Watercolor Basic Techniques and Textures

1. Welcome!: Hi friends. I am a big else and welcome back to my studio. For today's class, I've prepared very specific idea. Very specific topic is painting watercolor textures. Textures, nothing more. But once you practice painting textures in wet and wet, in wet on dry with dry brushes with many different media. When you get hang of it, you will see an amazing variety of applications. Because whenever we paint landscapes lowers even portraits. Their ability to mix different media, mix different techniques and textures really could boost your watercolor skills. And vertical textures have very, very high commercial demand right now. So that will be very interesting class, I hope. And let's just started. 2. Textures Applications: I will show you a few examples of how to apply watercolor textures to enrich your paintings. Of course, first of all, it's for painting landscapes. You see the sky was painted wet in wet on wet technique with mixing different shades of blue and purple. Same here. Wet on wet technique with some blooms. War when we added water into half dry paper and some extra water diagonals to create all these clouds. But in principle, that's just a texture. If we are not talking about landscapes and go into botanical illustration. It's same wet on wet technique or wet on dry technique of making gradients. Gradients Walsh's just on a smaller areas naught when we glaze the whole piece of paper, when we glaze just one battle, e.g. but principles stay the same. One of my favorite things is granulated colors. Sometimes you could just use them as a watch for the whole background. And if you mix granulated colors, you could add, you could get very beautiful shades. And these kind of things are great for wall art for full stores. If e.g. again, you do not want to glaze the whole paper. If you are more into botanical illustration. Here, I used painting with granulated colors. You see how it enriches your. Next thing I want to show you is how to use dry brush strokes. When we add with dry brush strokes some details like texture on these petals, these mountains, this malty texture was painted with dry brush strokes and a little bit with plastic folio, which I will share with you. Right here. It's a mix of wet on wet technique. First layer was wet on wet technique. And when it was dry, I went with my dry brush, same for botanical illustrations. First layers, glazing and gradient and toward really texture of pear and apple. I used dry brush strokes. And probably the best viewports see here. It's a mix of gradients and dry brush strokes. And using brush strokes like these, that creates very modern feeling for botanical illustration. Again, if we're back to fall out and some abstract paintings add in some textures, some gradients, some washes, and playing around with sports and drops that could create really, really beautiful Reach ideas for painting. Sometimes we could just play around and find small areas and let colors to mix with each other and enrich it with dry brush strokes. Always nice to add some watercolor splashes. They make your painting very wide, very impress any stake. Very vivid, very popular thing, very important thing to know how to paint wooden texture. Because wooden texture we could use either for painting e.g. ports, or it's not wooden texture, but the principles are the same. Or some urban areas. 3. Materials: For practice and textures, I would recommend you to have some board which could be lifted up and to which you could apply some type or painting wet on wet techniques. You will see it later. So some paper type which before you apply for the first-time, test it out on a piece of your watercolor paper, how easy it removes. I would recommend you to buy back some affordable watercolor paper. It's nice if it has some texture on it, it really adds to the watercolor feeling. And it should not be less than 200 g because we will work a lot of water. That's the minimum amount. If you have some watercolor paper with free calorie grams, That's great. Different papers have different ways of creating textures. So it's nice to have a bunch of everything and try out. Applying the same technique in different papers will make a huge difference. Another nice thing to have is just a sponge from your kitchen. And another thing from the kitchen. This one, you will need it for creating amazing textures. I promised you will love it. Once you are in the kitchen, grab a little bit of salt. Again, different salts could create different textures. Try everything from your kitchen. For painting itself, you could either use your basic watercolor, watercolors or try out some granulated colors. I will give you a list of my favorites. But for the beginning, you could just take something one and just get the feeling bored. It is all about another thing. Ink. Ink is amazing. Media for making nice, beautiful textures. And of course, brushes. For brushes. Checkout your kids stuff because usually they're super fluffy and that's what we need for creating. I would recommend you to have a big flat brush because we will be applying a lot of water. It's just makes all the process quicker. 4. Basic Wet on Wet Technique: Firstly, I will show you the basics of making even and gradient texture. It's nice if you put something like a tape underneath your piece of paper to make angle, It's not necessarily bad. Sometimes it helps you out a bit. Then you glaze your paper with some big flat brush. Doesn't matter which one. It's chance to be more efficient, It's easier. If you have a bigger brush for this. Distribute water very formally without puddles. You could feed on glaze the paper from the bottom, from the other side. That will give you a little bit more of time before waveform. Paper dries. But of course for this procedure you have to have very clean, clean background, which I'm doing. I probably have some surprises on this. Distribute this. We have very nicely fully glazed piece of paper. Now firstly, let's try to create an even nice, even a nice texture, just painting wet on wet. And our aim is to get as more even texture. And it's possible to achieve that. I go with my brush in different directions, in different I mean, from left to right, from right to left. Baton to Caltech moves the one line, right. In doing this, you will get very nice, very even texture. And it's important in a few seconds, you already can't go back. So right now, I will not go back. I could do it only while my paper is wet enough. And you could feel it. You're already could have a look from the low angle and say that paper gets dry. I could add a little bit more water to the bottom part. It will give me a little bit more time for painting. Another important moment. You shouldn't bring too much water on your brush because it will create spider reps. Right now, I would like to start painting gradient, which moves I will go from blue to almost nothing. I pushed a little bit my brush. I, I grew up a little bit of my previous texture, my previous colored paper. I might even add a little bit of product to get more softer, softer goal, but not that much. Again, if you look at that paper starts to dry. Lighter note to go up anymore. I wash my brush again. I go, it's about height of your soft brush. And so in that height, you could go back into the painting about. And we second stroke could cause a little bit your brush. And brush, a little bit more your brush. And that's how you come very softly from the bold blue color to almost white. 5. Textures on Wet: There are many ways to add even more interesting texture to everything we created. One is to take salt and drop it. No, to every salt works very well. Or the bigger salt particles you have, the more evident will be the result. Let's see. I think it will work best on their boldest alias. And of course, it needs to dry first. Second part, which everybody, everybody lives, especially kids. There would be happy to help you. You need to clean and wet brush and you need to make something like this. Now, we have night sky. Almost picture is almost ready. If you want to be a little bit more precise. You could just use your wet brush and paint and bring water into your paper. E.g. TO with tipping moves. We just keep adding water into wine, same spot. And that's how you get a bigger and bigger white areas become nodes. Biggest stores. And I don't know What about you? I already have known many ideas what I could do out of this picture. And it could be not only the night sky, it could be some snow, snowy day. It could be done daily. Ions painting like this. It could be other flowers. Let's see. First of all, we need to paint a wall paper or result to it. Because otherwise all the water goes down. And our aim is to have nice white areas. Are areas. You could even remove some of the excess water with a paper towel or just with paper towel. I like to work at round two finger. And then you quote some texture. Now you could see in the areas where we applied sold, the texture is very Chantal. It looks more like a crystal. When we applied for brush splashes. It does not have these outline around at all. So nice. And of course, when we kept adding water, it's it gets very bright because water pushes the paint away and the different size and that grade, these looms. 6. Textures on Half Dry: You could keep experimenting and you see that this part, the light blue part, is dry. Now you could do the same thing what we did here, but with a wet brush with blue color on it or any color on it. Just form. I would like to keep it monochrome. Not to make it too complicated. So now we have the opposite effect. We have blue dark splashes on light color, which could be an imitation of snowy day, or some tie dye technique. Even endless, endless possibilities. For sure if you keep, add blue collar, same what we did here with water. But right now, I keep to do exactly the same thing. But with color. It will work only if your paper is still wet, but it's at the moment when it gets a little bit dry. So you could create these nice, loose, nice, very crafty little cane. Watercolors, brush strokes. And now we could try to level it off. Wash your car, wash. And guess what? Let's add some water in the middle of these. In the middle of this. I think now it looks more like a doughnut. Isn't that beautiful? It's a painting, textures. It's very relaxing way of painting. If you do not feel like you want to see it and paint something big. Could just sit down. Paint textures make a lot of brush strokes, add or remove water. And that feels really quite. I showed you quite a lot of things. What we could do just with one color and one piece of paper. 7. Multi Gradient - 2 ways: Now let me show you how to create beautiful gradient blues. First of all, I set my paintings desk with a small angle. I prepare a mix of ultramarine blue, just to ultramarine blue without anything extra. Relatively, relatively diluted, relatively wet. First, I will show you how to create gradient with wet color on dry paper. So I go from top to bottom. I make Few brush strokes. Then I would like switch to Tokyo. So I start to mix a little bit trickier right here. And I overlap a little bit with my previous layer. Do fuel, brushstrokes, add more Tokyo's keys, Tokyo's go again. Had more. Now e.g. I. Would like to make it more bold. I never go back. I never go up. But e.g. right now, I would like to switch back to pro, to ultramarine blue. So I grab a little bit of ultramarine blue from my palette. I overlap few strokes with the top cholera. Then I grow up more and more ultramarine blue. And you will see that your water starts to get into the bottom. And once it dry, it will leave very pleasant stains. So before it happens, you could go very carefully along the edge with your paper towel and soak all their water leftovers. Very carefully. Ride around these watery, watery, watery edges. It will help you to keep your texture really smooth and soft without surprises. On the right half. My paper, I will show you how to do these gradient with wet on wet texture, wet on wet technique. Firstly, we need to glaze the faithful, which is placing the paper. And we are very careful. We try not to have any water puddles. So-called few more times with your brush district entitled start with burnt sienna and bring it to quinacridone rose. So I prepare a mix of burnt sienna and the paper is wet, so it will go slightly quicker. Quinacridone rose. For gradient, It's very important that you overlap the colors. So slim. Then. Do few more strokes. And now let's go back to them to burnt sienna. And for doing that, I do not wash my brush. I just go to the bottle with burnt sienna, which already has some mics on it. Now, to get more clear. Cholera, I could wash my brush. B2, after I mix two colors. Always overlap a little bit with the previous layer. So the more cleaner color I would like to get at the end, the more often I have to clean my brush. But when we make these overlapping areas, e.g. this area, it's half Brown, has been this area. How Brown has been for this area. We are not washing. We're not washing the brush. So let's let it dry. So let's check it out. Go to after all, rise. When you remove your paper tape. Careful sometimes too much to the faithful. And if it's the first time you use paper, tape, test it out on a piece off on a piece of paper, or you could use a hairdryer or help remove it very carefully. What we get here, we get very nice background. This one we could really use for cityscapes. And this one could be also a nice background for some poster or some sunset, e.g. some sunset one landscape and many other beautiful things. 8. Ink Textures: For the next texture, I will use ink, I glaze the paper. For painting. Prepare a special brush which shouldn't be super good because usually brushes are very quickly destroyed. By, with painting inks, I usually use something old. And now let's have a look what's happening. You see how beautiful in distributes its just one drop, shouldn't do anything else. In principle, that's already a nice texture. The more water in the paper, the more it spreads. And I think on this edge it's, it's getting dry already. Here. Raise enormous amount of variations of all these textures. And it's kind of meditative process. Now you see this, this part of paper getting dry and does not distribute that in that foreign way as it was before. And of course, you could really play around with these and see what you will get. Next. Approach will be again with bar to a little bit more geometrical. In case you would like to create some bowl. Or turret program will introduce some patterns anywhere. It could be a lot of applications. I'm glazing the paper, I distribute the water to avoid puddles. It's very, very important. Then I go to my inks. I start to paint. That's my favorite moment with painting ink when it starts to distribute, it's such a big and, and it's, it's really, it's just very pleasant. Even if you're not. You do not need patterns like these. Just tried a whole, it's super relaxing. And it's, it's just very, very pleasant feeling with watercolor. You can't get that feeling, unfortunately. But inks are really great for this occasion. Look, it's a big field for experiments. Try it out and enjoy. 9. Animal Skin: Next approach we'll be painting animals, skin imitation. I'm glazing the people who distribute everything. You could pay in either watercolors or would I start to paint zebra? Zebra stripes? I sometimes imply a little bit more pressure, a little bit less pressure. I create the floor. Try to avoid painting vertical lines or being too symmetrical. In real nature. It's rarely happens. You have to walk relatively quick because once the paper is getting dry, then texture really change its. So you have to think it through and then bring your idea into the paper. You could vary the amount of pressure on your brush and that's how you get different weakness. It's also nice to add some contrast, e.g. in this area for strokes, for really fluffy. Now I'm go back. I could add more details, strokes. And all in all together. It will work very nice with the contrast. Fluffy strokes, more exact, bold strokes. What's important that it's all it all has a full and if later on you would like to bring it all into, it will be very relatively easy because you already have a nice, nice if I do not lie, heading to dry brush strokes, it looks naught consistent in this. Sometimes soft and I just let it dry. 10. Wooden Texture: For painted wooden texture, I'm happily to have a reference my table right in front of me. We will paint wooden texture into layers. First layer, we paint the background, the basic basics. And I would recommend you to use some light browns, colors, e.g. sienna or burnt sienna, relatively diluted. Try to apply color in horizontal line so it should be relatively light. While the paper is still wet. You could add random shades. Just be random. Know, don't overdo it, don't overthink it, and let it dry. Once the paper is dry, we have to switch to a dry brush. And it should be some fluffy brush. Sometimes I like to borrow brushes from my kids for this purpose. I get a lot of color on my brush. I remove the excess water with the help of paper towel. I could flatten my brush a little bit like this and I start to apply dry brush strokes. You could apply a little bit more pressure, a little bit less pressure. Maybe make some wiggling moves to imitate these wooden spots. Again, don't overdo it. For some contrast. You could go to the darker brown color, e.g. burnt sienna or CPM, and add a little bit of contrast. Always try to remove the excess water. It will really make your wooden texture authentic and realistic. So you just practice a little bit different shades. We have a nice wooden texture here. Another way to do it is to start to paint with dry brush. So first you apply brush strokes. My brush is dry and I really, I have to press quite a lot on the brush to get the result. It's already nice. And then I wash my brush, I use another brush. And in some places I softer and a little bit. The texture that we will give you a little bit more crispiness, crispy feeling, more bright feeling. Sometimes you need that. Sometimes you need more natural, more realistic idea. Tribal ways. It's painting modern texture is really, really pleasant and easy. 11. Textures with Sponge: Now, let's paint on dry paper. You'll see I like, I really like to visit my kitchen. I get some nice stuff from there which I could use for painting. Take e.g. burnt sienna. Careful when you'll call this orange, it turns very important that your brush is not very well. Otherwise you would not see really the texture. It should be almost, almost try. And let's have fun or always invite kids. They will appreciate that a lot. Of course, you could use different sponges for different colors. And if you use one, go from light to dark. Nice texture. You could use it e.g. when you need to paint something neat it like a pullover, e.g. if you do fashion, fashion illustration, e.g. or if you want to add some texture to snow. If you would like to paint some landscape. Use your sponge. Then wash your brush, and then paint the seeds. 12. Abstract Plaid: So it's an endless optional application of different techniques, e.g. you could randomly apply water dispenser and then use your sponge. And you could mix calls right on the sporangia. Just think for a little bit more to everything makes us nice. I want to create some slightly geometric texture. So I, every time I apply my sponge, I use something different. I apply a little bit more pressure on the sponge. I could add one drop of two drops of water dispenser. And this is nice. This is very bright. Now let's do something less bright. So if you do not press on your sponge, it will be very soft and loose. If you try hard, it will be much more bold. C, also, you could leave it like this. You could try to make all of their area sponges, or you could combine these textured areas. Chest. It will be very, very tasty. Now, they created a nice played. Missing. This just to assemble into nice. Good, can apply a little bit more texture. In some areas. It's better not to mix too many colors. Right now on the stage. You get a lot. And of course the thing that in each and every stage could just go and add some extra details. Like salt. Isn't it? Isn't it fun? 13. Textures with Plastic Folio: For the other technique, you will need plastic polio. You buy the food stores, fled brush with each. I'm glazing the paper. I would like to do monochrome painting. So I just use ultramarine blue. In principle, right now, I cover all the paper with relatively bold mix. It's very important that you have enough of product on your brush. It should be bold and you have to work very quickly. You could leave here in there, you put leaves some, some white spaces. That's fine. What would be very interesting to add? Some really, really, really bold drops. Quran them. Just like this. And now you will need relatively big folio to be bigger than paper. I usually try to fix the bottom, the bottom edge. Then I go to the top edge. And then I try to create nice, nice lines. It's not possible to repeat. It's not possible to recreate the same, the same elements, so the same textures. But this is really, this is really fun. You have about one to one-and-a-half minutes to set up your folio. And then it's very important. You have to let it thoroughly dry. And it usually takes. Now, after half an hour, I think we're ready to remove the paper, plastic. Try to do it in one goal without too much of wiggling. And in short, what we bought, it could be some imitation of stones or form ice, mountains. So many, so many ideas. That's, I think this is my favorite, my favorite texture painting idea. 14. Granulated Stripes: Another beautiful way to, to get beautiful textures is to paint with granulated colors. I glaze the people that Michelle, what I mean with granulated colors. So let's start this one. And just a stripe. With granulating colors. You have to have enough product on your brush because then you will see the effect. Granulation more, little bit better. That's something for. Another stripe will be purple. I think it's dusk violet. But anyway, there will be a list of my favorite course. Could mount stripes. Right now, nothing is happening right now. Alright, it looks like I'm painting just wet on wet, usual watercolors. But give it a small moment. At this time, I'm keep painting. Just use all my favorite granulated colors. They will be just calculated area. And probably you already could see that particles then started to dissolve and create these very, very unique texture. So I hope you'll really like it. The color-code, dusk yellow. It has, it's maybe not very evident for now, but it has beautiful yellow particles in it that we will form, which will pop up soon. Once it gets dry, try not to go back. As usual. Check the paper. I think paper is getting a little bit dry, so I add a little bit of intro to the bottom. As I said. But not very close to the last stripe. Something something nice. You could ensure ready the view of granulated colors, distributing, mixing with each other. If you like. You could just glaze on the piece of paper with one watercolor and get, and then paint with white gouache, e.g. on the top. Because this, this granulated colors, they are great for creating background textures. You probably already, you could see now, now the yellow part of the yellow part starting pops up. Because i those for you again, when we just apply this color and we just apply this color, it looks gray, isn't it? And then it dissolves and magic happens. Now, the only thing I do not like this brush stroke, this line in the middle. I dry my brush. Go on the top and soft on the edges carefully. Likely where I've painted stripes. So if I add some extra stripe, that will be completely fine. Now, you could enjoy the view how all these particles mixing with each other and how beautiful our texture. 15. Final Project - Abstract Pattern: So now let's paint something very abstract. No need to follow me step-by-step. It's nice if you get an idea and get few different brushes that will help you to work weekly. One branch for one color and other brush for another color. First thing I'm doing, I start to create just random spots and I allow all my watercolor mixes with each other. I could do things like this. Some colors, they have granulated texture and you will see it in a moment. How, how it beautifully works. Something. Some, some colors are just usual watercolor color of watercolor color paints without any granulated ideas. Sometimes I use more diluted texture, sometimes I use much less diluted, more, more bold. So right now I have just three colors in Baroque, but you see how different it all yields. Once I'm mixing this. But now let's add some, some variety. I would like to add to our mix. Some small sponge texture. One area here and one area here. And I even overlap a little bit. I use my dispenser so often. And then I start to paint my bubbles. It's just bubbles. It's just baked in bubbles. Everybody could paint bubbles, right? So if you just started your watercolor way, watercolor adventure, really, that's really a nice thing to do. And I would say that painted nice textures has a very high commercial demand as well. Isn't that? That a great bonus? Let's have some run the latest sports here. When you paint something complex like I do now, try to limit your color palette. Otherwise it wouldn't be too too different, too overwhelming. And I usually try to add some contrast. E.g. here it's very light sport. I want to add something dark. So we have contrasts with lives and door width, beak blop, big bubble areas, and some spacey areas which we got with our Sometimes I could create bubble right in this top, all these small little dots. Sometimes I'm like cool. Create something special. Little bit to, to propose. To solve. The more brighter, the more outstanding color you have, the small it should be. Otherwise, it will be to popping up. For this blue, purple. I paid much smaller, much smaller dots. Here. We'll get that feeling. Even if you paint all these dots in one way, it's all right. Then you will get nice polka dot. Hi turn. It's nice to add some bulbs when you add water in half dried areas, like I'm doing right now. And if you paint just with water next to one of the bright spots, it will take out some color. Let's let's talk off a warm spot. I like to have an element of surprise. So I just randomly apply colors, ups. My sponge also likes and mental surprise. Currently. You just have to keep checking the tomb. Somehow balanced, amount of different colors. I see that. Slightly forgot about these. I'm back to my green card. I just enjoy how it all makes. Just a t. Once you see a big auto around, could draw another color here. And it will all be for good. It will create nice mix. Something like something known. Brown, burnt sienna and slightly diluted burnt sienna. So same color just with different variety of water in it. Now, what's missing? Some diluted. Some diluted for different different amount of everything. Sometimes it overlaps. The more it overlaps, the more nice fades it creates. And it all looks like some treasures. Stole. I've got the bird. Like some Trevor's. Mom, lost. Drop here. What do we think? Maybe small, small one here. Nice white light areas about about everything. Try to reward. 14 your bubbles. So to straight. It should have a floor. It should go in different directions. Now let's add some blooms. Usually when we painting, when I'm painting flowers, when the thing botanical illustration, we really try to avoid these loops at what you want to bring something for fun. Paint some abstract texture. That's really, that's the way to go. That's the way to play along. It's nice like internet, but let's take some dry brush stroke. It's almost dry. I flatten it a little bit. What do you sit down? And I go around. It works better on the areas which are still wet. I could take just a bit from my palette. Dry brush, dry brush strokes. So right now I really want to show you how to combine everything. You need to switch to another color, wash your brush and dry it, grab another color, and proceed. Next thing, of course, we're going to do is splashes. First, I will do it with clean water, just water. One, paper is almost dry, so it would not bring really big difference just occasionally. I think I would really like to add the green, this green tone. And that's granulated color. I ended on the top. And of course you could add something else, like purple. That is like this. And as we are cooking now, let's add some salt. It will work only on the very, very wet areas. To dry. It would be also nice, e.g. to experiment with plastic follow. But right now I think the painting is rather dry, so, but feel free to try it for the next time. And as a final touch, I will take something dark. I will just take like neutral tint. And I will add some brush strokes, random in different directions. That could be dots, that could be some lines. Some small, some small shapes. Try to make them Random, have a nice flow. So I hope I've inspired you to play around with different textures. And that's also a great way to warm up before big painting. Or I know that some people, they have fear of blank paper. What I would recommend to take Chester slightly cheaper paper and go nuts and try everything I shared with you in this tutorial. And you will, you will overcome that fear, that fear of blank paper. Human love, blank papers because they have such a big opportunity in them. So now our abstract painting seems very finished. Very even I like to stand up and have a look from the top of the camera. You could go and go and go and add splashes, blooms, textures. But sometimes it's important to start, to stop, to stop at the right moment. 16. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for being with me during this class. I hope you enjoy the process. I hope I showed you few really new and nice techniques and I encouraged you to just grab all your materials, mix everything, try everything. Just get this feeling of freedom with your watercolor and create beautiful textures for your wall art, for some commercial purposes, just for greeting cards. And it will be really, really nice adventure. I'm looking forward to see your textures and your feedback and see you next time. Bye bye. 17. Join my Membership!: Hi friends, I'm going to be killed. And I welcome you to joy, to my membership. I know that we all somehow at different stages of our painting skills and that's fine because I split my membership classes, my membership offers into sudden bundles. And you could start either from the very, very basic steps and then short-time get to another step and then to another step. And as my favorite thing, we could paint together complex botanical illustrations or loose floral compositions. It, somehow, it takes time to realize what you're more into, either into loose painting or some more precise painting, it's okay to give yourself a try. And another thing I would like to stress out that most of my classes, you could stop at any moment, e.g. when a baby cries or dog needs to go out. So really at any moment and heavy, just 15 min daily practice. Good. Bring you into really nice progress with watercolor painting, withdrawal away, anything basically. So I invite you to try out free classes, to try out churn membership, e.g. for a month and feel how how does it feel here. So I hope you will like it and we could make, we could create a really nice together. I hope I see you there. Bye bye.