Three Delicious Floral Spreads in the Sketchbook

1. Three Delicious Floral Spreads Intro: I've got a fun class for you. I called it three delicious floral spreads. I do tend to use the word delicious and yummy when talking about paintings because that's just how they feel to me. What we're going to do is use the sketchbook in three ways. There's so many great ways to use a sketch book, but we're going to do three different types of floral spreads. Mix it up. We'll have one that's just one color, and then one that I call it tossed flowers. And then I'm calling it blue vase, twins. Where we do a similar vase, but then we use the paint colors. We got out to try two slightly different types of book pays and we end up with a nice pair. I guess they're not identical twins, they're fraternal twins. Anyway, this is a lot of fun, this class in exploring florals and fresh florals with an emphasis on some white space and lightness and calm but still colorful. I hope you'll join me. Hi, I'm Suzanne Allard and I am myself, taught artist who didn't start painting till I was about 52. I did created things but I didn't really believe I could be an artist. I'm really glad I got tired of telling myself that story and just pushed through and started painting. I learned in online classes just like this. And now I license my work on products. I sell originals and prints in my shop. And I teach, I love teaching as much as I love painting, I teach online. And I think it's at this point something like 40,000 students in 30 countries. I don't know. It's so humbling and wonderful and joyful for me to be able to share the belief I have that we can all create. Every time someone says to me, oh, I wish I could. I don't think I can, I have to push back. Because I just think that that's just about some belief systems that aren't accurate. Anyway, I hope you join me in this three delicious floral spreads. This is probably number two in a series of floral classes that I've got coming out just to celebrate the many beautiful ways we can create flowers. See you in class. 2. Supplies 1: All right. Well, if you've taken my closet before, you know that I love to just show you all a variety of things, but that I always want you to know that. I am not saying you need to buy all this. That you need to get. Just I don't want it to be overwhelming because you could do these florals with just one of the types of paint I'm showing you, of course, And one of one or two of the brushes. And just keep things really simple and one sketchbook. But I would just like to show you all these things so that you can say, oh, I like that, I want that. I like this, why there's a lot of variety in the class, but I never want it to overwhelm anyone or have them think, oh my gosh, I have to get three Sketchbooks and three types of pain. Okay, that's my big disclaimer. Don't let anything keep you from creating. All right, let's start with some of the references that I use. I have a few floral books that are my absolute favorite. I will put links to those and notes about all of this in the class supplies and download. Make sure you look at that as well. One of my favorite references is this flower color guide book. It's small, it's handy. And what's fantastic is that the flowers are all with a white background. You can easily, and they're just photographed beautifully, You can very easily see flowers. And just like look at that, that right there is inspiring me because I like meandering buds and flowers. It's organized by color, may not use it by color. If I say I'm in the mood to paint something pink, then I can go into the pinks. But of course when you're painting, you can make anything any color you want. I more use it as a reference for if I really want to paint a naculus there and there's a bunch of different colored Rnaculus in here. Look at those poppies. Okay, I can spend this whole video looking at this book. You Get the Idea. Flower Color Guide. Flower Recipe Book is another one that I like for similar reasons. It's a book that shows how to put together bouquets. Like a recipe, like in cooking, there's pretty bouquet pictures that are inspiring and we can lift from. But also it has these spreads like this where it'll toss the flowers out like a table here, there. This just helps you really closely see and say, I might pick the way that that is curved and the way those buds, that sort of thing. That's that one. All right, yeah, I love my books. I also use my own photos as reference in this class, which I will share with you, of course, for palette paper, really, I have not found a palette paper that didn't work. You do not need to spend a lot of money on it. I've gotten a cheaper brand at a store called Michael's here in the US, and it worked just fine. This is a brand new one. But what's nice about the Strathmore, if you care, and not that it's really expensive, is that it's attached to the pad. You can just use this piece of paper and then throw it away. I tend to just have a piece of paper next to me when I'm working. You can use other things for a palette though. You can use a glass cutting table that I started out using paper plates as long as they were waxed. That worked basically any non porous surface. Because otherwise if the paper plates that are not don't have a wax covering on them, then it just paint just soaks right in. The other thing, palette wise, I want to show you, because I use it in a couple of the paintings, is this quash, airtight palette, which people get very interested in. And I did a Youtube video on how I fill it and how it works. But briefly it has these vessels. I have kept these colors in here now for probably two months. A couple of them I see here are starting to dry a little bit. I just use a pet like this or a slitle spray bottle. I get all of these supplies by the way, if you do want any of them. I have links to them on my on my website and my Amazon links. I also use these little make up spritzers, do it that way, but the point is that it's air tight. If I seal it and I don't do anything with it for a week, it does really well. I will say that the paints stay better longer if I use distilled water. This is actually distilled water in here. Yeah, I've learned that one the hard way. Otherwise, you go get your paints out and there's mold in them. We don't need moldy paints. All right. Let's talk brush again. Use what you have. I'll say what I say in every supply video, which is when it comes to supplies, you don't need to get the most expensive. But please don't get the cheapest, the bottom of the barrel. Because whether it's paper brushes or paint, you're going to be disappointed. I would rather you get less of a decent quality. And I just mean like student grade, you don't have to go out and get the most expensive arches. Watercolor paper, real sable brushes, not just stay away from the cheapest brush wise. Let's talk about that first. This is my Suzanne all designed, It's a set of ten brushes that we release twice a year. If you want to get on the waiting list for those, just go to my website under supplies and you'll see it there, a link to it and you can get on the waiting list. They're synthetic. I just picked all the shapes and sizes that I use a lot in my classes. Don't feel like you need to get those. The other two brands that I really like are the **** Black brand and the Princeton Velvet Touch. But I will say there's also silvers, a great brand. They're all synthetic. Don't use really much real animal hair in my brushes. Just a solid, at least student grade synthetic brushes. All you need sizes, I use a variety in the class. It's amazing how handy and versatile a filbert brush is. That's the one with the shape like this. This is a size seven, you could use a 468 around. Obviously those are the go to thicker is often better for florals as long as you have something for the details when you want to do the smaller stuff. And that's what this little guy, number four, then flats are really nice to have to sometimes, depending on what I use this number four flat a lot. Those are brushes, pencils, sometimes I use them for details. I don't think I used any of these metallic gold pens in this class, but I often just sketch with water down paint. But sometimes I'll sketch with a light colored colored pencil, either a prisma color or a water soluble pencil that's not water soluble. But the nice thing about the super coolor you can use, the cons to the brand is it's Swiss and whether it's the pencil or the crayons, they make ones that dissolve in water as your painting. That just marks dissolve in the paint and go away. All right, let's talk sketch books I used and have tested some that are a good price and a good quality. I wanted watercolor paper for this class because we were doing those kind of style of florals. I did. I do have a mole skin watercolor sketchbook. I don't like the shape of it. I like square and I like this portrait shape for this, clove this little sketch book. This is the handbook. It's made by speed ball, but what I like about it is the nice lemon cover. I also like that you can choose to get it in either 90 pound or 140 pound paper, that just refers to the thickness of the paper. I always talk about using at least 140 pound paper when you're doing your artwork that you're going to put on the wall or sell. But in a sketch book it can get really thick. I love the option that this handbook gives you. Ordering it with 95 pound paper. I think it is just a little bit lighter but plenty thick for a sketchbook. I love that one. Comes with a little, I'll come with a little string and then this is really nice. Before unit you've painted it, it's dry, but you can see this sketchbook is half full and there are some flattening that needs to take place. What I'll do is take this out and then bind it like that, and then put heavy books on it overnight. These little clips, by the way, are great. I got those on Amazon. I think I have a link to them and my list. This is one of the florals we'll paint. I like this. The next two are the Artisa brand. I have not loved or been impressed with their paints, but these sketchbooks I think, are really good quality for the money. This is a nice size, the paper is good quality. Nice linen cover. It looks, honestly, doesn't it, like they imitate in handbook? Actually, I think they did. Now I see the little pocket in the back. Yeah, very similar strap. Similar linen cover. Anyway, it nicely bound, it lays flat. I do use the clips when, because I've got paint on these and it helps train the spread to open it. But this is the eight and a quarter by eight and a quarter, and I use this quite a bit in class, mostly that then this is the larger one that is new to me. I've been experimenting with different things with it, but I use it class as well and it's like eight something by 11 and something. Same brand arts. All right, that's sketch books. 3. Supplies 2: All right, let's talk, Pat, I've got some paints out here. I try not to confuse you because it can be confusing. I have acrylic, which I did use was surprising success in the toss florals module. It's all acrylic. It's amazing. It's in the arts sketchbook, I think if you use good paper and a paint that flow, which the nova color acrylics flow, we almost indistinguishable from watercolor. When you work with them, you can see some small differences. But anyway, the nova color paint is a paint that you have to buy via mail order. I have a bundle with them, a Suzanne Allard artist bundle. They're in California. They're a really nice artist grade paint at a student grade price if you live in the US, because the shipping overseas makes it too expensive for US people. If you don't already have acrylic, you might like that. You might also like the. I encourage you to use what you have now before you start adding. Listen to me. I have so many types of paint. I don't even want you to see what's on the rest of this table. Okay, acrylic here, I just want to help because this gets confusing for people who aren't familiar with. It was confusing to me. The acre acrylic paint and combined. This is regular. The original type of really was used in France. Think of at least 200 now. It's more than that years ago. It used to be used to do those beautiful wall papers and interior design patterns and it's just opaque and scans really well. It's just beautiful. It's the first paint that I started with. I don't know why most people don't start with, but somehow I did and fell in love with it. Then I discovered has all those properties that nice finish, high intensity pigment, but it has acrylic in it. When it dries, you can't disturb the layers. And there's nothing good or bad about that. It's just knowing depending on what you want to achieve with a particular surface and what your goal is for that painting. But you'll see in the class, I use these three interchangeably. I will say that. Remember that this is the only one of these three that can be reconstituted with water. The regular guash, these two, once they dry, they are stuck. I've got a palette that I got into the moment. And I'm mixing, throw some gash in there and some macro wash and acrylic. And now I've got to clean this palette. That can't just be rinsed out. That's why I like the palette paper. Anyway, I use all three of these. They are interchangeable. Don't worry about mixing them. You'll learn what does, what you experiment with them. Now, color wise, for the most part, you can make your colors or use the colors you've got. I will point out some colors that are my go to colors that are harder to make. More challenging, I always have a turqwise on hand then Opera Pink is what called in the gash world and watercolor world, but it's basically a fluorescent. I think it's richer than a fluorescent acrylic, but it's a very bright pink and I use it rarely straight, but it mixes and makes everything pop in the pink and red and yellow family. All right, let's talk about brand. We talked about the acrylics. My two favorite acrylic brands are a whole in that's these two Turner I guess goes that way. Then my favorite gash brands are get some Turner because I like that one too. Well, let me get you in. It's called Turner Design. I think it's the first pain I started out with, I think it is. These are my favorite brands of regular gas. Turner. Also the Ah, then Win, which also makes an acrylic wash. Even though these don't look like the packaging, then Linds or Newton Designers is lovely, these are a little more expensive. Turn is really a great paint at a good price point. If you're starting and you've never tried Guash or Aqua, don't feel like you have to do anything more than these to have some success. All right. We did the sketchbooks. And by the way, if you want to paint these paintings on paper nine by 12 paper or eight by ten paper, 11 by 14, feel free. I just love what sketch books do for you mentally and creatively. I, when I open up a sketchbook, it feels like it's inviting. The pressure to produce a painting is gone. I also like the whole spread part of it. You'll see in this class, we'll do some paintings that are across both sheets in the spread. Then we'll do another painting where we turn to the book and paint it this way. And then some where we just do one side of the spread. But it's almost like when I do one side, the other side is beckoning to me to do something that complements the one I already did. Some people just use one side and leave the other side blank, which is fine too. I just have found that sketch books for me really help my heart blossom. And that's because I think the fear is lessened, the approachability is increased. It's just so much more, I don't know. They're like my friends sketch books call to me and say, hey, that's why I don't even want to count how many because then I try the little ones and the big ones in this paper and that paper. But anyway, you paint on whatever you want. I'm just glad you're here. So let's get started. 4. Tossed Flowers 1: Okay, let's do some really loose tossed flowers and we'll just take them across the page, across the spread. Similar to this, I cut one out because I used it in a collage, but we know the fresh with white space coming through them and pops of color. Then for inspiration, this is one of my favorite books. I'll put it in the supply list. The flower recipe book, just because the pictures really a book about the recipe to put together a bouquet. But I like these pages where they lay everything out flat and photograph it. Just right there is some great shape inspiration and some flower inspiration. Maybe we'll start with that page, then for each bouquet, they do the similar thing. Pretty, just a variety of photographs that give you that clean background to work with. Those are the beautiful Protea, there's some other pretty ones to work with. Maybe we'll do that to the pony. Everybody loves ponies. Okay. So I'm going to use acrylic because I wanted to make sure you knew the designs. These paintings can be done with acrylic, not just quash or aqua. As long as you have that nice watercolor paper, you didn't get that, that absorbing that it'll do now. It won't absorb as much or spread or bloom the way water color watercolor paint. There's a couple of tricks you can do just to add more water. Then the other thing is that I have found in the last few months is something called flow aid, which already mixed up, it comes in a bottle. And then you mix it with the concentrate and you get a lot out of it. But I'll show you with and without it. Just so you can see, it just adds to the viscosity of the paint and makes it flow. Flow aid. Use a big brush, this is our number eight. Or you could use even something larger, ten, even larger if you have it. Because we're going to big fat shape floral shapes. When I look at paint inspiration like this in the book, I'm not necessarily looking to copy it. Well, I'm definitely not looking to copy it exactly, but I'm also not necessarily looking at one flower. I might look at a couple different ones and decide just look and then see what my hand wants to do. On the paper, I'm mixing some Florence magenta with some cadmium red light. And since I'm going to really have this water down and the white, the lighter colors will just be with more water down paint, I can really put a lot of water on my brush. I almost drip down there. I'm going to start with maybe something that's more gathered in the middle like a rose or pony. Most flowers are, there's smaller bits in the middle. And then as it goes out, they get larger, which means I'm just going to push down a little more and add more water. Some flowers are lighter in the center and some flowers are darker in the center. You can take it either way. They're also completely different colors. Sometimes I'm just pushing down in intentionally, not going to make this a perfectly round shape. As I went out, I pushed harder and added more water. Let's see what we want to use for her stem. You're going to grab a bit of yellow. Let's use this blue green. I'll show you how you can tone it down. So that it's bright. I love bright green, but I don't want it quite that bright. So I'm just going to dab of red sons it right down and I'm going to bring that stem just kind of still pretty green. I'm going to bring some really loose leaves, lots of water. So you can see the acrylic is not moving as much as the water color, but it's still really water color looking. Especially if I were to say take, even put more water in my brush and get really subtle. So, so I like doing that sometimes on the flower too. Let me show you. Let's just make another flower really light colored. Let's see, maybe this one came this way. We're going to toss, maybe we'll make this one another large one here. Going that way, I've barely got any color in this brush. Super water down. I'm just going to make a center in here now that bloomed a little bit and I have not added any flow aid. We can make that one side of that of this floral, so pale. Want to make sure I'm not getting too round, so I'll go out this way. Yeah, that's really pretty. Then we'll tone down the stem and you take it this way. I've watered down the stem color too, because it won't go with the flower. If it's really bold here, we can do maybe a little more structured leaf. This big brush makes such a nice leaves. I'm just doing two brush strokes and letting the white in between be like the vein of the flower. This is something that you can practice and just do pages of them. So relaxing, I can come back through here if tries is losing a bit of intensity, just dab a little color in that center. Maybe just a little more color here so it shows up. Okay, let's try a different kind of four. We talked about the peony. Maybe we could do some small peonies because I like to mix up in these tossed flower compositions. I like to mix up little ones with big ones and we've already got two pretty big ones. Maybe just switch to the filbert brush. Just add a bit of yellow to our water down mixture here and go a little bit different color, an orangey play. Let's do thinking about which way I want this time to go. Let's see here. 5. Tossed Flowers 2: Let me make a stem Going out that way, that means a flower with the center there. Sometimes it helps me to mark the center and just making big peony leaves, which this filbert is great for. Try to put your brush down and one or two strokes and leave it. It's so hard I know to not go fussing back in there like I just did. You'll re reward it and then rinse out. Your brush is really watery and just do some bits on the outside here that are to just add interest. That was a little too much water there, but they'll add just a little bit of something on the outside and then our stem can go this way, and a pretty, our color has changed just a little bit each time by what we're mixing with. I'm grabbing some of the pink into this green and I'm going to make a nice long, it's a little more yellow than I wanted. Okay, bring this color back up in here. I like when the stem bleeds with the flower, that's pretty pony. All right. I still have my filbert, so I'm going to rinse the green out and do another panting maybe that's just on its side here, have a little more yellow. I just want a little color variation and could do one that's coming off the side here. I'm just touching. I'm really just, when you're painting really lightly like this, I almost, I'm thinking of touching the paint down rather than a stroke. It's just a different feel. I'm thinking that could be on its side and we have a stem going like that. We'll see more of the green. Get that to bleed in nicely with that, I think it'd be nice to do another pan maybe. Right? Let's see, we have a stem going this way, this way, and this way. The let's see, this way. Yeah, I think coming down here, we're up there, this way. Okay, let's do that. Sometimes the brain cylinders are not all firing, so I'm going to try not to be too. If you look at this pony for example, these petals are not a uniform. I'm going to just make myself not be too uniform on the style of this one and not too circular. That would mean probably bringing this out further, something like that. And leaving a large center where I can put some intense magenta yumminess. Let's actually get it so intense that it's straight from the yes, that's bleeding. This nova color does look at that. That is so pretty making you want to do it over here before it's completely dry. You'll get different effects by when you add a layer on top of a watery look like this. Which is fun. So pretty even do now I was going to say a bit of Well I will we'll just a little bit here in the flower, we'll bring a stem down. Way. Let's take that stem just a little more in the turquoise direction. That turquoise, let me wash. Getting a lot of that out with the paper towel, Too much water. That's why it's always handy to have a paper towel. All right. Let me do a test. See if Yeah, that's what I'm going for. You can see it might turn out to be a cool effect, but by mucking with that stroke so much it got a little overworked. And come up here and do something that moves the all turquoise on it. Actually, it's looking really pretty with that edge being pink. I love to make my leaves like ballerina arms. I wasn't even a ballerina. I don't know why I like that reference, but they just feel that way to me. Okay? I like to work in odd numbers. I have three ponies, I only have two roses. I can fix that easily by just doing like a rose bud, you know, doesn't even need to really be a big deal. I can just be right a semi open, but there we haven't done. Oh, look at that splattered there. That's fun. Afterwards, I can take a brush and that's how you deal with that. If that happens, just take your brush and make latter. Anyone will think it was intentional? I really like you see these little I don't know what they are, they little clusters but I like the color. These are pretty too. Let's do some of those little clusters. I think a filber brush is going to be good for that. I'm going to make a very limy green. We can even take our little practice sheet and practice. A cluster cluster is going to be about holding your brush really loosely and dancing it on the paper. Here, there I am talking about. Dance again. There's just super light. You can see that I'm barely not gripping this very much at all. I want to make them different sizes, different variations of the color. A little bit brighter, maybe less bright. And I'll put some of those over here too. These have more water in them. Odd number 53. You can do anything you want like that. And then I might just grab some of this color and drop it in here so that it's, it's one of my favorite colors. I just think it brings so much life. 6. Tossed Flowers 3 : Okay, so we have a bit of empty space by the way. If you didn't like that when it blotted, you could blot it up with paper towel. But I'm going to let it be and we'll splatter at the end. I'll show you that. Let's see. Anything else? My, I've got so many flowers in my imagination from just looking at them all the time. These little dark things are so sweet. Cosmos. Pretty. I don't want to do anything dark in this though. These are pretty. I've done these before, Radia. They're actually. Let me show you how those. We do one in my greeting now, do we do one of my greeting card class? I'm not sure. Maybe not. Okay. So we're going to make yellow in a variety of shades, orangey yellow, even some greeny yellow, which we already have here. And then just make dots. Let's see, where do I want to put? Let's put some of these here. I'm going to turn this and we'll make the stems Come down here. You can see why I have paint. You look at the little amount of paint I've used. I use the tiniest bit From each of these, you could paint probably 50 sketchbooks full with one jar of acrylic paint. I don't think I'll need any more of these than I already have on the paper. I'll put that away. I'm thinking of a couple of these and then the stems coming this way. All I'm going to do is make these clusters. I've got the yellow on, on my brush. This is my round four. I'm just going to vary these in shape and size. And then I'm going to grab the more greeny yellow and make other clusters. And I'm putting them randomly, but also facing upward. I am trying to not hit the same one twice even though I don't mind. And I like if they bleed, then I'm adding more and water and other colors. Remember that the red and the pink will tone it down. So if you want a bit of a deeper orange, I want to make this one larger. I don't want them perfectly round. The ones in the picture are actually a variety of round shapes. I guess I do want some more yellow. I want some real great yellow. And a bit of these spots Now I'm just adding a little more yellow in on top of my other dabs. Just intensify the center a little bit more. Okay, And I'm going to make a super pale stem. Bring it down here, it's too pale. So now that I've made that wet mark, I can just drop in the color. Sometimes it's easier than trying to make the same stroke. Look at the texture we get. That's cool. Okay, bring this guy over. Just adding a bit of interest to the stem, making it different thicknesses and we can have little bitty. Sort of leaf things randomly cry. Let that dry. While I have this orangey color, I'm going to come in and put some of those little clusters that were in the center. Now that these are dry there, I mean, you could leave them the way they were. They're pretty, but I'm just adding a little bit of, okay, I'm looking at the whole thing. I'm looking for color right now. What I'm noticing is this is really light and lots of yellow green here. And I feel like I want a little bit more of that here. All I really need to do is add some more of a couple more of these little things, and now I'm doing it with a round. So they're just a little different. A little smaller. Whoops. I grab some orange, not that it matters. There's other speck of something else. Okay. We could make one a little more orange. All right. Now, I think, I just feel like I want some random leaves. I might do those in a really pale turquoise color. I'm going to take the larger, again, one we started with here, she is the tiniest bit because we've seen how intense these paints are, water way down. And I don't want to straight out the bottle'm going to ad a little bit of green and maybe a little bit of orange to tone it down a little bit. There we go. Okay. I think I'm just going to make these and varying some of them really pale throughout, some of them more green, some of them more turquoise, different sizes. This is of course, optional. You could leave it the way it was. I liked it that way too, can help. This little painting didn't have a problem with hanging together. But if you ever are doing a painting and it's just you feel like nothing's tying it together, Doing a little bit of something like this throughout, it can really help that some of them I'm making really watered down just a hint of something. Okay, now let's do this bladder that I think I need a little more red over here that will help that it's one of those things that you've just taken a risk. You are just taking a risk. There is a way to practice it. You can take a sheet like this and here I'll show you. Practice your bladder. So we've put a lot of water on this and lots of color. I just tapped it, that'll help us say, okay, that's about the size of the dot I want or you can do fill it back up and do more like that with your hand and get a little bit bigger dots. Probably a zillion ways to get a spladder. The one I typically use is the tapping that will make things go in a little bit of a more control. It just depends on what you want, and I just want a hint of it, so let's try it. Some of you are probably saying, no, don't, don't do it. Let me water down more. Okay, here goes. What do you think? Okay. I like it. It's they're starting to spread because they were too tiny before. Okay. Yeah. I like those. More bold, so scary. Right? Not really. She is done. Isn't that fun? Tossed flowers? I like to imagine when I'm creating these that we took flowers we just to them and they laid out in a pleasing way. These make for great patterns as well. All right, I hope you enjoyed the tossed flowers. 7. One Color Beauty: Okay, for this one color beauty, I'm using a bouquet that I made at my mother's house. I'll include that reference photo. It had a blue vase. And other than that, I changed a lot. I don't really like painting sunflowers, and it had a sunflower in it. I improvised, but this is a really great exercise to do. Just take one color. I love blue. This is an ultramarine blue. And with white, I've got my sketch book. I guess it would be horizontally. I'm going to do a sketch of the bouquet on the whole, spread this way. There's so fun ways to work in a sketch book. This is just one of them. Oh yeah. I'm realizing that just in case I go over the edge, I want to put one of those protector sheets, and I just use palette paper for that, which is what I've got my paint on here. I'm starting with the outline of a blue vase. The sketch is done with the paint brush. You can do it with pencil before, but it's a sketch book. If it doesn't turn out who cares, you learn something. I'm keeping the paint pretty watered down. You can see how I if you're quick enough before it dries, you can erase parts. I wanted to erase that a little bit of the vase that came there. I often start like this with one large bouquet. I mean one large bloom. To anchor the bouquet, try to make your blooms large. I have included what I end up making in the class downloads so that you can take this sketch and you could trace it onto your sketch book or paper if you wanted to practice it with carbon paper or hold it up to a window on a piece of paper. I'm number four round here. It's Windsor Newton Cotman brand that I use sometimes. I'm just thinking about since we're only using one color technically, we're making many variations of that color. By just how much water we add. You just have to be a little more conscious of making sure you're doing a variety of intensities of paint color. Of course, you can go back over and darken things as well. I end up doing something on the vase here that I don't know that I had done before that I really ended up liking. This makes my point that I make about working in a sketch book, giving yourself the freedom to play. You may do something and only like one or two things in it, but then you can take those one or two things and develop them somewhere else on another page. I'm just looking at the reference, but I'm also looking at the painting itself and thinking about what it needs for balance. I do like to have 123 or so large, large blooms and then smaller ones, and then some leaves dabbing in some of the more intense ultramarine. I do have some white mixed in there. Just to give me a little variation with water color, there is no, we just let the white and just means you use paint. But since this is gas and I like to have the white in case I want to make a more of a pastel color like I'm doing right there. Maybe I just want a little variation technically. Maybe we're using two colors if we count the white. Just making a large leaf that comes off that. These are Zenias in the reference photo, but I ended up making them more like a hydranga. My mother is an amazing gardener. She has she's 84 now and has just this half acre botanical garden practically. And when I call her, she's breathless. See Mom, you're in the garden, aren't you? Yes. I'm just doing some pruning. You know pruning, she's a little obsessive. Now, I'm coming through with a little bit darker. Everything's still pretty wet depending on how long you let things dry. The colors will behave differently when you go in and layer. If you want them to bleed, then dab them in when they're wet. When your first layer is wet, if you want it to sort, be separated as another layer, then, um, wait till it dries a bit. I picked up, I got a little bit too much blue on that one and then just removed it, removes some of it, but it's still pretty intense. This is also great for value study. Value, meaning the lightness or darkness of parts of your painting. Because you quickly realize you've got to have lights and darks, otherwise you can't see anything really boring and nothing that if you ever are painting something, you just think, oh, it's blah. Check for values, make sure you have enough lights and darks. You don't need a lot. You don't need ten ranges of color from darkest to lightest. Some artists work to do use only three or four and really simplify the range. A medium, a dark, and light. Now this is what I did in the vase that I really liked, the lighter. And that cutting out creates some really interesting shapes I think I'm really liking at this point. And believe me, it doesn't always turn out this way. I've sketched a lot of bouquets and they come out lopsided. Or just the way I put the flowers didn't work and all kinds of things. Even now, even though I've been doing this for several years now, if I don't plan well enough for where things are going to be, sometimes ended up where I've got two big blooms that are almost at the same eye level and they almost the same size and they look like eyeballs staring at you. And I'm like, no, okay. Then you learn, don't line everything up. But at this point, I'm really liking the structure of this bouquet. The size of the blooms, the variety, the way the one color is forcing me to play with texture and value. This is when I decided to make them into hydranga looking things. I'm deciding now where to build on from here. I do like my bouquets meandering, not in a funeral bunch, that's what I call those tight round bouquets that are bunched in a ball. No, Let the flowers and the plants, and the leaves you move. I think I'm trying to make that stem thinner. I went too fast and it got thick, but it really doesn't matter. That's how you erase. You wet and dab with a clean paper towel. Then if you want to redo it, let it dry before you try to redo it. I'm thinking about where I want to go now. It's interesting the way it is, but it needs something toward the top. One of my favorite floral designers, Kiana Underwood. You can find her Instagram. She goes by tulipinaact. She's got one of my favorite books that I use for reference a lot, color me floral. But I love her bouquets and her arrangements because they spill. They are not traditional at all. Cascade often in the middle. At the top, there's not, they're fingers that just go out but it somehow works And at least for me, you know, personal preference, I like her work and she's definitely influenced the way I paint florals, little sort of daisy flowers, pulling the high up. All this is done with one brush and one color. The great exercise to do when traveling me racing. Again, I'm looking around at this point thinking about to have enough variation of lights and darks. A lot of times we think we have to make something look like the thing. But we know that this is a bouquet and that these are flowers. Like, what I'm doing here is there was too much empty space there. I'm just creating the background suggestion of another flower back there. You don't have to give it a lot of detail because our brain knows that's a flower or a leaf or something. Somehow it's part of the bouquet. Especially something in the background like that, feeling like that front leaf needs a little more detail. I'm taking a last look, deciding that I want it to have some movement up in that corner, I'm doing the same loose leaves that are in the lower left corner. Those ended up being so easy to make and just sort of I let my hand do what it wanted and I really liked how they turned out a tiny amount of pain, isn't it that I used? Give me a little more definition there. Just picking out some areas that need just maybe a little more to make them more noticeable. I love to little dots. I'm done basically, but fussing. This is where you want to be careful not to overwork. And I've decided that I am done. I hope you try this exercise, one color. 8. Blue Vase Twins 1: Okay, here are the colors that we're going to use on these blue base twins. They're all regular guash. We've got most of them from hole bin. You can see the color numbers on there. You do not need to get these exact colors. I just wanted to show them to you. Basically, if you have a few pinks, yellow, that blue is really pretty. The 861, you'll see, I use it on the vase. And then of course, the opera pink is in the well used Windsor Newton Tube. There some colors I grabbed out of my drawer. Pinks, reds, greens. And here's our inspiration. Let's get started and take a look at the inspiration and see what we want to do. I also used a variety of brushes. These are the Suzanne Allard design brushes that I put out a couple times a year. You can sign up for the waiting list on my website, size four round and size four flat. Then I think the fill bird is a size seven. This is a little picture in the book that I'll include in class downloads. I love this floral arrangement book. It gives me, it's not that I follow it, obviously, you'll see I don't really follow it at all. I don't know, Sometimes I follow it more than others. But it just helps me to have something there as a reference point here. I'm loosely taking the number four flat brush and that pretty blue, I don't use many colors out of the tube. I really just don't like to. But it looks like I did that here. I usually add a little something just to make it my own. I'm trying to intentionally be loose and flowing with these vases. I haven't even really thought about the shape, just making it up as I go. You can certainly I think the reference gave me a place to start, but then I ended up changing it and I changed it some more. You are the creator of your vessel. I'm like a potter. We don't have to actually make this thing in. What are they called? Oh, then it's going to come to me later in the oven that they put pots in a kiln. Goodness gracious. We can make any shape we want. We don't have to worry about actually making a three D version of it. I like my vases to be a imperfect, perfectly like, a little bit wonky. You'll see me play with it several times because it might start to look too perfect and then it starts to look too wonky. You just keep playing with it. That's the beauty of gas. It's opaque. Water color means it can be reconstituted with water. Even if that bit that I have on the palette paper dries for days, I can come back, add some water, and use it again. I recommend doing that. If you're painting something with guash, if you're not sure you're done with it, save your palette with the colors on it, getting some white out and some yellow. This is a warm yellow. Yellows generally come in either like a warm, it's usually called a cadmium. And then a cool yellow, which is often referred to as a lemon yellow or light yellow. That's a magenta. I love having a magenta on hand. Whenever you mix white with a color, it will cool it down. White is a cool color. If you want to keep some warmth, then you'll want to add a bit of yellow. I don't really have a color palette planned out for this one. I just grabbed tubes that I wanted to start from. Definitely keeping this painting softer. More pastels. I did have that in mind. Now I'm taking the brush and just very loosely holding it, sketching out some flowers. I wanted to make these bouquets. Twins, but not identical twins, fraternal twins. I wanted them to have similar bits. This is a great way to work because you've got the paints out, you've got the two sides of the sketchbook. You can try different shapes on different sides. If they end up being something you like. You've got a pair of prints that you can scan, clean up in Photoshop if you so desire. And turn into prints. I'm really looking at flowers. I have that reference photo, but I'm not really pulling much from it. I'm just thinking at this point of blocking in shapes that are flowery. I am thinking of balance putting enough in the flower arrangement to make it interesting and the placement of it to be in various places around the arrangement, not all bunched together. I do like my arrangements cascading off. Now I'm grabbing the large number seven Filbert, which is another one of my favorite brushes, especially for florals, Just staying loose. That paper towel keeps coming back. It's so funny. I've made a move, color to sketch. You can sketch and really any color, even if you did a fluorescent pink, then you'll have bits of it showing through, which can be really fun. This painting, my plan is to be a little softer. I'm using a soft color to sketch with varying my sketches on the types of flowers, the structure of them, the size of them, the way they're pointing. You'll see I dab in my centers, which helps me think about which way is that flow. I think of them as faces. Which way will that face be looking? Because you don't want a bouquet, where all the faces are staring straight at you. You won't see a flower arrangement like that. Anyway, now I'm using the side of the brush, the filbert. When I've got a bit of color in one, pop it over on the other and go back and forth in this way. I find that working intuitively like this, maybe put some music on. Or if you're like me, for some reason the music can't have words. It distracts me. So I can have music that's instrumental, or I can have a podcast. I know that makes no sense. Because the podcast has words. I can't explain it. I think I did read about it. It has to do with the different parts of the brain. But here I'm playing with the vase again. I don't want to overwork it though. I want that texture. I like that the vase on the left has some bits of white left in it. At this point, I'm standing back and I'm liking the overall structure of each of these. I'm just looking at it now thinking, do I want, what else do I want to put in these before I start adding leaves and things? But I'm just looking for, overall, how does it feel? Feel well balanced. Now I'm thinking I'm ready to add some green. I took that beautiful whole in G 842. I'm just letting that mix in with my lavender, which is giving me a really lovely, softened green. That's the thing about harmonizing with colors. If you make sure you have a bit of one of the colors, say in this case that magenta and all your other colors, then colors will harmonize you just the way you would get mud. And you'll find out quickly if it happens there's a little mud there happening. But in my case, I usually have so many bright colors that I need a little bit of neutral. The way that mud gets created is by combining colors that are across from each other on the color wheel, meaning complimentary colors. You'll learn after just experimenting that when you mix those two, you'll get mud. You either get it by design or not. Now this is a really fun way to make loose leaves. You see how getting some paint and letting the brush do the work and the paint and creating some really lovely texture with the paper and variation in the color in the water there. I just grab some darker green. I think it's a permanent green usually, I don't use many greens. I make them, but I think before I knew how to do that, I bought too many greens. I don't really buy greens anymore, except for a lime green. A nice strong lime green I will buy because it's easier than making it. Same thing here with the leaves. I'm looking to balance dancing around both sides. Looking for that sense of it doesn't have to be exactly even. I don't need to have the same number of leaves on one side as the other. But overall, each boquet needs to feel balanced. Just dabbing in green with white yellow making more of a lime there. I love coming in with a lime green and doing some high lights. It just makes everything pop and brings life. The layers to me are where things really come to life. I was thinking about, where do I want that flower looking? I don't want them to look straight on. All right, so we're going to wash our brush and come back to this in the next video. 9. Blue Vase Twins 2: All right, now I'm getting out the scarlet just for a bit of a, any red, I'll do a warm red, basically. A red, not a magenta, or maybe that's called vermillion. Vermillion's a warm red. I just want a bit, you see how the tiny amount of paint I use for these paintings. I have my basic structure. At this point now I'm thinking about what other colors do I want to introduce? I'm testing out a warm red and getting it where I want to get it. I think I felt like it was a little bit B. I'm adding a little bit of that pink. See what we can get with that. I still think it's B. Anytime something's blow in the red or pink, family pull out the opera pink and you don't need much. I do have a new of God forbid, I would actually run out, look at that. The tiniest spec makes that color beautiful. It's a miracle color. I'm ever stranded on a desert island. I need my opera pink. I've decided these are going to be by. They're there. Those really David Austin roses. Those are luscious, or maybe they're just a big fat pony. But there's something big and delicious full. I'm loosely using the edge, I'm still using that big size seven Filbert grabbing a little more opera pink. Thinking about where else do I want this color there. I went for the straight opera pink just to get a little bit different shade of pink. But, you know, I talk about using the sketchbook in this way to learn things. I think one of the things I learned on this one is I really liked that sketch color. I used this because it gave an instant depth to the blooms. I blotted that back out. I think it was just, it was just I wanted to lighten it and see if I want to go back in with some more intense. I need more opera pink. Very relaxing way to work because you're just playing and see how I'm dabbing. I don't even like to call it brush strokes. With this kind of painting, I feel like it's more like dancing on the paper with some color on a brush. I don't wash my brush very often for the reason I was telling you I like the colors that it makes. As long as like for example, the reason that yellow gold is, is because there was a bit of the pink and opera pink in my brush. But I know that going in and just by experience, you could put a color wheel, print one out. Or if you've signed up for my free color mixing class on my website at San Lr.com there's a color wheel in that. Just have one on hand, right in front of you. So that if you're about to mix colors, you can say, oh no, that's going to make mud if it's a cross on the color wheel. Other than that, I like to keep a bit of the last color in my brush. Generally just wash it when I'm making a real departure, or I'm not getting the intensity of a color I want or it's going too muddy. The other thing about bouquets is that we all tend to, for some reason, I've learned this over time, make the blooms too small. That's why these are really generous, and some of them are on both sides the size of the vase. Especially if you're looking at a big peony or a full flower, they're going to be big like that. They draw your eye in. You do want a variety of blooms, little ones and big ones, But don't be afraid to make a couple, 23 large blooms to grab your eyes. Now I'm taking that magenta and that's why I love this Filbert. Look at the lines I can make with it by just using the top edge of it. I think that magenta in the green is making a really nice accent detail depth to those leaves. That yellow is a really pretty yellow. That warm yellow, it's thebaine eight to one, it's called Yabuki yellow. Japanese yellow holbein has a magillion colors of gas, Maybe not that many. But they have these lovely sets that I've been playing with by season, Spring, They're all 12 colors. I have them in my Amazon supply list because once in a while, Amazon really marks them down. They do spring, summer, winter and fall. But I don't know. I like to pick out my own colors. So there's a few colors within each set that I like. But I would design a set that was not quite like theirs. They didn't ask me though, you're better off maybe just getting the individual colors that you like? I am obsessed with that blue. It's also got a funny name. The G861, it's called. Okay. Wurenagusa or Mayo Soots. Blue. Yost blue. I don't know what mayo soots is. Maybe I'll have to Google it. I'm just coming through to make a bit more texture in the face. I just added some white to the green to see if there are any places that I wanted to layer, do another layer on the leaves. Now I'm just looking around saying again, for balance, what needs to be done, What's missing, What's bugging me, What do I like like I really like, on the left side, those two golden blooms, that sprig that comes out to the left. I love that. And on the right side, the one that drops off to the right. I like that, I like the big blooms. Getting my test paper to see if I've got the thing about the opera. Pink is you have to be, it's very intense. Here I am toning it down because straight out of the tube, it is intense. I use it to mix with things to liven them up. But it doesn't photograph well. Straight out fluorescence really don't. I'm just bringing some of that. It's not just in the flowers. I like to take a color and move it so that the eye doesn't get stuck anywhere. You can do this for yourself. You'd literally look at the painting and try to notice where your eye goes. Your eye will do it way before you can figure out what it's doing. It's more of a matter of tested out by look away and then look at it and observe what your eye is doing, where it goes. Does it get stuck anywhere? I think I fix this later. But on the Bocan on the right as I'm doing the recording on this, there it is. I think I'm going to work on it now. Getting stuck on that white space to the right in there, it feels like the bouquet on the left side is perfectly balanced, but the one on the right needs something there. I've never done this before. I thought, why not put a flower between the two? They are sisters. They can share one flower. That's how I decided to fix that. What was bugging me mostly on the bouquet on the right, I felt like it needed it. So now they're co joined bouquets. At this point, you know, I'm in the final stretches, I'm just playing and thinking about what I might do layer wise. So here I made a really, really pale yellow, basically an off white and just doing a little bit of highlighting. And then even though it wouldn't white as that looks, it felt way too light to me. But the beauty of gas, even if I left it there till tomorrow to see how it dried, if I wanted to take it out, I could or paint over it or wet it And dates, the highlighting can be a little frustrating because you'll think that's perfect and then it dries and you can barely see it. Sometimes I a, if it's a little too intense, that'll reduce the intensity. That's just practice. Now, I'm taking a paint color, which I like to do and signing them might as well do that while I've got the paint out. Then the signature is done in them with the same color. It's part of the painting. We'll let this dry and see if we want to add some more details after it's dry. 10. Blue Vase Twins 3 Details: Okay, these have dried and I'm happy with them. I don't really need to do anything. And you made a personal preference. But I feel like I wanted to come in with just a little bit of colored pencil, maybe add a little bit of detail. My favorite dark is an indigo or navy blue. I thought I'd take this pencil. This is a Fabstel. But I also use prisma color variety of brands. Just the better brands so that they show up. I just thought it would add you needed a little something if you have a scanner, sometimes what I'll do is scan something before I add the details just in case I ended up liking it better beforehand then I can still have it made into something, a print or a product. What else? You could also use the neo color crams. More oil, Pasto. That may be enough. Let's see. I've also got a I guess is the orchid color. I don't know if I want to do anything with that. Let's see, it's kind of interesting. The texture of the watercolor paper is kind of making the pencil have a really nice texture. Okay. And then I also pulled out, I don't know if I'll use these, but I just grab some other colors that work, you know, in the same. I'm not looking to add a lot more color or different colors. I don't want to do that, taking its exact match, sometimes taking the same or a similar shade on top of, but this is too close. See if I have anything that's a little bit different. Let's see, here I have a soft gray and another blue. This is maybe going to be too dark. Yeah, I don't think I was thinking about doing a pattern along there, but I don't think I do. That was a prisma color, so it probably won't come up with the water. It's okay. I can always paint over it. The gray might be interesting. Now you know what I think I want to do. I think I want to use paint and do some little marks. But first, I'm just going to take see the squash had dried. But I saved my palette paper. Actually, I use this color in another painting. So I can come back in here and just make some texture. We'll see how much of that shows up. I like those light marks that were left, so I'm not going to do anything with that this way. You get just a little variation. Okay. I don't want to do anything else. Sometimes I usually like to bring in the vase color somewhere else in the bouquet. Even if it's just really subtly, I think I'm going to do that. I can actually do that with the pencil. Let's try Bells. Let's see what we like better. Yeah, I can see that, but you probably can't. I just think it brings the composition together a little bit. If there's just a bit of the vase color in the. Okay, I like that. Where do I want another one? Maybe just a half one coming out of there? Be a bit of this in here. And what about you? These are like sisters arguing about who's prettier. Well, that's good. Yeah, I like them. They're twins. Fraternal twins, Not identical. 11. Three Delicious Floral Spreads Wrap Up: Hi. I hope you enjoyed these floral spreads. We did the blue based twins, which I don't know, they're just fun. You can go in and add details with cran or pastel or pen, maybe some texture play. Then it allows you to just see what you liked about each one and take those same colors and materials that you have out and play. That's what I love about that. We also did tossed flowers very light and fresh and just reminds me of a spring day. Maybe went to the flower market and tossed them down. Very light touch, very quick, very pretty. Then study on one color. You could do this in so many other colors and really makes for a nice decor. And let's say when you have a certain color theme in a room and you want like in a powder room, I actually have this pumpkin painted powder room in the house that we bought. It's a yellowy, orangey color, which I thought I would repaint. But I'm actually starting to like it. It might be fun to do with a lot of white space like this in that color, or maybe a darker version of that color to put in there. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and play. As far as fixative people ask me sometimes what I would fix these with. It really depends. If they're straight, watery color like this, I just leave them alone. If I have a few more things on them, like maybe some ink or some cram, I might use the Rl, unworkable fixative, or spectra fix, which is my favorite for odor. But it can make things run. That's why with regular quash water color, I don't really use it. I use it more with acrylic anyway, It depends on what you're using it for. What's your application? If it's just in your sketchbook, then you don't need any fixative. If you're going to put it, frame it and it might, some light might get on it, then you might want to use a spray matt. Fixative or varnish. Liquid text makes a good brand too. Anyway, I hope I've shown you some fun ways to explore in your sketchbook and you join me in the next class. I have dozens. At this point, florals, abstracts, landscapes are coming. Don't forget to follow me either on Instagram or Facebook or both. I do sometimes time lapses or I share a little tidbits process. I also have an e mail newsletter that you can access on my website at Suzanne.com I have also supply lists on there, which I've built out two lists, one is Amazon and one is Blick. You can see all my favorite supplies. Everything from setting up the studio to art supplies, to my favorite frames, all kinds of things like that. Lots of resources on my website. Just keep creating. Just promise yourself that that you're going to keep creating.