Transcripts
1. Introduction: [MUSIC] For many years
I've painted with gouache. As a textile designer, it's always been the
medium of choice. That flat bowl graphic style
lends itself to painting. It designed for fabric. More recently, I've developed a style using it
for illustration, again, embracing its
graphic qualities. Now, I feel I want to
move on and discover what happens when I use it in
conjunction with another medium. I want to explore the mixing of media to find some
different looks. I love gouache, but I
know there's more to it. I plan to go on a bit
of a gouache journey, and I'd like you to come too. I'm Kate Cook, artists, designer and top teacher
here on Skillshare, and this is the start
of the gouache files. First, I'm working
with a combination that I think will
appeal to many of you. I'm using it
alongside watercolor. In my further classes
will be trying it with crayons and pastors,
and also collage. In this class, we will just
be trying it with watercolor. I love the contrast of the watery effect of this
paint and the flat map, opaque look of gouache. I think it's going to
look great together. Maybe you've dabbled a bit with gouache and had a go
with watercolors. Now's your chance to try both
and see what can happen. You don't need to be
any expert in either. Just willing to have a go. You'll need a few tubes of gouache and a small
box of watercolors, plus a couple of
brushes and some paper. But I'll talk you through that
in the materials section. By the end of this class, you will have had time to play around with the watercolors and see how easy and fun it is to paint flowers and leaves. I'll give you some
exercises to do before we jump into
making a picture. We will use gouache to
enhance the painting we make by adding highlights and
a background with gouache. I'll be giving you my
top tips for mixing gouache to the perfect
consistency for this. I've setup a great project for you to try this combination out, and I'll be taking you step-by-step through
how to achieve this. Let's dive into
the gouache files together and get creating. Now, I'm going to explain
the class project. See you in the first lesson.
2. The Class Project : [MUSIC] For your class project, I'd like you to complete the paint exercises I show
you, and then make a piece of artwork using a
similar composition and the techniques that I
demonstrate in the class. Don't worry, I'm
going to take you step-by-step through my
process for doing this. We'll look at how
water color works in different ways depending
on how much water you use, the type of brush you use, and the type of paper. We will then go through the brush strokes that I find I use all the time to create flowers and leaves in
a lovely loose style, no small brushes and
tiny detail here. I'll also do some gouache
exercises so you can see the exact consistency I
want you to work with, the painting detail and the background then you'll find a picture to
use as inspiration. Choose a simple layout, and jump straight into
making a piece about work. Starting with watercolor
paint some flowers in a vase, and then use gouache
to add detail, and a lovely flat graphic background to contrast with the watercolor. You'll end up with a
lovely floral composition ready to hang on your wall after you've taken
a photo or scan of it and uploaded it to the
class gallery of course. I think you'll find this a
lovely rewarding project to make, and I can't wait
to see what you produce. Now, I'm going to show
you all the materials you'll need for the class. See you in the next
lesson. [MUSIC]
3. Materials : To make your own
artwork in this class, you're going to need a
few different materials. So I'm going to go through them now telling you the
ones I like and why. First, watercolor paints. A box of watercolors would
be perfect for this class. I have a set from
Winsor & Newton. These are pretty good quality and give me all
the colors I need. However, you could also
use a small box like this. Then if you feel you
want a few extra colors, then just buy them
in small tubes. There are lots of different
makes and I'm not going to ask you to buy
new fancy ones if you just have some
basic graduate ones, that's absolutely fine. I always say you get what
you pay for with paint. But any is great just
to get you started. Next, you'll need some gouache. I have lots of it as I
paint with it most days. However, you really
don't need to go out there and buy every
color under the sun. The brand I like is
also Winsor & Newton, but there are plenty of
others to choose from. Again, you get what you pay for, so if you find that
the paint doesn't behave in the same way as mine, it may be because you're using a graduate quality
or a budget brand. That's not the end of the world. You just need to be aware that it won't necessarily look as opaque and flat as
a quality paint. Because we only need
a few colors for this project, I'd
suggest you have, I think about, a background
color that you like, the idea of in advance. For my painting, I chose to use turquoise plus a bit of permanent white for
the background. I would recommend buying
a few other colors such as red ocher,
a green light, permanent green deep, maybe
an indigo, or a sepia, as they'll all be
quite good for mixing the darks that we're going
to need for some detail. Brushes. I use three different
brushes for the painting. For the watercolor, I love using this round-head
brush by Raphael. It's called a Le 803, and the size it says
is a three slash zero. It's a great brush
for watercolor as it holds lots of water, but has a really fine tip
that's easy to manipulate. Any round watercolor brush
will do in a size 5 or 6. So just use whatever you
have or can afford to buy. I will also use a
round size 2 for the gouache detail and a bigger round brush in a Size 6 for painting in
the background. Paper. The better
quality the paper, the better painting
experience you'll have. I'm using heavyweight
watercolor smooth paper by Daler-Rowney, which is 140 pounds
and is hot pressed. This means its smooth surface, that's great for watercolor, but also the gouache will glide over it quite
nicely as well. You'll also need a water jar, tissue, and some palette, whatever you prefer
to use is fine, plus a small pot that you can mix your background color
in for the gouache. I quite like yogurt pots
or cut-down plastic cups. I think that covers everything. You may have noticed
that I have left off a pencil and an eraser. You really can do this without them so let's see
if we can do it. Now, we're going to look
at finding some flower and leaf reference to
use for inspiration, and then make a few
paint exercises to get us in the painting zone. See you in the next lesson.
4. Reference And Colour : [MUSIC] This is a quick
lesson on where I'm going to find a good reference
for my painting. Whilst I do often use
flowers and leaves from my garden or that I buy from
the florist or supermarket, it's not always easy to find a good mix of these all
flowers I like to paint. I tend to turn to the
Internet for inspiration. You can just Google
flower arrangements to find a nice photo. But I prefer to use
Pinterest as I think the quality of
flower arrangements tends to be slightly better. I created my own
floral reference board where I keep this photo, which makes it very
easy to access. I have my computer screen
very close to where I paint, so it's pretty easy to
look at it while I paint. But you could use your phone or iPad or print off your
chosen arrangement. What I tend to look
for in a bouquet is a slightly wild and
colorful look with a good mix of small
and large flower heads and some nice trailing leaves. For this painting, I'm choosing this
arrangement as it has a lovely big pink peony
and some tool lupins, as well as the smaller
lilac and white flowers, plus a bit of
yellow to contrast. I like the patterned
glass bars too, but if you want to find a
different bars designed to use, you can always just search
for one and exchange it. I feel the color balance
of pinks, lilacs, and yellows and
the various greens in the footage is
just what I'm after. I'd already decided on the
turquoise for the background, and I think it will all
look great together. The bouquet and vase, I'm going to paint
in watercolor. I'm going to use a
more instinctive style of painting for
these and just mix my watercolors on
my palette as I go reacting to the
reference picture. No pre-mixing required here. Just have your paints ready. You could always spray your paint pens with a bit of water before you start
so they're already wet and ready for dipping into. Once I've made the
watercolor painting, I'm going to mix a
couple of colors in gouache to use as highlights. I will show you how I do this
in the painting section. Next, I want to show you
how I tackle painting those flowers and
leaves by doing a few watercolor exercises. See you in the next
lesson. [MUSIC]
5. Watercolour Exercises : [MUSIC] Now I'm going
to pick out a few of the flowers and leaves
and show you how I tackle painting them
and I'd like you to do the same as a start
to your class project. Get your watercolors and around
size three or four brush. I love to use my
Raphael brush for this, some tissue, a jar of water, some scrap watercolor paper, or your sketchbook and palate if your paints
don't come with one. We will get started
with that big peony. I'm using some cadmium
red and I'm going to practice the side
petals of the flower by using a half-moon
shape holding the brush lightly at the end and using
it tilted slightly. I'm using the whole of
the brush in a big sweep. Then I'm washing and drying
my brush and taking some of that paint away dabbing
it on the tissue. I'm trying to control the color intensity and keep
it light and translucent. I'm going to go in
again with that brush, just a big sweep of the brush and quite
wet lots of paint on my brush and now I'm going to go back with the dryer brush and
dab some of that paint off. It's all about
pushing and pulling the color trying to
control the areas where I have more paint and keeping
some translucency to it. Just carrying on, trying lots of different
amounts of paint on my brush. Here I'm putting
lots and lots of the red pigment paint
and then again, I'm going to take
some of it away, but leave some
areas really quite dark and then try another one. Want to try something
called fading, where I just use one
edge of the petal and I really work
at taking away lots of the paint on that
particular edge and push the brush out over the edge of the petal and really make it blend
into the white paper. You can see that it has a nice translucent effect on one side. Now I'm going to
try some of these petals are a little bit more fuller around the back of the middle of the
flower and again, taking the paint
away and softening that edge so it looks a
little more petal like. Then I've gone back
and got more of that cadmium red and I'm just dotting it in its purest form at the bottom of the
petal where it would join the flower and it's a bit more shaded to give it
some difference. Try another petal,
a bit like that. Again, taking the
middle paint away. Go in with a bit more
paint and just again, touch it at the bottom
while it's still wet, it just bleeds beautifully into the petal and obviously you can't control it but that's half the joy of
it that it just does. Again, I'm using that
fading technique around the edge of the
petal just to blend into the white
background not even dab it with a tissue
that has never very successful, I don't
know why I did that. Next, let's have a go at
painting that flower. I'm going to use those
shapes I've been practicing and just start laying down some of
those petals again, taking away the paint. You can see how subtle
those pretty petals are and I just want to get that shape really of the flower going at this stage. This is the first layer of petals that I'm going
to paint and I'm going to get the shape of the flower going and then let
it all dry and then I will come back and do a second and maybe third
layer of petals. You'll see that lovely
translucency of the paint works really
well when you leave things to dry and then
come back and paint over the top of
them and you just build up this beautiful
flower head really. I'm trying to keep
it quite light at the moment around the edges, I can go back in and get
darker and heavier with some of the colors when
this layer is dry. I'm not copying the flower
in it's every single detail, I'm just getting a impression and a stylized version of it. I'm not terribly
bothered about accuracy, but I am using that flower
to dictate totally what I'm doing but I'm not going to get upset if something
goes slightly astray. Just working around the
center of the flower, I'm going to leave that free at the moment and
later when things are dry, I'll come back and put
some yellow in the center. But for the moment, I'm
just concentrating on all those pretty
pale petals around the outside so you can see the flower is taking shape now. I'm just going to keep it
quite light at this stage. Now that's dried and
this is my second layer, I've got lots more paint on my brush again and
you can see as you paint over the
first dried layer, it's not moving
that first layer. Just taking the paint
away again and it has that lovely translucent look. You can see all those
petal shapes come through, fill a few wind around the back. Again, keeping on controlling that level
of paint that I'm using, speed things up a
little bit here. You'll get the idea
what I'm trying to do and building it
up quite nicely. Now we're going to
go quite dark here. You can leave edges
quite dark and then other edges quite light. Just maintaining that difference
in translucency really. Now I've got some yellow. What yellow did I use? I think it's a whimsy yellow, quite yellow, yellow I think. I'm going to add some of
the red into it just at the bottom to make it
blend in a bit better, so it goes quite orange. I'm quite happy with
that at the moment. I'm going to wait for that to dry and then go back
over the top of it. Now I've got another layer. This is the third layer. This is getting quite
dark now and literally, I'm going to squint as I look
at that photograph and try and figure out where
the darkest areas are on those petals, where the shadows are. Just try and give it some dark lights as
opposed to highlight. Try not to get too carried away. What's a nice subtle
areas of darkness? It's looking quite
good at the moment, might just leave it there. Now that middle has dried. I've mixed orange with yellow, and red and I'm just
going back to dotting. Some of those tiny
little stamens give that impression of
the middle of the flower. Next, I am going to
tackle that loop in. These are lovely flowers to paint I really enjoy
painting them. It's just something beautiful and I rather grand about them. I've mixed a violet with this. It's just a bit of Alizarin
Crimson and ultramarine. Just the pink and the
blue really whatever you have and I'm going in quite
lightly with my brush. Again, same method, those loop in
flowers really lend themselves to being painted in this way and I'm just taking
a bit of the color away, keeping it quiet light
because you can see off those flowers on the
loop in are very pale. Then there are quite dark, so it's still wet, but I've gone back and got a lot stronger pigment
with that violet and I'm just dotting it
around so it bleeds nicely into those
pale pink petals. Now I've got some of the
yellow because I can see a bit of yellow amongst those leaves where they join the stem and that's a lovely effect that
bleed into the petals. Now using a bit of the
sap green and more yellow in there as well I think I am going to paint
in that stem. Again, it's all still wet so I'm obviously
working with the fact that it's going to bleed
into those flowers but I quite like the effect. I want it to bleed together
that's what I'm after. Quite happy with that I'll
let that dry now and I'm now going back over it to pick out those really dark tones in the violet petals of the flower and I think I'm
quite happy with that. I'm going to try
some leaves now. Just having a look at this various different
leaves in that bouquet. I'm just going to practice a few simple shapes it's pretty much two brush
strokes joined together, the leaf shape and I've taken some of that paint
away in the middle and then added it back just at the base where it would
attach to the stem. I'm going to try a slightly
different leaf shape now where you join two of those leaves
together to make one leaf, you can see a smaller
and a bigger one. Just using the tip of
my brush to do stem. It's subtle and gentle
and simple brushstrokes. Quite a lot of paint on my brush so I might take
some of that away. Just remember leaves
tend to be darker where they join the
stem or at the tip. I take some of the paint away in the middle and the
back of the leaf, and then put it back in just
where it joins the stem. Keep that stem quite dark, it's bleeding nicely, it's all very wet still, I could leave this to dry
and then go back with another layer of paint over the top just to add some
more interesting detail but I'm not really bothering
at this stage I'm just using it in one hit really. I'm going to try those
loop in leaves or rather, they're flower shaped almost, so they're made up of lots of sections of leaves
all pointing together. I should paint them each
individually and then with the tip of my brush just
join them in the middle so they bleed into one another. Then I'm going to go in
with some darker hooker's green and just drop that
in the middle so it bleeds out gently into
those yellowy green leaves. That seems to have a nice
effect quite like that. Play around with the tips
of the leaves a little bit, try and lighten
them up slightly. Quite pleased with the effects. This is all dry now, so you can see it's
all quite watery but I want it to be like this
because it's going to contrast really well
with a gouache. There you have it. I think we're about ready to
start our painting. [MUSIC] See you in the
next lesson. [MUSIC]
6. The Painting : [MUSIC] I've got my stuff
ready to do my painting. There's my reference picture, there ready on the side, so I've got that near me and I've decided not to use my box of paints
because it's so messy. It's just quite difficult
to show you what I'm using. I've picked out all
the colors I want to use and they're in tubes beside me and I'm
going to use my palette. I've put some out already. I'll just go through
what I'm going to use. I've got an alizarin crimson. I've got the cadmium red. I've got permanent magenta. I might try some
permanent violet. I'm using lemon windsor, also green gold,
love that color. That's quite a useful color. I'll probably mix that with the other two
greens that I'm using, which are hookers green
and windsor green. Also I've put some
ultramarine blue out as well. Because I'm thinking
[NOISE] there's a few different pinks in here. Some blue and violet, purple colors, a few
different greens, some yellow and may make us grayish blue
might add into that. I'll probably end up using
payne's gray because that's fairly useful color. Let's get started. I've also got a tissue and
my water ready and my brush. Now, I know I've said
before I really would rather you didn't use a pencil
and an eraser for this. You can get very top bogged
down with drawing things, and rubbing things
out constantly. I don't really like pencil
marks showing through. I'm going to show you how I tackle the painting
without using a pencil. First of all, I'm going to
use some of this cadmium red and I'm going to
make it very watery and we're just going
to place that peony. I want to put it about here. I'm just going to be
very careful that I don't get too stronger
paint down at this stage. I just want a very light
covering of paint. As you can see, I'm using that half moon
shape and then two together around the
back with the petals as we did in the exercises. I'm leaving that
middle area free. That's yellow and I'm
literally just going to do a very light flower. Then I'm going to leave
that and move on. I'm going to tackle the looping. I think that's on this side. I want to use a bit of, I never know how to
say alizarin crimson. Again, very watery and
I think it's going to be about that distance away from the peony
and come up here, it's got a bit of a wiggle. Just moving more of what
I'm just thinking I might start at the top and literally just trying
to draw in that wiggle. Now, the good thing when
it's really watery, you can actually dab it off. If you don't want it
to show too much. You can even get a very clean
brush, put some water on. You can almost dab
it away completely. That's quite a handy technique
if you just want to put in some areas to guide you and you don't want them
to be too strong right now, I'm going to go in with that half moon shape and just gently put in
a few of those plans. Now, the top is quite thin
and there is a bit of green and keeping it light
down the bottom. See we're coming back to this
so we don't have to paint it totally at the moment is just a suggestion
of where it is. Now, the next one I'm
going to put in is this looping over here that has that nice balance
in the arrangement. Now, that looping
I feel is a little bit more violet in color. I'm going to use
some of that magenta to do that because the palest of the petals are quite pink. But then more of a violet pink. Again, what I think I might do is start at the
top and just get. Let's go to quite a nice curve. It comes down to the penny. What I might do is just put
away some of that color. Very subtle. Now. Let's go in with some of those
little flowers. The top is a bit
fatter at the top than the other one coming
down placing those. They're lovely flowers
to paint these lupins. I think they're quite nice for a beginner to try painting with. Yeah, I think I like that. Now, this green is
my hookers green. Actually too green. I think I'm going to use some of that green gold because
that's a little bit more yellow and I can see
just where the stem is. It's quite nice that [inaudible]
while it's still wet, just put some of that color in, let it bleed in. I like it the way it disperses
into that violet a bit. Try it through here
as well actually, because that's got
the same color stem. I think this is a bit of purple down the side
of this looping is another flower poking around the side of it that is quite
a bluey colored flower. I'm going to go with
some of the ultra marine blue and just add little
a bit of magenta to it. Now I'm aware there are
those little white flowers in this bouquet and they are not as quite as
straightforward to paint because
obviously you want to leave blank area where they are. Purple flowers up here. There's a little sprig
up here that I quite right and keep it quite watery, so I'm going to dab
off that paint. Then there's some
over here as well. Just going to do
those flower heads. I'm not being 100 percent
accurate and this is really not what I'm after, quite happy for it to be
slightly wrong over these. Anyway, right next. The other thing I want
to show you next is that I'm going to try and suggest the area in the middle
of the bouquet, where the white flowers are with a big yellow
flower behind them. Now my plan is, I think what I will do is
more color these white flowers with a very pale green. Just to have an idea. I'm going to use some
of that green gold, really watery and
tip of the brush. Just so I know
where not to paint. Now I'm not really being
particularly accurate with this. I'm just making
sure I've got about the right amount of those sitting in the middle
of the bouquet. Yeah, that's about
right and now, just going to go in
with that yellow. I've got the windsor yellow
and I'm going to use that. It's a little bit more
orange than that actually, but I'm going to
start with just pure yellow and work between those flowers just
in the yellow area. The flower that's
hidden behind them. It's a roundish shape. Now, I'm also going
to use a bit of the cadmium red dot that in. Well, I kept looking a
little bit orange in places. Yes, now I'm going
to add some of these leaves in this various of a fairly dry or trying
to avoid smudging that. I'm going to go back with my hookers green
and I'm just going to use that brush we were using in the
exercises for leaves. Just suggest the leaves
down here, again, keeping it pretty light, like some of those loop-in
leaves as well here. Obviously, the foliage is
quite busy and confusing here. So I'm not going to
paint every leaf. I'm just going to give a
suggestion and try and get that shape of the bars in and I want decide how
I'm going to paint it. I've born a sort of
gray just looking in my box of paints here [NOISE], and I fancy using
the Payne's gray. I'm going to squeeze
a little bit out. I Just chubby those. I always say it's got that nice engraving on it so might just suggest
that this stage. The other thing I
will do is just put a hint of where those
stalks are coming in. Obviously when you paint the
garage in the background, I can play around
with the shape here, so I'm not really going
to worry too much about it at the moment I'm
just going to leave it as is. I'm going to go back
to that pale in now. Now we're going to put some, remember you can
take away as you go around just to keep on top of the color control and suggest a few more petals
around the top there. Just depends how dark do you go. I might leave that
at the moment. I think this loop
in here is dry. I'm going back to my
lizian crimson such as those darker flowers
amongst the pale petals. Just squinting a bit to see these one a bit tight
[inaudible] up here, to have a bit more of the green. I'm going to use some
green gold that you see quite a bit of green down
here as well in between. I'll make sure I've
got that in there, with a sticky note here
just using the green again, and that seems to
balance up with the other side of the bouquet, sticking out slightly,
might have to use it. Add another green
in here, not sure. I'm going to just put
in these stalks here. You'll see I've got
slightly wrong here because that's much
closer to that looping. But I don't really mind. I haven't got that fern in. I'm going to put the yellow in the middle of that peony, now. A bit of cambium red
just bleed into it. This area is a bit dry
well, it's getting there. Might try painting around these. Haven't got lots of
foliage around them, but it's a bit of a cheats way making them
show up a bit more. A bit of a stalk here maybe. What I might do, is just
put some of it bleeding, which I think is probably
a bit too obvious, these flower shapes, trying to make them a
little bit more diffused. There's quite a dark. I feel like this should be
a bit more green in there. Sure it might be a bit
more pink actually, and I'm do a bit of
green gold up here. Keep that bleeding
into it as well, makes it look a bit
more interesting. I think I'm going
to let that dry for a minute before I do anymore. It's dried enough now that I'm going just try a bit on this area where
it's quite dark green. If you squint picture you
can see it's pretty dark. I'm going to use
some of the hookers green initially might
even put tiny bit of Payne's gray in there just to try and
get a bit more of a darker green and I'm just going to do a few
brush strokes around here. I might try and keep
that area where the looping leaf is, there a bit more obvious. It's all about contrasting light and dark to
make it interesting. I'm not going for an accurate
representation of leaf, just outlined those
leaves slightly. I've let it all dry again now. So I'm going to
do another layer, and just get a bit
more detail in the peony and just try and get more pinky tones here. I'm not really mucking about
with the paints too much, I'm just using them as they come out of the tubes at the moment. Because I feel that color is quite good for
what I'm after. I'll try and get some detail in the center of the flower on
top of that yellow. I think I've lost some of the
yellow in the middle here, brush, and it's probably
going to be quite difficult to build up that yellow
now on top of the green. But I don't mind
that this area is any suggestion of yellow
through those white flowers. Next, I'm going to come
back to this loop in here. These areas a little bit darker. Like that area. I feel this is quite dark, I just want to
extend that flower. Looks better and
I'm going to put more definition in
these flowers here. I'm going to mix some of
the permanent violet, just a few dots in the middle of the flowers to accentuate them. Next, I am going to put in a little bit more darkness
in the background here. I might use some of
this Winsor green now. I might be dabbing this off. I feel quite like that. Rather than trying to play with, quite nice to have a
depth by just using a different color to make those marks look a
bit more interesting. Maybe we can put a
bit more detail in when it comes to the stage
of using some gouache. Here is some white flowers I'm still deliberating about what to do in those
white flowers. I think we can only use a very pale blue, turquoisey gray. Just using the tip of my brush, leaving that area there where
this yellow flower behind. I quite like that turquoise look just in areas as a contrast. I attempt to put something
there but there isn't anything in and maybe
I'll just leave that. I'm just working around thinking about areas that could benefit, we might have a bit
more green coming through the bottom of
this loop in here. I quite like that at the moment. I feel like I might need a little more depth
in that flower peony. I think I'm going to
try using some of the Syrian crimson that's here. There's a bit of a
pinky tone in this. I'm going to add some there. I'm going to go
overboard with it. That's probably enough. These white flowers, maybe a little bit of blue
and Payne's gray, and then just some dots. Here is my tissue to
keep them really pale. I don't always like
dabbing things off with a tissue because we've
got a great deal of control over how they splat. But I feel in this flowers
that can get away with it. Now, I might just do a little
bit more on these flowers. I don't think I need much, I'm just going to suggest in quite a watery way but I
want to be too strong. Obviously, through gloves, I'm going to keep it
quite loose and watery. I like the way they come through the glass where the diamond-shaped
pattern is. It gives a general feeling
of glass and maybe I need a bit more of that Payne's
gray, just in areas. Obviously, when we paint
round the background, this is going to
stand out a lot more. I want to keep it
quite subtle, really. Just suggesting that pattern. Oops. Just dropping
the paintbrush. That's probably
enough watercolor. There we have finished
watercolor part of the painting. Now, I'm going to
mix two colors and gouache to use as
highlights in the painting. The first is a deep burgundy that will work well
in the flowers. It's going to be
a combination of spectrum red and red ocher. For this, I'm just mixing a
small amount in my palette and I make sure that I have a nice double cream consistency. I'm also going to mix
a color that I think will work well in the foliage. It needs to be
quite a dark green. I'm using permanent green deep and just a
bit of red ocher, the red and the green together
make a nice dark color. I'll use my smaller
number 2 round brush and then work my way
around the painting, adding in some detail using both the colors wherever
I think appropriate, such as the darker areas, like the center of the peony to highlight the petals in the
loop ends in other flowers. Then that dark green to get some more definition
in the leaves, which should make the flowers
really stand out too. You don't have to do this. But I quite like the
effect the gouache has amongst the watercolor just to make things really pop. For those of you who are
really paying attention, you may realize this is a
different watercolor painting. I made two and filmed both but managed to delete the footage of the
one I showed you, the watercolor painting of just one of my many
technical faults. Sorry for that. But
you get the idea. [NOISE] The final part of the painting is to paint
in the gouache background. This is the paint I mixed up. Previously, the turquoise and I'm just going
to check the color. You can see the
consistency of it. It's a beautiful thick
and creamy consistency, a bit like double cream. I just want to check that I'm still happy with that
color and I think it's going to work really
well all the way round. I've got a big brush. This is actually a
number 6, I think. I've also got a smaller one, my number 2 [NOISE]
and I'm going to paint all the way around it and put in that background
in a nice flat style. I'll wet just through it, I'll just let you
watch me paint it, speed it up a bit.
Play some music. [MUSIC] As you can see, I've finished the
painting now and you can see that some places I've left a bit of a line around
the flowers and foliage. Sometimes you paint
up quite close but in this area around
the peony is quite nice to leave it quite pale. Obviously, I've mixed plenty of this background paint
because you can see you need quite a lot to get all the
way around. There we go. All finished. Next, we're going to have a recap
about what we've done. See you in the final lesson. [MUSIC]
7. Final Thoughts : [MUSIC] Here's the
final painting all finished and ready to frame. I hope you've enjoyed watching my process for
combining gouache and watercolor to paint a vase of beautiful flowers and now feel fully inspired to go ahead
and do the class project. You should have all the
tools to tackle this. Hopefully, I've given
you plenty of tips and ideas to make you feel at ease when making
your own painting. We've had a look
at the materials you need and what to add to your own box to help you paint with both watercolor
and gouache. You should easily
be able to find a lovely photo that you
can use as reference. I've explained the way I
tackle my color choices using an instinctive
mix-as-you-go approach with the watercolors, deciding in advance what to
use as a background color, and choosing highlight
colors in gouache to enhance your watercolor work. I'm hoping that you're
brave enough to resist the urge of drawing out
your subject matter. By following my simple
flower and leaf practice, you'll be confident about
going straight to the paint. Try doing lots of the
watercolor practice before you make your painting. Highlight those
darker areas with your gouache colors and then painting that
background last, achieving the lovely contrast of watery flowers and foliage
against the flatMap gouache. I'd really love to
see what you can do. It gives me lots of pleasure looking through all
my students work. Please don't feel daunted
about the class project. Have a go and then post
it in the class gallery. Always try to give
my feedback on everyone's projects
as soon as I can. I love the interaction
in the class. If you have any
questions or queries, then feel free to
follow them over and I will do my best to
help. Don't forget. This is just one class in a series of mixing gouache
with other mediums. Look out for the others. Thanks again for
doing the class. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to follow me here on Skillshare, that would be great. I'm also on Instagram, Pinterest, and my own website. See you next time.
Happy painting. [MUSIC]
Kate Cooke, Textile Designer and Illustrator
