Watercolor Floral Letters and Numbers

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hello everyone, welcome to my 10th Skillshare class, where we will learn how to paint watercolor floral letters, and numbers, just like the paintings in my background. [MUSIC] My name is Joly and I'm your watercolor artist based in the Philippines. I'm also known as Joly Poa on Instagram right here. That's where I share my process videos and also photos of my paintings. We'll start the class by talking about the materials that we need. If it's your first time to take any of my classes, don't worry because I have prepared a demo of the florals that you will use in this class. However, if you have taken my previous classes, you can skip that part and head onto the projects. I know that the length of this class is quite daunting because it's too long, but don't worry, that's because I have prepared so many projects for you guys so you can choose whichever you want to try out first. We will start first with field floral letters and numbers, where I will show you how to combine colors just like these examples. [MUSIC]. Then let's move on to negative painting, where I will be teaching you how to use masking fluid, and also how you can protect your brush from being ruined by the masking fluid. [MUSIC] Then we'll paint metallic watercolor floral letters, which is my favorite, and we'll do two versions. [MUSIC] Lastly, I'll be teaching you how to paint a freehand watercolor floral letter. This class is suitable for beginners or for anybody who wants to create a personalized gift. What you can do is you can paint the first letter of your friend's name or the first letter of your baby's name and just hung it on the wall. Or I think that this could be a great and easy way to make commission projects. The goal of this class is to unleash your creativity, and I have prepared so many examples for you guys so that you have more ideas to work on and then finally, you can create paintings that you can call your own. If you are keen to learn how to paint all of these projects, then let's start the class. [MUSIC] 2. Materials for the Class: [MUSIC] Let's talk about materials and I'm going to start with the paper. I have here some 100% cotton paper and this is arches and the thickness is only 185gsm. I discover that this is cheaper compared to the 300gsm version, and it holds watercolor paint well. But I probably won't recommend this paper if you're going to do a lot of glazing or if you're going to put a lot of water. But for our project today, since we're just going to paint some simple florals, this thickness is good enough. I would also suggest buying a large sheet of paper and just cut into smaller pieces. I'm going to show you the next paper. This is Saunders Waterford, and this is also good, 100& cotton paper. The difference between this and the arches is that I got this in a block form. Block form means that the sides are actually glued together so that this prevents your paper from warping while you're painting. There is a part right here that doesn't have glue and that is where you can take out your paper. Just slide a palette knife over here so you can release one sheet. Usually, block-style of watercolor paper is just more expensive. But if you prefer this, it's also good enough. This is 300gsm. Otherwise, arches is good enough. I just wanted to show you guys two different styles of paper and they are both cold press. If you're painting loose florals, I would suggest to always use cold press paper because the texture is really good for loose florals. If you like painting some very detailed but realistic botanicals, then get the hot-pressed paper. Let's talk about paints. I'm going to be using the ShinHan PWC and you might have seen this in my previous classes. This is a Korean artist-grade paint. They come in tubes, but I do prefer to squeeze them out and let them dry on the half pans like this. As you can see, I've used some of the greens over here. I'm just going to refill them once I finish this color. You're probably wondering whether you should buy paint in the half pan form or in a tube form like this. Well, the quality is just the same. If you're buying a tube, it's suited for paintings that are larger. If you're painting something small, I think half pans like this is enough. I guess it really depends on what you plan to paint. It also depends on the brand because some brands only have their paints in tube form like this ShinHan PWC. One of my favorite brands is the Art Philosophy. We're going to also use this. This is the Currents set. I love this set so much because it has all the blues and greens in one palette. I'm going to show you the swatches and it's just so pretty and really pigmented. I just love using this for projects for painting ocean or if I want a blue theme floral bouquet, and later on we are going to use this for our watercolor numbers. Next, we need a mixing palette. This is just the lid of my palette over here. [NOISE] You can use a ceramic palette or even some normal ceramic plates that's used for dining ware, you can also use that. I'm also going to include these metallic accents from Art Philosophy again. I love using the gold paints over here. I prefer these two, sometimes I mix them for my projects. This is what you will use for our watercolor metallic letter. But you can also use fine deck or any gold paint that you have. For the brushes, I'm going to be using this silver brush, black velvet and this is in a round brush form. You're going to use size 6 and 8. This is one of my favorite round brushes because it can hold a lot of water and at the same time, it still keeps its point. When painting florals, I make sure that my brush is always, always pointy. Now, this is going to be optional. This is a flat brush and the size is one-half inch. We will be using this for our watercolor letter but of course, you can also use your ordinary round brush if you don't have a flat brush. For drawing our watercolor letters, we need pencil and we also need this needed eraser. I'm going to show you how to use this later in one of the lessons. We'll need a masking tape. This is just regular masking tape from the office supplies section. We'll use this to tape down the sides of our watercolor paper. Next, we'll use this masking fluid. This is from the brand Pebeo. There are other brands that have masking fluid, you can use them as well. I've used this brand and it's pretty good, and it's also colored. Once I put this on the paper, I can see the part where I put the masking fluid on. I'm going to partner this with just a really affordable brush, a synthetic one. When you're working with masking fluid, don't use your expensive brushes, just use any cheap brush. It's also better to use synthetic ones. I'm going to teach you how to use this later. I will show you a tip on how you can prevent your brushes from getting destroyed by the masking fluid. Lastly, let's get a jar of clean water and also we'll need tissue paper to blot out the excess paint in our brush. Let's now move on to the next video. [MUSIC] 3. Tips Before You Start: [MUSIC] Before we start, I wanted to talk to you guys about how to start painting your watercolor letters and numbers because I know a lot of you are having a hard time planning. Number one, you need to choose the color first. You can start with your favorite color or you can use complimentary colors like this. This is violet and yellow. You can grab a color wheel so that it's easier for you to decide which color you want to use. Another idea is to create a gradient pattern. Maybe you can start with some florals, then you'll start with some medium shade florals. This is just an example. I'm just painting so that you guys can see it. Then you end with the darkest color. That's one idea for you guys. When you have chosen your colors, now you need to go to composition. When it comes to composition, one of my tips is to start by pinpointing your main flowers. For example, I have here letter J. I'm going to paint orange and the orange part here will be my main flowers. The white space here, you can just paint some leaves or fillers just to complete this leather. You can start by painting the main flowers first, then just fill it in with some leaves and fillers. The idea is to also do a small sketch like this. We can start by, for example, we can draw just a big flower over here. This is the main flower. You have a medium-size flower here and then you can just fill it in with some leaves and again, some more fillers. This way, it will be easier for you to plan the flowers that you will include in this letter. If you are going to paint just one size flowers for the entire letter, well, you can just start from, for example, start from the bottom going up, so you just fill this in with flowers until you reach the top. [MUSIC] 4. How to Trace a Letter: [MUSIC] The first thing that we need is a printed letter. I just printed this letter on a normal bond paper, and then I just taped this on our glass door. This is an alternative, if you don't have a light box to trace this letter. You're just going to use natural sunlight as our main source of light. I have here a watercolor paper. I just placed it on top of the bond paper and I'm going to tape it as well. Because we have the natural sunlight at the back of these two papers, we can clearly see the letter A. Let's now grab our pencil and you can also use a ruler just to trace out the straight line. We actually don't need to draw the entire letter you can just try to draw certain points and just connect them once you place the paper on a flat surface. This is the finished piece. As you can see, we're able to trace the letter A and what's really nice about this method is that you can actually try to print different fonts. If you want a script type of letter, you can also try to do that. If you're not interested to do this method, of course, you can also do this freehand and just draw the letter according to your own style. After drawing the letter, you can use a kneaded eraser just to lighten the color of the pencil. You can lightly dab your kneaded eraser on the drawing or just try to rub it a little. As you can see, the kneaded eraser pick up the lead from the pencil. Some people will get a piece of this kneaded eraser and they will form it into a ball, and then they will just roll it onto their drawing just to lighten the color of the pencil. The reason why we want a lighter shade for our drawing is because once you paint on top of your pencil outline, you won't be able to erase it anymore. Here is a closer view of using the kneaded eraser and this is a very handy tool when you are painting and when you're drawing. It's also less messy and doesn't really smudge your drawing. Now that you know how to trace a letter, let's now move on to the next video. 5. Floral Elements Part 1 : [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to paint the floral elements. We're going to paint some simple florals, leaves, and fillers. In this video, I'm going to use my Saunders Waterford cold press paper. This is in high white, so I do prefer using really white paper whenever I'm painting because the colors just pop up more compared to cream-colored watercolor paper. If you have taken my previous classes, then you may skip this video because this video is just going to be a refresher course for the florals and the leaves. Let's start with some simple floral petal flowers. As you can see, we painted this part with just one shade of blue, but when we're painting watercolor letters or numbers, it's best to use different shades of the color so that it looks interesting. I'm just going to show you a sample. As you can see, this number, two, it has different shades of blue and it looks interesting to the eyes because we have different colors and your eyes will just move all around the number. Now let's try to change up the color. I'm going to use Prussian blue. Just gently press your brush to create a petal. You can also change the pressure in your brush so that you can create a pointy tip. You can have a fat belly in the center. You're done with one flower, and let's just [NOISE] change up the shade. I'm going to use just cerulean blue and I'm going to put a lot of water. It doesn't have to look so perfect. Usually, when you're painting floral letters and numbers, it will look good as a group. Sometimes as a single flower, it might not look good, but when you put them as a group, it will just look amazing. Now we have a darker flower and the lighter one, we can add another color so we can make a blue-green color. I'm going to add sap green to my cerulean blue. I'm going to add a little bit more of green. You'll immediately see that it just looks more interesting compared to painting just one color. Another tip that you can do is to add a dark center, I usually like adding indigo to the center. It just gives it more depth and just looks nicer. It's a simple technique but it will just give a better output. [NOISE] We're going to use this flower later. The next flower is just a simple five-petal flower, and we're going to make it look expressive. I have a mixture of permanent violet here and we're just going to sway our brush. I'm going to start at the top and just slowly press and then it can go up again. I can paint just lines so I'm leaving some white spaces. I can also dip my brush into the jar and just add a bit of water to my brush and just do a side stroke and just create all these tiny strokes. We're just building the petal so we're not always making one broad stroke. Usually, for this type of flower, it's nice to use a wet brush so that you can really move the petal. If the brush is dry it will be difficult for you to create an expressive stroke. Sometimes I'm just using the tip of my brush. We're almost done. This is a very easy flower. Again, if you want to put a center that's okay, you can add something darker. So you can use a darker shade of violet or use indigo. Maybe we can try indigo again. Just put it in the center just like that and we're done. Do make sure that you're adding whitespaces so that it won't look like a blob of paint. Now let's move on to painting a rose. I have here a mixture of permanent rose and a little bit of crimson. As you can see, it's a very bold color because you want the center to be quite dark. I'm just going to create a center first. We want to create the eye so I'm just going to press it and make sure that I have two pointy tips and then let's just add some thin strokes. Just some curve strokes. Then right now, I can just grab some clean water. I'm using the Size 8 brush, just going to fade some of those strokes and create a bigger petal using this brush. You can also still use your Size 6 brush, it's okay. As you can see, I'm continuously leaving some white spaces. Sometimes this is what they do, they paint roses. I still have a mixture of my permanent rose and crimson and this brush. I did not rinse this brush, so I can just paint one stroke there and just fade it. Sometimes I do this technique just so I know where the next petal will be. We're just going to create bigger petals. Don't worry too much about the first layer of this rose, because we're going to create a second layer just to give it more depth. We're almost done. After painting this, we are going to wait for it to dry before we add the second layer. Now let's just wait for this rose to dry. I just use a hairdryer so that it will dry faster. You can also do that. I have still here my permanent rose and crimson paint, and I'd like to add a little bit of burnt sienna. There's a bit of this violet because I want to create a maroonish color, and let's just try to swatch it over here. We just want a dark color for this part, I can add a little bit of crimson. I'm going to paint on top of the first layer. When the paint on top of the eye. This one has too much water. You can see it has a puddle. I'm just going to blot my brush and just try to absorb the excess paint over here. Then let's just paint some thin strokes. I have my Size 8 brush with just clean water. This is what I'm going to use to blur out some of the lines. We can add a few more. If you feel like you have too much water in your brush, just try to blot it out. I'm going to paint a stroke over there again and just fade it. You're going to do it all around the rose. This will give it more definition and you'll give the illusion that it has separate petals on the sides. I made a mistake there, let's try to fix it. I'm just going to blur it, scrub some clean water. You can actually do this several times, just keep on adding layers. Just wait for the layer to dry and then you can add another layer. It will always look different when you're painting a rose. That's okay. That's what makes it unique. We're almost done. I will have more demos of this rose in our project. You'll see that the effect will be different each time I paint this rose. I think we can add a few more strokes. I'm going to add a few more strokes. I was to add some more definition to this flower. I think we're done. I'm going to show you some examples. This is one of the roses that we will be painting later, and I also have an orange rose over here. Once you watch these two projects, you will see that the roses [MUSIC] will look different and they look really unique, and I feel like, every time I paint a rose, it will really look different, and that's what makes it super unique. Then let's move on to the next flower. 6. Floral Elements Part 2 : [MUSIC] Let's move on to painting a peony like this. I'm just going to mix ultramarine and a little bit of burnt umber to create a neutral color. Let's just add a bit more blue, and it's very important to put a lot of water because you don't want a dark flower. We just want a muted color or something similar to white, and let's just create a swatch. I think the color is good, so let's start painting. I am using my size 6 silver brush black velvet and we can start with one petal over here. We're just going to paint lightly and also very quick so let's add one more over here. Then the other one on the right side, and don't worry if the shape doesn't look as good for now because we can go back to fix it. We just want the basic shape of the flower. Now let's put a petal over here. I'm painting quite light. I'm also leaving some white spaces. Sometimes you can add a bit more blue if you want a bluish color for the flower, that's okay, and you can also add more petals if you want. I'm just going to fix the shape, and I'm also just using the tip of my brush to add just tiny strokes. Sometimes a tiny strokes will make a big difference to the overall look of the flower. Then you can add some sepia in the center, very concentrated color. We can also add more details later and let's just wait for this first layer to dry. You can also add some more petals on this side. But for the project, we won't be adding petals below because we have a rose over here, so it covers the other petals. So we only need these petals. Now that this is already dry, we're going to add one more layer. I'm going to show you the project. So as you can see, I added another layer and it just gives it more depth compared to this one. So if we put it side-by-side, you will notice that this one has more depth, and so let's start adding some strokes. This is about the same shade, or maybe just one shade darker than this color that we mixed. I'm just going to paint on top of the first layer that we did. Just making some wispy strokes, and by doing this, we are also separating the petals. I'm leaving some spaces over here. I did not paint on this area. Then let's get some sepia and just add more details to this flower. Just add some thin strokes and don't forget you're also going to paint this flower again in our project. So you can watch another version of this flower and then rinse my brush and tap the excess water in my brush and just clean this area. I'm absorbing that excess paint because they don't want it to be all over this flower. We can immediately see that because we added a second layer. It just gave it more depth to this flower. We're done that. Let's move on to the next flower. So for the next flower, we are going to paint some cherry blossoms. And this is like a simplified version of my previous class. So we'll need a very diluted permanent rose. I'll just be painting the flowers first and then we'll add the stem later. So let's just paint some five petal flowers using a size 6 brush. So you have one down another one, maybe over here. Then we can add a darker center. We can grab crimson, or we can grab a more pigmented mixture of permanent rose and just put it here in the center, then you can add some more petals. It doesn't all have to be five petals. Some of them can be just three. Just to give the illusion that some of the petals are behind these two flowers. Then when grab some burnt sienna, just going to mix a bit of burnt umber. Let's just add the branch. Then if you want to add some birds, you can grab some crimson. Let's put the birds over here. So that's super easy. You only need just a few colors to do this. For the center, I can also use yellow instead of print crimson. We are done with this cherry blossoms, but you can also add some more details if you want some thin strokes in the center, we can also add that. I think later on we'll be painting an entire letter filled with cherry blossoms, and usually, I prefer painting the flowers first before I add the branches. But of course, it also depends on you. If you're more comfortable with painting the branch first, then you should do that. [MUSIC] 7. Floral Elements Part 3: Let's paint some leaves. Let's start with something simple. I have here sap green, and I'm just going to create a stem. You're just going to use the tip of our brush to create the thin stem. All right, and then let's just slowly press our brush to get that fat belly for the center of this leaf and then just slowly leaf, and then you're also supposed to drag your brush so that you can create a pointy tip. Let's do that again. Just slowly press, then leaf. You can always go back to the leaf so that you can fix the shape. The other side, just press and then leaf. Now we're done with this. You can also change the colors. Make some of the colors a bit yellowish. Some of it can be just a lighter green color. I try to use sap green, and then let's add a little bit of indigo to get a dark green color. Let's start with the stem again. Then you just need to stamp our brush to create some small strokes. You can also try to rotate your paper so that you can get the right angle. We're done with leaf Number 2. Then another combination is sap green and you just add any brown to this sap green to create an earthy color. I am going to add some burnt umber. Now let's try to paint long and slender leaves. You might have seen this in my previous classes. Just drag your brush, you can also make a wavy stroke just to make it more expressive. I think we can add one more over here. I'm just adding more and more leaves. I think we're good. One is just sap green. This is sap green with indigo, and then sap green with burnt sienna. Now let's make sap green with a little bit of prussian blue. Let's just create a round shape leaf, but it's pointy, it looks like dollar eucalyptus. I'm just going to draw the shape and then fill it in with color. What you can also do is just to create a round shape like this, and then just add a pointy tip at the end. That's also one way to paint this. Let's do that one more time. It's really nice to add different colors to your green to create some interesting colors. You can also add some pinks or some violet. Now let's paint some round tip leaves. This is just sap green plus permanent violet. Let's just create a loop and just fill it in with color. This one has an earthy color. So you just added some violet. This is really easy, and we're done. I've introduced this filler before. These are just simple berries. I'm using crimson, and I mixed a very bold color, which means that it has more pigment, less water. Just paint some round shapes and then attach them to a stem. Now this is really nice to add to your watercolor letters because it gives that contrasts to your letter. Let me just show you an example. This is an example of adding contrast to your painting. We added some violet berries. As you can see in this area, it's quite light. But I just punched in some dark berries and it immediately looked good. I do love adding that contrast and we'll do this later. We're done with this. Let's paint a different filler. For this filler, I'm just going to dilute cerulean blue into a lot of water. We're just going to dab our brush. I'm going to create small dots, big dots, and just make them into a bunch of dots that will look like mini flowers. This will also look good as a filler. Once you're done with that, let's just rinse our brush and just grab some sap green, I usually want the stem to be quite dark and not a lot of water because if this one has a lot of water and you paint the stem, then it will just all bleed into this blue part and you will lose the color blue in this filler. I still want to see that blue color, and at the same time, I want a very defined color green stamps. For some of the parts, we can smudge it and make them blend together. That's okay. Let me show you an example, which we will also do later. Just so it will be easier for you to understand why we are doing some of the fillers. This is an example of the filler. We're going to do this later. Let's move on to the next one. If you're just starting out, you can add some buds like this. I'm pretty sure you have seen this in my previous classes. It's just lightly stamping your brush and it's very, very easy. Then just add a stem. I usually like adding the stem while the buds are still wet so that we can mix those two colors together. That's a very simple filler that we can add. I'm going to show you an example again. Right here I added some buds and it just enhanced the entire look of the painting. Another filler that I have shown in one of my classes before, but I'm showing it again just in case it's your first time to watch my class, and you haven't taken my previous classes yet. So I'm just going to paint one line and then just add some arms. Let's rinse our brush, grab some super diluted cerulean blue. You can use different colors. Then just make some small dots. You can add more arms if you want. Then you can also add just a little bit of violet just to make it look more interesting. So we just mix blue and violet, which looks great together. Then after this, I'm going to show you how you can create some expressive stems. This is useful when you're painting our watercolor letters because sometimes there's a small gap in between the flowers and you don't know what else to put. So this is a good way to fill in those gaps. Usually when you're painting stem, you're going to paint it in a straight manner like this but it will look better if you try to break the stem and make it look expressive. So you can do something like this and then just break it. Then also change the pressure in your brush. You can slowly press your brush and then leaf, and then make it really thin. It just looks more expressive that way. Let's do another one. You can add sap green, and indigo. It just looks more expressive if you try to change the pressure in your brush stroke. Instead of painting this, you want to just continuously change the pressure in your brush. Another tip is that you can hold your brush in the center so that it feels more loose to paint with compared to holding your brush like this because it feels like you have so much pressure on holding this brush that you can't really move that well. Let's do this one last time and I'm just going to zoom out this camera so you can see my hand. This is important if you want to add some stems to your letters, so just like this you can add some tiny stems. We can practice more of that in our project later. [MUSIC] 8. Letter J: Let's start our first project and I just have here my Arches watercolor paper and I also did an outline of a letter J and this one is just free hand. As you can see, I just drew the letter lightly. For this project's theme, we are going to paint simple florals using complementary colors. I'm going to quickly show you the color wheel and I know it might look a little complicated. But complementary colors are just two colors that are opposite each other. Let me just grab my brush so as you can see, we have yellow here and violet on the other end. You will see in this painting that complimentary colors look really good together. You can also use the different complimentary colors is just at for this project, I decided to use violet and yellow. Let's use my size 8 round brush and I am just going to grab some permanent violet. To start, we need to determine the major flowers first. Let me just grab my sample again. We're just going to paint the violet flowers out there neatly, so one in the bottom, another one in the middle, and one more at the top. Let's start with one petal first and just slowly press your brush to create a full belly stroke. Then we can just rinse our brush to create a lighter shade of violet, so just sway your brush and you can also create some thin strokes so make it look wispy. The three petals will meet in the middle. I'm just trying to fix this shape and this is easier to do if the petals are still wet. Now let's start to add a darker shade in the middle. I'm just going to grab some indigo and drop it in the center, so we have to do this while the flower is still wet so that the indigo will bleed into the violet. Let's start with one more flower. So just paint lightly and you can also paint quickly to create a more expressive flower. I think we can add more pigment and make some petals a bit darker. I'm also leaving some white spaces and let's grab some indigo and just drop it in the center. Now let's add another one at the top and this time it's facing a top view position, so let's try to create four petals here. If you go over the line, that's okay, so you can paint outside the lines are not really going to be super strict about that. Because we want the edges to be quite loose and it's not our aim to have a clean edge for this project. If you do want a clean edge watercolor letter, then you can check out the other project wherein I will show you how to achieve that. Now we're done with the main flowers and now we can add some leaves, so the green that I used here is sap green. I'm just starting to add some leaves beside this flower. You can start by painting the stem first before you add the leaves. Let's change up the angle so you can see it up close. We can also paint some quick strokes so that it looks like stem sticking out. I rinse my brush to create a lighter shade of green. Then let's just try to clean up that part, so let's just paint a few more stems and then I'm just taking this size 6 round brush and I have here some permanent yellow light color and we're just going to add some fillers. What they did is that I just took a separate brush to get another color so that I don't have to keep on rinsing my brush. If I'm using just one brush, I'm mixing sap green with a little bit of permanent violet and effect is something like a smoky green or a neutral green color that looks very pretty. I would suggest trying to experiment on different shades of green because it will look super interesting if you put it in a bouquet or in a setup like this. Then let's grab some more yellow. I do like adding just pops of yellow all over this letter. Then let's add a few more over here. Let's grab some more sap green so I'm just filling in the white gaps. As you can see, I started from below going upwards. Now I'm adding some indigo to my sap green to create a darker shade of green. Then you can mix it up with a lighter color. Then let's add some more yellow using my size 6 round brush and just going to dab my brush to create some small fillers that will look like buds. For this time I'm using just sap green. If you still see some white gaps, don't worry because we'll be adding some berries later on. Right now we just want a structure and then after some of the parts has dried, then we can proceed to add in some more detail so that this floral letter will look full. I have here are concentrated mixture of permanent violet, so let's just add some berries, just create some round shapes all over this plural letter. I do love the contrast that these berries gives to this painting. Let's add some more over here. I tend to put the berries near the yellow just for that high contrast. Let's add some more berries at the top, so try to look at your painting from afar just to see if you need to add more berries on certain areas or if you have to add some leaves. Now I'm just adding some smaller leaves just to fill in some of the gaps and also to fix the shape of this letter. You can also layer your leaves. Just paint on top of the first layer of leaves that you painted. Make sure that the first layer is already dry before you paint on top of it. For some areas wherein you don't know what to add, just put some thin strokes that we look like stem sticking out, so try to wiggle your brush so that the branches or the stamps will look more organic. If you'd like, some areas need more yellow, so let's just add some more buds. We are actually almost done. I just feel like I need to add a few more branches and just a few more yellow buds and then we can also try to deepen the color in the center of the main flowers. I'm just going to grab some indigo again and just put some thin strokes in the middle, so we are done. Congratulations and your first project. Remember that you can use any complimentary colors for this project and I hope that this idea help you in creating your own floral lettering. 9. Filled Florals-Watercolor Letter Part 1: [MUSIC] Let's be watercolor numbers. For today's project, we are going to paint using analogous colors. Analogous colors are just three colors that sit next to each other. For example, you have here blue, blue-violet, and violet, or you can do violet, red violet, and then red. But for this project, I'm going to be using the green, blue, and blue. But I guess I might change it a little bit because I'm going to be using this watercolor. This is the Art Philosophy, current set. It has a lot of blues that I want to use. We're going to use a lot of colors for the course. You can use just three colors. For the year 2020, the Pantone color is classic blue. I just thought that it would be a nice theme for this painting. You could do that, like each year, you just change the color. Last year I made the 2019 watercolor floral number just like this and it was in a different color. To start this project, we need to outline the numbers. I did try to sketch it a bit darker so you can see it, then have human paint. You're going to start by painting some simple florals. This is just a combination of small florals because we're also painting quite small numbers. I usually start by painting just four-petal flowers. Then I'm just going to rinse my brush to create a lighter shade of blue. Then you can add some dark center. You can also grab a turquoise color. Just make use of any blue color that you have in your palette. Just try to mix it up. Make some of the flowers more pigment than some can be lighter. Let's add something dark again. I'm just going to finish painting some small flowers and some may be just petals. It doesn't have to be a full flower. Then you can also add a blue-green shade just to mix it up and add more interesting colors. Then later on, I'm going to fill this in with some green leaves. Don't worry about the white gaps because we can try to fix that later. You can use sap green for your green color. Then, later on, you can also add some berries. It's nice to add some dark berries just to add some contrast. I'm going over the pencil sketch because I want this to look quite loose. You can paint some small stems like this sticking out. Don't be afraid to experiment. We're almost done. Think I'm just going to add some berries in some of the areas. Also, don't worry because you can always go back later just to add or fill in those gaps. We can add an indigo color here. Just add some dark berries just for that contrast. I think it looks better with the berries. I can go back to this number later. Let's move on to zero. Let's just grab a light blue color and just going to paint bigger petals for this number. I'm going to paint just three petals. Then you can add something dark in the center. You're going to add some more flowers here that are bigger compared to the first number that we did. Let's move around this number. One more over here. That's two greens, I'm going to add a bit more blue. Then now it's time to add something dark, just a deeper shade of blue for that contrast. I can start with something light and then just add darker colors. Then now it's time to add some green, you can use sap green. Let's just try to paint some mini leaves. You can add some small stem sticking out. You can also add a little bit of greenish-yellow. This is a nice color that gives life to like any floral painting. Then maybe we can add some berries, but I'll make it green this time. Just make some round shapes. In doing this, just to add some texture to this painting. I think it looks prettier. [MUSIC] We're done and you can just go back later and you double-check. [MUSIC] 10. Filled Florals-Watercolor Letter Part 2: [MUSIC] For this number 2, I'm going to grab some light blue. You can use cerulean blue and just dilute it in a lot of water, I'm going to paint some small fillers. I'm just going to lightly tap my brush. This will serve like small flowers and then let's add some stems later. Some small flowers can be darker, some can be lighter. Then now I'm going to grab some green and I'll make sure that this green is not really diluted because I want defined stems for this part. If the green is too diluted, it will just mix with the small flowers. Let's add some more fillers. I'm just going to dab my brush to create a dotting motion. Then let's just connect them using a stem. What you can do is you can try to group the flowers that you want to put in your letter or in your number. That's one way to organize the flowers that you will use. For this number 2, I'm going to use mostly fillers, and then we can alternate that with some four petal flowers like this. Let's add another one. As you can see, I'm just dabbing my brush. Just keeping it really loose. Then let's start with some fillers again. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put fillers, some four-petal or five-petal flowers fillers and another set of flowers. Because sometimes you will run out of ideas, so it's also useful to create patterns. I'm just doing that dotting motion again. Then adding some stem. Just really keeping it quite loose. You can add some small leaves as well. Now we're back to the four-petal flowers. Let's add something dark here in the center. Then you need to fix the shape of this number 2. I'm just going to add some leaves. Let's go back to this later. For this last number, I'm just going to mix different elements, I'm going to paint some five-petal flowers. Keeping it really loose. Then let's add some berries. You can change the color of the berries, some can be green as well. Let's try that now. You can now add some stem. Then let's try to add some fillers later. Then they want a light blue flower. Again, you can use cerulean blue or cobalt. Right here, I'm using the color seaside for this light blue color. Now let's add this deep blue color. Can use ultramarine. But for this color, this is called jellyfish in the current set. Now I want a blue-green color. Let's add it here. Then you can add some fillers, just small flowers, and let's just do another dotting motion. Then you can also add different colors in this filter just to make it more interesting. Then, of course, we're going to add some stem, and then we can add some leaves. Then I'm going to add some more blue. I think we need something with a contrast. Let's paint a dark blue flower. Then you can add one more filler over here. We're almost done. I'm just going to add some more fillers, I'm going to add some leaves that are greenish yellow because this one just gives life to a floral bouquet. It just makes things brighter. Then just paint some stems sticking out for some gaps that are oddly shaped. Let's check out the top view. It seems like we need to fix some areas. Just to make it a bit more defined. I'm going to add some leaves over here just to add some height. Try to just look at your painting from afar to see which areas need more improvement or which areas need more leaves, and you can also tried to rest your eyes first before going back to finishing this painting. I think I can fix this one. You can just put leaves just to fix the shape. I think that we are done. [MUSIC] 11. Negative Painting Part 1: [MUSIC] Let's try to do a negative painting in this video. I will be using a masking fluid. This is from the brand Pebeo. The reason why we use masking fluid is because sometimes we want certain areas in our paper where in we want to keep it as is, you want it to be white, and we don't want any paint to touch that part. Usually people use this for doing highlights on their painting or in this case, we want to preserve this letter A. We want it to be white and we want it to have a clean edge. To start this project, we need just a cup of water with just a few drops of dish washing liquid. The reason why we need this is because we want to protect our brush from the masking fluid. The masking fluid can destroy our brushes. What this does is that it coats our brush with the soap and it just doesn't absorb the masking fluid in between the bristles, so at least our bristles are protected. I'm just going to dip it in the soap and water mixture. I have my masking fluid and I'm just going to shake it because sometimes it settles down below. What's nice about this masking fluid is that it's colored. Different brands may have their own version of the masking fluid. You can use any brand. Remember that you need to use a cheap brush for applying masking fluid. Do not use your expensive brushes because it may get ruined. This is just a synthetic brush from the brand Mont Marte. This is actually an acrylic brush, which I don't use as often. I decided to use it for applying masking fluid. Just apply this as if you're painting. You can use a flat brush if you have a cheap flat brush. I've already sketched the letter a. Then after I have applied the masking fluid, I will just let it dry before I start painting on this project. After finishing this project, I will also be washing off my brush with soap and water just to rinse off the masking fluid in the brush. Let me just finish doing this. We're almost done with this letter a. I will just let it dry. Let's start painting. As you can see, I've already taped down my paper. I just use regular masking tape and I just wanted a clean edge for this painting. I just taped it on my wood right here. I have also prepared some greens because I plan to put different types of leaves on this painting. I have some greens here, sap green mixed with some indigo, some are mixed with burnt sienna, some are mixed with violet. Just different shades of green. I'm going to paint some long and slender leaves. We can just start right here. As you can see, if I paint on this part, it doesn't leave a stain or it doesn't leave lead on the paper because this part is protected with a masking fluid. It just makes it a lot easier to paint something like this. It will look like this if the leaves are behind the letter. I'm using sap green. You can add a little bit of indigo. Then later on we can also try to layer some of the leaves. When you reach this part, it's also protected by this masking tape. This one will leave a clean edge and I will show that to you later once we take out that masking tape. We're done with that. We can also paint long and slender leaves on the other side. Just feel free to change the shades of green. I guess I'm going to add a little bit of indigo to my mixture. Just have fun. Then I rinse my brush to create just a light shade of green. I'm just going to grab some Prussian blue mixed with a little bit of sap green and just paint some leaves over here. I usually try to paint around the edges of this outline so that it's not totally white if I take out the masking fluid. I'm going to show that to you later. Now let's add some brown to our green. Maybe we can paint on this side. Just paint some brown tip leaves. They can change the shade of green that you're using. Don't worry if it doesn't look symmetrical. That's okay. We can put the second layer to cover up some of the mistakes. Now let's grab some indigo. I'm just going to start painting some darker leaves. Whenever I do this style, I usually just paint randomly. I Don't really have a pattern in mind. This is such a fun exercise because it's almost like abstract. You're just following your gut and you're not thinking too much about the outcome of this painting. I think any shape that you put here will actually look good. You can paint some expressive strokes. Let's add some sap green. Just paint tiny leaves over here. Just trying to fill in the white gap. Then you can paint some small leaves. This is a good way to do some brushstrokes as well. Let's add some blue to our green, just create something like a eucalyptus. Now I'm going to grab some greenish yellow. This is a beautiful color that will give a pop of color to this painting. I'm just going to add it everywhere. Let's go to Hooker's green. I'm just going to check if some of the leaves are dry. We can start to layer. Then let's paint some small leaves like this. It's like stamping your brush. Let's add something that has contrast. I'm going to add a bit of indigo. [MUSIC] 12. Negative Painting Part 2: Just slowly filling in the gaps over here. Some leaves can come from the bottom going up. Let's add some greenish-yellow again. [BACKGROUND] Then I'm going to add something over here. Add a bit of indigo. This part is still white and also in this area, we can add some more leaves. [BACKGROUND] You think that we can add some filters just to give it a pop of color. [BACKGROUND] I'm going to use a little bit of this cerulean blue and you want super diluted cerulean blue. I'm just going to dot [BACKGROUND] some flower-like dots and we're going to put the stem there later. This is just to fill in those gaps. Then let's grab some sap green, and I want it to be quite dry on the brush. Let's add the stem. In some parts, I'm just going to draw some thin lines and also trying to add some darker leaves just to add some contrast. We're almost done. [BACKGROUND] I'm just trying to fill in the gaps on the sides. You can also add veins in some of the leaves. Maybe you can add that once this is dry. This is already dry and I'm just going to add some veins in some of the leaves. When you're doing this, just try to put the veins alternately. Don't put veins on all the leaves so that it will look more interesting. I'm using a size 6 brush. Create some thin lines. I'm just going to add a few more details. Now let's take out this masking fluid. You can just rub off the masking fluid using your hand. Another way to take out the masking fluid is to use a rubber cement pickup. This is the rubber cement pickup, [NOISE] and it makes it easier to take out this masking fluid. [NOISE] Sometimes you can lift it in one go. [NOISE] It's nice to see those green lines. [NOISE] Can get a little messy. [NOISE] If you don't have this rubber cement pickup, you can use a regular eraser. It looks really good. As you can see, this part has too much white. I'm just going to fix it. That's why I was telling you guys that when you're doing this tile, make sure to paint on the edges of the masking fluid or else you will end up with something like this. I'm just going to paint a leaf so that it just looks more defined. I also like painting something darker near the edges of the letter just so it pops up some more. You can add some leaves over here as well. Now let's take out this masking tape. [NOISE] Look at that clean edge , it's so nice. Now let's take out this side. [NOISE] Looks perfect. [NOISE] This is the last tape. [NOISE] So excited. Here is the finished product and just looks so pretty. I'm actually tempted to add some gold details and you can do that too. You can add some gold leaves so that this painting shimmers. I love the edges. Over here it's clean and you have a clean edge letter A. You can do different styles. If you don't want leaves, you can do some roses. Just fill this part with roses and it will look really good. [MUSIC] 13. Filled Florals-Clean Edge Part 1: [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to paint a filled floral letter, but this time we are going to paint a clean edge floral. As you can see here, this is one of our projects and the edges are not really straight and not clean because you want this to be quite loose. But right here we're going to paint a letter B and you want the edges to be really clean and just straight. The way to do that is to put masking fluid. We're just going to paint masking fluid on the edges of this letter B. You don't really need to paint a thick amount of masking fluid. We just want to get the outline and just feel free to rotate your paper to get the right angle. Right from the inside you also need to put masking fluid on the outer part of the letter. Let me just finish doing the outline and then I'll show you the finished product. We are almost done and we are just going to let this dry before we paint on top of this letter B. This is already dry and you can start painting some cherry blossoms. I'm just going to quickly show you another version so this is like the loose type of version. This one has a clean edge and later on I'm going to put them side by side so you can see the difference. To start, let's just get some very diluted permanent rose. I'm going to paint some flowers first you can start anywhere in this letter. You can start here at the top. I'm just going to paint some five petal cherry blossoms. Then some can be just like three and then to make it a bit more interesting, we can add a little bit of yellow to this permanent rose, you can get a very peachy pink color. We just want different shades of pink so you can put a darker paint later. Then you can grab more pigmented permanent rose and just drop it in the center. For the peach color, we can drop in yellow in the center. I'm doing that while this flower is still wet and then we can start adding the branches so I'm just going to grab some burnt sienna. You can just branch out. This one has spread too much I'm just going to get my brush and just absorb the excess burnt sienna on this flower. Then I'm going to grab some crimson let's just add some buds. Just to add some contrast to this very dainty cherry blossoms. Now let's add some more cherry blossoms. We are not going to be strict with the shape. You can add just different number of petals if you want and let's add a darker center. Let's add some more peachy color. Maybe you can add a darker shade of pink. Came to add a bit of yellow here. I'm just changing the colors so that it just looks prettier. If you don't want burnt sienna for your branches, you can use burnt umber, it's a darker brown. Let's just try that and I'm going to show you. It's a bit darker. Then you can add some branches and then some buds. Just start off our alternating the floral elements in this painting. Let's add some more cherry blossoms. Some can actually be just single petals. It will look like just fillers in this painting. I'm going to add a little bit of yellow just to add a different color. Let's add something in the center this darker color. [MUSIC] 14. Filled Florals-Clean Edge Part 2: [MUSIC] Going to be adding more branches, and then I'm also going to absorb this part because it just bled too much. What's nice about this painting is that we don't really need to worry about the look of each flower because you really won't see it once you paint it in a group form like this. Then let's add some buds, and also add a little bit of yellow and some of the flowers. Now some flowers may look like it's just half. So you can paint just two petals over here. Then for some of the flowers, you can also try to layer them and add some more petals just to give it more depth. Now let's add the branches. I'm just adding it randomly, and let's add some buds. Then later on we're going to add more details to these cherry blossoms. There are actually different types of cherry blossoms. Some of them have only five petals, some of them have, I think more than 10, and they also have different colors. This one here, we're just doing some pinks and some peaches, so bud somewhere here. Then you can add some branches. Let's just close up this part. I'm just adding some filler petals. I think we're done. I might just wait for this one to dry and then some white gaps over here. We're just going to fill it in with some filler petals just so the shape looks good once we take out the masking fluid. This is already dry and I'm just going to take out the masking fluid first before we add details to our painting. You can just use your hand to rub it off, or you can use a rubber cement pick up like this one. But you can even just use your fingers and rub it off like this. Just a tip if you're using masking fluid, don't leave it for too long. I would say just leave it for about 24 hours. From what I heard, if you leave it for a really [LAUGHTER] long time, it can be a week, it's going to be difficult to take out this masking fluid, so just try to remove it right away. This part is still wet and we smudge some area. [NOISE] Make sure that your painting is fully dry before you take out your masking fluid. We are on to the last part. It really makes it easier if you have a rubber cement pickup. [inaudible] the job for you. We have clean edges and it's really pretty. Wow, that looks so beautiful. Then let's just add some more details in the center of the cherry blossoms. I have here a yellow orange mixture. I'm just going to create some thin lines in the center of the cherry blossoms. I'm not going to put details on all the flowers, I'm just going to choose some flowers. This will make it look more interesting if you spread it apart. We can add right here. You can use a smaller brush. I'm using a size 6. Usually a smaller brush is easier to paint some thin lines and also some dots. You can add maybe over here. You can also paint different flowers using this style. You can paint roses or peonies. You just need to put some masking fluid on the outline of this letter. So we are done. I hope that you enjoyed this part and I'm just going to quickly show you the difference. This one has a clean. Look this one has a looser feel because we don't have a clean edge. But if you like both styles and it depends on your preference, and I really wanted to show you guys just different ways to create watercolor floral letters. [MUSIC] 15. Metallic Letter-Muted and Bright Part 1: [MUSIC] In this video, let's paint a metallic watercolor leather. For this theme, we are going to go with something that is quite faint or muted and something that is bold, and it can also be something bright. I just love the contrast between these two flowers. You are going to recreate this painting. Of course you can use any letter that you want. I have here a letter T. Again, I just drew this freehand since it's easy to draw a letter T. But of course you can also use a stencil using the printed letter on a bond paper. To start, I need to mix these colors. This is just a mixture of just ultramarine and a little bit of burnt umber. You can get a neutral color, a grayish color, and just add a lot of water so that it looks really nice on the paper and then not too dark. I'm using my size 6 silver brush black velvet. Then I start to paint one petal over here. I just change up the angle of the camera so that you can see it better. I'm going to paint one petal here, another on the left and you feel like it's too gray. So I'm going to add a little bit of ultramarine so that it becomes a bit bluish and another one over here. Let's just add some on the top part. I'm just picking some random strokes and going up and down. Then you're going to fix the shape of this flower. We can extend this part some more. Then we can fix the shape again in awhile. For now I'm just going to grab the color sepia. This is like a dark brown color and you want a really pigmented mixture. It means there's just less water. I'm going to put some strokes in the middle just to add that contrast. I'm going to rinse my brush and just fix some parts. We can also go back to the center again to give it more definition later. We're done with this. Let's move on to the rose. I have here a mixture of permanent rose and some crimson. I just wanted a bold color in contrast to this really faint and muted color. We're going to paint our rose here. I'm going to start with the eye of the rose and just add some thin and quick c strokes. I have here my size 8 brush, I just need to grab a little bit of water, just clean water and just feed some of the strokes here. We are just going to paint bigger petals. I'm going to make some more strokes and just fade that again. I'm painting the tiny strokes so that we have a guide on where the next petal will be. Don't worry about this first layer because we are going to paint another layer later. I'm just going to try to add a little bit of brown to this pink color, and also a little bit of purple. I just wanted to get a dark color. Then you're going to put it in the center. Let some of the colors bleed, that's okay. Then we are going to go back to this rose in a while. You just need to wait for this layer to dry. Now we can move on to leaves and fillers. For the green leaves, I'm going to grab some sap green and you can add a little bit of sepia to get a warm tone. Then we can add the leaves over here. Just add some thin stems sticking out, then you can add some other fillers later. I'm going to rinse my brush so that we can get rid of that color and create a lighter shade of green. Then I'm going to add some fillers here, maybe some buds and it's add some stems over this side. I'm just going in between the gaps of the two flowers. We are going to fill it with leaves. Let's grab some more sap green. You can also add a little bit of blue, or in this case I might add some indigo. It gives that really nice contrast to this flower. I'm going to add more brown to my green. Then you can add some over this area. [MUSIC] 16. Metallic Letter Muted and Bright Part 2: [MUSIC] This one needs a little bit of dark green. Then let's put some yellow buds. I think we can grab some yellow ocher. I want just a muted yellow and you can put it here. I'm using my size eight-round brush. It just gives this pop of color to our painting. You can also add a little bit of small pink buds. I just painted the buds and then we need to add some stem just to connect it to the floral arrangement. We're almost done. I'm going to add some leaves right here. I think it's nice to add some leaves that are a bit pinkish. This is just a mixture from a while ago. I'm going to add some green to the pink to create a muted color. Now we are ready to add some gold details on this painting. We are going to troubleshoot this painting because looking at this painting on the screen, the letter T looks a little small because we painted big florals. I'm just going to fix the size of this letter and make it a bit bigger so that it looks good. I have here my paint. This is the Art Philosophy set and this is the metallic accents. I usually love mixing these two gold colors, but you can use any gold paint that you have. Let's start. I'm using a flat brush, but you can also use your round brush to paint. I just find it easier to paint using a flat brush. Let's try to paint a nice coat of gold paint. Don't forget to breathe. Sometimes when you're painting details like this, it should be straight. Sometimes we hold our breath so that we can concentrate really well and paint the straight line. But I can say that a flat brush really helps when it comes to painting straight lines. I guess if we're going to paint some curved lines, you can use a round brush instead. We're almost done with the top part. It just requires a lot of concentrating. Usually, the edges are more difficult to paint. We're done with the top part. Let's just try to zoom in so you can see it better. I'm going to paint around the leaves. Then when this gold paint is dry, we can also paint some more leaves on top of it. I'm good with this part. We can add some gold details over here. Just the small gaps between the two flowers. This is a really easy project and the result is just so amazing. Aside from using gold, you can also mix in some metallic pink so that you can create a rose gold color. Or if you have a bronze metallic paint, you can use that as well. If you don't like metallic paints, you can use just regular watercolor. Then there are more gaps over here. Just going to try and fill them in. I painted over this leaf so I'm just going to paint another green color later. We are done with the gold part. It's starting to look really good and right now I have here a mixture of just crimson, a little bit of violet, and some brown, just to get that maroon color. This is a dark color and I'm going to paint a second layer on this rose. Let's just try to zoom in. I'm just going to paint on top of where we painted the first layer. Just paint some C strokes. I'm going to rinse my brush and just fade some of the strokes. Just add more petals to make it look just more defined. I'm going to add a little bit of permanent rose to this mixture. Just add a bit of glow to this rose. Now let's go back to this painting. I'm going to mix another neutral color. This is just ultramarine with a little bit of burnt umber and a lot of water and just paint another layer as well on this grayish white flower. This will just give it more definition. Then I'm going to grab some sepia and add more definition to this center. Just add some thin strokes. Then let's grab some more green. I feel like we can add a few more stems over here. Just some stems sticking out, just make it look more expressive. Then add some leaves. Then I'm going to paint over this part because I painted some gold on this area and just going to cover it up again. Let's try to zoom out. You can also paint on top of the gold area. We can add some leaves and then add some more layer of leaves over here. We are almost done. My tip is to always look at your painting from afar just to see if you need to add a few more details. I'm just going to clean this one up. I think we are done and I'm really excited for you guys to try out this style and I hope that you enjoyed painting this with me. [MUSIC] 17. Metallic Letter-Lush Floral Part 1: For our second project on metallic watercolor letter, we are going to do this letter S. For this particular painting, I actually did a free hand drawing of a letter S. But what I'm going to do with our demo now is use this template. I just painted out this letter S and transfer it to this paper. I'm going to follow this letter S instead. You can, of course, use any letter that you want, and also you can choose any font. This is what's nice about the class. You can really customize it according to your liking. Let's start by grabbing some orange color. I'm going to paint the two roses here first. What you can do is you can also draw some circles so that you know where to put the florals. Let's start with the center and then add some thin sea strokes. Try to do this quickly so that you'll get a nice shape. I'm just going to rinse my brush and just create bigger petals. You can also mix your orange and mix permanent growth with yellow, or use an orange straight out from the tube. We are done with the first rows. Then we're going to add our second layer after this one dries. Let's start to paint this second one. Don't worry too much about this first layer. Again, when we do the second layer, we can cover some of the mistakes. That's okay if you made some mistakes on the first layer. Now I want a darker center. I'm going to grab some burnt sienna. It's a nice brown. Just put it in the center, also right here. You can add more flowers. [NOISE] I'm going to choose a violet color, [NOISE] just something that's in contrast with this bright orange color. Let's just paint a simple five-petal flower. I'm just going to sway my brush and leave some white spaces. We can rinse our brush to change the shade. We're not going to be super strict about the shape of this flower. It's okay if it's not symmetrical. We're done with that. Then we can add some flowers over here. [NOISE] I have here a really diluted cerulean blue. [NOISE] We're going to paint some four-petaled flowers. Again, this is going to be a good contrast with the orange. Let's add a few more. For some of the flowers, it doesn't have to be four petals. Some can be just three because some can be just like a filler. I'm going to rinse my brush and let's grab some sap green color. [NOISE] While this one is still wet, we're going to put some green stems in between and just let it bleed into the blue color. That will look really pretty when it dries. I'm going to put some stem sticking out and add some leaves. We can also add some brown to our green. Then it's painted over here. I usually like painting the stem first so that I can see if it looks good before I add the leaves. [NOISE] Let me grab some sap green again. Let's just paint some small leaves and just stamp our brush just to put more variety of leaves. I think we're done in this area. You can probably just add some leaves later when it's dry. I'm going to add some indigo to my sap green just to get a dark color. It's a deep green color. Let's put it in between these two flowers. Just make a nice leaf. Then let's paint some tiny leaves. [NOISE] Let me rinse my brush. [NOISE] Then let's grab some more diluted cerulean blue. I'm just going to put a filter over here. Just put some tiny dots. Then let's grab some sap green and connect them all together. [MUSIC] 18. Metallic Letter-Lush Floral Part 2: [MUSIC] We need to add more leaves on this side. I'm going to add some indigo to make that green. It really looks nice when you add some leaves that are sticking out. It will look like more loose. Then I think I can put some filler, maybe a bit of blue over here just to balance it out. Now let's start adding the gold and then we'll go back to some of the details on the florals over here. It's now time to add some gold. I'm just going to mix these two. I'm going to try to use my flat brush again. What you can do is you can also rotate your paper so that it's easier to get some of the angles right and you can also use a round brush. I'm going to rotate my paper. That is easier. It just takes practice to do this. I just really love what the gold adds to this painting, makes it look more extra. I try to make sure that my gold paint is quite wet so that it's easier to glide onto the paper. For the small details, I might just use my round brush. We are done with this part. We have one more to go. What's nice about a flat brush is that you can try to move the angle of the brush so that you can create a nicer stroke. When you're doing this, it's important to make sure that your pencil outline is quite light because once you paint on top of the pencil outline, you cannot erase it anymore. Just for this video though, I intentionally did make the outline darker than usual, just so that it will show up on the camera. Let's try to zoom it in a bit more. Now I'm going to go with my round brush. I'm using the Size 6 and you're going to go into the small gaps. I think it looks good. Let's add a bit more over this area. Now we can move on to adding more details to this painting. Let's proceed to adding more details on the rose. I'm just going to grab some burnt sienna and just paint the same strokes. For the second layer, just add some C strokes. I'm going to rinse my brush and just fade some of the strokes so that it doesn't look too harsh and just not too bold. Let's do the second one. We just need a few strokes like this and then just fade it. I think we're done with this rose and now we might need to add just a few more finishing touches on this painting. Add a bit of leaves in some areas. Just some stem sticking out. I'm pretty happy with this, but I think we can add some leaves here. I think that looks better. We are done. [MUSIC] 19. Freehand Watercolor Letter: [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to learn how to paint a freehand style of watercolor floral letter. I have here a sample of a letter C. To start this project, we need to draw the letter of your choice. I'm choosing letter C, and I'm just going to draw it freehand. It really depends on the style that you want. To start this project, we need to pinpoint the main flowers first. For this example, I started with the rose first, this is the main flower and then I added just medium-size flowers beside it. Then I just branched out using some leaves and fillers. For here, I think I'm going to start with painting the pink peony. That will be the main flowers for this project. Let's start with a diluted permanent rose. You can change the color if you want to and then you can also try to draw some petals so that you have a guide. I'm going to start with two front petals. I'm leaving some white spaces as I paint. If you want a more in-depth tutorial on the peonies, I have a specific class for that. I'm making all my strokes quite pointy. Then you can fix this later if the shape doesn't look right. It's easier to move along the petals if it's still quite damp. Then just one more petal over here. It looks like a cup and you can extend this part a little bit. Let's take everything pointing to this part. We're done with this. Then I'm going to add one more flower over here. But we're just going to rotate the paper so that I can get the angle right. For the second peony, I want it to be a little bit on the peachy side, so I've added a little bit of yellow to my permanent rose. Let's just paint some petals. Doesn't have to be symmetrical. Just keep it really loose. You can rinse your brush to create a lighter shade for the petal. I'm going try to rotate and just check what it looks like. We're going to add some more leaves over here just to form the letter C. Before we do that, I'm going to add just a yellow center for these peonies. Just create some thin strokes in the middle and then you can go back in to add a darker shade later. I'm going to grab some sap green for the leaves. Let's just try to form a lot of leaves until we reach a curve shape so that it will look like a letter C. Then you can also add some fillers along the way. You can also change the shade of the green color. Let me just add some indigo just to add that dark green. Then you can add a very diluted cerulean blue, just to add some fillers, tiny dots of flowers. I'm using a Size 8, but you can also use another brush to help you with switching colors so that you don't have to keep on rinsing your brush. You can also paint some tiny leaves. Let's also add some berries. I'm just going to grab some purple berries. Let's grab some sap green again. Just connect that. Just create some random leaves. Maybe we can add a little bit of brown to our green. We're almost done with this side. We can add more details later. We just want a general shape for this letter C. Then we're going to make it look fuller later. Let's now start with the bottom part. Let's start with just sap green again, and just create some leaves alternately. Another tip is to also just put some stems just as a guide so that it's easier for you to know where to put the leaves. That is of course optional. Now let's add some small fillers. Just dot your brush to create these small flowers. It will look really, really pretty. Can even add two colors in one filler like this and add a little bit of purple if you want. Then now let's add some berries. Let's add a darker shade of green. I just added some indigo. Then you can add some smaller leaves like this. Another tip is just to add some stem sticking out like this, just quick, thin strokes and it will instantly make this look fuller. Let's add a little bit of blue to our green and then now we're done with this part. I think I'd like to add some more leaves over here. Lets just grab some sap green. You can add some purple berries over here. Just add some stems. Then we can also layer some of the leaves. This is already dry. I'm just going to paint on top of it just to make it a bit fuller. We're almost done. I'm going to grab some burnt sienna and just put it in the center of the peony, just to add some more definition. I just painted some thin lines and now I'm just adding some dots. This will make it look even prettier and just a bit more defined. Then let's just add some stem sticking out just to make it a bit loose. We are done. It's very simple. I'm just going to give you a comparison again. This is what I painted today and then this is what I painted the other day. They're both letter C. Just to recap, you have to figure out the main flowers first and then after figuring out the main flower, just branch out using some leaves and some fillers. [MUSIC] 20. Conclusion : [MUSIC] We have now reached the end of the class. Thank you so much for watching. If you're going to create a project, let's just quickly make a recap. Number 1, you have to choose a letter that you want to paint. Then number 2, choose the color combination. Number 3, you choose the floral elements that you want to include in the letter. Also you can create a pattern beforehand, before you pay the actual or final painting. Number 4, of course don't forget to have fun while painting. If you want to make a negative painting like this, but you don't have masking fluid, don't worry, you can just leave this as a whitespace. Just try not to paint beyond the line or the outline of the letter. When ever I create the class I always think of how students can apply it and how it can be practical. I think that this class is really great for you guys. This is a very good way to do commission projects, that's because this is highly customizable, you can change the font, just print out a different font, and then you can also change the colors and also the design. It's very, very easy. I also think that it's a good way to customize things in your home or if you're throwing a party and you wanted to create table numbers, you can use the techniques that you've learned here and apply it through making table numbers. There are just so many ideas and I'm really excited about your projects and how you can apply this into your daily life or into your parties. I hope that you enjoyed this class and that you've learned a lot. I'm looking forward to your projects. Don't forget to use this hashtag if you're going to tag me on Instagram. Also, I would appreciate it if you could upload [MUSIC] your project in the project gallery section of the class and leave a class review. That's it. Thank you. I will see you in my next class. [MUSIC] 21. Bonus Video Mother's Day Part 1: [MUSIC] In this bonus video, we are going to paint this beautiful painting for Mother's Day. Let's start. Let's start with the paper. I am using Saunders Waterford, as you can see it's rectangular in shape, but I only need a square shape paper. I just drew a line over there so that the size of this paper will be nine inches by nine inches. Then I just got a round shape object and I just traced the shape because I need a round shape for this painting. Then just write the word mom. You can also just write down the initial of your mom's name, or if you're not doing this for Mother's Day, you can use different words. It can be love or hello, or it just depends on what you want. What's nice about this project is that it is very customizable and you can use this for any other occasion. The next step is to paint this word mom with masking fluid. We want to leave this word on touch without any painting on it. But we are going to paint flowers all over this round shape. The brand that I'm using is PBO. It's called the drawing gum, but it's similar to a masking fluid. What I love about this masking fluid is that it has color. It's easy to know which areas you have already applied masking fluid on. I'm just going to fill in all the letters. I'm just doing it slowly. Of course, you can use different fonts. You can try to print out and trace the word on this painting. But for this project, I just prefer my own handwriting. Let's move on to letter O. My tip for applying masking fluid is that make sure that you are able to fill in the edges so that it comes out clean when you peel off the masking fluid. Now we're on to the last letter. Don't forget to wash this brush right away after using your masking fluid so that it doesn't dry out in your brush because usually masking fluid, it ruins your brush. Just make sure to clean this brush right after you use it. I just use just regular dishwashing soap and water. We are done. Right now let's just wait for this to dry before we head on to painting the flowers. Let me just touch this if it's dry. It looks good. Let's just get the permanent rose color. I want to paint some roses in this floral painting. I'm going to paint one rose over here, another one over there. Let's mix a nice and concentrated permanent rose mixture. It means more paint, less water. We just want the center of the rose to be more concentrated or with more color. I'm going to start with a teardrop shape for the center, and then let's paint some small wispy strokes, small letter c strokes, and then as we go further away from the center, we're also going to make the petals a little bit bigger. Now let's just dip our brush in the jar and just dilute that pink color to create a lighter shade of permanent rose for the outer part of the rose. We can also add a little bit of yellow and mix that with our permanent rose just to create a peachy pink color. It's a nice dainty color. We'll be adding more depth liters. I'm just making this rose a bit soft. Let's move on to the lower right of the letter. I'm going to start painting another rose. As you can see, whenever I paint on top of the masking fluid, there's no color on the letter itself because it's protected by the masking fluid. The effect of what we're doing is after we take out the masking fluid, it will look as if the rose is behind the letter, and that's why I'm painting it near the letters. Let's grab some yellow again. Let's mix another peachy pink color just to make it look more interesting. I'm also leaving some white spaces in between the petals or the c strokes that I'm doing. We are now done with the two roses. While we are waiting for this to dry, let's start adding some flowers in-between the two roses. I have here some cerulean blue and turquoise. I want to paint some four-petaled flowers in between these two roses, and I want a bunch of them in the middle. We're not going to be super strict about the number of petals. Some flowers can be just three petals, some can be two. That is because we want some of them to look like fillers, or some of them may seem as if it's hiding behind some of the flowers. What I'm doing now is I'm adding flowers near the edges of the letters so that you can get a nice clean letter when you take out the masking fluid. If you left one part without a flower or leaf, then when you peel off the letter, for example, the letter O, it won't look like a letter O because there will be a white space outside the letter. Now I just added ultramarine blue. You can add any blue color that you have and just change the value, make some of the blue darker, some of them lighter, so that it will look more pleasing. Then now I'm just going to grab some indigo and I'm going to put the dot in the center of the flowers just to give it more depth. When painting this project, I suggest starting with the main flowers first, and then you add in all the fillers, the leaves, the small berries so that you can close in the gaps. What you can also do is you can start painting your main flower in the middle, and then from there on, add some flowers beside it. Then you can go clockwise so that you will not be overwhelmed and you will know where to go next. Now let's grab some sap green, and I'm going to add some leaves and also some lines in between the blue flowers that will look like stems. That's what I do to close in some of the white gaps. Just keep adding some leaves and stems. Don't worry because everything will come together. Just keep on adding some fillers. Now, I want to create a peachy pink color. I'm mixing yellow and permanent rose, and I'm just adding a bit of water. Then let's paint a small puny right there. I'm starting with one petal first. I'm keeping it loose and just creating some loose strokes. Let's paint a petal over here. It looks like a folded petal so that this will look like the puny is facing side view. Now I'm grabbing some permanent yellow light and I'm just adding the center of the puny and just creating some thin lines. I'm letting some of it bleed into the wet petals. You can also add a more concentrated permanent rose and just drop it in the petals just to create a shadow. I guess we have most of the main flowers, and right now I'm just going to create one more flower right here. Let's just grab permanent yellow, orange, or you can use any orange color that you have. I'm going to paint a big five petaled flower. Just press the belly of the brush until you create a petal shape. Sometimes one stroke is not enough, so you have to add another stroke. Sometimes you just use the tip of your brush to create a curved line, and use that in order to complete the look of the petal. That will also make the petals quite loose. It will give that wispy stroke look. For the center of this flower, I'm going to use sepia to give it more depth. While the orange part is still wet, I'm going to drop in the sepia and let it bleed with the orange part. Now let me just grab some sap green and I'm going to paint some strokes that will look like stems. I'm also going to paint some leaves beside this flower while it's still wet so that the green and the orange color will blend together. It will look a little bit looser compared to when it's dry. Then let's just add some more leaves again and some more stems. I'm going to add some fillers over here. Let's grab some permanent yellow light. I'm going to create some small dots using the tip of my brush. Just lightly tap your brush. It's as if you're stamping the brush onto the paper to create a small dot that will look like small flowers. Right now we can actually add a little bit of orange as well. Then now let's grab some green. I'm going to add some stems that I will attach to those yellow flowers. You can also add some small leaves if you want. The mixture of this green paint is a little bit concentrated. I did not put a lot of water because I don't want it to bleed into the yellow part so much because I still want to see the yellow flowers. Just be careful with adding the stem. Now let's move on to Part 2 of this project. 22. Bonus Video Mother's Day Part 2: This is Part 2 of the video. Right now I'm going to paint some fillers. I'm preparing a mixture of permanent violet. I'm going to paint some petal like strokes, and I'm going to do them in clusters. We can also add a little bit of blue to our violet paint and then we can try to dip our brush in the water jar and just you rinse it to create a lighter shade of violet. As you can see, there's a beautiful contrast between the darker and bolder, permanent violet and the lighter shade. I'm holding the brush almost towards the end of the handle just to keep it pretty loose. Then right now I'm just going to grab some sap green and add some stems connect all of these petals that looks like buds. You can also try adding some leaves by now. Add some stems sticking out. Let's try to dip our brush in the water and just add some strokes over there. Let the violet bleed into the green leaves. You will see a beautiful bleed over there. Let's switch to a top view. As you can see, it's slowly coming together. You have a space over there on the left, let's paint a yellow flower just to brighten up that area. I'm using permanent yellow light and you will probably paint yourself few petals maybe which is three or four. Then we can add a little bit of orange to our brush, just give it a little extra character to the flower. Most of the time I'm also using just almost a tip of my brush to create some strokes so that I can control how big the petals will be and it will also make it look more expressive. Then right now I just added some red into the center of this flower. Now let's grab some sap green, I'm going to paint some leaves beside the yellow orange flower and just fill in the white gap. If there are also white gaps, don't worry about it, we will definitely go back to adding some more fillers and close that gap. I think it would look nice to add a different shade of green so I added some burnt sienna to my sap green to create that earthy green color. It's a nice addition to this painting. Let's try to paint some long and slender leaves. Just try to drag your brush onto the paper to create these leaves. Now let's grab permanent violet again. I'm going to paint some fillers. Let's paint some buds and we can also add some blue to our violet. Again, you can rinse your brush to create a lighter shade of violet. Just keep this further interesting by adding different values. Then of course we're going to add some stem and I'm using sap green. To make this interesting, you can also make sap green and the violet for the leaves and the stem. Now let's paint some thin stem sticking out and I'm just using the tip of my brush to create that. With a smaller brush, I'm just going to dab some yellow flowers. I'm going to add a little bit of the orange paint as well, and also a little bit of red so that it doesn't look too flat. I'm just slowly dabbing my brush to create some brushstrokes that will look like small flowers. Then we can grab some green and just add some stems. Just to connect those yellow flowers, you can also paint some leaves overlapping the other flowers that we painted before. We're almost done filling in this round shape painting. I'm just going to paint some small berries. I'm using cerulean blue, but of course you can use a different color. For this painting I chose some bright and happy colors. Let's go back to a top view video and as you can see, there are white gaps in between some of the flowers and I am just going to grab some greenish yellow. If you don't have that color, just add more yellow to your sap green and create a yellow green color. I'm going around this painting and just adding some small leaves, some stems sticking out just so I can fill in those small white gaps so that this painting will look really full and lush. Right now, try to observe the sides of these three letters. We want to have some paint on the edges of these letters so that when you take out this masking fluid it will look clear. For example, the letter M will look like a letter M because we were able to fill in the white space outside the letter. I'm just grabbing some extra colors similar to the flowers behind the letter. Once we are done with that, let's add some finishing touches to some of the flowers. Right here, I just grab some crimson lake and I am going over this rose and following the first layer that we did. In the center, I painted a darker crimson lake. Then for the outer part of this rose, I just diluted the color in my brush and just created some soft petals that are also bigger. Just continue painting some C strokes. Right now I just rinse my brush. As you can see, the color in my brush is now lighter. Because we added a second layer the roses now have more depth in them. Let's grab some yellow, orange color and I'm going to add some details in the center of this peony. I'm just adding some small short strokes and just adding some dots. Then right now I'm going to grab some red. I'm also going to add some more details to this flower. This is the part where I add details to most of the flowers. I thought I'm going to grab some indigo and just add that to the center. You can see immediately how it looks a lot better than before. Let's grab diluted violet color and just add a second layer to this filler just to give it more volume. I'm also grabbing some turquoise and just adding some petals just to give it more depth. We are done with the painting portion, I'm just going to wait for everything to dry before we try to take out the masking fluid. This is one of my favorite things about using masking fluid. I love taking out the masking fluid and seeing the clean edges that it leaves. I am using a rubber cement pickup to rub off the masking fluid, but you can also use your finger to just rub it off. Sometimes you can just try to peel the masking fluid. When you're creating this bonus project, you don't really need to follow the painting that I did, you can of course, make it your own and paint your own flowers. You can try filling in this round shape with just roses and leaves, and that will look pretty as well. Another idea for you is to create a painting that has a color theme. You can do all blue flowers, all pink flowers. It would also be nice to incorporate the favorite flower of the recipient of this painting. We are done peeling the masking fluid and it's so pretty. But right now let's just try to fix the letters and you can smoothen out the edges. We can try to paint the sides of the letters with the same color as the flower behind it. Just try to control the water in your brush when you're doing this so that you don't get a big puddle of paint. I'm just trying to polish the sides of the letters. This is actually optional, I just prefer having a clean edge letter. I'm looking at the screen of my camera, I think we need to add few more leaves. I'm using greenish-yellow and I'm just adding some tiny leaves in between some of the gaps. I usually check the overall look of the painting on my camera so sometimes I'll take a photo and look at it. That's how I will see if I need to add more leaves or if I need to fill in some of the gaps. Congratulations. We are done and we finish this beautiful painting. I hope that you enjoy this bonus video and I look forward to seeing what you can create from this project. [MUSIC]