Transcripts
1. Welcome!: [MUSIC] Do you want to know how I
went from this to this? Then come join me in this introductory class
where I share my secrets and techniques to build the
foundation you need to paint the most beautiful
watercolor florals. Hi. I'm Kanchan. I'm an artist, illustrator, and art
educator from Singapore. Drawing and painting
was always something that I enjoyed but
never really pursued. It was not until I
discovered watercolors, and more specifically, watercolor florals, that I
found my real true passion. Over time, with practice, I hone my observational skills and develop my own unique style. I focus on creating aesthetic compositions
by bringing out the depth and
textures in florals. In 2020, I started my Instagram account to
share all my learnings. I soon realized that I was not only sharing my
watercolor journey, but also educating a lovely
community along the way. That's how I discovered my
second passion for teaching. In this class, you will
learn how to paint stylized watercolor
florals full of depth. There are two things that really make your
floral standout. First, the highlighter shadows that you depict through
color and shading, and second, the details
that help bring out the delicate
textures of the flowers. The class is essentially
divided into two main parts. In the first part, we will cover the basics and practice the
foundational techniques. [MUSIC] In the second part, we will work on the
class project where we will paint this
beautiful tulip. You will learn how to break down a reference image by
observing the parts, folds, and details of a flower. Make the most out of
a limited palette, add the depth to your painting through lights and shadows, and use the short liner brush for adding textures and details. This class is made not
just for beginners, but also experienced watercolor artist who want to give
watercolor florals a try. By the end of it, you will
not only develop the skills required to paint lovely
floral portraits, but also the confidence to make larger floral compositions
and full bouquets too. Let's get started.
2. Class Orientation: [MUSIC] For the class project, I have chosen this tulip. Tulips are easy flowers to draw with beautiful
petal details, which makes it a great
subject for this class. As tulips are in the
shape of a bulb, it even makes a good subject to study the lights and shadows, and practice capturing the depth during the painting phase. I will share more
details in how to choose an observer reference
images in the lesson, breaking down a reference. This class is divided
into two main parts. In the first part, we will learn about
the materials: paper, brushes, and paints that you need to make watercolor flowers, then we will go on to practice
the various techniques, such as wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and my personal
take on wet-on-dry, which I call pulling the
paint from the edges. We will also practice adding finer details with my
favorite short liner brush. Once we're confident
with the techniques, we will move on to the
second part of the class. There, we will be working on a class project layer by
layer throughout each lesson. I would love to
see your creation, so post them in the
Projects Gallery. I'll see you in
the first lesson. [MUSIC]
3. Materials: [MUSIC] Hi, welcome back. In your first lesson, let's talk a little bit about the materials that you
require throughout the class. Let's start with the paints. For the paints, you can
either choose to use your tubes or your pans. For pans, I usually have
this travel pan that I use, the Winsor & Newton
Cotman colors. This has generally everything. What I'm looking for is lemon yellow and a slightly
darker shade of yellow, lighter shade of red as well
as a deeper shade of red. And same way in blue, I would like to have a lighter shade of blue
and darker shade of blue. Along with that, it's good to have even sap
green separately. Even this palette,
which I really like is the fact that
it has sap green. I keep that separately because
generally in botanical, and floral illustrations
you'll be using it more often. Same way if you don't have pans and you prefer using tubes, you can use tubes. These are my go-to colors in my limited palette for tubes, I have a lighter shade, which is the lemon yellow
for lighter shade of yellow, a slightly darker
shade of yellow, which is permanent yellow light. Then I have the vermilion hue
for a lighter shade of red and a slightly deeper
shade of red I will keep the basic red with me. For the blue, I usually keep the ultramarine blue for the
lighter or brighter shade. For a deeper shade, I keep the Persian
blue in case I needed a deeper shade of blue
for a deeper color. Apart from that, I also
keep the sap green with me because this gets used quite a bit for
floral illustrations. I don't like to make
so much of the green, but if you don't have it, you can always mix these
colors to get your green. These are your go-to colors
for your limited palette. In the next few lessons, I'll
even show you how to mix these colors to get
your color palette. Next, let's talk
about the brushes. Coming to the brushes. For brushes I use the
round brush size 8 for a bigger wash and keep a smaller brush size
2 for smaller areas. I've noticed that I've
not been able to find a brush which has a very
fine tip for adding details. What made my life easier for adding details were
short liner brush. This is the one after trying a few of the short liner brushes. I like the most is this
Princeton Heritage short liner, size 10 by 0 for detailing. The other one that
I used earlier was the Princeton select
short liner size 18 by 0, it is much finer. But since it's really fine, it was not able to
hold the colors and paints for longer so I had to keep dipping it in
paint more often. I found that this size 10 by 0 Princeton Heritage
work better for me because it was able to hold the water and the
paint for longer, slightly longer, as
compared to this. If you're not able to
find the exact brush, just try any other brand short liner brush from
size 10,0 to 18,0, anything will work so
you can give it a try. Another type of brush that is available that I
actually started off with was this Princeton
velvet touch detailer brush. This is not as short liner. These brushes are
much smaller as you can see than
the short liner. The short liner brush has
a slightly longer tip. This one also works well. In case you don't
find a short liner, go for the detailing brushes, they tend to work well as
well for adding details. Just one note. There is another brush which is called as the liner brush. As you can see this one is
called the script liner brush. This brush is much longer and
this is not what we want. If you use the script liner
brush for your detailing, you will not be able to
control it as well as the short liner brush.
Keep that in mind. They look very
similar but rather short liner brush
has a much finer, shorter tip and the
script liner brush has a longer one and
we don't want this, we want to use the
short liner brush. This is all about the brushes. Now let's talk about the paper. For the paper, I
generally prefer using hot press paper because that
helps you add more details, it's much easier to add
details on hot press paper. For all my practices, I'm using this brand. But feel free to use
any hot press paper. Just make sure for practice, they have 300 GSM and it
is 100 percent cotton. This one says 100
percent cellulose hot pressed and acid free. If these criteria are met, you can use anything
that fits your budget. I like using this one because
it's pretty affordable. I'll just cut that into
small pieces for this class. I will be using this. If you don't have hot press, you can even use
cold press paper. The one that I like using is this Canson cold press paper, which works well for my budget and I like it for practicing. Just make sure if you're
using cold press, it is fine grain. If it's fine grain
it will not be as difficult to add details. The fine grain paper
looks like this. As you can see there's
barely any grain in this or it's not as rough,
it's pretty smooth. You can even use this
cold press paper. This is all about the paper, just make sure it is 300 GSM, 100 percent cotton acid free, and then you can choose a fine grain cold press paper or hot press paper
for this class. If you're not planning
to draw freehand, then for the drawing lesson, you may even need
a tracing paper, something like this, to trace
out your reference image. The other things
that you'd like to keep with you is a cup of water for using the
water for your paint, a cup of water to
wash your brushes, then I have two
types of erasers. One is the normal eraser and the one is the
kneaded eraser, which helps pick up
some of the lead from the paper so
that you don't have to erase it too much. Then I use this pencil
for drawing and keep a paper towel
with you to dab your brush and you
should be ready to go. I hope you have a
good understanding of all the materials that you
require during the class. One of my favorite brushes, which is the short liner brush, requires a bit of a practice. I'll see you in the next
lesson where we will be practicing how to control
the short liner brush. [MUSIC]
4. Short Liner Brush Control: [MUSIC] Hi, in this lesson, we will see a few practices to learn how to control
the short liner brush. If you do not have a
short liner brush, it's perfectly fine. You can use the
fine tip of any of your brushes to
practice as well. For the practice,
I'm going to use my short liner
brush and I'm just going to make some
petals and some leaves. I'm just going to use this as
a pen to sketch something. If you're a calligrapher
or a letterer, you can even use the
short liner brush to just letter something
that you like. What I'm going to
do is I've taken a dark color of Prussian blue. I'm just dipping my
short liner brush into the water bowl that I have. Since it doesn't
hold too much water, you don't have to dab it
on the paper as such. Just make your paint a bit watery so that it is
able to pick up easily. Now that you have the paint
on your short liner brush, I'm going to use
this to just make some leaves,
something like that. It's just a practice for you to get understanding of how much your short liner brush
can hold in terms of water and paint and get
comfortable with it. I'm going to use
this as an exercise. I'm just making
parallel lines to this. Really fine ones. Try to vary the pressure and see if you get
more comfortable. When you're using the brush, make sure you're
resting your hand very well totally on the paper. This brush is so fine, it requires some
steady hand movements. This is one simple exercise. You can just extend this into
making larger compositions, something like an entire
branch of a leaf. I'm going to make
this, the branch. I'll just put some leaves first. This is a practice for you to
get an understanding of how the short liner brush works
for you and get steady hands. Just using it as a pencil
or a pen to draw something. Very simple exercise and
beautiful results as well. As you can see, I'm dipping
my short liner brush quite often because since it's
a very small brush, it doesn't hold too
much of the paint. This is another really
quick exercise. The more you make, the better
you will get with this. The next exercise is similar. I'm again going to use
leaf as my subject. In this one I'm going to make a slightly bigger leaf,
something like this. Well, it just has to be free
hand and don't worry too much about the shape as of now. We're just practicing, just
getting to know our brush. I'll just need some wings. Now I'm going to use my
brush as a pen to sketch it. I'm going to add these fine thin lines to
sketch some details into this. Something like this. This is how you're going
to use this brush most often in the floral
illustrations as well. I'm just going to use it like a sketch and draw some lines. Again, my hand is resting
steadily on the paper. I'm trying to show this area is highlighted and hence
I'm not touching it, I'm just keeping it untouched. I'm adding small lines on the
edges to show the shadows. Here as well. [MUSIC] These are some of
the easy exercises. The most often
that you would use your short liner brush during this class is to make
these teeny-tiny lines. If you're comfortable
with this exercise, you can move on to
the next lesson. If not, then just keep
practicing and get a bit more comfortable using
the short liner brush. Alternatively, you can even use the tip of a very fine brush. Let me just show you. I have this brush which is
the edger brush size 1. You can do the same thing if you don't have a short liner brush, try to get comfortable
using the tip. For example, I'm using just right the tip to create
something similar to this. I'm just using this, like this. But the trick with the tip of the brush is that
you have to have a very light hand because it's not as thin as
the short liner brush. If you press harder, it will become really
pretty thick like this and we don't want this. We don't want thick lines, we want really fine lines. Just try to use the tip of your brush and keep
a very light hand. Let me show you how
you can do this even for something
similar like this. If I make a bigger leaf, so this is just outline and I want to make really fine lines. Just keep a very light hand, use just the tip and try to get comfortable
using it like this. But once I started using
the short liner brush, I realized how much
easier it is with short liner brush
than using the tip. You can get a bit tired with this because
you have to have a very good hand control with
your brush, in this case. With a short liner,
I think you can be slightly easier to use
for the similar purpose. As you can see, I've got a similar effect using
just the tip of my brush. Just get comfortable
if you don't have a fine short liner brush, you can even use
this round brush and do a few exercises to get an understanding of how
your brush behaves with the paper that you have and the water and the
paint consistency. I hope by the end
of this lesson, you are more confident of
using a short liner brush, or the tip of any of your
good-quality round brushes. I'll see you in the next
lesson where we will be practicing the
wet-on-wet technique. [MUSIC]
5. Wet on Wet Technique: [MUSIC] Hi, in this lesson we will be practicing the
wet-on-wet technique. Now let's get started with
the wet-on-wet practice. For the wet-on-wet practice, I'm going to be using the two
round brushes that I have, and I'm using
vermilion hue color, but you can use any
color you want, and I've drawn a few
petals on my paper, but you can draw
any shape you want. I'm just going to teach
you the technique and then you can practice it
any way you like it. So the first thing to do is take a big round brush and just
make sure it's clean. Just wash it in a bowl, and then take some clean water from your clean bowl and run the tip of your brush
on the rim of the jar. It's just wet but not
too dripping wet, and you've removed
all the excess water. What you will do is just brush the petal with some
water so it's just glistening. It doesn't have too much water, it doesn't have
too much paddling, and you will just want the shiny glaze on
the paper like this. Just wet your entire petal or whatever shape that you make. If you feel the water
is less then again, dip your brush in the jar
and run it across the rim, and then just glaze
it on your petal, and you have to act
quickly because you don't want this water to evaporate. So just keep it as it is. Then pick up your paint. Make sure you're just dropping
some water to make it wet and pick up some
paint on your brush. In this petal, I'm going to drop it at the
edge of the petal. I want it to be dark
on the edge here. I'm going to just
drop it here and you'll see the petal is wet, it'll start spreading
across the petal evenly, and this is a time when
you have to be very quick. Just wash your brush again, dab it on the paper towel
and start spreading this across the petal in
the direction of the wings. You have to be very
careful with wet-on-wet. Don't move your brush too
much on a wet paper because that damages the paper
and you don't want that. If you feel that
it's too wet now and you're seeing that the
paper looks a bit rough, just leave it as
it is, let it dry. This is one practice of a petal in which
the edge is darker. Now let's do the same
thing for one more petal. Again, washing my brush, taking clean water and
running the brush at the rim of the jar to
remove any excess water, and then I'm just
wetting or glazing this. If you need more water, just dip your brush and
take some more water. The trick in wet-on-wet
is that your paper should be wet when you
are dropping the color. You have to act a bit fast. Now that it is glazed,
it's not too wet. If you feel there's
some puddles, just dab your brush on the paper towel and pick up
any puddles that you'll see. Then dab brushing in. Now, with your brush
and pick up the paint. Don't take too much of it
just a little bit at the tip. In this, I want the petal to be darker at the bottom
and lighter on top. What I'm going to
do is drop it here, and since the petal is wet, you will see it is
already spreading across. I'm just dropping it in the
direction of the wings. Now either you can
take a smaller brush, Let's take a smaller
brush in this and again, wetting this brush and
dabbing any extra water. I just want a
slightly damp brush and I'm just spreading it. Now again, I'm
taking the big brush and I'm dumping it again. I just wanted to damp
brush and I'm making sure that this harsh
lines are nicely blended. Don't take too much water. You don't want to wet the
paper again because as I said, too much water can
damage the people. These are a few examples of practice exercises
that you can do. Maybe you can fill
up the entire page with different types of petals that you like
of different shades, and it's a good practice for you to learn the
wet-on-wet technique. I hope by the end
of this lesson, you are more confident with
the wet-on-wet technique. Initially it may feel
a bit challenging, but with practice
you will get better. In the next lesson, we will learn the
wet-on-dry technique, which we most often use
for adding details. I'll see you there. [MUSIC]
6. Wet on Dry Technique: [MUSIC] In the last lesson, we practice the
wet-on-wet technique. In this lesson, we will go on to practice the
wet-on-dry technique, which we most often
used to add details. I wait for my petals to dry up, and I'm going to start doing
the wet-on-dry techniques. For that, I'm using
my short liner brush and if you don't have
a short liner brush, then feel free to use the tip
of any of your round brush. I'm going to wet this brush, just dip it into clean water, and pick up some of your paint. You want the paint
to be really watery, you don't want it
to be too dark. We are just using this to add details so it's going
to be very diluted. Take some paint on your brush, and let's start adding
[NOISE] the details. What I'm going to
do is just brush these tiny strokes on the
petal to show the veins. It should be very light. It doesn't have to be too dark, and it's just showing the
little veins in details. I'm just spreading it
on the entire petal. If you feel that the
veins are too harsh, so I'm going to take
a big brush and damp it and just run some water on top of this to make the
veins slightly more subtle. Okay. Now let's try the
same on the next petal. I'm going to again take some of the paint on my
short liner brush, and this time I'm making
the veins from the bottom. I want it to look
something like this. I want some details at
the bottom of the petal, and I also want some details
at the top of the petal, but I want it to be super light. If it's too dark, just make
it watery and just take a little watery light value to add these details. Again, if you feel it's
too harsh then take a damp brush and just
spread it on the petal. [NOISE] I want some
more details here. You can even add these
while the petal is wet. But as you can see, since
these lines are too fine, they will spread
very fast and you might miss out on
some of the details. But if that's the
effect that you want, you can even damp your petal
before adding these lines. Keep practicing and you'll
get better with this. Here, the trick is to get used to using your short liner brush. Once you're
comfortable with that, you will be able to do this
technique very easily. [MUSIC] I hope you had fun learning
this wet-on-dry technique. We will use this technique
a lot for adding details. I'll see you in the
next lesson where I'll show you a slightly
different technique, which I call pulling the
paint from the edges. [MUSIC]
7. Pulling Paint Technique: [MUSIC] Hi. So far, we've
practiced the wet-on-wet, and wet-on-dry technique. I know the wet-on-wet
technique can be a slightly challenging
technique to practice, and get hold off. There is another
technique which I call pulling the
paint from the edges, and this is what
I use more often, which is slightly easier than
the wet-on-wet technique. I'll show you how. All right, so far we've
seen the wet-on-wet, and the wet-on-dry technique. Wet-on-wet is good for
laying down the first layer, and wet-on-dry is
good to add details. But I find that wet-on-wet is sometimes difficult to control, especially because
you have to keep the paper wet while you
are putting the paint, and you have to be quite
fast at this so that the paper doesn't dry out while you are
putting the paint. I started using this
different style of doing wet-on-wet, which I'll show you now. In this case, you don't
have to wet your petal, but we will use a pretty
damp brush for this. I call this pulling the
paint from the edges, and basically what you have to do is look at the
petal or your subject, and see which area
is the darkest, and that would be the edge where you lay your paint first. Take your big brush,
and just wash it. If it's not washed, take your clean water, and make sure it's nicely damp. Just remove any excess water by wiping it at the
edge of your jar, you don't have to
dab it on the paper. Just take some paint at
the tip of your brush, just at the tip, not too much. Now, like I said, you have to identify the area which is the
darkest, so in this, I want the edges to be dark, and I have not wet the paper, but my brush is pretty
damp with the color. What I'm going to do is
just place the brush with the color right at the
tip, just like this. It is a substitute that
I use for wet-on-wet. It is usually used for
laying the first color, so now I want this
area to be light, so I've just washed my brush, and I'm using some clean water, and just spreading this. This is when I get the
paper actually damp. I find this much more
easy to control. It doesn't spoil
your paper as well. That's why I call it pulling
the paint from the edges, so I'm just putting it at the
edge which is the darkest, and I'm pulling it
with a wet brush. You can still give
these little lines to show the wind directions, and still get the same effect
as a wet-on-wet technique. Let's practice this again
for this petal in this case, this is the darkest area. I'm going to pull the paint from here. I'll do the same thing. Wash my brush, take some
clean water on my brush, not too much, and not too less, just wipe it at the edge. Then take some paint at
the tip of your brush, and now this time, since
it's darkest here, I'm going to pull it from here. Put my tip here, and pull it from here. Again, I'm pulling the
paint from the edge, which is the darkest, and then I'm going
to just spread it across the entire petal. Now if you feel you want to add some more color here,
like in this case, you can always use the
wet-on-wet technique, now that the petal is wet, and just drop some color. Pick up if you think
it's too much. Then just dab your brush. Nicely, spread this
to make it even. You can see it gives exactly the same
effect as wet-on-wet, and I use this more
often because I find this technique much
easier than wet-on-wet. Just practice it
for a few times, and I think you'll be able
to master it in no time. All right, I hope after
this practice lesson, you are more confident
with this technique that I call pulling the
paint from the edges. I'll see you in the next lesson, where we will be
talking a little bit about breaking down
your reference image. [MUSIC]
8. Breaking Down a Reference: [MUSIC] Now we're one step closer
to our class project. In this lesson we're
going to start learning a little bit about breaking
down your reference image. Let's talk about breaking
down our reference. For this entire class I'll be using this tulip as
our reference image. You can choose to follow
along with me using the same tulip or you can choose a
reference of your own choice. You can click a picture
of a reference. If you have beautiful flowers
in your garden then you can click pictures of that and
use that as reference. But there are some points
that you would like to keep in mind when you're
choosing your reference. The first thing that you should keep in mind is the light. In this picture,
like you can see, it is very clear that the
light is falling from here. I can see the highlights
here on the petal, the white lines, and I can see that the light is coming somewhere
from this direction. Then this is the shadow area, this is very clear as well. I want this light and
shadow to be shown very clearly in your
reference picture so that you can understand
how to paint it. The second thing
that I'm seeing is how much details
can I see in this. I really love showing
details in my paintings. When I zoom in you
can see there are these fine lines in the
tulip which shows the veins. If I just draw then
I can show you that these are the veins that
I'm looking at like this. These are the details
that I would love to add using my short liner brush. That's what I'm looking for
in my reference as well. Even this little detail here, I'll be adding this into
my detailing phase. They have really
beautiful details in these petals as well. This is the thing
you would want to see in your reference image. The third and the
last thing to see depends really upon your
confidence level of drawing. The reason I chose tulip
is because I think tulips are pretty
easy shape to draw. If you think you're
really good at drawing, you can pick any
flower you like. If you think that drawing is something that you are
still getting used to, freehand drawing, then you can pick something which
is slightly easier. Tulip is definitely one
of the easy flowers. The other flowers that
I can think of is an anemone and anemone
is quite easy to draw. A cosmos is easy to draw. Same with there are some
flowers that I would recommend not to use as a
subject for this class. Something that I can
think of is, rose. It's a complicated subject
to draw as well as paint. I would stay away from
that for this class. A peony is difficult
to draw as well. This photograph is linked in the class resources so you can download it and use
it along with me. I hope after this
lesson you have a clear understanding of what to see in your reference image. In the next lesson I will
be talking a little bit about color mixing using
your limited palette. [MUSIC]
9. Color Mixing: So far we've practiced all the different
painting techniques. In this lesson, we will
talk a little bit about color mixing using a
limited color palette. Before we start with the mixing, there is one thing that
I wanted to share. It is an app that I
found really helpful. When I was a beginner, I found it very difficult to identify which colors were
used to mix together. This color mixing app is
available for Apple devices, but I'm sure there are similar apps which are
available for Android as well. Just search for a
color mixing app and I'll show you
the details that you should look for in
the app when you are looking for color mixing up. I'll show you how
you can get that. Just search for
S-A-V-A-R-T ColorMix, SavArt ColorMix and just
download it to your device. It can be a phone or iPad or any other device
that you're using where you have your
reference image saved. Now I have this app downloaded, so I'll just click on "Open". This is the default picture
which comes with the app. What I'll do is I'll go ahead
and click on this camera and get the picture that we
will be using for this class. You see I have my tulip here. This app has a few options. Down here at the bottom, you'll see RYBW, CMYK and RGB. These are the different
color combinations which can help you with the color mixing. What I usually
choose is the RYBW, which is red,
yellow, blue, white. The white is basically just
diluted form for watercolors, you don't have to mix in white. If it says some amount, percentage of white, just make it a bit diluted
according to that. Now what I did initially
when I was learning, I used to just click on the
color that I'm not sure of. I would click on that and you see it gives you a percentage, a 37 percent of red, 22 percent of yellow, three percent of blue
and rest is white. This is how you will use this for finding out the
mix for your color. Like I said before, I like
to keep a minimal palette. As much as possible, I'll try to mix them together to get the shape that I want. Let's set up your palette first. [MUSIC] For the green we will keep it handy but we don't require
it for this lesson. I will not squeeze
it out for now. I've set up my palette
with all the colors, and I have this
app on the side as a reference so I can show you how you can use the app as well. If you don't have the app, then don't worry for this
tulip as a reference. Whatever color I am swatching, the main colors that I
think I need to swatch, I will share this swatch
with the percentage of the colors that I'm using for your reference in
the class resources. When it comes to swatching, there are some main colors
that you would like to swatch, which you feel are
differentiates. For example, in this tulip
I see this yellow area. I want to swatch this
to get the exact mix. Then there is this dark shadows. I want to swatch some of these shadows to see
what is the mix in that. The main body of the flower
has this orangish tinge, which I want to swatch as well. Let's see how we can do that. Let's start with
this yellow swatch. I'm keeping my finger here
to see what the color is. Here it says 39
percent of red and 40 percent of yellow and
six percent of blue. You have to be a
little approximate. You have to play
around with this and figure it out a bit. What I'm going to do is I will take the lighter
shade of lemon yellow and clean my brush. Then I'm going to take
the vermilion hue. Similar percentage, so
it should be similar. If you feel that it's a bit orangish and it's not
turned yellow yet. I'm going to just add
more yellow to this. I think now we have
a similar color, so you have to play
around with this a bit. It does say you have to add
about six percent of blue, which is very light tinge. I'm just going to
take a little bit of blue, very, very slight. I'm going to mix that too. Now this yellow area, and this is the swatch that
I'm going to use for that. I'll just swatch it here. You see it's pretty close to the swatch that the app
is showing as well. It is a bit of playing around. In fact, you don't
even need an app. If you want to just play around with all the colors that
you have, you can do that. Let me just add the
percentages that I've mixed. I make a nice note of this for my future reference
when I'm painting. Again, like I said before, the white can be ignored. Why? It is basically just diluting the color
with more water. Now, the other thing that I want to swatch is this darker area, which is the shadow area. This one says 33 percent of red, 31 percent of yellow, and 29 percent of blue. It's basically a little
bit of everything. I'm going to take
just a bit of yellow, then wash my brush. A bit of vermilion hue
and the little blue. This gives you good mix of
the color that we see there. I'm going to swatch this
dark shadow areas well now. Let me write down the mix here. Great. Now let's see what
about the main body of this orangish area. Let me see. This one says 46
percent of red and 23 percent of yellow
and 16 percent of blue. We need to take a
little extra of the red and small tinge
of yellow and blue. I think now this mix is perfect, so I just swatch this as the
main body of the flower. Let me write down the mixture
for my reference later. The last thing to swatch
this green in case you're planning to draw this big leaf. For greens, I will rather makes the Prussian blue and
not the ultramarine. It gives a better color mix. It says 34 percent yellow. Let me just start
with the yellow, then little bit of red and blue. I'm going to take my vermilion
hue again, a little bit. I'm going to take the
Prussian blue in this case, not the ultramarine and
mix this to get my green. I feel it's more
bluish then green. I'm going to just add
some more yellow to this and give it a green tinge. Perfect. I think this
is a perfect green. Let me just swatch this here. I'll add this notes into
my class resources. You can refer to it in case you can't find the app
which is similar and you want the color mixes for your reference
when we are painting, you can use this
as the reference. I hope you enjoyed this lesson where we talked
about color mixing. Color mixing is a
very vast topic, and the more you practice, the better you will get. I know it is very
tempting to buy a lot of colors and keep
it on your palette, but I personally
prefer keeping it limited and learning how to
mix the colors that you need. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will start
drawing this tulip. [MUSIC]
10. Drawing: Hi, in this lesson, we will start drawing the tulip. There are two methods that
I will share in this, first is the freehand method, and second is the tracing
or the transfer method where you can transfer the image onto your
watercolor paper. Now coming to the drawing, there are two methods that I
will teach you for drawing. One is the freehand method, which I prefer because I feel you just get better
with practice, and the other one
I'll show you is the transferring method
where we will trace it from the iPad onto tracing paper and then
put it on our paper. The idea is to first
find the center. So I'm going to find the center, which is going right from here, then you will need to divide
this into basic shapes. For example, I can see that
the bottom is circular, so I can divide this
into a circular shape. Then there is a conical
top, something like that. This is the basic shape
that you can divide it into and then you can keep
adding details to that. Let's transfer this into
our drawing on paper. I'll start with the centerline
first, always easier. I'll just rough centerline. Then I'm going to draw
that basic round. In this case, the round is slightly bigger on the right
than on the left, and then the little conical top. I'm going to make this into a stem and fill the
center something like this, so make this into a stem. Then I am going to add the
details of the petals. For example, I'm here. The idea is not to get exact but just to get similar shape. I'm not looking for
hyper-realistic flowers, I'm looking for
aesthetic flowers, and this is just a reference
that we are using. I'm just using the reference to get an idea of how
the petals should be, and I'm adding some petal
details to show the leaves. One thing interesting
to notice in this, I can see the inside
of the petal and I want to capture that
in my drawing as well. I'm going to add this here to make the
inside very visible. Now let's erase whatever is not required to make the
drawing look cleaner. I'm going to erase
all the guideline marks that I have made earlier and that's it. This is the easy way of
drawing your flower. Now I want this middle
line to be there so that I can use it
as a reference. It should be very light, just as a guideline. If you feel you want
to tweak something, go ahead and tweak it. What I find really helpful is taking a picture and
then viewing it. Sometimes when you're
drawing it you can't immediately see that
it's not looking right. When you take a picture, take a break, and
then you view it, then you can actually
tell whether it is lopsided, if it's off-center. You can do that as well and get a better
idea of how to draw. This is my preferred method
of drawing most of the time. But now, next, I'll
show you how you can do the same thing
with a tracing paper. For this method,
you can either use your phone to trace or
you can print it out. I don't have a printer at home, but I had the iPad. You can use any of your devices and trace
it out on your paper. What I like to do is make sure your iPad or your
phone is covered with something like a protector so that you don't spoil
or scratch your screen. Then I'm going to place
this tracing paper on top and I will put a washi tape so that it
doesn't move around. Now I'll just trace
this flower roughly. I have traced it roughly, now I'm going to remove the iPad and just take
my tracing paper out. Maybe you can keep
some rough paper underneath so that it
don't spoil your table. I'm just getting a rough paper. Turn it around and make the
same mark on the other side. If you want you can even
use watercolor pencils for this so that they
transfer it easily. Let me try that. I'm
using two colors; the red and the green. But you don't have to
do that, you can just use a normal pencil as well. Just for your reference
I'm showing you. I'm just tracing this on the other side with
the red pencil. I'm doing this on the
other side first, just turn it around, and I'll use the
green for the stem. Now turn this around again and
get your watercolor paper. I'll just remove this and
get your watercolor paper. Now you have the
red on this side, the red color, and that's
what should be transferred. Maybe I'll just use this
pencil again to transfer it. Just draw on top of what
you had drawn earlier. Again, like I said, it
doesn't have to be exact, it's just a reference, and use some creativity
to make it your own. When I remove it, I will see a little bit of
traces on the paper, and then I can draw
on top of this. The reason I use colored pencil was for you to be
able to see clearly because graphite doesn't
show very well on camera, but you can do this just with
graphite pencils as well. Now, just for reference, I have both the drawings here; one that I did freehand, the other one that I traced. I personally like the
freehand one better. It just has my own
personality in it. I feel sometimes what my eye has captured rather than what is
exactly on the reference. That's why I prefer
drawing it freehand and getting your own
perspective into your drawings. I wasn't very confident
of drawing either, but I got better with time. Start with easy
flowers like this. Great, I hope now
you have a sketch on your watercolor
paper and you are now ready to get started
with the painting. I'll see you in the next
lesson where we will put down the first
layer of this painting.
11. First Layer: Hey, are you ready
to start painting? In this lesson, we will add
the first wash to this tulip. Before we start painting this, let's remove all the excess
lead that is on the paper. I had this kneaded
eraser that I used to just pick up anything extra, it is an easy way of
lightening your pencil marks. If you don't have this,
it's perfectly fine, just erase it with
a normal eraser. I want the pencil marks
to be really light because otherwise, it will
show through the watercolors. Now let's lay the first layer. I'm looking at my
reference image now, and when I'm looking at
the reference image, I want to lay the lightest color first and keep my highlights. I'll dip my brush
in clean water. We had mixed some of
these yellowish red color so I'm going to use that
for the first wash, and I prefer using the pulling the paint from the edge technique and
not the wet-on-wet. I'm not wetting the flower, but I'll just mix this color and drop it on the pattern here. But at the same time, I
want this to be smooth. The great part about the first layer is it
doesn't have to be perfect. Because when you add your
layers on top of it, it will be fine. Now this area is the
darker shadow area, so I'm going to use
this darker color. I'm dropping it here. Again, I have not wet
my flower too much, and I'm just dropping
it with a wet brush. I'm wiping my brush, just a damp brush
to nicely spread this evenly across the flower. You have to be careful
when the paper is wet because a wet paper can get damaged if you move your
brush too many times. Now for the center, I'm taking this red color
that I had mixed earlier, and I'm just dropping
that as well. Let's do the same here. I can see this part is yellow, so I'm dropping this. For this area, it's a
bit on the darker side, so I'll drop the darker color. Now again, I wash my brush, just take a damp brush, take it at the tip of your
brush and drop it here. I'm taking the reddish tinge, dropping it inside this flower. Now you have to be careful to leave this area because it's lighter and I want
this to be shown. I'm just going to leave
this area untouched. We'll deal with it later. Let's do this for the rest
of the flower as well. Since it's just the first layer, you can just drop it roughly
for the rest of the flower. Same way, I'll just take
the green that I had mixed, and I'm going to drop
this slight shade, or green here on the
stem for my first layer. This is your first layer. I know you'll be really
tempted to add more details, but I highly suggest that
you wait for this to dry completely before we go on to the next layer where we add
some more details to this. Now you've laid down
the first layer. It may look a bit
light and wash out, but this is exactly what we
need for our first wash. In the next lesson,
we're going to add more depth and shadows to this.
12. Adding Depth: In this lesson, we're going to start
adding more depth and shadows to the first wash. Now, let's add some more shadows
and highlights to this. I'm using a smaller
brush now for this part, just to add some
more corrections that I feel are required. For example, here I feel
that the flower is too thin. I'm going to just add some more details and I'm
keeping a damp brush, big brush handy just
to spread this evenly. Same way, here as well, I'll just add this
and then spread it with some damp brush. I see some darker
areas here as well, so I'm going to just add
those shadows as well. This is not detailing, is just adding some more
color to your paper. Usually the watercolors
dry out lighter, so I'm just adding
some more color to areas which I think need
to be slightly darker. If you've got it
right the first time, which generally is
never the case, but you might not need the
second layer and you can go directly to the detailing part. I'm just adding some more color. [MUSIC] I'm following
the direction of the wind every time
I'm putting these colors, it just makes it much easier
to add details later. As you can notice, this area I've left very light because I want that highlight to come later when I'm
adding the details. Just maybe make the stem
darker as well in this area. This is the second layer where I just retouched
the flower with some darker shades which I had thought that were missed
in the first layer. I'm going to let it dry and then we can start adding
more details to this. Great. Now, we've put down
two layers for this tulip. In the next lesson, we're
going to start adding more details to this using
the short liner brush.
13. Adding Details: [MUSIC] So far we've added
two layers to this tulip. In this lesson, we are
going to start adding more details by using
the short liner brush. You can instead use the tip of any of your fine round brush. This is my most fun
part of painting, which is adding the details
with short liner brush. When I say details is just basically those tiny veins to the petals and leaves, gives it that extra wow factor. I have mixed some of
the color again here, which I'm going to
use for detailing. I'm using my short liner brush and dipping it in the
color that I had mixed. Now I'm going to just
follow the veins like I see in the reference
that I have. I see some of the
veins are going this way towards the center, so I'm going to do exactly that. What I usually do is just make a little bit of an
outline to this petal, pull that outline
towards the center, the way I see it in the
reference, like this. Use a very diluted
color because you can always add more
color but you can't remove in watercolors,
that's the problem. Use very diluted shade and
just follow this reference. Again, like I said,
it doesn't have to be exactly the same reference, is just that you have to
use some of your creativity wherever you feel
you need to change, you can go ahead and change. If you don't want such minor details you
can add only a few. I'm following these
veins and they are all over the petal actually. I'm adding these veins by
adding the outline first. Just pulling this
outline very lightly, very gently with a gentle hand. Just follow the reference. Again, taking very light
shade and very watery, rough lines for this time. I'm just pulling it with a watery brush and
little bit of paint, looking at the
reference constantly, and keeping a very light
hand while you're doing it. We're using the wet-on-dry
technique in this. I'll starts showing
beautiful details now. You must have noticed
that my first layer is really light and I like to keep it that way because
while adding detail, we'll add more color to it and that will compensate
for some of it. Again, I'm going to add
these details here as well. Just follow the reference image, keep looking at it. I'll keep adding details
now as I see it, and if there are areas
that you feel are too light and in the
reference they are dark, you can actually use
your short liner brush itself to add those details. Like I want this
edge to be darker, so I'm putting a
darker color here. I'm going to try and leave
this area untouched, but I'm going to
add more details to the edge just to
make it darker so that that white area stands
out or highlight stands out. I think my favorite part about painting is adding
these details. Some might find it
very time-consuming, but I find it super meditative. Again, I'm going to add
those details here. In this area, I'm using the darker bluish
mix that I had made for the shadow area
to add the details. Feel free to use your
creativity to change this painting in
any way you like. If I want to make this
slightly even I'm using a damp brush to just
spread it across. I'll continue to add these
details, for example, here I had made
that pencil line to remember to add these. This area needs a darker
shade for detailing, so I'm adding the
darker color and just use a watery brush
to blend this nicely. Same here, I see this area
should be slightly darker, so use your short liner brush
to add all these details. [MUSIC] It's a good time to even sharpen the
edges of your drawing so take this nice dark shade
and add it on the edge here. Then blend it with
the damp brush to give it a nice sharp edge. Now, I'll do the same
for this petal is well. Here, you can see the shading is going this way to the center, so very light watery, and I'm just flicking it
to add these tiny lines. Just flick it, add
these tiny details. I want to keep this area light while this
area a bit darker, so I'm going to use
this short liner to add this darker shade here. [MUSIC] Now, I want to make this area darker, so I'm going to
use the big brush. Now, let's do it
for the center one, I can see one tip here and
the center of this petal, which is very prominent. I'm just going to
add that first, and then I'll start adding
the rest of the details. Here I can see the petal
is going this way, so I'm adding this detail. I find this area a bit
tricky and they're way too many overlapping
petals so here, I'm just drawing whatever
I think looks pretty. It doesn't match exactly what
is there in the reference. [MUSIC] Now, this inside of
the flower is quite dark. I think we have not
mixed that color, but I'll just mix it on my own. I'm thinking red this time, not vermilion, and mixing
it with my vermilion hue, to make it darker and
I'll add a tinge of my ultramarine as
well, tinge of red. Then I'm adding
this in the center, inside this petal
which is the darker. Just dab your brush
if it's still wet. Anytime you're adding shadow, it is always a good idea to add a bit of your ultramarine, that really gives it
that shadow look. Here, I want to
make it look like the petals shadow
is falling inside, so I've added that bluish tinge and added
this color to it. Now I'm taking some of the yellow to add it here which
is the inside of the petal. I'll add some of the details
of this stem edge list, so I'm just adding some
darker shade here. [MUSIC] You may find this a bit washed out and
that's perfectly fine. You can always add
more color on top. Now it's all dried,
so I'll just show you how I'll do this for this petal. I can see that this area can be darker so I'm going to
take some darker shade, mix a darker shade again. I'll just swipe my big brush
all here to add that color. I'll just put this
layer on top to add the color if you think
it's slightly light. Then again, I can
see this area can be darker so I'm just adding
that here as well, and this area too. As you can see, I kept it
light as much as I could, and then I just left the white area to get that
little highlight there. I added a last layer on
top of my detailing layer. [NOISE] I guess, that's it. You can add as much as you want. After drying, this might
look a bit washed out, then just click a picture, see if you like it. If you don't, add more details. It's not perfectly the
same as the picture. Like I said, I'm
looking for details and looking for depth rather than
making it hyper-realistic. I hope you enjoyed it. [MUSIC] Great, you've come a long way and completed
your painting. I hope you've enjoyed this
process of adding layers, depth, and shadows, and details to your florals. [MUSIC]
14. Final Notes: Congratulations on
finishing the class, you have come a long way. We've covered everything from understanding your materials, practicing the
different techniques, choosing your references, drawing the floral, to finally painting the
flower layer by layer by adding more details in
depth with each layer. If there is just
one thing that I hope you take away
from this class, then is the importance of
planning your painting layers. These skills get
better with practice so keep practicing
and keep improving. Upload your projects in the projects gallery so
we can all have a look. Do leave your review and
follow me on Skillshare as well as on Instagram
for future class updates. Thanks again and
see you next time.
Kanchan Kaul, Artist and Illustrator
