Watercolor Cocktails - Paint and Create Printed Gifts

1. Paint Some Cocktails!: To have a good time, all you need a drink and, give me a second to think about it, some paintbrushes. Let's paint these drinks. I'm Amarylis Henderson, I create watercolor paintings for application on stuff. Confession. I haven't done a lot of drinks. I was so intimidated by the glistening glass, this kind of watery but crisp look going on all at the same time. I want to show you how I discovered a very laid out way to approach any drink. I realized how fun this is and it's totally perfect for watercolor. Watercolor does it better. Even better yet, these make beautiful gifts. Everyone likes to have a good time and everyone likes to be reminded of having a good time. That's what this imagery is all about. Spreading a little cheer over the holidays and into the New Year. 2. Supplies: Your painting watery, fluid drinks with a fluid medium, and then we come in with a little opaque medium to bring in that kind of twist. Like one of these little guys right here. It's so pretty, I don't want to mess this up. I think I did. In this class, we'll be using fluid watercolors. I'll be using, for instance, this pastel red by Ecoline. Mostly I like to use the Ph Martin's line like this 17B tangerine that we'll be using in this class too. I'll be showing you how to paint two cocktails, I want you to feel like you can absolutely use whatever colors you have. This would work just fine with any other brand of watercolors. Don't feel that you have to have what I have in order to succeed at this. We are using pastel red, which is a peachy read tangerine, which is an orangey red; ice blue mixed with white, which is not shown. I'm going to be using Dr. Ph Martin's chalk white; 11A grass green, so it's a bright green; then those two greens below by Mijello, one is a very rich dark green which is going to be great for pushing our values, and the one below it is just a true medium green. An opaque white medium is suggested. Something like this. This is by Dr. Ph. Martin's, it's called Pen-White. This one is Copic White. It also comes in a larger jar. What it is is it's a fluid, white but opaque paint. It could be something between acrylic and ink in consistency. I'll mix that with watercolor paint so that it has a bit of that color from the watercolor and it also has the opaqueness. I believe that when you mix these colors together, you get a completely different color than if you had just had a watery application of a watercolor paint. It's just a different color. I really appreciate that difference. We'll be using two kinds of brushes. Flat brushes, square brushes with a flat top that range from a one-inch width to a quarter-inch width. Isn't that fun? Because they kind of like the gradation of these, and then will always rely or fall back on a good round brush. This one is a size 4 that has a nice tip to it and we can use it for details. Now just to get used to the colors, I took out a small sheet of paper and I'm going to just paint some circles and get a feel for how these colors interact. First, getting them all wet because they are dry in my palette right now. But it helps me see the relationship, the interplay of the colors, and not really having a subject matter helps me to do that quickly instead of setting my heart on trying to do a thing in these particular colors. I always start with big shapes, as you've probably seen in my watercolor playgrounds class, and then I move on to medium-sized shapes. I also gradiate from light to dark, typically, as I go about doing that. That way I play with these colors and at the very end, when everything is dry, if there is a color that's mixed with white, I'll place that on top. The other tool that I'll be using is masking fluid. You might have heard of masking fluid before, you might have used it before, this is a quick review. You'll usually see masking fluid sold in a jar like this. The masking fluid you'll see me use comes out of something like a pen dispenser. It's much more versatile just because I don't have to use a brush to apply it as I do with this, and it creates thinner lines. You don't have to use masking fluid but the purpose of it is to be able to feel more free when you are painting and then you can peel away the masking fluid to uncover the white of the paper. One other masking medium that we'll use that you probably do have in your house is a crayon. I save my kids white crayons because they don't know how to use them and I do. If you color with the white crayon, it'll create a resist. The watercolor will not stick to the paper because water does not stick to wax. It is not an opaque application like the masking fluid is. The masking fluid will be like a silhouette of a shape that's painted on. Whereas the crayon will leave kind of a crayon, chalk-like texture behind. We'll use them for different purposes. Let me see, is there is anything else? Oh, paper, I always forget paper. The paper I like to use is by Canson. It's from their XL brand and it's so widely distributed, you can find it at big box stores like Walmart or from an art store. Watercolor cold press, 140 pound. It's not the thickest or the fanciest, but it's the most versatile and it really shines, lets my colors shine through really nicely. 3. The Process Laid Out: I want to walk you through the process that I enjoy using for each drink that I do. It allows for several things. It allows for diversity in value, so we start from light to dark, and get more punchy as we go. It allows for diversity in application by bringing in some of the opaque color. It allows also for drying time. While we are waiting for the drink to dry, the fluid to dry within the glass, we'll work on the glass and bounce back and forth. That way, things are drying and we can pace ourselves as we create. This is the part of the class where I show you my special sauce. I'm going to give you the outline of the path that we'll be taking. First, we start with sketching. That's pretty straightforward, we typically sketch. In this class, we'll be masking, and I'll talk more about masking fluid. Then we will go to wet on wet washes. Now I divided this into two portions, light and bright. You'll see that in action as to why. Then we go into the cool colors, the glass, the more opaque feel. Towards the end, it's all about getting darker, bolder, and refined, as we're defining our drinks and bringing in that crisp look at them. 4. Sketching: Being able to paint these drinks could be great for anyone on their career path wanting to do more editorial illustrations or recipe illustrations. Hey guys, don't mind the Christmas music. I hope you can still hear me okay. I have a little bit of a dirty little secret that I'm going share with you. There's a reason why I haven't done a lot of like cocktail drinks and it's because the symmetry of those glasses or those really ornate bottles, they freak me out. I do much well with organic shapes. I was going to do a dirty little trick and I thought I'd share it with you. My iPad, you may not have an iPad. This is essentially a light box trick. I search for pictures of Christmas cocktails and then I take a picture, blow it up. Isn't that cute? This is a cranberry old-fashion and I've got a light box. Now, I'm only going to use it to trace the rim of that cup. I still want it to feel fresh and different, but with my own artistic addition to it. But that way I have a glass ready to go and I feel much freer to add in my fun colors. 5. Masking: After sketching what you want your drink to look like, I'm going to show you a couple of different ways that I mask. Masking fluid is typically something that you find at the art store in a jar, and it's used usually with a brush. I was fortunate enough to find some of this, it's more of masking pen is what it's called. I have found other ones online on Amazon. If you look for masking fluid, you'll also find some that look like this and some that just have different applicators or spouts so that you can apply them so much easier. It's wonderful. The most important part for me in a glass in making sure that these areas are kept white because that is what the masking fluid is there for. This stuff is going to sit on a painting, on our paper and mask. Keep the paint from touching the paper in these areas. Once it's dark, it's like rubber cement. If you think of your very brightest brights and you want to keep them white on your paper. This is a good way to go so that you can also work loosely later on. It's not absolutely necessary. But I found that with creating the reflections of the glass and also being able to keep that fluid, watery feel of the drink. I needed a little help from this masking fluid. Being careful to want to create spots of white, better lines. Sometimes they are very big spots in this mug, which was actually a very thick glass mug. I needed to go a lot heavier with some areas. Now I'm also using a white crayon. This is a crayon resist technique, and it's not going to mask the painting as well as the fluid. It's not going to be a clear cut out. It's going to be more of a textured feel. If you've ever colored with crayons, you know exactly why. Now I'm being strategic in placing these bits of crayon and the masking fluid. I'm reserving the masking fluid for the parts that are the glass and I want to look really crisp and reflective. I'm using the white crayon only for the parts that are within the drink, the ice cubes, maybe some of the reflections within the cranberries. Here it is dry, so you see how it looks like clear glue sitting right on top of the paper and make sure it's completely dry before you start painting. 6. Paint an Old Fashioned: I'm really excited to show you how these come together. It starts with my favorite part, after sketching and masking, wet washes. Now, I have two steps of wet washes, this being the light. I always start with the lightest color. I'm using this color by Ecoline called pastel red and it's really beautiful peachy color. Now, the problem with some of these fluid water colors is that they don't stick around for long, not all that glitters is gold and so they will fade over time. But to me it's worth it to have this beautiful color. Working wet on wet with a one inch wide flat brush, I'm laying down some water and then I lay in the color. I'm using a flat brush because it has a very sculpted edge to it, so I can navigate around these ice cubes. I don't mean to be so careful about it since we did do the masking and yet I can also be really loose with it because it's so large. I'm dipping into a little bit more of the color ready to go to my second step in my washes with more boldness in my wet on wet washes. Selecting a slightly brighter color, a deeper red, then I feel loosened up now. I'm warmed up to drop in color in the darker areas of the drink. I am looking at a photo reference and I very much recommend it trying to capture reflections and differences in colors, all these nuances, it's really great to do when you have a photo or a real life drink in front of you to work from. Now you'll see that I even use the very tip, the corner of my brush to get into those little corners, little creases of the glass. You'll also notice that as the color starts seeping out into the very wet on wet areas, it's going to all blend together. Something that I love about watercolors is that it blends itself. I don't have to get really particular about it trying to make that happen. But it also means I need to get a lot bolder, as the water is drying and then it'll stick better. Moving on to the next step, I'm going to go to the cool colors. This watery mess is drying. I need to stop touching it for a while, I need to reach for my blues. Now the blue that I'm using is a chalky mess and I like it like that. It has the blue and the opaque white mixed together and my brush has a little bit of pink on it already. Really using colors that are already used in other parts of the painting. It makes it easily harmonious. I'm trying to consider what areas do I see a little bit of reflection of blue trying not to touch the drinks too much. I don't fret too much if things start bleeding together, but it's not preferable. Now before we move on to the second step, the second half of the cool blues, I'll let it dry and I wanted you to notice that, so I left that awkward transition there. The paint is dry, so actually I can go opaque and not worry about bleeding into the existing colors. I wanted this blue to feel crisp, a cool, grayish tone, because the washes that I used in the last step are very warm, being very strategic and calculating coming straight down. I'm using the tip of this flat brush. I switched to a half inch wide square brush. I just feel like I have a little more control over it and the line is a little thinner as I create the edges of this glass. You might want to hold your breath for this part. Now, something that I actually want to get better at and I really enjoy doing is not completing the line. When I look at other artist work that I like, I'll notice that they don't finish their lines and they're okay with that and it looks great. I try to remind myself of that as I'm painting, going a little thicker with my line here at the bottom so that it encapsulates those parts where there's masking fluid, so that when I peel that masking fluid off, you'll really get to see the difference between this dark white of the paper and the darkest blue have some contrast there. Creating the rim of the glass is probably the most nerve wrecking part. Ellipses or something that we worked on a lot in art school, so don't feel sad that this might be a little intimidating to get that circle just right. But take your time you have a dry sheet of paper that you're working on, you're using, and more opaque application of paint. It's actually going to be a little easier. Once I have that crisp line on the bottom, start drawing from that, using some of that paint and pulling it down so you get that feel of a glistening glass, so you see how the light hits it in a vertical line. Now we put down masking fluid for a reason. We did that so that we could paint over it and leave behind these white spots of the paper. In order to get that effect, you're going to a have to paint right up to those parts of the masking fluid on it. We are at the part now where our glass is pretty much full. We have our drink before us, but it's falling a little flat. Now we add some depth. I'm going to go back to a little bit of wet on wet, where I am laying down water and then add in some color and I'm focusing on the ice cubes. That's something that I felt like was really important to this drink, so I wanted to accentuate that. I added a touch of green to this bluish mix just to make it feel a little different from what the glass feels like. Essentially they're the same clearish color but I wanted to have a little bit of a different touch to it by adding a little bit of color to it. I can't wait to peel off the masking fluid and see what it looks like underneath and then know exactly what's left before we are done with that. Do make sure that your painting is completely dry before you start peeling away and rubbing at it. It can be very devastating and I think many of us have experienced what that's like. Once it's dry and you've peeled the masking fluid away, we're going to jump into a little bit of bold color. In our old fashion, there's a slice of an orange. In it I'm going to throw in a little orange using an even smaller flat brush. This is more like a quarter of an inch I like to give you guys measurements rather than sizes of brushes. As I've found that they are so different from brand to brand and I would say that this is about half a centimeter, a quarter of an inch. I'm using a yellow-orange by Mijello Mission Gold. I'm really trying to use the edge of the brush as much as I can to create these really angular curves. Now, it's fun is that with the orange slice, I'll also be able to use an angular curve, but I'll be following it in more of like a semi circle crest shape. Little hint of orange at the top, little dabs of orange throughout the drink. I want this orange to be the color that guides the eye all the way around and finds pockets of the pretty red and the pretty teal. But it's the orange that's actually going to be the conduit that's going to make the eye move around. Even though I peeled off the masking fluid, the crayon is still on there. There's no peeling that of, so it has a little bit of a texture to it and I wanted to paint right on top of it so that you could really appreciate that texture. I'm really making it up at this point. There is a point where we need to stop looking at a reference picture and realize that no one's going to be looking at the reference picture when they look at this painting. They're just going to be looking at this drink. Now that I have played with this enough, I feel I really understand, what are the places that this needs to really pop? I'm going to go with my darkest darks and we're going to go bold with my brush strokes and I'm going to add perhaps some touches of opaque white. You'll see that more in the second drink. I'm just adding a little bit of everything here at the end now that I know what it needs. Enough with the orange, I think we've pushed it as far as we could. I'm feeling the glass needs a touch of dark. Really push the darkest dark a little further. In order to do that, we mix the colors that we already have. I mixed a little bit of the red into the teal mixture. The green and the red being complimentary colors are going to create a muddy dark color, which is exactly what I'm hoping for. Using the very tip of my brush because they want to just have tiny little details of contrast. This is the fun part. This is when you really get to put your signature on your piece and part of that for me lately has been using a little bit of dry brush here at the end. As my brush gets drier, I swoop it down so that it has that reflective feel and it adds a little different texture than all the wet on wet bleeds. 7. Paint a Hot Drink: All right. You guys ready for a little bit more of a challenge? This drink, I think it's just the organic shapes of the cranberries. I just love me, a circle. Just like in our first streak, we're starting with wet on wet bleeds. Since this is my second one, we're going straight to bright very quickly. The second phase of the wet on wet bleeds going bolder with the color and it's also a darker color altogether. This one inch flat brush helps to not only get bolder with your brush strokes, but it also helps you create that slick flat edge of the ice cubes within the drink and that can be hard to create consistently, with a round brush. With a flat brush, you just do it every single time. Now, a fun way to make a circle is to use your brush perpendicularly and twirl it around to create that perfect circle. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it's fun. It's a fun way to begin, at least with that form and then you can tighten it up, clear, clean any edges with the corner of your brush to make sure that it's just right. You can create your berries freely because you've masked the glistening parts of those berries and that's a lot of fun as you create one circle, then you make sure to not do the bottom. They tend to stack on top of each other and then you can fill in more as you go down the line. I let them bleed a little bit into each other because I will add more definition later. You might like, may vary the colors little by little, maybe adding a little bit more blue to make it more of a violet, red, or adding a little yellow to make the berries feel warmer. Those little differentiations go a long way because in nature you will hardly ever find two identical any things. Even when you have a stack of berries, if you look at the photographs that you love the most of food, the thing that makes it interesting is noticing that there's these slight variations among blueberries where you have a pale blue or a modded blue or a violet blue. When they're placed altogether, your eyes just bounces around and that's the effect that we want to create here with our cranberries in our drink. Add a touch of dark to just half of your brush and you'll be doing the technique called floating. Creating a little bit of a shadow by just having half of your brush or the tip of your brush, I have that darker color on it and placing it over whatever it is that you're going to paint, It's a form of creating shadows that is really natural, really easy to do. Whether you're doing it right over one of the cranberries that you've already painted or painting a brand new cranberry and you have a little bit of paint just on one edge of it, of the brush, you'll create this seamless, it's called floating. You'll have this seamless shadow that you don't need to blend anymore if you have just a little bit of water enough to induce that rounded, severe look. It's really a fun trick. We're almost done with this very red phase, just painting in this corner. I think we'll leave it like that until our next phase, going into those cool colors. Using the blue that we had mixed with actually a little bit of the green. I want to go a little more teal on this one. I'm actually going to start with the outsides of the mug because I feel like it's so important for the shape of this particular mug, is just what stands out to me so it's what I want to address first. Half of my glass was more of a wet watercolor application, and the right half of my glass is more of an opaque watercolor application using more of that opaque white. The reason I did that is because I wanted to see for one just the contrast of lighter side, just like light hitting one side of the glass. But also this is a thicker glass, so I felt like it needed a little more of a cruel treatment with the opaque paint. It's going to be a thicker application to give it the sense of a thicker glass. Unlike the glass of the old fashion, I'm going to fill in the inside of this glass to have a lot of contrast between the red and the blue. Again, just having more of an opaque feel of the glass because you can't really see through as easily as you could the glass on the left. We're coming up on the handle, I wish I had made more space for it. For now, I am outlining each side very thinly. I just want to have the form there and I'm going to come back to it in a little bit. Firstly, I want to give a little bit of a swoop here to the rim of the glass now that all that is dry. Again, going over that masking fluid parts so that it has that opaque little white bubble right in the center of that paint brush stroke. While I'm waiting for some of these blue layers to dry, I'm going to paint that cinnamon stick. I also want to see what this brownish colors, golden brown is going to do to my color palette. It instantly warmed up the whole look of this mug and it gives me more confidence to bring in more blues later. While it's still wet, bring in a little of the dark brown. You can mix the existing brown with a bit of violet or even the green that you have on your palette, using that same color to outline it on the sides so that you have a little bit of a sheen to it and that'll dry beautifully even though it's very wet right now. It's going to look really crisp once it dries. I'm going to jump into more depth. We're at the part now where the forms are all there and now we just need to define them a little more so we're going to go even darker. The pockets between these cranberries are critical. This negative space, as I talk about actually in another class called the 10 elements of painting, this negative space is actually really active. We're looking at this photograph or this real-life drink, what we notice are these pockets of dark between these cranberries that are jumping out at us. These little triangles, these little diamonds and whether they're there or not, maybe I didn't allow enough space for them. You can still paint them in because it's a darker color and with watercolor, you can always go darker on top. If you follow the way that I paint enough, you also will go lighter at the end too with a little bit of help from acrylic or opaque ink. I'm being careful to not outline each one of these cranberries. I'm wanting to just create little shadows, enhance the light's coming through this glass. Those shadows are going to be imperfect, which works wonderfully in my favor. I don't need to make everything perfect. I'm allowing little space underneath all these cranberries for a slice of orange, it's going to be so pretty down there. But for now, I want to create that depth by looking for little pockets of dark. Now, after I've created all these pockets, we're going to now think about, what about the smaller shadows, the longer shadows along the edges of some of these cranberries? Where are those? We start looking out for smaller nuances. In watercolor, we go from light to dark, from very wet to more opaque treatments, and from big areas to smaller. We're always narrowing down our scope of vision and getting tighter and tighter as we work on our painting. You'll notice that the pockets then I'm finding are very small. I'm starting to define some of those circles because I want these to be noticeable as cranberries. Whether I use a dark brown or I go back to my reds, at this point, I'm starting to define those round shapes that are sitting on top of this. You will find that between dark colors and saturated colors, sometimes you work on bright colors, that can be a little confusing, saturated being that it's very clear articulation of that color. When you're thinking of red, it's like boom, red. Using saturated colors is another way of creating value. It's not watered down, its paint straight from my palette, and it's going to create a middle grade darkness. I love creating some of the little centers of berries, I feel like that's something that's very winsome about them, essentially, where they were picked off, the vine or the twig. I'm going to start bringing in a little bit of the whimsy. The things I like about this drink, the things that are just visually appealing. Now, I'm reaching for the pastel red, I'm going to transition now in my thinking back towards the warmer yellow orange, just like we did with the old fashion, to bring in some of that warmth back in. Create notes of texture, just as we have with the berries which have a very smooth texture. Sentiment has a really poorest texture and I want to be able to draw that out. I'm going to be transitioning more and towards the orange now, grabbing some of that, and I'm going to place an orange slice here at the bottom with my flat brush. It's about half an inch wide and it works perfectly for creating that shape instantly. Now since it's so wet, I have to work in other places of my cocktail before we come back to define this guy. While we wait, we can peel our masking fluid off, making sure that the parts that we are touching aren't dry. So my orange is not quite dry, but I felt like it safe to take off this masking fluid that's really mostly sitting on the blue areas. Now, this is a more complex drink, so it's going to take us a little longer, but it'll be worth it. I'm using a round brush, this is a size 4. I'm combining a little bit of that brown that we used for the cinnamon and a bit of the orange to define both the orange slice here at the bottom and some of the cranberries. I'm using that same color to pull it around and make our eye move as a graphic design element instead of being really articulate about what this orange slice looks like and letting it be more graphical, and outlining the shape can live in something that you'd find more in the 1950s recipe book than on Better Homes and Garden, let's say. I like to swing between rendering something and then getting really bold and flat in the way that it's treated in more of a design elements way. Using some of that dark, both the orange slice and the cinnamon sticks have the same color way of orange and light brown. I'm using a little bit of a dry brush technique, letting my dry brush, a paint within the center, just to create a little bit of a hint of where these little graphical lines gathered in the orange slice and yet going very wet in my application towards the cinnamon sticks. I not only want to create a difference in the interest in using different techniques, but also these different applications give each thing a little bit of a different feel. With our cinnamon seeds, I'm going very wet in my application with the orange slice, it's more a dry. The glass is more of an opaque feel and the berries are very wet and wet. Each one of them having a little bit of a different take adds to their personality. The bits of dark shading used sparingly are more on the inside of where the mug handle lands and then where I don't feel quite sure or secure, I'll go very thin with my lines. It's a very noncommittal way to add shadows and you can always add more. Of course, another way to add definition, but slightly timidly, is using a light, dark shade. I'm using a light application of this violet color that I'm using to shade with. Okay guys, we're going to go very dark. Since these berries are so very bright, we are going to be using a very dark, dark. I am mixing pretty much all of the colors that we've used so far to create something of a rich black. It's not quite black, but it's almost there. Something with watercolor to keep in mind is that it does dry lighter than you see it at first. Don't get too worried if you feel like you went to heavy-handed. Now, I do caution you that when you are going this dark on a shade to not go overboard with them times that you touch the paper with it. I'm trying to be really strategic, really careful just to do little bits here and there. Because if you consider your reference image or your reference in real life, there aren't a lot of really dark pockets. It's something that actually we translate in our own eyes. When I create a very dark line, I make sure that it is broken, that it isn't a big, bold, dark, unless it needs to be. In this instance, I'm going to the places that are already dark and taking it a step further within those dark areas to, especially the creases, the places where the cranberries can kiss with each other and create these little corners. That's the place where I want to drop a little bit more dark definition to. Now, I'm going to hop back to our cool mix of a light blue. As I warned you in our last drink, I would do on this one. Using that opaque white, I'm just going to highlight some of those shiny bits on the cranberries. You might not need this depending on how light or heavy you went. I think it's always fun to add a little bit of white at the end. I feel like it has a different textural quality, even bold strokes around the glass to create more of a glare, to clean up areas, to unite the whole thing. That's what I'm trying to do here in my last steps. We've done so much on this drink. It's time to look at it and make sure that we have interest there, that we have definition, and that we definitely have color. 8. Digitizing: What's great about painting these strains is that they are so giftable. Sure, you can absolutely give the watercolor painting that you create with a bottle of wine or with a shaker or in a frame. But I found that it's also fun that we can put these images on so many things that can be reproduced and created digitally, and made into gifts. Just to show you real quick how my paintings get on my screen. I scanned this at at least 300 dpi and here it is. I always hit the levels palette using the white ink dropper to drop down on the white part of the painting. Then I also play with hue and saturation to make sure that the colors are true to how they look in real life. Now, I obviously have a little cleaning up to do here on the outside. You see a little bit of the dirt on my white. It's always great to isolate whatever it is that you have painted. I'm going to use the magic wand tool. Instead of selecting the white area, I'm actually going to select all the colored areas of the glass, the parts that I want to keep. I really just want to make sure that the silhouette of this glass, this drink makes sense. I'm increasing my number up here of how much it includes when I select the magic one. If it's including too much in your selection, then bring your number down. Then I quickly switch from there to the free form lasso tool. I am holding down the Shift key key entire time to make sure that my selection is all included. I also use the polygonal lasso tool when I want to have really straight lines, and it's funny connect the dots format. I'll use it to add in any bits and pieces within the glass that I want to make sure to include in my selection. Double-clicking on a layer to make sure that I can then hit Command+X and Command+V to cut and paste. So now, my drink is isolated and it's on its very own layer. I switched it to black just so you could see. I have a white background. I have an idea in mind, and I want to make my canvas actually larger. Using the crop tool, I'm making this area a little larger and hitting okay. I'm not really going by any measurements right now. I filled my bottom layer by hitting Command+Delete to make sure it's all full. With the typing tool, I'm going to add a little text to make it a little cheeky, a little fun for my design. I'm using the American Typewriter font. I just want to have a well-known look with my design. I hit Command+J to duplicate that layer so it's just easy, then type in a little more. Whenever I want to manipulate the shape, the angle of my text, I just hit Command+T to transform. It's always fun to have things a little skew when you're trying to make a joke. Now, I'm using the eyedropper tool to select the color that I'm putting over this piece just to give it a little bit of a vintage look. I'm adjusting that color. I used the keyboard stroke of Alt+Delete when I want to fill in the layer. Now I created a new layer, and with my lasso tool, the polygonal lasso tool that gives me some nice, sharp edges to make it look a little bit like copy and paste or ransom note look, I'm making these boxes that outline the text as if they've been pasted right on. With another layer of white, I'm going to create some bubbles. We can do that with the marquee tool as I do. You can also do this with the brush tool. I just wanted to highlight a few spots. I'll also erase on the yellow overlay layer to make the little bubbles within the drink pop more into a bright white. I'll save my image as a JPEG and play with it on Zazzle. 9. Printed Gifts: From placemats, to coasters, to going all out and creating a cookbook, I'm going to show you a few ways that you can use these watercolor drink paintings that you'll create and make them really memorable gifts. I've found the largest selection of ways to put your art on stuff on Zazzle. It's a fun place to discover different ideas of how you want to apply your art onto products. We will show you real quickly just how to play with the website. You will understand it very fast and make all kinds of things, I am sure. So I had envisioned a kitchen towel for this design. I'm going to just search for that. I'll add my image. It will show up right on my tea towel. This is not my first one and so I know that it's actually facing this way. It might look strange that I'm doing this. But what's handy is that here in the bottom right, you can see a preview, and so you can see how it looks in real life. I want to show you how to add a background color. You might want your image to fit and fill the whole thing, but it doesn't really work for me. I just feel like the way that I hang a kitchen towel is over the handle of my oven. So I want it to be smaller and just to show when it's hanging there. I'm actually going to make it much smaller, almost half the size. I need the background to be the same color as it is here. They have a handy eyedropper tool. That's all I need to do. Now, since my design is a little off-center by nature, I'll play with it a little bit to make sure that it looks right. There are guides provided, so that's really handy too. Don't mess all the features that are on this website. Even the little details, the little elements that typically are pretty cheesy and limited amount sites. I actually really enjoy exploring on the site. My other product recommendation for this project would be a coaster. When it's already a very simple square format, so you can use it for social media and for a coaster with the same imagery. Also, they're really inexpensive. It's a low-risk and easy to give gift stocking stuffer, if you will, or something that you add on to an existing gift. If you want to play and make your designs into products for gifting, I do recommend Zazzle. I would love to see what kind of gifts you come out with practicing that. 10. Bloopers: Are we going to drink this after we're done here? Sure. Door closed, I never close my door unless it's because. Shut the door please. These make beautiful gifts. The drinks do too. Let it cool. You guys stop yelling. Shut the door, please. Shut the door, please. Thank you. Could we? Yeah. I am always up to sharing new discoveries with you and helping you feel more confident in your watercolor painting, and in your illustration career. You might already know where to find me. I am watercolordevo on Instagram and Twitter and places like that, and my website is also under that name. Art directors out there, just know that this my new jam. If you have any work that you would like to consider me for, let me know. I'll show you some more. I would be up for the challenge.