Watercolor: Loose Florals

1. Introduction: Hey everybody, my name is Peggy Dean, and in this class we're going to be going over watercolor in loose florals. In this class, we will demystify the lack of structure by introducing a playful style of flowers using new knowledge of how to control your paints' transparency, floral, and blending properties. We will be exploring a number of different flowers that will help you achieve any look that you're going for in your art pieces. You'll learn how to adapt these in pigment, some brush control to produce effortless strokes, and we'll be covering some color harmony. You'll even learn how to paint the perfect peony in under five minutes. Lastly, we will learn to explore to break the rules a bit to get a little messier, bringing a wholly look to our florals. This class is present for you if you're ready to start painting flowers and leaves with less structure for a bright, soft, inviting appeal and cares to both watercolors who've dabbled or never even touched a brush before. I got you. I can't wait to get started with you. Let's go. 2. Tools & Materials: The tools that you need for this class are pretty straightforward when it comes to watercolor, but I'm going to show you some of my favorite brands here. The paper that I'm using is by Legion and it's their Stonehenge Aqua Coldpress. It is real thick and these are made in blocks. They're glued on both ends, so they're not going to warp when you're using them. Then we're going to be using round brushes. These are actually my own brand that we'll be launching later in the year, but they are synthetic tips partial to synthetic types mostly because for one they're cruelty free, which is huge to me if you don't know that already, and these ones in particular hold a good amount of paint and a good amount of water. They also are very flexible and easy on their transitions between pressure, full belly strokes and then fine tip stroke. Big fan of the synthetic round brushes. Then the other thing that I always recommend is having a jar for your warm colors and a jar for your cold colors. These aren't anything special. This is an old sesame seed jar and this is an old jam jar. I don't care to be pretty when it comes to this ambition type be when it comes to art stuff. But what you're going to want to do is rinse all of your warm colors in one jar and all of your cold colors and the other so that they don't cross over and then create a more of a brown marquee color as you're painting. The other option that you can do is a dirty jar and a clean jar. So every time that it's dirty, go there in that jar, get it real good, and then go to the next one which is the clean jar, and make sure that it's nice and clear. You're really getting that reset if you will. Those are two different ways to do that, but two jars are good. Then for paints, this is my own pre-made palette. I have a blog post that the link is below on how to create your own palette and it's a really quick step-by-step. These colors are by Daniel Smith watercolors. They are my absolute favorite and the colors that I'm using are also in the about section in the class. That should be helpful if you see a color that you absolutely love. All those colors are listed there. That's really all that you need in this class, you guys. Real quick, just for your reference, I will be using a number 8 and number 4. This doesn't really matter as long as you have a nice full brush, maybe like 6, 8,10 or 12 and then a smaller brush that's like a 2, 4 or 6 depending on how much detail you want. I'd stick with a 2 or a 4. That's what you need and let's get right into it. 3. Brush Control: Paint vs Water: Now we're going to get into brush control and we will work with a dry brush, and a wet brush and show you the difference in how the different moisture will affect your paint. Then how much paint you have on your brush, how that will affect your stroke. Let's get into it. The first thing that you will want to do is, completely saturate your brush in the paint. So you roll it on its side, this is a bit dry. I don't have a toner water on this brush, so I'm going to come down. You can see that the pigment is nice and bold, but then you can see how it's dry toward the edge. What I'm going to do now, is completely saturate my brush in the water, roll around one more time to grab some more paint and come down. You can see how that flows a little bit nicer. If you use just the very tip of your brush, you can get that real thin stroke. Then full belly pressure of the brush, you can get that thicker stroke. Press down for more broader stroke and then lift up for that thin stroke. This is a really good practice to be able to get control of your brush, see how it's going to work, how you are going to be able to get detail, and how you might be able to fill more space. You'll also see, when you drag it like this, and then lift up on pressure, how as you go you're going to lose some paint, gets some more water on your brush, etc. These are some good tools, and I don't want to get too much into it because I want you to mostly see how when you do these techniques, it will effect it hands-on. Try putting full pressure down and then lifting up. See I have water, lots of water on my brush the first two, and not so much on that last one. These are things to play around with. Now what we're going to do is the same thing. Just really dry brush, lots of pigment, lots of paint loaded up. Then this is what that will look like with a little more water, a little less paint. I'm going to switch colors and it's really important to use the primary warm toned jar of water, and then your primary cool tone to rinse off just to get that clear water. You can also use a dirty and a clear, but just make sure that you have that neutral balance when you're switching over. Otherwise, it will create more of a mucky color when you mix warm and cool tones. So I have loaded this up with the screen with plenty of water on my brush. Now I'm going to go back in with some more water, grab some blue, and then we're going to do some wet-on-wet just by setting that blue toward the corner, dragging that up. Maybe if we grab a little more pigment, and I will show you. See how you press that to the side, and just gently move it around and it will start to bleed, and then marble together to create that really pretty effect. Wet-on-wet is easily my favorite technique, but everybody's a little bit different. You might like the dry brush better but do play around with this. We're going to play a lot with this wet-on-wet right now. How we're going to do this, is to create a bunch of circles that are wet, and bleed into each other. I'm just starting with regular water on my brush. There's no paint on it. I'm getting this nice and saturated with water, because I want to show you how it's going to bleed in the very beginning before I have color set in. I'm getting lots of water on my brush, a little paint on my brush, and just setting this down and see how it just naturally flows with the water. It's not going to bleed outside of any area that's not connected, and wet. That's how that works. We're going to lay another color down right next to it, with lots of water on the brush still, creating a circle, and then what I'm going to do toward the very end of when I'm done with this circle, is just connect the two. You will see how they bleed. I'm going to set this down just toward the center here, right there, and then you see how they instantly bleed into each other. Typically the circle that is put down last, or second is going to bleed into the first one. It could also depend on your paint and the pigment and whatnot, but usually that's what I found will occur. I'm doing the same thing with another color, lots of water. You can see that that water is moving and then just touch it right here. This is that instance where the yellow wants to bleed into the green more. I'm going to do this again with blue. I'm going to connect two of these circles together. Notice that I accidentally pressed into the yellow too soon. That's going to start changing the whole circle, so as I drag the color throughout, it will bleed even more into it. You have two colors going into that one now. Then we're just going to keep going. I have a warm tone. See how I didn't rinse my brush too well so, you can see that dark, murky, brownish color in there. This is what we want to avoid. But just for the sake of showing you guys that yellow's been sitting there for a while, so it doesn't have a ton of moisture left. You can see how it's still bleeding through, and still grabbing that color. But it's a little slower to spread, whereas this one down here is a lot quicker to spread. It's almost going toward the center. This is something you can play with with wet-on-wet technique, as far as how much you're going to drag into itself. Basically when it's not in a circle and you're doing a pedal or the middle of a flower or something like that, If you let it dry halfway or if you don't have a toner water down first, then it will have more of a slow bleed, and then you can play with that control. Really wet-on-wet, or just watercolor in general on the control, that you're able to produce from it just comes with practice. This is one of my favorite practice of exercises, because it is so meditative and you have there so much mindfulness to it, but it's like a one of those mind less activities, if you will. Because you're just creating circles that bleed into one another, and then it creates this beautiful finished product which you can hang on your wall and think that it's awesome. Or you could just mingle aqua sketchbook out of them, but really it is just a fun. Go to exercise to get you familiar. This is a really good exercise too, to get you familiar with Like if you're using a new watercolor brand and you're not familiar with it, you're not familiar with the way that the different colors are going to react to one another. This is a good way to do it. For example, the pink that I just used, and this purple that I'm using right now, are less pigmented than the others that I've used. You can see that it has some are granulation in there, and is not less control, you just need a lot more on your brush. You really have to spend some time loading your brush up with those colors, whereas this yellow, you can see that it's pretty pigmented. No problem there grabbing that color. These are things to experiment with. I'm just going to grab a few more here, well, probably a lot more, but will speed this up in a second so that you can see the finished product. This is another one of those colors that has a little less pigment. So, I have to spend a little more time grabbing a lot of color. That red on the top is pretty dry. You can go back in with some water and try to get that to blend a little bit, but if you don't do it in time then there's really not a whole lot that you can do without making it look almost too forced. Whereas the one on the bottom looks like it's blending a lot better. I'm going to go in with this. This is another example of not getting your brush clean enough. See how that gets murky in there? It's because yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel. So if you blend those perfectly, it will neutralize and make a brown color. If you're unfamiliar with the color wheel, I recommend you can just Google it and see basic colors. Don't combine any that are completely opposite. You don't want to combine blue and orange, but blue and yellow will make green, we know that. The primary colors are yellow, blue, and red, so all of those can be mixed. Then base-off of the secondary colors, and tertiary colors. That's where you start to neutralize. Yeah, no, purple and yellow, red and green, none of that, and then no blue and orange. Just a little tip. You can also see how the sun has been sitting longer. This purple isn't blending too well with the warmer purple also on the left. But it does blend well with that pretty cool color, green below it. Then this pink will look nice with the blue so just get to experimenting. Notice how on this one and I attached it too soon. I'm doing this intentionally because I want you to see how easy it is for that color to bleed only in the wet areas. Then once I fill it in, it's going to bleed a lot quicker and expand even more into that circle than had I connected at the very end it probably wouldn't have done that outline. Enjoy the rest of this. This should give you a good idea for something to do with practice and I encourage you to do this again on every palette that you get that's new or every brand, so that you get a good feel for it. Then if you're feeling like you want to jump in but don't really know where to start, this gets pen to paper and that will get you jump started and in motivation. 4. Control Exercises: This next video we're going to play a little bit more with the wet-on-wet technique and mostly to show you also, the way that you can blend without connecting two separate things, but rather to apply pigment with multiple colors inside of the same object, the first thing that we will do is just get our brush control on paper one more time, get different water and paint ratios on your brush and just practice a little bit so you have a good flow. I always recommend doing something like this before you get started on any of your paintings, on a separate piece of paper just so you have that good first stroke that you feel comfortable with, play around and see how that is going to react. What we're going to do is get our brush really wet with water again and then I'm just going to draw a square with my brush. My water's pretty dirty so you can see that it's not completely clear, not so worried about that, what I'm going to do here is apply a pigment to one side of this square, I'm just using yellow and then, excuse me, one corner and then the other corner. Then I'm going to go in with a little bit darker color and just set it down throughout the square and you will see how it begins to blend and bleed throughout, then you can always go in with water and just push that color around so that it will blend to where you want it to go, like so, or you can keep it as is and as it dries, it will naturally expand further, don't get impatient with it. That's often one of my downfalls, is I get impatient wanting it to flow right away, this is something to play with, with ratios of water, but also, really, rather than pushing it around like I want to do all time, just let it see where it goes naturally, then you'll also know from that point, where you could push it to your benefit, to push the paint around. Here's another square that I'm going to do that is just water, then this one, I'm going to take two different colors and have them meet. Get this nice and wet and go in, grab some paint and drag it toward just one side, wash my brush off, grab a different color and then come in on the other side. Then what I'm going to do is push these paint colors, together, might grab a little more blue just to even that out, but yeah, so I'm pushing the blue and then I'm pushing the purple in and then I'm going to let those blend. But you can see, already, how it starts to marbleize, that's a really cool effect, know that that will not stay that way if you move your paper around or you put it at an angle or something, you really want to let it dry as is, so don't mess with it too much. My next one, I want to show you, let's see, I'm going to grab some paint here and then I'm going to apply it to one side, I'm really just tapping my brush where I want the paint and then if I want to streamline that a little bit, then I'll drag it a little bit, but really it's just light application. This one I'm going to force blend a little more, I'm going to show you how the red and yellow is making that orange color, but wet-on-wet will allow you to create the orange, but still keeps in-depth with other colors, let's say you wanted to add depth to orange after you put it down, it's going to be easier to do this if you start off with the two colors that will mix together. Basically, you're just playing with color there, but then you have more of a variety of undertones and whatnot, or accent colors, if you will, in the same shape. I'm going to create a circle now and I'm going to overlap two circles together, but I'm going to do it without a ton of moisture like we did on the last exercise. I have plenty of water in this application, but I'm going to overlap like so. Remember how I said the second circle tends to be the leader? That is what is happening with the purple as it's pushing into the blue, then you can push that in further, but yeah, that's what's going to happen there, but notice how these circles are not nearly as wet as that last exercise? But still there's enough water to where it will create that effect. Now I'm going to show you if I were to do the purple one first, how the blue will now bleed into the purple one instead because it's the second one being applied. Again, this isn't always the case, but most of the time it is, these are helpful techniques to know as you move into watercolor of any sort, but yeah, the florals for sure. I'm getting that in here, because my brush isn't as wet as before, it is taking a little bit longer to bleed, but you will see it began to bleed through here a little bit, you might want to push the blue just like we talked about up there, but yeah. That's what that looks like, play around with things like this, these are, again, great exercises within the wet-on-wet technique and how that will benefit you as you get more familiar with them. Then the last thing I want to show you is creating a gradual opacity change, I'm going to start with my brush fully pigmented, I'm going to lay this down on my paper. One side just laid down, I'm just going to do a very quick wash in the water and I'm going to come right back, drag that a little further, go back in my water drag this little further, water again, drag a little further. Every time I'm dipping my brush in the water, it's taking a little bit of that paint away, but I'm not staying in the water long enough to where it's going to completely rinse my brush off, but every time I go in it does rinse a little bit off. That's a really easy way for getting rid of some of that saturation and creating more of that ombre technique where it is gradually lightening and lightening. This is also a very fun exercise. 5. Budding Flowers: Now we're going to get into loose version to paint some budding flowers. This technique could also be used for tulips, but the one we're doing is going to have some more petals to it. I'm just going to load my paintbrush up with paint to make sure it's nice and wet. Then I am going to do some C strokes from the stem or the stem is going to be an upward like so, just very loose. If you grip your your paint brush a little bit higher, then you're going to have an easier time doing these strokes. I'm just doing some quick movements here. Then this will be toward the back, but it's the top of the shape we just created and there just a couple of loose strokes that are peekabooing, and then we're keeping that white space in there so that you know that there's that separation between the front and the back. Ideally, it would be better if you had them to be a little bit lighter in the background, but that's totally up to you. Now I'm going to add a little bit of a different tone. I'm picking up an orangey color now so that I can add some dimension. Now we're going to do another one just to the right of it, so plenty of water on my brush and going into my loose strokes. Load up with paint as much as you need to. Just easy C strokes, that C-shape. Then you can go in and do some fine line detail just to ensure that you have the correct amount of white space that you want. The more that you do this, the more it will come naturally, and you'll probably just need to do once over, but this is a way to show you how you can get more control over that. Also adding that warmth into this one. Then I'm moving to the side just below so that I have more of a full composition. Do those broad, curved lines, keeping some white space in there. Again, to make those you just do that full pressure on your brush and then lift up toward the end. The further outward that you go, the more it's blossoming. Then I'm just going to poke some behind so that you can see that it's layered with more petals in the back. Then see how it is getting lighter toward the top, that's showing that separation between the front and the back. Then I'll go in and add that warm color to add some dimension. This is optional, it's not something you have to do. I just think it's really fun to add some warmth to a cool pink. Now we're going to add some leaves. I'm going to rinse my brush really well in the water, and then I'm going to pick up some green with my paintbrush to that light pressure with just the tip of my brush is going to create that little stem. Then to create the leaf, we're going to do this full pressure, and then lift up, and then full pressure, and lift up. As you lay this water, you can always go back in and add additional pigment. It depends on how prominent you want these leaves to be. It's fun to play around with different levels of that. Usually my leaves have multiple dimensions with their color and their opacity. Some will be really nice and deep pigment and some will be a little lighter. Then I'll add different tones. We've got a warmer green and then a cooler green and mix that in a bit. Leaving a little bit of white space in between those leaves, gives the illusion that it is the center stem. Remember white space is your friend. We're going to do another one here. I'm just doing a light stroke and then going in full pressure, go through and lift up at the very end. Then from that same stem, we're going to add another one and see how this leaf, the second part of it doesn't hit the base, that's okay too. Because you're just adding in these, they're meant to be loose. This one is a lot darker, lots more pigment. This is showing just more of a dimension, and this isn't something that is necessary. I do this because I personally like the way that it looks. Then I'm going to do some stems coming from the bottom, just real light. Then I'm going to do at leaf off of the bottom of the stem. Full pressure and then lift at the top. Full pressure into that same point. Notice that there's two colors in there. There's the warm color and the cool color and those are blending together. Then same thing here, this is a warmer tone. See the dry brush look, it can be really pretty too. I typically go in and make it a little wetter, but when your brush doesn't have enough water on it, sometimes that dry brush look can look really cool, really interesting. Then another stem here, coming off and making another leaf this way. You can choose how long those stems are so get creative with those because they can be short, you're leafing come off the base stem or they can branch out like this and make some leaves off the edges which works for things like this. When you want to put a leaf coming from behind a flower, that initial stem shows that growth pattern so these are things to think about composition wise. This one's going to kind of peekaboo behind here. If you accidentally go into your flower, you can always take a paper towel and then just dab the spot here. Notice that it's not picking up that paint, it's because that has already dried. Then that is showing behind there. Then I'll add one here. Then you just build on wherever you think that it might make sense to add leaves. The other side could use some leaves for balance, you can probably tell. We're going to go in lightly and then full pressure into that tip. Full pressure, lightened under the same tip. Two different colors here we've got a dark and a light so those are going to blend together nicely and come through again. Overlapping is totally fine, especially when it's wet on wet because if it does bleed, it typically bleeds really pretty. Then we will poke one through behind here. Get a little more water, probably just do one side and then bring that just behind. See it doesn't have to connect to the base and you still have that full movement and leaf, it actually adds additional movement doing it that way because it's almost giving the illusion that the leaf is folding. See that bleed, that's what I'm talking about when the leaves overlap, that bleed is really fun. I am a fan. Then we'll have one coming off of this area. If you have a much lighter color and the leaf that you're going over isn't wet anymore, overlapping that area would be fine. You'll get the hang of that part as you as you play and as you practice. Then I'm just adding a little more pigment in here of different tone just to give this particular leaf a little more dimension, but also have it blend a little bit better so it doesn't stand out as much, but you can still see that more of that lime green tone throughout a few other leaves. Now I'm going to switch out to a smaller brush. This is going to be used with a brown color because I'm going to add some little twigs coming out of this bouquet. They're actually going to be little yellow balls. Those flowers like craspedia, I believe they're called. Even with the smaller brush, just using the tip, light pressure. I'm going to drag away from myself and do this just throughout wherever I see makes sense. So this one is going to come of with the same. I'm just putting these wherever seem to make sense for me. You don't want to overdo it, but having them spreading throughout can be pretty because we're just adding a dash of color. Now I'm going to rinse my brush off. Then I'm going to grab a yellow color, and I'm just going to create an imperfect circle and leave some white space in the middle. Just a quick circle with white space. It doesn't take much to form these just really loose. To sit the ends of all of those thin brown lines that we just created, Just do this to finish it off so you can see this real loose. Then lastly, the sky over here. Then I think that that looks good and this would be at that point a finished piece. That is how you might do some loose florals that are budding. Then you can see how this could be without having so many points for the top, you can make tulips out of this, so [inaudible] 6. Roses: Roses are one of those flowers that everybody wants to learn how to paint. They are beautiful and they hold up in so many different bouquets, and when you blend flowers together, roses are always a top favorite. To get started doing this, we want to load up our brush. We want to have enough pigment on there, and then we want to use the very tip of our brush. What we're going do is just make small c strokes. They look like little miniature C's. What I'm doing is, I'm overlapping them. They basically come off of themselves and then connect again. As you get further, it's almost like a flick of the brush. Then as you get further outward, you want to press down more, and you'll notice that it's starting to get lighter and lighter. You don't want to add paint that you'll want to add some water so that you can continue that flow. You press down and then flick the brush off. I'm just going around the whole thing, continuing that motion, the whole way throughout the white space. You definitely want to leave the white space in there because it adds the character. It's giving that definition that you need to show that it's layered with petals. Again, we're going to load up our brush with paint and just start doing tiny c curves, keeping some white space. As we get further toward the outside, we're putting some more pressure on our brush. Those curves aren't connecting so much anymore. It's more of they're hovering over the shape, add more water to create that. Broader stroke with the petals, you want them getting lighter and lighter. Just continued doing that. I'm tucking this one behind the other so these strokes will not connect all the way through. Then notice the center was a lot lighter, It probably had more water on it. What I'm going to do is dip back into the pigment and just set my brush toward the center, and then on a couple of those lines throughout, I'm not going into my white space. So I do that. Then I'm going to let that part dry more. Because it is wetter, I'll probably go back in and add some darker once it dries a little bit more just toward the center. Let's do another one. Again, we have our brush loaded up with pigment. We are going to set it down with the tip of our brush as we get toward the outside, we're going to begin to put a little more pressure on our brush. Have, are strokes be more hovering, and then we flick off that pressure toward the end. We're going to add water, no color, and then keep those petals getting thicker toward the outside. We're going keep that white space in there for the detail and connect that through. It's also sitting behind that first one that we made. We're not dragging the bottom petals through. Now I'm just going to go, like we talked about for that second one and add a little bit more definition toward the center, just with a little bit of darker pigment. This isn't necessary, it's definitely not something you need to do, but it will make that center pop just a little bit more. These other ones haven't quite dried yet, so it will expand a little bit more than that first one, but you will see how these do pop quite a bit more now. The next thing we'll do is create a couple of buds that haven't quite opened and they're going to be more on their sides. To do this, I am just supplying full pressure in a C curve on each edge. Outside and then coming inward, but I'm keeping white space right in the middle, and then I'm going to come on the outside toward the top and just create a little brushstroke here. Then toward the outer edge, just a skinny or C curve. That's really all that you need to do to create these buds toward the side. Keep in mind you do want that white space and the bottom here I'm going to create a little more pigment. I'm just going in with more paints toward the bottom using that what on what effect. Now I'll move over toward the top, do another one here. Again, it's that C curve on the outer edges with full pressure keeps some white space in the center there, and then I'm going to create a little extra pigment toward the bottom with more paint with that what on what effect just to show that separation in between the flowers. Having that darker color toward the bottom will help do that. Then that's it. I'm going to come back to this one stride a little bit more to add some stems and what not, but that is the basic simple rose, and you can do these in lots of different colors and create quite a beautiful piece with it. 7. Loose Florals: In this video, we are going to learn a loose floral style that is focused on the flowers at their sides. I'm loading up my brush and I'm using the same technique that we did when we apply a little bit of pressure into a lot of bit and a little bit again, but doing it in a C shape, just like so. I go through here with my brush and now I'm using this as the bottom or the base or the petal that's closest to us. From here, I am going to go in the center just above and drag a normal petal up and around, like so, do another one right next to it. It's going to be curved more toward the bottom since it's going outward like this and continue a few of these throughout. Then you also want to add some toward this, you don't have to, but you can add them coming off of the bottom. Coming outward, the ones that are in theory closer to us, we want to have darker. I'm bringing these from the bottom and outward. You can see that they will have that shape that is gradually going outwards. Think of the middle as maybe a circle or a ball and everything is sprouting off of that or peeling an orange, everything is coming down. I'm adding a couple more petals here. This is where it can evolve to where it has a lot of petals. You can also do the same style without having all those petals underneath. I'll show you some that are just coming from the side, so that same base with the pressure toward the middle and then you can add some more if you want to but we're going to do those petals in the back with the shape, mostly curving toward the bottom. Do something, petal coming from the bottom of the base, so we're done. Then have another one, do the same thing, keeps some white space in there. If they're too close together, you might want to do that, keep that white space and force it in. Then we will bring some coming off the bottom right here, darken that a little since it's closest to us and then we'll do another one on the other side just like that. Just loose strokes to create these petals. As we build on this, it might make sense to turn the paper around so that you can create the bouquet in a central form but you don't want to do that because you want to paint it from their perspective that you're looking at it. Otherwise, it'll look like they're just pedal or flowers going all over the place, that's not what we want. So we'll keep it like this and then we'll just build from that. I'm going to do another C curve, light pressure, then full pressure then light pressure again. This one, I'm not going to add any pedals to the bottom, I'm just going to have them on the top. So loosely keeping some separation in between wilt flowers, the ones towards the back have lighter, less paint, more water because they're further away from us. It keeps that depth and dimension in there, if it does seem like it's too much paint, you can always dip your brush and water again. Then we'll just add a little peekaboo back here, notice that color or the opacity is much less, so it's not going to get too lost. I'm going to dab with a paper towel right here because it will lighten that up a little bit and then just bring some pigment toward the bottom instead, that will help if you ever get too much paint on a piece, on an area on the paper you can just go on with a paper towel, do a quick dab, don't spread just dab and then add as much paint as you want to it. I'm going to draw another C curve, light pressure, full pressure, light pressure again. If they're fatter, it's usually because the flower is more on its side. So you want to think about that in a prospective way so that would mean that the petals behind it are also a little shorter and that's all I'm going to do for this one. I can move on to another one, for this, instead of doing that C curve, I'm making two pedals in the front. It's basically a loose triangle and then I'm going to do the same thing in the back, but much lighter so that you know that the back pedals are there. If you notice that it's starting to blend, you can always add paint to those petals. We're going to go back and create the center of these flowers so that, that separation is even more obvious but for now, we're just getting that base shape in here. Again, I'm going to do the same thing where I add, it's like a very loose bubbly triangle that protrudes outwards. See how that looks like it's way behind because of the depth, so I'm adding paint to let it be known that it is in the forefront and then the ones behind will be lighter. I'm going to do one peeking in here, make that part that's closest to us a little darker. This one, I can't do that trick words, the full pressure, so I am just painting in that shape, that c shape. Then my petals are going to be a lot lighter, keep that white space in there, keep the white space in to separate from the flower above it. Then towards the bottom I can add that depth in the pedal. This one behind, I'm just going to throw in a general shape, I'm not going to do a whole lot to it, I just want it to have the illusion that this is a full floral bouquet. That looks good to me. I'm going to do another one on a couple other places just to fill it out. If you see any empty space, if you think that it might be more balanced, that's how you build your bouquet. So there's a bit of an empty space right in here. I'm going to bring this up, just to create some loose, loose petals. Notice I'm not putting a whole lot of effort into how I'm shaping these petals it's just mostly pushing some color in there and I'll do another one down here cause it looks like that space could use a little extra friend and then create lighter peekaboo versions in the back. Maybe push on a little more paint to show that this is in the forefront. Keep that white-space in there, it's your friend. There you go, then maybe just on the side and that's it. I will let this dry and come back to it and then I will show you the next steps. Once that has tried, I want to add my center. So, I am taking a thinner brush with some dark, either black or dark, dark brown, adding some very thin lines of the tip of the brush and then some circles on the top and then toward the bottom so the lines can be seen through, so you know that that's the center of the flower and it's sticking up there. So I'm just going through to all of these flowers and adding that center and really all this says is mark making, so just real thin, super thin strokes, tip of your brush, or you're just setting your brush down to make some oblong shapes, some circles or ovals. This one, you can see that it's just flat above that pedal. So not a lot going on there, just a peekaboo, it's not a focal point. This one would be more of a focal point because you can see how the pedal is facing you versus going into itself, if that makes sense. Like this one is more of just that peekaboo because the pedals up higher, it's not angled toward us as much. Then I'm going to add that coming up just a bit, maybe a couple staggered. Then same thing over here. It's just poking through, I'm going to utilize that white space a little bit. Definitely not something you need to do, but it's something that you can do, shows a little bit of depth towards the center and then just looking around, that could be it. Now I'm going to switch over and do some stems for these guys. So I'm grabbing my larger brush and pulling the stems away from myself up toward their base, right underneath the flower. Maybe add a little more pigment thick in the bottom a little more and drag that up. I'm just using again just the tip of my brush. So for a nice thin line, grabbing some more paint going back in, same thing. This one in theory, like this outer one is curved up toward the bottom, flower that's closest to the bottom and then the one right next to it that I have put it in before, that guy is in theory going or with the illusion of going past behind and then connecting to the flower above that one. So I like to put in those stems so that they do look like they are complete instead of just doing stems for the flowers at the bottom because otherwise it looks like, "Where are all these other floaters?" When I do put them toward the back, see how they're getting thinner, that is to show that they are in the distance. So always remember what's bolder and darker gives the illusion that it's toward us more, closer to us, whereas the ones that are lighter or wispier, look like they are in the background even more. That is about it and that would complete this piece. Then you have this really fun, loose floral, wildflower painting. 8. 5 Minute Peony: The peony is a flower that we are going to build up. It's essentially the same shape throughout, but it is about the placement of where you keep these petals, they are going to be loose. They're going to have texture toward the top and they're going to be pretty bold. Here's what we'll do. With water and painfully saturated on your brush. You're going to do a quick petal just like so see others texture at the top. It was a very quick like so like this, quick motion, point toward the bottom, lots of texture in the tip. Don't overthink this. The next part, what we're going to do is go into the top area and create additional petals, but they are going to be a little bit lighter with some texture coming out like this. This is more of the core of the flower. Just real simple lines keep the white space in between the bottom and top portion. Maybe add a little more texture toward the top if you don't have that. Then just toward the base of these petals, I'm going to push a little more paintings just has that depth that it is shadowed in that area, if you will. Now we are going to go toward the bottom and we're just going to do a very easy see shape on both ends coming upward. They sort of overlap toward the bottom and then come out toward a point kind of cradling the first marks that we made. I'm just going to add a little petal here toward the site and then I'm going to do some coming downward. Lots of texture to where the tip of that is going to be and then that point. Do another one coming, I'm going to add a little pigment in the bottom and then do another one, maybe wash the brush off a little so it's not as fragmented but lots of texture toward the tip. Maybe add another one to the side. These ones are essentially petals that have already like blossomed to their fullest point. You can see that you are just building on the side outward. Build these petals on the side outward. Let me try this down a little more, keep this lighter toward the side so that you can see that it's in the back. Then you can always push in more paint or the bottom. That's basically what you need to focus on is that, the first row of petals and then add some to the top, add those cradles on the bottom, and then you're going to add the bottom petals that are coming outward, and then those side very small shapes. Now I'm just putting some more paint toward the base of all of these so that you can see where the base of the petals are, which shadows and then it also separates the tips from the bottom, which also gives that dimension to separate the petals from each other. But that is it. That's all you're going to have to do with the pedals and now we're going to make sure our brush is nice and clean and green color for the stem. Rural basic. May go back and add a little more pigment. It's okay if it touches your petal, mine touch the bottom right petal and it's doing that light bleed. I like the way that that looks. Now that's a possibility if you do this before your petals dry. If you want to avoid that, then wait till it's dry or just don't touch it to that area. Then lastly, we're going to go and to the top and create just a few very small at the tip of our brush and black or you could do brown, real thin lines that curve inward and then we're just going to add a couple of dots on top of those and this is the center of our flower. Remember, they're coming up off of the very first petals that we created and that's it. Peony in five minutes. 9. Lots of Petals: So now we're going to do a loose floral bouquet featuring three flowers that are heavily layered in petals. It'll be similar to the peony, but I'm going to show you how you can just do similar mark making that builds around itself. It's like a rose, but you're going to have a lot more pigment throughout, instead of just having it in the center. This bouquet can pass as a bouquet of peonies, but it could also pass as a ranunculus, camellia, lots of different flowers like that. We'll do a C-curve. I'm using a paint that doesn't have a tone of pigment, so I have to build it up quite a bit, it's more of a transparent paint, so if I dip a lot more, that's why. Then come in here, do a C-curve, two of them just kind of hugging the corner of what we just created, keeping white space in the middle of it. Then I'm going to do one coming in above both of those. Now I'm going on the bottom. So all I'm doing, basically, is having that center point and there's building C-curve petals around it. I'm going to do this in lots of different places. So I'll show you what that looks like. Anything that's going on the bottom of that will still have that C-shape, and then come inward but have white space still. Essentially they almost look like boats, those shapes, and they are either hugging one another or just slightly blending into one another. I'm just looking at where this might make sense and seeing where empty spaces are that I might want to add that color in. Some of these can have points, some of them can be more curved, but notice that my brush is moving pretty quickly. It's not putting a tonne of thought into the composition quite the same way that we did with the peony, which was a lot more structured to get to where we wanted it to be. So, just building off of that as it gets toward the outer areas, it's a lot more messy, lighter and whatnot. Let's move to another one. This one will be slightly more structured, I'm just going to show you a few different ways to do these. We're going to do that, kind of that triangle shape with the texture toward the top, and then another one right here. So you have two that are in that V-shape, and then we'll come toward this side, bring it up slightly, keeping some white space in there. Same thing on the other side. This is more similar to the peony that we did. Then we will come above, do the same thing. It's that loose triangle shape with the texture at the top with real quick brush strokes. Then once your brush has less paint on it but more water, you can add some more brushstrokes on the top of that, but notice that they're a lot more shallow and less defined, they're more just quick marks. Then I will go in and do these side petals that are blossoming outward more but still cradling, and then the ones that come down, remember they come down and outward for the direction that they are blooming, and then get one on the side, another one on the bottom, and then outward from the bottom, just like that peony. But see it's a lot looser because the structure's less involved, loose florals are a dream. Let's do one more. This one's going to be facing the opposite direction coming downwards. See how this is kind of that triangular base with the texture except that the texture's toward the bottom because it's facing that way. So three of those, as the cradle of these guys that we're pushing in now, just real loose, really really loose. I'm mostly just putting in some pigment with some mark making with not a whole lot of structure, just making sure that there's also white space, adding some depth by adding more paint to the base, and then I'm going to go in and do that up here too because that was pretty light but notice I'm moving fast. This is not sped up, this is actually how quickly I'm moving. I want to start fast to show you guys because I want you to feel comfortable going in quickly. It may not turn out perfect on the first shot, but that's just something that comes with time. So once this dries, I'm going to go on and create some greenery. I'm going to use a darker green because I like the contrast with this pink. So I'm going to start real light on my brush to create a nice thin stem and then remember full pressure, lift up, full pressure, lift up. That second stroke, I didn't do full pressure, but there we go. But this nice, deep, dark green, I always love how it complements those, it's like a barbie pink, maybe it's a little cooler tone, but it's like a nice, sweet pink, if you will, and then accompanied with these moody greens. I just love the combination. So you can see that that one I just poked behind the flower without the stem, but lengthwise, it ends around the same distance as the other leaves did. So think about that too. You don't want to do a huge long stem coming from that area, if it's going to bring the leaf so much higher than the others, so look at it as a whole as you're adding these in. Then pushing pigment, add a little more in here, that light tip, bringing that pressure off. Remember to look at the composition the whole way. So it's always good to have a balance, you never want to have something perfectly even though. That's why I like to do three flowers or three primary flowers instead of four or instead of like a perfect circle. I like to create more of a balance as a whole instead. Let's see you do with leaves too as you add them. You want to make sure that it is complementing the flowers, but also not too perfect, not to even. So I want to add a few more on this side, maybe less over there. Because if you were to do three exact leaves coming off of the three corners or the four corners it would just be too much. Too symmetric, that's the word I've been looking for. You don't want it to be too symmetric. It took forever to think of that word. So that looks good to me, this could be finished as is. We're just going to grab a little more pigment of that lighter color and then come in, maybe hit the center of this one, one more time. Since it's pretty light. Too much on there. If you ever get to much pigment just remember, you can always dip into water and then it spreads a lot easier and it isn't so concentrated. Then I'm leaving the back lighter so that you can see that it is the back. So now I'm going to add some more of the pigment to this guy, just in the front, closest to us. Now I'm going to actually add in some tiny stems with leaves coming off of the base the whole way through. I guess that would look kind of familiar to the button fern, only it's not a button fern. We're just making little stems with teeny-tiny leaves. The reason I like to do stuff like this sometimes is that it adds texture because it kind of breaks up the shape of the leaves with the flowers, it's just adding one more dimension. But you don't want to do too many because you want it to look like it flows pretty well. So all that you do here is just make that fine line and then quick little small cylinder, kind of oval shapes. A few areas to do that, maybe do another one coming off of the same spot. Typically when I am done with one area, I will step back and kind of look at the whole composition so I can see where I might want to add another one, rather than just keeping on going and accidentally adding one to a spot that didn't make sense. Which is something I think we've all been known to do one time or another. This one I'm just lengthening a little more. Now I'm going to go back in the center and just add kind of a grayish pink, and then maybe a little more pigment of that pink. Just to show that there is a center but to keep the tone a little bit different so that you can differentiate the petals of the flowers in the foreground. But see how it's just adding a little bit so that it looks more like a complete bouquet, rather than just three flowers with empty space. That's a little trick. You can also add leaves through the center there. I am done. Then I have this moody, with these soft pinks and deep greens, finished piece of layered flowers, and that's all there is to it. 10. Break the Rules - Get Messy: This video is going to mostly exercise the wet on wet technique just by making some simple, I guess you could call these daisies or black-eyed Susan flowers. We're going to just start with the petals, we're just doing yellow petals and I'm going to load my paintbrush up with yellow paint. Then to create these petals, they're pretty simple. You're just going to do basically just full pressure and then come up toward the top and the top is where we're going to put in those centers of the flowers and it's okay if they overlap and bleed a little bit. This is going to be a messy illustration or a messy painting, it's not going to be anything to perfect. The idea here is to embrace the imperfection of having that bleed. You can see I'm just throwing in some real quick movements to push some petals in. They're going to basically look all different, some are thinner, some are thicker, some are longer. I'm not putting a whole lot of thought into this so don't think that you need to, and I'm just going to lay them out randomly. I don't really have a reason why I am putting them here or over there, it's just going to be a paper of just like a wild flower paper where they're spread out. Continuing in here, overlapping a few, notice that this one is lighter than the one below it so it tucks behind and just gives that illusion a little bit. Anything that you do lighter than the more prominent is going to look like it is more in the distance whereas things that are bolder will look like they're closer to us. Again, real loose brush strokes, these ones look even less formed than the first few that we did. I'm just doing these different variations so that you can see the different possibilities from this once we add in that darker color, which we are going to start. I am getting just a brown color wet brush and I'm going to go in right away because I want the color to spread throughout and some of it might not as much because the yellow may have dried, but we're going to push that color through. Then adding a little darker pigment. Just setting it down in a cylinder shape, but imperfect dragging it through for a little bit of detail. This is a more abstract way of painting flowers, the idea is not to be pretty it's more of a loose artistic form, if you will. Sure. You can see I'm just setting my brush down and then adding a darker color on top of that and keeping a little bit of white space in there and then just pulling that color down through the petals a little bit. Not necessarily evenly on all sides but just enough to where it has that bleed. You can see how this is coming together. It's a very sloppy, messy, careless form, but it can make a cool art piece depending on where you're trying to go with it. These lighter areas, like the one on the left, I'm going to add a darker pigment too. Just set this down, here we go. Then I'm just going to add stems and I'm going to do this with a dark green for a tip of my brush. Just pull those up and I'm going to do this throughout all the flowers. You can thicken those lines if you want to, but see how that one I just created, it's giving the illusion it's going behind this bottom flower and up into the next one. You can bring those all the way down if you want to and then keep on going, see how that's going to come behind and then bring it up. Then if it bleeds a little bit in the petal, I'm fine with that. Then once these are all added in, you can go on and add leaves, just like we've done before, where you press down and then lift up toward the ends. Full pressure, lift up, and then adding some definition on the top. I'm going to put a few leaves throughout on all of these stems and you can be strategic with the way you do them. They can point up and they can also sag a little bit. But see how adding the sagging leaves and then the ones that are coming up, how most of the leaves are all curling, it gives that appearance of just a more of a moody wild flower look, even though these are much happier flowers because they're in bright and yellow, it's still that moody feel because of the bleed that we did by not letting it dry and not putting a ton of detail in. Just a fun artistic way to express florals differently. I'm going to continue adding leaves and then tuck them behind some of these petals or some of the other flowers. You can go through the middle, you can go towards the edges. Whatever makes sense anywhere that feels right to you. I did a little stem on this one and then adding another one just beneath and say I got a little dry on that one, come back in. But yeah, so this is going to be a lot sloppier than what we've done but you guys might find that you really like it. You just never know until you try it. That's what that looks like, I'm just going to add a couple more through here toward the top. Another one right here and that's it. Then you have this moody, bleeding, happy, wild flower. How do you explain it? But it's fun. 11. More Messy Fun: Rather than getting too far in with the brush strokes themselves, this next flower is just real easy shape with lots of flat lines, so basically using the full belly of your brush but add sideways rather than directly up and down. I'm just loading this up here with paint and I'm creating the center, and just like before, these are just loose strokes leaving a little white space and I'm going to make three of them, and then once that's done, I am going to go back in with a lighter color, you can choose any color, I'm going to do a violet, and then this is going to bleed into the center. It's also a messy bleed type of flower, but I'm making sure that this is nice and saturated with both water and paint. Then I'm going to go aside like this using full belly and see how that's just creating those straight edge lines, mostly toward the tip, you probably won't see that so much towards the inner side, but I'm not using a flat wash brush. I'm not using a flat wash brush because I want to have still some of that variation. Basically what I'm doing is just pulling it out from the middle, and I've already started on this next one like this, but you see how that brown is bleeding into that purple, and then I'm just forming these flowers with almost graduating rectangles where they're getting a little bit bigger toward the ends, but they are, for the most part just straight like that. Then I'm going to move on to the next one. Actually, I'm going to go in here first. I'm just coming out and just having it touch the middle slightly and still leaving white space there, but I'm adding just enough to where it will bleed into the petals. I've always been a fan of, I guess I always say dirtying my paintings by using those dark colors like browns or blacks or grays or even just dirty paint water over my nice bright colors because I like the way that it looks. It's like what this is, but then I'm going to add some peekaboo petals from behind to give the illusion that there are more flowers than what is just on the surface here, but notice I'm making them lighter. I'm just going in with more water in a square shape that's obviously being touched behind this still leaving white space. I could say that all day long, you want that white space in there. We can put these wherever you want and drag behind, but that's what that'll look like. The next step that I'm going to do is I'm going to go in and I will add a little more depth, just pushing that through the flowers in the foreground here, and then I'm actually adding more of a deep tone like a warmer purple, a warmer violet. For me, it just brings out that brownish tone. This is completely unnecessary but it's just a stylistic thing I wanted to do. But I'm just showing you how these things can transform with tone. Then I'll add some darker areas to the middle as well, just to bring that out a little bit. Remember that with watercolor, the more that it bleeds as it sits, the more it will, it can lose some of that saturation, so pushing that back in is helpful. Now I'm going to take a green color and drag it through, and this isn't a stem, it's more like a vine, because I'm going to bring it through both sides. I'm just going to add a couple of leaves here, some that are shorter, some that are longer, and I'll drag the vine through the bottom part as well, and then I'll add some staggering leaves here as well. Some that are shorter, a little bit longer, and that's about it. That's just another way of creating layered floral piece that has a lot more water bleed, basically like that messy look that we just did. That's it guys. 12. Project Time!: That is all. We have reached the end of the class. I hope that you guys learned some new techniques. Mostly more than anything, I'm so excited to see your projects. This class project is going to focus on your own loose style of watercolor florals. I want you to pick one or three of your favorites to incorporate into a bouquet. I can't even tell you how very excited I am to see everybody's. Okay. Thanks guys. Thanks again and feel free to post your discussions and projects so that everybody can see them, mostly me, because I'm really excited. I say that a lot, but it's true. Okay, bye.