Urban Sketching for Beginners: Create a Line and Wash Building Facade

1. Introduction + Welcome: Are you looking to get started with urban sketching, or line and wash shop, or house facades? Or maybe you're a little bit farther ahead and you're looking to learn new strategies, tools, and techniques that can help you arrive at better results more consistently. Or maybe you want to have a better understanding of how to create artwork where you're stemming from a reference photo or something that you have in front of you in real life. But you want to know how to change the composition in order to improve it or bring more of yourself into the piece. If your answer was yes to any of these questions, this course is for you. Hey everyone. My name is Erica and I'm a traditional media artist working with a variety of different drawing and painting mediums. I enjoy challenging myself and continuing to grow my skills with a variety of different subjects, from still life to landscapes to animals and more. I'm also constantly creating helpful resources for beginner and intermediate artists that I share via my website, my Youtube channel, and of course my membership site. I have over 15 years of experience working in creative and artistic fields. First as a graphic designer, and then I moved on to working as head art teacher in a school environment for many years before starting my own art business on the side. I am incredibly passionate about continuing to grow as an artist as I help others move forward in their own journeys. And it is always my objective to create courses and tutorials and classes that are thorough, that are transparent, and that actually provide tools and information for you that you can take with you to future artwork that you may choose to work on. I want to empower you to reach your artistic goals. In this course, I am taking you through my full process that I have separated out into phases that I went through to create this line and watercolor wash bar facade piece. Both drawing and painting skills are required to create this type of artwork. So this course includes classes on both. I have chosen what is referred to as an elevation view of this bar or facade, which simply means that we're standing right in front of the building, almost in the middle of it. We're not closer to one corner or edge of the building, or the other corner or the other edge of the building where we would see multiple planes of that structure. And thus that would require a deeper understanding of three D, form and perspective in order to draw that effectively. If you're wanting to get started with urban sketching or house or shop facades, elevation view drawings are always a great place to start because they are a lot simpler to draw. And once you've developed your skills with these, you can move on to other perspectives. In this course, I walk you through the exact process that I would recommend any beginner go through. So instead of going right in on our watercolor paper right away and creating our preliminary sketch there and risking doing a lot of erasing and even damaging our watercolor paper, we're actually creating our outline sketch on a separate sketchbook or sheet of drawing paper. And that we're doing our transferring onto our watercolor sheet in order to keep our watercolor sheet fresh and intact and arrive at a nice clean outline sketch. Of course, if you're more advanced, you've already built up your drawing skills and maybe you have practice with the specific type of subject that we're drawing. You could go ahead and create your outline sketch right on your watercolor sheet and skip those two classes. And I have included my outline drawing along with your other downloadables that you're going to be able to find in the projects and resources tab. For those of you who would like to skip over the drawing process and jump straight into the pen and ink and then the watercolor washes, you can simply trace over my outline drawing and transfer that onto your watercolor sheet. But if you're interested in improving your drawing skills, I would highly recommend working on your drawing freehand, like I'm going to be doing. Once our preliminary pencil sketch is ready, we go ahead and move on to the pen and ink process. I share my method and my favorite techniques that help me define edges of different shapes, that help me add a little bit of shading and also add some detail. And from there we move on to bringing the piece to life using bright water color washes. I've added an extra class in the beginning where we observe the reference photo. And I explain how I'm going to be changing the composition in order to improve it, to make it more visually aesthetic, and to also bring more of myself into the piece. So I explain what I'm going to be removing and why, what I'm going to be changing in order to make the composition better. I want to encourage you as we're moving along to bring yourself into your drawing and into your painting process, especially if you're more advanced. All right, so with all that said, let's go ahead and jump into the next class where I'm going to be explaining all about the project that we're going to be working on together in this course. 2. Course Project + Must-Know Information: There, and welcome to this class where I'm going to be explaining all about the project that we're going to be working on together in this course. By the end of this course, you'll have completed a pen and watercolor wash piece. More specifically, we're going to be drawing and then painting the exterior or the front facade of a bar. Broken up my process into nine phases, each of which has its own class. Before getting into the preliminary sketching process, we're going to be taking a few minutes to observe our reference photo so that we can take some notes on what we like and what we want to keep and make part of our piece and what we want to change to improve the composition and bring more of ourselves into the artwork. Don't skip over this class because I provide lots of ideas and tools that you can take with you to future artwork. I see so many beginners just taking a photo and trying to copy everything as is. But this is not the way to go about it. You need to start building up your eye for composition and practice asking yourself some questions before getting started, such as, what do I like about this photo? What don't I like about this photo? And what if I change this or what if I change that? How can I bring more of myself into this piece, more of my style? How can I communicate more of the mood, message, idea, or story that I'm wanting to communicate? And how can I improve the composition as a whole? And if you're more advanced, I would highly recommend you think of how you can make this piece your own. And plan for those things that you want to change in this point in the process. After that class, I take you through the drawing phases. First, we work on our preliminary pencil sketch, and we do this on a separate sheet of drawing paper or a sketchbook so that we can avoid doing too much erasing on our actual watercolor paper. We're going to be using for the final piece. And I share must know information on three D form and perspective that you can take with you to future drawings of houses and buildings. Once we're happy with our preliminary pencil sketch, we're then going to be transferring that pencil sketch onto our watercolor paper. I explain how I like to do my transferring using tracing paper, but you can use whichever transferring method you prefer. Once our preliminary pencil sketch has been transferred onto our final watercolor sheet, I explain all about my favorite pen and ink techniques that I use to define edges, to add some shading, and to add some detail. Once our pen and ink drawing has been finalized, I then take you through how I select my colors that I'm going to be using for my watercolor washes. I swatch out all of my colors for you on a scrap piece of watercolor paper so that you can see what they look like, and you can choose whichever colors you have available that are most similar to mine. Or if you'd like to change some colors that is up to you, you can also plan for your own colors at this point. Once our colors have been planned, we go ahead and bring the piece to life with those bright watercolor washes. As I walk you through my painting process, I share must know tips that will help you keep your painting looking fresh, relatively loose, and how to avoid overworking your piece. As with all of the courses that I create for you, it is my objective to share must know information and tools with you that you can take with you to future pen and Wash artwork. To post a photo of your work here on Skillshare, all you have to do is click on the Projects and Resources tab. Once you're in, you'll see this purple button on the right that says submit project. When you click on this button, you'll be taken to a new page where you'll easily be able to both upload a photo of your piece, as well as share any thoughts, experiences, struggles or questions that you might have for me. Here, you can create a title for your project and click on that larger content section underneath. And if you want to add in that photo at the beginning, you can go ahead and click on that image icon on the bottom. Find the photo that you're wanting to share on your computer or device, select that file, click Open, and it will be immediately added into this content section. Then under your image, share anything that you'd like, whether it's struggles, questions, wins, aha moments that you might have had throughout this course. Anything that you'd like to share, I always love hearing from you. At the bottom of this content section, you'll see different icons. One is for formatting your text. The other is to add emojis, the Adimage icon, which we just talked about, and you can also embed link. Free to add in even more pictures if you'd like. They can be process pictures, supply pictures over here to the right, we have this preview area where we essentially see a thumbnail or cover image for your project. You can go ahead and change it to a title image that you have created in a more horizontal format. Or you can just go ahead and leave it as is and have it just be a cropped section of one of the images that you have uploaded into your content area. It's up to you. Once you're ready, go ahead and scroll back up. Click on the green Publish button, and you'll be all done. If you'd like to share your work over on Instagram, please do just make sure to tag me at Erica Underscore Lancaster Underscore Art. I love seeing your work over there and giving students shoutouts in my stories. And of course, go ahead and tag the Skillshare account, too. It goes a very long way and inspires other students to share their work as well. Skillshare is a safe learning space for all of us to continue growing together. So make sure that you're using this gallery, and let's all connect and help each other out. I can't wait to see your work and to help out with whatever you might need. Let's move on to our next class. 3. Supplies: Hey there and welcome to this class. We're I'll be explaining about the supplies that I would recommend having on hand. As you move forward in this course. You don't have to have exactly the same pencil grades or pen tip size, or colors in order to arrive at great results. But I would recommend having something similar. And I will be providing some little tips and information along the way that will help you get ready and enjoy a smoother process. Do make sure to download all of the files that I'm making available for you in the Projects and Resources tab. Simply click on the Projects and Resources tab that you're going to be able to find below any of the videos included in this course. Scroll down just a bit and right under the download resources title, you're going to be able to find all of these downloadables that I've created for you. The downloadables for this course include my outline sketch, in case you'd like to skip over the freehand drawing process and trace over my sketch in order to create your outline drawing on your watercolor paper. I've included a photo of my finished piece which you're free to use as reference as you're working. The reference photo that I used to get loosely inspired by and your supply list, simply click on the file that you'd like to download and it'll be downloaded onto your computer or device. All right, with that said, let's jump into the supplies. I'm going to be starting out this process in this drawing sketchbook from Strathmore. This sketchbook is nine 12 " in size. I'm going to be bringing in two different pencil grades. One of them is an HB pencil and the other one is A to B pencil. And these are pencils from my Erwin Sketching set. I have a couple of different erasers on hand. One of them is a regular soft graphite eraser, and the other one is a needed eraser. I'm going to be transferring my sketch onto a sheet of watercolor paper from arches. This is cold press paper and it is 140 pounds in thickness or in weight. I will say that usually when I bring in drawing tools such as pens or water colored pencils, anything like that, that has a point to it. Usually, I like using my ready cut sheets of cold press paper from Strathmore. That paper is less textured than this paper from arches. Just be aware that the more textured your paper is, the more your drawing tool will skip over that tooth or that texture of the paper. And this might be something that you don't enjoy. I personally do like the look of broken lines and I make sure not to press down the nib of my pen too much. Because pressing down the nib of your pen, especially when your paper is textured, can really damage that tip. You can also use hot press watercolor paper, which is the least textured of all. And I will be cutting off a section of this watercolor sheet because it's a little bit too long for this particular composition. So the final piece is going to be 10 " in width times 9 " in height. For my pen and ink process, I'm going to be using a uni pin fine liner, and this is from Mitsubishi Pencil Co. It has black ink which is waterproof and fade proof, which is perfect and important. If you're going to be combining pen and ink with watercolor washes, you definitely want to use something that is waterproof and smudge proof. And this pen is 0.5 in tip size. I'm also going to be using a couple of different sheets of tracing paper from Strathmore. One of them to do my actual transferring of my sketch onto my sheet of watercolor paper. And the other one is going to be used just to keep my paper protected as I am working on my ink process. Once I move onto the pen and ink, you're going to notice how I place a clean sheet of tracing paper under my hand as I am moving along. And this is in order to keep my watercolor sheet protected because I don't want to get any graphite or hand oils on my watercolor sheet as this can really affect the way that the watercolor washes sit and get absorbed by that paper later on. So two sheets of tracing paper will be used in this video. I have a roll of regular three fourths of an inch masking tape, which is what I'm going to use to tape my watercolor sheet down onto my black cutting mat. All I make sure to do is run the pieces of masking tape over my clothes a couple of times before using it to tape my watercolor paper down. This helps soften that adhesive and makes it less likely that you'll damage your watercolor paper at the end when you remove your tape. In terms of my paint, I'm going to be using a combination of paint from Windsor and Newton's professional line, Daniel Smith and also I'm going to be bringing in some burnt sienna from my St. Petersburg white knights paint set. And this is just because I ran out of my burnt sienna from my original pale. I'm using a total of seven different colors and these colors are Windsor Lemon Pyalscarlet. Cobalt blue and torpe blue, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and pains gray. You do not have to use these exact same colors that I'm going to be using in order to arrive at great results. Just use whichever colors you have that are most similar to mine and you'll do great. Before jumping into the painting process, I'll make sure to swatch out these colors individually on a scrap piece of watercolor paper so that you can see what they look like on paper. And choose whichever color you have that you feel is most appropriate. I have large mixing areas in this palette, so I don't need to bring in a separate palette. Moving on to my brushes, I'm going to be using a total of five different brushes for the watercolor painting process and two multimedia, cheaper brushes for the white quash. The white guash details that I'm going to be doing at the very end are completely optional though. That is up to you if you want to add them or not. The brushes that I'm going to be bringing in for my watercolor washes are a size six mop brush, three round brushes in sizes 1410 and 3.3 fourths of an inch flap brush. The cheaper multimedia brushes that I'm going to be using for my guash are a size for round brush and a size eight flap brush. I like using separate brushes for my gash and my water coloring because guash is an opaque painting medium. And if I don't make sure that I completely rinse out all of my guash from my paint brush bristles, I can run the risk of making my vibrant watercolor washes look chalky and more opaque or even muddy. So I would rather just use separate sets of brushes. I have a container with clean water, which I change a few times throughout this process. You can always bring in two or even three containers of water. If you so choose to rinse out your paint, brush bristles in one of those containers and actually take cleaner water from the second container Whenever it is that you want to bring out some water into your color mixtures to make them paler or more translucent or whenever it is that you need clean water for specific techniques. This way, the majority of that pigment and murkiness stay in that first container where you're doing your rinsing. Moving on from there, I have a few blu scott absorbent towels on hand. I love these towels because they are cheap and I can reuse them over and over and over again before having to throw them away. But you can certainly use any kind of absorbent towel or even regular kitchen paper towels for your water color painting. But it is very important that you have some sort of absorbent towel on hand so that you can stay on top of water control and do any lifting that you might need to do throughout the painting process. And finally, when it comes to the guash, I'm going to be using permanent white guash from Windsor and Newton. And for my guash, I also have a separate little mixing palette. And this is so that I can alter the consistency of my guash for the techniques that I'm going to be using. At the end, I can just bring in a couple of drops of water. So will my paint brush and Mike wash to make it more liquidy or to make it a little bit thicker depending on what it is that I need. And that is it in terms of the drawing and painting supplies that I would recommend having on hand to move forward in the next class, we're going to be observing the reference photo that we're going to be using for this piece and taking some notes on the changes that we want to make in our composition for a better final outcome. See you there. 4. Reference Photo Observations: Not only am I a huge proponent of taking time to observe your reference photo or whatever it is that you have in front of you in real life before jumping in. But also it is super important to plan your composition before getting started with the final piece. This is something that a lot of beginners don't do or don't know how to do, so they skip over this part if they're using a reference photo or they have something in front of them. In real life, they don't make time to make compositional choices. Meaning they try to draw or paint everything exactly as they see it. And they don't think about how they can make better use of their drawing or painting area. How much negative space is going to be left around the object or the subjects? What format is better suited for the composition on hand? Whether it's better to remove certain elements that are just going to be confusing the viewer and are not adding anything to the composition. Whether certain colors or things are going to be changed in order to better communicate the mood, message, idea, or story that you're wanting to communicate. Whether certain elements can be moved around in order to make the composition more visually pleasing. If you want to bring things in to add more of yourself into the piece, a lot of beginners don't give thought to any of this, so they just find a reference photo or something that they're going to be drawing or painting, and they go right in without making any sketches beforehand, any thumbnails or anything at all. And this, in my opinion, is a huge mistake. This is why I wanted to share this full class before jumping into the watercolor washes, because it is my goal to help expand your horizons and give you more actual information. I want to empower you to feel confident creating original artwork from scratch in the future. That is not only super aesthetically pleasing, but that also has a ton of yourself in it. Very few artists are sharing this information online. So it is definitely not your fault I have chosen a reference photo of this cute little bar, and this is a great photo for me to explain these things, because in many ways, it is less than ideal. So I'm going to show you the changes that I make in order to make this composition more visually pleasing. I am keeping what I like about this reference and I am changing what I don't in order to make this a more successful artwork. So I'm going to start out by mentioning some of the things that I love about this photo that really drew me to this reference. And then I'll be moving on to explaining some of the things that I'm going to be changing first and foremost in terms of what I do like. I think that the facade of this bar is very cute. I like the simplicity of it. I like that it's relatively small. I'm really drawn to stripes, so those red and white stripes in that awning are very, very cool against that gray outer wall. I also really love the opportunity to bring in some handwritten lettering and some words. Although I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be taking many of those words out and I'm going to be simplifying those words, those sentences. I like the benches in front of this bar that gives me an opportunity to practice perspective and adds more depth to the composition. Another thing that I really like about this building is that it's asymmetrical. So if I were to cut it in half, the left half is not the same as the right half. Asymmetry is always going to be more interesting than symmetry, moving into the things that I don't like that I'm going to be changing or removing. First and foremost, the bar is too cramped in this picture plane. A little section of it on the right is even cropped off the picture, and there is not enough negative space around the bar. When it comes to designing visually pleasing, successful compositions, the negative space is just as important as the positive space. If you're looking to create something that looks balanced and something that the viewer wants to keep looking at, you don't plan for your negative space. The viewer's eyes are not going to have space to rest and you're going to be creating a sense of stress. If you don't leave enough negative space, things look too cramped. And if you leave too much negative space around the object or the subject, you run the risk of things looking way too empty, as if the object or the subject is floating in a vast sea of emptiness. There is not enough negative space around the bar. And if I just go ahead and draw it as is, it's going to look too cramped. So I'm going to make up for the information that I'm visually lacking. And I'm going to finish up that right edge of the bar and I'm going to open up the picture plane allowing more space. That's the first thing that I'm going to be changing. Alongside this, there is a very dark shadow shape, probably created by some post in front of the bar that we can't actually see because it's off the picture plane and it's right on top of that awning. I'm going to be removing that because all that shadow shape does is confuse the viewer. I, myself, don't know what it is exactly that's creating that shadow. You can bet that the viewer of my final piece is not going to know either. I don't think it adds anything to the composition, so I'm just going to be removing that. Another thing that I'm going to be changing is the cable with those cute little lights that is right in front of the bar. The visual line created by those lights is very straight and almost horizontal. I'm going to be changing that to create more of an asymmetrical kind of curve situation. I really like those lights. I think they are super cute, and I think the lights will definitely add interest and personality to the composition. But I don't want to keep that line super straight. And horizontal straight lines like that sometimes visually cut the composition into parts in a weird way. And straight horizontal lines can just be very boring. Another thing that I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be removing that live music sign that is to the left of the door. And I'm going to be taking that standing little blackboard that we can't really see very well from this vantage point. I like that chalkboard, but I'm going to be moving it so that we can actually read it from this vantage point. I'm going to place it somewhere where we can view it from this vantage point and where it makes sense. When I'm creating my drawing and I'm going to be writing live music on that sign. I'm going to be changing the door, instead of it opening toward us. It's going to be opening toward the inside of the bar. This way I remove some of the noise in front of the bar. In the entrance, I'm going to be removing the red kind of drain or sewage that is in front of the bar, and I'm also going to be removing that blue trash can on the right. Those are, I would say, the most important changes that come to mind right now. And as I am moving along creating my preliminary sketch in my sketchbook, if more changes come to mind that I want to make, I'll do them then. When it comes to the colors that I'm going to be using, I'm going to be changing some of the colors present in this photo as well. And I'll let you know what I end up using, what my color scheme is going to be in the class where I'll be swatching out these colors and giving you some painting tips for success. That is it for this class. I look forward to seeing you in the next one, where we're going to be working on our preliminary pencil sketch in our sketch books. 5. Preliminary Pencil Sketch: Let's jump into our preliminary pencil sketching process. Our pencil sketch that we work on right now in our sketchbook, or whatever other drawing paper it is that you choose to draw on, has to be the size that you want your final piece to be. Why? Because we're going to be tracing over it and that's what we're going to transfer onto our sheet of watercolor paper. So a little trick that I like doing is after I have cut my final watercolor sheet into exactly the size that I want my final piece to be, which in this case is 10 " in width times 9 " in height. I place my watercolor sheet over one of these sheets in my sketch book. And I trace around my watercolor sheet to create that rectangle drawing space. So that I can make sure that the drawing that I create fits exactly the way that I want it to fit in that rectangle. By doing this, I can ensure that my drawing is not going to be too small or too large, and I can make sure that I'm going to be leaving enough negative space around the bar once I have created that rectangular space to draw in. What I'm getting started with right now are just a few lines to help me start visualizing where the bar structure is going to be drawn in. I started by placing a horizontal line to help me visualize where the ground actually is. And then I started by adding in vertical lines. These vertical lines are going to help me create those initial largest shapes the way that I see it. The front of this bar can be divided into two sections. The most important part, which is the one that has the triangular section at the top where the door is, I see as being the main part of the bar structure. Then there is an extra section on the right where the bar logo or name is. Those initial vertical lines that I added in. Help me visualize these two separate. Now you can see how I just added in a longer vertical line right in the middle of this largest portion, where the door is. The reason why I added that longer vertical line right in the middle there is because by having that vertical line there, I'm able to more easily draw the symmetrical triangle that I need right at the top of this larger portion of the structure. So you can see how I'm constantly helping myself with straight, vertical, and horizontal lines. I made sure to bring down the bottom edge of this building below that ground level that I was visualizing. It's all about simplifying what you're observing into a combination of basic shapes or forms. In this case, this is an elevation view of this building. So we're seeing the flat forward facing front of this bar. Which means that we can use squares, rectangles, and triangles, and straight verticals and straight horizontals to help us create that overall shape that we're looking for for the front of this bar. If there were two point perspective or three point perspective going on in the scene, it would be a different thing that would require a deeper understanding of three D form and perspective. Because with those kinds of perspectives, we see multiple sides or planes of the structure on hand. But for this one we're just seeing the front of this bar. We're not seeing any of the other sides making up this structure. Go ahead and use simple flat shapes, squares, rectangles, triangles, and combine them. Place them next to each other until you arrive at an overall shape that is similar to what you're observing in the photo right here. I just erased out a few lines that I'm no longer going to be needing using my soft graphite eraser. I'm making sure to keep everything very light so that I can continue refining my drawing as I go in the beginning of your sketching process, it's essential that you keep your sketch very flexible and malleable. And you do this through sketching lightly so that you can continue erasing mistakes and refining as you go. And by the way, if you feel the need to bring in a ruler so that you can keep these longer lines straight. There is no shame in having to bring in a ruler, because especially when you're creating these largest shapes and forms, of course, these lines are going to be longer. And longer lines are harder to draw for most of us than shorter lines. You can see how I'm continuing to focus on those general largest shapes and I am not. Concerning myself with smaller shapes and details. Right now, I am focusing on getting those overall shapes and proportions. Looking right before moving on to the medium sized shapes. And then the smallest shapes go at the end, now getting proportions exactly the same as what you're seeing in the reference photo. When it comes to the width versus the height of this building is not 100% necessary. Meaning you can change proportions slightly and you're probably going to be fine. Even the angles of that triangular portion or the diagonals can be slightly different as long as they are similar to what you're observing and the overall proportions of the building look believable. Use your visual measuring skills and ask yourself, how does the total width of this front of the bar relate to the total height of this bar? Get something similar to what you're seeing. And you're going to be fine. The more you sketch freehand and continue developing your observational skills, the better your visual measuring skills become and the better you become at recreating proportions effectively. Once I was happy with that largest shape for the entire front face of this bar, it was time to move on to medium sized shapes. I decided to get started with the awning shape above the door, which the awning does require a little bit of understanding of three D form and perspective. Because it's a structure that is coming toward us, it's important to get in those slight angles looking right. If we want to make it look believable, make sure that you pay attention to those slight diagonals going on on either side of the awning shape. And then there's this long rectangle right beneath it where that awning portion is dropping down. Very much looks like a trapezoid shape with a long rectangle along the bottom of it. I draw in the door shape and also the two window shapes on either side of the door. I try to leave a similar amount of space between the edges of the door and the windows on either side. And I make sure that the window shapes are aligned with each other because that's what usually happens in buildings. And I also draw that top vent shape. Notice how I'm keeping everything as simple shapes. I haven't really started to add in any detail in the windows or any decker in the windows, anything like that. I'm keeping everything super simple, judge, and then I start drawing the first bench. And just like with the awning, to draw the benches, you do need to bring in your understanding of three D, form and perspective, because these are structures that are coming forward, and we actually see a couple of different sides of the bench, especially this one on the left. Judge, even with the benches, I start with the largest portions of it, simplifying everything into basic shapes, and then I'm going to turn these shapes into forms by adding in that plane. On the right, Judge, I simplify the bench, first, Judge, into the back portion of the bench and the seating and legs portion of the bench. And once that looked good to me, I started building the bench. Look at how I just drew in a couple of long rectangles, one for the back of the bench and the other one is going to be the section where the legs are going to be drawn in. It's hard to see how the legs work in this bench, so I do bring in my artistic license and intuition to just get in the bench structure to the best of my abilities. It's so important to just make up for the information that you're visually lacking in a reference photo or whatever scene it is that you have in front of you in real life. And to be able to combine what you're seeing with your intuition and what you know to be true about this specific type of object element that you're seeing. Of course, making time to draw pieces of furniture that you have at home is super helpful as well. Draw some chairs that you have at home, draw some coffee tables, draw a sofa. And through that practice, you're going to be able to tackle this kind of drawing a lot more easily. Once I'm done with that bench on the left, I get started with the other one. And you can see how I start by drawing two long rectangles, one for the back of the bench and one for the seating and legs portion of the bench. See, I started with these two long rectangles. I make sure that these long rectangles are aligned with the bench on the left, because I do want to make these benches seem like they are both on the ground so they have to be aligned with each other and once those rectangles look good to me, I add in a sense of structure and three D ness by adding a little sense of that side plane on the left. I cut into the rectangle that I created for the seating leg portion to create a sense of those two little legs right here, I start adding in the door, which as I said in the beginning of this tutorial, I changed the door. Instead of opening out, the door is opening in because the door is a flat rectangular prism that is receding away from us into the bar. I have to make sure that I add in those diagonals along the top and the bottom to make it look like it's opening inward. Once my basic general door shape has been created, I go ahead and add in extra little windows inside of that door shape. I then add in a floor line inside of the bar. Continuing with medium sized shapes here I start adding in that ellipse for the sign that has the name of the bar right here on the right portion of the building. I decide to add in this ellipse a little bit higher than what I see it in that reference photo. And that's because I want to leave some room for the smaller blackboard sign that I'm going to be creating beneath it. Before drawing that ellipse, I did create a few tick marks for myself just to decide how wide I would be making my ellipse and how tall I would be making my ellipse. As I mentioned in the beginning of this tutorial, I would be changing the location of the standing blackboard that is in front, a little bit of a distance away from the entrance of this bar. So I decided to change the location and also its orientation in space. The perspective that we're seeing that sign at, I am changing. And this really entails me visualizing what this structure of the sign would look like from a different perspective. This is the sign where I'm going to be adding that live Music handwritten lettering later on. Okay, so I'm officially in the smaller shapes and details part of this sketching process. All of my larger shapes, my larger structures have been added in. And shapes, proportions, perspective is all looking good. I can now move on to adding more details. This said, it is not necessary to go all out with your details in this sketch that you're creating in your sketchbook or separate sheet of drawing paper, because you can always add more details right on your water color sheet if you want to. Plus there are some details that are going to be added right away with pen and ink, without me having added them with graphite. First, it's all up to you and how comfortable you are in terms of going right in and drawing that detail with pen and ink. Or if you want to add it first with pencil, it's up to you. Part of the process should be relatively easy to do because all of your most important lines and angles, they're already there for you. So it's just about adding in an extra line alongside that shape edge or line that you've already drawn. For example, that little detail that I added along the roof. All I did was create more lines following that line and that shape that I had already created. Same thing with my windows and the little vent. The stripes on the awning are also relatively easy because I already have those diagonals on either side. Observe what happens with the awning stripes in that reference photo. And notice how the ones in the center are more straight up and down. And then as the stripes move toward the left and toward the right, inside of that trapezoid shape for the awning, they get more and more diagonal. And then I start adding in the lettering. When I'm going to be adding handwritten lettering into a pen and ink piece or pen and wash piece. I always draw guidelines first so that my letters look aligned and so that I don't start changing their size as I am writing that word. I also want to make sure that my letters fit where I want them to fit. And this is why you'll notice that before actually writing all of these words or adding these letters, I'm creating horizontal lines or curved lines for myself. And then I draw the letters using those lines. In this piece, I'm going to have a few of these words added along a curved line. Here I am adding in that string or cable of lights right in front of the bar. You can see how I really changed that line created by this cable with the lights. Instead of making it straight and horizontal, I made it curved, and I also made sure that there was a lot of asymmetry in that curve. Once I was done with that, it was finally time to add in the buildings on either side of the bar. As I mentioned before, this is an elevation view drawing of this bar because we see the flat, forward facing face of the bar. It's facing directly toward us. We're standing right in front of the front face of this restaurant, almost right in the middle of this front, forward facing face. We're not too close to the left edge of it or the left corner of it or to the right corner. We're actually almost right in the middle of this building, standing right there. And this means that there is one point perspective going on here. So when I am adding in the sides of these buildings on the left and the right, I have to visualize those diagonals that would be converging in that far away vanishing point behind the bar. I'm going to make sure to leave a one point perspective tutorial down below for you in the text section of this post, I would highly recommend learning about one point perspective. And later on, if you want to move on to more difficult or challenging urban scenes, I would recommend learning about two point perspective and even three point perspective. But if you really want to understand why I am using diagonal lines as I am drawing these buildings and these windows in these buildings. All it is, is one point perspective. And I am visualizing converging lines that would meet at that vanishing point behind the bar. And all of the would be horizontals, meaning the top edge and the bottom edge of all of these windows that I am adding into these side planes of these side buildings. The top and the bottom edges of those windows need to be diagonals that would converge at that vanishing point. So as I am doing all of this, I'm always visualizing that vanishing point and those converging lines. If I stop visualizing that vanishing point and don't use diagonals that would converge at the vanishing point, I really risk throwing off the believable sense of perspective. In this drawing, understanding one point, perspective is essential. Right here, I decide to change the windows. You can see how I leave those long lines that would converge at the vanishing point, because I'm still going to be using those, only I'm going to be creating a different amount of windows in that top floor of this building and the middle floor of this building. I'm just going to be using my artistic license and changing the windows that I see in that reference photo while still using those converging lines. So while still paying attention to what matters, I am allowing myself to make some changes. Notice how I decide to align the top and bottom windows there while using those slanted or diagonal lines. Also, because one of the rules of perspective is that things get smaller and smaller, the farther away they get from us. I make sure that the windows that are nearest us for this building on the right are a little bit wider than the ones that are farther back. Then I go ahead and erase those diagonals that I no longer need after my window shapes have been added in. Once those window shapes have been achieved, and they look good to me in terms of perspective and also proportion and alignment, I go ahead and start adding in a little bit more detail. And again, this is much easier because there is no guesswork involved. I already have that shape drawn in, so I'm just following the lines that I already have. Once that's added in, I go ahead and start adding some diagonal lines that I see on the sidewalk. On the concrete, I will be taking out that red sewage or drain, whatever it is. And I will be adding in that little step in between the actual street and the sidewalk. So I start by adding in that horizontal line where the sidewalk is going to be ending, then I just add in another horizontal line right beneath it to give that sense of that little step. Then the last thing that I'm going to be adding into this first pencil drawing are just some horizontal lines all throughout the front of this bar wall. And this is to create the illusion of the wooden wall here. All I'm doing is filling up this front wall with horizontal lines. And I'm trying to make sure that these are as straight and horizontal as I can make them. You can see how I'm starting at the left. And I am pulling that horizontal line all the way across to the right edge before moving down. And that really helps me make sure that the space that I'm leaving between my lines doesn't get smaller and smaller. And it just helps me keep my lines straighter. Of course, there are certain sections where you're going to have to skip, but it is important to continue visualizing that line that you started and keep that line consistent when you are able to restart it. And that is it for our preliminary pencil sketch. In our next class, I'm going to be explaining how I like using tracing paper to transfer my outline sketch onto my watercolor paper. And how I finish refining my drawing so that I can move on to the pen and ink process. See you there. 6. Transferring Sketch: With my drawing finished, it is time to move on to the transferring process. Once we're happy with our sketch, it is time to prepare our outline drawing on our actual water color sheet so that we can move on to the penick process. What I'm doing is I am using a sheet of tracing paper. And you can feel free to use whichever transferring method you prefer, whether it's carbon paper or a light box or anything that you are more comfortable with that you enjoy using. I just like going with tracing paper. It's something that I always have in my studio and I like how I'm able to create that drawing on my tracing paper and I'm able to re, use it over and over and over again if I want to work on this piece more than once. So let me explain how I used tracing paper for my transferring throughout the entire process of my first drawing. I was using my HB pencil in order to keep my drawing nice and light and as clean as I could. But once I begin with my transferring process and I'm drawing over my tracing paper, I am using a two B pencil. A pencil that has softer graphite in its core than the HB. And the reason this is is because I have to deposit a good amount of graphite on my tracing paper in order for my transferring to happen. If I had continued using my HB pencil, which has harder graphite in its core, then I wouldn't be leaving too much graphite on my tracing paper as I traced over my drawing. And if I don't have enough graphite on my tracing paper, then the transferring is not going to happen because the way that we get our sketch transferred onto our watercolor paper is through pressing down the graphite that is on the tracing sheet onto the watercolor paper. If there is no graphite on our tracing sheet or there is just a very small amount of graphite on our tracing sheet, then we run the risk of not transferring anything at all or transferring a drawing that is very, very light or is missing plenty of sections. And this is why it's very important to use something like a two pencil or even a four B pencil when you're tracing over your drawing on your tracing paper. After I placed my tracing sheet over my drawing and of course I made sure that my entire drawing was covered with a tracing paper. I started tracing over all of my shapes and all of my line work that I can see through that tracing sheet. You shouldn't have any trouble seeing through your tracing paper. Of course, there are certain tracing papers that are thicker than others that allow you to see less through it, and there are other tracing sheets that are thinner and you're able to see through them way more easily. I've never had any issues with this tracing paper from Strathmore, but you can see how rough my lines are and my shapes are that I'm creating with this to be pencil over my tracing paper. I'm going over all of my lines and shapes two to three times in a relatively rough way. I'm not pressing down hard, I'm not trying to make holes through my tracing paper, but I am going over all of my lines and shapes multiple times and you can see how my lines are pretty rough. They're messy or feathery even. And that's okay. I'm not trying to create perfect, super clean lines that would defeat the purpose. If I just go over my lines and shapes once, then just a small amount of graphite will get deposited on the tracing paper by me going over all of my lines and shapes multiple times and being a little bit rough about the process, instead of trying to go in and create very clean single lines, I'm getting more of that graphite on my tracing paper, which is exactly what I want. Your drawing doesn't have to be perfect and super clean on your tracing paper. And you should be able to do this relatively quickly as you're doing all of this. It's normal if you have to re, sharpen your pencil once or twice because since you're being a little bit rough and going over everything multiple times, your pencil tip is probably going to become pretty blunt pretty fast. There's going to be time later to perfect our outline sketch before getting started with the pen and ink process. Whatever kind of transferring method you use, whether it's a light box or carbon paper or tracing paper or anything else, there is always going to be some amount of refinement of your drawing required before moving on to the next part of the process. Don't expect yourself to create a perfect transfer. Always expect that you're going to have to be doing a little bit more work after you do your transferring. All right? So I am done with that initial tracing on one of the sides of my tracing paper. And now I need to get graphite on the opposite side, because this is the side that is actually going to be coming into contact with my watercolor paper. So I need graphite on this side of my tracing sheet. If I have no graphite on this side of my tracing sheet, which is actually the side that is going to be coming into contact with my watercolor sheet, then nothing is going to get transferred. Because remember what I said, the way that the transferring happens is the graphite gets pressed down onto the watercolor sheet. So the face or the side of the tracing paper that is coming into direct contact with the watercolor sheet has to have graphite on it. If I'd be okay with doing my transferring in the opposite direction to what is actually happening in that photo. Meaning, if I wanted my final piece to be a flipped image or a mirrored image of what I'm seeing in that reference photo, then I would be fine because I can simply transfer it in the opposite direction. And I would be able to do that because I already have graphite on that side of my tracing paper that would be coming into direct contact with my water color sheet. But if I want my image to be in the same direction as what I am seeing in that reference photo, then there is no way around it. I need to also get graphite on the opposite side, and that's why I'm doing my second tracing. I flipped my tracing paper over and I'm going over my entire drawing again now observing those lines and shapes that I'm able to see through the tracing sheet and going over everything twice or three times very roughly. Again, something that's very important is make sure that you place your tracing paper over a blank sheet of paper. Because this time since you already have graphite on the opposite side and you're pressing it down onto that paper behind the tracing paper, you're going to be transferring your sketch. Of course, you're going to be transferring the mirrored or flipped version of what you actually want. But I definitely wanted to keep my first drawing intact. If you don't want to ruin that first drawing that you created, make sure to flip a page in your sketchbook, or you can always use a sheet of regular printing paper or another sheet of recycled paper. Place it behind your tracing sheet. And this way you won't accidentally transfer your drawing onto pages where you don't want to transfer it onto. All right. So I'm almost done with my second tracing. I'm still using my tub pencil by the way. So to be pencil has been used on both sides of my tracing sheet. Okay. So now I have graphite on both sides of my tracing sheet and I'm ready to do my transferring onto my sheet of watercolor paper. I taped down my watercolor sheet onto my black cutting mat with my regular three fourths of an inch masking tape. And then what I did was I placed my tracing paper over my watercolor paper in the direction that I want to do my transferring in. And I taped down the top two corners of my tracing paper down onto my cutting mat with a couple of small pieces of masking tape as well. This way I can make sure that the tracing sheet won't be moving around As I'm doing my transferring, just tape down the upper two corners and not the bottom two corners so that I can lift up my tracing paper as I go so that I can make sure that I'm not missing any important lines or shapes. I still have a to be pencil on hand and what I'm doing is I'm going over all of my line work one last time. You can see how I'm continuing to go in with pretty rough lines. I continue going over everything multiple times. Because if I just go over things once, then I'm not going to really be pressing down too much of that graphite to do my transferring. I'm not pressing too hard, but I am going in firmly so that I can make sure that I'm pressing down that graphite on the opposite side. I don't want to press down so hard that I start making holes in my tracing paper and I start scratching and damaging my water color sheet. Because that damage, I will not be able to take back the opposite side of my tracing sheet. The one that is coming into direct contact with my watercolor paper has graphite on it. And as I'm going over everything and I am pressing down with my to be pencil, some amount of that graphite on the opposite side is going to get pressed down and transferred onto my sheet of watercolor paper. Something I do want to mention is the more textured your watercolor paper is, it's just a lot more likely that your transferring will come out a lot lighter than if you are doing your transferring onto smoother paper. And this has to do with the tooth or the texture of the paper. Not allowing you to fully press down that graphite onto it in a uniform way. The more textured the paper is, the less uniform that surface is. So when you press down that graphite onto it, it's going to get transferred in a way that is not that uniform, which leads to a lighter drawing or a lighter transfer. Personally, I don't mind this too much because I do want to make sure that the drawing on my watercolor paper is very light. Because I do want to erase out all of that pencil work once I'm done with my pen and ink. And I'm also going to be perfecting some lines and doing refinement shapes. Once I'm done with my transferring, remember to sharpen your pencil as needed as you're moving through this transferring process. The pencil tip is probably going to become pretty blunt pretty fast. All right? I'm all done with my transferring and you can see how I ended up with a very light drawing and this is because I'm using paper that is pretty textured. However, I am perfectly able to see all of my main shapes and lines. At this point, I'm just going to be working on refining my sketch. So for this, because I am drawing directly on my water color sheet and I want to make sure that my drawing ends up pretty light and clean. I switch on over to using my HB pencil. Again, I don't want to use my softer pencil grade on my water color sheet because all I'm going to be doing is getting a lot of soft graphite on my water color sheet. And I can start smudging too much graphite on my watercolor paper, which can later on affect the vibrancy of my watercolor washes. Make sure that you switch on over to your HB pencil to do any drawing that you might need to do on your water color sheet. You can see me go over all of my main shapes and lines, making those lines a little bit darker. And perhaps completing little sections which didn't get transferred properly. I'm also going to be adding in some final details that I hadn't added into my drawing before, such as the little light bulbs hanging from that wire or cable in front of the bar. I'm going to be doing a better job withdrawing the letters. I'm going to be adding in those horizontal lines for the wood texture in front of the bar, which as you can see, I didn't even really transfer lines in the vent at the top of the bar, et cetera. There are some details like that that I would just rather as straight on my water color sheet. As you move along with your practice, you might find that you just end up transferring the very basic general shapes. You can transfer that and freehand draw everything else that you're missing, your smaller shapes and details right on your watercolor sheet. Same thing with the pen and ink you might find as you continue with your practice that the less transferring you have to do and the more you can go in right away and just draw those smaller shapes and details with pen and ink without having to draw them with pencil first. But in the beginning, I would highly recommend going through this process, especially because ink is permanent once it's laid down on paper. There is no taking that back. And there is no better way to really plan for those texts, those details, even those letters that you're going to be adding than going in with pencil first. And I know that this process might seem tedious or very time consuming to you, but I promise you that you're going to get so much more out of going through all of these phases and you're likely going to arrive at much better results than if you had just gone straight into the watercolor sheet and started drawing. And I know that you see a lot of very skilled and very experienced artists that do pen and wash type of work where you see them go straight onto the watercolor sheet and create a great sketch that shows believable perspective and three D form and all these things. And they very easily, seemingly go into their watercolor washes. But the thing is that they have a lot of experience with this kind of piece and they already have a great eye for composition developed. So they know what looks good and what doesn't look good. Not to mention, most likely than not, lots of the videos that you're seeing are very sped up and they have certain sections cut out of the videos, so you're not seeing the entire length of the process that it actually took them to create the piece on hand. So just keep that in mind and know that you're still building up skills. Very likely if you're a beginner. Through this process and over time, once you have more practice, you have more of an understanding of three, form and perspective, and composition. You're going to be able to skip certain parts of this process. Okay, I'm almost done. I'm going to take my needed eraser. All I'm doing is some gentle tapping over some of my pencil work to clean up some sections where the lines look a little bit too feathery or lightning sections that look a little bit too dark. Just to finish up my pencil drawing, I'm going to be adding some final details that I haven't added in. And I'm also going to be redrawing those letters. I definitely want to make sure that I know what I'm going to be doing for all of the letters before going in with my pen and ink. Right here, you're going to see me make some corrections in this sign where we see the name of the bar. And I'm adding in that curved line again at the bottom so that I can add in the since 1948 phrase that I hadn't added in before. That is another change that I made in that sign. Instead of having it be right in the middle, I'm adding it at the bottom. I also redraw some of the letters in the windows on either side of the door, and I will be adding in more letters and phrases into the windows later. When I do, I'll make sure to add them in with pencil first before switching on back to my pen and ink. Right here, I am finally adding in those little light bulbs hanging down from the cable that is running across the piece here. I just add in a couple of little shapes, a little triangle and a little circle at the bottom for each light, making sure that I'm leaving a relatively equal or same distance between each one of my little light bulb shapes. And I'm also going to be adding in those horizontal lines for the wood wall in front of this bar. There are certain details like these lines and the little shapes for the light bulbs and also the letters even which I just like adding straight onto the water color sheet because transferring them is just a little bit too complicated. And there are even more details and textures and shading that I'm going to be adding in right away straight with my pen and ink. There are certain decisions that I allow myself to make once I have seen a little bit more development in this piece, especially with the pen and ink work that is coming up next. See, I don't even finish the shapes for the little light bulbs. I just wanted to decide what combo of shapes or lines I would be using. And I make the decision to just add them in straight away with the pen and ink. And that is it for this class on transferring using tracing paper. We're now going to be moving on to the next part of this process where we're going to be working on the pen and ink. 7. Pen + Ink Drawing: All right, my friend, we're finally getting into the pen and ink process. So the objective with this pen and ink process is to, A, define edges of our main shapes. B, we're going to be adding more detail and texture and we're going to be doing some quick shading as well, using hatching, especially in darkest shadow areas that we see in that photo. And what I get started with is with defining my edges of all of my important shapes in my drawing. I start by carefully tracing over all of my pencil work and you can feel free to make your way from larger shapes towards smaller shapes or from left to right if you're right handed, like myself or opposite to that if you are left handed. Or you can also make your way from top to bottom, whatever you're more comfortable with and whatever is going to help you avoid smudging your drying ink. You can see how I am bringing in an extra sheet of tracing paper to place under my hand so that I can make sure that I'm not smudging my graphite that I have on my watercolor paper or any of the ink that I'm going to be placing. That's something else that you can do To avoid smudging your graphite or your pen, Use that extra sheet of tracing paper and place it under your hand. As you're moving along in whatever direction it is that you're going to be working toward. Just make sure that you're careful. Your ink should dry pretty quickly. Whether I'm using my pigment liners from Stadler or my micron pens or these uni pin fine liners, the ink is pretty dry in less than a minute. I've never really had any issues with smudging, but it's just worth staying mindful throughout the process and being careful in those areas that you've just worked in. In this part of the process, I tend to jump around the entire piece and I just stay mindful of where that ink might still be a little bit too fresh. Aside from this, something that is key is making sure that you're keeping it moving, you're keeping it flowing, and that you're not staying stuck in any specific area or element in the piece. This is important because if you spend too long in one single area trying to make everything super perfect, your lines are likely going to end up looking very stiff. And you want to avoid creating stop and start marks in these lines that you are laying down. It's preferable to have little imperfections in your lines, slight wobbles. Or even have lines be a teeny tiny bit crooked. Then having super perfect lines that are way too stiff. You move too slowly. You can also run the risk of creating stop and start marks, little dots where that ink flows down the nib of your pen. Because you stopped and you're hesitating, keep your lines flowing. You don't have to move super fast, but make sure that you're keeping it moving. Don't worry too much about little imperfections and little mistakes. Because oftentimes when it comes to pen and wash pieces like this, those little imperfections actually add interest and personality to the piece. As I am continuing to trace over my pencil work, I am making sure to bring to mind which elements or objects are overlapping, other elements or objects. Because pen and ink is permanent and you don't want to trace over sections of shapes that wouldn't really be visible because there's another object in front of it covering up that section of that shape or that edge. Before getting started with a new element or object, I take a quick little break and I notice what is in front of what, and I take note when I need to stop that line. Something that I'm always making sure to do as I'm moving along is arriving at line weight variation. I'm trying to stay away from the look of coloring book pages or a cartoony style where my outlines are super thick, super stark looking. And where there is only one same thickness and line weight all throughout the piece, because that is going to lead to flatness. Think of coloring book pages and how in coloring book pages there is only one thickness and one level of darkness all throughout all of those lines making up that image. There is only one single thickness, one single line weight. And what we're trying to do here is we're trying to develop line weight variation in all of our lines and marks. Meaning we want certain sections of our lines and marks to be thinner and lighter and other sections to be thicker and darker. You can see how I am oftentimes approaching these lines. In sections or segments. Sometimes those lines are not even connecting, which helps me create less of an outlining look. Also by making sure that I'm keeping it moving, certain sections are going to be lighter and even more tapered, while other sections are going to be thicker and a little bit darker. Another thing that you can practice manipulating or changing as you're moving along is the angle that you're using your pen at. If you are using more of an upright 90 degree angle or perpendicular angle from your page, more ink is going to flow down the tip of your pen, creating darker, thicker lines. Whereas if you use a different angle, let's say more of a 30 degree angle, 35 degree angle from your paper, Less ink is going to flow down the tip of your pen, which is going to lead to thinner, lighter lines, or even broken lines. Instead of always using your pen with one single angle, practice shifting and changing the angles that you're using your pens at. Another thing that can have a great impact on how thick and bold your lines end up looking is the pen tip size itself that you choose to use. As I said, I am using a 0.5 tip size, which is pretty medium, I would say. But when I was first getting started with pen and ink, I tended to reach for a very large tip size, something like a 0.8. And larger tip sizes in and of themselves are going to lead to thicker, bolder lines. Whereas if you go for something like a 0.1 or a 0.3 the lines and marks that you create are going to be thinner and lighter. Nowadays, I much prefer smaller to medium pen tip sizes. Okay. So you can see how I just went in with my pen and ink and started drawing those little shapes that I have chosen to draw the little light bulbs. I am now adding more detail around the sign in front of the bar. You can see how I just added an extra set of lines around the ellipse that I had already drawn. So I'm just following that shape that I had already created. And now I go in to draw those letters. See how I am using the letters that I had previously created with pencil as guides. I am now going in with my pen and ink and drawing bubble letters around those regular letters that I had created in pencil. I always make sure to decide what kind of handwritten lettering I'm going to be using for each word before going in with my pen and ink. Bubble letters are going to have a heavier visual weight than regular letters. Larger letters are going to have a heavier visual weight than smaller letters. And capital letters are going to have a heavier visual weight than lower case letters. So I want to make sure that the first thing that we see is the name of the bar. Whenever I am deciding on the type of letters that I'm going to be bringing into all of these signs, I always give thought to visual hierarchy. So where do I want to pull the viewer's attention toward first? Or what do I want them to read first? And what do I want them to read next? Whatever words I want them to read first, those letters need to have a heavier visual weight than letters or words that I want them to read after. Notice how I am approaching these long lines in the front of the bar. In sections there are little sections where these lines are not even connecting. This makes the process of drawing those long lines easier for me. Then I'm going to start adding in some of these letters which are secondary. They're not as important as the name of the bar, for example. And I just add them in with regular letters only. I'm making them all capitals. I'm not going to be using bubble letters in those words because there is not enough space. And also, I don't want these words to compete with the main letters and words which are in the main sign that has the name of the bar. Once I was done with that, it was time to move on to doing some alternative shading. All I want to do is add in a little bit of a shadow effect. So a darker midtone in dark shadow areas that I'm able to observe in that reference photo. I choose to do this with hatching. Hatching is one of the many alternative shading techniques that we can use along with cross hatching, scribbling, stippling, and others that can help us develop a range of values in our pieces in order to create a believable sensation of shadow and light and depth. Hatching involves laying down groups of straight parallel lines and the angle that you create with your straight lines. Doesn't have to be exactly the angle that I am using. You can pick any angle as long as those lines are parallel and you keep a consistency within that group of lines, make sure that as you're filling in those shadow areas, you're keeping it consistent in terms of angle and as much as possible, try to keep the space between your lines consistent as well. Right here I go back to using my pencil to add in some of these letters and words before tracing over them with my pen and ink. I made sure to add in the live music lettering in the little blackboard sign in front of the bar. Once I'm done with these letters, I'm going to finish up by adding a few more details and a little bit more alternative shading. I'm going to be drawing in a few short vertical lines in between the long horizontals that I already created in the front of this bar. And this is just to communicate that wood texture better. And I'm also going to be creating that brick texture in the building to the right in just a bit. You're going to see me continue with my hatching to develop some more shading in darkest areas in this piece. This is a mixed media piece where I'm going to be combining pen and ink and water color. And whenever we're working on a mixed media piece, it's so important not to overdo it with both mediums or however many different mediums it is that you're going to be bringing in, give some thought to how much you want to be doing with pen and ink and how much you're going to be doing with water color. If you do too much with both, the piece is going to look overly described and overdone when we're going for a somewhat loose, expressive, fresh looking piece. So I do decide to bring in some amount of hatching to really push those darkest areas in the piece. But I'm just going to be adding this shading in those deepest shadow areas. The rest of my value development or my shading is going to be done via water color. This way I can ensure that I won't be doing too much with both mediums. Right here, you're going to see me switch on back to my pencil to create a few lines on this building to the right before drawing in the little shapes or lines that are going to help me convey that brick texture. This is important because those lines that I am creating right now would converge at that vanishing point in the center of the piece. And it's important that I'm able to visualize those converging lines when I add in those bricks. Remember how I said before, how everything that you draw in these walls of these buildings on either side of the bar, because this is a side plane, you need to use those converging lines. Especially if you're drawing elements like windows where you would have straight horizontal lines. If you were standing in front of that wall, anything that would be a straight horizontal line would actually turn into a converging line. Notice how I'm creating these lines and shapes very loosely and I'm making sure that they are not too organized or to pattern me. It is not my intention to fill up the entire wall with bricks and I don't want to describe too much, so I'm constantly taking breaks and seeing everything as a whole and making sure that I don't go overboard with the bricks that I'm adding in. Judge, I also don't want to add too much detail to the secondary building because I don't want it to distract from the focal point, which is the bar. I do a little bit more hatching in other shadow areas. For example, right below the awning, above the door, right below the benches, and right beneath that live music sign in front of the bar, the wall of the building on the left, a little bit too empty to me and I want to balance things out a little bit more. So I observed that reference photo four ideas. I notice that that building has some straight vertical lines in its design. So I just start filling in this shape of this building wall with long vertical lines. If you feel more comfortable drawing these lines in pencil, first, by all means you can go ahead and do that. I make sure to skip over the little lights that are hanging in front of the main focal point bar here. You can see how as I make my way back toward the back of the building, I add in these lines more and more quickly. And that helps me create lighter, thinner lines. I allow everything to dry for around 5 minutes. Then what I do is I use my soft graphite eraser to go over the entire thing so that I can remove all of that graphite work. I does stuff those eraser bits with one of my dry towels that I use for water coloring instead of using my hand, because this way I can avoid getting any hand oils on my water color sheet. And then just to finish up, I decide to go in with a few extra lines right beneath some of these lines that I've created for the wood texture in front of the bar. These are just a few extra lines that I'm adding right along some of these lines that I've already created, which are going to help me communicate a little bit of a sense of shadow beneath these pieces of wood. It helps add a little bit more detail and interest, and visual weight to this focal point, which is the bar facade. If after having worked on your watercolor washes, you want to go in and add more details with pen and ink, you can certainly do so. Of course, you have to make sure that everything has completely dried. And I would recommend not going overboard with the detail. Less is more. Always take breaks and come back to see the composition as a whole and ask yourself if more detail is really necessary. And with that, I'm all done with my pen and ink work. Take as long as you need with this part of the process. I look forward to seeing you in the next class where we're going to be choosing our colors and swatching them out before getting started with the watercolor washes. See you there. 8. Swatching Colors + Painting Tips: Welcome. It's so important to know what colors you're going to be using, what you're going to be creating a painting this way you can avoid unnecessary accidents, muddiness, and you can ensure a more harmonious and cohesive final result. I'm going to be swatching out all of my colors for you on a scrap piece of watercolor paper so that you can see what they look like on paper. And choose whichever colors you have available that are most similar to mine. I want to encourage you to stay loose. I want to encourage you to use larger brushes. As a rule of thumb, I like using the largest brush that I feel I can get away with for the area on hand. So as long as your brush comes to a nice fine tip, you can use a medium sized brush to paint in smaller areas. And the reason why I say this is it's important to work relatively quickly if we're looking for fresher, more expressive results. It's very important that we just keep it moving, keep it flowing. We want to avoid getting stuck in specific areas and continuing to too much with our paint in any specific area. If you do that, you might end up with results that are not as fresh and loose. Also, you can even start overworking your piece and overworking your paper and you don't want to do that. We're going to be painting wet on dry throughout this entire piece. Many of these areas that we're going to be painting are just going to be painted with one single layer. Because we're going to be painting wet on dry. We do have to remember that dry paper is thirsty paper, when we paint on dry paper, things dry very quickly, of course. How quickly or how slowly your paper starts drying on you. Going to depend on the specific type of paper that it is that you're using. Usually, more textured paper is going to absorb that paint and that water faster and smoother paper. But also even just the quality of the paper and whether it's 100% cotton or not, is going to have an impact on how quickly that paper starts absorbing that paint and that water when it's been placed on it. But another thing is the environment that you're working in. If you're in a warm environment, a cold environment, a humid or dry environment, if you have a fan on a heating system on, you have to remember that all of these things have an impact on how quickly things dry throughout the process. And also of course, because of this on your end, results always before starting to paint with water color, just take a note of the specific environment that you are in in that given day. Because of course, the environment changes day by day. Take some notes and continue remembering throughout the process that perhaps it is worth, you know, turning off that fan or spending a little bit longer in that first layer So that you can then drop in a little bit more color to get soft, diffused out effects while that initial layer is still wet. Or perhaps making sure that you're using a larger brush that can really allow you to load up a good amount of paint and water in those bristles so that you can go in and paint nice and quick. It's so important that before jumping into any new area, you use your critical thinking skills to acknowledge the size of the area, the effects that you want for the area on hand, et cetera, so that you can arm yourself with the right tools, the right paint brush sizes. Make sure that you've prepared yourself a good amount of paint mixture, that you have it ready to go on your color mixing palette so that you can load up your paint brush nice and quick. Make sure that the consistency of your color mixtures is what you needed to be and all of these things. Because if you just start right in without thinking, that's oftentimes when the big mistakes come in that are very difficult to correct or make less noticeable. With all that said, let me go ahead and share my specific colors that I'm going to be using with you. To begin, I have cobalt blue. This is the blue that I'm going to be using for my sky. And it looks like this. Another color that I'm going to be using quite a bit in combination with other colors in order to create darker versions of other colors is Pains gray, which is a cool biased gray. Pains Gray looks like this. Making sure to clean my pain fresh bristles out between colors so that I don't contaminate the next one. Another blue that I'm going to be using is Antwerp blue. This is the blue that I'm going to be using a lot of in the actual bar. And I'm going to mix in some paints, gray into it, to mute it down, darken it a little bit more, but Antwerp blue is a bright blue, just like how in the drying phases for this piece. I changed things and I used my artistic license and brought more of myself into the piece. I am also making sure to do this as I am choosing colors. I am choosing colors that I feel work well together. I am keeping my color scheme limited to a certain amount of colors in order to make sure that things look harmonious and integrated at the end. And I am changing the color of the bar itself, I am going to make it a lot bluer and a lot darker than how it appears in the reference photo. So this is all to say. Bring yourself into your color selection as well. Bring in your knowledge of color theory and composition. And also think of the mood, message, idea, or story that you're trying to communicate. Make choices, make decisions. Don't just copy what you see in the reference photo. This is in time going to help you continue developing your very own artistic style and voice. And that is what I want for you. Antwerp blue is a little bit unnatural for the sky, so that's why I chose to use cobalt blue for the sky. Aside from these, I'm going to be using some Windsor lemon for the teeny tiny light bulbs are hanging in front of the buildings. I'm going to be dropping in little, teeny tiny blooms of my Windsor lemon with a small brush, while the color of my buildings is still wet. So that I can get those nice, diffused out soft effects in my little light bulbs. Moving on from there, the red stripes for my awning are going to be painted in with pal scarlet. Pal scarlet is a warm red, it looks like this. Aside from these colors, I have a couple of more neutrals that I'm going to be bringing in, A lighter brown and a slightly darker reddish brown. As you can see, I've been making sure to keep my cool colors separate from my warm colors on my mixing palette. And this is so that they don't start intermixing and turning into brown saturated colors. When cool colors start mixing with warm colors, or complementary colors, meaning opposites in the color wheel, start mixing together. You start getting a saturated color. Or maybe even a brown or a gray, depending on how much of those two colors are in the mixture. You start the saturating or muting down your colors. If you want bright colors, make sure that you're keeping things organized on your mixing palette and that you're cleaning up your papers bristles well in between your different colors. Okay, so I'm going to be bringing in a couple of browns and I'm going to be preparing my brown color mixtures over here, because I don't want my browns to start intermixing with my warm or my cool colors. So I'm just going to use this extra area over here. First, I have some raw sienna. This is a light Beijing golden brown. It can be easily replaced with a yellow ochre. If you don't have the raw sienna looks like this. Let me go ahead and swatch it for you. Finally, I'm going to be bringing in burnt sienna, which is a reddish brown. This is what burnt sienna looks like right there. It's a reddish, medium brown. That's going to be super helpful for the brick wall in this building over here. These are all of the colors that I'm going to be bringing in. Honestly, I don't need anything else. I will be creating color mixtures with these. Of course, for example, I will be mixing these two together to create a darker, more muted blue for the front wall of the main bar, the main building here. I will be mixing my burnt sienna with my gray as well to create a darker version of my burnt sienna for shadow areas. I also will be adding in a little bit of paints gray into my raw sienna in order to create darker values for my benches. In other words, the raw sienna is going to be the base local color for my benches. And then in order to develop some darker shadow areas, darker values in some sections of those benches, I'm just going to be adding a tiny bit of my paints gray into the raw sienna. In order to create a darker version of the raw sienna, I'm going to be mixing together pains gray and burnt sienna to paint the sidewalk and the street. I'm going to be using a mixture of the cobalt blue and the paints gray for this building over here. As you can see, I will be using the paints gray a lot to create darker versions of different colors by just adding in a little bit of the paints gray into the mixture. With that, we can go ahead and get started with the painting process. I'm going to make sure to change my water before jumping in. In our next class, we're going to be starting by painting those large areas and large shapes. We're then going to be moving on to painting medium sized and smaller shapes. And after that, we're moving on to painting some extra details. See you in the next class. 9. Painting Large Washes: Okay, we're ready to get started with the painting process. We're working large to small, which means that we're starting with those large areas and shapes. So the first thing that we're going to be painting is the sky area, As I said, that's going to be painted with cobalt blue. I'm going to make sure to create a good puddle of plain cobalt blue with water added in. As I'm creating this cobalt blue color mixture, I want to make sure that there is a good amount of water in it, but also a good amount of color as well. I am going for something between the T like to coffee consistency. If you've checked out my water color one oh one course, then you're already well aware of the four main consistencies that we use when painting with water color. What I'm going for right here is to coffee so that I can load up my paint brush bristles well and paint this area nice and quick. If you go in with a color mixture that is super dry or that has more paint than water in it, likely going to have trouble loading up your paint brush bristles well, so that you can go in and paint nice and quick. Along with my cobalt blue, I also want to create a little bit of a Windsor lemon little puddle over here. Because once I paint the sky, because a couple of little light bulbs are on that section, I'm going to change on over to my size three round brush and I'm going to take some yellow and create some little blooms for that glowing light effect. If I don't drop in the yellow, while the blue is still wet, I'm not going to get a bloom. And this is why it's so important to have that Windsor lemon puddle on your palette, ready to go. My puddle of Windsor lemon is a little bit thicker than the color mixture that I am using. For my sky, I would say that the Windsor lemon is somewhere between the coffee to milk like consistency. Using my size six mop brush. This is a pretty large absorbent brush. I'm going to go in and swivel my paintbrush in this paint mixture to really load up my paintbrush bristles well with a good amount of paint and water in my bristles. I'm going to go in and paint nice and quick, All throughout this area. Learning to paint nice and quick is essential, and learning how to control your water and your brush is also essential. I live in a pretty warm and usually dry environment myself. I need to paint pretty quickly, especially when painting on dry paper. If I don't want things to start drying on me and have those sharp defined edges around these shapes that I am painting in. I'm going to switch on over to my size to brush nice and quick. Take some of my Windsor lemon and pop it in a couple of those light buls that are in the sky area. Now if you want to darken some sections of your sky, all you have to do is take a little bit more of your cobalt blue, add it into your mixture, and just drop it in your sky While that initial layer is still wet, everything is still wet and workable, so I can go in and drop in a little bit more color if I want to. If my sky had already started to dry, I wouldn't be dropping in more color. Okay. Once I have a good amount of color in my sky, if I want to go in and pull out a little bit of a cloud effect or simply remove some pigment from some areas, the bristles of my brush. Just use your brush as a little absorbent sponge to lift up some pigment. Essentially, I removed all of that blue from my paintbrush bristles, and I also made sure to remove that excess water in order to use my paintbrush bristles as a little absorbent sponge to do this lifting and the subtle cloud effect. Notice how much I am using my absorbent towel right there to my left to blot the bristles of my paintbrush on it and remove that excess water. If I go in with too much water in my paintbrush bristles to try to lift up some clouds, I am going to create back runs or splotchiness. Notice how I just dropped in the yellow and allow that yellow to do its own thing. It expanded out quite a bit because my blue was still pretty wet. If you drop in your yellow when your blue is already starting to dry, the yellow is not going to expand out as much, You're not going to see as much movement. But my blue is still pretty wet. So it expanded out quite a lot. I just left it. I didn't try to control it and try to bring in the yellow into the light bulb shape or anything like that. What I'm trying to create with my yellow blooms is just a little glow effect. I'm going to remove some of my excess paint and water that got on my masking tape over here. And I would recommend making sure that you are absorbing up any excess water and paint that collects along the edges of your piece. Because if you just leave it there, that can create little back runs along the edges of your painting. Things are drying relatively quickly for me in my current environment. So I can go ahead and start painting in these side buildings. Even though the sky is right there right next to them, the sky is already pretty dry, at least along the edges here. I'm not going to have any bleeding happening if I paint in my buildings. Not that there's anything wrong with bleeding. Look quite beautiful. But you just want to anticipate, right? Anticipate what's going to happen this way. You can actually plan when you want bleeding to happen and when you want to stay away from that effect. Okay, I'm going to change on over to my size 14 round brush. I think that this is a good size brush for this shape over here and also for this shape over here, for the brick wall of this building on the right. This building over here is going to be painted in with a mixture of cobalt blue and a little bit of pains gray. So I'm just going to add in a little bit of pains gray into this cobalt blue that I was just using for my sky. To darken it and mute it down just a bit. I don't want this blue to compete with the blue that I'm going to be using in the main building. I'm going to be using it pretty water down. I would still consider this a T to coffee like consistency because it has a little bit more water than paint in it. I have my size three round brush on hand so that I can quickly pop in a few bright yellow blooms right here. After I finish painting that blue wall, and I'm going to go ahead and load up my paintbrush bristle as well. Notice how I take my time absorbing a good amount of paint in my paint brush bristles, It's pretty loaded. And I'm just going to go in and paint this nice and quick If I feel that it's too dark or that it will compete too much with the blue in my bar. All I'm going to do, dip my paintbrush in my container of water and quickly run my paintbrush over this shape to soften the color. Just water in my bristles to paint this nice and quick if I want to achieve those yellow blooms. Because if things start drying on me, I'm not going to get the blooms nice and quick. Run my paint brush bristles over everything. If I want to soften the color, I can just go in with a clean, damp rush and soften that color a bit, and simultaneously keep it wetter for a little bit longer so that I can change on over to my small size three round. Take a little bit of my Windsor Lemon right on the tip there, and pop in a few bright yellow blooms there. Now, it's going to be time to paint in the brick wall over here. For that, I'm going to be preparing some burnt sienna. You can see how my initial burnt sienna puddle is dry on my palette. I need to reactivate that, create more of that color mixture or enough for me to be painting this next shape quickly. I'm going again for a tea of coffee like consistency, I want a good amount of water in this mixture. This is still my size 14 round. I'm going to load up a good amount of paint in my bristles and I'm going to go in and paint nice and quick. This is a little bit harder because I have to work around the little windows. And you can leave teeny tiny sections or shapes of paper shining through if you want to. That is going to create the illusion of little highlights. It's not like we're coloring a coloring book page. We're not really going for flat, even perfectly filled in shapes here. When we're painting with water color, we're looking for at least a slight range of values in all these areas that we're painting in. And you can even leave teeny tiny shapes like these free of color if you want to. And they're going to look like little highlights. Okay, I need to stop what I'm doing here and switch to my other brush, my size three round, in order to create those little bright yellow blooms. Quickly changing to my size three round brush, taking a little bit of my Windsor lemon and popping that in while the brown is still wet. This one here as well, I just skipped over the ones that are on the window shapes because I'm going to be painting those in later when I actually paint in the windows. Okay. So I'm going to be painting this roof section right here or underneath the roof, I should say. And I'm going to be painting that in with gray. If I leave it white like that, it's not really going to make sense because that plane is facing away from the light. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to add in some planes gray into my burnt sienna that I was just using. And I'm going to create a darker, almost grayish version of my burnt sienna. Okay, so this looks like a darker or chocolate brown when you mix in that grey into the burnt sienna. Doesn't really matter what blacker grade is that you're using, you're going to end up with something similar to this, a darker version of the burnt sienna. And I'm going to be using my size ten round brush because this is a smaller shape, trying to avoid painting in that narrow edge that I did slightly paint over with my blue accidentally. But that's okay, I can do gentle scrubbing and lifting later I painted in that shape. Then if I want to darken a little bit, I can just add in a little bit more paints gray into the mixture, darken it more, drop in a little bit of my even darker brown to create a little bit of a value range in that shape. That's it, because I was painting the sky pretty quickly. You can see how I got some blue along that edge that I wanted to leap white. That kind of thing is honestly to be expected when you're painting nice and quick like we're doing right now. I can just go in at the end and do some gentle scrubbing and lifting once everything is completely dry and I'll probably be able to lift up some of that blue from that white little edge shape before starting to paint in the front wall of the bar. I'm going to go ahead and change my water. I don't want this murkiness to affect the color that I'm going to be placing next. Okay. With my clean container of water with me, I'm going to start creating the blue that I'm going to be using in the front wall. This bar right here on my palette, I have a mixture of cobalt blue and pines gray. What I'm going to be using for the bar is Antwerp blue plus pines gray. For teaching purposes, I like keeping things nice and clean and really showing you what specific colors look like or what mixtures of specific colors look like. Which is why I take my time to clean out my palette. If I feel I don't have enough space, feel free to just add in whatever blue it is that you've chosen for your bar into your cobalt blue plus gray color mixture. If there is a little bit of cobalt blue in your mixture, that's fine. Just make sure to test out your color mixture on a scrap piece of water color paper before starting to paint to make sure that there is a difference between this blue over here for this building and this blue that you're going to be using over here. Because as I said, I don't want these two buildings to start merging together visually. Antwerp blue paints gray. This is Antwerp blue right here. I want a good amount of this color mixture, bright blue. Can I add in some pains gray, more water. Go into the pains gray. Swivel my pain, brush in there to reactivate the pains gray. And bring out some pains gray into my mixture. A little bit more Antwerp blue. Let's see what this looks like. Looks like a pretty nice blue for the front of the bar. Perhaps a little bit more of my paints gray. I'm going for a coffee consistency here, not super water down. I like that I have a good amount of this puddle on my palette so that I can make sure that I don't run out of color mixture as I'm making my way through the front wall of the bar. Another color that I want to make sure that I have ready to go is a little bit of Windsor Lemon. The Windsor lemon can definitely be more of a coffee to milk like consistency. It doesn't have to be as watered down and to paint in the bar. I'm going to go back to that I was using for my sky, it's at shape. As I said before, I like making sure that I'm going in with the largest brush that I feel I can get away with. For the area on hand, I load up a good amount of this Antwerp blue plus paints, gray color mixture. And I'm going to go right in. Nice and quick. I'm going to try to avoid the windows, I'm going to leave little, teeny tiny high light shapes just to help enhance that wood texture. I just want to go in with one single layer and I haven't reloaded my brush. I'm going to make sure to go back to the place where I started as I'm painting the sin in order to achieve those blooms. I have my size three round brush on hand with me because I want to paint in those blooms. Before this dries, I'm going to quickly switch on over to my size three round. Take a little bit of my Windsor lemon pop in those blooms. If I don't do this now, things are going to start drying on me and I'm not going to the blooms that I want. Okay. Continuing where I left off, and thankfully the edge didn't dry on me here. But if it had started to dry, I just embrace those little imperfections. And do remember that water color is going to dry lighter than how it looks when it's wet. And I do want this front of this bar to look darker. Taking a little bit more paint. A few little teeny tiny high lights. And I'm going to paint in the shapes along the sides of the door in just a bit. I'm going to approach those separately. Hopefully, you saw how much I could paint with just one single paint brush load. And that is it for my first layer, a little teeny tiny drop of water flew out of my container when I was swiveling my paintbrush. And you can see that bloom that I created accidentally right there. That's fine. I'm just I'm going to leave it alone. Sometimes those little imperfections that happen along the way create more points of interest throughout your piece. They end up giving more personality to the piece. I want to encourage you to embrace those little imperfections that happen along the way. I'm going to be painting in those smaller dark blue sections along the left and right of the door in just a bit. But first I'm going to continue painting those larger washes, those larger areas, before moving on to the smaller areas and smaller shapes. So I'm going to move on to painting the sidewalk and the street right beneath it. And the sidewalk and the street portion beneath it are going to be painted with a mixture of panes gray and burnt sienna. And I already started using this mixture to paint in this bottom plane of the roof over here. So I can just work right here. Of course, you can see how it's all dry on my palette right now, but that's fine. I'm just going to reactivate it and create a little bit more of the same color mixture. Burke, sienna to gray out and darken it. I'm going to add in some of my paints gray until I arrive at a grayish brown looking color. If you add more of your black or gray into your mixture, it's going to look more gray. If you add more brown into your color mixture, it's going to look like a darker brown. This is for the sidewalk. I do want to look a little bit grayer than brown again. You can see how I am making sure to create a good amount of this because this is a large area that we're going to be painting. I'm looking for a coffee consistency, tiny bit more brown. All right, there you go. Let me swatch it out for you so you can see what this looks like. You can see how it's a grayish color. A little bit of a warmer gray because I mixed in so much of that burnt sienna, which is a warm brown, reddish brown into the cray. I'm going to be using my large mop brush for this. Again, to paint this area. Nice and quick, load up a good amount of this color mixture in my paint brush bristles and I'm going to work left to right just because I'm right handed. And that's what comes a little bit more easy for me. I'm just going to avoid painting in the benches. I want to take care of all of the large shapes initially, and then we'll deal with the smaller shapes and elements. Taking a little bit more, I was able to paint an approximately half of this entire shape, just one paint brush load. I achieved that by making sure that my color mixture was what I needed it to be, that it had a good amount of both paint and water in it, and also that I was using an appropriate brush for this large area. Okay. Almost done. All right. Perfect to clean up the edges here. If you have something like this happening where you see a little bit of texture or a line, just leave it be, allow it to dry later on. If you want to make it less noticeable with a second layer of gray or by going in with a tiny bit of gentle scrubbing with a slightly damp brush, you can go in and soften that. I want to really encourage you to for the time being. Oftentimes that kind of imperfection is going to look a lot less noticeable at the end, after everything has dried. Because remember that water color looks lighter w it has dried. And if you go into something like that and try and fix it while that paint is still wet or damp, you're probably going to end up making things even worse, even splotchy. And you can end up creating back runs and things like that by going into paint that is drying. So don't be a perfectionist and try to be patient. Know when to keep working and when to stop. Okay, so I'm going to paint in these smaller shapes, either side of the door. For that I'm definitely going to need a smaller brush than the one that I've been using. I'm going to go in with my size ten round brush and I still have some amount of this blue color mixture right here on my palette. So I'm just taking a good amount of this. I'm going in and painting nice and quick. There are also a couple of little shapes under the benches that I should paint in the same color because they're also part of the front wall. So I'm going to paint those into right here and right here. With that, I'm all done with painting those larger washes. Let's move on to the next phase where we're going to be tackling those medium sized and smaller shapes. 10. Painting Medium + Small Shapes: Now that we've painted those larger washes and they've dried, let's go ahead and paint those medium size and smaller shapes. I'm going to go ahead and start painting in the windows, the dark portion of the windows where there is glass, and you can see into the bar and also the doorway for those areas. I'm going to be using my grayish brown color that I was just using for my sidewalk. I don't need a because these shapes are a lot smaller than the sidewalk. But it's that warm gray that I was using for a little bit of a light effect. I'm going to be using my raw sienna. Instead of going with the super bright Windsor lemon, I'm going to go with the raw sienna here. I'm going to paint in these shapes with my size 14 round brush. First, going in with gray painting in the windows. And I'm going to leave little shapes left unpainted. The paper is left shining through to create a little highlights in windows or the glass portion of the windows, I should say. I removed all of the gray from my paint brush bristles and I'm going to go in with some raw sienna, just dropping it in to create a little bit of a light effect in the windows. Okay, Going in with my gray color mixture. Brownish gray. You can see how I'm not using my gray in a super thick dry state. This gray color mixture is pretty watered down. I would say it's like a teat of coffee consistency that I'm using. That's important because the darker the color that you're using, the easier it is to create very flat negative holes in your paintings. When working with water color, that's something that we're trying to stay away from that heaviness that very flat dark blocks of color create. I'm making sure to go in with my gray in a consistency that is going to be helpful for me going in with my rosen. Again, popping it in into this gray shape in a very irregular way to create a little bit of a light effect. I need to make a little bit more of this gray color mixture here for my doorway. Bert Sienna Pain gray, a little bit more of my pains gray so that it can be more similar to the gray that I was just using. Good amount of water in there so that it's not super dry and thick. I don't paint in stark, flat looking black shapes. And going in and painting in this shape, removing that gray from my paintbrush bristles and going in with some raw sienna. Popping it in there, remove that raw sienna from my paintbrush bristles. And I'm going in to paint in these little glass sections in the door. Remove that gray from my paint brush bristles. Remove that excess water going into my raw sienna and in a little bit of a light effect there, I'm going to be using this same color to paint in the windows of this building over here. I'm going to make more of this more of burnt sienna plus paints, gray mixture. If you want to pop in a little bit of a light effect into some of these windows, you can prepare a little bit more of your ciena or yellow ochre. I also want to have a little bit of my winsor lemon because I have a couple of little light bulbs that fall on this window and on this window over here. Start with the gray. I have my size three round brush on hand trying to avoid the white parts, the window I'm going to switch on. Over to my size three round brush. Take a little bit of my Windsor lemon in there. This little light bulb is actually on the frame of the window. Not much blooming is going to happen there because I painted it on dry paper. That's okay. It's just one to take a little bit more of my gray color mixture paint in this other window. Switching on over to my size three round brush to take a little bit of my Windsor lemon and pop it in there into those little light bulbs right there. Finally, the last window, this is becoming almost all water and no paint. I'm going to add in a little bit more paint into that, making sure not to go too thick. I'm going to paint in the bottom window. I'll be adding a little bit of raw sienna into this one. Remove that paint from my paint brush bristles. I'm going to remove a little bit. Lift up a little bit of this color. Just looked very dark. Just looked a little bit too dark, especially when I compared it to the windows on top. So I just removed a little bit of that color while it was still wet, going to pop in a little bit of my raw sienna. And there you go. All right, so there are a few things that I want to do here before moving on to painting. The benches and the awning and also the signs over here, order to develop some light gray values in the white stripes of the awning. And also along the windows here and here, in this white portion edge of the roof and also in the little vents. Maybe even along these windows, even in the sign. I don't want those to be completely flat white. What I'm going to do is I'm going to add in some light water down gray. Just develop some light gray values. I was just using this gray. I'm going to go in, add in a little bit more water into it to water it down more. Because I want to use it in a consistency. Right now I want to go in nice and light because these sections of elements that I'm going to be painting in right now are actually supposed to look white. They're painted white, or they're white objects. When we're painting white objects with water color, it's essential to go in very light with our color, very water down. And that you have plenty of that white paper shining through. Because when we're painting with water color, it's the whiteness and the brightness of the paper under the paint that stands in place for our high lights and our light local values. And white objects or elements have the lightest local value that you can possibly create because they're white. I'm going in super water down with my gray. And all I'm going to be doing, I'm going to start down here in a very irregular, loose way, just creating a little sense of gray values throughout the awning. You can see how I'm leaving paper shining through. I'm not going in and painting it in a perfect way or anything like that. I want to develop slight gray values in the sign, which is also mostly white. I want to develop some light gray values along the edges of these windows in painting in gray, also a Edge of the roof here. Just painting in some light gray, very loosely, taking in a little bit more of my water down gray. If you can't see the gray at all that you start painting in. Add in a little bit more paint into your color mixture just a bit and you can do a little bit of overlapping. Going to do a little bit of light gray here along the edges of these windows, these window frames not covering up the entirety of that white paper just a bit. And finally, the little vent right here, irregular, loose, keep some paper shining through unpainted, soften the edge right here. I'm going to leave that light gray to dry completely. And then I'm going to be painting in the right stripes and the awning and also the red edge around the sign here. And I can even go in later to darken more sections right here, especially along the roof and in these fence and other secondary places. Let's paint in the benches. I'm going to clean out a section of my palette here because I have a lot of this water down gray that I've just been using. And for the benches, I'm going to be using my raw sienna and a little bit of raw sienna plus pains Gray. For my shadow areas right here, this is just a puddle of raw Sienna. Right next to it, I'm going to create a puddle of raw Sienna plus a little bit of pains gray. A little bit of pains gray to darken. Oops, that's quite a bit to add more raw sienna into it, more raw sienna. When you're mixing different paint colors together, make sure that your color mixtures don't become too water down. The more colors you mix together, the easier it is to accidentally create color mixtures that are super water down. Because every single time you dip your paint brush in your container of water, you bring out at least a tiny bit of water into your color mix. If you're careful about removing that excess dripage from your paint brush bristles after you've swiveled your paint brush in your container of water. Even then, you're still bringing out a little bit of water into your color mixtures. When you're mixing colors together, make sure that your color mixture is not super water down. I would say that these are a coffee consistency right now that I'm going to be using. This is my base local color for my benches and this is the darker version of this local color that I'm going to be using in shadow areas or to develop a little bit of dimension in the benches. I think I'm going to go ahead and use my size ten round brush. I'm going to go in with my lighter color first, which is the plain Ross Sienna. I'm going to start with this one over here. Make sure that you keep coming back to that place where you started. If you want your shape to stay wet for longer so that you can then drop in your darker color while that initial layer is still wet. And can I use my artistic license here to drop in a little bit of a shadow color into some areas so that it's not just a flat value all throughout. That's one bench. That's one bench right there. Then to paint the other one, okay? Can paint in a little bit of a darker value, can absorb a little bit dropped in a little bit. Too much paint and water there. That is it for my benches. I'm going to make sure to create an even darker version of my raw sienna. Because the door is in shadow. It's not only beneath the awning, but it's also going into the bar where there is just less light. I'm going to make sure to prepare more of raw sienna and raw sienna, the gray. And you can see how this is darker than the one that I was using before. Because I added more panes, cray into it. I'm going to be painting in the door with my smallest brush because this is a pretty small shape. First I'm going in with my plan raw sienna all over the door except for the glass sections that I already painted in. Then I'm going to drop in a little bit of a shadow color, especially in the top part of the door and along the left edge of that door shape, which is the farthest section of the door away from us. All right, Now that this gray is completely dry, I can start painting in the red stripes of the awning. I'm first going to change my water because you can see how gray it looks. And I want these red stripes to be very vibrant and bright. All right, I'm using my size ten round brush to reactivate this red on my palette. This is pal scarlet. And I'm going to switch on over to my size three round brush because these are pretty small, narrow shapes right over the gray that I had already painted in. You can continue leaving little, teeny tiny sections of paper unpainted there it is. Now that I have activated the red on my palette, I'm going to continue using my size three round brush and my red to paint in the edge of this sign, I got a little bit of red in that white portion. I'm just going to quickly do a little bit of scrubbing and lifting. Just because that red and that section was already dry, it was okay to go in and do that. All right. I still need to paint in this sign gray. For the portion of the chalkboard, I need a little bit of my burnt sienna. For the wood section there, burnt sienna over here. I'm going to prepare burnt sienna plus paints gray. Okay, so I have my plane burnt sienna and burnt sienna with panes gray. Set it right here and I'm going to paint in the little sign with my size three round brush. First I'm painting in the lighter color of the two, which is the plane burnt sienna. I'm going to use this gray to paint in the docs bar lettering right there, so that I can give the burnt sienna in the sign a little bit of time to dry before painting in the gray in the chalkboard section. Because if I paint in that gray right now, it's going to start bleeding into the reddish brown because it's still wet. In the meantime, I'm going to switch on back to the main sign. I'm going to carefully paint in my bubble letters with my gray using my smallest brush. Another thing that I can do while this dries is I can use my gray color mix to paint in this front plane of the sidewalk and also the visible portion of the street. This is going to help us visually separate out the sidewalk from the street. Just going to switch on over to my size 14 round brush. Take some amount of this gray mixture from my palette. I'm going to paint this in, use some dry brushing, create a little bit of texture here. Notice how I am painting this in, in a very irregular way and I'm not going in and just trying to fill up these shapes at the bottom. There we go. I think the burnt sienna has dried. So I'm going to go in with my size three round and paint in the chalkboard section because I'm not using my gray in a super saturated thick state. The letters are still legible. We're all done painting those medium sized and smaller shapes. In our next class, we're going to be working on those final watercolor details. 11. Painting Details: Let's get started with the last part of the watercolor painting process in which we're going to be adding those final details. Another thing that I can do right now with the same gray is I can darken sections in those white parts that I had already started developing gray values in the awning. I'm going to leave as is. But for example, if I want to add in a little bit of a darker gray along the windows, give them a little bit more of a sense of dimension. A little bit more detail or right here along the top edge roof portion. Seeing these more as like shadow shapes that I am painting in right now with my gray. And I'm not trying to cover up the white shape or anything, I'm just adding a little bit more depth and detail into these areas. Right here, for example, I can add in a little bit of a darker value very loosely in between some of these sections in the vent. I'm expanding that range of gray values in these white areas while still leaving some white paper shining through. If I wanted to fix a little bit of this blue that I accidentally painted in, now that everything is dry over here, I can do it. I just go in with some very light scrubbing, with a clean, slightly damp brush to just lift up some of that color, whatever I'm not able to lift out, I just leave alone. There you go. At least I was able to soften it went a little bit outside of my bubble letter here in the sea. I'm going to soften that too. Doing a little bit more scrubbing very carefully. Right there along the sea where I went out of that shape. A little something that I want to do, for example, is add in a little bit more of that wood effect right here in the front wall of the bar. And I'm going to be doing that with a little bit of a darker version of the same color that I was using before. I'm going to create a little bit more of my An plus paints gray mixture right here on my palette. Going to add in a little bit more paints gray than it had before because I'm going to be creating a little bit of a shadow effect under those wood sections in that front wall. Now this consistency can be a little bit thicker than it was before. If I was using a to coffee consistency for my first layer, I can now use a coffee to milk like consistency in this second layer because I am looking to darken shadows. For this, I'm going to be using this three fourths of an inch flap rush. Because the shape of this brush is going to help me go in loosely and develop a little bit of a shadow effect very quickly and in an irregular way along the wooden sections of the wall. Instead of going in with a round brush and creating perfect lines by going in with this flat brush and lifting up my paint brush bristles up As I'm making my way toward the left or toward the right. I keep things very irregular and these end up looking more like abstract shadow shapes after they've dried than very stark looking lines that we can oftentimes create with a round brush. I'm making sure to skip over certain sections. I'm not adding in the shadow everywhere. Okay, that's enough. Can I be doing some of the verticals here? Just gently touching a section of my brush to some of those verticals that I created with my pen. I'm going to darken. A little bit along these lines right here that I created with my pen. I'm going to continue using my flat brush because it's going to help me create a little bit of a long shadow shape right here, right along these lines, darkening little shadow sections, softening the edge a little, just water in my brush. Another thing that I want to create is a little bit of a shadow shape under the benches. So I'm going to continue using my gray and developing a little bit of a shadow effect right under the benches, right here under the sign. And you can see how I am now using my flat brush in a slightly different way. Because these shadow shapes that I'm creating are no longer super narrow shapes, but more abstract and thinner in certain areas and thicker in other areas. All I'm doing is I am pressing down my paintbrush to different degrees to change the thickness of that shape. But I'm still using the flap brush in a lateral way as I am creating those more irregular shadow shapes right here in the doorway, keeping everything very loose and very irregular. Another thing that I want to do is I want to paint in a little bit more detail in the bricks. I'm going to be using my Bert Sienna which is what I was using before for the brick wall. I'm going to go in with my size three round brush. I'm not trying to fill in these shapes, I'm just going in and pressing down the belly of my brush and adding a little bit of a darker value in some of these shapes. Really trying to stay away from the look of any organized pattern as I am painting in these shapes. I'm just trying to enhance that brick texture a little bit more and add more interest to this part of the painting. Okay, a couple more things that I want to do. First of all, I want to add some darker shadow shapes on dry in the benches. I'm creating a little bit more of my raw sienna plus paints, gray mixture right here. Then I'm going to switch on over to my size three round brush. And I'm just going to paint in a little bit of this darker raw sienna right here along this right edge of the bench to enhance those shadows a little bit more. Because I think things are looking a little bit too flat in the benches. Create a little bit of a shadow shape along the front plane, very loosely, developing a bit of a variety of values there in the benches. I want to create a little bit more of a sense of balance because I have more detail and values developed in this building than in this building. What I'm going to do is I'm going to create a little bit more of this color mixture that I was using over here, which is cobalt blue plus panes gray. And I'm just going to be going in with my flap brush and just like what I did in the bar wall, I'm going to be creating those long shadow shapes. But now, instead of going in a horizontal motion, I'm going to be using a vertical motion. I'm going to clean out a section of my palette here. So that I can make sure that I'm going in with the exact same color mixture that I was going in with before, which is cobalt blue plus Pains gray. I don't want to go in with my Antwerp blue plus Pains gray. And remember that I keep cleaning my mixing palette because I want to make sure that I'm keeping things super clear for you. It's something that I like doing when I am filming tutorials, making sure that I'm using the exact colors that I am telling you, that I am using. But you by no means have to clean out your palette when you're mixing your next colors. If you don't have to, unless of course, you feel that you have to clean out an area to keep your colors vibrant. Because a color that is very different from the color that you're trying to create could be seeping in and could be changing that color. Well, maybe you want to clean things out a little bit, but you don't have to clean out your palette when I am cleaning it out. I want to make sure that I'm using exactly the same color mixture that I was using before. All right. So cobalt blue and pains gray. I want to go in with this color mixture in a T like consistency because I don't want those lines that I create to be super stark looking. I water this color mixture down quite a bit and I'm going to switch on over to my flat brush. I'm going to take a little bit of color from the edge of my puddle right there. I'm not trying to draw or paint perfect lines. Okay. I'm lifting up my paintbrush, just like what I did over here, lifting up my paintbrush. I'm avoiding painting in over those little light bulbs. I don't have to go over or along every single line that I created with my pen and ink. I just want to add in a little bit of detail loosely. I do not want to distract away from the focal point, which is the bar that creates a little bit more of a sense of balance throughout the piece. Because I've now added in a little bit more detail over here, just like I did over here in this building. If you have any lines or shapes that look a little bit too stark in the front of that bar, go in with a clean and slightly damp brush and soften some of them. I'm still using my flat brush because I can just go in and use my paint brush with these kinds of strokes, which is really helpful when you're painting in shadow shapes that are narrow and long like this. And you can see how easily I am softening things while still keeping a little bit of that shadow effect. Whenever I feel that I've collected too much paint in my paintbrush bristles, I go into my container, so will my paintbrush in there. Remove that paint from my paintbrush, pristles, remove that excess water and go back in to do more softening if I feel I need to make sure that you're not going into your painting with too much water because you definitely don't want to have water dripping all over the place. Last thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go back to my Antwerp blue and Pains gray color mixture. And I'm going to add in quick shadows under the roof and along some sections here and there in the front wall. Antwerp blue plus pains gray. Make sure that I'm going in with a maybe coffee to milk like consistency. I'm going to go in with my size 14 round brush. Taking some amount of my dark blue mixture and adding some shadows where it would make sense. Right along the edge of that roof. Once again, notice how abstract and irregular these shadow shapes are. I don't want to go in and create a shape that is consistent in thickness from start to finish or lines in any way. Trying to skip over the little light bulbs, removing that paint from my paint brush bristles. And if I want to go in and soften edges, just try to do that while the paint is still wet. Drop in more color, if you want to wall, that paint is still wet. I also want to add in a little bit of a shadow under this, right here, under the awning, on the blue wall under the benches. A little bit of a narrow shadow shape right under the main sign that is basically it for the water color. If I continue pushing and adding more detail and doing more softening, things like that, I can start overworking this painting. So I'm going to leave things and we're going to be moving on to the very last phase in this process which is optional. I'm going to be bringing in some white and I'm going to be sharing the techniques that I use to add some final details, maybe bring out some highlights and also add some splattering for visual texture. See you in the next. 12. White Gouache: All right friend. So we're in the very last phase of this process. This is optional as I was mentioning before, if you like how your painting looks as it is, you don't have to add the white quash. The objective with this last part of the process is simply to enhance that texture in the front wall of the bar. And I'm also going to be adding a little bit of splattering along the bottom of this piece to create a little bit of visual texture, especially along the sidewalk. Guash is usually pretty thick, straight out of the tube, so I squeezed out a small amount onto this mixing palette. Then I add in a couple of drops of water. Swiveled my paint brush in that mixture and just taking a little bit of guash at a time. I am ready to get started. This is a multimedia flap brush that I'm going to be using and this is permanent white guash from Windsor Newton. All I'm going to do is I'm going to create a little bit of a highlight effect right along some of the shadow shapes that I just created. With my darker blue water color. It's not necessary to do it everywhere. I would recommend not adding this everywhere. Less is really more. When you're adding in your white quash, it's very easy to go overboard with the white just here and there. Less is more when you're adding in white quash like this. Okay, just to finish this one up, I'm going to be adding a tiny bit of white splattering for texture right here. I'm going to be using a size for multimedia brush. This is a synthetic brush and it does have a good snap to it. I know that I'm going to be able to do those flicking motions with my index finger, and those bristles are going to snap right back, helping me create that splattering effect. I'm going to add a little bit more water than I did before into my guash because otherwise I'm not going to be able to do the splattering. I don't want it to be super watery that the guh is going to become transparent and I won't be able to see that splattering at all. But if I don't add enough water into the mixture, it's not going to be able to get splattered onto that paper. When you're doing your flicking motions, make sure that the consistency is what you need it to be. And make sure that the paintbrush that you're using is going to be helpful If you have any doubts at all. What I would recommend doing is doing some tests on a scrap piece of paper. It doesn't even have to be watercolor paper to make sure that the splattering is happening as you want it to happen on your painting. And then you can go ahead and add it on your actual piece. And with that we're all done with this pen and watercolor wash bar facade piece. 13. Thank you: If you made it to this point. Congratulations. I really hope that you enjoyed this course and that you learned a lot of new things that you can take with you to future artwork. Don't forget to share a photo of your finished piece over in the Projects and Resources tab. I cannot wait to see your work to answer any questions that you might have for me and provide any feedback that you might need. Also, don't forget to follow me here on skill share because I have lots of new courses coming down the pipe line for you. And make sure to check out all of the free resources and inspiration that I'm making available for you over at my Youtube channel, my website, and over on Instagram. I would love to connect with you over there as well. Thank you so, so much for joining me on this one. I wish you a wonderful rest of your day. Enjoy your art practice and talk to you soon.