Watercolor Basics for All Levels: Predict the Flow of Watercolors

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. My name is Nia, and today we're going to go back to the basics. One of the most important things when it comes to watercolor painting is understanding the flow of paint. Once we understand this, we can create the blending as well as the transitions that we intend to create for our paintings, which in turn gives us a lot of control. What's unique and special about this medium is the fact that it's greatly dependent on such an unpredictable element, which is water, which is why we need to understand how the water will affect the paper and the paint. We also have the techniques such as what on dry as well as what on wet techniques, which in hindsight seem really simple, but it does take a fair bit of experience for you to understand how the water will affect your brush, your paint, and your paper, and also the other variables in between, such as brush load and paint consistency. With all of these unpredictability, what's beautiful about watercolors is the fact that you have the choice of either painting with so much control, or you can also choose to paint very freely and let the water direct your paint. Sometimes it can be a little bit scary to let go, especially when we don't understand how the paint and water is going to respond on paper. When I actually first started with watercolors, I tend to choose the more controlled way of painting because I wanted everything to react the way that I intend them to. However, as I progress and develop, it was so much easier for me to just let go and take advantage of the free nature of watercolors and even have the choice between the two whether I want a painting that is a bit more illustrative and controlled or something that is a little bit more free. Sometimes I can even combine the two techniques together into a single painting. This is why I created this class because I wanted to include the things I wished I knew when I first started with watercolors or at least build the awareness of knowing what to pay attention to as we build our experience. So let me just take you through a quick overview of this class. After this introduction, I will take you through the supplies that I'm going to use for this class. Then I will give you a quick overview on how to control your brush load, since it plays a huge role in how much water we introduce to our painting. We'll go to the wet on dry techniques and how hard edges work, including examples, and, of course, different ways to create soft edges, still with the wet on dry technique, then we'll combine these techniques together and apply it to layering. After this, we're going to move to a more loose way of painting through the wet on wet techniques. Wet on Wet those straightforward has a lot of variable depending on how much water we introduce to the surface. So I will give you examples of these variables, including using different papers, so you know the difference between hot pressed and cold pressed paper. We go through the technicalities, I will then show you an example of a simple landscape painting while putting the techniques into practice and do this on different paper as well. Then finally, we're going to analyze the difference of the paint flow between the two types of paper. Then as an extra lesson, I will take you through a different style of painting, which is a bit more controlled, and again, compare the reaction of paint on these two different papers. And if you want to paint along to this, I'll have the downloadable outline in the projects and resources section, so you can print it out and trace it straight onto your watercolor paper. Hopefully after this class, you'll understand not only how to control, but also when to let go to paint freely with this medium and to also choose the correct type of paper to bring your imagination to life. And if this sounds like something that might aid you in your watercolor journey, please join me in this class, and let's move on to the lessons. 2. Supplies: In this lesson, I'll go over the supplies that I use for this whole class. But it really depends on which part of this class you want to paint along to. You can just watch the examples of the techniques that I go through in the lessons or you can also paint along with them. It's completely up to you. For the paper, I've used hot pressed and cold pressed, just so I can show you the difference between the texture of the surface. But in terms of the size, you can use any size you would like, you can also do this in your sketchbooks. For the technical examples, I'll be using Fabriano artistico hot press paper. This is around 300 GSM. I find that you can see the textures and the reactions a little bit more with hot press, which is why I decided to demonstrate with it, even though it might not be ideal to use this paper for certain techniques that I'm used to making with cold press. It doesn't really matter about the size. As I mentioned before, this one, I've actually cut out the right hand side, so I can use the paper for the painting demonstration after these technical lessons. Since I want to show you the comparison between hot press and cold press paper. I'll just be doing a quick run through of the same techniques with cold press paper as well. And as I mentioned before, I'm going to demonstrate painting on both of the papers so we can compare the two. For the brush, this is the main brush that I'm going to use. This is by George Jorn. It's a size six round synthetic brush. Synthetic brushes are very easy to control for beginners, but you can also use other brands as well. And just for demonstration and comparison, I'm going to show you a mixed hair brush. This is by Artemdia and it's a size six, and also a natural hair brush. This is a calligraphy brush, but I don't really have the brand of this since this was given for a present, and it only has Chinese writing, which I can't read. For this, you don't have to use the same brushes. I just want to show you the difference in the bristles. For the landscape painting demonstration, I'm also going to be using this large filbert brush, so I can dampen the surface easily. This brush is again by Georgian and it's a size 12 filbert brush. You don't have to use the exact same though you can always use a large flat brush or even a large round brush, whichever brush you have access to that can hold more water just to make the process of dampening a large surface quicker. The palette, I'll be using my usual cheap plastic palette that I got from Dio. This is very old. It was originally white, and now it's tinted yellow, but I've used it enough times for it to have really fine micro scratches, so my paint no longer beats up. If you're used to using new plastic palettes, you know that the paint will beat up and it makes it a little bit harder to control the load on your brush. If this happens, the more time you use it, the more it's going to turn like this after you create those really small scratches. It takes too much effort for you to wait for your palette to become this way, you can also use porcelain palettes. In terms of the color of the palette, ideally, white would be great or any light colored palette, so you can see the colors that you're mixing. These are all the colors that I'll be using, but I'll go over them again at the end of this lesson. I'm also going to use a tube color for the examples, since I know I'm going to be using a lot of this color. Next, you will also need a clean jar that you fill with water. You can also use two jars, if you would like one for cleaning your brush and one to dampen the color that you're going to use. But I just change the water from time to time onces too thick and muddy. Also always have tissue right next to me. When I paint, you can also use a paper towel or an actual towel. This is as important as all the other supplies. This is to control the load on your brush, so you don't accidentally make puddles. This in general, just makes the control so much easier as you're painting, especially for fine details. For the small landscape paintings, I'm going to also use washi tape to mask off the sides. You can also use masking tape, but washi tape also works great. Mine is very small because it comes in is set in different colors. This one has no brand, but you can generally use any masking tape or any washi tape. I'm also going to use a hair dryer, especially for the exercises to make the drying process quicker. Or if you're patient, you can just wait for the paint to dry. Lastly, for the sketch and the writing on the exercises, I'm just going to use my pencil and eraser, the pencil is bipentl Sharplet and my favorite eraser is by boxy. Now let's move on to the colors. I'll be using this to paint by Schmincke. The color is cobalt turquoise, but you can, of course, use normal dry paint as well. I decided to squeeze some freshly on my palette just because I know I'm going to be using a lot of this color for the technical demonstration, and it's also much quicker to activate. Be making some quick examples using the techniques, and these are the colors I'm going to be using sap green by Hobein and Indigo by Schminke to paint some bushes. And for the small food illustration, I'll be using Jean Brilliant Dark by Sminke and Quinciana by Daniel Smith. Now for the painting demonstration of the landscape, I'll be using Sepia by Hobein, Windsor red by Windsor Newton, permanent yellow deep by Holbein, ultramarine Finest by Schminke and Indigo by Sminke. I'll also be painting a bred to show you an example of a different style of painting, and here are the colors I'll be using. This is mineral violet by Holbein, Quinciana by Daniel Smith, handsy yellow medium by Daniel Smith, Shen Brilliant dark by Schminke and Sepia by Holbein. And here are the written list of the supplies in case you want to get everything ready. 3. Brush Load: Before we talk about edges, I'm just going to take you through a short run through how to control your brush load, so you have a better idea of how I apply the paint. For this whole class, I'm going to be using my synthetic brush. I think this is a Chinese brand by Gorjor, but there are other brands that I've used before, like reefs. They basically more or less act in the same way as this. So it doesn't really matter. It's fairly standard. Synthetic brushes generally have stronger bristles and they can be very snappy and easy to control because it comes to a fine point. It also doesn't soak up as much water as softer bristles, so this is very easy to control for beginners. For this whole class, I'm going to paint a lot of squares as different examples. I decided to pick one color, which is Copal turquoise Of course, you can use other colors as well. I just freshly squeezed out a bit of paint on my palette for easy access since I know I'm going to be using a lot of this color anyway. Of course, this is optional though you don't have to use two paints. You can also use the ones in a pan. I'm going to start with my synthetic brush. I'm just going to get wet, make sure that all of the bristles soak up some water. Now I'm just going to activate the paint, pick up a little bit until my bristles are evenly covered. You can see I'm not using too much water here since this is freshly squeezed paint. But if you're using a cake or you're using dried paint from a pan, it will take a bit more effort and a bit more time to activate. I have a medium to heavy load here and I'm just going to paint a square. Since this is a synthetic brush and it doesn't hold too much water, I can still paint comfortably without the puddling too much for the size of a square. Can see that the paint is fairly even here. So next I'm going to show you using a heavier load on my brush. You can see a lot of pigment and water at the tip of my brush that it is no longer coming to a fine tip, and I'm just going to paint another square. This time is just a tiny bit smaller, and you can also see a little bit of puddle in the middle. This doesn't look too bad, though. If the surface is still evenly damp, the puddle can just spread out and flatten out as it goes. If you accidentally loaded too much paint on your brush, you can always dab off the excess with tissue. I like to take off a bit of paint from the back of the bristles, and as you can see, now I have the perfect amount for the square. For this next one, I'm going to take off a little bit more than I intend to, and as you can see, it's not even enough to complete a square, so I decided to take a little bit more paint. But you can see because I don't have enough paint, sometimes the paint can look a little bit streaky depending on the paper as well. But let's fix this. I'm going to take the tiniest bit of water, so I have a bit more dampness, and I'm going to take the tiniest bit of paint and just go over it again to even it out. Everything's been okay so far because we painted a medium size square. But now let's try to paint with the same brush load but on a smaller scale. You can see with the same brush load because we're painting on a smaller area, the paint will puddle up, so it will take a fairly long time to dry. Instead, what you want to do is take off the excess with tissue, so you have a lighter load to paint on a smaller area. This happens, you can also clean and dry your brush completely. As you can see, there are barely any residue of paint on my bristles and you can use this dry brush to take off that excess puddle. Next I'm going to paint using slightly softer brushes. Just as an example, this is a mixed hair brush. It's still fairly snappy, but slightly softer. You can see that this brush isn't overloaded, since it still had a point at the tip, but it also has a good amount of water as it covers this whole square easily. Generally, softer bristles just tend to be able to soak a bit more water and store it at the top of the bristles. Time I used a heavier load, as you can see by the amount of paint at the top of the bristles. This is more or less a similar amount to what I use with the synthetic brush, but you can see a little bit more puddle forming at the center of the square compared to the ones we painted at the top. For this next one, I have a Chinese calligraphy brush. This is probably the floppiest soft brush I have. And you can see that the top of the bristles collected a lot of water, even though it still comes to a very fine point at the tip. Even though I'm not using a lot of pressure and I am painting a slightly larger square, you can see a lot of paint and puddles within the square. This doesn't mean that it's not doable to paint on small areas, so I'm still going to use the same amount, but paint on a very small square here using the very tip. But because this brush is very floppy, it requires a lot of control. We've already painted a large square, a small one. Now I'm going to take off whatever is left by painting another large square. Notice that I did this without reloading my brush since it holds a lot of water. And as I put a bit of pressure on the bristles, it flops to the side where I put the pressure, so it's no longer like a fine pen tip. Actually so soft that when I try to take some water, you can see the bristles to spreading out as it soaks all of that liquid. If I take it out, it'll come to a point, but as I dip it again, the bristles will flare out. This is why I say this brush is very soft and floppy in comparison to my synthetic brushes. I said, if you have softer brushes, which holds a bit more water, you can control the load by dabbing off the excess using tissue so you don't accidentally make unwanted puddles. Of course, there are times where you can also use these puddles to create effects, which I'll mention later in the lessons. But generally for this class, I'm just going to use a medium load. 4. Wet on Dry: Hard Edges: Let's start talking about the edges. For this lesson, I'm going to go over the wet on dry, which is basically painting on a dry surface using wet paint, and I'm going to cover hard and clean edges. What we're essentially doing here when we're painting on a dry surface is basically creating a barrier for the paint to travel. So as I'm painting, this mixture of water and paint can only move within the damp or wet areas, and the edges next to the dry paper has clean sharp edges. So remember, you can only create the sharp edges next to a dry surface. This also applies when you want to create two separate clean edges using different consistencies of the same color, meaning a lighter tint or darker tone next to each other, or two different colors next to each other. If you want them to be completely separated from each other, you have to make sure that the first color you place is completely dry before applying the different tone or the different color next to it. I'm just going to make this quick. I'm using hair dryer to make the drying process quicker. You can also do this so we can get right to the results. Has to be completely bone dry. So as you can see, there are no smudging here. Don't do this if the paint is still wet because you will smudge the paint on the clean paper. But since it's dry, I'm going to pick up, firstly, the same color with a lighter consistency. This means it just has more water for a lighter tint. I'm just going to paint right next to the previous tone without rubbing or smudging the center. Now let's use a different color. Here I have sabrene. You can use any color you want and T time I've activated it from a pen watercolor paint. I'm going to do the same thing by placing it right next to the previous blue. There's a bit of a puddle at the corner here, so I'm just going to take it off with a dry brush like I did in the previous lesson. Now, let's apply this technique. I'm going to use a medium load on my brush to create a bush. It's just basically random brush strokes, almost at to the center to create this pushy effect or texture. As you can see, because I'm using a medium load on my brush, the paint travels fairly evenly. I'm going to use a heavier brush load, as you can see, it's a little bit more difficult to control because the paint just ingle with each other a little bit more and is creating this puddle. It's also a bit more uneven. Some of the edge is light whereas there's a puddle collected at the bottom corner here. If this happened, you can take off the excess using a dry brush or you can create a larger push, you're essentially just spreading more of the paint to a larger space. I'm going to be painting these bushes to apply it to the different techniques or the edges that I'm going to go through in this whole class. I just want to make sure you understand the load when you're painting this push as well. Not to quickly dry it off, I'm just going to use a hair dryer. My hair dryer fell before I used it here and I didn't realize it picked up a lot of dust at the corner of my table, which is why it blew the dust over to the bush. I'm just going to clean it with tissue and I'm going to repaint it. Going to repaint another bush using a heavy load because I want to show you how the heavy load will dry off or can dry off since there are areas which are going to dry quicker than others. Where the paint is distributed evenly around the edges, those areas are going to dry faster than the puddle. And I'm just going to use a hair dryer here to make it much quicker, and you can start to see some outlines forming around the puddle. So basically, what's happening is the paint will collect at the corners or the edges of the puddle, leaving the center of the puddle lighter, and it'll create this blooming effect. This can be a technique in itself, but sometimes you don't want it in this type of situation if you want to paint something that looks a bit more neat. However, this is something that you can also embrace depending on the style of painting that you're going for. Now that it's completely dry, you can clearly see the outline that it has formed. But anyway, I'm just going to create two bushes here and I'm going to try to get the paint as evenly distributed as possible so it doesn't create those blooms. Once I'm done, I'm just going to quickly dry it with a hair dryer. First one, I'm going to use a light version of the same color. This is just sub green with a lot more water. And you can see that these are two separate bushes overlapping each other. Sometimes when I am painting, I can get a little bit too impatient and I don't want to wait for it to dry or even use a hair dryer to dry certain areas. If this happens and you want to paint a separate object right next to it, you can also leave out a bit of white negative space, which is the white of the paper. Remember, you're creating the separation of that barrier for the water to flow. But anyway, you're getting back to the painting. I'm using the same method. I waited for the previous bush to dry and this time I use a different color. This is from mixture of sap green and the cobalt turquoise. You can see that I've created two separate bushes. Now, what happens is, if you want the lighter bush to be in front, then you would need to paint it first beforehand because you can't paint over it since watercolor is transparent. So here I'm using a light consistency to paint the light bush in front, but I'm going to more or less use the same technique as before. Once it's completely dry, I'm going to use a darker tone of green and paint behind this bush. Now, the difference is because the bush in front is lighter, I can actually paint over it using that darker tone. So here I'm just creating a different texture in front. This is not something that you can do with a lighter consistency, which is why you have to be fairly mindful of the layers that you create with watercolors. Lastly, I'm going to apply this to a food illustration since this is one of my favorite subjects to paint, and I'm going to paint a very simplified version of a pound cake using just two colors. This is Jean Brilliant dark and I'm going to create the basic shape, which consists of this rounded square and two circles at the top. I wait for the crumbs to completely dry and pink on the crust around the outside. I'm just going to use quinciena here. There's going to be a very hard edge around the side of the outline. This will create a cartoony type of illustration because of those clean edges. 5. Wet on Dry: Soft Edges: Moving on in this lesson, I'm going to still talk about what on dry. But this time, I'm going to show you how to create soft edges. I'm still going to use the same color, and again, I'm going to create a box on my dry paper. This time, I'm only painting on the first half, and on the second half of the box, I'm going to create a softer transition in between. Once I'm done, I'm going to quickly dip or slightly clean my brush in water, and then I'm going to pick up the same color using a thin consistency. This just has more water compared to the pigment. And I continued on painting without waiting for the first half of the square to completely dry. So you can see there are no hard edges. And while those two areas are still wet, you can actually help the paint move around to create a softer transition in between. In certain cases, we might not be quick enough to paint next to a wet surface like we did in the first square, and this happens a lot, especially when I'm trying to paint something that's a little bit more neat. For the second square, I'm going to wait for the paint to settle a little bit so we can actually see a slightly harsher edge as I paint right next to it with a lighter consistency. You can see that the edge is much harsher. This happened, you can actually reactivate the paint again by using a damp brush and rubbing the area that is already drying off lightly until it becomes slightly wet again, so you can move and pull the pigment to the side to create that softer transition. It's completely up to you how much pigment you want to pull and move. And since I didn't reactivate the left side, you can actually see where the paint are drying faster than the right hand side. I'm just going to do another one on the side, just so you can see different textures that it can create. For this demonstration, I'm also using hot pressed which is more sensitive to application of paint and wetness, in my opinion, because of the smooth surface of the paper. So you can see clearer reactions. Whereas if you use cold press, it's actually much easier to create a soft transition because of the grainy paper. It helps a lot in creating that softer transition, but I'll show you the comparison later in this class. Let's make the same type of transition, but this time, I'm going to use two different colors. By the way, if you're going to paint along to these examples, you can play and experiment as much as you want, but I'm just going straight to the next example to get the class going. However, you can always pause in between if you want to paint and try different things. For this two tone one, I didn't blend. I just painted the color right next to each other without waiting for the first color to dry. But because it was still damp, you can still see that soft edge forming compared to the previous one where we waited for the blue to dry and this one is where we painted wet on both sides. Lastly, I'm going to show you my favorite way to blend colors, which in my opinion is also the most controlled way to blend by using a clean damp brush to pull either damp paint or completely dried paint. My brush is completely clean. I just loaded it with clean water and I like to do some randomized motion, sometimes rounded to create a really uneven edge and I use whatever pigment is left to blend it to the side. I've collected too much pigment on my bristles, I would then clean my brush again and pull it to the side again until it's basically the white of the paper. The blue was still a little bit damp, but let's do the same thing to the green on the left. As you can see the green is completely dry even after I've reactivated it with clean damp brush, you could still see a faint line where the paint dried off. But as I keep making these circular motions, you can slowly reactivate the paint bit by bit until I can control the transition. Since I've pulled a lot of pigment, you can still see the light green next to the white of the paper. I'm going to make this completely blend with the paper. So again, I'm just going to clean my brush because there's only a light consistency left. Now there isn't too much pigment to blend into the paper. Now, let's use these techniques and apply it to a bush, so it's a little bit more applicable. After painting the bush, I'm going to use a clean damp brush to reactivate some of the paint, and now I have a loaded brush with a lighter consistency of the same color. I'm going to create the bushy texture outwards. This creates somewhat of a hazy effect, or it might be something like a back light going on. You can see a halo of the lit leaves at the top and a darker green in front. Now let's make another bush. For this one, I'm going to use different tones of green. I'm using sap green and then I just use a thinner consistency next to it, as I build the shape, I'm going to add a darker green as well. This is from a mix of indigo and sap green. You can see, since I'm putting the colors right next to each other without waiting for areas to dry, the color will just somewhat mingle with each other and it'll create this really nice loose effect. This is personally my favorite technique to use when I paint bushes or trees or any plants, since it really helps make the painting look more loose and organic. Again, you can still play with this a little bit more. I'm going to use a clean damp brush to extend some of the edges, creating this really soft hazy effect. I'm also going to show you how I apply this technique for food illustration or maybe even still life or something that will require a little bit more control depending on the style that you're painting in. I'm going to create another slice of pound cake starting with Jean Brilliant dark. I felt like the surface was starting to dry, so I added more water. Then I'm going to paint the crust, which is basically an outline around the shape using quinciena on the damp surface. Can see the soft edges on the inside forming as the paint follows the water. Whenever you take off your brush, the paint will create these blooms as the paint collects in those sections, and what you can do to control this or take it off is by using a clean dry brush. The dry brush will absorb the extra paint and as it's loaded on your bristles, you can take off the pigment by dabbing it off on tissue and then using the clean dry brush again to fix those areas. Lastly, for the final example, I'm going to dry the crumb of the cake. Then I'm going to use quinciana to create an outline, which will create a harsh edge, and then I'm going to soften it using a clean damp brush, which is my favorite way of softening edges. See the top part isn't completely dry. It's probably still a little bit damp, you can see the paint slightly traveling inwards, but that's okay. Since we're going to fix this, I've just dampened my brush, took off the excess water with tissue, and then I'm just going to go in circular motions and rub the edges until it blends softly into the crown. Here, I've collected too much pigment, so I'm going to re clean my brush, take off the excess pigment, and then finish the rest of the blending. If I can still see a slight edge, I'm going to clean my brush again and make sure that the blend is almost flawless. You see how much control you can have with this technique. 6. Wet on Dry: Layering: We can also combine all of these techniques together and turn them into layers, which is what we're going to do in this lesson. Let's start with the flat colors and the hard edges. I'm just going to create a square and I'm going to make a couple of these. Okay, once I'm done, I'm just going to dry these off really quickly so I can paint right on top of it without the colours bleeding out. First one, I'm going to use the exact same color and consistency. So you can see that watercolor is transparent, and if you paint on top of it, only the section that you paint right on top of will have a darker tone, whereas the rest will be lighter. If this concept is a little bit confusing, you can try to imagine two small square colored glass laid on top of each other and the area where it's overlapping will automatically be a little bit darker compared to the single transparent glass. However, as we mentioned before in the previous lessons, I can actually soften the edges if I want to by reactivating the paint and moving it around. When I do this, I try to not distract the first layer too much. Now for the second one, I'm going to use the sap green, and with this different color, I think you can see the separation a little bit more between those layers. Now, let's apply this technique to an actual painting. An easy one I like to do is to paint balloons. And since some balloons are transparent, I'm going to layer one on top of another. Here I'm just starting with an upside down teardrop shape, leaving out a white negative space for the highlight. Then I'm going to completely dry this off using a hair dryer, then layer on an overlapped balloon with sap green. I'm going to leave a negative space for the highlight on the left this time though because the right hand side has that blue underpainting. I'm going to add two strings and tie them together using pencil, but you can of course use pen, but since this is just a small demonstration, it doesn't really matter. The next thing you can paint using this technique are layered flowers where the flower petals overlap each other. I'm just going to use the same blue here, but you can use other colors as well if you would like, what I want to do is paint some petals with a gap in between. Those spaces are going to be reserved for more flower petals, so they look like they're overlapping each other. I'm just going to paint three here and I'm making the center of the petals puddle up quite a bit. If it's a little bit too dry, I would just add a little bit more paint or a little bit more water depending on how pigmented you want the petals to be. And after I've painted three, I make sure they're all still wet, then I clean and dry my brush, then pick up some excess pigment at the center of the petals. So the center is slighter and the outer edges are a bit more defined. The reason for this is so when I layer on the petals in between, the edges will look a little bit cleaner and more visible. Here whenever I'm picking up the extra pigment, if my brush has absorbed too much, I always take off the excess using tissue and then I repeat the process again until I'm happy with the shade. Once I'm done, I'm going to dry it off completely because we don't want anything too smudge before adding on the additional petals. Next, I'm going to paint a couple more using the same technique, and I want to make sure that these ones overlap the previous petals so you can see those delicate overlapped flower petals together. I'm only going to paint five petals, then I'm going to continue downwards to draw on the stem. Again, you can use paint, you can use pen, but for the sake of this small demonstration, I'm only using my pencil. For this next example, we can also layer using the two techniques. So I'm going to create a soft edge with a square here, and then I'm going to layer on the flat color with a hard edge. I'm just going to dry this off and paint another box. This time I'm using sap green. As you can see, it more or less have the same effect, but this time, the transparency goes over the light consistency blue as well. Now let's apply the techniques that I've gone over to a painting. It's a little bit more applicable now that we've tried it on the squares. I'm going to paint a flower. I painted five petals and I left out the center empty. I'm going to use a darker blue. This is the same mixture from cobalt turquoise with indigo, but the center just has a bit more indigo, so it's darker. As you can see, the petals are quite dry, but I want to soften the blend, so I use a clean damp brush to pull some of the paint outwards. Let's paint another quick flower. I'm going to make another five petal flowers, but this time I want the petals to be very damp. I should have painted this a little bit smaller so the petals don't dry as quickly. I tried to make the petals as puddly as possible just for the sake of this example. But once I'm done painting the five petals, again, I left out the center empty. Then I'm going to paint the center using the darker blue with more indigo in the mix. The petals are still slightly damp as I connect the darker blue right to the center. I started by connecting some lines. You can see some of the paint blooming outwards towards the petal. This is a little bit messy, but it's just a really quick demonstration. You can also paint this a little bit neater and here I want to direct and help the paint move a little bit more. I just use a clean damp brush so I can have a slightly softer transition between the dark blue and the light blue. Now let's paint a similar flower reversed. I'm going to paint the center first using a very thick consistency of indigo. You can see that I'm using a really light load on my brush as well, so it comes to a very fine tip where I can paint those delicate lines. Then with a clean damp brush, I'm going to pick a little bit of the pigment from the indigo and spread it outwards to paint some of the petals. Again, I'm going to leave out a little bit of space in between those petals because I'm going to combine this with the layering technique once the first layer of flower petals are completely dry. Just love watching the paint flow out following the flow of the water. It just makes watercolor look so magical, and this is where you can just somewhat let go and let the paint do its thing. Once I'm done, I'm going to dry this off until it's completely bone dry. There are no puddles, no damp surfaces, and those light petals will be very nice when they're layered and overlapping each other. I feel like there's enough dark blue for the center, so I'm just going to paint the petals separately. I'm using a really light consistency of indigo this time to match the color of the first layer. I'm painting in between the petals. And as you can see, even when I'm using a really, really light consistency of indigo, the overlap petals are still very visible. This is so much fun to paint. And if you would like, you can practice painting more flowers on a separate piece of paper. But in the next lesson, I will go over the wet on wet technique before combining all of the techniques together to paint a landscape, as well as an illustrative food painting. 7. Wet on Wet: In this lesson, I'll be covering the wet on wet technique, which essentially mean we're going to paint on a damp surface. Let's start by using clean water to paint a square. Hopefully you can see the damp surface from the camera and I'm going to use a thick consistency of cobalt turquoise to paint in the middle. As I mentioned earlier in this class, watercolor can always flow where there's a damp surface, which is an environment that we're creating before applying the paint in this case, where the water stops is the barrier where the paint would also stop flowing if it reaches the edge. Just the paint blooms and bleed outwards, creating those textures, you can see a clear separation which we can help smooth out with our brush, but I'm just going to let this one set and travel naturally. For the next one, I've dampened the surface a little bit more, so the water is somewhat puddling up, and I'm going to take a little bit of indigo to paint the center. I'm just going to do another one. This time, I'm just going to evenly distribute the water again and use sap green this time. You can see the distribution here is a bit more even since the paper was evenly dampened without puddles. Now let's have a look at this indigo because the base has too much water and it's puddling up. It's not going to look as even as the sap green or the cobalt turquoise. And since watercolor can move on damp or wet surfaces, having puddles mean the paint will just flow in the direction of the puddle. So here, as I'm tilting my paper, you can see the paint move following where the water is traveling. Now compare this to the sub green. Even after tilting the paper, the green pretty much stays in place, and this is generally the dampness I want my paper to be as I paint. But a lot of times you will see people tilt their paper slightly downwards on the stand. This is so if there are puddles, the extra water will collect at the bottom, and you can use it to spread more paint or easily take off the excess. I started out painting with a lot of control and it's actually not until recently, I started embracing the wet on wet technique a little bit more because I always find it a little bit intimidating to control and I wasn't sure about the dampness of the paper and how it will react to my paint. It is something you learn by experience. The more you paint, I feel the more intuitive you will be. But hopefully this class will give you a little bit of a glimpse of these variables, which I'm going to turn into a table here, the wetness of the paper versus the consistency of paint. 8. Wet on Wet: Wetness Vs Consistency: Et's start from the first row. Here I'm going to start with a heavily wet surface, and then I'm going to go to medium wetness and something that is a little bit too dry on the right hand side. For this first one, I'm also going to use a very thick consistency. You can see by the amount of pigment I've picked up at the ends or the tip of my bristles and watch how the paint slowly moves out, but it's going to stop at a certain point and settle for a while since the paint is quite thickly applied. Now moving on to the next one, I'm going to try to create an evenly dampened surface. This is medium wetness. What I want to see here is to still be able to see the texture of the paper, but you can obviously see that it's covered a little bit with water. Now let's compare this to the first one where you can obviously see a huge puddle because of how thick the highlight is at the top here. But for this next one, I'm also going to use the thick consistency and look how nicely reactive this is. It's spreading evenly and you can see the lines as it blooms out. Of course, when you're painting, how much water is not something you can easily notice, especially when you're focusing so much on other things as you paint. It might also react differently with different paper or different pigments. Part of this is also letting go, trust the process and learn from your experience, only control what you can control. And as for this one, I'm going to only lightly dampen the surface and use a thick consistency to paint a dot. I think what a lot of people don't realize is that when you apply only a thin layer of water or watercolor paint, it actually doesn't take long for the paint or the water to dry. So in this case, I can only see a very light bloom. This is also because the paint is very thick compared to the amount of water on the paper, and it's not traveling much at all. Now let's review this again. The first one is not even dry yet. The second one is almost dry and you can see a really nice transition between the white of the paper and the blue pigment, whereas the last one barely moved at all. I can help move this if I add a bit of water, but it won't look as organic as the one in the middle. You can also see how it spreads out. The color is a little bit lighter compared to the left and the right because the pigments traveled more and it's distributed itself more. They are concentrated at the center, so it stays dark. Now let's go back to the first one. I think a lot of the pigments have settled on the paper, but for the ones which hasn't, I can still move it around the puddle. You can see there's a clear separation between the light pigments which are still moving and the darker part which stays at the center where I place them originally. And here I'm going to show you how it follows the water as I tilt as I did before previously. And I'm going to also show you how artists usually tilt their paper, and the paint or the water collects at the bottom where they can control it with their brush or take off the excess. Now let's move on to the next row. Firstly, I'm going to wet the background until it's puddling again for this row, I'm going to use a medium consistency, which is ideally around 50% paint and 50% water, not that it can be that accurate, think about it as something that's a little bit more loose and less concentrated compared to the first row. For this first one, though, I think I accidentally used to think up a consistency. I feel like it's supposed to flow a little bit more if I use a lighter consistency. I'm just going to move on to the next couple of squares. I feel like I can also make it a little bit lighter for the second one, even though it's not as heavy or thick as the first one. But luckily for this third one, I managed to get a good medium consistency. You can see it's spreading a little bit more even if the surface is a little dry because the extra water mixed with the paint adds to the dampness of the paper, which should then help the paint move a little bit more. Now let's move on to the third row. I'm going to create a really puddly square again and this time, I'm going to use an even lighter consistency. By the way, I forgot to mention, but for this table, I try to control the load on my brush to keep it as consistent as possible all throughout, so it's a control variable, and I basically just try to use a medium load, something that's not too wet and not too dry. You can see with the light consistency paint, it's spreading out a little bit more. This is because the consistency or the thickness of the paint is now a bit more similar to the puddle. And you will see this consistently all throughout these three squares with a lighter consistency, it'll spread out more and also keep in mind that with a light color, as it spreads, it's going to become even lighter when it dries. Now onto the last square, even when this is fairly dry, you can see how quickly the paint will spread. If you remember, as we applied it before, the blue wasn't too different from the previous rose that we've painted. But after it spreads out a little bit more, everything's becoming even lighter. You can even see as it blooms out, the lines that's created is much softer and more blurry compared to the darker tones painted in a thicker consistency. 9. Wet on Wet: Wetness Vs Load and Examples: Now, let's do another variable where we'll test out the load on my brush as I paint, but I'm only going to do the medium wetness here since this is the ideal wetness for the paper, in my opinion, anyway. I'm also going to control the consistency in which I'm going to use a medium consistency for all three. Again, I'm starting out by dampening the surface. I try to get this evenly distributed and not too puddling wet. You can't really see the highlights around the puddle and I'm going to take a medium consistency with a really heavy brush load. As you can see at the tip of my bristles here, it looks like the paint is barely hanging on and there's no fine point within my bristles as it's holding so much water and paint. Of this heavy load, I can put more pressure as the pigments are absorbed higher in the bristles and naturally, there's more water and pigment as well. So the paint spreads easily, especially if it's on this ideal wet surface. This is great when you're trying to paint a large area or to cover up a background or a large space. But be mindful of the load when you're trying to use the wet on wet technique on a smaller space because this can become very uncontrollable very quickly if you use a heavy load. Now moving on to the medium load, I'm going to take the excess off by scraping my bristles to the side of the palate. So now you can see a slight point to my bristles. There's less pigment, but it's still quite high up there where I can put a medium pressure on the damp surface. Now onto the last one, I'm going to take off the excess with tissue just so it can absorb, but a little bit more, you can see a finer point at the tip of my brush, and since the pigment doesn't absorb too far into my bristles, I don't put as much pressure as well when I'm dipping my bristle on the damp surface. With this what on what technique, you can also create a colored background or a colored wet surface by using a little bit of paint to dampen the surface then adding more paint on top or even using several colors on the damp surface. I just mingles with each other. This is actually a really good way of making blurred backgrounds for landscapes or sceneries. You can also use it to create abstract backgrounds. So the method is more or less the same, but this time I'm going to use a really light color base to create the damp surface. This just has a little bit of the cobalt turquoise pigment. Then I'm going to use a different color. I decided to pick some indigo to paint on top of this colored damp surface. Now, another thing that I haven't mentioned is that when you're painting lines as you take off your brush, that's where a lot of the pigments collect and discharge out of the bristles. I'll create this bloom just like when you're dotting using this method. As you can see, whenever I take it off, that is where a lot of the pigment is concentrated. And when this happened, you can use a clean damp brush or a clean dry brush to either pick up the excess or help the paint move around on the still damp surface. Is also a good way to make transitions a little bit more blurry and smooth, and it gives you a bit more control while using this loose technique to paint. You can try to do this multiple times or even try a larger area. Just play around with how the paint reacts. Generally, I prefer to use this technique on cold press paper where it's a bit textured, but I feel like doing this on hot press makes certain things look a little bit more accurate. So it's just a little bit clearer visually, especially when it comes to seeing how wet paints reacts next to an ready dried surface or surface that is drying faster, which in my opinion, is easier to understand visually here, even though it's not an ideal situation, at least for me to paint loosely with what on what technique on this type of paper. The next lesson, I will give you a short run through about using cold press paper to show you the differences and to show you that, it's also more forgiving when we try to create soft transitions, whether by using the wet on wet or the wet on dry techniques. In the coming lesson, I will put all these techniques together into an actual painting and paint it on both hot press and cold press so you can see the difference. Just to keep this consistent with the previous lessons, I will also paint a bush using the wet on wet technique. So you can see how it can be applied as well. I'm starting with a light to medium consistency of sabren and it doesn't matter if certain areas are puddling a little bit more than this outer area here because when I'm painting bushes or organic subjects, I like to keep it a little bit more loose. What I'm doing here is picking up a darker green from a mix of indigo and sap green, and I'm just going to.it in the still wet surface using a really light brush load so it doesn't spread out too quickly and just letting the paint travel naturally. This what and what technique is also great for painting sky or cloudy sky, which will be the last demonstration of this lesson before we put it all together and combin it into a painting in the coming lessons. But let me just show you the basic idea of this technique. I like to create a damp background that is colored. I just try to use a light blue here. This is from a mix of cobalt turquoise with a bit of indigo in a very light consistency. Then I added a bit more indigo in the mixture for darker blue, painting it on top of the damp surface. And I just want to help some of the paint move with my damp brush. The blurriness is a little bit more controlled. I'm working fairly quickly, and what I'm doing here is rolling up a little piece of tissue, and I'm going to use it to take off some of the wet paint. While I'm doing this, I'm dotting with my tissue and absorbing some of the paint to create some clouds. If everything looks a bit too light for your liking, you can also add more paint on the damp surface or even wait for it to dry and add another layer for some darker clouds depending on the composition of your painting. 10. Comparison Between Hot Pressed and Cold Pressed: In this lesson, I will finally compare hot press and cold press. It's much easier in my opinion, to use cold press with the wet on wet technique or even when creating transitions. But as I mentioned before, I just wanted you to see the reactions with hot press because it's much clearer and I find it just a bit easier to understand and this reaction will just be a little bit dealt down with the cold press. If you're a bit confused, what is the difference between hot press and cold press? Hot Press watercolor paper just has a smooth surface compared to cold press paper, which is a bit more grainy and textured. And there are also some brands which has rough paper, which is even more textured than cold press. Now, the texture really depends on the brand of the paper as well, this one I have here is bimolanduroi, and it's not that textured compared to something like arches, which I have right here, you can see that it's so much more textured and grainy compared to the Moland. Let's compare this to the hot press that we've been using. This is next to the Mlandroi. You can see that even with the smoother cold press, you can clearly see that the hot press is much smoother. If it's a little bit hard to remember the difference, just imagine a hot and heavy iron pressing down on paper fibers. You can imagine that the heat will make the surface more smooth compared to just putting a heavy weight right on top of the fibers to flatten it. For this demonstration, I decided to use arches paper, so the green is a little bit more visible, and I'm just going to paint the simple demonstration of the squares and notice the difference between how the paint evens out and also the edges that's going to form when I'm painting on cold press. For this first one, I'm going to just start by painting a square with a flat color and I can already feel it as I'm painting this. It's so much easier for the paint to even out since the paint just travels and evens out by itself without too much help from my brush. I'm going to go straight to the wet on wet. I'm going to dampen it with a medium wetness that is fairly even. You can still see the grain of the paper and it's not puddling wet. I'm going to just use a medium to thick consistency with a medium to heavy brush load. I don't know if you notice, but I feel like the paint here as it's bursting outwards towards the damp paper, it's following the grain more. So the shape is more abstract and I feel like it's traveling a little bit more as well. For this next one, I'm going to try to use the same thickness or same consistency of paint, but I'm going to try to use a lighter brush load. And as you can see, even with the lighter brush load, it's still bursting out and it's still spreading quite a lot. What I want you to try to imagine is if hot press is completely smooth, it's just a flat surface. The grains on a cold press or rough paper has these wells, which then collects the water, it has micro puddles, I would say, or wells this holds a bit more water and that is where the paint can also travel as well. That's why I feel like the paint here can travel in between those wells, creating more of a smoother transition. Since these wells are quite randomized, it will also help with softening edges. So if I take you in a little bit closer here, if you look at the edge on this flat colors not completely straight. It's slightly jagged, even though I intended to paint a straight line compared to what I've painted on the hot press. Since the hot press is smooth, the line can also be smooth, Was if I'm painting a straight line on the grainy paper, then it will follow the jagged grain as well. Feel like this is what also helps create soft transitions because the randomized texture and the micro wells help direct the flow of the paint on the damp surface or as we smooth out certain edges. Comparing this to the hot press again, if there are areas which are drying and certain areas puddle up, it will just stay that way, whereas on the textured paper, the water or paint has more chance to travel between those wells. Now let's try to use the pulling technique to create a soft transition with a clean damp brush. I started with half of a square using a medium to thick consistency. Then I clean my brush and pull the damp surface downwards until I create a soft transition. If I've pulled enough pigment, I'm going to then clean my brush again and take off the excess water and pull it downwards until it almost transitions to the white of the paper. As you can see, it's so much smoother, there are no clear areas where the paint dried faster than the areas I've recently added water to compared to the ones I painted with hot press. I know this one is horizontal compared to the vertical examples I made with hot press, let's do this vertically as well. As you can see, it's just as easy. It really doesn't matter which direction you do this. This is also the reason why I personally love using cold press the most because it's just so forgiving. However, you'll see me using a lot of hot press for my food illustrations. In which case, I find that hot press is quite nice to paint on for clean illustrative styles. 11. Beginner Landscape on Cold Pressed: Okay, so let's put all of the techniques together. In this lesson, I'm going to paint a landscape using cold press paper. I started out by masking on the sides with my washi tape. I just use my cutting mat, so I can still move the painting around if I need to or you can also use a board. As for the colors, I'll be using Indigo, ultramarine finest, permanent yellow deep, SPIA, and Windsor red. I'm going to start by painting the sky, and I'm going to use the wet on wet technique. So I want to just dampen the surface evenly, just like how I demonstrated in the previous lessons. I don't want it to be too lightly dampened, but just enough for the paint to flow. The first color that I use here is ultramarine fineness, and I started by using a thick consistency to darken some of the sky. And I just use whatever's left on my brush as it runs out of pigment to create some lighter blues as well. You can see I'm painting wonky horizontal lines and I like to leave out a bit of space in between for the paint to freely travel while also creating soft wispy cloud textures. While the surface is still damp, I want to darken the top part of the sky. Here I use some indigo and I'm going to do more or less the same texture as I move downwards. I only added a little bit of indigo because I don't want the overall sky to look too dark. I still want the main color to be the ultramarine finest. After that, I rolled up a little bit of tissue to take off some paint that is still wet, so I can create these fluffy cloud textures as well. Now the sky has different textures from the soft and wispy to the more fluffy clouds. Here I want to add a little bit more definition under the cloud, I use a medium to light consistency of indigo and I painted a bit more of the cloud textures on the still damp surface. You can see, I don't have to put much pressure, nor do I have to control it too much since the paper is also helping me soften up the blend without having to help the paint move manually. The paper is still damp here, and I decided to place some mountains. So originally, these were supposed to be mountains, but I think by the end of this painting, it just somewhat became part of the background or the sky since the paper was still a little bit too damp. But this is okay. We can always layer on top of it when we make mistakes like these. At this point, I was still trying to darken it to see if it will work out. But as I mentioned before, I think it's just too wet, so the paint was just traveling too much. Sometimes things like this happen and you can control it by drying it and repainting on top of this as it dries and lighten up. Or you can also just ditch it altogether like what I'm doing here and except that as just part of the background now. I'm still going to add some mountains, but this time I'm going to paint it on the dry surface so the edges doesn't soften up and I'm going to create a soft transition by using a clean damp brush to pull the colors downwards instead. Depending on how big your paper is compared to the grain of your paper, it will also affect how blurry the edges will be. This is such a small painting. It's only around 9.5 centimeters by 12.5 centimeters. The size and the amount of grain will remain the same, but with a larger scale painting, your objects would naturally be larger in general. So it has more grain in between, or you can say more pixels in between if you're used to digital painting. So the same amount of blur might look sharper in a large scale compared to the small painting. I hope this makes sense because it also factors in how you can control or accept things that might not look the way you want it to as you apply the paint. And this was one of the things I was confused about at the beginning while painting with what on what? Because I didn't factor in how large the painting is. But anyway, going back to the painting, I want the bottom part of these mountains to look lighter and I'm going to dry it off because I'm going to create another layer of mountains or hills. This time because it's a bit closer to us, I decided to add a bit of permant yellow deep. This is more of a dark blue green. I'm starting with a medium to thick consistency to paint the outline just like the previous layer. This time I tried to make some of the edges look a little bit more texture to suggest some distant trees. As I get towards the bottom, I'm going to either add a little bit more pigment if I need to or just use clean water to pull the paint downwards, just like I did in the previous layer. I don't want to pull this down too much because I want to create grassy field in front. Here I'm going to paint some trees taking advantage of the still damp surface, and I added more permanent yellow deep in the mix for a different tone of green. I just dotted in right at the bottom of where the mountain ends and I'm just letting the paint bloom by itself. For the field, I decided to add even more permanent yellow deep, so the green becomes more earthy and brighter. Then I just use a medium consistency to paint some lines. As for the rest, I just use a clean damp brush to use the pigment that I've already placed on the paper, so I can create a textured surface. While the paper is still damp, I added a bit more of the blues in the mixture, so I can create a darker green for the corners because I want to create somewhat of a vignette effect. Now I'm going to dry this and notice as I dry this from the bottom, how the light consistency paint pushes some of the pigments under the trees in the background. This was unintentional, but this is one of the reasons why I love using watercolors because these textures look so organic and I didn't intentionally make it. It was just the paint and the paper doing its thing. I can suggest some distant branches under those trees. Next, I'm going to layer more green on the grass texture. I'm just using the mix of the blues with permanent yellow deep, and it's up to you how you want the tone of the green to be. I'm just going to paint this horizontally, so it looks like a flat crown. I started by using a medium consistency, but I let the paint run out as I continue, so some lines look a bit more textured as I take advantage of the grain on the paper. And while the surface is still damp, I like to mix in some darker greens as well. To have a variety of tones and sometimes I like to also just use clean water to pick up the excess pigment and spread it on the still large spaces I have. After this, I'm just going to dry it off completely again so I can paint on the separate elements on top of the grass. I'm just going to clean out the edge a little bit here using a light consistency of the same green. And once that dries, I'm going to use a slightly thicker consistency of a dark green to paint on some bushes in front. I'm just using the tip of my brush to apply the paint, so I'm using a light brush load so the paint doesn't travel too quickly out of my bristles and it's very controllable. I'm just going to paint a few. I like to play with the height of the bushes and sometimes use a lighter consistency as well. But I try to make sure that the base of the bush is fairly flat. I don't want to make the bushes look like they're floating. In fact, after painting all of the bushes, I'm going to use a clean damp brush to just soften the bottom part and to flatten it a little bit more. Lastly, I'm going to add some fine details. I'm going to add some branches on the larger trees in the background and also in the foreground. You can use a small brush for this, but I want to demonstrate to you just how versatile a brush can be just by controlling the brush load. As you can see, I have a dry brush load here. I have pigment, but it's so dry that the brush comes to a very fine point. I could even flatten it and use the thin side to paint really fine details. Of course, you have to control the pressure as well, but if your brush load is too heavy, even a light pressure won't do too much since the water flows too quickly out of your bristles. This, I used a mix of sepia in a medium to thick consistency, and I also added a little bit of green to make the color consistent with the surrounding area. For the last little detail, I'm going to add a little pop of color by using my Windsor red. Again, I mixed it with a bit of the green to make the color consistent. And again, using a really dry brush load, creating really small dots on top of some of the grass, as well as the bushes. I'm going to limit the amount of the red because I just want this to act as a little accents for pop of color on the composition. Once I'm done with the painting and everything is completely dry, I'm going to unmask the sides to reveal the painting. And in the next lesson, I'm going to paint the same thing, but on hot press, so we have a comparison on how the paint reacts on different paper. 12. Beginner Landscape on Hot Pressed: In this lesson, I'm going to repeat the same painting as best as I can. At least, I'm going to apply the same elements. But this time, I'm going to paint on hot press to show you the difference. I'm going to use the same colors and more or less the same color mixtures and techniques. So I won't talk you through the steps since it's just going to be a repetition of the previous lesson. I mentioned before, I don't usually use this paper for landscape paintings because I usually like to paint a little bit more loosely when it comes to landscapes. It's just the style that I gravitate towards. So it's actually a new experience for me as well. I usually use hot press for a lot of my food illustrations, like a lot of my skill share classes that I've done in the past because I have a lot of this paper, and it just gives a different level of accuracy. So when I try to be very detailed with certain textures, I can really control the paint using hot press. Whereas with cold press, there are times I let go and let the paper and paint do its own thing, and it's beautiful as it is because I feel like that's actually what makes watercolor so special compared to other mediums, where you do have a lot of control, whereas sometimes with watercolor, it's also about letting go and understanding the medium so much that you kind of just trust the process. Since a lot of this is going to just be repetition of the previous lesson, I'm not going to repeat the steps, but I just want you to watch and see how the paint reacts differently. I'm just going to put some relaxing music in the background and come back to you where there are clear differences that I want to mention as I paint. You can also speed through this or skip to the next lesson if you just want to see a side by side comparison of the finished painting. For the mountains here, I felt like as I dried the paper, there are such clear separation between the pigments which dried faster and the wet areas. You can see clear bloom textures for the mountain in the background here as I add the trees on the damp surface for the mountains in front, I feel like the paint doesn't bloom out as quickly as on the cold press because there are no wells helping to direct the flow of the paint and water. With a cold press, I felt like I use a slightly lighter load, but it was enough to kind of push and let the paint move easily. Here, I felt like I need to tap my brush a little bit more in order to get the paint out and push on the damp surface. As I paint the base of the grass, I can already see the difference in the edges. Some lines look very clean. But for the base, I'm just going to cover it lightly with clean water, and as I add the clean water, you can also clearly see how the water pushes the previous pigments away. The texture that I create with hot press is more the water blooms, which I also intentionally added underneath the trees in the background. So as it dries, it will suggest those branch textures that I mentioned earlier that I accidentally added in the previous painting. Hot press though, I can see such a clear contrast between where the water pushes the pigments and for the texture of the grass here, I really tried my best to create or imitate the texture of the cold press. But since the surface is so smooth, the streaky negative lines that I create still have really clean sharp edges. Whereas with the cold press, it was much easier because some of the grain just took more paint, whereas the wells didn't take any paint, so it helps to create those really uneven textures. As for the rest of the painting, I didn't really feel too much of a difference because I was just painting on a dry surface without much detail. So I'm just going to quickly finish this off, and I'm going to also speed this process slightly. For the last part, I decided to darken parts of the sky because I felt like it dried up a little bit too light. Of course, this is optional, and it really depends on how you applied the paint earlier. I just going to paint around the clouds. And I use a medium to light consistency. So there are no clear streaks in between. Of course, for parts where the sky is just clear without any cloud textures, I will soften some of the edges using a clean damp brush. For areas like this one, if I felt like the edges need a little bit more texture or more abstract, I ended up using tissue to make the edges look a bit uneven, then I'm going to dry everything off and take off the masking tape once I'm done. 13. Comparison: Now, let's compare the two painting side by side. Starting with the top, I can see some really nice soft transitions between the colors on the cold press. To be fair, I did layer a bit more blue on top of the hot press, but overall, the cold press just has smoother transition all across, and it's generally just more forgiving in terms of application as we don't have to intentionally soften edges manually. With the mountains, even if I use the same application technique, you can clearly see the lighter consistency pushing out the pigments as it dries. So it has these blooms and the edges are also very clean compared to the cold press where it's less defined even after painting on the dry surface. For the trees in front of the mountains, you can see the blooms created by the water looks the same as the mountain where it's on the cold press after it dries, it follows the texture of the cold press paper, and those lines end up looking longer and a bit more organic, which I find look more interesting and appropriate for this composition. Now, compare this to the hot press. I find that these blooms are just more or less the same as the mountains. They're a little bit more chunky and they don't really follow the lines, even though there are some, they're a bit thicker. You can also see in front where I paint the grass. Edges of the lines are much sharper compared to this cold press where you can see those randomized lines and textures which results from the paper itself. This is why I personally love painting loose landscapes on cold press because I can just take advantage of the paper texture and the medium itself and letting it do its thing. This doesn't mean that it's not doable on cold press. You can see that from the style, even if I use the same techniques, the cold press just makes it look a little bit more whimsical and somewhat more illustrative. Which is why I feel it's only fair to add an extra lesson where I'll paint one of my favorite subjects in a more illustrative style on Hot Press. So you can see the advantages as well for, in my opinion, a more appropriate subject for the paper. I won't repeat this painting twice, though, but I will still paint on the cold press version of camera and show you the difference and talk about it at the end of this class. 14. Food Illustration Hot Presed: For this one, I'm going to start by sketching out the subject and make sure I have more or less a good outline for the base form. I use this picture as a reference roughly, but I'm not going to copy it fully. I just need references on some of the textures that I mix and match, and I also use the lighting as reference, as well as the form for the front of this bread. As for the rest, I just use the cone shape as the base and added curve lines until I reach the tip at the back, for those of you who like to jump straight into painting, you can download and trace the outline from the projects and resources section of this class. My lines are a little bit scratchy, so here I'm just going to clean it out before I paint on it. And here are the colors I'll be using. This is mineral violet, sepia, quinciena and the yellow medium, and Jean Brilliant dark. There are only a few color mixtures, starting with a light yellow brown. For this, I use a mix of Jan Brilliant dark with handsy yellow medium and the tiniest bit of quinciena. This is for the light part of the bread, which isn't golden brown compared to the top. So here I'm using a heavy load to just spread it out at the bottom and also the sides where it's visible. Then for the rest, I'm going to use a clean damp brush to dampen and slightly tint the rest of the area. Can see the color is very light compared to the bottom here I'm just fixing up a little bit of the concentration of color or the saturation on the side. Then for the highlights, I'm going to use a very thin consistency of mineral violet on the damp surface. This is mostly going to be covered, so I'm just going to paint on fairly large area. Remember to do this very lightly because it's going to just act as a slight tint to the highlight. The surface is still damp. I'm also going to add this golden brown color. This is from a mix of quinciena with a little bit of sepia to mute it and darken it slightly. I use the medium to thick consistency because I know the damp surface is going to help spread the paint out naturally, and I'm using the reference to look at the rough placement for the purple highlight so I can avoid painting on it. Once I'm done, I'm going to use a clean damp brush to help move the paint and soften the edges. Still taking advantage of the damp surface, I decided to increase the saturation at the bottom for the lighter part of the bread. Then I'm also going to soften the blend going towards the high light, just using a clean damp brush, still making sure that it's light compared to the surrounding area. I'm working quickly, so the surface should still be a bit damp and here I'm increasing the saturation for the bread on the right. I also added a darker color at the back. For the next section, I'm going to do more or less the same thing. You can drive the first section so the paint doesn't bleed into this next one, but I just try to avoid getting paint in the first section while I paint in this one. Again, I started with the light creamy brown. Then I damp in the top part using a clean damp brush. I forgot to add the purple, but I'm going to avoid painting on the highlighted area using the quinciena and SPIA mix. I'm painting diagonal lines following the form of the bread. That's because I see some diagonal textures on the soft bread from the reference, which is why I'm going to try to roughly replicate it. I've left out the white space for the highlight, so now I'm going to use that very thin consistency of purple. Just be very mindful to not use too much pigment here because it's just going to be very subtle. Or if you're scared of controlling your consistency, you can just leave it completely and just leave it as a white highlight because the purple is just optional. I just really like the combination of the complimentary purple with the yellow brown or the orange brown of the bread. So from here, I'm just going to repeat the same steps until I reach the top or the tip of the cone. And in the next lesson, I'll be working on the details for the next layer. I'm going to define the texture and add the filling as well as the chado. Once I'm done covering the whole bread minus the chocolate filling, I'm just going to dry it off completely. So in the next lesson, I can work on the completely dry surface again to build on the details and saturation of the painting. Oh 15. Food Illustration: 2nd Layer: Let's start by painting the detail for the first section of the bread. I'm going to use the same light brown color and I'm using a very thick consistency here on the dry surface for the inside of the hole. I'm just using a clean damp brush to soften the blend as I get towards the bottom. After this, I'm going to also add some textures, trying to imagine the soft texture of the bread and how it folds as it was proofing or baked. And on the still damp surface, I use a thin consistency of CPA with the tiniest bit of quinciena. The CPA doesn't look too muted and I'm going to place it on the deepest part of the hole, and of course, trying to soften the blend as I go. I'm going to work on the golden brown textures for this, I just used the previous color mixture, but I added more quinciena so the color doesn't look too dark and muted but a little bit more warm. Here I'm just using a light brush load and a medium consistency, so my strokes are controllable. I'm using this somewhat even like a pen. And I'm painting on some textures, taking some ideas of the reference image to help me imagine the direction of my strokes. I'm not really following the picture to a T though. So I'm just taking the overall idea and somewhat repeating it, and also following the round form of each section. By the way, you can download the reference image in the projects and resources section just like the outline if you'd like to have one right next to you as you paint. Here, going back to the painting, I'm going to just soften some of the blend of those lines so it doesn't look too stark against the light background. I went back using the light brown and just softening the edges slightly. Some of the surfaces should be a little bit damp now, but, of course, not too wet at all. So I can still paint on it. This time, I'm going to work on a darker brown, which is from the same mix of quinciana and sepia, but this time, I just added a bit more sepia. And using this color, I'm going to add some random textures and also the outline at the back of this section to separate it from the next. I'm going to repeat more or less the same thing for the rest of the sections. But I also like to look at the reference for some subtle changes in the color and light. I find that a little bit of variation is good in a painting and makes it look a little bit more organic and realistic that way. Usually for this type of food illustration, I like to go into a bit more detail as I paint, so I will usually add many more layers and probably not use tooth of consistency straightaway since there are so much more detail I can put on. However, just for this demonstration, I'm going to paint it in a looser manner, so it doesn't take too long to paint. I just want to show you the comparison between the edges and the blending between hot pressed and cold pressed paper. As I get towards the end of the sections, I try to include a little bit less detail so the focus can still be in front. Once I'm done painting the sections, I'm going to just clean out some of the edges. Here, I'm using the golden brown color in a really light brush load and consistency, and I just added a slight outline. I'm also going to add more textures on top to fix up and clean up some of the already painted textures. You can also have a look around and see if you want to add more saturation in certain areas. Lastly, for the texture, I'm going to add some tiny dots and lines for some really fine marks using, of course, a dry brush load, so I can control the application easily. Now moving on to the chocolate filling, I'm using mostly sepia with a little bit of quinciena starting with a medium consistency. Then I place a light consistency of purple in a small section. Just like the bread. This is a small reflection or highlighted area. Then for the whitest highlight, I also left out the white of the paper. After this, I'm just going to dry everything off. I feel like I really want to increase the saturation of the color to make it a little bit more bright on the right hand side of the bread. So here I'm just glazing over a medium to consistency of quinciena by itself, and, of course, softening some of the blends if the edges look too harsh. Now I'm going to build the form of the chocolate by adding the darker colors. This is from a mix of sepia and quinciena. You can see I use a lot of Sepia this time for this really dark brown and I'm using close to a very thick consistency. Of course, I try to soften the blend, but I also try to kind of imagine what the blob of the chocolate looked like. The shape is fairly abstract, but I want to make sure it still has a three dimensional form. Lastly, I'm going to add the cschto so it doesn't look like a floating bread. And as for the cscheto, I personally love using a mix of mineral violet and sepia. I started by using a really light consistency to just paint along the edges, and of course, softening the blend, using a clean damp brush, making sure that the edges are not too rough. This is much easier to do on cold press, as you can imagine, but I just tried my best here. Then I'm going to increase the value by adding the darker colors underneath the dips of the bread. Of course, I'm going to blur out the edges again. This is just by using a clean damp brush, and I want to adjust the value to separate the shadow and the actual subject itself. 16. Comparison: Let's compare the two paintings side by side. I created the same one on the cold press here. You can see so much more of the edges and line details on the one I painted on the hot press. You can see it especially when I don't manually blend them together. Now, let's have a look at the cold press. I feel like it's so much smoother. I painted this fairly loosely, so the details are usually not as crisp as the hot press, as I usually paint them more in a loose way, but I have to say it's so much quicker to paint on the cold press because we don't have to spend too much time blending each color manually. As you can see, you can paint using both, but I feel it's generally faster to paint on the cold press, but if you want to create something that is super detailed, I would suggest using hot press paper instead. 17. Closing & Class Project: Congratulations on completing this class. I hope the information that I shared with you today is something that will help you in your art journey. For the projects, you can either paint along to the demonstrations and apply it to your very own paintings, or you can also just watch the demonstration and follow along to the final painting. It's completely up to you. Once you're done with your projects, don't forget to post it in the project section, so I can see it as well as other students. I think it's just wonderful to have community where we can share our artworks and be supportive of each other's journey. If you enjoyed this class, please don't forget to leave a review as it really helps encourage me to create more classes that you enjoy. If you enjoyed my way of teaching and would like to see more tutorials by me, you can also follow me on my YouTube channel, Nanai where I post weekly watercolor tutorials or some art related videos. And if you would like, you can also follow me on my Instagram at IG Underscore Nayani. I'd like to thank you for sticking right to the very end of this class. I can't wait to see your projects posted in the project section and share what you've learned with me, and hopefully I'll see you sing. Hi.