Watercolor 101: Everything You Need to Know As a Beginner + Must-Know Exercises

1. Introduction: Hi friends, My name is Erica and I'm a traditional media artist and teacher. I've been on my own artistic journey for many years, continuing to develop my own skills in a variety of different drawing and painting mediums. And I've had the immense honor and the opportunity to help guide and encourage others as they move through their own artistic journeys. I know how overwhelming and confusing it can be to get started with any new art medium. I mean, we have all of this information out there available to us for free that we can learn from. But we often waste so much time that we could be spending making deeper foster progress going down these rabbit holes. And we can get so confused and frustrated with contradicting pieces of information to the point that we don't even really start at all. In this first course that I created for Skillshare, I wanted to cover all of the basics. I wanted to give you a solid foundation to jump off from, which is going to help you move forward faster, be less confused and overwhelmed when it comes to investing in new art supplies and also help you not waste money on supplies that you don't really need as a beginner, which is something that I know that I struggled with myself. I share All About My must have watercolor painting supplies that I move on to talking about the main characteristics that you should know about that set watercolor paint apart from other types of painting mediums such as acrylics or oils. And I'll walk you through actual practical exercises that are going to help you really understand these key differences. I give you all of the essential information to know about in regards to different types of watercolor papers, different types of paint formats, and also paint brushes must know watercolor techniques, the three basic washes that you should know about flat graded and variegated. And I also walk you through essential brushstroke drills that are gonna help you continue to develop your water and brush control. I've also included two bonus classes at the end in which I'll walk you through how I use tracing paper, which is my transferring method of choice, to transfer my outline sketches onto my sheets of watercolor paper before getting started with the painting process. Aside from that one, I've also included a class on watercolor paper stretching, which is a topic that I often get questions on. With all that said, if you're ready, let's go ahead and jump straight in and let's work on some exercises together. 2. Supplies: Let's go ahead and get started with class number one, in which I'm gonna be taking you through all of the watercolor painting supplies that I always have on hand whenever I am painting with watercolor. These are also the supplies that I would recommend having on hand afford the exercises included in this course, I'll be preparing a supply checklist for you guys, which are gonna be able to download in the projects and resources tab, the very first supply that is going to be important that you have one painting with this medium is some sort of strong backing board where you can taper watercolor paper down onto when you're painting with watercolor, you want to be able to rotate. You're backing board and your watercolor sheet and also tilted up and down to use gravity to your advantage. Plus when you use artist's tape or masking tape to tape or watercolor sheet down to a backing board. You're able to leave those beautiful white borders around your watercolor pieces, which leads to a more finalized professional look. You can use anything from a wooden board, like a drawing or sketching board, gator board, foam board or whatever you'd like. Sometimes I do use a cutting mat as my backing board. Of course, cutting mats are flexible and more difficult to move around and so I wouldn't necessarily recommend them. Okay, So the next important supply that you're gonna be needing to paint with watercolor is of course, watercolor paper. It is essential to use paper that is intended for water-soluble mediums if you use regular printing paper or other types of papers like drawing papers and so forth. The process can be very aggravating and frustrating because you're going to end up making holes in your paper and damaging it very easily because we're bringing water in. You're also not gonna be able to fully experience what it's like to paint with watercolor because you're not going to be able to create all of these beautiful organic effects that watercolor allows. This course does include an entire class on watercolor paper, where I'll be explaining the different types of watercolor papers are different formats that you're gonna be able to find for watercolor paper in art supply stores. And also the different thicknesses or weights that you're gonna be able to find. I would say though that for any beginner, I would always recommend going for cold press watercolor paper that is midway weight and heaviness or thickness, which means look for paper that is at least 140 pounds in thickness or in weight. Another supplier gonna be needing, of course, is your watercolor paint set, whether you're using pans or tubes, it doesn't really matter. I'll be explaining all about different types of paint formats in another class included in this course, I'll be sharing the differences between pans and tubes and the pros and cons of each paint format that you can go ahead and decide which one is best for you. If you haven't already allow with your watercolor paint set, you'll also want some sort of mixing area for your different colour mixtures, depending on the type of paint that you're using your watercolor paint set might already come with one of these mixing areas included. But if not, you might want to invest in some sort of mixing palette. Moving onto brushes, I often get a lot of questions on brushes and which specific types of brushes and specific sizes I would recommend for beginners getting started. It is important that you know that you do not have to get all sorts of different types of paint brushes and all sorts of different sizes of paint brushes. Honestly, I can create a full painting using just three to four brushes. And when I am investing in brushes, I always like sticking to what's most versatile in terms of their types, which are always going to be rounds and flats. I have included a full class on paint brushes for you guys in this course, in which I go much more in depth into differences between synthetic brushes and natural hair brushes and different types of paint brushes and different sizes of paint brushes. But I will say that for beginners, I would recommend just investing in one or two larger brushes. You can decide whether they're round or flats, but these brushes are meant for larger washes and larger areas that you're going to be painting. And then maybe two to three medium sized brushes. I would recommend these B round and then perhaps one-to-two find smaller detailing brushes. And I would also recommend these being round right here on screen, I am sharing the two larger brushes that I usually use for larger areas. And the one on the far left is a larger size six mop brush, which is essentially a very large, very absorbent, round brush. And then next to that I have a one-inch flat brush. In the middle, I have three round brushes that I would consider to be medium-sized. And those medium-sized brushes are sizes 161210. And then the smaller detailing brushes, those are as small as I get personally, and they are sizes 63. I always use synthetic brushes when I paint with watercolor. And I'll explain why in that class on brushes. Aside from those essential watercolor painting supplies, I always have a blue Scott absorbent towel or two on hand. You can use any sort of absorbent towel, even regular kitchen paper towels, but they are super, super important in order to stay on top of water control throughout the painting process. And also so that you can do any lifting or texture techniques that you might need along the way. I also have a role of regular three-fourths of an inch masking tape. And this is what I use to tape my watercolor paper down onto my backing board. All I make sure to do is run my pieces of masking tape over my clothes three to four times to soften that adhesive before taping my watercolor paper. ****, this makes it a lot less likely that'll damage my watercolor paper at the end when I remove it. Alternatively, if you don't want to use regular masking tape, you can also get acid free artist's tape. Alright, moving on to a few sketching supplies. And these are so that I can prepare any outline sketch that I might need to create before getting started with the painting process. I always like creating my outline sketches that I am preparing to paint with watercolor with an HB drawing pencil. And this is because HBI drawing pencils have a graphite that is not too soft and not too hard. I don't want the drawing that I create on my watercolor paper to be super, super dark or too smudgy. And this is why I don't want to use any softer graphite than this. And also I don't want to use harder graphite because that can be very scratchy and I don't want to scratch or damage my watercolor paper aside for my HB drawing pencil, I also have a couple of different erasers on hand for my preliminary sketching process, I have a soft graphite eraser, which I know won't damage my watercolor paper. And I also have a kneaded eraser, which is that chewed up bubblegum looking green thing that I have right there. I like tapping my kneaded eraser over my sketch once I'm done with it so that I can remove any excess graphite that might be floating around on my watercolor sheet and also lightened my sketch even more before getting started with the painting process. So that again, I don't muddy up my vibrant colors when I start painting and so that I don't see my pencil work through my transparent paint. And finally, the last two things that I always have on hand are my water spread, sir. And this is just a very old, cheap perfume bottle that I cleaned out wherever water spread, sir, you decide to go for it, just make sure that the water drops come out nice and fine. Having a water spread strong hand can be very helpful because you can spread some water onto your dry paint to activate them. It can also be very handy to create certain textures as you're painting. And of course, it can also help you keep your watercolor paper wet for longer. Moving on to the very last thing that I always have on hand when I'm painting with watercolor. And this is one or two containers with clean water. You can definitely get away with using just one, but you do have to make sure to keep an eye on your water just to check on how dirty or murky It's becoming as you're moving along in your painting process. Because if it becomes too dirty, it can certainly affect the colors that you're using. And so you have to make sure to change your water along the way. If you're using two or even three containers, you can use one of your containers to rinse out your paintbrush in-between your different colors. And then you can use your other container to actually take that water. Whether you have to water down certain color mixtures or you need clean water for certain techniques, you can go ahead and use that water from your clean water container and the majority of your color and murkiness is going to stay in your container that you're using to rinse out your paint brush in-between your colors. So overall, you need to change your water less whether you want to use 12 or three containers is totally up to you. Congratulations for making it through this class. I am so excited to get into the next one in which we're gonna be talking all about main watercolor characteristics that you should know about that set watercolor paint apart from other types of painting mediums. As we go through these major characteristics, I'm gonna be walking you through exercises that are really going to help you solidify this knowledge. So go ahead and grab your watercolor painting supplies so that you can do these exercises alongside me. Alright, see you then. 3. Must Know Watercolor Characteristics A: Welcome to part one of watercolor characteristics. In these next couple of classes, I'm gonna be walking you through a list of must know characteristics when it comes to watercolor paint, these are key things that make watercolor different from other types of painting mediums that you should definitely be aware of since the beginning of your journey in order to make faster progress in the projects and resources tab, you're gonna be able to find a photo of my finished little studies and explorations which you can use as reference. And I've also included a downloadable worksheet that includes all of these different little outline drawings that you're going to see on my watercolor sheet right now. And these little squares that you can transfer onto your sheet of watercolor paper or use as a reference to draw these by yourself so that you can work alongside me once you have your squares or rectangles and your outline sketches ready on your watercolor, she'd go ahead and prepare some nice juicy color puddles on your color mixing palette for my first few exercises, I'm gonna be preparing for different puddles, a dark red, a dark blue, and orange and yellow. And this is just so that I can have a variety of colors available for myself on my color mixing palette ready to go for my exercises. You do not have to use the exact same colors that I'm gonna be using. But I would recommend you choose at least two darker colors and to lighter colors. If you'd like to use your water, MR. to spread some water on your dry colors on your palette to pre moisten them before going in with your paintbrush, you can totally do that. What I am doing is I am using my paintbrush to bring out a little bit of water at a time into my colors on my palette. I am slowly my paintbrush on my color. I'm bringing out a little bit of color at a time into my mixing area until I feel I have enough pigment in that puddle. I am making sure that the little puddles that I created for myself are nice and juicy. I want to make sure that they have approximately 50% color or pigment in them and 50% water in them as well, so that I can load up my paintbrush with a good amount of paint and water. When I am doing these exercises, make sure that you're completely rinsing out those paintbrush bristles in-between your different colors as you're preparing them on your color mixing palette. All right, so with all that said, let's go ahead and jump straight into the first characteristic that is essential to understand about watercolor. I don't know about you guys, but when I first got started with painting, my first painting experiences were with opaque painting mediums such as acrylics or oils. And in many ways, when we're working with watercolor, it's actually the inverse or the opposite of working with opaque painting mediums. And this is because watercolor is transparent. It's translucent. And we're working with the whiteness and the brightness of the paper under the paint to create our lightest values. And the whiteness of the paper actually stands in place for our highlights. We don't add them in with white paint. When we're painting with watercolor, we don't even need to bring in white paint. So in this first exercise, all I want you to do is paint a few shapes using different colors. Try drawing little Smiley face or a little flour or whatever you'd like with a black sharpie or a pen, allow that ink to dry completely and then paint a shape on top of it. Notice how you're able to see that little drawing that you created through that paint. If you had done the same using an opaque painting medium like gouache, acrylics or oils, you would have covered up that little drawing that you created. But watercolor is transparent so we can see through it. I painted in three more shapes in different colors. After that, allowed those initial shapes to dry and then paint it a second shape on top of each using a different color from the one underneath. As you can see, because watercolor is transparent, whatever color it is that you placed in that first layer, in that first shape is going to have an impact on the cover that you place on top of it. Why? Because you can see through the color that you placed on top. If you notice in that first little cross that I created with my two paint strokes, you see that green in that central shape where the blue is overlapping on top of the yellow. And it makes sense because blue plus yellow equals green in my second color exploration, I kind of got like a brownish color in that section where the blue is overlapping on top of the orange. And this makes sense because blue and orange are complimentary colors in the color wheel. And when you mix enough of them together, you're going to get a brown. In my final color exploration, the color that I see in the middle where the two colors are overlapping or mixing is kind of like a purple. And this makes sense because blue and red are primary colors that when mixed together create a purple, which is a secondary color. Moving on to the next important characteristic to understand about watercolor. And this is that with one single color, you can create a variety of different values or tones. If you want to create darker values or tones for any color, all you have to do is add in more paint or pigment into your color mixture. And if you want to create lighter values are tones for any of your colors, all you need to do is add more water into your color mixture. Now, this particular exercise, I honestly cannot recommend enough. And essentially you're using one same color and going from darkest version of your color to the lightest version of your color or vice versa. This exercise is super helpful for developing your water control and your understanding of translucency with this medium, as well as your ability to create a wide variety of different values or tones just with one same color, I would recommend using a dark color for this exercise, something like a dark blue or a dark red or dark green or even a ready-made black. And this is because darker colors are going to inherently lend themselves for a wider range of values. So if you use something like a yellow or a light orange, while those colors are very light in and of themselves. So you're going to start with a light value and you're just going to get it lighter and lighter. Whereas when you pick a darker color, you're going to start out with a very dark value at its most saturated. And then you're gonna be able to create a wider range of values as that color gets lighter and lighter and lighter. Here's what I did for this exercise. I chose a dark color. In this case, I chose a dark red and I created a nice saturated puddle on my mixing palette. Even though you want your puddle of color to have a good amount of pigment in it so that you can really paint in that first square or rectangle with this dark color at its most saturated state. You also want it to have some amount of water in it because you want to be able to load up those paintbrush bristles very, very well. This is what would be referred to as a milk like consistency when you're painting with watercolor, I'll talk more about the four different consistencies in just a bit. But first, let me go ahead and explain what I'm doing for this exercise. What I did after having created that nice puddle of dark red on my mixing area, was I loaded up my flat brush with a good amount of that paint by running my paintbrush bristles back and forth over that puddle. And then I went ahead and paint it in that very first square. After painting in that first darkest square, you can do one of two things. You can bring out a little bit of water into this puddle on your mixing palette to get it more watered down. And then paint in that second square with that moral watered-down color. And then after painting in that square, you take a little bit more water added into your puddle paint in the third square and move on like that. Adding a little bit more water at a time into your puddle as you make your way towards the lightest square. Another thing that you can do is you can load up your paintbrush just once in the beginning of this process. And in-between painting each square, you simply dip your paintbrush into your container of water two to three times. Remove the excess water by gently scraping the bristles of your paint brush along the top of your container, then paint in the next square. Then you dip your brush into your container of water again two to three times. You remove that excess water and you paint in the next square and so on and so forth. With that method, you really only load up your paintbrush crystals once in the very beginning. What happens with that one is that every single time you tip your paintbrush into your container of water, some of that pigment or color drips down into the water and some water gets absorbed back into the bristles, diluting that color more. I'd recommend practicing with both methods and seeing which one is most helpful and easiest for you. But from moving onto the next thing, I want to briefly talk about this method that lots of watercolor artists out there use in order to describe the consistencies of their paint mixtures on their mixing palette. You see when we're painting with watercolor, it's a constant shifting and changing of the paint to water ratios in your color mixtures depending on what it is that you're doing and that you're trying to accomplish in that given point in time in the painting process, you have to develop that skill for noticing if the paint to water ratio on your mixing palette is what you need. Because if it's not, then you have to bring in more paint or more water accordingly. All right, so this tea to butter method essentially describes the different consistencies that we can achieve with our watercolor paint in four different levels. The first level is the TV-like consistency. This one leads to the lightest, palest color and it contains mostly water with very little pigment. When mixing a TV-like little puddle of color on your mixing palette, the paint should flow easily because of the amount of water that it contains. There's a ton of flow and movement in this puddle because of the large amount of water that it contains. Moving on to the second consistency going from thin to thick. And this is the coffee like consistency. This consistency has more pigment in it than the first or more paint in it than the first. But still enough water to have a good flow to it on your mixing palette. This is a good consistency to use for large washes of color, large areas that you have to paint because you're able to really load up your paintbrush bristles with a good amount of paint and water so that you can paint easily and quickly. Usually when it comes to painting large areas, you want to make sure that you're using a larger brush and that you're able to load up those paintbrush bristles very well so that you can paint in those areas quickly and not have to reload over and over and over again throughout the process. Because every single time you reload your paintbrush, That's an opportunity for your paper to dry. And then what happens is that you're left with those sharp defined edges around the shapes that you're painting in and texture throughout those large washes that you wanted to create. All right, moving on to the milk like consistency. So this one has even more pigment or color in it that coffee. And the paint mixture doesn't flow as easily, doesn't have as much movement on the palette. It has more of a body to it than coffee does. This was a consistency that I was going for when I was creating that dark red color mixture on my mixing palette for the previous exercise, you can see how it has some amount of water in it, but it stays in place. It's relatively thick and it's very well saturated with color. If I were working on a painting, I would really only be using this consistency for darker midtones and darkest darks. And finally, moving on to the butter consistency. This is the thickest consistency of all and it has lots of pigment or paint in it with very little water. There isn't very much flow on the palette at all. And really this consistency is used only in darkest value areas that you're trying to achieve in your paintings. This is important because if you use this consistency or even the milk consistency before this one in large sections of your paintings. And you don't pay attention to the different values that you're trying to create throughout your piece. This can definitely lead to flatness and heaviness and a lack of dimension and glow in your painting. If you made it through this class. Congratulations, this is going to be it for this first section of watercolor characteristics. And I've excited to see you in the next in which I'm gonna be sharing a few more key things that you should definitely know in regards to a watercolor. 4. Must Know Watercolor Characteristics B: Welcome to part two. Must know watercolor characteristics. So let's go ahead and jump straight into characteristic number three that I want to share with you. This is that we must plan and protect our highlights. Because as I was mentioning previously, when we're painting with this medium, it's the lightness and the brightness of the paper that stands in place for our highlights. And that we use in combination with the transparency of our paint to create those lightest values that we need in order for something to look more believable like it has depth and dimension to it. So right here what you're seeing me do is I am painting a little balloon that I sketched out. I decided to use my Quinacridone Rose for this balloon, but you can really use whichever color you prefer. I am using my size ten round brush for this exercise. Before going in, I plan for my major highlight or lightest light area to be somewhere within the upper right section of the balloon. I even sketched in that shape with my pencil before getting started with the painting process. This way I can remember where I wanted that highlights shaped to be left protected and unpainted as I moved along painting in the first layer, in the balloon. When I go in and sketch those highlights shapes, I oftentimes make them larger than what I actually want to be left with at the end. This is so that I can give myself more space to soften those hard edges that I am left with. You're going to notice how at the end that highlight shape becomes smaller. I'll explain more about this later. What I did initially was I created a pretty light translucent layer of my Quin Rose all throughout the balloon, excluding the highlight shape. I loved that completely dry because I wanted to keep that highlight area protected with the whiteness of the paper shining through uncovered. Always remember that watercolor is going to expand into paper that is wet. If you want to keep a section protected, don't paint it, leave it dry. And then while that initial layer of light Quin Rose was still wet, I am now dropping in a more saturated version of my Quin Rose only along the outer edges of this shape so that I can round out this balloon. So all I did was I added more pigment, more paint into my color mixture to make it more saturated, less water down. And I'm dropping it into the outer edges to round out the balloon while that initial lighter pink layer is still wet, it's important to work quickly while the initial lighter pink shape or whatever color it is that you're using is still wet. Otherwise you're not gonna be left with those soft transitions in which the darker color turns into the lighter color. If you find that your paint is drying way too quickly and you're not being left with those gradual transitions when you drop in your next color, simply take a little bit longer in that initial lighter layer. Run your paintbrush bristles over that entire shape two to three times. Go in with just a little bit of water in your paint brush and make sure that you arrive at a nice even sheen with that first color before dropping in the next. It's important to know that when you're painting with this medium, a variety of things come into play that can make your paint dry quickly or more slowly. The specific type of paper that you're using, it really affects the drying time as well as the environment that you're working in. If it is warm, if it is cold, if it is humid, if it is dry, if you have a fan on or an air conditioning unit on or a heating system on all of these things are gonna have a huge impact on how quickly or how slowly your paint dries. As you can see as I'm developing this wider range of values, this balloon goes from flattened two-dimensional towards more and more 3D as I am expanding that range of values and developing those lightest slides, those mid tones and those darkest darks. Once I had developed that nice range of values, what I did was I removed all of the paint with my paintbrush bristles, and I went in with a clean and slightly damp paintbrush and ran my paintbrush bristles along the edges of my highlight shape to soften those edges and create a nice soft transition from lighter pinks towards my lightest white highlight shape. And as you can see, that highlight shape became quite small. Alright, so I'm using just the tip of my paintbrush to paint in that string. And it is now gonna be time to allow that balloon to dry completely. And we're gonna come back to this balloon later to notice how it dries. Because something that's important to know is that watercolor always dries lighter than how it looks when it's wet. Oftentimes what we're going for higher levels of realism and dimension, it is helpful to allow everything to dry and come back to it later to evaluate whether we want to push darker value areas even more. So moving on to the next important characteristic to know about in regards to watercolor. And this is that usually it is gonna be best to work from light values towards darker values. Remember that it is always going to be easier to go in and darken than it is to go in and lighten. So as an example of this, I decided to paint a little tree study. I'm still using my size ten round brush for this little study. And what I did was I created three little puddles of different greens on my mixing palette. I chose a base green for my watercolor set. And then what I did was I used that base green to create a lighter version by adding some yellow and then a darker version by adding some neutral tint. And then the medium green is just plain base green with a bit of water in it. This way, I could prepare myself by having three different green values or tones on my mixing palette that I could go ahead and use to allow me to create dimension in this tree. I am using a mixture of scribbling and bouncing and really changing the way that I am using my paintbrush by exerting different amounts of pressure on my paper as I'm going through this. Sometimes only the tip of my paintbrush just coming into contact with my paper. Other times I'm pressing down the belly of my paintbrush in different ways. And I'm also shifting and changing the angle at which I'm using my paintbrush. This helps me develop that leaf texture and all of this irregularity throughout the leaves, which is really needed in order for this kind of subject to look natural and realistic. As I am developing all of these different green values, I'm really exploring and shifting and changing, allowing my wrist and the paintbrush to do their own thing. As I'm developing this irregularity all throughout the leaves, shifting and changing the way that you're using your paintbrush is going to help you develop all of these very abstract, irregular shapes that you need. I worked in sections. First painting in my lighter green, then dropping in my medium green wallet initial lighter green layer was still wet. And once I had developed a nice variety of values using my lightest green and my medium green. I am now getting started with painting in some of my darkest green shapes because I've been working relatively quickly. You can see how I am left with my soft gradients between my different greens. That paint underneath is still partially wet when I drop in my next color. So my next color that I drop in diffuses out. I'm almost done with the first layer of paint in these leaves. And as you can see, I've managed to develop a wide range of green values by making my way incrementally from my lightest green towards my darkest green. I also left some small irregular highlights shapes throughout the leaves that I didn't paint at all. And these shapes happened naturally as I was moving and shifting and changing the way that I was using my paintbrush. As I was painting the leaves. I removed all of that green from a paintbrush bristles, and I'm now going into paint in the tree trunk. This is a brown that I created by mixing together burnt sienna plus a little bit of neutral tint. You can see how it looks like a nice dark chocolate brown. But I want to make sure that initially I'm not going in with this brown at its most saturated state because I want to be able to develop at least a couple of different values in this tree trunk so that I can create more of a believable light and shadow effect. And this is why it's so helpful to initially go in with your color with a T like or coffee like consistency so that you have your lighter values developed and you can build upon them. Because if you go in with a very thick saturated color mixture right off the bat, you're going to get rid of your opportunity to develop those lightest values. This is why it's so helpful to go in initially with a tea or coffee like consistency and save the milk and butter consistency is for later on in the process for those darker values that you're developing on top of the lighter values. And only in certain sections that you're looking to deepen and darken and create shadow effects in. This is what I'm doing right here. I'm adding a little bit of a shadow of fact with the same brown by doing some overlapping and shadow areas that I want to deepen in jargon more. This creates a sense of dimension in the tree trunk. So you might be asking yourself, if you're able to develop a wide range of values using just one same color. Why would you prepare three different green color mixtures on your mixing palette? And this is because in real life, everything we have around us is affected by light. Whatever light situation there is in the room, the object or the subject is in. The surface qualities of the object, the objects around that object. Those objects are affected by all of these different variables. And so throughout them we see not only a variety of values, but also variety in hue or color. This is why it's so important to learn about color theory and the color wheel. But as a beginner watercolor artist, I would say first and foremost, it's essential that you start gaining water control and that you're able to develop a wide range of values using just one same color. And once you have understood about the mediums translucency and you have developed your water control up to a certain extent. You can then move on to learning more about color theory and mixing your own colors and all of that. In my opinion, as a teacher of many, many years, It's super, super important that you take your learning incrementally a step at a time in order to make your learning journey more enjoyable and stay away from any unnecessary frustration. Alright, so let's move on to the next essential characteristic to understand in regards to watercolor. And this is that watercolor can be reactivated after it's dried. For this quick experiment, I am going back to the very first exercise that I started with. I removed all of the color from a paintbrush bristles and I am going into do gentle scrubbing using a clean and slightly damp paintbrush. As you can see after having done some scrubbing using just a little bit of water in my paint brush and doing a little bit of quick absorbing or lifting with my absorbent towel, I am able to lift up some of that color from my paper even after it's dried. And to further exemplify this, I am going to go back to my highlight in my balloon and I'm going to soften some of those hard highlight edges that I'm still able to see around this shape. So it's important to know is that depending on the specific color or pigment that you used and also the paper that you use. You're probably going to be able to do at least some degree of softening and lifting if you'd like, after the paint has dried, it's important to realize that every single color in your watercolor sets have different properties to them. Some of them are more staining than others. Pigments that are heavily staining are not gonna be able to lift up as much as pigments that are not as staining, but also the watercolor paper that you're painting on has a huge impact on how much paint you're able to lift up. Because some types of watercolor paper absorb that paint so strongly that it won't budge after it's dried. So all of these variables can really affect how much activation you can do it that color after it's dried and how much lifting you can do of that color as well. And this is why as you move forward in your journey with watercolor and you continue discovering all of these specific techniques that lead to the effects that you personally like. It's going to be important that you make use of specific colors and specific supplies that are going to be appropriate for those techniques. All right, so moving on to characteristic number six. And this is that we can use either wet on wet or wet on dry depending on the effects that we're after. So I created a nice juicy puddle of blue-green all my mixing palette. And what I'm doing right here in this rectangle on the left is I am just going right ahead and painting on dry paper. And then the rectangle on the right. What I'm gonna be doing is I'm gonna be pre wedding that rectangle using my flat brush and clean water before painting in my shapes. If you're gonna notice the immense difference between the shapes that I painted on dry paper, meaning using the wet-on-dry technique versus the shapes that I paint on pre wetted paper. Meaning I am going in wet on wet. Notice how my shapes on the left have sharp defined clean edges. And the shapes that I paint on the right have diffused out soft edges that are feathering out or blurring out, bleeding out into that wetness. As you move forward in your journey with watercolor, always, always create strategies for yourself. Take a pause and ask yourself whether you should be allowing the previous layer of paint to dry completely so that you can go in wet on dry. Or if you should be painting on wet paper, you should be thinking of the effects that you're after and then creating a strategy for yourself and taking pauses are working quickly as you go so that you can arrive at those effects. It's hugely important that you know about these two basic techniques and that you're aware that most often than not complete watercolor pieces incorporate both techniques into them. Because by combining them, artists know that they're gonna be able to create pieces that are more balanced, that are more realistic and that have more depth and interests to them. So it's not one or the other, it's actually both in combination. Alright, moving on to important characteristic number seven. And this one is that it's usually better to create our own dark color mixtures than to use ready-made blacks. Ready-made blacks include ivory black lamp black, Mars Black, etc. And what's important to know about these ready-made blocks is that they are oftentimes flat, dull, and when they get mixed with other colors, it can really take away from their vibrancy. This is some neutral black that I took from one of my other watercolor sets. And I use this ready-made black to paint in this first rectangle. I would highly recommend trying this out for yourself and actually seeing these colors and how they actually perform when painting on paper, so that you can see all of this first hand. You'll really notice a difference when you see these colors in front of you. The second rectangle I'm going to be painting in with my own dark color mixture. I am mixing together some of my ultramarine blue, so a darker blue with my burnt sienna, which is a reddish brown, ultramarine blue plus burnt umber, which is a darker brown or a burnt sienna, which is a reddish brown, is a color combo that is frequently used by more traditionally trained watercolor artists. It leads to a great looking dark gray that has a color temperature to it, it has a richness to it, and it has dimension to it. And what's cool as well about combining dark blue and any brown is that you can create a dark brown or dark blue or a gray by simply modifying the ratios of your different colors in this mixture. For your gray, you're going to want to mix together and almost 5050 amount of each color so that you could actually get a gray if you have more brown than blue in your color mixture, it's going to look like a dark brown. And if you have more blue than brown in your color mixture, it's going to look like a dark blue. After painting in that second rectangle, I'm going to be painting in the third by also creating my own dark color mixture. And for this one I am mixing together two complimentary colors. In this case, I'm mixing together a red and a green. And you're going to notice that this dark color looks warmer, it's a warmer gray. The specific colors that you choose are going to have an impact on the color temperature of your final mixture. And this is awesome because you can choose those colors mindfully or even manipulate the ratios of your different colors in your color mixtures to alter the temperature and make an interesting play with color temperature in your pieces. This is something that you can't do when you're using just one ready-made black. Both of these dark colors that I created by mixing two colors together, shown here in the second rectangle and the third rectangle have a lot more richness, vibrancy, and a temperature to them when compared to the flat, dull black on top. Both of these would make for great colors for very shadowy, dark value areas in paintings nowadays, the only situations in which I use ready-made blocks is when I'm going to be mixing another color into them. Moving onto the very last important characteristic to understand about watercolor paint. And this is that it is incredibly important to allow the previous layer to dry completely so that the paper can regain its strength before jumping in and attempting to add details or darken certain areas when a lot of beginners get started with watercolor. And I know this happened to me a lot. Is that we want to go in immediately and continue working or we stress out on what to fix a little mistake that we make immediately. And all this does is make things even worse because we end up overworking or damaging our paper. It's essential to develop that patients. And if we do make a mistake, maybe do some quick lifting with your absorbent towel, allow that to dry and then come back and later remember that paint is going to dry lighter anyway, and you're probably going to be able to go back in and make that mistake less noticeable. But if you freak out and go in immediately and started doing scrubbing and adding more paint and whatnot, you're probably going to make the mistake even bigger and that's not gonna be able to be fixed right here. What I am doing after the balloon and the tree have completely dried is I am just going into deepen and darken certain areas and also to add a little bit more detail to push those darker value areas even more and really create more of a sense of depth, light, and shadow in these two little illustrations, I want to make sure that I'm leaving all of the previous lighter value sections uncovered with this new layer of paint because I don't want to flatten things out. Congratulations for making it through this class. I hope that you are able to give these exercises ago for yourself. And if you need to continue working on any of these exercises, go ahead and take your time. Do them as many times as you need to before moving forward. I'm excited to get into the next three classes with you. I'm gonna be sharing everything you need to know in regards to watercolor paint formats, watercolor paper types, and also watercolor brushes. By knowing this information, you will stay away from overwhelmed when it comes time to investing in new supplies. And you're also going to be able to avoid spending money on supplies you don't need. See you in the next class. 5. Watercolor Paint Formats: Welcome to this class on watercolor paint formats. In this class we're gonna be talking about the differences between the main formats that you're going to be able to find watercolor paint in their pros and cons so that you can come to a conclusion as to which might be best for you. And we're going to be busting through some common misconceptions. To start off, there's this common misconception oftentimes amongst beginners, that watercolor tubes are automatically better than watercolor pans and that they will lead to more professional results. This is really not the case at all. Both types of paints can be incredibly vibrant, rich, and easy to mix. What matters here is the paint quality. Artist grade paint pens will lead to better results than student grade tubes, but artists grades will compete against each other no matter that are format, if you're using quality paint, whether it's in a pan or a tube. If you know how to use watercolor, It's not going to show in the final outcome the way that they are different from each other is in terms of the actions that we have to take in order to prepare to use them, how they are used throughout the painting process and what we have to do at the end after finishing our painting in terms of our cleanup process and making sure that we are storing our art supplies safely and effectively. As beginner artists discover their own style and way of working, it'll be much easier to come to a conclusion about what format of paint is best for them the way that I see it, there are three main quote unquote, formats that you can use watercolor paint in. You can buy watercolor paint in pans. You can buy watercolor paint in tubes. And there's also this third combination that you can do. You can buy watercolor tubes and actually squeeze the paint out into pans or a closable syllable watercolor palette, allow the paint to dry and then use that paint and it's dry state, very much like you would be using paths. And that's exactly the format that I was using for the previous couple of classes. I actually was using to paint, but I squeezed out the two paint into that closable palette that I bought separately, allow that paint to dry, and then I was using that paint and it strikes state very much how I would use paint pans personally, I rarely use paint that has been just squeezed out of the tube because not only do I find that I waste a lot of paint that way, but I also find it harder to arrive at specific consistencies that I need throughout the painting process. Looking into the paint pan column here, we see that paint pens tend to last longer, which can be a big plus for people just getting started as when we're just getting started, it can be very easy to waste a lot of paint. We also see that when it comes to paint in pens, activation of that paint and also color mixing can take a little bit more of an effort and time because that paint is dry. We also see that paint pans can really be a great option when we are creating mostly small and medium-sized paintings. And that one of their pluses here is that oftentimes these sets can come with their own small paint mixing palettes. Another plus about pain pens is that they are portable and easy to clean. They are great for painting in plain air and for traveling. And a negative thing about pain pounds is that we can really damage our paintbrush bristles if we are aggressively swiveling or jabbing our paintbrush into our pens, or even scraping are bristles against the sides of the pans, which can especially happen when we're using the small pan, which are half pans, as opposed to using full pans. You can imagine that when we're using larger brushes, like let's say if I tried to grab some paint with my one-inch flat brush, my one-inch flat brush isn't going to fit into the half pan. I have to grab my pigment and place it on my paint mixing palette using some sort of smaller brush. And then once my paint mixture is on my paint mixing palette, then I can go ahead and grab it with my one-inch flat brush. Okay, Moving on to the pros and cons about watercolor tubes. So number one, it's easy to accidentally squeeze away too much paint out onto our paint mixing palette. And if we're not using a paint mixing palette that has a lid or can be closed, then that paint can go to waste. The second characteristic about paint tubes is that the colors are very easy to mix. Paint in tubes is a lot softer, more liquidy, and easier to mix. Of course, if you have placed a large amount of paint from a tube on your paint mixing palette. It's going to harden as it tries. Paint tubes are a great option for artists creating larger watercolor paintings because it allows you to place a lot more paint right away into your paint mixing palette and create your color mixtures faster. And this is awesome for when you're looking to paint large washes are large areas. And moving on to the last two things here, which are definitely cons for paint tubes, is that we definitely need to buy some sort of color mixing palette separately, especially a syllable kind. If we're looking to create our color mixtures and be able to store our paint away when we finish the very last con here about paint tubes, that has definitely happened to me before is that if we don't close the tubes properly, the paint can dry out inside cracking and becoming completely unusable. So if you do buy paint tubes at any point in time, makes sure that you are cleaning the little lid from the two properly so that you're able to fully close that little lid and no air comes into that too. It's okay when your paint dries on your paint mixing palette. And even though there are artists out there who would much prefer to use freshly squeezed paint, there are tons and tons of artists who just go ahead and reactivate already dried paint using water and use it just the way it is. However, if the paint completely dries inside of the tube and you cannot even get it out. That's a problem. There is one last other option here that is basically a combination of tubes and pans. This is an option that a lot of more experienced watercolor artists go for because it enables them to only by the specific paint tubes of the colors that they like using and creating their own custom watercolor paint set with this specific arrangement of colors in their palette that they need and find comfortable to do this, you essentially buy your tubes of watercolor paint either individually or in sets depending on what you need and help custom, you need your palate to be. And then you either buy your plastic pens, whether they are half pans are full pens, your empty tin or container where you're gonna be placing your pens for a syllable palette like the one that I was using in the previous classes. Empty plastic pens, whether half pans or full pens, as well as empty tin boxes and all sorts of different palette designs that are closable can be found online and in art supply stores. Essentially, you carefully squeeze out whatever amount of paint fits into that well or paint pen, allow that paint to dry and then use that in it's dry state. As I said before, this is what I personally like doing whenever I buy tube paint and I leave that box or that palette open, allowing that paint to dry for at least 24 hours before using it, then you go about using them the same way you would use a ready-made watercolor pan. There is definitely a process to fill up your empty pans with your tubes of paint. But there are also many benefits to this method. For example, after you have been painting for a while and you discover the specific colors that you like using. Because as you know already, there are tons of different reds and tons of different blues and tons of different greens. And you're gonna slowly but surely discover which specific pigments you like most. You can go ahead and just invest in those specific pink colors as opposed to having to buy an entire paint set. And the final benefit about this method that I want to make sure to include here in this list, is that one tube of watercolor paint, depending on its size, can fill up a pan two to three times. Just to finish up this class, I really want to mention this. This is very important for you to know as beginners, just getting started with any sort of painting medium really, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that larger paint sets that include more colors in them are automatically better than smaller sets with less colors. And I totally get it. It can be super exciting to see these huge sets of all of these different colors. But I assure you that these paints sets are not necessarily the best option to go for most often than not, is gonna be much better to go for a less amount of colors of a higher-quality than a ton of different colors of an average quality. And there are many brands out there such as Winsor and Newton, and St. Petersburg and Van Gogh. Depending on where you live, you'll be able to access probably at least one of these brands. They offer great quality student grade sets that are very affordable. And whether you decide to go for the tube or pen version, they offer paint that is very creamy, easily blend, double, very vibrant, and has a high color payoff. If you have a bit of a higher budget and you think you're ready to start investing in professional watercolor paint. A few brands I would recommend are Daniel Smith, Holbein, and shaming gay. You'll be able to find various different sizes of watercolor paints sets offered by the aforementioned brands. This said six to 12 color watercolor sets is really more than enough for anyone using a limited color palette and or smaller paint set, in my opinion, is super important for beginners. As this not only helps you stay more organized throughout the painting process so as to avoid creating mud by accidentally mixing too many different colors together or accidentally dipping your paintbrush into a color that you weren't intending to use. It also challenges you to start learning about color theory and the color wheel and getting comfortable with creating your own color mixtures. And with that, we are all done with this class on different types of watercolor paint formats. In the next class, I'm going to be going over the three different types of watercolor paper. Watercolor paper makes all the difference in the world, both in your painting process and in your finished outcome. Congratulations for making it through this one and see you in the next class. 6. Watercolor Paper Types: Welcome to this class all about watercolor paper. I'm going to be explaining all about the three main types of watercolor paper, the different types of thicknesses or weights that you're gonna be able to find watercolor paper in. And also different formats that you're gonna be able to find for watercolor paper, as I mentioned in the last class, the paper that you work on when you're working with watercolor can make all the difference in the world, both in your painting process and also in your finished outcome. And I certainly know how overwhelming and confusing choosing the right watercolor paper can be. This is why I wanted to add in this class into this course. I have to say that when I was getting started with watercolor painting, the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around when it came to watercolor painting supplies was definitely the paper. Before jumping into the paper types and thicknesses and formats, I wanted to just briefly talk about the difference between student grade watercolor paper and professional grade watercolor paper. Now this is not to say that they're not pro artists out there who don't use student grade watercolor paper. I can tell you for myself, I always have both student grade and professional grade watercolor papers on hand. And I use the professional grade watercolor paper whenever I'm gonna be working on a piece that I'm gonna be selling the original of or that I'm gonna be framing or simply going to be spending more time on. But I also always have cheaper student grade paper on hand for smaller explorations, little color studies, brushstroke drills to swatch out my colors, stuff like that. And honestly there are even professional artists out there who make use of cheaper papers because there are specific techniques and styles simply work with those types of paper better and that is perfectly fine. There is no right or wrong here. It's really going to come down to you continuing to develop your skills, explore the medium, get to know what you like best and what works best for your particular painting style, the combo of techniques like using etc.. And then you can slowly but surely discovered the specific supplies that are going to lend themselves best for that. But I just wanted to add in the main differences between the two in this class so that you can be aware of these things and not be surprised by how the paper reacts when it comes to student grade watercolor paper. This is paper that is usually made out of cellulose or wood pulp, or a mix of this wood pulp with cotton fibers. This type of paper doesn't usually absorb water and pigment as well as cotton paper does. Certain techniques and wet on wet effects don't really work as well on this type of paper because the paper doesn't take on the paint and water are the same way that cotton paper does. The outcomes of these techniques usually aren't as nice to look at all this said, student grade paper is awesome for quicker exercises, smaller studies to test out new paint brushes or colors, etc. Another awesome Pro about student grade paper is that usually it's pretty affordable in price. Moving on to professional grade watercolor paper. This is watercolor paper that is made up of a 100% cotton. It absorbs water nicely and uniformly. We can handle lots of water. And usually it can also handle slightly more aggressive or abrasive techniques such as gentle scrubbing, etc. A negative about professional grade watercolor paper is that, of course, it's usually much more expensive. You're gonna be able to see if the paper on hand is a 100% cotton or any of the other characteristics that I'm gonna be sharing next with you, because all of this information should be stated either in the front cover of the watercolor paper pad block or whatever it is that you're buying or inside of the cover or behind it somewhere. Let's move on to talking about the three main types of watercolor paper that you're gonna be able to find their thicknesses and their formats. And just have in mind that you're gonna be able to find student grade and professional grade papers of all of these types, all of these thicknesses and all of these formats. And most often than not, the biggest watercolor paper brands out there have student grade papers and professional grade papers. In terms of types of watercolor paper, there are three main categories out there. There is rough, cold press and hot press watercolor paper. Let's look into the main characteristics of each of these types of watercolor paper. Rough watercolor paper is the most textured paper of all three, and it also absorbs water and paint that is placed upon it a lot more quickly than the others. It benefits artists who are looking to create high levels of visual texture via techniques such as dry brushing. And it's also great for artists who are looking for very painterly and, or experimental styles. Perhaps styles that do not include as much detail or higher levels of realism. And the reason this is, is because you can really feel like you're having to fight against the tooth or the texture of the paper as you're trying to create smoother washes of color and adding in those smaller details, cold press watercolor paper is right in-between rough and hot press in terms of texture. It has medium absorbency and allows for creating both some amounts of visual texture via different techniques such as dry brushing, but it also allows us to add in a good amount of detail. It's a great option for artists looking to create painterly yet detailed styles. And oftentimes it's the best place for beginners to start because it offers the best of both worlds. Now, moving on to the third type of watercolor paper, which is hot press. This one has no texture to it. It's completely smooth. It doesn't absorb water and paint as quickly, so it allows for moving the paint on the surface for a longer time. It can really benefit artists who are looking to create very high levels of detail and realism in their work. And it's also a great option to go for when we're looking to paint subjects that have a really smooth surfaces, such as skin, porcelain, flower, petals, silk, etc. And finally, this type of smoother watercolor paper can really benefit artists who are looking to bring in ink line work into their paintings as the tip of the pen doesn't really have to fight against any tooth or texture. Let's move on to different types of watercolor paper weights in different thicknesses or weights of watercolor paper can be categorized into three main pools. The specific weights that I am including in this table are in by any means, the only way you're gonna be able to find out there, but they do represent the common weights that you'll be able to find in an art supply store. To begin, we have our lightweight watercolor paper, which is somewhere around the 90 pounds or 190 GSM mark. And as this watercolor paper is super thin, it tends to buckle and warp very easily throughout the painting process and is very easily damaged, especially when we're just getting started and haven't really gained a grasp on water control and aren't allowing our layers of watercolor to dry in-between. This type of watercolor paper has to be put through a stretching process in order to be prepared before actually starting to paint on it. This stretching process helps us prepare our watercolor paper so that it doesn't buckle and warp as much throughout the painting process. And it's able to take our paint mixtures in a more uniform way because any pools of paint mixture throughout the painting process can really lead to undesired effect. It's important to know that both lightweight watercolor paper and medium weight watercolor paper is oftentimes stretched by artists when they are really looking for a great final result. Maybe going to be selling their artwork or are gonna be framing it. They stretch these watercolor papers before getting started with the painting process. Heavyweight watercolor paper and watercolor paper board doesn't have to be stretched depending on the particular artist's painting process, the subject on hand, and the techniques that he or she likes to use. It's completely up to the artist to decide if the stretching of the paper is really necessary in order to improve its ease of use throughout the painting process and really create those optimum results. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about with the stretching process. It's a process in which the sheet of watercolor paper is basically soaked completely with water. Some artists use sponges, others dump their sheets of watercolor paper completely in containers of water. And this can be anywhere from two minutes to ten minutes depending on the artists. But basically after the watercolor paper has been completely soaked and has been allowed to absorb all of the water. It's able to absorb it's stretched out using either special tape or Staples and allowed to dry completely before actually using it. In this course, I'll be sharing a full class on watercolor paper stretching. And I'll be explaining when I do this, when I don't. And my own personal papers stretching method to medium weight watercolor paper is somewhere around the 140 pound slash 300 GSM mark. This type of paper allows for many washes as long as you are allowing each layer to dry in-between. It allows for lifting techniques as well as scrubbing. Medium weight watercolor paper may or may not have to be stretched depending on the amount of water and layering that the artist is intending to use throughout the painting process, moving onto heavyweight watercolor paper. And this weight of watercolor paper is usually somewhere around the 300 pound slash 640 GSM mark. It does not require taping down or stretching and allows for lots and lots of wet-on-wet techniques and washes. All of this said don't be fooled just because this paper is a lot thicker, it doesn't mean it automatically is better and outperforms the other paper weights and it is usually a lot more expensive. My suggestion for beginners in terms of paperweight is always to go for medium weight watercolor paper. As lightweight watercolor paper can be extremely aggravating to work with, especially when we haven't mastered water control and we haven't yet grasp the fact that we have to allow layers of watercolor to dry in-between in order to allow the paper to regain its strength. I remember when I was a beginner, I made so many holes in lightweight watercolor paper. And right now presently I never buy lightweight watercolor paper anymore. Not to mention when we're just getting started, we tend to waste a lot of supplies and it's important to keep practicing consistently and developing that momentum that is going to help us keep going, keep progressing our skills. If we buy the heavyweight watercolor paper right off the bat, which is quite expensive, we may end up not wanting to create art and not wanting to practice because we don't want those supplies going to waste and that's the absolute worst that can happen. So I would recommend going for them medium weight watercolor paper and always remembering doesn't matter what kind of watercolor paper you go for, whether it's hot press, cold press, or rough. Remember that overworking your watercolor paper is very easy to do. Because even though watercolor paper is created to take on water and water-soluble mediums, It's important to understand that wet paper is fragile paper and you need to start practicing when you need to step back and allow your paper to dry completely before attempting to go back in and add more layers of paint, more details or whatever it is, you need to allow that paper to regain its strength. Paper texture, and overall quality really vary from brand to brand. And even though two different papers may have the same type in terms of rough cold press or hot press, and may even have the exact same weights. They may perform very differently throughout the painting process and lead to very different outcomes. There are even a lot of external variables when it comes to painting with watercolor that affect our painting process and our end outcome. And this includes even the temperature and the humidity of the room that we're working in. And moving on to the very last thing in regards to watercolor paper, I just want to very briefly explain about the different formats that you're gonna be able to easily find in art supply stores. For me, there are basically four main formats of watercolor paper. The first is pads, which include many sheets of watercolor paper bound together by either a spiral or soft adhesive that is located on one side. The second type are blocks which have adhesive all around. And basically you have to remove each sheet one-by-one super carefully with some sort of ninth. The third type are larger, loose sheets of watercolor paper that can come in a variety of different sizes. And this is something that I go for when someone commissions me to create a watercolor painting in a very specific size because I can buy these larger sheets and then I can cut them into the format that I need. And lastly, we have watercolor paper sketch books. And these are an awesome option for quick sketches and artists who love working in plain air or painting in a different setting that isn't in their studio. My suggestion for beginners would be to go for medium-sized watercolor paper pads. And there are many options that are excessively priced offered by brands such as Strathmore and Canson. Of course, for those of you who have a bit of a higher budget to invest into your watercolor paper, There's always arches, which is very high-quality. You're gonna be able to find various different options of watercolor paper pads in slightly different sizes offered by all of these brands, either online or in local art supplies stores. And one quick tip that I wanted to share with you here that I often did when I was first getting started myself in order to make my watercolor paper last longer, was that I used to cut my sheets of watercolor paper into smaller sections, often two or even for smaller parts. And I use them to create smaller isolated studies and really develop my skills and worked up my confidence so that I can then move on to creating a complete painting on a complete sheet and really arrive at much better outcomes. Congratulations for making it through this class on watercolor paper. I hope that you found it helpful. And I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next, which is going to be all about watercolor paint brushes. See you then. 7. Watercolor Brush Types: Welcome to this class in which I'm gonna be covering all of the most new information for beginners on watercolor paint brushes. First and foremost, the main characteristics that set watercolor paint brushes apart from other types of brushes for other painting mediums such as acrylics and oils, are that watercolor paint brushes have bristles that are very soft and very absorbent. This makes it so that you're able to load up a good amount of paint and water in their bristles. And you're able to paint these large washes relatively quickly, which is important. And you're also able to create all of these beautiful effects. I do have quite a few multimedia brushes in my own set that I use for painting with watercolor. But generally speaking, you do want to make sure that the bristles of your paint brushes are very soft and you want to stay away from stiffer bristles that are generally more oriented towards acrylics or oils. Those paint brushes with stiffer bristles are usually created to push thicker paint consistencies around paper or canvas. When we're painting with watercolor, we're using plenty of water and our paint consistencies are much thinner than when we're working with mediums such as acrylics or oils, let's talk about the different types of paint brushes that you're going to be able to find an art supply stores making our way from left to right. There's a mop brush, otherwise known as the wash brush. There's the flat brush, There's the round brush, the fan brush, the filbert, the dagger, the oval, also known as cat's tongue. There's the angled brush and there's the liner brush, which is also known as the script or rigger brush. So many beginner watercolor artists out there feel that they need to have this entire range of different types of brushes on hand in order to complete a painting. And honestly, this couldn't be further from the truth. Most often than not experienced artists work with a limited amount of brushes in very specific sizes that they've already discovered worked for them. Depending on the type of subject that they paint, the size of their paintings, and the specific techniques and effects that the light going for when we're just getting started, it's incredibly important to go for what's versatile. And in my opinion, the two paint brushes that are most versatile are round brushes and flat brushes. You can complete entire paintings of so many different types of subjects using these two types of brushes. And just like with your paint, what's best is to go for a less amount of brushes of higher-quality than tons of different brushes of lower-quality. What I was just getting started on my own journey. I remember investing in these huge paintbrush sets that had all of these different kinds of brushes in them. And honestly, there were so many that I didn't even use. And the ones that I did use were so low quality that the ended up becoming unusable pretty quickly. Nowadays, I invest in individual brushes or very small brush sets with three to five brushes in them that I know I'm gonna be using for a long time. This said most of the paint brushes that I use are student grade and pretty excessively priced. Right here on screen, I'm sharing the majority of the brushes that I have in my set currently in my studio for painting with watercolor. All of the ones that I've grouped together on the right. I rarely if ever use I always use flats and rounds, which are the ones that I have on the far left and also in the center. And I choose the sizes of brushes that I'm going to need depending on the painting on hand, what subject it is, how much detail it's going to include if it has large washes or a background to it. And all those things inform my decisions as to which specific sizes I'll be picking. What I would recommend is getting one or two larger brushes for larger washes and larger areas that you have to paint, whether it's a larger round brush or a mop brush or a flat brush is entirely up to you. I like having a larger mop brush, which is essentially a very large, very absorbent and very thirsty round brush. And I also have a larger one inch flat brush. I would also recommend investing in two to three medium-sized brushes. And for me, medium-sized brushes are somewhere in-between 168. Personally, I would go for rounds, but if you want to get at least one flat brush in the medium range, that is totally up to you. And then finally, I would also get one to two finer detailing brushes. And for me the smaller brushes are anywhere from size six to a double 0. And for that smaller brush or those smaller couple of brushes, I would definitely get rounds. Synthetic versus natural hair brushes. Let's look into their differences first, synthetic hair brushes are usually handcrafted and made out of materials such as nylon and polyester. Sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart from natural hair brushes because the bristles are died to make them look like natural hair brushes. Synthetic hair brushes are excessively priced and their quality keeps improving to mimic natural hair brushes year after year, they also tend to last longer in better condition and are easier to take care of, which is a big plus for artists who are tough on their brushes, synthetic brushes also tend to have stiffer bristles which snap back into place very easily after having wetted them. And they usually stay in this condition for a longer time when compared to natural hair brushes, which have much softer bristles. Okay, so let's jump on over to natural hair brushes. Natural hair brushes contain bristles that are made from animal here such as goats, squirrels, bores, etc. They are much more expensive than synthetic hair brushes. And they're bristles definitely tend to hold a greater amount of paint and water in them, which leads to smoother, longer strokes without having to constantly dip your bristles into your paint mixtures. Natural hair brushes a definitely tend to be more difficult to clean and require better care if we want to keep them in great condition for a long time. If you decide to invest in natural hair brushes, It's very much recommended to buy a special soap to both clean and condition your bristles every couple of weeks. But do make sure that the soap you buy for this is created for watercolor brushes and is very gentle. Another characteristic about natural hair watercolor brushes is that they have very, very soft bristles. And even when we just bought our paint brushes, it's normal that we have to use our fingers to gently reshape those tips which may drop to the side depending on the size of our brush before setting them down to dry. And the last characteristic that I've included here about natural hair paint brushes is that they do have more of a tendency to shed faster. I would recommend people just getting started with watercolor to go with quality yet affordable synthetic brushes. If you have the budget to go for natural hair brushes right off the bat, then by all means, go ahead and do it. But I know I didn't have that budget when I was first getting started myself and I was perfectly able to develop my skills for painting with watercolor using synthetics perfectly fine. There are various options for quality and affordable, either synthetic or mixture of synthetic and natural hair brushes out there that you can buy online are also in local art supply stores if you have one. When we're first getting started, we tend to be very tough on our watercolor brushes and paper and pretty much everything else. And don't necessarily have the knowledge yet of what we have to do to take care of our art supplies properly, which is also one of the main reasons why I always recommend synthetic brushes for beginners. I personally loved to use a lot of gentle scrubbing techniques and lifting techniques and tend to be pretty tough on my brushes myself and I really loved synthetics because I don't feel bad when they have to replace them. Not to mention, using synthetic brushes is really very important for those of us who love animals and really care about not further endangering certain species. How long our paint brushes last in great condition, whether they are natural hair brushes or synthetic hair brushes is going to completely depend on how much we use them and how well we take care of them overtime. Very important watercolor brush care tip that I want to leave you with is make sure that after you use your watercolor brushes or whenever they are wet or damp, you are placing them horizontally or tip down. You can place them either on a towel, on a desk or a table, some sort of horizontal surface. Or you can look for different DIY contraptions or ways that you can hang your paintbrush with the tip or the bristles head down if you place them in a mason jar or any other sort of container right after you've painted with them, there's still a lot of moisture and wetness in those bristles that is going to stay in the feral of the brush. The ferrule is that metallic section that is holding the bristles together. It has glue in it. And if you place your paint brushes with the bristles facing up after you've just use them and they have witness in them that water, that moisture is going to continue being trapped in there and it's going to soften that adhesive and it's also going to travel down the handle of the brush, which can really affect the handle if it is made out of wood or has some sort of plastic enamel. And so if you're going to be placing your watercolor brushes in any type of container to keep them in your studio. Just makes sure that you place them in that container after they've completely dried if you've made it through this class, congratulations, I hope that you learned a lot about watercolor paint brushes. I am so excited to get into the next class. I'm going to take you through the main brushstrokes that you should know about. And we're gonna be doing some drills together which are going to help us continue practicing our water and our brush control. See you then. 8. Brush Stroke Practice: Welcome to this class on essential brushstrokes to practice. The different brushstrokes that I've included in this class will come up over and over and over again in your journey with watercolor. It doesn't matter what kind of subject it is that you decide to paint. Whether it's loose florals or portraits, or landscapes, or still-life or animals. You'll see different combinations of these brushstrokes come up over and over again. It's super important to know about them, to make time to practice them, and to get to a point at which you're able to really shift and change the way that you're using your paintbrush depending on what it is that you're painting and the effects that you're going for, the textures that you're trying to create, etc. All this said, even though these brushstroke drills are super-helpful for beginner artists who are starting to develop their hand-eye coordination, their fine motor skills, and their development of water and brush control. They are also very helpful for artists who are more advanced because they can help you get to know a new paintbrush that you've just acquired. And they can also be a great warm-up before getting started with a new piece in the projects and resources tab for this class, you'll be able to find photos of my drills that I am working on in this video, which you can download and use as reference as you're working yourself. I'm gonna be using my size ten round brush for all of these brushstroke drills, I would recommend going for a medium-sized brush. You can certainly do these drills with browns and flats and any kind of paintbrush that you have really before getting started, I made sure to create a few different juicy puddles of color in my color mixing palette, you can choose whichever colors you'd like to use for these drills. It doesn't really matter. Just go with the ones that you like, but do make sure that the consistency of your puddles on your mixing palette contain around 50% water, 50% pigment in them. You want them to be nice and juicy. You want them to have a good amount of water and flow to them so that you can load up your paint brush nicely. But you also want to make sure that they have a good amount of paint in them so that you can see that color as you're laying it down. I would say somewhere between the coffee and milk consistencies that we were talking about before would do perfectly. One last thing that I want to make sure to say before jumping into the exercises is that I am right-handed, so I'm gonna be working from left to right. But if you're left-handed, you can totally work in the opposite direction. And I would actually recommend pushing yourself to do these drills in different directions to what comes more naturally are comfortable to you because the more you challenge yourself to lay down these strokes and lines and shapes and everything in different directions, the better you're going to be able to tackle different paintings in the future. The first drill is going to be to lay down thin lines. And these lines can be horizontal, they can be vertical, they can be a diagonal lines. They can go off in any direction. But the objective is to use only the tip of your paintbrush to create one single smooth brushstroke and to try your very best to keep the thickness of your lines as consistent as possible all throughout, you're probably going to notice that you get better and better as you move on creating your lines. This is perfectly fine and to be expected, just keep going. Alright, drill number two is going to be to lay down thick lines as opposed to the thin lines with these, you're actually going to be pressing down the belly of your paintbrush and producing one consistent stroke as best as you can without lifting up your paint brush, just like with a thin lines, try your best to keep the thickness of your thick lines as consistent as possible as you make your way through from start to finish. Also as you're moving along and makes sure that the consistency of your little puddles on your paint mixing palette are still nice and juicy because as we move along, you will start running out of paint and you'll have to make more many times if you're not able to make it all the way through your line, it's because you weren't able to load up your paint brush bristles as well, which probably has to do with the fact that you have just a very small amount of paint on your mixing palette or it doesn't have enough water in it. So this is a great opportunity for you to develop that skill, that muscle to continue noticing if the consistency of your puddles on your mixing palette are helpful for what you're trying to do. And if they're not, then modify the paint to water ratio in your puddles in order for them to actually be helpful for what you're doing. This is something that you're going to have to do over and over again throughout your watercolor painting processes in the future. Alright, moving on to drill number three, and these are thin to thick lines or a thick to thin lines, however you'd like to call them. And essentially it's a combo of the first two strokes. So you're essentially just using the tip of your paintbrush for certain sections and then pressing down the belly of your paintbrush for the thicker sections. Lifting, backup and pressing down and lifting and pressing and so on and so forth. Just like with the others, were trying to keep the paintbrush in contact with the paper as we move from start to finish. Take your time with this one and do it as many times as you have to. I know it can feel awkward in the beginning, but I promise you as you continue practicing, you'll get better and better and you'll get more comfortable with your paint brushes. All right, moving on to bouncing. And this one I just like seeing as you're using the bristles of your paintbrush as a sort of little stamp that you're pressing and lifting and pressing and lifting. You're not really doing any lateral movement at all. You're just pressing and lifting. And of course, when it comes to balancing the shape and the type of the paintbrush that you're using is really going to have a great impact on the shapes that you're creating. In this case, because I'm using a round brush, I am getting a nice little kind of drop or leaf shape. What I like doing just like what I was mentioning before. I like really challenging myself to create these shapes in all sorts of different angles and directions. I really believe that if you do this, you're going to get way more out of your practice and you're going to be way more well-equipped when it comes to using these different techniques and strokes and washes in your actual paintings. As I'm doing my bouncing, I'm holding my paintbrush and I would say anywhere between a 15 to 35 degree angle from my paper so that the entire side and belly of my paintbrush can come into contact with the paper and create those shapes. As I'm moving along, I continue reloading my paintbrush every time I notice that the color is coming down way too pale. All right, moving on to the fifth brushstroke. And these are C strokes. Just like with all the others, really practice creating your strokes in different directions. So maybe Sometimes you're starting at the top and you're making your way down. Maybe sometimes they're starting from the left and you make your way towards the right, you can create these curved strokes going off in different directions. And it's going to enable you to just get the most out of your practice instead of just focusing on working from left to right, or only horizontal or only vertical, etc. When it comes to this C strokes, when you start that stroke, you're pressing down your paintbrush because you want that section to be thicker and then it kind of tapers out as you make your way towards the little tail of that see. So you start by pressing down the belly of your paint brush. And as you paint that C stroke, you're lifting your paintbrush up from your paper so that just the tip of your paintbrush is coming into contact with your paper in that tapered little end. So you're not just drawing a C, but you're also lifting your paintbrush as you're moving towards the tail end. It definitely takes practice and time to be able to alter and change both the pressure that you're exerting on your paintbrush and the direction that you're moving that paint brush towards as you're painting that C-shape, you have to do both of these things, change both the pressure and the direction simultaneously. Take as long as you need to with these. If you're finding these hard to do something I would recommend would be breaking up the learning process and the practice process into two steps. First, get great at painting that see that curve shape without worrying about tapering out the shape. Then once you're good at that, then practice changing the pressure as you're drawing that C or that curve moving onto essential brushstroke number six, and this is going to be flicking in today's practice, I'm going to be doing upwards flicking, but you can do it in any direction as well. This is the brushstroke that I use whenever I am adding grass into landscapes and nature scenes. But this brushstroke is also used when painting things like eyelashes and portraits. Of course, in those cases you probably want to use an even thinner brush than this. And of course, when we're painting eyelashes, we also have to make sure that we curve eyelashes in specific directions depending on their location above or below our eyeball. But the brushstroke is essentially flicking when it comes to these brushstrokes, you're also looking for that tapered look. You're looking for the roots or the base where you started that stroke to be thicker and thinner and thinner as you make your way upward or Towards the end of that stroke. And moving your paintbrush and flicking your wrist upwards or towards the direction of the end quickly in one single stroke that is going to enable you to create that tapered look. Right here. You can probably see how I'm trying to create slight, very subtle curves instead of having them go completely straight upwards and a stiff way moving onto the next essential brushstroke. And this is twirling. I created a nice juicy puddle of blue-green for myself on my color mixing palette. This is a super helpful brushstroke to practice because it really helps you get comfortable. With shifting and changing your use of your tool in your hand as you're moving along, allowing your wrist, your hand, your fingers and your paintbrush to do their own thing and embrace the abstract shapes that turn out that you sometimes to a certain extent do have control over, but in other ways you don't. And this is a beautiful thing. For this one, you are essentially twirling or rotating the paintbrush in-between your fingers towards the front and towards the back or counter and counterclockwise, if you'd like to see it in that way. As you're doing a whole bunch of different things, you're changing the angle that your paintbrush has in relation to the paper itself. At some points, my paintbrush has more of a 20 to 25 degree angle to my paper. And at other points it has more of a 45-degree angle in relation to my paper. And other times like right here, it's more of a 90 degree angle. Allow yourself to explore all sorts of different angles and see the abstract shapes that turn out in result simultaneously to rotating the paintbrush in-between your fingers and changing the angle of your paintbrush in relation to your paper. Also explore pressing down your paintbrush to different degrees. At some points you want the entire belly of your paintbrush to come into contact with the paper. And other times you want just the tip of your paintbrush to come into contact with your paper. I'm approaching this practice in sections and focusing on creating separate abstract irregular shapes. And as we paint each one of these shapes, I'm trying to have at least some amount of my paintbrush bristles touching my paper. Whenever I see that my color is coming out way too pale, I go ahead and reload my paintbrush. All right, moving on to the very last essential brushstroke practice drill here. And this is going to be scribbling. This is a brushstroke or technique that I oftentimes like using whenever I'm going to be painting the leaves of trees and scenes or landscapes, or even shrubs and plants. But it's also super helpful when trying to create other types of textures such as bread or cake. I personally really liked working on food illustration and I use this technique when I'm going to be developing those types of textures only when I am painting food. I am just touching the tip of my paintbrush to my paper as opposed to when I am painting leaves of trees or plants, I press down my paintbrush more to create larger shapes. This stroke or technique is similar to the twirling that we were doing before. But I'm not really rotating my paint brush in-between my fingers anymore. I'm still exploring and shifting and changing the angle that I'm using my paintbrush at the direction that I'm going towards or pushing that paint towards, rotating my hand and arm in relation to the page and also pressing down my paintbrush to different degrees. Sometimes just the tip of my paintbrush is coming into contact with the paper. And other times it's the entire belly of my paintbrush that I am pressing down. If I'm looking for larger shapes are overlapping shapes. Many of these shapes are created by me doing gentle stabbing motions into my paper while rotating my hand and arm and modifying the angles. I'm really focusing on creating a lot of irregularity here and staying away from the look of patterns are organized shapes. And this is key when painting any kind of natural organic subject, you want to make sure that things are very, very irregular and nothing is too pattern me, organized or stiff. Really practicing both of these final two brushstrokes is going to help you get more comfortable with that. And with that, we're all done with this class on brushstroke drills. I really hope that you found it helpful. I hope that you learned something new and I hope that you were able to give these exercises a goal for yourself. I want to encourage you once again to spend as long as you need to with these practice drills. In the next class we are going to be practicing the three main must know washes when it comes to watercolor painting, which are the flat wash, the graded wash and the variegated wash. See you then. 9. Three Basic Washes Practice: Hello and welcome to this class on the three basic watercolor washes to know about and practice. Just like the brushstrokes that I shared in the last class. These three washes are gonna come up over and over and over again as we move forward in your watercolor painting journey. Doesn't matter what kind of subject it is that you're painting or what kind of style it is that you're going for. You're going to need to know about these three washes. These three washes are the flat wash, the graded wash, and the variegated wash. Let's go over them today and practice them together. I want to share a few important pieces of information before jumping in. The first one is you want to make sure that you're using larger brushes for these washes. After all, we use washes when we're painting larger areas and larger shapes, you want to make sure that the size of your paintbrush always goes hand in hand with the size of the shape or the area that you're painting. If you try to paint an area that is medium to larger size with a very small paintbrush that is going to be super frustrating and it's probably going to lead to undesired textures throughout that wash. You wonder that comfortable handling medium to larger size paint brushes. As a rule of thumb, I always like using the largest paintbrush that I feel I can get away with for the area on hand because I know I'll be able to load up a good amount of paint in those bristles and I'll be able to paint quickly because remember the moment that you lay down that color on that paper, that paper is already starting to dry, especially if you're painting on dry paper. And you haven't done any pre wedding with clean water or aren't depositing more paint on a layer of paint that is still wet. In your painting on dry paper, you're racing against the clock and you have to move pretty fast, which takes me to the next point. These three washes can all be done on either dry paper or paper that you've preloaded with clean water. The way that I showed you in class number three where I was explaining about how you can paint on either dry paper or pre wetted paper. If you remember that I pre-ordered that section of paper with clean water before starting to drop in my paint. And I would encourage you to try all of these washes on both dry paper and paper you've preloaded with clean water. Make sure that you take your time doing your pre-writing process with clean water though, you can do pre wetting with your paintbrush. Bring out a little bit of clean water at a time from your container onto your paper and gently glide those paintbrush bristles in horizontal strokes and then in vertical strokes over your painting area. I like going over everything at least three to four times. Or you can also use your little spraying. Mr. spread your clean water over your page until you see a nice even sheen. When you see a nice even uniform Xin, that's when you can go ahead and start painting, goal for it and try all of these washes on both the dry paper and pre wooded paper, and then come to your own conclusions as to what you find most comfortable and leads to the best results. You might find that you enjoy doing some of these on dry paper and others on pre wooded paper. I'm gonna be demoing all of these on dry paper today. One other important piece of information that I want to share with you so that you can be more successful with these washes is make sure that you prepare enough of your color mixtures on your color mixing palette before getting started with any single one of these because you don't want to run out of color along the way as you're painting and have to create more and then have your wash or a section of your wash dry on you as you're painting. Because again, that is going to lead to sharp defined edges around that last shape that you painted in and texture throughout that Wash. Makes sure that you always prepare enough of your color mixtures for yourself and that your color mixtures are nice and juicy. And while saturated, you want a good amount of color in them, but also some waterflow in them as well. Remember, somewhere between the coffee and milk consistencies is what you want. Alright, and the very last thing that I wanted to make sure to share with you, which I feel is pretty important too, is for filming purposes. For these videos, I am painting on a flat horizontal surface because I have to have my camera right on top of me and as close to my watercolor paper as possible. And this is the way that I can ensure that you can have the best view possible of what I am doing. However, a lot of artists enjoy doing these larger washes on a tilted surface. And this is helpful because gravity is working to their advantage because gravity pulls the water and the paint down, which can certainly help with the washes looking more uniform and the gradients turning out more smoothly. So that is also something that I would recommend exploring experiment with painting these washes on a flat horizontal surface. Then with tilting your backing board to different degrees and see if that's helpful. Alright, so with all that said, let's go ahead and get started with the very first wash, which is the flat wash. With the flat wash, what we're looking for is a nice uniform hue or color and level of translucency or value all throughout. So after having loaded up my paintbrush bristles very well with that nice juicy color, I go ahead and get started at the top and I make my way down as I continue making my way down with horizontal strokes going from left to right and vice versa back and forth. I pay attention to how that color is coming down. The moment that I notice that the color that I'm laying down is very pale. That means that I have to load up my paintbrush once again and pick up exactly where I left off because as that paint starts running out from your paintbrush bristles, it's gonna become paler and paler or lighter and lighter. And that is going to lead to more of a gradient effect. And we're looking for the same level of saturation from top to bottom all the way through. So the moment that you notice that the color becomes paler, quickly reload those paintbrush bristles and continue always starting above that edge where you just left off so that you're not left with any defined edges. In other words, go over that very last section again and continue making your way down. If that last edge where you left off starts drying on you, you're probably going to be left with a sharp defined edge in that section of your wash. So you have to move pretty quickly if you're working on dry paper. If you're working on wet paper, you have more time. Okay, so moving on to wash number two, and this is the graded wash and a graded wash or going from more of a darker, saturated version of your color to a lighter, more translucent version of your color. I'm gonna do this one twice, once with blue and once with red so that you can see how I worked through this one. Essentially for the graded wash, I just load up my paintbrush bristles very well once before getting started with my paintbrush bristles holding a good amount of saturated color. I go ahead and get started with painting in the top third of this rectangle. Once I painted that top third, I did my paintbrush in my container of water two to three times. I remove the excess water by gently scraping the bristles of my paintbrush along the top of my container. I paint in the middle third. And then after painting in the middle third, I did my paint brush into my container of water two to three times. Once again, remove that excess water from my bristles by scraping the bristles along the top of my container and paint in the bottom. Third, notice how every time I go back in after having removed some of that paint for my paintbrush bristles, I'd slightly go over that bottom section of the last shape so that I'm not left with that line in-between. Every single time I did my paintbrush into my container of water, a bit of color drips down into that water, gets removed from my paintbrush bristles and some of the water gets absorbed into that paintbrush, bristles diluting that color, making that color weaker, which is exactly what I want as I'm making my way down this rectangle so that I can create that gradient if you'd like. You can experiment with tilting your backing board up and down to different degrees. You can see what happens when that gravity pulls that paint down. Of course, for you to see any differences there, your paint still has to be pretty wet right here. I decided to go over everything once with a clean and slightly damp paintbrush before my paint started to dry. This is something that you can do if you have lines in-between your different sections or any texture that you want to get rid of. But do be warned that this tends to bring down way too much pigment from that top section and it makes the bottom section darker, which leads to a softer looking gradients. Oftentimes when working with watercolor, it's best to embrace the imperfection and irregularities that occur throughout the painting process and leave them be and then just continue practicing more and they will turn out better and better instead of trying to go back in and perfecting things too much because you can get rid of your grading completely or start overworking your paper. When working with watercolor, I always try to remind myself that the less I go in and move that paint around after it's been placed on paper, the better and the fresher the results. So right here I'm going to go through the same process again, but now with red. So first I'm making sure to create a good juicy puddle of red on my mixing palette and make sure that I have enough of that. I take my time loading up my painter's crystals very well. And then I'm going to get started with painting in approximately the top third. Then I did my paint brush into my container of water two to three times. I remove that excess water or paint in the next third, dip by paintbrush into my container of water two to three times, remove that excess water and paint in the last third. So once again, as you can see, I just loaded up my paintbrush bristles once in the very beginning. And every single time I did my paint brush into my container of water, that color became weaker and weaker as some of that color drip down into my water and some water got absorbed into my bristles, diluting that color and making it weaker, which is exactly what I wanted as I made my way down here, I took a little bit of time to do some exploring, tilting my backing board up and down to different degrees. And then right here I decided to go back in with a clean is slightly damp paintbrush to run the bristles of my paintbrush over everything once again, starting at the top, making my way down. Once again, I want to warn you that if you do this to get rid of any lines or texture that you might have, you might end up with a software gradient because you're bringing down that pigment into your lighter area. Alright, moving into the last wash, and this is the variegated wash. In a variegated wash you have two or multiple colors merging together and creating gradients between each other. So a color turning into another color. Now, you can use whichever colors you'd like. But I would recommend especially in the beginning, that you use analogous colors. This means colors that are close to each other or next to each other in the color wheel, colors I, you know, are going to create a nice transition color in-between them. So I decided to go with red and yellow. I know that where these two colors meet and mixed together, I am going to get a nice-looking orange, which is the secondary color that we get when red and yellow mixed together. And the reason why I say this is because if you pick two colors that are very different from each other or very distanced apart in the color wheel, you may end up having a muddy, grayish, or brownish color in-between where those colors mixed together. If you pick analogous colors, you're always going to have a nice color in-between. You're not gonna be surprised with creating a color that you didn't want. Alright, so once you have your two nice juicy puddles of color on your color mixing palette, you're going to load up your paintbrush very well. And you're going to start at the top with the first color. It doesn't matter which color you start with. Just go ahead and load up your paintbrush crystals very well with it. And start at the top and start making your way down with back-and-forth horizontal motions. As you can see, I left approximately the bottom fourth of this rectangle free of that first color, which in my case was the red eye. Then remove that first color from my paintbrush bristles by swiveling my paintbrush in my container of water, making sure that the wire that was dripping down for my paintbrush bristles was nice and clear. I loaded up my paintbrush with the second color, which in my case is the yellow. And I did the same thing, but I made my way up with this color so that the yellow met with the red. They took the yellow upwards a little bit past the halfway point. And as you can see in the middle of the two colors merged together very beautifully. I created a nice soft transition where one color turned into the other color. Once again, because I am working on dry paper, it's super important that I work quickly so that by the time that I do my work with the second color, the first color is still wet. Otherwise it's gonna be more difficult to get that nice soft transition. Congratulations for making it through yet another class in this course. I hope that you found it helpful. I hope that you learned something new and I hope that you are able to give these exercises a goal for yourself and continue working on these for as long as you need to take your time. I look forward to seeing you in the next class in which I'm gonna be taking you through a bunch of muss, no techniques, they're really going to help you expand your horizons when it comes to painting with watercolor. So that you can have some great tools in your tool bag for tackling pretty much any watercolor painting that you may wish to tackle in the future. See you then. 10. Watercolor Must Know Techniques: Welcome to this class on muss, no watercolor techniques. I'm gonna be walking you through ten different techniques that are important for you to practice so that you can have the tools you need to create different textures to protect, highlight areas, to create points of interests in your pieces. And just be able to make artistic choices when it comes to tackling different watercolor paintings. In this class, I do bring in a few extra tools and supplies that I use to demo some of these techniques such as masking fluid, toothpicks and salt. So as you can see, I have separated out a watercolor sheet into ten different rectangles. It doesn't really matter if the spaces that you create a practice, these different techniques are squares or rectangles. Whatever you prefer is absolutely fine, but you do want to make sure that they are separated with some sort of masking tape or washi tape. And that the spaces that you create for yourself are large enough that you can practice the technique well. For these exercises, I'm going to be using both my one-inch flat brush and my size ten round brush. Whenever it is that I have to paint a larger area, I'm gonna be using my flat brush for that larger wash and whatever I have to paint smaller shapes, lines or marks or anything like that. I'm gonna be using my size ten round brush. You can use whichever colors you'd like to use for these different exercises. Let's go ahead and jump straight into the first technique. This is going to be the dry brushing technique. I love to use this dry brushing technique to create the illusion of the texture of wood or rocks or worn-out paint and objects are buildings, highlights and ripples of water and many more things. What I'm doing here is I take just a very small amount of paint in my paintbrush bristles. Notice how I'm just gently touching the side of my paintbrush onto my little puddle of paint. And I then use my fingers to separate out those bristles before going in. Notice how because they didn't load up my paintbrush bristles with so much paint and water. When I glide my paintbrush bristles over that paper, I'm not able to uniformly cover up that paper with paint. That paint is not being laid down smoothly, the tooth and the texture of that paper in combination with that small amount of paint in my paintbrush bristles are making it so that certain sections, certain specs of paper are left unpainted, shining through creating an interesting visual texture. I'm going to go ahead and paint in more shapes, this time with yellow on top of those pale red shapes. I did the exact same thing and took just a small amount of paint in my paintbrush bristles, and I'm driving my paint brush sideways. This time I took a little bit more paint, but you can still see how when I drag my paintbrush sideways, there's still a little specks of paper left shining through completely unpainted. All right, let's move on to the next technique. And this is going to be pulling. I'm using some green here and the still using my size ten round brush. I cleaned out all of the previous colors for my paintbrush bristles before going into my green. And what I did was I painted a thick line, but you can also paint a shape. I then removed all of that paint from my paintbrush bristles. I remove that excess water by touching my paintbrush onto my absorbent towel. And what I'm doing right here is the pulling technique. While that green is still wet, I am pulling some of that pigment down. You can see how as I make my way away from that shape, that pigment becomes paler and paler. You have to make sure that your paint is still wet when you do your polling so that you can either pull or push your paint around. Right here. I'm going to demo this one more time. This time I'm going to paint in a small blue shape. I removed that paint from my paintbrush bristles and I go back in with a clean and only slightly damp paintbrush to do my pulling towards the left. With this exercise, you can really see how when it comes to painting with watercolor, just a little bit of paint can go a very long way. Let's move on to the next technique and this is going to be lifting. I personally use this technique all the time when I am painting to pick up highlights, to soften edges, the correct mistakes. It can come in handy in so many different situations. So what I'm going to be doing to demo this technique is first I'm just painting three little shapes. Once I have my shapes painted in, I'm going to go ahead and show you two different ways of doing. You're lifting on fresh paint paint that is still wet. So in this first one, I went in with my clean and only slightly damp paintbrush and I use the bristles of my paintbrush as a little absorbent sponge. As you can see, I was able to absorb some of that pigment backup while it was still wet, lightening that section where the pigment was absorbed and allowing more of that paper to shine through that area. With the red shape, what I did was I actually use my absorbent towel instead of my paintbrush to lift up that paint in the middle of the shape. And as you can see, I was able to lift up that pigment, once again creating a lighter, more translucent value in the middle of that shape and allowing more of the paper to shine through in that area. I'm going to allow the other little shape to dry completely so that I can demo how to do the lifting after the paint has dried and just a bit in the meantime, let's move on to the next technique, which is going to be negative painting. So you're gonna see me use an HB drawing pencil, which is the pencil grade that I like using what I'm going to be sketching directly on my watercolor paper. And I'm gonna be drawing in a couple of leaf shapes. After painting in those leaf shapes, I loaded up my paint brush with some of my green and I'm painting around the leaves. This is what is referred to as negative painting. You're not actually painting the subject itself, but you're painting around the subject. This is a technique that is incredibly useful when you're painting things like white flowers and other white objects. But there are many other situations in which you might find it helpful to paint in the background first. And this is essentially negative painting as well. This technique can be used in a variety of different ways in order to create very interesting effects in all sorts of different paintings. Alright, so now that the previous exercise has dried completely, I'm gonna go ahead and show you how to do lifting on paint that has already dried. First, I made sure that I changed my water and that I was going in with clean water in my paint brush. I then dampen my paintbrush bristles, remove the excess water by blocking the tips of my bristles on my absorbent towel. And what I'm doing right here is I am doing gentle scrubbing on that dry paint with the tip of my paintbrush, gently running my paintbrush bristles back and forth in that central area. I then use my absorbent towel to lift up that paint that I had reactivated. As you can see, I was able to lift up some of that color after it had dried. I'm going to take a quick second to also show you how to soften hard defined edges just in case this is something that you wish to do in the future. Just like I was able to do gentle scrubbing to reactivate that color in the middle of the shape. I can also do the same along the edges of the shape. I do my gentle scrubbing with the cleanest slightly damp paintbrush. Then I use my absorbent towel to lift up some of that pigment and soften that edge. When you use the scrubbing technique, you want to make sure that you're nice and gentle and don't do more than what's truly necessary. Remember that we're painting on paper and paper is fragile, even though this paper is intended for water-soluble mediums, we have to just remember that it is very easy to overwork and damage the paper. Alright, so as you can see, I am able to soften these two edges that I went in and did my scrubbing and lifting on. When you compare them to the other two edges where I didn't do this technique. Alright, let's go ahead and move on to the next technique. And this is an exciting one. I'm gonna be demoing the salt technique. This is another amazing technique to create very interesting and visually pleasing textures. It can come in very handy when you're painting a snow scene. Or you can also use it in sections of nature scenes or landscapes where you're looking for interesting textures, It's important to know that the type of salt that you're using, whether it's regular table salt or Himalayan pink salt or sea salt and also how finally it is ground will have an impact on your end results. So again, I would encourage you to try out different types of salts so that you can see the different effects firsthand for this demo, I'm using regular table salt. I did go ahead and try to break those large grains apart a little bit more. So there are certain finer little grains and others, with my salt on hand, I go ahead and use my one-inch flat brush to lay down a layer of dark blue in this shape. I created that beautiful deep dark blue by mixing together some phthalo blue and some neutral tint. And while that blue is still wet, I am going ahead and sprinkling this salt all over this rectangle. If you want a small amount of visual texture sprinkled in a less amount of salt. And if you want a larger amount of visual texture, sprinkle in more, I'm gonna go ahead and allow that to dry completely before dusting off and we're moving that salt. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead and demo the next technique. And this one is going to be a splattering. For this first splattering, we're gonna be using water. And in the next one I'm going to show you how to do splattering with paint. So the first thing that I did was I used my one-inch flat brush to paint in this deep for St. Green wash all over this rectangle with this initial wash is still wet. I changed on over to my size ten round brush and I'm gonna be doing my splattering with this paintbrush. I took some water from my container by swiveling my paintbrush in my container of water, I remove the excess drip edge and then I'm gonna be doing flicking with my index finger. As you can see, little drops of water or getting splattered onto that wet green, creating little teeny-tiny blooms or splotches for those little drops of water are getting splattered onto that paint and disturbing that paint. It isn't the middle of the drying process. If you're doing your splattering and you notice that your texture is disappearing after you do your flicking, your paint is probably so wet still that it's still moving around and situating itself on your paper. So if you do your splattering and you see that texture, but then it disappears. Simply wait like ten seconds more and then try again and you're going to notice a difference. You can see how this texture could also come in very handy for snow scenes, sections of landscapes and natural scenery and many other subjects. Now let's go ahead and do this flattering using color or paint. So I once again went in and paint it in that initial wash with my large one-inch flat brush. This time I painted it in with orange and I'm going to do the exact same thing using my round brush. But this time I loaded up my paintbrush with red paint. I made sure that the red color mixture that I prepared for myself on my mixing palette was nice and saturated. More of a milk to butter consistency is what I was looking for, for that red. This is because I really wanted the red to be noticeable on that orange. But once again, all I did was I used flicking motions with my index finger, and I continued doing that splattering until I arrived at the level of texture that I wanted. All right, moving on to the next technique and this is going to be the masking technique. Masking fluid can be such an incredible and helpful tool to know about. Because not only can it help us keep highlight sections protected, which I've explained why planning and protecting our highlights is so key when I'm painting with this medium. But it can also really help us create all sorts of different textures and effects. I'm placing my masking fluid on my paper using a toothpick to fix are definitely an alternative tool that I use a lot when I'm painting with watercolor and I'm placing my masking fluid on my paper. I definitely like staying away from using my paint brushes when placing masking fluid because masking fluid can definitely ruin your paint brushes as it's liquid latex and it hardens very quickly, leaving your paint brushes completely unusable. There are ways that you can protect the bristles of your paintbrush if you want to use them with masking fluid, for example, you can completely coat those paintbrush bristles with soap before going into your masking fluid. However, I would rather just keep them safe and use another tool. But there are also masking fluid pens that you can buy out there. Alright, so we have to allow that masking fluid to dry completely before going in with the next step, I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next technique which is going to be bleeding. I made a dark reddish purple for myself on my color mixing palette. And using my size ten round brush, I'm just going to paint in a thick line. After painting that in, I removed all the color from a paintbrush bristles. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to go in and run my paintbrush bristles along the edge of that wet paint with just a little bit of water in my paint brush. And as you can see, that paint that's still wet is starting to bleed down and expand into this new wet shape that I just painted in with water. I'm going to go ahead and demo this again with a deep dark blue. Now, this is another way that you can go in and soften the edges of any shapes that you've just painted in. But you do have to make sure that that paint is still wet if you want to do bleeding. Otherwise, that paint is not going to expand into that new wet shape that you paint in with water. So always remember that watercolor is going to expand into paper that is wet. If you want that watercolor paint to bleed, then make sure that you go ahead and do it while that paint is still wet. But in other situations you're not gonna want that bleeding to happen. And so in those cases, you have to make sure that you allow that paint to dry completely before attempting to paint in another shape right next to that shape or another area that's right beside it. So it's really all about taking a moment, asking yourself what kind of effects it is that you're looking for and then deciding whether it's worth to paint quickly or whether it's worth to take a pause and allow that paint to dry before moving forward. Right here, I'm dropping in a little bit more of that blue wall. That water shape is still wet and you can see how that blue is expanding into that wetness. Here I am exploring, tilting my paper and that gravity is pulling that blue down. All right, finally moving on to the last technique that I'm gonna be sharing with you in this class. And these are blooms. Blooms are beautiful effects very particular to watercolor, and they can definitely add points of interest in your pieces. What I did was I paint in that initial orange wash using my one-inch flat brush. And while that orange was still wet, I took some of that saturated red color mixture that I had prepared on my color mixing palette. And I'm touching the tip of my paintbrush onto that wet orange wash. And what I touched that tip of my paintbrush, the paint and my paintbrush bristles travels down those bristles and creates a beautiful bloom as that paint expands into that wetness. Really explore touching just the tip of your paintbrush and lifting it up right away. And compare that to what happens when you touch the tip of your paintbrush for a little bit longer and allow more of that paint a travel down right here, I'm adding in some blooms with a saturated blue-green. Alright, so let's go back to the masking fluid little section here. The masking fluid is completely dry by this point and I can tell because the masking fluid looks slightly yellow and when I touch it, it's tacky but it's not sticky anymore. That's when you know that your masking fluid is completely dry and you can start painting. So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna take a couple of different colors and using my size ten round brush, I'm going to just paint over the masking fluid after painting this in, I'm gonna allow everything to dry completely before attempting to remove that masking fluid. Most of the time, I do go ahead and use my fingers to remove the masking fluid. It just make sure that my hands are clean, that I don't have any oils or lotion on my hands or anything like that. But if you don't want to use your hands, you can also go ahead and invest in a rubber cement pickup that is also a super helpful tool to have on hand around 30 minutes past before I remove this masking fluid. By the way, as you can see, as I remove this masking fluid, that whiteness and the brightness of the paper is revealed completely unpainted and safe because the masking fluid has blocked out that color and has protected our paper for us, you can get an idea of how helpful this tool is when we're wanting to protect those brightest highlights. I also took a quick second to dust off that salt from the salt technique little rectangle and that beautiful mottled texture was revealed. That is it for this class on ten must know watercolor techniques. I hope that you found it super helpful. In the next class, I'm gonna be sharing my own transferring method of choice that I always use to transfer my outline sketches onto my sheets of watercolor paper before getting started with the painting process, how to use tracing paper to transfer your outline sketches. So excited to get started with the class with you and the See you then. 11. How to Transfer Using Tracing Paper: Welcome to this class in which I'm gonna show you step-by-step how to use tracing paper in order to transfer your outline sketches onto your sheets of watercolor paper so that you can then get started with your painting process. Using tracing paper is just one of the many ways that you can do. You're transferring of your outline sketches. Some artists use light boxes, others use carbon paper. I personally enjoy using tracing paper to the year transferring using tracing paper. There are a few different supplies that you're going to need. First of all, if you're going to be tracing over a photograph, you need to have that photograph printed out. Sometimes I create my preliminary sketch freehand in a sketchbook and I trace over my sketch. Other times I trace over a photo, whatever it is, you're going to need that image or that sketch that you're going to trace over. You're going to need a sheet of tracing paper. I like having two different pencil grades on hand, a to-be pencil and an HB pencil. I'll explain why in just a bit. I have both a regular soft graphite eraser and a kneaded eraser as well as a sharpener. And of course, the watercolor sheet that I'm gonna be transferring onto, it's also helpful to have a scrap piece of paper on hand. I'll explain why in just a bit. Right here you can see my watercolor sheet that's already been taped onto my backing board, as I explained in the first-class on supplies, I do make sure to run my pieces of masking tape over my clothes three to four times before using it on my watercolor paper in order to soften that adhesive and make it less likely that'll damage my watercolor paper at the end when I remove it. All right, so with the supplies out of the way, let's go ahead and get started with step one, which is going to be to trace over the first side of our tracing paper. I like placing at least one scrap piece of paper beneath my photograph or beneath my sketch that I'm going to be tracing over. This is so that I don't damage my watercolor paper in any way or get it dirty if you want to, you can definitely set your watercolor sheet that you've taped onto your backing board aside for now because you don't even really need it for this part of the process. Alright, so with my watercolors sheet protected, what I'm doing right here is I am using my Tooby pencil to trace over my image. So why am I using a to B pencil? I am using a to B pencil because it has a relatively soft graphite at its core. And this is going to enable me to deposit a good amount of graphite on my tracing paper as I'm doing my tracing, which is important because if I don't have enough graphite on my tracing paper, I'm not gonna be able to transfer that graphite onto my sheet of watercolor paper. If you don't know about different drawing pencil grades and what they are for or how they can come in handy throughout the drawing or the sketching process. Here's a quick little explanation for you. When you come across a drawing pencil, you're going to find that they have these little codes in them. They can have either one letter, two letters, or a letter and a number. You have your HB pencils and you have your B pencils and you have the HB right smack in the middle. H stands for hard, and B stands for bold or black. The higher the number before the age, the harder the graphite is. And the higher the number before the be, the softer the graphite is. Why is this helpful? When we're looking to create lighter, thinner, cleaner lines we can reach for an age grade pencil. While we're looking to create smudge year bolder, darker lines we can reach for B pencils when I am getting my graphite on my tracing paper, I want that graphite to be softer because that is going to enable me to get more graphite on that tracing paper. However, when it comes to sketching on my watercolor paper directly, I like using a slightly harder pencil grade. I like going for an HB pencil. There are others that would use an age or even a to H to trace right on their watercolor sheet. And this is because they're usually looking for lighter line work on their watercolor sheet cleaner work, so that you're not able to see the pencil work through the paint at the end and so that you're able to keep things nice and clean and not have so much graphite left on your watercolor paper that can smudge and dirty up your fibrin colors in part four of this process, when it comes to refining my sketch directly on my watercolor paper, you're gonna see me switch on over to my HB pencil. However, for the time being, as I'm doing this tracing, I am using my Tooby because I want to make sure that I have enough graphite on my tracing paper because otherwise, if I were to use a harder pencil grade or I didn't go over everything very well. I'm not gonna have enough graphite on my tracing paper in order to do my transferring. Or the transferring is gonna come out very, very light, or I'm gonna be missing certain sections, etc.. Alongside with using a softer pencil grid to do my tracing, I'm also making sure to go over all of these shapes and lines, kind of roughly. I'm not pressing down too hard because I don't want to damage or make holes in my tracing paper. But you can see how I am going over all of these lines with back-and-forth motions. I'm not just going over them one secreting a clean line. I'm going over everything two to three times in a rougher way. This in combination with using a softer pencil grade is going to make it so that enough graphite is deposited on my tracing sheet. You're probably going to find that you have to sharpen your pencil along the way because you're doing all of this pretty roughly. This is to be expected. So just whenever you notice that your pencil starts becoming blunt, just go ahead and sharpen it. You can see me use my left hand to hold my tracing sheet in place as I am doing this tracing over my image every now and then, I lift up my tracing sheet to notice whether I'm missing any lines or shapes that are important. Usually I like making my way from larger shapes towards smaller shapes and details. All right, so right here I am completely done with tracing over this first side of my tracing paper. I've even made sure to trace over the cast shadows that I'm able to see in that image. All right, so with that, let's move on to step number two, which is going to be to trace on the opposite side of our tracing paper. So right here you can see me get prepared by placing my scrap piece of paper under my tracing sheet. This is important because the graphite that I've already placed on the opposite side of my tracing paper is gonna get transferred onto the scrap piece of paper as I am doing the tracing on the opposite side. If you work right on top of your watercolor sheet, that graphite is gonna start getting transferred in the opposite direction to what you want. You're going to transfer the flipped image. So here I am doing the exact same thing that I was doing before. Only this time I am tracing over the opposite side, noticing the pencil work that I've already created on the first side, you can see how when you have graphite on the side that is facing up, that graphite shows shinier and darker. And the graphite that is on the opposite side of the tracing paper looks more matte and looks lighter. If you have any lines or shapes that look matte and lighter, simply makes sure to go over them so that you can ensure that you have graphite on both sides. I am still using my Tooby pencil, my softer pencil grade that I chose for this process. And you can see me still go over everything kind of roughly with back-and-forth motions over everything still using my left hand to hold that tracing sheet in place as I am doing all of this and taking my time with the process. I do want to say that if you want to speed up the transferring process, you can skip this part of the process entirely by printing out your image or your photograph flipped in the opposite direction to what you actually want your final piece to be. What I would do would be to open up my reference photo in a photo editing software like Photoshop or anything else like that. Flip it and Photoshop, then print it in this flipped away. If you trace over the flipped image, then you really only have to trace over one side and you don't have to deposit that graphite on both sides of the tracing paper. I just finished tracing over side number two and as you can see, I now have graphite on both sides of my tracing paper. I'd be able to transfer my sketch in whichever direction I want. I have now ready to get started with step number three, which is the transferring process. So this is the point at which I'm actually placing my tracing paper directly on top of my watercolor paper after making sure that my tracing paper was situated on my watercolor paper exactly where I wanted it. I took a couple of pieces of masking tape and taped my tracing paper and place I like placing these little pieces of masking tape on the top corners because this way I can lift up the sheet at the bottom just to make sure that everything is transferring properly and that I'm not leaving out any important shapes or lines. I made sure to run these little pieces of masking tape over my clothes a few times as well because I don't want to damage my watercolor paper or anything else when I remove them. It's the graphite on the side of the tracing paper that is coming into direct contact with the watercolor paper that is getting transferred. If I didn't have any graphite on the side of the tracing sheet that is directly coming into contact with the watercolor paper, nothing is going to get transferred. So this is why I need that graphite to be on the side that is directly coming into contact with the watercolor sheet. As I go over everything, once again with my pencil, the pressure that I'm exerting on my pencil as I'm going over all of these shapes and lines, is pressing that graphite on the opposite side of the sheet onto my watercolor paper, and that's how that graphite is getting transferred. I'm pressing that. You can see me go over everything quite roughly again, not really trying to make holes in my tracing paper, but really going over everything roughly so that I can make sure that a good amount of graphite is getting deposited on my watercolor paper. I'm just finishing up here and I'm going to notice one last time if I have everything in. And as you can see, I managed to transfer all of the main shapes and lines onto my watercolor paper. It is now time to move on to step number four. This is the final step which we're gonna be cleaning up our sketch and doing any refining that needs to get done. This is the part of the process and which I switch on over to my HB drawing pencil, the slightly harder pencil grid that I am using for this process. The very first thing that I like doing is I like going over my entire sketch with my kneaded eraser. So you can see me gently tapping over the majority of my line work that has gotten transferred to lighten it and get rid of any unnecessary soft graphite that might be floating around on my watercolor sheet. Once I'm done with that, I am taking my HB pencil and I am simply completing lines that maybe didn't get transferred properly, adding any extra little small details that may be also didn't get transferred properly or I simply didn't decide to transfer because I would be adding them later, erasing out any lines that might have been transferred accidentally. Be very careful if you're using your hand to dust off those eraser bits after doing any erasing, because you might have graphite on your hand that can smudge and dirty up your watercolor sheet. Also remember that we have oils in our hands and if you use lotion on your hands or anything like that, you definitely don't want to get that on your watercolor sheet. Because what's going to happen then is that once you start painting, that paint doesn't get absorbed the same way. It doesn't sit on that paper the same way. If you've got handrails or lotion or anything like that on the paper. And this can lead to splotchy Nas and undesired effects. As I continue doing my refining of my sketch, I continue observing my reference photo closely, noticing if I'm missing any necessary pieces of information before getting started with the painting process. In this part of the process, if I want to, I can also start mapping out areas of highlights and darkest darks that I want to make happen in the painting process. As I've been sharing with you in past classes, planning and protecting highlight areas is super important when painting with watercolor. So at the end of this process, you might want to take a quick second to notice where those brightest highlights shapes are in your reference photo. Understand where the light source is located in relation to your subject. Understand where the darker values and cast shadow areas are and map out any of the shapes that you might find helpful so that you can remember where these are. All of. This is especially important if you're going for higher levels of realism in your painting, just make sure that you do this lightly. If you don't want your pencil work to show through your paint at the end. Drawing lightly is also going to help you easily erase mistakes. If you start drawing hard on your watercolor sheet, you're not gonna be able to erase those mistakes as easily and you might end up making things pretty messy. Alright, so I just finished up there by going over everything one last time with my kneaded eraser to make sure everything was clean and light. This sketch is now ready for us to get started with the painting process. Congratulations for making it through this class on using tracing paper to transfer your outline sketches onto your watercolor paper. I hope that you enjoyed it. I hope that you found it helpful and see you in the next and the last class in this course, which is going to be all about how to stretch watercolor paper. I'm excited to share my own papers stretching method with you. See you there. 12. Stretching Paper How and Why: Welcome to this class in which I'm gonna be sharing with you my own personal watercolor paper stretching method. I do want to say that I don't always stretch my watercolor paper because this is an entire process that definitely adds extra time and steps. And there are also extra supplies that I need to have on hand. I'm mostly stretched my watercolor paper whenever I am working on a commissioned piece, whenever I'm working on paintings that I'm planning to sell the originals. Or whenever I'm working on a personal piece that is going to take me a longer time to complete and then I'm planning to frame behind glass. Those are some of the key things that helped me decide whether to take the time to stretch my watercolor paper before getting started with the painting process or not. If I'm gonna be spending a long time on the piece and the presentation is really important because I'm going to be selling it or, and when we presenting it in some way, then I go ahead and stretch my paper before getting started with the painting process. Whenever I'm working on smaller personal pieces, explorations, studies, or even pieces where I'm not gonna be bringing in large amounts of water like some pieces that have little to no background to them or little to no layering or wet on wet techniques whenever I am using a 140 pound watercolor paper, doing papers stretching isn't really that necessary at all in those cases, the reason why artists stretch your watercolor paper is because it allows them to work on a completely flat taught surface. Working on paper that is warped and buckled can be very troublesome when working with this medium because you can have puddles of water and that can dry and create splotch genus and undesired effects. Not to mention by stretching your watercolor paper, you're going to ensure that after you finish with your painting process, after everything has dried, you're painting is going to be nice and flat. Watercolor paintings are usually framed behind glass. And as you can imagine, having a warped painting behind glass is not going to look as good as having a completely flat painting behind class. It's important to know that every single watercolor artists out there has her or his own way of stretching their watercolor paper. It took me tons of research and experimentation of my own to arrive at my own method that works well for me. Another thing that's very important to understand that I get a lot of questions on is when you tape your watercolor paper down using artist's tape or masking tape. The way that I've been doing with our explorations and studies so far in past classes. That's not the same as stretching your watercolor paper. That is simply taping your paper down so that at the end you can reveal those nice white borders. Stretching your watercolor paper is an entire process in which you submerge that watercolor sheep entirely in water or what it completely and thoroughly with some other method so that it can absorb all of the water at possibly can absorb. And you then quote-unquote stretch that paper using tape or staples on some kind of bored so that it flattens out completely as it dries and it doesn't give you any trouble warping and buckling as you're painting and as I said, just ends up being completely flat when it dries. All right. So with that explanation out of the way, I'm gonna go ahead and share my paper stretching process with you. This is a plastic tray that I got at Target at the discount been the size of this tray is perfect for the medium-sized watercolor pieces that I usually create. Whenever it is that I am working on a larger commissioned piece, then I have to use a larger tray than this, whatever size of watercolor sheet it is that you usually work on has to fit entirely in whatever tray or container or tub you're gonna be submerging it in. This is just one of my watercolor sheets from one of my nine by 12 inch watercolor paper pads. And you can see how well it fits in this tray. I also really liked that this plastic tray has walls that are approximately two inches tall so that I can add quite a bit of water into it. So with my watercolor sheet and I start adding clean water to fill up the tray. I add in just enough water for the paper to be completely submerged. I would say I added at least an inch of water into this tray. Once I was done with that, I used my cell phone to set a timer for three minutes. Throughout those three minutes, I flipped my watercolor sheet around two to three times, submerging the sheet back down into the water. After every time I did that, I liked doing those so that I can give each side of my watercolor sheet and opportunity to face up and to face down in that water. Once the three minutes we're up, it was time to set this aside and prepared my backing board that I'm gonna be stapling my watercolor sheet down onto. Now for my backing board, I am going to be using regular foam board. If you are looking for something more durable, I would recommend going for gator board. Gator board is more durable than regular foam board because it actually has thin pieces of wood at the top and the bottom, whatever type of backing board it is that you decide to go for. It certainly has to be a material that allows for stapling. I cut my foam board down into a size that would fit my watercolor sheet appropriately. And that would also be comfortable for me to work with as I was painting with my foam board on hand, it is now time to take out my watercolor sheet from the water tray. I make sure that my hands are clean before I do this and I always hold up my watercolor sheet like this for at least a minute, allowing those water drops to keep just twinkling down into the tray before actually placing it on my phone board. Once I have allowed some more of that water to drip down back into the tray. It is time to place my watercolor sheet on my foam board. After I have situated my watercolor sheet in place on top of that foam board, I take my stapler and this is one of those staplers that you're able to open completely. And I started stapling down my watercolor sheet onto my foam board, starting with stapling in the four corners. But what's the four corners have been stapled in? I go ahead and staple the middle of every side. So first the corners than the middle of each side, and then you fill up those spaces in-between with more staples. I take my time doing this as carefully as possible, rotating my board as I go. And once I have staples all throughout the edges of my watercolor sheet, it is time to allow that sheet to dry completely. Now, you can decide if you want your watercolor paper to dry naturally, in which case you're probably going to have to wait anywhere from 1012 or even more hours depending on the environment that you're living in so that your paper is completely dry and flat. If you want to speed up the drying process, you can certainly help yourself out with the hairdryer and that would make the process much faster. But whatever it is, you do have to wait for your paper to be completely bone dry. I personally helped myself out with a hairdryer and around 30 to 40 minutes later it was time to place my masking tape on my watercolor paper, just like what I've been mentioning in past classes, I always run my pieces of masking tape over my clothes for over this black fabric that I have over my desk. As you can see, what I'm doing with this masking tape is I'm covering up those staples. And if I were looking for my piece to be a specific size or I want to make sure that I have clean, nice-looking borders. I use a ruler to measure in from the edges of this masking tape and do any measurements and markings with pencil that I need to do, please any more masking tape that I need to place inside of this area that I can have my actual working space defined for me. And this way once I'm done, I can remove and cut those edges where the staples were placed and I'd still be left with a clean white border around my piece. And this is my method for stretching my watercolor paper. I hope that you found this class helpful. I hope that you're able to find a paper stretching method of your own that works well for you. And thanks so much for checking out this last class in this course. 13. Thank You and Outro: If you waited to this point, congratulations, I hope that you enjoyed this course. I hope that you learned a lot. And I hopefully you were able to give these exercises a goal for yourself. I want to remind you to continue working on these as long as you need to. Don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare because I have so much coming up on both sketching and watercolor that I am super excited to share. Thank you so, so much for checking this one out. I wish you tons of progress and of course, tons of enjoyment moving forward in your art journey and see you soon.