Watercolor Cherries: Learn to Paint Realistic Berries

1. Intro: Hi everyone. My name is Irina Trzaskos. I am an artist and illustrator. I hope my classes will help you build a successful and beautiful [inaudible] In today's class, I will show you step-by-step how to paint berries in watercolor. During the class, we'll be painting cherries, but following the same steps, you can paint any kind of berries you like. In the next video, I'll show you the supplies we'll be using to paint berries in watercolor. 2. Supplies: But in this class we'll be using the following supplies. On the project section of the class, you can find a reference picture of the berries, or if you have fresh berries, you can use them as a reference too. Also we'll need watercolor paint, watercolor paper, eraser, a pencil, a [inaudible] painting brush, medium size. A medium long brush for the watercolor and a small brush for the details. Also we'll need a pallet, paper towel, two cups of water, one for washing the brush and one for tipping and taking the color. Also optionally, we'll need a masking fluid for our water color. 3. Drawing Cherries: In the project section of a class, you can find reference pictures for different berries you are welcome to use. If you're looking for your own reference pictures, I'd advise you to find pictures on a light background, especially if you are new to watercolor painting. Also, it's important so reference will be well-lighten, and you can see the highlights and shadow areas. Next, let's draw our cherries. I decided to draw two cherries inclined by their stem, so I can show you how to bring the shadow from one cherry to another. Here I don't have a dip, and also I would like to show here a stand alone cherry. It is a drawing to the entire painting is not a very easy. Feel free to share your drawings in the project section of the class. I really love seeing your step by step process. Here's our drawing of the cherries. 4. Mixing colors: After we're done drawing our cherries, we have to pick the colors we'll be using in painting of the cherries. Looking at the reference picture, we can see the light is hitting from the left part and it's in daylight, so the light will be warm and the shadows will be colder. So for the warm part of the cherry, we'll be using very warm cadmium red, and moving to the right where the shadow part is, it'll become cooler. In the really dark shape part, we can add a drop of green in it. So these are our reds for the cherry. But also we have the stem. For the stem I will be using cyan and also I'll add some green thing there and there, a little lighter in this. For the darker part of the stem, I'll be using cyan and some purple. Too much purple. Purple is always so dominant, so we [inaudible]. So this is for the darker part of the stem. For our leaves, we can also use cyan for some yellow-green. For the lighter part, add a regular green or medium, and a little bit of ultramarine blue for our shadow. Let's remember, shadows are cold in our painting. In the project section of the class, I listed all the colors I'm using in this painting. Also, I provided other color recipes for different colors of berries. 5. Painting first layer: After we did the drawing and decided on the colors of our cherries, we can start painting the first layer. We'll be painting all elements of our painting with the largest shades we decided on. For the cherries, it will be light red. For stems it will be this yellow, and for leaves it will be this yellow with some yellow-green. The important for cherries is not to forget to leave the highlights unpainted. If you do not feel secure with a water color, you can always cover the highlights with [inaudible]. So we'll be mixing a lot of light red and it really has to be very liquid. I can put a little bit more paint because once it dries, it will become lighter. This is good. So looking at the reference we'll be painting, we'll be covering the entire cherry, just leaving the highlights white. Then a little more color because once it dries, it will become lighter, and the same thing with all three cherries. Next I'll mix some yellow with yellow-green and we'll paint the same way our leaves just without leaving any highlights. When we paint the first layer of the stem or the cherries, we have to make sure that the cherries and the leaves are a little bit dry where they touch the stem so the colors won't mix. After we painted all our painting with first layer of the paint, we have to let it dry very well. 6. Painting cherries: After our painting is totally dry, we have to remove pencil drawing. Now, we'll start adding values which will show the shape of our object. We'll start with our medium tone. A small line here. When I look at the reference, we can see our shadow is somewhere here, so we'll add a drop of darker right in here. Then we'll dry our brush and we'll smooth this edge between bright and medium. The same thing with all three cherries. The same thing we'll do with our leaves, remembering that the light is coming from the left, so off shows will be on the right and underneath. We'll mix some medium color of green. I'll let some orange in our green because it's too dark. Also we can draw some streaks on our leaves with a pencil to remember where they go. I'll just paint with medium green between the streaks. While it's still wet, we can add a little bit of darker green once we get to the right of the leaf because that's where the shadow is. I'm done. We'll dry our brush on the paper towel and just smoothen out all the edges. The same thing with all the leaves. Next, I have to add some shadow on the right part and on the the bottom of our stems. For a darker color, we'll mix some sienna with a little bit of purple. Our cherries are almost done. We just have to add few more details with a small brush. I'm going to add a little bit of green in my cherry stems because they look way too dry. I will use some yellow green with a little bit of yellow. Also on this leaf, I'll have to add some yellow green because it's a little bit dull. I'll have to bring it to life, a little bit into yellow and green. Just one thin layer, so this inner part, and maybe a little bit here. As well to these leaves, almost like this. Also, I'd like to darken a little bit inside of the cherries, so I'll mix more red with some green to add a few more darker lines here and there. Also, I need a little bit more dark on these parts of the stem. Just a few lines and dots here and there, and around the stem. Then we'll take a little bit of our paint off of this brush. We're waiting a little more and then dry it on the paper towel, and taking off excess of paint right on the edge of the cherry. Also, I'd like to take off some paint here on the leaf and the streaks of the leaf. A little darker on the stem. Next, we'll be edging the shadows to our cherries. 7. Adding shadows: First of all, we can notice this cherry is in front of this one. So we'll have a little bit of shade right in this part on the cherry. We'll have some shadow under this leaf. So I will make some ultramarine blue, with green, and I'll add [inaudible] for some drama. Then we'll have a little bit of shadow right where the cherry touches the surface of the table, just light. This point I'll leave them dry a little bit. Then, right down every cherries we'll color the paper with water. I'll take some ultramarine blue and a little bit of purple that's because our table is white. I'll add the right under the cherry, I'll put more blue. Dry our brush, and take off some paint. [inaudible] did it where we need it. For this cherry, I want to show the shadow of its stem and leaf too. Like these. Let me add some more color because they are in a way too active. I think this is it. 8. Last thoughts: Thank you for watching my class. I hope it was useful and interesting. Please leave a review and upload your project to our project section of the class. I can't wait to see your berries.