Watercolor Florals Master Class - 7 days - 7 paintings - 7 style | Dhritikana Nath | Skillshare
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Watercolor Florals Master Class - 7 days - 7 paintings - 7 style

teacher avatar Dhritikana Nath, Watercolor Artist and Instructor

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:33

    • 2.

      Materials Required

      3:16

    • 3.

      6 Watercolor Pro Techniques

      13:46

    • 4.

      Project 1 Daisy Part 1

      18:20

    • 5.

      Project 1 Daisy Part 2

      22:40

    • 6.

      Project 2 Poppies Part 1

      29:14

    • 7.

      Project 2 Poppies Part 2

      17:22

    • 8.

      Project 3 Hibiscus Part 1

      22:17

    • 9.

      Project 3 Hibiscus Part 2

      14:49

    • 10.

      Project 4 Lilly Part 1

      28:35

    • 11.

      Project 4 Lily Part 2

      26:13

    • 12.

      Project 5 Hydrangea Part 1

      22:08

    • 13.

      Project 5 Hydrangea Part 2

      23:00

    • 14.

      Project 6 Sunflower Part 1

      18:04

    • 15.

      Project 6 Sunflower Part 2

      20:59

    • 16.

      Project 7 Sakura Part 1

      23:39

    • 17.

      Project 7 Sakura Part 2

      24:47

    • 18.

      Bonus lesson Peony Part 1

      32:06

    • 19.

      Bonus Lesson Peony Part 2

      31:50

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About This Class

Watercolors Florals Master class is going to equip any level of artist beginner, intermediate or advanced level with all the techniques which they can use for painting various types of watercolor florals. Every watercolor floral project which we will explore through this class has different hacks of drawing like with compass or with a washi tape etc., how to structure your flower and then going through some pro tips of painting expressive backgrounds and unique florals. Every day I will add one project in the class and all of these projects are of same level, which essentially means that you can start with any project of your choice. 

Requesting all the students to watch this class on a bigger screen so that you all can understand the brush strokes, small techniques & more.

Meet Your Teacher

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Dhritikana Nath

Watercolor Artist and Instructor

Top Teacher

Hello All, I am Dhritikana Nath an artist, instructor, educator & entrepreneur from Delhi, India.

I am the founder of VibrantParcels where we make hand bound sketchbooks, brush-roll, pouches etc. This is a fairly new initiative as I was searching for good sketchbooks and it was not available readily in the market so just thought to make something of my own. Then wanted to cater to the greater needs of creatives and added brush-roll & Pouches.

I have a monthly membership on Patreon where I teach more about light & shade, landscapes, urban sketching, travelling etc.

I am a strong believer of the idea that anyone can paint if you put an honest effort and for excelling in painting there are only 2 rules practice and frequency of painting. I did start my journey... See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Many people always ask me what flowers convey to me, and I have only one single answer, joy, happiness, love, gratitude, and grace. Today's class is going to be about painting seven different flowers, and once you complete this class, you will become a master at painting florals. Hey, guys. I am Dhritikana Nath, an artist, instructor, a mother and a special teacher from Delhi, India. Many of you might already know me. To the people who are joining me for the first time, I go by the name watercolor.illustration.letter on Instagram. Most of my artworks are displayed over there. This class is a wonderful opportunity for us to paint seven variety of flowers over next seven days. The main aim is to guide you all with the color mixes and methods. All of these flowers are painted in seven different style. The flow of watercolors, washes, bleeds, negative painting, greasing, you just name it, and you will find all of it covered in this class. All the videos are real-time, which leaves us with the possibility of painting it together. Lastly, this class is suitable for any level of artist, with no intermediate or advanced level. We start step-wise discussing all the materials, six pro watercolor techniques using different hacks for drawing like compass, or drawing a circle with the interior of the tape, and more. All the seven projects are done in their own unique style, and considered the same level of difficulty, which essentially means you can start with any of them as your first one. I will add one project every day going forward for the next seven days. You can start your journey today, or consider the seventh day as your first time. Here, I welcome you all to the watercolor florals master class. Let's start off with our first lesson. 2. Materials Required: Let's just discuss all the materials which you need for completing the painting. Either you can have a size 8 silver black velvet brush and a size 4 silver black velvet brush and size 6 Escoda brush and size 2 Escoda brush. All of these brushes I will be using alternatively. But according to me size 8, size 4, and size 2 is what you need for completing a painting. Or else, you can go for a brush like Escoda Optimo. Where you have size 6 brush, it has got a very nice tip and then you can go for a size 8 Escoda brush, and a size 2 brush or a size 4 brush. Anything is good to go. It's just those three brush combinations which you need. You can actually have any kind of combination like you see on the left-hand side, I've made size 4, size 8, and size 2 as one of my combinations. These two are the alternative brushes which I have kept. Size 8 silver black velvet and size 8 Escoda brush are the similar ones. I have a scale handy for myself in case I need, then I will keep a compass. Compass would be for the first painting that we will be doing. I have kept a tissue, really handy. Tissue is always very important for taking off the extra colors or anything that is there. I have a pencil, this is from Petal and it's graph gear. You can have any pencil of your choice. Go ahead and have all need abilities. All need abilities really helps to take off the extra graphite marks whenever required. I'm taking any tape and any size, you can go with any washi tape that is available with you. Keeping a scissors handy for your tape taking off or you need it for any other purpose, you can keep the scissors for yourself. I told you about the compass already, and I think that is great. Go ahead and keep a set of colors. I have lot of colors over here. I would not be using all the colors. Each and every color that would be used for every painting would be given in the beginning of that particular painting. Go ahead and keep two jars of water handy. I always say keeping two jars of water handy is very important. Because these two jars really helps us to take off all the extra paints on one of the jars and another jar can be used for your fresh supply of water. You seen this square sketchbook. It is 18 centimeters that I've taken and both the sides are 18 centimeter. You can also have this kind of sketch book. It is 100 percent cotton, 300 GSM just paper that I'm using for all these paintings. You also go ahead with something which is 300 GSM and 100 percent cotton. It is called pressed paper that I'm using right now. You can go for cold pressed or rough green paper. I will not give a suggestion about hot press paper because that keeps your color on top of it for a longer period of time. That's all, from the supplier's perspective. Let's move on to the next lesson where we will be discussing more about the techniques part. Just to add on, keep one liner brush handy. 3. 6 Watercolor Pro Techniques: Let us discuss the five techniques which we would be using for all of these paintings. The first is the variegated wash. You can do the variegated wash on a wet surface, or on a dry surface. Currently, I have taken on dry surface, and I would be using two of my colors; carmine and orange. I would be starting with my orange from the bottom area, and then carmine from the top area. I would be again, blending it. Initially, I went with a lighter value and now I will be going with a darker value of carmine, and slowly, I would be extending it towards the bottom. Once that is done, you will extend your orange from the bottom towards the top. You will blend it as smooth as possible and there should not be any changes in terms of the colors that you're using. The blend should be absolutely smooth and they should look like one single color. There should not be any changes in terms of blobs, or you can say two separate colors are showing off separately. All these things should not be there. Actually, the blend should be so much more that you do not see two separate colors. That's the only thing. You can go wet on wet, wet on dry, as I did tell you earlier. Now, I'm going ahead with a wet on wet process. Now, my brush has some amount of color in it, but that's absolutely fine. This is just a demo and I do not need to actually show you that this brush, even if it has color, it doesn't matter, but do make sure that your brush doesn't have any color. Always clear your brush before you use it. I'm going ahead with bright yellow green color, then I would be mixing my colors on top of the paper. What do you mean by mixing your colors on top of the paper? You are not mixing it on the palette. You are going ahead with the colors and then adding it on the paper, they will blend themselves. That's how we go about it. I am taking three different colors, which is my Vandyke green, my olive green, and my bright yellow green, all of these greens I'm adding, and then I will let the colors move around or dance around. If you see, right now, what I did on the palette was to actually mix two colors. That is my olive green and my bright yellow green, and that's how I'm applying it on the paper. When you mix the color on the palette, it gives you one single color which you can apply. Whereas so when you mix the colors on the paper, it would give you different colors and that can actually give you beautiful textures which make a fantastic background. We will work on it for though in our one of the very beautiful painting of puppies. You will see how these different backgrounds and textures make up the complete painting. I would go ahead and start applying one layer of my carmine on the paper. Now, why did I apply the carmine? I want to show you the glazing technique. What do you mean by glazing? Glazing is that I'm going ahead with one color, that is my carmine, and on top of it, if I apply another color, which would be my violet, I would get a color which is not exactly violet and which is not exactly carmine. Hence, that can be one of the colors, so which would be in-between the carmine and the violet. It looks really great when you do these techniques for your florals. The next one that we would be doing is the layering technique. For the layering technique, I'm applying one layer of my orange. Once I've applied the orange, I would go ahead with the next layer of orange on top of it, once this layer is dried out. Now, glazing has place layering, and both these techniques only happen once the layer is completely dried out. Which means that you would get a color that is darker, but a different color for the glazing technique and the similar color for the layering technique. That's the difference which you will see once this paper is dry enough, I would apply the second layer for the layering. You see how I go about it and I apply it. I'm going with my size eight, it's called a brush to show this technique, that's absolutely fine. Go with any brush that is available with you for this technique. Now, these techniques are good for you to learn because we will be applying this technique in the next seven paintings. That's very important for you to understand how exactly all these techniques will gel along. Each and every technique that you learn now, we'll have or later on, practical application. That's what makes this whole process really interesting. You might think that you can actually skip the technique part, but practically speaking, whatever you learn over here, will have a huge impact when you go ahead and start out with the main flowers and the main painting part. Let me go ahead and add this violet. If you see the color that I get is something which is in-between the violet and the carmine. We are practically getting something that is close to red violet color, and that is only through glazing that I'm getting it. Now, let's try to just extend it and make a T out of it. It would just help you to recognize that the color is absolutely different. What you get in the middle due to glazing compared to what you actually get if you are not using this glazing technique and you'll use any kind of layering technique. The next technique that we would be working on is basically on negative painting. What does negative painting mean? We will not be painting within this object, we would be painting in and around it. What I have taken is just a part of a poppy and I would be going ahead and painting in and around it. How do you do it? You start with any color of your choice. I'm getting some green, which is my bright yellow even. You can go ahead with any other green of your choice and start adding it towards the right or towards the left, and then blend it with the background. You can have many more colors that you keep adding. Like I can have different shades of green, whether it be a yellow green, whether it be of olive green, whether it be of a Vandyke green, I can even go ahead with paints of gray. I can add these colors to make it look more interesting and it would give a better flow to the watercolor painting that we are doing. That's what I think makes the whole of the painting so much more interesting, as well as it makes it more realistic, as well as it makes it way more happening, I would say. It gives that a background to the watercolor, which actually brings so much more life and it is so much more organic. While you do these techniques, always remember, whatever you are learning right now, will have a direct implication and will be directly used in your final painting. Go ahead and just add the colors in a way which makes it look so much more better, and so much more interesting in a way that you feel, so this is what I exactly wanted, and this is how I want to add the colors. If you see, I am actually working in and around this subject. This would be so much important for any of our background washes. You will see, I will not be actually occupying the complete space of the background. There would be many more white spaces that we would be leaving in the next one, where we would be actually leaving a lot of white spaces and how we apply the color by leaving those spaces is very important. Along with it, I will show you the blurry effects. That is what I've kept as my last set of learning for this part. Again, now one more thing that I want to show you over here is how splattering is a very important technique for your watercolor background textures. Why I say when your paper is a bit dry, you can go ahead and add some splatter to your background. They would make your background look way more better and it would actually give your background so much more texture. But you exactly need to know when you have to apply or add this water. Now, this is simply whatever water you are using for your painting. You can use that for this part. I am masking the other side and then adding. You will see that the colors will displace from the point where we did splatter. Those simple, clean water. That's how you can even see it on this particular part, which I am splattering right now. You see how we get both white white spaces. It looks like I did sprinkle a bit of salt or something, but we did not use any salt, we did only use water. The next part is the simplest out of all, we have to actually add some yellow then some green and that's it. Just note that while you add these colors, there has to be a simple flow. If you have that flow, then there's no problem. If you are not getting that flow, then it's an issue. Now, this flow only happens when you have your places of your watercolor painting already masked. Now, if you haven't masked areas, what happens is that your colors might move inside. I still wanted to show you these because I do feel that there are times where we want to use these technique. I have used this technique even in my past many other watercolor florals. Though in this particular floral class altogether, we are not using any masking fluid. We will not be masking any of our florals. It's going to be absolutely beginner friendly where we will be using different hacks, different tips and tricks to actually bring different kind of florals. Do understand that this is more beginner, intermediate, or an advanced level artist. Everyone can take it, but more of it, it would be suitable for anyone who wants to learn florals and wants to give it a try as it has a lot of ways in which you can draw, sketch, and then go ahead with the painting part. Time to add some blurry effects. Now, I would show you two different places where you can get blurry effects. The blurry effect that you observe now with the help of my liner brush that I'm showing you, is going a bit more blurry compared to what you get towards the top area. Why? The top area has less wet or it is less humid compared to the area which is towards the bottom, hence the colors flow more over there. You need to know exactly how much colors you need or how much humidity you need towards a particular place where you want to actually go ahead and add these blurry effects. If you have a lot of water, the colors will flow and it would become a bloom. Whereas if you have very less water, it would be just like hard edges which you would get and it would give you more effect which is in front of you. That is the grasses are hard edges and they are in the foreground rather than being in the background. You exactly want something in the background that has to be more blurry. If you want that blurriness for your particular background, you need to have less humidity. You need to actually lose that sheen on the paper, which you usually see when there is lot of water on the paper, which we do not want. Hence just name what we did. I'm going ahead with the variegated wash first. Then as you are mixing the colors on top of your paper, the next would be about glazing and after that, we tried and did layering. Once we did layering, we moved on to more difficult or more complex subject, which is majorly about negative painting. Once we are done with the negative painting, we went ahead with the blurry effect of the background. I guess that sums up everything that we tried and did today. Let's move on with our first painting. 4. Project 1 Daisy Part 1: Let's discuss all of the colors which you need for completing this daisy flower. The first is burnt sienna, then is red brown, Indian yellow, bright yellow green, permanent yellow deep, Payne's gray or indigo, and Vandyke green. Hi, guys. This is the first project and we are going to go really step-wise in this. We will be really having a good time as this is a step-wise project, which means that I'm going ahead with a compass to mark the area how I want to paint my daisy. Though this might not appeal to many of you because it's more like an engineering drawing that I might be doing. But frankly speaking, it takes a while to understand how you want to paint a daisy and how you want to add the colors to it. It is very important that initially we move as per the structure and slowly, steadily I will tell you how exactly you can paint the other flowers. That too, by not using your scale or not using any of the other compass or anything like that. I'm just going with the help of your pencil, how you just check the distance, how you paint the petals, how you first draw it, sketch it. All of that would be guided through. Let's just start adding the petals. If you see the middle area is smaller and while I go towards the outer area, it becomes broader, the petals. That's how I would actually draw and sketch my petals. Slowly, steadily as I extend it towards the left and towards the right, you will observe that there would be overlapping petals that would come up. There would be a few that would be longer, there would be a few that would be shorter. That's how we will go about it. We're not going to paint all the petals similar. They are not going to be of same size and shape as it is a very, very organic and natural flower that appears in nature. Nature will have its own problems or anomalies, which means that all the petals and everything will not be exactly similar. They will be some other difference. Some will be shorter, some would be taller, some would be longer. All of that needs to be kept in mind while you draw these petals. As I go forward and tell you that I am making a few shorter ones and I'm making a few longer ones, that's the major idea of drawing it. Go about it. Draw it. Go slow, guys. This is the time where you need to concentrate and just go slow with your drawing. We are not here to actually go fast. We are going to pace up slowly and steadily. That's absolutely fine. As we progress with our paintings, we are going to complicate it much more. We are going to actually add more colors or we are going to understand placing and many more further techniques which we haven't used in the current drawing or which we will not be using in our first project altogether. There are seven days and seven projects that we are doing. Hence, absolutely fine. You'll take one project per day. It would not take you more than 40 minutes or 45 minutes to paint each of these projects. Once you are done with the project, I am pretty sure about it, you would be very happy with the outcome, as well as you will understand how you can paint any other flower. You just need to understand the structure of the flower. If you understand the structure of the flower, rest all can be managed. That's all I have to say. Let's just continue drawing our petals. I have kept the whole of the painting real time and I have not actually changed anything in terms of the timing as I wanted you guys to follow along with me and paint along with me. You can adjust the speed of the video from the top corner or from the bottom corner depending on the device type you are using. As per my understanding and as per my request, please try to watch it on a bigger screen. Bigger screen will actually help you to have a better advantage at how you can paint each and every element of this flower. There will be times where I would be actually focusing on the middle part of the flower, or on the outer side of the flower. Yes, the whole of the video is broken down accordingly and you will observe that we will go step-by-step. Still, it is important to watch on a bigger screen as it is an advantage for you to understand each and every small aspect of the painting that we are covering. Right now, it's more about filling up the rest of the areas which are kept empty. Once you fill up these area which are empty, you would be in a position to understand that how easily it is accessible in terms of filling up the areas or how easy it is to actually paint them once you have a rough outline available with you. According to me, a rough outline really helps you, guides you, and it really makes you feel pretty easy in terms of painting once you are starting with the final project. I'm going ahead and using my kneadable eraser. I'm taking off the extra graphite marks. This is a very important step because watercolor is transparent. If you keep these graphite marks. You might have problems in future. But there will be one of the sunflower paintings where we will have these graphite marks that is kept specifically to show the different petals. I really keep it for a few of my paintings. I usually remove it from most of my paintings. Hence, I would ask you to even remove it for this particular painting. Then go about with the help of your flat brush and apply a thin layer of water towards the side areas. If you observe, I have just taken mostly half of the paper or you can see a bit more than half of the paper for my daisy and rest of the paper is kept empty completely. We are not going to add anything over there except the background. Background means we would be adding the colors as well as some amount of greeneries to it. This is the favorite part of my painting and I'm starting with my first color. It is a mix of my bright yellow green as well as some amount of my permanent yellow. You can go ahead and use any other color of your choice but a light green color would really add that kind of brilliance to your painting. Hence, I would request you guys to go ahead with the light green color or the yellow color mixed with a bit of green that you have. Then start adding these small drops of paints to your painting. Believe me, you would be really happy once you are done with the background area. I love to mix and match the colors on top of the paper. This is another way if you observe that initially while we were discussing the techniques, I did tell you that either you can mix your colors on your palette or you can also mix them on the paper. Those are the two ways in which you can always do the mixing and matching of colors. This is where I am adding some of the colors, that is my orange, and then some of my light green wherever necessary. It is the bright yellow green that I'm using but you can also mix some amount of your yellow and get something which is closer to this one. You do not need to practically own this green to make this painting. As I always say, that whatever is available with you, make use of that for getting the final outcome. Time to add some burnt sienna now. The burnt sienna that I would be adding will be only in a few parts of the painting and slowly I'm going ahead and adding the burnt sienna. It is again a wet on wet. Hence, the colors will automatically move around. You do not need to do anything, the water will do its job. Again, I'm mixing the color on top of the paper. I am not mixing it initially and adding it to the paper. That's what I'm not doing in this painting. You will observe me doing it in some of the other places which we will use. These are different techniques that you can apply in your other paintings too. Practically you would be in a position to understand how beautifully your painting has turned up. There will be another aspect of the painting which is more about glazing. That is, you go one layer and then on top of that you add another layer or else you can also say it as layering. Whatever you want to call it, that's absolutely fine. There is one layer and then you mark it with another layer of colors. That way you can actually get a very nice layering or else you can also see very nice glazing technique. Those are the techniques we would be actually applying in our painting and slowly, steadily, everything will come up. You will understand how we keep on building up on our techniques as well as use it in a practical scenario. That is, you are using all of these techniques in your paintings and that's what is the most important aspect. That you should exactly know where and how you can use a particular technique that you have, all we learned. That's how we would keep adding the colors. I am now adding some more yellow. If you observe, I did tell you initially that you can use yellow instead of green. Right now I'm using the yellow towards the right of the paper and since I did already initially, add water, therefore my paper is still wet. I am just extending the colors below. This particular paper which I did use is 640 GSM Fabriano, but believe me, this is actually not what I would like you to, guys, go ahead with. It stays wet for a really long time and since it's already close to the autumn time, therefore, it becomes very difficult for anyone to control the humidity of the paper. It stays wet for such a long time that it takes a while to complete a painting. Therefore, I just feel that 300 GSM is pretty good to start with for any of your paintings. If you have 300 GSM, go ahead with that. Arches paper is the best in the range if you can take that orals. Whatever is available only it has to be 100 percent cotton. I am again and again going ahead and saying that, yes, it has to be 300 GSM. I love to tell you what is the best kind of paper you can use for your painting. Since we are doing a lot of heavy washes, therefore, 300 GSM is very important whenever you are actually doing heavy washes and going ahead and painting something which has a lot of water in it and you are going wet on wet. Wet on wet is one of the most beautiful techniques that I have learned, but in this particular painting, while we would paint the daisies, you will observe that we are not only going wet on wet, we would even go wet on dry. I'm using my liner brush now. I did take some of my dark green color on top of it and then I'm just adding a few lines here and there. Now these lines will look blur when it dries off. Why I add these kind of lines? Because you have grasses even in the background and everything is not visible in a great detail or in a great way. Making it loose becomes really important at this point in time. Hence, you should go ahead and paint in a way that you get these blurry effects for your background. Once this is done, I would add a small stem to my daisy flower, as you can observe right now, I'm adding it again. It is in a blurry effect that I go ahead and add it. It is not much of changes over here and everything remains very loose. Do make sure that you're not adding a lot of lines because if you add a lot of lines, what would happen is that everything that you did paint for your background will not be visible and that's what we do not want. We want a background to be absolutely visible as we have done a lot of work on a background and we want this background to be seen by all the spectators who are watching this painting. Hence, just go ahead and add a bit of darker colors towards the right, top side and then allow it to dry off. Why I say some darker colors towards the top right side, I love to keep it that way. If I kept my left side more lighter I would keep another side of my painting more darker. That's the style which I follow, but I would leave it up to you or to check how you want to do or how you want to paint your florals. This is one aspect what I love to add to my painting, contrasting effects that as if one side is lighter, another side is darker, and that's how I go about it. Now you can observe that I'm adding some more darker greens to the top right side as I did tell you earlier. Then some of my darker green towards the bottom area. Why I'm adding towards the bottom area? As I did tell you that there were more grasses and there will be more foliage that you can observe over there. That's one of the reason why I'm here adding it there. I think that's it for now and I will meet you in the part 2 of this video where we would paint the petals of the flowers, as well as add some more details. That is the part 2. Once you are done, just let it dry and then we are starting with the second part. 5. Project 1 Daisy Part 2: We are onto the part 2 of the first project, that is daisy, and we're going to start with the painting of the middle part. I'm using just a size 2 Escoda brush and I have started adding a bit of colors here and there. The first is the yellow color that I've added. Once I've added the yellow color, I'm going ahead and then using my brush only with plain water. Now this water is a bit dirty, hence, you can see that some of the dirty colors have shown up. But that's perfectly fine because I need to give it just a texture and finish. To get this texture and finish, you can have different kind of colors. Like the next would be my permanent yellow, deep orange, you can even use a lighter orange color if you want. You can go with the red brown, you can use burnt sienna. All these colors are the ones which I would be using for the middle of the area. Once I'm done with this part, I'm going ahead and adding some burnt sienna. The burnt sienna, of course, is of very, very light value, if you see. Then you have to make some red brown with the burnt sienna and add it on the painting. The light is on the left-hand side. If you see that I did paint the white area towards the left and on the right, I've kept it as darker area. I am following the same kind of an aspect when I am painting this middle of the flower. I usually like to keep it that way. If the light is on the left, I would add the darker values towards the right, whereas I would keep all the lighter values on the left. I am putting small, small, small, small dabs of color here and there, as well as I'm trying to keep some of the white spaces intact for the middle area. I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out. A bit of colors here and there. Then we would move on to start painting the petals individually. Now, painting the petals of course, would take some time and I would ask you to keep your patience. That's where I will need all your patience since we have to paint each of these petals individually. It's more detailed and hence, that's where all our concentration should be. I have taken a very light wash of my indigo or else you can also go ahead and take a very light wash of Payne's Gray. In case you have a bit of white blue in it, that would be awesome. Start adding the colors. I'm again using my size 2 brush to do it. I am trying to blend it with my size 4 brush. Either you can use the size 4 brush or else you can also go ahead and use the size 6 Escoda optimal brush. I would leave it up to you which brush you want to go ahead and use it. I can only give you the options. The way you should use your colors, as well as you should use your brushes. I do not want you to purchase any brushes or any colors. I would ask you to use the same that is available with you. Then go ahead and start adding more colors to your painting. Once this is done, I would ask you to add some more colors to the other petals. It is going to be a long process, as I did tell you that it is not going to be a short one. Because we are individually going ahead and painting the petals, I am slowly and steadily going with each and every petal. I do not want to rush at this point in time. Our background has turned out pretty nice and it's only the petals which we need to right now think about and how we slowly go about it. Some of the areas I'm keeping in white and only some of the areas I'm adding the blue color and then blending it with my size 4 brush, as I did tell you earlier. That's how you go about it. The whole of this painting is real time, guys. That gives you the opportunity to paint along with me. I want you guys to be in alignment with me as well as keep painting along with me. It's not a process that is quicken up, hence, you can follow along. Stop anywhere you want and then you can add the colors and then again, follow along. That's how it can be. I'm moving towards the bottom area, small, small petals. You keep on adding the colors and that's how you would actually progress in this painting. There's nothing much to explain all together. It's only 2-3 petals that you need to keep adding. Some of them are smaller, some of them are larger, so you have to actually see that some of the areas you add in dark and some of the areas you add in lighter values so that all these petals can be seen properly. Again, I am blending. I'm keeping two brushes very handy. If you see, one is the smaller brush, that is size 2 Escoda brush. Another one is the size 4 Escoda brush or else a Silver Black Velvet brush, whatever you want to keep. I'm absolutely fine with that. Then blend it with the bigger brush. Keep the smaller for adding just the colors and the bigger brush for blending. That's how we go about it. If you observe, the current technique that we're using is wet on dry, which means that the paper is dry and we're adding the wet colors on top of it. It is not wet on wet. Wet on wet means when you already have water on top of your paper and then you add the colors. Each and every technique is unique in itself and it gives a different kind of approach, as well as a result. Some of the results of your wet on wet is great, whereas some of the results of wet on dry is absolutely amazing. You need to just go a bit slow about painting these each and every technique that you learned and slowly, steadily you can use it even in your future paintings. Because all these techniques are used repeatedly and they are used in a different way, whereas it can be actually modified as per the requirement that you have for a painting and hence, you can go about it. You will even observe in my future paintings, I would be actually mixing my wet on wet, wet on dry, blending, etc, everything together and working on our hibiscus flower. It is a bit advanced compared to what we're doing right now, but you can stay along with me and you could be in a position to nail that flower. That's one of the most beautiful projects that you would be actually attempting in this whole of the session. I'm pretty sure about it, you would love it. All these paintings are done without any masking fluid. Just feel free. In case you want to try and use masking fluid, it becomes very easy for you. You just need to mask this flower and then go about the background wash. Then your background wash, you can just go very quickly. That's another option that you can always exercise but in many cases, I have seen that your paper rips off. What you can do in that case is always go head and try the masking fluid firstly on the paper. If your paper remains intact and there is no problem, then only go about your final painting on top of that particular paper or else do not go about using that particular painting for your paper because you will really observe that it would hamper your painting to a lot extent. That's what I do not want because once your paper rips off, it's very difficult to fix it. I have done one small part on this in my Polaroid series, that is 21 paintings. You can check that out, but it's a bit difficult to fix it later on. Hence, I would ask you to not use your masking fluid if you are not very confident at how your paper would behave with it. Leave that and then only add your masking fluid, etc. If you are not very comfortable with it, do not use it. That's one of the reasons I have kept it pretty beginner friendly. I do not want you guys to be using your masking fluid and then getting confused that why you have used the masking fluid and it might not turn out the best way. It would be a big problem for you and we do not want that in any of this case. Now let's keep painting the floral area. Once you're done with this floral part, we would add some grasses to our painting. That's something that we would be doing a bit later in the stage but this is the time I would leave it up to you right now to see what more additions you can do. Like I'm adding a bit of green here and there and then blending it. That's only because I want something to be more precise and detailed. This is the time where it is the last few minutes of the painting that is left in terms of finalizing the petals. The background would be done on a bit later on. You need to go step-wise. You need to think before you act. I do not want you guys to be spoiling the painting right now as you have worked really hard on this painting and we want this painting to be working great. Then let's just keep working on it and once done, we will take our detailer brush and then start with our work background, grasses as well as the foliage. Guys, the whole of the process of watercolor painting has been so meditative for me that I feel it gives me new ideas and goals of how I can work on many more projects and on new subjects. Watercolor florals is one subject that I can never be bored of painting. Sometimes I may detail work, and sometimes it is way more loose. There are days when one project has a mix of loose and detailed work like the peonies which would come up in the future projects. It's a beautiful mix of loose as well as detailed work that it helps to capture the flow of watercolors and true sense. You should not try to manage watercolors, whereas you should try to partner with this medium. I have been stressing on this partnership with the medium for quite some time. As I know that if you can partner with this medium, it is going to reward you like anything. Whereas if you try to control, it would go against you, and it might not give you the best results what do you think you can have. In the meanwhile, I have actually taken my liner brush, and I am going pretty straight, few lines here and there, and it would look like grasses, and it does absolutely random. This is the point where I can tell you that you have to go absolutely random, and you can go anywhere you want. Whatever you feel is the best way, go ahead and do it, but do make sure that you're not adding a lot of lines as if you keep on adding a lot of lines in the background and the bloody effect that you have created while you are painting was spread will go away and the beauty of the painting will be lost somewhere on the other to an extent. Hence, do make sure that your background is not getting done away with if you add a lot of lines in the foregrounds. Foregrounds, of course, needs to be made more detailed and that's what we're doing. But again, one thing that I want to tell you is that watercolor is more about gut feel. What you feel is correct might work for you and there are sometimes where there will be more of happy accidents so try to embrace that with the happiness. Because if you are not happy with how the painting has turned out, then the satisfaction level will go down, and you will never take up the next lesson, or you will never take up or try to attempt the next painting and that's what is very important for watercolors. Watercolors will only reward you when you practice. There is no other option than practice. I have kept these lessons within half an hour to 40 minutes though. They are way more detailed, but I have tried to keep it real-time. Every one of you should be in a position to attempt it or attempt it at the first goal or the second goal, whatever works for you. In case you want to watch it once and then try to attempt it, go ahead and do it and that's how we go about it. I'm adding one or two small drops here and there. Again, it's just how I love to do it. You might have a separate way but try this way. You might also fall in love with it. We all have our particular way of painting florals and how we go about it. This way, of painting flowers, is not new. It might have been done by many of the other artists, but breaking down of the steps is most important, according to me, and slowly, steadily as you understand how we develop the whole of the painting, you can use these steps even in your future projects and that's what is the take of it from any of the project that you attended it. The better you can understand, the better you can progress. Hence, I would say that do not leave a painting in between. If you have started a painting, try to complete it. There are so many times I have observed that I'm not liking this painting and I want to leave it in between, but I do not leave it at that point. Because if I go ahead and leave it at that point in time, I'm pretty sure about it, I wouldn't have got or reside that I do deserve or that I would have and there are times that I am not at all happy once I complete the painting. What there we'll be learning and every painting that you do cannot be a masterstroke. Hence, you have to wait for your time, you have to give that effort to get there. We are going to get there. Believe me, guys. This is just the first painting and there would be time where you will think that, oh my God, it did not exactly turn out the way it looks, but from the instructor, but that's particular and perfectly fine. Why I say that? You are attending it for the first time. Like all your instructors and all your teachers out here might have attempted that particular painting, we may more many more times than what you actually observed them doing right now. They have way more practice and anything that is closer to that is a good outcome. Believe me, I am now only adding some details and this is not the step that I would like you guys to carry on. Most of your painting is done. It's last 3-4 minutes, which is left in a painting and this is the most crucial. Why I say this? Because you should exactly know where you need to stop now. If you do not know where you exactly need to stop, it would be really difficult for you to actually have a great outcome. You would continue working on this, and it would end up in something like an overwork. That's why, I guess you guys need to decide to where it is the time that your painting looks all work better, so it just means that it is correctly done, and it is completed, and there is no overwork that you have done. See doing less is still okay compared to doing more. Because if you overwork on a painting, it is going to backfire, whereas if you leave it loose at some point in time, it might reward you. That's how it should go on according to my understanding. Let's have a look at how this painting has turned out, and you can seriously see that most of the things are done. It's just one or two places where you can just add a bit of green, and then I think it's perfectly fine. Let your paper dry off before you remove the tape. We will not remove the tape before your paper is dry. Or let's say might rip off your paper and that's where you need to be more vigilant, and you need to know that we are not going to rip off the paper. Once this is done, then I would ask you to go ahead and start off with project 2. Project 2, of course, is the day 2, and we will be painting hydrangeas. Hydrangeas is one of the subjects that is most loved, and I would actually expect each one of you to paint it. It's going to be absolutely loose style, majorly, a less of detail, and you will see how beautifully it would turn out. A few of the parts of hydrangeas we are going to leave it as such and only few of the parts we would be painting. That's one aspect as I was discussing, that lose detail, you need to do which you'll leave as lose and which you'll leave as detailed. Hence, let's wait for our day 2 of the project, and that would be our project 2. I hope once you complete this painting, then you would be truly satisfied that you have created something absolutely beautiful and stunning. Once this is done, just remove the tape and have a final look. I think you would be pretty happy and satisfied with the painting as I am very happy to see the blurred background and then some more details in the foreground. The foreground foliage, flower. Now since the flower is the center and that is the subject that we had to paint. This is the subject we need to paint. We have to be sure that we're focusing on the flower only. I would go ahead and add a bit more details so the middle part of the flower and then allow it to dry. Oh my God, what a satisfaction once I peel off the tape, it's like the best part of the painting and there is no ripping off. It's so smooth and easy to peel off and see how crisp edges this whole painting has given to me. I think the beauty is personified more right now after the tape peel. 6. Project 2 Poppies Part 1: Hey guys. Let us discuss all the colors which we need for completing the painting: orange, indigo, red, yellow green, olive green, Vandyke green and white gouache. In case you do not have indigo, you can use paints gray. In case you do not have orange, you can mix yellow as well as your red to get the orange. There are so many times we think about painting poppies and that's one of the most common flower that everyone loves to paint. But we are not in a position to paint it because we're not sure how we go about the drawing, how we go about painting it. Hence, this project is just for everyone who wants to draw a poppy. It's a very simple process, just made them along the flower and in around it you need to make the petals. Now, the petals can be of any shape and size. There is no particular way in which you need to draw the shape or sizes of these petals. Do not worry much while you add these petals. Just go ahead and add a few petals, about five to six and that's it. You are done now with the poppy flower. Only the middle part of the painting, or you can say the middle part of the flower is important to mark, because that helps to decide that where you want to actually place your poppy. This particular flower painting actually has one important aspect associated with it. That is majorly to actually work loose as well as work detailed. How you can mix both of the work that is loose and detailed together and complete a painting which you can see help you to actually see realism as well as help you to feel the flow of water colors. Water color as a flow should be most important for you as a medium. If your watercolor flows, that's what is the most important aspect of watercolors. You cannot control watercolors. You have to let this medium flow. There is water and there is a flow of water. This flow of water will only actually give you the pigments that will flow on the paper and you would get a beautiful outcome with that pigment. Do not worry, go as bold as possible. I have tried to keep this painting pretty bold and amazing for you guys. I just hope you also enjoy in the similar way. If you observe the middle of the poppy flower has about five petals in and around it: 1, 2, 3, 4. You can observe on the outer side and one is in the middle side. Either you will have four to five petals that you need to show off for your poppy and that's what I also always try to actually put together. Although one now which would be more from the outside that we would be observing this poppy flower. Hence, I would leave it up to you how many petals you want to show, according to me, two to three is maximum that I would like to add for this painting and rest keeping it simple. I have not added any bad soft poppies right now over here. I would be adding it later on just to see where I want to place it and how many I want to place it. It all depends on once my painting is complete, but that's how I always go about it. I do not want to get overboard with a lot of poppies and a lot of buds over here. Let's not complicate it, that's the idea. Let's keep it simple yet interesting, and you should be in a position to learn. I have kept the whole of this painting as such, pretty easy, simple, as well as it is real-time. Real-time gives you so much of a Boucher. I need you to paint along with me. I do not want to actually increase the speed of the video. I always love to keep it real time so that everyone can follow along and we all can paint together. That's the major idea and I hope that you can keep adding the lines more and more as you observe me doing it on the paper, and hence you can also go ahead and add the poppy as you observe over here. I think this looks pretty good. I'm keeping it loose as I did tell you, I'm not going to actually keep it detailed. Hence, I'm now adding some amount of my water. I will only speed up over here a bit because it's iterative process and you just need to add water on the outer side as you observe me doing it right now. There is nothing exceptional that I'm doing over here. We have done this process in the previous painting. Hence, just go as you want over here. One now great step is to just mask you up poppies, that would be very easy for you to do it. Again, one problem with masking is that you don't know how your people will react to your masking fluid, whether it would repeat off or not. There are a lot of [inaudible] associated with the paper that you are using with the masking fluid. Hence, it's good to not use some masking fluid and go about whatever is available with you like this. It might take some more time compared to what you can usually give, but that's okay, that's fine. We are here to not run against time, we are trying to learn and learning, of course, is a process and it's a slow progress also. It would not happen overnight and it did not happen to anyone overnight. Go ahead and add some yellow green as you observe me doing it over here. Once you are done with the yellow green, you can go ahead and add some olive green or sap green, whatever is available on your palate that's good to go. I have taken olive green. Alternatively, sap green is an equally good color. Go ahead and take it if you do not have the olive green. Again, one more thing that I wanted to tell you is that sometimes the sap green and olive green looks pretty similar of different brands, that's perfectly fine. Whatever is closer to the color that you are observing right now on the paper is good to go. Every time you do not need to match the colors that I use for my painting. Why I say this is that I do not want you guys to be actually going ahead and always purchasing the colors that I'm using. Always slowly, steadily build up your color base or even the brushes. I have been saying this in most of my classes. I don't want you guys to be spending money unnecessarily till you fall in love with this medium. I'm already in love with this medium, and hence I love spending more and more money on this because it gives me so much of satisfaction in terms of the colors that I'm using, the flow, etc. If you see right now, there was yellow-green on top of it. You did apply some amount of your olive or subroutine, which are good to go, whatever you have on the palette. Then we did apply some amount of red. All of this is flowing so beautifully on the paper because we are doing wet on wet in this process. Wet on wet for a background wash always looks amazing. I have done it in my previous class too, which was about watercolor florals. Last year when I did release this class about watercolor florals, many of you did like it and you did paint two of the florals which we did in the previous class. That's how we will go about it, that's how we would keep painting more and more florals. This one of course, is absolutely different here, we are covering lot more subjects in terms of how we will paint detail florals, how we will paint loose florals, how we will do the backgrounds, and even how you can leave the white spaces for the backgrounds. Those all things I think is very particular to this masterclass which I just thought to release, because I never found this outlook in many places when I started learning. Seriously speaking, when I started learning, I was looking out for some content like this and it was so difficult for me and I had to figure all of this out on my own. It took me years to learn it and when it [inaudible], I do not want you guys to be struggling. I want you guys to just know it that it's pretty easy to understand that it is pretty quick to grasp. It is not a very difficult subject. It might look difficult, but once you start doing it, you would be great. Just add some amount of indigo for the middle part of the poppy flower. If you see this is the loose poppy flower I was talking about. This is the loose poppy that I wanted to paint. I would be painting some more poppy, which it would be more loose towards the top here. Guys, one thing that I need to tell you is the colors that I'm applying right now will stay wet for a longer period of time because it is wet, or you can say it is more humid in the Northern side of India, which means that it's raining hence the paper will remain wet for a longer period of time. I practically do not need to keep adding or even I do not have to spray the colors or spray water. Whatever you usually do when it is pretty humid. I'm not sure what exactly is being done. According to me, I do not like to actually spray water, I always go for wet and that's how I go about it. You can also let your paper dry off and then just rewet the paper, that's the best way I can tell you. But while you are the rewetting the second time, do make sure that you go with a very light hand. If you see my poppy is so beautifully coming up. Now, this is just a very crazy way of adding the poppies now. I mean, I am also amazed to see that I'm adding poppies and just as exact manner. My God, this looks so great by the app. This is how you do it. It is loose poppies that you are adding and you cannot keep adding a lot of colors or a lot of strokes over here. It's just a very simple stroke that you're going to add and my poppy is going very haywire, I need to adjust it a bit. The color is making it flow left, right, center, and that's why I will go about with my brush to adjust it a bit more. Then this looks more circular and poppy way, but that's also cool. Now I am going ahead with some more of my olive green or sap green as I've told you, whatever available on your palette, and just add it on the paper where it is wet. I did paint the poppy flower in and around it. It looks more organic now and I think a bit of dark green would be addition on top of it and it would actually enhance the beauty in and around the poppy flower too. I will add some bleeds in this flower, and you will see how beautifully bleeds look on poppy flowers. That's another thing that I wanted to discuss, but of course it's coming later on but I could not control my excitement, hence I just told you that we even added bleeds. We need to just go ahead and add some more olive green. Once you are done with adding the olive green, we will go ahead and add some of our colors onto the main flower that is towards the left. You can only do this once your background is dry or else the colors will start flowing into the poppy that you would be painting. Each of the petals need to be actually managed individually and I'm going around with a very light wash of the orange color. You can go with a permanent yellow deep or you can also go ahead with the proper orange, like gamboge orange or any orange that is available on your palette. I would love to go with the orange and I'm taking the orange that is available with me and hence adding it with a very light wash to make sure that you are leaving some white spaces. That's very important. It would actually make it look so much more realistic as well as this white space actually makes it look more original and it would help you to actually show distinctly the light and shade that you want to show. I am even adding the red. The red is pretty bold if you see, so while you add the red do make sure that you are not going ahead and even disturbing the orange color which we did add earlier. I would go with one shade darker of this red. How do you prepare this dark shade of red? That's the aspect that I would like to discuss. I would add just a bit of indigo and go ahead with her darker shade of red. There is no crimson, nothing that I'm using extra for this painting. That's absolutely fine. Go ahead with whatever is available, and then you can prepare these colors and go about painting it. That's fine. I'm good with the first red. Once we are done with this first petal, we will move onto our second petal. Again in the second petal, we will leave a few places which are white ins, and then rest of the places we will actually add the colors. That's it. I am onto my second petal now, and if you see I have mixed and matched three different colors. One is my orange, then is my red, and one is the dark shade of red that I did prepare on my own with the help of indigo. If you observe, I'm slowly and steadily building up each of these petals. I am not trying to just go faster than this. One important aspect of watercolor is that you need to go slow. That's the only important part. Rest if you have that patience, I think you will be in a position to nail any kind of paintings that you want to do in watercolors. It's just that you have to keep the patience and the time that it takes. Watercolor does take its time to dry off. Watercolor does require a lot of patience, so just be with that and then keep blending the colors as also me doing it right now. Once that is done, I will ask you to go ahead and paint those second petal completely. Second petal is done. Go moving onto the third petal. Each and every petal we are going slowly, we are not trying to fast-forward anything, we are moving one by one. That gets us so much more opportunity to experiment. Every time I add the colors, I'm so happy to see that the colors are blending with each other and without any difficulty. We always face this issue that, oh my God, the colors are not mixing up or it and drying off. All these difficulty can be handled if you are using on 300gsm cotton acid free paper, more than 300gsm in case you are going for a handmade paper, then try to go ahead with 440gsm. 440gsm is what I would prefer you guys using. Go ahead and use that. What you observe right now on the paper is that I am actually blending my colors using more of water. What do control is so very important as a subject in watercolors, we do not understand how much water we should apply on the paper. Now, that's what brings me on to the next point, that is water control. When you are picking up your colors, do make sure that you are just wrapping your brush against the small well that is there, that helps to take off all the extra water in case you are not doing that and you want to still take off extra water, keep a tissue handy like you observed me doing it on the left side. I always keep a tissue handy on the left side of my painting. I want to dab off any extra colors or anything, I will do it there. That's how I go about it, and then I would even take off the orange and the red like you saw. Once I just take off the extra color from my brush, I would dab it off on the tissue before I apply it on the paper. All these tips and tricks you can use, and I'm pretty sure about that you would be in a position to nail the paintings better. Over here, I'm just adding small, small lines and it is again on the wet surface. Wet surface leads to a lot of bleeds. That brings me to the next point, that is bleeds are great. If you have bleeds on your paper, I would say that's one of the best thing that you are having. Yeah guys, most of the people will not tell you this, but if you have great bleeds, I know that you are not in a position to control the color right now, but believe me, these bleeds look excellent on watercolors. I will show you that how you can create these bleeds on your own in your future project, or even in this particular project, we will create the bleeds and how we create the bleeds artificially, I'll even show you that. But if you are naturally creating those bleeds, nothing better than that. I think that's something which takes a lot of time for anyone to understand and to create. If you are already there, I think that's one of the places where you can say that you are already in the level of an intermediate to an advanced level artist. That's something excellent. Let's just blend the colors again on the paper. Once you are blending the colors, do make sure that you are using these two brushes. You usually see me using size 4, size 8, and size 6 brush or I also alternatively use size 4, size 8, and size 2 brush. These are the brushes that I have been using for my paintings. It's not that I use a lot of brushes for watercolors. You have to understand that if you keep using a lot of brushes and you keep spending a lot of money on brushes, it doesn't work. I have done it in the past and I know it doesn't work. Have a few brush, which comes handy to you and they are good for you. Just use them and replenish them once they are overall, once they are done and you do not have any further good tip of those brushes. Maintaining the tip is also very important. Keep a brush cleaner with you always that helps to maintain the tip. All those things are important for taking care of good crashes, and brushes is like our sword, it's like the magic sword that we have. That's why I say take care of these things, and these are very, very important for watercolor painting. Go ahead and add a bit of a darker value as you observe me doing, and then once this part is done, we will move on to the next petal. This petal that you observe right now is from the top. That's why you see half of it and the other petals are open, whereas this is a bit closed and closer to the middle part of the flower, hence you observe only a part of it, and that's why it is this kind of a shape and size. In case you want to even go ahead and not do it, I'm perfectly fine with it. You can just add a few petals and that's how you go about it. You can ignore this petal altogether. But try it guys, I think once you start doing it and once you have done in the first project, I'm pretty sure about it, you would be very more confident in doing the second project, and that's what makes this whole process so very, very interesting. I was telling you about the bleeds, but we did not actually use it for our paintings in the previous subject. If you go now, you will see how I created this page. I add a bit of red and then I use a damp brush. Once I use that damp brush, you will observe that the paints will flow automatically. Once the paints flow automatically, you will get those bleeds. Believe me, these bleeds looks so pretty many of you were doing any watercolor or floral painting, I would even add a few more bleeds here and there. It just looks like the background and your painting both are going hand-in-hand. We have not created the background earlier and it looks like that both were done simultaneously, and that's what brings all of this painting together. It looks so much more organic as a painting that we have done everything we are doing simultaneously. That's what I think is the trick, whatever you say, for anyone who is starting off. This is an important aspect which I have tried and I really loved it when I tried it and slowly steadily when I'm growing as an artist myself. I do understand that all these things takes so much of time for anyone who is starting out. We don't know how we create those, how another artist is doing it. These are so simple, simple things, still it creates so much more drama and it creates so much more realism as well as flow in your water colors. Let's add some darker values now, and we will be creating the small stains and the pollens that we have in our flower. That's absolutely fine for the middle part of the flower. We will add these small, small dots structure, and in some parts I will leave it, some parts I would make it a bit circular with the middle part leaving empty. All these things, I go slow about it. Then I add the colors slowly and steadily where I am building up the middle part to make sure that you are not hurrying. Hurrying would actually ruin the painting altogether. You have done an excellent job till now, whatever you tried has come up so well. You are done with the first part of the flower, and we will be going to the second part of the flower, which is way more easier than what you have done till now. The second part is going to be way more easier than what you have made it till now. Hence, I would ask you to just go ahead and be with it. I'm adding a bit of my yellow green color now and leaving few spaces in white. I start from the top and extend it towards the bottom area, as you observed right now. Then I would go with on a darker value, whether it be olive green or you can mix a bit of your indigo and your green to your olive green. Then add the colors onto the top of the flower. Slowly go about it and then add the colors so that you get the best results. I always say this, that you'll need to give the time that watercolor takes and once you give that time, you will observe how rewarding it is altogether. Let's move on to the next part of the painting once you are done with this. 7. Project 2 Poppies Part 2: Guys. We are back onto the second part of our poppy flowers and I have started lining out the orange now this is a closer look of the second poppy flower, which we had to paint. Again, I would be following the same pattern in which I did the colors in the last go. It would be similar to how we would keep adding the colors, whether it be orange, whether it be red, whether it be any darker shade of red, like we did prepare for the first one with a bit of indigo or paint scree adding onto it you would get a darker shade. That's what is most important. Mix and match your colors, so every time you do not need to own up the colors. I have told you previously. I keep on iterating these points because sometimes we do hear but it doesn't get registered. That's where a whole lot of things needs to read done really to even register what we are trying to communicate. That's why I keep iterating these points again and again. I'm just filling up the space of the first petal for the poppy flower. This is going to be really slow. Again, I'm trying to create some bleeds, if you see. That's how I did create some bleeds, even in our previous flower. I love to create these bleeds because they look so much more organic. It looks like the background and the petals have been painted simultaneously, though we did not do it. Still it looks absolutely organic in nature. I'm keeping some white spaces in between, so try to leave these white spaces if possible, or else that's perfectly fine. You are attempting it for the first time altogether. I do understand that you will have your own struggles and all of this that you observe any instructor doing have actually practiced it for a while. They are then only giving any kind of a demo, hence, never try to compare your work. Just try to compare your work on your own and see where you have reached. I always say this and always go by that. I try to see how I have improved on only my work rather than comparing it with every other person. Because that's what makes the whole thing so much more interesting. In the similar way we are starting with our second petal. It is again some orange and red mix. I love this color and it makes my painting so bright and beautiful. All the green and the red, orange. This is altogether coming up so well, once you see the whole of the painting, you would be in a position to understand why I see that. This looks amazing as well as this looks so much organic. They look so pretty together. Sometimes I'm using some amount of water just to blend the colors. Every time I don't use color, you'll know it very well. I would even tell you that do not use color at each and every point in time. You have to even use water to blend your colors. Really it gives that light, nice effect on the people. You will slowly, steadily field so nice once you are adding any water colors onto your paper. They would move around or dance around. That's what is most interesting. If you see right now I'm adding some red and they are really dancing around, if you observe that. It is the wet on wet technique, and wet on wet of course is always, so beautiful and so pretty, but with that, I cannot ignore the fact that wet on dry is equally nice if you actually see it. We will have farther process in which we will do wet on dry. Everything that we are doing is based on two techniques that is wet on wet, wet on dry. With that, we are doing different techniques like mixing on the pallet and mixing directly on the paper. Those are the aspects that we are covering as well as we could cover the aspect like glazing. How do you actually add the glazing or layering kind of techniques. Then bleeds. All of this can be used in any of your future projects. We are just learning what you are doing over here. Try it on your future projects. I'm pretty sure about it. You would be very happy with the outcome. That's it. Now let's add some amount of your indigo in the middle area or else you can also go ahead with paints scree in the middle area. I'm again trying to create some bleeds and blend it well, but it is I think a bit off really. That's okay. You will not even see it. You will not even observe it. Those details. Every time it doesn't fall into eyes of the spectator and you can actually ignore a few things that happen in the whole of this water color process. Let's add the darker values and then blend it. My paper has already dried off. That's not a great thing, but I can always blend it with the blending brush. That's the way I go about it. Use any blending brush size 4 or size 8. I am using my size 8. I told you that the best way I go about it is size 4 then size 8 and size 2 brush or else size 6, size 8 and size 2 brush. Those are my go-to kind of brushes for a floral painting. Hence just add a few lines here and there and again, blend it so that all of this petals look different. I mean, yeah, they are separate and we need to show them separately. That's what matters. I think I'm good to go just blending it a bit and then let's have a full look at how we can paint the stem of the poppy flower. Once we paint the stem of the poppy flower, we would even add some buds. Buds I did not add initially and I did not draw it all together. You will see how slowly I would add the bud and how slowly it turns this painting more pretty, I would say. I think flowers are pretty beautiful, graceful what not. They look so nice if you have this possibility of painting the flowers. I think that's one of the very beautiful aspects of painting, and I love to paint florals. I go about it in a very simple way and I keep adding more details to my paints. Once I add more details with my paints to the stem of the poppy flower, I think so much we're quite done. I mean, we are here, mostly done with the painting. It's just a few more effects that I would like to add. If you see either you can paint the stem of the flower or you can paint the outside of the flower. Now if your paint the outside of the flower, that's called as negative painting. What do you mean by negative painting? Negative painting means you are not painting within the subject. You are painting outside it so that the subject comes up like that. That's another subject that I wanted to cover in this. We even do a lot of negative painting in florals. Every time we do not paint the main subject, we just paint in and around that, so that main subject gets covered. I slowly apply two colors. That is one is my dark green and one is my olive or sap green, whatever is available with you. I will do some more of this negative painting and once I add some more colors to the flower, I would be more happy. You can see really well the left side of the stem, but frankly speaking, the right side of the stem is not seen well. If I do not see the right side of the stem though, I might have to go again back and paint the right side of the stem. Below, if you see I'm trying to paint within the stem, whereas towards the top, I did paint outside the stem, it's so fine, that's how we go about it. You have to mix and match all your learnings that you have and every time you will not go with the same technique, and you'll need to alter the techniques to make it more interesting. Just draw one small bud and once you add this small bud just add a bit of color. You can go ahead with your olive green, you can even go ahead with your dark green. Whatever you want to add is perfectly fine. Olive green looks better according to me. So yeah, I'm adding the olive green and then adding some darker value with the help of my indigo or else paint screen, whatever you are using for this painting, that's absolutely fine and blend it too with the help of water. Water is your go-to tool for any floral paintings. If you are doing floral painting, it's important to understand you have to use water to your advantage. Sometimes you would be doing wet-on-wet, sometimes you would be doing wet-on-dry, but mostly you would be doing blending with water. If you can use water to your advantage, I can tell you most of your paintings wet-on are really beautiful. Every time I'm not using my color, I would go about with some of my water and then paint even the stem. Sometimes I'm picking up the color and applying it only towards the bottom area. I am not going to go ahead and paint everywhere. I'm applying some plain water or you can say some clear water onto the right side of this poppy flower and then adding one more layer. Why I'm adding one more layer, I just feel that it's not bright enough and studies, and if you are happy and your color is bright enough, no need to go ahead and add this part. It's just that I felt that my poppy is not bright enough and so I wanted to add more. Let us go ahead and directly paint one more poppy but I am okay if you want to just go ahead and draw it first and then will be painted, because there's no point taking a chance at this stage, your painting is done and if it doesn't turn out the way you want, then the whole of the painting will not fall in place. Hence, go head and dry with a pencil first and then only go ahead and add colors on top of it. If you're not very confident and it gives you a confident, then, of course, go ahead and start doing it the way I did. Once you are done with this part to let your people dry off. That's very very important, we will go ahead with some whitewash to add some of these small lines and the stem part of the poppy so that they look more original. I'm going with the white wash. You can also work with titanium white. Titanium white is opaque in nature and that's equally good of color if you want to go ahead and use it. This time I'm using Mijello Mission Gold color, you can see it. Now, that's one of the most affordable range that I've seen though I love to use Winsor and Newton professional grade colors, and I have been using it for quite some time. But Mijello Mission Gold are equally good and if you want to try you can also try setting your oreos, you can also go for other colors like Winsor and Newton's cooling rate colors, so which is more of goldmine, though they might give all good effect, but I'm not going with any particular brand, whatever you want to try see for yourself and then only apply it. Now I'm disappointed why I did choose Mijello Mission Gold, I see data flow of colors can be controlled. In Mijello Mission Gold, they do not flow as much as our dark colors, two hands, I do love to use these color for painting those ties or painting florals. It gives me more control, but that's what I observe, so you can, of course, try all the colors and check out for yourself. I will always encourage you to see what works for you the best. What works for me the best might not work for you, so always try it for yourself and then only see what works the best. Okay, let's go ahead and make these small, small lines as I am adding now. This is more of detailing. I would say practically the whole of the painting has come together, except the top part of the poppy flower, which I told you that I would like to do some more negative painting that I want to approach at the end. That's also perfectly fine, keep adding these lines and then would be small dots that I would love to add on top of the buds of these poppy flowers. Once you add those small dots, they look so nice and it looks so much more realistic. Now, this is one particular painting which I really loved to because of the flow, as well as the realism it has created. Both ways, this particular painting looks good. It is an amalgamation of leaving your colors so loose as well as so detailed. That's what makes it interesting. Okay, fine, I guess this is good, and let's just paint a bit on the top area of the stem, which I did tell you earlier. Once that is done, I would just let the paper dry off and then I move the paper at an angle. I have added the green color and I will blend it with the background I did paint outside of the stem. As I did tell you earlier, I'm doing a negative painting over here. Most of the places we have done a lot of negative painting which you actually do not see. Normally, it's not named as such that we are doing negative painting, but every time you are using your background to your advantage, and you are painting the background and letting your subject come out, it is negative painting. Let's remove the tape and you can see how beautifully the edges have dumped out. Always know before you remove the tape, do let your paper dry off. Okay, let's have a final look and move on to day 3 next. 8. Project 3 Hibiscus Part 1: Let us discuss all the colors which we need for completing this hibiscus painting. It is brilliant pink, orange, yellow, red, carmine, brown, indigo, yellow, green olive green, Vandyke green. Wow, we're already on the third project and it is Day 3. I hope you guys could cope up for the Day 1 and Day 2. Day 1 was kept pretty simple and Day 2 is not as simple as the Day 1 but I think you would be in a position to understand. Over here let me tell you how I'm drawing it. Towards the right, I am keeping one of the proportions and I'm taking just a double of that proportion towards the left. Why? Because my hibiscus is turn towards the left and the petals that are towards the right would be smaller compared to the one that you see on the left. That's one of the reasons so I have actually made this proportion towards the top as well as towards the bottom, I would add the lines. Now, these lines really help us to walk with that proportions and with the flowers better. It might look more of an engineering and structural drawing to you. I have been trying to break up the subject in such easy way that at some point in time, I myself feel that, now this looks more structural to me compared to what we should be doing that is a free hand drawing. But guys, anytime whenever you are planning to do anything like florals, I think your approach towards the subject should be more structured. Initially, when you are more proactive, slowly, steadily, you can understand how you want to add the flowers, how you want to add the petals and everything will fall in line automatically. One important aspect of painting any florals is you exactly need to know that how many petals are there in that flower. Why? Because if you know the number of petals that you want to show in your painting, it would become pretty easy for you to understand how you want to go about planning your painting or in case you have any reference photo, how you go about taking or using that reference photo to your advantage. Like over here, the petals towards my left are bigger as I did tell you, and the other petals towards the right are smaller and I can see how I am actually adding these petals towards the right. They are smaller in size and shape versus towards the left they are bigger in size and shape. Now, always keep [inaudible] really handy. We are beginners and we are not here to actually get everything correct at the first photo. Why we are doing so many paintings so structurally though the poppies might not be the way you would have thought structural and all. But as we process, you will see that the process as well as the progress will making it more easier for you to understand where to go free hand and where to go structurally as well as modified according to the measurement that you can take. There are a lot of hacks that I will be showing you going forward. It would become really easy for you to understand how to go about any kind of a flower. I will add the middle part of the flower and then it is more about the stem and pollen, everything that you have for a flower. Just add all of that as well as some greenery towards the bottom portion of the flower. We will even take off any extra graphite marks that we have on the people as I did tell you earlier. Now why do we need to take out extra graphite marks? Because your watercolor is a transparent medium and when you are working with any transparent medium, it's important to always take off the extra graphite marks or else they will show off on the paper. This is as your sketch book as I did tell you earlier, you can go with any square paper that is available with you. I have taken a smaller paper. Why? Because I do not want you guys to be struggling as well as it becomes really easy for you to understand in case it's a small square sketchbook and you can practically take it step-wise. Going step-wise is most important, keeping a lot of patience is again, a most important factor in watercolors because there is first drawing part that we are doing. Once the drawing is over, then only we will go ahead and go with the painting part. I would add a small part towards the top area. Once this is done, then I would start off with my other parts that is eventually the painting of the flower. We will go individually to each of these petals and add the colors. Going individually to each of the petals is really important because we do not want to actually make it chaotic in this way. It is a small paper, so individually going with the flowers, perfectly fine. Go with your kneadable eraser. If you go with the kneadable areas so just make sure that you take off all your electrified marks and then start off with your brilliant pink. Now this brilliant pink color is from your Mijello Mission Gold. I have already added the details of all the colors that you need. Now you can also make this color on your own. You can go with a bit of pink and then add some Chinese white if you want a transparent. If you want it a bit opaque, then go with any of your titanium white color. You will get something that is closer to this. In case you do not have your pink on your palette go with bit of your carmine, and you can add some white in it, you will get something closer to this. That's absolutely fine. I have even read on my palette towards the middle of the flower, I would add this red. My God, you can see the beautiful gloom of red and then extend this pink color slowly with the help of your brush. I'm using my size 8 silver black velvet brush. Now many places you would have seen me using silver black velvet brush. Why silver black velvet brush? Because it can actually hold a lot of water. I need my petals to actually show that. At some point in time I'm just blending with the water, which means that my brush should be in a position to hold a lot of water and that's one of the reasons I love going ahead with this brush. Though if you were starting off, I would never advise you to actually go with this brush in particular and then go with any cheaper brush that is available with you or any brush that is available with you. If you think that you want to permanently actually go for any all of these then only invest on the brushes or slowly invest on the brushes. Go with the border of your painting and then add a bit of colors towards the border area, as I'm doing it now. You can observe how slowly I'm moving ahead. There is nothing that you need to go fast with this. My paper is almost dry, so I'm going ahead and adding this small line and then blend it with the help of my size 8 brush. I went with my size 6 brush and it has got a very nice tip which actually helped me to add these lines very easily. Once I have added those lines, I'm again going very slow by adding a few more lines here and there. I think adding these lines is very important. On one of the brushes, you should have your color and another should be absolutely water. The water should not be on lot. You should take off all the water on your tissue before you go ahead and blend it. I do not want to blend it just like that. It would create a lot of problems. What usually happens is, you would end up adding more water on the petals. If it has dried or semi dried, it would create that gloom and that cauliflower effect. We really want to avoid that. Wherever you see that I am getting that extra color, I will just take off on the tissue and then again blend it. This is not a very easy process, I would say, if you were starting out, but once you get a hang of it with one or two petals, you will know that this is one of the most beautiful process that you can follow. Another thing that these lines will be limited. You cannot go on adding these lines to any extent possible. I might be sounding a bit strong over here, but let me tell you that we do not want to overcrowd any of our petals with a lot of lines. We will have just 5-6 of them and that's it. Once that is done, we will move on to our next petal. Now, if your petal is not dried off completely, you cannot go to your edges in petal, go to any petal that is a bit far away from that and then go to the edges and petal once this petal is particularly dried off. I will even add some lines from the middle area. Now, if you do not have any brush like this, go ahead with whatever thin brush that is available with you. It is good to add these lines and then blend one or two with the background. I have been saying about the blending part a lot. Now, this process, we haven't done earlier. This is another style that I wanted to introduce. Every time we add our lines or every time we add the colors, it's not that we will blend it or we would keep the same color. We are going with one background wash if you see, and then we are going with some of our additional colors like the red and the carmine or any pink that you have on your palette. I'm perfectly fine with that. It's just a lighter color that we need. I have even kept orange for myself in case you feel that you want to make a bit orange color for your - Hibiscus, go ahead and do that. That's also fine. I'm adding some of the colors so slowly and some of the places I'm leaving empty, just the white of the paper. If you see, I'm blending it with water. In few places, it is more saturated color that I add, and in few places it is more of water that I had. Now, this is a very important aspect of watercolor. We paint a lot with water. That's one of the reasons I will go to the subject that water control is really important in watercolors. You have to understand that every time you will not be using pigments, there will be few times that you would be using pigments for your florals, and few times we would be only working with the water that we have on our brush. Add some darker value towards the middle part of the flower, and then I am even picking up some of the colors where I feel that it has become too dark or it is not as I want. Then I guess I will add those lines that I did add in my last petal. For this one also, the second petal is complete, so we will move on with the third petal. That's perfectly fine. Now slowly pick up the colors wherever you find it's important or wherever if you feel it is necessary. Then add a bit of color here and there, which would actually make both the petals look distinct. The first petal that we did is a bit darker compared to the one that we have over here. I have kept the left of this petal more lighter in value because I want that both of these petals can be distinctly identified. We do not want that the petals cannot be seen separately, and that's what is very important when you go for any painting like this. Guys, I will move on to the next one now. There will be something that we would be learning even in the next one. The first one where you did learn how to add lines with the blending brush and your other brush. In the second one, you did only add it with the help of one single brush mostly. That's how we improvise, that's how we understand how we want to go about it. You will only get a hang of all of this once you start painting it. Yes, the first might not go very well, but I'm pretty sure about it. Once you are done with the fifth petal, you would be exactly knowing how you can paint a hibiscus. That's the beauty of watercolor painting. We might take a while to get a hang of it, but slowly, steadily, once we get a hang of it, you will actually fall in love with the process. This particular video is a bit longer, if you see it's about 20, 22 minutes that we have, whereas the next video will be about 14, 15 minutes because we would be only creating the background. Over here, we did not read the background first. We did let the subject go ahead, and then we added the background. One important aspect of background that I wanted to tell you is that you will not overdo a background. We want the subject to be seen very well. That's one of the reasons whenever you are adding the background, you have to make sure that either it has to be too dark, so that your subject is light and it shows off like you would be doing in this one as well as on the lily. Whereas there will be times where we are working with the light as well as dark, both together. During that time, you have to also understand how you will not overwork on your background. If you're overworking on your background, the whole of the watercolor subject, that is your floral will go for a toss, and that's what we do not want. Go ahead and start adding some more colors towards the top area. Once you are done with the top area, add someone lines like I'm doing right now. I think this is how we want to go about it. I'm pretty happy with how it is actually turning out. Let's just add in the similar way we did our first petal. One or two lines here and there at some points, so make it a bit darker with the help of your indigo or your Payne's gray. Have your indigo and Payne's gray always available with you, that would be offering you help at any point in time. Make it available, let it actually work for you. Let's add some more darker lines towards the side areas, and you can see each and every petal so distinctly, that I am actually falling in love with the complete painting. I hope you also do love this painting the way I do right now. Let's start working on with our fourth petal. I think now you would be more happy to understand how I'm adding all these colors because you have got [inaudible] for then I know it that you know it now, how to add these colors. That's the best part of painting florals within one or two petals or within one or two florals. You will understand how, actually you should use your colors to your advantage. Let's add the lighter value, which is majorly my brilliant pink. I would go ahead and add more colors towards the top area, and then take off all the colors from my brush. You have some pink on your brush even after washing it, and add a bit of orange show from the palette that you have. Once you have the orange on your brush, you can understand that the color has become a bit lighter, and whenever the color is already dry, just use a bit of your water to blend it with the background and then add some more color to blend it even better. Once that is done, go ahead and add the colors in the white spaces where you haven't done it till now. Slowly, steadily, understand that this is going to be a really easy process. It's just that at some point in time, I am adding these lines when your paper is wet. Right now my paper is wet and I'm going ahead and adding these lines. What you really need to do at this point in time, take off the extra paint on your brush that you have on the tissue, and then only just add these lines. Why? Or else these lines will become blue and that's what we do not want. Then wherever you feel that it is just not right, take it off with the help of your blending brush. As you see, I'm using my blending brush at an angle that is 90 degrees. Whereas when I'm adding the lines, I'm going ahead and using it maybe at 45, 50 degrees, something like that. The angle of the brush is also very important when you add these colors and when you want to add these lines. If you're trying to add at 90 degree angle, what would happen is you would get very thin lines. We do not want very thin lines either. At some place we want, whereas not in all the places. That's what is the balance of a watercolor floral painting. Towards my right, the spaces are still empty and I need to add up some more colors as well as add up some more lines. That is, again, very important. I would add the lines, but let's just add some colors, and then add the lines. I think I'm just too happy with the middle part of the painting and I'm going ahead and adding more colors, but that's absolutely fine because at the end, all these would end up into one single floral painting, and that's what is most important. Going with the flow. Watercolors always demands going with the flow. I have been saying this in many of my other classes too. I already have about 29 classes published on Skillshare and you could understand that most of the classes I do tell you to be more patient with watercolors, as well a hang of it only slowly. Never try to overdo watercolors. If you're trying to fight with watercolors, watercolors will be really hard for you. Whereas if you try to actually partner with this medium, watercolors would try to give you back a lot more. It would be really rewarding for you. Now it's time to add some more colors on the last petal. I'm happy the way it is turning up and you will not be in a position to get the actual look right now. Once you go ahead with the final painting, then only you will be in a position to understand how this flower will actually stand out. This is one of my favorite projects from all these that we have done, including the poppies that we did paint last time. Why? This is one of my favorite, because this includes the loose as well as this background, as well as this petal painting which usually we do not do in all the projects. All my projects are not loose, whereas all the projects are not tighten up in terms of the watercolor that you want. That's the best part of the florals painting that we have done. Till now, none of the projects you will see is actually very loose and none of the projects are actually very tight, which gives you a lot more option to play with. Loose actually makes it a bit tough sometimes to play with the colors, or if you have played lot more, then water is more, or something or the other goes wrong in that way. Whereas when you have done a sketching, there's an outline, there is a framework that you have with you. It is a bit more easier. Let's add some lines and I've taken some darker values to add these lines. As always, this is going to be easy now as you have already done so many of the others till date. Let's blend it a bit and then the other petals are already done. I'm done with this part, let's move on to the second part where we will be hiding the backgrounds as well as the middle part of this flower. 9. Project 3 Hibiscus Part 2: Mostly of land part is done except the middle part, and rest is about the background. I would give you four important colors that are important for the background. Bannister yellow-green, then the olive green. Any dark green that is available with you, it can be VanDyke green or any other green. The last one is your indigo. These are the colors. If you see I'm mixing my colors, I just mix my olive green with some of the yellow-green that is available on my palette. There are different kind of yellow-green that you would find in the market. Now, whatever is available on your palette is good to go. One thing that I need to tell you is if you do not have any kind of yellow-green, that's absolutely fine. Go ahead with the yellow that you have mixed with the green that you get something close to this color you will always have. That's what is important. You need to make the colors that are closer to the ones that you see. The olive green, of course, you can also create with the help of the color wheel, you can check the color that you want to have. Another aspect of watercolors in this one, is that we are mixing the colors of our different tall leaves that we are painting. Now why I am actually mixing the colors of the leaves that I'm painting because watercolor leaves that you make, if you actually add the different kinds of colors to it, it really adds a lot of volume to your painting and it just looks loose as well as the tight effect that we want to get. Those are the aspects that I have to say that is important. Over here, since I actually mixed a bit of my red though with the indigo, you get a color which is closer to the brown that you observe, hence, you can also make some color like this or you can also go ahead with particular indigo, that's also fine. I am keeping few of the places loose. I am not adding any colors for my leaves right now. Slowly, steadily, I'm adding some colors and I would add from the top when I need to add my background. Now, that's how I will go about in this painting particularly. If you see few of the places, you add slowly your greens and at that point in time, you need to understand that your background should be wet enough. Every time if you paint on your dry background, it would give you hard edges and some of the places we will keep hard edges, I will not deny it, but few of the places I would love to soften it up. That's one of the reasons you will even observe me actually adding some of the hard edges even once I'm done with the whole of the painting. Now, it's time for some yellow. You see how magical yellow is if you add it with some of your green, that is the dark green. I have practically taken the VanDyke green. If you add it with the VanDyke green, it gives you a very, very light, beautiful greenish effect and that's what I want. Over here, either you can actually add the indigo or your Payne's gray. Payne's gray is another color which is very widely used in many of your paintings. I have been using my Payne's gray in many of my other paintings and it actually gives a very, very nice and beautiful effect most the time. Over here I will do a very nice blending, and I am going ahead with some of my green, some of my Payne's gray or indigo and some of my olive green. Every time you will observe that whenever I'm adding the colors, it would be in a way that the colors just blend with each other and I get those soft edges, which I really want for my painting. Let's just add the colors slowly right now for the background because the middle part is completely done, which means that I have to really go slow for my floral. It is really important at this point in time to understand that we're not here to fasten up the process, we are here to get the perfect results since the whole of the painting will come together only once my background is done. Many of you might not like to even add a background. I know that we all have our own choices but for this particular flower try to add the background and see how beautifully something can actually turn up. Then now you can decide for yourself how you want to go about on any of your other paintings. That's absolutely fine and I would say that this whole of the 70 process is a practice for you. You can use all the learnings from this current project or from any of the other projects and your other final paintings and practically, it would give you so much of knowledge in terms of what the florals you can paint. You can anytime go for any other commissions or you can even paint it and gift it to someone in case you are going for any brand which wants you to paint for them. You can go ahead and even paint for them. All of it put together, you would be really happy to do it once you have a background or once you have this knowledge base with you. It really took me a lot of time to come forward with this class practically earlier. I did not produce any floral classes because I did feel that once I, myself have a real good edge at it, I can paint florals without any problem. I practically did not have any problem, but I can break it up into really easy and small steps. That's what makes the whole painting come together. Few of the places I'm adding the dark green if you see closer to the hibiscus flower that we have done, I am trying to add the darker values, whereas when I go away from it, I tried to add the lighter values, few of the places you can do these experiment that I'm doing right now. I am adding a bit of darker VanDyke green in some of the place, and then adding some lighter value, again, going ahead with my yellow-green and adding it. This yellow-green in particular is from Mijello Mission Gold colors. But I have been using Mijello Mission Gold as well as my Winsor & Newton very often. The orange, that is the cadmium orange of Winsor & Newton is very, very nice. In case you happen to use or just try it, you would be really happy with the outcome that you get from there. These are my suggestions. But again, I am talking about professional grade paints, which are really expensive, so if you do not want to go ahead with it, that's perfectly fine. Use the tip of your brush and add these small lines. This is the eight size brush that I'm using for myself, a black velvet, but still I have such a nice tip that I can use it for adding any small lines. Now do not overdo these lines. That's one important request for you guys. If you are going to actually add a lot of lines, that background will become too much for this painting. We have to go very minimal with our background, whereas our subject will remain as a full ground and it has to stand out from the whole painting. Go ahead and start adding some more reds to your floral. Once you add the red, you would be in a position to understand the middle part of the floral will standout. That's what we have been trying to do through this entire painting. I think now is the time where it is all coming together. Just go ahead, go slow. At this point in time, I do not want you guys to actually lose your patience. Everything has come together. It's just act or you might be observing the background has taught one shade lighter. That always happens with watercolor whenever you're working with watercolor and it is a wet on wet, you would see one or two shade lighter colors. If you were working with your artist grade paints, it would be one shade lighter. If you are going with student grade paints, it might be two shade lighter. That's only because watercolor always works on paper a bit lighter compared to when you see as a pigment. You can work always wet on dry, it would give you results which are a bit darker than what you also right now. But that's a requirement that you can have for a particular painting. If you have that requirement, you can go ahead with that. In case you do not have that requirement, go ahead with whatever you think is best for you. I am going to be adding some amount of my paints for the middle part, but if you see it's a very light shade as I want this bar to stand out. I'm doing a bit of a negative painting for it. If you see towards the right, I did not paint in-between the middle part and I just left it like that. Around it, I just added some amount of my red to make it stand out. It really gives you a 3D effect or 2D effect. You can see it looks like it is just coming out or popping out of the flower. That is how I see it. Go ahead and just add these three or four small dots of red. Because these are the pollen same in everything that you have in a flower, you need to complete a flower with all the parts of the flower added on. Hence, just add it slowly. I am adding four of it. I think it's usually four, so that's why I've added four. Then I would add some of our pollens that would be in yellow. I would add it towards a bit lower part. You can see it would be on mix of my red and yellow that I add on. I will make some bit of wash with my yellow while I had it anyway. That's right now not the requirement. Go ahead and make some small lines. I am using some of my dark value right now to add it. If you see you can have Carmine, you can have brown, you can have any other pink color to add these small lines. There is no particular requirement of going ahead with one single color and other beautiful color of maroon. If you ever get to use it, I think you will get a beautiful outcome like this. Now I have used a bit of wash with my yellow color and I am adding small dots to my pollen areas that you had solved. A bit more negative painting, but now this is the time to stop. Why I say this is the time to stop? You might be overdoing a painting now. I know exactly that this time if you do not stop, it would be difficult for you to actually get a beautiful outcome. In any watercolor painting, it's important to know where to stop. Why I say this? I have been saying this as many of my other classes and to the live workshops, to any person who may have been teaching that you should exactly know where to stop. If you don't know where to stop, it would be very difficult for you even in future. When you're working on your own projects to understand that it did not turn out exactly the way you wanted, hence, try to stop at some point in time where you think it's enough and we do not want to go ahead and add any more colors. Let's add a bit of yellow and then I would go ahead and add some of my pink onto the top area of the part. I guess that's what I need and I'm using my round to brush though I do not need this brush for any of these painting, but it's okay. In case you want to go ahead with it, go ahead with it. Add one darker leaf that will actually help you to show off your bottom petal, or you can say towards the right, whatever the petal is. In a better way, it will have to actually make it pop and then add some amount of your pink towards that top. Just blend it well with the background. I think I would just add a bit of it and leave it there. Let my water do the rest of the work. It's with the green and the pink that I've added. Add a bit of darker green as you observe. Once done, let the whole paper dry off. Now this is very important. Letting your paper dry. I do not want your paper to rip off. That's important aspect of watercolor. Do not, never allow your paper to rip off. Add some more colors if you want. That is the dark green. Might think of, now it's time to take off the pink tape. I think this pink tape is also very pretty, the washi tape. I love using beautiful washi tapes, so I keep ordering it a lot and I use these pretty tapes. It makes me feel so nice and it gives such a nice outcome to your painting though. Whenever you're choosing a video, it makes it even look more radiating. That's the main reason why I like these tapes and have a final look now. I think you have done it and you will be in a position to be very proud of your painting. I will see you in the day 4. 10. Project 4 Lilly Part 1: Let us go through all the colors which you'll need for completing this lily, it's orange, yellow, red, brown, that means buoyancy and abundant but any brown that is available on your palette, indigo, yellow-green, olive green, and Vandyke green. Let's start with our forte and we are going to paint the forte project more than anything. This is a lily that we would be doing. I know you guys have worked really hard over the last three projects so this one would be more relaxing. Over this particular project, you would learn how to practically add motion or how to actually show the direction of your petals, that is if your petals is falling towards the left, you have to add simple lines or you have to add some of the strokes which would show the petals moving towards the left whereas if it is dropping towards the right, you have to show how it is dropping towards the right. All of these will be covered in this as well as you will see how I add some simple background without much of a hassle. Over here I'm right now dividing the sheet into practically one part is down, then around 1.5 parts is up. That's how I would be drawing my lily. Now why the lily that is towards the bottom is smaller because it is towards me and hence, the lily that has the petal towards the bottom is a bit smaller. I would go ahead and start adding the petals towards the right and towards the left. You just need to mark the center and that's most important. Once you mark the center, there is nothing much that actually stops you from understanding how you want to go ahead and add the lily. Now, this one, I have kept it more open. I would say the last three-phase structurally organized. This one is not very structurally organized but with that, you can't say that you will not get an understanding of anything. You will surely get an understanding of how you have to paint our lily. But with that, you will also understand how to go freehand. Why I wanted to add this free-hand part? Because at the end you have to go ahead and use freehand for most of your paintings so there will be sunflower painting where you will absorb that. We're not going freehand and so all of these hacks, all of these structural drawing everything I've included, but with that, I have even tried to include freehand which would give you a glimpse of actually how our master artist or how any artist who has got a lot of experience or who has been working on these kinds of projects can quickly work these things out. Now, this was just another way of me explaining it but in case you want to actually try to go more structural, you have to divide your flower into four equal parts just the way we did in our hibiscus. Equal parts might not be the case because when you go towards the top, the petals will be broader as you have seen, and as you go towards the left and towards the right, they might not be so broad. All of these depend on the photo or the reference picture that you might be observing. Along with that, you have to build each and every petal and all of this petal is really important. We are concentrating on one single flower. We are not going ahead and adding a lot of flowers together, which means the composition has to be in a way that this flower just stands out, out of the whole of the background or out of the whole of the painting that we are doing. This flower is more brighter. I have used more brighter colors for this flower. As I did feel that in case I do not use the brighter part then it might not be so impressive because we're not doing a lot of things or we're not adding a lot of layering and all. I think it's only one layer that we're going ahead and adding according to my understanding, and there will be some small and soft edges in terms of the lines that we would add for the right parts. That's it. Now let's go ahead and add some more petals. I have already drawn three of the petals. The left one is drooping downwards and you can see very well that it's drooping. With the watercolor part, you can understand it even better. Let's move on to the other parts where we are going to add more of our petals and I feel that I am pretty happy. It's just that I think it has to be a bit more smaller. That is the right one or it should be drooping a bit downwards. Just erase it wherever you feel that you are not comfortable. That's one thing which I have understood in my painting process that you can erase anything any time. Why? Because we are not very experienced artists, or we are just trying to explore a subject and exploring a subject doesn't mean that we have to be a master architect. It slowly, steadily as you progress in this space who would understand more about it and you can then try and get an angle of it in a better way. Let us start adding the middle part of the flower and along with it, the stamen, pollens, and everything that you want to show, some of the background leaves that you want to add. Go slow, just don't try to add everything together. It's fine. You might make a few mistakes in the drawing. That's absolutely okay. Slowly add these pollens as well as the middle section of the flower as you progress. See the drawing part is always very important. Why I say this, I have realized tip for flowers as it is the backbone and if it is a backbone or just a frame book of any painting, then at that point in time, it becomes really important. Whereas if in case you're doing absolutely loose florals like you might have seen in the puppies where we actually paint a few of the puppies in the background, which they've absolutely loosen, we did not practically define anything at that point in time, not even going ahead with any drawing is perfectly fine. It only comes with experience where you want to add these loose and where you want to go ahead and add something more title and nice so I would say which is more detailed. Those all things will slowly, steadily you can get a hang of it and understand. I would leave it up to you how you want to understand the whole of this thing. Along with it, let's start to add some more of your pollens and stamens and all. Once this part is done, I would say take a small break. It is about 10, 12 minutes, or 15 minutes we would be drawing. Once the drawing part is done, it's good to have a quick beverage come back and then start with the painting. The painting would be a bit slow in this case because the background and all is done in a slower pace. As I did not want to commit any mistakes, I did paint my flower first and then I went ahead with my background. At any point in time, I did not want a darker colors of the background to get into my warmer colors of the flower, which is more of a yellow, orange, red, all of these. Hence, it's important at some point in time to understand which colors you should use and which colors you should not use or you should use more cautiously and hence, I just tried to walk along with it. I would ask you to take a small break and get back, but the process of painting would be together, I can see only the middle section. You can leave and then start off or you can once paint your flower and then paint the background so I leave all of these things with you. I always like to finish a painting when I start the painting process and that's how I go ahead with. If I have to really take a break, I usually take a break once my sketching is done. That's what I would also ask you guys to do in case you're thinking of taking a break, break is always good. In case your graphite marks are too dark, I would ask you to rub it off with the help of your kneadable eraser. If you do not have a kneadable eraser, go ahead with any eraser that you have since your watercolor is transparent. But we are using more of one colors for our flower and more of darker colors for the background, which means that you might not be at a loss if you do not even take off this graphite mark, I would say, from the paper. Slowly you will understand why I would go ahead with my yellow for stem, then start adding some of my orange. You can also go ahead with permanent yellow deep. It is a bit of orange-ish yellow that we usually see. You can also go ahead with your red plus yellow as you want to progress, take it like that. Take it a bit slow, I would say. The middle portion I have tried to keep it more yellow. If you see that right now I'm going really slow with this painting. As I did not want to commit any mistake I was just trying to add the darker as well as the lighter values together, which means that you have to fairly balance each and everything out. I'm going with my round 2 brush that is from my Escoda. You can also go ahead with any other shape and size. It all depends on the paper size that you are using. You know that I'm using a square, small sketchbook, whereas you might go ahead with a bigger one. For a bigger paper, you might need to switch your brushes. That's one requirement that I have always observed, that if you are using the paper size that I am using, then your brush size would be different. If you're not using the paper size that I'm using, then of course, whatever is available. But accordingly, you have to adjust the brush size. In case same paper, then same size. In case it's a different paper, you can always go ahead with the sizes that you have available with you. Because many people are more comfortable with the paper size that they want to use. I always leave it up to them to decide what is the paper size that you want and that you can actually relate to, which gives you more comfort. All of this accordingly can be managed. Let's just add some more lines from the top area of the flower. This is going to be very simple lines. Let's add a few more now. This is wet. Why did I line which is more than a straightway, the middle part of the flower needs to be shown. If you see the blending is so smooth towards the right, I did paint only with water, whereas when I go towards the left, it is more of the yellow color that I had. Here I am and I'm going to paint these with the colors like your orange, red, and yellow. I have applied some orange and red towards the left first, and then I'm applying the yellow towards the middle. Slowly, I would take off all the extra colors on my brush and then use my brush just like that to add and blend with the background. I mean, the petal background that we have, and we're not going to add colors at each and every point. Note that part very well, that colors are not going to be added everywhere. While you are towards the bottom of the petal, you will add it and towards the top of the petal you will add it, and then extend those colors towards the middle. If you see, I have added a very, very blurred line in the middle. Now, while I was painting, I did it myself because I wanted to and show the movement of the petal is towards the right and it is drooping downwards. That's how we work about it. This is wet-on-wet. We are not going wet-on-dry as well as we are not blending over here right now. Wherever you feel that you have gone wrong like me, you can just pick up the extra colors and lifting out is very easy for Arches paper. That's the paper which I'm using, in case you are using Fabriano or any other paper, that's fine. Just know that you need to use 100 percent cotton paper, 300 GSM. Now, these are quite heavy washes. That's one of the reasons I always say that use 300 GSM that will always be at your advantage. Left side of the petal and I'm going with my yellow first, the yellow is the Indian yellow that we usually use from [inaudible] or else you can even go with any other yellow that is available on your palette. Do not try to use lemon yellow. Lemon yellow is a bit opaque in nature. That's one of the reason I try to avoid lemon yellow and go with some of your orange as you observe me blending it towards the sides. You can see how beautifully the blending is happening, the colors are moving into each other. All you did quite a lot of wet-on-dry as well as wet-on-wet in many of the other classes. But while you are doing this particular, I would say, florals, you will absorb more of wet-on-dry. This wet-on-dry is not only for the floral, it will be even for the background that you would go ahead with wet-on-dry. It's fairly simple since all the other three were a bit tough, so I just thought that you can relax with this one and be ready for a loose one tomorrow where you will be painting hydrangeas. The hydrangeas that you would be painting are actually pretty loose and interesting. You will see how beautifully colors merge in to each other and how we paint the background. Merging the colors of the hydrangeas into the background. All of it would be done tomorrow. See you tomorrow for that particular, I mean, the project in this class. Hopefully, you will enjoy that because it is done in a pretty different style. Now, let's pick up some more red on our brush and if you observe that I do take off all the extra color on my tissue before I go ahead and add the line that I want for the middle part. Why I do take off all the colors on my tissue? Because I do not want my colors become blue as this is a wet-on-wet method that we are doing right now. Wet-on-wet means that we will see more of plumes rather than getting nice lines. Hence soft edges is important, but along with that, we should know how to control the water that we have on the palette. Now, this is more of a repetitive process that we are going to do. Hence, it's like the same that we have used earlier, the processes going ahead, painting the middle part that has been the yellow and on the sides adding the red and the orange. I think by now you have got a angle for it and you can understand how all of this petal works. Although petals look very nice, and this really also looks very nice. Once you complete it, really it's not pretty easy to go ahead and paint the side the first coat, that's one of the reasons I always say go through your techniques, go through the first and the second project. Then the third and we progress like that. All the projects are done at a similar level, which means that none of the projects are very tough or none of the projects are very easy. Everything has a very structural approach hence, you have to actually think from a structural perspective how we go about it. I have tried to actually ease out on every project possible but there might be a bit of challenge that you may face. Since you guys are attempting it for the first time, always remember everyone that you also might have painted florals for long and might be yours that they have experience so never try to compare. I have said this pretty often in many of my other classes, and I would like to actually go with that approach. There are so many times there are subjects which I might not have painted and when I do it for the first time it's really difficult. Going with that becomes really tough but still when I start going with it and I start to do that, I always make it a point to understand how you can break everything structurally, how you can actually move about it and get a great outcome. That has always been my idea. Now I would be using the similar things that I have learned through my own journey and helping you guys to start your own journey. Now, this is really interesting. At some point in time you will feel that how come all of this have come together with the whole painting being done. But this point in time when you see it, do make sure that you are adding the colors very slowly to the top two petals. I have kept it for the last because I know that there is lot of work that is required over there. I'm going really slow with this painting. If you see I do not want to actually create any problems right now. I really have a very good outcome on my other petals and I want to just add good colors even on the top part. While you paint the florals, you should know that you are painting a lot with water, so take off all the extra paints from your brush into the container which has the water. I always keep two containers. One very handy for getting the first supply of water whenever I need and another one I have for picking up or washing on my brushes. That's how I go about my containers and I always preach that have two containers to yourself. Two containers is real help to anyone who is actually painting. I have done it myself and I can tell you that's one of the best things that you do it for yourself while you start your painting or while you are into any kind of hobby like this. Okay, I guess that's it and let's move on to the next petal towards the left. At this point in time, I feel you are pretty confident about how you want to go about it, and I'm not going to guide you much in this one. I will meet you when we have to actually paint our background now that is in our next video, as there is some amount of colors that you need to add. All the colors that we are using right now is similar to the one that we used in hibiscus, except the permanent pink or the brilliant pink that we had, yeah. Brilliant pink color was from Mijello Mission Gold. We had these kinds of colors, one or two which I pick up from other brands. Usually what I pick up brands are Mijello Mission Gold, Winsor and Newton. These are two brands which I really look forward to while I have to actually purchase my colors. They are brilliant, they're amazing colors. But on the other side, I must say Winsor and Newton professional grade colors are pretty expensive where as the Mijello Mission Gold colors are within my range. Hence, I try to go ahead with Mijello Mission Gold. You can also go ahead with that, or if you have any other artisory things in your mind, go with that initially and slowly steadily build up your complete, I mean, the way you want to actually set up your complete pallet that you want to have for yourself, build it up slowly. I still buy one or two tubes here and there. Like yesterday, I bought one of my tubes from Mijello Mission Gold. I like to keep it that way, I never go overboard with buying everything together. Yes, that's how we go about it. I'm using my silver black velvet brush to add the colors over here and slowly steadily. I use the tip of my brush very often you will observe because I want to see how beautifully it glides through my paper and how it can give an amazing outcome. Even a size 8 brush can give you that nice staff that you need. My lily is complete except the middle part, so see you in the next lesson where we will be completing the full of this painting. Believe me, this is pretty easy. It is not having any kind of difficulty even for the background, we will go really simple. Yes, once you paint you will be in a position to understand the same. 11. Project 4 Lily Part 2: We have done the first part, let's move on to the next part now. I will be using the colors like yellow green, olive green, and [inaudible] green for this particular leaf area. One part or one side, I would keep it as lighter value and the other side, I would [inaudible] the darker value. I am not particularly thinking about where I want to add the colors that is darker and lighter. I would say the particular petal that I'm painting, I would like to add the darker colors which would give it real bounds or you can say it would actually help to enhance the beauty of these florals. That's how I go about it. You can even use yellow if you do not have any yellow green, that's perfectly fine. Go ahead and add some yellow wherever you think that you are not having the yellow green that you need. Slowly, I'll go about adding the colors even to my leaf. If you see, I do not go very, very fast in this method. Why I do not go very fast because the whole of the painting has been done in such a beautiful manner; we do not want to spoil it at any point in time. Going slowly gives me that edge to have amazing outcome as well as it even helps me to understand how the strokes are working out, how I can blend my colors better with the color that I've already applied to my painting, like if I have applied my yellow green, how I can blend it with the olive and the [inaudible] green. That's how I go about it. If you see, I slowly take off all my extra colors, then I just pick up some of my olive green on my brush and add it to my leaf. It looks very nice this way. Then you keep blending the colors, you will understand how you can go about painting the whole of this floral. I would be adding the other colors even on the similar way. I'm not thinking about the light right now, the light is from the top. If you are trying to add shadows, that's what we will not be doing in this painting. We are not here to go around with the sunlight and add shadows, we are simply trying to paint watercolor lily. That's with more vibrant colors, relaxing. It would help you to understand how you structurally organized the whole of the painting, how you plan, how you want the backgrounds, all of it. I have told this even in our last lesson, I [inaudible] again and again so that you understand that each of these florals have a different requirement and they are done in a different style. Some of it might really appeal you and some of it might not appeal you even, that's absolutely fine. Every time that you observe everything, it doesn't need to be great. Few things might strike the color and few things might not. But, practically, once you actually understand and paint all of these hands-on, you can go about any kind of painting that you want to do for florals. All of these seven floral paintings are done in a way which can help you, guide you, and make you fall in love with any kind of watercolor florals painting. The last leaf that you did paint on your own, I did not explain it much because I know that you are now hands-on with how to go about it. I would start with my background. I have mixed my [inaudible] green with some of my indigo or [inaudible] green, whatever is available on your palette, and start adding the colors from there. This is very important. If you see, I slowly understand, do I need to add it from the right, do I need to add it from the left, how we go about adding the whole of these colors. Now, if you start very dark colors at any point in time, it's very difficult to get back. That's why going up a bit slow is really important. Going slow would actually give you a lot more time to understand how you go about painting this whole of the flower. I will use a lot of water to actually blend all my colors with the background. Adding the water really helps me to beautifully blend my colors with the background. It gives the effect that I'm doing wet on wet, whereas I'm really not doing wet on wet, I am doing wet on dry. Going with wet on dry with very warm colors in the middle actually leaves you with the point where you have to practically walk around really slow. I have been saying this that you have to work very slow. Believe me, patience is the only thing that you need in watercolors. If you have patience, it is very easy to work with watercolors. You can practically partner with this medium. There is nothing that you cannot do with this medium. I'm picking up some of the colors from wherever I feel it is necessary and blending it with the yellow that I have. This is the light green yellow that is from Mijello Mission Gold. Again, you can go with any other color that is available, just the way I am adding now some of my yellow towards the left. You can also go ahead put yellow and a bit of green in it to get the one that you want. Pick up the colors wherever necessary and then just take it off on your tissue. Go slow, that's been my only suggestion, I guess. Blend it, blend it, blend it. Blending is the only thing that we would be doing. We are not doing any kind of splattering over here. We are not adding any kind of extra background over here, so make sure that you just blend well that will actually make this whole painting well. Do note that we do not want any of this place to go I would say absolutely dry before you add the colors, that will not be a great sign as the background has to be really soft and that's what I expect for the painting. Do make sure that you are adding good amount of water in your brush or your brush has good amount of water while you actually add the background colors. As I go towards the right, you will observe that I'm adding more darker colors, while I go towards the bottom, I will blend it with the lighter value. That's how I see my painting. Towards the right, it is dark and towards the left it is light. Now you can even choose the left one as the dark and right one as the light one. I would leave that up to you, how you want to go about it. It was just that I wanted to do it that way hence I chose it. Go about painting this part with the help of your other paints. You have to mix the colors always, so you will like it, green as well as your indigo. You can go with any other green that is available on your palette. Just one thing that you need to make sure is that the movement of the colors from dark to light looks really organic. It cannot happen that colors become really light while you come towards the bottom. Keep this in mind that you have to make these areas lighter, it has to be really organic in nature when you add the colors. That would really help your painting to stand out. That's what I even expect. It might not come at the first cool, but with all the practice that you have done over the last three days, I know that you can create it and this is easier compared to the last painting that we did, practically this is easier. It might be taking a bit more time because I am going slow. Either if you want to adjust the speed of the video, go ahead and adjust, but I wanted to keep it real-time for this one. I really do like to keep it real-time. That gives you an understanding of how the other person is also painting and how much time the other person is also taking for this painting. Let's just keep painting the background of this painting. As I have told you this is a repetitive process that we are doing hence I would ask you to go ahead and keep at it. I would need it too well when we have to paint the leaf that is still left and we did not paint it initially. You can also actually finish this leaf and come back to the background or else you can just leave it and then come back, that's okay. Every time whenever you are painting any kind of leaves you have to make sure that your paper is dry enough. We do not want leaves to come in cauliflower effect. That's one of the reasons I have actually left this part empty. Go about painting everything that is white, right now, and we will come back to the middle part of the flower later on. I will go ahead and meet you there, where I need to explain how you paint those parts of the flower. How to paint your pollens, middle section, and everything, I will be explaining to you at that time. There are few important rules of watercolor that you need to follow while you are doing any kind watercolor floral painting. One important aspect is if you are painting, any of your petals side-by-side, they need to be drying off simultaneously. If they are not drying off, then you have to go to the opposite petal and come back to the other petal that is adjusted up and just send to it later on. Because your water will flow from one petal to the other and you will really not get the effect that you want. Blending is a very important exercise in watercolor. Whenever you are blending, you have to make sure that your colors are wet enough on the paper that it can flow into each other. The balance of water is very important at this point in time. If you have really a lot of water on your paper, then it would take or it would be very difficult for you to blend the colors as your water will play its role and it would move into each other, which means that your pigments will flow, and the pigments flowing into each other will make it really difficult for you to get the color that you want or even show the difference in the colors, like we know that somewhere it is yellow-green, and somewhere it is dark-green that we see. These are important aspects of any painting. That's why I wanted to make sure that you are absolutely on top of it. Now let's get back to the middle part of the painting. I would like to actually make it bigger. That would really help you in this painting. I want you to see how I go about it. I would take the tip of my brush and try to go lighter in value over here. I do not want that I had all the dark colors. I would work more with water compared to the pigments that I have on my palette. There are so many times you will observe me painting with my water more compared to my colors. That I think I've told you a lot of times it's not the first time that I'm saying it, practically every time whenever I'm working with water, I can really understand how much color I need or how much pigments I need for showing off all these different parts of the flower in a better way. Each and every thing, of course is a learning, it did not come to me on the first day. There are so many mistakes that I did commit on my own. Then I got to know what are the important ways or how we can actually use all of our knowledge and that can be a real advantage to us. All of this has come over time, and practically everyone takes that amount of time to get there. Do not try to say or do not try that you should be a master on the first day. That one is never an expectation from any of you. Go about painting it's local, but painting it with confidence, think whatever you have done is great. The outcome is great. Even if you don't like the painting, keep it for one or two days and then come back and have a look at it. I'm sure you will fall in love with the painting that you have done. Practically with the explanation that I've given, at least you can try and get an outcome which will be according to your expectations that you have. Because we all have expectations from ourselves. People want to improvise on a skill set. Go ahead and try to do it. I think you will be in a position to get a great outcome. I'm so confident about you guys, that you will practically get a fantastic outcome once you are done with the whole of this painting. I'm waiting to see all of your projects in the project gallery. You see there is so much of waiting that I've done. A teacher, mentor, or instructor is only complete when they get the students to paint what is a good outcome. That's what I see so many of you painting well, with the first three days, whatever you have uploaded and I'm requesting to others to paint along with me. It is real-time and every day you just need to take out maximum an hour or even way more lesser. There are days which are easier and there are days which might take a bit more time. I have kept it real time because I wanted to do it that way. Do not think while you paint, "My God, the lessons looks really long." But once you start attempting it, you will go with the flow. The flow is really important in watercolors. I've seen it once you go with the flow, you just know that this is what you want. I know you see painting with my hand, I mean, with my fingers, I seriously paint so much with my fingers. Anytime I commit any mistake, I pick up the color sometimes with my fingers. I do not need a brush to do it. There is good amount of work that you can do and use it to your advantage. Just keep adding the colors, so that is your brown. Now, this is your burnt sienna that I'm adding. But whatever is available, you can go ahead with that and add it for these parts that I am making or painting right now. Whatever brown is available on your palette, you can even go with burnt umber, or any other color of your choice. I love the burnt sienna color, and this is practically from Winsor & Newton, professional grade. It has got a very nice color that is beneath. It looks like a bit of a red sheet, but I'm not sure that what is the pigment that they have used. I can actually see that and get back to you on it. You can only then purchase it if you want to, because it's a very beautiful color and very ideal, and you can use it for any of your other paintings like urban sketching and on. That would come really handy for you. Let's add some more colors. I think that we are done. Once we are done, I will go ahead and add one or two small lines in the middle of this forelimbs that we have painted. Once I had that small line, you will understand that it has a darker line in between. That can be also seen very well for a leaf. Last one, or one and a half minutes that is left for our painting. Now, this is the time where you should know that we do not want to detail any further. It's just a bit of flying here and there. If I actually detail it anymore, it might give away all the beauty of this painting. It would lead to overworking on this painting. I have been saying this pretty often that we do not want to overwork on any of our painting. That's so important to know where you should stop in a watercolor painting. If you know where you should stop in a watercolor painting, you can practically need any kind of painting that you go ahead with. If you do not know where to stop for your watercolor painting, it would become very difficult for you to go ahead and understand and what. It would lead to so much of overwork, that whole of the beauty of your painting will be lost. Though you might be an excellent watercolor artist, but exactly knowing where to stop is really important, and that's how I always see it. I'm adding these small lines and then I would let my paper dry off. Before you peel off your tape always let your paper dry off and then only peel off your tape at an angle. There are so many times I did rip off my paper and I do not want to commit that mistake again. While we remove the tape now, you will get a small glimpse into what we will be painting next. It would be loose and dry as I did tell you earlier. I think that you will fall in love with this painting. It is easy, quick, as well as it gives you a lot more opportunity to play with your colors and backgrounds. 12. Project 5 Hydrangea Part 1: Let us know what colors that we need for competing the painting, it's purple, opera, red violet, indigo, and burnt sienna. In case you do not have opera go ahead with any other paint that is available on your palette. Here again, I would be taking a landscape size paper and it is in a vertical position that have taken, so it's more of vertical rather than horizontal. I could start adding a few petals from [inaudible]. This is going to be loose hydrangea. Loose hydrangea means that you have a lot of about 20 to play. How you define your backgrounds, how you define your hydrangea petals, everything will be up to you. Which means practically that we, as artists, can put our imagination into place and then play with the colors to add all the beauty to this painting. Let us sketch some more petals and some of them would be larger than size, some of them will be smaller in size, it all depends on what you want to actually add. There would be one big hydrangea flower in the middle, which I want to add and rest of them would be towards the sides. I would go with smaller hydrangeas on the side so that the middle one is completely visible and that one is the main focus on the subject for our painting. Many of the times you might have seen that I do not complicate the object a lot. I just add a few here and there and then I keep the focus on one single flower or one single subject. That's what is important when you are painting flowers. If you try to detail the whole of the painting, it is a realistic watercolor painting, whereas through this particular painting, we are not trying to create realism, we are trying to let it loose. Now, let it loose is very important, it is so quite similar to the one that you have done in case of poppies but there you had a background and the background was more with the greens. Over here we will not create the background with any of our green. We will create the background with the colors of the flower. If you might think that this looks pretty different than it, how will it turn out, etc. Guys, believe me, the background when done with the same colors of the flower, it really comes out well. You will understand that through this style of painting and you can use it even in any of your future projects, whether you are painting her building or your painting any other flower, like anything that you mean you can paint other kinds of lilies with that you can paint tulips with that, you can paint whatever flower comes in your mind. I have particularly not covered roses on this one, roses is a bit difficult subject, I would say and I want to have a dedicated class on roses altogether, which I will bring in some time later on in this year or next year. We will see when I do get that and that would be completely dedicated to roses and there will be beautiful projects on roses, etc. Those all aspects I would be actually taking up later on and that's why I did not included in this particular section or these particular, as it is too complicated and I want to actually break up this object and such small, small pieces that you can just pick up your brushes and start painting and you have to become a pro once you take any of your classes. That has been my major intent at all the time so if you see at my bowl right cities, it has about 2,000 students and the only intent of that whole class is to give you an understanding of landscape paintings and practically once you take the class, you can become a master at painting landscapes. There are many classes like these, which I have given like the classes on sunset and it has 21 different shades of sunset. You can just take that. It has lamp, it has water, it has guys, it has bought whatever you can think off because most of the things covered in it and so these really helps you to get into a habit of painting as well as this helps you to grow in your art journey. Once you take these classes, you can practically see your improvement in your painting and that's what matters in reality. I have been talking a lot and you might have seen that I am even drawing along with it. There a lot of few lessons which I cannot just teach. It will come to you with time whereas there are a few things that I can tell you which will help you in your own journey of watercolors. I have practically learned over my years of experience and water color whereas if you start, you can't just start and you are just like bang, you know it, the brushes you know, the paints you know, the people you know, everything that you see over here, you are already equipped with it and that's what makes your journey so much interesting. When I started my journey, I was all over the place. I did not know what the people is, what the brushes are, where can I buy them? I had so much of confusion in an around me and it was so difficult for me to even understand which are the brushes that I should use for florals like Scada, Hansard of black velvet walks very nice for florals whereas any other brushes you can take prints turn, or anything else for your landscape, they work absolutely fine for your landscapes so there are different brushes which have a preference for florals. There are different margin pressures which have preference for watched, there are different brushes which have preference for other different kind of paintings. I preferably like to use as caught up most of the time but whatever is available, go with that guys. Never think that this brush is not enough for me, you are just starting out, once you are more experienced, you'll get to know which one you want to purchase and purchase only those. Do not try to purchase or have a lot of brushes so that were shared way more confusion than what you have. In the meantime, you might have seen that I have actually filled up my entire page with more and more florals. Do you really think that I would be detailing all of them? No, I will not be detailing all of them. There will be only detailing on a few of them and some of them will be blurring the background. I think you will get a hang of it once you start painting. I'm applying some water and you can use your size supports size 6, size 8, whatever brush you have available with you to paint these, I have told you that you can use any brush of 2468. These are the major brushes that are being used for your florals. If you have this paper size, in case you are working on a bigger size, then you might go head with some other size brushes. Paper is wet because I did apply one layer of water and now I'm adding some of my opera color on it. If you see I will leave some white spaces, that's very, very important and that's the rule for painting your hydrangeas. That's what we would be at least following in our painting. We are not looking for realistic painting as I did tell you earlier, we're going to make it more interesting, we are going to learn techniques like over here we are doing wet on wet. We will even add wet on dry so we are going to actually make use of all the techniques that we have learned till now, as well as create the backgrounds with the same color that you have available on your palate. We will not be using any warm or cool shades of any other column, whether it be green, yellow, or something else, to create the background and this is one of my cruelly favorite projects from this CDS. Why? Because it is special, it is something that is absolutely different and I was so nervous while I was painting this. I was never sure that I can actually me, paint it well and right now I am adding some amount of my brown with my indigo and then adding a bit of it on my edges here. That is basically the border of my hydrangea flowers and then even adding it in the middle, going ahead and adding it towards the top right-hand corner. One or two strokes here and there, and it is since wet on wet so you will get this beautiful outcome. We're already 10 minutes into our painting and practically now we can see how slowly our petals will actually come together. Again, this painting is for 45 minutes and I am actually trying to put it together in one single goal. You might feel that why it is in one single goal. At that when I must tell you that actually this is an amalgamation of your painting, that is your each of these petal painting along with the background. Hence, I was not sure that whether I should break it or not. But I think breaking it will help you to ease out as well as you can take a break when it is necessary so let's go ahead and break it, that would be better off, I guess and we have this in our mind. It's mostly about a mind that this whole painting all my God that I have to sit for about 45 minutes or we're not together but seriously, I can tell you each of these petals are individually being worked out so wherever you think that you want to take a break, go ahead and take a break. There is nothing stopping you from taking a break. Break is always good. One of the petals we did paint with wet on wet, and this one we are doing wet-on-dry. That's amazing, we are now using all the techniques that we have learnt till now for adding the colors. I'm going ahead with the darker color towards the left, and that is more of my purple and some of my indigo and brown whereas while I come towards the right, I would stick to more of my opera and then add a few lines here and there. That's it. I feel that this looks pretty good. Everything I will not be detailing a lot, so wherever I think that the petal is towards the top, I will detail that more. Whereas wherever I think that I do not want to retail it that much, I will leave it. That's how I go about my painting and practically try this. You will understand that where you want to add your details and where you do not want to add details. Every time adding details will not add that factor to your painting or will not actually make you a better painter also. I have seen so many times that there are many of the painters who make it loose, yet it is so interesting. There are only few strokes which can make your painting look amazing whereas at times when we actually add a lot of colors to our painting, it leads to overworking, and overworking means that I will not get the same outcome what I need. Let's go ahead and start painting another petal towards the left. I'm not going ahead with the adjacent petals. Why you see that? Because if I go ahead with the adjacent petals, then the colors will flow from one to another. If I did add the colors towards the top petal, I did add the colors towards the bottom one. That's how I go about it and I'm using my thinnest brush, that is my size 6 square, though it is thick but still it has got a big nice tip which helps me to add those lines that is required for a painting. Now, I would practically teach you how you can make each and every petal stand out. While you are done with this part, start adding some of your colors to the in-between part where we did not sketch anything. What I'm doing is adding some of my purple and then some of my red violet and some opera. Once I come towards the right side, I would move and I will see that the colors are lighter in value. I will add more colors and that would make it more and more lighter, lighter and lighter. That's how we go about this painting, and seriously, this is one of the most, I would say, experimental painting that I myself did. I have never done petals which are so loose, and how to strike that correct balance between how many petals you want to paint straight and tighten it up whereas how many petals you want to keep it loose and just with the background, that has been a challenge for me and slowly steadily once I was going ahead with the painting, I just knew these petals, I do not want to paint much, this is the place where I want to target, and this is the subject which I want to keep for more detailed so that it just works out better. These are the aspects that I worked with, and you might have a different way of working through it that really doesn't matter. All matters at the end is that we understand what techniques are being used over here, how I have progressed with my painting, and seriously, each and every one of us have a different way of painting. This is just one of the styles that I wanted to introduce to you. There might be many other styles in which people are painting. I would be adding one sunflower painting tomorrow and you will see that I do not take out any of my graphite marks from that particular sunflower painting. Why? The petals were just done in a very random way, that is, we were not going with each and every petal. I just applied the colors, and those graphite lines practically actually decided how these petals are there one after another or else you practically wouldn't have been in a position to understand or you might have to add more lines and you might have to add more colors, darker, lighter like that to show it off in a better way. Hence, just striking that balance and just striking the different style that you want to add to your painting comes with more of expedience. Once you start experimenting and experiencing these small, small things, you will understand how beautifully any and every flower can be painted. I'm adding some of my brown. I usually don't see people adding lot of brown in these paintings. But I really like to add this burnt sienna. It is from my Winsor & Newton burnt sienna that I have and I am adding it right now on my paper. Once you are done with individual petal the above ones and then you have added and created the background, I would ask you to move back to, again, same part that is adding more of smaller petals towards the right and mix your colors. Start with your opera and your purple, as well as some of your red violet. Now red violet of course can be made. You can even use carmine. I'm open with that, so use any shade of pink, whatever is available on your palette, and then go head with another petal as you have. As you observe, we are adding some darker values, and earlier, we were going wet-on-wet, here we are going wet-on-dry. There are many times you will observe that we have more of wet-on-dry and sometimes we have more of wet-on-wet. Let us add more of water into this petal. You will see that while we did paint all of these petals background and everything, a lot of water was being used. Why? Because it is watercolor, and in watercolor you will also have that for florals, we actually paint a lot with water and water control comes as one of the most interesting aspects of this floral painting. But along with that, it is also important to note that only water control does not teach you all the techniques that you use for your florals or any other paintings that you want to do with watercolors, whether it be landscape, urban sketching or anything of your choice. Whenever you are working with watercolors, the most important aspect is to be patient. Being patient is so important that if you are not patient enough, then you might actually lose out a lot more. If you are patient enough and you partner with this medium, as I have always, always told you, you try to be patient with this medium, you try to partner with this medium, it is going to reward you back like anything. You have to go slow with this medium, you cannot fast-pace it up. You have to give the time, what it needs for your painting to dry off, and then go ahead with your second layer. All of these things needs to be done before you go ahead with anything for this particular medium. Now, this medium is so very rewarding. I have seen it overpass so many years of mind whenever I have tried to paint with this medium, it has sometimes lead to happy accidents and sometimes it did lead to great outcome. You will not create masterpieces everyday, note that. Just the way right now we are adding some of the paints on our petals and on the left we did add some lines. While we are doing it now on the wet surface, we did use some more of water. If you see towards my right top corner, I have one fresh supply of water and one jar of water where I take off all my paints. I always go ahead with this and I have gone ahead only with this technique always. Keep adding more colors as you observe and then I will meet you in the next part where we would be completing this painting. Though most of the work has been done, I have actually told you most of the secrets and most of the ways in which you should paint for this particular flower in this part itself. But we have to anyways go ahead and complete it, so let's complete the composition in the next part. 13. Project 5 Hydrangea Part 2: Okay, guys. This is almost similar work that we did in our last part. It's just that this will help you to understand how we complete a painting. I'm going ahead and starting with one of my petals again towards the left. I hope you did understand how we go about the complete painting in our last part, and this is going to actually complete your painting to an extent. Slowly, steadily, you will see how the whole painting shapes up and how you have to add the colors to your background and how you can experiment with your colors for your background. Everything you can understand with only these four, five colors. You can even use a limited palette if you want and you can actually get something amazing in terms of the outcome. You can make these hydrangeas even in monochrome if you want, because the shape and size will define the kind of flower that you were painting. Always try out something in monochrome. Try out in other colors. I think that can be a great experiment. Again, if you're trying something in monochrome. Now, let's go ahead and add some lines, as well as paint some more petals. I do not want to define much over here anymore. I will come back while we have to paint our background more since I have told a lot about how you have to paint these petals and it is now pretty simple for you. We have done three and four together in our last part and I want you guys to just go ahead with your wet on wet over here. Wherever you think that your color is a lot more on your brush, just take it off on your tissue and then draw these lines and you will get those soft edges. I preferably like to add the soft edges. That's one of the reasons you will find more of softer edges in my painting. But in case you like more hard edges, I have another painting of mine where we are doing paeony and it is again, water color floral, but there are only two, I think, different kinds of flowers that we are painting. One is a lily and another is an anemone. Those are the two flowers that we are doing. The anemone one is pretty complex one. You can go ahead and try that. Because after this seven days of regular practice, you can take more challenges. That would be a good one to understand and create your own detailed floral painting for your house or for anything that you want to do. Flowers can be done as a logo, flowers can be done as, I mean, if you want to add these kind of logos for any other paintings that can be also done. You want to do it for brands that can be done. You want to add these for your New Year cards, that can be done. You want to start off with your own calendars. Yes, floral is a good way to start off. All of these can be started with floral stats. One of the reasons I wanted to take up this particular class and the potential of what you can practically do with florals. Go ahead and add some more colors of the last left petal that you have in the middle. Then paint more with water as we have done always. Blend it with your blending brush and then add a few lines, as well as move on towards the right and start adding colors to the other petals and to your background. Let us complete some of these parts now. I will actually leave it up to you how you want to go forward and add the darker and the lighter values. Some of the parts you have to do it in dark and some of the parts you have to do it in light. But when you have to show a flower that it is there, other parts or wherever you are adding some backgrounds, those are areas should be in darker values. I even add some of the petals once I am painting. Yeah, that's also okay because you keep on improvising your painting while you paint. This is more about hydrangea, so they always occur together and sometimes the painting doesn't look great if you do not add a few petals here and there. Always an improvisation along the way works well. This one I do petals, you can always add, there is nothing that can stop you from having a better framework. I always say this that have a good framework in your mind. Framework or background really helps you to work better with all your painting that you can think of, so go ahead, do it. I think you will be in a position to understand that everything that you paint would be great. Yeah, I think that's it. Keep painting and I will meet you when I have to paint more of the backgrounds. Go about painting this. Have fun, that's most important. I have been pretty serious throughout all these four paintings we have done till date, but today is a big day and I want to tell you that you have to enjoy and have fun with water colors. If you are not having the fun, if you are losing that out, I don't think that's a great gesture so go ahead, have fun with this medium. This medium is very rewarding as I have told you so do not worry. Just think how you want to worry about it. I'm here to guide you. Do post me anything that you have doubts in terms of water colors, etc. You can always go ahead, check back at the initial of the painting while we start every painting. I have given out a list of colors that you can use. I always suggest the alternate colors you can use. These are the things that I keep suggesting always throughout all my sessions that I do take in any of my classes or through any of my projects that have been, these other things that I would always tell you. Yes, I think that's the most important aspect and keep painting here and there. I think you will now understand that why we did all these four different paintings earlier. We had to get to somewhere here that is loose and more of detail, whereas using the same colors that you have. All of these put together is another style that you have. You might feel that this looks a bit advanced or something. But believe me, it is not. It is done in real time and real time actually helps you all throughout to paint along with me. There is nothing that I'm not showing you in particular, and it becomes really easy for you to just use your colors, do whatever you want to. I would add some more darker colors towards the left corner. You can use any colors, in case you want to. These are only the few colors that you have on your palette. Hence, it leaves us with a lot lesser chance to make any mistakes that you might have done in other paintings. I guess it's time to continue with our painting. Let's go towards the top area now and paint that part to once this part is done. I might be talking less in this whole of the painting or in this part of the painting because did teach you most of it in our last part, and it was a lot more detailed in terms of each and every painting that I was explaining it. Over here, I will teach you how you can paint your background more efficiently with lighter values. If you see, I'm going ahead with some opera mixing it with some of my red violet and then adding it towards the top area. Why this would really help for our background is not every part or everything you need to paint, or you need to actually add to all the lines, etc. For some of the parts, we would leave it as it is. I'm adding some brown and mixing it with the colors that is already available on the paper. If you see this is again, wet on dry. We are not going ahead with any wet on wet kind of painting in this case. Slowly adding all the colors and just making the background work. Wash your brush and then hide the colors. If you see this time, I'm picking up the colors from the other chart towards my top right corner. I do not want my colors to actually change or did this painting anymore. Whenever I'm picking up the colors, I would wash my brush and pick up some more fresh supply of water and then add. I would go towards the bottom and you will observe I'll add more of dark values over there. Be here and you will see how darker values play an important role and aspect in this whole of the watercolor florals, hydrangea painting. Let's go slow. Now slow is very, very important. I have told you, I have stressed on it. I have stressed enough on it, but still I want to stress again. You are painting this hydrangea for the first time. So go slow. Going slow will really, really help you to understand how you go about painting it. It's perfectly fine. We are not in any kind of a race. It's okay if you cannot complete a painting today, go ahead and complete a painting tomorrow, or just go with few of the petals first. Then on the left bottom right corner, as you have seen, I have mixed 3, 4 colors, which is my red violet then some of my brown and indigo, and added the darker value. This is pretty simple. There is nothing that will stop you from adding this kind of a background. You get stop and try this. There is no complexity and you will be in position to nail it. Go ahead and just blend it with the background. Then a few petals which are left here and there, we will finish it off with the brushes that we have. We will push it off, of course. But we will go a bit slower again with that been more of water while we paint these areas. Letting it a bit more lighter is always a good idea. You can even go head with negative painting. Actually, you have done some negative painting. If I tell you that darker background that you are adding and your florals look so good because of the darker background that you have added, that is the negative painting you have done. You are not painting within the subject, you are painting outside the subject. There are so many times you are doing negative painting and you don't know particularly that this is the part that you are doing and negative painting. I wanted to tell you that this is how we use all the techniques within our painting, still get our beautiful outcome and those are the important aspects. Particularly I have kept the bottom left-hand corner and the top right-hand corner of bit more dark. My painting is in a slanting weird goals, whereas the top left-hand corner and the bottom right-hand corner is in a lighter value. That's how I love to keep it over here. But you can have your choice of adding colors. Never think the way I have added the colors is the only way you can do it. There are many other ways people have done it previously, and you can also try your hands on it. I think you will do great in that. Now are the last few minutes of the painting which is left when you are on to the last few minutes of the painting, be very sure of how you want to add the colors. It's only few of the patch, so where I'm going ahead and adding my colors onto the petals or even onto my background. I'm not touching a lot of areas as I do not want to spoil this painting any further, the background is still wet as I'm using all 300 GSM paper. If you are not using the same kind of paper then you might not also get this kind of an outcome. But that's absolutely fine. You always to not need this outcome altogether. That's even okay. Yeah, go head and use the way you want to apply your colors. Use the colors that is there on the pallet, use the same techniques. I think you would be great while you paint any other kind of hydrangea. One more thing that I have noticed that many of you are painting along with me throughout these days, and you are experimenting a lot. Guys, before you go ahead and experiment, it's always, always important to have a good amount of understanding of how you work through your painting. Now one important aspect that you might say is that we have seen the class and we know what all you are teaching, and we can understand and we can use all that learning in our next painting. But till you go ahead and paint that particular project, you will not be in a position to understand how exactly paints work on your paper. I think it's always very important to paint the same project that you see in any of the classes or your instructor is teaching because they have a lot of experience and that's why they are going ahead and teaching that project. Once you are done with that project and you have practically seeing what are the problems that you face are, what are the issues that you face, then only you can apply all of that learning to your next project. That's how I have seen it and that's how I have done it. It's not that we just see something and we can understand everything, what we have to do. Yeah, this is one important aspect that I wanted to tell you. I do not want you guys to anytime feel that you are not doing great. You guys are doing absolutely great throughout all these projects that you are painting along with me or even in your own style that you are painting. Before you go ahead with your own style, I would seriously request you to attempt these, because there will be lot of problems that you might face. My brush, my glide the way that you observe on the paper and yours might not. Yeah, that's a very, very simple, I think example, but it doesn't work. Sometimes the colors that you're using doesn't work exactly the way we want it to on the paper. Until you face those problems, you will not understand how you can make it work. There are so many failures that I had before I came up with class. It took me almost two year to come up with a class like this. It has so much of paintings in the background. I can't tell you. I have painted so many florals before you can even see these kind of outcome. Hence, try to do for sand thing or try to actually work on the same kind of florals that you see I'm using and I'm painting. Then go head and try out your own projects, that would be really helpful in your journey. It's just a suggestion as a friend, as a mentor, as your instructor, I would love to guide you through all the best practices that I have done in my own journey. I do not want you guys to anytime feel that no watercolor is not rewarding or it's not a great medium. Let me tell you, frankly, it is a great medium if you want to do it the way it should be done. Yeah, that's the only thing. Let's add some details for the middle parts of hydrangeas and then we are done. Let your paper dry off and then they move your tape at an angle. I think you would be really happy seeing the outcome. Let's just wait for few more minutes and then below for tape. This is it, I'm not going to paint anymore details so that's it. I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out. Let's go ahead and remove the tape at an angle. Before I remove that tape I have allowed my paper to dry off completely. Then only I'm going ahead and removing this tape to remember this even for your own paintings so that you do not report your paper. Just go ahead and remove it and you will see how beautifully it has turned out. Yeah, overall, I think it's a great one that we did and I'm so proud of you guys that you did at end this one, it was not at all an easy painting, though it was more about your background and that background is not easy. It only comes with time and I tried to actually wish you guys to do something amazing so soon. Meet you in the next lesson where we will be painting some of us some flowers. 14. Project 6 Sunflower Part 1: Let us go through all the colors which you need for completing the painting. It is Yellow, Orange, Red Brown, Indigo, Yellow Green, Olive Green, Vandyke Green, and Burnt Sienna. We are onto our sixth day and I will show you a few hacks for painting the sunflower. It's going to be another interesting with tips and tricks and a lot of learning that we do in this painting. I would be using the middle of my tape or the sides of my seam washi tape, which I have used for my side areas of this paper to basically master side areas of this paper. Then I'm going ahead and marking equal area on all the sides of my painting, I mean, the floral painting that I would be doing. What I usually see that from my border, wherever I need to mark, I'm getting an equal size. I'm using my pencil for that. I'm marking the dot each and every place wherever I have to add my petals, this is a great way. You can use your pencil, you can use your scale. I love to use my pencil because every time we will not be having a scale and marking it with the pencil makes it so much more easier. You can go head with any kind of floral painting this way. It is all very much structurally organized. If you see every time, you can go ahead and paint something pretty easy. It's just that we are not in a position to understand how we should go about it. These are the small tips and tricks that can help you for any of the other paintings like Dahlias or you want to do others, like the Daisy. You can even do Cosmos, you can go for other paintings too. Try any hacks, try any other thing that can be used for any particular painting that would be great. You have to pave your way out. How you actually make it more easier for your own self. The whole of the drawing that I'm doing for the sunflower is real time. I'm just adding petals here and there, go ahead add some overlapping petals, add some full petals. Go as you want. Just make sure that your petals are well visible and some of them are smaller, some of them are longer why I say this, it's nature and nature will never have everything that is similar or that is just like symmetry. We are not here to create symmetry. We are here to just show whatever is available in nature that is naturally, whatever you can show and that's what I always say for all my classes that you have to understand how much organic you can go about while you paint or while you add anything of your choice. If you are painting something and it becomes more organic then your spectators whosoever is observing your painting will be so happy to see how beautifully your painting has turned out. It just tried that cord with any one. Though this is much of a learning and I know that you guys have already learned a lot in the past five days and this one is almost at the same level. In fact, it is a bit more relaxing compared to all other paintings that we did till now. After two or three paintings, I love to give one simple painting which can help you to relax. That's how I have always loved to add my classes, or my projects in that way. Few of them are easy. Few of them just helps you to raise your bar. At every point in time. You might feel that this painting looks a bit longer, but believe me guys, most of the paintings are done within 30 to 40 minutes or might be a bit longer than that. They are all not every time the loose ones that you paint they're are the tighter and the looser ones. I mean, it's a combination of both. How you can go ahead and paint your watercolor florals. You can also find your own way. I have discussed so many styles in this particular class and you can see this, select any one of them or else you can even try to find your own style. That's also a possibility. Once you start your journey with florals, it will take some time to understand what is your own style. It would be a voice in your ears. It would come to you. An artist voice always comes with time. Believe me, guys, the more you practice, the more you would understand how you want to go forward with this journey. Another aspect of watercolor, I would say is practice guys. Whatever I teach you if you do not practice later on or you do not go ahead and use it directly on paper and use your colors on top of that, you will not be in a position to get the whole of it. It might sound a bit strange, but that's how the real part is. Once we start with watercolors, we need to practice it or else all the hard work that you have done to date with your paintings might not come true and there will be difficulty while you do your next set of paintings. There are so many times I have actually done it that way. I go ahead and paint something. I have been regularly painting a video, try to paint. If I leave on for five days painting or else there is something that has come up, supposedly an assignment or I have to work on any other aspect, or I'm traveling and taking workshops. There are a lot of things that we do for our living and we sometimes cannot avoid the fact that I might not be painting on those particular days, then I can see this is so much of a change in terms of the painting, in terms of how I progress in this journey, it becomes really difficult. This might sound quite amazing to you, but that's how it is. I have gone ahead with some Yellow Green first and then added some of my Olive Green oral sap green. You can go ahead with both of these colors. They both are amazing colors. I usually use them for most of my floral paintings as you are observing and for creating the background. Here we would be painting the background first, and then we would go ahead and start painting our florals again. That's another way of working things out for yourself. I love to do it this way. You just try this way. I am pretty sure about it. You will fall in love with it. I did not remove these graphite marks genuinely because we will be working a bit loose with the petals, which means that we will not be defining each and every petal individually. That will make our job really tough for us. I prefer to go ahead with simple way of painting the sunflowers. Hence, I wanted to keep this graphite mark and then go slowly over that with the main colors defining one or two petals and that's how we are going to finish it off. Before that we have like lot of time before that but I think the project is not very long. Before you go there, there is about 10, 15 minutes we have to spend on our background. Go ahead and paint the background slow. If you see I go very slow with my background, I love to use my silver black velvet brush over here. Many of you ask me why silver black velvet brush wire scodder. Silver black velvet brush scodder. These are the brands which can hold a lot of water and when you are blending your background, I practically love to avoid these marks. That is, your strong marks that you get. You cannot blend it well with the background because it did dry up and you did not get the correct one. It is hard edge and it doesn't look fine. All of that I want to actually avoid and you saw how simply I used my hand to remove the color. I use my fingers, I use my hand a lot while I paint. All of this can be done even in your future. Go ahead and add some of the colors again. These bigger brushes or even having a nice tip, bigger brush is always good. Do not go ahead and purchase it right away. I would ask you to wait, develop this habit and then spend on very good brushes, paints, etc. Initially when you are learning, you just need to practice all the techniques. You need to practice how you work upon them, how you work on the background, how you paint the petals, how each one of them can be done. Then of course, it is easier to work everything out. I'm using some darker value. There is no particular way of adding the colors. If you see in this painting, in few places, I'm adding darker values and in few places I'm going ahead and adding the lighter values. How you make it lighter, just add some water. Water does its own job. Water is so beautiful as a medium, I would say. You do not need to work with pigments much. Watercolors really does its job so well that we have to work less with pigments, just a bit of brush strokes here and there. So many of you tell me that your brush just glides over the paper. Seriously guys, it will glide over the paper very simply, just don't worry. That's the one important aspect of watercolor. Do not think how this painting is going to turn up. You have to go ahead and give your best shot and don't be under any kind of pressure. You are painting the whole of this painting for the first time. Therefore, it will take some time, for any person, for you, or for any of the other people to understand how the whole of the structure, how the whole of these things work out. Do not take any pressure. Take any cold beverage or hot beverage depending upon your liking and then go ahead and start painting. You will fall in love with it. I am very sure about it. Yes, that's how it is going to be. Let's add some more colors here and there. I will show you some of my other floral paintings during the conclusion, where you will understand how you can apply colors to your advantage. I have done an animal painting and one of the others would be your peony painting. It is pretty easy just you need to be very patient with your watercolors, as I have said very often at each and every time of this class, I might have mentioned this, but I love to mention it again. This really happens to each and every one of us. We just feel that no, it's not the way I wanted it to turn out. It did not turn out the way it is. There will be times where we would be failing. It is not that every time we create a masterpiece. All of these things are bound to happen in and around the flower. When you see, I go really slow. I match up with the colors that you see in and around at some places I add dark, some places I add light. I do not want to make the background completely dark and I do not want to make the background completely light either. Why? Because the middle of the flower is darker, whereas the sides of the flower is more warmer in shade. I try to balance it out that way and it's just my own way of balancing it out. Many people like it some other way. Once you try this out, you will understand how you can do it in a better way. Here we will be doing a very simple part that is splattering your water. That's one of my favorites. Why? It creates so much of texture on the background and still it's just water that we need. Overall, I am so fascinated with these watercolors and how they behave. There are so many properties of watercolors, which you might not usually see. But still, they are something amazing when it comes to how you work around with them, how they behave, how they are one of the favorite mediums form all over the world. All over the world, there are watercolor artists and they just love this medium. Why? It is easily available. You get papers at any place. You do not need to actually dirty your hands a lot while you paint these. Overall, it is quite amazing to work with this medium and the amount of knowledge you gain while working with this medium over these years. I have realized it myself, how easy and tough this medium can be when you try to fight with it, it will not reward you. Whereas while you just think that I'll just create something today, it just turns up so pretty. I sometimes feel that how is this possible? Some days I do not just sit to create something amazing and it just turns out that way. I think that's the beauty of this medium and that's how this medium works. You stay relaxed with this medium. The medium will reward you. The medium will come forward and start behaving the way you wanted it to. Whereas when you are like, my God, I have to create a masterpiece today, I am under the pressure, I'm under the pump, it will not act the way you want. That's what makes the whole of this idea so interesting. Let's complete the background. Then as I did tell you, we will splatter some of our water. It can be clean water also. It can be the same water where you take off your pigments from your brushes. There is nothing like you cannot use that particular water, use whatever is available with you. I always prefer to keep two jars, as I have told you, even or your one would be first supply and one would be the other one where I wash my brushes. I don't know when I need those fresh supply of water. I'm using my darker colors right now. Maybe when I want to add the warmer shades, I would need something that is more cleaner in terms of the water. Every time I do not want to get up and get it. That's another thing why I love to keep it together at the first go. Let us now go ahead and splatter some water. You see these marks that is formed on the background. It is the pigments which gets displayed from that particular place wherever you splatter your water and it gives that beautiful bloom. I love to add this kind of textures for my painting. This is one of them where I wanted to show you how it can be done. Meet you in the next lesson, where we will start painting our flowers. 15. Project 6 Sunflower Part 2: It's time to start coloring and I would go ahead with my yellow, that is my Indian yellow and some of my orange. You can even go ahead with permanent yellow deep if you do not have this orange, as it is a very light shade of orange, which I have taken and start applying the colors evenly on all the petals as you observe me doing it. Again, I'm going slow right now. Going slow is very important throughout all the projects as I have told you. We did not paint the background and I do not want to actually go overboard and go on top of my background again. It's just that I want to go ahead with my colors right now for the petals. I'm going with my orange in a few places and I'm going with my yellow in few places. It looks pretty amazing to me. By the way, you should always remember the color that you will get or you see right now will become one shade lighter once your paper is dried off. That's how it happens for artist grade paints. In case you were using student grade paints, then what happens is, it might be one or two shade lighter. You might have to go for layering. Layering means that you have gone ahead with one layer. Since it is light, you would go ahead with another layer of your paints. That's also absolutely fine, it's just a bit more work, but initially when you are learning, you do not want to spend so much or money on the paints etc. That is fine enough. Go ahead with it and do it. That's okay fine. I'm again using some of my orange. I use my orange and mostly towards the middle part. Why? Because the middle part will become more darker in value later on. You will observe how I do it, whereas the side parts will remain lighter as always. We will even define a few petals. Again, that would be done later on, hence right now just go ahead and add the colors. Adding colors is not at all tough. You know that we are adding the colors in a very easy way. Please pick up some colors on your brush and then glide your brush on top of the paper, you will get something that is similar to this one. Do make sure that your background is dry off completely or it has dried off completely before you start the painting or else the colors will move here and there, which we absolutely do not want. That's the only caution thing I think you guys should know. The rest is absolutely fine. Slowly, steadily, you will observe how this whole painting will come together. Every time while I paint up in the middle of the painting, right now it's quite in the middle of the painting. I'm also doubtful about a painting that okay, did it turn out exactly the way I wanted, and will this be what we would love to see? Will this be appreciated by anyone? Can this really become a class or will people like it all together? Can they also paint along with me? There so many questions even as a teacher which I have in my mind or even as an instructor. At each and every point and time when I'm giving any kind of tutorials or when I'm giving any kind of classes, project, anything, these are the things we want and we usually do. At least I always do, that is being a bit doubtful is always good. You tend to work better in those areas and it's okay if you are also a bit doubtful right now. Believe me, go along with me, paint along with me, you will find so much of peace in each of these floral paintings. I did find mine while I was painting all of these. Florals are literally peaceful. One is that it is beautiful, and second is, it is really peaceful. Why? You are applying some warm, beautiful, nice shades and they spread so much of grace, beauty. Once you finish it off, I'm like, this is what I really wanted to do. I think we are good. We have already completed the petals. Let's go ahead and add some yellow towards the middle portion of the flower. It's more lighter in value if you observe and I would even do the same thing for the flower that is on the top. Before I go ahead with it, I would add some of my burnt sienna to my painting. You can even keep some red brown. If you do not have red brown, that's fine. Only burnt sienna is okay to go ahead with it. Keep some indigo. Indigo would be great. You can actually make different colors out of lighter and darker values of brown, which we will need later on. I have added a bit of indigo to my brown color that is my burnt sienna and I got a darker shade of it to add towards the right. My paper is wet, which gives me so much more chance to play with it, though colors are automatically becoming more of bloom compared to when I'm going ahead and applying small dots. Water does its own job, I do not need to worry much. I'm adding one more darker shade to it. I feel that one more darker shade would be better. I will start adding it and then just observe how it works. Yeah, I think it works fine, so go ahead and add it towards the top right corner and let it bloom. I'm so happy the way this painting is starting up, why? It is simple, easy and yet we are having such an expressive florals. At any point and time, you will not feel that you are not doing justice to these florals, and that's the best part of painting florals. Every time and every place you were like, I have done something great once you have painted this floral. Overall, I think this has been an amazing experience for me to actually try out so many different florals in one single class and seven different florals was not so easy for me initially, but every day it's one and I'm now feeling so bad that tomorrow it would be ending altogether. The whole journey will come to an end. I'm now more pumped up to paint something more and then give it to you guys, so it's like every time I feel that, my God, this journey is coming to an end, I do not like it. But everything which starts has to end or else there would not be a new start. Hence, let's just carry on with our painting. Now, if you see I'm glazing it. Glazing means I am applying a light color, brown or red brown on top of the yellow color that's already existing. The color that comes out is not exactly red-brown, nor it is exactly the yellow that you have applied. It is something in between. You can say it is a bit like the yellow ocher that we have got, but not even similar since I did not want to actually paint all my petals in the similar way, so I just left it that way, the few of them I would be glazing and few of them I will not be adding anything. In few places, I might even go ahead and add some other orange, red all these colors. Whenever you are adding colors, just make sure that you go or just add the colors which you like. A sunflower has this brown and yellow, a bit of red brown, all these colors within it and I love to actually paint it like that. Every time, whenever I'm adding the colors, I make sure that I just see into a natural palette and then add it. Go ahead and add the colors on top of the petals that you see right now, and sometimes even yellow see. All these things I do experiments, see experimenting is the only way out, but I would ask you to follow it the way we are doing right now and then whenever you get a chance or have any floral in your mind, try to explore that, experiment that and see how it goes. At some places, you will have darker value, some places you will have lighter values, so each and every petal is not defined so well. That's where our graphite marks play a very important role. You can still feel that all the petals are there and they are individual petals though we are sometimes matching it with the petal that is just adjacent to it. All of these are there. It is a bit different than how we did paint our daisy. Daisy was something different than how we are painting this sunflower. In daisy, we did go along each and every petal and then only got the final result, whereas we are not going along each and every petal in a way, I would say that it is more defined in this case. In just few of the places, you are just adding those darker shades and colors. I guess I'm happy. Now let's do some negative painting. Guys, that's one of my favorite parts when I go ahead and I ask you that let's do some negative painting. I hope that you guys do get excited in a similar way I do get excited. You see that leaf on the right-hand side? We'll just go around it and paint it so that it is a leaf that you see on your own, whereas you actually don't see that we are painting inside it. When you repaint outside any leaf or anything, it's negative painting. When we paint inside it, it is not a negative painting. I think now you exactly know what is negative painting, so I will not give more or tell you more about it. You have on the Internet, my other projects, where we did use a lot of negative painting. I'm just blending it with some water. That's it. Then add some darker shades of my. Leaves. It's important to walk around in a way. There you are adding your leaves. Even the darker leaves you add. One, is you go around the leaf to paint it, or else you go inside it to paint it. That is also absolutely fine. We will be using both of this technique for this flower leaves. I think that's my favorite part for painting this flower. Every time I go ahead an experiment, I just try to use both of them. I'm not sticking by only one. Use as many methods you have been taught that could really help you. Go ahead, and use it. But do not try to overcrowd, or just go ahead with all the methods that you have been taught. That would really lead to a lot of problems. Yeah, think about it that we are not going to overcrowd it, not trying to go overboard with anything that we have learned. We're just trying to understand, and later on apply it. Stick to your regular things that you do, and try to add one or two techniques you in there. You will see the difference. You will see how beautifully it turns out. I guess this is now the time where we are five, six minutes left, and you need to realize that we have to not only paint the background a bit more, but the leaves. Whereas we have to go towards the top area, where we have to paint the inside of sunflower. That is also left out, and we have to go around that. Let's just add some more leaves first for our background and complete it rather than coming back again and doing it. Go ahead, and paint the stem with the green that I am doing it right now. Then add some more leaves on the left, add one or two just small stems or branches here and there. That's all. While you are using a thicker brush to apply on the paper and make your branches, make sure that you are going ahead with the tip of the brush. Using the tip of the brush is very, very important. Why I say this, if you can use the tip of the brush, then it becomes very easy for you to manage it. I usually like to use it almost at a perpendicularly, the way I am right now holding it. You can absorb it very well. That's how I even like to apply it. I guess so, that's it. Let's go ahead after this with our liner brush. This is the liner brush that I have with me. It is from ASCADA, size 0 or size 2. Size 0, yeah. This is the size 0 one, and I am just adding one or two here and there small, small stems. If you do not have this liner brush, then also find any detailer brush that you have with yourself, or else you can even go ahead with the tip of your fine, nice brush that you use. All of these are fine with me. You do not need to own up grid brushes for doing an excellent painting initially. Slowly build up your priced possessions. I would say these brushes are my own price possessions. Yeah, we do build it up later on, and that's how we go about it. Go ahead, and add the yellow towards the top area of the flower as I did tell you. Do apply the colors in the similar way you applied it for your sunflower, that you did paint in the middle. Now, this is very important to always do it in a similar way, as they are naturally occurring, and hence, they would be quite similar. We can go absolutely different in this case. You have to keep that in mind, while you add your colors. Wow, we are towards the end of the painting, and I'm doing the same things that I did earlier, in my first sunflower. Yeah, I think this is it, and we are almost done. I hope that you are really proud of this painting. It is not a very easy one. I'm first drawing on the petals, and then painting each one of them, seriously will take you a lot of time. I did try the easiest way you can paint something, and you can get a great result out of it. That's the only intent which I have given you the easiest way to paint florals, and I guess just adding a bit of indigo, in few places, and let it bleed. Now, since this area is wet, it would bleed. Once this painting is completely dried off, then only think about removing the tape. I'm using my size to escort a brush. Mostly, you would have absorbed. I'm using that. It's a very nice brush. In case you ever happen to purchase something like this, I would request you to go ahead and try this brush. You will seriously fall in love with it. Keep on blending brush. Escon silver black velvet are one of my go-to brushes right now. I think silver black velvet has always been my go-to brushes. You'll see even my whole door paintings where my initial paintings, that I did use silver black velvet to a lot extent. Before that, I was using Princeton. Princeton, would be more in an affordable range in case you want to try out, those brushes are also very good. I always love to tell you whatever I have experienced during my own journey, in case you want to go ahead with something which is cheaper compared to the others, go with that. That's absolutely fine. What I'm doing right now on the paper, is just the final details. Do not go overboard with it. If you think that you do not want to add it, that's absolutely fine. I'm just adding it in few of the places, and few of the places I'm leaving it empty. Those things are also there. Yeah. I guess this is it guys. Now, it's time to let the paper dry, and then remove the tape at an angle. Tomorrow, is the last day guys. Hopefully, you guys will be painting along with me tomorrow even, and we will have a great day with our watercolor florals. 16. Project 7 Sakura Part 1: Let's discuss the colors which we need for completing the painting. It's brilliant pink, orange, red, indigo, yellow-green, olive green, Vandyke green, and burnt sienna. Today is the last day so we are going to do Sakura painting that we would be doing. I would teach you more, I would say from a structural perspective, how to paint a Sakura. Before we go ahead, we would just mark the area of the Sakura, but I'm really not sure if I want to go ahead this way. I think that I would take just one point from the middle and then extend it with the five petals of Sakura. The five petals of Sakura, of course, are open. As you see, I have just marked the middle of the flower. Once I have marked the middle of the flower, I'm going from my middle. Just checking that the size of my pencil is equal to the size of the other sides. I have taken the second small dot that you see of my pencil to mark these areas. Once I mark these areas, I will make five small lines. Why I do five small lines, that really helps me to understand where exactly I want to paint or where exactly I have to draw my Sakura. Again, drawing this flower is basically the framework, as I have told you. Every time whenever you are drawing anything as a beginner, it's providing a framework for a better outcome. Therefore, drawing is really important in watercolor journey. Initially, when I started off, I did not pay so much of attention to my drawing, but once I got a hang of it and I understood that this is really an important aspect in our journey, I tried to focus more and more on the watercolor or on the drawing part and then working with my watercolors. That's how I learned myself but giving you a part would be pretty easy for me, and I think that you guys will even enjoy it as you already know what are the challenges that the people might have faced in their own journey, and you can seriously avoid your own mistakes. Having said that, I even do believe that we all commit our own mistakes. There are times that we will commit these mistakes or else we do not learn. My mistakes may be avoided, but you will have your own set of mistakes which can be avoided by some other person that you might go ahead and see that these were the mistakes I did while I was starting out on my journey. Interests are common, but still I think the mistakes and mastery of artwork that we make is different each and every time. It gives you so much more place to play along with the cautions that I gave you being an artist myself. Go ahead and draw this Sakura flower open petals. This is the open petal. Two of the other flowers we will be adding towards the left. Here we would be going with our layering technique and you will observe how we add just one single layer and then go over it with our second layer. That's how we will keep this Sakura flower and believe me, it is one of the most easiest flowers that you can paint. It's just that you need a bit of patience. At one point in time, and myself left these paintings like is this going to actually turn the way I wanted? But once I completed it, I exactly know that yeah, this is what I wanted from this and I'm happy that it turned out the way I wanted it. Every time do not leave a painting in-between. I always say this, wherever you feel that you are not performing exactly how you wanted to still go ahead and complete the painting. That would give you a feeling that every time to complete the painting. I make sure that every painting I do complete, I do not leave any painting which is not done or half done. There might be times I do not get a great outcome, that's absolutely fine. Every time would be a learning. Either it would be a learning or you will have a great outcome, so either of it, it would happen. Now, let's just find some of our tree branches. Where exactly you want to add a branch, that needs to be decided. I would add the branch over here, slanting. Then I would add two flowers towards the top area. With these flowers, I practically do not have any structural approach that I want to take, but along with it, I do need to tell you that, you can just see how it goes, have a smaller oval and then go around it to meet the other petal. That's how I paint my Sakura flower which are towards the sides. I think that's how I take it. I think I'm trying to actually tell you that simplify your subject. Simplifying your subject is very important value when doing a watercolor painting or even drawing. In case you can simplify a subject, it becomes very easy for you to go ahead and paint it later on. The more difficult you will make one of the subjects, it will become even more tough for you later on to work around with it. Now you see I have made an oval and I'm going around it to add my petals. Once I have added these petals, I would paint over it. Let's just add two more petals towards the top area. You can also, for this one, it looks absolutely fine. Go ahead and just start adding your petals for the second one. That is the second flower which is actually sideways. Just adding that green portion for this flower or even it appears as brownish. I would leave it up to you how you want to paint it. Add the flower towards the top and go a bit slow while you add this, because I do not want you to commit any mistakes at this point in time. We are almost halfway through this video, close to halfway through this video, because most of the parts only I'm painting the Sakura. But before that, having a detailed outlook would really help you. That's my understanding. I always love to use my understanding and give you all the advantage about how you can go about any of your paintings or any of your drawings. Let's just add some more small petals towards the top area and head towards the right, then I would ahead with my left. In case you want to take off all the extra paints, use your kneadable eraser. I mean, it's troubling symptoms of the graphite mass that we have, so use your kneadable eraser and then just pick up all the extra five marks. Since watercolor is transparent, picking up of your refinements would be a great idea. Just add the backside of the petals, as I'm doing for this part, this is a bit larger compared to the one which we did draw on the left. Hence, going with that. This looks so perfect. Now, let's just work around with our colors later on, I will need to once we have to start working with our colors. It would be the brilliant thing that I would love to start with. In case you are not having the brilliant thing, you can mix some amount of your white with your red so that you can get a color that is closer to this one. Go ahead and take one size 8, silver black velvet brush. Once I do pick up the colors on this silver black velvet brush, I would start adding a bit of red, but the red is very low. Whenever you are adding red, make sure that you are not going with a very, very dark shade of red. Just pick up the colors wherever it is necessary and add more of water to paint this Sakura flower. It's one of the most pretty flowers that I want to see at some point in time in my life in Japan. Hopefully, that happens and then in real life, we can paint along these flowers someday. That's how I see any of these drawings, paintings, the more you can do light the more you understand how exactly these flowers are, how you want to paint it. Usually, most of my paintings are inspired from real-life photographs, but every time you do not have the best of the real-life photographs also available with you and photos cannot see this. You do justice to the real place or to the real parts of the world which actually has all these beautiful flowers occurring in nature naturally. That's what makes the whole journey or the whole painting, I would say more and more interesting when you have seen the flowers in reality and you want to just pick up your brush and paint that out on your paper. I might not have told you that there are a lot of possibilities with florals that you have. I would love to just tell you like you can make calendars out of it if you want. You can paint any commission work wherever you get. There are so many brands who want to have florals for their branding, so you can even try that. There are weddings where you want to paint florals and the wedding is a big part and you might like to add these paintings for your wedding stationery. That's another aspect of wedding which can be covered. Then I have a lot of these, you can even make a side hustle or you can start doing your own work and start owning even with your skillset that you have. These are a few of the options which I have seen in my own journey, and this, of course, can help you even in your future journey. But do always go behind having a great outcome that you're painting and once you start improvising, you will yourself understand that there is so much out there in this world that they have to offer you. It's a pretty amazing aspect. Let's go ahead and paint the last petal that we have towards the top. Once we are done with these petal parts, I would go ahead and paint the other parts later on. But to just keep it easy, I would go with two layers on this Sakura flower first. I am usually using three main colors that is getting a bit of peach color with my orange mixed with this pink, as well as some amount of my red. That's usually how I go about it. I think that can be used even by you or else you can even have other colors. Sakura occurs in nature in many other forms, I mean, in many other colors, so you can choose your own shade too. Let's mix our red with a bit of indigo and add it in the middle of the flower. If you do not like it, you can even pick it up or you can use it to your advantage to add darker shades. I think I would go ahead and add some more darker shades, mixing some of my red with my indigo and then adding towards the middle area. One or two small dots, that's how we make this area. Then, I think the flat wash or basically the variegated wash that you have absorbed within each and every battle will become way more better once we start adding layers to it. I think I will go ahead with the side flowers again. The side flowers need to be painted in the similar way we did our floral for this part. Some parts would be your pink and some parts would be a mix of a bit of your pink, red, and your orange. That's how we go about it. Just use your water to your advantage. Do not add a lot of colors, try to just leave the pigments and work with water. That really helps, slowly and steadily, you will realize that working with water can make your painting way more interesting. I'm here to tell you all the steps and tricks which is easily available and which you can do to make expressive or even you can see the beautiful florals in your any of final projects or any of your other projects that you want to pick up. Let's go ahead with layering technique. Now, I am mixing some of my red with the paint and then going over these petals with a darker value but I think this is just too dark, so just taking off all the colors and the water. I washed my brush and then adding it. I will not be adding this layer at each and every part, so it would be only in few parts I will be adding these layers, and then going ahead towards the other parts. This is a pretty easy way of adding colors, so that you can think of layering becomes really easy and this way, it can create that depth of the flower, it can create that expression, it can create that beauty within the flowers which we really need or which we require. You can even leave it at the first stage, which is majorly one layer, but one layer looks so much more flat and it has not created any depth or shadows which every watercolor painting may require, or if it has that approach, you might forget it out that the painting has stand out in a better way. Wherever necessary, I just add a bit of indigo or [inaudible] whatever is available on your palette and make a bit darker value. Have a look at it. It looks really nice right now. Go ahead and add that darker value. Go ahead and add the layer 2 to your other petals and slowly, you will understand that you are already a [inaudible]. I do not need to tell you what exactly you should do, so add a darker value first and then blend it a bit with any of your thinner brush. That would add a lot of depth and just add small lines here and then take it towards the right, take it towards the left, you are good to go. I am so happy to witness this learning part. I wanted to always teach this learning part and it is happening. I'm not using this layering technique at each and every point, so make sure that you are also not covering the entire area. We want that our first layer can be seen, hence, just add it in a few areas and then leave it. That's how I go about this. I will meet you in the next lesson where we will be painting the other parts of the flowers and the background. You are on your own right now. We're almost closing it over here, so go ahead, work it out, and I will meet you soon. 17. Project 7 Sakura Part 2: We are on the part 2 right now of this painting and the book of flower is done with the second layer. Let's go ahead and start off with a second layer on the other two flowers. Those all will be less detailed, whereas the first one was more detailed. I do not want that all the flowers would be equally detailed. That's another aspect which I want to keep in mind while up in this. Some of them should be detailed more and some of them should be detailed less. That's how we go about painting this part. Go with the second petal. But individually you need to paint these petals stalks. Another thing that I wanted to tell you, you will not have the privilege to painting everything together. All these classes or all these projects that we had in this particular class, you have to go individually with the petals, except the sunflower. I think there we could go together. With most of the petals still there was a bit of brown, etc., which we touched on each of the petals. All of this put together, I want to touch on only one single bond, that wide floral painting. Look stuff. It's only because there's lot of detail that you need to do for each of the floral painting. At some point, you have to do some other details for completing a floral painting. How much you want to avoid it, how much you do not want to do it. Because we're not doing completely loose petals or even the loose florals. Whereas if you do loose florals, there might be less of work in terms of going with layering and everything. But I have seen even any of these loose florals also having lot of layering, etc. Each and every point in time, whenever you're trying to learn something new, yeah, it would have its own point sign. You will have various things to work through. Everything is a learning, as I always say, this would be also great learning for you guys. It's a learning curve. We learn, learn, learn and then we understand how exactly it is working out. Let's go ahead and just add some more colors to our painting. It's something that is absolutely easy for anyone to hide and do. I would meet you next to where we have to go ahead and add some pollens on our flowers. As well as we have to then go head and add the background of the flowers. Pollens have some more details that we would be adding. We have to be very sure about it, how we go about it. I'm keeping the bottom parts of the petal a bit in brown than indigo shade, but you can also put green if you want. I wanted my background to be green. That's one of the reasons I left it as brown. I have seen a brown as well as green in many of the cases. Go ahead and choose whatever color you want to. Then add these small, small, this is basically, this usually protects your flower like the bud. When it opens up, it gives you this brown or the green color. For [inaudible] always for all our flowers, that's how it is. This is the part of the flower. Go about painting all of them. Whether it be towards the right and towards the left. Once you are done with that part, then we will start with the background. Background part should be easy for you once you are on this last painting. We have done so many backgrounds throughout the first six paintings, so you are almost a pro at it and I know you guys will nail this painting to the core. One important aspect that I would tell you at this point is, do not think while you are painting right now. Why? Because you're painting has not come together, tilt it. When you hide everything, then only you are painting will come together and it would look amazing. You have to hold on till it actually takes shape. I am just adding a bit of colors wherever necessary, but this is just to mark that these are different petals and they're separate from each other. Wherever I think that difference was not visible properly. I did try and go ahead with a bit of darker shades here and there, to make it more visible. I think how I would love to do it and let's just make the stem of the flower and then pause that, I would be moving onto my pollens and the middle part of the bigger flower. Let's make some of your paints gray and red. Once you mix the paints gray and red, you will get the shape of the pollens and they will be spread across the flower as the flower is open and facing towards us. Go ahead and start adding it in absolutely random manner. You do not need to think much in-between. Sometimes I leave a bit of white so that that it looks more organic. That's the only thing I would ask you to also do if you are going ahead with this floral, it doesn't need to be equally spaced. You might be thinking that why I'm adding equally space. Hippolytus, that's absolutely fine. You do not need to do that it's just that I did it that way when I was painting. It was not by chance it was just like, okay let's do it this way. You want to go absolutely natural, go ahead natural. Some would be smaller, some would be bigger, some would be thicker and some would be thinner. So all of those things are possible and you see me applying it now. Go ahead and add a lot more pollen. In this point in time, I need to tell you that there will be yellow pollens too and I will add now these lines to make it more visible. It would look really nice once you complete this part. I was telling you at one point in time I thought that I would be leaving this painting at this point. This was the point where I felt that, oh no, this painting is not turning up exactly the way I wanted. But as you see didn't hold on. I wanted to see what is the final outcome of this painting. Once I saw the final outcome I was so happy with it. I was like, I am so proud that I did take that plunge and I did go ahead and paint this completely. There are so many times we are not sure of something, but going ahead and painting it really is important. I can tell you it would even help you in your own journey. Always try to finish your paintings. It is difficult, no doubt about it. It is very, very difficult. At some point, you might feel that why am I even painting this I can't work even better. Like right now I'm mixing some of my white quash with the yellow to add those yellow small pollens. But where I was is, yes, we do face these kind of situations, we do face these kind of challenges at some point in time. Even if you are in your practical life, you will be stuck at some place. There are times we are all stuck. Why? Why do we only consider it for our painting style? I get stuck at so many other places working on something or you have to deliver something, or there is some practical stuff that needs to be finished. All of these do also create lot of tension, do also create a lot of issues. Where we think why did we even get into it? All these points are simple and they will come for sure in any individual's mind. Hence, I would ask you to not let those self-doubts come just get over it and do it. It might not turn out exactly the way you wanted or it might even give you lot more happiness once you've completed. Both the sides are equally possible. Let us keep adding these small, small dots. This might look that okay, too many of them I have applied, but it is an open flower and hence, even I think the dots will not change a lot of things. Do not worry, go ahead and make it a bit messy. Mess is also good sometimes. You will see it. Literally, you will see at how messy I made it and still it did look really nice once we've finished it off. There are so many aspects of painting which I discover every day when I sit and paint. Another important point that I wanted to highlight is, when you paint daily, you get a lot of inputs in terms of how you have to process each of the paintings, how you want to actually go ahead and add any kind of flowers or how you want to learn any kind of floral. There are so many aspects that you learn when you are every day practicing something. I do understand that there are so many days you might be working and your art is just a side hustle or you are doing it as a hobby to relax yourself, just watch sometimes the classes and leave it. Just prepare a table where you paint for the next morning. Wherever you are sipping a cup of coffee in the morning or having a hot beverage, just go ahead and paint a bit. I think it would not only help you to relax, but it would also give you a sense of achievement that you have taken out at least 15-20 minutes time or half an hour time for yourself during the day. It is so very important. We do get lost in this phase of earning money and having a good life. I know everything is very important, but along with it we as individuals are very important. We as individual only will be highlighted when we take out time for ourselves, when we make ourselves a priority. I have literally learned this hard way and I hope that you too learn it now. Or else, at one point in time it would be too late and you will be like, I could have done these things earlier. It might be a bit of lessons that I love to tell you as I do follow each one of them and I want to share everything that I even do during my days or what I feel as an artist with you guys. Go ahead and add the yellow green first and then your olive green and some of your dark green. I go really slow with my brush strokes. As you see, I am never trying to fasten it up. All the videos are real time. Why does real time? Because I want you guys to be painting along with me. There are so many ifs, buts and all, still please guys do paint along with me. Once you start painting, you will know in reality, what are the challenges that you're facing. Sometimes what happens is you have selected the correct paper, but the paper might have lost the sizing. So if it has lost the kind of sizing, then you might not get the same kind of result that you observe. All these things you will not understand until you just pick up your brush and start painting. That's the reason why I always stress upon the fact that painting is so very important. While I paint this background, you will observe that in and around the flower, I add my darker values. While I go a bit far away from the flower, I try to add the lighter values. That's how I see this particular painting working for me and that's how I make this one work. There are times like the last one which you did was sunflower. Throughout the whole of the painting we kept at the darker value rather than keeping it lighter altogether the background, I mean. Why? Because in the middle part we had something which is very warm in nature. The colors that are warm in nature will always reflect great things. That would become the main subject and everyone will be looking at it. Whereas when you are not working with that kind of color and you are working with lighter shades, like pink, etc, I love to keep it more lighter and I like to use the white of the paper. That's how I do it, but you can also try some other colors. You can try some different kind of backgrounds and see what works best for you. As I always say, I paint with water more than I paint with my pigments and colors while I add my background or while I even work on my flower. There are so much that we add while we actually apply these colors. Go ahead and add some darker values, that is your dark green, and then make it more amazing in terms of the background. I'm adding some water and then I'm going ahead and adding my dark green. This is one of my favorite paintings. Again, I would say most of the paintings are really nice and they really touch that chord of mine where I say, I'm so happy painting this one. Let's go ahead and add some more lighter yellow color and once we have added this lighter yellow color, you will observe how I am actually spreading it. At some point, I am adding the darker values and in some places, I'm adding the lighter values and you see how it is blooming on the paper. I see these blooms as very pretty ones. It might look not great to many people. But for me, whenever I see these blooms, I'm so happy it makes me feel so good. They are like one aspect which I always wanted to do and always wanted to achieve in my watercolor floral paintings. Once this is done, go ahead and add some indigo into your brown and then add one of your stem or branch. You can see now this branch is done on a wet surface. In someplace it is wet and in some place it is dry. That's absolutely fine. Don't think much while you do this. Why I say this, don't think much. Wherever you have to add your branch, you have to add it. You cannot think, this is dry and this is wet, so I have to achieve the same one that I see the instructor doing. No, do not think about that. Your paper behaves very differently. You might be working with a different kind of paper. The colors might work very differently. You might be working with very different kind of colors. Everything put together you can achieve this result also or else, even if you are getting some hard edges, that's absolutely fine. This is not the mean or you can say this is not the subject of our painting, that's the best part. The main subject of our painting is already done. We see such beautiful colors coming up. Now, towards the left, I did add one shade of darker color and I'm so happy to see these two blend with each other. Time to add some more pollens for the other flowers. I see that all of them are in different shapes and sizes. You can also alter the shapes and sizes in this place and get something similar to what you observe right now. In the last few minutes and we are completing this class, I cannot tell you how emotionally I am to complete this class. This has been so close to my heart and this has been such an amazing journey with you guys. It's so great to see you all joining in whosoever has joined till now and whosoever would be joining even in future. I'm so happy that you are taking this class. You are making an effort to learn florals. It is not an easy subject, believe me guys, I know it. But you are doing a great job at it and whatever you are creating, be proud of it. Why? If you are proud of whatever you create, that's the major outcome which you need. Slowly add a few small lines to show the pollens are coming from between the flowers. That's it. I guess that's all I wanted to tell you. I will meet you in the conclusion section, where I will show you one more floral or two more florals and how I have created the background of that floral. In case you want to, you can also go ahead and try out that floral or else you can leave it. I would leave it up to you how you want to do it. There were be one or two more different florals that I would add on for you guys and hopefully you guys like it. You can go about it and paint it. Adding some more browns to the spot to add some more depth. Whenever you are adding darker values, always know that you are adding depth to your painting or shadows to your painting. Sometimes that's how we show the contrast and how beautifully you are painting has turned out. I think this is it. Let your paper dry now. Do not add any further colors and peel off your tape at an angle. Then have a final look at your painting. I know that you would fall in love with it. 18. Bonus lesson Peony Part 1: Let us understand all the colors which we need for completing the painting. It is quinacridone rose, rose madder, or Carmine, you can use anything that is available with you, cadmium yellow or any other yellow data is available on your palette, cobalt blue or selenium blue, whichever is available, sap green, forest green, and indigo. Here I'm with the last bonus lesson, I hope that you are going to actually enjoy this one. It's going to be about an art that we will paint this. Why we are going to do this in one things. First is that the drawing is not very easy, though you can go every way to paint this, but still I would say that you need some time to actually draw it, and then we will go into layers for our peony painting first of all. Along, whether there will be some amount of our background, which would be only with the two to three different shades, but still we have to do it. First, I did mark the center, and I have actually put together two or three small marks where I would be adding my pollens, and that's it, which I have currently thought about my peony. Then I'm drawing basic three different lines. Why I'm drawing these lines? Peonies, usually whenever you see in a photo, they are appearing in layers. Which means that the first layer would be smaller, that is the top part. When the flower opens completely, you will observe the smallest petal in and around it. Now, once I say the smallest petal in and around the pollens, which means that they are the smallest, and they are just in the middle. Around it would be bigger petals, and as the flower goes towards the outer side, they are more bigger and bigger. That's how we want to place our layers. Now, since this is a peony, peonies can be worked through in various ways. Many people like to do it loose, many people do not like to do it loose. It is majorly how you want to do it. For me, I would never like to do or to loose, at least in this class, so perfectly, I would go ahead with a project which is more defined. When I say it is defined, we need to actually go ahead and draw these smaller petals. In and around the pollens and the middle part of the flower, you will see these small, small areas which I'm adding as my petals. They are completely different shapes and sizes. Some are longer, some are shorter, some are from bigger, smaller, whatever way you want to actually draw it. Seriously, there is no best way to draw peony. Whatever photograph if you get, you can use it. Just try to observe how I go about painting this peony, that would be most important. Right now I'm making one small line, which is basically the backside of the petal. That's what makes the whole of this painting very interesting. The colors, the whites that we would be adding, everything will work as a highlight for this painting. Hence, just hang in there. I can tell you are going to be rewarded like anything. This is the most rewarding painting that you might have actually done in this whole series of projects. Some of the petals are thinner, or you can say they are actually facing towards us. That is, they are thinnest and they are not opening towards us, whereas they're opening sideways, which means that we can see only the side of the petal. That's how I will also add a few petal here and there towards the top left-hand corner, which would basically mean that a few of them are in a way that you would like to see it. That is, everything in nature has its own way of depiction, which means that you will not get everything opened up towards you with the flower or everything. Hence, we have to make sure that you go ahead just the way nature really gives it to you. In few of them, I have added three lines, which means that the petal is opening towards the right or opening towards the left, and there is a backside of the petal which we can observe. That's how you get three lines within one single petal, or else it would be usually one single line that is opening up towards you as I always say. These are the aspects that you need to actually remember while you draw it. The whole of the painting guys is real time, which makes it very easy for you to follow along. There will not be any problem when you are following along with me. I will make sure that we go slow and we keep painting just the way we have always done. But this whole painting would ask you to take small breaks. Why I say this? As we are not only going with layers, but even we have to paint individually each of the petals, which means a lot of work from your end. Though I do not want to scare you guys. Seriously, I did paint it within around one hour 15 minutes. Whatever I could include real time is around one hour 4-5 minutes, that's it. I could include real time. Rest is more about picking up water, washing my brushes, etc. There are a lot of things that you do within a painting while you paint, and there are so many things that is spontaneous. I would even show you how spontaneously I tried to add a background knowing the fact that I did add lot and lot of depth to my peony initially. When I have added that much amount of depth and when I have practically made the peony. Why do we need to have another good background? You see how difficult it was for me to actually let go away a good background and come back to something more flat and easy. I do commit even mistakes but the best part is that I usually get to know that this is not where I am going correct. Hence I have to just step back and see what's the bigger picture that is painting the peony. Hence I should just overlook the background and go for whatever background basic as possible and try to make the peony more better and more rewarding. That's what I always go ahead with. If you see there are a lot of graphite marks that you right now also on my paper but I will eventually actually make it more and more lighter. How do I make it more lighter? I would take my kneadable eraser and erase off any extra marks wherever it is necessary. Do not worry when you are also having these kind of dark graphite marks you can go with any kind of kneadable eraser and make it lighter. Do make sure that you have that much amount of visibility which allows you to paint well in each and every petal. Usually, the peony flowers are big and if you see that the left side of the flower is having the smaller petals and I will not see the whole of the flower on the left side. I would say the middle part that is placed a bit towards the left hence tail whole of the left side of the flower will not be visible. That's the only aspects. The flower is actually facing towards the right side and if you see you have the middle part a bit towards the left which means that practically all your petals on the right would be bigger and they would be more fuller as well as they will have a lot of work to do. Whereas the petals on the left can be left to an extent lose as well as some parts of it we would be retailing. I would guide you through the entire process do not worry how we go about it, how everything is possible, one-by-one, step-by-step. Right now the step is to actually go ahead and just mark your petals that's the only aspect right now, the top area I'm adding one leaf but believe me guys this is not required. Do not go ahead and add any leaves which you see, you will see even at the bottom I've added a leaf. When you are actually going ahead and detailing so much on your flower and you do not need to detail your background. Keeping it simple is most important and sometimes as an artist I think every artist does forget it to an extent. Even for me sometimes I do forget how exactly I want to work this whole painting out how exactly the whole pieces should come together. All of it I sometimes forget that this is how I want to simplify my subject. I need to keep my subject as the main focus. I do not want the leaves etc to become the main focus. There is so much less amount of space that is available towards the right, towards the left, towards the top that adding leaves will not be the best idea. Go ahead and just add these petals as I have told you I also went with the flow and I did add leaves, petals, everything that is possible. One more thing about watercolors detailing more with your graphite pencil is never a bad idea. Why do I say it, as that is the framework which you need for allowing your paints to add on. If you have more guidance that's always great whereas if you have less guidance the chances of committing mistakes are more. It takes a while to get hold of loose florals sometimes where as when you are doing a class like this and projects like these you are more guided you do understand how you want to paint your peony, how do you want to add your colors? Most of the things are more in shape I would say. Once you have this peony ready I would go ahead and ask you to add some water on top of your paper. You can use any size 8 brush since we did use size 8 brush to add the colors earlier also and right now I'm using my kneadable eraser to take off all the extra graphite marks. You see how light the color is now off the graphite pencil that I did add compared to what it was earlier that's very important to understand that you do not need so much of graphite marks for your painting. If you add so much of graphite marks in your painting then your painting will actually see-through why I'm saying it is watercolors and watercolors are not opaque they're transparent in nature. Transparency actually gives you so much of less I would say opportunity to play with and they're less room for mistakes. I would ask you to also do the step before you go ahead and start adding your colors. This is the first layer that we would go ahead and add I would even keep one small paper handy with me that really helps me to actually check my colors how much and what I want to add. The yellow color that I have added is pretty much dark and shade and it is more of gleaning mixture that I went ahead with and I'm adding whereas what I have now in my hand is more of quinacridone. This is quinacridone rose, and I have been using this color for a while now. This has more of water and very less pigment in it. You can see the water content is around 80 percent or 70 percent, whereas, the pigment content is about 10-15 or 20 percent max. When I apply it on the paper, you see how light it is. Once this dries off, it would become even more lighter. That's the rule of watercolor. Whenever your paper is dried off, the colors will become even more lighter. Go ahead, and add some more colors. Once you add these colors, you will understand in a better way that we are leaving some white spaces, as I want some of the petals to have light in it, and add some of your cobalt blue. Now, the cobalt blue that I'm using again is very light color. It is a very light shade, which means around 95 percent water, and five percent of your pigment, which makes it absolutely watery mixture. Whereas, when I did go ahead with my quinacridone rose, I was having some more colors compared to what I have now. Many of you might think, why blue? Blue gives a very nice effect for this peony flower. I have done it earlier. Believe me, it's better than the purple that you usually get when you directly use your bright violet or any other purple shade of yours. Go ahead, and if you do not have cobalt blue, try it a bit with ultramarine. I think cobalt blue or cerulean will be better compared to ultramarine, as ultramarine has a bit of granulation in it, which we do not want. I did go ahead, and mixed some amount of my yellow with my quinacridone rose. Now, I'm going ahead, and adding some water on top of one of the petal that you are observing. Once I add the water, I would go ahead with a darker color of my quinacridone rose, which is mixed with some amount of my yellow. That gives a orange mixture, which I want for this part of the flower. Slowly, as we progress, it's going to be more about quinacridone rose, some of your blue, and that's it. We are going to go very less, in terms of the color that you are using. We are sticking to only two main shades that we would add for this peony. Do not worry. Whatever is available, in case you do not have quinacridone rose, you can go with rose madder, or you can go ahead with carmine, or else you can go ahead with any other pink shade that is available with you. Just try, and see if that's the color which is closer to the one which I am using. I guess that the most important aspect is to learn. We're not here to match up the colors all together. But the outcome that you would get with these colors might be a bit different than whatever is available on your palette, which is absolutely fine. We are here to just know the techniques. Then you can use it in any of your further projects. While you add this pink color, you have to make some longer lines, I would say, and thick brush strokes. Now, this is the paper, which is already wet. your colors will become bloom, but do make sure that you do not have a lot of water on these petals, or else, the whole idea will go for it does. Secondly, the outer areas, or the area which is just starting above another petal, will be darker. Whereas, while we're going outward on a petal which is facing us, it would become lighter in value. That's how we would add our light to the painting. I'm not complicating the subject much, so we are not actually looking at where my light is, how my light is, how I want to add the shadows to my painting. All of these actually is even more advanced. We are at a stage where we are trying to understand how the flow of colors will happen for a particular flower. Along with it, how we can draw a particular flower. It should be really expressive so that anyone who loves florals gets attracted towards it. That's the main idea. If you see, I'm going ahead with my size 4 brush. You can use even your size 6 brush, but I love to use a size 4 brush. It gives me way more control. I am now going ahead with my Escoda Optimo brush, which is my all time favorite. Yeah, guys, I'm going ahead with my silver black velvet. This is a very good series. Many of you might already own it. Even when you try to think of purchasing some good brushes, this would be a great option to go ahead and purchase. I am using these brushes for a few years, and I know that they are of great quality. You will be in a position to get a great outcome out of it once you paint with it. They actually go on for years, which means that you do not end up spending a lot of money on synthetic hair brushes or any other brushes that you choose. Now, I am teaching you one more method of how you can add water to your petals. Here, we are now going ahead. I'm wetting our petals first. We are going ahead and adding the colors first. Then we would go ahead with our blending brush. Just add it on the other area, which is right now in white. If you observed, I have this size 8 brush. I'm brushing it, picking up all the extra colors that's there on the brush on top of the tissue. Then again, start adding some clear water. That's how we go about painting this part of the peony. It's an amazing technique, seriously. Either you go with this one, either you go with the earlier one, which ever you want to go ahead with, both will make your painting look great. Just start in this one. You need a bit more control. I would say as you cannot leave your paper dry at any point in time, in case you are taking a lot of time to add the colors. Then your paper might go dry, which we do not want. You might all be wondering, what is the purple that I am adding? It's not purple. It is my cobalt blue mixed with some amount of my quinacridone rose. This quinacridone rose and cobalt blue gives this beautiful mixture of violet. You can see this violet looks amazing, once you go ahead, and add it on top of your paper. Yes, try it. I can tell you, you will be very happy to have this thing done. Once it is done, do make sure that each of these petals are dried off before you start working on the next one. Every time you are adding colors to your petals, do make sure that the adjacent one is drying off. That's the most important aspect of painting single petals each and every time. Sometimes, you will observe me actually going ahead, and painting with my brush that is not adding colors. Then using my blending brush. Whereas, sometimes you will observe me working more with some water, and then going ahead with my blending brush. Just allowing it to move about on the whole of the petal area. Each and every time I choose my own method of how I want to go about it, there is no hard and fast rule. I have already told you these are the two ways in which you can add the colors. You can select yourself what is the best way that you want to go ahead with. Then you can start adding the colors as per your choice. Few of the areas, as I have told you, you need to extend it to make it look more like a peony. The lines, etc. should look better in that way. Also in a better way you need to add some darker values in few of the areas. In and around the other petal you need to add a bit of darker value so that you can see the edges in a better way. I have been emphasizing on this because individually we are painting each and every petal and over here it is important that you guys actually show each and every petal in a better way. There is so much of effort that you see while you paint any of these petals. Go ahead and start painting the internal part of the other petal. If you see I go very slowly with my size 4 silver black velvet brush, whatever brush is available with you is good to go so do not worry, take any size 4 brush that is there with you and then start adding the colors. Again, the paper size that I have taken is best for the colors that I'm using or as well as the brushes that I'm using. Colors of course it is you can or whatever you have you can do that but the brush size is always almost independent on the paper size that you're using. If you're doing this painting on a polaroid size paper of course you need smaller brushes. In case you're doing it on a larger sized people like mine which is practically a bit smaller than A4 size, then you will need something of this size brushes to work around. Hence it's important to just know that your brush size is practically guided by the kind of people or the size of paper you are using. Again, the violet that you see on my petals right now is majorly with the help of the cobalt blue that I'm using. Adding the cobalt blue actually gives a very, very beautiful touch to this painting and I'm so happy to use this cobalt blue. I have even used cobalt to civilian blue in many of my sky skits and they actually turn out pretty amazing. Along with it, I'm now starting to use this even in my floral paintings and practically it is on different level altogether. Hopefully, I think you will also love to do this. Guys, you have a lot of options even in pink that you can use as I've told you earlier. This is the quinacridone rose that I'm using. You can use rose madder, any other color that you have available on your pallet, carmine, pink, any kind of pink is perfectly fine. Do not worry with the colors. It's just the blue that I would ask you to stick to. This is practically the blue that you get in any kind of website that you buy or any kind of 24 set that you buy. Hopefully it should be available with you, if not then try to go with civilian blue. Why civilian blue? Because it has less granulation compared to the other blue, like ultramarine. I find that there is some granulation in ultramarine therefore it's not best suited for floral paintings though I have used it for many of my other backgrounds. Backgrounds is different compared to if I have to use it for my petals. I am so much enjoying this whole section to go about. It is up in flux size I know but believe me, it might look even boring to you. Once you are done with the whole of the painting, it is so rewarding. You would be so much proud of yourself that you have completed a painting like this that is really, really amazing. Only one thing guys, I have been reminding this, please, please be patient with watercolors. Watercolors is a medium where you need all the patience as there is no room to get back to your mistakes. Hence it's important to go slow and you can make less mistakes compared to any other medium like your acrylics or even gouache where you have way more room for making a mistake and then coming back to it later on as well as editing it. Whereas we do not find that much amount of room in terms of watercolors or in watercolors where you can go ahead and do this kind of changes as well as make these kind of mistakes. Hence going slow is very important. Do not think that I have to complete this painting right now. Go with the mindset, how much I can attend. I would go head and do that much and the rest part I would say leave it at this point and come back to it when you are there with a fresh mind. I would ask you to leave it right now and then come back to painting again later on. That's perfectly fine. Or else go head and paint a bit more parts of the petals and then just come back and start adding the other sections of your petal area. 19. Bonus Lesson Peony Part 2 : We are onto the Part 2. I will just tell you that this is just an extension of Part 1. To be frank, whatever we covered in Part 1, we will be actually going ahead and using the same learning even in the Part 2 for our peony painting. There is nothing exceptional in terms of the petals that you are going ahead and painting. I will just discuss a few important tips and tricks over here while you paint the whole of the peony. Towards the left side, I'm trying to keep it more loose. I'm going ahead and adding some water. Once I've added the water, then only I will go over it with some of my colors and then paint over it. There is no hard and fast rule in which I am painting this part as this is just whatever way I would love to add the colors, I'm going ahead and adding it. There is no particular thought process in my mind, while I add this color, hence you too can do it this way. Just keep the yellow part on touch because that is majorly the area of the pollens. I do not want to touch that area right now. At least for now when we are going ahead and painting the other parts of the petals, we did not define the pollens and we do not like to mask it. I am not a very good person who would actually go head and always tell you to mask your ideas. There are paintings of course, which we have done, which I have done when masking is very much required. That's where we have used the masking fluid dress. I would ask you to go ahead and avoid the masking fluid as much as possible because that really helps to go and make your own painting work with watercolors. Watercolors has its own flow that really adds on to that flow. It makes it even more better and amazing as a whole. I would say once you complete the painting, you will get to know about it. Add some blue wherever necessary and then I would ask you to go ahead and again start painting each and every petal individually. There is not much of guidance that I can give you over here as I feel that you guys are good enough to go ahead and paint all the petals now. You have practically done seven projects on your own and I know that this is a bit complicated one compared to all the earlier ones that we have done. But believe me it is one of the most, I would say, repetitive process that you would be doing in terms of painting. Each and every petal has a lot of petals sappy painting and it would get into your muscle memory how to paint each and every petal after one or two is done. You might face a bit of difficulty in the initial one and two but once the first one and two is done, you will be pre-awarded. I know you guys have been doing amazing. I have been watching all your projects so this is nothing different. It is not a rocket science believe me, it is one of the very, very easy projects that I can tell you. It's just a bit lengthy and it's time taking so taking necessary breaks wherever needed. After half an hour to 40 minutes whenever you think that you need a break, go ahead and take it and complete the painting in two sittings, you would be in a position to practically do it very very easily. I am repeatedly saying it because I know that at some point in time we just feel that "Oh, why am I even going ahead and doing and this is not required and all of it," which I don't want you guys. Don't be demotivated. One important aspect of watercolors is to keep yourself motivated and Keep painting at it. There are so many times I feel demotivated and the whole of this thing is not coming together, the whole of this piece. There are so many failures that I have seen in my own watercolor journey and when I look back, I feel that everything was so rewarding. If I wouldn't have failed at that point in time, I wouldn't be painting the way I'm doing right now. I wouldn't be teaching all of you the way I am doing right now. All of these things actually add on everything is a learning. Do remember that you are here to learn. Once this learning is done, then you would be patchy recreating your own masterpieces. Believe me, you will be in a position to create, trust that this is the process and once you learn it you will do even more better. You might be observing me that I'm going from the lower petals to the top part of the petals, and then from the top part of the petals again from the lower petals that's why you might feel a bit disconnected. The main reason over here is that my petals, which are on the top part already dried. Once they are dry, I can keep painting and going over it with my brush. Whereas when I'm painting the petals which are dumb and I tried to paint the end to same petal it would not be equally dry or it will not give me the exact look that I would need. Colors may flow from one petal to the another and that's what we want to go head and ignore so we do not want to be doing that. If you do not want to do that, you have to keep all of these points in your mind. Once it is done, then again, there are few more petals which are left and there is so much of talking that I've done. Over here I feel because I have been telling you to stay calm, to keep painting your petals and just keep hanging in there. All of this, I know I have been saying, but now when you just step back and look at your painting guys, it's almost taking shape. That's what I say once the painting starts taking shape, you will be so happy to have a final look at it. Sometimes I do feel that we do not need anything else in terms of background, etc. We just need a good painting of a flower and that makes something. You can go ahead and give these kinds of paintings to anyone. You can pull it up on your own wall you can frame it. Use for your holiday cards. Whatever you think you want to do out of it go ahead and do it. I would be so happy if you are using it in any of your future creative projects to see you guys growing, to see you guys using it for something more amazing and for something more creative. I am just defining few more petals towards the top left-hand corner. I feel that there is something more that I need to add on. My style of painting is more fine print. That's one of the reasons I love to add more colors. If your style of painting is not that vibrant, you can go ahead with the color that is rose madder. Rose madder is not as vibrant as the quinacridone rose that I'm using. Quinacridone rose has been more vibrant than rose madder, but that is another option which can be used and you can look at it. You can also try any other pink shade which is available on your palette, or also even go for orange or red. In case you want do peonies always pink and color and I would love for you guys to go ahead with the pink shade but there are other lighter shades like the brilliant pink which we used for our hibiscus. You can even go ahead with those shades in case you want, but the first one or the first painting that you were doing, just try to use similar colors that I'm doing. Then you can choose any of the other floral paintings and try on your own. I think you would be in a position to paint it like a pro. If you have reached this stage, and if you have painted all the seven florals practically, you just know it. Where you want to add your colors, how you have to add it, what are the techniques that we're learning everything, you just know it. That's why now explaining each and everything to you guys becomes very easy for me. Do not jump projects that I would say each and every project is very important and each and every project has got a lot of learning in it. If you were jumping projects, it would become very difficult for me to go back and give the same learnings because with each and every project you are learning and that learning can be even used even in the current project that you were doing. I hope that really helps you to understand why it is very important to complete the projects and why it is important to go step-by-step in the whole process. Now, there's not much in terms of the guidance that I need to give you as you guys are already pretty well versed with what you need to do and we have developed a muscle memory. Each and every petal that we have been painting is amazing, and there's quite a lot of time that you all have invested already in the painting so do not leave it here, try to complete it. One One thing that I wanted to tell you is, how to hold your brush. At some point in time there I need to make thinner strokes, I hold my brush at 90 degrees where I use the tip of my brush. Whereas in some point in time there, I do not need to make thick strokes and I just need to add some colors to my leaves or to my petals. I just go ahead and turn the colors in an angle just as you see my brush right now, which is majorly a 60 degree or 45 degrees. Do understand that when you need thinner strokes you need to hold your brush accordingly whereas when you are making thicker strokes, you need to hold your brush in a way that you can get a thicker strokes. It is all brush movement also, it should not be a problem for you. Next is I would need to when we start painting on backgrounds, you guys are great with the painting right now. We are not going to do the pollens as of now. We will do that later on. I will leave you here and I will get back once we start with the green areas of the background. I would even show you the mistakes that I do. It's great to learn that each and every person whom you actually think are doing great also do commit mistakes. That's great because if you don't commit mistakes, you do not get to know what's the best for you. Last of 14 to 15 minutes of the painting has left, you'll know that you guys have already done it. There is nothing much that you need to actually do anymore. I just need to tell you two three things over here. Do not become complacent right now. You haven't done the best so just stay confident. Just stay focused. You might think that this area is very easy to do and as we are starting with some of our sap green as well as some of our fall spring. The sap green is from Winsor and Newton and the forest green from Sennelier. But the point is, it's not done. The game is still incomplete till you are actually done with all of the painting. I will show you how I do correct my mistakes, I try to even add so much more to my background, which was not at all required. It was so good, you just need the background as such, but I kept painting on the background. Once I realized, I did step back and realized this is not what I want out of this painting. The whole focus should be only on the paeony. Why am I going ahead and painting these leaves? Why am I going ahead and adding so much textures to my background? Is it what I did intend to do to this painting? If the answer is no, then you just know that you are committing a few mistakes over here. I did that. Once you are adding the colors, make sure that you are going to have with water spring, sap green and indigo. You practically do not need this yellow green color over your. If you're going with a yellow green, then you pick yellow green, forest green, and indigo, orange, yellow, green, sap green and indigo. Those are the colors you can always alternate to it and understand. You see how slowly I would hide the colors, how slowly I'm taking taking my background. How nicely I am adding the colors to the edge of the petals as I do not want anything to go within the petals. We have practically done whole of this painting and it has come together so well that there is no room for making any further mistakes. But still we do, how we do it? I would start adding more textures, I would start actually showing the leaf in a good way. I would add darker values lighter values, I will start altering the colors, try adding the shadows and whatnot timing, which seriously is not required. How do you get to know it is not required? Till you make this mistake. I did make this mistake, and that's absolutely fine. You can always fix the mistakes if you are going ahead with a darker value on your background area. This is how I am fixing my mistake. I am going ahead with some darker value for my background area. Fixing this up by just part of the colors between these two, three colors. The upper side of the painting, I have kept with the darker. In terms of the green, that is a darker value, which is majorly your sapling and the forest green sap green is lighter compared to forest green. But if you were using yellow green and yellow green is the lightest, then you have your forest green and then you have your indigo. That's how you can go about it. That's how you can alter it and you see how bad this one is looking. But you start painting and you just don't know how this whole part will turn out, how you want to change all of it, how all of this will come together, you don't know it. Then I just add some amount of water and blend it. That's all I do because this part needs to pick up a bit more better and what you do is blend it well with other side, that is your sap green. That's it you do and you have not committed any mistake, you don't see any mistake that you have done. You just don't know that there was a leaf over there. As the graphite marks have very light. That's what I always say keep your graphite marks lighter when you are using watercolors. Sometimes, there is a see-through and I do understand it happens for our painting. That's absolutely fine do not worry. There will be times where you will actually get these marks. And it's absolutely okay to have these marks every time they are not perfect. I'm again leaving white spaces for my leaves. I mean, I'm still not done with it, it's just that the topside I did not find. At least let me try to boost the bottom area, that's what I'm all about I try, try and try. But when I think that this is not coming up together, then is the time where I feel that I need to do something about it and I made to change something. What you saw in the final painting was practically when I started adding the indigo and I was like chop it, I mean, the painting has turned out so well. The peony has turn out so well why do I need to work so much on the background, textures, and everything? Why do we have to do always the background so well? It can be a simple one, even, we can just focus on our main peony. It's not a large painting and there are so many times we just pick a peony and leave it. We are not going to always define each and everything that we see on each and every photo, which has leaves, which has peony, which has fallen each and everything you can define. That's watercolor, watercolor has got its own flow. If you try realistic watercolors, of course, you can, and it would actually turn out amazing. But realistic watercolors to me doesn't appeal a lot, I'm not a person who loves to do these realistic watercolors. I loved the flow of watercolors, I love the kind of accidents that I see with watercolors. I love to see how many mistakes I am doing, I try to read through watercolors. I try to breathe watercolors, I can live watercolors that's something I'm so passionate about watercolors and I feel like it's one of the mediums which is truly, truly amazing. The more you work with them, the more you understand it, the more you get to live with it, the more it gives in terms of challenges and the more rewarding and becomes. All of it put together, I seriously always love to see how much possibility there are, how many things it can offer to me. That's why I usually have most of my paintings and watercolors that you see so much coming up from me in only one single medium, whether it be beaches, whether it be sunrise. Whether it be sunset, whether it be any kind of poor paintings, everything that you observe on my page, small, big florals. Each and everything, landscapes is all watercolors. They have so, so much to offer and I am now going ahead and adding one more leaf is the left-hand side I don't give up. I keep painting, I keep painting, I keep painting that's not sometimes even instructors do. They just don't want to give up, they want to try, they want to try harder and harder and harder. Then when they realize, "Okay, this painting is not going anywhere, and this is what I do not want from this handsome. Let's go ahead and add some darker values to exactly the way I wanted." That's the eureka moment, I would say this is my moment of truth where I know the painting is not going anywhere. It's not turning the way I wanted and I need to do something about it. I need to add darker shades, it is a lighter painting and I cannot go ahead with lighter shades even for my background. That would not give that bond stack, would not get that beauty to the painting which is required for any kind of flora. That's where I think it became really really important to me. That's when I knew what I have to do with this painting. Going away for the colors, and you see how difficult it is for an artist to let go off, but letting go off is another aspect of watercolors if you can't let go off in watercolors colors, you will not be a happy person. You have to just let go off a few things in watercolors. You need to know that whatever I tried did not work out exactly the way I wanted hence just to let it be as it is. This indigo color, by the way, I was talking so much I did not tell you that you do not need to paint out the paths as you were observing. That's okay if you wouldn't paint because it's a dark color that we are going with. Hence, it is easy for you to go over the lighter values that you have already applied. It is not tough at all and I think you are not taken by surprise with this kind of an act from my end. I hope you guys also get to realize it for your paintings, for your own projects. It's important to know that you are about to actually make some mistake or you are about to commit something which is not required. You need to improvise on it, how you improvise on it. You need to have a plan, we always don't have a plan. We just know that this is a darker value, this is lighter value and always, a floral can pop out. If it's in lighter value with a darker background. That's what I knew and that's what I just applied with a simple idea. I love to go very simple with my ideas. I have told you I do not love to complicate things much, that's always been how I actually work through my paintings. I don't complicate it a lot either, if I'm complicated, my drawing a bit, then I would love to keep the other area simple. If I'm doing the other backgrounds more difficult then I would keep the painting more easy. That's it, any of this, I'm right not mixing some amount of my quinacridone rose with some amount of my yellow and you can also use those matter as I have told you so all of these colors are [inaudible]. Then just go ahead and it in the areas so that they look like pollen. We want to preserve the yellow that we did add earlier so do not cover the whole of the area of the yellow. Go over it bit by bit go slow right now, going slow is very important we are about to complete the painting last two, three minutes is left. You need to know that we are almost done. You need to tap your back and say that you guys have done it. You guys are amazing, you guys have practically nailed the painting, whatever be the outcome guys, this is one of your best shots. I know you might be attempting it for the first time there might have a lot of mistakes, but be proud of your mistakes. If you do not commit mistakes, you will not get to know why you think or why there was some kind of difficulty which did arise. Until you commit these mistakes, you will not know a lot of things and that's what makes everything so, so so interesting. Hanging for a few more minutes that's it, I would go ahead and add some more pink to the top area of this petal, which you observe. That's it, and I'm not going to do anything more. Then I will let the paper dry off completely, once it has dried up completely, then you can remove the tape [inaudible] by the way, in the meanwhile, you can even splatter some water for the background area. If you want in case you have taken a larger piece of course, go ahead and create those textures and that would look way better. That one thing that I wanted to suggest to you, or even some salt technique if you want to try. But salt will be more for this kind of painting as I do not want the spectators to look away from the beautiful peony that you guys have painted. That's where I think we should just use water the way I am doing right now. You can only use water until your paper is semi-dry. If your paper has lost the wetness and the humidity, then you cannot do this process and you will not get the required ethics. This is completely done, just remove the tape and then have of fine look at your painting. Be proud of what you have done, this is one of the most difficult paintings that I have actually asked you to attempt.