Watercolor Birds: Red Crested Cardinal

1. Introduction + Welcome: Whether you'd love to paint birds with watercolor, but don't know where to start, or perhaps you're farther ahead, but you'd love to hone your process and your techniques so that you're able to arrive at better results more consistently. This course is for you. Hey, everyone. My name is Erica, and I'm a traditional media artist working with a range of drawing and painting mediums. And my day to day life revolves around creating and selling as well as creating helpful resources for beginner and intermediate artists that I share via my website, my YouTube channel, and, of course, my membership site. I have over 15 years of experience working in creative and artistic fields, first as a graphic designer, then I worked as head art teacher in a school environment for many years, and then I started my online art business, which I've been growing for the last six years. I'm incredibly passionate about continuing to grow as an artist, but also sharing what I know with others and encouraging others to continue on their artistic paths. Taking what I was doing to the online space so that I can reach more people has truly been a joy. In this watercolor course, I take you step by step through my painting process for a vibrant red crested cardinal piece. I've broken down my painting process into easy to follow phases, and I share all of my favorite tips and techniques that help me arrive at a great level of realism while keeping a fresh painterly result. In this course, we'll practice foundational watercolor techniques together, such as wet on wet wet on dry, layering for depth, and also creating a vignette style background. This course also has a strong focus on painting believable feathers, which is a common struggle for beginners getting started with this kind of subject. I teach you a simple straightforward method for painting feathers in wings and tails that you can take with you to future paintings. If you're completely new to watercolor, I would highly recommend checking out my watercolor one oh one course here on Skillshare because in that course, I share essential information about watercolor and also basic exercises that will help you gain water and brush control much faster. Working on this bird painting is going to be much easier and more enjoyable for you if you have those basic skills developed with the three basic washes and also basic brushstroke drills. With all this said, let's jump into class number one where I'm going to be explaining about the course project that we're going to be working on together. See you there. 2. Course Project: By the end of this course, you'll have completed a beautiful and vibrant watercolor painting featuring a red crested cardinal and a vignette style background. Along the way, you're going to be gaining so many tools and practicing essential techniques that you're going to be able to take with you to succeed with future bird paintings that you may decide to work on. I've broken up my painting process into ten phases, each of which has its own class, and I want to encourage you to spend as long as you need to with each class before moving forward. Stop the video whenever you need to, go back to different parts of the video whenever you need to. Sometimes you might decide to observe how I move on with the new part of the process before doing it yourself. We're going to be working in layers, building up that realism and that depth gradually. So make sure to completely allow the previous layer to dry before working over it. I've also included a couple of classes before starting with the painting process where I share must know information and tips for success, things to observe in your reference photo before moving forward. I also have a class where I swatch out all of my different colors that I'm going to be using throughout the painting process and provide a few substitutes so that you can easily replace these paint colors in case you don't have the colors that I am using. I've prepared a set of downloadable files, what you're going to be able to find in the projects and resources tab right below any of the class video. Simply click on this tab, scroll down a little bit, and you're going to find a section that is titled Download Resources. Simply click on any file that you wish to download and it will be saved onto your computer or device. I have included my outline sketch in two slightly different sizes, and I would recommend tracing over my outline sketch and not the reference photo because I have made a few changes to the composition, and I have simplified the feathers in the wing and the tail a little bit. I've also included the high resolution reference photo of this bird and I would recommend observing the photo as you're moving along in the painting process so that you can see color changes and value changes as you are developing your layers. I've also included a photo of my finished painting, which you're free to use as reference as you're working and your supply checklist with a list of the different colors that I'm going to be bringing in. To post a photo of your work here on Skillshare, all you have to do is click on the Projects and Resources tab. Once you're in, you'll see this purple button on the right that says submit project. When you click on this button, you'll be taken to a new page where you'll easily be able to both upload a photo of your piece, as well as share any thoughts, experiences, struggles or questions that you might have for me. Here, you can create a title for your project and click on that larger content section underneath. And if you want to add in that photo at the beginning, you can go ahead and click on that image icon on the bottom. Find the photo that you're wanting to share on your computer or device, select that file, click open, and it will be immediately added into this content section. Then under your image, share anything that you'd like, whether it's struggles, questions, wins, aha moments that you might have had throughout this course. Anything that you'd like to share, I always love hearing from you. At the bottom of this content section, you'll see different icons. One is for formatting your text. The other is to add emojis, the Adimage icon, which we just talked about, and you can also embed link. Free to add in even more pictures if you'd like. They can be process pictures, supply pictures. And over here to the right, we have this preview area where we essentially see a thumbnail or cover image for your project. You can go ahead and change it to a title image that you have created in a more horizontal format. Or you can just go ahead and leave it as is and have it just be a cropped section of one of the images that you have uploaded into your content area. It's up to you. Once you're ready, go ahead and scroll back up. Click on the green Publish button and you'll be all done. If you'd like to share your work over on Instagram, please do just make sure to tag me at Erica Underscore Lancaster Underscore Art. I love seeing your work over there and giving students shoutouts in my stories. And of course, go ahead and tag the Skillshare account too. It goes a very long way and inspires other students to share their work as well. Skillshare is a safe learning space for all of us to continue growing together. So make sure that you're using this gallery, and let's all connect and help each other out. I can't wait to see your work and to help out with whatever you might need. Let's move on to our next class. 3. Supplies: I'm going to be working on cold pressed watercolor paper from Bao Hung. This paper is 140 pounds or 300 GSM in thickness or in weight, and it is 100% cotton. The size of my sheet that you're going to see me work in is exactly 7.5 " in width times 9 " in height. It's totally up to you if you want to work in my same size or maybe even larger. I'll make two different sizes of my outline sketch available for one exactly in the size that I am working in and one slightly larger so that it can fit in a letter size format. I used only four different colors for this painting, some of which are from Daniel Smith, and one is from Windsor Newton's professional line. And these colors were French ultramarine, Pyl scarlet. Bart Sienna and undersea green. I'm going to swatch out all of these colors for you and offer substitutes so that you can see what they look like on paper, and you can just replace whatever you don't have with something that is similar. You never have to use my same exact colors in order to arrive at great results. I want to encourage you to use what you have. I brought in four round brushes in sizes 14, six, three, and zero. I always have a few scrap pieces of watercolor paper on hand in order to test out color mixtures and consistencies. I have my container with clean water, which I make sure to change along the way. You're always free to bring in two or even three containers if you don't want to have to change your water as often. I have a couple of my blue Scot absorbent towels on hand, which are essential to stay on top of water control throughout the process and do any lifting that I might have to do. These are my favorite towels to use because they are thin and untextured. So whenever I go in to do lifting, I don't arrive at texture results. This, I did trace over the photo, and I use tracing paper from Strathmore. I would recommend tracing over my outline sketch that I'm going to be providing instead of the reference photo, especially because I have simplified the feathers for you. But I would recommend observing the reference photo as you're moving along in the painting process so that you can see shadows and lighter areas and color changes. You're always free to use whichever transferring method you prefer, whether it's a light box or a carbon paper or whatever you'd like. I taped my watercolor sheet down onto my black cutting mat using regular 1 " masking tape. Do make sure to run my pieces of tape over my clothes a couple of times to soften that adhesive and make it less likely that I'll damage my paper at the end when I remove it. And I wouldn't recommend using a flexible cutting mat to tape your watercolor paper down onto because working on something stiffer and sturdier is always going to be more helpful so that you can tilt your board as needed and use gravity to your advantage, especially when you're painting those larger washes. And you can also rotate your board clockwise or counterclockwise as you're painting so that it can be more comfortable for you. Finally, I did bring in some sketching supplies which I am sharing here to transfer and prepare my preliminary sketch before getting started with the painting process. For this one, I did trace over the photo and I share exactly step by step what I do to trace over my photo and do my transferring using tracing paper. In a bonus class that is included at the end of my watercolor one oh one course, which you have access to here on Skillshare. But of course, you're always free to use whichever transferring method you prefer, whether it's a light box, carbon paper, or whatever you like. Go ahead and collect your supplies, grab your downloadables that I've made available for you in the Projects and Resources tab and see you in the next class. 4. Swatching Colors: We're only using four different colors for this process. The first color that I'm going to be swetching out for you is French ultramarine. French ultramarine is a warm blue and it looks like this. If you don't have French ultramarine, any ultramarine blue will do, whether it's traditional ultramarine blue, ultramarine deep, ultramarine finest, or you could even use cobalt blue deep or even Windsor blue red shade. The next color that I'm going to be swetching out for you is burnt sienna, which is a reddish brown burnt sienna looks like this. If you don't have burnt sienna, you could use something like quinacridone burnt orange, transparent red oxide, English red ochre, or red iron oxide. The next color that I'm going to be swetching out for you is pyrrol scarlet, which is a warm red. Pyl scarlet looks like this. If you don't have pyral scarlet, you can use permanent red light, cadmium red light, scarlet lake, organic vermilion, or even Mayan orange. Finally, I'm going to be bringing in undersea green from Daniel Smith, which is a darker, rich, warm green and it looks like this. If you don't have this green, you could use sap green, olive green, serpentine genuine or green appetite. 5. Must-Know Information + Tips for Success: Alright, so I just finished up with my transferring process and the preparation of my preliminary sketch. And I just want to go over a few key things that will help you succeed with this painting. First and foremost, before jumping in, it's very important that we take time to observe that reference photo and make sure that our pencil sketch is ready and it has everything that it needs and that we understand key things before moving. I'm done with my transferring, which I often use tracing paper for my transferring. Sometimes I use a light box. There's always some finessing, some refinements that I have to do in my pencil sketch. Sometimes lines and shapes don't get transferred properly, and I do that right on my watercolor sheet with my HB pencil, sometimes I add in final details right on my watercolor sheet that I didn't really transfer with my tracing paper. It's very important that the sketch is where we needed to be before moving forward. I want to provide a few key tips, especially when it comes to painting feathers. If you've transfer my outline sketch, you'll notice that I have simplified most important feathers into basic shapes and lines, and in other areas, I have no feathers at all. In areas like the chest, belly, and this upper portion of the back, we have very, very small feathers, and there is no need to add in specific shapes or even little lines in those areas because those are areas where we're going to be painting those feathers just with little brushstrokes as we're moving along. We're not really planning where we're going to be adding in those shapes, those marks. You're going to do that freely and intuitive. But there are other cases, for example, in the wing and the tail where those feathers are larger. They are, I guess you could even say more important and we want to spend more time on those feathers. In my outline sketch, you'll notice how I've simplified the medium sized feathers, for example, these ones right here and also what I would consider the largest feathers. Which are these right here. The tail also has important large feathers down here that I have simplified into basic shapes. I'm sure I have changed some things if you compare these shapes with the reference photo, but what's most important is that I have captured the size of these feathers, the orientation of these feathers, and more or less the amount of feathers in each area that I see in that reference photo. I want you to spend time just observing and understanding this section here and this section here and how those shapes are overlapping because that's going to be very, very important as we're painting those feathers. Now, something that I would say is these medium sized feathers here and these feathers right here in the wing opposite to us are going to be the most important shapes to understand when it comes to that overlapping. These longer feathers here in the mid to lowest portion of the wing are not that difficult because we're going to be describing them just with loose brush strokes. As long as notice those lines, the angle of those feathers, you're going to follow that angle as you do those brushstrokes in that area loosely. Whereas these feathers here and these feathers here, we're going to paint in layers and what's very important to observe as well are the shadow shapes, shadow shapes created by overlapping wings, shadows created by overlapping clusters of feathers, and shadows created by individual feathers just as they are sitting over each other. Because it's by painting in those shadow shapes that we're going to create a sense of depth. We're going to create that sense of overlap. And so we need to know where to paint those shadows. Also observe the shadows created by the wing on the bird's body. I've also simplified the feather shapes in the tail, and it's also going to be important to bring to mind how these feathers are overlapping over each other or sitting over each other. So that we can create shadows appropriately in this area as well. And finally, I have also changed other aspects in this composition. I have simplified and changed the color of the little branch that the bird is sitting on. I'm going to be painting it brown so that the branch can contrast more both in color and in value with the green vignette that I'm going to be painting behind the bird. 6. White Feathers: We're going to start with the white feather areas, and this means that we need to create our gray color mixture that we're going to be using to develop our values and textures in these areas. And to create my gray, I am mixing together French ultramarine and burnt sienna. If you mix approximately 50% ultramarine blue and 50% burnt sienna, you're going to get a gray looking color, which is just perfect for those white feather areas, especially when you dilute it with water. We want to make sure that we start light and we make our way gradually into darker values when we're painting white areas. And what's cool about mixing together ultramarine blue and burnt sienna to create your gray is that you can shift and change the ratio of your colors in your mixer to make your grays cooler or to make them warmer, depending on what you like. If you have more blue than brown in your mixture, you're going to end up with a cooler gray. And if you have more brown than blue in your mixture, you're going to end up with a warmer gray. Ultramarine blue is also granulating, so as it dries, we're going to be left with this beautiful kind of model texture. I also want to prepare a little puddle of pyrrol scarlet because I want to bring in a little pop of red into the white feather areas. And this is just an artistic choice that I'm making in order to create more color harmony by repeating colors throughout the piece. I think this will help integrate things more. All right, with my color mixers ready to go, I'm going to go ahead and change my water because we're going to be using pre wetting in order to create soft effects and expand our working time. All right, I have clean water in my container, very important for the pre wetting technique, and I'm going to be using my size 14 round brush for these initial layers in the largest parts of the bird's body. So let's take this a section at a time and let's start with the lightest areas in the bird, which are, of course, the white feather areas. All I am doing here with my size 14 round brush is I'm taking a little bit of water at a time from my container, and I'm smoothing that water on all throughout these white feather areas in this upper part behind the bird's head in the chest and down into the belly and into the tail. I am making my way around the little legs and pre wetting everything. I'm going over this entire area multiple times in order to really feed the paper and make it less thirsty so that I can expand my working time. Otherwise, things are going to start to dry very quickly. I'm creating a bit of an irregular edge. We don't want to leave smooth edges when we have textures like this. Okay. I've arrived at a nice even sheen all throughout the white feather areas. I do have the size three round brush on hand because once I'm done painting in some color, I'm going to use this smaller brush to pull a little bit of wet paint out and create more of an irregular look around those edges, which is so important. I'm going to take a little bit of my gray color mixture and I'm going to start with the darkest shadow areas that I see in the reference photo. This is I would say a coffee consistency on my palette. And I don't want to go in with too much color because these are white feathers and we don't want to make these feathers look gray. So I'm always staying mindful of the amount of color that I'm painting in and the kind of darkness that I'm arriving at. Here I have enough paint to push and pull and create softer transitions with. So I remove that color from my paintbrush bristles and I'm just kind of softening the edges and pulling a little bit of this pigment into the larger area here to create very soft looking grays. Everything is still wet and workable because I did pre wedding. Here I can take a little bit more color and start adding more in. At any time, you can switch to your smaller brush and pull a little bit of that paint out to create more irregularity along the edges. Okay. That's enough gray. I remove that color from my paintbrush bristles and then with a clean and only slightly damp brush, I can soften transitions, maybe get rid of little textures that I've created. Oh I'm going to switch to my size three round brush, just dip it in my water so that I'm going in with a clean and damp brush and I'm just pulling a little bit of that wet paint outward to create more regularity along those edges. Because I don't want completely smooth edges. If nothing is moving, you can always take a little bit more paint, make sure that you don't go too dark. We do want these feathers to look white. Do you remember that watercolor dry is lighter than how it looks when it's wet? So, this will become lighter. Studying a little bit more gray here. The paper is still wet and workable in some areas. So if I want to go in and darken darkest shadow areas a little bit more with the same color mixture, I definitely can right below the wing. Finally, I painted in a few red blooms before the gray dried. I know that this may look a little bit weird right now, but this is going to become a lot lighter and we're going to be using this red throughout the bird's body. So it's all going to come together as we move forward. By this point, certain sections are already starting to dry, so I need to leave things alone because if I continue painting in more color, I'm likely going to arrive at splotchiness, back runs, and undesired effects. I'm going to leave this alone, and in the meantime, I'm going to paint the little branch and the legs. 7. Branch, Legs + Beak First Layer: Okay, so as I said before, I'm going to change the color of the little branch so that it can contrast a little bit more with the green background that I'm going to be painting later. So what I'm doing here is I'm adding more burnt sienna into the section of my palette and if it has a little bit of blue mixed in, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to be painting this wet on dry. I'm going to go in with a T consistency first and I'm going to build incrementally toward darker values. Using my size 14 round brush, loading up my paintbrush with a good amount of this water down burnt sienna and I'm going to paint in this tree branch with linear strokes that are going to help me describe this texture. Eaving little sections of paper shining through long linear strokes in the same angle that that cylindrical structure has using just the tip of your brush is going to help you save little highlight sections, removing that paint from my paintbrush bristles, removing that excess water by dabbing the tip of my brush on my absorbent towel. And then I use the clean and only slightly damp bristles of my brush as a little absorbent sponge to lift up some color from the bottom edge section of this little branch. This way, this color can look like it's diffusing into the white paper and I can really create that vignette like effect at the end. Pushing this paint up against the little foot. Just quickly painting in some brown into this branch. You can see how it looks pretty light right now. I'm going to add more burnt sienna into the mix, thicken it up a little bit more. While this initial layer is still wet, I paint in some more of this brown. I'm going to quickly add in some French ultramarine into the brown to darken it even more. I'm just going to pop in some of this darker brown to expand that range of values. Here I'm using the lifting technique once again to remove some of this color off my paper, especially along the bottom where that brown meets the masking tape. And this is totally optional, but if you want to add in a little bit of green, whatever green it is that you're bringing in, mix some of that into your brown color mixer, and if the paint is still wet and workable, you can pop some of that in there as well for a bit of a variation in hue in the branch. And that is it for that first layer in the branch. Let's allow that to dry. Okay, so let's paint the little bird's legs. I'm creating more of my gray color mixture that I was using before pushing this green out of the way and adding more of my French ultramarine into the burnt sienna. These are really small shapes that we're painting in, so I made sure to change to a smaller brush. This is my size three round. I'm going in with a water down version of this gray, especially because we're painting wet on dry and I want to make sure not to go in too dark too quickly. I want to save some highlights. I observe that reference photo, notice where the darkest planes are in these little kind of cylindrical structures in the legs. And that is where I start painting in my gray in the back of the cylinder. Remember that starting with the shadow areas first is always going to help you be a little bit more in control. This goes into the body, this leg here. I start in this lower belly portion, back of the cylinder. I'm just painting in a little bit of gray. In this case, the bottom of the finger would be the bottom planes facing away from the light. I'm just going to do a curve for the claws. Really not trying to describe much much more in the legs and the feet. Softening my shadow shape in this one just a little, and that is enough for now in the legs and feet. Let's go ahead and paint in the first layer in the beak. For this, I'm just going to add a little bit more burnt sienna into my gray color mixture so that I can go in with a bit more of a warmer gray. It has more brown in it. The beak is very, very light, so I want to go in very water down. Think of a t consistency. I want to go in with a very small amount of paint, more of a T consistency, starting with the shadow areas. Thinking of what is bottom plane in the beak structure, what is upper plain. After I've painted in some color, I remove that paint from my paintbrush bristles, I remove that excess water and I soften edges. I'm going to take a little bit more color, dark in some areas a little bit more. And that is it. That's all I'm going to do for this initial layer in the beak. Let's allow that to dry. 8. Wing + Tail First Layer: It's time to work on layer number one in the wing and the tail, and we're going to be using the same pre wedding technique that we used for this area over here with the white feathers. For the wings and the tail, we're using the same gray color mixture that we were using for the white feather area. However, for these areas, we're going to be going in with a little bit more paint so that those areas can look a little bit darker. Make sure that you have a smaller brush on hand so that you can once again work on those edges, do a little bit of a flicking motion while the paint is still wet to create at least some amount of irregularity here and there. Taking a little bit of water at a time from my container, and I'm starting with the wings. Go over everything multiple times and there is a lot of irregularity right here where the white feathers meet the dark gray feathers. Don't create a smooth edge there. Use little flicking motion so that you can create an irregular edge where those two feather colors meet. I see a nice even sheen again. I'm using a little bit more blue in my color mixture this time. I'm starting with those dark shadow areas. Here, where this wing in the back opposite to us is overlapping over this wing. I see some shadows. Notice those larger shadow shapes where major groupings of feathers are creating a shadow on the feathers underneath. That's where I start. See some darker areas here, right under the white feathers. I'm going to remove from my paintbrush pitles, remove that excess water by dabbing the tip of my brush on my absorbent towel, and I am checking to see if I have any textures that need to be smoothed out, maybe creating softer transitions, making sure that I'm leaving sections of paper shining through that is going to allow me to create that watercolor glow and the fresh results that I'm looking for. Going to quickly change to my smaller brush. This is my size three round and I'm going to do a little bit of flicking here inward, moving some of this water and paint into the white feather section, taking a little bit more of my gray, painting that in just a little bit at a time. I don't want to go too dark too fast. And I'm just observing that photo and creating a little bit more of an irregular feathery look right here where the two feather colors meet. Things are still wet and workable. I can take a little bit more of my paint, darken shadow areas, whatever I need to do. We're not really painting in the individual feathers at this point. We're going to do that in the next layer. But if you want to start doing more linear brush strokes down here, especially, you can do that. Just be careful because right now things are wet and if you add too much paint, it's going to start expanding very easily and you can end up darkening things way too much. A few more little strokes over here before my paint dries. Maybe a few little strokes over here. You can see how all of this is looking very soft. I'm creating these natural organic gradients where I have some lighter sections and some darker sections. And this is all because I am painting in my color on wet paper. Looking to create somewhat of a range of values without going too dark. And finally, I'm going to pop in tiny bit of red here as well. When I bring in these colorful blooms into a painting, I never really have a specific place where I'm going to be adding them in. I just go by what is happening, by what I think will look best based on the values and the effects that I've already achieved with my base colors or the important colors. All right, great. So that is layer number one in the wing. All right. Let's do the same thing in the tail area. I need to make more of my gray color mixture with slightly more ultramarine blue than the burnt sienna. N more blue. That's ready. I have my size three round brush in my left hand. And first, I'm going to gently pre wet the entire tail portion. Running my paintbrush bristles over this entire section, maybe three or four times before starting to paint in my color. Once I see that even sheen, no puddles, we can go ahead and start painting in my gray, starting with the darkest section that I see, which is right up here up against the wing Then I see some darks right here where there is some overlapping taking place in the tail feathers. I can soften transitions or any undesired textures without over blending. I'm just going to quickly go in with a thicker version of the same color to intensify the shadows. Layering on more color in darker sections, removing that paint from my paintbrush bristles, removing the excess water. Going to reactivate this red that I have on my palette and I'm just going to pop in a little bit of red in the tail as well so that I can repeat this color in this area. That's enough. Removing from my paintbrush bristles, removing that excess water, and if you want to go in and darken anything else, darkening a few little sections a little bit more, and I'm all done with this initial layer in the wing and the tail. As you can see, in this point of the process, the values that I've developed in the wings and the tail look very similar to the chest and belly areas, which are actually white feathers. The feathers over here are much darker. However, we're still missing plenty more work in these sections over here. Whereas the chest and belly area, they're just going to be painted mostly with that single layer. We will go in with some very light subtle texture marks in the chest and belly area a little bit later, but we're no longer going to be layering on any more color in large areas down here, whereas over here we are. So these two sections over here are going to appear much darker at the end. 9. Eye, Red Feathers + Leg Shadow Shapes: Creating a chocolatey brown by bringing in a little bit of my French ultramarine into the birds sienna. If you look closely in that reference photo, you'll notice that we can see a lighter brown iris around the pupil in this bird's eye. I want to go in initially with a brown color and then we'll paint the pupil and the darker areas around it with a darker gray. And the eye is, of course, very, very small, so I will be using my size zero round brush. I have added in a little teeny, tiny highlight shape across the eyeball, which we do see a highlight shape in the reference photo, and I'm going to do my best to keep that little highlight protected or unpainted as I paint in all of these little eye areas. I take a little bit of this brown that I just created. I would say this is like a coffee consistency. And I'm going to paint in the entire visible portion of the eyeball except for that teeny tiny highlight shape that's somewhere along the top. And that is it. There is this little ring around the eye, which is skin, and I'm going to leave that unpainted for now. Let's move on to painting the first layer in the red feathers right here in the bird's head. In the red feathers in the bird's head, I'm going to be using my pyal scarlet, and I'm going to create a darker version of this pyal scarlet by mixing together this red with a little bit of my French ultramarine. You can test out these color mixtures on a scrap piece of watercolor paper to ensure that you have your two reds that you're going to be using to develop a nice range of values in the bird's head. I'm going to be using my size six round brush and I'm going to be using the pre wedding technique once again, wetting this entire red area, making my way around the bird's eye and around that little ring that I left around the eye. Going all the way down and into this chest portion, and there is a lot of irregularity that we want to leave around the head so that we can describe those feathers. We don't really want super smooth edges. You can use tapered strokes going in the direction of that feather growth that we see. This is a much smaller area, but you still want to make sure that you're going over everything at least two, three times until you see that even sheen. I'm also going to have the size three round brush on hand so that I can do that flicking motion around the edges after my paint has been placed. Once you see that nice even chin, go ahead and get started with your plain red a coffee consistency. I always start with the darkest areas that I see, which in this case are around the eyes. I'm going to remove this paint from my paint brush bristles, remove that excess water, and going in with a clean and only slightly damp brush to do a little bit of paint distribution here, pushing and pulling that color, not trying to create flatness or a uniform look to this red. I'm just trying to pull a little bit of this pigment into lighter value sections that I see so that I can create a light red color in those areas. You can start doing a little bit of pulling along those edges as well. You can see how that red looks very light. I'm going to go in with a thicker consistency now. Once again, starting around the eye and in those darkest areas that I see, which are many black feathers. Going a little bit darker now. Going back to my size three round brush and pulling some of this color up in a way with gentle, short tapered strokes, always observing the reference photo and having in mind the length and the direction of the feathers growth. Going in with a little bit more color, adding more red into this upper section, I want to develop a variety of values everywhere. Removing that paint from my paintbrush bristles, removing that excess water and softening edges a little. I'm using my size three round brush now to place my paint to soften my color. This entire area is still wet, by the way, because I did that pre wedding. Going in with teeny, tiny flicking motions around the edges to add in a little bit of that irregularity for a textured look. It's time to paint in that darker version of my red that has some ultramarine blue in it, and it looks like a muted reddish purple color, and I'm mostly using it around the eye where I see those darker areas in the reference photo. If you paint in this color and it looks too dark to you, add in a little bit more red into your mixture to lighten it. After painting in some of that red purple around the eye, I add in more of my red into the mixture to make it look a little bit lighter. And then I use the slightly darker version of my red here and there, really carefully applying it so that I don't overly cover up or eat up the lighter red sections. It's always my objective throughout this process to develop a range of values everywhere throughout the bird, cleaning up the edges around the eye, making my way around that white ring. I don't want to get any of this red in that ring around the eye. Fixing the shape of the beak here. I'm continuing to add more ultramarine or more red into my mixture depending on the value that I'm trying to create. And I'm just continuing to observe that reference photo, and I'm doing my best to develop some lighter areas and darker areas in this part of the bird's body so that I can create a sense of dimension. Here I'm using the lifting technique once again to lift up some color and reveal some of that bright paper under the paint. You can use this technique whenever you feel you've gone too dark. You can certainly lighten areas, especially when the paint is still wet by just absorbing some of it off the page with either the clean and slightly damp bristles of your brush or even your absorbent towel. Going back to my initial gray color mixture so that I can add some even darker gray shadow shapes in the legs and feet. This time, I'm going in with more of a milk consistency and I'm just pushing those darkest dark areas opposite to the light while leaving plenty of that initial layer with the lighter gray shining through to help me develop at least a few gray values in the legs and feet. I'm bringing to mind, once again, the cylindrical structure of the birds legs, the cylindrical structure of the fingers, considering any overlapping that might be taking place. And wherever shadows would be, that is where I'm essentially darkening. Because I'm painting on dry paper, I am arriving at sharp edges around these shadow shapes that I am painting in and whenever I want to soften anything, I just run the clean and only slightly damp bristles of my brush over that edge, and that will be easily softened, especially if the paint is still partially wet. But you don't have to soften everything. I want to encourage you to leave some of these sharp shadow shapes as they are. 10. Wing + Tail Second Layer: All right let's get started with the second layer in the wing and the tail. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to trace around some of our pencil lines, especially in the medium size feathers that I was talking about before and other important shapes for feathers that we want to make sure to understand. If you can no longer see your pencil lines through the paint, you can go ahead and sketch them again over your dry paint, do it carefully and as lightly as you can. I'm going in with my size, zero round brush and T consistency because I don't want to create very stark looking outlines that will take away from the realism if you do that. Observing how these feathers are overlapping. I'm using just the tip of my brush to trace over my pencil work. These look like U shapes open at the top. I also have these important feathers in the wing opposite to us that I want to trace around. Notice they're overlapping. And I have other feathers here. Then aside from those, everything else, I can just approach as lines. I can't even start incorporating some dry brushing for texture. I am continuing to observe the reference, even though I'm approaching these more loosely because if I don't continue observing the reference photo, I can very easily start forgetting the length of these feathers and the direction that I should be drawing those lines or shapes toward. I'm going to do the same thing for the feathers and the tail zooming into this part of the bird in the reference photo. Incorporating some dry brushing by just gently scraping my brush against the paper. When you have just a small amount of paint in your brush and you press down and gently scrape, you're going to create some dry brushing textures. Especially if you're using cold press or rough watercolor paper. All right. That's enough. I don't want to overly draw the feather shapes. 11. Small Feathers, Pupil + Beak Shadow Shapes: So now before doing anything else, I'm going to add just very subtle little feather textures in the chest and the belly. I'm using my same gray color mixture only I'm making sure to go in with a T consistency because I don't want these feather marks to be very, very stark and distracting. Just a few here and there will do the trick. Keep the feather length and direction of that feather growth in mind. Taking just a tiny bit of paint at a time and barely touching the tip of my brush to my paper and doing gentle slightly curved short tapered marks. Less is more when working with watercolor, a little bit goes a long way. That's enough. I'm also going to add in just a few little marks here. To finish up the beak, I'm just going to mix in a little bit more of my burnt sienna into my gray. I'm just going to reinforce those darkness starks in the beak, seeing these as abstract, irregular shadow shapes. No stark, blocky looking shapes or lines. Let's paint the pupil now. I'm going to add a little bit more French ultramarine into the mixture and make it look more like a middle of the range gray. I'm now going in with more of a coffee or even milk consistency and my size zero round brush to very carefully paint just the pupil. I'm going to do my best to make my way around the highlight blot on your absorbent towel. This is a very, very small shape. Painting right over the brown. I'm trying to keep the highlight protected and leaving a ring of brown around the pupil as best as I can. 12. Wing + Tail Shadow Shapes Third Layer: All right, so let's do a little bit more work in the wing and the tail. I still have my size zero round brush in my hand and I'm still using my same gray color mixture. What I'm going to do now is just very subtly create a little line for the middle vein. In some of these feathers, you can't see it in all of them, but the ones where you can add that in at this point. Now I'm going to be switching to my size three round brush because I'm going to be painting in those larger shadow shapes in between the overlapping sections of feathers. For this, I do want to go in with a tea or coffee consistency depending on the values that you've already developed and observe that reference photo. Notice where those important clusters of feathers are creating shadows on each other. For example, I see an important shadow here, I'm going to paint that in. I see another important shadow here. And here. And I can even start painting in this important shadow that is making its way from the top of the tail and into the side of this wing here. See how I brought that long shadow shape together all the way from the tail and into the side of the bird's body. Developing more shadow shapes here in the tail now. Some gentle brush strokes here. Help me convey some of that texture. There's a smaller shadow shape around here. I think most of those larger shadow shapes are in, and now I'm going to notice the individual shadow shapes created by the individual feathers. So we have covered the larger shapes created by the clusters of feathers. Now I'm looking at the individual feathers and how they create a smaller shadow shape on each other. So for example, this feather here is on top of this feather here. So it creates a shadow shape on this one that is beneath it. And this one over here is on top of this one, so it creates a slight shadow shape beneath that. And make sure that you're not going too dark because these are not large shadow shapes. Use your gray in more of a T consistency as you're creating those shadow shapes so that you can keep some of that luminosity at the end. When painting with watercolor, it's just so important to incorporate the bright paper as part of the piece. If we cover up all of our paper, then we're going to get rid of that luminosity, that glow. And results will be just less fresh. That's about it. If I do anything else, I can run the risk of just making everything look too heavy and I will get rid of that three dimensional look. Same thing over here with the tail. Check to see if there are any shadow shapes that you're missing. And finally, I'm going back to my size zero round brush, and I'm using the same gray color mixture in a te consistency to add in some very, very subtle, small feather textures in this part of the wing. Make sure that you're clustering those teeny, tiny tapered brushstrokes together in different ways for a more natural look. That's too much water. 13. Wing + Tail Glaze Fourth Layer: Alright, so we just have a few more things to do, and then we'll tackle the background. I'm going to change my water because we're going to do a final glaze in the wing and the tail to make them look even darker. The difference between layering and glazing is that when you're applying a glaze, you're using very water down, translucent paint so that you can still see all of the value work and the colors underneath. When you apply normal layering, you can pretty much use whatever consistency you want. For this last glaze in the wing and the tail, I'm going to make more of my gray color mixture, but it's going to have way more ultramarine blue in it. I'm going for more of a muted blue as opposed to a gray for this layer. Once you have that on your palette, make sure it's watered down. You're looking for a T consistency. I'm using my size 14 round brush, loading a good amount of that darker muted blue, and I'm just going to paint some of this color in very loosely to darken some sections in the wing. Making sure that I'm leaving plenty of those previous layers shining through and also leaving some little slivers of white paper unpainted here and there so that they can look like highlights at the end. It's especially helpful to leave highlights along the edges of your feathers. After painting in some of that color, I rinse out my brush. I remove that excess water, and I go in to gently soften effects, clean up edges. You can do lifting if you need to. I push and pull my paint while it's wet if I need to. And then I drop in a little bit more of the same color mixture, heavier on the ultramarine blue, only into certain sections that I want to darken a little bit more while that paint is still wet. And because I'm dropping it into wet paint, you can see how I still get those soft effects. Here I'm cleaning up edges one last time before allowing this glaze to dry. Alright, it's time to apply the same glazing technique into the tail. Make sure that you're saving some lighter sections where that previous layer is left unpainted. Switching to my size three round brush and just creating a little bit more of an irregular edge here along the tail. And that is it for those darker areas. 14. Branch + Red Feathers Second Layer: I'm going to finish up the little tree branch still using my ultramarine blue and burnt sienna mixer. Only this time, it has more burnt sienna in it so that it can look like a darker chocolatey brown. Going back to my size six round brush, and I'm just going to loosely develop some darker brown areas in the little branch to help add a little bit more dimension and detail, especially in this upper section nearest the bird. I want some lighter brown areas, some midtone areas, and some darker brown areas, and I'm doing my best to work around those highlights that I have created in that beginning layer. If you want to make it even darker, add more ultramarine blue into it. That's enough contrast. If you feel you've gone too light in some areas, we're painting wet on dry once again, so it is normal to have some sharp defined edges around your shapes. You can certainly go in to soften some, but again, I want to encourage you to leave some alone and create a balance between soft effects and sharper detail. Okay, let's finish up the eye, and then we're going to be painting the vignette background and we'll be all done. Back to my gray color mixture, so I need to add more blue into this. I want to go in very water down. I'm adding more water from my container into the edge of my puddle and I'm going to use my size zero round brush to just add in a little bit of color in that white ring around the eye because this bird does have darker skin in that area, so I don't want to leave it completely white. That's a little bit too light and watery. I can barely see anything at all, so I'm taking more of my paint this time from the center of my puddle. Just using a bit of a stippling motion to create little markings, light gray markings in this area. To add a little bit more contrast and drama to the bird's eye, I'm going to go back to my darker red color mixer with this reddish purple and my size zero round brush. I'm going to create some darker shapes around the eye. Really carefully painting around the white ring that we just painted in before. I can't really see this very much, so I'm going to add more ultramarine blue into the red, make it look even darker. Painting that in. Not trying to create an outline around the eye, just trying to darken some areas with abstract irregular shadow shapes. Doing some gentle scrubbing right here around the white ring, just to soften that effect a little bit. 15. Vignette Background: And it is time to finish up our painting with a vignette style background. I'm going to be using green, but feel free to use whichever color you prefer. You can even use a light gray or a blue for your vignette background. And, of course, if you want to leave your piece as is without a background, that's totally okay as well. I'm going to create a juicy puddle of undersea green right here on my palette I'm going for a coffee consistency, and I'm going to be using my size 14 round brush for this vignette. I would recommend having a smaller brush on hand as you work so that you can push a little bit of that paint closer to the subject because we're going to be painting fast. And when we're painting fast, we kind of leave these jagged edges or too much white paper in between the color and our subject. So you might want to go in and quickly fix that with a smaller brush. Load up a good amount of this juicy color and make sure that you're going in with a relatively large brush. Start painting in your color nearest the subject and then pull some of that color out in a way. Allow that background shape to take form on its own. Don't be overly controlling or plan things out too much because then you won't be able to arrive at an organic looking vignette shape. And that's it. I'm going to quickly change to my smaller brush, and go into those edges. Let's do it again. Load up a good amount of your color. Start in those areas nearest the bird. Don't paint all the way to the edges. Just paint in that color, nearest the subject. Then if you want to intensify the color, make sure that you're dropping in your color nearest the subject. Switch on back to your smaller brush, fix those edges wherever you need to. My paint is still wet, so I think I can manipulate this shape a little bit. Start making my way up, wiggle your brush, press down the belly of your brush, and wiggle. You can feel when the paint is starting to run out of your paint brush bristles and when you still have lots of space to cover up and you have to do it fast, it can get pretty stressful. So I would recommend before starting each section in your vignette background, prepare enough of that paint on your palette Otherwise, you're gonna have to prepare more and things can start to dry. Dropping in more color nearest the subject, while the paint is still wet, be very careful when you paint in more color over wet or damp paint. If you go in with too much paint or water in your brush, it'll all come dripping down those bristles and it'll push the drying paint out. It'll disturb that drying paint. And you can very easily arrive at back runs and splotchiness. There's something there. I'm going to leave it, and when the paint is dry, I'll remove that. Whenever I'm painting and something falls into the wet paint, it's a lot better to allow things to dry and remove it later or we can smudge everything and that won't be good. Allow those shapes to take form on their own. Don't be overly controlling. I have no specific shape in mind as I'm painting that fixing my edges a little bit here. Okay. I'm missing a couple of little sections right there, but I need a smaller brush for that. My size 14 is way too large. I'm going in with my size three round under sea green, and I'm just filling these areas in carefully. Wiggling your brush really helps. Fill in areas faster. Making sure that I'm going in with just a small amount of water in my brush, especially as I am painting in these very small areas. At any time, you can dab the tip of your brush on your absorbent towel and remove any excess stripage that might make small areas harder to paint. And with that, we're all done with this red crusted cardinal painting. 16. Thank You!: Made it to this point, congratulations. I really hope that you enjoyed this course and that you learned new things that you can take with you to future watercolor pieces. Don't forget to share your work in the Projects and Resources tab. It always makes me so, so happy to see what you created. I'm also always super happy to help out with anything you might need, whether you have any questions or need feedback on anything. Just feel free to reach out. Forget to follow me here on Skillshare because I have many new courses coming down the pipeline for you and also make sure to check out all of the free resources that I'm making available via my website, my YouTube channel, and my Instagram. I share helpful resources and inspiring posts every single week. Thank you so very much for joining me on this one. I wish you a wonderful rest of your day. Enjoy your art practice and see you very, very soon.