Watercolor Christmas Cards: Paint Fast and Easy Holiday Themes

1. Introduction : [MUSIC] Wow, all of the year has gone by, it's Christmas season again. I've always found it more meaningful to give gifts that are personalized. It is a way of expressing your love through putting in the time and effort in creating a special gift. However, in the business of life, most of us have limited free time. That's why I thought that the holiday card class with easy-to-do yet elegant paintings would be a good idea. We'll create meaningful gifts and at the same time be able to showcase your art. Last year, I launched a 12-holiday watercolor cards class, which a lot of you enjoyed. This year we're going to do part 2 of that class. It is going to be a series of quick and easy projects where you will use watercolor, white pen, gouache, and gold watercolor paint. [MUSIC] Hi, my name is Joly and I'm a watercolor artist and online art educator based in the Philippines. I have been painting for about nine years already and I've worked with different famous art brands. Art revolves around painting loose watercolor flowers. I love how I'm able to make a creative interpretation of nature and put it on paper. Here on Skillshare, my class is focused on breaking down difficult watercolor techniques into easy steps for beginners. In this class, you're first going to discuss the materials that we need. Next, we're going to do some color swatching and color mixing to achieve the colors that we will use in our projects. You will learn basic watercolor techniques such as, wet on dry, wet on wet, bleeding, splatters, among others. These will be useful in creating our projects and in your future paintings as well. Here are the seven holiday cards that you will be creating. This class is suitable for beginners or experienced artists. So let's pick up our brush and start painting. See you in class. 2. Class Projects Overview: [MUSIC] Hi, welcome to the class projects overview. Let's check out the paintings that you will create in this class. Now, let's check out their projects. The first one is going to be this beautiful Christmas tree ornament. This is a very simple project where we paint triangles and just add some designs on it. Next, we're going to paint this Christmas bubble, is a minimalist design with some green and gold leaves inside. I also added that gold ring for the sparkly design. Next is this Christmas tree in a pot, so this tree is quite popular here because it's space-saving. It's a small Christmas tree that you can put on your table instead. You can definitely play around and change the sign of the pod. Next, we're going to paint this half foliage wreath, so I added this minimalist wreath so that you can write a code in the middle. Perhaps you can also customize it and just write the name of the person that you're going to give this to. This is one of my favorites. This is a hand-painted ornament inspired card. I would love to someday hand paint my Christmas ornaments, but for now, I'm already happy with this holiday card. You can even cut out the shape and hang this on your Christmas tree. I personally like the vintage feel of the color combination here. Next, we have a Christmas tree stocky, so I wanted this to be a bit more cheerful, so I chose the red color. Of course, the class is not complete without flowers, so I added some flowers and pine needles. Now, for the last project is going to be this beautiful snow globe that I'm so excited for you guys to try. This takes about 15 minutes to finish, but don't worry, you will definitely enjoy it and you will learn different techniques as well. That's it for our projects. I hope that you will enjoy all of them and that they will be meaningful holiday cards that you can give out to friends and family. 3. Materials: [MUSIC] Let's talk about the materials. I'm going to start with the brushes. We're going to use silver brush black velvet. Because we're going to paint smaller holiday cards, we're also going to use a smaller size brush. We're going to use size 4 and 6. I really love these brushes because they're very pointy. Even if you load them with a lot of water, they can still maintain the pointy tip. But of course, feel free to use other brands as well. Let's now move on to paints. I'm going to use Shinhan PWC. If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that this is one of my favorite brands. These Korean artist great paints comes in tubes only, so I would pour it into smaller half bands just like this so that it's more convenient to use. If you like painting small to medium-sized paintings, I would suggest doing this as well. You'll see the list of colors that we'll use in the class in the next video. Next, we need a mixing palette. I'm using just this watercolor tin. This is the lid of my watercolor tin, and they love the little wells in this mixing palette. You can also use ceramic palette, or this is one of the popular ones right now. It's a resin palette. If you don't have these, a regular plate will do. For our gold paint, we're going to use the edger pearlescent watercolor paint. I use the golden set. You can see different shades of gold here, which I really love. They even have some bronzes and I really like gold color. You can, of course, use other brands as well. A gold watercolor paints should settle well on the paper and when you rub it with your fingers, you can see that it will not transfer on your skin. That's just a tip for you if you're looking for a gold paint. All right, let's move on to paper. I'm using this postcard from Etcher lab. It's also watercolor paper. It's 100% cotton, and it's cold press. The size for our projects is 4 inches by 6 inches. You can definitely grab other paper brands such as the Baohong. This is also an artist grade paper and 100% cotton as well. You can simply cut it to a size that you prefer for your holiday cards. For a loose watercolor painting, I suggest using cold-press paper because it handles water better. You'll see that you have a little bit of texture on the paper which helps it absorb the water. We're also going to use white pens for our projects. I'm using the Posca Acrylic Pen, but definitely you can use other brands. I love using these white pens because they're very opaque. Using white pens also makes it easier to paint some smaller details. Let me show you a sample project. This is one of the project where you will use the white pen. Another alternative is using a gouache. I'm using the brand Holbein and it's in permanent white. We're also going to use this to add some white details such as no. Next, we need a water jar and also tissue paper to block out the excess paint in our brushes. Lastly, we need pencil. Any pencil is okay, I'm just using an irregular mechanical pencil. Then next we also need just any round object. I'm using a masking tape right here. We're going to use this to outline the snow globe. I'm really excited for you to try out this project. That's it. That's all we need for the class. Let's now move on to the next video where you will learn how to mix colors. [MUSIC] 4. Color Mixing: [MUSIC] Now let's swatch the colors that we will use in the class. I'm going to start with Crimson Lake. Now, this is a beautiful, deep reddish-pink color. Next, we have permanent red, we have Burnt Sienna, and Raw Umber. Let's now go to our greens. I'm going to use Hooker's green and Sap green in the class. Hooker's green is a more intense green color compared to Sap green. Let's watch some Burnt Umber. This is a deep brown color. Next, we have Sepia. This one is a really dark brown color that I also love to add to my greens. Next, we have this neutral color called Payne's gray. Next is Prussian blue, and after Prussian blue we are going to swatch Cerulean blue, you can definitely use other blues in your palette. This is just a guide for you. Lastly, I'm going to swatch indigo, which is one of my favorite colors as well. You can see that it's more bluish compared to Payne's gray. Now that we are done with the swatches, I'm going to just quickly show you some color combinations that we're going to use in the class. Right here I just mix Hooker's green with Prussian blue. We are going to produce a very beautiful and bold color. This will look a little bit bluish-green. We're going to use this color for this hand-painted Christmas ornament. Let's move on to the second mixture. This is Hooker's green and Sepia, so these two colors will produce a mutant, deep green color. This is also one of my favorite mixes if I want something more mutant, you can definitely play around with the value, you can make it darker or lighter just by adding water. This is also the same mixture that I use for the pine needles, so right here I'm just going to do a simple demo. It's best to paint those slides facing in different directions. I'm going to rinse my brush and try to paint some lighter strokes. You can find a more in-depth tutorial of pine needles in my previous holiday Skillshare classes. Next I'm going to show you how to tone down that red color so I have here permanent red with Hooker's green. We're going to mix these two colors. Just make sure that you don't add too much green or else it will look too dark. This is a very beautiful maroon color. You can use this to also paint the flowers so that it's not too bright red. Let me just paint some simple berries. You can see it's a deep red color. Now let's try to paint another set in this permanent red. You can see a huge difference. The maroon color gives a more rustic vibe, while the red berries give a happier and cheerful look. Let's move on to. Cerulean blue. We're going to add different blues to Cerulean blue just to show you what it will look like. We're just going to mix first Cerulean blue and Prussian blue. Now, let's swatch this, also you can see that we have toned down the color of Cerulean blue. Next, let's mix Cerulean blue and Payne's gray. This is going to be a darker color. Next, we're going to mix it with Indigo. Indigo is more on the blue side compared to Payne's gray and you can see that mixture right here, that it has more blue. It's really interesting to see how mixing these two colors produce just different blues. You can definitely use this guide for painting our snow globe. For the snow globe there's a part right there where we will paint snow and we're going to use Indigo. You can also use Payne's gray but I'm showing you here that just by adding more water, you can achieve a really light color. This still looks a little dark. I'm going to add more water. Now let's try to just simply swatch it. I think that looks a lot better. If you don't have Indigo or Payne's gray, you can just add black to any of your blues and then dilute that in a lot of water. That's it. Let's move on to the next video where we will learn some watercolor techniques that we can apply to our projects. [MUSIC] 5. Watercolor Techniques: [MUSIC] In this video, you are going to learn different watercolor techniques that you can apply to our projects and also through your future paintings as well. To start, I would like you to divide your paper into seven sections. For reference, I am using a seven by 10 inches paper. Some techniques are going to require drying time in order to save time while waiting for it to dry, we are going to skip to a different technique. That's just a heads-up for you. Now let's dive. Let's start with a wet-on-dry. It just means that our brush is wet and the paper is dry. Just pick up any color that you have in your palate and start painting some petals or just try to scribble some brushstrokes. With a wet on dry, the shapes will appear more pigmented and they have a finer or a sharper edge. This is also a good way to practice your brush strokes. You can try to sway your brush, create different markings. Now let's go through layering with gouache. In order to save time let's paint this circle here and use any color that you want. Just make sure that it's really dark and quite opaque. I wanted to paint this first so that it will be dry by the time we get onto this watercolor technique. Later on, you will layer this with gouache. That's why it's important that the base layer is already dry. It doesn't have to be perfectly around and don't worry if there are imperfections, that's definitely fine. That's also one of the advantages of layering with gouache, you'll be able to cover up your mistakes. This looks good, I'm just going to wait for this to dry. Now let's move on to wet on wet. Wet on wet means that the paper is wet and then the brush is also wet. For this exercise, just draw a triangle. I'm going to fill it in with water. Next, let's grab any color that you want. I'm going to use a sap green. The wet-on-wet technique gives you a softer look. You can see right here as I paint the green parts, it looks very soft and it looks feathery. I can also add a darker color right here. It will blend well with the base green color that we painted. You also don't have harsh lines when you're painting on a wet paper. Now let's do another triangle right here. When this one dries, we're going to add some gold details. To save time, I'm going to do some of the shapes in advance. You can definitely try to paint it in another color. I just did it in a green color because I want this to look like a Christmas tree. Let's move on to bleeding. I'm going to use hookers green with CPI. You can use other green colors as well. Just to better visualize this technique, we are going to use this for this ornament. With bleeding, usually, there's a darker color and a lighter one. You can see right there, there's a bleeding from the dark green color. Let's paint a eucalyptus. These are just some oval shapes that will look like leaves. I'm going to start with one. Next, let's rinse our brush, and then just tap the excess water. I'm going to paint the same oval shape right here. I'm going to lightly touch that green leaf. You want to be quite careful because you don't want the colors to be all over the place. I'm just going to try and spread that out. You can definitely do that. Now let's add another leaf. I'm going to grab a really dark color and paint another oval shape. Your case is try to paint the main shape first and then lightly touch the tip towards that lighter-colored leaf. You can see the bleeding. You can also do this with your other leaves as you're painting. It's a nice way to give more depth to your floral arrangements. Before we head on to the next technique called splatter, let's do the base first. I have here just a round shape and I'm going to fill it in with a lot of water. Next is grab any blue color in your palette. This will serve as the sky and you want it to be quite dark because later on we're going to add a splatter technique and we're going to add some small specks of white snow. I'm just going to try and spread that out. You can leave the bottom white so that it looks like a pile of snow. With a clean brush, you can try to swirl around the color to mix it, or you can try to lift some colors if it's too dark. Grab a darker color like Payne's gray or indigo and add it towards the top portion of this round shape. Let's wait for this to dry and move on to a different technique. We're also going to do some fading technique. If you have been watching my classes for a while, you would probably be familiar with this. We are going to use it for our Christmas tree and I just have here hookers green with sepia, but any green color will do. Just scribble some small lines and I'm going to slowly build this Christmas tree, making sure that there are white gaps or white spaces in-between each layer. This really helps in avoiding it being too overcrowded. Next, let's rinse our brush and just tap the excess water. I'm going to try and fade away these strokes. Lightly touch the tips of each dark stroke and try to blur it. You can see that it's starting to look softer compared to what it looked like before. That is the beauty of fading. You can make things look softer. Let's move on to another technique. This is layering with gouache. You can see that we already have this base round shape and it's already dry. I'm going to use the whole bean white gouache and you want it to be really thick. Let's paint some simple five-petaled flowers. We're going to use this technique for the hand-painted Christmas ornaments. When you're layering with gouache, you want the base to be dark so that the white gouache will pop up. Right now I'm trying to scatter the petals all around this shape. Some can be just one petal, some can be only three. Sometimes the gouache will dry lighter than expected. If that happens, just wait for the gouache details to dry and then we can go back in to add another layer. For the next technique, we're going to add some gold details. I'm just using the gold paint from my extra lab watercolor set. Now I'm just going to add some small dots in the center of these flowers. This is completely optional. Next, let's go through this triangle that looks like a Christmas tree. You're just going to add some smaller dots as a gold embellishment. I wanted this to have a minimalist look that's why I'm adding only small dots of gold. This is the project where we will use the same method. You can see just small dots of gold, which makes it look more elegant. Now we're going to do the splatter technique. Now, don't forget to cover the areas where you don't want some splatters. Now let's coat our brush in gouache. Make sure that it also is a little bit runny so that when you tap your brush, you can create these nice splatters. This will serve as snow in our snow globe. You can definitely apply this technique to other paintings as well. Right here I'm just tapping my brush using my finger. This really looks good. I think that we can try to play around. I'm going to use just this dark color. You can use Payne's gray and indigo. Let's just paint a mountain. Now I want this to look a little bit imperfect so you don't really need straight lines here. Just try to wiggle your brush to create some texture. This is an impromptu painting, so we're not really going to paint this in our projects, but you can also do this if you want. Now let's wait for this to dry and while we're waiting for it to dry, I'm going to grab some white gouache, add some snowy effect on this tree. When you're adding some snow effect on the tree, make sure that you add the white gouache near the dark leaves. You want the white part to be on top and the dark color to be underneath. These are the more dramatic effect. Let's add some snow on the mountains. I'm just going to dab my brush and tissue paper because I want to use a dry brush technique here. Let's start at the top and just go down. I'm going to try and scribble some thin lines. I want it to be really imperfect. This is really just something I'm doing for fun. I hope that you'll also enjoy this quick project. We're done with the techniques. I hope that you enjoyed the lesson in this video. I think you guys are prepared for bathing the cards. Now let's move on to the next video [MUSIC]. 6. Christmas Tree Ornament: [MUSIC] I'm so excited for you guys to try out the first project. We are going to paint our interpretation of Christmas tree ornaments, so I'm going to start with triangle shapes and then we are going to layer it with some gold accents. We're also going to use a white pen and add a lace detail. Let's start. I have here my postcard. It's four by six inches, and I'm using a regular mechanical pencil. Let's draw three triangles. You can draw more if you want, and you can place them any way you want. I do suggest that you draw them facing in different directions, so you want some of the triangles to be a little bit tilted. That will suggest movement in your painting instead of it being too stiff. For the first triangle, we're going to paint a really dark and rich green color. I'm going to mix Hooker's green and sepia. We want a really bold color. I'm going to try and swatch this first. When filling out an area, I personally find it easier to do an outline first and just fill in the middle part. But when you're doing this technique, you do have to be quick because you don't want the outline to dry fast. You still want to be able to blend the outline and the color on the inside. If there are imperfections, you can always go back and try to fix it. Right here I'm just adding some more volume on the left side. When I drew the triangles, I did it freehand without using a ruler. That's why the sides are not really even, but it's really fine with me. I do want it to look as natural as possible and if there are imperfections, it's okay. We can always try to cover it up with another layer of gouache or gold details. Let's move on to the second triangle. I'm just using water here. I'm going to let that color bleed into the second triangle. You can see that the second triangle is really light in color. There's a little bit of green in my brush left. That's why it has a tinge of green. I think we need a little bit more color on the second triangle. I'm going to grab some sap green and just going to layer some color on top of it while it's still wet. There's too much water in the second triangle. Let's try to blot it out. Use your brush and blot out the excess moisture with a tissue paper and then just absorb the excess water in the triangle. That's how you troubleshoot the puddles of water in your painting. Now let's move on to the second triangle. I'm using sap green for the third triangle. For our project here, we're going to paint triangles in different shades of green. That will make it look more interesting. I'm just adding a little bit more of that sap green to make it pop. You can see we have a dark green, we have a medium green, and we have a light green. You can also add a dark color in the corners of this triangle that will give it a different effect. But, of course, it's optional and we're just trying to experiment and have fun. You can even add salt if you want. Salt will give it a more interesting texture. Now let's add some modern beads. I'm going to use raw umber to paint these brown circles. Next, let's use burnt umber and add another circle on top. You can definitely use any brown color in your palate. It would be best to use two different types of browns just to make it look more interesting. Another suggestion is to use gold paint. You can add some gold beads right there. Now let's paint a trunk for each Christmas tree. I'm going to use burnt umber. Just paint a rectangular shape at the bottom of this triangle. It's best to add this detail when the triangles are already dry. I think we're good. Now, let's add some details. I'm using my Posca acrylic pen. When you're adding a second layer, makes sure that the first layer is already dry. I'm going to start with two parallel lines. Next, let's add some scallop shapes. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to do a lace pattern, but you can definitely add different patterns on your own. Then we can try to layer another set of scallops here. It will make it look more intricate. Now let's add some small dots. For the center, we are going to do some zigzag marks or you can do X marks as well. As a filler, I'm going to add some small dots. I really want this to look even in the interior I'm going to add clusters of three dots. Again, you don't really need to follow this part. You can, of course, look for other lace patterns that might be easier for you. For the second triangle, I'm going to add some gold accents. Grab your gold paint now. Make sure that you get a really thick mixture. I'm going to add some small dots. I wanted this to look a bit more minimalist. We're going to add these small dots on the right side of the triangle. It's a really simple method, but it's so beautiful. Now for the third triangle, we're going to use a white pen again. You're just going to add some simple swirls facing in different directions. The possibilities are endless when it comes to painting on these small triangles. You can definitely play around with different strokes and also shapes. I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to create your own version of this project. Now if you have some rhinestones at home or maybe glitters, you can also add that to add some bling to your holiday cards. I don't have those materials, but I do have gold paint. I'm going to use that to add some sparkle to this tree. We are almost done. Let's add some gold strings. I'm using my gold watercolor paint. Just to add some movement to this painting, I'm making sure that I'm painting some curvy lines. On the lower right side of this project, there's a white space. You can add some letterings like merry Christmas or other cause. But since I'm not going to write anything here, I'm just going to add a gold string just to fill in that white gap. Lastly, let's add some small dots just to add some sparkle. But if you want it to look clean, you can opt not to add these gold dots. We are done. Congratulations for finishing your first project. I hope that you had fun. Don't forget to upload it in the project gallery section of the class. I really love the sparkly details on this one. Let's now move on to the next project. [MUSIC] 7. Gold Leaf Ornament: For Day 2, let's paint this minimalist gold leaf ornament. This project was inspired by clear Christmas balls with some eucalyptus on the inside, and I thought that I would paint that, but with some gold in it. This is a very quick project that you can finish in less than 10 minutes so let's start. First, we need a round object, so I'm just using my tape here, and we're going to trace a circle. My paper is still 4-by-6 inches so it's a really small postcard. If you have a bigger paper, you can paint several of these Christmas bubbles, we are going to paint eucalyptus, and you need the hooker's green and sapphire. We're going for a deep green color that's a little bit muted. For the first leaf, we need it to be really dark. This is the same leaf that we practice in the exercises. Let's start with a small stem and then paint an oval shape to attach to it. Next, let's rinse our brush and paint another oval shape so we want this dark color to bleed into the second leaf. You can press your brush onto the paper and let the bristles fan out so you can create a broader stroke. Now let's move on to the third one, I'm going to start with another dark color. Again, I'm letting it bleed into the second leaf. Try to vary the sizes of the leaves as well. Now we're going to add a little bit of this Prussian blue into my mixture, just to give it a bluish color. Now let's paint another leaf over here. You can see that it's lighter now. As we go towards the top part of this stock, we're going to paint smaller size leaves. Now let's add just a small hook on the top part of this Christmas bubble. Later on, you can add a string. Now let's do the outline of this Christmas bubble. I'm going to use gold paint. You can use other colors as well. Don't worry about the pencil marks. We will be able to cover that with the gold paint. You don't really need to paint the ring in one sweeping motion. You can do it little by little. It can be quite nerve-racking to paint this ring freehand. You can always do it little by little if it makes it easier for you. Also, if it's not really even it's fine. You can go back and try to fix it. Another option is to use a flat brush. It may be a more stable option when painting lines. But I decided to use a round brush since some of you might not have a flat brush right now. Let's do this cap part of the Christmas bubble, I'm just going to fill that in with some gold and add a hook. This already looks good. Now we're going to layer it with some gold accents. Going to paint a small oval shape here and layer it with some of the leaves. Next, let's vary the style. We're going to paint just the outline of a leaf shape with some veins on the inside. Then we can paint another leaf, but this time we want it to be quite transparent so you can still see the leaf underneath. We're going to do the same gold pattern on the other parts of this eucalyptus stoke. Just make sure that you do it alternately so that it doesn't look too crowded. Next, let's just paint a really thin string of gold right here. We have here Prussian blue, I'm going to mix it with the green color in my palette. You're going to thin this down with a lot of water. We really want this to be quite transparent. I'm going to do a glass effect. You can see the white areas inside this Christmas bubbles are going to fill that in with this blue paint. We just want it to look very subtle. I'm adding this color to give it more dimension so that it doesn't look too flat. We are done. That was an easy project. You can also paint the ring a little bit thinner if you want this to have a daintier look. Now let's move on to the next project [MUSIC] 8. Christmas Tree in Pot: [MUSIC] For our third project, we are going to paint this Christmas tree in a pot. I've been seeing this style in a mall and I really wanted to buy one, but then I just didn't have the time to sort out space at home, so I just decided to paint it and maybe I'm just going to hang this painting on the wall. Let's start. I have here again my four by six inch paper, and we're going to start drawing a small pot. You can draw any shape that you want, you can be creative with it, and on top of that pot we need to draw a triangle. This will be our guide for painting our tree. It really helps if you have some guide when you're painting certain objects. Let me just prepare the greens that we will use. I'm going to grab some sap green. Next I'm going to mix Hooker's green and sepia so we have two colors. One is lighter, one is darker. I will start with the sap green color. This is quite diluted, and just using a tapping motion creates these organic strokes. I'm going to start at the top of the tree and I'm going to go down layer by layer. You can see that I'm also leaving spaces in-between my strokes and then also trying to vary it. Some will look like small dots, some are longer strokes. What we're going to do here is we're going to lay down just our first base, which is a light color and after which we are going to add a darker mixture. This is a slightly different style from the exercise that we did with just the fading technique, but I still wanted to show you guys different approaches to painting a tree so you can try and figure out which technique works better for you. Now let's grab our dark green color. This is Hooker's green and sepia. While the base is still wet, I'm going to add this color and I'm mostly going to add it underneath each layer. That's because this is going to be the shadow of the tree. Now let's just continue tapping our brush grading these beautiful markings. Let's try to fade away this area so you can try to do that, mix different techniques together and that will make it look more interesting. I'm also trying to tap some strokes towards the edges of each layer. You can see that it looks more wispy. Towards the bottom we're going to add more darker strokes, so the tree is looking good now let's move on to painting the pot. I have here a very diluted mixture of burnt umber. Now let's try to fill in this pot. I'm going to do just a quick outline, and after which I'm going to fill in this space. We need to do this quickly because we don't want the outline to dry up before we add the center. Now for the top part of this pot, you can see I'm trying to wiggle my brush and I'm not making a straight line. That's because I want just an illusion that some of the leaves are over the pot. Now let's add some shadow. I'm going to use some burnt umber, but this time it's more pigment, and I'm going to add this while the base is still wet. You want this color to blend in with the base color that we did. If you want a dark pot, then this is already good, you don't need to change it. But I figured that I wanted it to be a little bit lighter. Now I'm trying to leave the color just to make this part lighter. I didn't want to edit this part out because I wanted to show you that sometimes you can still troubleshoot if you made a mistake. Now let's grab our gouache and make sure that you have a really thick and pigmented mixture in your brush. We're going to add our snow, so my tip is added near the dark areas. It's also better if you put the snow on top and then below is the darker leaf or the darker part of the tree. That's because you want an illusion that there's a shadow. I'll just try to use the tip of your brush and try to wiggle it to create these organic strokes. Now it's time to fix the shape of the tree. I'm going to grab hooker screen and sepia again and you can see I'm trying to add some really small strokes towards the edges of the tree and that's because we want to add some movement to this painting. You don't want it to look too stiff. You don't want it to be just a perfect triangle. You want a little bit of fluff towards the edges of this tree. It hits a little difficult to explain that, but you'll see the difference as I'm adding some strokes towards the sides. Now I have here permanent dread, but you can use other colors as well. I just wanted to add some Christmas bubbles. I'm going to paint with a really thick and opaque mixture because I want the red to pop up. Just try to add a few Christmas bubbles. Don't try to overload this with a lot of ornaments, because we're still aiming for a minimalist style of Christmas tree. Now the pot is already dry. I'm going to grab burnt umber. This is a darker mixture. We are going to add a simple ribbon. It might be easier for you if you can use an ordinary pen, you can get a colored pen or even a color pencil to draw this ribbon. But if you really want to paint it, you can just try and use a smaller size brush so that you have more control. Next let's add our rim to this pot. I'm just going to grab some burnt umber and we're going to paint just a really thin line. After that we are going to rinse our brush and just fade away this stroke. I'm going to fade away the bottom part. It's now time to add a little bit of sparkle. I'm going to grab some gold watercolor paint. Now let's paint some gold bubbles. Try to put spaces in between these gold dots just so that it won't look too overcrowded. Now if you want more contrast, you can grab dark green color and just add some more strokes just to give it more depth. To be honest, I find it quite therapeutic to add these small strokes because you're doing a repetitive pattern. Right here I'm trying to extend some areas just to make it look prettier. We are done. You can definitely change a lot of things in this project. Feel free to be creative and just add your own style. Now let's move on to the next video. 9. Half Wreath Foliage: [MUSIC] For our fourth project, we're going to paint this clean and simple half-wreath foliage. To make it a little bit more festive, I'm going to add some red and white berries. Let's start. Just as a guide, we are going to use our pencil and draw a letter C-shape. This will be our guide so that you have a general idea of where the leaves will go. Now let's mix our greens. I'm mixing Hooker's green and Sepia. You want that dark mixture. Next, we are going to mix sap green and burnt sienna. This is going to be a lighter color. Let's use this for our first leaf. We're going to paint rounded leaves. Just paint a loop and fill in the center. After that, we are going to paint another leaf beside it. I'm going to make it a little bit darker. For the next leaf, I'm going to paint using just clean water. The color will come from bleeding from the darker leaves. Just let the colors flow into this clear leaf. Let's grab another green color. I have here, burnt umber and sap green. You can see that I'm letting it bleed into the clear leaf. Now I'm going to slightly lift off that paint because it looks a little messy. We're going to stop with the leaves and we're going to add some red berries I have here just permanent red, but you can use any red in your palette. I really wanted some bleeding effects. I'm going to add the berries near this leaf and just let that color bleed into the leaves. Now let's add some more leaves. This is a little bit lighter. It's still burnt umber and sap green just with more water. This will look still a little bit awkward with some spaces in between the leaves, but that is definitely okay because we are going to add some fillers later on. The red berries bled into the leaves too much. I'm going to just lightly grab that color so that it doesn't look too messy. Towards the tip, we're going to paint smaller leaves. Let's move on to the lower half. I'm going to do just the same pattern. Just use any green color in your palette and paint a loop and fill in the center with some color. You can always go back in and fix the shape of the leaves. When painting a leaf it's really important to change the value. It just means that some of these are darker, some are lighter. It makes the painting look more interesting. It doesn't look flat. Let's grab some permanent red. I'm going to continue adding some berries while the leaves are still wet. I'm hoping that some of the berries will bleed into the green leaves. Now let's add some darker leaves. This is Hooker's green and sepia. Again, we're going to paint smaller leaves towards the tip of this wreath. To make it look more organic, you can add some stem sticking out. This is already dry. I'm going to layer it with some more round leaves. This time I'm using a translucent color is the same burnt umber and sap green mixture. You can use other greens as well. Just make sure that the mixture is light in color. That's because you still want to see the leaves underneath or you still want to see the first layer leaves. Now by layering the leaves, it will make your wreath look even fluffier. It will give it more volume and you will get rid of the awkward white gaps. I'm just adding some more berries right here, just to balance out this wreath. Now let's move on to adding some gouache. You can see that some of the lease doesn't look that good, but don't worry, because we can cover it up with some white gouache. I'm going to layer it with some white berries. That will help cover up some areas that you don't like. Also, I suggest that when you're adding berries, these white berry should have a dark background so that it will pop up. You can also try to play around. You can add some white veins instead or add some smaller flowers. Also, feel free to rotate your paper so that it's easier for you to paint at a certain angle. Now, just to add a little bit of highlight to the berries, I'm just going to put a small dot. It's looking really good. Now I have here gouache, I'm going to mix it with a little bit of that red to create a pink color. I'm going to use that to add some more berries. I love the effect of these pink berries. It definitely given extra character to this half-wreath. I think that it's really nice to add that subtle hint of pink. For this project, we're not going to add some gold anymore. I think this already looks good and it looks very minimalist. Now what you can do is to add just a coat in the center, or maybe just put Merry Christmas or happy holidays to make it look more complete. That's it. Don't forget to share your work in the project gallery section of the class. I'll see you in the next video. [MUSIC] 10. Handpainted Ornaments: [MUSIC] I am extremely excited for this project. I've always wanted to paint my own Christmas bubbles, but for now, I'm pretty happy with painting Christmas bubbles on paper. Join me in this project. The first thing that we need to do is to draw the ornaments. You can definitely be creative with this, or you can paint just simple round shapes if you want. For this project, I'm going to start with an oval shape. I'm going to do another oval-shaped below it, but this time I'm going to make it pointy. Then you can just try to erase that line in the middle. Just so that this ornament is not lonely, we're going to add another ornament behind it and I'm going to make it simpler, is just going to be a round shape. We need a really dark base, and I'm going to mix Hooker's green and Prussian blue. You can go with just a single color. You can go with just Prussian blue and that's definitely fine. The reason why we want a dark background is because we're going to paint some white gouache on this Christmas ornament. In order for that color to pop up, we want a dark background. Let me just swatch this color. It looks lovely. It's muted, bluish-green color. Now we're going to do a wet on dry technique here. I'm just going to fill in this space, and you can fill it in however you like. You can do an outline first or you can paint some broad strokes to go from one end to another. We're not going to be super strict about this because we're going to layer it. If you have made some mistakes, is definitely fine. No pressure. I just really wanted you to have fun painting these simple projects. For this part, I'm going to do it slowly because it's a little difficult to fill in such a tiny space. We are done. Let's wait for this to dry. You'll notice that it looks a little bit lighter here, but that's just because of the lighting. In person, it's really still dark. Now let's just grab some white gouache, and I'm going to use my size 6 round brush. We're going to paint some five or four petal flowers. Let's try to paint some quick strokes and also various strokes. You can see that sometimes I'm just painting lines, and sometimes I'm pressing my brush really hard so that I can create a broader petal. It's also very important to leave some spaces in between your strokes. Let's add one more flower. You want some good spacing in-between your flowers. You don't want it to look overly crowded. For some of the flowers, you can paint these three petals. You can paint even just two. It doesn't have to be the same. For this flower, I'm going to paint it like it's on its side. We're going to paint three-four petals and one small oval shape right there. You can also add some small petals towards the sides of this ornament. This is looking really dainty, I love it. Now let's grab our gouache and add some green. This is just leftover paint. This is probably sap green and burnt umber. You have this beautiful muted green color, and we're just going to paint some simple leaves beside the flowers. It's better to paint some really quick strokes so that you have the nice wispy leaf. It looks a little light. I'm going to grab some more paint and just paint on top of the leaves, give it a second layer so that it looks more opaque. Now let's grab our gold paint. I'm going to add some small dots in the center of the flowers. Next, let's paint this cap right here, and also a hook. Now for the second bubble, I'm going to be using this muted green color and add it right there. I love how these two colors compliment each other and that they're both muted. I'm excited to be able to paint these hand painted ornaments in real life. Another idea is to cut out the Christmas ornaments as you're going to paint, and you can try to put that on your Christmas tree instead. Now, let's wait for this to dry. Once it is already dry, we can start adding some white gouache. I'm still using my white gouache. This time, I'm going to paint some really cute four-petal flowers. You want it to look really dainty. I want the details to be quite small. Also because the pattern on the first ornament is already big, we don't want it to compete with the other ornament. I'm going to keep the second one simpler. Now let's grab our gold paint and add some gold accents to this Christmas ornament. I'm going to start with the cap and then a hook. Now let's add the string. Just paint a straight thin line. Before I forget, I'm going to add some bling on this green Christmas bubble. Let's add some small gold dots. Then you can also go back into the first ornament and add a second layer of gold if you want that gold to be more opaque. We are done. I hope that you enjoyed this project. You can definitely try it out in different colors as well and also add different kinds of flowers. I hope that you enjoyed this project, and I will see you in the next video. [MUSIC] 11. Christmas Stocking: [MUSIC] Welcome to our six project, and this time we're going to paint a Christmas stocking with some florals on top of it. First we need to draw a simple stocking or a simple sock. I'm going to start with this rectangle shape and then draw the foot area. Don't worry about pencil lines. You don't need to really erase everything because you're going to paint this stocking with an opaque color. We are sure to cover these pencil markings. First, we need to grab permanent red. I'm going to make this really opaque. It means that there's more paint, less water. We are going to leave that rectangle part above alone. We're going to paint on it for now. Going to start right here at the bottom and just slowly fill it in with this red color. Now if you want to use gouache, it's also fine. But right now I'm going to use just watercolor. Now, if you prefer different color of Christmas stocking, like blue or green, you can definitely change it. I just really wanted a more cheerful holiday card, so I chose red. While waiting for this to dry, let's move on to painting the flowers. I'm going to grab crimson lake and paint a five petal flower here. I'm also going to make sure that I will not paint on that rectangle part. That's going to be why later on so I chose this color crimson lake because I don't want it to be the same shade as the Christmas stocking. Now let's add a simple pine needle. I'm going to grab sap green, paint the stem. Just a very thin stem and add some really thin leaves facing in different directions. It can be overlapping as well. Now let's add the four petaled flower here so I really wanted this to be just a simple composition. Next, let's do another one that is on its sides. I'm going to rinse my brush and just paint some more petals. Now I wanted some petals to be lighter, some are darker. Now let's grab some Hooker's green or you can also still use sap green or any green in your palate and we're going to add a stem through these flowers, add some tiny leaves. Try to vary the shape and size of the leaves in this mini bouquet. Next, as a filler we're going to paint some smaller red flowers. Just simply tap your brush onto the paper to create these petals like strokes. You can use just a tip of your brush to do this. After that, we're just going to attach it to the main bouquet. Let's add some stems. This pine needle is already dry this, let's try to layer it. I'm going to use Hooker's green and CPS. This is a darker color and now let's just add that to our pine needle. I'm going to paint some really thin strokes facing in different directions as well. Just to make it more balanced, I'm going to add some pine needles on the left side as well. You can do something small just like this. It doesn't have to be the whole stock. For the white portion of this Christmas stocking I'm going to make burnt umber and ultramarine blue to create a neutral color. But if we don't want to mix simply use Payne's gray or you can use indigo as well. Just make sure that the mixture is really diluted so that it doesn't look alike. Let's add some darker colors towards the sides of this area. The flowers look a little flat right now so what we're going to do is we're going to add a center and I want it to be really dark so we're going to use indigo but you can use Payne's gray or you can even use black. It's now time to add a little bit of bling. I'm just going to add some gold berries. Now let's add a pattern on the Christmas stocking itself. I'm going to be mixing Hooker's green and permanent red so we want this to be the Cameroon color. Now we're going to paint like a half circle on the heel and on the toe area of this Christmas stocking. It's just a design. Once everything is dry, you can add some white details. I'm using my posca acrylic pen. Now let's add some small lines to have it look like stitches on this stocking. Now I'm going to just draw two parallel lines and in-between that we can draw some zigzag shape, add some small dots. In this part of the project, you can definitely create your own pattern. Just do whatever works for you. You don't need to exactly copy what we're doing here. Next we're going to do some snowflakes. If you want a more in-depth tutorial, I do have a snowflake project in my previous holiday classes. You might want to check that out, I really love the pattern. You can add some small dots as well. For the finishing touches, you can extend some branches or maybe add some more feelers Then now we can add a little bit of gold berries over there and add some details in the center of the flowers. Then I think we're done. This is a really lovely and cute project, and I would really want to paint it again in a different color combination. Now let's move on to the next and also the last project which is a beautiful snow globe. See you in the next video. [MUSIC] 12. Snowglobe: [MUSIC] Last public is going to be special. It's also going to be a little bit longer compared to the previous projects. But I'm sure that you will enjoy making this one. Let's start. For our snow globe, we need around object, we're just going to trace it. Right here I'm using just my masking tape. Next we're going to draw the base. I'm going to draw over the bottom part of this circle. We're going to paint a wooden base that's layered. Later on you will see what that means. Right here, I'm just drawing the second layer. After that we're going to do the third layer. Next we're going to draw some curved lines. It looks like a football. It might be difficult to imagine what this is for now, but trust me, it is going to be useful, is going to be our guide. That part will be the snowy part. Then right here, I'm just trying to scribble some lines that will be a guide for painting some pine trees. I don't mind if there are pencil lines right now because I will be able to cover that up with the pine trees later on. Now let's grab some Cerulean blue. We can add that little bit of Prussian blue as well, or use any blue in your palate. That's completely fine. Now we want this to be a really thick mixture. Let's start with the top part of the snow globe. I'm going to do just a simple outline. It doesn't have to be perfect for now. I will also be leaving some white spaces or white lines that will later on be reflections. Let's just add some more over here. I'm using just the tip of my brush to create these strokes. Next, let's rinse our brush and then just slowly fade away this stroke. As I'm doing that, I'm still leaving some white spaces. Just leave it as is, don't worry about it. Let's spread the color right here on the left side. You can see I'm leaving that white line over there. I also left a white dot and that's okay. Now let's rinse our brush, tap the excess water, and I'm going to fade away this part,. What we want is the top part of the snow globe is going to be quite dark. Then towards the center, you want it to be lighter. Little by little, I'm trying to fill in the snow globe. I'm using just a tip of my brush. You can see that they really left that the white line intentionally on the sides of this snow globe. All right, so there's a small smudge right here which I'm going to try to erase by adding some more water and rubbing it in. It seems like it's not going to come off, but that's okay. Now let's just continue to fade away this area. Make sure that the center is going to be light. All right, so now I'm going to add some indigo to my blue mixture, and you want this to be quite dark. Let's start painting at the top. I'm just going to paint a line first. Next we are going to spread this color. We do want an intense blue color because we're going to add some snow effect. For that snow effect to pop up, we need a dark background. Now let's grab some Prussian blue. I'm going to add that color towards the second half of this snow globe. You can see that we're doing it from darkest to lightest. With a clean brush, you can do one sweeping motion just like this, so that all the colors will blend out beautifully. Now with the tissue paper, I'm going to blot out this area, make it a little bit wider. I know it doesn't make sense for now, but later on you will see that this will give a back lit effect on the pine trees that will paint in this area. You can use your brush to fix some areas as well. Let's paint the snowy area. I'm going to add just water in this part. Next you can grab Payne's gray, make sure that it's really diluted and just drop that in. You can see that there's a soft effect going on because the paper is already wet when we added the Payne's gray. Now we can add a little bit of Payne's gray on the top part, and that will suggest some more snow in that area. Just make sure that you leave some white spaces as well. All right, now let's move on to the base. I'm going to use burnt umber and we're going to paint layer by layer. I really wanted this to be quite loose and I'm going to intentionally leave some white spaces. All right, so we are done with this first layer. Let's add some more on the second layer, I'm going to leave a space in-between the two layers to suggest that they are separate. The bottom most layer is going to be the widest part. Now while this is all still wet, we can grab a darker burnt umber and just drop that in, let it blend in with the base. Again, you just want this to be really loose and just not too stiff. That make it look a little bit more dramatic. We can add some Payne's gray or add some indigo. For this part I actually added too much Payne's gray, but I'm going to show you how to troubleshoot that. Right now, I'm just trying to rub my brush onto the paper and try to pick up that excess paint. Make sure that you have a clean brush. I'm just going to layer that with more burnt umber. But as I layered it even more, it became even muddier. Sometimes that really happened. What I did was I just tried to pick up the excess paint again. When that happens, try to troubleshoot it right away while it's still wet. While waiting for the base to become dry, I'm going to move on to painting the pine trees. This is just Hooker's green and sepia. We need to paint three trees and I'm going to start with the center tree. This is going to be the tallest one and I'm going to use just the tip of my brush. Just lightly tap it on the paper and making sure that there are species in between my strokes. You can try to also wiggle your brush a little bit to create more organic strokes. Just take your time when you're doing this pine tree. If you remember earlier, we blotted out this area, we wanted just a whiter background and because we did that, you can see right now that the tree looks like it's backlit or that there's a light behind it. Now let's move on to the tree, on the left side is going to be shorter. It will look like one tree is in front and some of the trees are at the back and that will give it more depth. Let's do a close-up video, I'm going to do the third tree and I'm just going to tap my brush to create these nice organic strokes. Now, re-rinse your brush and tap the excess water. We're going to try and fade away this part to make it look more seamless. It feels as though they are blending in with the background. I don't want this to look too stare, that's why we're trying to soften the bottom part. To add contrast, you can, of course, add the darker color towards the bottom part of this tree. While waiting for that to dry, let's move on to the base again, and I'm going to use burnt umber. You can see that the color here, it looks really light so we want to bring back the color, I'm going to add a second layer. With watercolor don't worry if you've messed up the first time, you can always go back and fix it with a second layer. Now, let's add a little bit of Payne's gray on the right side of this base. But if you don't want to add this color, you can simply just add burnt umber. To add the highlight on the base, I'm going to use my dry brush and just pick up the paint on one side of the base. Let's go back to the snow part. I have here just Payne's gray, I'm going to just paint a line and make that more pronounced. This part will give us an illusion that this is the front part of the snowy area, and then you have the backside as well. It creates more depth when you do this. It's now time for my favorite part which is adding snow. I'm using just white gouache, and make sure that the paint or the mixture is a little bit runny. Now, we're going to cover some areas, I'm using just tissue paper, you can use any scrap paper. We're just going to tap our brush to create the splatter effect. You can also use your hand and try to flick the brush instead. I guess this is one of the most satisfying parts of painting the snow globe. I really enjoyed adding the snowy effect. Now we want to add some reflections. You can add some lines or you can add some rectangular shapes just like this and it will be easier to do this if you have a reference photo of a reflection on a snow globe. Right now, it doesn't make sense if you see it up close, you will appreciate more if you look at the snow globe from afar. We can also add some small dots if you feel like you need more snow in some areas and of course, we need to add some more snow details on the pine trees. You want to add the snowy effect on top of the leaves because when it snows the snow fall on the top part of the leaves. We're actually almost done, I decided to add a little bit of sparkle. We're going to add some small gold dots on the pine trees and that's because I wanted just a little bit more sparkle, but of course, it is up to you if you want to add this. Another idea is to paint the base gold, but that's of course optional. I think we are done. I hope that you enjoyed this project even if it took a little bit longer to finish. It looks very pretty and even put your initials in the base part of the snow globe. Let's move on to the next video for the conclusion of this class. [MUSIC] 13. Final Thoughts: We have reached the end of the class. Thank you so much for watching. For our project, you can choose among the paintings that I have demonstrated in the class, or you can create your own composition. Just remember to have fun while painting these holiday cards. I hope to see your projects in the project gallery section of the class. Just take a photo of your painting and upload it there. Now, let me show you how to upload a project. You are most likely going to be in the lessons tab. Just simply move to the left until you see the projects and resources. Just tap on that and then tap on Create Project to upload a photo of your painting. Once you tap on that, you can see project title, project description, and then you'll see image, you click on that to upload your painting. At the same time in the projects and resources section, you can see the resources area over here, and that's where you can see the photos of the projects, which I will be uploading so that you can download the photo, save it in your phone, and use that as a reference when you're painting the project. You can also tag me on Instagram and use this hashtag so I can see your work. I will be very grateful if you could leave a review of the class and follow me on Skillshare so that you'll be notified every time there's a new announcement or a new class. If you want to learn more watercolor florals, I invite you to watch my other classes. That's it, I hope to see you in my next class. Bye. [MUSIC]