Transcripts
1. Class Project Winter Tree skillshare: Hi and welcome to my Christmas
tree watercolor class. I'm Katrina Pete. So today we are
going to be using some really neat
tools in order to paint this awesome
Christmas tree. The class project
involves painting a snowy winter tree by using a variety of really neat
watercolor techniques. One of the fun tools we use in the class is called drawing gum, and it's also called
masking fluid. And if you've never
used it before, I will show you how to apply
it and all the tools I use. It's a really great way to get some pretty awesome
effects in watercolor. We will also be using some salt, and we will be using some white guash for those
tiny little snowflakes. And we will be using
some glitter and glue. So lots of fun things in this
watercolor project today. So let's begin.
2. Snowy Tree Supplies: Let's talk about all of the supplies I used
for this painting. To get started, the
type of paper I used was a cold pressed
watercolor paper by arches. 140 pound watercolor paper. It's 100% cotton. It's got a nice
texture on the paper. I use this paper all the time. It's very durable. When I'm using masking fluid, when I remove it, it
doesn't tear up my paper. It's important to use a good
durable watercolor paper. Arches is one of them. Windsor and Newton makes a
good one. Daler Brownie. And there are lots
of other great quality watercolor
papers out there too. This is just one that I use. The next thing I use
is some masking tape. This is a special type
of tape made for artists because unlike the
traditional masking tape, this is neutral. The adhesive is a neutral ph. It will not discolor
your paper over time, it doesn't leave a residue. It's fairly sticky too. So I tend to take my
paper onto a board. In this case, I use
some paper that had the sides that were all bound by this black waxy stuff. I don't always buy
paper like this. I typically buy
the large sheets, like the 22 x 30 inch sheets, and then I cut
them down to size. But I just had this
laying around. I use it for travel and I wanted to use it up. I used that. I just sectioned off half
of the page with my tape to create a maybe this is
like a six by 85 by seven. You can measure it to be exactly what you
need for a frame, but this will fit into a five by seven frame
with a nice mat. That's what I plan on doing. The first step was
to draw the tree. I drew it in the
shape of a triangle. My goal was to create
little white areas of snow. In order to do that,
I used masking fluid. I'll show you how
I applied this. The key is to use an old brush that you don't
care about because it will ruin your brush. This one, it's become
all rubbery over time, but I use it to apply
my masking fluid. If you want something
more precise, you can use like a sharpened stick or
something like that. But I had these blobby
type of shapes. I didn't really
care how precise I needed to be. This
worked for that. As for the masking fluid, you can get something called PBO drawing gum or Windsor and Newton makes
a good masking fluid. There are lots of great
brands out there. I just like this one in
particular because it has, it's a little bit
thinner inconsistency. So when I'm working on
detailed paintings, I can get pretty
precise lines with it. It's just my personal preference as for paints and brushes, I don't stick with
any particular brand. I tend to use Windsor
and Newton Hole. Bine Bliks creates their own
line of artist grade paint. The key is to use paint that is artist grade instead
of student grade. The difference is that the artist grade paints has
a higher pigmentation in it. Your colors are
bolder and richer. You will notice a difference if you switch from
student paint over to the artist or the
professional grade for brushes. For my watercolor brushes, I used a number 12 round. You can use a medium brush. Anything between an eight or
12 will work For this piece, I used a slightly smaller
brush, number eight. This one's by silver,
black velvet. You don't have to
get these brands. These are just the brushes I had on hand and I tend to
use them the most often. They are really great brushes. I like the larger
ones because you can get larger areas of color. They hold a lot more
paint and pigment. So when you're working with
the wet into wet technique, you can really get your
paint to spread farther. And I also used some white gash. This is white guash. I used it for these tiny
little spattery snowflakes. In order to get that fine
little mist of snow, I used an old toothbrush
and I just flicked it on for the gold star at the top. I just used a bit of
glue and some glitter. Actually, instead of glitter because I didn't have any
on hand that I liked, I found this stuff hidden
away in my craft room. It's for gilding picture frames, but it works the
same as glitter. You just apply it
slightly differently. Instead of sprinkling
it on like glitter, you just brush it on with your brush and it'll stick
to wherever your glue is. That's what I did for
that. Let's get started.
3. Drawing the Tree and Masking Fluid: I'm using a number
two pencil and I'm just lightly
drawing my tree. Just putting in
some areas where I think the snow will be
catching on the branches. And I'm using a very light hand because I won't be
erasing before I paint. I'm just going to paint
over my pencil lines. You won't really be
able to see them. If you'd like to work with a
traceable reference photo, I'll provide one for
the class as well. My overall tree shape will
get wider at the bottom. Then we will start by
applying our masking fluid. Next, this is called
PBO drawing gum. I like to use it to
create areas of snow. You want to mix it up? You don't want too many bubbles. Unfortunately I do. But
just mix it a little bit. There's other brands out there. Windsor and Newton makes one. I like this one because
it's more watery. I'm able to get finer
lines and details. The key is you want to use
an old brush to apply it, because what will happen if you don't clean your
brush right away is it will turn all the bristles
to rubber, like this one. But I still use it
because I'm just going to apply some little
bits of snow. Then when I let it dry and
paint over it in water color, the paint will not go
where the drawing gum is. When the paints all dry, I remove the drawing gum and it reveals
white paper below. Let's open this up. It's best to pour it off
into a separate container, but I don't have one
on me right now, so I'm just going to use this. Okay. Don't do what
I did see how I have a lot of bubbles
in my masking fluid. When you apply it and
you have bubbles, they will dry like that. So you'll have little bits of paper that isn't
completely covered. Make sure that you
pour it off into a separate container to avoid
all of those pesky bubbles. I happened to get lucky even
though I was in a hurry, and I said, you know what, I'm just going to
apply it anyway, screw it did apply. It worked out okay in my favor. I didn't really have
any issues with it. But if you're struggling with
this masking fluid stuff, just do it right the first time and don't shake it
up the way I did. It'll drive you nuts if you do. But anyway, for this
particular piece, it ended up being just fine. The bubbles popped, and
I was able to still get the outcome that
I was hoping for. So there we go. I'm using this brush to just
apply the masking fluid. I'm imagining snow just
covering some of the branches. That's why you see me put little spaces of paper
between each application. Just have a look
at some photos on line of trees covered in snow. And that will help you
as I move down the tree. My globs of snow are
getting larger and wider. And that's what I'm trying to
do with this masking fluid. I'm trying to make it look
different in some areas, so it's not all matchy, matchy. It doesn't have to be perfect
because snow isn't perfect. As you get to the
lower branches, you're going to have bigger
areas of drawing gum. It's also called masking fluid, but they call it drawing
gum because when it dries, it's gummy in texture. It's rubbery. You can literally just peel
it off with your fingers. But I'll show you what
I do to remove it. It's pretty easy to remove. It doesn't wreck your paper, but you have to use
good water color paper. Otherwise it will
wreck your paper. Use something that is maybe like 100% cotton durable watercolor
paper. That's the key. All right, then you
just let it dry. If you want to have
a snow effect, you just take your brush
and you can just tap, tap, get some little
spots on your paper. It'll kind of look like snow. Just some spatter. All right. Then rinse off your brush really good in water so you
don't have it all gummy.
4. Background Snowy Tree: Okay, now that our masking
fluid has dried, once again, I used this stuff called PBO drawing gum and
it's completely dry. It's really rubbery. Now what I can do is I
can paint right over it. And my paint will
go on the paper. But this masking fluid, it'll protect my paper. Everything underneath
here will just stay white. Let's get started. All we have to do
now is just pre wet the background with water and then you just drop in
any color you want. It can be blue, green, pink, you can go wild. So this is the really fun
part about using drawing gum. I'm going to use a spray bottle, but you can use a brush. It doesn't really matter, just spray the background. I just want to break
away for a second. If you are new to water
color or if the wet into wet technique is something that you're not
as familiar with. I want to show you a little bit more in depth
of how to start. This is a different painting, but it's the same thing. Instead of using a spray bottle, I'm using just a large brush, a soft brush, to apply some clear water over
the whole thing. Except for the birds, this
is for a different class, but I'm essentially pre
wetting the entire background. Once it's evenly coated, then I can drop in my
color and it will spread and create these
soft hazy effects. There won't really
be any hard edges after you apply
your coat of water. A way to check to
see if it's evenly coated to hold your paper
up to a light source. And just have a look
at it and see if there's any water
pooling in areas. And if there is, you can just spread it around a bit
more with your brush. You can even take a
paper towel and just dab off any excess water that's
pooling on your paper. Now, we will get back to our
tree in just a second here, but I want to show you just an example look at this magical technique
because it truly is one of the unique
properties of water color that gives it that atmospheric
glowy effect. After I've got that
water evenly coated, I'm going to just hold my
paper up to the light source, move it around, see if
it's even looks good. Now, it's damp, it's ready
to start dropping in color. I'm using this larger brush, it's a number 12 round, and I'm just going
to take some of my blue and just loosely put it in. This is the same
thing that we will be doing on the background of
our snowy winter trees. See how it just softly fades
into that wet background. And you'll notice that I also lift my paper, move it around. It really gets that paint
moving and flowing. You can get some really
cool effects this way. Now let's go back
to our watercolor snowy tree and we will do the same thing to
the background. Everything's evenly wet. Then I'm going to use
some green and blue. I've got this really
lovely green color, a turquoise color
called Thalo green, and I've got a cobalt blue. And I love those two together. I'm just going to go all over. Drop it in. You can even move. This is what I like
to do. Take my paper and I let it flow. I let it go. Add some more of
this Windsor blue. It's a nice bright
blue. Tilt your paper. Now, I'm adding some green. I do like to keep some areas
lighter because I like that cloudy look where it's light in some areas
and dark in others. It's really fun. I add
some of that blue over here, add some green. Then I'm going to tilt my paper this way and just
fade it out like that. You can really go
wild with this. You can do any color. If you think some of
your paint is pooling, you just take a thirsty brush. A brush is simply a brush
that's slightly damp. So you remove the excess water and then you can just soak
up some of that paint. You don't have to do this,
but you can if you want. All right. I'm liking that. I think it looks really cool. What I want to do next is sprinkle in some salt
just for some extra oop. Let's see, I've
got my salt here. I like to do it with my fingers
and I have more control. You don't have to put it
everywhere but there. Then just let it
dry and that's it. Then when everything is dry, we will remove all of
this masking fluid, and you'll see the little
white snow on top of the tree, and we'll work on it from there.
5. Masking Fluid Removal Snowy Tree: Now that our paint has completely dried
in the background, let's remove this masking fluid. I'm using this thing
called a rubber nib. It's just like a hunk of rubber. That's all it is
if you don't have one because they're
hard to find. I got this at Bliks, they are at some arts and crafts stores, but not everyone. You can also use an eraser
and just pick it up. But once you get a little
bit of it up like this, you can grab it with your
fingers and just peel it off and then
just throw it away. This rubber nib just does it faster so you can go across like this and it doesn't
even wreck your paper. The key is your paper has
to be completely dry. That's the nice thing
about arches paper. It doesn't even get
wrecked. It's very durable. Okay. So there we go. We've got a Christmas tree, but I want to jazz it up a bit. So I think what we'll do is we'll play around with the
tree, with the branches, and then we'll
flick on some snow, and then we'll add a pretty
gold star at the very end. So this is going to be so cool, I can't wait to get started.
6. Painting the White Snow on The Tree: I'm going to show
you a couple of little tricks I
like to do so that my tree isn't just stark
white with a background. What I'm going to
do is add a bit of shadowing under some of
these snowy pieces here. Then it will look like
white snow on top and a little bit of shadowing underneath the mound of snow. What I'm going to do
is take some water. This is mostly clear water. It's got a whitish
color, but that's okay. Let's start at the bottom
here and work our way up. I'm going to start
with this section. I'll do maybe three at a time. And I'm just loosely putting
in some clear water. I'm not super precise. What I want to do is
add just a touch of my cobalt blue just to the
bottom and let it fade up. Grab some more blue there. The reason why I pre wet that little section is because I didn't want to create
a harsh blue line. I'll show you what
happens if I did that. If I just took some blue like this and I went in like this. See how there's like
a hard edge there? You can do it that
way then if you want, you just take a thirsty brush, which is a brush with a bit of water removed so
it becomes damp. Then you take your brush and you just soften that very top of the blue all the way across.
And you can fade it up. You can do that too. There's
two ways of doing this. I'm just trying to
create a little bit of darker shadowing at the bottom
and lighter as we go up. You can do the same thing
to this next little line of snowy branches and
this one above it. I don't really care if my brush gets into the
background. That's fine. I'm not too picky because it's it's just going to look like a tiny bit of shadowing, just dropping it in. Let's do the same thing. Pre wet the snow. Grab your blue, or
it can be green. Doesn't have to be
blue, Just drop it in, along the base, the bottom
of those snowy branches. Let's do this top part. Take that little blue dot now there's some areas that
I think I want to darken up. Like maybe right here
while it's still wet, you can drop in some of this
darker color and it'll fade. Notice how I'm dropping it in at the bottom
so that it softly fades up into that
white area there. I think it looks a little
bit more realistic. Although I'm not going
for realism here, I just want to give
it more dimension. Yeah, everything is still wet. Just drop in some of that color. Look what's happening.
It's pretty cool. Just keep going around that contrast between
the light snow. If you have some areas
that are starting to get hard edges that
you don't really like, just take your thirsty brush
and then just soften it, just feather it out and then you can go back in and drop in your color
again if you want. I think at the bottom here it could use a
little bit of help. Let's cover that up. Just darkening it up. Then I'm going to
take a thirsty brush, remove the excess water, and fade out that hard edge. All it is, is fading
and feathering. I also see some areas
here I want to soften. I'm taking my thirsty brush
and I'm just going to feather that out a
bit. That's the thing. When you use masking fluid, you end up with these
really hard edges of snow. In order to soften them, you got to use that
thirsty brush. I do like adding color on top of the white paper where I
removed that masking fluid. I think it looks
really, really nice. I'm just to keep at it, I think I'm going to remove
a bit of paint here. Lighten it up a bit,
soften this there. That's looking really nice. I might want to
balance out this side. I think I'll add a
bit of cobalt blue. See, I really like
covering up some of those white areas because
water color is transparent. You get this nice subtle shift between colors and you can
see the color underneath. Yeah, a bit of
blue down in here. Yeah, I'm liking that. It's not really
an exact science. I'm leaving some areas more
white and I've painted over, but you can still
tell that it's snow. It's the illusion
of a snowy day. Now, let's let this dry, then we will add a pretty gold star
at the top and maybe some gold ornaments. I think it'll look really cool.
7. White Gouache Snow Flakes: Okay. Now that we've had
our paint dry completely, we're going to add some bit of snow detail all over our tree. I'm using some white guash, which is just from
Windsor and Newton. And the reason why I
use for this instead of white watercolor paint is because guash is a
lot more opaque. It's not as transparent. However, if you add
too much water to it, it becomes more and more
transparent like water color. If you don't have guash, you can use acrylic. That's fine too. For this, I'm using an old toothbrush and I'm just going to
work into my guash. I have a tiny bit
of water on there, then I'm just going to
flick it on like this, it creates a super
fine snowy look. I really like that combination of the salt in the
background that we use. It creates these
little halo effects. Then I've got some of that masking fluid that
we spattered on there. We got a big drop
there, that's okay. You can just dab it out
with a paper towel. Lift it there. Yeah. A toothbrush gives a really fun a very
fine mist of snow. Like one of those days
where the snow is falling so peacefully and you step outside
and everything is, all of the sounds are muted
by that gentle falling snow. Then you have to get
in your super cold car and drive on an icy road. Now, this is the day
where you want to sit inside and have
some coffee or tea. Read the newspaper. I still love reading
the newspaper or a book or a magazine. Oh my gosh. I love, I love reading real things. Like I'm on my phone a ton. And for me to relax, I love to open up a
book and just smell it. I love the way newspapers smell. I love going into a bookstore
and smelling all the pages. I don't know what
it is. They all have their own unique smell. Maybe it's the glue or the
ink or whatever it is, it's just very comforting. Anyway, let's let this dry and then we are going to paint a
little star at the very top. Okay.
8. Painting the Star Ending: I'm going to paint
a little star at the top using some glitter. Because I don't
have gold glitter. I dug through
everything that I have, all of my craft supplies, I don't have any, but
I found this stuff called gilded metal flakes. And it's for picture frames. If you want to make things look vintage with
that gilded look, I'm just going to experiment with it and see how it works. I'm not sure what will happen, but I'm going to try it. I'm just going to take
a brush and paint in a cute little star because I'm going to put it
on my cardboard here. This is just cardboard
that I don't care about. Its place to experiment, I'm just going to paint
in my little star. I drew it out before I have
somewhat of an outline, but I'm going to make
it bigger, paint it in. I'm not really worried
about it looking perfect. I want to add cute
little star at the top. Now if you have glitter, go ahead and sprinkle it on. Right now, while
your glue is wet, you can use that
Elmer's school glue. That will work just fine, but because I didn't have
any glitter on hand, I'm using this other stuff. And the directions were
just slightly different. Okay, here's my stuff,
my gilded gold. And the directions
for the glue said to let it dry a little
bit before you use it. I did you want it to
be tacky but not wet? I'm just going to cut off
a tiny little corner. And then it said
it's slightly dry. You take a soft brush, so I'm going to use one that I don't really
care too much about. And then you just get some of
those gold flakes on there. Some of them are bigger. I was hoping to
get smaller ones, and then you just
tap it on there. Now, if I had glitter, I could just pour it on, and then it would, it would stick and I
wouldn't have to do this. But like I said, I
can't find my glitter. This will have to work. Let's just cover all
the glue I put down. After I get all of the points, I think I just need to push it in there because I'm noticing
that it breaks down. As I continue to use my
brush to maneuver it around, it becomes smaller and
finer and that's what I was hoping for first time using it. But so far it's cute. I got a little star at the top. It's not sticking to
my watercolor paper, so that's good, but it's sticking to the glue.
That's what I wanted. I like that. It's cute. I could even add like
some little gold flex, little ornaments on the tree. Now is the fun part, removing the tape
and now you can see your painting with
beautiful, crisp edges. Thank you for joining
me in this class. I love to see your work. Please share social media
or however you like. If you have any questions or
comments about the class, please let me know. I'm always happy
to hear feedback. Please share your
project with everyone. We would all love
to see your work, so share it in the
project section of the class and happy painting.