Watercolor Christmas Cookies

1. INTRO: Hello. I'm Daniella Melon, an artist and author here on skill share. Welcome to my watercolor Christmas cookies class. In today's class, we will use basic watercolor supplies to create 10 different Christmas cookies. Will you standard watercolor paints on all illustrations and I'll demonstrate the use of liquid, Frisk it or masking fluid on four of the illustrations. We will paint some traditional cookies like gingerbread men, stained glass stars and reef cookies, and we will also paint some modern day cookies like pinwheels and checkerboard cookies, as well as candy coated chocolate chip cookies. I'll show you variations on some of the illustrations, and there is even a bonus class for a snowman thumbprint cookie. Each lesson is broken down into steps and layers to make it easy to follow along and create your own paintings, beginners will be able to take part in all of the lessons and challenge themselves with some intermediate techniques. More advanced artists will be able to modify the templates as I demonstrate to make unique elements in their paintings. We will use six main techniques throughout the class, sketching using the templates as a guide masking with liquid. Frisk it wet paint on wet paper. What paint on dry paper, Creating cast shadow and shading. These illustrations are a great way to gain experience with water colors. I've included a downloadable class supply list and a downloadable Christmas cookies template to assist you in the process. These illustrations are good examples to using your art journal to use for watercolor practice and to use to make holiday cards. I hope youll try your hand at some of these illustrations and post your work in the project section of this class. Thank you for joining me. 2. Class Supplies: you hear the supplies that will need for our watercolor cookies class The template, which you can download online. It's in the class project section. You can cut it out and use it as little guides. Little stencils for your project if you need help. The drawing. I have watercolor paper £140 that I buy in a pad, and I just cut the sheets down to size these air 4.5 in squares and then I have a five by four rectangle. A swell, but any size will work that you'd like to use. I have a pencil with a rounded tip and an eraser. Have a nice assortment of brushes, watercolor brushes to use. I have liquid. Frisk it in a first get brush dedicated brush that is gonna be covered with the Frisk it, which is a very thick, uh, resist that we paint onto the watercolor paper to keep any pigment off of it. So if you want to preserve areas of white will use the frisk it. I use this. It's optional, but I like the effect it gives. I have a pair of scissors for using to cut out my template a white gel pen for when our work is complete and I want to add highlights or preserve some whites. I have a bottle of Clearwater. Ah, pipette toe What? We met my pigments, a large tub of water and a small tub of water to keep my brush clean and then just some paper towels. Rags would work as well. 3. Using the Template: to use my template. I printed out just on copy paper and I choose which cookie I'm gonna use. Or I could just start with one. I go in and I cut it out. I make a large cut. Then I make a sharper cut right around the edges. And here I'm using the checkerboard cookie, which is a rounded square shape. Then I take my piece of paper that I cut into square and I find a spot where I want to put it. If I know I'm gonna have writing or I'm gonna use a notebook and I want to put it in a certain area like a watercolor art journal. It's helpful this way. Or if I want to make repeat patterns, I can trace around it and then just trace over it. So here I take my image that I cut out, hold it down, and just with a light pencil. Not I'm trying not to scratch the paper. I'll just right around it, draw around it. And here I have just a basic shape from here. I can go in and kind of add the parts that I want, and in this case, it's the checkerboard. You can also free here in your work. This just makes it a little bit easier for certain images, purposely going very light with the pencil because I don't want to scratch the paper. And if I go very light, I can erase it when we start painting, So that's how I use the template. 4. Lesson #1 Chocolate Dipped Sugar Cookie: for our first cookie. I drew with pencil. I'm using my template and, um, illustration of a rounded sugar cookie dipped in chocolate with peppermint sprinkled on top . So because of the chocolate and peppermint contrast, I want to preserve the whites of where the Peppermint, um, is on top of as well as the reflection. So I'm taking my frisk it. It's in a bottle, a little container here, and it's very thick. Reminds me a rubber cement. And I'm just going to, um, dab my dedicated brush and then I'm gonna dab it onto the areas where I want to preserve the whites. It doesn't give precise results. It takes a little bit of time to do that to make it perfect. But I am trying to preserve the whites where I'm going to make the candy canes. I dab it on, and then I'm gonna let it dry before we start painting. Wherever the first get touches creates a watertight seal when it dries on the paper so that the water and the pigment can't get underneath it there. When I'm done using my first get, I'm sure to secure it tightly, and I leave my brush here just like it is. I let it dry, and once it's dry, then I could peel off the top. A lot of times it peels off some of the brush. And that is why I like to use an old dedicated brush. Now that our frisk it is dry, we can start adding our pigment. First thing to do is coloring in this cookie here. I'm going to try and bring the clear coat of water almost to the edge of where the chocolate is going to meet it. But I want a little bit of line of dry paper in between. Now I'm gonna add a pigment that's gonna be a very pale pastry color. It want I want to look like a sugar cookie to green. No, just gonna go around the edge coming with clear water and bleed it all out. Lighten it up. So now because we put our frisk it down, I can paint right over it with whatever pigment I want when I want it to look like chocolate. So I'm gonna make a very dark color blue and black in a little bit of brown. I'm going to put a clear coat of water first and the frisk. It will not allow the water or the pigment to get where I painted the brisket. Think spilled a drop of water here. I don't want the pigment to run out, so I'm gonna go back in, move the water around and they will start dropping in my pigments. Go around the perimeter first, create my shape because this is supposed to like chocolate. We wanted to be nice and rich in color and glossy. Go back in. No, I wanted to get even more pigmented. So we'll add more black, a little bit of brown go around the edge and just drop that really rich pigment in one more time in a little rich pigment. And we'll let that dry for our chocolate chip cookie. The paint has dried. We now have our cookie. Sure, Cookie. And then our chocolate chips. Cookie, you take my eraser. Just erase any pencil marks that remains. And then over here, I'm gonna very carefully remove the frisk it. All you have to do is gently rub back and forth and the first getting come off. And now you can see that we have are very white areas preserved. Um, the brisket is pulling the paper off in those areas, so we'll have to go back over that with some pigment. Say about tidying that up. First thing we'll do is we'll go over it with our smallest brush and our dark color that we used for here on this. Tear that off. Here's the highlight. I wanted to preserve just a little sheen that we have from the glossy chocolate on a cookie . And then any areas that I think are a little too, um, funny, shaped with crushed peppermint, you don't get any particular shape. You're not getting perfect squares or round parts, so that's OK. And it's just that some of them seem a little not what I want. Okay, so there we have that tidied up the areas that were torn off by the frisk. It tidied up any of the shapes that I wasn't crazy about. We'll work on this part of the cookie here, that pastry part, and then we'll go working on the peppermint. So for the pastry part, I want to go in. It's just a slightly darker color, then is used for the cookie, and I want to create some texture. So the first thing I'll do is go around the perimeter, just creating a little bit of a border. One exists that's already there. It's quite nice. And then I'm gonna come in here with a much lighter color and just work on creating a little bit of a shadow underneath the chocolate. My bigger brush in a much lighter color. I'll just feather it out now. I'll go back in with my very tiny brush on my darker color. We're gonna paint. Some cracks will start at the edge. The lines don't have to be perfect. They don't even have to be connected all the way. You want a very light hand, and in the areas that we just went over, it'll bleed. It won't create a perfect crack. That's OK, because there's a little texture at work with No, it's creating little Zach zagging lines, jagged lines, zigs and zags and some little dots just to create a little bit of texture, making it look like a baked cookie. I like how the center of the cookie is much lighter than the edges. I think that is a very nice, realistic look and I'll go in here and pull off some of the paint. It helps blend. It gives a nice texture when this dries will add a little more a few more cracks over in the area that we just went over, but I like the way it came out. So now let's work on Be government. Peppermint is gonna be red and white. We have the weight from the paper, so we just need a little bit of red. And now we just gotta work on adding some peppermint shapes. So that would be stripes. We want to make sure the one thing is, all the stripes aren't going in the same direction for each piece. They will, but we want each piece to be looked like it was scattered on. So some will be thicker stripes. Some will be chips of peppermint. Um, some might not have any stripes at all. That's up to you. I just want to add enough striping so that it looks evidence that is peppermint. Here we go. - Okay , so there we have our peppermint. It looks really nice. And now we'll and our shadow, um, I'll just take my small brush. Little blue and black. Go over where I want the shadow to fall. One side is just a little thicker. And then I'm gonna bleed about. It's unclear. Water just toe make the line a little less sharp. And then, lastly, with our tiny brush will go back in with some of the pastry color and just creates and cracks and some dots. There we have our chocolate dipped peppermint studied cookie. 5. Lesson #2 Kolache: for our kill AKI Cookie, we're making a cookie that looks like, uh, almost a sugar cookie. So it's gonna be a pale pastry dough, and we're gonna have a filling in it. Typically, the filling is either apricot or prune or some kind of fruit. So I'm gonna do a nice, vibrant orange filling for that, and then we're gonna. But first we'll work on our pastry. Just gonna go over the lines with a racer just to pick some of them up. Because our pastry color is so light and that's the first thing that we will make Will makes our color. I'm gonna take a little bit of a light brown here and because it's very golden, which is very nice color. But for this I want to add a little bit of blue. Um, just a tone it down and make it a little more brown. And then I'll take a little bit of a darker brown Mixed that in a swell. Now go back in wet all the areas with clear water on my sheet and I'm leaving a little space between the folds of the cookie. So on top, the pastry folds like an envelope, and I want to leave a little space between the top fold on the bottom fold, and I want to paint around where I'm gonna put my fruit filling. I'll drop in some color and I'm going with a smaller brush and make the edges a little meter. Come around to this side, do the same thing, and I'm leaving a little bit of white between the two layers now because it's pastry. We want the top of it toe look a little fainter in color than the bottom, so you just use dropping in a little Clearwater and my brush and pushing some of the pigment away from the top of the cookie. But I'll let that dry just a few moments, and then I'll drop in some darker color on the edge to just really preserve that baked cookie shape. But for now, we'll go on on the sides, creating our shapes. Can you wanna drop color and pigment right on the edge, more so than towards the center of the cookie and I'll do it from the top is well, now that it's had a few moments to sink in, we can add a little bit more contrast in the center part of the cookie. Take a little bit darker, brown. Go right over the edge. Well, let that bleed in to stabbing it in spots and then I'll flip it over and let the color run a little bit. And then we'll do this on the other side. And we can do this because the pigment and that we have put down at first is still wet. So the color kind of blends and creates a nice shadow effect. If there's too much water, it'll all blend. And it won't give us the variegated effect so we'll see what happens here. That looks nice. And over here, right on the edge of Manning, my darker brown. Okay, that came out Well, I'm gonna go in and start working on the filling. I wanted a nice orange filling. Um, little not so bright that it's red orange, but more brown orange like a little bit of cooked filling. I had a little bit of yellowed about as well There. That's a nice color. Gonna put a little Clearwater down first to give it the watercolor place to run and move and then using a smaller brush I'll drop some pigment in. No, because the feeling that we're adding now is gonna glisten. We're gonna want to leave some spots of white to preserve some highlights to show some highlights. And that's just a matter of not coloring everything in leaving some areas very organically . Well, that's pretty good for now. We'll let that sit, see if we have to come back and add more. Okay, that looks pretty good. Just dark enough, that orange a bit just for the edges. So there's some variation in color. Okay, that's pretty nice. Well, let that dry, and then we'll add a shadow to finish off our coal AKI cookie. I'm gonna take my eraser and gently trying erase any pencil marks that remain on any of the exposed areas. And then we're gonna create a cast shadow. So we'll take some clear water and create a shadow that falls seven o'clock. So I'm gonna emulate the shape of a cookie. See, I don't have too much water. Dab it a little bit and I'll take my small brush. We'll make a light gray and a little bit of blue, and I'll just create the shadow over here. Has a very pretty. The cookie has a very pretty scalloped shape. I'm gonna try and emulate that as well in the shadow. And then with some, just some Clearwater gonna bleed out that shadow a little bit. There we have our Clocky cookie. 6. Lesson #3 Candy & Chocolate Chip Cookie: for our chocolate chip candy cookie. We have our shape. I drew in four spots where the big Candies are gonna go as if they were like an Eminem type candy. And then I just penciled in a couple of ideas for where I wanted to do put the chocolate chips as well. Um, first thing we do is take Clearwater and go over the cookie part. I'm gonna go over every part except where the Big M and M Candies are. So the rest of the cookie I'm going over the chocolate chip part, and that's okay because the color is dark, so we'll be able to work with that later. Adding a clone of Clearwater. Now we want to mix in a couple of Brown's. We want to make a light color and then a caramel color to get that caramel color. I'm using brown with a little bit of blue. Now, to do this, I'm just gonna drop in the color. I want a lot of variation, so I'm gonna drop in both colors and let them blend and leave some light spots as well. So I'll start with the lighter color, making sure that's all over every part of the cookie. Now we'll go in and drop in some of the darker color. Now, with a smaller brush, I'm gonna go in with a lighter color and make sure I go all the way around my candy pieces . Make sure the exterior the perimeter of the cookie, has a shape. It doesn't have to be perfectly round. And now I'm gonna go in with my darker color and just go around, um, the candy part of the cookie just to create a little shadow. Don't look at any parts that I think are a little light because the watercolor will dry a little lighter or any parts that are a little harsh and having just some Clearwater to it and we'll let this dry. Then we'll come back and work on the candy parts for our candy cookie. Our cookie layers dry. So now we can go in and add some layers of chocolate chips the candy in the cast shadow with my very small brush. I'm gonna go when I'm gonna outline the cookie. So I'm gonna take my darker color that we used and just with a very thin line, I'm gonna outline it I'm using short strokes just to keep the shape. Preserve the shape of the cookie. Now, for the major four pieces of cookie of candy in the cookie. I want to use Christmas colors, so I'm gonna use red and green. Be sure to mix them first, and then we're gonna make some variations, just one level darker as well. I'm gonna do the two diagonal cookies red, and I want to leave spot for a highlight. So on the dry, um, paint by dry paper, I'm gonna use my wet brush and go right around the edge, leaving just a teeny space of white between the cookie and the candy. There's my highlight. Can even leave more than one highlight. And I'll do the same thing for down here going around the edge, leaving a very fine hairs with of white. I had my cookie, my candy color, and now, with my super small brush, I'm gonna go in with just a slightly darker color to create a little shading. And I'll drop in some of that darker color right around the edge to create a shadow and now work on my green cookie using the same procedure a nice, vibrant green on the dry paper. I'm using my wet brush outlining the candy piece and then leaving some highlights. Go over here and do the same thing. And now take a darker just a slightly darker green to create a little bit of shadow. Gonna let those dry, But I'm gonna work on adding my chocolate chips. So I have to make make a nice, dark color chocolatey. I'm just gonna go in, create my shapes, leaving a little spot of ah, highlight. Now, I think I'm gonna add a few more. Just put them in. I think the highlight makes it look really realistic. Let that dry, and then we'll add a few final touches in the cash shadow. Okay, For our candy filled cookie, I'm going to add a cash shadow and then we're gonna add a few highlights with the gel pen. It's gonna go around the base with my grayish um color, which I mixed a little bit of blue with the black. That looks nice. Then I'll take my jail pen and I'm gonna add some highlights to these little chips. Also, I want to add just some texture to the cookie. So I'm gonna take my smallest brush in the very dark color, but with a very fine brush and create little cracks throughout the cookie. Not straight lines. Just little, um, where the cookie would crack when it was baking. Then I'll go in and create to some dots. This adds a little bit of texture to the cookie. And we're going with my much lighter color to my pastry color and some dots there and there we have our candy cookie. 7. Lesson #4 Wreath Cookie: for a wreath cookie. I'm going to do a sugar cookie with a frosting wreath on top and then little candy like cinnamon rounds on the reef to look like Berries to be reminiscent of Berries. I want to try and preserve the highlights and the Berries because I'm going to paint that layer of green around it. So I'm gonna use my frisk it and just dab into round shapes where my Berries air going to be Once this layer dries will get started by starting to paint, also adding a little bit of highlight Over here on the bow, we'll let this dry and then we'll come back. Now that our frisk it is dry, we can start our wreath cookie. He's my big brush. I'm gonna use a clear coat on the areas that I want to have Pastry cookie pastry showing. So that would be the exterior of the cookie and interior as well. Right over here. No, I have the clear coat. I will make my pastry color and I'll use my smaller brush and just dropped that in right on the perimeter. And I'll go back to where it meets the frosting and I'll paint there as well. I'll let the water move it around in between those two areas here because I have the base of the ribbon. I'm gonna have to be paint very carefully with a dry brush with a wet brush on dry paper. And then I'll go in here and just blend this out a little. It's a little harsh edge. Then I'll take a just a teeny bit darker color. And in certain spots, I'll add that darker color gives a little variation in the cookie, and then I'll go back and do the same thing on the interior part. Okay, we have the interior drop in a few little dark spots, and then I'll soften up any hard edges. We'll let this dry and then we'll come back and work on our frosting part of it. Rather, pastry has dried in our wreath cookie. We can get to working on the frosting, so I want my wreath to be lots of green, so I'll put clear coat of water and then we'll mix the green, gotta paint right over the little frisk. It's that we did, and I'm gonna be very careful to avoid the bow. I want to make sure that's a vibrant red. So here we have are wet paper. They will make some very vibrant green, but a little bit of red in there. And now drop it around mostly on the perimeter and anywhere I want shadow to be where it would be darker. Go in with a smaller brush, gives me a little more control. - And then I'll be very careful going around this this bow here, which we're gonna make red. So there I had my green. I want to add a lighter color to some of those white spots, create a little variation. Then I'll go back and add just a few little dark areas where we're gonna have our little red circles. Okay, so now let's go take a little bit of the darker green that we used originally. And I'll just go right around the base of those circles that we made. It will create a shadow effect. Well, let that dry. And then we'll work on our red balls in her bow for a wreath cookie are green layers dry. We have our frisk it. Now we'll work on adding, are red layer in our cast shadow first thing we'll do is remove the frisk it from this green layer so we can put in our red marks. And we still have, um, first get on our boat. But I think we're just gonna take that off right now. And keep in mind that I want to leave highlights on the bow. Take me a racer in just a race around the edge of the cookie. See, I had some pencil marks, some stray marks going with my small brush and my red makes a nice, vibrant color. And again, I want to try and keep highlights, create a nice round shape and then and just a little darker color at the base for a shadow . And I will move the paper around and do the same thing on all the areas with the red circles. - And now for the bow. I want to go in there with the red as well again leaving the highlights Do the little ribbon falling off the boat And finally, the center of the bow Gonna try and leave a little bit of white around it. I had a little dark color and now we'll work on the cash shadow. Take my medium brush and then the blue black color and just work on the shadow around the base seven o'clock and I'll go through it and feather it out, and I'll come over here and do the same thing on the center. Now I want to go back in with my brush and just some of the darker green and work on the border. It's creating a little bit of a border, and I'll do it on the interior and I'll lead it out just a little bit. And there we have our wreath cookie. 8. Lesson #5 Stained Glass Star: for our star cookie. It's supposed to look like a stained glass cookie, which is a sugar cookie in a hard candy filling. So the hard candy feeling could be any vibrant color, and then the cookie part will be a pastry color. I think we'll start with a pastry here. What do you use? A clear coat just on the outer Star? It's amusing my larger brush to give a nice clear coat. I'll go in with a smaller brush and going with some light pastry color right on the perimeter. This will bleed into everywhere out of the clear water. Now I want to go back in and just on the interior perimeter of the star. Go over that with my pastry color as well. Take a little darker brown. Just touch over some areas right on the exterior part. We'll let this dry and then we'll come back and add a fairly bright interior color. Now that our pastry area is dry, we're gonna work on the filling. The first thing to do is choose a color. I'm gonna choose purple. Ah, nice by vibrant purple, and then I'll go in with a clear coat paint my star with clear water and then I'll mix in my purple, dropping the color. I'm going to switch to a smaller brush and just work on the exterior sides here, the perimeter that in inner circle, leaving some areas with paper, exposed the white of the paper exposed. Go in there and just bleed out any hard edges. And now, because I wanted to look really glossy and sharp, I'm gonna make sure I have a nice little variation in the color. I'll put that down as well. I wanted to be very vibrant, not filled fields completely with pigment, but just the areas that are filled. I want them to be very, very vibrant. It's time to go. And now let's create a shadow will have our shadow falling over here at seven o'clock. Just gonna mix up a little bit of blue, a little bit of black. So I take my brush in Clearwater and I'm just gonna go beneath the cookie as if the light was shining on it. So any spots that air three dimensional will show the shadow, and I'll go with my smaller brush and add the shadow. The shadow is darkest closest to the object. Some try and put in a little darker color closer to the cookie and just have it fade out as it travels away from the cookie with soft edge. If I feel like that, too much water on my paper, I'll just absorb some of the paper towel with Get away. And then I could go back in and make any corrections. And there we have our stained glass star cookie. 9. Lesson #6 Pinwheel Cookie: pinwheel cookie is a very fun cookie to make for Christmas. The colors are unexpected and the shape is very organic. Very pretty. So we're gonna use two colors. I'm gonna use a deep red and a pastry color. So the first thing we'll do is use our find our pastry color, which will be in here. And I'm gonna just go around with a clear coat which swirl. I want to have the pastry color. Then I'll go back with my brush, my smaller brush, an ab pigment going along the perimeter and letting the water that exists on the paper poulet pigment around to the other side. And I'm going with some clear water and move that pigment around. I'm going with a little bit darker brown and in certain areas, just drop in some color just to make it look like it's cooked. Going with a little bit of a original pastry color, and we'll let that dry. We will come back and add are red layer. Now that our pastry color has dried, we're gonna work on her also pastry. But it's a colored pastry, so it's red. I just want to highlight, um, erase some of these pencil marks. They were guide for me and then we'll mix are nice. Red rich red pastry. I'll take some of this red pigment and mixing with a little green, can't you, my man? Okay, I'm gonna take some clear water and I work on the spiral. First, I'm gonna leave. Let's get a little bit of a stain here. I'm going to leave the bottom of the cookie plane. Um, for now, and we'll come back and work on that later. I'm just taking some Clearwater and going around the top of the cookie this spiral. So we have our Clearwater. Now I'm taking a smaller brush and are red color. I'm just gonna slowly and carefully add pigment around the perimeter. It will bleed in. - So I don't want to leave any white between the pastry layer and the red pastry layer. Supposed to like a cohesive unit. But we can leave a lot of highlights and each area. So in the red area here, I'm gonna leave a lot of highlights where the paper is showing through. And now that I have that done, I'll take a wet brush and just trying to help it bleed a little, then dropping more pigment. The highlights. We want them to go the direction of this world here, this pinwheel. And now we can work on the bottom of the cookie. This is the part of the cookie where after it's sliced, it's set in the pan. So I'm using dry paper in my wet brush and I'm gonna go around the perimeter, the base here, trying to create a very smooth line. We're gonna go up about 1/2 of the way again. I'm trying to keep a very smooth line. Now I'm going to switch to my smaller brush and connect the two and then I'll take some of this Clearwater, which is kind of tinted red at this point. And I'm just gonna train blur that line while leaving a very, um, wait section, but with a softer edge. That's what I'm trying to blur here. Okay, added just a little bit of a darker color right around the base. Blur that a teeny bit. And now we'll let that dry and they will come back and finish it for a pinwheel will and our cast shadow going there with some blue in some black and just create a shadow right underneath. And then I'll go in and feather it out a little. Just so it's darkest closest to the cookie and it phase out a little bit. You can go back in and add a little more pigment in areas that need it, and here we have our pinwheel cookie. 10. Lesson #7 Checkerboard Cookie: first stage I'm gonna do for this checkerboard cookie is to just preserve a highlight using liquid. Frisk it. I'll come in and just do a quick swipe over here where I want the highlight to be. This will preserve the white of the paper. Well, let that dry and they will come back to our cookie. Our frisk. It has dried and you can see the color is much deeper, darker beige. So now we can start the painting, gonna go in with my pencil with my pencil eraser and erase any pencil marks. If I cover them with paint, they might not be able to be erased. So I'm gonna make sure I get that picked up before we start painting to make the cookie look three dimensional. I'm gonna cover the top layer with a clear coat and I'm gonna cover the bottom edge here with a clear coat, but only 3/4 of the way up. This will give me some control with the water and the pigment. And now, just to do the bottom edge with clear water leaving the top dry. So now what I want to do is create two tones for the checkerboard. I'm gonna have a pastry tone and then a darker chocolate terror tone. It's so there's our pastry color. And for a chocolate color, I'm gonna add black, brown and blue Just a little bit of blue gonna go over the entire cookie with a very light , very light code of the pastry color again leaving the spots completely dry on the top third of the bottom of the cookie. I'll use a smaller brush for that, so give me a little more control. And now we're going with a clear, damp brush and just blend that color out a little bit. I'm not trying to get it right to the top. I'm just trying to get a variation and we're gonna let that dry and then we'll come back and finish our checkerboard for a checkerboard cookie. We have her first layer dry, and now we're gonna work on creating the chocolate checkerboard effect. So I'm gonna use my small brush not smallest but small brush. And then we want our chocolate layer. So I'm gonna mix some black, brown and blue, create a nice deep color and I'll go in and I'll start with the checkerboard. I'm gonna start with the corner right here. The drudge. We'll work on just the top face of the cookie right now. Gonna create the perimeter. We'll create a thicker line with what's left of my brush, and I'll go in with some water to create the center. And I will do that. I'll skip a square, do the same thing. - Can we go mix up some more color now for the bottom? We're only gonna go up partial up the bottom the way we did with the lighter color as well . It's gonna make sure I have enough pigment start right here on the edge. Gonna go up just a teeny bit of the way slightly less than half of the way with my darker color. And I'll do this on the alternate blocks and then I'll go back in with smaller, brush some water and blend that out slightly or even consider adding a little more again. I want to make sure I'm leaving the top part clear. Okay, we're gonna let that dry before we have finished erasing our pencil marks and removing the frisk it. But right now we're gonna add a layer, um, of the cast shadow. So right underneath it, being very careful not to affect the areas that I just painted. And then I'll go in and feather that out a little bit faded out of it. We'll come back and do our final steps. So our paint is drying the checkerboard cookie. I want to go over with an eraser and very carefully erase any pencil marks that remain, then gently brushed them away. And then we'll just very gently take off the frisk it. So there we have a highlight. It's a very sharp highlight. I want to go in with our colors and see if we can't just still that down just a little bit . Take a smaller brush, just some water first and see if we could get the pigment moving around that looks good on the darker area. And now with the pastry color area. See if I can't match that color just enough so it still looks like a highlight, but it's not so harsh. I also see that over here. I want to connect the cookie. This one's easy. I want to connect it right here where, um, the chocolate layer is. And over here, this name thing right where the chocolate layer is. And then I'm gonna take my very pale color and just go up the side of the cookie. Here and there we have our checkerboard cookie. 11. Lesson #8 Bon-Bon: for a bond bond. We have some fun things to do, Where to have a nice dark color on the cookie part. We'll have nice bright white icing, a red candy drop and then green fake leaves, which are also candy. We'll start with the Bon Bon, so I'm gonna put a clear code. I'm a cookie part, and then we're gonna mix up a nice, rich, dark color. So to do that, we'll start with some brown and we'll add some blue. The neck is a nice dark color. Take a little bit over here and makes up just a little bit later of a brown, just so we have some variation. Great. So now we have our two colors. Could use a smaller brush, and I'll start with the darker color and just go around the perimeter, dropping in that color. Find it easy to turn the paper. We'll trace around whether frosting meets the cake and watercolor drives later. Then it goes on when it's wet, and we can see that already the colors kind of fading, and that kind of gives a very interesting look. Now we'll go in with are just slightly lighter, dark brown and drop some of those some of that color in putting it everywhere that I dropped the darker color. But I'm also trying to leave some preserves, some spots that are just white or letting the water bleed the colors together and do the work go back in with my darker color. Some areas this creates the look of shadow that'll go in with my lighter color as well. I like the way that looks gonna flip it upside down. And now just work on those bright, um, the candy cherry and the candy green leaves. So with a clear water, I'm gonna put the cherry color down. It'll take a nice, bright red. We'll start at the base, which, because I have it upside down at the top and I'll just drop in some pigment very light with a very light hand. Go over the top and I want to preserve the whites and let the color the water that's on the paper move that color around could go in with a darker red and just drop a teeny bit of color at the base to create a shadow. I can use my darker pink, or I could just mix in a teeny bit of green with that red and just drop some of that color in. And while it's damp, it'll move it around. You can also turn the page as well turn the paper to get that to bleed. Now we'll work on our little green leaves will use the same procedure, coloring them in with clear water. And then I'll go in with my green pigment starting at the bottom and they will get very delicate, careful, thin line top. And because they're a little smaller gonna take my smallest brush and go in with a teeny bit of dark green just to create a shadow. Little variation. OK, we'll let this dry when these two layers or dry will highlight and shade the frosting and make a cast shadow. We have our parts that are all dried here. We're gonna work on a shadow for the frosting and then our cast shadow for the shadow for the frosting. I see some spots here Just gonna go over with my racer for the shadow for the frosting. We're going to use a light, light blue. We're gonna create the border and, um and then we'll create some shadow and gloss within the cookie, so it makes a very light blue, and I'm gonna trace the perimeter right now, we want to create the pleasing shape like a very thick dollop of frosting. So we're gonna outline everywhere where the frosting meats the cookie and the frosting meets the decorative candy on top is Well, so that's a nice look. Then we'll just go in here kind of create just a little bit of shadow. It'll take a Clearwater and blend that out a little. It's a little bit lighter than when we put it down. Put a little here is well, and then I'm gonna put a little just underneath candy, Blend that out. And now for our cast shadow, we'll take our smaller brush, not the smallest one. Some black and some blue create the shadow underneath, so it falls underneath and then it's gonna feather it out a little. And there we have our bond bond 12. Lesson #9 Gingerbread Man: for a gingerbread cookies. A fun little gingerbread man. I wanted color in the whites over here, which will be the frosting little accessories. And I'm gonna color in the buttons with Frisk it so that we can go over them later with color. So first, I'll do the buttons trying to achieve a nice round shape, and then I'll go over this part here which is supposed to look like Wait frosting. Well, I'm here. I'm gonna do to little spots in the eyes for highlights. I don't have to do with Frisk it. I can come back and do it with gel pen, but we're gonna see what results we get. This way we'll let this dry, Then we'll come back and start painting the layers. The first get is dry in our gingerbread guy. So now we can go right in with our color. We're gonna go in with a clear coat. I'm gonna paint everywhere, avoiding the eyes, but I'll paint the body in the legs and the arms with clear water. Then we're gonna paint a base coat of like a cinnamon e brown color. So I had my brown oh, at a little bit of red, Not a light brown in some more brown and I'll drop in the color. Okay, - Now , while it's still wet, gonna go in there and add a little more color, A little more pigment. And I'm trying to create variation this time. So I'm gonna add just a darker brown. We'll drop in some spots of color, mostly on the exterior of the perimeter size. As if to imply the cookie was baked, the edges got darker than the center of the cookie because it's still wet, the pigment moves around. Something went over the I, which I was trying to avoid. But that's okay. I'm gonna paint them black. Does this have to, um, reassess where I am with that? Well, let this layer dry, and then we'll come back and and her final touches, our first layer in the gingerbread has dried. So now we're gonna remove the frisk it, we'll paint. The buttons will shadow the little frosting, sleeves and socks. It will add some texture. The first thing we'll do is we'll work on the eyes. I did paint over the eye, which I did not I intend to do, but it happens so Now I'm just gonna paint around it with black, and I'm gonna try and leave a highlight. - Okay , so there we have the eyes and I work on the mouth while I'm here. Just got a train to a very shallow You okay? We have that done. And I will work on the buttons again. I'm using my small brush because I'm trying to preserve the highlight. Um, we'll stick with Christmas colors. So I painted the red on a little bit of the dark shadow on the bottom again trying to preserve that round shape. I will do the same thing with the green. We'll do a yellow for the base of the final button. Okay, so now we want to just shadow in the little, um, areas here that they're supposed to look like little frosting accessories, bracelets or socks going over that with a what? With an eraser. Just to tidy up any stray pencil marks. Good to go in there with a light gray and just outlined them on one side. Okay. And now we'll work on the cast shadow. Gonna makes a little more of the color gray and blue, - and then I'm just gonna feather it out with some clear water. And there we have a gingerbread man 13. Lesson #10 Holly & Berry Cookie: for our holly and Berries Cookie. I traced it out with the template. And then I decided I wanted to add just the Berries on the side as well. So I'll take my brush and with clear water, I'm just gonna go over the part that I'm going to use the pastry, The other parts of the cookie You're gonna be made up of frosting, vibrant colors. So I want to make sure I have the pastry dry before I add the darker colors in and taking my smaller brush. I'm going with a nice pastry color dip in some pigment around the perimeter and then go around the perimeter of where the frosting is going to be. I left the water, move around the pigment, and then all I just a teeny bit of the darker color here and there to make it look like a cookie was cooked with a little variation. Go back in with a little bit of the pastry color. So the color is a nice, darker color. It will dry a little bit later, and now we'll go in on the bigger cookie again. I start with the perimeter. It'll go around right where the frosting is gonna meet the cookie. In some areas, the pigment is already many itself, so it's solid and other areas. There's white showing now Go in. Just drop in a little dark color here and there to give a little variation. And then, if there any areas that I feel a little too solid or two. Not organic, but just a little, too for forced. I'll go in and blend the colors a little more. We'll let this dry. We will come back and at our color. So now, for our holly and Berries will work on our holly part. We have the one part of Holly here. Gonna go over it with a clear coat, and then we'll mix two different colors of green. Well, makes a very bright green, and then we'll go over it with a very lighter, much lighter green. Actually, I'll start with the later green. Just swipe right up the center, them a smaller brush. I'll go in with my vibrant green, going right up against the pastry very carefully and letting the two colors bleed together areas where they don't bleed. I'll go in and help it along, coming right out of the base by the Berries. Put an extra amount of darker green, and then I'm gonna take my darker green and create the veins, and they will go back with some of that lighter green fill in any areas, drop in some pigment here and there creates a nice variation. Now we'll work on our Berries. So for the Berries, we want to leave highlights. So that's the only thing we're gonna have to worry about and preserve that, Um, So with their bright red color in a dry paper, I'll start all the way. Actually, over here on the left, do the perimeter of one first. This is not the top. Very. This is the second layer Berry. So that means that where the Berries meet with the layer that's above it. I want to create a little darker section. So there we have the first very I'll take a little bit of the darker color and just drop it in where the two sections meet. I'll go back in, we'll work on the next berry, and I'm gonna leave a little, um, layer of white in between Berries. Go in, highlight, try and create a nice pleasing round shape male going with my darker color where the Berries meat. So this one has to Berries where it meets the top berry and the buried just beneath it And now work on that Very That's the top. Very so it still has shadows, but it doesn't have them emulating from another. Berry just reflected off, and I want to create a nice, pleasing shape. So I want to go over this circle as many times as necessary to make it very circular. Very round. That looks really nice. Take my small brush. Just drop in a teeny bit of color in the bottom. Not too much. Just enough to give it some interest. Then we'll do the same procedure over here. This time I'm gonna start with the berry. That's behind everything else. The third very now I want to go in here and just tidy up this ragged line. My very small brush. - Okay ? I don't use my small brush and just tidy up any of those lines. Part of the interest with the Berries is that the pleasing shape of the circle? We want to make sure we preserve that. Okay, so there we have our Berries and or holly. Now we'll just work on our cast shadow. Actually, start this. Gonna use a wet brush on dry paper. We'll see how that one goes to this. Feather it out. - And here we have our holly and bury cookie. 14. Bonus Class Snowman Thumbprint Cookie: for a little bonus class. We have a thumbprint cookie, but instead of filling it with jam, it's filled with frosting to make it look like a snowman. It's a cute idea. First thing I'm gonna do is with a clear coat. I'm gonna go around the pastry, part of the cookie. Then I'll add some of the pastry color right to the perimeter, and I'll go around again. The center of the perimeter. I guess it's not the perimeter. What's the center line? I really like how that looks. There's some clear spots in the center, which kind of indicate that it's higher part of the cookie, so that looks great. I'll add just a little bit of the darker color right to the edge, right on the edge to give a cooked cookie appearance. Create a little shadow as well, and that'll just bleed right into the rest of the cookie. Go back with a pastry color, blend that out many areas that are too rigid, too harsh that still preserves our edge. Um, and now we'll go in and work on the face of the snowman. This will take some red and some yellow and orange go in, Get him. Just make the bottom of it orange and with the top. Oh, go in with a the yellow color and I'll use water to blend the top. So it's very light dropping a little bit more orange. Then with my super small brush, I'm gonna go in the dark color. It'll work on the mouth first, and then we'll work on the eyes. The trick with the eyes is trying to make them approximately the same size and shape. So these air somewhat rounded rectangles. Now I can see here the one on the right. It's a little bit longer on the one the left. So I'm just gonna try and match that. But sometimes that's like going down the rabbit hole. Okay, that's good enough. I just wanna correct that shape over here. Okay, there we have that. We'll add a little bit of blush. Not that snow man's tend to blush, but I think it makes for a cute look. Just a little faint blush, uh, over here and over here. And now we're just gonna outline the interior of the face with a little bit of shadow will use a little bit of light blue, very light blue. And now we'll work on it So it looks more than a snowman face in a doughnut or create the cash shadow. And then we're gonna work on some texture on the cookie. Yeah, so I create my shadow seven o'clock and then I take some Clearwater and bleed it out, and I might go back in with just a slightly darker color upsets around. I don't want that. I want to stick with the blue and black family and I'll take my smaller brush this and just try and bring some of that color closer to the edge of the cookie and just let that bleed out. And now, if I feel it, it's still a little damp. But I think we can get nice results. I'm gonna go in there with my pastry color and create some cracks, which naturally, naturally happens with cookies on their baking. And we want to create all different types of shades, so pressing very lightly just creates a hint of a crack. Pressing heavier creates more of it, and then we're going with a little bit darker color. Just add a few cracks, and they will add some spots here and there. Go around the edge with a darker color very lightly. And there we have our bonus cookie are thumb print snowman. 15. Watercolor Christmas Cookies Class Wrap Up: way have are completed. Watercolor Christmas cookies We have the 1st 1 that we did with the chocolate dip sugar cookie with peppermint sticks, the apricot cocky showing a nice edge on and cooked appearance. We have the candy coated chocolate chip cookie using red and green Eminem like cookies, we have our Christmas sugar cookie wreath, a stained glass star with a vibrant purple color, a deep red in vanilla cookie pinwheel, a chocolate vanilla checkerboard, a bond bond, a classic gingerbread man, holly in, um, very cookie sugar cookie. And then we have our bonus cookie of a snowman thumbprint. So these are the basic ways we can do all the cookies using the templates. I also have some variations to show you. So with the first cookie, I have an alternative, one that is a much deeper color cookie. So this is more of a gingersnap with a white chocolate frosting. I used the same template, and I just chose different colors and different decorations on that one for the candy coated chocolate chip cookie. I did the same premise, but I used peppermints as the filling, and I used chocolate base cocoa base for our star cookie. Using the same template, I made multiple stars and just laid them on top of each other, creating a shadow. I just filled them with different colors to give a different effect for our checkerboard cookie instead of doing it in chocolate vanilla. I did it in Christmas colors, red and green cookie filling. And lastly, for our holly and bury cookie cutter. I created the face of a reindeer with the antlers, so I used the same shape and just filled it in with different images. You could make your own variations on any of these cookies using different colors, changing the template slightly by altering the shape. I'd love to see what you've done. Please post your work in the class project section. Thanks for watching.