Watercolor Animals: Painting Bunny with Wet-On-Wet Technique

1. Introduction: Hello there and welcome to my new watercolor class. My name is Alexandrina, and I will show you how to paint this cute little bunny. We will start by creating a simple sketch, then we will move to color mixes, and finally, we will start painting with watercolor. In the end of the class, you will create a class project with one of the two bunnies from the lessons. Don't forget to submit your class project. Click on Submit Project button inside the class. Then applod image with your painting and publish your painting into the class project. Please don't forget to deliver you as it helps me to improve my future classes and for other students to understand if this class is a good fit for them, this class is suitable for the beginners. So if you want to paint these cute little bodies, I'm waiting for you in the class. Let's get started. 2. Wet On Wet for Beginners: Hello and thank you for joining my class. Before we start painting our bunnies, let's practice in wet on wet technique. This technique is essential for watercolor painting. If you are not confident enough, if you are a beginner, I suggest you to exercise and practice on scrap paper. I will show you the main principles of this technique on this round shape and two colors, spinel, brown, and sepia. As you may guess, this technique requests a lot of water in the color mix. Also, brush strokes should be in the same direction that the shape. With first layer, I'm covering the shape with a very light color and quite a lot of water. Then I introduce color while the surface is still wet. Once I cover the shape with the color, I need to create high light. I'm cleaning and drying my brush on the paper towel. I'm lifting the color from the surface, creating this nice and smooth highlight. Now I can paint the shadow at the bottom of the shape with pi. You can see that the color is nicely blend on the paper. This technique doesn't allow you to control a lot of the painting process. The more you practice, the more you will understand damp should be the paper. And how color do you need on your brush? When to stop, when to add colors? The perfect paper for a weton wet technique is cotton, cold pressed, or rough paper. Cotton paper dries slower than, for example, cell lose paper. And it allows you to work longer on the wet surface. Because with this technique, you have to paint while the surface is still wet. Now let me show you another exercise when we will paint one object behind another using wet on wet technique. We will start by covering the round shape at the bottom with first layer. Our main challenge in this exercise will be to make the upper round shape darker than the bottom round shape. And to separate them by the color value. I repeat all the steps that were made with the previous shape. Creating highlight with a lifting technique and adding shadows while the surface is still wet. Now I will move to paint another shape. As you can see, I'm using dark color for the second shape and the color starts to go on the first shape at the bottom. It's normal when you're painting with wet on wet technique. But we have our lifting technique. I will remove the color from the shape at the bottom to separate these two circles. The most important thing that you have to learn when painting with wet on wet technique is how much water do you need in your color mixes and on paper? The more water you have on paper, the less control you have over your painting process. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will paint bunnies. 3. Class Project 1 - Sketch: Hello again and welcome to my lesson, where we will prepare a sketch with our first bunny. I'm using mechanical pencil, 0.3 millimeters, you can use an ordinary pencil is totally okay. I will just show you how I'm making a sketch, but you can also find the final painting. In the attachments to this class, I placed bunny not in the middle but on the left side, because on the right side I will paint another bunny. In this class, if you have a postcard paper or just another size of the paper, you can place your bunny in the middle. My sketch is ready and I will see you in the next lesson, where we will paint a bani with water color. 4. Class Project 1 - Color Mixes: To paint this cute little bunny. Let's start by exploring the materials. Let's start with colors and color mixes. For this painting, I'll be using four colors, Ruby per paints, gray and yellow. Ok, I'm using 100% quot paper by honey, mud, and two round brushes. Number six by silver brush and double zero by Pbo. Here are the main color mixes we will use for this painting. We will need light color for the bunny, body and face, middle color, Dark color and color for painting ears. Basically, the color for painting ears will consist of yellow ocher, ruby, and sepia. For the bani, we will use mostly yellow ocher and sepe. In dark parts, we will use mix of sepe and paints green. In the description to this class, you can find all the names of water colors I'm using for this painting. Prepare your color mixes on the palette and I'll see you in the next video. 5. Class Project 1 - Painting: I start by covering the body of the body with a very light mix of yellow water and CPM and use a lot of water in this mix because the first layer should be very light. For now, I'm avoiding painting ears. And gradually I will build up the color, adding some more intense color in some parts of the bunny. While the surface is still wet, I'm working with the darker shades and I see that behind the ears and behind the pole of the bunny will be the darkest parts. I'm adding a little bit darker color, a pure pa, pa, with paints gray. I'm slowly moving to painting the head of the Bonny, adding some more intense color. Just be careful because around the eye there will be a very light area. I will try to avoid painting it with the dark color. If you didn't manage it, you can remove the paint with Dr and clean brush. I'm adding some more dark color on the body of the bony. Actually, the wetonvet technique is pretty difficult. And I had to practice a lot before I managed to control water color a little bit during the wet, wet technique. Don't worry, it's not so easy from the first time you paint. But just practice and observe how to get more control over the wet colors. The first layer is. And I can move to paint in darkest parts of the painting. And I'm using P and paints for painting these darkest shades. Don't forget to blend some edges of the elements that you painted. Because I painted here and it's still the rough edge and I want to make it more smooth. I'm using the just pure water or a very light mix of water and some color that I have on the palette. Now I'm moving to painting the ear. And I'll start with a very light color with a mix of shape, yellow, ocher, and ruby. And also I will keep a very thin white line between two ears so they would be separated for painting the inner part of the year, I'll be using mix of ruby and paints gray that already have on my palette and it will be pretty dark part of the painting. Now the only thing left is to paint eye and some final details on the bonny imitating the fur texture and adding some details and maybe more contrasts. I'm basically using all the colors that I already have on the palette, Adding it with a very light and simple brush strokes. And here, for example, area around the eye. I told you that it will be very light, but we cannot keep it white as it is right now. So I'm covering it with light mix of the colors that I have on the palette, adding a lot of water into the mix. Now we can add shadows and some final details With the very tip of the brush we can paint texture of the. Now it's time to use the smaller rush for painting the eye. I'm using paints gray and I'm keeping some small white areas unpainted to represent the highlight in the eye. I add some final details with a smaller brush and our painting is done. If you share your paintings on Instagram, my account and I will share your painting to my stories. I'll see you in the next video where we will paint another bunny. 6. Class Project 2 - Sketch: Welcome to the second part of the class, where we will paint the red bunny. Before we start painting, let's prepare the sketch first. I'm using the same mechanic pencil that I used before, and I paint on the right side of the paper. When you prepare a sketch, it's easy to think of the shapes, not the particular lines or parts of the object. Just go with the shapes that you see. For example, the biggest shape that I see here is the body's body. I will start by creating this round shape with a small tail at the bottom. Then again, I see the big shaped head of the body. So I paint the shape first and then I will add details, eyes, ears, and some other stuff. My sketch is ready and I will see you in the next video, where we will start preparing the color mixes for the painting. 7. Class Project 2 - Color Mixes : Before we start painting red Bani, let's talk about materials and color mixes for this painting. I'm using 100% cotton paper by honey mull and four water colors, spinel brown by Schminke, paints gray by Van Go, burnt umber by smink, and a ruby by white nights. In the description to this class, you will find the full composition of each color so you can replace it if you don't have particular colors in your palette. Before we start painting, we're analyzing our image in terms of color values. We need to understand which parts are the lightest, the darkest, and the middle value to prepare the color mixes for these parts. Right now I have mix of spinel brown and burned umber for middle value, mix of ruby and burned umber for painting years, mix of burnt umber and paints gray for the darkest parts of the painting. If you don't have burnt umber in your palate, you can use burnt sienna. And instead of ruby, you can use carmine. Prepare your color mixes on the pallet, and let's move to the next lesson. 8. Class Project 2 - Painting: I already have a sketch, and before I start painting, I will use needable eraser to remove the pencil lines. We will paint this bunny using wet on wet technique. Right now, I'm preparing the color mix for the main color. We will cover the whole body. It's a mix of water, spinel brown, and burnt umber. For now, I will avoid painting the ears because they will be darker and some parts will be lighter than the head and the body of the body. So I will cover the head and the body first. Don't forget that the bunny has these very light areas around the eye. I'm trying to not cover it with very dark color. And also I can remove some color with a dry and clean brush. For making dry, I'm using paper towel. I'm moving to painting the body of the bunny with the same color, using a lot of water in this mix. And working very fast so the surface won't get dry. I'm starting building up the color, gradually mixing the burnt umber and paints gray on the palette. And adding this mix to the body of the body and some of other colors I mentioned before. Right now is the first layer. It's not really important how you will make the strokes, but it should be not too dark because the first layer should be quite light. Also, don't forget that the bunny has a tail. I'm removing some of the color from the small little tail in the middle. Now we can start painting ears. I'm using very light mix of spin on brown and water. And I'm slowly moving from the top to the bottom of the ear. I'm mixing all the colors that I have on the palette and add some ruby to create this pinkish color for the inside the ear. The color should be intense and dark. And I'm connecting this part that we painted and moving to the second layer and painted the bunny's head, creating more intense and brownish color. The edges of the painted area are too sharp. I'm using the clean water and I'm just lifting the color. And also don't forget that we have to keep the light area around the bunnies eye. Once again, we start painting with wet on wet technique. I will add some darker shades while this layer is not dry also, this is how we can separate the head from the body. It will be different color values because we see on the photo reference that the head is darker than the body of the body. The darkest parts of the painting are the ears and the eye of the body. So I add a little bit more intense color using a mix of ruby, burnt umber, and paints gray. I'm adding a bit more darker colors around the ears, around the eyes. And to divide this space between body and the head, making the head darker than the body, I let the heat dry and I'm moving to paint some more intense color on the body of the bunny. Here, I have to create some brush strokes that look similar like the fur of the bunny. By the way, I'm using a round brush. Number six by silver brush, black velvet. It's one of my favorite brushes. Now I will paint a very light and thin line around the eye using the brownish color that I have on the palette. And I'm using the very tip of my brush to create this very thin line. Now I will move to painting the last year that we have. The second year using the mix of spinal brown and Ruby. This year will be lighter because we see the light coming through this very thin skin of the bunny. Basically, it should be like almost orange with a very light tint of ruby. Now I'm switching to the smaller brush to paint the eye with paint, screen color. The main thing that you have to remember when painting the eye is to keep the white areas, white spots in the eye around the pupil. It will represent the high light and the eye will look shiny like in real life. I also decided to highlight the ear, and to separate it from the head and the ear behind. So I'm just using the darker color and applying it around the ear. But we have to blend it, the edges would not be sharp. I start to add a very simple and light brush strokes with a small brush to create this feeling that the body is fluffy, that he has a fur. I'm doing basically the same with the hat, separating it from the body in terms of color value, highlighting the separation with the very thin and dark line between these two parts. Our painting is almost done. The only thing left is to paint some final details. And one of them is the veins on the ear of the body. I'm using the color that I already have on my palette. Just make sure that it's not too dark because right now I see that it's too bright and it shouldn't be. If you are just like me and you created too dark color for these veins, you can now cover it with a pale mix of spine brown and ruby and a lot of water. It will mute the color of the veins. Our painting is done. I hope that you like this class. Please review and submit your class project. Thank you for painting with me and joining this class. Please leave a review and I hope to see you in my next class.