Think like an Artist

1. INTRO: Hi, welcome to the class. My name is Nikki, and I'm a self taught watercolor artist based in Italy. I mostly paint portraits in different styles, like Western comic style, and sometimes in a realistic approach. In the past, I've also painted animal portraits, especially birds. In this class, we look at how to see in artists and what to look for in a reference to get the best out of your artwork. This class will walk you through the entire process of painting this statue in watercolor from start to finish. In this class le cover, tracing the reference, we'll take a look at the image, breaking it down to simple shapes that you can easily draw on your paper. How to make a grid and draw in the subject. Making a pencil value study, we'll decide which areas we want to highlight using contrast and edge control. And finally, the watercolor process. Explaining in depth step by step. But why I am teaching this class instead of the classic, learn the technique and follow a long approach. Because I just can't teach you how to become an experienced artist. I can show you some techniques for sure or how I hold my brush or the kind of movements I do to obtain certain effects. However, I don't think that this is enough to help artists break through. Those are crucial skills that I still teach to my students. And despite these are crucial skills that are fully covered and commented in this class so that you can still follow along, they are also things that artists learn as they paint. If someone just copy a reference image without processing what he is seeing, the learning process may take much longer. Instead, this approach involves observing, planning, studying the image before starting to paint the subject. This is not a quick and easy strategy. This is more suited to those artists who are willing to put an extra effort in order to master their craft. If this is the kind of approach you were looking for, let's just dive in. 2. Materials: For the drawing, I use the ruler in the colored pencil. I preferred a colored one, but graphite pencils are just fine. Maybe use HB in the two B, one for the sketch, and the softer one for the final drawing. I used I needed eraser. If you can avoid using cellulose paper, it's best to use 100 cotton paper for the best results. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can find brushes in your collection that are similar to the ones I've used. I tend to use a lot of different brushes because I just love them. But of course, you don't need that many. Just grab what you have and I fun with it. I have used two granulating watercolors by a very deed of friends of mine, which produces them. It doesn't matter which one you choose, but you'll get the best effect with granulating colors. We'll use the separation of pigment, especially on the statue to create that corrosion and stain effect. Last, but not least, I always have a paper tissue handy to wipe off extra water in the brush or for lifting some paints from the paper. I also use a water spray barrel and the skin tape or artist tape. 3. Tracing the Statue: If we start drawing and painting a reference right away without any study and observation, and we are an artist that hasn't a lot of experience. It may happen that many important things go unnoticed. What I am doing here is preparing the reference, making agreed to be aware of the right placement of the subject in the space. I subdivided the image in quadrants and two diagonals. Once my grid is done, I can proceed the tracing the reference. I'm not just following the outlines as they are, but I'm trying to simplify what I see as much as possible. My outline will then become a series of segments with different angles. This drawing will be split into two parts. The first thing we need to do is get the basic structure down. This will help us draw the subject on the paper with simple lines. In this lesson, I'm not going to cover how to draw facial features. But just in case you were wondering, I'm following a variation of the Loomis method. It's all about simplifying the face into the major planes of the head. Taking a class about this method really help me understand portraits better. This is my draft done with just lines. There's just one curve on the back of the skirt, but it's a clear and simple one. So I decided to keep it. I traced a circle to locate the head position and few others to block in the eyes, the chin, and the mouth area. If you don't have a drawing pad, you can use tracing paper over the reference image to trace the outline. Another way to do it is to print the reference and overlap it with a sheet of regular printer paper. Then stick it with masking tape to the window. You'll be able to see the outlines of the image and trace over it easily. The second part of the drawing consists in tracing over a new layer for the digital artist or onto a new tracing paper sheet, the outline of the image. Now, is the time to be really precise. This is the reference will follow once we are done drawing on watercolor paper, the basic structure I just showed you. This is the easiest way I discovered to draw a reference without losing your style. It helps you keep the proportion while allowing your creativity to express. Your assignment for this lesson is to make your own tracing with the tools you can either use the image I provided that you find in the download resources section, or pick one of your choice. I'd recommend going with the second option only if you've already taken this class with the original resource image. That way, you'll already have a good grasp on it. If you want to share your project or ask something about this class, just upload your project image in the class project section at the bottom of the page. 4. Pencil Study Part 1: If you want to see your watercolor painting game sore, consider getting used in the values study. This is a good habit that I acquired not so much time ago. I was a lazy artist, or rather I was an impatient artist. So don't understimate the importance of value drawing studies. And one of the main reasons is that when you're in the middle of the painting, it can happen that if you don't know your subject very well, you may have a hard time figuring out how to paint a certain area. Now, let me show some examples of tonal value studies. I painted this I four times, taking notes at the end of each repetition of what I needed to improve. But first, I did a tunnel value study. Here's another preliminary study of one of my painting. I don't aim to be perfect. This quick pencil sketch is just a reference I look at while paint. L et's jump in and see how to make the grade. It's very simple. Just make a square of 11 by 11 centimeters, using one side of the sheet as a guide. Measuring, for example, 1 centimeter of margin. For the grid, trace with a ruler two diagonals. Now, split the box into two halves, and you'll have four quadrants in total. Agata set of pencils with different gradations. In HB a to B and a very dark pencil will make the job. For the sketch, I use a HB. The first thing to do is to block the head with a circle. I'm not aiming to be perfect in a simple and quick study. Still, you will see later that I make a few adjustments to the first trace of the reference. The simple one made of mostly straight lines. My goal is to be as accurate as possible for the skeleton of this statue. Once you've got the basic structure down, you can be more flexible when you start adding the features. I'm just doing some simple shapes at the moment. The hardest part is getting the head right, as it implies having a good understanding of the phase structure. I found the Loomis method and its variation really helpful for developing my skills in this area. Just keep on guessing the angle of each segment and think about how it relates to other parts. How far is it from the nearest diagonal, and how close is it to another element you drew. You can go ahead and place the tip of the wing. Try to make use of negative shapes as well. Look at how much area the wing leads out in the corner of the frame. A long line will set the angle of the wing. Compare this angle to the one in the reference. Did you catch the right tilting? Once you nail it, you can easily add the upper shape. Most of the arm is in the lower left box above the diagonal with just a small part in the upper portion of the grid. O The skirt is a bit easier. Just draw a line from the little finger to the bottom line with a light tilt to the left. For the back, you can judge the negative space between the line and the grid. If you're having trouble with the back curve of the skirt, try switching up your sketchbook orientation to find a more comfortable position. The last part of the wing is a series of segments that aren't too difficult to draw. The main shapes are figured out. It's time to make some adjustments. When you are satisfied with the framework, you can erase the guidelines. You no longer need them. Finally, I got to the face. I tried to put the somatic features in the right place by thinking in terms of planes of the head. Just draw the face as best as you can. And if you're not familiar with it, just copy the reference. Oh. Here is another thing many people have trouble with. I think of them in three D form. This statue has a short carly hair. I see them in a cylinder, which helps me with the shading process. As for the wings, rather than drawing each feather individually, you can group them together as I'm showing you here. I arches. Then I separated the feathers into groups based on the orientation. Oh. 5. Pencil Study Part 2: After stepping away from it for a bit, I saw that the head was too small. So I lightened the sketch and did it again. I really enjoy using colored pencils. The strokes are never too dark, and they can be layered well with regular pencils. Use a darker pencil to refine the outline. Replace the flat lines with cured and expressive strokes using the second tracing image we created in the previous video. Before moving on with the tonal value study, let me show you which parts of the statue we want to highlight. I'll give more contrast to the head, the arm, and the wing. The other parts will have a lower contrast. We've decided what to focus on, but now we need to figure out how to make it happen. Let me introduce you to your new best friend Contrast. Contrast is all about creating major visual differences between multiple close elements. When there is a lot of contrast, our eyes are drawn to the part the most. Black and white is the most contrasting combination you can get. That's why we're doing a graphite study before we get started on the painting. To make the parts we want to make really pop, we'll give the light and dark values a bigger gap. On the other hand, we reduce the contrast in the other elements that aren't as important. Another way to control the contrast is to use edges. We have two types of edges. Lost edges and found edges. Bold, strong and well defined edges catch our attention, rising the contrast. On the other hand, the lost edges help the eye to relax. A nice artwork has a good mix of lost and found edges in the right places, also helped by tunnel value as well. Gums. I start my tunnel value study with I HB pencil, setting the mid tones. If you can try to avoid highlights. It's also important to have fun, even if we're just doing studies. There's no need to be too precise. A lot of the painting is going to be lose, so don't worry about making the drawing too detailed. If your outline gets covered, go for boulder lines. Otherwise, you'll lose them with darker shades of pencil. The hand is in the foreground, and you can be more accurate sheding the fingers. Make sure to give the arm a very light value where the sun is hitting the arm, a dark shadow in the opposite direction, and the core shadow in between. You can start with a HB pencil and set all the mid tones. Then move to a four B and so on. Or you can focus on one part of the body at a time. I would suggest this second approach as you might lose the overall view and make some parts stand out too much. One general rule I like to use is to group shadows. You can see that in the neck, the left and lower part of the wing and in the big occlusion shadow of the skirt. A man. When you're drawing the face, you can focus on getting all the details right. Pay special attention to eyes, nose, and mouth. The eye is going to be drawn to this point. The point of this study is to get to know the subject a bit better. I've found that sketching the statue with pencils helps me to take a more predictable approach to painting it rather than just improvising as I go along. While I'm following the reference photo, I try to process what I see grouping shadows together, simplify jagged once in creating more of a harmonious overall view. I'm not giving much attention to the single feather, but I'm showing it's there by underlining the projected shadow. This bold shadow is always opposite the direction of the light source. The background is very easy. Just a heads up. Remember to enhance the contrast by leaving the area very pale or dark, depending on our previous choices. For instance, the bottom left part of the hair is quite dark. So I'm very pale with the pencil. Instead, I add a bolder shadow in the area where the light is hitting the hair to make it stand out. I use a darker pencil for this. The result is that the head immediately pop ups. I also add a darker layer of graphite outside the wing, contouring the edges to really make it stand out. A bit lower, the pencil is almost the same value as the part of the wing and shadow. I wanted the contrast to be really low here. The study is done. Your assignment for this lesson is to make a pencil value study and make them pop by using high contrast and edges control. M 6. The Drawing: I've already covered how to make the grid and how to draw the angel statue. Maybe some of you skip the video about the value study in pencils, so I provided the scan of my drawing if you want to use it. If you nod that into drawing tube, just trace the outlines into your watercolor paper and go straight to the next video. You can find digital materials for download in the project and resources tab. 7. First Layer of Watercolor: To keep your paintings frame nice and white, you can use masking tape to mask the outside of your painting. I usually use wet and wet for the first glacis, which gives me soft edges and sets the basic tone of the area. I don't wet the entire surface. Just the small areas I want to focus on. In this case, the head and neck, partially reaching the wing and dress, just to avoid hard edges and let the color fade naturally. You'll also notice that I didn't touch the left and upper section of here because we've already established in the graphite study a white hard edge there. I use a small round brush because I want to control the amount of pigment and water, my brush can release onto the piper. With the small brush, control the dispersion of the pigment. My paint has milk consistency. Shade the eye socket, drag the paint on the cheek. Then lift your brush on the lower part of the hair to let the bristols release water in the darkest area. Put a strip of paint under the frontal part of the hair. Set a the metaton in the behind wing. Now pick some paint of cream consistency and paint the darkest shadow. If your brush is releasing too much water, just dab the belly. The point of the brush will keep the pigment lord. While the paint is still wet, I add the darkest shade of color to the hair part. Brush has very little water in it. It's almost only pigment of cream consistency. It won't spread because it will need a lot of water to run. There's a very dark value in the neck, paint under the chin with a very concentrated color. I used the darkest, most concentrated pigment I could pick to paint a shadow under the hair at the back of the neck. The color is almost black. Define a bit more the shadow that the hair is casting over the skin. Move around the pigment already on the paper if your paper is still wet to shape the shadows. With the semicircles, give volumes to those cars. Up here, the paper is almost dry. My stroke has hard edges, helpful for a cast shadow here. Lift the some paint with a clean brush on the upper lid of the right eye. Now pick some green and outline the upper part of its hair. Start to shade the back part of its hair band too. Here, I'm working wet on dry. We need some shading in the back part of hair too. This part is darker because it doesn't get hit by sunlight. Place some color, then soften the edges with a clean brush. The amount of water is very little to avoid back runs. Even though I've been careful, it may happens that the pigment disperse too much, so I'm lifting up the color from the cheek and other areas that needs to remain white. With a small brush, I mix some more paint and dab the excess of water from the belly. Now I'm going to put a bit of paint under the neck. So I'm shedding the eyebrows, too. Eyes are very tricky to paint in such a small format. Be sure to switch to your small brush and paint around the lids lit by sunlight. This technique is called negative painting. Now I'm sting the cheek with a t consistency paint. Now I'm softening the edges with a clean brush. I love to use water brushes for details for their narrow and sharp tip, but sometimes their barrel just releases too much water, so I just get rid of it. Using them just as regular brushes. I keep on building the shadows under the hair. The pencil marks are faint, but having done a study beforehand, and facilitated and know exactly where to lay those shadows. A loose painting works fine where strokes are confident. You can gain confidence by understanding your subjects volumes and lighting. In this part of the pencil study, we had high contrast. Though I paint with a darker value, the inner side of the hair. Be very careful because this will also shape the side of the face. I put a small dot for the pupil. And keep on liaring some darker paints to shade the ice area. Or head is darker on the right side and gets softer on the right side. The wash I painted is very faint. I keep defining the hair with wet on dry strokes. Then I put on the darkest areas, a very concentrated paint. It's almost a better consistency. I put a bit more of darker paint under the neck, too. To get a softer look, I moisten the paper with a spray barrel. Using my water brush, I pick up some green and drop it into the back wing. And I move the paint to soften the edge, and I lift the paint on the opposite side to make a softer edge, dubbing with a paper tissue to stop the water from spreading into the other wing. I lift some of the paint with my water brush to carve out a lighter spot. With a small water brush, I'm painting the lower outline of each feather, then soften the edges with a clean, damp, small brush. Sometimes I even make a very small stroke for the central part of the feather. Sometimes it's really nice to group two or more feathers, like in this group of three and soften the edge. In a looser painting like this, defining each feather adds too much heaviness. I'm doing exactly what I did before, so painting the shadow and then softening the edge with a reasonable amount of water to let the pigment granulate. This paint separates beautifully into a muted green and some dots of yellow. Still, I'm grouping some feathers together, following the growth pattern. Now you can start noticing how the feathers are defined on the inside and have soft shadows on the outside. When a little feathers shadow reach a longer feather, I pull off the paint to link the two shadows. I keep on doing the same things for the rest of the feathers. Make some flakes with the tip of the brush to make those negative shapes look like actual feathers. I do the same with the longer ones, making a line for the shadow, then softening the lower edge with water. Just make sure you don't touch with it to the bottom of the next feather. Sometimes I like to paint the area where three feathers meet. When the paper starts getting too, I most it with a bit of water using the spray. Be careful because this operation may molten some of the paint. I lightly spray my paper again, then dot some paint into the shadows. Then I spray some more water strengthen the shadows with more paint. I keep on switching my smaller water brush I used to paint. With the other small clean water brush that I use for softening the edges. If you remember from the value study, the bottom part of the wing is completely in shadow. I don't want to define feathers in this part, but I only lightly suggest the presence. Another very important thing is to not put a shadow under the outer feathers because there is the sky behind them. When I'm done with the wing, I can't dare to spray a bit of water on it to push the granulation effect even more, dubbing the excess of water if you see some paddles. Now let's move on to the arm. First, set to the shadow with a medium concentrated paint. Then paint the lower part of the fingers. This is the surface that is facing in your direction and catches less light from the sun above. My paper is still moist with water. Indeed, my edges are firm but not hard. With some random dots, I give the illusion of the ruffles in the top. The back of the statue is very dark. Set the value with a brush full of paint. If the pigment starts to spread all over, you may have too much water on the brush in the paint mixture or onto the paper. This occlusion shadow is one of the darkest on this painting. My brush is holding a lot of creamy consistency of paint, and the paper has a sheen on it. While the paper is still damp, I make long strokes to represent the folds of the skirt. What I like about using the spray to moist the paper is that it gives an uneven look because some spots remains dry. I dub with the tip of my brush on some dark spots. But where the shadow is longer, I make some strokes. I keep on charging the shadow with more creamy paint. Remember, if you want your paint to stay put, make sure there's almost no water on your brush. This area must have a low contrast. So make sure to paint a soft wash that gets lighter towards the front of the skirt. Let's leave the skirt I just painted for now and move back to the arm. Then spray the paper, protecting the skirt with your hand. Pick up some creamy pigment. I'm taking it straight from the pan and paint the core shadow. So define the lower part of the hand. For the finger, I dub some paint into the joints, then drag the paint down with a clean brush. I'm pulling up some paint to shade the fingers. I get more paint on my brush and charge the shadows. So paint bled into the hand. So I try to lift it with a clean damp brush and dub in it with a clean tissue. Your fingers with more paint if you still need more shadows. With a so paint, I outline the arm to set a higher contrast that makes the arm stand out. Charge with more paint in the sleeve. Then outline the lower part of the arm. Still using my small watercolor brush, I pick up the paint for the back. I also spray the paper a bit to soften the edges and charge the areas that needs darker value. I'm lifting some paint from the bottom part of the arm with a clean damp brush. Then keep charging the area under the arm with a creamy like consistency. Going back to the skirt, I charge the folds of the skirt with my brush full of pigment. On the back, there is a very important core shadow. I paint it with a creamy like paint. I dot with a brush, a very dark paint where the core shadow of the arm should be. Then I define a bit more the fingers. Using the spray some paints from the skirt spread out into the sky. With my oval wash just clean with water, I soften the edges to avoid harsh lines when the paint will dry. I charge my shadows a bit more, while the paper is still damp. This is very risky, but I like to sp water onto the skirt to let the paint flows and granulate dramatically. 8. Lifting Technique: If you use a spray barrel, the pigment will flow onto some areas that you want to keep lighter. No problem. Just grab a tissue and remove the excess color where you don't want it. Another way to lift some pigment is by using a damp brush. Just make sure it isn't dry or soaked in water. While the paint is still moist, I use a damper brush to lift some of the paint I want to lighten. So I dub into that area with a tissue. I keep on lifting the sections I want to lighten to give dimensionality to the skirt. Until the paper is damp, the pigment will continue to move. That's why I tried to stop that with a tissue that is supposed to soak up as much moist as possible. So I keep lifting these areas. If I did it on dry paper, the lifting will be less. A 9. Second Layer of Painting: I got my oval wash and paint water into the wing, leaving a stripe of paper dry where the sun heats the wing. Towards the bottom, I went past the pencil line to avoid hard lines in this section. Let me show you the amount of water I have on the paper. Don't float your paper with water. You want the pigment to soak into the paper instead of floating above the water. I got a bigger mop brush. This is unico infinito by Borcan Bonati number zero. I put an even coat of this granulating drin, picking it up straight from the pan. I flick the tip of the brush to make the edges of the feathers onto the dry area. I painted the shadows before this cord to ensure I wouldn't lose the outlines of these feathers. Remember that the paint will dry much lighter than what it looks like when it's dry. I want my paint to granulate dramatically in the lower part. Here, I decided to have a lower contrast, so I dropped my paint and let water spread it for me. A little help comes from the spray bottle, and with some sprits, I push the flow even more. Now, I'm just gonna take my damp small water brush and soften away some of these paint edges. So here, I'm just pulling off some paint just to extend the shadows. In some sections, I regroup some feathers, just painting outline. Here I'm extending the edge of the paint to make it feathered. I did it also on the upper edge of the skirt to soften the paint line. I got a darker green on my brush and dropped some paint besides the back. While the paper is still damp, I painted some of the feather sedges. I add some detail to the feather sedges and group some of them together to keep the wings from getting too busy. I feathered some edges to soften this heart. Ins. I spread a bit more water. Then I keep on charging the shadows under each feather. As the paint dries lighter, you may need two or three coats of shadows. This section is too bright. I soften up the paint with a clean damp brush, liting the pigment to flow in. The paint line extended a bit too much on the skirt. I lift some of it with a tissue. I got some green and I'm painting few lines on dry paper for the outlines of the feathers. I tend to make bolder lines where three feathers meet. I'm defining this section more because it's in a light. Don't forget that these are still feathers by making some quick flakes for the central stem of the feather, which is color rachis. Okay, let's move on to the skirt. I switched it with my small mop brush and charge again the creases of the go with a stronger paint. Then elongating the shadow to fill the underside of the skirt. So I clean my brush and feather the edge of the paint as I'm working wet on dry just so that I can keep on charging this section with a deeper green. I linked all the other folds of this cone with this bigger shadow. This back stripe of dress looks flat. I give it more dimensionality, putting some more green. I also wanted to clearly separate the skirt area from the bust. I did it with a small line. I needed to make this front part a bit darker, and I used a watery green. I worked wet on dry, then softened the edges after I cleaned my brush. Realizing it was too dark, I sucked up some of the paint with my brush. Now, I paint some more greases. O. This layer is almost done. I keep on darkening the folds with some layer of paint. Also wanted to make the very, so I it even more with paint straight from the pen. 10. Adding Details to the Statue: The vast majority of our painting is complete. Now, it's important to adjust the contrast and reinforce the values to give a sense of volume. Mit tones are set, but we still lack core shadows. Additionally, some areas need to be corrected as they fall into the light family instead of the shadow one where they belong. I started by putting some paint in the bottom of the hand to make it advance from the bust. I put more green on the joints too. Switching with a clean brush to soften the edge a bit. These are both small water brushes. With a clean brush, I soften the paint edge. So switching to the other brush with fresh paint, I keep on detailing the fingers. Negative painting allows us to carve a light out of shadows. Although it's not an easy technique, it's critical for a loose painter to master it as soon as possible in order to maximize the expressiveness of their paintings, I got to my mop brush and painted water onto the arm section. Then I pick up some milky green and to the core shadow again. Bad With the same amount of paint, I darken the back wing. Pasa Still, with watery green, I paint some details of the stone feathers, underlining the shadow. I tend to leave of the feathers details to the upper part. As we get closer to the bottom, I'll just suggest their presence. No. Don't forget to paint some lines too in the inner part. I'm a bit more fussy on these long feathers, and overall, I'm painting more or less every one of it. Be careful to not push the paint outside of the wings where we will paint the sky. I still check out the reference photo from time to time to map out some feathers. As the process is the same, I speed it up a bit more. Steel I pined boulder lines where more feathers meet. With a milky green, I shaded a part of the wing next to the direct light. I added some sort of random pattern instead of an even coat to give more interest. To darken the arm, I wetted the paper. This caused the paint to spread until it reached the edges, creating hard lines. To feather it, I picked up a small watery brush and painted around both sides of the edge. Then with the same brush, I lifted up the excess of paint that collected upon the edge. In order to paint a dark shadow, I picked up the green straight from the pan and painted the core shadow. With a clean damp brush, I softened it a little bit. With just a few touches of green, I fixed the hand adding contrast. Then I added a core shadow with a creamy paint on the side too. The paint is as dark as it can be, and I'm working wet on dry. I softened the right hand side with a clean brush. Remember to always use a damp brush when you want to soften or drag out the edges. But it wasn't enough, so I added a milky paint to best match the shadow family where the section belongs. Now, it's much better. If the cre shadow needs to be der, just charge it with more creamy paint. I added a few more touch ups to the top go where it lacked contrast and definition. Then I painted the ocion shadow of the under sleeve and the shape of the shoulder gained dimensionality. I did the same thing over the sleeve to separate it a bit from the h and neck area. The statue is almost finished, so I look for some last minute adjustments. I want the creases of the skirt to be more prominent. So I added a creamy paint has shadow. If you can, take a photo of your painting and turn it into black and white for the value check. I did it with mine, and I think that Mtel values are fairly right. I can easily tell shadows area from the light ones. C shadows are well defined, and the painting is overall nice. 11. Painting the Background: This step is straightforward. I'm using a granulating color for the background, but feel free to choose the color you prefer, even if it's a non granulating pigment. I used a flat wash brush to wet my surface. This type of brush can hold a lot of water because it mimics squirrel hair. I painted with a reasonable amount of water, paying attention to the statue edges. I didn't want the background paint to pass the edges. Now, I pick up some of this paint called nebula, and it's a granulating pink bubble. So I painted a very watery wash because in this part, I wanted the contrast to be minimal. If you want your paint to granulate a lot, you should put more water than normal, giving the time to the pigment to travel and disperse. Of course, don't make any puddles. Or the pigment will just float above it uncontrollably. My paint is very watery at the moment. I'm working wet and wet. I've tilted the watercolor block to let gravity do its thing and make my paint flow and enhance the gradulating effect, besides making a soft even wash. I left the white of the paper to show through under the chin because I wanted as much contrast as possible in here. I kept on painting an even wash of nebula until reaching the tip of the wing. Then I got some milky nebula and started dropping it on the portions that needed more contrast. Here, I spread some water to moist the paper and let the paint move more. I covered the statue with my hand. To make the pigment flow more, I tilted the block. And here, I'm blowing over the wet area to push the paint even more. I obtained very soft and graded spots of color. Also, I'm checking those areas where I forgot to push paint, like between the fingers. So I grabbed a more milky nebula and dotted near the shoulder. With that tissue, I can remove the excess of pigment. Then again, I charge with more paint. With the narrow side of the brush, I reshaped the silo head of the head according to the reference. To keep the area moistened, I sprayed it a few times. Now I took my small tin toreto value and pick it up a bit more paint. Don't water it down too much, or you'll make some back runs. I painted some random patterns just to charge the area with paint. Here, I'm checking the sheen on the paper. When it starts to dry, the paper no longer reflects. But here, I can still work on this area for a few minutes. Unfortunately, I made the mistake to pass the hair line with paint. So I'm trying to fix it dabbing with a tissue. Then I pick up some watery nebula and reshape the top of the head. The paper has no more shine, so I can drop a bit of water to create a pretty effect. I'm painting around the edges of the skirt to lift the axis of pigment. Time to move to the other side of the sky. This time, I decided to work wet and wet because the watery paint allows me to work it longer. I unintentionally painted a light graded age and pushed the water on the lower part of the wing too because I didn't want any harsh line. I area. It. Then I loaded my flat brush with nebula and dropped it on the tilted surface, letting it flow down to the bottom. With the narrow side, I outlined the outside of the wing with very dark paint. I kept on pulling the paint, gradually adding more water in the brush to make a gradient. The bottom part needs to be lighter, but very softly and not with a dramatic shift of values. I pushed the pigment to pass the wing in order to make a seamless transition with low contrast and the last edge. I switched to my tintto again and do some nebula on the side of the wing and in the transition section. Then I grabbed a tissue and lifted up some of the paint in the background like creating some clouds. Above the skirt, there was a hard line forming, so I lifted it up. Here I retrieved more clouds with the tissue. To create some blooming, I sprayed this section only with the spray barrel. Then I picked up a consistent amount of nebula on my tinto to brush and splash it the right side of the sky. After cleaning the brush, I took again the green to fill the lower part of the wing. There was still too light. To make the transition softer, I dotted a bit of paint outside of the wing line too. This edge was still too hargh, so I softened it a bit with a brush and the tissue. Don't wet the feathers too much, but just the outlines. Basically, I'm just lifting the excess of pigment accumulated on the edges. I wanted this line to be more feathered, so I wetted both sides of it and lifted it with a brush. The contrast wasn't on point yet, so I added a bit more of watery paint. The top of the wing had a darker line, too, so I reputed the process to lighten it up, too. 12. Final Touches: Some of the outlines of the feathers are gone. I'll draw them again for reference. I picked up more green to suggest a few feathers here and there. I don't want this area to become too busy, so I'm very careful about the quantity of them to paint. So I just painted a hint where two feathers meet, and so on. Getting near the light, I wanted to add more details. Here, I'm working. And remember to grop some feathers together to make some variation in the wing. I painted smaller ones, too. It's important to not randomly paint them scattered around. But to follow their growth pattern, like I'm showing you here. Well, this isn't the starting point of their growth. It's more like the cure of traced body tip of the feathers. Try drawing your wing into sections and then painting your feathers to stay within that imaginary line. With that a small brush, I keep adding details. I like this brush because the tip is firm and allows me to have the control of the lines I'm painting. I switched a paint brush again, grabbing my tintreto. What I did here was to glaze over the longer feathers with an even coat of water green. Of course, I'm working wet on dry. The problem was that too much white of the paper was showing rising the contrast. The viewer attention was immediately caught by these hard edges and bright whites. So I just painted over it leaving the inner stem of the feathers white. With a lower contrast, it's much better. To bring back the highlights that were accidentally covered by watercolor, I like to use white guash. I grabbed my small water brush and took a little bit of paint from the tube to test out the water to paint ratio of the mixture. So I painted the top of the head that caught directly the sunlight. I needed some touch of white on the bridge and tip of the nose, too. Oh. Over the left cheek. Again, over the top of the hair to make a bolder white line and up here to reshape with a rounder edge. I put some of it on the hair band too. Mergers Sorry for my hand getting in the way. But here I was painting few highlights on the right curls. Then I move it to the upper part of the arm, where the light area was invaded by the shadows. And here, I'm make a few strokes of white for the skirt, and a little bit on the chin. Then I cleaned the brush and grabbed some nebula again to reshape the back wing. Since I painted with a slightly darker shade than what I needed, I lightened it a bit softening the paint line. The painting is done. I hope you enjoy this class. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I can't wait to see your project of this statue or any other subject you painted using the tips given in this class. And that's all. I wish you happy painting.