Watercolor Basic Techniques For The Absolute Beginner

1. Class Introduction: Watercolor painting may seem a difficult thing to do, and many people miss out on this greatest periods of painting with this wonderful medium, just because they are too scared to even try. But painting with watercolor, it doesn't have to be the scary, and it's not that difficult once you know how to do it. That is why I have designed this class with a absolute beginner in mind to show you exactly the techniques that you will need to do any painting, from landscapes to still lives, to botanical paintings like the ones. Behind me. The important thing would be to practice and practice and practice. In this class, I have included nine exercises for you to try and practice. In exercise one, I'm going to show you a color saturation. So I will show you how to achieve a more saturated color by using many layers. In exercise two, I will show you the flat wash. So how to do a flat wash with two techniques, wet in wet and wet on dry. In exercise three, I will talk to you about color blending and I will explain how to blend two or more colors. In exercise four will show you the difference between optical mixing and mixing the paint in the palette. In exercise five, I will show you how to do a gradient wash from dark to light. In exercise six, I will talk about masking fluid and I will explain how to use it. Exercise seven, that would be about color drop is just a quick exercise just to show you the effect of doping color wet-on-wet exercise eight will be about stippling and you will learn this technique that can be used to achieve texture. Exercise nine would be about lifting color. And this will be useful when you want to lift color to achieve highlights. By the end of this class, you will have quiet, a solid foundation on the watercolor skills and techniques that you need to do any sort of watercolor painting from landscape all the way to botanical painting. Once you have completed this class, you can check out my other watercolor class and I will put a link in the description. If you're ready, let's get started. 2. Class Project: The project for this class will be not only to do the exercises that I show you during the lessons, but also to do some mini paintings like these ones, where you can use your newly acquired techniques. I have included some downloads for you where you can find e.g. a. Template for the exercises. You don't have to use it, of course, but it's there if you need it. And also included pictures of the exercises and projects as well as a reference. And also there's a tracing. It's very basic tracing of the paintings that I did. But in case you need some guidance with those. Also, you can find a template for the coral cards. You will find one with a darker lines in one light outlines. And you can use this for the color saturation. For your paints. You can either print it directly on watercolor paper, like I did, or you can just print it and trace it on watercolor paper. Also, I added my short e-book, a guide to watercolor basics and how to find your favorite color palette. Where you can find inside. My tips and information on the basics of watercolor. You will find the link to download everything in the description or in the project section. 3. Materials: The materials you will need for this class are not too many. And I will show you here. You don't need probably all of these, but I show you some options as well. So you will need LR. From this side, you would need a palette. You can have either a plastic palette like this one. You can have a ceramic one like this one. And this is a working on a project at the moment. So I got colored in here. But I really like the ceramic palette, however, you know, are a bit expensive. So if you don't want to spend this much, if you're just starting out, you can use a plastic palette. There is another like the plastic palette is because they tend to stain. And you probably can see that in here. But for these exercises should be okay. Then you can have, also have this type of palette. But for the exercises that we're going to do, you will need to have quite a bit of color. So I would advise you not to use the flat palette for this type of thing, but something with Wales. Then you can put just enough, quite enough color to complete the exercise without having to mix color again. Okay, So this is the palette. Then you will need a ruler because we're going to do some squares or rectangles. If you prefer to do circles, you can use something like this. It's a, I think it's just called a circle template. You can find it on Amazon or art shop. And you would need a pencil. You can have either one of these mechanical pencil or just a normal to H or HB pencil, something like that. Then you would need a brush. Of course, these are Princeton, Well, one is Princeton brush synthetic and the other one is priority. It doesn't have to be a fancy expensive brush. Brushes. I find this a very personal preference. So if you have brushes that you like, you can use those. You don't need to buy extra brushes for this class. So just should be just big enough for the area that you want to cover. Rashes. And then we're going to use in one of the exercises fluid. You don't have to do it if you'd like to use masking fluid or if you don't have it handy. But if you want to try it, this is from Winsor and Newton. Load lots of choices out there. I usually find that I prefer the one with a little bit of color. This unfortunately was the only one available at the time and is the transparent one. You don't really see where you applied it once it's dry. When it's a white paper, e.g. but he would do for now and you want to buy something they want to use in future as well. So if you find the one with the color, um, some, some of them but a bit yellowish and some of them are blue, bluish color. But you can see them better when you get when you use those ones. And to apply the masking fluid. Don't use your good brushes because it would ruin them. So there are available brushes like this from the SAA, which is especially made for masking fluid, says here as well. And also the ruling pen like this that you can use your open and close from this a little thing here on the side. And what is that called? I don't know. But anyway, you can make smaller or larger lines. So it's quite good for precise application. And even with these brushes, before you use them for masking fluid, I would rub it a little bit with it and rub it in a little bit of soap. And then you use it for the masking fluid, and then you wash it straightaway because it just sticks to your brush and ruins it. So this for the masking fluid and paper, of course. This one here is Canson XL acquit L is 300 g. If you want to use it with watercolor, that's important because anything less than that, it will start to buckle bit. And this is cold press is not too rough as paper for this exercise is quite good and annoyed if you can see it on camera. If I put it a bit closer, I'm not sure officials, but it's not completely, completely smooth. And for this type of exercises is, is quite good. And then what else? Of course, you will need water. I used to just want to wash the brush and one to dilute your paint because this is going to get dirty very, very quickly. So just use any any container that you like. Then we have some washi tape. Again, you don't have to use it. You can use just some low-tech artist tape. This is nice and fun and colorful. And I like to, to use this as well because it's very low tack and it doesn't ruin your paper. But you can use whatever you have handy. Of course, you will need to paint. Now, I have these because I have accumulated over the years. You don't need that many pains, so don't run away. This is not necessary. In fact, I explain this in another class that I have, but you can use six paints when you start off. If you don't have any paint at all, you can just buy three warm primaries in three equal primaries. And you can use these to mix a huge amount of color. So for this class you don't even need that many. You can use like two or three colors. So for colors, whatever you have available. I'm not gonna give you exact color to use. Just use what you have. You don't need to buy more things. And of course, if you have, if you're using a pencil, you even need a rubber band, you don't need me to tell you that. Oh, whoops. Some cloth, some paper towel. This is an old face tower that I use for my colors, which you can tell it's all stained. And I think that's all. If I think of anything else, I will tell you while doing the class, but I think that's all you need. So it's not, it's not a lot. You probably have these things laying around in your house if you like, painting already. Okay, So let's move on to the next lesson. 4. Exercise 1 Color Saturation: The first exercise I'm going to show you is color saturation. And this exercise is quite good for a couple of things. First of all, you will see how a color can saturate by just adding more layers on top of the first ones. So in this exercise, I'm going to put a layer of color in each of these squares. And then I will add a second layer from the sequence square onwards at third layer from the third square and so on. So the first square will have one layer of color, and the last one, the fifth square will have five layers of color. And you will see how color can saturate by just adding layers. Because we watercolor is important, that you build up the color rather than using a very thick mix from the beginning. Because with a thick mix is not going to work. So you would love problems afterwards. And then also, you will get to know your colors. By doing this exercise, you will get to practice coloring inside the space. And I will show you this exercise into colors. And they meet ten it maybe this way. So I have a blue Winsor, blue, red shade and oriole in yellow. They both transparent. And this will show you how for sample with light colors, you can really achieve saturation after a certain point. So it would become darker but very slightly. So when you want to darken a yellow, you will have to use other methods, which I want to discuss here because this is just a class for exercises. Let's start with this exercise. And I've made quite a bit of color here, because one important thing with this exercise is that you need to use the same mix. You can't make more. If there's not enough because he will change, then the strength of the color, and then you won't have a good result. Something that you can trust, and the mix is quite diluted. So I will show you in this one. So it shouldn't be too diluted that you barely see it, but it shouldn't be a dark either. And I'm using a Winsor and Newton CD27 brush, but you can use whatever brush you have handy. And then I'm just going to do the same thing with a yellow. And if you notice every time I pick up the color, I mix it. Well, because the pigments, depending on the color, but usually the pigments tend to deposit at the bottom. So you want to mix, especially if you have two colors mixed together. You want to do this, but even with one color, you want to give it a little mix every time you pick up the color. So the first row is dry. Now. And one way you can see if it's tight, you can tilt it. You can see the yellow is shiny, so that means it's still wet. And this is not as much to know. And you can also W finger like that and you can tell if it's cold, it means that it's still not completely dry. So once it's completely dry, you can do the second layer. And this is how I like to do my watercolor paintings in layers because it's easier to, first of all, if it's quite light, you can start even lighter than this. If it's quite light, you will be able to correct any mistakes that might happen. So let's start with the second layer. If you have too much paint, you can. We brush on the paper towel and then just dab it in the drop here so you can pick it up. So I'm going to do this again for the yellow and then just the repeated. So the third layer is from the third square and leave the first two untouched just with 21.2 days. As you build up the color, it will take longer and longer to dry, but just make sure that the previous layer is dry. Otherwise, you might do some unwanted special effects on your squares. So this one should be okay. Will do the last layer on the blue. And this is, of course it's true for your painting as well. You're painting in layers, makes sure that your previous layer is completely dry before you apply your next layer. Alright, so as you can see from this exercise, when you put many layers on top of each other, you build up the color. But you can build it up to a certain point. Maybe we can add another one or two layers to this blue. But if you want a really dark blue, then you will have to add another color. There are different ways to do shadows, but this exercise is very good. Then you should do it with all your colors, all the ones that you want to use, at least because you will really get to know them. And as you can see, the yellow is always, of course lighter and it doesn't really get much darker no matter how many layers you put on top of it. I can take a picture with the in black and white. And this will show you even better. What I mean with the intensity of the color. So as you can see with the blue, you can see that this is lighter. And as you add layers, it becomes darker. But with a yellow, you can hardly see, well, there's really not much difference in there when you take a black and white photo. And I advise you to do this with your paintings as well. If you're painting like, let's say a landscape, I'm the best. Nothing to do with the painting is to have contracts in your composition. Where you want to do is to see the contrast. You take a picture in black and white and you will see if your painting looks like the yellow squares. So without much contrast, then you will want to add some shadows and some highlights somewhere. Especially the shadows, they define your painting quite well. But if you're painting, looks like there are different saturation points like this. So you are delighted, you have the darks and you have the mid tones, then you're doing a good job. Carry on. Okay. So this is the first exercise. In the next exercise we're going to do a flat wash and I'm going to show you a couple of ways to do it. Wet in wet and wet on dry. Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson. 5. Exercise 2 Flat Wash: In this exercise, we're going to do a flat wash, which is also quite a good skill to master for your watercolor paintings. Okay, so the first one I'm going to show you this wet-in-wet. So I'm going to wet the page first. I have changed my brush because this is a bigger area. So this is a larger brush, is a Princeton number four. And these are synthetic so it's a bit stiffer. But for these exercises is quite good. So you want to wet the paper in a homogeneous way. And you need to have a look at it, shining it with a light. So you see there are areas where maybe the paper is not wet enough. And also you need to have this as a sort of a Shane or I should say xi1. I think that's the right word. So not too wet there you see the water pooling on top, but not too dry either. And when he's like that, you just start adding your color. And I'm turning the paper because it makes it easier. So don't be afraid of moving the paper. And you just basically pull the color from top to bottom, left to right, right to left, like this. And just put a little bit more. And I don't start straight from there because sometimes it's a bit too much color. It might be on the brush. So it may create difference between the two areas, the one you did before and the new one. And you keep pulling and pulling in the weather is, or the way the paper is actually dying. I said the weather because I was thinking that the weather is a bit hot today is September. The paper dries quite quickly. So if you want to try this on a smaller area first, you can do that. And I have gone a bit over the edge with this because I was trying to be quick. Um, but I'm gonna show you a little trick that I use. I have this brush is from really show a collection is called the eradicated. And it's basically a stiff flat brush. If you have a stiff synthetic flat brush, you can use that. You don't have to buy this. I waited and then just go where you want to remove your paint. And it's better to wait every everything is j because otherwise it might just move again. But you can just use something like this to clean up your edges. So the ego is a little tip for you. So that was the wet in wet. And then we can do the wet on dry so the weight paint on the dry paper. And one thing I like to do is I like to tilt the paper. So I'm going to try and do it in a way that you can still see it. So pick up enough paint on your brush and just start applying. From left to right. I'm going to come out of the lines here because this is not the best position to paint. But hopefully you can see, and I always leave a drop here. And this will help not to create like a hard line. So make sure you always have this drop. I'm not sure which way is best for you to see properly. I think this one like this. So when you tilt the paper, it will help. I'm pulling the paint in a consistent way. And because I'm holding it in my hand, I'm gonna go outside the boundaries of this box. But when you do it, you will have, um, you know, this paper, nice, it is resting on your desk. So don't do it like this. But as you can see, I always keep this nice big drop of paint as I'm working my way down. And of course, this depends what shape you are using. But the principle is always the same. Always use this little sort of drop at the end to avoid making harsh lines. You can also work from left to right if you prefer like that. You have to practice and see which way you like most. So now that I'm almost at the end, I haven't put my brush in the paint anymore. I'm just using going out, using whatever paint is left. And now I have this drop left here. I'm going to dab my brush on the paper and pick up this excess moisture. This is because the brush, when you dab it on the paper is gonna be drier than, than the paper. So it's going to absorb the moisture that is in here. And don't do it too much because you're going to pick up too much paint and you're going to make a hole like a white stain in there. Okay, So these are two ways of doing the flat wash. And you just need to practice. See which one you like most. I mean, this one probably comes up. Usually. You see with the same paint a bit darker because when you put water down first, it will dilute whatever paint you put in there. So you will need another layer or two or whatever, how many you want. This one is going to be a bit darker because of course the paint is not diluted. You just put this straight onto the paper. So just keep that in mind. And that's it. That's the flat wash. In the next exercise, I'm going to show you how to do color blending. To blend two different colors together. I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Exercise 3 Color Blending: All right, so in this exercise I'm going to show you how to do the color blending. Basically you just pick up the first color. I'm just try not to do too much color in your brush. So I'm just gonna do it like this just without the books. Then. Pick up the second color and start from the opposite end. This might be a bit light actually, but, um, I'm going to start from here. Again, not too much color on your brush. And then just touch it slightly, delicately and just leave it and they will mix together. There is another way of doing this. So I'm going to try not to have too much paint in my brush and do a little square with a blue. Then pick up the yellow and work all the way almost touching the blue. I'm not sure if it's too much. And then just rinse the brush, dry it a little bit, and then put the brush between the two so that they start touching and they will blade the gain. So there are different ways of doing this. But generally, you can do it like I showed you in the first one. But I'm going to To do the yellow a bit more dense with the pigment. This is a bit too light. So it started with a yellow, a bit dark canal. And then maybe do the same with the blue. Make it a bit darker. And start from this side. And you don't want to have too much color, otherwise they will run into each other too much. And then just touch it like that. And let him do his thing. That's the beauty of watercolor. It just thus as his own mind. And if you don't like these sort of feathering effect, you can rinse your brush and dry it on the paper towel and then gently, gently touch it here so that it's not so obvious. This feathering effect, just a little tiny dabs with the tip of your brush and don't touch it too much. Otherwise you would start picking up color. That's the one key point with a watercolor. You can play with it until this nice and wet. But as soon as it starts trying, like this one, that you just have to step away. And it's very tempting to go there and fiddle with it, but it will mess it up. So try to keep that in mind. When you, when you work with watercolor. So that's the color blending exercise. In the next exercise, I will show you two different ways of mixing the colors. So the color mixing in a well and also optical mixing. So you actually mix the colors on the paper. And I will show you that in the next lesson. 7. Exercise 4 Optical Mixing: In this exercise, we're going to see the optical mixing and mixing in the well. So I've put more color in here. So I've added more pigment to the yellow, so it's a bit stronger. And what I'm going to do is for the optical mixing, I'm just going to add a first layer of yellow to all of the squares here. So just yellow by itself. You can see this is a bit stronger because I put more, a bit more pigment in it. Okay. So to this layer, I'm just going to add the blue on top of it. Then for this one, I'm going to mix green with the same blue and yellow. So I'm just going to pick up some blue. Let's see. I don't want to add too much to start with. And I'm just going to get some scrap paper and try it. So a bit more. So it looks different when you have it on the whale and when you have it on paper. Always try your colors on a bit of scrap paper. Because it looks much darker in there than it does in the paper. As you can see. We start with this color, which is slightly more tendency to green. Just pick up the little drop and then I will add more blue. You should really rinse the brush between dipping the brush here in the blue. But I'm being very careful. Okay. Let's rinse the brush. Pick up more blue. That's too much. We want to sort of gradual darkening. Say Yeah, that's good. Just always add your colors in a literal the time if you're making green or the blue in very small amounts, because it takes very little to actually have a corridor is too dark. Especially when you're mixing blue and yellow. Then let's make this nice and dark. This is not the brightest shade of green because we have a blue with the tendency to read Windsor blue, red shade, and a yellow with the tendency to orange, I think this one. So I have another class where I explain more about mixing bright colors. But you get a less bright color, which is quite nice. Actually, I'm not saying that it's no good. Okay. So this is the mixed color. Then I'm just going to add layers of blue here like we did before. I think this brush is a bit too big for the squares. The change it. And then you just need to wait for these to dry and then add another layer to this two and then another layer two, the last one, just like the exercise that we did at the beginning. And it will show you the different ways of mixing the colors. And it will show you that also the effect is a bit different. So I like to normally mix my colors before. But the fact that you can add a layer, a wash of color on top of another color. It means that sometimes you can correct. A certain color. So if there is a leaf that is e.g. I don't know, tendon with a tendency to much to like a bright green, then you can bring it down by adding a wash, maybe a darker green or another color. Or you can brighten it up. If it's too dark with a wash of yellow, of course, you can do only so much. We want to color because you can still see the color shining through the one from the underneath color. But it will help you to correct certain things when you add the wash on top. So it's important to know this, to do this exercise, to know how color behaves when is sort of laid on top of each other. So this is still, still a bit wet. And I'm going to finish this to show you the result. Alright, so that's the final result. So these are us, no color on top and then one layer of blue, two layers of blue in three layers of blue. This is the Calloway mixed. And of course you can make this darker. You can just add more blue and it will become similar, a bit more similar to this. But the final result is different when you lay the two different colors and when you mix them. First. Also, the results will be different according to the paper you use. So I would advise you to do these exercises on the paper that you use for your final projects. If you want to just try at first, it's fine to do it in just any type of watercolor paper. But to really know how your paint is going to react when you do your final painting, then it's best to use the paper that you're going to use for your final painting. So e.g. I. Use arches for all of my paintings. And when I want to do an exercise that I really want to know how he's going to translate in my final painting, I will use arches paper. And I have a little notebook that I made. Brushes running away. And I made it with Arches paper. This is, I keep it for color recipes. So, and this is also from another cluster they have as well on column mixing. And some of them are like this. Some of them are just mixes that I do for the current project. So for tulips, e.g. flowers through like an olive branch that I want to paint and so on. And so it's good to have the paper because the color will change if you put it on this paper or you put it on this paper, it will be different at the end. Once it dries. It's important to have the paper, the EU. I want to use at the end and do some exercises there. But if it's the first time that you trying this and you don't want to waste the lovely paper, then you can just use the paper I showed you at the beginning or any other paper that you like. Okay, so in the next lesson I'm going to show you how to do a gradient wash. As See you in the next lesson. 8. Exercise 5 Graded Wash: In this exercise, I'm going to show you the gradient wash. So what I do is I pick up the color, starts like the flat wash. I'm not going to use a rectangle for this. And then after you have a little bit of a match, you want that area to be, dip the brush in water, rinse it. I mean, like touch it on the side and then touch it just with the tip of the brush there. So it starts to dilute the paint. And then keep doing this. So I start from not touching it from just the very close to the area where it was before. And then attached to the tip of my brush. And keep going and then touch it again, rinse it again, and carry on like this until you have very little to no pain to left depending of light you want it to be at the end. So this is all a matter of practice, practice quite a lot because I'm not an easy thing to achieve. And even so with this paper, e.g. it tends to dry and it tends to make some marks. And where you can do. If you have differences like this, you can just wait until it dries completely and do it again. So do another layer on top of this, exactly like we did here. So you just want to basically start with a full-color, full strength, then dip the brush, touch on the side to eliminate the excess water. Start not touching it but from a little way away. And then come down. And then again rinse, eliminate the excess water. Because otherwise it would be too much water. And then just wait until you have very little pigment left. So just practice this. It won't come up like you wish at the beginning because it's not that easy. But it's the only way to do it is just keep keep repeating it. Do like a page to page four pages if necessary, and see how it goes. And I advise you to also try it with different brushes because according to the brush that you use, it will be different the result. So if you have e.g. a. Brush that holds a lot of water, this one holds quite a bit of water. A new rinse it by the, don't take enough water from your brush. It will sort of put too much water down and there will be some blooming effect. I don't know if this one actually does it, but let's say you don't touch it too much. I don't know if you can see this, but there will be some blooming here because there's too much water. So the amount of water that you live on the brush depends again from practice and from the type of brush. So if I use a different brush, maybe I don't have to sort of get rid of so much water when a when I dip it. And as you can see, there was too much water and now it's doing this here. So yeah, lots of practice. That's the only way they will advice I can give you. And you can see the word if this happens because this means that you learned how your brush works. So as long as it happens while you're exercising and not on your nice painting, then it's great. You will have learned something. Okay? In the next lesson I'm going to show you how to use masking fluid. As See you there. 9. Exercise 6 Masking and Color Drop: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to use masking fluid. And this, again, according to the paper you use, could work or could not work. Some papers. This is not one of the most expensive papers. So I'm not sure how it's going to react. But some people's will tear when you remove the masking fluid. So again, try it beforehand on the paper that you want to use. But basically I'm going to just IF made a little drawing here and it's a bit darker, done is quite a bit darker than what I would do normally, uh, but, um, just to simulate some sample stamens, if you have a flower that you're painting and you want to keep these areas light because you want to paint this another color. It might be a bit fiddly to paint all around this little bit here. So I'm going to use an old brush. You can use a brush specific for masking fluid. You can use the applicator like this, the ruling pen. Or you can use an old brush because the masking fluid might ruin your good brushes. So just to pick up some masking fluid and you apply it as you apply paint. So I'm going to do the little stalks as well. And this masking fluid is white and then it will dry clear. But I advise you to use one that is a bit of color there. Some blue ones are yellow ones because you can see them better, both when you apply them and also when they're dry. But basically don't know if you can see this on camera. I have played the masking fluid on top of this. And again, try to keep the line, the pencil lines really, really light because otherwise they were shot. And then clean your brush straight away. Because it becomes like this plastic thing that sticks to it. And never use your good brushes. Doesn't want to go. And another important things to do when you use masking fluid is to wait until it's completely dry because some other way, so we'll make a mess. He will move when you add, when you apply the paint. So at the moment is still quite shiny. So it's not dry yet. So once this day, I'm going to apply a wash of color and show you how it works. I think is day enough. Let's have a look and just going to use the same blue color. And you just apply it everywhere. Because that part of the paper with the masking fluid is protected and won't be stained where the color. Alright, so once you apply the color, it needs to dry completely because then you need to rub the masking fluid to to take it off so you have to be patient and wait until it's completely dry. And something that I can show you, what we wait for this to dry is the color dropping wet in wet. This is just something to do for fun, for some specific techniques. Maybe you want to paint something like a galaxy painting the equator in fashion of the moment. So I'm just going to apply a layer of yellow color. And then before it dries. So when this is quite, still quite wet, I'm going to pick up some blue color, not a huge amount, and then drop it in there. And you will get this sort of blooming like little style effect. We can add the green too. And it creates this abstract sort of effect. So that's quite a fun thing to try. Okay, this is, I think is quite dry. And while you can do is you can either use a rubber, something like an eraser, like this, and be very careful. You can use your finger. But just be mindful that your finger might be 13 and stain the paper. So this paper is not the best paper to do this because it will lift but on the paper. But just to show you the effect. So it's been the paper, the white of the paper has been preserved by the masking fluid. I don't really like to use masking fluid that much because he would give you this uneven, sort of very sharp and even I'm edges and the like, um, this effect. But if you need some delay occurs more area that you really cannot leave without using the masking fluid, then maybe you can use it. And then once you have taken the masking fluid off, then you can paint that area with a different color and do some delay that. E.g. the paper here is peeled off a little bit. So you can do something like that. But I don't like the edges. You can always soften the edges with a brush like I showed you before. But it might kinda ruined the rest of the painting. So if you can, I would advise you to avoid masking fluid. But I wanted to show you all use it with a very strong paper. Um, like when I use it on ashes, the very few times that I've used it, I don't have any problem with that paper. But even if you don't see it with the naked eye, is still changes the paper a little bit the texture. So I want to use it on a big area because you would have different Stan on how they colors appear. Okay, So this is dice or you can use, um, less diluted paint of course, and it will, defect will be stronger. So I don't know if it might be too dry now. Still see, this side is dried. So let's see. I think here it's still quite wet. So if you use a stronger pigment mixed, then you will have a stronger effect at the end because watercolor becomes lighter when it dries. So try to keep that in mind as well. And in the next lesson I'm going to show you the stippling effect and how to lift color for highlights, e.g. see you in the next lesson. 10. Exercise 7 Stipling and Lifting: Alright, so in this lesson I'm going to show you the stippling effect. And it's a good way to give texture to your painting. So I've painted a layer of this is perylene maroon. So I like to use a darker color for this exercise. The left that a bit later on one side and a bit darker on the other side. And where you want to do for the stippling is to pick up some color. Shouldn't be too diluted the color. So not too watery. And then a while you want to do is to touch slightly your, um, brush to the paper towel and then do some sort of little more mentally, this, I'm touching the brush, the tip of the brush on your, um, on your area that you want to add, your texture. And some people like to use an old brush that hasn't got much of a point. And a I don't mind. I like to use Just to any brush that I have handy. So and this way, if you start from the darker area, you also give the impression that this area is in the light, so it's lighter as well. The stippling gets lighter as well. So by the time you start from here and go to the lighter area, you will have less paint in your brush and you will be lighter. So it looks like there's light in there. And of course you can leave it like this limit Dre and then give it another sort of layer or stippling on top if you want to make it denser. And you can make the color a bit darker. So let's see, maybe add a little bit of this blue. It will make it a bit darker. But it's important not to have too much color on your brush. And as you can see, it makes darker spots. So if you do it while the stippling underneath is still wet, it will sort of mix the two colors together. If it's already died, then it will stay on top. And you can make this impression of a darker area and a lighter area. And this is quite nice for somebody like e.g. if you want to paint a, something like a pair as the stipple effect on the skin or any other thing that has this type of effect. Some apples of the skin a bit like this. So it's basically a matter of like touching lately and try not to make a pattern like a sort of organized pattern. Because our minds tend towards making some organized patterns. For some reason we are wired to do that. But so try to work on different areas a bit here, a bit there. Um, so it doesn't look like a geometric thing. And it's quite a nice effect as you can see. And then I just wanted to show you one more thing. So I'm just going to clean the brush. And I'm going to show you how to lift the color with your brush because you can leave an area weight without painting, but if you have painted already somewhere. So I'm just going to do like a flat wash of the screen. Hopefully it will be dark enough to see this effect, but I think it should. Okay. So for this to work, it shouldn't be way too wet, but it shouldn't be dry either because it makes it more difficult. And why you want to do is you want to dry your brush on your paper towel and then just sort of drag it where you want to lift the paint. And as I drag it, I sort of turn it as well. And as you can see, it leaves a way to you. And if the paint starts to go to gravitate towards this area again, you can just put your brush in there. Again. Just make sure that it's dried off though. Because otherwise we will add moisture again. And you can just press it and turn it as you move it. So press and turn your brush and it will pick up the paint because your brushes Dreyer than the paint. And when you must do this, you can use it to make the sample, the midrib and a leaf and the side veins, you need a smaller brush or a brush with a nice point to do that. And you need to practice as well because, um, is not too easy to do this. As it, as you can see, the color tends to go back there because this paper is still wet. But, um, yeah, that's the way you lift the paint. If you want to do an eye light, e.g. or a lighter area. And then once this is dry, if you put a wash, a lighter wash on top of it, or maybe a light wash of yellow on top of it, then this area will be, will look more yellow. So if you have a vein in a, in a leaf, then the vein will look yellow and the rest of the leaf will look green. I hope all this makes sense. But let's see. Still a bit wet, bit more dry. So the yellow here from earlier. Of course it will change the green underneath as well to do this. But as you can see, that white area now is yellow and you can be very careful and just go with the yellow only on the area where you lifted the color. So it won't affect the green around it or the color, whatever color it is around it. And that way you have the yellow just in there. Okay. I hope you have enjoyed these exercises. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. 11. Class Project First Layers: The project for this class, I wanted it to be something a bit more fun than just the exercises I showed you before. They can be quite relaxing and sometimes meditative, some of them. But sometimes I understand that they can be a little bit boring. There are say. So. I wanted to show you something that you can do with your newly acquired skills. And so I thought something that is not too difficult and it's fun to do. And I thought of this Lidl sort of cards like a Polaroid like cards, which is quite fun to do. And they're quite fashionable at the moment. And so it's something that you can add to your sketchbook or share on your feed as well. So basically, what you need is just on paper. I have here. This is a strip that is not cut. So you can tape it down with your either artist's tape or your washi tape. This one. I liked the washi tape because it doesn't really affect the paper too much, but it tends to lift a bit sometimes. And then you can use, as I said, they add this paper as well. So it's a low tack tape. And other ways you can use a single piece of paper like this already cut. And you can either leave it like that or you can tape it down like I did with this one. Okay, So I prepared some colors. I haven't done a lot of mixing in this class because I don't want to confuse you with color mixing as well. Um, so I lift it pretty simple. This scene here, e.g. was done with just the neutral tint. N is just the sort of gray color. So something like this. And, um, and then I have an orange, which is just the transparent orange. I think this is from all pain. Um, I have transparent yellow from Winsor and Newton and the Winsor blue that we've been using so far, and some green that we mixed their own. So this is with a transparent yellow, I think, and, uh, and the blue. And this one is perylene maroon, also from Winsor and Newton. And with these colors, you can do this simple paintings. So this one here, It's basically a combination of your graded wash and then some layering. So let's start. So we start with a slightly thicker paint. So maybe that is a bit too dark in fact. So we'll add a bit of water. Let's see how it goes because we don't want it too late either. And then of course you can tilt your working space. I tried to keep it flat so you can see better. Um, but let's have a look. I might need a bigger brush, but let's see how it goes. So make sure you have quite a bit of paper, quite a bit of paint on your brush. I don't think this tape it was a perfect idea. And then dip the brush in the water. Take off the excess water like I showed you in the exercise and the excess water and paint. And then let's see if I can put it here. I can show you so deep. Touch it on the side and then keep the transition here. And then again one here to be lighter. So I'm just going to wash it a bit more. And as you can see, becomes lighter and lighter. And in this kind of painting, don't worry if you get effects like this. Because that could sort of simulate the clouds or something in the sky. Which is quite nice. And of course I had to go and touch it. But we can add clouds. I can show you this. So if you wet your brush, not too much, touched it on the side a little bit, and then touch it on the paper. You would get this. Effect, which is called blooming or cauliflower effect, which could be like a cloud in a worst k. So something different. This is just a flat wash. And this is another effect that you can have. And then once this is dry, paint all over my hands. Here, once this is dry, we can add to the mountains. So now I'm going to just rinse the brush. And I can show you this the sky effect. So let's move that a little bit. For the sort of effect. I start with a wet paper. So I'm going to wet the paper. And it's good if you can tilt it because you can see our wet the paper is and if it's homogeneous or lower the space, it might be a bit more difficult if you are living in a hot climate. And then the paper dries really quickly. And if that's the case, then you can weight it twice. And it will the second time, it will stay a bit more wet for a bit longer. So make sure there are no pools of water on the surface. And there's a nice sheen on the paper. And then pick up your blue or whatever I want to use k to be. And then start dropping the color and leaving some whitespaces like that. Then at this point you can do the same transition as we did before. So rinse your brush a day on the side of the jar and just go over the paint like that. And you can always touch it on your paper towel to lift a bit of the blue. If you want to leave space for the mountains, like we did here. Okay? And the color is closing down a bit so I can sort of lift a bit to kinda like I showed you in an earlier exercise. So you dry your brush and you touch it on the paper. And you just lift the color. You need to rinse it because it will pick up the blue. And the another way to lift the colorful clouds is to actually use the paper towel, doing something like that, and then touch it on the paper. And if you have that effect, Alright. So we can leave that to data. And then we can do something like this. So like a graded wash. So to do that, to clean our brush. And then let's move this. Then we start with the orange. It might be a bit too concentrated. This one, it's the most transparent. Paint, this one. And with that, again, like we did before. Then, hence the brush. Pick up the yellow and start just underneath and then touch on the orange. Maybe. Dip the brush in water, make it lighter. Then. I'd like to show you what to do with this terror, but okay, So dip the brush in water, touch it on the side. And then here I'm going to add the green mix it because the pigment separate. I'm not sure if it's Turkey. And touch the tip of your brush to the yellow side. And then this time I'm going to make it darker at the bottom. This tape, definitely not a good idea. And if it's darker, if something is darker, it looks closer as well. So let's leave that to dry. Really important not to fiddle with the watercolor, which sometimes I do. But I have to repeat myself. Don't fiddle, stop fiddling. 12. Class Project Secon Layers: So we have a nice Cloud here this time instead of just a gray sky. And then this is dr. So we're gonna do the clouds, the mountains. I mean, I'm going to use a diluted diluted paint. So we simulate the distance. I'm in the mountains. It's quite, quite diluted. And, um, I do have a class where they teach how to mix your own neutrals. So if you want to check that to make your own neutral, it will look much nicer than this one. Okay, So for the mountains just to some sort of moments like that, up and down. And then you just do the transition as we did before. And just do the gradient like that and leave it to dry. And for this one, we can do the same thing with a green. Let's see. I'm going to dilute it a little bit again to do the very light mountains at the back. All right, so let's start from this side. Okay. And again, we transition like this. And then for this one, we can add some cheese like I did here. So I'm going to use the perylene maroon. And actually I will use a diluted version fest. But just make sure you don't have too much paint on your on your brush. So I'm just going to touch it once. Still kind of cold, so I might leave it just a little bit longer. This one is virtually better. So I'm going to do live there because they might just say spread a bit too much. So I'm going to add the second layer there. And whether do we say make the mix a bit thicker so I'll add more pigment. And always don't be afraid to try. That one should be okay. I always have some scrap paper may decide. And then we'd do a pic there, one there, and another one here. And you can do it to the end like this. But I'd just like to show you the gradient every time I do this. And it's good for you to do that as well because you can practice your gradient wash. So that's another mountain there. We can add the darker mountain in front of this one here. So again, make the mix a bit thicker. When what pigment? And let's do it like this. Okay. This one wasn't completely day. It happens sometimes. But we can always go back and just do it here. I do this sometimes because I'm a little impatient and I can't wait to carry on. But it's nice when you have more than one thing going because I'm that way you can keep working. You didn't get bored waiting. Um, so it's good to have a different painting started. Okay, let's make these trees. So I'm gonna pick up some color, but try not to have too much on my brush. And then with this cheese, you can sort of use the stippling effect. So this is very light, is kind of a first layer to see where you want to have your cheese. Okay? And then let's put another one here. So just do the stippling and making the tree larger and larger as it goes towards the bottom. If you don't feel confident enough, you can do very, very light lines with your pencil. I'm, but these are quite artistic. So you can just do it like that, like I show you. And this one's, so make a smaller tree here. And they kind of touch with the other one. And then we can refine the look afterwards when we use the other paint, the day one. And actually, if you want, you can leave this lighter cheese, like you can do a few more and leave them at the back. And it looks like g is in a distance. So let's do another one here. Another one here. And this one is, it doesn't matter if they, if they touch and try to do like different heights as well. So in maybe like through if there was one here from the back. I think we can do the final mountain over here. And I'm going to do even darker color in this case. Alright, so that one's finished and we have a nice Cloud. And if you want, I'm going to pick a smaller brush. And big some of these darker color. And you can do some sort of little beds. Something very simple. Needs to be a bit more intense probably, but something like that. Very naive, but quite nice and effective. That one can be called finished. But you can add as many or as little detail as you wish. And then here we need to go back to these mountains. So I'm going to do the second layer again here. Then we're going to add the darker mountain on top of that. Let's work on this trace. So I'm going to use slaves are slightly thicker paint. Again, trying to not dwell too much on your brush. And then just do some stippling. So this tree can be different. And maybe this tree. And we can put one in between these two. Darker one. So it looks like it's at the front. So as you can see, it looks like this lighter trees out of the back. And you can do it like this. Or if you want, you can add some stippling before adding the front bit to the back. Trees, still trying to keep it very light. Um, but I quite like you liked this because it looks like is at the back which are quite far away. And then if we e.g. pick up some of this color, the perylene maroon, and I'm going to add some of this blue. Too much blue. That happens. Okay, So that's made quite a dark color, which I want to drop a little bit in this cheese. So to give an impression of a shadow, just very lightly like that. And then if you wait until it dries a little bit and drop a bit more than we give this impression of a shadow in there. Okay. So that's still wet. We can wait until it dries. So this one is, I think should be dry now. And we can add the last mountain. Okay? And then if you want, you can add trees like we did here. Or you can leave it like that where you can add birds like we did here. So lots of different things. Let's see. This one's maybe I can add bit more color, dry but not completely j. Okay, So we've learned quite a lot during this class. I have all the exercises here. So the saturation, the flat wash, the grid bush, and the optical mixing, the stippling and other techniques as well, the color blending. So all of these, well, not all of these, but quite a few of these we applied here. So we have, they get it worse. We have the layering of the color. And here this blending of two or more colors, the stapling. So there is a lot going on here. They're wet on wet. And as you can see with these techniques that you learned, you can do some lovely paintings. They're simple, but nothing says. No one says that you can't make these more complicated. As you go. E.g. you can add clouds here. So when you do your wash before it dries, you can pick up the color and add clouds or you can, um, sort of a lift the color to simulate the sunshine, the rays of the sun. You can do quite a lot with what you learned. And I hope to see your creations soon. And I hope you enjoyed the class, and I'll see you in the next class. 13. Class Project Extra Example: There are lots of different things you can, you can do with these sort of techniques. Um, let me see. You can do something like an almost negative painting type of things. So we can draw some leaves with a very light version of the color. Alright, and then on top of this, you can use the transparency of watercolor and do a darker version of this like we did here. And then at the end you will have a negative effect. Here. We can do another layer of leaves. So we can do something that goes on top of this. Alright, so playing with, Whoops, with transparencies of the watercolor can give you some really lovely effect. And you could design something like this to make a pattern for the sample. And you can add even still darker pigment for another layer. And I can get even more movement with this. 14. Final Thoughts and Next Steps: Congratulations on completing the class. I hope you have enjoyed the class as much as I have. And I hope you have learned lots of new skills and techniques that you will be able to apply to your future watercolor paintings. Next step is to practice those techniques. Unfortunately, there's only one way to get better at something. Like anything. That is practice. A few pages of your exercises and you can practice with a little paintings that I showed you earlier on. So it doesn't have to be just a boring exercise just to lots and lots of little paintings and you will see how you will improve. And I will advise you to date your paintings. So just underneath each one, just write the date. And you will see that after a few weeks, you will have improved quite a lot. Don't forget to post your paintings on the project section. And I would like you to post something now, the first exercises, little paintings that you do. Then maybe something in a month. So we can all see everybody's progress. Please remember to hit the Follow button here on Skillshare if you want to be notified when I post new classes. And you can also check out my profile for more watercolor classes. If you'd like to keep in touch, you can follow me on Instagram at cardiac anti-art, or you can check out my website, kaggle.com. Thanks again for taking the class and I will see you in the next class. Bye. 15. Bloopers: The project for this class would be not only to do these exercises that I show you during the class, but also to do some mini watercolor paintings like this, using the techniques I'll show you during the different lessons. I have included some downloads for you, which includes a template for your exercises and also a tracing. For four. I have included some downloads for you to download. And I also included a tracing. It's very basic tracing, but it's something to help you. If you want to use this one and rambling.