Watercolor & Gouache Technique: Floral Painting With a Pastel Background

1. Introduction: Are you someone who loves pastel colors but just wondering how to make them with watercolor? If yes, then you have come to the right place because, in this class, I will be teaching you a mixing technique that will level up your painting and maximize your watercolor paint. We are going to combine gouache and watercolor to paint pastel-colored backgrounds and add mini flowers on top. Watercolor is a transparent medium. On the other hand, gouache gives off this opaque texture. Combining these two mediums will give a different and interesting texture on paper that you can apply to your own watercolor style. The result is an interesting math background that mimics real gouache. Hi, my name is Joly, and I'm a watercolor artist and Skillshare top teacher. I've been painting for about nine years already and my art revolves around painting loose watercolor florals. I've worked with different art brands such as Etchr Lab, Silver Brush, Cricut, and Art Philosophy. My art has also been featured by several brands through their merchandise. My teaching style focuses on breaking down difficult watercolor techniques into easy steps for beginners. We will start by talking about the materials that you need. Next, I will be discussing the differences and similarities between gouache and watercolor, as well as the advantages of combining these two mediums. You'll learn how to mix pastel colors, add different effects on the background such as splatters, dry brush technique, opaque, and uneven washes. We will then proceed to painting warm-up exercises of many flowers. After learning all the techniques, we will be painting six different projects where you will learn different ways on adding white gouache to watercolor. This class is suitable for beginners who have been painting with watercolor and would like to elevate their painting style by adding more depth and texture. It is also a good class to get to the gouache without being overwhelmed as we will be using only one color, which is white. We're bringing something new to the table, or to the brush and paper to be more specific. Now, if you want those of creativity today, then I'll see you in class. 2. Class Overview: In this class, we are going to paint six different projects. The theme of the class is a little bit different from the usual loose florals that we paint in my previous classes, but just something that I truly enjoyed painting. I would like to share this unique technique with you. If you're going through an art [inaudible], I think this class is also perfect for you because you'll be able to experiment and just try new things and have fun. All right, let's check out the projects. For the first one, we are going to paint this pastel yellow background, and we're going to paint lavender on top of it. It is a nice complimentary color. Next, we're going to paint a pastel pink background with hydrangeas. In this lesson, we are going to paint just the essence of the flower. We don't need to paint all small flowers of the hydrangea. Next, we are going to paint horizontal strokes for the background, and we are going to paint this craspedia and learn how to put some shading and shadow on it. For the fourth project, we are going to do a Chinese brush painting style of dahlia. For the background, we are going to paint some vertical brushstrokes to create a different effect. Now because it's spring season, for the fifth project we are going to paint cherry blossoms. Then we're going to add some splatters in the background to create that bulky affect. It goes perfectly well with the background that looks like the sky, and you also have some white space that look like clouds. Lastly, this is my favorite painting. It's a very dainty salmon pink color in the background with some small chamomile flowers. Now, all the projects can be finished in about 10 minutes, so it's very quick and easy for you to do. I hope that you will look forward to all our projects. Now let's move on to the materials that we need. 3. Materials: What Do You Need?: Let's talk about the materials that we need. I'm going to start with paper. I'm going to use bow Academy, this is a watercolor paper that is called pressed. The thickness is 300 GSM, so it's a bit thick. You can see right here this paper has some texture because it's a cold pressed paper. Now this is also good for painting loose florals. This paper is called a watercolor block which means that all the sides are glued except for this part where you can slide off one sheet. For reference, this is going to be our project. It's a 5 by 7 inch paper which is a good size for practicing. Of course, you don't need to buy a watercolor block. You can just buy one large sheet of watercolor paper and just cut it up to the size that you want. The reason why I'm going to use cold press paper is because I like the texture of the paper and I want some uneven washes on the backgrounds. [inaudible] that you can also use hot press paper which has a smoother texture. Next for a watercolor, I'm going to use Shinhan PWC. It's a Korean artist grade paint and they come in tubes just like this, but I just tried to pour them into half bands just like this in my palette because it's just more convenient and easier for me to use since I just paint medium sized paintings. Of course, we need gouache in this class. I'm using permanent white and it is from the brand Holbein. Now, this is a big tube. I would suggest getting a smaller one if you don't really paint with gouache that much because if you don't screw the cap very well, the gouache will harden eventually. Next are our brushes. I'm going to use silver brush black velvet in sizes 4 and 6. We are going to use smaller sized brushes because we're also going to paint on smaller paintings. Even if I'm going to use gouache in our class, I'm also going to use my usual brushes for watercolor. Now I'm also going to use a flat brush. This is one half inch in size. If you don't have a flat brush, it's okay. You can use your regular round brush. We're going to use the flat brush to paint the pastel colored backgrounds. Next, we need a ceramic palette. You can use any palette even if it's plastic palette or even a regular plate, that's okay. This is actually just a soap dish from the [inaudible] and I love the size because it's very handy especially when I'm painting smaller paintings. Next, we need pencil. Any pencil will do. I'm just using a regular mechanical pencil. Of course we need tissue paper in this class because we need to blot out the excess paint in our brush. [inaudible] I'm going to use a jar of water. You can definitely use two jars as well, but given my limited working space I'm okay with one jar of water. That's it. Let's now move on to the next video. 4. Gouache vs. Watercolor: Let's talk about the similarities and differences of gouache and watercolor. Watercolor is a transparent medium and comes in tube just like what I'm holding, but I usually just pour it into half pans. In order to activate watercolor, I'm going to dip my brush into water and just move it around on the paint. Now I'm going to mix it on the palette. I'm going to melt the pigment and then I'm going to swatch it right here. You'll see that I actually drew some black lines and that will help us determine if a paint is transparent or not. Since watercolor is transparent, you can still see the thick black line and also the texture of the paper underneath the paint. Next, this is gouache it's an opaque medium and I'm going to try to show you guys what it looks like. This is a colored gouache. But in the class I'm going to use white and I'm also going to show you a swatch of the white gouache right here. You can see that it has a creamy texture. But sometimes gouache dries up pretty quickly in the tube itself, which you'll see later on. But for now I'm going to show you this creamy gouache. I'm going to activate it with just a little bit of water. With gouache depending on how much water you add, it also determines the thickness or the opacity of the gouache. You can see right here we have a thick gouache. You almost cannot see the black line. Now let's grab the other colored gouache. You can see that this is pink and really painted on top of the black line you can still see a little bit of the black line. But definitely you will notice that the color is very thick and it's also vibrant. Then you'll see a big difference between watercolor and gouache. Now let's see this up close. With gouache if you paint it really thick, then you won't be able to see much of the texture of the paper. Now let's move on to the similarities between these two mediums. Both of them are water soluble so it means that once they have dried up on the palette, you can reactivate it with water. You can see right here I have dried up gouache paint on the palette and you can easily water it down. On the left side, this is watercolor. Again, you can reactivate with water. Even on paper you can also re-activate what you've painted on the paper unlike with acrylics, that stays permanent once you paint on it or once you squeeze it out on the palette. Now that you have an idea of what watercolor and gouache is, let's now observe how to combine these two mediums. 5. Mixing Both Mediums: Now let's mix these two mediums and swatch it on this black line. I have white gouache and a little bit of yellow watercolor paint. My mixture is usually 80% gouache and 20% watercolor. Just grab a wet brush to activate the gouache, make it creamier, and add a little bit of watercolor to add some color. You can see how creamy the consistency is, but it's also not too thick. I'm going to swatch it and you'll see that it's almost in-between watercolor and gouache. It's not too transparent like watercolor, it's also not too thick like gouache. Now we can also change the proportion, if you add more gouache, like what I'm doing here, you can see that the color will look more opaque. Now we almost cannot see the black line anymore. Now what if we add a little bit more water? I'm going to grab some water and add that to my mixture just to seal it down, and let's swatch it again. If you add more water, it will be a little bit more transparent, but you'll still notice that it has the chalky texture. That chalky texture comes from the gouache because it has some white pigment. Mixing these two mediums will give us a matte texture. It just gives an interesting texture that you can add to your watercolor. On the other hand, if you use just watercolor, you can see how gluey and transparent it looks. With gouache, the strokes will look bolder because the color looks richer. What's great about combining these two mediums is that it will allow us to also adjust the opacity of our mixture. We can make it a little bit more transparent or more opaque to get that gouache feel. Now let's move on to the next video, where we will learn about the advantages of adding white gouache to your watercolor palette. 6. Advantages of Adding White Gouache: In this lesson, I'll be sharing with you why you should start adding white gouache to a watercolor palette. The first advantage is being able to maximize your watercolor palette. Now what does that mean? It means that we are going to create different pastel colors that you don't really have in your palette right now. I just have here gouache and I added a little bit of cerulean blue, that's a watercolor paint. Mixing these two will give me this baby blue color. Right here, I have a pastel yellow color. If I want to change the shade of blue, I'm going to add just more cerulean blue. You can see that we have a darker blue here. Just by adding white gouache, you can definitely create more colors out of your palette. The second advantage is that we can add more texture to our painting. I'm going to paint a thick mixture of gouache with watercolor. Now I'm going to dip my brush in the water jar and just thin down one side of it. You can see that we can create some uneven washes and even some dry brush technique and that something nice to add our background. You will also learn how to do this later on. Because this dries up Matt, it gives more depth to our painting. This is just an example of one of the backgrounds that we will do. You can see you have some nice brush markings there. It has that rustic feel to it, which is really nice. The third advantage is that it dries up fast. It also means that you can finish your artwork faster. This is also important if you have just a limited time to have the dose of creativity every day. If you do add more water, though, of course, it will dry up a little bit longer. You'll know that it is already dry when you try to touch the paint on the paper, and it's not supposed to leave some color but as you can see, they're still color on my finger. It means that it's not entirely dry yet. When painting on top of it, you also have to be careful with the amount of water in your brush. Since this is water soluble, you might accidentally lift off some of the colors in the background as you paint the second layer. The fourth advantage is I didn't add highlight, depth, and contrast to your painting when you're adding gouache to your palette. I have this dark background is already dry, try to observe what will happen once you paint white gouache on top of it. Even if I'm painting just simple petals, you can see how beautiful it is in contrast to the dark background. This is a simple technique that you can add to your paintings. Now I also add these white details to some of the flowers. This is an example. We can add some white dots near the center of the flower. You'll immediately see the difference and how it just gives this flower more depth and more detail compared to the plain flower that doesn't have white gouache. Now if you have a darker background, the white gouache will show up much better but here, let me just show you what it will look like. We can paint some tiny flowers in the background that can also help fill up a small space. The other tip for you is to use white gouache to paint some veins. This is something I love to add to my paintings. Can also add some white berries, or maybe some smaller fillers on top of the leaves. Adding white gouache to your watercolor palette really levels up your painting. Now let's move on to the next video. 7. How to Mix Pastel Color: [MUSIC] Let's talk how to make pastel colors. I have here my gouache, I have this older one, and it has dried up a little bit, but we can still use it. I'm just going to show you. Let's squeeze out some gouache. You'll notice it looks like a thick pace, but it is still usable. You'll see me use this gouache in some of the projects. Next, I have my newer gouache, it is a big tube. You can see that when I squeeze out this gouache, it's going to look very creamy, a little bit runny. Both will work really well. Now let's try to activate this gouache. Now I need two brushes. This is a preference. I'm going to use one brush to grab some watercolor. This is already a wet brush, so you can see it's very easy to pick up some pigment. I'm going to put it on one side of the palette. Next, I'm going to grab my other brush. This is also a wet brush and I'm going to mix this gouache. I want this to be creamy, so we just have to be patient when the gouache is a bit dry. Just make sure that you can dilute all the gouache there. Now let's try to mix these two mediums. I'm going to grab a little bit of that yellow, move it to the right, and slowly mix it to my gouache. The reason why I'm doing this is because I don't want to overdo the color, I want a certain shade of yellow. It's best to add the color little by little. Now let's try the swatch this, it's a nice opaque color. Now, if you want more yellow, then you just grab more of that watercolor paint and mix it to your mixture. You can see we have a bolder color. Also right now you will see that the mixture is still very thick and it's opaque, so we are able to cover up the paper really well. But what if we want a thinner mixture? What you need to do is just grab extra water and just add that to your mixture. You can see the mixture is now quite thin and runny. I'm going to swatch it. Maybe it's not too obvious here, but in person the color is lighter and you can see more of the texture of the paper. This is how you mix your pastel colors. Again, it depends on how thick you want your mixture to be or how opaque. If you want it to be a bit translucent, you just add more water. Now let's try it again. This time I'm going to use the new gouache. You can see that the gouache is very creamy. I just grab cerulean blue. I'm going to mix these two mediums. Because the gouache is new, you can see it's very easy to mix the gouache. Now we're going to grab just a little bit of that blue because this is a more intense color. Also the reason why I'm using two brushes is because I don't want to dip this brush with gouache onto that watercolor palette. I don't want my watercolor paint to be contaminated with gouache. But of course, this is just a preference and sometimes I do accidentally dip this brush onto my watercolor palette, and that's actually okay because you can just clean up your watercolor paints. Now let's swatch this. You can see it's a nice thick color. Again, if you want more blue, just add more of that watercolor paint and you'll see the color transform. It's now a deeper blue. Next, let's try to add more water to our mixture. Grab some more water and you'll see that the mixture is quite runny. Mixing the ratio or the proportion of gouache and watercolor really depends on you. If you want it more opaque, then you add more gouache. If you want it a little bit translucent, then you add more water. Do take note that this will dry matte and a bit chalky because there is gouache in our mixture. Something that I've noticed with mixing these two mediums is that the colors don't really feed that much when they have dried up on the paper. Whatever color you painted on the paper, it's this pretty much the same when it dries. Now you can also do more muted or vintage colors by just adding a deeper shade. You can use indigo or payne's gray and add that to your white gouache. But for now, we're just going to use pastel colors for this class. I hope that this will help expand the colors in your watercolor palette. Now let's move on to the next video. 8. Different Pastel Background Effects: Now let's try to discover different effects that we can do on the pastel colored backgrounds. Now that we have learned how to mix a pastel background, we are going to use this mixture is the same yellow and gouache mixture that we did earlier. For the first effect, we're going to paint an opaque background. I'm going to add more white gouache because I want this to be a thicker mixture. You can see that I'm just trying to mix right here and add a little bit of water. You want the mixture to be still creamy so that you can easily blend it on the paper. You'll notice that my brush is coated very well with the gouache mixture. I'm going to use my round brush first to show you that you can also use any brush because we're just painting the background. I'm going to paint on arc. These practice paintings that we're going to do now are exercises to equip you in painting our projects. Now I'm just going to fill in the center. You'll notice that this shape is very opaque. You cannot see the paper anymore because I want you to be able to explore different ways on applying this background. It looks good. You can of course, use any color that you want. Next, let's try out some splatters. I'm just going to label this effect. For this one, I'm going to use my half inch flat brush. This is a mixture that we mixed earlier in the lesson. Just use any color that you want. It's definitely fine. I want my brush nice and coated. Let's paint a rectangle with rounded edges. You'll notice that whenever the brush feels dry, I just add a tiny bit of water to the mixture to make the mixture more runny. We're just going to use this brush to slowly fix the shape. You can of course use other shapes that you want. It's also easier to use a flat brush when you're trying to paint backgrounds. But I understand that some of you might not have this brush so using a round brush, it's definitely enough. Now while this background is still wet, I'm going to grab my round brush and grab some water. Then you're going to tap the excess water in the jar. Now I'm going to tap my brush onto this background and you'll see a different effect. You will see some white specks, and that is because of the splatters of water that we did. You can use your brush to add some smaller white dots. This is a nice effect if you want for snowy effect or a bulky effect. Let me show you our project that we will use the splatter effect. These white specks will give a nice texture to your background. Let's now move on to the next technique. We're just making uneven washes. I really like doing this because it makes the painting look more elastic. Right here I'm using gouache with a little bit of color. I'm using permanent violet. You'll notice that I'm just slowly mixing these two videos because I don't want it to look too dark. I'm going to first paint a few strokes with really bold colors. This is a nice thick mixture. Next I'm going to rinse my brush and going to introduce just water onto the right side. I'm also slowly trying to blend in some parts of the first few strokes. You'll notice the left side is more pigmented than the right side. I do love the imperfections in this background. You can grab your brush and maybe add a few more strokes while this is still wet. You can also add some dry brush technique. Grab a tissue paper, dab your brush, and just paint on the sides to create these fuzzy looking strokes. Next, we're going to experiment with different shapes. I'm going to mix first this color. I'm using permanent rose with yellow ocher and a bit of whitewash. What I want is a nice salmon pink color. We're going to do the same project in a bigger format so this is what we will be painting. It's one of my favorites. Using this color, I'm going to paint an oval shape. You can play around with other shapes as well. It looks very tainty and I'm also using my round brush. It's not really my intention to make it a perfect oval shape. I want it to be imperfect. You can see that I'm just trying to do it freehand. Also, what I've noticed with mixing these two mediums is that it's okay to do the outline first and then fill in the center. I noticed that I don't have a lot of harsh lines, but of course, it will still be best to work pretty quick when you're doing these backgrounds. That's why I still suggest using a flat brush. Next, let's do another technique. We're going to do vertical brushstrokes. Right now I am going to use permanent rose with white gouache so that we can create these nice pastel pink color. Now this mixture looks a little bit thick. You can see a lot of dry brush technique, but I'm going to add just a little bit of water just to thin down this mixture and make it look more uneven. Adding water will also help me spread that color. Of course, you can always go back into your palette and grab some more paint. If you want to make some fuzzy edges, then just grab your brush and dab it in tissue paper to make sure it's dry, and I'm going to just paint the sides and make it look more rustic. Lastly, let's do a horizontal brushstroke technique. I am going to use just sap green with white gouache let's just mix that until we get that milky green color. I'm going to move my brush left and right. This looks too dry, so I added more water. Now, it's easier to move around their brush. Just keep adding water if it feels a little bit dry. If you're working on a hot press paper which is smoother, it might be easier for you to spread this mixture because cold press paper is textured, it means that it will also absorb more of that paint. Let's wait for this to dry up a little bit, and then you can move on to the next video where we will paint many flowers. 9. Mini Floral Exercises: All right, let's paint some mini floral exercises. I'm going to start with the first one. We're going to use permanent violet and I'm going to paint a lavender. We're going to do one stalk. Start by painting the small heart shapes or letter V shapes. You'll notice that I'm doing two strokes, they're beside each other. Now I'm using lavender just to change up the color. You can use other violets in your palette as well. There's too much water, I'm going to dab it in the tissue paper. Now let's grab a green color. I'm going to use sap green. And you're going to just paint the straight line over here. Next, we're going to try and loosen up this painting. I'm going to grab a clean brush, dab the excess water in tissue paper, and start blurring the sides of the strokes. You can see that now it looks softer. I'm going to grab some more of that permanent violet and make sure that I don't have too much paint in my brush. I'm going to layer another set of brushstrokes. Don't be afraid to dab your brush in tissue paper. Next, I'm going to grab a clean white gouache and just paint on top of these letter V strokes. By doing this, you can immediately see how it has more depth now. Let's move on to the next one. I have here, just white gouache with permanent rose. Then you're going to paint cherry blossoms. But to make it look simpler, we're going to paint this five or six-petaled flower right here. Going to leave the center open. So this looks a little light or pale. I'm going to make some more of that permanent rose and just paint on top of it. Now let's grab a clean gouache. I am going to layer this flower to give it more depth and just paint on top of it. I'm going to do some simple strokes. You can still see the first layer peeking through the white gouache. Next, let's grab a more pigmented permanent rose, or you can use crimson lake and add some thin lines in the center. Hey, let me show you an example of the project that you will be doing. Right here we're actually going to do smaller versions. And it will look better when you paint clusters of cherry blossoms. Now let's move on to painting a dahlia. I just prepared here, yellow orange. And you're going to paint some nice wispy strokes. Just use the tip of your brush and do it quickly. You can see I'm doing a curved motion so that I get some nice organic shapes. I'm also leaving the center open. Next, we're going to layer this flower using vermilion. This is a red-orange color that will give a punch of contrast with this flower. Try to vary your strokes. You can notice some are shorter petals, some are longer, some are thinner, and some are fatter. You'll also notice that, because I'm doing this fast, there is movement in the petals. You can let this dry and add another layer later on. This is what you'll be painting in our project. Let's move on to cute flowers. These are chamomile flowers or daisy-looking flowers. Let's use permanent yellow deep. I'm going to paint some small circles and maybe one oval shape. The oval shape will suggest that the flower is on its side or at an angle. Now with a wet brush, you're going to activate this white gouache. And you want it nice and thick. So you want the brush to be coated. So what I love about this brush is that it's also soft and very good for painting expressive strokes. I'm going to just press my brush onto the paper to create these petal-like strokes. I also like leaving some spaces in between my strokes because later on we're going to layer it. So these are top-facing flowers. Now let's do the side-facing one. We want to add petals only on one side. Then I'm going to use sap green with burnt umber. Let's paint some stems and also some small leaves. When the flowers are already dry, you can grab burnt umber, going to dab the excess paint in tissue paper. And we're going to add some detail. Let's put some small dots. Just use the tip of the brush to create these tiny dots. Let's move on to another flower. This time I'm going to paint a small hydrangea. We're going to use cerulean blue and also violet later on. So I want colors that will work harmoniously with the background. So a hydrangea has clusters of small flowers and we're not going to paint all the details. We just want an impression that this is a hydrangea. To do that, use the tip of your brush and just lightly wiggle it until you create these smaller petals. Now I have here permanent violet, and going to add this to the lower half of this hydrangea. You see I want this to be a multi-colored flower. And you can try to also mix these two colors in some areas. Another important tip is to leave some spaces in-between some of your strokes. The shape looks good, but we need to layer that. While we're waiting for this to dry, I'm going to move on to the next one where we will be painting a craspedia. This looks like a small ball of yellow flower. Let's use permanent yellow light. And again, this is going to be the same technique with hydrangea. Except that for this one, it's going to be a little bit tighter. I'm going to also try and wiggle my brush to create some nice fuzzy edges. Now let's add a little bit of shading. I am going to use burnt umber and we're going to add this color while the base yellow layer is still wet. You can see that I'm just trying to blend the two colors. So that it will look nicer and you can use just the tip of your brush to do this. We're adding a little bit of shadow here so that it doesn't look too flat since this is a very simple flower. Can use the tip of your brush to create some smaller strokes, just like what I'm doing here. Next, you can just add a thin stem using sap green with burnt umber and just add some elongated leaves. I'm going to go back to this hydrangea and also add some leaves and stem. For the leaves of this hydrangea, it's going to be a lot bigger and just wider. So this layer is already dry. It's time to add a second layer. This is a cerulean blue with a little bit of indigo. And I'm just going to do a tapping motion. And you can see that I'm also leaving spaces in between my strokes, but my brush looks like it's too watery, so I'm going to dab it in the tissue paper and I'm going to just fix those areas and smudge some of the strokes so that it will look softer. Next, let's add permanent violet. And we're going to add that towards the bottom part again of this hydrangea. We're going to do the same tapping motion. You can try to wiggle your brush using just a tip. I think it's looking really good. You can see more depth now. And we're going to go back to this craspedia and add a little bit more of that burnt umber. If you want it to have more contrast, you can use a darker color like sepia. So let's try it now. You can see this is a really dark brown color. Next, we can try to fade away some of the strokes that we did so that it doesn't look too harsh. Just keep blotting your brush onto this tissue paper. All right, looking at this dahlia, I think we need to add one more layer. I'm just going to use red and I'm going to add more wispy petals. Okay, I think that we're ready to start our project, so now let's move on to the next video. 10. Pastel Yellow and Lavender: Before we start, here are the colors that we will use. Permanent yellow light, permanent violet, lavender, permanent rose, sap green, and burnt umber. For first project we're going to do a pastel yellow background with lavenders. We're going to play around with shapes. I'm going to do an arc shape. I'll be using a regular pencil and just do a very thin outline. Again, once you paint on top of a pencil marking, you cannot erase it anymore. I do suggest to draw lightly and erase as much pencil outline as you can. The sheet doesn't have to look perfect. That's okay. We're just going to doodle and have some fun today. To start, we're going to put a little bit of white gouache onto our palette. Next, I'm going to grab this permanent yellow light and put it on one side of the palette. Now we can use a brush and just try to dilute this gouache. I don't want a lot of water because I want this mixture to be quite rich and a little bit thick. I'm going to grab just a little bit of that yellow and slowly mix it into the gouache. You can see that I'm trying to work slowly instead of adding all the yellow into the white gouache. Just keep on mixing until you get the desired yellow shade that you want. Now let's start painting the background. I'm going to use my round brush just to show you that you can also use your round brush. But it is definitely way easier to use a flat brush just like this, because you can cover more area in a shorter amount of time. Now let's start painting the curved side of this shape. You can see, I'm just trying to flatten my brush onto the paper to create this nice curved shape. The pointy part of the brush is facing outward. So your mixture should be wet enough so that it's easy to glide onto the paper. Now I'm just going to try and slowly fill in the center. When it comes to filling up the background, we're not really going to be so strict, like you have to paint an outline first, or you do from left to right. I do find that this mixture is quite forgivable and foolproof. If there are uneven areas that's completely fine. The goal of this class is really to explore different texture and get out of your comfort zone as well. Especially if you paint a lot of loose florist just like me. This is already dry, which means that we can now start painting on top of it. Just try to touch your paper and make sure that there's no more yellow paint that sticks to your fingers. Just as a guide, I'm going to draw three lines. You want one in the center that would be the tallest, and just one on the left side and one on the right side. These are going to be the lavender stalks. We'll be adding more stalks later on. But I just wanted a simple guide. Now for the first color, we're going to use permanent violet. Let's start on the left side. I'm going to paint some letter V strokes, or they look like many hearts. Next, let's add a different color we're going to be using lavender. Now you can try to vary the size of the letter V or heart shapes. Some can be a little bit bigger, some are smaller. Now let's paint the stem. I'm going to be mixing sap green with burnt umber so that we have that nice earthy green color. Then I paint it right in the center. Next, let's paint the center lavender. I'm using permanent violet. You'll notice that it's a darker shade now. Now let's add the a little bit of lavender. I do try to change the value so that it looks more interesting. Now let's grab our greens and we're going to add the stem. We just draw one more stem over here, and that will be the next lavender. I'm going to grab permanent violet again. Now let's start building up those letter V strokes. It's nice to use a smaller brush to create the strokes. This is a Size 4 round brush. Now let's add a stem again. Now you want the stem to be a little bit curved just so that it has a little bit of movement. I'm going to add a little bit of permanent rose to this violet. As I'm painting, this, I feel like we need just a little bit more life or does a brighter color. Let's start here on the right side, you're going to paint from the bottom going up. I'm also leaving some spaces in-between those letter V shapes. Now let's add a little bit of that lavender. If you don't have lavender, you can add a little bit of white to your violet. That is looking really good. I think we can add one more stock. Let's add one more stock over here. You'll notice that for these lavender stalks, I'm making sure that the heights are different. You will see some are taller, some are shorter. For a simple painting like this, it will make a huge difference. You can also try to wiggle your brush a little bit so that you get more organic strokes. This is looking really great. To fill in some of this basis, I'm going to add some leaves, and these are going to be elongated leaves. Just drag your brush to create these thin leaves. For more contrast, we can grab a darker or more pigmented permanent violet and start adding a second layer. I want to add it just towards the bottom part of the lavender, just to give it some shadow. To add some texture and highlight, we're going to use white gouache. I have here some gouache that I will reactivate with a little bit of water. Let's add some white strokes. You can paint on top of the letter V shapes that we painted. Make sure that you don't cover the first layer entirely. We just want to add small white spots. Right now you'll immediately notice that there's more depth on the lavender with white gouache. It's a very simple step that really levels up the look of this painting. I'm looking at this from afar, and I think we can extend some areas. Just adds a small strokes at the top. Can be using a little bit more permanent violet. You can see that we're bringing in more contrast right now. We are done. Congratulations for finishing your first project. I hope that you'll continue painting. The next project, it's going to be a hydrangea with a pastel pink background. Let's move on to the next video. 11. Pastel Pink and Hydrangea: Before we start here, the colors that we will use, cerulean blue, permanent violet, ultramarine blue, sap green, burnt umber, indigo and of course gouache. For the second project, we are going to paint this pastel pink background with hydrangeas. To start, I'm going to put a little bit of white gouache on my palette and some permanent rose. I'm using my flat brush for this project and you'll see how much easier it is to use a big brush to paint the background. Slowly add that permanent rose into the white gouache. Again, you can see I'm getting the watercolor paint this little by little. This will help me gauge how pink I want the color to be. Let's say painting the background, I'm going to do vertical brush strokes for this background. We're going to do an up and down motion and going, we're doing it really quickly so that we get nice expressive strokes. Just look at the bottom part right here, we have really uneven brush strokes. I love how rustic this looks, so this is going to pair up really nice with some mini flowers. For more added texture, I'm going to splatter some clean water onto this wet background. Now you can see a little bit of those white spots so that's also an idea for you if you want a more textured background. But if you want clean background and you don't need to add these splatters anymore. This painting is already dry and you can see those beautiful splatters. Right now, I'm just drawing some leather U-shapes. That will be my guide where I will be putting the hydrangeas as much as possible, I try not to draw the flowers with detail. I just want the overall shape of the flower. Again, that's because when you paint on top of pencil markings, you cannot erase it anymore. Let's prepare the colors we will be using. I will start with cerulean blue, next I'm going to grab ultramarine blue. Then lastly, let's prepare these permanent violet. Let's sell you this cerulean blue with water so that we get a nice light color and when to start at the top of the flower, try to wiggle my brush. Use just the tip of your brush to create these small petal like strokes and you can see I'm doing a tapping motion. Next I'm going to grab a little bit of this ultramarine blue just to change the color a little bit. I'm also trying to blend some of the colors. Next, let's grab a little bit of this permanent violet and add it towards the bottom part of the hydrangea. Try to leave some spaces in-between your strokes as well. Now use your brush and try to wiggle it, the point decide to be facing outward and you can try to wiggle it like this. You want a bit more texture towards the outer part of this hydrangea? Let's wait for that to dry, we can move on to the next flower. Again, I'm going to start with cerulean blue and just try to wiggle your brush to create these small petals strokes. We don't really need to paint all the small flowers in detail, we just want an impression that this looks like a hydrangea. Next is add some of that permanent violet. Let me just fix the shape of this hydrangea and extend some areas. Now, you can try to add some areas with a darker value as you will notice here you have darker petals. I'm adding these darker colors while this hydrangea is still wet, let's move on to the first flower again. I'm adding a more fragmented permanent violet, now we're adding more pigment is cerulean blue and we're just going to wiggle our brush, create the small brushstrokes again. Let's add a stem, I'm going to be using sap green with burnt umber. We want a thin stem going down and then we're going to add some leaves. The leaves of the hydrangeas are quite full and big, I'm going to add it near the flowers. Of course, feel free to change things up, you can add leaves in different places, you don't need to follow everything in this tutorial. I do want you to have the creative freedom to paint in your own style. Don't worry, you can, of course, paint beyond the edges of the background just like what I'm doing here. Next, I'm going to add some more leaves and it might look a little funny right now because there are no details yet. Now we have big clusters of leaves, but later on I'm going to show you how you can divert the attention. You're going to add more floral elements later on. To fill in some of the spaces, I'm going to add some stems to get out. Let's grab greenish yellow academics that to my white gouache to create this milky greenish yellow color is going to look great as many flowers in the background. If you have been following my classes for a while now, you would know that I love adding greenish yellow to my florals because it just brightens up the painting. Adding white gouache to greenish yellow makes it a more subtle color so it's like a barely there color in the background as you can see. But if you want it to pop up, you can paint it on top of the leaves just like what I'm doing here, just put some small strokes that will look like mini flowers. This is another way to add some texture or depth to your painting. Because we're adding these small flowers on top of the leaves, now the leaves don't look chunky anymore. We've diverted the attention to these mini flowers. Let's grab a more pigmented greenish yellow and just add that to the milky green flowers. I'm just going to put some small dots using a tapping motion. Let's add a second layer to this hydrangea. My brush is too wet, I'm going to try to plot it on the tissue paper. Again, you'll notice I'm using a darker permanent violet and adding it towards the bottom part of the hydrangea because that's where the shadow is. Now, you can try to fade away some of the strokes so that it looks a little bit softer. Now I'm going to use cerulean blue and just add another layer on top of this hydrangea, I don't want this to be too dark. Let's move on to the second flower. Again, we're doing a tapping motion, and we're also making sure that you can still see the first layer is still more close-up video so you can see it better. This is a very easy flower to paint because we're just doing the tapping motion. They create some feather-like strokes and then top I'm using cerulean blue. You'll notice that the mixture I'm using is still quite transparent. To add more contrast, I'm going to use indigo and you're going to blot it on the tissue paper, I'm going to add some small dots that will give us the impression that it's the center of some of the mini flowers. If you prefer it, with more contrast and you can grab the Indigo and create these small petal like strokes. Make sure that you don't overdo this or else the flower will look too heavy. We are happy that you've finished this project, now let's move on to the next flower. 12. Pastel Green and Craspedia: Before we start, here are the colors that we will use, permanent yellow deep, burnt umber, sap green, and white gouache. For this project, we are going to paint a pastel green with some craspedia. Later on, I'm going to show you the photo of the flower. But for now, we are going to mix the background. I'm going to grab a little bit of the sap green, put it on the right side of my palette, and just slowly mix it into my white gouache. Now I want a milky green color. So this is going to look very dainty. For this background, you're going to do horizontal brushstrokes. So now I'm going to rinse my brush and just add a little bit of water to this background to create an uneven wash. Now, let's just slowly fill in this part. So you can see that I'm not going to fill in the entire paper with a green background, I want to leave some of that white spaces. We're going to paint three flowers. You can try to put some small dots on the paper as a guide so that you'll know where the flowers will be. So here is a simple reference photo. I'm using permanent yellow deep. Using the tip of your brush, you can wiggle your brush to create these small strokes. Our goal here is to create a round shape. You can see that I'm adding some strokes towards the outer part of this craspedia because I don't want it to have that perfect round shape or a round edge, I want to have some fuzzy areas. Next for the shadow, we're going to add a little bit of that burnt umber. While that yellow part is still wet, we're going to add in this brown color and just let them blend into each other. If there's too much water in your brush, you can always plot it on the tissue paper. We can add more permanent yellow deep, just to create a more vibrant color. Let's add the stem. I'm going to use sap green with burnt umber. It's best to add the stem while the flower is still wet. You'll see the colors blend in with each other. Let's now move on to another flower. This is diagonally across the first one, and we're going to do the same technique and same color. This is permanent yellow deep. We're going to again paint a round shape, but we want some fuzzy areas on the outer edge of this ball. Next, let's grab burnt umber. I'm just going to mix it with that yellow and add this color as the shadow. We're just going to lightly tap our brush, we don't want to over mix this area. Let's grab more pigmented burnt umber, can add it at the base, and of course, you can always clean up some areas with a damp brush. Now let's add the stem. We're now onto the third craspedia, and we're going to put it right here. You can see that the flowers are all in different heights, even in the reference photo. That will make it more interesting and just less flat looking. If you don't want to paint this flower, you can, of course, experiment at other flowers. Now we have the base. I'm going to add more shadow. You can see that I mixed burnt umber with that yellow on my palette, and then we're going to add a stem. I love how adding a background really makes the painting look prettier. Even if we're just painting a simple flower like this, I feel like the background just gives it more depth. I also love that the projects in this class are very doable, you can finish a lot of them in about 10 minutes. Now I'm just going to add some tiny leaves, and then we can add some stem sticking out as well to fill in some spaces. Let's grab our gouache and we're going to paint some tiny flowers. Just tap your brush onto the paper and you'll be able to create these small petals and just form them into a cluster. So I'm just going to add some more on the right side. You can actually leave this as is, but later on I'm going to add the center. You can definitely change the brush markings as well. You can tap using the very tip of your brush and create some small dots that will look like very tiny flowers. Of course, you'll notice that the white gouache is more visible if the background is darker, like the ones on the upper part of this painting. To complete this look, you need to add some stamps that will attach the white gouache flowers to the main bouquet. If you want some texture on the craspedia, you can grab permanent yellow deep and start tapping your brush. When you're doing this, make sure that the layer is already dry so that you can get that nice texture. Now we can add some more shadow. I'm going to grab a little bit more of that burnt umber and add it towards the base of the craspedia. Because this is a simple flower, we do need to focus on adding texture to bring this to life. It's looking really good. You can also try to fade away some strokes if they look too bold or sharp. Let's grab some yellow paint and add a center to the white flowers. So these will look like small daisies in the background. I also like how it compliments the color of the craspedia. We're done, you can see the beauty and the simplicity of these flowers. I hope that you enjoyed this project. Now let's move on to a different project. 13. Pastel Violet and Dahlia: Before we start here, the colors that we will use; permanent violet, yellow orange, vermillion, permanent red, Hooker's green, and white gouache. For this project, you're going to paint the pastel violet background with some orange dahlias. To start, I'm going to grab some permanent violet. I'm also going to use my flat brush. Let's start mixing. You can see that I always just use a little bit of gouache and that is because I am going to paint on a small piece of paper. As you paint more and more, you will eventually know how much gouache you need to squeeze on your palate. For these backgrounds, I usually use just a pea size amount of white gouache. You're going to create the vertical strokes that are going to be uneven. I'm going to grab some water and I'm going to put some water on the right side. You can see that the left side is more pigmented. I intentionally added more water to the right side,just so that I can get some really uneven washes and very imperfect. You can go ahead and add some more paint and add some dry brush technique on the sides. I personally like the unfinished look of the background. Let's plot our brush in a tissue paper to absorb the excess moisture and add some dry brush technique. You can see those nice dry brush strokes. When the background is already dry, let's paint the flowers. I'm going to use yellow orange. I'm also going to prepare vermilion just so that they already have the colors on my palette. Now, let's start with yellow orange. I'm going to paint some elongated C shapes. Just as a guide, what you can do is you can put some small dots on the paper just so that you know that it will be the center of the flower. We're not going to really copy the exact flower, but we just want to get the essence of a dahlia. You can see right here, I'm actually doing some quick strokes going outward. I have some pointy tips. It's not that rounded compared to this reference photo. I'm painting all of these strokes because I want it to look like it has layers of petals. Now I'm going to grab my vermilion. I'm just painting on top of the first layer. Let's go back to this flower later on when it's already dry. I'm going to start with the second flower, which is diagonally across the first one. Again, you can see I'm just using the tip of my brush and just creating these nice wispy letter C shapes. It's also elongated. You just need to quickly drag your brush to create a nice pointy tips. Now let's grab some vermilion. So you can use other colors, just a deeper orange will do. What we want is to combine two colors to create depth. Now let's grab Hooker's green and we're going to paint stems for these flowers. You can also use Sap Green. You can also extend the stems even beyond the background that we will also look very pretty. Then I'm going to add some really elongated leaves. I just wanted this to have Chinese brush painting look. You have the creative freedom to add different leaves. It doesn't have to be the real thing. This is something you can apply to your other paintings as well. Don't be afraid to change things up. Now that we have some stem sticking out, I think we can add some smaller dahlias that's about to bloom. I'm going to add these small flowers just to add color in some areas of the paper. Add that punch of color. I'm going to use permanent red. I'm going to paint it on top of the dahlias. This flower right here is already dry. You will know that the flower is already dry when you start painting on it and you see your strokes are very defined. Because if this flower is still wet, your strokes will look blurry and a little faded. Doing this technique will also give more depth to the flower. Just make sure that you add only a few strokes because you don't want this to look too crowded. To balance this look and still make it look dainty, I will be adding some smaller white flowers using gouache. You really want a thick white gouache so that it will pop up in this painting. These small flowers are very nice to add as fillers. Especially if you have an odd space and you don't know what to paint there anymore. I usually just add small flowers like this. Then you can put a yellow center so that it will look like mini daisies. We're done. I hope that you enjoyed painting this simple interpretation of dahlias. Let's now move on to the next project where we are going to paint cherry blossoms. 14. Pastel Blue and Cherry Blossoms: Before we start here, the colors that we will use, cerulean blue, burnt umber, permanent rose, crimson lake, and white gouache. For this project, we're going to paint a pastel blue background with some cherry blossoms. For this project, we're going to do a rectangular background with rounded edges. You can find objects with this size and just trace it all around, and just make sure that you draw lightly because you don't want the pencil marks in your painting. You can also actually do this freehand without having to trace an object. We're not going to be super strict about it looking so perfect. I think this looks good. What we want to do is just explore different shapes for the background so you can definitely do a different shape as well. I'm going to start with a white gouache and then I'm going to grab a little bit of cerulean blue using my flat brush. Now let's mix these two colors. I am going to mix the gouache first and just slowly add some blue in this gouache. I'm using cerulean blue because I like how happy this color is. It's good for painting skies. The reason why I'm using blue here is because I want a blue sky as the background of sakura or cherry blossoms. We're going to start painting using a flat brush. You can see how easy it is to fill in a space or a shape using a bigger brush. I also like that this brush holds a lot of paint, so I can really cover up a space very quickly. You can add a little bit of water to make it easier for you to paint. Also you can try to rotate your paper so that it's easier to get some of those edges. I'm trying to fill in the space now. It's okay if it's uneven, I'm okay with that because we're going to add splatters later on. Some of the edges right there have dried up. I'm just going to grab some more paint to cover up that area. We are almost done. While this is still wet, let's grab some water. I'm using my round brush. I'm going to tap some sprinkles of water and you'll see some white spots now. It will be more of use in awhile. I really like adding these types of textures to the paper. It gives it more depth and also it has a bulky effect. Once this paper is already dry, let's mix up our pinks. I'm using permanent rose with some gouache. Now we want two shades of pink, one that is lighter, one that is darker. I think I can add more gouache to this part so that it's going to be a lighter shade of pink. I'm going to start with the branch. I'm going to use burnt umber only, and I want this to be really dark. Let's just paint a branch that is sticking out from the upper left part of this painting. You'll notice that I am painting some broken lines. There's spaces in between my strokes because I can put flowers in those areas. Now you don't really need to paint all the branches. Now we can add some more later on, but at least we have a guide for now. Now let's start painting. I have a small reference photo for you, am going to start with a light pink color and paint some five petal flowers. Now let's paint another one in a different shade. Some of the flowers can be just three petals. Some can be five or four. We're going to change things up. It's going to look odd right now because we're painting it one-by-one. But it will look better as we go along and add some more petals to make it look fuller. This is looking good. I'm going to add some more flowers on that upper right side, and later on we're going to add some buds as well. You can also try to vary the sizes of the petals. You can see that some are smaller, some are bigger, and you can change the angle of the petals as well. Sometimes what I do is I just stab my brush onto the paper to create these organic strokes. Now let's grab some crimson lake, and going to mix that with a little bit of white. But you can also use crimson lake alone, and we're going to use that to paint some tiny buds. These tiny buds are usually darker in color. Am going to add the stores, the tips of the branches. When you're painting cherry blossoms, I feel like adding these small buds will give more contrast we are painting. Now, another thing that you can do to add contrast is to put some small lines in the middle. You can see in the reference photo, the cherry blossoms has some staments. Also the center looks darker than the petals. Now we don't really need to copy all the details because we're painting really small, and what you want is just to get one specific detail from the flower. Now this is where the magic happens. I know this painting looks a little flat, but you're going to grab some white gouache and paint petals on top of the flowers that we did. Now, don't get me wrong. We're not going to cover up the petals. We're just going to put a few strokes on top of it, and you will see that this will make a huge difference. Also, you can add some more petals even beyond the branches. These may look like petals falling from this cherry blossom branch. You also notice that we're slowly filling in this cherry blossom branch, making it look very full. Now you can get a pastel pink color and add some more petals and flowers. This is definitely all about layering to make it look more lush. You can also add a darker pink color and just paint it on top of some of the petals to just add more contrast and depth. I have burnt umber in my brush and I'm just going to attach some of the flowers to the main branch. It also looks very pretty if you add the branches beyond the blue background. Now we can add some more petals on top of the branches that we just did, and I think we can add some more buds just to add contrast in some areas. I have your crimson lake and I'm going to add some small details in the center of some of the cherry blossoms that will give this more depth. Because I think we've lost some of the details. You can paint some thin lines in the center as well, just like in the picture. Right here, I'm going to paint some small petals falling from the branch. [NOISE] That's it. I hope that you enjoyed painting these cherry blossoms with me. I'm happy that we're able to capture spring in this small painting. Let's now move on to the last project. 15. Pastel Peach and Chamomile: Here are the colors that we will use in the class, permanent rose, yellow ocher, sap green, burnt umber, indigo, and white gouache. For today's project we are going to paint this beautiful and dainty floral painting. This is my personal favorite. First we need permanent rose. I'm going to use my flat brush for this project. Next let's grab a little bit of that yellow ocher. Let's dilute this gouache with a little bit of water. Then I'm going to mix my pink. After that we can add a little bit of yellow ocher. You can slowly add the yellow into your pink. You have to be careful because if you add too much yellow then your mixture becomes too orange, and our goal here is to create a peach-like color. I'm using yellow ocher because it's a more subtle yellow. Just draw a simple oval shape on your paper. Or you can also do this freehand. Now I'm just going to slowly fill in this shape. You can see how easy it is to fill in using a flat brush. Just press your brush and you can see that the edges of the bristles are fanning out. You can use that to shape the curve parts of this oval shape. It doesn't have to be a perfect oval shape. Once it is dry you can start adding the flowers. I'm using permanent yellow deep, but you can use any yellow color in your palette as well. I just like this deeper color. Now I'm going to paint some small circles. This will be the center of the flowers. We're going to paint chamomile. Now let's do a couple of round shapes that are diagonally across each other. You can also paint oval shapes that will suggest that the flower is on its side. It's best to change the angle of the flowers when you're composing a floral composition. Now that we're all set we can start adding white gouache. For this part I want the wash to be creamy and opaque. Now I'm going to coat the brush with a lot of pain, and just slowly press my brush onto the paper to create these small petals. Is almost like stamping my brush onto the paper to create the strokes. Now let's move on to the next flower. You can see that in the reference photo you have nice cute rounded petals. We're just going to try and copy that. You can see I'm leaving some spaces in between my petals because later on you're going to layer this to make it look fuller. Now for this flower I'm going to be on one side only, to suggest that it is at an angle or on its side. I'm also going to do the same on the other flower. This is looking really good. Now let's grab sap green with a little bit of burnt umber to create an earthy green color. Now let's paint some stems. I'm going to do some curves, motions. That is to suggest more movement in my painting. It will make it look more dainty. You can paint the stems even beyond the background that we painted. Chamomile flowers have tiny leaves, and we're going to mimic that. You can see that I'm using the tip of my brush to create these tiny leaves. Just slowly stamp your brush onto the paper. Because I want this to look dainty, I also want the leaves to be smaller. You can also add some small pods and some stem sticking out to fill in some odd spaces. Let's add just some petals right here that will suggest a flower facing at the back. I'm going to add a few more just to add more volume to this painting. Because this is a flower that's facing at the back we're not going to paint the yellow center anymore. Now let's try to extend some of the leaves beyond the oval background so that it doesn't look too cramped inside the background. We're just going to extend a few leaves so when the flowers are already dry we can start layering the petals. I have here a little bit of indigo watercolor, and we need to add that to my gouache. This is going to be a very light mixture. I'm going to add it in between the petals. This looks a little blue for me. I'm going to add more gouache to my paint. Let's try it again in the other flower. I think that looks better. We just want a subtle color. This is going to give us a fuller look. Now we cannot use pure white for the second layer because we won't be able to see the difference. That's why I added just a little bit of indigo. Now if the petals look too blue for you you can go back in and layer it with some more gouache. This is the beauty of gouache, if you made a mistake you can definitely go back in and paint on top of it to cover that mistake. Now let's add some more details. I'm using burnt umber. I'm just going to put some small dots all around this yellow center. Now this will give us more contrast. Let's add some shading. I'm going to rinse my brush and tap the excess water in the tissue paper, and then we're going to slowly smudge some parts of those dots. This will give us some shadow effect. You can see in the reference photo the center of the flower has some shadow, and we're going to try and mimic that. Just make sure that you have a fairly dry brush. You don't want it to be filled with a lot of water or else we will end up ruining the center of the flower. It's really very important to blot your brush in a tissue paper before you start fading. We're done. Congratulations for finishing your last project. I hope to see all your projects in the project gallery section of the class. Let's move on to the next video as I give my final thoughts. 16. Let's Wrap Up: We have reached the end of the class. Thank you so much for watching. For our project, you will be painting pastel-colored backgrounds. It depends on you if you want it to be opaque or if you want uneven washes. Next, you will be painting flowers on top of it. You can also paint just leaves. Depending on the season, you can also paint, for example, spring flowers as a theme for your collection. There are many ideas that you can do when you have a pastel-colored background. This class is a good way to really get to know gouache when you're just starting out. I hope to see your projects in the project gallery section of the class. Just take a photo of your painting and upload it there. Under the tab section of the class you will see Projects and Resources, click that and then click Create Project. I'd be happy to give a feedback and some words of encouragement to you. You can also tag me on Instagram and use this hashtag so I can see your work. I would love to know how much you love this class and how much this class helps you in your watercolor journey. I would greatly appreciate if you could submit a review. This will help me produce better classes in the future, and it will also help new students find this class and also be able to assess whether it's a class for them or not. If you want to learn more how to paint watercolor florals, I invite you to watch these classes. I will see you in the next one. Bye. 17. Bonus Video: Fathers Day 2023: I'm so excited because we have a bonus project for this class. Today we are going to make a Father's Day card. But, of course, it doesn't have to be just about Father's Day, we can use this design or project for other occasions as well. We're going to go for a blue theme for this project and I'm going to use marine blue. I think it's the first time that I'm introducing this color in any of my classes. This is like a bluish green color or it reminds you of the color of the sea. If you don't have this, just use any blue colors that you have and maybe add a little bit of green. Right here, I just have my white gouache, and then I mix it with the marine blue. We're just going to mix it until we reach a color that we desire. I think we can try and swatch it to see the color. It looks nice, but it looks too blue, I'm going to add a little bit of sap green just to change that color and make it a little bit cooler. This color looks nicer, so you can see it's a bluish green color. But of course this is just a preference of mine, you can use a different color as well. Let's start painting the background. I'm using my flat brush and we're going to do a left to right motion, just going back-and-forth until we fill up most of this space. Now you can see I'm leaving the sides quite jagged and I'm not going to fix that, I want it to look a little bit rustic. If you want more texture, you can add some splatters of water. I think we're good and we're just going to wait for this to dry. When it's dry, we can start adding some flowers. I'm going to use my marine blue again, so I want this color to be a bit bold. We're going to paint just simple five petal flowers. I just want this to be a quick and easy project for you. What we're going to do is we're going to paint one main flower. This is the big five petal flower. Then on the sides, we are going to paint smaller five petal flowers, right here. I just rinsed my brush so you can see the color is lighter than the first flower. Now, I'm going to add indigo, and paint one more flower on the left side. When it comes to the placement of the flowers, you can see that they are diagonally across each other so that there is movement. You can also mix some smaller flowers, just paint a few petals, or paint some small buds. I'm using marine blue, but you can use any blue color in your palette. Just make sure that you use a variety of blue colors, so that it will look more interesting. Now, let's attach all of them together using stems and leaves. I'm using the color sap green. Since I'm working on a small painting, I'm also using a smaller brush. This one is a Size 6, you can use Size 4 as well. You can see right right I just rinsed my brush to create a lighter green color. I just want to add different shades of green. Now, on the upper left corner, we're also going to do the same pattern. Going to start with the big five petal flower using marine blue. We're going to add more details later on. What we need to do is to just paint the framework or the base of our design. Here we're using indigo, again I'm painting a five petal flower. To help you better visualize this arrangement, you can add some leaves right now, add some small stem sticking out. Now we can add some smaller flowers to the stems. This actually looks good already, but we want more depth, and what we can do is to add some white flowers using white gouache. You want a really thick mixture. You want this to be opaque because you want the white to stand out. I'm just going to paint some smaller white flowers and small buds. We can try to vary the shapes of the petals as well to make it look more interesting. For some flowers, I'm just trying to stamp my brush onto the paper to create a petal-like stroke. Let's add some more flowers. I'm going to add a little bit of sap green to this gouache mixture. We want this creamy greenish yellow gouache, you can also add a little bit of yellow to your mixture. You can see that it's not an overpowering color, so you just want it in the background. Now this is a technique to fill in some spaces, but at the same time it will look subtle and not too overcrowded. Let's now attach some stems to the buds and small flowers that we did earlier. I just mix my sap green with some sepia. As you can see, the color of the green in my brush looks a bit dark. That's because sepia is a dark brown color. To add some texture, you can put some small cluster of dots like this. It will look very pretty and add some texture to your bulky or floral arrangement. Now, we can also paint some leaves hanging outside the border of this background, just like what I'm doing now. It's a nice way to add some movement to this piece. Using the tip of your brush, you can create these small strokes that will look like small leaves. Again, it's also a way to add some movement and it also serves as a filler to this painting. Now, we want a pop of color as well, so I'm going to use yellow and put it in the middle of the five petal flowers. To give it more depth, this is optional, but you can add some small ring of dots in the center of the five petal flowers. You can see how it instantly lifts the five petal flowers and makes it pop up. Now, your flowers are still a little bit wet, so as you can see as I add white dots, it is spreading a little bit and mixing with the petals, but that's okay, it's giving you a beautiful effect. If you want the white dots to be sharper and more defined, you need to wait for the petals to dry before you add a layer again. Try to look at your painting from a far and see if you need to add some more details. Just like what I'm doing now, you can take a photo of your painting and look at it from your phone. Because that will give you a different perspective. It's time to add the message in the center. I just wrote down Happy Father's Day using a pencil as a marking. Then I'm going to go back in with my micron pen, this size is 05. You can also use different pens, but this is all I had at home. If you can do calligraphy, then that would be awesome. But unfortunately, calligraphy just isn't for me. I'm just going to write a simple lettering right here. Now that we have the lettering, I'm just going to add some small leaves right here to fill in that gap because I made a mistake. But it's okay. We can always troubleshoot just like what I'm doing here. I'm just going to fill up the space so that it doesn't look too odd. In the center, I just added a small flower right here, just to make a more cohesive design. Also on the lower left part we're going to add some more leaves. I'm just going to extend this area. I think this is looking really beautiful, of course, you can add different quotes in the center, it doesn't have to be Happy Father's Day. That's it, I hope that you enjoyed this bonus video and I look forward to see your project in the project gallery section of the class. Bye.