Watercolor: Introduction to Layering

1. Watercolor: Introduction to Layering: Hello. My name is Molly Barker, and today we are going to be learning about the watercolor technique of glazing. In this class, we will be starting with a blank page, and by the end, we will have a beautifully finished watercolor painting. This will be broken down into steps. First, we'll find a flower as a subject. We'll then lay down our initial sketch, finalize our drawing, apply a full page wash, lay down our initial wash onto our drawing, and then add the details through glazing. I have been a lifetime artist and have found that the more techniques that you have available to you in your personal repertoire, the better you can represent the world in your art in the way that you desire. Think of everything that you've learned as an individual tool in your personal toolbox. You can use these tools individually, or you can use them in conjunction with one another. And oftentimes the outcome is much more grand or alluring when using different techniques together than if you used it in isolation. Also consider that your toolbox is different than any other artist out there. And the more tools you have, the more individual your art will become. That being said, let's get right into it. In the next lesson, we will cover the required materials and the project for this class. I'll see you there. 2. Materials and Project: Welcome back. Let's briefly cover all of the materials that we're going to be using for this class. Let's start with one of the most important aspects of a painting the substrate. My favorite paper to use is this watercolor paper from arches. Hot Press, 140 pound, 100% cotton in block form. This paper is smooth and absorbs water beautifully well, and it being in a block allows you to paint all the way to the very edge without having to use any masking tape. As for the pencils and brushes we will need, my favorite pencil for the initial sketch is this 0.5 millimeter pentel P two oh five. It's light and allows you to sketch quickly without having to worry about a fine point. The pencil we'll use for the final drawing is the Febrecastel matte pencil in an incredibly soft 14 B. This allows for dark lines without the worry of marring or gouging the paper, and the mate quality is beautiful underneath watercolor as there is no shine or glint visible. The brushes that I'm going to use are the Windsor and Newton Series seven sable brushes, both round in the size seven for larger washes and the size three for details. These are wonderful brushes and last a very long time. But again, they're rather expensive, so you can use any brush that's similar. As for paints, I'm using the Windsor and Newton professional watercolor paints. You can use whatever paints you have as the professional paints are a bit pricey, and their student quality paints, the Cotman Series, will work just fine for this class as well. You don't need every color and variation of that color, but you will need a few. Also, you'll need a piece of scrap paper to test your paints on and a paper towel to dry your brushes. And finally, you will need a subject. I can't quite stress how important it is to have a subject, in this case, a flower in front of you, as opposed to a picture of a subject, as it really changes how you will translate that flower from third or fourth dimensional reality onto this two dimensional plane. As for the project for this class, I would like to see both a picture of your subject and the final product of your painting. I would also love to see the interim pictures from each lesson or a picture of the final drawing prior to adding paint. You can upload those to the class project section of this class, and I would be more than happy to give you individual tips and pointers. Alright, let's get right into it. Our first lesson will be the initial sketch. I'll see you there. 3. Initial Sketch: Welcome back. The first thing that we need to do in this lesson is take a moment and look at your chosen flower, turn it in your hands and find the angle that we like the most and want to sketch. After tilting it and looking at it from different perspectives, let's get right into the sketch. From here, we're going to be using our mechanical pencil to lay down a very faint sketch. At this stage of the painting, we're going to be keeping our lines super faint so that you can easily plan out our drawing and won't have to do any erasing later. These lines will stay on the paper, and in my opinion, it actually adds to the texture and beauty of the final painting. If you'd prefer, you can also take a needed eraser to the final sketch prior to painting and erase some of the lines that were laid down that weren't used in the final lines. One tip that I find most helpful in this stage is to hold your pencil at an extreme angle, as you can see me doing here. This makes it pretty difficult to press too hard and will help to prevent you from accidentally gouging the paper. In the next layer of this drawing, we'll be going over it again with a softer pencil, which will leave darker lines, and we'll be holding her pencil at a more of an upright position. Another thing that you should consider trying, while I'm sitting here laying down this sketch and later painting this rose, I'm keeping my upper body and head fairly still. By holding your perspective steady, it helps you to actually see what it is that you're drawing. If you're constantly moving around in your seat or moving the vase of flowers, you can really easily start drawing something in one perspective and accidentally finish it in another one. Keep in mind that you are taking a three dimensional object and drawing it in a two dimensional plane. So by looking at it in only this one position with very little variation, it can help you to more easily translate what you're seeing onto the paper and with fewer mistakes. The fourth dimension that you have to consider while painting things which are alive, like flowers is time. Learn to sketch and draw quickly if you want to be able to capture the beauty of a flower in a sliver of its lifetime. I once was sketching a bed of snapdragons, and the flowers were popping open and blooming before my eyes as I tried to sketch them. This wild rose will only last about a day in a vase. But within those hours, it will change drastically, wilting and dropping petals. Though this might seem a little sad to think about, it is actually really beautiful. I've sat with a single flower drawing and painting it several times from the exact same position, and simply because of the short lifespan of flowers, was able to capture completely different looking compositions. I really like being able to see how flowers shift and change so quickly. This fleeting nature really adds to their beauty. One of my absolute favorite artists is Pierre Joseph Redoute. He spent most of his career painting flowers, though they are all stunning flowers, the parts that I enjoy most about his paintings is that in them, he actually showed what was before him, even with their faults, crumpled petals and brown spots included. So the way the flowers change is really stunning to me. Now that we have this initial sketch finished, let's move on to the next lesson where we will finalize our drawing. I'll see you there. 4. Final Sketch: In this lesson, we're going to be drawing over our initial sketch with our soft pencil. One thing that I would really recommend is investing in these wonderful matte pencils from Fabert Castel. The lines just look so good underneath watercolor, dark and without adding any glinting shine. Anyway, I'm using a 14 B here, so very soft. Because of the softness, I can easily make the lines fairly dark without having to add much pressure, which again, will protect the paper from accidental gouging and therefore, prevent watercolor paint from pooling in the next stage. At this point, we already studied our flowers and laid down our initial sketch that mapped out the flowers so we know the essential placement of everything. This stage is simply choosing the final lines and committing to them. As you draw these lines, think about varying the pressure of your pencil and, therefore, the darkness of the lines. Lines of varying widths and lightnesses or darkness will draw the eye and create visual movement in the final painting. It also helps prevent your final drawing from looking like a page out of a coloring book. The lines are there to add interest and detail to the final painting, not detract from the painting itself. One of the most important things about this step is to lay down these lines with confidence. It is abundantly clear when the final drawing is laid down with a lack of confidence. Even if it isn't exactly as you wanted it to be, just continue to the best of your ability. You don't want your final lines to look sketchy. Be bold and lay down the lines without fear. I actually love this stage in a painting. I have sketchbooks filled with drawings of my final lines but not painted. The more often you draw and sketch, the easier this will become. I think also that the more you draw in this way with a sketched out map of your idea all the way to the final lines like you see here, the more you'll be able to easily lay down your plans for paintings without a physical subject in front of you. I think that having a basic understanding of drawing and practicing really helps to improve the anxiety that is sometimes present when you're first laying down the lines for a painting. I used to feel all of the time that I just couldn't get the idea out of my head and onto paper in the way that I imagined or wanted. Practicing in this way makes it not only possible but also really enjoyable. Alright, now that we have the final drawing laid down for our painting, let's move on. In the next lesson, we're going to lay down our background with a soft wash. I'll see you there. 5. Background Wash: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to lay down our first layer of watercolor. I've often heard this layer referred to as the breaking of the ice, as the first brushstrokes on a painting are often a bit nerve racking. So with this layer, you're going to be covering the whole page with the same watered down wash to add a cohesion to the whole painting. I'm going to be using a mixture of yellows for my wash. The main one is Naples yellow, which is a really beautiful sort of creamy yellow, one of my favorites. I'm going to mix in a little bit of raw sienna and burt sienna and add that to my first wash. And I'll also make a separate wash that is much more raw sienna, which I'll use a little later. It's important to have the washes all made up and ready to go, because at this stage, you want to be able to lay down the wash onto the entire page without it drying, which will give a smoother look without accidental layers of glazing. So the first thing that I'm going to do is sprit the whole page with water so that the entire surface is wet, but not so wet that the water is pooling. I like to use the spray bottle, but you can also just use a large brush that's saturated with clean water. After that, we're going to work with a little speed, not going crazy, but quickly enough that the water on the page isn't drying. Take a large brush. I have a size seven round brush here, but you can use something bigger or a different shape if you prefer. And dipping it in our first wash that is mostly naples yellow, evenly apply it to the whole page. So long as the page is wet, you can go back and add a bit more or smooth it out with your brush if you need to. When you've laid down that first wash to your satisfaction, let's move to the darker wash with the raw sienna. We're going to use this to make some beautiful color blooms on the page. I'm going to really load up my brush with this wash, and then, so long as there is more water on my brush than there is on the page, wherever you touch the page with your brush, a soft bloom will appear. I'm going to lay these blooms down mostly in two opposing corners, and then some in the third and only a few in the final corner, just to allow for some visual interest in the background. Now, we're going to lay down the darker wash and for the most part, let them be. One of the tricks with watercolor is knowing when to let it do its own thing and when to attempt to constrain it. Right now, we're just going to let it do its own thing. One thing that will happen since you're adding this additional water to the already saturated page, you will likely have some pooling toward the edges of the page. In order to prevent unwanted water blooms from happening, dry off your brush and just lightly touch it to the page where you can see the water pooling. So long as your brush is drier than the page, the water will be absorbed by it. Run your now wet brush along a paper towel and repeat until most of the pooling is gone. And the final thing to do while the page is still wet is we're going to take a small twist of dry paper towel and use that to gently lift off some of the water and pigment from a few key places in our drawing. This allows some places to stand out while still being somewhat grounded by the background color. I'm going to pull off some of the pigment from the blossoms and also from a few leaves and stem. Don't agonize over this step. We're not removing every bit of color or staying perfectly within the lines of our drawing. We're just adding a few initial highlights. And the final step is to sit back and wait until the entire page is completely dry. If you start to paint the next layers prior to the page being completely dry, your lines will often bleed, and you won't be able to have those sharp, crisp lines that we want. Some people like to use a hair dryer to speed up this drying process, but occasionally, that can cause your pigment to drift in an unnatural way. I prefer to just step away for a while and come back when I know it's completely dry and ready for my next layers. In our next lesson, we're going to add our first wash to the leaves. I'll see you there. 6. First Leaf Layer: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to be adding our first wash to the leaves of our wild rose. Our first order of business is to choose the color that we want our leaves to be. I'm going to use this olive green as the main color of my leaves while adding a small amount of naples yellow to soften it a bit. After I have that mixed, you can see how much pigment is in my mixture. It's quite dry and very saturated with color. However, the first wash that I want to use needs to be quite a lot more wet. So take a big brush full of the paint, move it to another mixing segment on your palette and add some clean water. I love having an eyedropper nearby with clean water so that you can quickly add a few drops whenever it's needed. Mix it up and test it out on your scratch paper prior to putting it on your painting, just to be sure that it's the right amount of saturation prior to painting and add more water or more pigment depending on your preference. Another thing to keep in mind, because we lay down a blanket wash over the entire page, your colors will have an underlying slightly yellow tint, so they will appear a bit different than what you'll see on a white page. The slight variation in your color bothers you, it might be useful to add the same wash to your scratch paper so that when you test out your colors, they will appear the same as what you will find when they lay down on the actual painting. Okay, now that we have our initial wash, we're going to get started. Don't worry about the original more saturated green that we have. We're going to use that in the next lesson. I'm going to be using my size three round brush here. Let's go ahead and start on our leaves. With watercolor, one of the things that you must pay attention to more than almost anything else is the wetness or dryness of the page. We're starting here with a completely dry page, so we're going to be able to create some really crisp and beautiful lines. As we paint on each leaf, however, we need to try to paint the entire leaf prior to any one section becoming dry. As you'll see in our later lessons, if you paint a wash over another wash, it will darken. And when this is done accidentally, it can create some really unpleasant looking lines and blotches. Like to think of this as holding two translucent sheets of plastic in front of the light right next to each other. They're the same color, but as you begin to overlap them, the section that is overlapping will appear much darker. In watercolor, this is called glazing, and we're going to use it to our advantage later. But at this stage, we want our base color to be smooth and free of splotchy lines. So when you paint each leaf, start from one end and paint all the way to the other without going back and adding more water or pigment later as it dries. A good tip on your brush will be really helpful with this kind of painting. So one thing that I like to do is, as you dip your brush for more paint, while pulling the brush backward along your palette, continually rotate until you lift the brush from the palette. This will allow all of the hairs on your brush to come together and create a really nice point. Go ahead and paint each of the leaves and stems that are green, including the rose hips. But leave this main stem blank. We'll go in later with a deeper brown for that portion. Okay, once you're finished with this layer of wash, again, stand up, stretch your legs, and let it all dry completely. In the next lesson, we'll move on to the stem and add our initial wash. I'll see you there. 7. Stem Wash: Alright. This is a short lesson, but let's mix up a nice brown color for the stem of our rose. I'm starting with a little bit of Indian red, and then let's add a bit of Vandyke brown. This will make a nice warm brown to match our rose. If it's a bit too saturated with pigment, add a few drops of water. Now, our goal is to prevent accidental overlapping of color, which has dried and thus glazing and creating accidental lines or splotches. We're going to add the color to the main portion of the stem, and don't forget about the thorns, as well. If you really examine the rose itself, you can see that, though they are mostly green, there are also a few hints of reddish brown on the small stems that hold the leaves together. So we're going to add some small hints to those stems as well. I always feel that it's attention to these tiny, barely there details that can really make a painting in its final stages. So try to pay attention to these small things in your own paintings, and you'll really be able to see the difference at the end. In our next lesson, we're going to be adding our first wash to our blossoms. So I'll see you there. 8. First Petal Layer: This is going to be another rather short lesson, as we are just laying down our initial washes right now, but more detail will be coming soon. I have here a very water down wash of permanent rose, such a fitting color name. And I'm going to color all of the petals in this blossom. We are going to be working on depth and shadow and detail later. So just trust the process here and also don't forget about the small visible petals on that tiny bud. As we lay down these washes, keep in mind that the colors that we are putting in place right now should be the absolute lightest color. These are going to be the highlight colors that show through at the very end of our painting. I feel like watercolor is the opposite of working with oils or acrylics or even gouache sometimes. With those types of paints, you start with a middle shade and then add the low lights and the highlights in afterward. But with watercolor, the first shade you add is the highlight working backward with more and more heavily pigmented paints until you add the darkest shadows, absolutely last. Okay, with those blossoms colored, let's move on to our next lesson, where we are going to be adding our first details. I'll see you there. Oh 9. Glasing Layer - Leaves: In this lesson, we're going to be using glazing to add the details to the leaves. This is a bit time consuming, but let me tell you, the final outcome makes it all really worthwhile. The first thing that we're going to do is reconstitute our green, which we used for the initial wash of the leaves simply by adding a bit more water. A really good thing about having the same scratch pad when you're working with glazing is that you can check how the colors will look on top of the prior wash before having to put it on the painting itself. Alright, once you're satisfied with the color that you're going to be using, let's get into the painting itself. Take a moment to study the leaves of the rose. You'll notice that there are many little veins that run through the entire leaf. But specifically, there is a main vein that runs down the center, and then the veins that branch out pretty regularly from the center vein that move out to the edge of the leaf. We are going to be using the technique of glazing to emulate the darker portion of the leaf, which is in between these tiny veins. And the lighter green that remains will be the veins on the leaf that you can easily see. The difficulty in this is that you're trying to make the veins almost as thin as possible without two wet segments accidentally touching. If you do end up unintentionally connecting two segments, don't panic. You can either leave it as painting with watercolor is often about giving up some control, or just take a piece of dry paper towel and dab the wet segments, picking up some of the pigment. Wait until it's dry and just try again. The technique of rolling your paint brush as you pull it back and out of the paint is really useful when you're working on such small and fine detail. If you'd like, you can also size down your brush, but something to keep in mind, by sizing down your brush, it has less capacity to hold paint, so you may end up having to dip more frequently. I find that the best practice is to use the largest brush that you can for the size of detail that you're attempting to paint. That way, you can hold the maximum amount of paint and dip the fewest amount of times during the process. As is always the case with watercolor, you have to be mindful of the water drying so that you can avoid unintended glazing lines. As you're painting, be mindful about the directionality of the leaves and where the center vein actually falls. There are only a couple of leaves that are truly full facing and thus have the center vein down the middle of the leaf. All the rest will have the vein arching closer to one side or the other. Although these kinds of details are often rather time consuming, they are also some of my most favorite portions of a painting. It's really easy to turn on some calming music or listen to an audio book and just get lost in tiny details. For a simple example of how long these kinds of details take, the glazing on these few leaves took about 35 minutes in real time. And though that might seem like it is too long, I would like to ask, is your goal to paint for speed or detail? I'm going to show you how long it takes to paint this one tiny leaf in real time, just so that you can see how the technique looks and how slow I'm actually moving my brush. It will be about a minute, so I'll put on some music for you. There are many other techniques that one can use that result in less detail but are equally beautiful in their own way. But along the same line, it's good to know many different techniques, some for detail and some for speed, as each can be used effectively in different circumstances. Okay, now that we're done with the veins, let's go back and add a third layer to the leaves to create some more depth through shadow. The light source is above my flower, so keep in mind where the shadows are going to be. Also, think about how the leaves themselves have a nice curve to them. So by adding some shadow to the edges of the leaves, but leaving the rest the lighter color, it will give it a soft rounded look. As you add these shadows, don't worry that the third layer of glazing will remove all of your hard work of the previous step. The shadow green going over the top of the already glazed area will add a third layer and the veins will only get a second layer. So the veins will still be visible. And just look for a minute at the difference that those few shadow details made. It really makes the leaves pop. Okay, let's move on to the next lesson where we will be adding our glazing details to the blossoms. I'll see you there. 10. Glasing Layer - Petals: In this lesson, we're going to be using glazing to add the details and shadows to the petals of our blossoms. The first thing that we need to do is, again, reconstitute our rose colored paint and do a quick test on our scratch paper to make sure we have it at the correct level of saturation that we want. If you look at my poor subject, you can see that I finish this painting over a two day period, and sadly, it has lost a little bit of life. If you want to use a live subject for your paintings, it's best to start and finish the painting all in the same day. Otherwise, you may have to end up using mostly your memory to complete it. Now, with the blossom, we're going to do it a little bit differently than the leaves. These blossoms won't be extremely exacting. Instead, think about movement and fluidity. One of the things that I really love about flowers and roses specifically is the stark contrast between the thorny stems, stiff leaves, and the soft fluid velvet of the petals and blossoms. So that is what we are essentially trying to capture. I want to have this wonderful contrast between the stem leaves and blossoms. It should flow between this feeling of rigidity and structure and the stem and the whimsical softness of the blossoms. So we're going to be picking out the soft details on the petals, first of all. Look at your subject. I hope it's more lively than mine, and see where the slight ridges on the petals are and the way the petals curve toward you. Pick those out with the first layer of glazing and also add your first layer of shadow underneath the petals toward the center of the blossom. As you work, always be mindful of your light source and place the shadows accordingly, always on the opposite side of the light. Also look at the difference in colors between the blossoms and the bud. The bud, overall, has a much deeper color than the already unfurled petals on the blossom. Another thing to think about is that petals are also somewhat translucent, so the shadows won't be extremely stark. Some light will continue to shine through. So as we're working through these details and shadows, be sure to leave segments of petal that only have the first wash on it as a highlight. Also, though we are adding many different layers of glazing, we still need to be really mindful to allow each layer to dry prior to starting on the next layer. One way to be sure that each layer has time to dry is to bounce around from one blossom to another, sort of like honey bees and only come back when the layer has dried. Each additional layer of glazing will be darker than the last. So each new layer should cover a smaller and smaller area of the painting. And as we get closer to the final stage of glazing on these blossoms, let's also add a few small line details around each of the petals to help delineate between when one petal ends and another begins. We can just add some of this dried paint to our already damp brush to saturate the brush with pigment and allow us to paint with it almost like a pen. Okay, that all looks really good now. So let's move on. Let's go ahead and add a little bit of depth to the stem here before we move on to the next lesson. We can reconstitute this reddish brown that we used before and add a little glazing to show some of the shadow. Before we finish with the brown, let's also add a little of this color to some of the smaller stems that are visible between the leaves. Sometimes adding just a few hints of color is better than coloring the entire stem, as it will create small hints of interest that also make your eye want to move around a painting. Alright. With that all done, let's move on to our next lesson. I'll see you there. 11. Blossom Center: In this lesson, we're going to be adding that little pop of color to the center of the blossoms. One thing about watercolor is that it is very translucent, so it makes adding a lighter color on top of a darker color nearly impossible. Tiny bright highlights that you choose to add at the end of a painting are very difficult. So we're going to mix up a paint that is really saturated with pigment. I'm going to be using my naples yellow, and since it isn't quite leaving the impression that I was aiming for, I'm going to add a bit of my white, which is the most opaque watercolor that I own. I sometimes cheat a little and use a bit of gouache on top of my watercolor if I want to make some small changes at the very end of the painting, but let's not cheat today. So let's add this somewhat opaque color to the middle of the blossom and also let's add a bit of it to the stem near these thorns, as wild roses tend to have slight areas of white on their stems. Alright. That looks good to me. Let's go ahead and sign it. I think I'll sign it in this green that I've been using. All done. I like it. Alright, let's go to the next lesson where we will remove the page from the block. I'll see you there. 12. Separating Paper from the Block: Welcome to the final lesson. One quick note that I want to make about removing a sheet from a watercolor block. Always use a sharp knife to cut through the edging. If the knife you're using is dull, it can cause the paper to bend or tear, which you certainly don't want. Thank you so much for spending your time with me, learning about glazing in watercolor. I have several other classes using different watercolor techniques. So if you enjoyed this class, please check out some of my others. I really look forward to seeing your class project, so please remember to post it to the class project section. If you have a moment, I would very much appreciate a review, and please share this class with anyone that you feel might enjoy it. Thank you again, and I hope to see you in another of my classes.