Watercolor Illustration- Painting Plants

1. Intro & What You Will Learn: Hi, everyone. My name is Kim Eagling from Ron Ron Rabbits Studio on etc. I am an artist living in North Carolina, and I mostly do painting an illustration. I use my travels, nature and animals to inspire my artwork and the mediums that I use our oil acrylic on watercolor pain. So what we're gonna be doing today is learning how to do a watercolor illustration using plants, and we'll use different ways in order to illustrate the same subject by using different tools and skills. So at the very end of the class, we're gonna have a fun illustration using watercolor plant illustration to make a type of drawer or Terreri, um, using plants. All right, I look forward to seeing you guys there. 2. Materials & Tips: So I have laid out the mids heroes that will be using today for the watercolor illustration . Lesson. First, I have my watercolor pain. I have some extras that I bought that are not from a set that are more professional grade. Just has tried them out, and then I also have my lower end, but still good, Reeves said. I do really enjoy these. I like the variations that it gives me, and it also provides a good color when I paint on the surface. So I do. I mostly used these, actually these air more for experimentation, so I have both of these. I also have my palate, which we talked in other classes about how I'll use a pout like this. Or I'll make an improvised one using freezer paper or wax paper. And I'll just tape it down to my surface so that I can just throw it out later. I have a pencil for sketching. I've got my brushes, which for finer detail ng that will be doing today. I have much smaller tips for today, and then I also have a marker that will not run when I apply water on it. So here is the brand. I believe it's pronounced Faber Castell, but if you can't here if we I feel like it's just showing me even less, there we go. And then I have it in a size extra small. So that's what I'll be using today to make my fine lines if you are not going to go the pen row or the mark around, we have watercolor pencils over here, and then I also have my prisma color, just regular color pencils over here. I like Prisma color because I think that it lays thicker and nicer and retains its vibrancy when I'm using it on paper. Teoh Color as opposed to cheaper brands where it doesn't lie on very hard or thick on. And it hasn't opaqueness to it. So I prefer, um what Prisma color? Much better. Last time when I did watercolor basics course, I talked a little bit about the importance of different water being used in water color. So if you want to have some information about that, you can go back to that lesson and learn a little bit about the importance of the water that you use. But today we're gonna talk about watercolor paper. I'm going to be using this travel size 11 by 15 paper, and we'll talk about the weight, which I'm using £90. So it's not a heavy paper. It's thinner. Um, it it's really easy to have been. It's not very thick it all. So the point in learning about the weight of the paper is about absorbency. So student great paper is usually 9200 and £40 which is good for experimentation, like what we're going to do today. The heavier the paper, the more absorbency it has for the water that you're applying on it. So the heavier it is, the better it is. But it's also much more expensive. So when it comes to experimenting, you'll want to stay on the lower sort of student grade side so that you're not having to shell out a bunch of money just for experimentation purposes. So, um, also one of the things that you could be doing if you do have lighter paper, is stretching your paper because by having a lighter weight paper, it tends to warp unbuckle for again. This purpose. I don't stretch it cause I don't find that I need Teoh. But, um, if you're using paper that's less than £300 it should be stretched so that it again doesn't warp unbuckle. And what we can talk about that a little bit later, so let's get started. 3. Plant Sketch: Okay, so let's get started. I have my watercolor paper. I have my pencil, and I have my marker that won't bleed once it has water on it. So we'll talk first about different kinds of plants, shapes that you can see. Um, right now it's spring outside. So it is the perfect time to go outside and get some inspiration. Otherwise, you can look online. Look on Pinterest, um, and see all kinds of plants and shapes they have out there. So we'll get started with some typical ones which are almond. I also like to do a variation of that which is more of a Kirby. And then sometimes I kind of dio or one side is rounded and the other side is Kirby is a sort of in between. Another one is sort of a nice, long rounded type of leaf. And elephant ears tend to be my favorite plants. So they're sort of heart shapes that are wiggly. That comes to a point like that. So starting with these couple, what we're gonna do is also do stems on them and veins. So sometimes we'll start with this one here, this almond one, I'll have my they are my stem. Rather come through it and gradually get a little bit thicker going out or you can just stop it and have the stem come down. So let's do a couple of those like that or for this one. Maybe have it go all the way through and just close that off. I'm not gonna do a stem to this one. I'm just gonna keep it a big leaf. Kind of like it's in the ground. And then I'll do one elven ears tend Teoh locked over like that. So now that we have some of our simple ones, let's go ahead and talk about the veins. The things that are seen in the middle of the leaf. Sometimes I like to keep my nice and plain, so I'll keep this one plane. Other times I like to have them go part way through. I like to have the make the shapes with different with in between each like this. Here's one that I'm going to just dio um, only through and for my elephant year. Here's one where I'll go and make it. We'll have this come to the end. Well, do sort of curb lines to give it a shape by rounding off my vein. I'm helping give it a curb appeal. Okay, so another thing that we can do here is once we start having our shapes, we can add on. So, um, this one might have a little branch. And don't worry about whether the stem is intercepting like it is right here, because when we go to put pen over it, we can easily just erase all of these lines. So I don't worry too much about whether things air intersecting when I'm drawing them because, um, were not applying the paint right now for it to be covered over. Um, so it's pretty simple to still fix any errors, so we're going to keep going. So the next thing we're gonna dio is, um, do some variations of these. These were some of the simpler ones, but obviously we can have some that are thinner, fatter, longer, shorter. Um, we can have them have cluster leaves that are sporadic. We can do all kinds of things with this so we can Let's see here, for example, going off of this one right here. We can come down here, and I'm gonna actually make may stem for someone had the stem come all the way through it. And then I'm going Teoh actually start from the bottom and get fatter and then have it come kind of like a little heart. So it starts out skinny, gets fatter and then get skinny again. So is a playoff of the long one here and going kind of the elephant here. And then you can play with whatever kind of veins you want in here. So let me see. I might actually just keep that plane because I kind of like it. So other ones that we can do is sort of like a eucalyptus where it's sort of just a fat round thing. It comes and then points. And I'm actually just going to do a couple and then connect them, using the systems to some of different sizes here. That would be my main one. Curve the branch a little bit, and you can keep adding on to these. I like the eucalyptus ones were kind of like pennies just hanging off. This had to be really beautiful. I'm in there easy shapes. To make another one that we could dio is Ah Fern, Where will have a lot of the almond ones? And I like doing this one because I tend to think it just looks very pretty and delicate. And there's a couple of ways that you can do this. You can have it be pretty general, where you do the one of the top and then you come and you have them pretty much facing out horizontally and, um, together. So they're right next to each other, and then as you come down and I like to worry at my paper this way it's just easier for me . Teoh make the shape horizontally. Um, you increase the amount of space between each and make them slightly bigger. And as you can see him doing a vein, that's part way through here. I'm giving a little bit more space, making it a little bit bigger. And then about part way down from the plant, you make the biggest one, and then it starts getting smaller again. And obviously it looks really pretty like a fraud kind of jungle situation. If you have the stem curves and the plant is curbing, like An s shape attends to look very pretty. Um and so another way you can do a fern other than this one. And maybe we'll dio it'll that curved here is by Having let me finish this off is by having the leaves staggered and not necessarily gaining size either. So maybe I'll have one pointing up this way. Have one kind of pointing out over here, and they're not next to each other. They're kind of just hanging out. And then maybe I'll do a little cluster right here all the way down, so that gives it some very eight variation and interest. If you want a practice, I know I'm swirling my paper around, so I hope that it's not making you too sick. Toe watch, Um does tend to work and forget about everything else. So right now, slowly left this back. So now we have the fern over here, and then the one that's kind of like a vine over here, but still using the Sheikh same shape. So another one that we can dio is, um, the hard edged leaf, which sometimes I have some difficulty with which has points, come up and then meet each other. I'm actually closing, huh? And put these all the way through it. So that's another one you can dio. And for the oval plant, the long over one that we were doing earlier. Another way to add interest. I mean, just get one out here is if you're not pressing too hard, we can do is come in and add some little cuts here. Like when you see plants that have little breaks, a mom. And then later, after we're done tracing, we can erase these lines just to give you a little bit of a better visual. And I'm gonna Do you see veins here? This one goes into the break. You can just see what works for you. Later, when I traced over this one, you'll see more what I'm talking about. But I'm sure you see lots of this house plants. They're nice bit and big with those big like, palm type of leave to them that have the cuts in them. And they look beautiful. So we're going to keep practicing. Some of these, um, cluster them up, have them have branches coming out of them. Um, you know, got kind of go crazy and just see what is that you like to dio And where your, um, intuition takes you Because the only way that you're going to know how you like things in what direction and what kind of movement you prefer is if you and I'll just do a little in here, um, is just a few practice. So continue doing that. Think about how you'll want your stems to be whether you want them to stop or go part way through or go all the way through and then think about what kind of veins that you would like to have on your plants. And so, after practicing a bunch of these, what we're gonna do is we're going to trace some of them with our pen. Um, and then we're gonna leave others still a za pencil because we're going Teoh illustrate the ones with the pen and paint over it, and then the other ones that we leave open, we're going Teoh, use colored pencil later so that you can see what it looks like to have some more modern, some softer. And then a couple of these I'm going to also trace and then do some abstract painting. And then I've left a space down here as well, where Year one to paint first, and then we're going to put marker on top of it. To have that more abstract feel better. That's out of the lines kind of painting. So practice is much as you want. Think about different leave shapes, um, veins, like I said and stems and then we'll come back. I'm going to take this time to marker over some of these and then we'll be back. 4. Painting Plants: Okay. So as you can see, I've gone ahead and trace most of them using my marker. And I have, um, gone ahead and erased any of the pencil lines that you can see underneath. And then three of them. I left just as pencils because I'm going to illustrate those using colored pencil and said of marker, Um, and then three of these I will be doing abstract on top of the marker. And then I've also left the bottom of space open to do abstract without the marker. And then you can apply the marker on top of that and see what you like better. Um, and then the rest of them are just going to be done. Um, as is so I've got my brushes. I have my palate ful of paints. I've gotten different kinds of greens. And then I also made sure to hit blues and yellows and here as well, so I can mix my own greens. And then I also have, um if you have referred to my color course working with color, then you would know that in order to darken some colors, you use the opposites on the color wheel and they're called complementary colors. So I have some of my complementary colors on here. So if I want a dark in a green without using black, then I can use my complementary color gradually in order to get my green a little bit darker. And then what we're going to do first is I'm going Teoh do my pencil drawings that I'm going to have the colored pencils, um, used to illustrate because I want those to drive first so that I can illustrate on top of them faster. And then now I will be doing the abstract ones. A swell is down here, So the technique that will want to use for this you can use whatever you want, but I like to keep this sort of delicate looking. So I like a wet on wet technique. And if you don't know what that means, it's where I went the paper. And then I make my brush saturated pretty well with clean water. Um, and if you need more instruction about the different type of applications and techniques for water color, you can revert to my watercolor basics course so that you have more of an understanding of what that means, but this one's gonna be pretty simple. So the first ones are the pencils. So I'm going Teoh, go ahead and maybe use a little bit of a fatter brush because the ones I'm going to be doing this on are some of the larger ones that don't have all the little pieces anyway. So I'm going to want Teoh went my paper, and I don't want it stopping. What? I don't want a big puddle. If that happens, it's not a big problem. You can just get a little napkin and soften up a little bit, but you do want it damps to that. It has that nice spreading effect when you apply your pain, so we'll start with this one, and I can see I have already made the top a little, so I can just drive my brush off a little bit and stop it off with that, too. So one of the things I'm going to do is he's bring my palate in, get my brush saturated with clean water, and then I'm going Teoh. You can paint this on as thick as you want, but I like to have a little bit of opaqueness in this so that it again has that delicate look and you can paint this whole area and help move the pain. But I like that bleeding effect that it has, and you can have it all the all one color. Or you can give yourself some variations as well. Someone will wet this real good and come in spot some of these areas, you have it flow in by moving your paper. Depending on how much water there is, you can tilt it and watch it bleed so that some of this might be drawing up a little bit too much someone to apply a little bit more water. And I have a couple of, um, cups of water here so I can keep having clean water. And I mean, he was building on it. And once it starts soaking into the paper, you can notice up here where the color is lightning because I didn't apply a whole lot of the color pigment itself because I wet the palate and I had a nice and runny. It has that sort of delicate light look to it, which can look good. Um, in these kinds of illustrations, so Let's move on. I'm gonna do my elephant eras. Well, the same way I'm gonna wait to dio this gym because I have a feeling that that will dry up faster than I like it too. So color, it's got that nice lead to it. And if I just move it, move the paper. You can see it running here, and I intend to like having it be multiple colors. So, um, I just think it looks a little bit more interesting. Okay? And now that I'm ready for my stem, if you're gonna have your stems be a different color, you would want to wait for this to dry because adding this it's gonna pull the color. As you can see me trying to add water to this to make it wet, it's gonna pull down the color from the leaf since the leak is not dry. But I'm gonna have this be the same color anyway, so I can have this going on at the same time. Okay, in the last one is down here. It's more wet and this is called the wet on wet technique. Let that so good up for a minute. And may I add some white to this green that I just made using a light blue and really bright yellow. And my dogs just came into the room with me just a minute ago. So if you hear some yawning or some sniffing going on, that would be them. They're my buddies. All right, so let's see here. So got a bit of a darker Marine now, as you can see, I messed up here. I had not intended to have its, um, go outside the line like that. There are pens that you can use Teoh help erase. Once this is a dry to help. Sort of erase that kind of mistake. Um, so I wouldn't worry too much. If you making mistakes, you can go out and purchase one of their crack stores that it's not a big deal to mess up. I know it kind of feels like it because you wanted to be right the first time, but no worries since May have saturated it a little bit too much. She can't see as much variation, but you can come back and pull as long as it's still wet. You can still come back and pull out some of the color if it's not turning out the way you want and then fix it. So maybe instead of doing something later because it doesn't seem to really be working out , maybe doing something darker. It's my paper has dried up just a little bit. So many continue working on this one. You have yours the way you like it. Then you can work on another one. I'm about to move on here in just a moment. And for those really tiny stems, I have this very little brush that comes to a nice point that can help me wet the area to make sure that the paper and that areas wet and that it doesn't go too far out off the stem lines. Here we go. And then I can use my color. Too bad in here. Okay, Now, let's go to the abstract. I'm going to make this one the you could let this one that I was talking about and this one right here that has the curve be, um, more abstract. So again, I'll get my clean water so that when I'm putting down, um, my web application, I'm not putting color inadvertently already on the leaf, especially if it's not the color I don't want it to be. So I'm not gonna worry so much about where it's going. So I just use a larger paintbrush and just made broad stroke toe at the paper on. Then I'm going to come in and get my call already. Every hair and just kind of paint just gonna gestural e pain around nice and bleeding. Okay, so there's one in this sense to be popular. A popular look. So, um, if that's your thing, if you like hundreds simple I'm not wearing about it, getting the general shape with the color and not so much the detail, then you might like this one. It's a lot more freeing, then ones where you have to sit there and intentionally go through every little bit and piece. Come in here yellow. And then when you my last one up here, I have this one be sort of autumn PCI. Now, one of the things you can notice is it's a lightening up the pen, so if you want to come in afterwards over top of the pen you already have, you can do that or you can do what I'm about to do with the bottom, which is do this technique without a pen and just know your general shape and then come in over top with pen. Let me finish. Is that thank you? So I'm gonna mock this up a little bit. Okay, So here's one abstract. Then we have our to down here, and I'm waiting for these three for the colored pencil. See this one down here? All right, So now, down at the bottom Just to make this easy, I'm gonna dio big, leafy ones so you all can see it. Okay, so you may be able to see where I've wet the paper. You may not, but it will appear here in just a minute. I'm being just gestural with the way that I'm applying the paint again, and I've wet it. So it's a kind of nicene soupy in there so that, um, the pigment doesn't come out to break. He isn't starting to dry a little bit. Hello. Give it some depth. It's an interest. I think this one right here, and I can tell he is driving a little bit. Okay, so that didn't take very long at all. and I have some more leaves leaves that I will then pen on top. So we're almost done. So what you can do next is then work on your last ones. Um, just using this wet on wet technique and try having there be some different colors in my to give them that sort of look here where it is not just one flat color. If that's what you like. By all means, go ahead and do that. But I'm going to finish up here filling these in one by one, and then we're gonna come back, and I will illustrate on top of these ones that have to dry with either the marker or the colored pencil. 5. Plant Jar Project: Okay, So the last things we're gonna talk about are finishing up your illustrations on the final project. So what I've done here is I have painted the rest of my plants and I have gone. And for the ones that needed the color pencils, I've started it where you can see here. I've taken a darker color green and gone and trace the outlines and given its, um, interest by creating some lines within the plant so that it sticks out a little bit more so I can show that to you One of the ones over here. It's a specific and abstract one, but we can go ahead and use this one anyway, So I'm gonna go ahead and draw these out and then do this hatching motion to give it a little bit of depth and some interest. Um, so for these ones, I've completed those. And then for the ones that had watercolor over the marker, some of them had too much pigment. And so I've had to redraw some of the lines. So if you noticed that you're the type of person who will paint the pigment on thicker, you might just want to paint onto the pencil and then just wait for it to dry and paint the marker over. It'll save you some time. Just make sure that your pencil marks or the way you want TEM, before you go ahead and do that because you won't be what erase. It won t once you lay down the color so I have all of these done And so the next thing that we're gonna do is talk about the project. So I have here my jar that I'm gonna use and you can draw your jar any shape you want, you can have like mine. The lid is off. You can have a lid on. I chose to do a bunch of smaller plants. If you would like to do a few large ones, if you'd like to have them spilling out of the jar, that would be great. I would love to see all the variations that you guys come up with and I choose to have mine be, um, the plants inside be with the marker. You might want to make the jar with marker anyway, but the plants inside can be different just so that the jar sticks out and everyone can see what it is. It would be easier to have that be marker. But, um, way that you'd want to do this. If you're choosing to do a similar way that I have here, I have drawn my large plants first, because once you start drawing, if you're drawing a bunch of smaller ones than it's hard to fit the larger ones in. So I've done the small, the large and the media and then filled in with small in the back and in the areas that needed some something. So what you can dio is that you can do it in the way that I have, um, or you can do it with the abstract. So I outlined these here with colored pencil. But again, you can do with a marker, and the way that you would want to do this is by choosing what's going to be towards the bottom towards the front and then filling it in from there because you'll want to wet your paper, fill those colors in and then start filling in the back. And what happens is especially because this is a wet on wet technique. Everything is going to run so you'll want to make sure of the colors you're putting next to each other. If you have an orange plan appear and a purple plant back here when it bleeds together, it's gonna make a sort of money brown. So you want to pay attention and kind of map out what you're gonna have if you're gonna do abstract. It's fun, and I do like it. But you just want to be conscious of what color's your using because bleeding will happen and it will happen quickly. So when you encounter that issue, you'll just want to fold up the paper a little bit until you get to a point where you can see that the puddle is staying. Where is you doing? A little bit of believe, because that's what makes it beautiful and abstract. But you don't wanna have it bleed into all the other plants so much that they end up looking exactly the same color or just the muddy mess. So here's what I have here. Some examples, and this one's on the title page for this course where I have some of these in the way I work to. This is I drew the plants in the front, and then I drew what was going to be in the middle middle round of them in the background, and then I painted it the opposite. So I painted this front here first, and then as I was letting it dry, I painted a plant that was not touching it and letting that dry. So that's how you would want to go working with that, especially if you have a lot going on in here. You want to work side to side and then around that as they dry. So this one's going to take a lot of patients. But I'm really looking forward to what you guys have, and, um, please post them in the project section so I can see what you guys come up with. 6. Final Thoughts: All right, everyone. So that's it. I've come to the end of the class, and I hope you were able to take away something from learning more about different types of watercolor paperweight and watercolor plant illustration. I hope that you were able Teoh find a, um style that you liked and felt comfortable with in order to do the final project postings projects. I love to see what you guys did. And if you guys have anything and that you are have having questions about or something that you would like to see or for me to elaborate more on pleasing that in the common section, I'd love to answer whatever you have. Um, and help expand this a little bit more. So I will see you guys next time. Bye.