Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello everyone. My name is Will Elliston and today we'll be painting one of nature's
most striking birds, the Northern cardinal. With its vibrant plumage
and striking presence, it makes for a lovely
subject to explore the beauty and versatility
of watercolor painting. Throughout this class,
we will not only learn techniques to capture
its vivid red feathers, but also the subtle details that make this bird
a fun one to paint. We'll explore
composing a backdrop that complements our cardinal. Adding depth and atmosphere
to your painting. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and
countryside scenes. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor, but when I started, I had no idea where to begin
or how to improve. I didn't know what
supplies I needed, how to create the
effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now I've taken part in many
worldwide exhibitions, been features in magazines, and been lucky enough
to win awards from well respected
organizations such as the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Watercolor can be overwhelming
for those starting out. Which is why my goal is
to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in
a step by step manner. Today, I'll be
guiding you through a complete painting
demonstrating a variety of techniques and explaining how I use all
my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have
some experience, you'll be able to follow along at your own
pace and improve your watercolor skills if this class is too challenging
or too easy for you. I have a variety of classes available at different
skill levels. I'd like to start off with a
free, expressive approach, with no fear of
making mistakes as we create exciting textures
for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and
make it stand out. I strive to simplify
complex subjects into easier shapes that
encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn
mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress of, of
painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with
my watercolor mixing chart. Which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in
the discussion thread. Down below, I'll be sure to read and respond to
ever think you post. Don't forget to follow
me on Skillshare by clicking the follow
button at the top. This means you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston
to see my latest works. Without further ado, let's
dive into the world of watercolor and begin our journey into painting this
northern cardinal.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you so
much for choosing this class. I'm very happy that you're
all here joining me today. In this painting of the
Northern cardinal will explore various
techniques that can bring this magnificent
bird to life On paper, the Northern cardinal's
vivid red plumage provides an excellent chance to explore the nuances or red
in watercolor. Understanding how to create
different shades, highlights, and shadows within
the same color family is a valuable skill for
any watercolor artist. The details in the
cardinal's feathers offer a chance to practice delicate brushwork and intricate detailing while the cardinal
itself is captivating. The choice of background
allows artists to further enhance the story
their painting tells. In the resource section, I've added a high
resolution image of my finished painting
to help guide you. You're welcome to
follow my painting exactly or experiment with your own composition
as we're going to be focusing on the painting
aspect of watercolor. I've provided templates
you can use to help transfer or trace the
sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to
have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction
you take this class, it would be great
to see your results and the paintings you
create through it. I love giving my
students feedback, so please take a photo
afterwards and share it in the Student Project Gallery under the Project
and Resource tab. I'm always intrigued to
see how many students have different approaches and how
they progress with each. I'd love to hear
about your process and what you learned
along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend
that you take a look at each other's work in the
Student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see
each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your
fellow students, so don't forget to like and
comment on each other's work.
3. Materials & Supplies: Before we start the painting, let's go over all the
materials and supplies I use. Having the right materials can greatly impact the
outcome of your artwork. I'll go over all the supplies I use for this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and we'll make it easier for you
to follow along. Let's start with the
paints themselves. Like most of the materials
we'll be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium
red, Alizarin, crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, sill blue, lavender,
purple, di, black. At the end of the
painting, I often use white gash for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand, although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Windsor, and Newton
for Halbeine paints. Let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush, like this Escoda Perla brush
or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile because
not only can you use them for detailed work
with their fine tip, but as they can hold
a lot of water, they are good for
washes as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few
in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for
broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth
transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details, but for really small details, highlights, or anything
that needs more precision. I use a synthetic
size zero brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles
and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for
adding texture or creating dynamic lines
in your paintings. You can even fan them
out like this to achieve fur or feather
textures as well. And that's it for
brushes onto paper. The better quality
of your paper, the easier it will be to paint cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving. Not allowing you to
rework mistakes, it's harder to create
appealing effects and apply useful techniques
like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, not only allows you to rework
mistakes multiple times. But because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you'll be more likely to create
better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available
in my local art shop. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. It also allows you to
reactivate the paint. You want to add a smooth
line or remove some paint. I also have an old rag or T shirt which I used
to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before dipping it in the water will make the
water last a lot longer. It's always useful to
have a tissue at hand whilst painting to
lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs
wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper
to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's
important to have them a similar consistency to what
they're like in the tubes. This way it's easier to
pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful
to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the
dampness of the paper. And lastly, masking tape. And this of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on
painting to the edge, we'll allow you to
create a very crisp, clean border and that's everything you need to
know to paint alone. I encourage you to experiment and find out what
works best for you. Now let's get ready
and start painting.
4. Painting The Background: I'm going to start by
painting the background. If you're not
comfortable painting a background and just
want to white background, if you're looking to paint
something a bit quicker, you don't have to
bobble with it. You can just watch
through until I paint the bird itself
or the branch. You don't have to
paint the background. But just in case you want
to go to the next level, I'm going to show you
how to do it anyway. I also think adding
a background will really make the red
pop on this bird. We're going to have
to paint around it. We're going to
have to be careful. The brush, I'm going to use this Chinese calligraphy
brush to help me with that. I'm actually going
to wet the paper first because if it's dry then there'll be
a lot of hard edges. We don't want that
for a background, we want it to stay
smooth and we're covering a lot of ground
by keeping it wet. It gives us more time to
play around with things. Also, have your water
spray close by. To straightaway, I'm going to paint this branch here with a light yellow ochre. Pure yellow ochre.
At the moment, maybe even burnt scanner here, dull it down with
a bit of black. I want that to dry first. I know I've wet that area,
but that doesn't matter. You can wet things, dry them. That's the good thing
about watercolor. I've wet that area. I'm
just going to dry that. And then I'm going to
paint over that for another layer that's dry. Now, going to re, wet the paper. In fact, you can use the, the largest brush you
have just to wet it. There's no pigment
at this stage, wetting everything except
the bird in the middle. Now it's all wet. And I'm going to think about
what colors we can use. I think I'll have a
purple but gray down. I can gray down myself by using some blue Alizarin,
Crimson, blue, brown. More water. I'm just
going to play it by. I'm going to go
straight into it. Then I'll just take
some burnt sienna, which is a lovely
color to mix in with this bluish purple and a
bit of yellow Oka as well. And just blend that in softly, while it's all very wet. As it dries, it will
just merge quite nicely. Maybe some red. And right here you
see I'm negatively painting that branch that we just did the first lair earlier. Painting the outline
and exposing those browns a bit darker here. Painting around that
branch we just painted. Now we're gonna start
to go a bit lighter. Ight. To paint along to the edge of the bird flick. Some water on there, keep it a bit bluer. On this side, I'm using Serilian blue for
my blue on this side, painting right to the edge. The good thing about
this mop brush is still has a very fine tip. If you get a good
quality mock brush, this Da Vinci casaneo nice
blob of yellow there. Just having some fun creating nice organic flowing
shapes for the background. No harsh lines. Just adding
a few elements of blue, brown, yellow, purple,
Whatever takes your fancy. Now, I'm going to let that
merge and dry together. Hopefully as it dries, it'll
create some nice effects. You can manipulate it.
And I'm going to use a tissue just clean the edge where I may have painted over the
edge a bit too far, But other than that, it's fine. Now I'm going to use
this opportunity while it's drying to
clean my palette. I've used a hair dryer to
speed up the drying process. It's lost its glossy wetness, but it is still damp and wet. This is the perfect time to add a few soft lines
in the background. I'm going to mix
ultramarine blue, a Lizarin crimson, and a bit of burnt sienna to make
a grayish purple. And I'm going to make the
consistency quite light. And just in the background to a few light
strokes like this, holding my brush very lightly as the papers still damp, these lines will fade. They won't be harsh lines, they'll have this
blur effect on them like they're in,
in the distance. These are just subtle
things in the background. You don't have to paint dark
at all, just very light. Now, we can dry it
off completely.
5. Starting The Cardinal: Now it's completely dry, we can touch it without
being rolled of any smudges. And we're going to go straight
to painting the red bird. And we're going to be using cadmium red as the main color because that's the most
vibrant red we've got. Then also, I've got this pigment by Daniel Smith
called Pyal orange, which is another vibrant one. But that's more on
the orange side, but I'll put it in
my cadmium red pan. I'm going to add more water to that pan with a clean brush. I don't want to dirty
the water by picking up with this brush
that's already got pigment on now, starting with the
tip of my brush, just filling in that area.
Starting from the top, adding more water in there. You can go over the lines at this stage because we could come back with a darker
pigment later. Maybe I'll pick up some yellow, a little bit of a yellow in there to try and keep
things exciting. I'm trying to influence
different colors into this red, not just having a plain red, but at the moment, yellow in the future
may be blue, brown. Going to have it fade out
a bit in this section. To get it to fade out, I'm just applying
pure water and then dragging the pigment
gradually into it so that it mixes with that playing
water and lightens up in an even way because there's almost a blue section. Well, it's not actually blue, but I want to add
a bit of interest, and by putting in this kind of purply blue color here will
make it a bit interesting. At the moment, I'm thinking
about my mid tones, not thinking about highlights or my dark pigments or tones
just in the mid range. It's a bit like a vibrant
highlight at this red, because you can still see
the lines underneath it, which is useful for when we come back with the black later. And the darker tones clean my brush and apply a bit
of yellow right here. Now that does look strong, but I'm confident this red here is so potent and powerful that when I
brush over the top, the yellow virtually disappears as is the potency
of that pigment. Let's incorporate some more interesting
colors into this red. We've had purple, yellow so far. Let's use a lizard and crimson. I think especially at the top here where it's
starting to dry a bit. We can go back over it
again with a fine rush. Just add a few textures and bits that we want
to be a bit darker.
6. Varying The Reds: Now I'm going to
go quite potent. Again. Look at the very intense. It's so fun playing
with watercolor, with nice, strong,
vibrant tones. When painting or
drawing from a subject, I try and break it up
into simple sections. So whether it's a cardinal or any other bird of
wildlife, for example, now I'm looking at the section
on the breast of the bird and where the tones
change color slightly. And I'm breaking it up into
those simple sections, but I'm not following
a direct reference. I'm taking a lot of
different ones and trying to find a commonality
between them all. Really using the point of
my brush right here to get a feather
textures on the edge. It's not a clean line, it's a textured line. Don't be afraid to make those
lines a little bit longer than you think they need. Sorry, if I'm temporarily
blocking the view, I just need to get that point
of the brush at that angle. And it's quite difficult
in a different position. Now I'm going to paint
around the claw there, paint underneath the clow
there too, but not the branch. Let's get this purple. Could a blue to that actually. But I decided to use my purple and adding some more tones. And you could see the different areas of which are wetter, the blend more, and
the harsher areas of the areas that
have already dried. If you have a nice fine
tip on your brush, you can use it for the
majority of the painting. The tip on this
brush is so fine, I can use it for
all the details. Sir remembering not to paint over that branch.
7. Painting The Tail & Beak: Paintings that same
color underneath. It may be for this tail section underneath, I can use Alizarin crimson
rather than cadmium red. Because Alizarin crimson
is a cooler red, which works well for darker
tones in shading areas, just like we're coloring
in paint, the outline. First, I follow the lines,
the important parts. And then I can use the thick part of
the brush just to fill it all out
quickly afterwards. But these small
bits do take a bit of time just to make sure
you don't go over the line. Then adding a bit of water just to spread out all that pigment that we just put on there
in a nice smooth way. Almost finished the first
part of this bird first layer paint this bit here. It's like a toned down
red this section. And of course the beak. I can paint that now too, and I'm going to make
that more orange. So Kennington, Noicy
yellow onto the palette. Onto the brush. Going
to rotate it around, actually, so that I've got
a better angle to paint at. Again, I'm using
the tip of my brush just to get the outline correct, making sure I'm following
my pencil lines. And then once that's done, I can use water to
spread it all out. That's how most of the
painting goes at this stage. And some pure yellow
just at the top here. Maybe take some more red. Again, Too much that is, that's okay. It doesn't really matter.
It's having a bit of fun, can paint over the lines
there because we'll come back to the black anyway. And I'm going to
go back over and add a few more fine textures. I'm not overdoing it, just trying not to get carried away. Giving a feel of some
texture in there, using a very fine
tip of the brush, because of course,
as the pigment, I'm taking advantage of the different stages of dampness and wetness
of the paper. And a brush stroke now will look different than what it would do 5 minutes ago or when
it's completely dry. You need to find balance in every aspect
of your painting, whether it's a balance of color, balance of tone texture, whether it's a soft
texture or a hard texture.
8. Starting The Branches: Now some clean water. I'm just going to smooth and
rub this branch area here, basically just rubbing
out the pigment that I went over before
for the background. Because I want it to be
as white as possible. Because I want the
transparency of the brown pigment to make
the branch really stick out. It doesn't have
to be so precise. Cotton based paper like this, it's quite easy to reactivate
the pigment and rub away with pure water
with some other papers, it can be a bit tricky. He's using water to rub
that branch there too. I got to paint that
branch of brown color, get some burnt sienna. Just mix in with that. Maybe I want to add a bit
of yellow ochre to that. It's back to the
similar process of before of taking a
brush full of pigment, marking out where the lines
are not going over them, and then filling out
the rest of the area. Now that we're not
painting the bird anymore, we can relax, have a bit more freedom because
the bird is the center of interest and everything
else is secondary. When it comes to the
attention of the viewer, we've got more freedom
for mistakes here. We can be a bit more playful, less detailed, but of course, it still has to look
suitable for the painting, or at least still
visually appealing, even if it's not detailed. And for the time
being, that's okay. I think I want these feet
to be slightly blue, so I'm just going to
paint that blue in there.
9. The Darkest Tones: Now it's time to go in with some dark
pigment up the top here, making sure I get the
full total range. Because having this pure black will really make the red pop. Taking advantage of the
full range of tones, having the darkest darks here, then the vibrant reds, and then some
highlights as well. You need the dark sections
to really make the reds pop, Including the background,
without the background, this red will look too dark
By providing a background, by bringing the rest
of the tones down, we bring the red tones up and
make them appear lighter. That's why when we painted the background
at the beginning, we left the bird
completely white. Because we need that white
of the paper to increase the transparency and bring that whiteness through
to make it more vivid. If we painted straight
across with the background, it would look a lot darker and we wouldn't get the vibrancy filling in those gaps. This section here with the black around the
eyes and the beak, it's probably the section
with most details. Most important part, It's
worth taking a bit of concentration and extra time
to make sure it's right. It might be a bit, not
necessarily boring, but a bit strenuous having to concentrate for so long
on such a small area. But it's these parts that really focus the eye and make
the painting work with this being black, the darkest part of
the tonal range. It'll help our eyes see
how the whole composition is and how we can help balance it with
the rest of the tones, different sections
of the painting. Because you can't get
darker than this part. So it's a useful guide. Once you have your
darkest darks down, rotate the board if you have to. I usually use white at the end of the painting
for the highlights, but I've taken a
bit of extra time here to try and
preserve the white of the paper just for a change because I felt
like I could do it. Also, I wanted to make sure that I got it
absolutely accurate. I wanted to use my pencil
lines to help guide me. If I painted it all black, I'd lose those lines
because I would no longer be able to see the
pencil lines underneath. You see how that black and it's that red really
makes it pop. And again, even though this
is a medium size brush, this is my smallest brush. This is my size zero. This is a size seven. It's a synthetic round brush
and it has a nice tip. I'm really taking advantage of that tip because even though
it's a medium sized brush, the end of it goes
down to a single hair. With it being medium,
it holds more water. It saves me from
having to refill what I'm like I would if
it was a small brush. Now I'm taking that
black and adding a few more feathers on the wing. The dark little feathers
adding a bit of texture in contrast to
other parts of the bird. So far I've just been using solid black since I've started. I'm just laying down the
darkest plots I can see. And then we'll do the grading,
the transitions later.
10. Blending The Tones: I think that's most of the
darkest parts down there now. So now we can start blending
those dark bits in, wetting one section,
cleaning the brush, and then merging it upwards to a similar thing down here I, Creating different
shades, highlights, and shadows within the
same color family is a valuable and fundamental
element to be out a painting. Water color or any
painting really ing to manipulate shades
within a specific color, like various tones of this red. It enhances our understanding
of color harmony. It allows us to create visually pleasing and
balanced works By discovering which
colors work well together will help choose
better colors in the future. Rather than choosing paintings or paint that clashes
with each other, paint a leg going in there. Also, if you limit
yourself to one color, like in this painting, it
allows you to focus on tone. And you can improve your ability to observe tone and how to convey it with
pigment on paper. If you're painting
a multicolored bird or a multicolored
subject, whatever it is, it's harder to separate
the tones when they're all mixed in different
colors with the cardinal. We can concentrate
on the tones a bit better and help improve
our understanding. There is a shadow just underneath the wing
that I want to paint now, mixing some blue
with that red to paint. The legs have a lot darker. I'm going to have a
little rest from the bird because it's easy to get carried away with details that
aren't actually necessary. So I'm going to start
painting the branch.
11. Adding More Branches: Mixing another dark brown, burnt sienna, with
a bit of black, maybe some blue in there. Had a bit more water. Again, using the
tip of my brush. Using fast strokes to give
it an organic feeling, then connecting
all the branches, but not overdoing it, keeping it quite thin. Taking a look back
at each stroke just to see how it looks. Using the thick part of my brush and the thin
part of my brush, using different pressures to achieve the different
thicknesses. And like I say, just taking a step back every now and
again just to look around, see how we can improve the
composition of these branches.
12. Pulling Away Pigment: Now what I'm going to do is pull away some of the
background so that I can paint. Blossoms or berries,
Maybe some berries. Maybe. I'll keep it a bit
ambiguous to what they are, but I'm just going to make the areas lighter
by adding water and rubbing away so that we can paint on top of
them, even more vibrant. It says pure water
at the moment, just reactivating the
pigment that's on there. Now I'm going across
it and scratching it. Basically, I'm using
an old brush for this, not my pointy brush because I don't want to damage to the point on my other brush, I'm just scratching away. Then a clean brush. A clean tissue, sorry, just pttly rubbing away to achieve a slightly
lighter line. Now I'm going to do exactly
the same thing with the kind of blossom ambiguous
berry kind of things. So just wetting the
area to begin with. I put enough water down
so that it doesn't dry. I really that water on quite thickly so that it
bubbles up around it because it'll take a bit of time for me to cover all the ground and I
don't want it to dry out. I really want it to absorb into the paper and
reactivate that pigment. So now I'm going back to
all those points where I added the water and I'm
scratching the pigment, rubbing it away
with my old brush. So I've gone across all of them rubbing away now of a tissue, a very clean, dry tissue. I'm getting ready to clean away with one quick swipe,
pushing very hard. Okay. Now I'm going to dry that.
13. Painting The Berries: Now let's paint them in. Just clean my palette. Okay, now we can paint them in. There's a lizard crimson and some cadmium red, very potent. So you don't need much.
I'm just painting that in painting what we just cleaned up now. It's not going to bring back the complete whiteness of the paper and make
it very vibrant. But it will do the job. I speed this bit up because there's nothing
too technical about this. It's just filling in the areas that we've
just wiped away. It just takes a bit of time. But if we didn't wipe
away the pigment before, it wouldn't be so vibrant. It'll be noticeably darker. And these berries or blossoms wouldn't stand
out like they do. Now. We make some purple into the. So I'm adding this purple while the areas are still
wet or damp so that there's a nice soft edge and it bleeds out
into the red areas. I'm also creating
a little stems, little connection branches so that it's all uniform
and increases the flow. And that the berries
aren't isolated. It's all quite abstract. It doesn't need to be
nice and clean as long as it's connected and doesn't
take the attention away. It's quite subtle. Subtle
but still abstract. It's not term, it's
just organic lines. Now we burnt sienna
and yellow Oka, I'm going to start filling
in the branch with a nice kind of orangey
light brown color. Painting the rest of the branch having the main branch
lighter in color, a nice vivid brown. And then the ones
that are thinner, underneath, darker, with
less light illuminating it. It makes the main one a bit
more attention seeking. It focuses and directs the
eye to the main focal point. Let's paint s pink
blossom shapes up here. I guess they're actually, but because I'm not drawing
them completely accurate, they look more like
petals or blossoms. I try to keep a bit
of interest by not having every single
petal or berry the same. I'm varying the
consistency of pigment. Having some of them darker, some of them lighter, and keeping them organic,
loose shapes. If you're just looking
to do a quick painting, you don't have to
paint all this. You can just do the bird
itself on a little branch. I just thought I'd demonstrate how you could take it a bit
further if you wanted to.
14. Connecting All The Elements: Got to spraw, maybe
add some purple to it. Oh Tom was shading on the branches. I'll do this branch
in three phases. We've done the lightest phase, we're doing the midtone
phase at the moment. Then possibly after this, we'll go with the dark tones, just to really add
this three D. Yes, it gets a little bit fiddly in this section where the
feet meet the branch, and then you've got
this little branch that goes behind the tail
or in front of it actually, I'm going to make it
go in front of it. It just takes a bit of thinking, but you can see how I
can do it and hopefully you can follow along
at your own pace. Some things going even darker. Yeah.
15. Finishing Touches: Painting the toes. They can't be called toes. I'm not sure what they're
actually called, bird toes. We've had three
different layers. Basically, we've had the
light mid, in the dark. And it has quite a nice effect. It's fairly simple to do. It's not that detailed, but it gives the illusion of three D, Anger. Paint the beat a bit more. They need to be toned
down just a bit. By tone down, I just mean adding a light layer of
blue in this case, just to take it tonally. The next level, the
next level down, maybe if we're on the tip, they can go quite dark. Turn it around so you
can see a bit better. Do the same to this one too, and we're almost there. I'm starting to look around thinking if there's anything obvious that needs to be done. I'm going to use the tip of this brush to poke a few
highlights in there. That es, you can go back and forth for a long time without
actually adding much. I think I'm going
to call it done. Of course, there might be things that obvious things
that I'm missing. I'm going to use a tissue just to get rid
of little dots there. But there no, not much
of a problem now. The best part is pulling off the tape and revealing
that nice clean border.
16. Final Thoughts: Welcome back and congratulations
on completing the class. I hope you all enjoyed
watching it as much as I did guiding you
through the painting. Now is the time to put what
you've learned into action. We started with a
blank piece of paper and transformed it into
a vibrant work of art. We explored the world
of watercolors, honed our brushwork skills, and delved into the art of
creating a vibrant bird. We discovered how to blend
various shades of red, incorporating hints
of orange, brown, and even a touch of blue to capture the cardinal's
vibrant plumage. But in every brushstroke, you've not just painted a bird, you've also captured a piece of your own creativity
and imagination. Cherish these artworks for, they're not just paintings, they are a reflection of
your artistic spirit. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and
personal style. I encourage you to continue
exploring, experimenting, and pushing your
boundaries to create your own unique
watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the
end of this class, I hope you feel
more confident and comfortable with your
watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes
to improving your skills. So keep on painting
and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for
watercolor painting is so inspiring and I'm honored
to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. So please share your painting in the Student Projects
Gallery down below. And I'll be sure to
respond if you prefer. You can share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves seeing
in my student's work, so tag them as well at Skillshare after putting
so much effort into it. Why not share your creation? If you have any questions
or comments about today's class or want any specific advice
related to watercolor, please reach out to me in
the discussion section. You can also let me
know about any subject, wildlife or scene you'd
like me to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews
fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best
experience for my students. Lastly, please click
the Follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means that you'll be
the first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. Thank you once again for
joining me in this class. I look forward to seeing you
all again in future classes. But until then, happy
painting by for now.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
