Transcripts
1. Introduction & Description : Hi, hello, Amber here with a another class.
I'm super excited. Have you ever seen the Aurora Borealis or
the Northern Lights? Have you ever wanted
to paint them? Because I've never seen them, but I love painting them. They're so much fun. Do
you see all these colors? These are so fun to play with. And I invite you today to come and explore and
play with color. And just have a lot of fun. This is for any level
of water color. If you as long as
you've probably picked up a brush, I'd say
you're good to go. We're going to explore.
We're going to play. And we're going to see
where that all takes us. And I love to teach these because I've
painted a lot of them. And so I've had a lot of experience getting
through the ugly phase, 'cause believe me,
it is a long one. But we're going to get
through it together, and we're going to
have a lot of fun, and I'm excited for this class, and you are going to learn to use color and how
to play with color, how to accentuate the color in the sky for the
northern lights, and how to have
patience and to really keep working at it because it's not going to come super easy. It's going to take us a little
bit of time to get there. But I promise you, we will, and we'll have a lot
of fun doing it, and I really look forward to it. For this class project, you will create a picture of a Aurora Borealis from
a reference photo. We will go through step by step. We'll do the lighting.
We'll talk about sky. We'll talk about the
lights in the darks, the contrast, we'll
talk about it all, and we'll also talk about
adding details in the end, and we'll go all
through it together. See you soon, and
let's get started.
2. Materials & Supplies: Alright, let's talk supplies. My must have 100%. Can't do without is
100% cotton paper. Then we'll grab some water. I love to have two wells. Make sure your water
is nice and clean. Brush rests aren't necessary, but aren't they cute? And then, of course, brushes. I am using a round, a mini map, and then I
have a rigger brush. I'm going to toss in
here just in case and an inexpensive
colliggraphy brush. That gets really
loose. And then also, I love to use this flat brush because it can make
some fun strokes. So any flat brush will do. This is also a very inexpensive one, and then another mop, nice nice round mop with lots of holding capabilities
of water and pigment. And then let's talk about cloth. I do use cloth
rather than paper. I like that it's reusable. And a water spray bottle. Super handy in this class.
Make sure it's filled. That one's tiny, so it
does run out really fast. So you do need a lot of water. Here are some really,
really bright paints. They aren't necessary, but
they are fun to play with. If you had something
like that on hand, you could definitely
give them a try. Even you could even dare to venture with neons
if you wanted to. This is a bleed proof white that we use
for the stars in on. This is a plexiglass,
something to tape your paper to so that
you can move it around. It is very, very important. This is soft tape by hole bin. It doesn't leak.
It's amazing tape. And then we are going
to talk about shimmers, which I love, and they're
fun to play with as well. Not necessarily,
not a necessity, either, but they are
fun to play with. And that are watercolor paints. We can use blues and yellows and a little bit of
touches of pinks and purples, if we'd like, and we
can use what we have. I'm not going to
tell you you have to go out and buy certain colors. I think it's fun to explore
what you already have. And then a Hake brush. These are super handy, and I'll show you why. And I just keep that brush dry. And let's go ahead
and get started. I can't wait, and I'll see
you in the next lesson.
3. Class Project: Part 1: Okay, welcome back. I'm
excited to get going. We're going to take
our 100% cotton paper. We are going to tape
it down to our board. I'm using a plexi glass. You can use any sort of flat surface to
tape your paper down. You are going to want to tape it down to something
so that you can move it around and manipulate
and get the water to flow. And whatnot. So make
sure you're using something that won't
go completely soggy. For instance, don't use
the back of a book. Maybe don't use the back
of a paper sketchbook. Maybe use something more like
a clipboard or something. So, I am going to tape on both sides first and
then top to bottom. I recommend using good tape. This isn't my best tape. I prefer a whole bind soft tape. So that you are
not getting leaks underneath because we
are using so much water. It is really helpful to use a good tape that's
not going to leak. So let's spray our paper down. We're going to use a
little spray bottle. If you don't have
a spray bottle, you can just wet your
paper with a paint brush. Although I do highly recommend using a spray
bottle because later on, you're not going to want to mess up your paint
with the brush, and the spray is much lighter,
right, and more gentle. So let's start with a I'm going to using a
really loose style brush. This is a cligraphy
brush by Windsor Newton. It's a very inexpensive brush. I'm just using it
because it's really, like I said, a
loose style brush, and I can kind of smush
it around like I'm doing. I'm trying to smush
some color on there just to get a base going. The paper is very, very wet. Remember, we sprayed
it and we used the brush get the
water spread out. And so I'm putting some
thalo ish green on there. I'm getting some blueish color, and I don't want you to get
stuck on colors on this because everything changes so much once the water hits it, and we're going to be moving
stuff around so much. So I want you to just kind of play and feel
free with color. So so far, I have the green,
the blue, and the purple. And now I've moved into
slightly warmer purple. So I am changing
these up a little bit and just kind of seeing what
I like, what I don't like. And sure, ideally, you could swatch these paints
onto a piece of scrap paper so that You know what you're getting and what you're putting on your paper. But for me, part of the fun, especially something like this, is just kind of going with it. So now I'm using a agenda, and I'm adding that and kind of overlapping
the other colors. But that's not necessarily
important right now, either. Basically, you just want
to get these colors on in kind of the idea of how
you might want them. I am looking at the picture, and so you'll see the
reference picture, and I'm trying to maybe
follow that a bit. Now, the thing is, I
don't want to get hung up on the reference picture.
I personally don't. You may feel different
and feel that you want to replicate a reference to
a T. And you can do that, and you can use the
one I've posted as long as you credit the person that I will have listed,
and that's okay. You can do it that way.
Or you can go on your own and use the colors and
the composition you want, or you can use the picture I'm
using in different colors. So there's all sorts of
different ways to mix these kind of things up and
make it your own, right? Instead of just duplicating what somebody else does or
following a reference picture. But if you prefer that, again, that is so welcome. And sometimes that's a great way just to kind of get an
idea and get started, and then maybe you'll branch
off or maybe you won't. And you'll follow through
with the reference picture, and that is great, too. So, again, I am just
adding more Quin. This is Quin violet. Again, I don't want you to get
hung up on the names, but it is a really
beautiful color. And so I'm just
playing with these colors and adding them in, layering them over
each other and kind of seeing what I've
like and building up the base and building up the vibrancy in the darkness just a little bit more, right? We can't have light
without the dark. So that's why you
see me going along the outside to kind of
darken up that whole area. So that later on, our
light will bright. Okay, this is a very,
very, very important part. This is a dry brush. I never wet that brush ever
ever unless I'm washing it. So that is my dry brush that
I use sort of as a blender. And I like to use that
because it's so soft and I can use it very delicately and just blend those
colors together. And especially in something like Northern lights or Borealis, how that light is so,
you know, smooth, the ngradient and it just
has the perfect blend. And I don't always succeed
in that and that's okay. You don't have to either.
There is no right or wrong. There is just exploring and
taking that invitation to play and trying to do things in a way that
maybe you haven't tried. And make sure you don't
get hair on yours, like I don't always get. There's always a
hair in my bap room. Always picking hairs up. So I'm still using the same
brush I initially had, and I'm going over
those same colors with maybe a little
bit more color. And maybe even dropping
a little bit of an alternative color in
within the other color. So maybe in the pink, I
drop a tiny bit of purple. Maybe in that purple, I drop a little bit of
the quin magenta, or maybe I just add a
little bit of something a little bit darker just to kind of keep building that
color up, right? And you can do this quicker. I tend to do these in a slower process of
building up the color, but I have seen people
just get that color on there real quick
and do it amazingly. But for me, that
just hasn't worked. I tend to go lighter
and then darker and darker and darker and
slowly build that It's time consuming. I will say. This isn't one of my
shorter shorter demos. And so it is a bit
time consuming, but I wanted to show
you in real time. I didn't want to speed it up, and I didn't want to, you know, shorten it down for
you because I want to show you that some of these
things and some of the times, it just takes a little while, right? It takes exploration. It takes trying different
things and experimenting and just working
it back and forth, back and forth, take some,
give some, right now, I'm picking up some paint so
that I retain that light. You don't want to cover
everything up, right? See, I'm fearing that I'm losing some of my
light right there. And I want sort of like a streaky feel like
like the reference has the light kind of
intermingling like you will if you saw maybe
fingers coming together, right? You'd want that kind of
intermingling of the colors, not just one hits the other, and it stops, right? Because that doesn't
really happen. It's more of a smoother and kind of intermingled
organic blend, if you will, for lack
of a better word. And so I'm just
grabbing more color, and I'm going to go darker now. I'm going to grab,
let's say you could use maybe an indigo or a
pains or just something dark, a Prussian mixed with a
little bit of an indigo. Whatever your go
to dark blue color is that you like, I
would say, go for that. You can even put a touch of that blue you've
already used in there. So it feels maybe slightly
more harmonious or, you know, more of a blended
blended feeling here. And I am blending in my bottom because I note my paper
is starting to dry. You don't want your paper to dry as you're working
on this, right? If your paper starts to dry, then I highly suggest that you stop and you dry your paper
or you let it dry on its own, and then you rewet
the whole paper and just start that
lager over again. Or not over again,
but you continue what you were doing where you
previously left off. So again, here, I
am darkening up, adding those dark colors in
the corners, especially. I really love to frame
something that way. And as you do the outer, you're going to want to
add some more color to the inner and just keep doing that, add some, make sure
you're not losing the light right back and forth game over
and over and over. And so that is really, really basically what
we're doing here. It's just a lot of
lot of trail and air and seeing what
brush works for you, how much water works for you. What you can also do right here. You can also spray this
whole thing at this point. If you're thinking like, Oh, you know what,
I'm not loving this. I'm not super caring
for where it's going. You can give this picture this
piece a little spray right now and start moving your board around and letting the colors
kind of blend together. And see if that's something
that works for you. Now, if it doesn't,
and you think, Oh, Crud, what did I just do?
I ruined the whole thing? Just stop dry your paper and start adding
those colors again. Right? There is no point
of no return on this. I think. I've even rinsed off
my paper before completely. I mean, I've taken my
paper and literally put it under the faucet
and rinsed my paper off. So there really is not
a point of no return. Let's get that layer dry.
4. Class Project: Part 2: And we'll go ahead and re wet again with our spray bottle. I am using my bigger
spray bottle there. I think my little
one is getting low. And I'm going to wipe the edges out only because we don't want it so soaking wet that the water is going
back into the picture, but we do want it
really, really wet. I will say probably too much water for me isn't
a possibility on these. I've had these, you
know, pouring with water just dripping
onto my table before. So kind of can't do too much, and it really is
what works for you and what you find works for
the movement of your paints. Like all different paints make
not all different paints. So all different paints move
in different ways, right? Different pigments move
in different ways. Some are granulating,
some are smoother, some are single pigments, and all those different aspects. Have your paint move
different ways, right? Commercial ones will move
differently than some handmade. And it's all you learning your paints and
playing with your paint. So What I recommend is maybe doing this project more than once with
different paints, different ones you
own in different brands to see what you like in different colors
for sure and mixing different ways and just
seeing what really, truly, again, I know I'll
say this like, I don't know, 15 times, but really got to
find out what works for you. Really want to explore with
these and just have fun. You could even drop
in water here instead of using some paint if you needed to get back
some white space. If you felt like you
lost some of that, you can do all sorts of
different things to do that. You can splatter in some
white paint itself, and that will give you
some kind of you know, faded more background
bps of white. And anything goes,
again, anything goes. There are no right or wrong. There are no rules for these.
The rule is to have fun. The rule is that you get
to try different things, different brushes, although
I am using the same brush. Usually, I've switched
five brushes by now. And so when I did the
introduction with the supplies, those brushes are just
brushes that you can try. Doesn't necessarily
mean that I was going to use every
single one of them. But the flat brush could work really well with movement
right here, right? You could use that flat brush to kind of sweep in your colors. You could use the round brush do the same thing and you can use the mop to do
the same thing. So you just want to play with
your brushes and find out which one works the best for you and for what
you're trying to do. I'm adding more color here and trying to blend
that into the existing. And again, just getting
those darker colors, so your light shines, right? If you don't have the dark, the light won't pop
as much, right? And the closer you can get
that dark to the light, it will also accent the light. And that helps too.
So now I'm picking up some of the color
throughout the pinks. Some colors lift,
and some don't. So what that means
is some paint lifts with a wet brush like that, and some paint is staining, so it will stain your paper, and you're not able
to lift it off, so you're not able to
see the paper below or the color below the paint
that is staining, right? And so the ones
that are liftable the ones that lift
off their paper, you'll be able to see
whatever's below that, whether that be a color or just the white paper, which
is really cool, right? And really helpful
a lot of times. Now, staining paints
also have their prose. So, you know, there's pros and cons to all of it
and everything. I'm using the bleed
proof white here. If you don't have
Blee proof white ink, which I really really
like, you can use guash. It won't be as vibrant
after it dries. Guash for me tends to
dry very, very dull. And so this bleed proof, it It has staying
power, if you will. It stays much better. Mind you, my paper is still wet. So I'm splattering this
with a round size, I think it's around six and
different sized brushes do matter and make
different splatters, right? Okay, so quickly dry again. But I still want to go back
to that splatter in the wet. The splatter in the wet helps
the white diffuse, right. So you're not making
these very bright, crazy, you know, big splatters. You're just making these hints
of something back there, a suggestion of a galaxy, suggestion of stars, right? Suggestion of whatever you
want to be back there. All right? It's tree time.
You know me in trees. I love trees. I am using
a liner for these trees. Any brush that you are comfortable with
will work a round. You can try a round size four. A lot of people like
smaller rounds. Other people like different brushes to do their trees with. My suggestion is that you try all the brushes and
paint all the trees, hundreds and hundreds of trees. You've got to paint the heck out of some trees before you
feel really comfortable. At least that's
how it was for me. I've now painted
thousands of trees, and I still have my off days and trees don't
feel comfortable. So That being said, again, it just takes practice
daily practice. I paint trees daily. And if I don't
practice trees daily, I'm always painting
daily, no matter what, but for some reason if a
tree doesn't sneak in there, then I feel very strange. This is unlike me to not
be in a tree in a day. So I'm using a darker
color right here. You can use I think I'm using a mix of a hematite black
and maybe a neutral tint. You could just use
indigo with a touch of neutral tint or indigo with
a touch of something darker, just as dark as you
want the trees to go. If you don't want
them to be that dark, you can use as a dark
green if you wanted to. It's completely up to you. I am filling the bottom though, so I don't want to waddle that white to pop
through of the paper. I should have brought my sky
down a little bit lower. But you can just fill
in that white with tree and pretend that the
tree kind of, you know. Maybe there's a
mountain behind it. Maybe there's more trees, right? Trees don't just sit in a row, like I often paint them. There's more depth
to the trees, right? So there's trees
behind in the front, and there might be trees
going miles and miles back. So we're just filling in this
tree in this tree space. We are I'm making a line, and then I'm just bouncing
my liner brush side to side, down that line, getting bigger, keeping that
triangular elongated triangular is shaped
to my trees, right? Not getting them too fat and not keeping the all
the same height, keeping them all the same with trying to mix that up and there you see me
filling in that white. I'm just kind of coloring
over. And that's fine. Is it ideal? Not exactly ideal the way I'm doing
it, but that's okay. This is the one time
I will recommend that maybe you mix enough of your dark color to
paint all your trees, only because if you go to mix
more to fill in like I did, and the colors are slightly off, you'll get a weird texture, right, and a weird look to that. And it's not terrible.
It's just practice. So It's not the end of the
world if that happens to you. It happened to me, you know, it just looks like more layers, maybe maybe there's shrubs
in front of those trees. And, you know, it's just
not ideal, I suppose. But also, also in my defense, it's not ideal to have
a solid, all one color. Although with
silhouettes, that is the one time you kind of
get that excuse, right? To have one color. Just
the silhouette is usually just a darkened out
outline, right. And so in this case,
it does actually kind of behoove you to
make enough paint. That is my long
winded explanation that you should
make enough paint. All right. This is
about wrapping up. I'm going to finish
up these trees, and we are going to
be done very soon. I'm going to take off this tape. Maybe if you felt like it, you could add a little
more stars to the sky. If you wanted a brighter feel to your Northern lights galaxy
sky. I've heard both ways. Yes, there are stars
with Northern lights. No, there are not. My Alaskan friends
have told me, yes, there are, and
others have said no. So It's up to you. It's a fantasy world for me. I paint just fun and
fairy tale like stuff. So, I'm not a stickler for rules or what should
be or shouldn't be. And I just kind of go with it. Whatever makes me happy
in the moment, I do. And I like the stars because I think it adds a little bit of contrast with those
dark spots in the sky, finish drawing those
stars and the trees. And that is it. We did it. I'm so excited. Do not forget to join me
in the last class, so I can explain to you how to post a picture to
the project section, project and resource section and the reviews,
and all the others. I just want to show
you that fun sky. All right. Thanks
again for joining me, and I can't wait oops. I had to leave my visitor in. All right. I will
see you next class.
5. Final Thoughts: I Well, thank you so much
for joining me today. I had so much fun
exploring this. Painting from a reference photo can be pretty intimidating. But just remember, it
doesn't have to be exact. We can take different
reference photos and we can play with colors
and we can mix it up. We don't have to put so many
expectations on ourselves. We can have fun with
different things and try different ways. It doesn't always
have to be perfect. It's just paper. We can
try again and again. What I want you
to take away from this is I want you to have fun. I want you to explore
and I want you to remember that it doesn't
have to be perfect. It will take a while to maybe work out the
way you like things, the way you prefer
them, the way you want them to be done.
The last thing. They will go through
some mass ugly phases. These will look like you are not going to come out
on the other end. But I promise you once you
add the details and once you Once you step back and you look at
what you've created, and you add those trees
and the splatters. You will surprise yourself. I would absolutely
live if you wanted to post your picture in the
project and resources tab, I'll show you this slide,
where you're supposed to post, how you're supposed to post,
and how to submit the photo. Also, if you'd like to leave a review, that would be awesome. I'll also tell you how to
do that in the next slide. As well as there's a
discussion section, if you have any comments at all, you're also welcome to reach
out to me and message me. I'm happy to answer
all and any questions. Reference photo will be in the projects and
resources section. Thank you again. So so very
much for taking my class, and I will see you
next time. Bye.
Amber Lane, watercolor landscape artist
