Transcripts
1. Welcome to Watercolor Bliss: Hello everyone. Welcome to watercolor bliss, let go of stress and find inner peace with watercolor. My name is Kim Smith and I have been teaching watercolor classes online for about a year now. I've taught close to 1000 students all over the world, which was so, so exciting. I love teaching. I have a passion for painting and for watercolor. And I love to pass that joy and passion on to other people. I have put together this monthly offering to help people to connect with their creativity, to find joy in the painting process. Painting, especially watercolor, you can just get so lost and that the flow of the water in, It's just so like translucent and just mesmerizing it does super magical things which are very exciting to me. So I put together some very easy projects for anybody to be able to do. You can join no matter what your level of artistic skill is, you can be beginner to advanced. The projects that I'm going to teach are designed to help you to get into a meditative flow. Some of them are like very soothing a meditative. Others are a little more like upbeat, playful. I approached painting in a playful and inquisitive way and I like to pass that onto my students. Continue to be curious about something. Our interest is piqued and we get so into it that everything else just kind of fades away, right? All the stress disappears and we are just filled with joy and delight in our heart. Thank you for joining me. I hope you have as much fun with these painting projects as I did putting together these lessons feel. So why don't we go hop into Month 1 and let's get started.
2. Supplies: I'd like to go over the supplies with you for this month's lessons. Of course, we start with our watercolor paper. I just use the Canson XL is the cold press, nine by 12. I can get this packet of 30 sheets of watercolor paper at Walmart for less than $10. So that's usually where by it I load up there, you can find it at my goals, of course. And ac more. Amazon also, the place I found that this is the least expensive is definitely at Walmart. Um, so that's fantastic. It's actually, it's, it's a student grade paper, but it works beautifully. I really love how it is. And so what I've done for these lessons is I've cut the nine by 12 sheets into six by 9s from most of the lessons, one of the lesson we are going to use a full sheet. And I get these nice crisp cut lines because, because I did invest in one of these is one of those guillotine paper cutters. It is awesome. I love it. I use it all the time. I think it was like $20 on Amazon. So one of the best things I actually ever bought. So yep, I use it all the time because I often work and six by nines or and 1.54 by 5.5. So that if I cut this into half again, and I use these for my watercolor blocks. I use these for smaller, any kind of smaller painting. We will be using this size in next month in our class. So this is one of the watercolor blocks I did for the create beautiful color palettes with ease class that I did a while back. You can find information about that on my teachable Courses page. So we've got our paper and of course, our watercolor. I use mostly this palette. This is a mission goal. That's my hello mission goals. And I love, love this watercolor so much. It's super vibrant, it's rich. You're able to get super delicate light lights and like really bold darks. You don't even need to use a lot of color watercolors. You need to spray it first to kinda activate it. Because they're a little hard to get going. You don't even need that with this sad, It's pretty awesome. All we here I have some colors from other brands like Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith. So any of my favorites that I like of theirs, I'll pop into this palette. As you can see, there's plenty of room to mix right on the palette with. Something about this palette has freed me up in my watercolor practice. Of course, you need some paper towel and again, spray bottle if you need it for that. And paint brushes for most of this. Oh, actually, I think almost, yeah, for most of this class I'm using this white sable and the Robertson's brush, size eight. Love this brush so much. Some of my other favorite brushes are these, Princeton heritage, the Neptune series. These are beautiful. I have them in several sizes. They're just wonderful brushes. Please. I want to say use any watercolor and any brushes that you have. You don't need to go out and buy a whole bunch of new supplies for this class. Use what you have, see what I use C If you'd like it, and then if you want to make a purchase, then go ahead and make a purchase. And so I've got these bamboo skewers that I just buy at the grocery store. And then Q-tips, of course. I use this Liquitex ink. It's the titanium white ink. You can use any type of white ink for this class. I also have the de la brownie FW acrylic ink, which is beautiful. I love that as well. And then I just use this little palette is just the cover of a Pringle. Can. So I use this as my ink palette. You need some dress for water. I just reuse some to lente gelato containers here. And then we've got, I've got my little thing of fine sea salt, which we're gonna do in one of the lessons. And I just put it into here. So that way it's covered in, it's right by me. And another thing we're using in this class is posca pens. I got a whole bunch here. And love, love, love these posca pens. They're beautiful to make marks with. And I've got my ink pens, my black pens. These are unique pens. I've got them in all different sizes. So some make really delicate lines and some a folder lines. And last but not least is gel pens. I have the Jelly Roll gel pens and then I also have these uni-ball gel pens that I recently bought. So fantastic, I loved them. See, I think that's it. I'm also going to oh, one more thing. I use this range are heated craft tool to dry some of the paintings and some of the lessons love this tool. I've used other ones. And this is my favorite. I prefer it over like hairdryers and the other kind of heat tools. It just it heats really well. It doesn't have a doesn't blow really hard because if it blows too hard, it's going to make your, your watercolor petals just kinda go all over the place and you really don't want that. So this is my favorite. So I'm going to have a PDF with the list of all the supplies and some links for you for Amazon. So you can just quickly go get what I get if you would like to, again, you don't have to. All right. So I will see you in the next lesson.
3. Cool Color Circles: Hi everyone. Welcome to our first month of a watercolor blends, let go of stress and find inner peace with watercolor. This is our first lesson and I'm very excited to introduce you to making these layered in trends Lucent of watercolor circles. They are very beautiful. They're easy to do, they're fun to do. They're super relaxing. Circles are easy. Okay? Anybody can paint a circle. And I really want you to not worry about making perfect circles. Because circles that are like a little off, maybe they're not quite perfect, are so beautiful. They're just who wants perfection or hate. I mean, I don't know about you. I don't want perfection. I want to help you to let go of perfection. These circles do not have to be perfect. In fact, if they are a little bit wonky, it just makes the end result all the more beautiful. Okay, so we're going to start with using our first color palette, which is going to be a cool color palette. Cool colors are blues and greens. They are what you mostly see in nature. The blue skies and blue waters. Green trees, green grasses. They're very calming, just as nature can be very calming. And we're going to start with a blue color palette. I'm going to use a variety of blues. I have several hair on my palette of that civilian cobalt, peacock blue. I've got some Prussian blue there and some phthalo turquoise there. I also have on the other side of my color palettes, some other brands of colors on this is Winsor Newton indigo. I have Winsor Newton, what's called Windsor blue. And so I'm going to use those two as well. And a way to create even more variety of blues is to mix our blues together. So what we're looking for is we want a good amount of water in these, but we're not going to have them like puddles and puddles of water because we're looking for that flat look. And in that we need to control the water a bit more. Okay. So I'm going to start by getting puddle going and I'm just going to dip my brush in my water and wipe it off on the side. And let's see, we'll start with peacock blue. I'm just getting some pigment here. And I'm putting it on the palette. I'm not going direct to the paper because we need to add water to it to make it lighter. These paintings are going to be very light in because we want to be able to see the different layers shining through. So we're going to add some water and make it lighter than you think like that is pretty light. So I'm going to make it even lighter. Better off starting light to light. Then because we don't want super big puddles here, I will go into just dab my brush just a little bit onto the paper towel just to get some of that color out. And now the next thing I want to talk about is placements. We're going to we don't want to place anything directly in the middle. We want it off just slightly off the middle of the center because it's more pleasing to the eye that way. So that's one of the rules of design. Okay, within a, so I'm gonna do it to slightly off to the side. And what we want to do is have a variety of sizes, variety of color. And we want to, when we place a color down, we want to place it at least in one other place, preferably three other. So we want to try to have odd numbers, okay, just because it is more pleasing to the eye, it keeps interest on the page. It keeps our eyes on the paved, and that's what we'd like. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to take the same color. And I'm going to lighten it a little bit more just by dipping my brush into the water, just just the tip of it. Okay. Right. Been off the edge, the excess water. And I'm going to put it one more place. Okay, it's the same color here, but just a little bit lighter. Alright. And now we can go with, let's say low turquoise. And again, make sure you get it super light. I'm going to define what y-bar brush on the paper towel to get some of it off. And then let's see, we're gonna go here. And in this layer we don't want to touch the circles. We don't want them to bleed together. In this project, we will do one later where we're going to have a bleed. And it began to put two circles next to each other. We try not to have them the same size. Just because variety makes for a more interesting painting. I really want to encourage you and invite you to put on some soothing music. Don't forget to breathe. Okay, Just sit back like this first time. Maybe just watch me paint just to get the ideas. And then when you try it just just an end. It's okay if they're all the same size, even if it just doesn't matter, I'm just would like to offer you some tips on design and you can do with them what you will because you know what all the rules of ATP broken. Alright, so let's put one more Hamline. I dump that one and to the water and get a lighter version here. Okay. Let's go for that. I'm gonna bring it over here. This is the Winsor Newton indigo. Going to lighten that up quite a bit above the x-axis. Again, careful not to gory into the center and see these circles are not perfect. And I'm okay with that. Last one. I'm going to my brush in the water and make it a little bit lighter. See, I'll put that one here. Right, so Let's mix some of this Turk and with the other colors. Mixing colors. It's so much fun. I'm going to take a bit of that and put it off to the side because I want to add some more water and make it light. A little bit more Turk in there. This is the low turquoise by Daniel Smith. Okay, so I'm going to wipe off my brush a little bit. Say let's put this one here, which is Perry. So see how beautiful the colors are. Pulling down here. This breathe. Get into the flow of the water color. Brush. Let's try some of this Winsor Blue, kinda bright. So I really want to lighten it up a bit off the excess. And again, I'm making my choices of placement. The typically almost triangular. I can see I just did this. This Winsor blue here, here and here. Just, it just gives it a nice balance and it's in threes, which is also gives it a nice balance. So I think that's good for this first layer. Am going to dry it now and we'll come back and we're gonna put second layer on top of it. So I love using this heat at the crop tool by Ranger. You can use a hairdryer and there's other heat tools that you can use this well, I prefer this limits not it doesn't blow quite as hard. So if you're so stuck and I'll blow the water all over the place like some of them can do. So. I just really like this one. So and if you see my paper curled up after I dried it. So a way to fix that is to once you know, it's for sure, Dr. flip it over. Just blasts a little bit of heat onto the backside. It's kind of go back and forth until you get it. Okay. All right, so we're gonna get some of this Prussian blue, and I'm going to add it into this Turk for a different shade with It's so pretty, It's so let's add some more circles. Still doing it the same way. I still make an inlay and still loading up my brush and then wiping it off on my paper towel. This time, however, I'm going to overlap them. Okay, so let's see, I'm going to start this one over here. Let's go over here. Say these two circles are pretty much the same size. So I'm going to, I think this one larger and just add some variety. Going to dip my brush and get lighter. Just do a nice light shade on this one. Relate value, I should say. I think it's going to look really cool. So I'm going to try that again. Let's see how about right here. That got dark. Just put a little to the side at some water fresh and then let's see you. We will pick that one here. And we see you over here. My impression, do a lighter shade. Rate. Cut some of that Winsor blue. Mix, little a Turk in it. I should wipe it off. Let's go right here. It looks very close to that color, so let's add some blue in there. Just to change it up a bit. Now. That's really pretty I love that. Goes down here. And then I'm just going to get a little water to lighten it and we can bring that on right here. Number the circles do not have to be perfect. Next, these two together, cobalt blue tends to be very cold blue for a minute up with a little bit of the other colors. I'll say that's probably pretty clean that up a little bit more here. That was still wet. So it's bleeding in and that's all right. Remember we're doing these to calm down, right? To relax too, change our, our moods in an emotional state into a healthier state. To say, Oh wow, I wonder what that's going to be. It's going to be really pretty when that dries. Right? So these are pregnant darks, which is nice. It helps us to have different values. And thus, because most of them are very light, but that's as dark as I want to make it. So I'm going to go back to getting very light. And let's try some other suitably and blue lot of water. Because I'm feeling like we should have some super, super light ones. Let's see, Let's start here. And we'll put another one. And again, I'm just trying to decide, Okay, well, I've got this here. They're gonna need a light one right here, because these are kinda while mid tones and with one dark. So I'm going to make it even lighter. And see how light that is, right that off. And I'm going to put that great here. I see that super light, it's going to be very pretty. And it put on more right here. And I'm going to let something right there. Let's take this and make it very light. Right there. There we go. Nice. Okay, I need to let this dry. And then we're gonna take a look at it and see if we want to add anymore. And again, this is all personal preference. To pay attention to the space in between is still some space in here. That's the negative space in, that also helps to produce some, some calm in these paintings. And kind of give it a try. Police dry pretty fast because we don't have a ton of water and lump, which is nice. So let's take a look. We want to kinda pull it up, stand back. Filling pretty good to me. I think I just want one more here. Yeah. I was gonna make it small. I'm going to get to some small circle. Is felt like it needed a little something there. Let's put the color a couple more places. And see, I didn't want to put it here. I didn't want to have three circles in a row that landed on that line. For variety's sake. Let's see already. Let's give it a try and see what we think. I think this is going to be good. That's good. Now when I stand back and look at it, very calming to me. It makes me happy to look at it. I felt Google, I painted it. It was good. And that is our first circle.
4. Warm Color Circles: Welcome back. We are going to work on our warm color circle painting. And what I want to stress here is that we're going to do them very, very lights. We definitely want to have a lot more water versus pigment on our color palette here. And because warm colors are typically very bright, bold, vibrant. And if we're looking to soothe ourselves from stress or worry and anxiety, we want to bring that energy down and we can still do it with a warm color painting as long as we keep the colors very, very light. And I tend to use just the reds and pinks. I stay away from the oranges and yellows. So I'm going to be using these colors. I've got rose, madder, Permanent Rose, Permanent red, vermilion. And I've got my bright opera here, which is a really beautiful pink color. And over here on the other side of my palette, I've got Daniel Smith coin and coral, which is one of my favorite colors. So beautiful. And so let's just start with that one. And again, remember we're using warm colors which tend to be more vibrant and a little bit louder. So we want to start them very, very, very light. See how light that is. I'm going to dab my brush here, and I'm going to start off center. And super, super light. This color makes the praise paint gets Daniel Smith coining coral. Oh my goodness you guys. It's beautiful. I'm going to put one here. Then I'm going to grab some more color and then dip my brush and just very quickly write it on the edge. And I'll put another circle here. And actually I'm going to put a couple more of those because we're going to be a nice light color, which is very pretty, right? And let's go with some bright opera, see that is very bold. And we're going to throw a lot of color, I mean, water at this one. Okay, so that's nice and light. I'm going to dab the brush. And then we're gonna think about space, our spacing, leaving some white space. And that's too close. Okay, I'm gonna have to make that one larger because it's right next to that one. So we want to vary the sizes.
5. Overlapping Circles: Welcome to our next lesson. We are going to go from these really pretty spacious, translucent circle paintings to something that's more than layered. And that as they're bigger circles, that colors are a bit bolder and we're letting the colors bleed together. We're letting them touch when they're wet. So they produce these beautiful blends and bleeds. So this is what we're going to be going for. You noticed the circles are larger, are the colors are darker. There is more movement in them. We see all these, these blends of the colors together and we have these blooms right here. And so this is more, It's very loose, okay, Now, so this is very still, it's, the colors are kind of flat, but it's still beautiful like the being able to see through the layers, the translucency of it is just so pretty. So this is one way to do the circles, and this is another way to do the circles. Like I said, there's way less space on it. So let's just again, I'm going to use this one here. We did just blues this one. Let's add some green. I think I'm going to, I think in this one I added some Daniel Smith Prussian Green and this looks like the Mission Gold Van Dyke green. And then I have some other blues in here. So let's just go for that. We're going to do blues and those two greens, I'm going to limit the greens to just those two colors that speak in. And remember, we're going to have these. We don't have to wipe our brush on the paper towel because we want these to be wetter circles. What are puddles of paint? We also want them to be a little bit on the darker side. So when you're going to have more pigments to the water. And this is great for Michigan goal because they're very high pigmented colors. Okay, here's some, so really in this gonna get a couple of petals, need to get some of this yellow turquoise, which is that Daniel Smith color. Gorgeous. I'm just prepping a couple of puddles. You don't have to do this. Just depends on my mood. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And then I've got this Prussian grain over here on this part of my palette. This is a Daniel Smith Prussian Green. Get very rich, dark moody color. It's really, really beautiful. And then we still have this some Winsor Newton indigo right here. So definitely going to use some of that. And then we got the Prussian blue from mission goals bring some of that, or this is a nice dark moody blue. It's one of my faves. You can see a hint. It has less of that than only other blues. Alright, so a cell going for a variety of color, are we still going for a variety of shade? We got we do have some really small circles and where have more medium to large circles. So let's, let's just again start with this Prussian blue. I'm just going to start with the big pinkish circle. Right? Remember we're breathing, relaxing our shoulders. We're not holding tight to the brush where have a loose grip on it. We're a little bit up further on the handle, not super tight down at the at the tap. Let's pick a later version of that here. I'm going opinion at the darker blue and maybe I'll make that a little bit smaller. All right, Now that we're gonna get our next color, Let's go ahead and dive right into this Prussian Green. Load up my brush. I'm going to just put that right next to it. I'm going to just thump right up against it. So that way the colors blend together. This green is bleeding into that blue. Let's get some more ends to it, bigger or circle. Down here. It's okay to move your paper and let your materials work for you. Let's get a lighter Valley by just dip in our brush into the water. And I'm just going to wait buffs, just slightly only water jar. And I'm going to put this right here and see another one right here. Let's do another one right here. And into this fellow turquoise. Or we can pump into that one. And then I can go Baker and just go straight into these two here. I'm loving how these colors are bleeding. See that, just plug it right into that. A little bit lighter and create here. Let's see some of this indigo, this right here. Remember we're trying to have to put a circle dead center. And so giving you some of these tips on composition will just help in your decision-making. So you're like, oh my goodness wish I put another circle. So I put it here. I'm I'm gonna, you know, usually due to two or three more times. I try to do it three. I don't always do three because like I said, rules are made to be broken. But I know sometimes when you're not sure what the next move should be, it can cause you stress and that is not the point of this class. We are trying to relieve stress here. So let's put this right here. Okay, so I got that Prussian blue layer there and there. And that makes kind of a triangular shape, not a perfect triangle, okay? Just like I did this harsh in green here, here and here, and that makes a triangular ship shape. Was actually we need another turquoise, so we've got that. So let's go, let's go here. Let's connect these, these two here. I'm just going to let the colors bleed into each other. Let me make some really beautiful blooms and these circles. Let's get so peacock blue. Remember, it's good to have different, we have different values, got very light, we've got Midtones, and then we got darker tones here. So let's bring some, this peacock blue here. So such a dreamy color it makes me think of mermaids. This is the mission goals. Put that there and let's do maybe slightly lighter or you can put that down here. And then how about one over here? I'm going to slightly later. Now let's mix some of the colors. Let's mix this, will get some of this Prussian Green. Let's mix it end with this truly in blue, you get a little bit more civilian. More Prussian Green. Lighten it up just a bit. And we'll see what happens. Let's see, let's put one right here. Well that's really gorgeous. That shade is so pretty. I love mixing greens and blues. And actually if you mix a brown and a blue goes down when aid here, remember there's no mistakes, nothing has to be perfect. We're doing this just for the process, just to this beautiful serenity that it, that it just helps to come over your body and mind. And so it can make it bigger ones. Let's see. Let's get. Hello. I don't know what color we haven't used yet. Is that Van Dyke green, which is right here. Let's put it right here with an bump it right up against that. And that's going to be able to blend with peacock blue. We can bring some of that over here. Let's bring moods. Don't hear. So pretty you guys. I love watching it. Do It's beautiful thing here. Look, you can see right here the starting to have that cauliflower bloom, which I love. And these, these blends are just going to be gorgeous. Let's take a moment and just like stop painting and just watch. This is one of the very few times in watching paint dry is just fun. It's gorgeous, It's surprising. So enjoy watching the paint dry because it is magical things that happens. See this blue is bleeding into this green and traveling along. So Saul, so beautiful. Okay, So let's pick some Prussian blue with some of the yellow turquoise. Happens with that mixture of light and up a little bit. I want to make sure to have different values. And I want to put the rate here, kinda make a bigger circle. It's pretty spring, summer that over here. Let's see. One more we're going to bring, I get that. And then doing a smaller stroke. Oh, so pretty this see this automatically elevates my mode. I love getting to see these colors blend together and do their magical things. Oh my God. So this makes me happy. I looked at this and it just makes me so happy that immediately makes me stop thinking about anything stressful. It immediately decreases my worry because all I'm doing right now is I'm focusing all my attention on this page. And when there's this much happening on the page, there is so much to look at, so much is happening. And so the other stuff just goes away. And we need this in our lives. We need to have times where we are completely free of worry and stress so that we can have happiness. We all deserve happiness and so that our bodies can, can heal because we were in a constant state of stress and worry. It makes it more difficult for our bodies to recover. And if I was depressed, this would immediately make me happy. I was depressed. I'd have probably like, I'd have music maybe like seventies music, eighties music. Probably have a pretty loud and I probably be dance in a messy while I'm painting and like this just would bring my mood up so, so much. So I really encourage you to try these activities out, especially when you're feeling depressed or feeling anxious and just see if it works. I mean, some days that might work. In some days it might not, you know, there's nothing that's a 100 percent right. But I'm willing to bet that many days it's going to work. So pretty. Let's think. Let's move on. Let's just mix all these colors together. And they want to put something here. And then I'm going to dip my brush in the water to lighten up that value. And let's put it here. And then dump it in once again. Let's put that over here. All right, well, I'm going to stop right here. I'm going to let this dry naturally. So it can continue to travel in, merge with the other colors on its own. If we put a heat gun on this right now, it's going to stop that process in when we doing when we're doing these wet on wet kind of circles, we definitely don't want to stop that process from happening. We want to see these beautiful moments happening. Actually, I'm going to put another one here, but I want it to be very light. I'm going to even want it to be lighter. So I'm going to rinse my brush off, which is basically bringing water in. I'll look at how that's turbulent. Get that blend. So pretty. And I'm going do one more super because I got that one that's really lighten this one. So let's do one more up here. Bring it in and want some more spill in right in there. So pretty all right. I'm going to leave that and when I come back after this has dried, we're going to put on our second layer.
6. Adding More Layers to Your Circles: Okay, now this is dry. We're going to put on a second layer. And we want these to be a variety of the Docker and mid-tone and light. Alright, so we do want, I really love the look of this one and these worms definitely seem lighter because you can see through them. So let's get going. See that start with some phthalo turquoise. I'm gonna do a lighter shade. And I'm going to dab that off a little bit and I want it super wet for this layer. Let's go here. It's going to bring in some water to light up. Okay. Let's bring that somewhere else. How about here? And then over here, let's bring in some of that Van Dyke green and put like a dark right here. Darker. And then that's really lighten that up. And you can even mix these two colors and bring that right here. We can read that color in here. All right, Now let's cover that out. Let's bring that in one more plays out. So pretty yellow over here. Right now That's pretty in some more light colors. Let's get some of that column. Peacock blue light in that right up. Bring some of that here. Let's lighten that up even more. I'm just going to dump my version. He had a lightened up even more and let's bring that down here. How about over here? Well, that's pretty, let's bring in some of that indigo and, um, lighten it up quite a bit here. And we're going to bring some of that right now up again. Actually, let's bring that in over here and let's just mix all these colors together. Put that right there, and some more over here. How about down here? And then let's bring in this really in blue, very, very light. Super, super late. Let's bring in some of that right here. And I'm going to mix these two. I'm going to let these two colors mix. And mingle. That's bring some of that right here. How about over here? This needs a little bit, maybe more of a darker color. So let's bring in some way that crushing green. Let's add some of that right here. You just look around and see you and like okay, notice it was a couple of light layers over here, so I want to mix it up with some dark. Let's see. Here. I think that might be good. Let's let this layer dry and see what it looks like. All right. We'll come back to that after it dries and actually look at this, what's happened in here. Oh, my word. I'm loving that and I do remember doing that. I had the outline of the circle they are, but I felt that cholera was a little too dark, so I just added water to it and brought the color from the edges in and it was quite a bit of water. So it really caused this beautiful, beautiful blooming right there. I'm so excited to see when this dries because this is looking or just this makes art so, so, so happy. All right, I will see you back in a few. I like, well it's dry now and I am a song so excited about this, it is beautiful. I'm very happy with the results. And the more important thing is that while I painted it, I was just in the flow. I let go of all my stress and worries. I felt happy, I felt focused in and just filled with a creative joy. And that's the whole point of this monthly program is to help us to let go of that stress and find that inner peace, that inner joy that we have in this certainly did the trick. So I hope that you guys love this project as much as I do. And I hope it brings you as much joy and peace as it did for me. And not just that, just just so happy. I was got so excited watching this all this process happen. I just loved it. I can't wait to see yours, please, please share with me. You can share below in the comments so you can share on our Facebook group. I look forward to seeing your projects. I'll see you in the next lesson.
7. Bonus Lesson Circles: Hello everyone. I just wanted to give you all this bonus lesson on overlapping circles. As you can see, we're doing them in nice and juicy. And when I did this video, I was just kinda playing around and I hadn't been music playing and I had as kinda rocking out to Will Smith, some old-school stuff. And I was trying to relax and that stuff, even though I love it, it was just a little bit too loud and too active and I wanted to kinda quiet down, so I shot the music off and I'm going to end up playing something more relaxing. To soothing. Music makes a big difference too. I'm trying to just really stressed out. Make sure to have quiet music. They're going away. That's leading into that blue. I love it. Each other's shoulders. Brush in the water, brush off a little bit and you're gonna get a lighter shade of that color. I'm gonna go even a little bit. Try not to put two of the same size next to each other, just to make him a pleasing composition. A little bit. You can make sure blows. Get some different shades. Boolean with the fallow turquoise. Put a nice dark. I'm going to put that same darker value. Please another place together and do it one more place that my brush in the water. So I can make a lighter version of that. Again, make it even lighter. So much fun. Peacock blue at some of that. And make it a little bit lighter. I'm going to make a small put that to be flowy. Don't want it to be nice and juicy. Cobalt blue into that same mixture there. Shade. Let's put a one here. Over here. Right here. I really like I'm going to put that over here so you get that beautiful shade right there. Just a little bit more of that workplace. Such appreciate. Connect that are there. This up here to a dry, so these are just going to layer on top of it. Don't get too fussy. It doesn't have to be perfect. Like I'm festival a little bit too much with a circle. Relaxed already.
8. Wet on Wet Circle Grid : Welcome to our next lesson. Today, we are going to create this project here. We're going to have our circles and more of a grid format. Instead of as loose, you know, all over pattern. We're going to be doing it in this great format. And what we're gonna do is wet and wet technique. And then I'll make these circles very interesting to work with. And then once they dry, we're going to do some mark making on top. So you can see some of the other ones completed. So before I did the mark making, they will look something like this or like that. And so we're going to behave just kinda mixing color right into these circles as we go down a few others to show you a difference down these colors I check to water and so they've got those blooms on them. I've added different colors is some blue with some yellow year. And here, I'm sorry, this is a cool color palettes still at its blues, greens and with a hint of warm from the yellow. This is another version which is more blues there, almost gray blues and the colors are pretty flat. I didn't really do a lot of white and white and this legend maybe a little there, but the rest are pretty flat because I wanted to see the difference between flat color with mark-making on it and then more wet in wet technique, which is more movement in the color with this. And then I also did this version which I really love. This is a limited color palette. This has got four colors and some of them are mixed in to make different shades. This has Daniel Smith colors and I wrote them on the back after the fact. And elaborate think I think one of them is clearly goals. This English red or tightened buffer and undersea green. And then for this one I just did the white for the mark-making. And you can see this quite a bit of a difference. The so much of, of different variety. I mean, this would look completely different if I had done black mark making or if I did a variety of white and black mark making. So there's just a couple of different versions for a unit. Give you some ideas. And one of the wonderful things about these projects is you can do so much with them by burying the color scheme or making the colors more like this flat, or making the colors look more vibrant with the wet and wet technique that I'm going to show you. You can totally dress it up. This is beautiful on its own like that. But looking at how magical it is once you add some mark making. So it's just a lot of variety that we can do, which is what we're going for here. All right, so let's get started. I remember what going to make these circles really, really wet weather then you think that you'll need. So I'm going to stick with that same color palette here. I'm going to use the blues, greens and a touch of yellow. So let's go ahead and start. It will turquoise. And we don't want to have a variety of some lighter colors and some darker colors. Then for this one, because I am trying to make it more of a pattern three across four down with fairly evenly spaced, fairly even space in between them. So I'm going to start in the muscle because of trying to make the circles more even across. I am the ranking it is further down on the brush. Just so I have a little bit more control. So I draw the circle out and then I can move up my brush and then my hand goes back more so that I can just and fill that in. And see this is a lot of water. As you can see this a lot of water in there. And so that's my brush. Get some of this yellow ocher and some in. Here we go. Oh, that's so cool. Let's learn a little bit. Often people tolerate. All right, Well that's so pretty I can't wait to see what that's gonna look like when it's dry. And get some of this peacock blue, I'm just going to mix it right into that. A little turquoise little bit. This doesn't have to be perfect. You can have all the circles touching if you want. That's totally up to you how we can do maybe one like this where there's a space in between them and then another one where they're all touching. It could be a different way to do this project. Right now Let's drop in some of this very light gray. How about we go for the Van Dyke green for yes. And let's bring in some real goals. And another green gold is really interesting things. Green gold is what I all eight runner, because it spreads very quickly and it's really exciting. So my brush, and I'm just gonna dividend a little c here that does, That's just pure magic guys, PR, PR, magic. And so beautiful makes it look like there's a light glowing right from within it. Oh my goodness. All right. So we get some professional learning. And I'm just going to mix it with a color that's already on the palette. For our next circle. I love mixing colors. Mixing greens and blues together is so me. And mixing our touch a brown with blue on my goodness, you guys knew me so pleased with that. It looks so for a fun love that What I'm gonna do with that one is just a little bit of water in the sun. And I'm going to let that dry just a little bit and then get some water. And this one actually It's very pulled up on that side. Hello. This is so exciting to me. I feel a kind of like a mad. So I get to this. So that color is so pretty. Let's just get some straight up pushing green circles way bigger than that. That's all right. I'm not a big deal. We're not doing this to make perfectly frame. To sell art. We're doing this to unwind, doing this to share ourselves. Self-care time, elevate our moods. So pretty cool. Another color. This color is really pulling their site and I'm going to lift it up someone just going to take my paper towel and just put the tip of it in there and see that sounds great. I'm not I'm trying not to touch the paper too much because I don't want to disturb the color too much. And the minus it's going to take forever to dry. See, Let's try the green one. Like that. So pretty. Let's get some peacock blue going. That has dried up in water and see what happens when I do that. In the lab. What I want to add some yellow. Just see the way I do this. What I want, what comes up to me like, oh, I wonder how that would feel like doing that. And that's intuitive. Just try to really get into. Sometimes what I do is I will allow often have sticky notes or notebook or something next to me. And when I'm just playing and exploring color combo that I really, really love, I'll just make a note that was created and say, well turquoise and then London that. So I might want to definitely want to try that color again some time. Then some questions, you can let that dry. I'm going to take some of this yellow and see what happens in eight minutes. Color here. And add some. Curiosity is really pretty. And I don't have to know the formula. I just created this color. Just simply say we're here and we're actually what's happening. And then join the blending that's happening. Let's add a color that's already there. This color that's already there is kind of built it up. You can push that holds hello chart. Use more water than you think that this technique.
9. Adding Some Salt: How about we try sprinkling some salt? This is just fine sea salt and sprinkle it on it when it's still wet. So let's sprinkle some here. Some here. Well that's still wet. Just to spread this selfie goodness and other places and maybe this one to all of them. So I'm going to put quite a bit on this. You'd need to let dry. You don't want to use the heat. Okay? Maybe one more up here. All right. Now some colors react better to solve than others. And you'll find that as you continue on your watercolor journey. And this last circles going to have to leave it small because the size has got bigger here and that's really fine. Look at, see what colors I have. What I haven't done in a bit. Let's actually add some green and blue. That's so beautiful. Look at that. It's got a smoky. Oh my gosh, I love it. All right. Let's see what shall we do? What I want. I'm just going to add some yellow, green, gold. We here to our rats. That quite a bit going on there. Let's soften that up a couple of places. Now I'm going to let that finish drying on its own. And when we come back, we're going to do some more thinking. I'll check out what's happening here already. Look at this. See the magic that is watercolor. With slashes and solids. You can do so many wonderful things. Can't wait to see how this is going to look when it dries. All right. I'll be back soon.
10. Mark-Making Time: Okay, now this is dry and the first thing we're gonna do is wipe off the salt. And at its best to use a paper towel and rub on it gently just in circular motion that way just in case anything is actually still a little bit wet, if you like, swipe it across the page, it's going to smudge all over the yellow circles and we don't want that. So I'm just going to very gently rub on the salt to lift it up. And then we can just write that off and look at this beautiful, look at this, oh my goodness. See how pretty that is. That magic in there. And this, we have the water plus the salt. So these are, these are beautiful completely on their own. I mean, you could even just hang that up. It's just so pretty. We are going to take it a step further and do some fun mark-making on it. Alright, so what I've got here is a couple of Posca markers, one and white and one in this is called the yes, this is Ivory. I've got a white gel pen. You can use a black gel pen tool. I've got a couple of black markers here. They're the unit pen, fine line there, waterproof pigment inks. And love those, they're beautiful. And I got a couple of watercolor brushes as well as some white ink. This is the liquid techs aid you can use. Any white ink doesn't matter the brand, just make sure to give it a good shake. And then I use this as my ink palette. This is just actually a cover from a Pringles can, yummy Pringles, potato chips. So There we go. So let's just start with the white gel pen. And you can do anything you want here. We can just do dots. And you can do them random like this, or you can put them in columns and rows. All right, So that's one thing we can do. We can do Liza two different thicknesses. This is a very thin line. This is a thicker line. So we can create some lines going through to some connecting lines. No, forget you can turn your paper, make it easier for you. Let's break up the Posca pen. That Posca pen we need to shake, shake it. And I got a little extra piece of paper here. You may have to pump it a little bit to get it flowing. So let's do this. Just fun, just make whatever marks feel good to you can even stop there. Just have a habit be a partial mark-making there or you didn't bring it to the whole circle. Don't forget to use music as a tool to help to reduce stress. Maybe put on Emancipator is one of my favorite instrumental groups. Play really, really enjoy it really triggers my creativity something about their music. So I often will listen to that, my pain when I'm in the mood for something that's instrumental. And take some deep breaths and just relax. That's awesome, I love that. Let's see. Let's use the older worker here. You can go do like teardrops here. You could do that. We can even leave it like that or we can add some. I've got this larger tip, the bullet tip. So we can add those throughout. I'll look at how that bright in that radar, that's beautiful. Love it. Some white ink now. Squeeze little bit out here. Always make sure you cover your inks because you don't want to spill that over. It's going to make a giant mess. Speaking from experience. Alright, so I decided to add some Q-tips to the mix here. I'm gonna take my cue tip here, dip it in my ink and just press down gently. We can leave it just like that. Or we could go ahead and go ahead and this brush into it. And this is just one of those script liners and a size one. I'm just going to make little dots. You can do this with toothpicks. I've done this with toothpicks before. They make nice tiny dots. And when you want to get a small dot, you just make sure to just barely touch the paper, right? Make sure that you rinse your brush out after if you're not going to do another mark on it. Let's get some more ink. And a little bit my brush. I'm going to do this down here. I'm just gonna kinda hold my brush on the side and just do a quick stamp like that. This one here. And we're gonna take this as a point. And I'm just going to use some loops here. Remember to turn your paper. Let the paperwork for you. Be careful. I just took my hand in that. The Posca pen. Here we go. You might want to like put like this is really pretty, I don't want this marker to get in the way of its eigen circle around it. All right, we can also use, Let's see, Let's bring this color back in again. And let's just do some skipping lines. This one right here to do. Let's just load up this brush. Just going to make these hash marks on it. This one. So pretty I don't want to do a lot to it, which is going little dots here. And when doing this and I set a, the white that's up there. Let's go with white. I'm going to create this little pattern here. Make it look like that's kinda going off the page. The circle they mean. All right. So we can make so many different marks. I've got some of the other examples. These little x's you get like black dots that are some are bigger than others. We've got the hatch marks. We can just simply do curved lines and got these right here. Continuum more longer loops there. Just to give you some different ideas, you can go geometric here and do this one recently. That one got messed up. But that's okay. Who cares, right. This is just practice. It's a half of a nine by 12 piece of watercolor paper. So it's really not that big of a deal, right? And this one I did decide to go just halfway up with those curved rainbow we lines, rainbow shape lines. And I really love how that locked. So I just kept it like that. Alright, so I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you in the next lesson.
11. All Over Circles Composition: All right, so we're back and we're going to work on our final project. And what we're gonna do is a combination of what we've done so far. So we started out with these very light translucent, a spacious circles, and we did a layer, let it dry, and then came back on top of another layer. And we did it in a pretty flat watercolor. It was more water than pigment. And they are, We did not do much of a wet and wet technique. And we did the quorum, call it the cool colors and warm colors. And then we also did these very layered circles where we let the colors flow into each other and we came back on top of that was another layer as well. And then finally we did this the wet and wet circles, where there is multiple colors in each circle. And then we did that fun mock making on top of it. So what I would like to do is to combine these in a way that we haven't done this yet. So my idea is to do something more with spacious circles and do it the more light colors, more translucent and let the one layer dry, come back in with a second layer. And then on top of those more flat looking colors, we're going to bring in some mark making. Alright, so let's get started. I've chosen a color palette. There's seven colors in it. And we've got the Crimson Lake, bright clear violet, so really in blue. And I'm also bringing in a Daniel Smith color is the nickel titanate yellow. I really loved this. Yellow. It's very, it's more of an opaque yellow. It's very buttery and just really beautiful and really make this painting pop. So I'm just going to bring that in over here, make a little bit of a puddle for that. And because we're working with so many different color, warm and cool and littering in a second water jar. To brush off in between. Another color that we're going to use is burnt sienna. I wanted to bring kind of a a couple of earthy colors. And this is a warmer color. So I'm bringing in burnt sienna as well as red brown. Color is so beautiful, I love it. Quite a bit of water to that. And then for our green, decided on hookers green a bit. So I just got my petals already. And again, since we're doing a bigger paper for doing twice the size, so we have way more room to work with. So I'm gonna make my circles bigger. The Lewis start with that Crimson Lake, which is right here. We're going to get a look. I'm a Jew. Brainless water over here, this up here. And then I just sop up some more water here because you want more than a flat, smooth color. And remember, I'm not gonna put it right in the center. And I'm not going to let the circles touch while they are wet. I will come back in and do a second layer once they are dry. Okay, now since I've done simple here, I'm gonna do another circle, maybe make it a little bit lighter. I can put that over here. I'll make it even lighter. Just gets more water conditioning. Let's see, let's make it even. Let's put another one over here. I'm going to make it smaller. All right, Let's bring in some of that burnt sienna here. But some made here and some water making it a little bit later. Go Yeah, I like it like that. You know, welcome to do this any way you want. You can do more bold colors. Go through the paintings that you've already made and find out what you liked best. This is going to help you to discover your own style, which is very exciting. Exciting. And see what more, even lighter, right here. Remember just agree then relax, relax your shoulders. Take a brass and it's clean some severely in blue. That's the more water to that. Off my brush right here. And another one right here. I'm going to bring each color into three places. And it's the rule of thirds. It's doing that I learned much lighter weight here. Let's use some of this yellow. This is the nickel titanate, yellow. Ou, like our green, still had some blue on my brush. Rates. Let's put that in another place. And more on it over here. It would bring in some of this violence. And again, I want to make it super light. Let's go for that beautiful red brown color here. Bring that right over here. And how about a little bit later? Date here? More and more inquiry here. Get that one little color, that green. Green right here. Eight here. Go over here. Let's get this dry and then we can go right to the second layer. So for the second layer, what I'd like to do is we're going to mix some colors a little bit. So I'm going to mix some of that. So Boolean blow in with the red brown and makes a really pretty gray color. That'll bring someone neutral into this. Look at that. So pretty. You can add that right here. Now we're not going to do too many. I don't want this to get too crowded. I want to leave some space. So this is what I'm going to break the rule of thirds. Let's just do one more of this color. And what I'm gonna do is make it even lighter. And see that activated the purple that was in there, that crimson lake. And it's going to blend together really beautifully. Let's do some crimson lake and red-brown. Put that right here. I'm just going to dip my brush in the water and wipe it off and do more. That's later. Let's see. Actually that's me down a little bit bigger. Okay. Let's mix some of this Hooker's green. And with this really will just have fun with this. Try different colors, see what you think. It's printing some green right here. And you can even lighter right here. Let's do one more of those. How about right here? Let's just take a look at it and see what we think. Maybe just a couple more because I don't want this to get too crowded. Hopefully bring some more than nickel, tiny yellow, and we get very light. Put another one maybe right here. I got one more here. And go for that hookers green. I really like that. One a little bit darker. Then put that over here. Let's do one more. Little bit lighter. 2, 3, 4. Actually, let's leave it because we've got five, Wayne, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And that's good because it's an odd number. Alright, so let's leave this as it is. Am going to dry it and we're going to get right into creating the mark making in the next video.
12. Adding Some Marks to Your Circles: Okay, we are back in. This is all dry and it's time to do some fun mark-making. But this one I wanted to show you how to do some mark making with watercolor. So I've got my liner brush so it can make really thin marks. And the first thing I'm gonna do it think, is really like the look of red brown on top of that burnt sienna. So let's just start making dots. So let's just make little ones first. Then we can go back in and make some of them a little picker for variety. So I'm not going to do every single circle. I do want to leave some just a blank. Add some variety and it looks pretty cool. Then how about we do let's go with that sullying. And I'm going to get a little bit of a darker value. No, wipe it off a little bit here, and let's just do some hash marks. I wipe in some of the watercolor off on your paper towel and gives you a little bit more control because it's not dripping with water. And you can do some of them alone. Darker. Just for variety. I and again, this focus and breeze. Just enjoy this process. I'm get into forget every day stresses and you just have this moment of time where you are doing something creative. Something fun. Lighter values. Finish off with some darker values here. All right, using my white posca pen here. Let's go here. Let's move a little bit darker. I need to go over these again and make them darker. Sometimes if it comes out really clearly that you just need to shake it more. And hey, we go, I'm going to add some dots. Okay. Let's go ahead and add some big dots here with the bullet tip and this ivory color posca pen. I'm doing them kinda close together. One of the things I really enjoyed was when I used the ink. So I'm going to add some ink to this with a Q-tip. That, that was fun. Let's try that. Weekend. Bring a bamboo skewer in and we can use either end. We're going to use the tip to make those really fine. Smaller dots. Let's go ahead and Here's the other end. Can make some bigger dots. I can do that. Wanna make sure that's not dot's too many in a row. So let's do that right here. Right? Yeah, that's fun. I like that a lot. Member to just have fun, just experiment and be due one and it doesn't come out the way you like it, that's all right. You can always paint another one. I love that. Since I enjoy that so much, I'm gonna do it and another place, it's okay to do it more than once. Let's bring it over here and the smaller circle. Right? Let's bring in some marker. I'm going to do some black ink and I want to make some x's. Okay? This is a finer one. This is the point 0, 5, and we've got black there. So let's bring some over here. Careful for the wet ink. And I should probably turn to in the black ink last. So let's highlight two in this one on the N1. And by making people work for you was way too. I only put my hand in the wet ink. Okay. I like that. It's got him bring in one more place. Look into see. Okay, I've got the black ink there. Got blacking care. That's maybe bring it in and make that triangular shape. Let's do it right here. Let's just bring in some vertical dashes. How about some white here, here and here? And they're all dots. So let's bring some weight in or make it that they're bringing it right here. Hello this a couple of times here. Okay. All right. Let's see. I think I just wanna do a couple more and we'll leave it at that because I don't want to do too much. Let's try purple and I'm going to see if this will work. I'm just going to take my skewer dividend that purple. Enjoyed making this design. So what do you do with these on the smaller ones, you can test out the different mark making designs and then maybe bring them into these bigger designs. Know whatever your favorite ones are. Can I go back over some of it is. All right. And let's see, just kinda hold it up. Look at it from a distance. I don't want something here. I think I'll do is use the watercolor and that was burnt sienna. So I'm going to bring in burnt sienna on top of it. So it's tone on tone and I'm going to make a darker version. Shown to load up my brush really good. I've been awesome. And then for this one, I'm going to. I like how that looks, That's pretty you can do these with, you know, three or four. Truly semi or for me, is it maybe light a candle? Maybe see some mantras with this. Creative. I am creative. Each stroke, I'm creative. I am, I am worthy, beautiful. My interests can be very powerful when we repeat them over and over like that, it helps to reprogram your brain and think differently. I am worthy, I am, I am creative. Come up with whatever it is that you need to believe about yourself, about your life, make you unique to you. I'm a good mom. I am loving, kind. Hello. This is so relaxing. And getting lost in the process. Take a breath, take a break, maybe go make a cup of tea. Just come back to it with fresh eyes. I got okay. I'm going to stop that there. You're welcome to create marks in all of the circles if you'd like. You can layer over it even more. There's just so many ways to do this. So it's just limited by your imagination and I'm hopefully I'm helping with your imagination to spark new ideas and, and get your creative juices flowing. All right, I hope you enjoyed this month's lessons. Next month we are going to be focusing on what? One? Next month we're going to be focusing on the flow of watercolor or getting, get into some really juicy flow, a beautiful things to just really let loose.
13. Color Play: Reveal: Okay, we're back in. This is all dry and I'm going to show you how to take the tape off without ripping the paper. Whatever you do, don't just rip it off, okay. Because it will rip the paper. So I'm using my ranger heat at Kraft tool, which is my fave. I like how it's nice and quiet. So what I do is I just run it along the edge of the tape. And what this does is it melts the glue on the tape. And then I start to lift up here on the edge. And then what I do is I run the heat AT tool and I am going to pull the tape up and away from me and I'm going to have my gun here, my heat gun here, heating it up as I pull off. Just do that for all four edges. Gotta be careful too. You don't want this like blowing on your skin because it is super hot. Here we have our beautiful little squares of color. Bliss here. We've got beautiful. I am loving how this light brown and permanent model up together. I'm not happy with the yellow, orange and the Payne's gray. I don't like all that came out. And so see, this is the things, these are the things that you can learn from doing these squares. What colors you like, what colors you don't like together. So I'm not a fan of that. See, this is really beautiful together. And where it has that the center is still, you can still see some of the white of the paper. It just looks like there's light shining through it. I love that. Not slug and the red bow with the Winsor blue. So I wouldn't use that together. Also not a huge fan of the coin coral and the yellow ocher. But I am loving this bright violet and phthalo turquoise love it. So what I typically do is I look over these afterwards and I put like a little heart next to the ones that I love because this lets me know I can quit glands. Which color combos I might want to come back and do these two. This two. Okay, so just go ahead and you can do the same with your sheets if you'd like. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this color play exercise here. There is so many ways to play with color with watercolor. That's just actually one of my favorite things to do. So many of my paintings that I have are just not even finished paintings. They are just color play. I just love, love, love to play with color. Oh, and don't forget to. Please take photos of these. Showed them down either in the comments and this lesson or over on our Facebook group. All right guys, I will see you in the next lesson.
14. Bonus Video Getting Splashy: Okay, now let's choose another color combination. And I actually really loved this bright violet and yellow turquoise together. So I'm going to use those two colors. I'm going to use my spray bottle and I'm going to wet my paper this way just to get a couple of squirts on. Let's just be really playful about this. And you see, I love this here because where the water is sprayed, this is making a path. I love how that does that. So just be playful with your brush, just like stamp it on, maybe ladder. Just be playful. Have fun. Just to get in touch with your inner child. When we did this kinda stuff on my goodness, just be super playful. Kids love to splash, right? Whew, that was a super dark concentrated color LED. I love this. This is super fun. You want, you can tip it. Becomes flow. R1 left that. Okay, so I'm going to leave that right there. I'm going to let this one dry. And notice I'm leaving some white on the paper.
15. Arches and Columns with Bold and Juicy Colors: All right guys, we are back for another lesson on color play with lots of flow. So we are going to make the fun beautiful arches. And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to use a flat brush. You can use a round brush if you want to. And I'm just going to start with a random color. I'm just going to hit around like that. I'm going to go for another color. And I'm going to go right over that first color. And the colors flow together and blend than that. Can you want? And I would just go onto the next line, the first line and just bring it down. Well, I'm just choosing colors randomly. Okay? So if I was going to use blue, but since I did blue up there, I want to choose a different color just to have different variety. Let's go for a Van Dyke and go back in and make it a little darker if you want to come back and pushing that color over its impression. This is fun. See what happens is you end up blending the colors and you can see I've got that permanent rose plus that Prussian blue. Just look around to see what colors. And I don't have a lot of I thought it would be nice to have another yellow color. I'm going to do. Look at that. Oh my goodness, I love this color. And that's that C, just super fun little exercise. And then you get to also see what colors are blending together. And you know, sometimes even though I record myself to teach lessons, sometimes I'll record myself when I'm just want to explore and play because oftentimes I'll get a color combo or do something and I end up loving it. And I can't remember what I did because while I'm 51 and I have fibromyalgia, my brain fog is no joke. But yeah, this is so pretty I love it. And then let's do another one that's similar to, it's going to look like this. Okay. So and these are just half sheets of nine by 12. I just cut them in half. So there are six by nine. Now we're just gonna do the same thing. Well, similar to line down. You can either do it right next to it or just kinda maybe slightly slanted like that. We can even go up like that. Just enjoy, this looks almost tie dye. The colors just blending together, which I live. Well, let's try just got inspired to try something. What if we what? This first? So you haven't tried this one yet, guys? I just got an I like I got curious. We turn my paper to try to see that it is pretty evenly wet. Okay. So I got curious and let's just give this a try. And go back over this one because it got a little blurred. This one. So pretty. And then one more. Let's do green gold is Daniel Smith's going gold. Totally ran together. But it's still so beautiful, very, very different from this. So you can do these in so many different ways. These are the shades of the colors were definitely lighter shades. I use more water than pigment. These are way more bold. And this actually I used on a different piece of watercolor paper. I think this is Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper. And so the texture of the paper is different, so the water's react different. But look at how beautiful this is going to be an, okay, let's just throw a little bit of salts. And here we've listed, try to see what it's going to look like. You're not doing a ton of salt. Just a little bit. What if we do? Let's just keep going. Let's go this way. Isn't that color so beautiful? That's red, violet. And now I'm going to dip my brush into the water jar and then just wipe it off the side once. And then it gets even more juicy. And I'm going to rinse it. Go for peacock blue. And I'm going to dip my brush on the side. I'm going to lighten that up and do that color again. I'm going to actually bring it up top here. Oh, I didn't mean to put that there. It's kind of breaking the pattern. But so what, who cares, right? We can see I want grams, Hannah, love that color so much. And then let's go ahead and just fill it in. Now I got to crave into just fill that in. So well, we can just leave it like this. So pretty look at that movement of the color. And I love it that they allow turquoise is like so, so pretty neat, little bit more yellow. So let's add some yellow right here. And some more right here. Woo. See how just playing. I just got curious and I just felt the urge to add it there. Or we could leave it here with the whitespace. Now again, like more bold with the color. Gets some red in there. Oh, that's pretty, that blended really well. I love it. So there's just some more common play list, three different ways to do it. Actually. There is a four different ways to do this. Oh, you know what? One more, one more, one more than the load torque. Right here. Yes. There we go. And we can add a little salt on that one too if we want. Well, we can just leave it at 11, the salt on that one. So I'm feeling the urge just sprinkled some salt here. Only word swat because it's not going to do that salt effect in dry areas. Just a little bit here and there. So I'm loving this here you see this, the blooming that's happening here as this is drying. So pretty. So just a few more ways to have some color play. You can do this with a very light colors. More water than pigment if you want. Like, these two are definitely lighter than these two, then these are much bolder. And then I suggest trying both ways. Try it really light, light, light colors, and then try it with some bolder colors. And then whichever you like, the best, you know, you'll probably like something, you know, something's going to draw you in more than another. So that is just a hint as to what your style is. So this is why it's so important when we're painting. To explore different things, explore different colors, different color combos. You know, painting with more rich vibrant colors like this, painting with more soft pastel colors like this. Because they're just indicators as to what you are is to what your style is. Just a little bit more salt there. I can't wait to see what that's gonna look like. Look at this guys. So pretty. So I'm going to post some pictures down and below this video. The results once these are all dry, I hope you enjoyed this fun little exercise and I will see you in the next lesson.
16. Watercolor Playgrounds: Geometric Shapes: Hello everyone, welcome to another lesson in watercolor bliss month two. In this lesson, we are going to have some fun creating some what I call watercolor playgrounds over these, I'm going to mix it up and use some of these Jane Davenport watercolors sets. They are nice and vibrant and they come in a variety of colors. This is the each column with 12 pans and these little half pans are wrapped individually and you just unwrap them, put them in. And then they come with this little piece of paper that you can put a little sample of each color. I like to do is I like to try to put it at its full strength and then add some water so that way you see it at it's one, it's lighter, which I've done to both of these. So these two sets are really fun. This is the bright sat, and this is the glitz. See. Glitz see palettes, gorgeous blues and greens in this. Oh my gosh. So these are about $30 each. But if you get them at Michaels or I Hobby Lobby might carry them. I'm not sure. Definitely Michael's carries them and you use your 40 percent off coupon and they are really, really affordable. So I'm going to start with this palette here. I'm just going to put this in a way for now. And then I what I do is I just close that Lynn and I just put this right in it. So that way I don't forget because actually it's not even marked on the outside which one message which you could just go ahead and put him with a permanent marker. So this way so it's in the right direction. And so for this first one, Let's start with a base of shapes. I'm going to start with, this is my number six Princeton Neptune brush. I love these Neptune brushes. They are so good. So let's just, oh, and you know, what I'm gonna do is I am going to split. Stays. There we go. Let's look my little water bottle. So I'm going to, and this color is called sea nymph. I love the, the names of the colors are really fun. So this one, a sea nymph inlets, start with a circle. This color's really pretty decent quality. Watercolors. I really enjoyed them. And then let's mix in a little of this. Mermaid know, married. It's not called mermaid married. Okay. Say it. And I want to do some really dark and then I want to do some lights. And for this, let's just do a I'm going to do, I'm going to show you why I'm doing this in a second. I'm gonna do, look at this color is not so pretty. I'm going to do this I guess a half a circle. And then I'm gonna get this yellow, which is called trusses. Okay? And I'm going to finish off the circle with the yellow. And I'm just going to let them blend together. Now that I got this yellow, I can go ahead and maybe do like a squarish shape. So we're going to do different shapes, not just circles. And let's try this color called Lorelei. I'm going to look at that beautiful, beautiful, rich green color. And then I'm going to mix this green and blue. See it's just overlapping circle here. Let's make it even bigger. Overlap both of those shapes. So this, I've done this on just a quarter of a sheet of a nine by 12. And cold press is always going to make some of the CMS into that yellow. I'm just going to let that circle fall right off the page there. I'm just going to do this as like blues, greens and yellows. And let this be more of a ghoulish kind of watercolor palette. So let's add some yellow into this. Maybe a touch more blue. Since that's, since this one is really green here, I'm going to actually add some more blue into that. I'm just going to mix it right on the paper. Then what that color is yellow in my brush. I'm just gonna get a little water to lighten that up and put a light circle here. Let's try this color called enchantress. Dark. Let's go here. Let's do another square. So pretty colors are so beautiful. I'm going to start using these more. They are really fun. They're super easy to carry around. Look at how, how small it is. And you do have a good amount of mixing rum because you can just take that off, put it through the side and you can mix up here. Actually, I'm thinking can go off the page on this one too. Rectangle here. Got this little bit more water, so it's a little bit of a lighter shade. Let's do that one more place. Let's see how about we get different sized circles. We've got rectangles and squares. I'm not going to do a triangle, I'm just going to leave it like this and let it dry.
17. Watercolor Playgrounds: Adding Details: I really enjoy that. So I'm going to bring some of this brushwork into this one here. So this is the glitzy palettes in my size two brush. And let's just go ahead and create some my mark on the US. When you do this, you want to have a light touch because if you press me, show you, if you press too hard, you going to get a really thick line. Okay. But if you just hold it lightly and just press it really lightly and get a nice thin line. Okay? The more you press it, the thicker the line will get. Okay, so we're looking for a light touch and picking up this yellow and I'm going to bring it across and anything that's still wet, it's going to blend into really nicely. I just love that. I'm actually going to pull this over to this one here. All right. Can even take it a step further. We feed it a try this in, let me know if you enjoy it as much. And so there's no pressure because we're not like making a picture. We're not like, Oh, I have to make a flower or I have to make a cactus or whatever, shapes and marks. That's all it is. So Adam, but anybody can do this, just enjoy the process. Just make whatever you feel like making. And it really doesn't matter if it comes out and you don't like it. That's okay. All you gotta do is just toss it or we can cut it up and use it for collage, which is another lesson I'm going to show you a couple of months from now. We're gonna do it and let's add some gold. And loved this split CSAC because it's got this gold and copper. So pretty I'm going to say let's do some curves. And when you do in line mark you don't want it to, to juicy. So you do want to kind of dab your brush. We get 22 juicy. It's, it's harder to control and we need you in linework. You want a little more control. And let's make it really dark. And this puts me right into Zan, just like doing these dots. Love mark-making, add. So I'm going right into the pan here, so it's nice and it's really thick on my brush. There's not a lot of water. And let's go over here. And let's see if we kinda hold my brush to the side and stamp it along this way, it makes a different mark colored here, which is like coppery. Create some curved marks in this rectangle here. See, I am getting so lost into this. It's hard for me. And there we go. And go over those lines. I want them a little darker. And I'm trying to make these like in different directions. Just add some variety. Right now I'm going to take my number 4 brush because I want to make a bit of a bigger mark. And I'm gonna get back into the color. It's going to take what's already on my palette. And then if I just do just the tip of that and you get a smaller mark. Well, it's really pretty, It's kind of a continuation of the smartphone and a different color. Then I can do that mark but in a different direction and a little bit bigger. So I'm just quickly stamp in and I'm just touching the paper real light and just pulling the brush off. And then how about if we like this color? Let's add some more color to this. Actually, let's pull this over. We haven't used a scholar. Yeah, this looks like an olive green. Let's add a little bit of yellow to that and make it a little later. And go back to my smaller brush too. I'm just going to do little dots. And you can do these very lightly when you press them down. I'm varying the size. And again, you don't want to too much color on your brush because it's harder to control it. So in the zone. And imagine if you have music playing that really gets you into it like Emancipator. Definitely Emancipator for this. It's so, so good and soothing. So let's go ahead and see what do you want now. Let's bring in some declaration more into these areas. And it goes more copper. Let's mix it in with a gold. And I'm letting these feeling what juicy. So it's got a little bit more water in it. I'm going to turn this around and I'm going to go over here. Actually, I'm going to use my size four brush on a little bit of a bigger mark. So I'm trying to vary between small, like little kind of tiny hash marks to bigger, slightly bigger because we're working on a small piece of paper was small shapes, so we don't want them to be too big, right? And this is going to be subtle more settle because it's choosy with water. I'm going to mix the blue and the green. And I'm just going to just do that one line across. And I want to take this gold. And I don't have a ton of water on my brush, so I want it to be nice and juicy, a nice full of color. You can see this a lot of color in there. And I'm going to echo this shape here, but smaller. And with gold and I'm going to do it above it as well. Make this band across the top. And while I've got the gold on my brush, I'm going to see this one right here. I'm just gonna kinda drag it across top and the bottom. And say, let's take some of this enchanted dark green color. Let's keep it pretty dark. Actually switch to my size two brush. I'm going to go ahead in this direction. That way it's going in all kinds of directions there. Some are big, some are small. And I'm going to mix in some gold, same size brush and go in, in nice thick coating on my brush. And I'm just going to create a few local marks to mix it up a bit. I like that. So you can leave some of these, you don't have to create marks on top of all of them. You can leave some that don't have it, or you can totally go to town in two marks on all of them. We're gonna get some of this yellow. I'm going to see if it's going to show up on this green. Then I add to this one here. And you just keep going until you feel like you're done. Don't feel quite done. I'm going to go, I know what I want. I want to make a really thin line. So I've got this liner brush, its size one, so it's really, really small. I'm just loving this gold. So I'm going to really load up the gold on it. And you know, as I'm trying to get it all the way back here. So it's on the whole length of the bristles. Okay, so we've got a lot of straight lines here in straight direction going this way, what these little dashes, so I'm going to create some arches just for variety. And again, we just use a really light touch. And you go, Wow, I love that UHF. You do a whole page of those. Just imagine like columns without on it. So you want to put something on that. And I'm going to use the liner brush. And I'm going to see, I'm feeling like I want more curves. So I'm going to go see them go in this direction, this direction. I'm going to do it in this direction. And this is tone on tone, so it's blue on blue to the nice effect. Lines. A variant in thickness because I've got different pressure going on the brush here and I'm totally fine with that. It just adds more to the interest of the of how it looks. And don't forget, you can stop at any time. On these. I tend to just kinda do overcount just because I like it. And I'm doing this with the process. I'm not trying to make a pretty piece of art. I'm enjoying how it's making me feel. If we bring some of this olive green onto that yellow, line it up with some yellow. I've got this design around by Winsor Newton Cotman to size 6, 9. Just like that, it gives it a different mark and I'm just going to hold it upright and just stamp. And it gives a pretty even circle, which is nice. Because when he got the round brushes with the points on the top, they don't always give a complete, unlike circle like this. So it uses a different brushes you have see what different marks they make. All right, I like that, That was fun. I want to use my design around for some more. So what I'm gonna do is use, you know what I've just noticed and all these marks around here, there's no blue, it's all a gold, yellow and green and copper. So I'm going to bring in some blue over here, that's not some blue. So what I'm gonna do is create dots and between these arches. So think about how you can make marks within the marks you already have. And let's get some of this mermaid blue. I'm getting a nice and thick on my brush, so it's going to be dark. And let's bring some blue over to here. And what I'm gonna do is bring in some of these dots in here. And I'm just kinda, kinda do at random, even if I'm covering some of the other dots. I mean, the goal dashes. That's okay. And it's fun. And it just mixes it up a bit. All right. Does this one do something on this one, I don't want to leave just one circle or shape with nothing. So let's bring in this design and brush, but we're going to use it slightly different. I want to load it up with some yellow. And let's just do some thick lines. And I am going right over the other marks that I made. Okay. I think I want, I'm actually going to take my size six brush, which I've only used for the shapes on this. And I'm going to add something here. We want it to be very light. Just going to be like a hint. So I'm going to go I think that it's coming from on that dry just a little bit of that olive green. It was going to do a couple of little dots going here. And I'm going to switch to my size 2. And we're going to bring some blue into there. And this space, you don't have a ton of space to do so. I definitely need to be able to control my brush a little bit more so I'm dabbing that out. Okay? And then I'm going to do that in between here. Doesn't have to be perfect because that is not what will go on for no perfection needed or even wanted and doing this kind of thing. All right, I think that feels good. It's going to give it a little dry. And on these kind of things, I definitely use my dryer like I tried this one and I try this one. Okay, So this one is done. It was super fun and relaxing and it just melted all my troubles away, which is the point of this watercolor blasts monthly chorus, right, So success. All right, so now I'm going to go on to this one In show you some different things you can do.
18. Abstract Puddle Painting in Watercolor: Okay. So we're starting with just a few different supplies. I've got a half of a nine by 12 sheet of watercolor paper taped down to a piece of cardboard. I also have a little white porcelain palette here with a few different colors to choose from. Now I did this in a very vibrant consistency, so there's more pigment to water. The colors that I'm going to use in this painting end up being Mission Gold colors. They are all of green, yellow ogre, sepia, and Prussian blue. I also have two jars of water. One is clean water that I'm going to use with an eyedropper to create the initial puddle painting with just clear water. And the other jar is to rinse my brush out. After I use each color. For my paint brushes, I am using a number 6 round brush from Princeton. And I'm using this brush to move the water that's in those petals to create designs for this abstract painting. The other paintbrush is a number four round silver black velvet brush. This brush is nice and pointy and I use this to add the color to the puddles. And then I also use it to move the, the watercolor around a little bit in the puddles to, to make more designs. And okay, so that's it. Let's get painting. So I'm just starting off by grabbing some water with my eye dropper. And I'm just having some fun. I'm just putting it on the paper and not worrying too much about what it looks like, just going for an abstract shape. And that is a really great way to start painting with these panel paintings and makes a very low pressure. It's very easy. So I encourage you to just just grab water and just start making a shape. And I use the tip of the eye dropper to start making the shapes. And now I've gone in with a number 6 round brush. And I'm just taking that water in and making it into shapes and connecting lines to the shapes so I can make it look more interesting. And here I am just adding some more water with the eye dropper. This process here is super, super meditative. I really, really enjoy this. And I'm picking up my silver black velvet brush. Just start with the colors. And this is the olive green. From my mission gold palette. I thoroughly enjoy watching that paint spread into that water. And then I'm just moving it around, not really thinking much about it. And just enjoying the flow of it. And how relaxing this is. I am keeping in mind that I have other colors I want to add. So I'm not putting green everywhere, but I am trying to balance in across the piece. I want it to be darker in certain areas. I'll just drop in a little bit more color. And now I'm adding in the yellow ocher. I'm also aware that when these colors are dropped in either on top of each other and next to each other. They're going to learn together and then going to mix. So I want to be careful in this particular painting not to mix two complimentary colors which are across the middle each, each other on the color wheel. Because they might make a color that I might not like. And now I'm adding in sepia. This is such a nice grounding color. And I really love how it fits in with the piece of the end. Cp, a really nice color to mix with other colors to get a more earthy or tone. Sometimes it can give it a more vintage feel. When you add sepia to colors. See, I'm just taking my time and I'm just thinking about where I want to place it. Again, I'm looking for balance. I don't want sepia throughout the whole entire piece and just wanted here in there. So I've got it on. I started on the left and I'm making sure I have a little bit in the middle and move it on the right. And now I'm going into the Prussian blue. And I know that blue and green are mixed together really beautifully as well as blue and yellow ocher mixed together really nice as the colors that are on the same side of the color wheel. So they're going to mix really nice. And especially along with that CBO. Again, it's okay to just take your time. Enjoy the process. The really neat thing about this petal painting technique is it actually takes a really long time to dry, which is, well, that's not the neat part, the little frustrating because I get very excited to see what it's going to look like because it's going to look different. Then when it looks like while it's still wet and it could take overnight to dry. It depends on how much water is in the puddles. So it's I always do usually typically do this later in the afternoon and I can't wait to get up in the morning to see what the final result is. So you get a little surprise in the morning because it could take eight to ten hours to dry thoroughly. Adding in some more sepia. I wanted to darken that area. Again, a little bit more green. So it's okay to go back to previous colors, add some more color. If you want it to be a little darker, just add a little bit more color in that area. You might want to add it in a new area. Here. I'm just pushing it into the sepia. I'm loving how that is flowing. You know how that meter disperse a little bit more. Here I am again just thinking, it's almost done. I feel like it's almost done and I'm trying to think where I want to add a little bit more color. And now I'm adding little bits that the, it's there. They weren't there in the puddle painting to begin with, but I'm looking to maybe attach one area to the next, making some more like watercolor channels so that they'll flow into each other. Let's just like I did there, I just pushed them blue from that side into that area. So I made a little channel of it with my brush with some water color on it. Narrated it again. Just make in that kinda go round. I like the shape of that. Again. And here is when you just really stop and kinda step back, take a look, see if there's any other areas that you want to add some more color to. Any areas that you want to make the color a little bit darker. Or if you want to just push them, pushing that blew through that green into that sepia bit right there. Just play, this is a super playful, kinda quiet meditative activity. I really, really great for this meditative kind of painting. And that's it, just enjoying the feeling of it, like just moving that along and seeing that little channel go through that web part. There's just felt really nice. So I didn't some more. So just pay attention to your body, which feels good to you. And if it feels good, do it again, do some more of it. Right now I'm taking a skew or bamboo skewer and I'm seeing, oh, I wonder if this will move it, but it didn't. So it's always good to try new things. So I'm back to my brush. It moves it much better. And I'm thinking it might be done. Yep. Now let's done. Again, this took a good eight to ten hours to dry and be careful when you move it. Okay. And here is the finished painting. Well, I hope you enjoyed this process and that you love your results again, just do another painting if you don't love it or do more paintings if you do love it. Next up, we're going to do this same type of painting, but with acrylic ink. Acrylic ink is thicker than water color, so it's a bit more vibrant. And I just wanted you guys to see the difference between the two.
Kimma Smith, Artist , Designer & Illustrator
