Transcripts
1. Skillshare Intro: Hello, I'm Daniella Melon and author and artist. Thanks for joining me for today's class on painting Watercolor Happy Homes on a small scale . This is a quick class that allows you to take your initial sketch and use your favorite colors or color combinations to create a playful house made up of simple geometric shapes and small touches of detail. This class is for beginners but can be enjoyed by all skill levels by using additional layers and details. Today, we'll add an optional element, a colorful and coordinating sewing button to our painting to add a touch of playfulness. And if you don't have buttons or the right size or color, ones have a bonus class on making them using just water color supplies. I've also included a second bonus class of a small one page booklet that you can make to store your happy homes. Try your hand at creating Happy home painting and take a photo of your artwork and posted in the project section. Be sure to follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes. Please consider leaving a review and thank you for taking the time to join me today
2. Class Supplies: So these are the supplies that will use to make our watercolor happy homes. Now each of these little works of art are gonna be on a very small sheet of watercolor paper. This is 100 and £40 watercolor paper, and I'll have the exact measurements on the class supply list, along with a list of all these supplies. But roughly it's seven by 11 centimeters or 2.5 by four inches roughly, and it's a piece of watercolor paper. You'll use the template, which you can download, and there are various things here that you can do to trace them. Eyeball them or you can cut them out and use them as templates. It's a guide. You don't have to follow it exactly either. I have my watercolor supplies, pencil and an eraser, a white gel pen to use after our watercolor is dry. I have a few brushes. Ah, one, a two and a six. I have some quick, dry glue and some buttons. The buttons air a fun touch. It's completely optional. I use small buttons because the scale of our paintings air small. But if you don't have buttons, don't worry about that I'll show you how to use watercolor supplies to make little buttons in a bonus chapter as well. The next chapter will go over using the template.
3. Using the Template: he is the template. You can freehand sketch it just onto your piece of paper. These air Very simple geometric shapes. Or you can take it to a light source either a window or a light pad, like I have here, illuminate the source and then put your watercolor paper on. And then you can trace your template. And so what I do is I just find the one that I want. I put my paper on top of it, and then I just sketch tracing very lightly because I don't want my pencil marks to show the shapes. Now there are ways you can modify this template that are really fun. The shapes here are very angular and pointed for the most part, and if you want, you can round your edges here. This is just supposed to be a whimsical house, very fun and bold and a little unusual. Very abstract. You can change the shape of any of your squares into trapezoid, zor circles or rounded rectangles. Whatever works for you, and just after you have it done, make sure your images the way you want it, so that when you go to paint your all ready to go. And what we're gonna do when we paint is leave a lot of open space. And by that I mean, we're gonna add our layer of paint to our sketch here. But we're gonna leave a lot of blank area so that we can fill it in with our little whimsical touches our buttons and are flowers that we're gonna paint onto our happy homes. So after you have your images sketched out onto your paper will start painting.
4. House #1: Layer 1: for my first house. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna paint this one here. You could pay anyone. I like this one because it's a solid color for the background. So I have my sketch down here and then I'll take my number six brush. And I'm just gonna wet the areas of my house here that are not the doors or the windows. So I'm just wedding here, leaving a little dry space right on the edge. That'll mix my color. Gonna take a little Prussian blue here on my palate with some water and a little bit purple in there just to mix it in. Now that is much purples. I want to change the color somewhat. Here we go. And then it would take a couple of dollops of water here and make a very light, very subtle color. So with that subtle color in my large brush, I'm just gonna go over there and let the entire background of the area that I already went once on my paper here. And that's just to create that really subtle color for the background of this house. The happy home. Here. I'll go around the doors and around the windows, and once I have that shape, I'm going to switch to a smaller brush, and that's where I want to go in there. And I want to just make the outline of the house right on the edge, the perimeter much darker. So I'll go in there with a smaller brush, my number one brush, pick up some of that dark pigment, and I'm just gonna drop it right at all the corners to start out with. The reason I want the center of my house to look bigger is I wanna first take advantage of the watercolor nature, and then also I want to be able to paint layers of flowers and the buttons over the house, and I don't wanna have to compete with the background color. So if my darkest color is only on the edge, I still have a look of a blue house. But the pigment isn't competing for my additional layers. I could go around all the windows and doors as well with that deeper color, and I'll add as many layers as I wanted this deeper color while my background is still wet . Just to get that that nice contrast It's almost like a little border as well. There any areas where the pigment, the darker pigment, became too intense or too blended, and I still want a little light area. I'll go in there with a drier brush and remove some of that water and pigment that I could go back in and just drop in a little more deep color right on the edge is, since I know this is gonna dry, lighter, just like that, have a nice shape, and I'll let this layer completely dry.
5. House #1 Layer 2: So now that our first layer is dry, I want to go in there and I want to take my number one brush here or my number to brush. And I want to go in on a filling the windows and the doors. Normally, I do the windows. Ah, fill them in blue. But you can use any color. And because this is a happy house, we could make it any bright color. So I think I'm gonna do yellow. So I put a little yellow in my palette, and then that's a lemon yellow, and I'll mix it with a little deep yellow and some water. And I'm just gonna go in there and fill in that window here, and I'm not gonna worry about getting all of the area filled in. I'll leave a little white down on my paper just because that's kind of the way the watercolor goes. Then I'll choose a color for my door. Think I'll choose like a very deep purple for my door here so and some purple. Mix it with a little of that blue that was left on her palate, and then I'll put some purple down. Go in there with a wet brush move that color around. I'll pull some pigment out from the center, just so it's later in the center and I'll let this layer completely dry.
6. House #1 Layer 3: so none of my doors and windows air dry. I'm gonna go in there and add our final details. This is a fun way to do it. I like to start by outlining my house. So I take the color that's left on my palette, that blue, and I'll add some more Prussian blue to that and then make a very sharp point. And then, very lightly, I'll just trace around the edge, not looking for a thick line. Just a nice, sharp edge. It helps clean up any lines that weren't particularly neat just like that. That will go in. I want to paint flowers, and I like to do either clusters or odd numbers. So I'll take because we made this area very light blue. I can use a lot of colors on top of it. I can use oranges without really muddying it. So I'm gonna go in there and mix some of this vermillion Hugh with a little bit of the deep yellow. I still get a nice orange color, but it's very vibrant, and so from here, I'm just gonna make a very abstract floral shape, and it's really just a rounded shape over here. just like that and then all Cohen here, and I'll do one opposite it. And because I know I'm gonna put the buttons on later. I'm not gonna go overboard with my flower shapes. I'll dip a little bit of my brush into the vermillion, Hugh, the intense pigment, and then just drop a little bit in that area that we just painted. Then all rinse my brush and I'll mix a little of this parallel in red, right on my paper with a little bit of water from my wet brush. And then I'm just gonna made a little bit of shapes on either side of this flower, and I'll do one over here. So I have five flowers just like that. I'm gonna take a little of this green here, this meridian mix it with a little deep green, and I'm just gonna make what I consider leave. So just kind of little, almost teardrop shapes coming out from each of these flowers again, it's very abstract, but it's really cute. And now the last detail I want to use is I want to frame the windows in the door and this I do this all before I add any buttons to this piece. So again, I'm gonna take a nice, intense Prussian blue here with a sharp point and just gonna go on, outline my window and I'll do that on all the windows with a lot of pigment on a brush. Very sharp point, and I'll outline this round window as well. And then all I outlined the door, and here I might want to add a little door handle. And for the windows, I like to add little panes of glass, so I just add the really the framework here. And I make a giant plus sign on a larger window. And then over here will make just divide the window into thirds. Or maybe I'll go one more. And just like that, I'll let this layer completely dry. And then we'll come back and have the gel pen and and our buttons
7. House #1 Adding Buttons: so none of my pieces dry with my weight gel panel just coming here, make some highlights. Think I'll go over this little paneling on the window and then on my flowers. I'm just gonna go in there and just add a little bright, squiggly line, could ADM. Or, if you want, you could add a pattern to your background if you'd like. But because I'm gonna put the buttons on here now, I'll just wait and see what comes of it. So for the buttons, I chose a bunch of colors and different size buttons here from my stash that kind of coordinated here and so I can just put the buttons down and see where I I really want them to go. I know it have smaller spaces in certain areas, but I think it's kind of cute the way they look. So here's a white button. I'll just play around with the way I the way it looks and see what I get here. So there I have my button placement the way I want, and now I'll just add a little dab of glue. This is just a quick drying glue. Put it right on my paper and just set my button down on top of that, and I'll let this dry
8. House #2 Layer 1: for my second house. I'm gonna do a similar procedure, but I'm gonna use the Grady and instead of just one color for the background. So the same steps where I go and I put a layer of Clearwater on the house avoiding the windows and door, a male mix my two colors. I'll put two spots of water on my palette, and I'll mix some of this yellow this deep yellow, yellow orange with a little bit of water. And then over here, I'll mix a little bit of orange in this palette. This little spot So it's a very faint color label. Makes another rush full. Get it going there with my lighter color, this yellow Pick it up on my brush and I'm gonna add it on one side of the top of the house over here on the right hand side in the centre, going around this window, going down a little ways as well. And then right over here in the corner, I want one side to be higher up. Just like this. I can add a little more here. I'm gonna switch to my number to brush and pick up some of this orange color, and I want to add it before I touch it to the area, added the yellow first on all sides. And then I'll come back in with a sharp point and add it to the area that has the yellow right near it. So that will lead a little bit, since it orange is the dominant color and will dilute or soften the yellow. I want to make sure that I have mawr yellow down than I do orange. So in this area here, I'll leave a little spot where you can go back in with the yellow and put in some yellow, and this gives a nice variation. Pick up some of this yellow right over here, make sure you have my outline really pristine, and then I'll let this layer dry.
9. 9 House #2 Layer 2: so now that are layers dry. I'll go in there and paint the windows and door so we'll go in there and I'll take a little a cerulean blue and mix it with some water. So it's really faint, and I'll come in here and paint these windows And again, I'm not worrying about painting all the white just like that, and then I'll choose a color for the door. Think I'll do a nice green door so I'll take a little this yellow green, this permanent green over here. Color that door nicely because we have a variation on our background. I'm gonna go in there with a little of that dark green and just dip it. My brush, my damn brush in the dark green. Pick up a little pigment and just drop deposited in certain spots on this door. I'll let the color run and then I'll let this layer dry
10. House #2 Layer 3: So now there are layers air dry. I'm going with my small brush. I'm just gonna create an outline. So I'll take a little orange on my brush and just outlined this house with a very light hand in a sharp edge just like this. And then I'll do the same thing with the windows. Gonna make color even deeper orange. Think I'll use the orange for that. Make a nice outline. And while that's drying a little, I'm gonna start a most flowers. So I think I'm gonna make one Red, Put some red down here and I'll just do a little flower over here, and then I'll do a little flower over here is well, And then I'll go in with its deep yellow, get a nice amount of pigment on my brush and just make a little swatch to indicate a flower . From there, I'll take some of this deep green, nice sharp point and just make those little leaves. And then I want to make my window panes. So I'm gonna take some of this orange again, and I'm gonna makes a little bit of Prussian blue in with that Just too dark in that off a little still wanted to look orange, so I had a little more orange. And then I'll come in here and I'll make my little window panes. Come over here, make a little door handle and I'll let this layer dry will come back and use our gel pin and at our buttons.
11. House #2 Adding Buttons: So now my painting is dry. Once again, I'm gonna go in there with my white gel pen and just add a few little highlights here to the flowers, I might add legal. It may be a little hard on the door, a swell. And then it's time to choose what buttons. And in this case, I'm using paper buttons that I made that look very similar to buttons. If I don't have buttons or I don't want to use my buttons, so I'm just gonna choose the colors and see which ones I like the way that they look. I think I had a baby, a green one right here. So that was pretty easy. I'll just go, like, right from there at a little dollop of glue on my painting and include my button there and there we have our completed painting
12. Class Wrap Up & Variations: So here the paintings that we did in class the 1st 1 we did a solid back around with just some variation of darker and lighter versions of the same color. And then we used real buttons on it. It's kind of a cute look. On our second version. We did a variation of Grady int of two colors that are side by side on the color wheel, yellow and orange. And then I added some faux button, some buttons that I made using watercolor paper, and I'll show you that in the bonus class. I want to show you a few variations and one other technique you can use with this particular illustration. So here are just variations, using the template of more little happy houses that I did in class. And here's one where I turned the page to the side. Because it's such a simple shape, you can also take the painting and put it on a larger piece of paper and just sketch out that simple shape and make your your little watercolor happy house. And it's kind of a really fun look. And Leslie I took a single sheet of copy paper in this color case. It was colored copy paper, and then I just attached a bunch of houses to the inside and made a little Happy House book . And it's kind of a cute little project. You can dio and look of a bonus class to show you how to make this using your paintings from class with the template, either buttons, no buttons or foe buttons. And then it's just a scrap of paper that you can use to make the cover. Please be sure to follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes and please consider leaving a review. Thank you for joining me today.
13. Bonus Class #1 DIY Buttons: to make your homemade watercolor buttons all your leader. Two pieces of watercolor paper. These are just scraps I have from cutting down paper. I like it. Makes a nice stiff button. First scrap you're gonna use. You just paint swatches of color and I'll go over that in a moment, and then the 2nd 1 you're gonna use to build up and make the base for your button, you'll need the whole punches according to the size and shape you want. I'm just using a 5/8 small round and a standard hole punch that you find in the office supply section, which most people have around their homes. And then to make the tiny buttons tiny holes on top of the button, you can either use a very small hole punch. This is 1/16 or I like to use just a little pointy tool. Even a needle will work and that I need some quick, dry glue. So first thing I'm gonna do is create my swatch, so I'll take colors from my painting and make a bunch of swatches on my watercolor paper, and then I'll let it completely dry once it's dry. This is what I have a bunch of swatches on my paper from here. I don't need to start punching my holes. And so depending on what size I want to make, I use to bases for every top. So the guy that I mean I could and punch to dots blank watercolor paper for everyone I want to make If I want to make one here out of yellow Ah, punch. That's just like this. And this is the same procedure for all of them. Then I take a little of this quick, dry glue, put a little down on my, uh, round that's already cut out, sandwich it in with another one, and then I try and lined it up so that it's it lines up nicely, had a little more glue, and there for the top layer. I have my button now to really make it look nice. You wanna line it up so it is right on top of it perfectly after it dries. If you want to color in here with some more of that paint from your palate around the edges , you can or you can leave it like this. But what you want to do is let it dry thoroughly dry and because it's quick, dry glue, it doesn't take very long after it's dry will go in there and make the two holes on top to make it really resemble a button to make a button. In a smaller way, I'll use two, maybe three, rounds and it's the same procedure. It's just a little more tedious because it's harder to work with. And then I'll choose the color I want for the top of my button here, and in this case, I'll just choose an orange. So I have my orange here again. I'll add my glue just a little dab, put it right on top and then I line it up because it dries quickly. I want to line it up right away. If I can. Just like that, I'll put a little more glue. And for the little one, I like to use three layers, plus the top. So a total of four layers they set that down just like that and then a little bit on top and again, you can go around the edge when it drives with some more of that top color. Now, after these air dry, you can go in there, your little hole punch on the larger buttons and you can do this for any size or shape. It's the same procedure you layer and then you want to punch your holes, and so you want to try and line them up. I think the hardest part is lining them up so it gives a realistic look of a button. Or you can just use your little needle tool. And this one's easier, especially in the smaller ones, because you can see exactly where you want it to go. And I really I don't go through all the way. I'm just going enough to make my in Dent, so I have my buttons here, So here we have our watercolor paper buttons.
14. Bonus Class #2 One Page Book: to make your one page notebook, you'll need a scrap of paper for the cover. And this is just a old gift bag that I cut down because the paper was kind of a handmade look. And so this is just 11 by 15 centimeters, and all these measurements will be included in the class supply list under the bonus class section. So this is 11 by 15. I have my paintings that I have a piece of standard copy paper. I can either use the white or I happen to have one in like a lilac color, and I think I'm gonna use that because it's a fun look. The only other tools that you'll need is some glue to attach your paper to your cover, a pair of scissors and then Leslie, I use some paperclips to hold my paintings in place so I can take them out as I need them to make the book. It's really simple. It just involves folding. So I take my paper and I folded in half, and so I start with it in a landscape mode and I folded right in half side to side, and this is where you want to just be a little careful just to make sure your corners or touching nicely. I like to take it and then unfolded as well and fold it over again. Same fold, but just the opposite way. This gives me a nice crease from here. I'll open up my paper and I'll fold it up and down. So now I have the paper folding up and down and again the only thing I'm gonna be cautious about is lining up my corners. So delighted my corners. I lined up my corners on both sides and then I go right to the center and go out from the center point over, fold it in again, and then I'm gonna fold it over again one more time again lining up those corners so corner to corner And then I make that crease Open it up one time, make the crease on one side, going in and the other side going out. And this is not as complicated that it sounds. I'm just trying to make sure everything is creased in both directions. So then I'll take this crease and fold it in and again, this is just reinforcing my crease. This one will make sure it folds in. And now I'll open my piece. So from here, I want to turn it just whatever way makes that tent. So it goes right up easily. I'm gonna take my piece and fold it in half, and then I'm gonna open. It unfolded in half the other way. So now I took the natural form of the tent and I made it tall. So you'll get four pieces from here. I'm just gonna take my pair of scissors and cut down the center line and I find it's really helpful if I reinforce the crease one more time and then I just make my cut right from the centerfold just one block down. So I go just like that. And if I open it, that's the only piece that's missing is right in there. So then I take it just like this, and I kind of make a point in the center to my two ends are flat, and I'll pull it together just like this. This is a folding itself. And now we have a star for an ex so I can take this X and fold it down flat. And now we have a little book and I like to reinforce all the folds repeatedly. And I like the fold to be up top. So the fold of my paper is up top right here, except for that one area that I cut. So I have my fold here. I'm just gonna set this aside. I take my scrap of paper for the cover, and I'm gonna fold it in half again, corner to corner. Right now I have the good side is sandwiched in, and now I'm just gonna take it and fold it so that my good side is out just like that. I want to make sure my piece fits. I could just put it inside there. Just like that. I can use some double sided tape. I'm just gonna use my quick, dry glue here, and I'm just going to put it down on the top over here and the bottom and then up the side here on the fold. I like to hold it in place, push it to the edge so that my fold and my Spiner together, and then I hold it down. So now one side is adhered. I'll come over here and do the same thing where I put a beat of glue or double stick tape to the top right down the side of the fold and over one. And I do this so that I can feel my work with my paper clips, and I just fold it down If I'm using glue, I'll let this dry for about 10 minutes. I'm using double stick tape. I can get right toe work, so let that sit, and then we'll come back and fill our little booklet. So now I have my paintings here, and I have some paperclips. So what I'd like to do is take my first painting that I'm gonna use, and I just kind of place it down. And I created almost like a little pocket here, so that's where my paper clip is gonna go. So I slide my paper clip in, and then I slide my painting and then I'll do the same thing with the rest. You can start on the back, slide my paper clip in, and then over here, I want my paintings to be on either side of the page, so I'm just gonna put the paper clip up top try and avoid any areas that I have the buttons on my paper and lastly, over here, in here for my last images. And I like to put my paper clips on the top or on the bottom. I don't like to put him on the sides except for the side, right up against the cover. And there we have my little book full of my happy houses.
Daniela Mellen, Artist & Author
