Tiny Abstracts: 12 Birth Month Color Explorations

1. Welcome: Welcome to Tiny Abstract 12 birth month Color Explorations. I want you to join me for a colorful mixed media journey as we create tiny abstract paintings inspired by the beautiful birth stones of each month. In this class, we explore the rich colors, moods, and personality of all 12 birth months. We have January, February, March, April May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December. Rather than focusing on realism or perfection, this class is about exploration, experimentation, and discovering your own creative voice. We'll work on watercolor paper and we'll create each month's paintings in a grid format like this. So you will be able to complete several paintings per each sheet. By the end of the class, you'll have a growing collection of many artworks inspired by the gemstone colors and the moods of each month. This is a mixed media friendly class. So use whatever supplies you love or combination of your favorite materials as I've done in this class. I use acrylic and Watercolor for my two mediums in this class. Throughout the class, we'll focus on mood, atmosphere, color relationships, texture, and intuitive painting rather than creating exact copies. Every painting becomes uniquely yours. Included in the class are 12 lessons, one for each month. And you'll also receive this free principal birth month inspiration guide available in the class resources section. The inspiration guide features four color combinations for each month to achieve different looks for each month, along with other tips, inspiration and ideas. Use the guide as a jumping off point. Don't feel you have to follow it exactly. Mix things up, follow your intuition, and make the work your own. This class is suitable for beginners and experienced artists alike, especially if you like color, atmosphere, intuitive painting, and creating simply for the joy of creating. So let's loosen up explore color and create tiny abstracts that are meaningful, expressive, and uniquely yours. Let's experiment. Let's play, and let's have fun with different colors for each month. I look forward to seeing you in class. 2. Class Project: Let's talk about your class project. For tiny abstracts 12 birth month color explorations, I want you to print out the guide so you'll have your colors you can refer to and work off of. Of course, you can alter anything you wish to alter. I want you to pick a couple different mediums to work with as I did here with these. I used Watercolor and acrylic. It as my mediums. And I want you to pick some tools like I did in class that you can work with consistently through the whole series. Now, I would love it if you would do the whole series. I would love to see a spread like this of where you did 12 months so we could see all the beautiful color combinations and how everything comes out. But I know that's a lot of work, and I know a lot of people are gravitated to their own birth month or their families. So if you just want to do one or a couple or a few, that's fine too. Get your watercolor paper out, tape it off consistently through the ones you want to do as far as your sizing with your tape. Use your mediums of your choice and your tools of your choice and come up with a fun abstract for your birth month or a friend or a family's birth month and share it with us on the class project page so we can see what you have created because everything you guys do inspires everybody else. Thanks again, and I hope you will enjoy the class. 3. Supplies: All right, let's talk about what supplies you will need to create tiny abstracts and do the 12 month birth month color explorations. First, you'll need the guide, which I provided for you in the resources section as a PDF. And this little guide, you can print it out or you can look at it on your computer. It talks in here about what kind of supplies you might need and a little bit about the class. It talks about how to use the birth month color sheets to inspire your paintings, and it gives some steps here which you can follow or not. It's up to you. And then it goes into the month with the different burstones. Some of these months have a couple of different burstones Like June has several different kind of stones that you could potentially use every sheet has four options of color combinations, and we have mood words and texture and mood ideas, which are just little inspirational words to help you along or maybe you'll connect with a word of something you're feeling rather than a color that day. We talk about neutrals here, so you definitely need the guide. Let me put that aside for right now. You'll need some watercolor paper, and I tape my watercolor paper, too, a cutting board. Got a set of three of these at Walmart for a really cheap price. And I love them because when I tape the paper on the cutting board, I can pick it up and tilt it to move when the paint's really wet. You'll need some tape. Oh, I forgot. I'm going to I like to tape off the size of an index card for some of these, and I'll explain that in a minute. Obviously, you'll need some paints. I have acrylics here, a variety. I keep all my neutrals here on the desk that I like to use so they'll be handy. I have watercolors, which is what I'm going to be using for this class as my main one to start with, and I may graduate into adding some acrylics. These are a set from Michael's, it's called I forget the actual name of it, but it's at Watercolor set. But they make really pretty mate colors, and you can see this is what it looks like when you see it in the store. And I made this color chart so I could see each row what the colors look like. So I'll be using those. I also have some of the Neocolor II crayons, which I've started to really enjoy. I have Inktense blocks. That's another material that I like to use. They are very, very rich and permanent and very fun. These are some of my favorites. Now, there's obviously a lot of other choices. Like pastels and pastel pencils and things like that. You'll need paper towels, wipes, spray bottle. This is a fine Mr. Spray bottle and I also have a mini one. I got a set of four of these or six of these from somewhere probably Blick. And I always have some gesso on hand. I use the titanium white acrylic is a neutral, but I like gesso as well. It's a little thinner. Obviously, brushes, palette knives, sponges, anything that even like an old toothbrush, it can do splatters, catalyst wedge, anything that you can move paint around with or apply paint with, you could even use your fingers, which I've done. You might want to palette for your paint, pick this up. At the Goodwill store. I really like this 'cause I can actually use my palette knife on this. It's wide enough to mix colors. So if I'm using acrylic, I like that. And I have a little journal notebook here that I just put extra paint in that I have on the palette, and just to either use as collage papers later, test colors, see how things are going to look, try different marks, try blending and not blending. So it's always good to have some paper laying around, whether it be in a journal or just some extra pieces of paper. Like, here is an extra piece I had done, where I took the extra paint that was on the palette, put it on here with Palette Knife, and then added some gold on it just to test it to see how I was going to like it. And that can now be a background for something else to add more to this, or it can be collage paper in the future. And, of course, rags to clean up with if you need those. But that is pretty much all the supplies. You might see me use some other supplies like a bamboo skewer and an old fork. Anything, like I said, that you can move paint with or apply paint with is a potential supply, even a little stick from outside off one of my bushes. So that covers the supplies, and we are ready to get into starting the January painting, which will be my first one. 4. Prepare Your Paper: Alright, it's time to get started with January. So I'm going to get out one of my sheets of the nine by 12 watercolor paper, which fits perfectly on my little cutting board. And I'm gonna tape this off. And I'm also gonna use an index card to mark off some a couple of spots the size of an index card. And the reason why is because I do frame mountain frame. I'm trying to get my tape straight here. I do mount and frame my pieces on I'm sure that's not straight, but I mount them on a plain piece of paper or a colored piece of paper or some kind of backing. And then I put them in frames, and the index card size is perfect to go on a four by six or five by seven or even an eight by ten frame with a nice wide border. That's just a good size, and I like to do a couple in that size. Let me see here. I try to keep these borders about the same all the way around. I can see through the tape. So just trying to keep it as I'm eyeballing it, but I'm trying to keep it as even as possible as far as the border size around the edges. In case I want to leave a border, I don't always leave a border, but sometimes I do like to leave one. Alright. So I'm gonna stick the index card here right there. And I'm gonna do a piece of tape to go here. But I'm not gonna go over the index card. I'm gonna go beside. Just right up to it like that. And then I'm going to do another piece across here underneath the card not overtop of it. Just keeping it lined up with that edge there. Now, I'm going to move the card over here like this. I'm gonna do another piece this way. Like that. And then I've got one more space here. And if I put a card there, I'm going to have a little strip right there. So I actually may leave that one just a little bit wider. It would still go well in most of the frames I mentioned, and I'm sorry if I hit the camera there. Let me adjust this a little bit. So you can see a little better. So I'm gonna leave that one. So these two are the index card size. This one's a little bigger, and these two are just random ones. That's okay. So that is what I do to prepare the paper. Now, sometimes I will wet the paper before I get started, but because I'm going to be using some Watercolor, I'm going to have a lot of water on this paper anyway. So I don't want to get it like super duper wet, so I'm not going to wet it before I get started. So the next video, we will start with January. 5. Paint January: Okay. Getting ready to start January here. And on the page for January, I have four choices of color combinations, suggestions. These are just suggestions. You don't have to use them, but I've used a couple of these already on some of these sheets, and they work really well. So you might want to consider them. There's some color suggestions. There's some mood words. That just kind of get you in the mood. If you want to add some words to your art, you could write those on there. And then there's some texture and mood ideas for if you're doing a layered painting, different textures that you might want to put in there, different things you might want to do to create some interesting texture. And then here's a section about garnet and tips layering and softening edges and things like that, which those are the same tips for every month. But you might want to read over this first before you get started. I'm familiar with it since I made these, so I already know what I'm going to do here. Now, on the watercolors, I swatched them out here. This color here is closest to the garnet. It may not be quite as dark red as it needs to be. We've got this dark brown here, which is probably close to a raw umber of some sort, and we have the black, which can deepen this color a little bit more to get it closer to that. And that's what these color suggestions here in number four suggests, the red, the umber, the titan buff, and the black. Now, there is no titan Buff on here. I have my little acrylic neutral chart here. This is titan Buff. This one's kind of close, but it's more of a peach. You know, I could mix colors, but that just takes more time, and I really don't want to fool with that. I like the colors to mix themselves while I'm doing things. And mix visually. So it just helps me go a little bit faster. And that's what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to create some fast fun projects in my studio that will end up being really nice later on that I can translate into something I could frame and gift as a gift or sell or whatever. So these are my neutrals. They're up here in a box, and I don't know if you can see that on camera, but I keep those handy. And these are the watercolors, and I like to mix acrylics and fluid paint of some sort, whether it be watercolors, ink tints, the Neocolor twos are very nice to introduce some fluid work, any of those. So what I'm going to start with my favorite thing to do is to take my darkest colors, not the optional black. I'm going to try to do number four here, this color scheme. I could do this one. It's got burnt sienna in it and titanium white. I could do that one, but I'm really feeling this one. I don't know why. I just am. And it's got the word luxurious for a mood word, and that just appealed to me because I am going to be adding gold as an accent at the very end. So I like to take my lightest color and my darkest color. Before I get to the true color, the main color, and I like to add those in with acrylic, then go more fluid with the main color and then bring acrylic in if I need to to deepen that if I need to, if that makes any sense. So what I'm going to do is get my palette knife out and I'm going to go with the titan buff first, which is right here, and very loosely, without thinking a whole lot, I could use the wedge now I'm going to use the palette knife. Everybody's got a palette knife. It's pretty easy. So I'm going to just put some on the palette knife a pretty good amount. Oops. That's too much, but we'll see. And I'm just going to move the palette knife around, even rub it. And I don't mind leaving a little texture on there of some sort, like a little thick texture. That just adds interest. I'm just going to put some of the lighter color where I might want it to go. And I'm kind of scrubbing it with a palette knife and tapping to add a little more texture in there. Let's get these bottom ones here. Get a little bit more on this palette knife. Just very loosely without thinking and make a mess. Let me see if I can scrape some of that extra. Don't even need to put this on my palette. What I do need to do, though, is get a fresh paper towel and keep my keep everything clean. You get them? I like the wipes because they're already wet. And I like paper towels. Because they just they're useful for everything. Alright, so that is the titan buff. Now the darker color in that color combo was raw umber, which is this acrylic. I'm going to get some of this with the palette knife as well. I'm going to get that tightened buff cleaned off of it in the water. Now I'm going to decide where I want to put some dark on each one of these. Let's see. How about that? How about it over here? A little bit there. Just don't. Just move. Let the palette knife, let your hand move, let the paint move. Just don't overthink it. Just till it feels right to you. And if it mixes a little bit, that's right. And maybe won't put as much on that one. I try to pick it up off the taped area if I can. Maybe even cap the knife to create a little fun texture and marks in there. All right. So we have the lightest color in that particular color combo and the darkest color other than black, which was the optional color. Now I'm going to go in here and get this red, which is this one right here. I don't know if you can see you can kind of see that. It might be off camera just a little bit. Let me scoot over. So I'm going to get my big round brush really wet. Just tap some of it off in the bucket water bucket and get this red going here. And I'm just going to start swooshing some of this red color around in the empty areas and maybe add a little bit of water, drip some on there like that, get some more for this one. Notice I'm holding the brush very far back. I'm kind of doing it sideways very loosely around Once again, loose, free, fast, not thinking, I'm going right into the acrylic, which is still wet. Maybe do some little droplets in that one. And I know this doesn't look like anything exciting at this moment, and it may not. And just put some water on there. Move some of that around a little bit more. Try to break up those hard lines. And another way I like to do that is with a damp sponge. I like to just kind of go in here with a damp sponge and speckle up some of it. It's too damp. It's not really moving it. So let's do this. Let's get the umber from the Watercolor palette on the sponge and try to speckle some of that in there in a few spots. Like that gives it some movement. You could even pick up some of the red in there. I love sponges. I use them a lot in my work. They give some interest and excitement to the pieces, I think. Let's see. Let's pick up some more red for this one. And of course, the red on top of the brown, it will look nice and dark. Just not really thinking much at all. Now, I think I have a lot of brown in there, and I think I need some more red over that. I'm going to stick that sponge in the water. Let's see what I can do with this red with the same red. Let's see if I can get some more of it. See if I can tap it. There we go. Of course, it's going everywhere when I do this. H and I don't have enough water on there, probably. Just really really fast. Oops, I actually hit the paper. That's okay. Let's do that here. Let's hit the paper, some. Let me make it a little bit. Oh, I kind of like that. Let's do that some more on some of these other ones. Get a little more water on there. That's kind of fun. Hmm. I got some good red going on there now. Let's see here. I think I might want to integrate a little more of the titan buff somehow over top of the darker areas. So what would be the best way to do that? We could do sponge or we could do the palette knife again. So let's try. Let's see. Maybe we can do a fan brush. How about a little fan brush and get some of that in there? We get that brush a little wet. And to do this, I'm actually gonna have to get some on my palette here to be able to use this fan brush properly. Fan brushes make good marks, and they also blend well. I dampen the brush, so let's get some tighten buff on there. I'm going to hold the brush way back, and I'm going to connect it where I want to connect it just kind of help it flow a little bit. Even I like doing my brushes sideways. I got a little bit of red on there now, but that's okay. Let's see. This is a hard line right here. Let's break that up. And I'm just lightly holding it so I can drag it a little bit. Create more interest that way. Well there's some hard land right there, so let's pick that up. Let's go this way with it. I'm just lightly touching it on there. Let's get some of that down in here. Now let's go this one. And then let's see. This one, and this one's got hardly any. So we really need to bring something in there. Alright. So we got some more tightened buff in there. And I'm gonna spray on that palette to keep that paint a little bit looser. So now let's go with that big brush again. I get the red. Soak it really good. And once again, I'm going to keep it loose bring some more of it in there in some different spots. And then you got a lot of water on that brush. Let's bring some in this one, 'cause the red is the main color. I haven't used any black yet, which is the suggested accent. And I'm just going really, really fast. Not really thinking. Get that red moving throughout these pieces. Alright. Now, what about the black? Do we want it? Greate some black. Maybe us Where's my small brush? Here it is. No. I lost it. There it is. This is my smaller round brush. Maybe let's do Oh, you know what? Let's do the toothbrush. Another fun brush. It's already wet. Just get it a little bit wetter and scrub it in the black. Really good. And then it's really hard for me to do this. I tend to pull from the bottom, and it goes way that way, so I'm toward me. Just flick some black in there. Using my finger. Maybe even scrub some of it in there. Why not? I think I need some more. Well, let's let me do the smaller brush. Where is it? I lost it. Here it is. Okay, let's get some black on this brush, and let's tap some little loose, watery speckles. I'm trying to tap more toward the dark areas. There we go. And maybe even brush some in there like this in a few spots, brush it out. Oh, yeah. That's kind of cool. Okay. Now, what do I want to do? Keeping with the working fast. Do I want to do some water spray or do I want to do some paper towel pickup or anything, really? I could do a little bit of water spray where I put that black on some of these and let that black move a little bit. Maybe even get the red to move a little bit more. Now I'm going to get my January here. I think I got a little bit too much of the tighten buff still showing. So taking that small brush again, I'm going to go back into the red to get a really liquity and do some more red splatters. And maybe even tap some in there, move some of it around on these. After I do the splatter, tap it in there. See, I've got these big areas. And, you know, it's too much too much of that big area. It needs to be more of an accent and have different shades of the red, at least in my opinion. Maybe even put some right here. There we go. Let's get down here to these bottom ones. It's not as much of an issue on the bottom ones. So I'm splattering it on and then tapping it into the wet acrylic paint, which helps blend it a little bit and even move it around some. Maybe still have a little too much brown showing. Maybe Let's put a little red in there over top of that black and just kind of layer it in there. It's gonna have to dry anyway. That, you know, with Watercolor being transparent, we'll get some layers of that red over the brown. The red, the garnet red is the main color. That's the thing to remember. And just when I feel the brush gets too goopy, I just kind of brush it off. I mean, wash it off. Trying to get over that brown, let that brown show through but not be so obnoxiously loud. And, you know, we'll just have to wait and see how this dries up. But let's compare again. It's looking a lot more like this now. Got a few little highlights in there. Got the warmer tones from the Titan buff, mixing with everything, and the browns in there, the rich browns, a little bit of black, but not too much. Really, really messy and fun. But I kind of have an idea. One more idea here if I can find what I'm looking for. Ivory black acrylic. I want to try something with the palette knife here with it. And I want to try to do a really thin line on there, 'cause Black makes everything pop. Well, let's see. I'm going to try maybe just get a little bit in there. Just a few little marks of it, a little bit of texture from it, a little bit more on there. Kind of pulling it and doing some lines and then moving some of that around. Even just stamping some of that on here. That palette knife getting a mess now. This one had a lot of water right there. But it just makes everything pop. Maybe some little lines here and then pull it out. Then I'll add some texture, tap it a little like se another couple little lines, maybe a little criss cross there. Pull down on this side, maybe tap some right there. No rhyme or reason to this. The goal is to get the colors. You can always scrape it back off if you don't like it. Stamp some more on that one. Maybe move it around a little, scrub it. Okay. That's enough for the black. So we got a mix of acrylic and a mix of watercolor on here that needs to dry. Before I add my gold metallic accents to it. It really needs to dry. I can't do it while it's this wet. So it's just gonna have to dry. So we're gonna put the pan on this, maybe a little heat gun, give it a few minutes to dry. But there's what we're looking at right now. And I know it looks like a huge mess, but I'm telling you, it will look really cool when we get the tape off. Alright, dry time. 6. Finish January Art: Okay, let's take a look at this. It's pretty dry. These thicker areas are still maybe a little bit squishy, so we're not going to touch them. But before I pull the tape, I would like to put some of this metallic texture paint that I love. This is by Deco art, Americana decor texture. This one is bright gold. I also use their metallic fluid paints. These are a little older, so they're a little thicker, but they're not as thick as the texture. And they just came out with these, and they're really nice and thick, and it's a beautiful gold, and it really adds a bit of richness to things. And I have here a vintage fork. Now you can apply your accents accent color of your choice with whatever tools you want. You can use a tiny brush, you can use stencils, you can use sponges. You could use a stick. I've done this before with a little stick and applied some I've even used pine needles, dip it in and drag it and apply some that way. But for this particular group of birth month images I'm working on, I just want a little bit of gold. I don't want to overdo it because gold is a very strong color and I want it to add a little bit of richness, but I don't want to overdo it. So what I'm going to do is just dip this fork and everybody has a fork. You got a fork, get a fork. It doesn't have to be a vintage one. I'm just dipping it in the texture to get some on there. And I'm going to pick a few spots on each one to just add a couple dots and I'm just touching it there. I'll dip it some more and move it in a different area and just touching it in different spots. And I don't know that I got that one right where I wanted it, but it doesn't matter. There's just a little bit right there on that one. Then this one, maybe go up here and go this way and put a few little areas. The nice thing about the fork is you get several dots on there at one time. If they go on there correctly. I got a little bit too much on the edge further up. You don't need to dip it in very far. Let's put one more there. Just add a little bit of gold. And this one, how about we go in this dark area right here? I just keep dipping it until I feel it's got enough on there, and I'll wipe the excess off. So that might be enough like three or four rows of dots per one. And then on these smaller ones, I just pick maybe two areas. And I like to go different directions on them so they don't all look the same. So I just have a little bit of dot accent, not overdone. Now, another thing you can do with the fork is once you have enough of that on there, you could drag it different directions and get different marks that way. But I didn't really want to overdo it on these that I'm working on today. So I'm just going to wipe that back off into the tube the best I can stick that in my water and then we're going to pull this tape, and I'm going to be careful because the gold is still wet. But if you get a gold mark where you don't want it, you can always take your little tiny brush, get some water on it, and blend that mark out while it's still wet, and it will leave a sparkle over your image in a certain area. So if you wanted a little bit more sparkle, you can get that stuff wet and then drag it with a really wet brush and it'll just leave almost like a glitter, but it's just a slight sparkle. I just wanted a little bit on these. Now, let's compare. Before we I think we're pretty good with the garnet on all of these. But we'll compare again here in a minute. Alright, I'm gonna pull. Let's see. Which one did I do last? This one? This one. And try to pull slowly so you don't rip your paper. But the reveal is the most exciting part to me. Now, on the next months that I'm going to do, I'm going to do the dots the same way with the fork on all the months for this particular group I'm doing because I want them all to look like a series. So I want them all to look similar. So I'm not going to show that necessarily in each video for the subsequent months. It will already the dots will already be added before the reveal. Just to save a little time because it's kind of repetitive, I'm doing the same thing for the accents on each one. Alright, now I get this piece off. If you pull too hard and too fast, you could rip the paper. So I can tell right now I'm already loving these. And I hadn't even got the rest of the tape off yet. Let's see here. Let's try this side. And some people save their tape and use it in collage, but I don't done with the tape. Once I'm done with this, I don't want to see it again. So I'm done with it. If you were using a white tape, maybe. I just like this blue painter's tape. It works very well on all the things I've tried it on. So let's talk about some other ways you could add accents. Case I didn't say, I did say the different tools, but you could use stencils if you have stencils. You could also tape off if it's really dry. You could tape off areas and paint with the gold and some lines. You don't even have to use gold. You could use white. You could use another color. You could use silver, pearl, any The metallics just add to it. And I mean I'm trying to do these based on the burst stones, which are jewelry. So I like the metallic because that's what you usually see with jewelry. Alright, let's get this last piece of tape off. So far, I have not ripped the paper. Ya. And I'm pulling very carefully. There we go. Okay, I'm really liking these. I am really liking these. Now, let's see what they look like. There we go. Move my board out of the way. So here we go. Did we do good with January or what? Is that not cool? Look at those how pretty they are. Yes, yes. Now, I wanted to show you something else. Before I close out January, I've already done a couple of January's sheets in a couple of different ways. This particular one was done based on number one suggestion here, the deep classic garnet. And this is all acrylic on here. It's quite a bit richer and bolder with these color choices that I used in acrylic. It's good. It's good. But I wanted to try some different things. So that's all acrylic. And then I have this one here, which is pretty much all watercolor with the gold added. I did add the water here. You can see how it's spread out with the gold and made a sparkle area. This is all watercolor and I taped these off different so I didn't really have enough over there. And this one I taped off really different. I had a lot of little abstracts, tiny abstracts, which is great because I frame a lot of tiny pieces. So anyway, this is all Watercolor, and this is all acrylic and you can see. Now, this was done based on number four of the color suggestions. You see the difference, but they still all tie in with the garnet. But you see the difference on those four choices. If you use those different color combinations, you'll come up with a different look. From the same months, which is fun to try the different choices. Acrylic, Watercolor, and then this one we just did. For class is the acrylic and Watercolor mix. And this is my favorite. I like using acrylics and then the fluid paints of some sort along with them because they soak in with the acrylics. They make the acrylics soften some. They blend a little bit nicer with the acrylics. I just the acrylics give it a little boldness, the Watercolor gives it a little softness. So it's the perfect combination to me to use both. But all of them look great, honestly. So there is January and we are ready to start February in the next video, and I hope you will watch all of the months and do your experimentation with this I suggest doing it the same way for each month, not necessarily the same choice here. But if you're going to use, in this case, I used acrylic and then Watercolor mixed with it, and then the gold with the dots with the fork. If you do it the same way for each month, you'll have a cohesive series featuring all 12 months by the time you're done. And you can see just by looking at these other examples how different they look. Based on what media was used. You don't have to do that if you're just experimenting and wanting to have fun. But if you're going to do the whole series, try doing it with the same media throughout each month. And that way, all of your months will have the same kind of look but different color combinations. But I wanted to show you these so you could see what you could do with the different medias. Anyway, we are ready to move on to February. Thank you for joining me for January, and I hope you guys have enjoyed this lesson, and I'll see you with the February 1. 7. Paint February: Alright, I'm ready to start February. Now, I've already taped off my paper, just like I showed in the initial video preparing the paper. I've done it the same way. These are all going to be done the same way, so no surprise is there. Now, February has these pretty amethyst colors, and I have the purple, the dioxyzine purple and the acrylic. But I also and I probably have the rose, too, but I also have the rose color here and the purple here and the watercolors here, these two. And since I'm doing a combination of acrylic and watercolors, I thought I would try that purple instead of this purple, but I'm going to keep it handy in case I want to use it. I'm looking at this soft lilac one. For some reason, these colors are appealing to me today. Um, dreamy, intuitive, gentle. I'm just kind of drawn to this one today rather than the stronger ones over here. So I think I'm going to try this one, and I do have titanium white, and it said, add a touch of raw umber to soften. So I don't know how much raw umber I want in there. Probably not a whole lot. So I'm thinking let's just put this one aside for right now, and I can bring it in if I want to. Instead of putting two colors on here, the light and the dark neutral, I think I'll just go with the white on here, and I could even bring in a little titan buff, which might be interesting. And that's right here. These are just suggestions. See, this one here has the titan buff and the titanium white. So they're just suggestions. You can do what you want to do. I may leave that out in case I want to bring some of that in, but let's just try putting some titanium white on this paper, just to get started and then bringing in maybe some of the raw umber, maybe the titan buff, maybe different ones, maybe both. I'm just going to put some of this white on here to get started with the palette knife. And I know it's white. It's hard to see. Like I said, no rhyme or reason. Just get it on there and get some texture going in there from this paint, from this acrylic. Just be very loose about it. Don't think about it. Just put it on there, wherever your heart desires. These are meant to be done very quickly, which I don't have a lot of time in the studio today. So these are perfect for when you don't have a lot of time. Let's see. Alright, let's put that in there. We'll keep this out in case we need it. I could put a little bit of the raw umber in here with the pallet I'm gonna get my paper towel. Should have your paper towel ready. And let me just put a little bit in some of these. Not too much. Just a little bit for some darkness in there. Don't want to overdo it with this color because it is pretty dark. And we're going to go over this with the watercolor, so this will be a light and a dark neutral, however, There we go. So now we have the light and the dark. If it doesn't work, well, then it doesn't work. That's a whole part of this experimentation. And I'm going to use my large round brush for the watercolor. And I think I'm going to go in first with this purple and just kind of drop some of that in there. Near where the brown is. I already got the purple and the pink. And I'm going to use my spray bottle. Let go ahead and spray some on all of these just to get the paper a little wetter. That'll help that paint move a little bit more. And just letting the paint go where it wants to see, it is kind of softening that now that I'm messing with it. Well, I got that purple really wet now. And I've already got it over into the pink. Since the purple is darker, I'm trying to put that near where that the brown is. I'm ending up getting my brush really, really messy there. Get a little water on there. Yeah, I've already got it onto the pink in my pallet. But that's okay since I plan on using both of them. Alright, now, since I sprayed that one, I'm gonna spray move move some of this paint around a little bit. Just buy some little spritzes. This one right here I can't really get to. This is why I like to use the cutting board, though, if I want to make it move. You know, that one moved all the way down there. That's okay. We'll just roll it around. Let's see here. Let's see what can happen. Just roll some onto each one if needed. Can always move it out of the way. That one's getting really dark on the bottom 'cause I got a lot of purple on it. Alright, let's get some of the pink in there. Well, I got some purple on the pink here. Gonna pull that off. That's not the right pink. The pink I'm looking for. See, I used this purple and I got some purple on here. But the pink I'm looking for is more this one, which is right here. Yesterday, I used this the crimson color. This is the one I want to use. So I'm gonna get that pink. Really wet brush and just kind of Oops. Drop some of that in there. And I need to let me see if my little sprayer will do any better than that bigger one. Not really. I mean, it's wetting it a little bit, but Just get some water in there. That'll help it move. And, of course, I'm getting acrylic all in the water to it, which isn't good, but you can take it back off by getting that brush clean and drying it off. Now That one's looking kind of pretty. I'm just dabbing it. Wherever Wever feels right at the time. This one looking really cool. I'm not sure where I want to put the pink. Maybe right there. Cover up some of that brown. Maybe right here. Yeah, I got a lot of pink on there now. Now, let's see if I can move some of the pink around. Now, what do I want to do? How about some more purple? And I've got pink that's kind of falling everywhere here, so I'm gonna try to soak that up out of the palette. What about using my trusty little sea sponge or piece of little sea sponge. These actually come in a packet of, like, ten from Walmart. They're just little squares. They're already cut, but they're great for small pieces like this. So what if I just get that wet and go back and dip it in that purple Watercolor and just pounce some of that in there throughout that design. Give some interest to it. So pattern. Now, let's try this one a little faster on that one. Now, this one, even grab some of that pink. I make a real mess with a palette when I'm doing this. But that's looking pretty amthysty. Pink's a little strong, I think. And I really need a paper towel to dry some of this up. Alright. So I'm gonna tape my little paper towel 'cause I got a lot of wetness on here in some spots, and I'm just gonna tap into some of these areas where it's super wet. This one is really super wet. And pull some of that back off. Alright, so we've got quite a bit of pink and not enough purple. So I really think I need some more purple in here. And I may need to move some of the color around. So how about if I just get the palette knife and some of this wet areas here? It's really wet and maybe even do some little bit of scraping through things. See what that does. That's interesting. Make some little lines, and I try to do whatever I do to one. I try to do to the others, just so they have similar marks in them. I still need more purple, though. I mean, you look at this right here. You got pink and purple, but the purple is dominant. And the purple needs to be a little darker. So here's what there is a darker purple in here. Right there. I was using this one. Maybe I should use this one a little bit. Maybe with the smaller brush. And let's just drop some of that purple in a few spots. Let's turn the brush sideways, and, oh, yeah. That's really pretty. Maybe go over some of this pink so it's not quite so bold. So this is the darker purple here. Just tapping it where I want it to go on the side with the brush on the side. And I'll move it with a spray bottle if I want to, but see how it's blending with the titanium white. And you can even do some blending, if you wish to soften some areas up. Put a few drops on there to move some of that paint around and soften it. Get some drops in there to move that that dark purple. Oops. Maybe even just a couple Oh, yeah. This is what I need to be doing with this. Those splatters. That's kind of interesting. Let's just do that on every one of these to get some of that dark purple in there, and then I can move it around. Alright, let's put some drops of water in there to help move some of that around so it doesn't look so speckly. And then even go back and get some more of the dark purple. I'm trying to bring it somewhat over the pink areas to tone down the pink. And I also need some over this brown area, I think. There we go. I may be right in here on this one. I haven't gotten enough over the pink on this one. So let's bring some of that in. Oh, that's looking kind of cool. And a little more of the dark right there over that brown area. Maybe a little water move some of that. And let's get some more on this one. A little water to move some of it. More up here, where the brown is. Brown just kind of brings in a little bit of earthy tone. Kind of interesting. Alright, let's try to do something with these bottom ones here. And bring some water in. That one, the pink isn't quite as strong. I really like the shades on this one already. So I don't know that I want to mess with that one too much. And some right here on this one. And over here on this side, and put a little water on there. Move some of that around. See, I like it when it kind of paints itself. This one's got a couple blobs right here I don't like, so we're gonna fix that. We got a little bit of bright pink in there, and I really like that. This one's got a lot of just pink everywhere. So I think I'm going to tone down some of that with the purple. 'cause it's too speckly looking. And on this one, let's get some more. Move some of this purple around. I like that. I'm trying to decide where I want to go back with some pink on some of these. Because I like the pink bean in there, but not quite as much as it was. And I don't know if I can use the if I can roll this a little bit to move some things without it messing everything up. 'cause I kind of like some of the pattern I'm getting here. And I'm gonna get some of this excess off here where it's a little strong. I don't want it going under. This is really strong right here. So I'm gonna pull out some of that extra water. And the paper towels getting kind of gross. So now I think what I need at this point is just a little bit of that pink. So the pink is this pink, which is right there. And, of course, I've made a mess out of everything here, so I'm gonna try to clean up some of these palettes a little bit, where I got it too much. I like to keep things all cleaned up and organized the best I can. Alright. So that particular pink right here. And I want to drop some tiny amounts where I want it to go. Just to give it that little pop of color, kind of wind it through here, but not where it's all over the whole design. And this will dry down some as this dries. Here we've got a little spot right there where some might look good right in here. That is not as strong. I want to drop some more in there on that one. I'm trying to There we go. Get some in there where it's not so strong that I don't want it to be too light, either. Kind of want it to look like this one. And here we got this pink area right here. Maybe put a few drops of water there to let that spread out some spread that purple out. There we go. And this one doesn't have hardly any pink, so I'm going to put some right here and kind of come over here in this wet area with some of it. Drop a few little splats on both of these. Alright. Let's see what I can do with this last one. Alright. Maybe right down in the middle there. I'm not sure I like this section right here. I think that needs a little more of the purple right in here. It's just a little bit too I don't know. Not right. And maybe just drop some water there to move that and add a little bit more purple. Move anything around that I want to move around. And probably at this point. Oops, I need to leave it set and let it dry before adding the gold. So after this completely dries, then I will add my gold texture paint just like I did in the January lesson, and then I will peel the tape. But right now, I'm thinking I've got a good mix of purple and the pinks and you can see here when you look at the birth stone, it does look very similar, but it'll dry up a little different than this. And that's the fun part just letting it dry and see how it turns out. So I'm going to let it sit and let it dry. I'm going to put a fan on it. I normally would tilt this up on my bucket and have the fan coming across. But there's a lot right here, and if I do that, that's going to run down to the other design. And I don't want that to happen. In fact, I may move some of this just right now. Just a little bit. To move some of that around. But I'm not going to be able to tilt it without it rolling all over everything else. So there we go. The amethyst is now going to dry, and we will be back to see the outcome. 8. Finish February Art: Alright, everything is dry with these. And I've turned it upside down now, which I encourage you to do to look at your work in different ways. I like these three pretty decently. This one here, I'm not real thrilled with the brown, the amount of brown or the way it looks, and this one here as well. And I also think it looks a little Um, I don't know. Like the water didn't flow as good, like, right here. And I don't know. There's just there's I think it needs more work. And sometimes I think this when I do them, and sometimes I don't this one I do. So I'm pulling out the purple in the acrylic this time, and I'm just gonna do a little finger painting. I'm just gonna put a little bit on my finger, dab off some on the paper towel just a little. And gently rub some of that in over top of where that brown is really showing. Now, this kind of brings you back to childhood when you do the finger painting. But if you want a really soft, smooth blend, and also when you rub it over some of the texture, it picks up some of the texture, which is kind of fun. Now that toneed down that brown, but it still shows through a little bit. It's just like a darker purple. And there's some areas around here where I don't like that much white. So we're just going to also move some of that around like that. Now, the acrylic purple is quite a bit more vibrant than the Watercolor purple. And I really I really like that. I'm going to take a little bit of the titanium white. And put it on my palette there, just a little tiny bit. And I'm gonna use my finger with that, too. I mean, you don't need fancy tools. I'm just gonna put a little bit of that on there and see, like, right here, I don't know. Some of the marks I don't like. I'm just gonna drag some of this white around. And I'm just doing it very lightly so it's picking up the texture. That's there underneath. And then if you get a little too much, just wet that finger a little bit and smooth it out. It makes for a really nice soft blend. And then I'm going to I may as well squirt some of this purple on here, too. This is just, um, kind of fixing up and adding more. Before I get now, see, that to me, looks much better now. And I'm going to get this corner a little bit better. That just looks much better. So here I'm going to fix this area. We it's dark. When you drag it over very lightly, it allows the shade underneath it to show through. So it's still there. It's just not as brown as it was before. And then I got this one spot right here that's kind of speckled. And you can use your finger in a circular motion to help blend that in. Okay, that looks a little better. And now I'm thinking, let's pick up some of the white and notice that I have purple on my finger, so we're getting a little bit of lavender. So that's fine. And I'm going to gently work some of that over here on this side. It and then pick up a little more and just drag it. Drag it around a little. And let's get a little white and purple. Obviously, you can use a brush if you would like. But I'm just doing a little bit. This also keeps the amount down. Drag some of that across and give it some interest. Just very lightly. Talk about having your own touch applied, and then I'm going to get a little water there because it's a little bit a little bit too strong. But it creates like a little mist over there. That little streak of light in the middle. Okay, now, see how these two look compared to this one. With the water drops. Sometimes the water just behaves differently. I don't think I applied it differently, but maybe I did. So I'm gonna get a little more purple. Work some in here over this area. And let's get a little bit of white in there. I like that it that little burst of light right there. Pick up some more purple layer it. The more layers you do of different little things like this, the more interesting your pieces will end up in the end. I do like this right here pretty well. And I think I could work a little more of this purple in there. Maybe even leave some little thick lines on that one. Okay, I like that one. Now I'm going to turn it around. Turn it around. Now, let's look at these. Now I don't like the browns on these, either. Now that I've gotten rid of them on those. You know, sometimes you try a color, and it's just like, not appealing to you. So, do something else. Bring in more of a color you've already used or um you know, even bring in a new color if you wanted to. There's no set rules. I like that little bit right there. That's kind of interesting. I'm gonna move it around a little there. And let's get we need a little shoose of white here. On this one, just like we had on others. I like to repeat what I'm doing on every one because that way they all look similar. They all have the same similar marks, similar colors. Try to get a little bit of that dark purple right there and tone that down. N a little swooshe of white in this one, maybe this way. I might have got a little too much of it. But by using your I'll bring some purple in by using your fingers, you're bringing in very tiny amounts at a time. You're not overdoing it like you could with the brush. Okay, I like that, but I don't like this there. So that's another reason I like to use my finger, especially with these being small pieces. Um, just cover that up a little bit. With them being small pieces, well, there's a good swoosh of white. I don't want to mess with that. But with them being small pieces and using your finger, you're just doing tiny little amounts at one time. So you're not overworking it. And it just kind of inhibits your ability to overwork it. Now, there's a little pink showing through on all of them. I bring some purple on that. Maybe around this edge right there a little bit. Okay, I like that better. So I wasn't gonna include doing the gold dots. Oops on the video because I did that in the January 1, and it's kind of repetitive. But since I had to fix these anyway, I am going to include it here. And I'm gonna open my gold texture paste and find my little trusty vintage fork. And I'm gonna decide where to strategically place some dots. So I'm just dipping the tip of the fork in there. And Oops. Try to get enough on there. I'm putting it's like not wanting to come off real good. There we go. Maybe on this one, we'll do some. Oops, that's a little too much on the dot because I had it flat instead of straight up and down. I might have to move that one dot around with a brush a little bit. All right. Let's put some up here. Mm. To place them in different areas. All right, put some right here, right there. Just a little bit to accent. To add a little bit of wing, I guess, if you will. This one to put some right there, right there. Maybe right there, right there. Alright, I don't want to overdo it on the dots. So that's enough at that. But I got a couple of them that are kind of thick. I'm going to take this little brush, really little brush. Get it really wet with water and come in here and move oops, move some of these that are kind of thick or where I don't want them, move it around before it dries, and it'll leave a little bit of a sparkle there. I just drag some sparkle through there on that one. And you can kind of scrub it if you want to. I'm trying to move some of that up there. Moving around. If you wait till it gets too dry, it won't move as good. So, you got to work kind of fast with this. And you can always dab some back off with a paper towel, if you want to, which I've been known to do. These are getting kind of dry, so really can't mess with those very much. Let's try this one. Okay, that one's right. A little bit wet. Just move some of that sparkle around. You can use a wipe to pick up some of that or move some of it. Ounce some of it. I just don't want it overdone with the sparkle. Now, this one it brought up an area of color right there, and it made a spot right there I don't like. So I'm going to go back with the purple. Just a tiny bit on my finger, put dab some in there. Over top of that, and this one. Well, this one I want to go. This one might require two fingers to do. No and sort of blended in. And this one here is pretty good. This one there got a little spot right there I don't really like. Alright, I think I like those a little bit better. I'm gonna put a little bit right there and dab some of that off. Got too much water. Now, these just need to dry really quickly. I'm gonna try to use heat gun. All right. Sorry about that, but, you know, it is what it is. Okay, let's let's check. With February here and see if we're in line with what this looks like. And I think we're pretty darn close. And these are not completely dry. But in order to not have to do another video, I'm just going to go ahead and carefully pull the tape and show it to you, and then I'll let it sit here and finish drying. Su find where my top piece of tape is and pull it very carefully so you don't rip the paper. And I think these are gonna be super pretty now. So the lesson in this one is, if you don't like what you did on layer one, let's add some more. Switch paint mediums. Try other mediums. You know, like I switched to the purple and the acrylic instead of the watercolor. And that worked really well. In this case. And then, you know, bring in a different color if you want to. If you don't like the color that you used in there and it just is not setting right with you, cover it up. You can keep going. You can add as many layers to these as you want. Alright, let's get these outside edges here, if I can. Here we go. Trying not to tear the paper, trying to go slow enough. Alright. Let's see if I can get this corner or this corner. I think I went under my board here with this one. There we go. Now, I think they're looking really, really pretty now. And make sure your hands are clean. In case you want to leave a white border, make sure they're pretty clean, not have any wet paint on them. Now, this one I did go under the tape here. So these I would probably not leave a white border. Unless I painted some white paint over that. I would probably just cut these close and not have a white border. It's up to you. Itpends on if you want to do anything with them or not. Just turn it around and get this last strip of tape. Here we go. Now, we started with it this way. So show it this way. And, of course, has to finish drying. But how did we do for February with these first colors and option number one? I think we did really, really, really good. I'm real happy with the way this has turned out now that I've brought in some extra paint and toned some of it down and, of course, added the gold. The little bit of gold is just that little extra I'm doing on all of these to kind of tie the series together. So if you don't use gold and you want to make it look like a series and you want to do every month, but, you know, you could use silver. You could use pearl. You don't have to use Metallic at all. You could use just a plain colour paint if you wanted to accent or have no accents if you were happy with them the way they were. But I think this turned out really, really good for February. So what do you think? Do you like February? I hope so. And the next month we'll be getting to is March. So let's just take a peek at March. Oh, look at that pretty aqua marine. I don't know if I'll be able to get that color or not to achieve that, but I'm certainly gonna try some way. That's gonna be a challenge, though. But in the meantime, let's enjoy February. 9. Paint March: Alright, I'm ready to begin with March. And I've been sitting here looking at this for a while. And I wanted to say part of my delay and what takes me so long in creating art sometimes is my inability to make a decision. And I was having that with this one. I've got some nice turquoise shades here with some deeper blue. There's lots of choices here. I finally just decided number three might be the one I want to go with. We've got white and we've got black, and then we've got a turquoise blue shade and ultramarine blue. And I was looking at my watercolors here, and this one here is as close to the turquoise as I could get. Maybe with a little black added in that, it might be a little darker. This one looks like the ultramarine blue to me. So I thought I might use these two colors. And maybe a little black to deepen them, but I also have the black and the acrylic and the white in the acrylic. So I thought it'd be kind of simple to maybe just play with the turquoise and the blue with the black and white. And let's just see what happens. It may turn out, it may not. That's all part of experimentation. And just deciding, you know, which way to go. And you can sit there and try to decide all day long. And I have black acrylic here and white acrylic, and I think I'm just going to start by putting some white acrylic on here with the palette knife. Just to give a good base to start adding some color into. Once again, I'm trying not to think just swooshing some of this on. It gives a little bit of texture. No way of doing this. And I like the texture it gives it because I like texture. It's my thing. So I like a little texture in my pieces, which is why I love acrylics because they're so easy to get some texture in there. And I have, of course, marked off my paper like I showed in the prepare your paper lesson. And I'm preparing each month the same way that I show with the same layout. This is going to be interesting to see how this comes out. And this time, you know, I've been putting down two neutrals to start with, and normally I would put down black and white at this point. But this time, I'm going to hold off on the black because you can really overdo it with the black, and I want to bring it in later. Instead, I want to go to the two watercolors, the turquoise and the blue and get some of that in here. And I'm just using my largest round brush, and I'm going to go ahead and sprit a little water on there so this paint can move. I'm going to start off with the turquoise or aqua shade and just drop it in there where I think it might be interesting. Of course, it's blending with the acrylic. Which is what I wanted to do. I'm just kind of try to make some kind of movement there with it and go ahead and add some of that over here. And I'm cleaning the brush and trying to get that acrylic off of there so I don't put it in the aqua watercolor. Let's start up here on this one. So that's why I keep cleaning the brush. I don't want to get that white in that watercolor. This does look pretty aqua colored. I'm gonna spray some additional water on here to help move some of this around in a minute. Right now, I'm just swooshing it wherever it feels right at the moment. Didn't look at the mood words for this, but anything involving ocean colors is very peaceful to me. Let's see what we've got. Deep, elegant, tranquil, mysterious, expansive and thoughtful. Tranquil. That's the word I like on that list. I do have quite a bit of watercolor here. Let's see if that fell down in the middle. I'm going to try to get some of that up with a brush. Dot some of that in there. Maybe even do a few little splashes, of course, I'm making a mess in my palette here. I just don't like to waste any paint. It's too expensive. Alright. Since I've got the small brush, let me go to that deeper blue and see if I can bring some of that in here in a few places. Let's just do like this and flick some on. Oops. That didn't work so well. Into there, and then I can move it around after I get it on there. Alright, there's some in there. So let's move some of this around. Just kind of push those two colors around in there with the white gives it a nice flow when you've got some water on there. Actually, I'm going to put a little more water on there. Spray some of this. Move it around. Alright, now let's get some movement in here to sort of blend these a little bit. This first one is a little bit light because I blended that in a little more. And, of course, my paper is starting to buckle up a little bit. So I'm gonna move it around by tilting some of it on that one. And then I'll get some more water on there. That's kind of pretty. Now let's move this one a little bit. Where I've got the little speckles, I don't know that I want that many speckles. Makes it look a little bit too busy when you have too much of that. But I'm just tapping the water on there, blending this right end with the acrylic that's underneath the white acrylic. There we go. That one that drop made a beautiful blue shade right there. Well, let's get some of this moved around. Is some pretty, pretty aqua and blue. I do like both tones in there. I think we might need a little more of that blue in there. In a few spots, I'm just gonna drop some in with a very wet brush and very wet application and just gently move some of it around. This one needs some more blue, for sure. Let's put some over here. I really hadn't got too much there in that section. And move some of it over here. That's looking pretty. This one needs more blue. Maybe down here in this area. And bring some of that mixed color over. Add a little more water. More water to help it flow. I'm just dabbing the water on there. Now it's flowing, see. This one I lost a lot of my blue. It blended out. So I'm gonna drop some more in there. Maybe even grab a little more of the turquoise in this one to deepen that a little bit. In a few spots. There we go and see that blue is moving into it now. That's looking kind of cool. Well, so let me pick up the blue here. The integrate some of that into this design. And I'm trying not to think too much about a design at this point. It's just wherever the brush lands when I first pop it on there, I just work out from there. Oops, too much water. And now this one needs some more blue dabbed in here. And, of course, I can move the blue by tilting, which on some of these, I might want to move it around a little bit. But I don't want it to get too streaky like my last one did. I felt like it was just too much movement. I want to go around the edges and pick up some of this extra paint that's cooled up right there. 'cause it's a little bit too much water in there. And this helps trim that down a little bit. It'll still move and fill back in wherever I picked it up from. Just watch that dip that paper towel in there. And doing this also creates some interesting pattern. So I try to if I dab it on one, I try to dab on some of the others as well. So everything gets a little bit of that same mark making material. There I did a little too much. I actually have a little blue left here that's very liquid on the palate. So I'm going to drop some of that in here, let it flow. And now I'm going to go back to the aqua. And drop some of that. In each one. Oh, I got too much white on there. And I'm trying to pick areas where it looks a little choppy to drop that in. This one's got a lot of white space up there, which is fine, but I think it could look a little more interesting with some more of the aqua added in there. So if one gets a little extra blue or a little extra aqua, all of them do. Just to keep some consistency among the ones on the sheet. I've got a lot of streaks in there. Now, I haven't added any black in at this point. And the black is optional on this choice. So I could decide if I would like to do that, and if I would like to do it with acrylic or the watercolor. And I'm thinking using my really, really tiny brush here and trying to add some in with the watercolor black. Just in a few spots where things are darkest. Okay. Just try it on this one. And then just add a little water to it to blend it out where it doesn't stay super black. I don't know if I like that. I might not like that. I think it's taken away from the prettiness of it. So let me dab that black back off. And let me go back. With the aqua with the larger brush and dab some in and then the blue, as well. Yeah, I didn't really like that and add a little water to it to help it move. I'm thinking lighter and fresher with this set, and where the black would give it some elegance, I'm thinking the blending it is not working. Maybe a few little speckles of it might work if it would stay speckly. Which with as wet as this is, it's just going to blend in at this point. I do want to move this one here, some of that around. Move some of that color around. These look very organic at this point. This one here it's not really moving very much, so I'm gonna help it. There. I looked a little too strong right there, but it looks very organic and pretty. And it already does look like the Aquamarine. This one here is a little area right there could use a little help and movement. And Black would make it pop, for sure. But do I want it to do that? Is the question. And here we go back to what I said about decision making. The goal here is to do something really quickly and then just stop before you go too far. And that's hard to know. I mean, if you have an hour or so to sit in your studio and play with different combinations, then that's great. I'm really I'm thinking, do I want to spend that much time on these, or am I just experimenting with how these colors are going to work? And do I need to add anything else other than the gold at this point? Do I need to add anything else to this particular one? Because I am thinking lighter and fresher. Tranquil was my favorite word on the mood words there, and that looks very tranquil to me. Very much ocean like. So I can let these dry, and then I can decide, maybe I do want to speckle a little black on with a sponge here and there, just as an accent with my favorite little sea sponge. But right now it's too wet to do that, like with the black acrylic or even the black watercolor, it's just going to blend right in 'cause it's so wet. So I think I need to wait and let this dry and then decide if I want to add any black in or just leave it and add some gold. Sometimes I know the gold's going in, but sometimes with the colors, it's best just to leave it, especially when you get something you like. And right now, I'm feeling that this looks very aquamarine and very tranquil, which is the word I was drawn to. And I'm thinking just leave it at the moment and let it dry. And then after it dries, come back. And see if I want to add any black accents in or if I want to go straight to the gold. That right there was a little bit not loose enough for me, so I'm going to touch that up and check all these other areas here where I might want to spread some color out before I stop. Alright. I'm actually gonna force myself to stop now and let this dry and then come back and look at it and decide where to go after that. So part one is done of aquamarneF the moment. We'll let that dry and we'll see what it looks like in a few minutes. 10. Finish March Art: Alright, they're mostly dry. There's a couple of wet spots right here, which I'm just not gonna touch. I'm gonna let those finish drying. If I touch them with a paper towel or something, it's gonna pull up the paint and make a spot that I don't want. So I'm just gonna leave those two little spots there alone. I am going to go ahead and add my gold with my trusty fork. I've decided no black on these. I love the way these look right now. They're very tranquil, which was the word I was looking at. Soothing, fresh, clean. I really like this look on these particular ones. So now it's just a matter of where to put a few little gold accent dots. I'm gonna dip my little fork in the gold and pick a spot. And I'm not sure where, but it tends to show up pretty good if you go in a darker area. And you got to get enough on there. Oops. All right. That's pretty good. Let's do this way on this one. I just like a little bit of gold in there. Let's go this way on this one. And I'm kind of right there by that wet spot. See if I can get one or two more in there. And this is just a very delicate light application of the gold. Just to add a hint of gold. Alright, let's do this way. I've got way too much gold on here. That's just a little delicate application. I'll scrape what I've got on there back off. Put that in my water. Let that gold soak off of there. So now I'm gonna look one more time. Compared to my sheet here. And I'm looking at this. I'm looking at the actual burstone. And I really like that. Now, there is little bits of black marks in there, but I don't feel I want to do that, so I'm not gonna do it. I'm just not gonna do it on these. That's just all there is to it because I'm the artist and I can make those decisions. So let's pull this tape off and see see what these look like without any tape. I have a feeling they are gonna be so pretty. This is the perfect colors for the March birth month. Perfect colors. Alright, W one next? This one? Let's see. I end up wrapping my tape around the edges. Then I have to find Alright. Now, I've got these end pieces wrapped around the edges. Oh, I got that one wrapped around quite a bit. Got to get ahold of it without touching the paintings. You know, I thought this one was gonna be super duper hard because of that aqua color. 'Cause you normally don't have a paint that's just aqua. Or I don't. I always have to mix it. This one came out to be one of my easiest yet. But I stopped and didn't make it too complicated, which helped. It's really hard for me to do that sometimes, too. Alright, let's see here. This is the orientation that I did the Minds. I'll look at it that way. And I think that looks really, really nice with that aqua color. They might be a little brighter than that and not quite as tone down, but that's okay. It's what I felt today. So that's what I wanted to do. And, of course, you can turn them whichever way you want when you're doing something with them to see which orientation you like it better. But for now, I feel we've done pretty good job with this. So what? Let's just review real quick. On this one, instead of using two acrylics underneath the watercolors, I only used one, titanium white. Look at this nice texture it did on some of these pieces, these textural marks that right there, those little bitty lines, can you see The little bitty lines right here, it really adds some textural marks to it without being over textured. And I love the flow of the two colors together that I use to demonstrate Aqua. So I'm really, really happy with the way this turned out. This is a fresher, a lighter look than the other two I've already done, and it makes a nice contrast to those. So I'm going to call March complete. And go on to April. So let's take a look at what's coming up with April. Oh, April's gonna be tough because April is the diamond. So you got a bunch of choices here. I'm gonna have to decide which route I want to go with April. So we'll get on to April next. 11. Paint April 1: April is the diamond for its birth month color, which is clear. But if you look at it closely, you can see it's got white and it's got shades of gray in there, maybe even a little touch of black. And then there's these color suggestions here, which are interesting. I like the warm brilliance one. But I'm not too sure about bringing the brown in. I just I mean, it may work fine. I just don't know that I want to do that. And here's our neutrals, titanium white, titan buff, which are here. Then you got the brown, the raw umber. And I just don't know about that. I'm leaning more towards the gray and the yellow ochre. And in this little watercolor set that I keep knocking the top off of, I can't pick up correctly. I have the ochre. These two right here kind of look pretty close to that. Probably this one, 'cause this one's a little more orange. So probably this one. But there's also this color here, which is a it kind of looks like a cross between umber and a greenish gray. So it may be an olive, which is kind of interesting. Um and I thought in here, I see lots of olive. So I wondered about using this one, which is right here on the palate and this one, which is right here on the palate, in combination with some of the neutrals. And it's just trying to get to a diamond is kind of difficult. It's going to require some titanium white on top, I think, rather than underneath. The colors. So I'm thinking about altering what I'm doing with this particular one a little bit and starting with the water colors first on here and then bringing in some titanium white, maybe a little titan buff, which is suggested here, and maybe some of this light gray. Even though it doesn't show that on these color charts, it shows here. And I thought that might be interesting to have some little touches of that. Maybe. I don't know. I've got them all laid out to figure out what I want to do. I think what I want to do first is start with the yellow ochre and that this gray, greenish gray, which here is a sage green. And then the pain's gray is suggested in several areas. This is more of a darker green with some gray, I think. But I kind of like that tone. With the ochre, I'm thinking it would look good. So why not try it? This is all about experimenting. So instead of starting with the acrylic on this one, I'm going to start with the colors, and I'm just going to add some water on each piece in different areas in the center and maybe down a side there a little bit, and maybe across the top here a little bit, maybe across the bottom here a little bit. And just start dropping some color in here. So let me start with the ochre color because to me, that's the one that's going to be most powerful here. So I'm just gonna drop some in there in each one of these and let it go where the water is that I've put on the sheet. Just kind of let it flow Of course, I have to find where I've put the water. It's kind of hard to see. Alright. Now I'm going to grab some of that olive green color, and I'm gonna drop a little bit of that in each one in a few spots. Just a little bit. Just to create some interest. Now, let's take the spray bottle and see about moving some of this paint around. Kind of hard to spray backwards toward myself. Like on that one. But I've kind of got enough on there now to move it around a little bit. It's moved around. Now, how about we go back and add some more of the ochre? Because I kind of lost a lot of it there. I just add some more in where I feel like I've lost too much of it. And I can either move it around with the brush or I can roll it. Let me roll it a little bit. That certainly does make an interesting pattern. Of course, this needs to dry a little bit, I believe. It's too wet, so I will use the heat gun. I don't think that's gonna get it, though. I think it needs to dry a little longer than that, which means April may have three parts in it, maybe. Let me just try this and see if it does anything. Too much water. Now, that's not gonna work. It's too much water, so I can either take some water back off or I can continue on, or I can continue to move the water by doing this, or I can just let it sit there and dry. Oops, and there went some off the side. I do like to move the paint around to get that flow. H And, of course, it's still too much water. It really does need to sit there and dry. So I will have a somewhat of a stained look, but you notice my greenish gray color has kind of disappeared. So let me get the smaller brush and pick back up some of that and put it in a few spots because it really has kind of disappeared. Mm Now, let me move that around a little bit. Just kind of skoo it blend it in a little bit. Actually actually move it more around because we're gonna be using acrylic so I can cover some of that up. And I'm gonna pick up a little bit more of the ochre to dab in there in these really wet areas. You're probably thinking, how in the world is she gonna get April look out of this? And, believe me, I am sitting here wondering the same thing at this point. I'm just going to see if I can move any of this water a little bit on each pay each section. To let it spread across the page a little more. I probably need to be a little bit more aggressive with this as far as turning it. So to help it spread across that page. That's quite a bit more color there. So now I do think this needs to dry before we continue on with part two. The heat guns not gonna do it. The water is too much, so it's just gonna have to have the fan on it and dry. So that is what I'm going to do after I move it one more time and try to get some of that color dispersed on these different ones. This one right here, this little section is bugging me. I need to disperse that out a little bit. You can use your brush to disperse it out, too. This one. Try to push it around a little bit, where you want it. Even go from one to the other. If you need to pick up some from one and put it in one of the others. Okay. Now I'm going to let this drip and put the fan on it. We come back and we'll go forward with April and do part two. 12. Paint April 2: Well, that did not take that long to dry it all. And, you know, with each one of these, I'm working things different ways. This may end up being my favorite way. But now I'm going to put some acrylic on here. And here's what I'm thinking. Let me pull out the I'm looking at this. We've got the light grays and the white. But then in this one, I was looking at the titan buffs involved. And I thought, you know, it might be nice to have the white make a statement, but have some accents of the titan buff and the light gray in there as well. So what I thought about doing is putting some texture marks on here with the light gray and the titan buff, and then swooshing over top of that across the design with the white. I don't know how that'll work, but let's just try it out. I've got a little palette here. I'm going to put this is the neutral gray eight in acrylic, it's pretty light. Put a little bit of that on the palate, and this may end up just making a big mess and I may start back all over. I'm gonna put some titan buff on this palate too. So let me show you these two colors. So that's a very light gray on the titan buff. And I'm just going to dip this in. I'm going to start with the light gray and sort of pounce that little sea sponge in there and pounce a lot of it off. And I'm gonna pick where I want to put it. And I'm thinking, put some right in here and just kind of keep dipping and placing and just alter how you're turning it and where you're putting it and just, you know, put a little bit on each one. So that they all have some. And don't go too heavy with the pouncing. That's what I'm thinking here. All right, there's the gray. Now let me pick up doing the same thing, but with the titan buff on that sponge and work it sort of right in there with some of the gray, but also extend it out a little bit further than where the gray was. And this may look absolutely whoops. I got a little too much on that one. It may look absolutely horrible. And it may look like the most fantastic thing since sliced bread. Now, see, that's a little strong there. Get some more extended out here. Okay, that's quite a bit with the sponge. I'm gonna dunk that in the water and leave that alone. Now I'm gonna get the titanium white. And what I'm gonna do is just line the edge of the palette knife with it. Pretty thickly, but not all the way across the pale knife, about like that. And I'm just gonna get where most of the gray is. And most of where I did the speckling, and I'm going to start there, and I'm just going to swoosh. And then I may come across and swoosh another way and just lightly dragging it like that. And see how it makes some texture from the watercolor paper, right? There's a pretty good bit of white there. So I'm gonna do another one. For this one, swoosh this way. And because the paper is buckled a little bit. That's some good texture in that one. It doesn't lay down flat, which is fine because I want that texture. Now, let's see. See if I can do this one from up here. I just drag it lightly. And I might need more weight than this. On some of these. I've still got a little bit left on there, so let's do this one. I don't need as much on the bottom ones. Hard to drag the opposite direction. So this is given a totally different look than the other ones. Now I'm pressing a little harder there to get some in that corner. This one here I'm not real thrilled with, so I'm going to add a little bit more on that one. There we go. That's a little better. I like to have that movement all the way across. Like this. And I'm just putting some of the extra on there. This one doesn't have as much as the others, but that's okay. Now, right now, what I'm going to do is anywhere that there's hard edges, really hard edges that I don't like. Now, it's up to you whether you like something or not. I'm going to try to blend it out a little bit, and I could use a brush, but I'm just gonna try to do a little bit of it with my fingers. Sort of soften some of it, where it's got a really hard edge. And of course, if your finger gets too sticky if you're using your fingers, then you can just dip it in a little water. And you got to get it before it dries. And I'm just picking spots where I feel the edge looks too hard. Notice I'm dropping my finger in that water to loosen some of that up. And it just takes a little touch to smooth some of it out. And even rub some of it over the watercolor paper in a different spot. Let's get this one. My finger's too wet. You get too much going, it'll get too wet. This is why I like to do it dry if I can. I don't really like that. This is drying already. Trying to hit edges where I don't like how the edge looks. That's kind of interesting. But now, I'm thinking with that gray that's left on here, I'm gonna get a small brush, get that gray fairly wet. Dip it in that water, get quite a bit of water in there. I don't know if you can see that to get it very, very wet. You know, 'cause this is out of the tube acrylic, it's a lot thicker. And I want it to move a little bit. So now I'm going to take this. Let's take another brush here. Let's see if I can add a few speckles of this color in a few spots were to add some interest and break it up a little bit. Okay, that's pretty good. Now I'm going to do the same thing with a little bit of what's left of the tighten buff only. That is starting to dry really fast. So I'm just gonna add some water with that. And I'm gonna do the same thing with this one. Oops. Okay. That's kind of neat. I'm gonna clean this off. Now I'm wondering if I don't need to bring some of that yellow ochre and the green back in. I'm afraid let's see. Let's take a look at it. I mean, it's gonna be hard to get April, you know, with these colors. And if I'm looking at the burstone, it's gonna be tough. But I could bring If I could keep my lid on this, it'd be great. I could, Brandon. I'd clean that palette off real quick. I could bring some of those watercolors back. Just to add a little pop, make that weight, stand out a little more. So I'm gonna use the small brush. I'm gonna try with the ochre first and just kind of dip some in here in a little area. And then I'm gonna drop some water on it. I'm not brushing it. Just kind of adding some of that color back in. All right. Now let's pick a spot on this one. What we do right in here. I really like that little bit of white right there and then drop some water. On that area. Now let's go to this one. And let's do some right here and drop a little water on it and pick up a little more on this one and add some maybe on this corner and then add some water to it like that. Okay. Let's go to these in this corner and maybe even come across through the middle on that one, add some water, bring it right over into the white. And then this one is wide open on what I could do. Put a little water in there, let some of that move. And how about right here? In this area a little water. Alright, that's the ochre. Now let's get that that green. Where do we want to put this? How about just right here and bring in the water. And actually tap it right on over the white a little bit. You're gonna pick up some white. But it gives it that I don't know. It's kind of a gemstone like look. Let's do this corner right here. And along there and a little water. Because the acrylic dries so fast, it's easy to go over it pretty much. Always add water to soften. Now here, let's do some right here up along this area and right there. Yeah, that dark really makes it pop. And, you know, I said this is like a dark grayish green. It almost kind of looks like the umber that the guide suggested. Almost. And then this one let's put some on this corner and some water, bring it in. I think it makes a little bit more dropped in there. Okay, on this one, I'm gonna go right there and add some water to move it. Help it spread around a little. Oop. I got a little too much there. And this one, how about right in here? Connect up. Right there, and some water. Notice I just drop those drops on there. It starts moving. This one, I think I need a little more ochre since I overdid some of this. I kind of move that around a little bit this way. And I really overdid that one. My paper towel. Get some of these edges here on these two soak some of that up. Okay, let's go back with the darker in here. Let it spread around on its own without really adding any more water, except for right here where it's kind of got a little blotchy there and maybe right here. Yeah, add some water there. And then pick some of it up with that paper towel I got a little too much. And I can move some of this water on all of them, just like I did earlier. To give it that nice stained. Look, this one, I lost some of my dark. I'm gonna go back in in this corner and right here. And just to tad water there to make some of that move. I think I got too much water here, so I'm going to try to pick some of it up. So it's not so thick. And here and here. Well, now I've got the colors and immersed in they're pretty good. And I was originally looking at this one, the warm brilliance. I don't know if it's representative of April or not. I don't know if this one's good enough. But, you know, I think that with a lot of them, I'm gonna tap back off these really super dark areas. M. You know, you just never never know. I want to move. Some of that with just a wet brush. Now, I could sit here and fuss with this for hours. But I think I've got enough core in this one. And look at it. Sticking with these. I think it does kind of look like that. Not so much look like this, except for the white area, kind of does. But it doesn't have to be exact. Now I need to get some gold in here to finish this one out. But, you know, I would like this to dry a little bit better first. So, like I said, April's probably gonna have three parts here because I need to put the fan on this and let this dry for a few minutes before I put the gold on there so I don't disturb anything. So we'll be back in just a few minutes with P three for April. 13. Finish April Art: Alright, everything is totally dry on the April set, and I'm going to add the gold dots with my little fork tool here, get some paint on there. I'm gonna decide where to put them on each one. We're not really showing up real good on that one. Probably with the yellow ochre being in here on these, that could have an effect on how well it shows up. But they're just tiny little accents anyway. Let's see, Let's put some up here on this one. I just move it back and forth a little bit because it gets up on here and it won't come off of there unless I drag it. I don't want to change since I'm trying to keep my series consistent, I don't want to change the way I'm applying the gold. I want it to be very similar on each one. Let's see. Let's do here. Here. And here on that one. And on this one, let's do down here at this bottom part. Just kind of wiggle it to get some of that off of there. That's just very, very faint. That looks pretty good. I'm gonna get the gold off of that. And we are going to take a look at April here. And, I mean, with a diamond like this to get those colors, exactly like this. It would be a little difficult, but I do have all those colors integrated. And I went with the warm number two on this one, the warm brilliance. I was thinking luminous. I was on the mood words on that one. Luminous sounded good. And I think these would be really pretty if they're framed up in a gold frame. But let me go ahead and untape these. Untape is that a word? How about remove the tape? Hey, we make up our own words here. Uh oh. That one can't be removed yet, 'cause I have to remove these long ones first. Okay. Yeah, I missed that one. Somehow I messed that one up. I try not to mess everything up there. There we go. Alright. But yeah, I think these would be really pretty in a gold frame or even with the gray that's in them, that lighter gray could be, um, Oh, I got hung up on this piece. With the lighter gray, I think that they could even be framed in silver for a very different look if they're to be framed. Let's get this one. Well, that's not working, so I'll start right here. Then get that one. And this one. I love my little cutting board for these projects with this paper size. And it makes it very easy to move things around where I don't have to tape it to the desk, especially since I do like to tilt and let the paint flow. Alright, just a couple more pieces here. Let's start with this one closest to me. I'm trying to pull slowly, but I'm kind of excited to see these. Actually, now that I'm seeing them, like everything else that I do in this manner, when I pull the tape, they just end up looking amazing to me. And these are looking better than expected. And I really do think they kind of go with the warm tones of that number two option, which is what I was after. So I'm kind of pretty happy with that. Alright, let me move this out of the way. And without touching them, I think they look great. So once again, here's the number two option. These golden colors paired with the white. And it said raw umber, but I use that brownish green, which is more of a olive green, but it does look a little bit like umber when it mixed with things. And I think this one did very well tang in with what I was after with this. I think these would be great for April. So, I'm happy with that. And next, well, let's see what we've got coming up next. We have coming up May, and I get to play with this emerald green. So this should be fun, fun, fun. And I'm already seeing one I like. So we'll play with May next. But in the meantime, there is April. 14. Paint May: Alright, we're ready to start with May. And May, of course, is the beautiful emerald. And I was looking at the four options here, and I really like number four, because it involves more golden color. Green wise, from the watercolor palette I have here, these greens that are in this palette are just not right unless they would be mixed heavily. This color here looks a lot like the raw sienna. So I'm thinking I'll bring in for watercolor, some of that. And then acrylic for the rest on this with titanium white as a base, and I don't have viridian green. Actually don't have most of these greens that are listed here, but I do have chromium oxide green and this one called muted green by liquitex, and this is golden. And so I did a little test here on a sheet of paper. This muted green is actually the darker one, and this is the chromium one. Chromium oxide green. I mix the two together here, and it gave me a really nice dark green that looks comparable to this. But then I remembered, we're going to have white involved, so I better bring in some white. So I did. I brought in some white, and I mixed it with the muted green, which created that color right there. And then I mixed a little of the chromium green in with it, which created this a little bit darker shade. And then I just dry brush some white over top of that just to see shade wise. So I think both these greens, plus the white, can make a really nice color combination. So I'm going to use both of them. And that's what I mean when I say when I said earlier on, don't worry if you don't have a specific color list, just use what you have, figure it out, get close. You can alter any of these to what you want. But this one, it's called golden Lukes and goes for luxurious. And that's what I think of when I think of emerald and gold, very luxurious here. And so I'm definitely going to bring in the gold texture paste as I have on the other ones to make some interesting accent dots. But these are the three main colors I'm going to work with. For emerald. I've already taped off the paper in the same manner as the other ones, and I'm going to go ahead using my palette knife and get some titanium white down on all of these sections here. Let me move these up here. And like I said before just put some of that neutral on your palette knife and just maneuver it where you want it to go. Don't worry about making a specific thing. Just let your palette knife go, let your hand flow the direction it wants to go. This is just to get a little something down on the page. Just a little something to work with. I know you can't really see this because it's white. But it will show up later. That's a really good way to start, get some of it on there, wipe the excess off on one of the other ones. So you don't waste the paint. Now I want to bring in that raw sienna color from the watercolor palette, which is I can't get my lid to stay on there. This one right here. I'm just going to set this down so I don't mess things up. I'm going to use my big round brush again. I'm going to get it very wet. Get it in that raw sienna watercolor and just start adding some of that into the design. And then if you want to add more water to help it move around, let it blend with the white a little in certain spots. Just gives that nice pop of golden color on this one. Of course, now I've got the brush too wet on this one. And drop some water in there. Just do this on each one with the watercolor to get some of that wet color in there. Just wherever. Don't worry about where you're putting it. Just put it wherever. You can always add some more water in there, and we'll turn it here in a minute. We'll lift it up and let some of that paint move. And, it sounds like this one. I'm gonna try to get some of that excess that I dripped on the tray. Alright, now let's roll some of this color around. Just let it move a little bit different directions. Ooh. Try not to roll off the paper, like I was about to do right here. And you can always bring in some more water if you want to soften something up a little. Pull some of it back off. Alright. That's enough of the gold. And gold. Raw sienna color. I'm going to keep that watercolor palette open in case I want to bring that back in or maybe even bring one of these other colors like the black. Might be interesting. Now I got to work with these two greens. And I'm going to go with the darkest one first and just put it down somewhere. And I'm thinking, do I want to use a palette knife or do I want to use a brush I mean, I could use both. I could use the palette knife and then the brush to blend some of it. So I'm just gonna put a little bit of that on the palette knife edge, and I'm gonna decide where I want to swoosh it. Of course, there you see it's blending with the white. That's okay. That's what we're gonna brush out and blend it. That's kind of interesting. Oh, try not to think too long. As. Now, remember, the emerald is gonna be the main color. So we do want quite a bit of it on here. Alright, now that looks like absolute trash right now. I know. But how about if we get some of the oxide green and this one, I think I'm going to play with my little stubby angle brush, and I'm just going to put some right on the brush, not very much, just a little. And I'm gonna pick an area where I want to blend some of that shade with what's already there and scrub it in with that dark green and maybe, you know, even move to some different areas and just keep going with what's on the brush. Until you run out of stuff on the brush. I'm starting to there. It's a little wet. You just skip around and go whichever ones you want to go to. Alright, now I'm gonna rinse off that brush. And before I go into brushing some more of this around, I'm going to put some on the sponge. I'm just going to use this little palette here of the same lighter green, not very much of it. Just to add some interesting marks. And this is a dry sponge. I'm just going to go right in with it dry, Stamp around on that lighter green, and then just pick a few spots to add some marks on each one. I may have to get more paint on there. 'cause I'm running kind of low. Maybe not. I might have enough here. So that gets some more green in there. Throw that sponge in the water. And because I like to clean my towelet off really quickly, I'm gonna go ahead and wet that and use a paper towel to wipe that off. I case I want to use that for something else. Alright, so now I've got a big mess. So I'm gonna take the small round brush. Remember I mentioned adding in some black. I'm gonna get the black watercolor. Get the brush wet. Even though the color scheme didn't call for black, I'd like to just add in a little bit in some of the areas where I think there needs to be some darkness, trying to get the brush really wet and get it in this watercolor. And I may have to bring back in some more white and just put in it wherever. Now, using that same brush, I'm just going to start dropping some water on here where I put the black and let it roll around a little bit, move around some. Like that. And now I'm gonna bring in some more white. And I'm gonna use the same round brush so I just washed off the smaller one. I'm gonna put some white on there, right from the tube like that. And I'm gonna hold the brush on its side and just kind of scrub some in there. Keeping in mind that emerald is the main color here. Actually, I'm going to put some palette because I'm going to dirty it in the tube. Emerald is the main color, but the white really helps set it off. So I didn't even clean my brush. I'm just going right into it and decide where I want some white here. I'm using the side of the brush. See how that's changing that mixing white with it. And also going to leave some really nice thicker texture in a few spots where I'm putting that. Just doing it really quickly on its side. I've got some areas here where it's kind of puddling up. So I'm going to take my paper towel and sort of pounce some of those really wet spots down a little bit. And then maybe brush some of what I got on the paper towel back in there. Oh, that's pretty. And then this one's a little bit wet. Alright, now I still have this paint left on the palette. We've got a little mix here going on. I'm gonna add some of that in with palette knife. I'm gonna try to get a little mix of both. In there. Go right up through that dark on some of these just to apply it and not waste it. Now, this is really kind of marble looking. And I don't particularly care for that. So what am I going to do with that? How about we take the big brush. Let's get some water in there. A. To loosen that up a bit. And now, of course, it's mixing it. And it's making it very pale, almost white light green. But it's very watery now. I've got it on the big brush. I'm just going to do like this and get some good Oops. And if you touch the paper, you get a really good mark when you hit too hard, splatter marks in there. Okay. That's pretty good. Now, that smaller brush, I'm going to wash it off and where I got some of these marks that I want to move them around a little bit, I'm just going to dab it with some water. Not all of them, but some of them. That helps move it around, soften it up. Like, here's a little bunch right there that's a little bit too much. I'll just grab some of that and move it with just a little water. And then maybe this one. Then this is marbly looking, which I'm not real thrilled with that. I want to actually brush that out some and then put some water on it to soften it. Now I'm looking at each one a little bit more individually than I did before. I move this a little bit, blend it. Add a little water there. This water, as I add it will help soften some of these colors and help them move, even though I'm not really moving the paper around very much. Softens everything. Let's go to this one and soften that up a little bit. I got a little bit of marbly stuff there. I'm tone some of that down. Just keep dipping in the water to get more on there to get it to move. Let's look at this one. And then this one. And then this one I'm kind of happy with. Maybe bring a little bit there on the white, soften that edge, make it a lighter green. I'm looking at each one individually, and I just dropped a bit of water there just to see where I might want to move some stuff. How about some of that right there, soften that. Here's some black right here. See if I can pull some of that over. Let's see, this is a little dark right here. There we go. Get some of that to move. So we got a few shades of green thanks to the two colors plus the white. I've got a black droplet right here. I'm gonna try to work that around a little. And then over here, I have a green droplet. Just dabbing to move, move, move that paint. I don't really know I'm kind of liking the patterns, so I don't really know if I want to turn the paper, you know, turn the board or not at this point. It's all just decision making here, now, and this is where you can get stuck if you spend too much time on it. So I don't advise spending a whole lot of time on it. That looks like a pretty good mix of greens with a little bit of that raw sienna peeping through. By the time I add the gold dots from the texture paste on here, that will tie in with that raw sienna, but it'll have a sparkle to it. So at this point, I think it's time to put the fan on this set and let it dry. Let me look at the M here. Here's your emerald. I think that's a pretty good mix of colors to work with for May. So I'm gonna leave this to dry, I'm gonna put the fan on it so that it will be all good and dry before I add the gold texture paste. And I take this opportunity to clean up my palette here, in case I want to use it again in case I'm not satisfied when I come back. And just kind of let everything dry. When you put a fan on it, it doesn't take that long. I could use the heat gun to move some of it or to dry some of it, but I prefer the fan. I think the heat gun sometimes, I don't know. I mean, it's good if you have a thin layer, but when you have thicker acrylics, sometimes I'm not thrilled with the heat gun. I'd rather just have the fan and let it dry. So that's what we're going to do on this one, and when we come back, we're going to add the gold dots with the texture paste and my famous fork I've been using to add the dots. 15. Finish May Art: Alright, everything is nice and dry. And I am ready to apply my metallic paint. Might be a little spot right there that's still wet where it's real thick. Yeah, that spot's a little wet, so I'm gonna try to stay away from that. Now, as I've done in the other lessons, I'm going to dip my little vintage fork in there, I got way too much on there. And I'm going to put some dots just in a few different areas of each one. Let me scrape some of that off 'cause I got way too much on there there. Alright, where do I want to put some dots here? How about right here? Sometimes when you wiggle it back and forth, it'll put some extra marks there. Or thicker marks. Alright, I want to stay away from that wet spot up there, so let's try some dots down here on this bottom section. On that one. Alright, on this one, let's try this way. Now, those on that one got a little bit thick. I may have to put a little water on those. This one was tried this way. And that's pretty. And then this one. How about this way? Let me see if I need to or if I want to add any more. I don't think I do. But I do. This one here, these couple little spots are a little thick. I'm going to take this little tiny brush and wet it and kind of spread some of that around before it dries. It'll add a little sparkle in the area and kind of disperse that gold just a little bit there. Okay. Everything else looks really good. Let me see if I need to take some of that off with a wipe or paper towel. I don't know if I can get that extra water I got there off. All right. That's pretty good. Actually, I don't that spots still too big, so I want to try to move some of that. There we go. That's better. Alright, so we're ready to peel the tape, even though they're not completely dry. I'm going to go ahead and peel the tape so we can see what they look like. But just comparing before I do that, they look very much like this. The shade of the darker shade where I added the black is more toward this one than this one, but it's close. I mean, you need some shading. Some of the color is like this one, very closely. Okay, let's peel the tape. Now, I did these cross sections last. I want to peel those first. This is my favorite part, if you haven't gathered that already. I don't and I don't rush it 'cause I don't want to rip the paper, but I also kind of like the slow reveal. Then this one was the next one. Yeah, I can tell already I like these. See, after they get dry and you step away from it, it just kind of helps to change the look it dries and it looks different when it's dry than when it's wet. Okay. Yeah, I'm already loving the sins. I'm already loving these for a May 1. See if I can get this piece from the top. I kind of have to wrap around my little board here. Alright. On the bottom. Oh, yeah, I'm liking these. I'm liking these. These are perfect for May. I'm glad I decided to use the two greens to give some different shades on this one. Oh, yeah. Let's take a look without the board there. There we go. Oh, pretty. There we go with May. Oh, yes. Look how they blend nicely with that gemstone. Oh, yeah, very luxurious looking. Very much so. And you can turn them whichever way you want when displaying or framing or putting them on a card, all kinds of things. So, May is officially done, and we're now ready to move on to June. So let's take a peek at June. I get the page turned. Oh, now, June is one of the months that has a few. We have Pearl. We have Alexandrite and moonstone. I believe that's all three. Yeah. Pearl, Alexandrit I'm saying that right and moonstone. A very similar in colors. But moonstone, I can tell you is one of my favorites as far as a stone goes. But the color schemes, the Alexandrite is a little bit bolder, but the color schemes for the pearl and the moonstone are very similar. So I will probably go with something here from the Moonstone page, or I may use some from all three pages. I don't know yet. So when we come back for the next lesson, we'll be doing June. 16. Paint June: Alright, we're ready to start with June. I have picked moonstone, which, of course, is a little bit more difficult because the whites that it has says pearl white, like an idscent Pearl white. I have titanium white. I do have some iridescent medium. I thought I could mix a little of that with it to see how that looks. As far as colors, I like the moonstone blue, the lavender gray, and the white with a gold accent like in this moonlit glow, option number one. And of course, these colors are very specific. I have a few colors here. I have a pale violet, which looks like it might go with that lavender gray. I have powder blue, which would go with the moonstone blue, but I also have this blue and the Watercolor here, which kind of looks like a light shade of blue that might work instead of this powder blue. And then I have a serlem blue, acrylic, which could be lightened up to about that shade there. But that already looks like that. So I thought I would just keep them all here and keep them handy and maybe use this one with the water with the titanium white and the iridescent medium for the white I apply with Palette Knife. So let me open this up. And get situated here and move this out of the way. And this is going to be interesting because of the iridescent medium I need to add to this. So I'm going to just put some on this palette. Here. I don't know how much I'll need. I want to do too much. And this is ictex basics, iridescent medium. I have never used it. But just to mix it with the acrylics. So I thought I'd try mixing a little of that in and just see how that goes. Of course, I've got my paper taped down the same way as all the others. I don't really see much iridescence in there. Maybe I don't have enough in there, or maybe it shows up later. I put a little more in there. Why not? This is all an experiment. Supposed to give it kind of a pearl look. And I'm just gonna take my palette knife and start applying some of this on here. No rhyme or reason as to how I'm doing it. Just whatever feels right at the time. That's some nice texture in that one. Go to add a little bit more texture in that one. Let's do that in all of them. Just a little bit of that tapping of the palette knife to add some texture, maybe even add a little bit more of that medium here on these. Well, it's a medium and titanium white, so I'm gonna put this palette aside. And now I'm going to take the light blue here. Let's see if I can get this where you can see it. Hopefully, you can see that. And I'm going to go with my large round brush I've been using for a lot of these because it gets nice and juicy wet and get some of this light blue color and work some of that in with that white. I get too much acrylic on there. I've got to wash that brush off. But just trying to keep it very very loose and maybe even add a little bit of water on there. Alright, let's go to the next one. Okay. Let's add a little Oops. Let's add a little water on there. Maybe a little bit more on that one. Maybe do some flicks on them too. Then add a little bit of water. There we go. Now. We got a little bit there, and then spread that out a bit with a little bit of water and go to these smaller ones. Add a little bit of water on that one. Didn't really do any flicks on these. Get some of that in there. Add a little more water. These looking very oceani at the moment with these lovely colors, this blue and paired with the white. And I don't know how iridescent that'll be, but I added quite a bit of that too there. And let's Look a few spots of that on there and a little water. I think I need some more here on this one. It's mixing with the white that's there. Yeah, I got quite a bit of water on these. Whoops. That's a pretty good bit of the blue there. Tap tap on there a little bit with that rag now. I have the lavender, the pale violet, and I'm not sure how I want to apply that. But I'm thinking my trusty sponge Since I've already got this palette dirty here. With the white and the iridescent. Let me see if I can get this violet open. Oh, my goodness. Can't get the tube open. There we go. Let me put a little bit. Oh, that is a that is a violet, and that's way too much. I've just squirted out. I'm gonna get a little of this powder blue as well if I can get it open. It's a little somebody use when I'm painting my skies, it's more of a bluish purple. Put both of those on there. Why not? And then I have the serian blue. If I want to brighten things up anywhere, I can always use that. I'm gonna take this little my little trusty sea sponge, and I'm gonna start pouncing it, and I'm actually going pounce in some of both colors and pounce some of it off. And then Work some of it in here. The sponge is still kind of wet from the previous lesson, so no rhyme or reason as to where I'm putting this on. Just to add something fun. I love the texture that the sponge makes. I could sit there and go over all of it, but don't really want to do that. Just dab a little bit more that's left on that sponge. Alright, that's kind of interesting, but it's a little bit too textured for me, too spongy. So now I want to do something else. Um let's see. What do I want to do? Do I want to bring? Let's just go with the Oh no. Let's see. It you know, in the watercolors here, let me show you. I was thinking of that serlem blue, but this blue right here at the top here is an awful lot similar to that. So what if I take smaller brush and get that wet down real good and just start applying some of this in here in a few areas and then add some water to it to help things move. And even go over some of those spongy edges. So they're not quite so strong. Oops, I got in the wrong one there. This is how I end up with acrylics, on my watercolors is I double dip that brush. Alright, let's just add some water on that to help that move. You know, opals have a lot of color in them. A lot of different shades. Now, let's get some more of that for the next one. Let's put some right here in the center, go this way. Add some water. Help it move. Get some more of it for maybe down here, add a little water to help that move. That's kind of interesting. You know, opals also have pink sometimes in them. And I'm wondering I need some pink in here. Of course, I don't have any handy. I would have to go look for it. I started thinking about all these things as I'm going, and of course, I don't have the right things out. I move this around. I'm gonna bring some of this up in here and over here. Alright. So they're all getting a little taste of this blue. Worked in there. But it's watered down so it'll lighten up. And one more. Let's go right here. See how that water just moves when you add little drops to it. The Watercolor just moves around. Well, that's kind of pretty. Let me roll some of this color around a little bit. I don't want to roll it too much, but I want to move some of that paint around. I'm gonna end up getting it all over my table if I roll it too much. And then I can go in with a little white and pick up some of that extra really quickly, working around it. I don't like that little mark right here. So I'm gonna take that brush and move that around. And this one here, too. Move some of that. Very interesting. Let's see how we're looking to the oak here. I almost think we need a little bit more of that darker blue in there. And of course, if I had my purple, but I do have a purple Watercolor, why not? Opal has a lot of colors. Here's a purple Watercolor. Let me dip in that with a pretty good bed of water, and let's, um, hit some of this on there. In a few spots. Oh, that's pretty. Let me get some water. That's kind of pretty. Using that purple. I could drop a little water where it's too strong and kind of move some of those spots there's too many dots from it. M. Tapping with the water on a wet painted area helps that paint move a little bit. I do like bringing in the purple. Yeah, I think that looks really pretty with the purple. I'm trying to decide if I want to do any more. You know, I might get a little this iridescent white and really water it down. If it's even gonna be iridescent, I don't know. I have not used that medium. Let's flick a little white on here, too, if it'll go. Just to break up some of these areas. Get a little bit more water with that paint being so thick. Alright. I'm gonna dot some of the white in this one right there and break that up a little. Gonna see if I want to move any of these edges where the sponge hit, where it's a little bit too strong. Move some of that around. Just so it doesn't look too overly textured. Of course, I love texture, but I just don't want it to be too busy. This one looks pretty good. I've got a hair in there of some sort from somebody. Must have been a brush hair that came out. I needed to get that out with something. I got a little stick here. Let me see if I can get it. Of course, it's in there really, really good. Which brings me to another thing. If you wanted to add texture into the thicker paint, you could always drag something through it. I'll do that sometimes. Let's make this have some drips right here on this one. Just by dragging this is a little stick from outside. Just by dragging some of these wet areas around. If I do it to one, I try to do it to several of them. I mean, all of them. So they all have similar marks. That's just a little stick from outside. Anything can be used as a tool. Gosh, I think I really like this. I think I need to let this dry now and then come back and add the gold to it. And I've lost my rag. I was getting some of this, um, extra wet paint here on the edges. There we go. And you can also stamp with the paper towel in areas. Anything can be used to make marks. There's the rag right in front of me. And this particular spot right here is not moving enough for me, so I'm gonna break that up. Okay, I'm gonna let this dry. Good. I'm gonna put the fan on it. And when I come back, we're gonna add the gold texture paste and see what we end up with for Opal. 17. Finish June Art: Okay, we are dry. Everything is nice and dry, so we're ready to put my favorite little gold dots on here. Let me see if I can get this situated, right? So you see what I'm doing. There we go. Let me move these out of the way, 'cause they're in my way. So, once again, still using the gold texture paste with my little favorite vintage fork. I dip that in there, and I'm gonna decide where to put some dots. So I'm just going to pop some on each one so they'll all be consistent. Just in a few different spots. That one's pretty. This keeps the little series I'm doing consistent by doing this. And one more little spot. Although that one didn't seem to go very well, that run right there is a little bit thick. There. I'll scrape that off and put that in my water bucket. So they all have some, and I think they all look pretty good. So I don't need to Well, this one up here got a little bit of a that one dot has a little bit of a long area where it didn't really make a dot. So I'm just gonna put a little water on there and try to move that one around a little may have already dried. I may not be able to do that. Let me grab a paper towel. Yeah, the gold texture paste dries pretty quick unless it's on very thick. Alright, so we are ready to pull this tape on the opal set, but let's look at it first. This is June or the moonstone set. I'm sorry. This is June. I was going for the moonstone look, and I think that ties in really well with that, but we'll see after I get the tape off. So these pieces went on first Well, there we go. Kind of stuck there. Been sitting a little longer than I intended. Alright, let's get the center one. Oh, so far, I'm liking what I'm seeing. I got under the tape a little bit right there. I tried I try not to use too much water, so I don't do that. But sometimes it just happens. Moonstone. I don't think I've ever. Before I started doing these, I don't think I've ever done anything based on a moonstone. I love moonstone. They're so pretty. Alright, let me see if I can get this corner piece off. It's wrapped around here pretty good on this side. Here we go. Oh, look how pretty these are. Yes. So far, I'm really excited with how this series is going. And I really hope you all will do all the lessons and do one for each month, but because each month is a little different with what I do. It's consistent but different. You may learn different things in each month's lesson. Little tips and tricks. Alright, these are upside down from the original orientation. So let me turn them around and get rid of this board. So we can actually take a look. Oh, how pretty. Now let's look. Yep. See? And this was this was the one I was looking at as far as colors. Oh, that worked just beautifully. I am thrilled with that one. I just was afraid of this one, thought it was going to be too hard. But I'm thrilled with this. And look at this texture in here. Oh, and I love the addition of the dark purple Watercolor. I think that really helps set it off. And you can see here where I used the stick to move some of that wetness around. I made those cool little lines. Like I said, good tips in each lesson. So watch them all I do different things with each one. So we are ready now to go on to July next. And let's just take a look at July in the guide here. And of course, it's the ruby. And reds scare me, honestly. Red is a color I'm always very anxious about. So this one is going to be a challenge for me. Oh, I want to mention the idscent. You know, I used the idscent medium here with the white I don't really see that it made it that descent at all. So maybe it would if I used it with a different color. It's a little bit got a little bit of a pearly shine, and you can't really see this one, he could see it more than the others. But it's not like super sparkly. And I just I saw the word Iredscent mentioned under July, so that made me think about that. But next up is July, so we'll be tackling the ruby. And that should be quite a challenge for me anyway. So let's get started with July. 18. Paint July: Alright, I am ready to start July. Now, the colors and options here on the July sheet that appeal to me is desert sunset. Number three, ruby red, raw sienna, warm beige with gold. To me, it it's just a timeless look, which that's one of the mood words is timeless. Those colors just timeless together, and I just like them. Now, I don't have warm beige, but I have titan buff, which is like a warm beige. If you see from my neutrals sheet here where I've tested out my neutrals, that's pretty close. So I have that I have crimson here, a tube of that in acrylics. And then I have that color in the watercolor palette which is pretty close to Raw Sienna, so that would be this one right here. So I'm thinking to use those colors to create the July set of abstracts, which are ruby. And if I wanted to add a little darkness to this red, I could use a charcoal gray it mentions that here, and that's a pretty good choice. And in the watercolors, I have black as well. And I could potentially add a little bit of that it's pretty close to the charcoal gray. It's black, but if I did it real watered down, it would probably add a little bit of darkness to that crimson color. And if I want to lighten it, just mix with a little bit of this would lighten it. But let's just see how it goes. And since I like to start with the neutral color, I'm gonna go ahead and get some of this on the on my palette knife and get it on my sheet here, which is taped out just like all my other sheets. So I'm gonna get a pretty good bit on there. Try not to make a mess, but, you know, as usual, it happens. I'm just letting it go where it wants to go, not really thinking about it that much. Just doing a little few little swooshes. On each one, just to get something down on the page. Alright, so there's that. Now, I'm thinking before I bring in this red, which is going to be pretty powerful, I want to go with the sienna, this one here and get some of that down on here and get some other color on this paper. So I'm going to use my big round brush again and just get that sienna nice and wet and just kind of start working in some of that into some of these. And I try not to get the acrylic in the watercolor, but it happens. So I just go with it. I'm not trying to be pristine with my paints here. That's a pretty rich color. That sienna in the watercolor. But it's just fun to sit here and make a mess and see what'll come out of it. And let's get some on here. I try to put it in the areas where the white is. And then I also like to just kind of flick some around. So let me try just to get a few little spots on each one. And then I'll add with a smaller round brush, get some water on there and drop it on some of those spots to break it up and move some of that color around. I don't need all the spots to stay exactly as they are. Even work some of the other areas. I got a little glare on my page here today with the bright light coming in. So, kind of hard for me to see on some of these. I feel like I may be working a little bit blind. Alright, that gives a little interest there. Now, what do I want to do with the red? How do I want to apply the red? Do I want to use the palette knife? Do I want to use a brush and work some of it in I'm not really sure what I want to do. Got a few different choices here. I think I'll use the palette knife just to get some on the page and then use the brush to move some of it. Now, July is ruby, so I want the red to be pretty prominent with these colors just being infused with it kind of in the background or around it. Let's just put a little bit on there and decide where I want to go with it. Oh, that's kind of bright. I'm just gonna get some on each one of them to start. And then move some of it around. This one I don't feel. These two with all of these, I don't feel has enough. So I'm going to bring some more in on these. And it is fairly bright. Try to use up what's on the palette knife and get some of that on there. Alright, now, you know, I mentioned that black. I might try to bring a little bit of that in with this tiny brush. And this is the watercolor. I want to get a pretty good bit on there. I don't want to overdo it with this. I want to get it nice and watery. But I'd like to bring a tiny bit of darkness in here a couple of these. With a tiny brush, and I got some red on there, so I don't want to put that in the black watercolor. And just mark some in here where I might want it to get no rhyme or reason or anything else to this. No thinking at all here. Now that I've got some of the black on there, I'm going to go back to my smaller round brush and drop some water in there and move some of that around. So it turns into more of that charcoal gray color. I can always come back with more black if I need to. But I don't want it to sit there looking like it is. So I want to move some of it. And just dropping water on here and diving that brush around helps some of it move. You got to do it before it's really dry, though, so you got to work quickly. But that's the whole point of these. This shouldn't take that long to do. 20, 30 minutes. I mean, obviously, you can take as much time as you want. But they're meant to be short little fun projects to do. And just these particular ones are based on the birth month color theme because I like stuff like that. Alright, what have I got here? I think this one needs a little bit more black in there. So I'm just gonna dave some in there and some of that water that's already there and move it around. Maybe even a little bit more down here. Maybe on this one, a little bit more move some of this around. You know, the red colors kind of scare me. I know I mentioned that before. And I always think, Oh, they're gonna look horrible when they're done, and they might. Now, where's that smaller brush? I'm gonna drop some water on this area. That's a little thick right there. And this one I'm gonna move some of this around. And this one that's kind of an interesting pinkish color there. Pinkish gray. When that in there. See what happens. This one. This one's got a lot sitting right there. And that's a pretty pretty good bit of water on there. So I'm gonna try to roll some of it just to move it different directions. Whoa. And I don't I'm trying not to go off the page, but you never know when I do this. Let me get my towel here and drive this excess on this one. You can even dab it on there. Now, what would be let me set this aside. What else would be interesting here? In the watercolors, I actually have this dark red right here that might be interesting to drop some of that in there. So I want to try that. I'm gonna try it with the big brush. And it's this one right here. I'm just getting it really, really watery. And whipping some of it on there. I might have to use this to guide it a little better. I like that color. It's a really dark red. Contrast nicely with this bright red here. Yeah, I think that's a great addition that darker red with the crimson. Of course, now it looks all splotchy. And I don't want that, so I'm going to go back to this brush, the smaller round brush and start moving some of that. Just drop water on it and tap it a little bit, and it'll start moving. Oh, yeah, that's a really, really pretty shade now. Make sure to get all these little drops done while it's wet because if it dries, you're kind of stuck with it unless you want to cover it up. And this one. Yeah, that really adds some interest with that brighter crimson red. All right here, it was a little splotchy. This one moves some of this around. I think that one needs a little more black. Gonna move some of this darker color here around. I probably have too much water on the sheets now. So things are kind of pooling up. That's the time to take a look if it's still wet and either dab it off or move it around a little bit. Hmm. I think I need a little more black in these. And I don't know the best way to get that on there. You know, I have not used the sponge. And I do have ivory black here in the acrylic. I could maybe dab some of that on there, or I could move some water around a little bit. Just to kind of get things blowing over these. Whoops. You risk things when you do this, but I don't have a pattern yet that I'm like, Oh, I don't want to mess that up, so I'm taking chances here. Let me get that towel again. Get up some of that excess on these Yeah, I wonder about adding some black acrylic. I'm gonna move the watercolor out of the way. This is ivory black. Could add some of this with the sponge on a few of these. See what happens. Not a lot. But I really like the pattern that this little sea sponge makes. This little chunk of sea sponge. So I'm just gonna pounce this around into my little palate dish and decide where I want to hit. I've got a good bit of black there, so maybe in there. And maybe this needs a little bit of something there. And maybe over here on this one, and maybe over here on this one, over here on this one, and over here on this one. I don't want to do too much of that. So that's enough with the sponge. Now, I wonder if I get some of this black and really water it down. This ivory black. See, it's like the red is just so so powerful. I want to tone some of that down by adding in these different shades. Maybe even dab some of that on there on that one. Dab some on that one. Oh, I don't know about this July. I'm not sure yet. I move some water. As long as there's water on there to move, I'm gonna try to move it. If I don't have a pattern that I'm, like, thrilled with. S I'm looking at these now going, Where's the gold gonna go? Let me look at July here. It almost needs to be a little pinker. I think that red is kind of more of a cherry red. I'm thinking about bringing in the titan buff again into this. Now, I don't know if I should do it with a brush or a palette knife. You know, I could clean this out the black because I think I mean, I could drip a little bit on there and a few of these. So I don't waste it. And it was kind of a little bit of water there. Now I can clean this off. Alright, that's pretty good. Now let's put some of this on here. Don't know how much I'm gonna need. Now, how can I get that in there to make it interesting? I've got a little fan brush here. I'm not sure if that's the brush I want to use. I might because it's not too heavy. So let me try it. Just get some on the fan brush, and I'm just going to go start working it in blending with some of this red And then add a little water if he gets too too mixed up on that fan brush. And pick up some more. Get some more line work in there. It's kind of interesting on that one now. I'm starting to actually look at them individually now, and I also have to remember I'm gonna be adding gold to these gold accents. I'm dragging this fan brush on the side. Rather than doing it straight down, I'm even going to drag some of the color that's on there around with the fan brush. And I'm going to put a little more in there. And I might want to come back in with some of that sienna in here somehow. I'm trying to work each one of them just a little different. There we go. And oh and you can actually scrub with the fan brush to maneuver things around. I feel like this one doesn't have enough of the tighten buff. The way I want it like these two do. So now I've added a little more there. Let's try doing something with these little ones. Um, where do I want to go with this one? Sometimes you just got to guess. Okay. And I feel like I've lost a lot of the raw sienna. That's why I'm thinking I should maybe come back in with some of that. I don't want this tightened buff to overwhelm everything. But I just think it needs some in there. And this may or may not be working for July. Good enough. Like I said, red is a color that I'm just I just don't know. Sometimes it makes me nervous. I'm gonna squeeze out this sponge, get a lot of that black out of there best I can and dip it in this tighten buff that's left and just kind of start going on here in some of these areas with a sponge a little bit to help break up some of those harsh lines that may be there from the fan brush. And just tone down some of that red a little bit more and add a little bit more interest. Alright, that's out of that. I need to decide if I want to come back in with some of that sienna. Remembering I'm going to come in with the gold accents. However, it won't be a lot of gold accents. So when you look at this. Still, that red is still pretty bright in some spots. But, you know, it may dry. It's looking better now more in correlation with this, except for the raw sienna. I do think I need to bring that back in, just to keep with this particular color scheme, and I don't know which brush I want to use to bring some of it in. Um, I think I want to use the big brush to bring some of it in. And I need a little bit more water. I've back over here so you can see. And let's just drop some in here. I'm just dabbing it. I'm not brushing, and I'm gonna drop some in here. And I'm gonna drop some in right there. On that one? Three places. Okay? Since I started with three places on that one, I'm gonna try to do the same thing in three places on the other one. So there's two places and let's do down here. The places. Just trying to keep it cohesive as a series. And if I put something on one in three places, I want to put it on the others in three places. Alright. This obviously won't need as much. Uh There we go. And let's do here. And two more places. There. And the third one, I mean, the last one, let's drop some there. And the opposite corner and this corner. Maybe even over towards the middle a little bit there. So it's in three places on each one of them. Now, let's see. Number three, are we right in line with the colors? I think we're pretty close. Pretty close. I've got a little a little drop right there. I want to move. So look to see if you want to move anything before you let it sit to dry. This one, needs to be brought in a little bit. And this one brought in a little bit. It tends to roll when the paper buckles. I think I'm pretty close on these. And what I'm trying to remember here, too, though, is I've got the gold. So I'm going to add the gold, and where am I going to add it? Probably where the red is the strongest just to make it really pop. But, you know, I've got some black in there, too on some of these, so that may or may may or may not show up real well. I'm gonna tone some of that one down and work some of these edges of the sponge area in with what I just added and add a little bit more water on there. The sponge areas kind of dry already, so I'm not sure how much this is gonna help. And here, it's kind of disappeared a little bit. I almost want to grab a little bit more of that black watercolor on a couple of these to create a darker area. On some of these. I'm just dabbing it on there. And these don't eat much. And now that I've added that, I can drop a little water in there to move it. Not too much. I don't want it to all roll off the the whole section. It's just like that little pop of black in there. Some interesting pattern in that one. Alright. Now let's see. I still going with these colors. But look at here. You can see the black in there, in the stone. Now, it may it may dry up darker. It may dry up later. Usually, things dry a little darker, but I'm gonna move some of this color here and that there. I don't know. And then this one rolled over there, so that may or may not have been a good idea. I didn't really like that. That's why you got to be careful when you're moving stuff. I'm just gonna dab that those two. Now, these I think these actually need a little more red, but I'm gonna go with that dark red. Crimson watercolor and bring some of that in there on them. Right in here. And then add a little bit of water to help some of it move. That's kind of moving on its own. Alright, at this point, I've got it too wet. I think I just need to leave it alone. But I do think we're pretty close to a July look compared to this stone and these particular ones in this particular option. And then when I add the gold on there, that should be kind of interesting. So, this may work out good for a July abstract. I'm not sure I like that puddle right there. So I can take my paper towel and soak up some of that. And I'm sorry if I hit the camera. So that's not so strong there. And the same here on this one, just pull some of that out so it's not so strong. Maybe even dab some in there to bring back some of that texture. See, you can just do whatever suits your fancy. So that's kind of what I'm doing there. And now taking away too much there, in my opinion, so I'm gonna get back on here and get a little bit more of that color in that corner. Maybe even pick up a little black there. Okay, I'm gonna leave it set to dry. And when I come back, we're going to determine if it's any good or if it needs to be scratched. And if it's good enough to suit me, then I will add the gold. But 19. Finish July Art: Well, it looks like July is pretty dry almost all the way. And wanted to compare again. Yes, I do think we're on point with these colors here. This number three option. Yes, that's fine. That's fine. Now I want to bring up January, which was the other red one and show you the difference. See, January is the garnet instead of the ruby, and garnet is a much deeper red. So this does fit for July. I think that'll work really well. So now I'm going to add some gold. I'm gonna use my favorite texture paste here and my vintage fork to apply some gold dots on here. And then we'll pull the tape and see where we're at. So I'm gonna get a little bit on the tip. And I'm gonna decide where to put my dots and I like to put it in the reddest area or the darkest area, or maybe both. So here I think I'm going to start right there, and I kind of drug it when I put it on there. A little bit. And I can move that one that I drug a little bit messed up. Can actually add a little water there and spread a little bit of that out so get some sparkle involved on some of these. If I wait too long, it'll dry and I can't get it out. There we go. That's better. Okay. Get a little more on here. And on this one, let's go down here. Uh some dots there. And on this one, where do I want to go? This is kind of busy right here. I'm thinking maybe right up in here on this one. So let's go this way. I don't know how well they'll show up. I kind of have to wig on my fork to get the dots on there, and I kind of drug that one a little bit, but that's okay. All right. That looks pretty good. And then on this one, I'm gonna go with this dark area down here. And well, I think I'll go this way again on this one. And once again, I'm doing it three times on every one of them with the dots. And then this one, let's go this way. And I try not to, like, line them up exactly because I want them to look a little bit more random. And then on this one, let's see. What do I want to do? I don't really want any right there because it's too much gold. So I'm thinking over here maybe at the middle area, and then up a little. That one didn't really make a mark. And then I'm trying to get a mark on there with that particular one there. And then kind of in between. Oops. There we go. Wipe that off a little better. Now, do I need to fix any of these dots? Well, I already fixed these over here by adding a little bit of water to that one, just to spread some of that sparkle out on these Because one and this is a little bit messed up here, so we'll just move this one around. But if you wait too long, it'll dry too fast, and you won't be able to move it with this texture pace. It dries very, very quickly. That's pretty good. I got an odd one here. That's probably almost dry, so that's not moving. And then up here, it's dry. Alright. This will just have to do. So let's pull the tape and see what we've got. I'm going to start with the middle, even though it's not completely dry yet. It's close. Let's start with the middle pieces. Yeah, it's still wet under some of that tape there. I had a lot of water that I put on these. These two got a little bit outside of the tape, this one, too. But if I I'm liking these. See, every time I pull the tape, I just love them. Alright, let me get this piece here. I've got that really taped well around there, so I'm gonna turn it up. Well, it's on there pretty good. There we go. Alright. But every time I pull the tape, I just love them. That is just the funnest part to me because they just to me, when the tape's on there, they still look horrible. So when I pull the tape, it's like it cleans them all up. They don't look as much of a mess. And they actually just work. This one's wrapped around the back, pretty good. But they're still a little wet, so I'm trying to be very careful. But I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. I'm pulling slowly, so I don't want to rip the page. Yeah, this got a little wet right here on these, too, but that's okay 'cause I can trim these up right to the edges, and you'll never know it. One more to go. This is so exciting to pull this tape. Oh, oh, I love these. Okay, I'm happy with July now. See, I get happy with it when I pull the tape. That's just what's so fun. You can just sit down and start putting colors together and making some marks and adding some water and adding some dots, and then pull the tape and look at what you've done. It just looks good. So let me move the board out of the way. And let's look. Ooh, I do think we've done a great job with tying in with July. And with this particular number on the option color options. Yes, yes, yes. I think that's beautiful. Those are so much fun. And what a unique gift these make for somebody that's got a birthday. A little piece of abstract art that is made with their birth month colors, just for them, and everyone is different. None of them are the same. So everyone is a unique and original little miniature work of art. It's just fun to me. And, of course, anything that's done in miniature can also be made larger, like on a larger canvas or larger piece of paper. You know, if you have one that you did it and it came out really well and you want to replicate that same thing with the same brushes and the same colors on a canvas, you can easily do that. But these give you a smaller way to experiment, and they also make fantastic gifts and cards. And I mean, there's nothing better than giving somebody an original work of art. That's what I'd rather have. Every holiday, every birthday, et cetera. Give me an original work of art, something that nobody else has, something that I can treasure forever. That's just amazing. Anyway, July has turned out great. So the next month coming up is August. Let's take a peek. Now, this is my month. August is Pi of dough. And this is gonna be fun, too, because I don't know that I have a green that looks just like that. So there might have to be a little color mixing involved in this one. And I can tell you I'm already being drawn to the earthy pyro dough. That's just what my eye went to, and it's probably because of that yellow ochre. I really like that color. And it's as the mood words say, for the earthy one, natural and organic, balanced, grounded. That's something I really need right now, and I guess why I'm being drawn to that these colors in this particular one. So I think that's what we're going to do for August. But July has worked out fantastic. So calling this one done and next up is August. 20. Paint August: Okay, I'm ready to start August, which is Piro dough. And I have decided I like number two on the options, the earthy Piro dough. And I do have titanium white. I have a yellow ochre right here on the watercolor palette. I have some raw umber here, which is to ground things a little bit. The problem is the green. So let's talk about the green. I have two greens. Here. They both say olive green. And this goes to show you the difference in colors with manufacturers. This is a very Windsor Newton's a very professional brand. This is their olive green. I absolutely love it. I probably have to order some more. I've almost used this whole big tube. And then this is from Hobby Lobby, Masters Touch, Acrylic. Also olive green. But let me show you the difference. I did a little tests here. Excuse my messy sheet. I was testing a bunch of things. This is this one, the hobby lobby one. This olive green, these are put down with a palette knife. When you put it down thick, it looks like this. It almost looks like a dark brown. But when you wash it out, spread it out some, this is the color, but it's much darker than this. Then this was a mix I did here of this and the titanium white over here, and I brought it over here to compare it. So it this one here, the winds are in Newton olive green with a palette knife spread out a little bit more with a brush and a little water. Same color. It's just the applications different. But you can see how dark it is here, and then mixed with titanium white there. So this is a little bit more subtle. This has a little more pop. This one from Hobby Lobby. And obviously, the one from Hobby Lobby is closer to the Pira dough here than either of these two. This could be used to add a little darkness in here in place of raw umber, if I wanted to. So, when it comes to the pyradugh, it's a hard green. It's a hard green to fine straight out of the tube, but this is the closest thing I have. Now, there may be other manufacturers, other kinds of acrylics that have a green that will match. It may not be called olive green, but it might match and you don't have to worry about mixing. But if you don't have something like this, and you have this, you're probably going to have to mix it a little bit, like I did on that test sheet to get a lighter shade to make it look closer to this 'cause this is a it's an interesting green. It's a vibrant green. And not it's earthy, but yet, it's vibrant. So I'm not going to use the dark one and mix it. What I will do unless I just use it to darken a little of this. So I'm gonna keep it here. But this is the one I'm going to use for the Piro dough. The yellow ochre from the watercolor palette will be worked in in the titanium white. And if I don't need the raw umber here, I'll use the darker olive green from the other brand. But let's get started with putting some paint on my already taped off board. And I'm just going to use palette knife again to do this. I like the way that's working for me, just to get something down on the paper. I probably should have my other glasses on to do this so I could see a little better. Yeah, let me swap. There we go. Now I can see a little better. Yeah, I have reading glasses that work well for this close up work. And try not to fuss with it too much, just get something down. And I like to leave a little bit of it to have some texture or even make some texture in there with the palette knife. It's really fun just to smoosh it. Is that a word? Smoosh smoosh it on. Just see what ends up where. I'm just going right out of the tube with this like I've been doing on the others. And let it fall where it may. I might want a little more on there to have a little more texture in that one. Alright. So now I have something down on the page. I think now I want to get into this yellow ochre. And I'm gonna use my big brush and let's see here. Yeah, get that brush good and wet. I'm gonna actually just drop a little water on these ahead of time, now I haven't been doing that. This is just another technique I like to play with. I might have done that in some of the previous ones, but I just like to get a little bit on the paper. Okay, now let me get the ochre watercolor wet and see if I can find where I put some of this. And work some of it in here. There we go. Get some worked in this one. And I've been using a lot of that yellow ochre watercolor. I might be getting kind of low on that from this palette that I got at Michael's for a watercolor pallet. It's actually a pretty good little palette. I had a little more water in that one. Yeah, I think that one's getting to the bottom. And if I want to keep using watercolors as my second medium here, I might want to buy some individual ones. But my goal this year has been to use up things I have in my studio, and I have a lot of mediums here. I have these watercolors, I have pastels, No Color two, et cetera. Alright, so that looks kind of interesting. Now I'm going to put some of the olive green, this bright one on here, and I'm trying to decide how I want to apply it. Do I want to do it with brush? And I'm thinking, this one, I might want to. So I'm going to move the watercolors aside, and I'm gonna put some of this in my little palette here. Pretty good bit of it. And I'm still gonna go with Well, yeah, I'm gonna go with this big round brush I've been using on this. But what I'm gonna do is hold it like this and go sideways with the application. And I'm gonna let it mix with what's already on here in the different areas. I'm gonna try to leave that yellow ochre color that I put on there. And I'm not cleaning the brush now. I'm just going from painting to painting here and just applying some of this real haphazardly and letting it mix with what's on there. To get a nice mix of things to get something on the page. I'm pretty much going over that white really quickly. But I'll bring back some white. Little bit. Okay, that's the main color. And I wash that brush a little bit. This one here and one down here, I think these have some thick areas, these two, and that one. I'm going to put a little more in here, like a thick textured area work it through there and pick up some more just to get a little thick textured area in there because I love texture. And these here need a little bit more of some texture. Texture just helps add the depth to it. I'm gonna leave this on this palate I may need some more of it. Scrub that brush off. So now I am looking at the dark olive green here to work some of this end or the raw umber. And I think I'm just gonna go with the raw umber, 'cause it will darken it. Good enough. And how am I going to apply this? Do I want to use a brush or do I want to use a palette? Let me use palette knife. Get my towel here, clean this off. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to put a little fine line of the raw umber along the edge. Very little bit. And I'm going to try to just guide this a little bit. Just kind of make a mark just to get some of the color in there. And I'm gonna have to keep wiping this off on my towel as I do each one here 'cause I want it to be super dark when I first apply it. See a very thin line, and I'm gonna start in different spots and go different ways like that. That's kind of cool. Wipe off that palette knife. I want to get a thin line on here. See, I have not changed up any of my tools during all of this. This one is start up here and kind of swoosh down. Cool. I haven't changed any of my tools. I'm using the exact same tools I've used for every month, but I'm using them differently in different manners. Then line here. And let's go. There, that one. It's almost looking like chocolate mint, the colors. I'm gonna get another thin line here. And let's go this direction. If you don't like something, feel free to wipe through it and make another mark. That's just getting some down there in a random spot. Kind of random. I'm kind of deciding where to put it, so thin line, and then this one, I'm just going to spoosh that way. Alright, now I have some of the brown in there. I don't feel this one has enough now that I'm looking at all the others. I think I got in a little bit of that white there. So I'm going to come in here with a little bit more there on that one. There we go. So now what do I want to do? How about if I take my small round brush. Hey, wait a minute. Got another idea. I'm looking at the watercolors. This particular color here, here, looks kind of like that, but a tad lighter. And this is a dark olive green right here. I'm thinking about taking that dark olive green and dropping some of that in there and letting it move around with the brush. So I'm going to get that really, really wet and just maybe even flick it, maybe even do my little Um, a little thing I like to do with flicking drops on here. Then I'll move them. Okay, there we go. Let's get some for each one. There we go. Oh, that's cool. There we go. Get a little more for these. Yeah, it's a real dark olive green. Pick up a little more for that one. That one. Okay. Now I've got those interesting drops on there, and this is where I like to take water. Same brush, but just water on it and just drop some water in here and kind of move it around some helps to lighten it up. Excuse me, create some flow. Not on all of them, but on some of them, I'll do that. And just drop some water on there and help it move around a little. And then I decide after I've done that, do I want to move some of it a little more? And where do I want it to go? This just helps add some shading and some color, but it's a real watery look because of the watercolor, and you can't even flick some right off of the brush in there. Dab some in with some of the other areas, if you want to. Did I even put some on there? Yeah, on this side, I did. It's just kind of meditative to sit here and do this. Okay, that's kind of fun. This one here we need to ab some of that back around and off. Helps blend some of what's on there. Just picking different spots where I'd like to see some of this move around, too. H, it does look very organic and earthy, which is kind of what I was after with these colors in this particular choice. That's kind of cool. I think the yellow ochre is more peachy looking, though. Well, maybe not. I just glancing at that. Wondering if I want to bring in a different yellow or You know what? Here's what I'd like to do. Let's move this. I have this left. So how about if I use my sponge, my little sea sponge, dab in some of that green that's left, pounce it off on my dish. So it's not quite so strong. And then let's pounce some little areas on these. Now, I got some of that color in there. I really like the pattern that this little sponge leaves. Okay, that's kind of cool. Now, if you don't like any of the pattern there, you can take your brush and brush some of that out or add a little water to it. But I have this green left, so here's what I want to do I think I want to brighten things up a little. So I'm gonna take some of the titanium white that we had down initially, and I'm going to put some of it in there and mix it with the brush. Et's mix this color up and see what we get. It'll be a nice, a really light green. It's that white has really brighten that up now. I should have mixed this with something else, but it's hard to get a palette knife in this dish, so I'm using this brush. That's a lot lighter green there. Maybe I could brush some of this off the side of the brush just kind of gently in here in a few spots. I don't know if I'm gonna like this or not. Well, I kind of I kind of do like it. I'm trying not to push real hard 'cause I don't want to mess up any of the texture that's there that I might happen to like. I got some of the brown on there now. Mixed up some of that a little weird. No rhyme or reason. Now I got too much brown on there on that one. Just adds a little bit more texture and interest in a few spots. Dab some with the brush, make some little marks. Just padding this brush around in a few different spots. Alright. What do I want to do now? Don't have much left on there. Let's get that sponge again. Squeeze all that green out of it. Oh, it's a mess. And so is my hand, but that's okay. I want to pounce it in here with a lighter color and speckle some of that on there. Overtp. In a few spots. Now, I'm kind of losing my dark that I dripped on with the watercolor. I've also kind of lost some of my white. I just don't like to waste paint, so it's kind of use up what I got. So get this palette wiped off a little bit. I like to clean things as I go so that it's not dried on there later too badly. There we go. Oh that green's vibrant, people. Vibrant. Now, I'll be applying the gold on here with the fork, like I've been doing in all the other lessons. So let's do you know what? Let's mix. After I just got rid of all that. Let's mix a tiny bit of the light green. And let me go ahead and pull out this darker olive green. I think I need a little bit more something in here. So I'm going to put some of that on it. Same. So I got the dark one and the light one there. And where's my little angle brush. Here it is. I'm gonna mix this with my little angle brush here. Just mix those two greens together, it's going to take a minute because it's mixing with a brush. See, it's making a nice darker green. We need some of that in there. But where is the question? And how much on each one? So, see, I've got a nice darker green now. So once again, I'm going to use the side of the brush, and I'm just going to pick a few spots to kind of make a few marks and scratch. Use the side of the brush, scratch some of that color in there. And I'm trying to keep in mind the earthy kind of random earthy look. I know I'm not making any sense when I'm rambling when I'm doing this, but I'm I'm kind of thinking at the same time. So we got a lot of greens going on there now. And at this point, I'm thinking that maybe we might need a little white magic coming in here. Clean that off. I have a white water color, but it's not gonna show up good, so and I want to work with what I've been working with with every set, so I don't want to pull out anything else. So I definitely want to use the titanium white acrylic. Damn. Hey, I got a toothbrush here. Now, how fun will that be? I did use that in a couple of these, but it makes great little white speckles. You just got to get the white watered down enough. Of course, I could have used gesso, which I also have suit right here, but I'm gonna try this. I stir that up in that water. Cause I won't need much of it. Just really loosen that tube paint up. I still kind of thick. This is gonna make a mess. See, I have it on the toothbrush. So I'm gonna do like this. And just get some on that toothbrush it's real wet and just drag my finger and Wherever it goes, it goes a little bit too much on that one. And of course, I've got it all over my desk now and probably all over me. Okay. So the areas where it's too much right here and right here. What do I do with that toothbrush? Can I just tap that toothbrush that I've just dipped in water a little bit. Since I do it on one, I'm gonna do it on all of them, but not I'm actually picking up from this one. Where I have a lot of extra that fell on there. Grabbing it with the toothbrush and tapping it. That's kind of fun. That is kind of fun. Now, I have a little bit of white left here. So I could take the smaller brush, get some water on it, and using the tail end of this other brush, Just tap a little bit more of that weight on there. Oh, that's kind of fun. You talk about a fun abstract. This is a fun abstract here. Once again, cleaning off that palette. For sticks on there. Alright. So grab some more paper towels in case I need. Now, what do I want to do? My thinking is where am I gonna put the gold, and is the green dark enough? And does it even match what August here, though, should look like? Does it match my theme I'm working on here? Well, the green matches really good. Does it match this? Pretty well. It's got the darker raw umber in there. The green is almost spot on. So that's good. But I'm kind of thinking I might like a little bit more straight out of the tube of this, but I'm not sure how I want to apply it, or I may not need to do that. I need to work some gold dots in here. I'm just kind of studying it right now. Mm, maybe not. You know, this is one of those moments where you have to say, stop before you mess things up, overwork things. You know, this is just one of those moments where you got enough on there, let it dry, see what happens. Then add the gold after it's dry. I mean, I could touch a little water here on this one, mainly because there's a couple spots that are bugging me on that one. And here, this one's pretty good. You know, just touch that water on there. Don't it. I let the water move it. 'cause it'll create a color difference. If you let the water move it as it goes, it'll create a just a slight color difference and it'll create some interesting pattern and shading all on its own if you just leave it alone. And, um, this right now kind of being that I am August baby, this right now kind of looks like my creative brain, which is kind of a mess. You know, always all these new ideas coming in and here and there and everywhere. And to me, it's speaking to me. May not speak to you, but that's why you have the opportunity to do it the way you want with the tools you want and the marks you want and however messy you want. So I'm just gonna quit playing with it. Now I'm gonna put the fan on it. I'm gonna let it dry. And when we come back, we're gonna see how it dried and how it looks and then apply, if all is well, apply the gold dots with my Trustee ventageFk. Y'all should get that by now. If you've watched every lesson. Alright, August is set to dry. 21. Finish August Art: Alright, August is dry. And it's time to add my favorite gold, this gold texture paste with my vintage fork. Gonna add some little dots just like I do in every one of these. And I'm gonna put them in different places on each one. I wiggle the fork a little because it helps to apply the marks a little better. Well, let's see. Where do I want to put them here? Maybe here. Uh oh. See if the fork moves, it kind of drags it a little bit. They go up a little higher. So that one kind of drug a little bit, but it's okay. It doesn't look that bad. They don't have to be perfect. Now, where do I want to do some here? Mm, maybe I I'm kind of feeling this. I know it's the same direction as the others, and I've tried to alter what I'm doing on each one so they'd be in different places. Those are a little harder to see on that one. I might just add another little bit right there. So that one's going to be a little different. These I'm gonna do here and here and here. And then this one let's do on this side, here and here. And here, I hear that tape popping up a little bit while I'm doing that one. And this one let's do here and here. And here. Okay, you scrape this off. Put that down in my dirty water. And we can see how close we are on August, which I think we're pretty close, and this was the one I was referring to for my colors this time, Earthy Pyrido. So now I'm ready to pull the tape, which is my favorite favorite favorite favorite part. So let me get hold of one of these edges here. And let's do this. Oh, got a little piece of paint stuck on that one. Didn't want to come up. There's one. And usually when I pull these two, I start to get an idea of whether I'm gonna like these or not, and I'm already thinking. Yeah, I am. But then I'd say that with everyone, don't I? Because I do. The fun thing about them is they're abstract. They're all different. They're all spur of the moment based on how my hand wants to move at the time and what I want to apply at the time. I have tried to keep things consistent through each month of this class and do a little series. That's just the way I wanted to do it. So that's the way it's being done. And it'll help me have a nice grouping when I'm done. And if you guys do the same thing, it will help you as well to stick with the same type of brushes and mark making tools on each group and the same type of accent on each kind. It's not a necessity. But if you want a cohesive series, it's a good way to be assured that you'll get one. Alright, we're getting somewhere now here. Yeah, I like these. And they do kind of remind me of chocolate mint that colors. And I am a huge chocolate mint fan, so I definitely appeals to me. Oh, yeah. I am real happy with these, as well. And the fun thing is, with the options I've given you in the guide, you if you were to do say August, but do all the color options that are shown, Well, I can't seem to get that one off, so we'll go this direction. There we go. Alright, let's see what we've got here. Here we go. Ooh, pretty. And when I pull it off that cutting board, you can really see there we go, August. Does that not blend nicely? And that was with number two, these colors here. But like I was saying, if you wanted to do a grouping for, say, August, do one each week. You could do these colors on week one, these colors on Week two, these colors on week three, and these on week four, and have a whole grouping that would still all be applicable to August birth month colors. And you would have they would look different because of the color combinations. And the accents that you choose. And there's a lot of other ideas down on these sheets under texture and mood ideas to give you maybe some other ideas of some things you might want to try with your paints and your materials to add in some different interesting bits. So be sure to explore those. And use this guide throughout the year to really develop and explore colors and develop your skills. But for right now, I think we've done a great job here with August. I'm really happy with this. So the next one will be September. Let's take a look here. This is my kids sapphire. So I'm gonna have fun with this. And then, you know, we've got some good blues in here, and I don't know which one I'm gonna go with. I haven't decided yet on September because I just now turned the page, but it'll be fun to explore September for our next month. 22. Paint September: Okay, it's time to start September. Now, for September, I'm looking at option number one, the royal sapphire with ultramarine blue. Docs in purple and titanium white. And it says, add a touch of Prussian blue for richness. Well, I don't have that, so I'm just going to use black instead of that. It's very dark, so by the time it mixes with these, it'll probably look about right. Um, I think this will look very bold and powerful and regal. Those are the words I'm looking at there. Trying to get that in my mind while before I start painting. So, I already have paper done. I do have some acrylics here. I have the titanium white, ultramarine blue. I have the dioxyzine purple, but I also have that same purple bright in here in this Watercolor palette, these two purples, actually, and the black. So I'm not sure if I'll use the acrylic or these. And the black, I probably will add with the Watercolor just to keep my little Watercolor mix going. So I'm going to start with the neutral color, the white and get some of that down with the palette knife. And just kind of start working this September 1 here. Oops, I got way too much off of there. And just spreading it on there wherever the palette knife wants to go. Trying to get a little texture happening in there with this titanium white. A little interest with that texture. I love texture, so. Oops, I went under the tape there a little bit. Oh, that one's kind of cool. I know you can't see that very well 'cause it's white. But it's pretty cool. Alright, there's some white down on there. So we'll close this back up for right now. Put this up here. Oh the way. Now, ultramarine blue. Let's um I'm not sure. I'm gonna put some of the purple in first. And I'm gonna go from my water colors, I'm gonna go with this darker purple just to drop some of that in there and see how this goes. And I'm mixing it right with the white. Spread some of that in there wherever. I'm a little more dark on this one. Of course, I pick up the white on the brush. So I have to keep rinsing the brush. Let's get a lot of purple on that one. And one more. Move that one a little later. Okay, there I've got some purple on there. And I can since it's pretty wet, let's see if I can move some of that purple around by tilting my board. Some of it will move. Some of it won't. Oops. Oh, I need my handy paper towel here to get to excess. For it goes. Too crazy. Alright. Now I want to get some of this blue, the ultramarine blue. And I think I might go with the palette knife again on this. I'm not sure. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just stick with that big brush. But this is, um, the acrylic, so I can't really pull it out of there with the brush. Let's just put some in my little palette dish there. That's a pretty bright blue, which is why I'm gonna use some of the black in there with it to tone it down. And I'm going to dab that brush. I'm still going to use the same brush for this, but I'm going to go sideways when I blend it in. Just get a good helping of that on there and just start working it in and blending it. Oh, that's pretty. And then I'm gonna pick up a little more I like the way it looks when it blends in. And if I get too much white on the brush, since the white is still wet, I'm just going to rinse it 'cause I really want this blue to stay powerful as much as possible. Because it's supposed to be mostly blue because it's sapphire. Alright, get that brush rinse stop and then dry it off a little on my towel. Then let's roll it in that paint again. And on this one, let's go this way. Pick up a little more up here. Oh, that's pretty. Rinse it. Dry it off on the towel. I'll pick up some for this one. Blend it right in. Pick up a little more. Okay. Rinse it. Dry it. And then this one let's go this way. I like using the side of the brush 'cause it leaves some drag to it. Oh, that's pretty nice and dark, rather than the tip of the brush. I'm just rolling it in the paint to coat it. Trying to leave a little bit of the white showing. And there we go. So now I have some of the blue on every one of them at this point. I'm just going to set that aside. And now I'm going to go with my smaller round brush. I think I'm gonna pick up some of the black and bring some of that in. And I'm just going to.it on there and then drop some water on it while it rinse the brush to kind of move it around. And pick up some black for the next one. Once again, I'm putting that black on kind of sideways with the brush. Then I just pick up some water and drop it on there to help move it and blend some of it in. So it almost, you know, it turns a little bit gray when it blends with some of this. It's just kind of interesting. On this one, I'm gonna pick up a little more of that black and put it right there cause that looks like it could be a good dark area. The more water you add, the more you can move it, see? If it gets too soupy, you can move some of it somewhere else. That one's looking really good. Wonder if I can pick up some of this for over here on this one. Maybe even work some right over into this one. I got a little too much there. So I'm gonna grab that a paper towel soak some of that up so it's not so strong. Now that I see the dark black there, I think I need a little more on this one, so I want to dot some more in here and do a tad bit of water to move some of that. All right. Let me go to the third one. Decide where I want the black. This looks like a good spot and work it down in here. This is really blocked in with the blue, so I want to work some of that black in through there. So it's not so blocky. I like pattern and drop some water on here in a few spots and move it around. Because the paper is kind of warped, it will kind of roll where it wants to go. It'll flatten back out later. Move some of that. And then pick up some of that excess there. Let that one sit a minute. Mm, time to go to these three with some of this black. Got a lot of black still on there, so I'm gonna go straight over to this one, too at the same time. Then I'll drop some water on there on both of them. What do I like I really like the way this one's looking and pick up some more black for this one. See, this is really blocky with the blue. So I'm gonna work some of that black in there on this one. And drop that water on there to make it move, spread it out. Okay, that's looking kind of interesting. I'm thinking it's time for some more purple. And I'm wondering about using some of the acrylic purple this time. Instead of the Watercolor? Well, no, let's do the Watercolor because I got an idea. Um, I'm gonna get the dark purple again. And this time, I'm gonna just Oh, yeah. Splatter some on there. On all of them. Whatever you do on one. Do on all of them. You don't have to. But since I'm trying to make a little series here, I thought that would be fun to kind of keep it consistent. Now I'm going to get some water on that same small round brush and drop it in some of these areas where I did the splatters to actually help some of that move around a little. This one, the spliders are very, very small on this one. A little bigger on this one. Just drop some water on it to help it spread around. A little bit. You don't want to lose all your spiders. This one here, I think I need some more splider now I've put too much water on there. So I'm gonna move some of that water, and I'm gonna get some more of the purple and do a little bit more on that one, too. All three of these, really. How about all of them? Okay. Now, I'm thinking I want to darken this blue just a little bit to make it just a little richer. And I'm going to find my black acrylic. I want to put some of that on here on this palate. So we got black and blue mixed together. And of course, I'm going to have to stir it up. I have a little plastic palette knife here. Maybe that'll do okay in this little dish. I just really want to darken that blue. And I may have got too much black on there, maybe too dark. That's very rich. But it kind of looks like that Prussian blue that it said I got quite a bit on here, so I'm just going to swoop and press that palette knife on there and get some of these darker marks with this one. Maybe even add a little texture there. I could do this with a sponge like I've done on some of the others. And I might go back and get some of it on a sponge. So now I've got quite a bit of dark in there with this. And now I think I need more blue this blue. Um and I may do that with the other palette knife. And just put some on the edge like that and just pick a spot to go from to apply it and move it. And it's hard to do that sometimes. Well, it went right there, so that's where it's getting applied. Maybe even right there. Alright, let me put some more on that palette knife. I'm not cleaning the knife right now. Well, maybe I should clean it. I sort of made a mess of that. Or maybe not. Let's just drag it around and put some more on. I've got a lot of thick paint on here now. So this might take a minute or so to dry. Oh, that's looking really rich, though. And I'm dragging it kind of lightly just to get it on there. I don't want to upset what I've already done. But it's real wet and watery, so there I just put some more on that one and this one, this one. This one. Why not just put it on all of them. Now, I've probably got enough paint on there. And what I don't have on these three on the bottom is enough white. But there is white underneath there. I'm going to see if I can blend some of this harsh lines out a little bit. Not even really blending. I'm just adding a little water there and kind of moving it a little. This one, this line right here. I don't like that. It's a little too thick. And this right here. Okay, let's put some here. And all these bottom ones, what's missing is enough white on them. So here's what I'm gonna do my trusty sponge. Now, I've got my little palette dirty with the blue. But I've got another one over here. I. And I might be able to well, I don't want to apply it there. I'm gonna apply it on this other palette off to my left, which you can't see and dab that sponge in that white like that, and then just start. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Dab it some more. I really like the pattern the sponge makes. I just I just adds such interest to me that pattern. Alright, now these bottom ones need a lot more whites. I'm gonna put some fresh white on there and get some going in there on all of them. And, of course, the white has now mixed with the blue pretty good from the sponge. I'm not sure I like this dark white streak right there, so I'm just gonna work over that. There we go. And maybe even put a little more down here and some right there, and some right there. I still got some left on this palette, so I don't like to waste paint, you know, this from the other ones. That's kind of interesting. I got some good dark areas there where I can go with my little gold accents. And I have this pretty blue right here. So what happens if we add the white and the blue together? What happens if we add a lot of water right there on that and use that small brush to coat the brush with the very liquid mixture of that lighter blue and do something like this. Get some more on there. To integrate some of that fun color. Does that really add some nice shading? I think that's pretty good. I could do that with some of this, too. Um, or how about the toothbrush on some of this one? Let's just try it. Get the toothbrush wet. I mean, wet this really good with my spray bottle to moisten this up. Get a lot of water in there. Alright, this may make a big mess, but I'm getting that toothbrush mixed in there like that. Oops. Yeah, just nothing like making a big mess. That's part of the fun. And now I got some good drops coming in here, where I made a really big mess. But I can get those off. First, I got to get off my desk. Just go on that tape and dry that. And I'm gonna see if there's any really strong areas where things have puddled that I can pat with this paper towel. This area. These two down here have quite a bit of pubbling And right there, some ooh. I think I need to add a little bit more right there. Cause I messed it up when I used the towel. I got it too far onto the painting. I think I did it again. I'm just gonna put a little water on there and spread that out. Okay. At this point, it's time, I think, to let this dry and then come back with the gold accents and see how that's going to look. Before I do that, let's compare first. Oh, I do think that looks very close to the September colors there. And these in number one, we've got the purple in there. Yeah, these might be very interesting for September abstracts. Let's put the fan on it, let it dry and see what we have after it dries. 23. Finish September Art: Well, we're not quite dry yet. There's a few little spots on here that, um, aren't quite dry. And I don't know if I can just pick up some of that water. Yeah. Now, some of the thicker areas are still a little wet. But I'm gonna go ahead and put the gold on anyway. Because I'm on a roll now. So I'm gonna take my favorite vintage fork and dip it in my gold texture paste. And I'm gonna start putting some dots on these in a few spots on each one. Let's see. There we go. Kind of roll that fork to get those dots to show up where I want them to. It just goes on there kind of thick when you dip it in there. Let's do. Oh oh, I kind of drug that one, so those marks are a little bit bigger on this one. That's okay. Alright, let's do. Let's do this one. Rolling it helps the texture paint come off the fork a little better. But they all have that little bit of gold. Now, if you wanted a lot more gold on them, you could always use a stencil and stamp something with some gold on them. That would be pretty. There's all kinds of things. And after these are done and all dried and you cut them apart, you know, you may want to do certain things like add something to each one differently. That's up to you. The goal here is to just get a cohesive group done for each month and then be able to display those as is or work into something else. They're just fun little abstracts to do, and the monthly colors kind of get you in the groove for working with a certain color combination. So let's look at September here. I think it looks really close. So I'm going to start taking this tape off, and I'm gonna be really careful because these are still wet. And I don't want to mess them up. But I love pulling the tape. As you know already, if you watch the other lessons, pulling the tape is the most exciting part because then you can really see how well they look because it's really hard to tell when you've got this painter's tape on here. Now, if you use a different, like, a plain colour tape, it might be a little more obvious how good they look, but it's hard too with this blue tape. You just kind of have to trust the process and trust that when you pull the tape, you're gonna have something worthwhile. Alright, let's get these end pieces off. I've got them wrapped around my little cutting board here. And kind of hard to get off of there and still hold this flat. Okay. Yeah, see, it's still wet. That's why I have a paper towel handy all the time. Alright, let's get this side off. That one's really got a wet spot right there. That top one. Alright. Let's get this side, this bottom. Now it's starting to look really nice now. You can really see each one individually spaced apart from all the blue tape. There we go. Now, I went under oops. See, some of that's still wet right there. So these will be trimmed up to the edge of the design and then mounted on something else. A plain white piece of watercolor paper is what my intention is. Obviously, if you wanted to leave a white border around them, you might want to be a little bit more careful with how much wetness you get to the edge of the tape because sometimes it will seep under. Alright. That's so pretty. These are so pretty, but let's look how they compare. Oh, I think they look really nice with September colors. And they really did good this royal sapphire. Oh, that's pretty. Yep. Yep. Alright, that takes care of September. So let's see what's coming up next is October. Now, October, we have a couple of choices. Opal, Turmaline, which is like a watermelon color. And I'll have to decide which one I want to do for my October sheet. I'm leaning towards the opal because I've already been thinking about those colors this morning, more so than the tourmaline. But if you wanted something a little brighter, the armoline would be fun. But I think I'm going to go with the Opal for October. But in the meantime, here we have September, and I'm going to put this aside where it can sit very carefully and finish drying completely because we do have some little thick areas in here where I applied that blue fairly thick. So I'm going to set it aside and let it dry thoroughly before I touch it again. 24. Paint October 1: Okay, we are ready to do October. Now, October, as I said in the previous video, when I introduced this has two colors, 2 stones that could be used. But Opal is the one I'm drawn to. Turmaline is a little bit more rich, a little bit more bolder colors. I really like the colors in Opal. They have everything, blue, pink, green, purple. It's wonderful. And I actually have a set of paints here I wanted to show you. These are Windsor and Newton acrylics. There's a pale violet, a pale rose blush, a powder blue, and a pale olive. All of these are great to make an opal combination. However, I'm also looking at my watercolors here in my little palette I've been using we have lots of pinks, these lovely blues, green, and the yellows in the watercolor as well. And, of course, we have our color suggestions here. If you want to go a little richer, you could go with something like number two. I really like the idscent or I like the coastal shimmer, too. That's kind of pretty because I love coastal stuff. Well, I like them all, but Idscent it speaks to me more of what Opal is. Light, magical, dreamy, which are some of the mood words that go with this particular color choice combo. And we've got a seafoam green Lilac gray, a pearl white. I don't have a pearl, so be titanium white. And of course, I have the gold. But if there is no sea foam green here, however, this pale olive might fit the bill, especially if a little blue. See that? If a little blue and purple are mixed in with that. So I'm thinking we have purples here. This one is really pretty. This one kind of goes more the opal in my mind, or this one. And then we have these pinks. This is a really soft pink here. And then, of course, the yellows. So I'm and we've got lilac gray here, which is a light purple mix with gray. I'm not leaning toward that. I'm leaning for this particular one more of this bright color here. And this light pink here or maybe this pink here, and the green and obviously the white. And the blue, 'cause there is blue in there. I'm kind of thinking this blue right here. So I'm thinking a mix of a lot of different things for this particular month. So I'm going to start by putting some white down. And like I said, I don't have pearl, and I used an iridescent additive in one of the other lessons for the other months, but it didn't really make it sparkly enough for me, but I have another idea on how to sparkle this one up because Opal needs some sparkle. So starting with my palette knife and the titanium white, we're going to get some color down on here. I mean, some paint down here just to create some good texture and something to work with. And I'm leaving some of that texture on kind of thick, 'cause you know, as I've said, in every one of these almost, I like texture. Texture is my thing. So if I can get some texture in there, I'm gonna do. But I have really learned through this process that I am enjoying the act of putting a neutral down with acrylic and then going on top of that with some watercolor and let it flow in there with it, and then bringing in some more acrylic, too, of course. There we go. I like that. I'm gonna add a little more to this one. And this corner up here, I try to use all the paint on there. Get it on the palette I mean, get it on paper. Alright, so now I'm ready to play with these watercolors. So I've got a lot of choices here. And I don't want to set this down on the paper. And I do have the green in this, which I want to reserve, so no green from here. But I am thinking this purple, maybe this pink. Not sure which yellow. Maybe that yellow. Purple pink, yellow. So that would be purple pink, which has a spot on it, and this yellow. And maybe a little bit of this blue. So this one, this one, this one, and this one. I'm thinking of just dropping colors on here because opal is a big mix of colors. Now, I don't want to mix them because they will turn ugly. So what I am going to do just to help things move a little bit better on these is I'm going to spray each one of these down a little so they have some extra water already on the paper. And I'm going to start with that purple. Let's just start with that. And I'm going to bring some of that into each one. And I'm just going to stick with that one color for the moment and even blend it with some of that white. But I clean off the brush so I don't get white all over it. And I can add some more water to this to spray this to help this move. So we're just going with the purple on every one of these for right now, put a little bit more there. And, of course, the purple will turn pink as it blends with the white. Alright, there's some purple. I think I need a little more on that one. I think I kind of skimped on it there. And maybe this one, too. Now I'm gonna go to the pink, and, of course, I've got some other color that dropped in my pink, so I'm gonna try to get that cleaned off there first. So it doesn't look muddy. Alright. So let's get some let's get a little bit of the pink in there. And, you know, pink kind of goes with purple, so we'll put it kind of close to the purple. So there's some pink going in. And some more for this one. A little more. And then on this one, And just putting it wherever. No plan here. Alright, there's some pink on each one. Do we dare try the yellow? Why not? Let's go ahead and get that bright yellow. It may be a little too bright, but if I have it super watered down, it may not be too bad. And, of course, the paper has some water on it, too. It is pretty bright, that yellow. And let's get we're gonna go here. There. So I got a little yellow on each one. Now, how about some of that light blue? And because the blue is closer to the purple, I'm going to maybe stick near the purple when I apply some of the blue. This is really fun to just sit here and do this. Very meditative, calming. We got a lot of blue that's spilled over here. I'll see if I can pick some of that up so I don't waste it all. Drop a little bit of that in here in a few spots. Oops. Some of that purple blended with that. Oops. I'm starting to hit some of the other wells. Okay, so I have all of those colors in. No green yet. None of the pale olive green. But what I want to do now is I want to move some of these colors around. So I'm probably I could do it with the spray bottle, but I'm afraid I would lose control. So I think what I'm going to do is take my smaller brush, smaller round brush and just start working some of this color around dabbing extra water on there and moving the color around where it's not. See? And of course, this yellow is a bit strong. So I can turn that a little bit and move some of that. And I've got my trusty paper towel here, so if I get too much in a spot, uh, I can pick it up, which kind of happens sometimes when you get a lot of water drops on there. But I like the smaller brush for adding some little drops of water in there because you don't have so much water that you saturate everything so badly. But you got to work quick 'cause this water color dries quick, see? This is almost getting dry here. And I'm just going where I want to move some of that color around a little bit more. I really like this mix, the blue and the purple made there. But this yellow is exceptionally bright, so we want to move some of that on into the white and over here with the pink. These colors are so pretty. It's just it's like a rainbow of pastels, which is kind of what Okal is. I'm trying to work very quickly to move that color before it dries. Now let's see. And I've got lots of little pools of color here, so I'm going to just go along the edge and get some of that off. Is going to end up under the tape. This is very, very wet paint. And you can dab with the paper towel too to take some of it back. Some of that that's still really wet on there will still continue to move. I really like those colors, but now it's time to bring in some of this pale olive green. And I don't know how I want to bring that in. I'm thinking with perhaps this little stubby angle brush I have and kind of dry brush some of it in there. Let's just try it on one. And you just have to pick where you want it to go. And you can tap some of it off if you want to, I have very little on there, and I'm just going to work some of it in somewhere. Now, that may be a little bit dark, which is why I had very little on the brush, so I can actually work on blending some of that in there. With that white. But that gets some of the green in there. And I'm not sure I'm thrilled with the green. Just go to rinse that off and put a little bit more on this one to do this one. And I'm just putting it wherever. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with it. It's okay. I think it's a little it's clashing on this first one, it's clashing a little bit with the yellow. So I think we might need to do something about that. And I'm kind of just scrubbing it and they're mixing it with some of that water color that's already there. Just to get some I think the yellow's too bright, by the way, now that I'm looking at it, some more, so I think the yellows gonna have to be toned down a bit. Just my teammate. Okay. Which I knew that when I used that, um, that yellow that might happen. I want to put a little more water on that one. Break some of those marks up. So I'm washing this and scrubbing it off on my towel, just picking up a little bit for each one to get some of the green worked in there. Yeah, the yellows too bright. Alright. So, in that case, because the yellows too bright, I'm going to do something I've been doing all along with my Trustee sponge. I'm going to put some titanium white here in this palette. And I'm going to get my trusty little sea sponge, pad it in there and pounce it around quite a bit to coat it really good. And where that yellow is super bright, I'm going to just pounce up and down right there with it and move to each one and do the same thing to tone down some of that yellow. I don't mind some of it peeping through and maybe even work in some other areas there. And pouncing kind of lightly 'cause I don't want to cover up all the yellow. I just need to tone it down a bit. That one's a little wet. And I work it over the whole thing to get some white going in there. But we've got some pretty mix of colors there. I really think it would be pretty. Let's sit here. You get this palette cleaned off. Okay, let's go back to our sheep. You know, it suggested this turquois blue in the coastal shimmer one. I do have a turquoise blue in this watercolor palette that's really pretty, and I'm kind of thinking it might be fun to bring some of that in here now. I thought originally I would need that. And that would be this blue right here. I'm not I used this one in each piece, but I'm thinking it needs a little bit more blue pop. So when I get the little brush, get it super wet. Put it in that turquoise, getting it really, really wet. I'm gonna do my little trick that I've been doing. Take another brush here and start tapping some of that color in there. And get some more water. Help things pop a little bit. I just keep going on each one until I feel it has enough. Now, as you've seen me do, if you watch the previous lesson several times, I take that same small brush, get it loaded with water, and just drop some water in here to move some of those speckles and help some of that color spread out a little. And you'll kind of judge, you know, how much water when you do this enough, you'll kind of judge how much you want. On your brush, you may shake some of it off. You got to do this while it's still wet. Don't take a break or anything. Because if it dries, it won't move. But just dropping a little bit of water on there in some spots helps it helps it move and spread out so where it's not so speckly and where the colors blend a little bit more. Let's get this one. And you can kind of even guide it with your brush when you add that water, kind of guide it where you want it to go. It's just so fun to sit here and do this and watch this paint move. I like using the acrylic because it gives me some structure and some texture and pretty colors. And then I like using the watercolor because it helps helps things move a little bit better. That purple's a little strong right there at that edge. I'm just going along wherever I see that there might need to be a little help This one right here, I feel like needs to break up a little. Move it. Maybe even here. Those are looking very opale Now that I've done that with the blue, what about some of the pink bringing some of that I That's a pretty bright pink I used. And I do have a lighter pink here. I'm just gonna dip it in some of this lighter pink and using that same method. I don't know. That may be the same color pink I use. Drop a little bit of that in there. I'm not gonna put more yellow in. That yellow is strong enough. You got to watch it with yellow. Yellow is a very strong color. It's a happy color, but you can overdo it with yellow. But Opal has these colors just kind of swirled, all mixed with each other. And that's what's kind of cool about it. Like right here you can see. They've all kind of mixed with each other, and I'm going to guide some of that up here, this direction. And over some of it, where's that paper towel? I don't know what I did with it. But there's a little bit more water right here than I would like. So I'm gonna go right along the edge and soak some of that up, maybe even pad it just a little on these where it's really, really super strong. It'll move back when I take it away. I'll roll back because the paper is sort of warped. Oh, those are pretty. I'm starting to like them now. Let's compare. Oh, those look very interesting. Now, that there is a little peachy orange in here, which I happen to have this particular pale rose blush, but like the green, I think it may not be bright enough, and I don't know that I'd want to add. It's pretty pastel. I don't know that I'd want to add a whole lot of that if I use it. Maybe just take a little bit on my finger like that and just kind of dot some of it Oh, it's pretty. I need my paper towel, but if you use your finger, you can get a lot more delicate with it. Just pat some of that in there in a few spots. See how that added that little peachy orange right there? That's really pretty. You don't want to overdo it when you're doing a color mix like this. But just a little bit in there, kind of deepens things. Maybe you can get some up here. This is real wet, so it's not really picking up there. Let's go to the next one. Let's get some in this area. But by just tapping with your finger and you can kind of move it around, too, it gives it a little deeper deeper look to each one of these with that color. Don't really know that I like it right there. I kind of got muddy, so I'll pat some of that off. But I do like it. I do like this color. It's called pale rose blush. And I'm gonna work some of it into each one of them, little specks of it. And by using your finger, you kind of keep better control. To just dab a little bit in there, 'cause it doesn't need much does not need much of this. But it helps deepen that yellow a little bit. You can do. It's like finger painting like when you're a kid. This was too wet up here a while ago, but I'm gonna try again to bring some of that in. Just tapping there. And then brings the over here, too. Okay, I think I like that even better now that I've added that. When you have something like an opal that has a lot of colors, you can sit here and play. All day with something like this. Yeah, I think we're a lot closer. A lot closer. I do think they could all use a little bit more of that blue. Just 'cause of what I'm seeing in the stone here, um, so what I may try to do I don't want to overdo it. I'm just gonna grab that small brush again with a little bit of the blue and just type some in. Especially this one. This one doesn't have enough blue. This one doesn't either. And the nice thing about opal is you don't have to follow any certain pattern. You can just put it wherever you want. Now that I've added some in, I'm gonna drop some water on there to help move it some. Not too much. And I'm just tapping that water on there and then moving that brush where I want that to go. That one doesn't need much water. And then a little right there. Alright, let's compare. Let's look at what we got. I think that's even closer. Yeah, I like that. And I do have a special little something I'm gonna do on these particular ones to add a little bit of sparkle, but this has to dry first completely. And being that it's mostly watercolor on these, I do believe it'll dry pretty quickly. And then I'm gonna come back and add something a little different to this one that I have not done on the others, but I do like to show you different things you can do using the same medium you've been using. So I'm gonna put the fan on this and let this one dry and then come back, and we're gonna add something a little special to this one. 25. Paint October 2: They're not totally dry, but that's okay because October is going to be a three part video because of this step I'm going to do now. And then this step will have to totally dry before I add the dots. But here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to take that gold texture paste and I'm going to put some in this palette, and I'm going to water it down a lot. And obviously, texture paste is extra thick. See, I'm going to take a little bit on the palette knife there. Put it in the dish. And this texture paste dries really quick. Now, let's see let's just see how thick that is. See? That's pretty thick. I'm gonna spray quite a bit of water on here. And I don't know if you can see what's happening, but those little gold particles are spreading out in that water. Trying to get my spray bottle to work and take that palette knife again and stir that gold texture paste around like this. I probably had too much on there, too. I probably didn't need that much. I'm trying to break it up and get it soaked in that water good. Stir it up real good to make it a very liquid gold. And it's still got a few little chunks in there. I'm working on it. See how liquidy that is now? Compared to how it was a while ago. I'm gonna take the big brush, get it really, really wet, dip it in there, and stir that brush around like this. And I'm just going to swoosh it across each one like so, not covering the whole thing, just getting sued down on each one. Oh. Now I take my spray bottle and spray each one where I put those swooshes, which will help the metallic shimmer spread out across the whole design. This one here, I have a little bit of a couple pieces that are kind of thick. And then I can pick up some more if I want to add some more in there like this. It's just like gold soup is what it's kind of like at this point. Now, I know it's probably hard for you to see, but there is a gold shimmer that will dry here across all of this. So I'm gonna take my trusty paper towel and where it's at the edges, soak that up. Soak up that extra. And wherever it lands when it's drying is where it's going to be the strongest. Like here, it's in the middle. But they all have a gold shimmer. And of course, you can move it at this point. Move each one to roll that gold shimmer around on each one of them all directions. Like so. Dry the excess off of the edges. I can tell you some of this is getting under the tape because this is really, really wet. But now they all have this gold shimmer built in to the design, and that's just from the texture paste, which is meant to go on thick, but as you can see, when you water it down and it spreads out, it gets in these areas. Let me hold this up, see if you can see this first one, you can see it's getting in the areas of the texture and settling in those little areas, highlighting the texture. And then in here, it's settling on these bottom ones in the middle a little bit, which I could take a paper towel and just put the tip of it in there and soak up some of that excess liquid on these. And then you can see the gold a little better. You'll see it when it dries. When the water dries. You'll see it a little better. But that is a good way if you want to give some shimmer to your pieces is you can loosen up that gold metallic texture paste with water and let it spread over the whole design so that it will just infuse the little gold sparkles everywhere. Now, after this part dries, we will still come back to finish this out using the dots with the texture paste that I apply with my vintage fork. And we'll put the dots in strategic places and pull the tape, but now it has to totally dry before I can do that because this is very, very wet now. But that's the only way to get that gold shimmer on there and through the whole piece. But this is going to be a really, really fun, pretty one. And like I said, you can do this to everyone if you want to. If you want some kind of metallic shimmer, obviously, if you have a liquid a liquid, a more liquid gold paint that you can loosen up with some water. You could do the same thing. It's just And I have one here that's just the metallic paint. It's a bright gold, and it's a little looser than the texture paint is, but it is a little different shade. So I wanted to stick with the same shade I've been using through this entire series. So that's why I loosened up this. But you can see you can loosen up a highly textured paint to allow it to move. And with the metallics, it does a really nice job of giving them a nice little shimmer. Um, so we're gonna let this totally dry now, and then we're gonna come back, and we're gonna finish out October. 26. Finish October Art: Alright, October's with the gold are pretty dry. Can you see the gold shimmer in there? How pretty that is? Now we're gonna add the gold dots with my trusty vintage fork. So let's see where I want to add some dots. And I'm thinking the spots I want to add them are kind of away from where most of the gold is, so it won't blend in together too much. Let's see here. I kind of like this area right here on this one. There is a little gold there from the water. But that's okay. Let's go up here on this one. That's pretty, pretty, pretty. Yes. Okay, now, this one I've got a lot of gold on, so kind of hard to know which way to go on this one. Maybe I'll kind of go like this and tie it in with some of that gold on that one. And this one oh, goodness. Decisions. This one I'll go this way. There. So now they all have the gold dots just like all the other months, tying my series together. And this is what I would like you guys to do when you do these. When you do each month, make some kind of mark that you can use on every one that you do with a certain tool to keep them consistent. Of course, you don't have to do all the months if you don't want to, but it really helps to explore color to work on each month. All right. Now, let's take a look at October, and I think we're pretty close there, but we're going to see when we pull this tape off. So I'm going to very carefully. And some of this tape may stick a little bit more 'cause I did use a heat gun on there trying to get it dry so I could continue on. And I don't normally use a heat gun 'cause it will kind of dry certain things a little stronger than I would like them to. I like them to kind of do it on their own. They tend to blend and spread out a little better that way. Oh, these are gonna be pretty. Yep, yep. I'm liking them. Let's get this one. And I'm not a big pastel fan, but when it comes to opals, I am all over that, because I love opals. Trying to get this off the bottom here. They are one of my favorite stones, not even my bird stone. But I and, you know, this wouldn't think I wouldn't think this would be the colors for October, but for an October stone, I would think, you know, fall kind of thing. So this is kind of interesting. This one is a little bit different because of the iridescence challenge. But as you can see, we handled that just fine. All it takes is a little bit of what if? What if I add water to texture paste and what happens? Will it loosen up enough to make a shimmer over the whole piece. Yes, it will. And I found that out accidentally by blending some of the little dots out with a little bit of water when they were too strong, and I saw how that shimmer just moved across the page. So Ooh, I'm liking these. Alright. Let's get the board out of the way. Aren't those pretty? Those are so pretty. Alright, let's compare. Are we pretty close to Opal or what? I think we are. Each one of them is different and unique. And I didn't specifically go. I kind of went towards this number one suggestion. But I brought in, as you saw, several other colors in there because I was looking at this, and I could see all the colors in there. And I wanted all those colors in my piece, and I think they turned out very good for this little grouping of tiny abstracts for October. So I'm very happy with this, especially that gold shimmer. Let me hold that up so you can see that and see how it shows off the texture there. Lovely. Lovely. So the next month will be Um, November. Now in November, we get more into the fall colors, the topaz. So this will be fun because there's some different color suggestions in November I would not normally think of. But, um, I really do think this will be a fun one to do with some fall colors. So November is next. Stay tuned. 27. Paint November: Alright, I'm ready to get started on November. And this is one of the only months that I'm not particularly drawn to any certain combination. I'm looking at this, and seeing these lovely golden colors with a little darker hues of the orangish color, brownish color in there. And I'm looking at these and I see peach blush, and I'm like, peach. To me, that's like a pale orange, it might be okay in this combination. The citrusy one, I'm thinking, Okay, here's the deal. My husband's birthday's in November, and I'm thinking, Nah, that wouldn't go with him. I really like the amethyst on this one. This one is more fall colors, burnt sienna, olive green, topaz yellow. And when they say topaz yellow, there is no specific color that I would think goes exactly with that. Um, but I'm looking at these with the amethyst. I like the thought of adding the dark purple or even the medium purple and add gold or bronze, soft top n not really going toward that, but the warm beige that this one has is, you know, I could see the yellow colors I have things I have blended with titan buff as a base. So that's what I'm going to use for my neutral base. For colors, I started digging through my yellows and things, and I found this yellow orange azo and quinacridone nickel azelGld. I did a little finger tests here. I just got some on my finger and put some here. So the yellow, this is the yellow right here by itself. Well, that's obviously too bright. This is the quinacridone nickel azelGld here. And that's, you know, super dark, which is nice. But when you mix too much of that with the yellow, it gets too orangy. But when you mix just a little bit of it with the yellow, it gets closer. So I'm thinking this mixed with a tiny bit of this to tone it down just a little bit, and then bring it in straight as accent, if I want to a darker accent. And then with the watercolors here, I'm thinking this one, this purple, which is right here, brought into the design. And now, if I did want to go with a warm peach, there's one there. And this kind of goes along with the topaz color really well. This particular one here. So some of those might be able to be worked in. But I think what I want to do is try these two together on top of this first and just see where that leads. And since I have trouble mixing in that little palette, I'm just gonna well, actually, yeah, let me go ahead and mix this up first. I'm gonna put some of this on here, stretch some of it out. That's probably way too much. And I'm going to put a little bit of this on here down here. Not too much of that. And I'm going to do a little mixture here in the middle. Use this palette knife here. I'm just going to take part of this to do a little mixture with and part of this. And so it won't be too too much of that quinacridone in there. And I still feel it's gonna have to be toned down even more than that, but maybe need a little more of this. This is, you know, I just didn't want to mix too much and have it become too orange. Now let's compare. And, of course, what would be ideal is to do a slight glaze of this rather than a mixture. That's pretty orange. Let's pick up some more of that yellow. And that may be what I need to do. Still, that's really, really orange. So maybe a glaze of that color. Now, I don't want to waste this that I've done here. But here's what I'm thinking. I'm just gonna use what's on my palette knife, get it all off of here 'cause I don't like to waste anything. And this will be a good base for some other abstract work in the future. 'Cause I don't like to waste paint, so I'm not gonna like, just pitch that or anything. And I do this all the time with these smaller sheets when I do something like this, a test, and just kind of move it around on there, and that could be a base for something else in the future. But that's not gonna work for what I want today. That's just too it's too orange. Now we're gonna try something else, though. We're gonna try a glaze of the quinacrodon over the yellow once I get some of it down, and I think I will blend the yellow in with the titan buff, which might tone it down some. We're fixing to find out. Get another paper towel. Alright. Get that palette knife cleared off. Really good. So let's go on there with some tighten buff with a palette knife. Just like I've been doing with the white. And just put it wherever it wants to go. Based on whatever movement your arm and your hand feels like doing at the moment. Very, very quickly, not thinking. Just trying to get all the paint off the palette knife. Okay. So there's some tight and buff. Now, how about how about we take a little bit of this yellow on a brush. Actually, let's use this little angle brush. This is good for scrubbing and kind of blending, and it's already damp. We're just gonna get a little bit of yellow on there. Not too much. I'm gonna turn it on the side, and I'm just going to start working some of it in with tighten buff. Okay. Okay. I'll clean that off got it too much on there. Wipe it off on the towel. Let's get something for the next one, decide where to go, and just go with it. Alright. Now, there's not much left on there, so I don't need to clean it off, but I do want a little stronger one on there. Now let's go to the next one. Don't think about it. Just work it work it in. That's a really strong yellow, see? And yellows can be overwhelming. Just kind of maneuver it based on how you feel at the moment. Don't think. Just keep going. Let it blend with some of that tighten buff. Alright. That's some pretty strong yellow. And it's actually quite a bit stronger than that, so it needs to be toned down. Now, this is where I was talking about the glaze. Let's do a little glaze here of this. So what I'm going to do put some in my little palette here. Try to get the lid back on so it'll open back up correctly and not dry out. I have very little on here. I'm going to use my spray bottle. And put a good bit of water on there. And now I'm gonna use that palette knife, which still has a little tighten buff on it. That's right. I'm just gonna stir that around to break it up. Kind of like I did in the October lesson with the gold. Just really loosen this up, be a good wash. I don't want it to be super strong. I'm gonna spray a little more water on there. And using the big brush, I'm gonna get a lot of water on the brush and just kind of dip it in there real gentle and just start working some of that in there. Wherever right over top of what's there. And this still may be too orangey yellow. Like I said, yellows are more difficult. H All right. I'm going to put this aside for the moment. Bring the We're a little closer to that. It still looks a little strong. So I'm going to use a spray bottle and move some of this pretty strongly, just to help tone it down. Help it blend with the titan buff that's underneath it, which is quite a bit softer. Now, one way to make this lighting up is to add a darker color. And I don't know if I'm gonna need any more of that or not. So I'm gonna let that sit for right now. But I'm going to get that big brush and get it in this purple, the amethyst color, and get it super wet and just start dropping some of it on there, turning the brush around in different spots. And then once I've dropped it, I'm going to drop a little water on there to help move it. And if I get too much water going off the side, like I have here, just always always have a paper towel handy to pick that up. But look at that nice blend that's done now and how it's softened that yellow up because the purple is much darker, so it's going to make the yellow appear lighter, but I have a lot of water on this paper right now. A lot of water. I want to try to pick some up off the edges. It will fill back in. This one here is really going off the edge. So these I'm kind of working on a little more individually at the moment because of the purple. Now, I did that one all at once, but I wanted to test it before I go on to the others to see how this might flow. So now I'm going to grab some purple, really watered down and just apply it. In there. Wash the brush, get it really, really, really watered down, grab some more purple for the next one and work it in to the design. Not that there's any specific design. I'm going to get a little more purple on there because that's a little strong. And then go to this one. And then this one And then this one. I'm going to get some of the excess off I spilled some out here. I'm gonna pick it up with a brush and get it out of this palette and dot some more of it in there. On a few of these. And then this one here. See, that yellow is still really strong there. I think this one may need a little dab of strong purple in there to work in like these have. Move some of that around. Alright, now, see how dark that is and see how cool it looks next to that yellow, but I'm fixing to lighten it up. I'm taking the smaller brush to add some little water in here to move it around. Super, super wet right now on this paper. I'm trying to pick up some of that water that's already there and move it to some of these other spots to help it blend. This one turned out super light at the moment. I'm gonna move some water through here. And the more I put on that yellow, the more it will lighten it. Trying to move some of this off the edges and onto some of these. That was kind of interesting. It's still really, really bright, so I'm not sure if this is the right choice. I'm gonna dry up a lot of this excess on the edges. And it's okay if you go over the actual painting. I'll roll back into place whatever's left there because the paper is warping. I'm just not sure about that strong strong yellow. So we could bring a little tighten buff in there. Or what else was I gonna use here? Refer back to the sheet. It says soft top. Mm. Charcoal gray is an interesting choice to bring in. It may be a little dark, though. I'm thinking maybe bring some of the titan buff back in but with a sponge. To try to tone some of this yellow down, a little bit of yellow showing is okay. I don't think I'm gonna use this one anymore. So we're just gonna go ahead and clean that palette. Before it stains it too bad because that color will. So yeah, tighten buff with a sponge and tone down that yellow. And the sponge will help some of the yellow still show through. So here's the sponge. Let's get some tighten buff in this little palette. We're just going to start pouncing. Sponges solve a myriad of issues. So I'm going to pounce most of it off on the little pallet so it's not too strong. And I'm going to start moving it in there very fast. Don't push down real hard. See how that lighten that up quite a bit. Okay. And I'm gonna dip it right back in there without cleaning this sponge. And let's go to this one. Thinking I want to tone down the yellow, so I'm moving toward the areas where the yellow is strongest. Might need a little more on there on this one. A little more. You see, lets that yellow peep through. But it's not like super duper strong once you get this on there. It's getting kind of interesting now. I'm liking it better. I'm gonna try to stay off that dark purple line on this one because I kind of like that worked in that one. I don't want to take all yellow away. I just want to tone it down. I don't want to take it away. I just want to layer. I just pounce on a few other spots. Alright, that's the sponge. So the purple has lost some of its darkness. So I want to bring some purple back in. Using my little favorite method. Get rid of that town China town. Let's look at how we're looking here. We're closer to that topaz shade. I'm gonna bring some of that purple back in. There is a darker purple here, right here, right underneath it. I may work with that one. I'm gonna pick up some of this loose paint that's in the palette before it gets on my brush. There. Alright. So let's see. Clean that angle brush off good. Now, let me get my small brush, this one, the small round brush, and I'm gonna put it on that darker purple. Got a good bit of water there. And now I'm gonna take this and I'm going to tap it. If it'll come off there, I don't have enough water. Type a few spots where I want some of that darker purple to fall. And it helps, go back to that first one. It helps when you add the darkness in to lighten up what's there if it will stay dark. I'll put some up in that corner. This is starting to look kind of interesting now. I kind of lost my dark purple line here I was trying to hold onto. But that's the fun part about something like this. You can't control it totally. That's why I like doing these I mean, you can control an abstract. I prefer not to, and I prefer to allow them to have happy accidents, paint themselves. Oh, that's kind of looking very interesting. Very interesting. Now, I want to break up some of these, but I don't know that I want that much water in there to break up that much. So I have this little tiny brush here. I'm gonna try dipping that in the water and getting it kind of soaked and just gently that may not be enough. Well, there it goes. Gently tapping some of that in there to allow some of this to move a little bit and not be so structured from the splatter. And there's little splatter bits in here that need softening. So just dipping the tiny brush in water and putting it on those spots and then you can guide it by tapping. Don't drag, 'cause you'll move all the paint underneath it. Just tap 'cause this is very thick paint at the moment and very wet. I'm gonna dip some in there, too, or drop some on there to allow some of that to spread out. Okay, that one's looking really good. We're gonna go to this one now. Just tap on some of these speckles, to soften them up so they don't look so speckly. Especially when they're in the center of a light area. You want that color to spread out and move and blend a little bit. Kind of gives it like a marbled appearance. Then here we've got one there. Got a few little speckles there. So here. See if we can connect these two somehow guide it just by tapping, tapping it on there. To help some of this spread out. If you need more water, just re dip it, dip it back in. And that's starting to look like a tree there, and I don't particularly want a tree, so I'm gonna move some of that there, let it flow. Kind of pick it up, type it. It still kind of looks like a tree. I may have to put the paper towel on there. Or I may leave it. I don't know. I think it's a little strong. Let's see what happens. Just soak some of this up. These paper towels, by the way, are va brand. And they're excellent at soaking up a large amount of liquid. Alright. Well, let's get down here on these bottom ones. Just tapping some of that water on those speckles areas. And let it move kind of where it wants to go unless you want to guide it. Then just tap, tap, tap. I'll pick up some of that wet paint underneath. I'll lighten it, blend it just by tapping, but don't do like this. Don't scrub. Or you won't get the same results. Here we got one right there in the middle of that light area. Got one right here. But by guiding it over this yellow, it's toning down that yellow, and it's also making that yellow look less strong because the purple is so strong. Like, I don't like these little random spots, so I like to tap on them to help those blend out a little. I still don't like that right there. And I don't know. I can get it to move if I turn the paper, but I'm afraid I'll mess up everything else I've done, which I kind of like. So I'm just pushing down to let that water flow in a little different place. It may flow right back when I let up. Now that I've got to move a little, maybe I can guide some of it at a different location. And it may dry up really pretty. Now I've picked up some of the titan buff by accident, so go ahead and get that in there. So, how's it looking now? Okay, the gold color does look much more like this, much more. And we've got this amhyst in here, as the Twilight glow states. I don't have any soft top in there. I have the tightened buff instead because I wanted to keep it a little bit on the lighter side. If I did want to add some darkness, I could go with a charcoal gray. And I have a muted gray here. And this tube, which is very, very dark, kind of like a almost a purple. But I don't know if that'd be too much or not. I still want the focus to be the topiz. Ah. No, see, this is what happens when you drop your stuff but that could be a happy accident if you could make a circle, by the way. Everything is an opportunity. You could call it a mistake, but it could also be an opportunity. Um, I want to keep in line with the topaz feel so I don't want to get too much darkness in there. The goal was just toning down some of that topaz a little bit. And these yellows, they're difficult, man. You don't get the right shade of yellow. It's not going to work out, but by using the Nickel Azo gold in there, you toned it down to this darker shade. But the yellow itself, I don't know. Maybe we need a little white in there. There's a pearl white listed in this one. That might be kind of interesting. I don't know. Don't really know if that's what I want to do. And look at this. This went right back where it was. Right there. I'm about to tap that all off, 'cause that's really bugging me. Let me get this brush out of here. And move the lighter purple around there. Move this one, too. So I could bring some white in. To tone down that golden color even more. I mean, I don't know if that would be a mistake or not. You know, decisions, decisions. Just tapping some of that excess liquid away. So what do I do? Do I want to bring some white in. Oh, gosh. Could do a little toothbrush white with the watercolor white. I do have a Watercolor white. I don't know how that would look. Well, we can try. We get that toothbrush. And in the Watercolor white, I don't think it's gonna do much good, but You might. This is a children's toothbrush, by the way. Yeah, it might. It's soft enough, where it might tone that down a little bit. Some of that yellow. Whoa. That might have been a little too much on that one. I don't know. Don't want to overdo it. I could use my little brush and move some of that white. Well, it's kind of cool looking. Maybe pick some up and put it over here where this yellow is really, really strong. 'Cause yellow that glow of that yellow will show through. And I don't know once that white dries if it's gonna make a lot of difference or not. And I like to keep holding it up to my guide here just to see. And I think they're pretty close. I almost need to bring some of that quinacridone back in there. How about doing that with a tiny brush or S, I don't know. There's just a little bit, and maybe Kind of work it in there like this on a side and blend it. Well, it's kind of interesting. Adds a little bit of darkness there. A little bit of shading, very tiny brush, very tiny amount, though, on the brush. Maybe some in here. And by just letting it kind of go on its own where it wants to go, and then you can always add some water to soften it. Hmm. That's kind of interesting. Let's put some in here. But the tiny brush allows you just to get a little tiny bit in there. So it's not so overwhelming. That may be a little strong. Type some of that out with some extra water. I don't know. This one could use a little bit right there. I got too much on the brush. Just try to guide it along that edge where it's already got some of the tightened buff. Just a little bit on each one. If you do one on one, if you add something on one, add it on the others. I almost think I need some raw umber in here. That's kind of what I'm thinking now. Just add a tiny bit in these little ones. Add a little water to help it move a little bit. Yeah, I'm almost thinking raw umber would be good to be brought in here. 'Cause I can kind of see that raw umber in that topaz stone in the image. Alright, that's enough of that. That colors really, really, really strong. But it's more of a gold, and golds are very strong. You get some of this excess off here, away from the edges. Alright, let's look. Really struggling with this. I'm thinking some raw umber needs to come in there, just looking at that, and I can't believe that I didn't come up with that in these colors. I don't know what I was thinking on this. I mean, I don't know what I was looking at that day. Probably looking at some color suggestions and thought, Oh, those will look good together, but, um, we've got Here we go. We've got a raw umber in the Watercolor. I'm almost thinking to bring some of that in. Why not? Get that good and wet. So I can drop some in there somewhere. I'm not sure where. Could just tap some in. Each one will have a little bit. I should have done it where the yellow was. But I can still do that, pick up some more where that brightest yellow was. No, November may end up being a total bust. I don't know. I'm gonna use that same brush and move some of that around. Why not? Let's just get it super wet, and then we'll roll this color around and we'll see what we end up with. Sometimes that's what you got to do. You just got to let it fall where it's gonna fall and let it dry. See what happens. It's kind of interesting, though. Every one of them is kind of interesting. That yellow is still bugging me. It's still a little strong. And this spot right here is driving me crazy 'cause it keeps gathering too much liquid. I'm almost wondering about bringing some white and anytime you got something that you feel isn't working, go toward white. Nothing else. You can start all over. This right here I don't like. There. That really didn't do a whole lot. Probably because I used too much water to spread out what was there. And I have a lot on there already. I don't know. It may end up being my favorite. It does look like these colors. And that tape color appears to be in there now. Even though I didn't intend on it being in there. This is one of those indecision moments. I'm thinking about bringing some white in with the sponge. Get that sponge out out of that water. And find my wait. There it is. Put some on that palette. This is probably gonna solve everything right here. At least I hope it will. So I'm gonna dab that sponge in that way, get most of it off, and I'm gonna decide where I want it to go. I'm gonna try to keep it in a few spots on each one and then go back after it with a brush to do a little bit of blending. Yeah, that corner right there was real strong. This is real strong right here. It's also really, really wet on this one. Alright. That's that's enough white. That's enough paint completely. This is one of those things where I'm like, never should have started this one today. Should have waited till tomorrow, 'cause I was already working on several of these and getting tired. And that makes a difference. And I still have to add my gold dots on here, too, to keep it consistent with the series. But let's take the small round brush and just gently move some of that white, hard edges from the sponge around. Swipe it off. Keep a little water on there so you can move some of it. I just don't like it to have real hard edges everywhere that sponge touched. So I like to blend a little bit of it out, but by tapping, not by scrubbing. Just taking down that knocking down those hard edges. Maybe even add a little water on that one. These aren't so bad because they're a lot smaller. But just tapping down on some of those hard edges. I don't know. This may end up looking okay. I don't know if I like that white right there in the center, so I'm gonna move some of that around. Move some that way, disperse some of that color, pick up some of this brown, too, that's on there. This one here is still too strong right here, so I'm gonna kind of guide some of that weight over that way to tone that down. There we go. That's better. And got a lot of tighten buff right there. I'll see if I can get that back in there somehow. And on this one. And on this one. Hmm. What do we think? Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe I should just let it dry and walk away and come back and add the dots. And I've lost my paper towel, probably used it all on that aggravating area on that one. And I'm sure that I've gotten some under the tape on these with as much water as I've used. Yellows are difficult, uh, you know, yellows and reds. And the thing is, those are two of my favorites. In colors. But, man, it's difficult to get them to look the way your brain wants them to look. Alright, we're gonna put the fan on this. We're gonna let this dry, and we're gonna come back and add some gold and see if I've gotten anything that I'm pleased with. 28. Finish November Art: Well, November is almost dry. We have a little spot right here that's still a little damp. And I may get my trusty paper towel there and sort of soak some of that up a little or move some of that around right there. Okay. So after it's dry and comparing to this, with the addition of the white, both the watercolor and the acrylic white, I think it did tone it down quite a bit. And this purple and the browns blended in enough to kind of go with this soft top color here, kind of, which if you mix two opposite colors, you know, they will make a grayish shade. But I'm actually kind of thinking it goes pretty good with this. We're going to add the gold. With my trusty vintage fork and my gold texture paste. And we're gonna see how it looks overall. I'm going to put some right here, right there. And right there. Although I didn't get as much on there as I wanted on that particular one. No, I did. It's kind of hard to see the gold on these because of the topaz color. Which is kind of gold. In fact, I probably would have been better off just using gold. This one has definitely been S, it's hard to see that. It's definitely been one of the more challenging ones for me out of this bunch. And now, when I pull the tape, I may say, Oh, I love it. And I may say I might revisit November to play with colors again to learn how to get that perfect topaz color blend because, you know, I'm trying to use what I have here. So that was the colors I have, and I'm thinking that, you know, maybe I have another color that I could do a blend with that would get closer But that's the whole point of all of this is to get some exercise in colors and blending and mixing and seeing what works well together and what doesn't work well together. Okay. Now, this one is busy right here where I was going to put it over here. I'm not so sure you'll see much of it, but I'm going to go ahead and put it. Uh oh, it's hard to know. I'm just going to put it right here. Don't want to overthink. It's a little busy. You can't see that much of it. But you could see some of the gold in there. Like I said, this will probably be a month that I revisit with some other colors to play with to get closer to the look I'm after. And I may do one of these other combos, but see, I've got topaz yellow here 'cause I know I wanted it to look like topaz, but then when I started looking at my yellows, I don't really have a yellow that looks like that. My yellows are too light or too bright or too dull. Um just it's going to have to be mixed. So that's probably going to be a challenge for me is to come up with the right mixture to get as close to that as I can. But anyway, let's pull the tape on these and see if I have anything worth keeping. And I know I went under the tape on a lot of these because they were super wet, and they're still wet under the tape. But I'm ready to take a look. So because they're wet under the tape, they're going to be extremely messy around the edges on the this is one of those I did a lot to to make it work overworking, which, you know, I say, don't do. But sometimes you just fall into that. Oh, this one's got some of the paper coming up. Uh oh. Yeah, this one was definitely not my best effort on the months. But now that I'm getting the tape away from him, I'm actually liking what I'm seeing color wise. Now that I'm getting the tape away, it's just that Um, it frustrated me. You know, one of the one of the buzz words, under mooved words here is mysterious. Well, I feel this one was kind of on the mysterious 'cause it was a mystery to me how to accomplish with these colors what I wanted to accomplish. And I'm peeling up a lot of the paper here. This is also a new roll of tape. I don't know if that has anything to do with that. But I'm gonna trim them up anyway. I'm not gonna leave a white border on these. I'm gonna mount these on paper. So they'll have a white border, but not by me leaving a white border. See, I got a lot of mess here in between these on this one on every one of them, but, you know, I'm kind of liking the designs now that I'm seeing them with the white. Kind of liking what I'm seeing. I wouldn't say it's my favorite month out of all the months that I've done. That paper's still really wet as is my board. Okay, let's get it off the board, which does make a difference in how it looks. Yeah, I made big mess there. But let's just look. You know, it's actually ended up pretty close. Took me a lot to get there. These are really close here. Took me a lot to get there with November. The look I had in my mind that I wanted, and I'm still not sure this is exactly it. And I'm still thinking I need to step out of my comfort zone and maybe try some mixes of some of these other colors, which is why I gave four options on each month because, you know, one may work one month or one time, and then you may decide to just step out of that comfort zone and push the boundaries with one of the other choices. So I tried to do that with the four choices for myself as well as for you guys. But anyway, I I'm okay with November. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, and I did make a big mess on these. They're gonna have to be trimmed up very carefully to be used in some finished pieces. But I do like the overall design of each one of them. And I do think I got pretty close to the color of topaz. And it's just a difficult color. It doesn't come straight out of the tube looking like that. So topaz is gonna be a little bit more of a challenge. Anyway, let's see what's coming up next. I believe that will be our last month, which is turquoise which is just one of my absolute favorite colors. And, you know, I have painted a lot of ocean scenes and sky scenes. And so I am all into the turquoise shades and the blues. And this is more in my comfort zone, the turquoise. So we will go on to December and see if we can finish out the 12 birth month color expirations with bang with turquoise, and then we'll take a look at all of the finished sheets and see what the favorites are and what came out good and what needs other work. But I will see you on the next lesson for December. 29. Paint December: Okay, we're ready for December. And before we get started, I apologize. I did some stuff wrong on this sheet, and it put the wrong color words where they were supposed to be. So, you know, I'm not perfect. Uh, this right here is a lo green winter tell. I don't I think I had that on there, and I forgot to take it off that's supposed to be tight and buff as a neutral support color. Anyway, we're just going to go with it and work with what we got here. And I'm looking at this winter teal here at number two option, which has the turquoise, which I don't have, believe it or not. And the To green, which I do have here, and the purple. I have the purple here. I have two purples. And I also have this particular green is kind of like the To green. So there's a few Watercolor choices there, of course, titanium white. But I do have a couple of I have this turquoise, which I really like. I don't have the To turquoise. This is cobalt turquoise light, and it's a really pretty turquoise. And I also have this azurite, which is a darker blue. I've used it in several paintings that I've done. And if you blend a little bit of that with a little bit of that, it gives it some really nice turquoise shades. It's kind of got a turquoise tint to it. And so I pulled out these and the To green here. I don't know how much of that I'll input in there because I don't know how much of it I need, but I do like the idea of the turquoise and the purple and the white and probably won't do a whole lot of purple, but integrate sum. But here's the stone we're trying to get to. And I'm going to start with the titanium white, and my palette knife and put some of this down and just get something on the page. Not thinking about it, just going wherever it wants to go. Just to get something on there. Probably need a little more. I need a little more on that one. I like to get that texture going in there. Which you should know if you've watched all the months at this point. I know not everybody's gonna do that, some people are just gonna skip ahead, but I encourage you to watch each one I do different things in each one, even though I'm using the same tools. There's little tips and tricks you might pick up on from the different months. So I encourage you to watch them all, even if you don't do them all for your project. Alright, there's some white down. Mom I'm getting a little sunshine coming in here now. Sorry if that's putting a glare. I don't think it's gonna last long. Um I'm gonna go ahead and drop a little purple in before I do the turquoise, so I'm gonna tape my watercolor here. I'm gonna use this one, the darker one right there. This one. Just to get some of that shade in there in a few spots. On every one of them. And I'll move some of that color around in a minute. With the other brush, add some water to it, or maybe with this brush. I just wanted to integrate some of it. Oh, that one got a little bit too lavender looking. Strop a little darker in that. And there. You know, and something I haven't done in a few lessons is use my little spray bottle to see if I could loosen up some of that with it. It doesn't produce as good a spray as the bigger bottle does. And I don't want to get it too wet. So I'm going to take my smaller brush now and just kind of move some of this color around on some of these. Especially where there's a harsh edge. I don't like the harsh edge. Like gray here, there's a harsh edge. I try to see if I can break that up a little or work it somehow with the white that's on there. I may pull some of this back off with a paper towel maybe. It's quite a bit of purple or I could cover it up, but it is kind of wet, so in spots. So I'm going to see if I can pull some of that extra water out where it's really extra. And these are those Viva paper towels. They're excellent for soaking up stuff really quickly. Like that. I just don't want it to be too wet when I go to add the turquoise. So let's see here. Just tap a little bit more. I just think the purple and the turquoise look really good together, so I really wanted to use this one. Now, this is my favorite turquoise, but I want to get a little bit of the darker shade down of this azuate and I don't want to overdo it. So I'm not gonna use that big brush, but I am gonna use my little angle brush here that I've had handy. I don't use it on every one, but I'm just going to tap some on there. And like I've done, on the others, turn it sideways and sort of work that color in there. And as you can see, when it blends with the white, it makes a nice turquoise. It's a really pretty blue. I'm just going straight from the tube here to work some of that in. Then I'll wash some of that off of that one for that and go to the next one. I don't know if that may be too big of a Yeah, that's kind of a chunk right there, and we wipe that off on a towel. See how when it blends, it blends with the white. It makes a really nice turquoise shade, but it's a darker shade. So don't think about this when you do this. Just take a little brush like this on its side, scrub it wherever you feel you want to put it. You might have a lot of it, you might have a little of it. Just work it in there. Go to the next one. The smaller ones, I don't need quite as much on there. I'm just doing it wherever with the brush. No set thinking about it isn't going to have a lot. And get that excess off, too. No sense in wasting paint. Alright. That's kind of different. That beautiful dark blue. Trying to get my brush scrubbed off there. I got to This is my little scrubby angle brush, so it gets stuff stuck in there pretty good. Now, no. Let's check this turquoise. Now, I was checking my watercolors to see if I had any Watercolor that was pretty close, but I don't feel that I do. This is one of my favorite turquoise colors, though, so I'm excited to finally be able to use this in something, and I'm going to go with it on the palette knife. Just a little thin line like that. And get it worked in there. I need another paper towel to be able to wipe this palette knife off on a little bit between each one. So a little thin line. And I can go back and pick up some more. I'm just getting a little bit on each one right now. I got a little too much on that one. I hear you. That paper has kind of warped a little bit. Please, I'm just gonna come right over it like that. So there is that brighter turquoise. Now things a little bit more interesting. That's got a distinctive green shade. And this is very green. With this, I'm going to drop a little bit of this in there too. Using the pallet knife again. But this time, I'm just going to get a little bit of this green color here and just put a little spot on each one. This is something I hadn't tried yet. Just a little accent spot. I don't know if it'll work out or not, but it gets a little bit of that color in there. And of course, this is a super bright turquoise that turquoise. So now I'm thinking I need to deepen things a little bit with that color. So I could go with the azurite, which is the darker shade of blue. I'm trying to look here. You see, it needs to go quite a bit darker, I think. But this is a very thick paint. So what I'm going to do is put some in the palette cause none of the blues in my watercolor palette are this dark. And I really like this particular blue. I put some in the palette, and that's probably way too much. And I'm going to add quite a bit of water in there. About four sprays. And then Palette Knife has a little green on it, but that's okay. I'm just going to stir that around a little bit to break that break that paint up, make this quite a bit more liquid. Stir it up a little. This a real pretty dark blue. So now I'm going to take the big brush and just start dropping some on here in some areas around where I did the lighter turquoise and that green. If it picks up some of them, I'm not worried about it. I just want to get some on here. So more of that color, 'cause it makes a beautiful blend. Very quickly. Work very quickly 'cause it's things are drying. Alright, we got quite a bit darker on there now. And I'm going to take some water on the smaller brush, and I'm going to start dropping that in and moving some of this around on all of this, dabbing, just like I've done on so many of the lessons because it breaks up those edges to do that. And I'm probably going to have to come back in with some white Okay. Maybe, maybe not. Got a little glare on that one. I can't really see what I'm doing. When you drop that water in and you tap it, it just starts changing the dynamic and changing how things are blending together and flowing together. And frankly, I just like to sit here and do it and then see how it ends up. It's just fun. Get some of that green I got quite a bit of water on here. Kind of losing some of my purple on this one. And it may look terrible when I'm done. And of course, it's still not as dark as this. So here's what I'm thinking now. We have this little mixture here. What if we've dropped some black in there from the Watercolor? We haven't tried that, have we? We haven't tried mixing Watercolor and acrylic in the pallete. I don't know if I can get that accomplished. Trying to tap it on the edges so to go down in there and I could stir it around. It really makes a dark charcoal gray. Which is a great neutral color here. Even though I don't have it listed. See how dark that is? I'm thinking we need to do some of my favorite thing. Let me get that extra off of there. I do some spiders with that to work some darker color in here. I'm trying to find my brush that I use. All right, let's get some of this with a small round brush. I'm not worried about fixing any of it right now. Just getting some on there. That's a pretty, pretty color. So that's a watercolor and acrylic mix. I try to get a good bit on each one of them. Alright. I need my other glass so I can see. There we go. So now using that same small round brush. I'm gonna come in here with more water. And just drop some in there to break some of that up, help it move around on these. Once again, dabbing. Trying to hit a lot of the little random speckles. And then, of course, this large area right here is too big. Now, this will look really good once the gold is added. I can tell you right now these colors with the gold dots at the end that I've used on every month so far. I will look really, really good. I'm trying to see color ice here. That's getting closer now with that dark being added. I think you might need a little more of that in there. I was gonna add some white with my sponge, but this is awful wet. So I don't know about doing that, but I think I will add a little bit more of this. Especially in those areas where there's quite a bit of water because it'll spread easily on its own, since I put the drops on there. All right. Let's see what that looks like. It's hard for me to see with the glare. I might want to roll some of it. See if I can make some of it move. Ooh, that might be too much. Afraid it got too much water on there. I'll just tap some of these spots where it's a little wild. Definitely getting a little turquoise, marbled turquoise look. Alright. I'm gonna get the extra water off with this towel on these. I've gotten a little crazy with the water the more I go with these. But I really like the looks that the water creates. This one, I don't like that little part right there. And I don't know if there's anything I can do with that, maybe get a little more of this dark and work some of it in there. And. Just checking all of them. I just took water away from there, and here I am bringing it back. But that's part of the fun. I see, when you dab in there, it pulls back. Some of that water and some of that color underneath it shows back up. You just have to play and experiment with them to see what fits. And I'm gonna move some of that water around. And then, of course, this bottom these others are moving, too. That's okay. I'm gonna pick up some of the excess. I think it'll be really cool looking when it dries. I do think maybe I could use a little more white in there. I don't know. That's pretty cool looking. Go for the winter teal look here, number two. So that's what these colors. It does need more white. So we can handle that. We can get rid of this blue here. Get some white on there. It's not like I don't have ten more of these. I always feel I have to clean this one off. But it's it's it's what I have handy. Alright, let's get some white on there. And let's do a little sponge. This is probably gonna end up being a big mess because they're still pretty wet. I'm gonna pounce that sponge in that titanium white, that sea sponge, pounce a lot of it off. And I'm gonna decide where I want to go in with some white. And I'll fix it. If I decide that I don't like it. I think this needs to be broke up down here. This is a little bit busy. I mean, I'll fix where I've put the white to break it up a little bit. I'm making a big mess here with the with the white. Nice big mess. I'm gonna take my little brush. Got a few spots right here where I'm gonna don't really want to add much water. I just want to move some of it. This one doesn't have a lot of weight. I'm gonna see if I can pick up some more work some in there. There. That's kind of cool on that one. Break some of this up. Some of that. I'm starting to look at them a little bit more individually now and see what needs to be wear. I'm actually, other than that one there actually getting kind of happy with how these look. And they're not as dark as this because the green gives it more of that. I don't know, it kind of reminds me of a pine tree green for the winter. So it doesn't look exactly like the stone, but it's definitely turquoise and definitely got the shades. And at this point, I'm thinking, maybe just let this sit here and dry. I don't know if any of that water will move. Let it sit here and dry and then see what we have. I know the turquoise is a little brighter than the stone. But this is my interpretation based on the colors I have. So I think what we need to do now or what I'm going to do now is just let this sit here and dry. I'm gonna put the fan on it. I'm not gonna put any more water on it. And let it sit here and dry and then come back and review it and add more if I want to or add the gold at that point. 30. Finish December Art: Alright, December is mostly dry. I think we've done pretty good on these colors from the winter teal option number two on December. Um, I'm ready to apply the gold with my gold texture paste and my trusty vintage fork. There's one spot there that's still kind of wet, so I'm gonna try to stay away from that spot. And some of these thick areas where I applied the little palette knife with the green, those are still kind of wet. So I'm going to try to avoid those the best I can. Those are a little thicker where I applied that. I really do like that. By the way, the plying the accent color would just a little bit on the palette knife. I feel that added some interesting texture on these to do that. And I hadn't tried that in any of the other monthly lessons, so there was a there's another new thing there to try. So I'm going to dip in my gold texture paste and get a little bit on my fork, and I'm going to start applying it where I want it the most. I'm thinking maybe stay away from the spot where I applied that because it'd be too much in one area. So I'm thinking of maybe going in a different area. A little bit there. Then on this one, maybe down here. With a few dots. I like the fork can apply multiple dots at one time. There I did a little scratch mark. I moved it. And that happens sometimes. But I can work some of that out with as soon as I find my smaller brush right here. Actually, this little bitty brush would be good. Just get the brush wet before it dries and work some of that out. I'll just add a little sparkle as it spreads out, which is kind of fun. That makes those not quite as strong of marks look a little bit more random. Alright. Let's do this. I have to wiggle the fork back and forth to get it to come off. And let's do this one and down. Here. And then this one, let's do it over here. And notice I'm doing three little groupings of dots on each one, which I've done through the entire series. And this is to keep things consistent with my series. Um you don't have to do that if you don't want to, but if you want to do all 12 months and create a consistent series, that is one way to generate consistency through your series. And since I will be framing some of these and putting them in my local booth, I do want a consistency across the series. Alright, I'm gonna pull this tape, and we're gonna see what we have. And I'm gonna pull December's sheet over here so I can look. And I'm sure some of the color went under some of the tape. 'Cause I had quite a bit of water on here. But I am liking how it's turned out. I think it does look very, very nice for a December abstract with the turquoise shades, and it kind of has a winter feel, which winter teal was the option I went for on the options. And that white bringing that white back in added that little bit of that wintery feel even more, I think. So that was a good choice on these. And I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. Alright. Now let me find the bottom of this where I can pull this off 'cause I have to wrap it around my little board. And then get it unstuff from myself. This board, by the way, is and 11 by 14. And this paper is nine by 12. So it's kind of a perfect fit. I got this board as part I know I've said this already, but I'm saying it again. I got it as part of a set of three from Walmart. They're like, bamboo cutting boards, and it was like $9 and something for the set. And I have two smaller ones than this, but they're great for just taping a sheet of paper on. I like it 'cause I can move it around if I have a lot of paint and water on there and help it spread. Because if I tape it to the desk, and then I want to move it, can't move it. Although this is a board, on top of my regular desk, my board used to be pretty, and it's gotten paint all over it now. But, you know, I painted this board and glazed it, and I can redo it again in the future. Oh, I'm really happy with the way this is looking. So I'm gonna turn this around. Get rid of the board. And let's see how we have compared for the December winter teal. Oh, I think it's pretty darn close. Pretty close. I think that's a great great one for December. I'm really happy with this, and I'm especially happy with adding that little bit of the green with the palette knife to create that little burst of color and texture in these pieces. I think that really added something to this. And now I'm thinking that might be a new favorite technique. So that is the end of all 12 months in the tiny abstracts, 12 birth month color expirations class. And I can't wait to see what you guys come up with in the ones you submit for your projects. 31. Thank You & Final Thoughts: I want to thank you so much for joining me for this class. Tiny abstracts, 12th birth month color explorations. Look at all the beautiful months here that were created on one single sheet of watercolor paper, multiple tiny abstract paintings that now can become little masterpieces once they're cut out, and these make great gifts. You can mount them on the front of cards. You can mount them on. One thing I do a lot is get a piece of small watercolor paper, trim it down, just plain white, trim it down to the size I need to fit in a frame like this, this is a four by six and cut one out and mount it right in the center with the white paper being the border around the image. This is a thrift store frame. This is a great way to reuse frames with some new and interesting art. Another thing you can do to mount them if you don't want to use watercolor paper is you can get mat board. I have a whole bunch of Mtbard pieces cut. These are eight by ten, and you can mount a piece in the center of one of these and they'll go on a standard eight by ten frame. And for the minis, these little mini frames, like this one from Hobby Lobby make great frames for the mini works of art like that. So I hope you have fun with this class playing with the different colors that are listed, color combinations listed in the guide. I hope you have fun experimenting with different mediums and different tools to create the months you want to create. I encourage you to create all the months, of course. But even if you don't want to create all of the months, at least watch them because there's different tips with each month that I feel are helpful for your overall series and creations. So thanks again for joining me. I can't wait to see what you've created and have a great time experimenting.