Watercolor Dragonfly: Easy and Fun Watercolor Project

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. My name is Irina Trzaskos. I'm an artist and illustrator. Also, I teach watercolor classes here at Skillshare. In today's class, we'll be painting a dragonfly. This is a series of short summer classes I'm filming and this is a second class. Thank you for all your contributes, beautiful projects and nice comments in my previous watercolor bicycle class. In the next video, I will show you the supplies and the colors we'll be using in this class. Let's get started. 2. Supplies & Colors: In this class we'll be using the supplies we are using in most of my classes, some water color paint, watercolor paper, cold pressed Canson. A pencil, eraser, one of course paint ballot, paper towel, and medium watercolor brush, this is called key symbol number four. This model of what they're calling a brush, this is caused key symbol number two. Use any brushes you are most comfortable with, so we may use a fine liner for details. Just make sure it's waterproof. We may use some white ink to add some magic. So as colors we'll be using today, for our dragon foil, the lemon yellow, some yellow green. Turquoise, if you don't have turquoise, it's okay. Some warm shade of blue it's called just blue, can be Prussian blue. In your iPod. Some purple. For details, we may use black watercolor, but also we can use just a fine liner. So let's put some black and hurt. That's it. This are all the colors we'll be using today. Next we'll be drawing our dragonfly. 3. Drawing a Dragonfly: First thing we have to do is to draw our dragonfly. I did the dealer lights cage here, so I want so much time, but I'll show you with thicker lines how I draw it. When you're drawing, just do it with really fine lines, not like me. We have head, which is pointed a little bit with and here I have, I don't know eyes, probably. We'll still in the end and blend details here, so don't worry too much about it. Our sketch drawing has to be dealing with few lines. Here is a tail. I think here comes with two parts. You can see in the reference. Then we will have one line for a wing and then goes up a little bit up, and then it goes down again and again, go down, down and here. Let's try to do the second wing symmetrically. You can see the wings are also end and up pointing and the down wings are a little bigger like this. I'll fix this eraser. Again, let's try to do it as symmetrical as possible. Here, we can have two legs or four legs. That's all the drawing we need for our painting. Just make sure yours is way lighter than mine. 4. Painting a Dragonfly: Now when we have our drawing we can start painting. The wings are the most important part but they'll have not much detail on them, so we'll start painting from the wings. Just in case it may not come out too well, we can always paint another dragonfly instead of [inaudible] as the last one and then to discover that it didn't come out well. What I do first I'm just covering two wings, like the upper ones with water and then we'll be painting symmetrically, so will be adding the color on one and then another one, hoping that two of them will be the same. I'm starting with some banana yellow and then just some yellow green. I will move into two parts and this one is falling nicely, then blue. Try to work fast because marker is drying and the last one will be purple, just a little bit and you can see my paper is almost dry here, so take a paper towel and I'll help. Add more purple in this one and then I'm washing the brush and I will help just a little bit, the colors to blend together like this. The same thing we'll do with these two wings, so I'm covering them with water, you can see it's shining, so it's perfect. Let's not use some yellow this time we'll start right with green then we'll move into our two claws which is spreading so nicely, maybe too nice and then we'll add some blue. I don't think I want to add any purple to this wings, some just turn helping them paint a little bit with brush. Next let's paint the body, so we'll mix some lemon yellow with a little bit of green falling middle and on the sides it will be just blue and for the tail the same thing, some lemon yellow with green one line and then on the edges we'll add some blue. Often we'll be adding details and it will bring our dragonfly to life and it'll make it look more realistic. So that's it, it's our first layer and now have to let it dry. Next we'll be adding the details. 5. Adding Details: Now, we got to my very favorite part, which is painting the details. The details of a painting make of a big difference. Let's start by darkening some parts of our dragonfly just with some blue. At this stage, we'll be using blue, black, maybe a fineliner, and I have some white ink here. I realized that the head has to be a little bigger. I mean, even the shape is a little different, so I'm adding this eye part a little bigger. It has to be as wide as the body, but still try not to cover some of his beautiful wash while you are doing that. Here is the line, got some border. It doesn't have to be precise in nature, but it's nice to get it close. It's just some dots and lines during this stage. I really don't want to overdo it. A dragonfly body is divided in two parts. There is a line here, and then, there's the second part. I'm working with a small brush this is called [inaudible] number two. This is the body, and then, we have some lines on the tail. Here we have, it's divided in two parts. Next, let's get to the wings. If you watched my butterfly class, again, we have the same situation. For this, we need to dilute paint with more water. We have the same situation with butterflies. We have a wing in a wing, and try to make it symmetrical. Then, we have a few more lines from here. I can't turn the paper but you can, so if you feel more comfortable turning the paper then, just do so. Then, I'm adding some extra lines, not too many, just a little bit, to add a little bit more texture. The bottom ones, too. Maybe another wing in a wing, like this and like this. Again, a line, a few more lines just like in the leaves. Next, what we'll do will be adding teeny-tiny dots and circles to our wings, as many as you want. They will dry and they will look very, very soft. We're doing all this with blue. Again, some circles and dots. You can always add more if you need to. Make sure you have your paper towel next to you. Next, I will take some black. While our wings are drying, I'll darken the body more. The body will be the darkest part of our dragonfly. Here, we'll have the darker section. The legs, and a dragonfly has more legs. We'll have it here. Because the wings are see-through, we can see them through the wings. Just make sure it's not too wet. Some more lines and dots. I don't want to darken it too much. I just want to make a little bit of a difference between body and wings, so the body will look darker than the wings. A little more here. This is enough. Next, what I'll do is, with the white ink, I'll add some more details, mostly dots, maybe some lines at the end of the wings to brighten them up, especially here. Here, this wing is a little too dark. A little bit of white ink. We can water it a little bit. Here, we can add some more dots. One white dot right here in the middle and maybe a few ones, a few highlights. The last, we'll add some details with a fineliner, just interrupted lines, a few circles, a few dots. If ink and watercolor is your favorite technique, you can make an entire painting in ink and watercolor. Just draw it with a fineliner first, and then, paint it. It will look great, too. That's it. This is our dragonfly, and the end of our class. 6. Thank you!: Thank you for watching my classes. I hope you've had a chance to paint with me. If you liked this class, please leave a review and upload a project to the project section of the class. I can't wait to see your beautiful dragonfly. If you'd like to learn work are more in-depth, I have a myriad of classes here at Skillshare. Don't forget to press the follow button above; not to miss any of my classes. See you in my next class. Bye.