Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class: Hi everyone, welcome
to this class. My name is Lisa and I'm a watercolor artist
space in Malaysia. I started watercolors seven
years ago and floral. So one of my favorite
subjects to paint. In this class, you're
going to learn how to paint cherry blossoms and how to create a soft
and lovely background to complement your flowers. I'll begin the class by showing you the
materials that you need, as well as the colors and color mixes that we'll be using. Also show you how to
use the color wheel. Select Colors For
your background that not only compliments
your flowers, but are also
aesthetically pleasing. You will also learn
how to create soft and lovely textures to achieve that Loose and dreamy
effect in your background. Also show you how to
paint cherry blossoms in different perspectives
and how to add highlights and textures
to the branches. Now this class is perfect
for floral lovers, as well as for those
who are interested to learn how to create a soft
and dreamy background. Now for your class project, you are going to create
your own composition of cherry blossoms. You're going to apply
all the skills and knowledge that you've
gained from this class to create a soft and
lovely background using colors that will complement
your cherry blossoms. My aim for this class
is not really to teach you how to paint
cherry blossoms, but also to give you the
confidence to create your own unique and
lovely background that will complement
your flowers. So that the final
outcome will be an aesthetically pleasing
piece of artwork.
2. Materials Needed For The Class: Alright, let's go over the supplies that you
need for this class. Let's start with the paper. I'll be using this bow hang
Academy watercolor paper. It is 100% Cotton Cold Press
paper, entry hundred GSM. Now you can use any other
brands of watercolor paper, but I highly recommend that you use one which is
hundred percent Cotton. Now this is because we are
going to use the wet on wet technique to create a soft background for
our cherry blossoms. And 100% cotton paper
allows our people to stay wet a bit longer so that we have more time to drop in the colors. Alright, so the size
of this paper here is almost the same
as an A4 size paper. It is just slightly longer. So I'll be cutting this into half when I pay
my class project. Alright, now let's move
on to the brushes. Alright, so I have a size six and size eight
round brushes from silver black velvet
are merely be using this size six to
paint cherry blossoms. I also have this
calligraphy brush, which I'll be using to
paint the statements. If you don't have this brush, you can use a liner brush
or a small round brush. K'nex. I have this size to mop
brush and a flat brush, which I'll be using to
paint a background. If you don't have this brushes, just use your
largest round brush. You will also need a paper tape so that you can create a nice, clean and crisp borders
for your project. You also need a plate, a palette to mix your colors. Some people towels to remove excess moisture from your brush, and Two jars of clean water. Now as for the colors, I'll list them in
the following video.
3. Colors For The Cherry Blossoms: Let me show you the
colors that I'll be using to paint
cherry blossoms. Now the first colors shopping, this would be the base layer
for our cherry blossoms. If you don't have this color, you can just use a lighter
value of any red or pink. Okay? You can make it a bit lighter
by adding more water. Okay, the next color is rows. If you don't have this, you can use permanent rose or
quinacridone rose instead. Now I won't be using
this color on its own. I'll be mixing it
with a bit of sepia. Okay, let me just
grab some sepia. And I'm going to make CBT, my rows mixture to
create a burgundy color. So this looks a bit
like Perlin violet. And we're going to use this to darken the center of
our cherry blossoms. Now, the next color is also
a mixture of CPR and rows, but this time we only
mixing a bit of rows. So this creates a dark
reddish brown color. We're going to use this
to paint the statements. And lastly, we'll use CPR
to paint the branches
4. How To Select Colors For The Background: Now for the background colors, we are going to be using one of the color schemes that we can
get from the color wheel. So a color scheme is a
combination of colors that are aesthetically pleasing and they harmonize with each other. The color scheme that we
are going to be using in this class is called
analogous colors. They are colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, and they usually consists of
around three to four colors. They are also sometimes
called harmonious colors because when
used together, they create a sense of harmony and unity within a painting. Now the dominant color
in our painting is pink, which is the color of
our Cherry Blossoms. So we're going to use the analogous colors of pink
to paint our background. Now we can consider ping as a lighter value of
re-purpose array. So let's look at
analogous colors of red on the color wheel. So on the right we
have red, orange, orange, and yellow orange, which are warm colors. And on the left we
have red, purple, purple, and blue purple, which are cool colors. Now let's look at rate bubble. So here we also have a group
of warm colors on the right, which is red, red,
orange, and orange. And on the left we have
cool colors such as purple, blue, purple, and blue. We have a choice between cool and warm colors for
our background. Now, warm colors appear to
advance or come forward, and cool colors tend to
recede into the background. So since you are
painting a background, it will make more sense
to use cool colors. So I'm going to use this
group of analogous colors, which includes blue, because I want the sky to be part
of the background. So we only need red, blue, and violet to create
this range of colors. I'm going to use
shopping as my rate. I'm going to use
a violet and I'm going to use
ultramarine as my blue. Okay, let me swatch
out the colors. So this is ultramarine. This is my violet. Now I find this a
bit too vibrant, so I'm going to darken it with a bit of sepia and
see how it looks. Now I like how this looks. So I'm going to use this
as $1 version of violet. Alright, now let's blend our tree colors together
and see how they look. I'll start with shopping. Now while this is still wet, I'm going to blend in
some ultra marine, followed by my darker
version of violet. So this is a great way to see if your tree colors go well together as the
background colors. Now you can also try other blues and purples
from your palette. So just prepare color swatch and see if these colors
blend well together. Alright, let me try
a different blue. This time I'll use
turquoise, blue. And I'll use the same violet. But I'm not going to
darken it with CPO. Alright, now let's prepare a swatch to see whether these
colors blend well together. Well, I think these tree
colors do go well together. So this is how you can test
out different blues and violet from your palette to see if they go well with your pink. And then you can decide
which ones you want to use. Seo background colors
5. How To Create Soft And Lovely Textures In The Background: In this lesson,
I'll show you how To Create Soft And
Lovely Textures for your background by using false simple
watercolor techniques. Now, if you want a
more in-depth lesson on watercolor techniques, you can check out one
of my previous classes, nine day Watercolor
Floral challenge. Alright, let's begin with
our first technique, which is the wet
on wet technique. So this is just applying
wet paint on a wet surface. Okay, So first, I'm going to prevent this area with
a bit of clean water. And I'll go over it several times just to make
sure that the water is fully so into the paper and
there are no water puddles. This we ensure that our paper
stays wet a bit longer, so we have more
time to Wet on Wet. Now, I've already
prepared the colors that I'm going to use
for my background. So I have shopping, which is my lightest color. And then I have ultra marine. And a third color is a
mixture of violet and CPR. I'll start with shell pink. So always start with
your lightest color. And I'm just making
patches of pink while leaving a bit of white
spaces in between them. So the reason I'm leaving
white space is because I want a bit of highlights
in the background. Okay, then I'm going to drop in my ultramarine and
I'm making sure that I'm not covering up of the pink patches because I
still want them to be visible. I'm also leaving some of
those whitespaces on painted. Here. I'm using a
size eight brush, but you can always use
a smaller brush for easier water control so that the paint doesn't
spread too much. Okay, next, I'll drop
in mind darkest color. So we this color, I'm just tapping it in sparingly because I do want the
background to be too dark. So always decide whether
you want a light or dark background before
you begin painting, that you can adjust your
colors accordingly. Now I can also use a clean, damp brush to spread out some of the color if you find
that it's too intense. So as long as a
paper is still wet, you can continue
adding in colors. You can also spread
the colors around. And you can also lift
up any excess color. So the initial
stage of prewriting your paper with water is
a very important step. So make sure to
take your time to thoroughly wet your paper
before you begin painting. Okay, here are three
important things to remember. Number one, as your paper dries, the less European
will spread and the resulting color
will be more intense. Number two, the consistency
of your paint mixture, we also affect how much it spreads and the
intensity of color. Soda thicker, the
pink consistency, the less evil spirit, hence, the color will be more
intense and vice versa. Number three, once your paper is no longer glossy or shiny, you need to stop
adding in colors. Otherwise you create
some hard edges. Alright, now for
the next technique, we're going to use
water splatters to create some interesting
textures on a wet background. So I'm just going to
paint a background first. Okay, Now I'm going to
fully load my brush with some clean water
and I'm just going to tap my brush to splatter some water droplets
on this background. So right away, you can see these interesting textures
on our Wet background. As a result of the water splitters pushing a site, the Watercolor pigments. Now, if we let our
background dry a little bit, we can create what is splatters
with more defined edges. So I'm just going to allow
this to dry a little bit and then I'll come back into
add more water splatters. Alright, so you can see
that the background is no longer as shiny
as earlier on. Now let's add some
water splatters and we will compare the results. Alright, so right away, you can see that
these water splatters have more defined edges as compared to the ones
we did earlier on when our background was
still very shiny and Wet. So if you want more
defined textures, just wait for your paper
to dry a little bit. Alright, let's move on
to the next technique, which is applying paint
splatters on a wet background. Alright, so I'm going to load my brush with a watery mix of ultramarine and I'm
just going to tap my brush over this wet surface. So right away you can see that
the colors spreads and we have some really nice and soft
color blooms on our paper. Now let's use a thicker
mix of ultramarine. So I'm going to
load my brush with a creamy mix of ultra marine. And I'll tap this over the wet surface and we
can compare the results. So we this thicker
mix of ultra marine, you can see that the
paints splatters are more defined and they
don't spread as much. Do keep this in mind when you're creating textures
for your background. Alright, now let's move on to our next technique where you use a tissue To Create Soft
highlights in our background. Okay, so I'm going
to grab the tissue. I'm going to create
some highlights by lifting out some colors
from the background. As you can see, I'm not
applying a lot of pressure. I'm just gently touching my
tissue against the paper. So you can repeat this a few times until you get
your desired results. So this is a great
technique to use, especially when you find that your background
is a bit too dark and you want to create
some Soft highlights. Alright, so these are
all great techniques for creating soft and lovely
textures in your background. So do practice these
techniques a few times before moving onto
your Class Projects
6. How To Paint Cherry Blossoms: Okay, let's begin with the
front-facing Cherry Blossoms. So I'll start by loading my
brush with some shopping. Now, cherry blossoms are five petaled flowers and petals are quite short
and a bit roundish. So I'm just painting five petals while leaving the
center on painted. Now it's alright if your petals are not perfectly uniform. Okay, next, I'm gonna grab my pin of that Burgundy mixture, which is a combination
of CPR and rose. And I'm just going to gently tap this on the inner
corners of our petals. Also tap in a bit
of this color to the center while leaving
a bit of whitespace. So that our flower, we've not looked like
a blob of paint. I'll also drop this
on the edges of our petals to create a two
tone effect in the flower. Alright, now for the next step, we're going to tap in a bit of our dark reddish
brown to the center. I'm just adding a few dots here. And while the pigments
are still wet, I'm going to use the end of my brush to pull out
some fine lines. So this is a good technique for creating very fine statements. We will let this dry before coming back into add
more statements. Okay, now let's paint
another front-facing flower. I'm going to start
with my five petals. And then I'll drop in a bit
of burgundy to the center, and also on the
edges of the petals. Next, we'll tap in a bit of our dark reddish
brown to the center. So here I'm just
making little dots. And then I'll use the end of my brush to pull
out the statements. Now, if you want your
statements to be darker, just dropping a more
pigmented mixture of your reddish brown. Okay, so we're going
to let this dry before coming back into
paint more statements. Now let's move on to our
site, cherry blossom. So we're going to paint a
Cherry Blossom which is at an angle where the flower
is facing this direction. Now because of the
angle of this flower, the lower two petals
here will be smaller because the edges of the
petals are slightly curved. Okay, I'll meet these
two petals here, a bit shorter and smaller. Next, I'll drop in a bit
of the burgundy mix, followed by the
dark, reddish brown. Now the statements,
we only point in this direction because this is where the flower is facing. So I'll use the end of my brush to pull
out the statements. I'm going to tap in a bit more brown so that I can pull
up more statements. Alright, let's practice
painting another one. Now this one will face
the opposite direction. Again, the lower two petals
will be a bit shorter and smaller because the edges of these two petals are
slightly curved. Okay, Now let's add our
burgundy mix to the center. Now remember the leave
a bit of whitespace in the center so that your flower will not look
like a block of color. Next, I'll darken the
center with my dark reddish brown before I pull
out the statements So this time the statements we point in the opposite direction. Alright, I'm gonna
let these two flowers dry before I come
back into complete the statements K. Now let's go back to our to
front-facing flowers. Now that the paint has dried, we can complete the statements
by adding the end fors. So I'm just painting random little dots
around the center. And then I'll use the end of my brush to pull out
some fine lines. And I'll do the same
for our second flower. Next, I'll use the
very tip of my brush to paint in some
darker filaments. And let's talk in
the center bit more. Now moving on to a side view, Cherry Blossom, this is
fairly easy to paint. So basically I'm
just going to paint three petals are connected to a stem. Let's practice
painting another one. Now we can also drop in a
bit of burgundy to create some shadows and to add
dimension to the flower. Alright, now let's
go back to our to cite NGO cherry blossom. Now that the paint has dried, we can complete the statements. The statements we only point in the direction where
the flower is facing. And for this flower, the statements were
pointing this direction. Now for the flower buds, just paying a
irregular oval shape and connect it to a stem. And you can drop in
a bit of burgundy to create some shadows
and to add dimension. Alright, now let's go back to our site view cherry blossoms. We can add a bit of
statements here. So just imagine that there are some petals here
in the foreground. So we're going to
P Now statements starting from the middle to show that they are
partially hidden by these petals in
the foreground. Whereas with this one here, we can leave out
the statements to show that these petals
are in the foreground. Therefore, the statements
are not visible. Alright, so in the next lesson, you'll learn how to paint the branches using the
dry brush technique
7. How To Paint The Cherry Blossom Branch: To paint the branches, we are going to be using
the dry brush technique. Now this technique creates some interesting
textures on a paper. And for this technique to work, we must use a creamy to
fit consistency of paint. And also makes sure to remove excess moisture from your brush before you pick up your paint. So make sure that
European mixture doesn't contain a lot water. Now you can see that there are white specks of unpainted areas. This is because of the textured surface of
our core Pressed paper. So this is a great technique for painting branches
because it creates textures and highlights on our branches and add
interests to the painting. So to do this, you need to get the right consistency of paint. So you can experiment with
different consistency. And you can also experiment
with different brushes. You may find that
it's easier with a synthetic brush that
doesn't hold too much water. Okay, let me add a
bit more water to the mixture and we can
compare the results. So as you can see, when we use this watery mixture, we are not able to get
those white specks. So if you're mixtures
a bit too watery, what you can do is
remove excess pain on a paper towel before
you begin painting. Okay, so before you begin your class project
to practice and experiment with different
paint consistencies so that you know
which one works best
8. Your Class Projects: Now there'll be two class
projects for this class. So for the first class project, you'll be painting a branch of cherry blossoms along with me. In the next lesson. I'll show you how to
paint the background once you have your cherry
blossoms in place. This will prepare you for
your second class project. For your second class project, you're going to create
your own composition of cherry blossoms. Now you can search for
reference photos on Pinterest and use
that as a guide. It can be just a simple
branch of cherry blossom with only a few
flowers and a few buts. It doesn't have to be
anything too complicated. Or you can also go to Unsplash to search
for reference photos. And then I want
you to apply what you've learned in the
previous lessons to create your own background using the analogous
color scheme. Now you can experiment with your own colors For
The Background, just do a color swatch to see if the colors
go well together. And then just add some Soft
Textures In The Background.
9. Class Project : Painting Cherry Blossoms: Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to paint
a branch which goes diagonally from
the upper left corner to the lower right corner. I'll start with two front-facing
cherry blossoms here. These are the main flowers, which will be the focal
point in our painting. And then I'll paint some site cherry blossoms around them. And then finally, I'll add
some bets along the branch. Alright, I have my
colors are ready to go. So this is shopping. This is my rows and sepia mix, which creates a
burgundy light color. And this is my dark,
reddish brown. So let's start with our
two front-facing flowers. I'll go over them
a few times just to make sure they
stay a bit longer. And now I'll drop in
my burgundy mix to the center and also on
the edges of the petals. Now if you don't want
it to bleed too much, makes sure that your
mixture isn't too watery. And if it does bleed too much, you can always use
a clean damp brush to soak up the excess color. Now next, I'll tab in my dark reddish
brown to the center. Here, I'm just making tiny
little dots with the tip of my brush while leaving
a bit of whitespace. And we'll be repeating
the same steps for our second
front-facing flower. Okay, now let's tap in a
bit of a reddish brown. And I'll also drop
this to the center of our first flower before we
pull out the statements. Okay, now using the
end of my brush, I'm going to pull out
the brown pigments to create some statements
for our flowers. Next, our opinion, the brunch, so that I'll know where to place my site flowers and flower buds. And to make it look more
natural and organic, I'm going to make
it a bit crooked. So here I'm using the dry brush technique to create these
interesting textures. So again, make sure that you're using the right
consistency of paint. Now, if you're not
very confident, you can always test
it out on a piece of scrap paper before
you begin painting. Alright, now let's paint some cherry blossoms around our main flowers and
along the branch. As you can see,
this branch device are people into two sections. So I'm going to start with
a section on the right, since we already have our
main flowers in place. So basically I'm
just going to paint some site flowers and
flower bats around them. Now the key thing to
remember is that we want the focal point to be on our two front-facing
cherry blossoms. So these site flowers
and flower buds, they don't have to
look too perfect. In fact, we can make them
look a bit abstract. Here, I've painted a
site cherry blossom, and then I'm just going
to add some flower buds. And to add variation
to our composition, I'm going to paint a site
angle cherry blossom. This will face towards the top. And I make sure that the size of this cherry blossom is smaller
than our two main flowers. This creates the
illusion of depth where L2 front-facing cherry blossoms are closer to the viewer's eye. Okay, Now I'll darken the center before I pull
out the statements. The statements for
this flower will point upwards because this is
where our flower is facing. Next, I'll paint the
cherry blossom in a lowest section to balance
out the composition. This cherry blossom
will be at an angle where it is facing the
upper-left corner. Again, I'm making
sure that the size of this flower is smaller
than our two main flowers. Let's darken the center before
we pull our statements. Now, I'll attach this
flower to our main branch. And to fill in this gap here, I'm just going to paint
some flower buds. Now it's important
to make sure that both sides of the branch
do not look symmetrical. Otherwise, it will
just look unnatural. So here on the lower left, I'm going to paint a
smaller cherry blossom. And I'm going to make
it look a bit abstract. Alright, now let's work on the upper portion of our branch. Over here we can meet our cherry blossoms a
bit loose and abstract. The focus will be on
our two main flowers. Next, I'll darken
the lower portion of the branch and make
it a bit thicker. Alright, so in the next video, we are going to paint
the background. And then we add
some finer details to our cherry blossoms.
10. Class Project : Painting The Background: Okay, Make sure you
have all your colors prepared before you
begin painting. As you can see, branch device, our paper into two sections. So I'm going to paint
one section at a time. And I'm going to start
with the upper section. I look my size eight, brush with some clean water and I carefully paint around
the cherry blossoms. Now these inner areas here which are closer to
the main branch, I'm going to leave
them on painted. Now you can take your
time to wet the paper, just make sure that there
are no water puddles and the water has fully
soak into your paper. This will ensure that your
paper stays wet a bit longer so that you have
more time to Wet on Wet. Alright, now I'll start
dropping in my colors. I'll start with my lightest
color, which is shopping. And I'm leaving a bit of
whitespace in between them. Now, moving on to my second
color, which is ultramarine. I'm adding in my
ultramarine little by little because
I don't want it to spread too much
that it covers up my pink areas and whitespaces. Okay, Now I'm going to touch
it with a bit more shopping. Before I move on to
my darkest color. For this color, I'm
just dropping it in sparingly because I do
want my background TB2. Now I'm going to
tap into bit more ultramarine because the
color has faded quite a bit. So as long as your
paper's still wet, you can keep adding in colors until you're satisfied
with the results. Now remember, you can always
use the tissue techniques to create those whitespaces or highlights in your background. Now you want to keep an eye on the surrounding areas here, which is just next
to your flowers. So you want to make
sure that the paint doesn't flow into
your cherry blossoms. And if it does, just use a clean damp brush
to lift out the excess color. Now before I move on
to the next section, I make sure there are no unpainted areas along
the edge of the tape. So that when I
peel off the tape, I can get a nice clean
and crisp border. I'll add some water
splatters here. I'm using my calligraphy brush because I don't want the
splatters to be too large. Now, if you have a
darker background, these what is splatters
would be more visible. Okay, I'm quite pleased
with how this looks. So now I'll start working
on the other section. So I'll start by wetting this section with
some clean water. I carefully paint around
the cherry blossoms, making sure there are
no water puddles. And I go over this
a few times to make sure that the water
is really soak into the paper so that I
have more time to work on this section before
the paper dries out. Alright, so I'll repeat the same process
where I'll start with my lightest color and gradually
add in the either Colors. I'm making sure that I'm not covering up my pink patches when my ultramarine and I'm also leaving some of those
whitespaces on painted. Now for my darkest color, I'm going to switch
to my smaller brush because I do want the
background to be too dark. Now add some pink
splatters here. And also on the other section. I'm going to soften these edges here with a clean damp brush. There are some unpainted areas along the edge of the tape. So I'm just going to drop in some colors so that when
I peel off my tape, I can get a nice clean
and crisp border. So as long as the
people is still wet, you can still adjust the colors in your background by either adding in additional colors are lifting up any excess colors. Alright, now I'm going to add some water splatters
on the darker areas. I want a bit more pink
in my background. So I'll add some pink splatters. And lastly, I'll touch on any unpainted areas along
the edge of the tape
11. Class Project : Final Details: Alright, let's complete
the statements by painting some emperors and
adding more filaments. You can see that the
statements which we created earlier now looks a bit faint
against the background. So we need to darken them and
add a bit more filaments. So for this side angle, Cherry Blossom, the statements we only pointing one direction. Also darken the
center a bit more. Alright, now let's work on the front-facing cherry blossom. So I'm just painting some
random dots around the center. And then just use the tip of my brush to create
some fine filaments. And I'll do the same for the second front-facing
Cherry Blossom. Alright, now let's darken
the center a bit more. Alright, now let's move on
to the next cherry blossom. So this is another slight
angle, Cherry Blossom. The statements we one
point in one direction. Also darken the
center a bit more. Alright, now for the
site cherry blossoms, I'm just going to add
a few statements. Alright, so this completes
our cherry blossom Painting. Are peel off the T
in the next video.
12. Final Thoughts: So congratulations on
completing the class. I hope you've enjoyed this class and that you've
learned something new. I look forward to
seeing your paintings. So please upload them in the project gallery so that I
can give you some feedback. And if you have any questions, just post them in the discussion section and
I will get back to you. Now if you find
this class helpful, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a
review for this class. Thank you for taking this class. I hope to see you in my
next Skillshare class.
Lisa Lam, Watercolor Artist
