of possibilities is really confusing, so this will be the shadows and here for this top petal, I can work with larger strokes. I can already see it. Something like this will work, and I want to show all the curves this way, and maybe even white areas here. I just picked the color from the previous part. You can already feel the three-dimensional feel. You can feel the feel. This will be the central part and of course I already think about smudge tool and how I will sculpt everything later but now I must focus on shadows only. This will look beautiful if I will change the direction a bit. Now this merge tool either bigger, bigger size. You can see I changed the direction, and I will do exactly the same process with all the petals. So I just wanted to show you this one without spinning up. It really takes time. But once you get the idea, things are really easy and working digitally is not so stressful, so you know that you can make so many mistakes, but the choices are very confusing. I really love how it looks like and one will work on edges, this will be even better. So with this merge tool, I try to sculpt it even better. Now inks, like we did in the previous video. So I intensify some parts and I add the rough strokes with inks. So it will define the pattern here and maybe here. This part is really interesting, and here I always leave the lighter parts untouched. I always adjust the brush along the way, so it's never the same brush. It looks nice, I think. It's pretty nice. Now it's ready to be matched. It works great. We created a great choice and these color will even be better in the middle. It will make this part to pop. To pair them we can do this with classical paints just to pick up the color and continue, that's right. I think it's almost ready for the next step. It's blended enough, looks beautiful and I turned off the [inaudible] , which means we will work on the edges, that's right, and that's my favorite part because everything else is ready and I can't spoil everything. With this process, I will continue to work on several more petals of our magical flower. Not so magical like in the first part, but differently magical. The shape looks better now and everything looks more steadily pleasant in this manner. Now it's time to work on the next petal. I continue to work on tiny details here and there and you can see that I have a small iPad, so I use so many [inaudible] a lot, but it looks very impressive on screen. So I really love the result and In the next videos, we'll add more elements to make this painting even more beautiful. So we will add backgrounds and some green elements. Let's move on.
15. Painting Leaves: Let's add some green. I've prepared the color palate here. We have all the petals on separate layers, so I create a new one and follow exactly the same principle as before. Make sure that the layers with leaves are under the flower. I create a freehand selection and drop a color like this. I think about composition and how it looks better. I think it's nice. Then another one, maybe it will look better like so. Color again, and tiny one. Some more leaves will look nice. So let's maybe add them over here, maybe here, I'm not sure. That's nice. Then we will turn on the Alpha Lock and continue our drawing like we did before. Make sure the layers are separate. We turn on Alpha Lock and using darker color, we'll draw the shadows like this with a bigger brush. That's right. It's always really easy and you can see the result right away. I will do it to all the leaves. I decided to add more details, so I picked the color and decided to define the middle on the leaf-like this. I keep in mind the composition and perspective, so the direction of the line is important here, and then I'll smudge it. I really love how it looks like. We have almost vintage-looking botanical composition. In the next video, I will show you how to add special touches to your digital artwork, so join me in the next one.
16. Adding Textures: We're almost there. Time to add final touches. Here's what I'll have to do. I want to add some sharpness. I pick the Layer with leaves, Adjustment, Sharpen. By Dragging this line, I can control the level of sharpness. This way we'll have the vintage feel of the piece. Another great effect is to add texture. I choose the petal, use "Alpha Lock" and I will use this Brush. It looks almost like a snow. I will Add this texture here here and here and then we'll smudge it so it will look more natural. My plan is to do it with all the petals. This pattern we'll see it perfectly for our flower. I will continue like we did before. Here is final great tip to add interest to your work. I will create a new layer and we'll "Add" a real texture, like this. I have it in my photos, and now I Enlarge it with two fingers. We go to layers. By clicking on this symbol, you can choose the style. I usually use Multiply and play with Opacity like this. What a wonderful result. Now we have this vintage feel of the artwork [inaudible] as inspiration at the beginning of the class. I hope you'll try this technique and enjoy the process with different textures and brushes.
17. Your Task: Super. It's great to see you've made it this far. Your task is to create your own botanical painting. You can choose any subject or just follow along my examples. I've uploaded PDF with rules outline and sketch. You'll feel more comfortable working with it. Of course, upload your project to the project gallery. This way, you'll automatically have a chance to win one year of Skillshare premium membership. I also always happy to find your work on Instagram. Just don't forget to tag me so I can actually find it. You have one more video to go.
18. Final Thoughts: I know that if you're relatively new to watercolor, it can be scary to try new things and even share your work online, but every artwork builds up your confidence. I promise, you'll enjoy the process more and more over time, so please do share your work. Even if it's your first upload on Skillshare, it's a very friendly environment. If you've taken my other classes, you know I always leave encouraging feedback. You may want to check my other classes, for example, on watercolors, sketching, inks, and more. Don't forget about giveaway. I hope you push this follow button above somewhere here or maybe here, and you can also subscribe to my mailing list where I share some exclusive art, inspiring insights. Thanks for painting with me. Now, it's your turn, I'll be waiting for your works and see you very soon.
