Transcripts
1. Intro: Hello and welcome to class. Thank you for being here. This class is all about autumn bars and banners. I'm excited to take you through my step by step process of creating to autumn inspired designs. I will paint and letter these two pieces in real time. That way we can hang out and do this together. We'll be using a beautiful palette of just five colors with a wedge brush and a liner brush . We will first practice the design elements such as red blossoms, yellow roses, elegant leaves and dainty little branches. Well, then take you through my process of prepping and lettering. The design. I'll be using modern calligraphy, but feel free to use your style or your handwriting. I've included 10 detailed handouts. Try to print these before class, if you can. They have very helpful examples and can also be used to trace your banner design. This class is designed with the beginner and intermediate artist in mind. Some experience with watercolor and lettering would be helpful. I do hope you find joy and encouragement in this class as we hang out and create together. Hey guys. Gen. Sweeney from Dayton, Ohio Welcome to fall time. I hope you're enjoying an explosion of color in your area to thanks for being here in class with me. I look forward to painting with you, so let's grab our supplies and head on over to the first lesson.
2. Class Project: your class project is going to be all about creating these beautiful autumn bars and banners with florals and some hand lettering. And if you don't do calligraphy, don't worry about it. You can do simple block lettering or just your own handwriting, so here's just a few examples that I've done previously. I've also included several P D efs that you might find useful along this journey. If you can print them out before class, that would be great. I do encourage you guys toe upload your projects into the project gallery, so I look forward to seeing what you come up with. So let's grab our supplies and let's head on over to the next lesson and get started.
3. Class Supplies: So let's talk about the supplies that you're gonna need for class your wedge brush either a size eight or a 10. I have a 10 here, a liner size two and a white jelly roll pan or a white marker of some sort. We're just going to do a few highlights on some of our flowers. Whatever you like to use for lettering, your calligraphy pen or a brush marker. Mike Grown pen. This is a 01 either black or sepia. Grab a pencil, some paper towels and I'll be using arches. Cold press paper £140.7 by 10 inch some painter's tape or washi tape and the two inks that I like to use for calligraphy, either. Iron gall ink. It's a it's a really rich black ink or this deep brown well. Net Inc. Two of my favorites, some tracing paper, water jars, erasers and I have to rulers I'll be using one is this little plastic six inch ruler and then a T Square ruler. If you can print the handouts, that would be great. And let's talk about these paints so this paint set is a vented set that was my dad's and I just fell in love with the colors. They're so rich and so deep, and this set is probably about 40 to 50 years old. But I tell you what. These paints are going strong, so I'm gonna swatch these out so you can get an idea and match up the colors that you have in your palate. So the 1st 1 I'm going to do is this Indian red deep color. So just think of that red color outside your window when the leaves are falling rich in deep and that read that just just awesome. It just goes on so thick and beautiful and it's just I can't believe how how these paints have lasted over almost 50 years. So the next color that I'm going to do pretty common. This one is the burnt number, and whatever colors you have in your palate feel free to use. But we're going for these rich fall time colors black. Whatever black you have is gonna be just fine. And then the yellow that I use it's medium yellow reminds me a sunshine you're seeing the fall colors come alive here and then the green that I like to use the lots. This Daniel Smith undersea green again. Very rich, very velvety, also very dark. So you definitely want to water this one down. So these are the five colors that will be using and just to give you some options, I swatch doubt this here. So for the Indian red deep, something similar is this quinacrine tone burnt Scarlett or deep Scarlett. That one is a little more red, but it would work for your yellow. If you have a yellow Oakar or a quinacrine own gold, either one of those would work. And then again, with this deep green color, let people have this sap green. Pretty common color. If you want to add a little bit of neutral tint to it, that would darken it up. But be careful how much you use with that, or if you just want to add a little bit of black that can darken up your sap green, too. So here's all your supply, so let's go ahead and head on over and start painting
4. Designing the Elements part 1 - red blossoms: Okay, so we're going to take some time to design the elements and practice them before we actually jump into creating the bars in the banners. So the 1st 1 that we're going to do, we're gonna work on the red blossoms. So if you want to grab some water down red and then a little bit more concentrated pigment , that's how we're going to make these red blossoms. So do a few, and then I'll talk you through some of these, and then we'll just practice some together. It's when the load your brush with the water down pigment, tapping some off and then also on a paper towel to the belly of the brush gets really saturated and dip your tip into the concentrated pigment and then on your practice paper, give it a try to see what it feels like so that our second practice paper, we can just land the brush and wiggle it around. That's how you're gonna make that wedge shape. Do this several times, dip in the tip in the concentrated pigment and just getting a feel for what? That what that feels like in your hand. It's a little tricky at first to move in the brush around, keeping the center stabilized, wiggling that guy around there keeping a little bit of white space around it to you can leave a little more white space in the center if you like. But this is just practice. Not going for a perfect look here. I just want you to feel what it's like getting the pigment and the water ratio and the right combination and then just developing these flower Bunches, landing the brush and wiggling it around when I do kind of like how some of the pedals has a little bit more of a drier brush. Look to it. Don't overthink thes. And then to make these clusters, you're just gonna kind of plugged them in in this in different spots where you think it's gonna look good sometimes this is where you like. Uh, this isn't look good. I want to go ahead and start over, but just stick with that. Keep building upon that cluster and vary up the sizes of your of your flower clusters to you got some full full blooms there and then a couple with three and four pedals just kind of peeking out there just back and forth until you feel like you got it. Got the hang of it. If you're a seasoned veteran using the wedge brush, you certainly know this stroke, but it does take some time to get used to, so don't get frustrated with that. Sometimes all I would do all day is just practice these little pedals and how it feels in my hand. Go ahead and speed through some of this. Hopefully you're getting the hang of this. Always pause thes videos. If you want to practice, never feel like we're just rushing you along. You want to take time and practice this and I can't stress enough. Don't give up too early. I've done that a 1,000,000 times to stick with that. Keep building up these flower Bunches. Sometimes they're too wet to dry. I can adjust always a fine dance between the amount of pigment in water that you're using. Okay, to add a couple enhancements to these flowers, gonna grab the white. It's the Univ all pen or you're a white jelly roll pen either, whichever when you have this fine and just adding a few little dots in the center just to give it a little interest. You could make the white dots go out into the pedals a little bit further, if you like. And these flower clusters, you don't have to add any enhance enhancements. They actually look really good just by themselves. But I always like to add a little bit more interest that the eyes just pulled into these tiny little details. So that's enough for that one. So on the second bunch of flowers, I'm going to go ahead and grab them micron. And this is a 01 This is the black micron just doing some light outlining around the pedals . I just like toe skip around the pedals. Not perfectly. Just I don't have to do all of them, but just practice. If you even like the look of this, I tend to stick with the 01 micron. 03 is is a little bit thick for me, but sometimes it is good for the centers. So here I'm just going to darken them up a little bit again, just adding some visual interest, pulling the I in towards the center. So on this third bunch, I'm just gonna go ahead and darken up the centers. But I'm gonna leave the pedals alone on this one. After we're done here, we're gonna go ahead and start adding some of the leaves and take a much time as you need to practice these elements before we jump into the designs. Just adding a few more dots just for a little more interest, and then we'll be done. All right, We're gonna work on some leaves after this.
5. Designing the Elements part 2 - roses, leaves, branches: Okay. Now, one of my favorite things to do with the wedge brushes to make these little leaves. So grab your green. We're gonna do the same thing. Just some practice time here, loading up your brush. Get some excess off little on your practice sheet there. We're gonna land the brush, lift it and then use the tip for just a little bit of fine detail work. You want to pull your brush up a little more perpendicular when you do, those fine fine lines can just get in the feel landing, pushing and lifting up gracefully and then squeeze in there and get a little bit extra element of that that flare. With that. The tip practice different angles of your brush to if you're interested. I have another skill share class that talks all about leaves, vines and branches, and we go through some of these strokes in a lot more detail. But leaves or one of the coolest things to make with this wedge brush. Let's get some up by these flowers. You can do a one stroke leaf or a two stroke whatever you prefer. Tuck in some down in between. There, you can see how some of the bristles on my brush kind of leave some some marks. And I actually love that such added character when it when it shows up like that, it's kind of like, Oh, it's a win. Yeah, I'll take it to keep practicing these and I love that they're all different. Never do you want to have the same leafs all the way around nor the same color, my love, Using the tip of this wedge brush. This really gives that added character to your leaves can really get some fine lines with, um, through this a little quicker. But seriously could do these leaves all day long. But we're gonna have to move on. We're gonna work on the yellow roses next, So you wanna have some water down yellow, and then again, dipping into some of the more concentrated yellow. Just practice how that is one's a little saturated there. Point the brush down about the six oclock position, push up and out and then using more of the tip and you're basically just drawing in a flower. Really using that tip for these fine details, you can see it can just move that brush and different angles and you're just basically using it like a pencil to draw in your flower. You want to keep these a little? A little contained. Not a lot of white space, of course. Some white space in there. But don't don't get it too wide than your flowers. Just get a little kind of a crazy look to it. Just the fine little details pulls, pulls the i n. Again, this is the most common position. I tend to keep the point of the brush down towards the six oclock position and push out from there, then even flipping the brush around that the belly of the brush is facing up towards me. I don't think I make these flowers exactly the same each time close, but not exactly the same. Get a couple little little stems on these guys and then we're gonna move on to some branches. So I flipped the brush up where the belly of the brush is facing up towards me, not the paper. Just again. Using it as a pencil kind of marking these guys in doesn't have to be anything anything crazy, because the flowers are delicate, but just to practice again. and we won't use these stems this long on on the final product. But just something fun to try. All right, let's go ahead and do these stems. Branches. I took out my burnt number. I love this for some fine branch work. Basically planting my hand on the paper and using some hand motion. Just toe force that brush up gently. Though I don't need a lot of pressure with this, you can use the wedge brush to the tip of the brush, and you just have these little flicking motions at the end. Delicate little branches like to skip around sometimes, and then I'll go back in and darken it up a little bit, just leaving some of the burnt number to show through. And then some of the black to come or to go over it kind of speed this up and could really just get a little carried away with these branches. Sometimes there just a lot of fun, a lot of fun to make, but you want to kind of contain him a little bit, maybe make him a little less than I did here. Another option for a branch is just something simple, like this not really branches or maybe like a little twigs or tiny, tiny branches. Something like that. So once we're done here and you're confident and comfortable with these elements, then we will get into actually designing the bars and the banners in a dark in this up a little bit, just so it doesn't look flat. If you guys have any questions at all, please let me know. I'd love to help in any way.
6. Taping your paper for the Bar design: Okay, so before we get any painting or lettering down, we got to get our paper all taped up. So you want to grab your supplies? So I've got my rulers here, my T square in this little plastic six inch ruler and my arches paper. I just pulled one piece out of the seven by 10 inch block. So the first mark we're going to Dio is going to be two and three force inches down from the top. Kind of cheating on this old design that I've done. So I know it's two and three force of an inch down. So go ahead and get your t score there and mark that off and then I'm gonna pull it down about 1/2 a centimeter. Just gonna eyeball that and then market underneath on the bottom of your T square there. And if you wanted the design in the center, you can certainly do that too. There's no steadfast rules about that. I do just like the lettering. A little bit off center. We'll grab our tape so I tend to stick it down on the left side. First, try to get that adhere to the paper and then I'll pull it down on the right side. You know, put a little tab on the end there. It makes it easier when you're pulling that off. Same thing on the other side. Get this all done, and then grab your paints and we're going to get going on these flowers now. The fun part starts.
7. Adding red blossoms - Bar design: Okay, real quick. I want to add too little marks on the blue tape. So come in about three centimeters on each side, and that just gives us a visual. This is where lettering is gonna be, um, but also so we don't go too far over either side with our florals. One have a little bit of a border there. So just a quick visual market out when we're doing the letter of the actual lettering, too. All right, guys, this is it. We're ready to go. We've practiced and as game day let's go. Let's do this together. We're gonna work on these red blossoms first. Honestly, this is the part that makes me a little nervous. Start now and just put in the first first couple strokes down. But let's practice a little bit again. Make sure it's not too wet to dry a little saturated. And just take your time with this is not a race. We're gonna start up here and just work our way around building as we go. You need to add some water as you go. And depending on how warm your house is, too. Sometimes I feel like I'm just adding a ton of water, sometimes to my paint, especially with this arches. It just really soaks up the paint quickly. If your house is hot than it, you're always add in the water. Just always be looking at your piece, where you want to add some things. Don't overthink it, but take time to look at it, too, and see where some gaps might be or where you want to add things. But we're just building this side up, slowly pushing down and wiggling that brush around. Keeping in mind. We want to have a bit of a white border around the sides doesn't have to be perfect, but just be mindful of that. And where that line is on the blue tape, remember, that's where lettering we can go a little beyond that on on the left side. There. It's fine, but I just want to be mindful of that. Just tuck in their men a little bit at a time. Let's get some on the bottom edge here. Sometimes all of this white paper can be very intimidating. You feel like, Oh, I don't want to make a mistake, but you got to just go with it sometimes trust yourself, trust your instincts. And at the end of the day, the whole point is that you really enjoyed this and he had fun creating something new. There's been plenty of times or at this part right here. I give up and I'm like, uh, I don't really like it. I should have put more like that is way too early to stop a painting right now. You gotta stick with it. That's why it's never as easy as all those fast videos that you see on Instagram. Those air sped up a least 34 if not 10 times, the speed says a slow, deliberate process. I like to watch those videos, but this is the part that's most enjoyable. Just taking your time with it. You don't want to overdo it with these blossoms because we've got the roses to add. That leaves to add the branches and then the lettering. If it's too busy than your ID is kinda, it just goes all over the place and doesn't have anywhere to focus. But you want that explosion of color and then the lettering in there. So it's just it's a fine balance when you're starting out like this. When you add some stop and do some more, and it's just you have to take your time. With that, you can always go back and add things. The hard part is trying to take something away that doesn't really work. Once it's down, it's down and you want some that are darker than others, lighter than others. Just so it gives that interest to just a little bit more here. - So the rule of three applies here, too. We're gonna have three clusters of these red blossoms that I always likes. Things in odd numbers doesn't always have to be that way, but just a good good rule to remember. And don't worry about if some of your centers get a little more a little more concentrated or a little more saturated. We can always repair those kind of those kind of things. Just by adding some of those enhancements in the center will help clear up some of those some of those issues just taking a look and see where we should add some more just a little bit more, and then we're gonna be done with with the red blossoms. All right, let's get some yellow roses on this
8. Adding yellow roses - Bar design: Okay, ready for the yellow. So have your water down yellow, and then you're more concentrated yellow ready to go. And just like we practiced these roses, pick up some more of the the water down pigment first, and then dipping the tip into the concentrated pigment. Then we're just gonna were gonna go for it. Here. I can flip in your brush around, basically just drawing in these flowers. Be mindful of the white, the white space and how big you want to make these flowers to. They should be soft and delicate. The tendency is to keep adding but just kind of hold back a little bit, get the base of the flower, and there you can always add a little bit more detail as you go. These flowers are gonna be where you use the tip a lot and flipping it all around different directions. Once you have that concentrated pigment on the tip, you can always go back and add a little more detail on the flower before it. Let's go ahead and added this one here as I'm doing this, I'm looking dear. When at a flower here am I gonna put leaves there? How am I gonna tuck that in? So it's it can be a process. Sometimes you know that that little space right there is, like, a little shy and another leave. Should I add arose, which I dio We're going with the rose. We can always talk a little leaf in there. Let's get some on this lower side here. I love when it gives that dual turn. Look where you've got that nice concentrated edge in that softer center. Love when that happens. So this one again, we'll have more yellow roses on the top and a few sticking out on the bottom. - Sometimes a design like this place tricks with you because you forget which one is the top, which is the bottom. So keep moving it back and forth, take a look at it and see where things need to be added. And honestly, if you like it the other way, you can keep it that way too. All right, just a little bit more. And then we're gonna get moving on to some leaves. - All right, let's keep that As is for now,
9. Oops - adding a few more red blossoms - Bar design: Alright, guys. So looking at this big old space right here was bugging me off camera, so I thought it's gonna be way too much to add. All kinds of leaves there would overpower that space. So we're gonna add a little more cluster of these red blossoms and then call it a day and that's what you got it? You got to stand back sometimes and look at it and just see where these gaps are. And again, don't overthink it. But just we want to take up a little bit more space here, and then we will be done and move on to the leaves. Not super happy with the center of that. But that's okay. When we do, some of the enhancements will take care of that area. I had a few more and then move on to the leaves.
10. Adding leaves - Bar design: All right, let's grab our undersea green or whichever green you have and start adding these leaves. So when we're looking at this composition again, we don't want anyone aspecto overwhelm the piece. And, you know, because we put that extra floral bunch there, I could just imagine all those leaves in that one spot. Your I would go right there because it's a heavy spot and it just would look really, really unbalanced. So just start adding these leaves in little by little. That's still kind of a tricky spot right there. Squeeze a little guy right in there, and we'll dark in these up to to give it some visual interest. Remember to vary up the sizes of your leaves, generally keeping him in the odd number Bunches, threes and fives again. Not a perfect rule, but just something to remember and consider. And I tend to do these double stroke leaves a lot. Certainly the single stroke leaves are great for the smaller spots and on their own, but I tend to just use that point again for that extra little flare on the top or bottom of the leaf. And I love to add that little that little elegant ending point to. This is the part where I turn on some music and just relax and add these in because this we're here for the duration and it's so cool to watch a piece like this come together. You know when you're doing it and you're like, I don't like this part or that part. That kind of all goes away as it's all coming together. You forget about those pieces and you just look at the beauty off the whole piece that you're creating. We still got a ways to go, but I like how it's looking and my brush when I do these leaves pretty much 90 degrees. I'm pretty straight up and down with that. And where I keep the tip is usually right around the six oclock position That's just the most comfortable for me. Certainly vary it up, but that's just a natural position to have the point pointing at me and then pushing it up and out. - Remember to just constantly look at it. Step back from the painting and see where you want to add some leaves and again, don't overdo it in one area because those clusters air already pretty full. You just want these leaves to be an enhancement. Kind of plays tricks on you again when you're turning it back and forth. Just talking them in gently. The small wedge brushed. The size six is really good for these tiny little tiny little spots, but the eight is pretty similar. That 16 is a huge brush, but it's it's really good for when you're wanting some big leaves or just to make some statements. You've got a really big piece, but the eight in the town or what I stick with most often go ahead and darken up some of these leaves and then as you dark and, um, you just really kind of see it come to life, too. It's just that contrast is always so important. Tohave it's crazy how just darkening that just it just doesn't make it look flattened really brings it to life. It doesn't take much at all. - You don't need much of this green when it's concentrated like this. You can definitely get several strokes out of it, - is gonna tuck in a few more and then we're gonna wrap this part up. All right, then we're gonna head on over and do some branches
11. Adding branches - Bar design: All right. Welcome back. Maybe you took a break after those leaves or just plowing through and want to get to the branches. I'm gonna go ahead and sketch these out just because it is a kind of a busy composition. I want to get a good feel Where these air gonna look good? Just start sketching in couple different areas. As you can see by the picture, there's plenty of places we're going to put these branches. But as you're sketching them in, always take a step back and look that it's gonna be in harmony with the rest of the composition. Your eyes pulled in first with those red blossoms, and then it sees that burst of yellow and then the contrast in the greens. And then finally a kind of zones in on these cute little branches, just as a final detail, - like where the placement is on the top. So let's get some done on the bottom here. - A little too close there. Straightened that one out. Some of the burnt umber Ron here do a little test run because the bristles are longer. It does hold a fair amount of paint. I've had plenty of times where I didn't dio a test run and the first time I laid down is just like a blob. So just be careful with that, and I just kind of skip around where I've marked out these branches doesn't need to be perfect. We'll go back in and dark in these up with some of that black and just a just a little bit here. So that paint set like I said, that was my dad's. And I know that's over about 40 or 50 years old, and he passed away last summer. He was an incredible artist, and you know when you're growing up and you see what your dad's doing in the artwork and looks great and you love it. But I tell you what. Once I got into doing art myself, I go back and look at his paintings and his drawings, and it's absolutely incredible what he what he did. So I have lots of his brushes and his paints, and it's such a blessing to have that. And when I started with these pains to tell you what the color so rich and so deep and so vibrant and it was just it was so awesome, and it's from from West Germany. Um, I need do a little bit more research on that, but just fascinated that quality paints can last a really long time. We're going to speed through some of these branches and then get them, get them dark, end up a little bit, but it's definitely coming together nicely. I hope you're enjoying this. So when I darken up with the black, I don't just go over the whole thing again. I just again a kind of skip through and just add some touches that it's going to give some dimension. So you do see some of the brown in some of the black. I always add a little bit more from my sketches. I don't always I stick to about 90% of the time, but I always add a little bit more. - I love to make these little branches is they pick behind the leaves, Um, but if you want to make him go over the leaves to certainly can do that, I love when they're just peeking out from behind the The red blossoms were the leaves. It just gives that little fun little look to it. You guys have to post season the project gallery. I really want to see what you've been working on. I mean, I know you spent hours on this already, so it's be proud of what you're doing. And I do appreciate you taking the time to hang out in class and learn this. And I know some of these classes can get long. I told my husband when I'm making this this next one, meaning this class, I was gonna make it a little bit shorter. But two hours later, here we are. But hopefully you're finding some value in it. So once we're done with these branches will add a few more items, and then we'll move on to making some of Thea or how to draw the banners on. Uh, I hope you guys stick around for that part of the class to all right, so let that dry, come back and finish it up
12. Final touches before lettering - Bar design: Oh, my goodness. We made it. You guys, here we are, the very last thing we're going to dio on this piece. So going to use the white jelly roll pen here and just highlight some of the centers here. Now, you can just leave this whole piece alone. You can add some micron outline to the pedals or to the roses, even to the leaves. It's totally your choice. So whatever you feel like doing like I said, leave it alone. Add some more things to it. But I'm just gonna go ahead and add some white centers here. I like how it just gives a little bit more pop to these blossoms. So even, like, are saying before some of the parts that I not real thrilled about, you know, that all kind of goes out in the end and she looked at the overall piece. It really starts to flow well together, and you never want to pick apart your paintings and be super critical about it. Having a healthy awareness and looking at it with with a good artist, I but not overly critical. That's really the gold. Don't beat yourself up with this stuff, so get this highlight and then we'll get the tape off here and then we're gonna move on to the next section. I hope you guys stick around for that. So let's get this tape off here. The big reveal great space for lettering that flipped around there. Then grab your racer and we'll get those. There's little pencil lines out of there, and one of my favorite erasers to use is just the kneaded eraser. And it's just really easy to use and I just don't know. That's one of my favorites. They just kind of little short strokes. Hold your paper down firmly or you just kind of dab at it. And it just it really does a nice job with the race in the pencil marks. Sorry for the shaky video. They're getting low aggressive on that. All right, we are good to go on this. Let's head on over to the next lesson.
13. Drawing the Banner design: all right, welcome to the portion of drawing our banners. So if you had an opportunity to print off the pdf's, that would be awesome. If not, don't worry about it. But I wanted to make it simple for you. And I just have five banners here. Of course, you can find a 1,000,000 different banners on the Internet to draw, but I thought these were some simple ones to start with and what a different shading makes so fun to do. Shading on these and down here a little bit of horizontal lines, some cross hatching. And this one is just some some diagonal lines here and then a time on a little tiny dots on this one. So just some different ways to shade. Thes banners also included one that has some open areas just so those flowers and leaves can can peek out a little bit there. So when you're tracing those just a reminder to leave some open areas and this one I included, just to highlight being simple and keeping it just very basic sometimes is just as beautiful is something very complex. So never underestimate the power of just keeping it simple. This one has just a few sayings on it. And don't feel like you have to do calligraphy using just some block lettering. Your hand lettering That is gonna look Justus good too. I don't want you to feel like if you don't do any calligraphy that you can't take this class. You certainly can. So grabbing my arches, and I do have a light path that I'm gonna be using. I did check with ease with these handouts. I held it up to my window on a sunny day with the watercolor paper, and it works just fine. You can trace it that way. You don't have to have a light pad. All right, so we're keeping this simple. I am just eyeballing this, and it's just under the center, a little past halfway down. I really wanted Teoh hopes that keep turning that off with my hand. If I really wanted to grab the ruler, I could do that. Um but I think I'm just gonna eyeball this and then anchor down with tape, and then we'll trace this Just grabbing your pencil. We're just gonna finally outline this. - Then if you wanted to go ahead and use your micron marker right away. That would be fine, too. Sorry. I keep hitting that with my hand. I haven't upside down because of where the court is just trying to adjust the light here so it can see one more spot here and we'll take it off the hand out. All right, so now we're just gonna outline this. We will speed through this a little bit, but just taking your time outlining this, then we'll add some shading. Sometimes I don't add any shading whatsoever. And I get the paint down because those times where something just doesn't turn out right and have done a lot of shading And then all of a sudden, the paint just go south quickly, and I have to do the whole thing over. But we'll go ahead and do some shading shading. Now I like to keep that outlines fairly light. I don't typically use big, bold markers just because I want most of the highlight in the eyes to be drawn. Teoh the lettering into the water color. And I think shading is one of the funnest parts of this. When I used them, my grand I tend toe land it and then flick it right on the edge there. Right where these creases air gonna be. Well, doom and equal spots on either side. So it gives that illusion where that where that creases. And if you wanted to use a pencil to shade in, that's fine, too. Use maybe, ah, blending stump or something like that to add some character. I like to do that as opposed to always use in the micron. Just pencil work is a lot of fun, too. I will get a little bit of shading here. Like I said, I don't want to do too much if something would go south with the water color, but just to give you an idea. And once we get the lettering in there, we can shade a little bit more. But I'll keep that center area for the most part open. Once we're done here, then we're going to get ready to add some some red blossoms to this
14. Adding blossoms and roses - Banner design: All right, we're ready to add these blossoms into our design. So getting some water down red and have your concentrated pigment close by just like we did with the other ones. We're going to dip the tip into the more concentrated pigment you Some practice here seeing if the combo between the water and the pigment is good and pointing the tip down towards me is where I like to start. Move your paper around as you need Teoh here, landing the brush, wiggling it around. So the last design we did that was pretty pretty intense. So this one, we're gonna lighten up a little bit. And just because the banner is smaller to we don't want to overwhelm it with a ton of florals and leaves and things like that. So we're gonna add about we're gonna four clusters here, and then we'll move on to the yellow roses, - a little tight spot there. And as you're making your banner, you can always leave the top line of the banner in pencil, Um, or not even do it at all and fill it in. After you've painted that way, you're not bound by the micron there, so whatever. Whatever works best for you and why I said that. Sometimes on the test page, it looks better than what you put down on your final piece. Happens all the time. That's all right. Squeeze a little. A little bit more in here. All right, Let's get some yellow roses here. We're gonna do three, and then we'll move on from there. But just like the other ones, get some water down. Yellow. You concentrated yellow. I like for the senator of these to be fairly light. Remember to flip your brush upside down for these outer pedals. Just like your drawing it in using it like a pencil here. So, thinking about the composition again, we've got a cluster of four of the red blossoms. Three of the flowers, the roses. Sorry. And so combo there. That seven. There's that odd number that our eyes attracted to. So certainly the three roses stick out the four blossoms air kind of their altogether. But together seven looks good.
15. Adding leaves - Banner design: All right, let's go ahead and add or leaves get our undersea green mixed up. So it's a little tricky spot right here, but I'm add just a couple. Little strokes here kind of worked ourselves into a corner here, but that's okay. Just get creative, get some green color down there. Given the illusion of leaves, just having the breast flipped upside down again. It's the easiest way to paint these in, sometimes these tiny little details. So we don't wanna go too high on this. Not too high above those yellow roses. It's already heavier, waited on the top of the banner. So we just want to be mindful not to go super high if you look at that pallet, where the green as you can see some of the blue and almost a gold separating that out. So when I look at the tube of the undersea green, what it has in it is ultra marine blue quinacrine O Quinn, acrid own gold and nickel azo yellow. So get into the habit. If you buy the tubes, really look at the back there and see what colors make up that tube of paint so you might have some of those at home that you can just mix up your own color. Um, and that's that's always a lot of fun to dio. But the back of the paint tubes gives you all kinds of great information about light, Fastness and things like that. So I just get in the habit of taking a look at that. Remember, we gotta add some branches here, too. So we I want to be mindful of that. - Another option for this banner on the bottom part, if you just wanted to paint some stems coming down, not the cluster of leaves like we're going to do. If you just wanted the stems from the flowers to come down, you could certainly do that. And I've used a micron where I've added a little bow around it, too. So just get creative with this dark in this up a little bit here, adding that contrast and you don't have to just use one color for your leaves and you were darkening them up here. But experiment was 2 to 3 different colors of greens with the lighter ones first, and then adding some darker ones in that always gives it a nice a nice look to it. Also, even some blues can be used for the leaves, some yellows, even oranges. Certainly with fall time that we're working on here. But just definitely experiment. I just wanted to stick with one color for this class. Let's get some on the bottom here. - I had to turn it back and forth. You want your leaves to be flowing in the general direction? Not totally the opposite direction from the top segment of it. Definitely need more here. Too heavy on the top right now. So we gotta fill this in. - Alright , guys, we're getting there. Hang with me. Almost done.
16. Micron highlights and branches - Banner design: Alright, guys, we're so close to being done. This is looking good. So two microns I have here the 01 and 0032 I use all the time. So the 003 I want it very, very light around the yellow roses we don't want overpower the color here. Just give the I something to see that just pulls it in. And it thinks What is that? They're just a little extra highlight but very light. And you don't have to do this if you don't want to. If you want to leave him alone, that's great to not a problem. But if you dio add the highlights just want to skip around with a micron, Don't outline everything but just given it a little bit more dimension. I'm going to do the same on the red blossoms to stark inning in that bottom part there. I've even done this with the leaves to ah But this time I think I'll leave the leaves alone . But just going to do the roses and the blossoms and you can use the 01 micron for this. That's totally fine. I would just use a really, really light hand with it, though, or, if you like a bolder look, you can do that. But these were the two that I stick with a lot, or the 005 is another one I use. I really like the CPI of my grands. I just give that that vintage look. I think it's just a nice alternative than to always use in the black marker, so the 01 is good for the center and getting that dark end up a little bit a little bit faster with this. If you prefer to do though the white jelly roll pan with that, that would be fine, too. Just wanted to do something different than than the bar design. You won't get a longer on the top of these blossoms in a little bit shorter on the bottom gifts. That illusion that it's facing at you towards you vary it up a little bit at some dots. If you want. All right to add these branches. We are just going to go for it last time we sketched him out, but we're just gonna go ahead and add the's end dark, getting up parts of it. Not all of it given it that contrast. Speed this up a little bit and you don't want to go to high. It's all a fine balance. - We're so close to getting to the lettering part, guys, CIA back here soon.
17. Lining the paper and practice calligraphy - Bar design: All right, we're ready. Toe line or paper, And do a practice run with our calligraphy. So you'll need some tracing paper, rulers, pencils, whatever you want to dio your lettering with. And if you have the six millimeter guide sheet printed, that would be really helpful. You can print mine or anywhere on the Internet. You can find these, but the first thing we're going to dio we're gonna set a boundary for lettering. So we're gonna come in three centimeters on each side. I could've just used that roller toe, draw the straight lines, but I just tend to grab my my T square. I just want a little bit of white border on either side. There's no magic way. I did this numbering. It was just or this measurement here just by looking at the design. I wanted to keep the letter and contained right about here. That way we can play around with our lettering and see what fits within that space. Show you how a practice on this tracing paper. Just get this tape down. I like to wear this glove a lot when I'm doing my calligraphy. It just keeps the oils from my hand off the paper. It's get my ink reading, says the Walnut Inc Very rich, deep brown ink. So the phrase again that we're using is welcome to our harvest home, and I like to just practice in the calligraphy. It warms my hand up for the actual lettering, and some people will go ahead and practice and pencil, and that's fine, too. But I tend to just go ahead and do it in the calligraphy and the bland. Zeniba is a really good news for watercolor paper. Some of the other ones tend to get stuck on the paper, but I find that this one works really well. I'm just gonna take my time and letter this out. Be mindful of the space between your words and the slant line again. This part does not need to be perfect. I'm just doing it so we can see what it looks like on our on our peace, and we can adjust it as necessary. And I did do several of these offline. I just wanted to see what phrase would work best. And this one is gonna tuck nicely into the into the final piece. You can do us a shorter, saying bigger letters. Whatever you choose, there's lots of different ways. Toe letter, your final piece. And I almost used the seven millimeter guide sheet with this to There's not a whole lot of difference. So that one is a nice option as well. The four and five millimeter that's getting a little bit small. You really can't see it too well for something like this. It's gonna let that dry for a minute. It's grabbing our ruler again. So I highlighted the X height where I'm gonna dio the lettering. And again, I'm just eyeballing things here where we have the tape lines I'm measuring or I'm trying to keep him equal there on the lines on the guide sheet several different ways to do this. But this is just kind of become habit of mine. So we're going to come down half 1/2 an inch on the top and bottom here again, just adjusting it as necessary to try to get that in the center. Where are lettering is going to go just trying to be particular about this. So when I do my lettering, I don't typically use the light box. I'm market out on my paper, the lines out on my paper. The light bucks just tends toe to mess with my eyes sometimes. Plus, it's hard to see it on camera when I'm doing that. So this will be easier for you to see. And a lot of people use the light box for their envelope work and other things like this. And sometimes I will. But for today's class, I'm going to go ahead and do it this way. It's just easier for me. All right, so I got this ready to go. So then I take once this has dried, then you can kind of shift it back and forth and see how it's going to fit in there. It just fits Nice and snug in between those boundaries. All right, so we're ready toe letter. This
18. Lettering it! Here we go - Bar design: okay, a couple different ways that you could actually get the lettering onto your piece. Some people will put their practice piece underneath the watercolor paper and just trace over the lettering this way, once it's all centered, or they'll take their pencil and go ahead and mark that in first and either use it with the like pad or not, and just get their calligraphy on it that way, the way I tend to do it a little bit differently here. But I found that it works for me. I get my piece nice and center, keeping an eye on where the W is for the welcome and e in the home. Getting that within our boundaries or close to it again doesn't have to be perfect, but you're looking for symmetry. So what I do is I sneak underneath this tracing paper and I put a little tick mark at the top of each letter of each word or at the entrance stroke on these h is. And then I just go ahead and go for it, and I know that's where I'm going to be landing each word. If I trace over pencil, it just messes with my eyes, and I'm not focusing very well. So we'll get this going here. The most nerve wracking part is doing the lettering. But that's all right. We will get through this. We can do it. Got our Inc wanted Inc in the little page for my tick marks. But I'm going to keep this off camera and out of reach because one avoid disaster here. So let's go. Definitely slow and steady. Do not rush this. Use a light hand keeping your letters based well, and in between words spaced well, close to that tick mark on the T. Not exact. That's okay. Just reminds me to keep my letters contained. Getting back on this tick mark by by the H. Move your paper as you need to closer to you. You don't want to be stretching across your paper as you're doing your lettering. Last tick, mark. Last word we're getting there. No, I gotta keep this one contained. Boundary of staring right at me. All right, A little bit more. All right. And we got it. Just a little bit more to do on this one.
19. Final touch - Bar design: Okay, let's go ahead and get this guy finished out. So grab your racer and we're gonna get a couple of these pencil lines out of here, and then we will grab our ruler, and it looks great as it is, but toe add even a little bit more. I appeal what I like to do sometimes, and there's no perfect measurement here again. This is just eyeballing it. Pull it down a little bit. We'll fix on the bottom there, but just on the top pull it down to where you think it's comfortable. And then with a pencil, all I dio couple dots and dashes. So three dots and a dash and I'm not measuring the dash. I'm just dot, dot, dot dash and repeat that pattern and you can do any kind of pattern here that you that you like, But I just I like the look of this one and do that all the way across the top. There you could do all dots, all dashes again, using your creative freedom here, going to the end off where the florals are a little bit more. All right. That's a little bit a little bit far off there, So just stab some of that off. Nathan, go ahead and get an idea where we're gonna end on the bottom section a little bit. Seems a little far on the top. It's not gonna match up nicely on the bottom there. So did not. Perfectly Just using your eyeballs for your best assessment, ending where the E is in home and then doing the same thing on the bottom, getting a good gauge where it might be equal and then doing the same pattern dot dot dash all the way across. Now I leave mine and pencil. I just think that gives it a nice soft look. But if you wanted to do it and Micron, that would be an option to But I would recommend certainly doing it in pencil first and then going back over that with Micron. If that's what you choose to Dio after this one will finish up our banner getting so close here. All right. Just gives an extra little I appeal now, just to show you what it looks like on a black background. This is just card stock that I cut to size and how nice that would look just with a little border around it. So we did it. You guys. Congratulations. Hopefully you enjoyed this. So let's go finish up our banner.
20. Lettering the Banner - practice run: All right, So we're ready to do some lettering, Some a practice run on our banner. So in this space here on the handout, I could fit 16 letters. Two words, 16 letters. So here on your guide sheet, there's a couple options. But I did two of these off camera, and I'll show you how I do those. But this one we're not using any lines were just going to do some free hand here. So that's one example. Give thanks is another example. So I'm gonna let her these out and show you what that looks like, but it is nice not to have to worry about lining your paper and all of that. I certainly want to work on keeping it centered and practice several times, but I enjoy doing just some free hand like this. Get all set up here when I move my ink off our away a little bit And just eyeballing where the center of this banner is, couple practice runs. You can either do it in pencil or with your ink or marker, whichever you prefer. Try not to waste too many supplies when I'm doing this. I don't want to Over think if I was gonna try a couple options here that fits nicely in there. And you gotta watch the letters that have a down stroke like the G. You don't wanna cut yourself short and start to low. Definitely in the middle, if not a little bit above with that G. Same with the tea. You want to make sure you're gonna have enough room there. All right. Just a couple options. We'll go ahead and get it lettered.
21. Lettering the Banner - here we go!: Okay, so let's get some ink on our piece here. So I wasn't too thrilled how the crossbar of the tea went through the e. So I'm going to use gather here and then just looking at where the G is lining up under that leaf stem there. And the H is going to get tucked in between those two leaves coming out from the red blossom. So again, we're not using lines here. We're just going to go for it and get some ink out of the way. Little test page there. Here we go. Giving yourself plenty of room for that g with your descending stroke there slow and steady . And there's the ink splatter. Uh, that's all right. We will take care of that. Don't worry about it. Keep going. Don't stop. Don't get frustrated. Happens a fair amount. Sometimes we can fix that. All right, so let's watch your hand on that little spot. They're two of the spots. Really awkward position there across this tea, and we will fix that. Don't touch it. Let it dry. Just leave it alone for a little bit. Will come back to that
22. Correcting an ink splatter : Alright, guys, let's clean up these two little splatter. So a couple tools I have here an Exacto knife and then this other little tiny tool. Ah, hunt, Scratch knife 1 12 I was given this by a friend, but I've seen it online just for a couple dollars. So this little spot here certainly could paint right over that. Um, but if we want to scratch this off, you do it very, very gently. There's just a little find tooth at the end of this thing, and you just wanna scrape a little bit at a time. But I'm gonna let me show you what the exact a knife that's a little bit easier. So just tiny bit at a time, very gently. Don't want to go too fast or too deep. Grab your kneaded eraser and you're gonna pick up some of the fibers with that eraser, but gently scraping it away. Go slow with this same way, appear to a little bit at a time. The tendency is to grab a tissue when that ink is wet and try to stop it up. That can make it worse sometimes just walk away from it, let it dry completely and then work on it, little by little. And this splatter could have been a way worse. If you guys do lettering and you've had that before with your calligraphy name, it could go just everywhere. Pretty lucky that there was only two little splatters here, but you're just gently caressing that mistake out. And after it's all done, you won't even know it was there. Try to stay as surfaced as possible on the paper. Don't dig into the paper, stabbing it away a little bit. The fibers dab in those fibers away, going back and gently scraping it until you're happy with it. It's not the end of the world when it's a little splatter like that. Definitely repairable, certainly frustrating. And as soon as you feel it, splatter off your nephew like No, not again. But we got it some ways to correct it. It's all good, all right, We're gonna add some finishing touches after this lesson, and then we will be done
23. Finishing touches - Banner design: Okay, just a little bit more shading to do. And then we will call this one. Done. So grab your micron. We're just going to get in here. Do a few more tick marks. A little bit of shading, just a tone down that white. It's pretty bright white there. And what the sides being shaded. We definitely need to get in here and get a little bit of shading done. Just be careful not to overdo it, though. You want your lettering to be the star of the show on the inside of the banner, Not the shading that's gonna happen on the corners. Just a few little tick marks and the creases they're on opposing sides. That's going to give it a nice, cohesive look, as that banner is bending and folding just short tick marks, a little bit of shading and the black paper that's just card stock. I'm going to go ahead and just mount this piece on there just to show you what it looks like with a with a black frame around in a black border, and you want to go around and darken up the sides and the edges a little bit and remember to skip around the edges there. It's hard to see with the pen, but I'm lifting a little bit and not covering up exactly every inch of that. Just skipping over it. I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. Please do Upload your projects into the project gallery. We are going about wrap this one up here, Get on the black border. Show you what that looks like. And we are good to go. Guys, We did it. Congratulations. Cannot wait to see your projects.
24. Thank you: Hey, guys, we made it. Thanks for hanging out with me for the whole class. I really hope that you learn some new skills and you had a great time making the bars in the banners. So stick with me for some more classes coming up. I've got some things planned for the winter season, so I hope to see you there soon.
Jen Sweeney, Watercolor, Calligraphy, Cycling
