Jirafa en acuarela

1. Trailer: Hi, I'm Louise De Masi. I'm a professional watercolor artists from Sydney, Australia. Painting with watercolor is more than the way I make my living. It's my one true passion. It's my world. It gets me out of bed in the morning and it keeps me up late at night. I'd be lost without it. Watercolor behaves like no other medium. The effects you can create with watercolor can't be achieved with other mediums. It's gorgeous translucency and glow cannot be matched. It is fascinating and addictive to use, but has a mind of its own. It never fails to surprise me. Giraffes are one of my favorite subjects to paint, their beautiful long necks, amazing markings and gorgeous eyes make for a beautiful painting. I'm very familiar with them because I painted many of them over the years. In this class, I demonstrate how I painted this beautiful giraffe in watercolor. I will demonstrate lots of different watercolor techniques, such as painting wet-on-wet, and wet-on-dry, how I create deliberate blooms, and how I had lots of detail. As an added bonus, I'll show you how I combine two paintings in Photoshop. Join me while I help you gain the confidence you need to truly appreciate and enjoy this beautiful medium. Grab your brushes and let's start painting. 2. Choosing Paint Colours: I sometimes get asked how I choose my paint colors. I want you to know that it's not that difficult. A lot of artists go to great lengths to mix the exact color they're looking for, am not one of those artists. I place more importance on color value rather than the color itself. The value of the colors, it's lightness or darkness, and paying attention to their values in my paintings is more important than paying attention to the colors. If your values are correct, then your painting will look just as good in Black and White as it does in color. I have a range of different paint colors in my painting kit, and when I decide what color to use, I just choose one that I think is as close to the color that I can see on my reference photo. I rarely mix colors. I have a gray that I'll mix but that a [inaudible]. All of my paintings are painted with colors that have come straight out of the tubes. So in this video, I'll show you what I do when I'm choosing my colors. My Giraffe photo has been loaded onto my iPad, ready for me to start painting. But before I start, I have to choose my paint colors. Now I keep all my paints in a fishing tackle box, and I've got the paints all separated into colors. I've got my Browns together and my Greens together. Blues and Purples are together. Pinks are at the top, and all my Reds are at the top too. So what I do is look at my reference photo and I decide what the main body color will be. I think about the closest color that I have in my box that would match it. I think the closest color than I would have is Gold Ochre. Now I can also see a Reddy Brown color in the spots and in other places. It's deeper in color value than the Gold Ochre. So I have another look in my box, and I think Burnt Sienna will work for that. I can see a Darker Brown in the spots, and I can also see that color in the mane. I can see it on the nose, in the eyes are fairly dark too. So my trusty dark Brown color is Sepia. I use Sepia in quite a lot of my paintings. I'm going to need Black because I can see it in the ears. It's also in the eyes. So again, some Lamp Black. Now what else can I see? I can see a Gray color in the ears. Also the shadow on the side of the face is similar to the color inside the ear. So whenever I make Gray, I mix two colors together, I use Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue. That gives me a beautiful Bluey-Grey color. So that will do me to start. I can get other colors if I need them. I don't prefer one brand of paint over another, I just tend to buy them when my Art Supply Shop is having a sale and the prices are reduced. 3. Supplies: In this video, I will show you all the supplies that I used to complete the painting. Now the paper I like to use is Arches Watercolor paper. For this painting, I used Hot Pressed paper and it's 640 GSM in white, and as you can see, it's very thick so we didn't need to stretch it. This is a beautiful velvety fine paper, it's 100 percent cotton, and I always have good results with it. I buy the full sheets, and I cut them down to the size I want. The brushes are used were old da Vinci. I used a Nova, this is size three slash zero, I use this for all my detailed work. This is a Casaneo Number 8, round brush, I use this one to do some of the initial washes. I use my mop brush for most of their painting, I love this one because it holds a lot of paint and water and has a beautiful fine point. I use this Casaneo flat brush, this is a Number 16. The colors I used were Gold Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Sepia, Ultramarine Blue, Lamp Black, Potters Pink, and Quinacridone Gold. I also used a little bit of White Gouache. I used a ceramic palette to pull my paint on. I used a water spray bottle, some paper towel to wipe my brush on, an HB pencil, and an eraser. I used this water container for my water. I used some drafting tape, to tape off the edges of the giraffe where it met the edge of the paper. I used a hair dryer, I always have my hair dryer plugged-in and sitting near me within reach whenever I paint. That's all the supplies that I used. 4. Mixing Colours on the Palette: I told you I don't mix colors very often. I tend to let the colors mingle on the white paper rather than premix them on my palette. With one exception, I like to mix my grays. In this video, I show you how I mix my gray on the palette and I tape off the edges of the giraffe where it meets the edge of the paper. The first thing I'm going to paint on the giraffe are the shadows. To do that, I need to mix my gray that I use in almost all of my paintings. I put some ultramarine blue on my palette and I put it at the top of the well. Then I put some burnt sienna into the same well and I give it a quick squirt of water. Then I take my brush to mix the colors together well. Then because this well is sloped, the watery paint pulls at the bottom of the well for me. Now this makes a lovely gray color. If I want the color to be a little bit warmer or more gray, I add more burnt sienna. Or if I want the color to be a little bluer or cooler then I just increase the ultramarine blue in the mix. There's one more thing I have to do before I start. Now I've got my drawing on the paper ready to go. Now because the giraffe is going to touch the bottom edge and the side edge, I'm just going to use some drafting tape to tape off those edges. That'll give me a nice straight edge there. That means the lucky person who will buy the original painting has some white paper that they can hide behind a mat when they frame it. Drafting tape removes easily and it won't damage or discolor the paper underneath. Okay, so I think I'm ready to start painting now. 5. First Washes: It's time to begin painting the giraffe. In this video, I paint my first washes all over the giraffe. I'll show you how I lift some of the color off with my brush while a wash is still damp. I also lift some color off with a tissue. This beginning stage of the painting is where I familiarize myself with the giraffe. I make my first color marks on the paper here. It's important that I keep all my color light in value in case I want to make any changes when I'm further along with the painting. Before I start painting my first washes, I want to make sure that I know where I'm going to go with them. I'm familiarizing myself with the shadow placement. I'm drawing in lightly where I think the gray shadow ends. This is important because the shadow defines the edge of the face and I want to get it right. The gray in the ears doesn't go all the way to the edge of the ear, so it's important for me to reserve that edge. I've started with the area around this eye. I'm using my gray that I mixed and I'm painting it straight onto the dry paper. The paint is fairly watery. I've washed my brush and there's only water in it. What I'm doing is removing some of the paint. I'm dabbing my brush on the paper towel as I go. I'm removing it because it's slightly larger there on my reference photo. I'm going to paint inside the ear now and I can see on my reference photos that the edge is curved there. Now I've wet the ear with water because I want to apply that wash on damp paper. The dampness of the paper gives me time to paint without me worrying that the paint will dry too quickly and form those nasty hard edges that I don't want. I apply the gray straight onto the damp paper. I'm doing what I did before near the eye. I'm taking some of it off with my damped brush because those areas appear larger in my reference photo. Now I'm wetting the area that's in shadow on the side of the face. I'm wetting straight over the top of the spots. I know that the gray is light in value and I'll be able to paint straight over the top of the gray with my browns later on. Down goes the gray. As you can see, I'm not worrying about their giraffe spots. I'm painting straight over the top of them so that I get a nice consistent wash. At the moment I just have water on my brush and I'm softening the edge of the paint. I'm using a tissue to dab off some highlights and the paper is still damp. I'm wetting the paper inside this other ear and I'll do the same thing with this ear that I did with the other one. I paint the gray that makes it straight onto the damp paper and before it dries, I can remove any highlights that I think I might need. Now I'm getting some gold ocher on my palette. I give it a quick squat of water. Now it's time to wash over the neck. I want to wash a light wash of the gold ocher over the entire neck. I don't want any hard edges to form and I want the paint to flow nicely. Damp paper makes my job easier. I want it to be very soft in color so I'm using watery paint. Now I'm drying it with my hair dryer because I want to paint a slightly darker wash down that front edge. I need to make sure that this first wash is completely dry. You can see that front edge of the neck is darker in color than the rest of the neck. Again, I'm ignoring the spots on the giraffe. That will be the last thing I paint. I need to get the structure or form of the giraffe correct before I even think about the spots. I'm making my gold ocher watery paint darker in color by putting some more pigment into it. I run that darker paint along the front edge of the neck. Now, I'm softening the edge with some water on my brush. I've dried the neck off with the hair dryer and I'm painting the shadowed area under the neck with some more gray. I only have water on my brush now. I'm painting this on dry paper. The area is small and I can paint it quickly. The hair inside the ear is gray in color so I'm washing in some more gray here. I'm painting in the mouth area with some gold ocher. That's the initial washes completed. It feels good to get rid of some of that white paper. You can download this photo in the Your Project section. It's called Giraffe Stage 1. Now you need to login to Skillshare through the Internet. You won't be able to see the downloads if you were using the Skillshare app. 6. 2nd Washes Head: The first washes are dry, and it's time to start adding some detail to the giraffe. When I paint furring watercolor, I don't paint individual strokes of fur, instead, I try to create the illusion of fur. I try to suggest it rather than obviously state it. Watercolor is another medium I would use if I wanted to paint detailed fur on an animal. I would choose acrylic or oil paints or colored pencil instead of watercolor. Let me show you how I suggest fur. In this video, a section of the head as I paint it, I work wet on wet, but I don't wet the entire head at once because if I did, it would dry before I got to paint on all of it. You see me wet a section of the head, paint it, and then wet another section and paint that. Now, my first washers are completely dry and I'm re-wetting the area that I want to paint some darker colors on. I'm using burnt sienna to paint on some darker hair. I'm painting it straight onto the wet paper, and I'm allowing the moisture on the paper to move the pigment for me. I pay particular attention to my edges, and then I just dab the painting here and there. I'm not completely covering the gold ocher under wash, I still want that to show through in places. Now, I'm putting some sepia on my palette, now this is the darkest brown. I drop it on to those areas where I see the darkest color on the reference photo. Again, I'm allowing the moisture on the paper to move that pigment for me. I'm painting sepia on that dark area beside his nose as well. Now, I've switched to my mop brush for this video, because of its lovely point. I can hold it right up on its tip, and I can get into nooks and crannies, and it allows me to have good control of wherever I want to place the plate. Now, I'm painting some burnt sienna. I'm using the hub paint at the top of the pallet for this, and I'm just deepening the color in places. Now, as the paint is drawing, I can see a hard edge forming, and I'm rubbing over it with my wet brush to remove the edge. Now I'm wetting the next ossicone, I believe they're called, and I'll bring that water down onto the forward. Back into the burnt sienna now, I picked up the paint from the top of the pallet, I'm just dabbing it on and letting the moisture on the paper do its thing. Notice again how I'm not completely covering the under wash, I still want that color to show through. I flick a few little flicks of hair off the edge. Now, I'm using sepia to paint those dark areas that I see in the reference photo. Again, I'm letting the water move the pigment around. I'm just placing the paint where I want it. There's a dark area here on his head, but I think I'll have to come back and paint this lighter when the paper is dry. So that I'll have more control over the paint. Now, I'm wetting the hump on is forehead, ready to paint some burnt sienna there. Notice I haven't wet the entire head at once. I'm doing the head in sections. If I had wetted all at once, the paper will dry before I got to it, so I need to do it in sections. I'm painting burnt sienna straight onto the wet paper. Now, I'm wetting the paper further down the nose. The paper has actually dried here, but only because I had a break and I had my lunch, I could have kept going with it. I'm dropping some gold oak around here, just to deepen the color on that under wash. Now, this is burnt sienna again, I can put it on heavier here because that part of the nose is quite dark on the reference photo. I'm using gold ocher now instead of burnt sienna, and I'm deepening the color of the top of that under wash. This is quinacridone gold and I'm putting it on my palette. This color is a little more yellow in hue, I'm going to use it to paint along the edge of the lip, and between the nostrils. I'm devin off a small highlight under the nostrils here. I wanted to find that hump on his forward a little more, so I'm wetting the area above it, and I'll paint some burnt sienna there to stop it from looking so flat. Now, I'm washing over the mouth area again with some gold ocher just to make it darker. This is just burnt sienna that I'm dropping along the edge, straight onto the wet paint, and I paint a few hairs at the same time. This is sepia painted straight on top of the wet paint. I'm softening the edge here with some water on my brush. Now I've wet his nose again, and I'm dropping in some burnt sienna to deepen the shadow on the left side. This is sepia, and I'm darkening it further. I put some sepia between the nostrils too. I'm painting in that dark area, I see beneath the nostril on the reference photo with some more sepia. I've dampened the paper on this side of his nose, and this is also sepia. I'm just using the reference photo to guide me. I've wet this area too and I'm applying some burnt sienna here. That completes the second layer of washes. 7. Left Eye: It's time to get my fine brush out. In this video, I paint the creases above the left eye, I paint the area all around the eye including the beginning of the eyebrow, and I paint the left eye itself. I'm going to paint those creases above the eye now. I dampen the paper is slightly before I paint them, but do it carefully because I don't want the lines running into one another one when I paint them. Then I paint some sepia along the wet line with my fine brush. Paper is not quite wet enough, so I've wet the paint edge again to softly flair that paint out. I don't want any hard lines here because it would look strange. I prefer the edges of the lines to be soft. Notice I'm not painting them all one thickness either, I'm pushing down on the bristles of the brush to make the lines thicker in places. Here I'm making them a little longer. Now I'm using watery paint, to paint in that dark area around the eye. I'm painting it straight onto the dry paper, and I'm using that gray that I mixed, and a little watery sepia too. I'm looking at my reference photo as I paint, and I'm trying to paint these same shapes that I see. There's more pigment on my brush here, this is sepia. and I'm painting in that dark area that I see there. There's just water on my brush now and I'm moving the pigment around that's already on the paper. I've got enough paint, therefore I don't need anymore. Now I'm wetting the area where I see the eyebrow. I'm using burnt sienna to form the basic shape of the eyebrow. I'm holding my brush upright so that I can use that beautiful point on the end. Now, I'm going to turn my work here because it's easier for me this way. When I do these, I also turn my reference photo in the same direction. I find it easier to pull these fine strokes towards myself rather than away from myself. This is sepia here. I'm painting this sepia straight onto the wet paint. There is my messy little giraffe eyebrow. Now, I've provided you with a second reference photo that I lightened in Photoshop. The reason I lightened it was because I wanted to see some detail in the eyes that I couldn't see in the other photo. As you can see now, the eye isn't just a dark brown ball. There are some other colors in there. Now, I've moved in a little closer for you here. I'm painting the lighter areas of the eye with my gray mix straight onto the dry paper. I'm drying it off with my hairdryer because I don't want the next color to run into the gray that I've just painted. This is sepia. I'm not applying it too dark just yet. It's more important to place the colors where I want them first, and I can darken them when I've worked out where everything goes. I have a little more pigment on my brush now and this is still sepia. I'm deepening the gray here. Now, this is lamp black. The paper is still dry. I'm looking at my reference photo to guide me as I paint. This is lamp black again, but it's more watery now, and now there's more pigment. It's time for the eyelashes now, I'm still using lamp black. It's difficult to get the right amount of paint on your brush when you're using such a fine brush. I find I have to keep dipping back into the paint. Painting eyelashes can be difficult because one false move and you can have a mistake that is difficult to correct. Sometimes I'll come back at the end of the painting and I'll add a few more strokes with my mechanical pencil. I'm bringing some watery black around the outer edge of the eye now, and some more black inside the eye to deepen the color there. I've turned my paper again here, so I can continue on with the eyelashes. The paper is dry. Don't try and paint each eyelash individually. There are a few individual eyelashes, but most of it is just a block of color. Now that I've got the basic shape there, I can drop in some more pigment to deepen the color. I'm looking around the corner edge of the eye here, and you can see how that pigment has spread out and been absorbed by the paper. I drop in some more pigment just to darken it again. Now I'm painting a little bit of that gray color up onto that top eyelid. That's the left eye finished. I may need to deepen the colors later on, but I'll see how it looks when I get towards the end of the painting. 8. Left Ear and Nostrils: What I do in this video is quite straightforward. I paint inside the left ear. You'll see how I begin to get those fine white hair inside the ear. I also paint the nostrils and around their edges. I'm going to paint inside this left ear, I'm going to turn my paper to make it easier for myself. I'm wetting along this top edge of the ear because I want to run some paint along it and I want the paint to be soft rather than labor hostage. I'm using my gray mix and my fine brush and I'm painting straight onto the damp paper. Now I've just wet inside with some water and I'm using a slightly darker mix of gray than the initial wash that I painted earlier. Append some flicks into that white space to start to form the hair. The white paper there is dry. I'm running some sepia on only the inside edge. The paper is wet from before and a little bit more sepia here. I'm dabbing it onto the wet paper here in there. I run it along this other edge as well. I've turned my paper and I'm dropping in a few water droplets to try and create a small highlight on that top edge of the ear. Now for the nostrils, This is my gray mix and on painting along the outer edge and on the inner part of the nostril, the paper here is dry. I do the same thing on this nostril. The paper is dry. I'm using my gray mix and I'm extending the gray onto the outer edge of the nostril. This is sepia. There's plenty of paint on my brush because I wiped it through the hard paint at the top of the pellet, the paper here is dry. I'm darkening the color inside the nostril. I'm dropping some black straight onto the wet pipe to deepen the color further. I do the same thing on this nostril. I start with sepia on dry paper. I drag the sepia onto the larger privately to create the fur along the edge. I'm dropping in some lamp black hair straight onto the weight sepia. Now not completely covering the sepia with black. I'm dragging that wet pipe onto the dry paper here to create some hair along the edge. Here I am with half the face painted. I've provided his image for you to download. You can use it to refer to when you're painting your own giraffe. This image is called Giraffe stage two. 9. Right Eye: I paint the right eye in this video and you'll find it's much the same as the left eye. I use the lighter version of the reference photo so I can see the details better. I brought the camera in a bit closer for you, just to make sure you can see what I'm doing. I paint the entire eye on dry paper. I begin with sepia. I'm using my fine brush and I start to paint that brown shape that I see on the pupil. When I'm painting, I no longer think of this as an eye. It's just a series of shapes., and all I'm doing is trying to copy those shapes as best I can. Hopefully when I'm finished and I step back and have a look at my painting, there will be this eye staring back at me. Because the paper is dry and the paint isn't all that wet I can paint straight away with some of the gray mix. Append it straight onto that gray shape that I see on my reference photo. I'm using the lighter version of the reference photo to guide me as I paint the eye. I switch to my mock brush now because this area around the edge of the eye is larger, I'm using my gray mix and am painting it straight onto the dry paper. Because I see a hard edge here I don't need to wet the paper. I can take the colors straight over the top of the eyelashes or paint them in a darker color later. It's important to keep the colors light at this stage while I'm establishing the placement of all the shapes. If I make a mistake, it will be easier for me to remove it or paint over the top of it if it's light in color. Now I'm coming in a bit darker with some more sepia. I've picked up the paint from the top of the palate with my wet brush. There's a dark shape there I see in my reference photo, and that's what I'm painting. All the time I'm painting am glancing at my reference photo, of dark in the whole iris with some more sepia. There is shadow line I see running across the eye here and the paper is dry. Now I'm using black on the outside of the eye. I'm starting to feel more confident with the why the eye is turning out. So I'm picking up more pigment on my brush. I've gone a little further around the edge now, I've added some water to my brush so that the color isn't quite as dark as it just was. This is still black and I'm running it over the iris. I am softening the edge with some water here. I've got the sepia on my brush now and I'm painting over the top of the gray, the Paper is dry. I'm taking it all the way around the modern area under the eye. Black here, am just deepening the color, and some watery black here. I can see that the gray wash I painted earlier is too light in color value as compared with the colors around it, so I need to deepen the color. Some gray mix here, I'm rubbing it straight onto the dry paper. Now for the eyelashes, paper is dry, I'm using lamp black. I'm painting them on individually here because that's the way I see them on my reference photo. Up the top here, the eyelashes are grouped together more and I don't really see individually eyelashes. These top eyelashes are easier to paint because they're all clumped together. I'm happy with the placement of the top eyelashes, so am deepening the color here with some more black. I will more than likely come back later at the end of the painting and deepen some of my eye colors, but I'm happy with the way it's looking for now. So I'll leave it there. 10. Right Ear : I begin this video by painting in the right eyebrow. I also paint inside the right ear. This ear is a little different to the left ear because of the dark markings inside it. I also bring some more paint down onto the scale and I paint some hair on one of those ossicones. I'm wetting the paper with some water right where the eyebrow will seat. Now I'm wetting it because I want the edges of the eyebrow to be soft. This has been sienna. I'm painting it straight onto the damp paper and you can see the moisture on the paper I'm moving the pigment around. I've got water on my brush now and I'm sweeping the water up away from the eyebrow and onto this smelled. I can see a marking there on my reference photo that I'd like to include, and I want to print it with burnt sienna. The water keeps the edges soft and if I don't like what I've painted, I can always [inaudible] off with a tissue or a wet brush. Back to the eyebrow and I'm flicking the brush to create the haze. Now I'm adding some CPS stride onto the wet burnt sienna. I'm not completely covering the burnt sienna, and now some more flicks of the brush off the edge of the eyebrow. I'm painting the crazes above the eyebrow now the same way I painted them on the other side of the face except this time I'm using burnt sienna instead of CPI. There are slightly different color on this side of the face because of the angle of the sun on the giraffe. I wet the lawns with water first and then I run the pigment over the top just as I did before. Now I need some more color on the eyebrow. It's still wet from before or haven't rewetted and this is CPI. That's not too bad. Now I'm going to turn my attention to the right ear. I'm wetting that shape inside the ear with some water, and now I'm brushing on some CPS straight onto the damp paper. There's plenty of pigment on my brush because I used the hard point at the top of the palette. I'm going to turn my paper so that I can paint the haze in the ear more easily. I'm pulling that paint onto the drawing paper to create the ear. I'll probably come back later towards the end of their painting and add some white guassian just to soften those rigid edges. I've turned my paper again, and now I'm painting some lamp black straight onto that weight paint to deepen the color on that shape. Now I've washed my brush and I'm pulling some of that color in the ear along the hair line to create the shadows that I see there, and I pull it along the inner edge of the ear to define it further. I'm pulling the paint down onto the dry paper here to create those creases that I say on the ear, and I'm pulling it along the edge here too. I'm running my brush along the outer edges well. I'm still using the pipe that's painted in the dark area that I just finished, I could pick up some fresh gray paint for my palette but because this is so light in color, it's working okay for me. Over the tiny bit of burnt sienna on my brush and I'm painting in that little spot, the stride onto the drawing paper. Now I'm using gold aka. I'm putting a tiny bit of CPI or along that outer ear edge, and some of my gray is to define that edge along the outer part of the ear. I've drawn off the paper with my hairdryer and I'm removing all my pencil lines. Now I've rewetted that damp patchy in the ear with some water and I'm increasing the color with some lamp black. You can see how the pigment for my first application has been drawn into the paper and it needs to be a touch darker. I've got my fine brush here and I'm pulling some color out of the ear and onto the drawing paper, I'm further defining the edge here. Now I'm wetting the gray area of ear because I want to drop some CPA there to create those markings that are say, on the reference photo. I head over to these other ear to finish it off. I've wet the paper and I'm painting some CPI against the side of the head there and I paint into those markings to deepen the color a little. I've wet this area where I'm painting now with some water and I'm using my fine brush to deepen the color there and add a few strikes to give the impression of head. I do the same thing on the outer edge of this ossicone, and I'm wetting the front of the head here because I want to drop in some more burnt sienna there as well. I'm softening the edge with water on my brush now. I'm painting on dry paper here, this is gold aka and I'm just running it along the outer edge of the nose strill. I'm deepening the color on this side of the snout again. I've wet the paper and I'm using bents here now and I'm just dabbing it on here in there. Now I've wet this area beside the nose as well and I'm using burnt sienna again here. I decided to take it further than I expected. Now the paper here is dry, but I know I can soften the edge with some water on my brush, and that's what I'm doing now. I'm pulling some of that wet paper out off the giraffe onto the dry paper to paint the haze that I see there. 11. Head Spots: It's time to begin painting the spots on the side of the face. That involves a lot of weight on wet work. I also paint in this little tongue. I'm drawing in some spots that I missed earlier. This helps me to familiarize myself with what I'm about to paint. I'm wetting these area on this side of the face because I want to paint in large spot that's there, and I don't want any hard edge brush strokes forming while I'm doing it. I'm using gold ocher and I'm dabbing it onto the damp paper. I continue on with the rest of this parts. I'm painting these on dry paper, because they're only small and I can paint them fairly quickly. This is still gold ocher, and I'm painting stride over the gray and wash it, it's dried. Now I've painted all the spots on the side of the head, and I've dried them with my hairdryer. Now I'm removing the pencil along, so I can see my painting better. I've already wiped this area, and now I'm using a deeper mix of my gray to still deep into shadow. This is sepia and the paper is slightly damp, and this is burnt sienna. I'm just deepening the shadow. Some more burnt sienna here. Notice I'm using it on the shadow side of this spot, I'm not taking this deeper color onto the sunny side of the spot. I'm just softening the edge with some water on my brush now. I've done painting this little spot with water, and now I'm painting burnt sienna and a straight onto the damp paper of where this area further, and I'm painting some burnt sienna onto the damp paper. I'm keeping it within the shape of this spot. I'm looking at my reference photo as I paint. This is some gold ocher here on this spot. Now I'm softening the edge with water. Some more gold ocher here. This time I'm painting on dry paper. I'm increasing the depth of color on that spot. Now I just have water on my brush, and I'm just softening that edge. The same again here, this is gold ocher on dry paper. I've just painted is either the spot with some watery gold ocher, and now I'm dropping in some burnt sienna onto the wet paint. Now I just have water on my brush. This area here is wet again, and now I'm adding some sepia onto the damp paper. Now I'm painting the tongue with some potters pink. I'm painting on dry paper, and all I'm doing is washing over the tongue with some watery paint. I'm deepening the color on the side of the nose again. This is burnt sienna and the paper is damp. I'm waiting for the tongue to dry so I can continue on with it. The tongue dried and I rewetted it with some water. This is sepia, I stride it onto the damp paper. I'm trying to leave the edge of the tongue pink, so I'm keeping that color up on the darkest part of the tongue. I'm wetting this area under the nostril, and this is burnt sienna. Now the nose is still damp from before, so I'm dropping in some sepia spots here. So this is where I'm up to now. I've got the head pretty much the way I want it. I can come back to it if only too later. You can download this photo in your project section. It's called Giraffe Stage three. 12. Neck Spots: I paid all the spots on his neck now. Again, I work wait on wave a lot and you'll also see how I create to deliberate blooms. I cover this in my watercolor fox class, but it's good to revisit this technique by amazing watercolor blooms in my work more lightly and it's a fairly easy technique to use. It really adds a lot of visual interest to your work. I'm using McKesson airbrushed to pipe the spots on the neck with gold ocher. I'm painting straight onto the dry piper here. I don't need to wet the paper because the spots have hard edges around the perimeter and I'm using a large brush that allows me to cover the area fairly quickly. There's a darker spot on the side of the face here. I'm painting that in with some sepia. It's important to pay attention to the shape of the spots because they help to create the form or the shape of the giraffe, in this spot is elongated and thin because of the angle that I'm viewing the giraffe at. I'm making this one a little larger, and I'm using cold color on dry paper here. I've dampen this one with some water and I'm painting burnt sienna stride onto the dry paper and I pull the color down onto the dry pipe to form the creases on the neck. This point here has been dampened with water and I'm using sepia to darken it. I've just picked up some goal darker, but my brush still had some sepia in it. That's why the color is slightly muddied, but that's okay. I'm happy that it's a bit darker here. Benzene or on this one the pipers damp and I'm not completely covering the colder could bias that I painted earlier. I still want to see that showing through. I feel this little one on the he needs to be darker. I'm painting benzene is straight over the top. I'm giving this large spot here another wash of gold work to deepen the color and now I'm painting burnt sienna straight on top of that wet wash. I painted line down this spot that lines up with the shadow on the neck and I do the same again here. I'm allowing the gold ocher under wash to still show through in places. I'm just dabbing it on and letting the moisture on the pipeline moves the pigment around. I've done the same thing here with the spot, I've painted another layer of gold anchor. Then wallet was wit or painted the burnt sienna over the top. The spot is still wet from before and I'm dropping in some sepia hear and there. Now I'm drawing them off with my hairdryer and just before it completely dries, am going to drop some watering to create a deliberate bloom, what's sometimes called a back run. Allowed to do this occasionally to add some interest to my paintings. You can see how that bloom has dried on that spot and I'm going to do the same thing on the spot now I dry it off until it's almost dry and then I'm dropping a little water and watch them bloom appear. This is burnt sienna on dry paper and I'm dropping some sepia wallets to wet. The same thing on this one. I'm painting burnt sienna on dry paper here. The spot needs to be darker. Then I draw upon some sepia wallets wet. I've washed my brush and I dry it on the paper towel, now I'm using it to sop up some of that paint from the top edge. Now on this one down the bottom, I've just painted burnt sienna or onto the drawing paper. I've only painted on the side that's in the shadow. I'm going drop some sepia onto this one as well. Now I'm increasing the color on this one with single darker and on this one as well. I'm painting straight onto the dry paper I droppings burnt sienna and on these lower edge before that paint dries. Now I've tried all of these spots with my hairdryer and I'm washing over some very pile watery gold ocher, onto the shadow on the neck. Some of the pipe from the spots, my blade slightly along the edges because I've [inaudible] painting them, but I'm not concerned about that. That will help to soften some of the hard edges. I'm just putting a little bit of sepia on this bottom spot here because I want to soften the look of that age day. I'm going to leave the next spot, say and see what they look like when it's all dry. 13. Mane: So I'm ready to paint them mane now. When I first started painting in watercolor, I would agonize over things like this. I'd sit there and I'd paint each individual hair and I was never really happy with my results. So I've changed my approach. In this video, you'll see how easy it is to paint a mane in watercolor. It's time to start the mane. I'm turning my paper to make it easy for myself to paint it. I find it easier to pull strokes towards myself. Now, I've drawn a line with my pencil roughly at the height of the mane or where the hair on the mane finishes. That's just to guide me so I don't make my stroke's too long. I start by wetting a small section of the mane. Notice, I don't take the water all the way up to the pencil line. I run some burnt sienna along the edge where the hair touches the giraffe just to get a nice straight edge there, and then I pull the paint up to the pencil line in the direction that the hair would go. I'm not worried about painting individual hair strokes. All I want at this state is a jagged edge along where the hair finishes. That's why I didn't take the water all the way to the pencil line. Now I'm dropping in some sepia onto the wet paint, and I'm pulling it up in the same way, but I'm not completely covering the burnt sienna. Now I've washed my brush out and I've applied some more water to the paper further down the mane. Now I'm doing exactly the same thing with burnt sienna, and now with sepia. I take it all the way to the edge of the paper. It's a bit darker down here at the bottom, so I'm using more sepia than I did before. So I've turned it around now. I'm going to dry it with my hairdryer. When it's completely dry, I can remove that pencil line. I turn it back around. I'm using my fine brush to add a little bit of detail with sepia, just little strokes with watery sepia. Then I take my mud brush and some water and I soften the paint slightly. I'm not going to do this all the way along the mane. I'll leave it as it is at the bottom. So that wasn't too difficult. 14. Finishing Touches : It's time to paint all the finishing details now. I've cast an eagle eye over my painting and I've decided all the things I need to do to complete the painting to my satisfaction. I deepen shadows and I add some more hair, I use my pencil, and I deepen the color of the right eye. It's time to do all those little things that help to complete the painting. I'm using my pencil on the creases on the side of the neck just to define them better, and I also run it along the edge of the face to help to define that better. I'm adding some white gouache to my palette, now I add a small amount of water to it and I pick up some of it with my fine brush. I use it to paint some more hair in the ears. Now this helps to soften the look of the hair. All I do is pull it across onto the dark sepia paint and I do the same in this other ear. Now I've just picked up some CPR on my brush and I'm adding some definition to the eyebrow and I do the same on this other eyebrow. I've decided that this right eye needs to be darker so I'm increasing the color now. I'm painting straight onto the dry paper. This is Lamp Black, and I'm deepening the black on the edge of the eye. Now I'm rubbing some watery black onto this gray area and I deepen the brown parts with some more sepia. I'm painting some watery gray onto the top of the ossicone, and I add a few little flicks of hair too. I'm turning my paper because I want to paint some more hair on the hump on it's forehead. Now I'm using [inaudible] and I've dampened the paper slightly with some water. It's only just damp just enough to keep the paint soft and flowing off my brush and I'm adding some more hair here too. A damp in the paper slightly here as well. Now, I'm going to paint two little creases on the neck here. I just want some pencil lines just to go at me. The paper is dry, and I'm using my gray mix. There's not much paint on my brush. Now I think this concaved area beside the mouth here needs to be a little bit darker so I'm using my gray mix to deepen the color here. The paper was slightly damp. I've washed the paint off my brush and I'm using water here to soften the edges. I have some watery gray paint on my brush, and I'm brushing it over the shadow area on the face just to deepen the color a little. This is some watery gold here on dry paper. I think I'm good to go. It's time to peel off the tape and reveal my painting. There it is. I probably spent about eight hours all up on this painting. You can download this photo of the giraffe in the 'Your Project' section but you need to log into SchoolShare on the internet to be able to access the downloads. You won't see the page if you're using the SchoolShare app on your phone or your iPad and this image is called Final Giraffe. 15. Acacia Branch: Now, after I completed the giraffe painting, I decided to paint an acacia branch. I thought I'd add it to the giraffe in Photoshop and then I can sell prints with a giraffe standing underneath the branch. If I love how it looks, I can always paint it onto the original painting later. In this video, I'll demonstrate how I painted the acacia branch. Giraffes eat acacia leaves. I've drawn a branch of acacia leaves freehand on this scrap piece of watercolor paper. This tree also has large thorns, so I've drawn them in as well. Now, I'm going to paint the branch on this separate piece of paper just in case I don't like how it turns out, I don't want to ruin my painting. I can scan the giraffe and the acacia branch, and I can combine the two paintings in Photoshop in order to sell prints. I'll probably offer the giraffe prints for sale with and without the branch in the background. Now, I've got some Pthalo yellow green on my palette, and I'm now adding some sap green. A quick squat of water and I'm ready to begin. Now, I begin with the Pthalo yellow green, and I'm washing some watery paint over the stem. Before it dries, I'm running some sap green with my smaller brush down the right edge of the stem. I'm letting the moisture on the paper move the pigment around. Now if my stem had started to dry before I did this, I would have let it dry completely and then I would have rewetted with some water before I apply the sap green. I paint the thorns the same way, Pthalo yellow green first, and then some sap green down one side. The leaves are very simple to paint because they're so small. I'm painting watery sap green straight onto the dry paper. All I'm doing is coloring in basically. Further along here, you might notice that some of the leaves are different colors. That's simply because sometimes when I picked up the paint, I had more pigment on my brush than at other times. I've dried it off completely, and now I'm removing the pencil lines. There's my acacia branch ready to be scanned. 16. Combining Paintings in Photoshop: In this video, I show you how I combine two paintings into one in Photoshop. Now this is an added extra. It's nothing to do with your project. I just thought it would be interesting for you to see how I do that. Here, my two paintings combined into one. Now I've scan them both at 600 DPI and I cleaned up the background's in Photoshop. I demonstrate how I cleaned up the background's in my hub class on SkillShare. Here's my giraffe scan, its background is clean and it's ready to be printed and here's my acacia branch scan it's also had the background cleaned up. Now I've created a new file with the measurements of an A3 size piece of paper, because that's the largest size that I offer is my prints. I go back to my giraffe scan and with the selection or Move Tool selected, I'm going to drag it onto the blank file. I click on the Mouse and I keep it clicked and then I go to the New file. and I release the Mouse. Then I can drag it where I want it on the file. I can resize it using Command or Control T to the size that I want. I hold the Shift key and one on re-sizing so that it stays the same and it doesn't skew the image. That looks good. I click on the Comic books or I can hit the Return key to accept the size. Now If I don't hold the Shift key down when on re-sizing, this is what happens to the image, it just becomes all skewed. Now I'm going to go to the acacia branch scan and I'm going to do the same thing. I click on that with my mouse and make sure the move tool is selected, and then I drag it onto the New file and I release my mouse, so wherever he in the lightest panel, you can see I have my three layers. The acacia branch is the top layer. That's the one that's been selected. Now I want to change the blend mode of the acacia branch and want to change it to multiply. Let's take it away, the white background. Now I want to turn the branch, so I click on Command or Control T to transform it. When I move my mouse to the corners, I get these two little corner arrows appearing. When I see those little corner arrows, I can click on my Mouse and hold it when I turn the image. Now place this one in front of the giraffe. Now I want to duplicate this branch so I make sure it's selected and then I hit the "Alt Option" key and I drag my mouse over the image. I could've also just gone to the Layers menu and right-click on the branch and hit "Duplicate layer" But I'd still have to drag it away from the other image to see. Now I have two branches and over in the Layers menu I can see my new acacia branch. Now I'm going to name them so that I can see what I'm doing. Now I want to flip this branch so that it doesn't look exactly the same as the first branch. To do that, I make sure that it's selected in the Layers panel, and then I go to edit, transform, flip vertical and that flips the branch all over, so now I have a mirror image of the branch. I need to rotate it again and place it where I want it. Now at the moment it's sitting in front of the giraffe and I want it to sit behind the giraffe, so I'm going to move it in the Layers panel to be below the giraffe. Now if I turn the giraffe off, you can see seeding the underneath the white background of the giraffe. Now the next thing I'll do is duplicate the giraffe, so I right-click on my giraffe and I hit the "Duplicate layer" and that gives me two giraffes sitting one on top of the other. Now on the first giraffe, I'll change the Blending Mode to multiply. Now in the copy of the giraffe for the giraffe layer sitting on top of the other one, that needs to be on the normal blend mode. Now I'm going to choose the bottom he because I need a layer mask on these top giraffe and that's the gray rectangle with the circle in the middle. I'll click on that, and that gives me this little white rectangle over here. Then I go to Edit, Fill and I fill it with black, and I press "Okay" and that fills the Layer Mask with black. Now what I'm going to do is bring the giraffe back in front of the branch, so I make sure that the Layer Mask is selected and then I go over and I select a brush. I choose the first brush. I need to change its size, so I right-click on my file, which brings up this box. Then I can move the slider to the size brush I made, and then have is this slotted to be just to the left of the size brush that I choose. I move over to this select foreground color box, and I make sure the foreground color or the front box is what? Making sure the mask is selected. Then I start to rub over the giraffe wherever I see the leaves. I need to zoom in and make the image larger so that I can see that edges better. I need to make my brush smaller so I right-click and I resize it. Then I just use it to go carefully against the edges of these. I'm going to speed it up a little here. Some of the leaves have been removed where I don't really want them to be removed, the ones that are brought up against the giraffe. I change the foreground color to black and then I can paint over the leaves to bring them back, so I go back and forth like this until I'm satisfied. Now I want to place another branch in the background, so I duplicate the branch a third time, and I drag it over here so that I can just see the tip of it coming into the painting. Now I'm just going to reposition this first one again. I always save my files as a Photoshop file in case I want to make changes to them. After that, I go to layer flattened image and then I save the file ready to be printed. That is it, now I have a new print that I can sell with or without the acacia branches. And I can also use the acacia branch on other prints if I want to. 17. Thank you: Thank you for joining me in this class. I hope you enjoyed watching me paint. I hope that I've inspired you to have a goal painting a giraffe yourself. Now if you'd like to paint this giraffe, I've included a line during and a reference photo for you to download. I've also included some of my progress photos for you. I love you to share your painting on the All Projects page on Skillshare. Thank you again and good luck with your painting.