Watercolor Fox - A Loose And Expressive Watercolor Tutorial

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hi guys, I'm Louise. I'm a watercolor artist and illustrator from Sweden. In this tutorial, we're painting this beautiful watercolor fox together. This is a suitable class for you if you're an intermediate watercolorist who wants to practice painting in a more loose and expressive style. I'll walk you through each step along the way from selecting your materials to putting the final details on your painting. You'll learn how to draw an accurate sketch from a reference photo, how to plan out your painting, and how to approach the painting process step-by-step. We'll touch on some useful watercolor techniques, such as color mixing, blending, fixing mistakes, and some tricks to achieving that loose style to your paintings, with lots of vivid colors and expressive brushwork. Your class project will be to paint this box using the reference photo that I've provided. Feel free to take creative liberty with it. After this class, you'll be more confident with your watercolors and able to apply these techniques to any subject you like. So if you're ready, let's get started. [MUSIC] 2. Materials: This is the beautiful reference photo that I'm using. It's by Judith Veenstra. It's a Dutch name, I think. Sorry for slaughtering it. Anyways, beautiful photo. This is the paper that I'm using, Canson XL 300gsm, cold-pressed, fine-grain watercolor paper, my favorite to practice with because it's affordable but still good quality workable paper. I'm using A3 today. That's around 11 by 16 inches. I'm using my three trusty round brushes for this. The number 6 and the number 12 and 16. These two are Winsor & Newton Cotman brushes. They're very affordable too. This, by the way, is just a kitchen sponge that I cut these little slits in, and I use it to rest my brushes. Now for colors, I used Winsor & Newton professional watercolors, and this is the 12 color half-pan set that I've modified with some tube paints from the same brand because some of my favorite hues were missing. For this painting, I will use some of my favorite colors. I'm realizing that maybe one reason why I love painting foxes is that they let me use this particular color combo, which is burnt sienna and indigo. I love those colors together. As you might know, blue and orange are complementary colors, meaning color hues that sit opposite one another on the color wheel and that go very well together. I'll also be using some raw sienna and yellow ocher for the lighter yellow orangey tones. Also mixing in some sepia and black for the darker tones. [MUSIC] 3. The Sketch: Let's get started with the sketch. [MUSIC] This is a 4H pencil, I like to keep my sketches really lights and loose, barely visible because I don't want to feel restricted when I paint, and if there are lots of really dark lines everywhere, I feel like I want to stay within them like I'm doing one of those painting by numbers, sheets and that's not the style of painting that I'm going for. I like a little more freedom and spontaneity. Focusing on getting the basic proportions right, looking a lot at the angles and the negative space, correcting as I go, it doesn't have to look exactly like the reference photo. A reference photo for me is an inspiration and a safety net for getting things like anatomy and perspective and lighting and those things right. Oftentimes, I'll use just a few aspects of a photo, in this case, the pose and some of the colors, but I'm not trying to copy the whole thing. If it deviates a bit, that's okay as long as it reads like an accurate real-life fox. There we go. Time to paint. [MUSIC] 4. First Layer: [MUSIC] Getting my damp kitchen towel ready, which I'll use for dabbing off excess water and paint. Now, I'm starting by establishing the base colors of the fox. Usually, that's the lightest color that I see, so in this case, I'm using raw sienna and yellow ocher. Then I start laying those colors in really loosely using my largest brush with lots of water and letting it dance across the paper making sure that I'm saving some white here and there for highlights. [MUSIC] Now, you'll notice that I start to reinforce some parts of the painting with a bit more saturation and contrast, places where I know that I want darker tones. Going in with the burnt sienna now. Doing some blending and taking some of the color out in some places. I do this by dipping my brush in clean water and then dabbing the excess off and then wetting the area on the painting and lifting out some paints with the brush. You have to be really careful when you do this so you don't damage the paper. If you're using a good quality paper, this is usually very easy to do. You can also use a paper towel and dab it on the painting and it will lift a lot of the color out. It's a really good way to fix mistakes. That's it for our first laying of the warmer colors. I'll wait for this layer to dry. Up next we'll do the same with the cooler colors. 5. Second Layer: [MUSIC] Now, when my warm colors have dried because I don't want them to bleed together, I go in with a very diluted indigo. I mark out the shadows of the fur but also leaving lots of white here. [MUSIC] Now that the paint on the head is dried, I can go in and add some shadows there using the sepia or the dark brown. [MUSIC] I'm being very careful, especially around the eye, because I want a lot of crispness and contrast there. I want clean edges, no blending or bleeding together of colors. It's important that the area is fully dry before I add more colors to it. [MUSIC] You'll notice me starting to carefully add in some details now. But I do it very lightly because I want to be able to change my mind and dab it off if it should turn out to be a bit too much. In the next chapter, we'll start to build up some more color contrast and detail. When you're ready, let's meet up there. [MUSIC] 6. Adding Contrast & Details: [MUSIC] When all of my basic color layers are in place, my painting will usually look like a simplified and very pale blueprints of my reference photo. The basics are there along with plenty of white to maintain that loose look to it, and now is when I start to gradually build up the contrast in the painting, deepening the colors, adding details and crispness. [MUSIC] I'm focusing most of the contrast, like putting the details and the deepest and darkest colors on the face because that's where I want the eye to go when looking at the painting, and the rest of the body can fade away a bit. It doesn't have to be as detailed and can look a bit half-finished. It's a trick for this style of painting, mixing areas of high contrast in detail with areas of low contrast in detail. [MUSIC] Now towards the end, I try to really saturate my burnt sienna using lots of paint, less water to get the colors really strong and vibrant, [MUSIC] and now I'm doing the same with my indigo. Watercolors tend to lighten up as they dry, so it might look too much when you apply the paints, but when it dries, it's actually going to look great. [MUSIC] Here, a final run-through with the burnt sienna. [MUSIC] Now, just a final little details of the eye to make it look three-dimensional and really pop, and what I usually do then is darkening the corners, putting some more saturation towards the middle and making sure that the highlights are intact. [MUSIC] With that, our fox is done. [MUSIC] 7. Class Project: Are you ready for your final assignment? Your class project is to paint your own version of this fox. The reference photo is available both as a download and a link in the resources section. If you want to, feel free to share your finished painting here for some feedback and encouragement. Thank you for taking this class. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have some new techniques that you can apply it to your other paintings and that you feel more confident with your watercolors. Please check out my other classes. I also have a YouTube channel where there's more videos about sketching, and watercolors, and the artist's life in general. Have fun painting, and I'll see you in another class. [MUSIC]