Watercolor Modern Rainbows: A Class for Beginners

1. Watercolor Modern Rainbows: Rainbows are a pleasing image, taking into account the soothing rounded shape and beautiful colors, as well as the unexpected places that they're found. In today's class, watercolor, modern rainbows, a class for beginners, will take these nature made beauties and add a modern twist using watercolor paints and our imagination. Hello, I'm Daniela Mellen, an author and artist. In today's class, we'll paint six images of what I call modern rainbows. There's two main features to these ornamental rainbows. The unusual colors and the imperfect, but very soothing shapes. Now standard rainbows, as we're taught from grade school, follow the color spectrum from red to violet. But modern rainbows can be made in any color or all colors, or even a single color. Instead of focusing on the color spectrum, we'll use our own favorite colors, unusual combinations, and even a monochromatic color scheme. This makes the otherwise classic rainbow a bit unique. We'll also play with the shape, will stick to a bend in our rainbow. But we'll consider making the rainbows wide and short, or tall and narrow somewhere in-between. This adds a touch of whimsy to our illustration. I'll show two procedures in class. The first three rainbows we painted in a single layer. The final three rainbows will have two layers each. I hope these simple techniques inspire you to create your own. Gather your materials and let's get started. 2. Class Supplies: These are the class supplies for our ornamental watercolor rainbows. And I'll include a separate download with all of these supplies, particularly the specific colors of watercolor that we use in class today. I have my watercolors, I have some watercolor paper, and each rainbow will be done on its own little piece of paper here. And these are 140 pounds watercolor papers cut into 4.5 by six inches. And I find the size very helpful for me because then I can scan it into my computer. You're welcome to use any size you like, whether you have a book or a watercolor pad, whatever works for you, you can even combine images onto one paper. I have a pencil and an eraser that I'll use in some of my rainbows. But then I have brushes that I'll mostly free-hand width. I have a 6012 and those brush sizes will work well. If you have other ones that you prefer, feel free to use those. Then off-camera, I have a jug of water, and then I have some paper towels, and I'll use these in the process as well. The next chapter we'll start our painting. 3. Painting Rainbow #1: The first rainbow we create, it's going to have five rings. And this rainbow is just gonna be a single layer. I'm gonna start by moving my space around here just so I have more room to do my painting. I like to tilt the paper and spin it around as I go. Now the beauty of this particular rainbow is it that doesn't have to be perfectly symmetrical and it doesn't have to have a perfect arc. And that's the beauty of the ornamental rainbows. Now I want to use five colors. I find that using three as a minimum is the way to go. And then you can add as many colors to each of the Rings, to your rainbow as you like. And the last thing with these rainbows that make them ornamental is they don't have to be in traditional colors like the colors of a rainbow. You can use any colors in here. You can even do a rainbow of browns. I'm going to start with my thickest ring, and that's the one I like to start with first, I'm just going to take some vermilion hue, mix that on my palette. Then I'm just going to mix in a little deep yellow with that. That just warms it up and just changes the tone ever so slightly. Now I'm going to just really wet my brush. And I'm going to start by making that largest ring. So I just go around very gently. And I create the first part of that ring. I'm going to add a little more pigment to my color here. I want to thicken it up. This is gonna be the thickest ring that I paint. I'm just going to come here, thicken it up all the way around. It doesn't have to be filled in, although it can be if that's what you like. I wanted to do this before it dries that I don't have any lines, some lineation lines, just going to come around, continue to thicken that up and rounded out. I have my first ring for my rainbow. I can make sure there are no sharp points, but it's really okay. For these modern rainbows. They give an interesting effect. It could take a little more of my pigment and just dab it in. The area is wet and so this will intensify the color that I already have that I have my first ring. I'm going to let this dry. And the reason I let it dry in-between rings is because this way I'm less likely to smudge it. I'm going to take a moment, let this dry and we'll come back and add our next ring. 4. Painting Rings 2 and 3: Now my first layer has dried nicely. I'm ready to paint my next ring. As I mentioned, I don't have to do these in standard colors, so I'm going to choose a blue. Blue is the opposite of the orange on the color wheel. So I think that's kind of an interesting effect. But it takes some of this cobalt blue and just mix it with some water on my palette. I have a nice deep color. I like that. I'm going to remove some of that from my brush. Rinse off my brush and just take a little bit of this orange and mix it in with it. And it just tones down that color and coordinates it a little to get as well. Turn my piece to the side here and make the next layer of the rainbow. I want this one to be fin. I'm just going to make a few lines going parallel to that first arc that we created. And then I'll just combine them. I like to start in the center top, just make a little bit of a long dash. Then I just continue all the way around, kind of just equally spacing it and bringing more pigment as I go. If I made a line that was a little too thin or a little too thick or didn't line up. I'll just thicken that line ever so slightly. And then I'll thicken it on this side as well, just so that it's fairly even. Doesn't have to be perfect. But I like that look, that uniformity. Come over here, finish up this blue on this side. Again, making sure it's fairly evenly thick. I'm not looking for it to be totally precise. If I was, I'd make a little sketch to help me get it that way. Now I'm going to take some more of this cobalt blue, mix it on my palette and just dab it. There's any area that's dried, I'll re-wet it. I just want this color to be nice and intense. Over here. Then I have the first two curves to my rainbow. While I'm here, I want to do that next curve, that inner curve. I'm going to take some of this deep yellow because I liked the way the deep yellow and the orange look side-by-side. And I'm just building up from that center thick curve, going to take this a little swipe of that orange to mix it in. It doesn't change the color that much, but it does give it a little warmth. Now I just want to create another thin curve here. Another arc to my rainbow. Start at the middle and pull it down. I'm going to just build up from that middle. Come around, just keeping it equally spaced. There's any areas that I want to thicken up or if I want to make this just a teeny bit thicker, will just go in there with a little more color on my brush. Come over here and thicken that up. Then I can just come in and dab a little more pigment just to make it nice and intense, particularly at the base of that rainbow. I'll let these two layers dry and then we'll come back and add a remaining layers. 5. Painting the Final 2 Rings: Now that these layers are dry, like to paint my next layer, I'm gonna come in here with my number two brush. And I'm going to take some of this yellow, green, It's just a very light green and mix it on my palette. Now it's more yellow than green, but it does have a touch of green to it. I want to incorporate just a small bit of this dark green. Just changes the color slightly. Now I'm gonna create another arc here. Again, painting half the arc. Just creating that shape. That beautiful rounded shape with a straight ends. Go all the way around. Now that I have it down. I want a little more. I want to come over here. I can see that it wasn't the right shape up top. I want to thicken this up considerably. I'm going to pull my line even further, maybe making it a double the thickness than it was. I like the contrast in the thick lines or the thin lines. I'll continue all the way around this curve here. Again, I go over the area I already painted, just to have a nice soft blend. Then I'll come back with my pigment and deposited again. Now I could stop right there. But I want to add one more layer to this. I think it will look nice. I'm gonna take some of that deep green and just mix it with that green that we already have on our palate. I'm just gonna create kind of a long arc shape here. That deep green. Again, I'm keeping the distance between the last curve that we did in this one. Again, I can fill it all in or leave a little white spot here and there. To make it look like watercolor. Take a little more pigment and dab it on. I'll fill that one in. There. We have a basic modern rainbow. The next chapter we'll start our second modern rainbow. 6. Painting Rainbow #2: Now for our second rainbow, I could do a similar procedure that I want to paint my first curve and it's going to be my thickest curve. I'm gonna take some of this lemon yellow right on my palette, get a nice color. Then in a second petal just mix a little of whatever's on the brush with some water. Rinse my brush and take a little of this yellow, green and mix it with that first color that we put down. We'll just change the color slightly. I'm gonna make my arc right over here. I'm gonna make my art going to one side and I'll come over here, the top of the rainbow. And then my second arc, I have a shape that I'm happy with. I'll come in here and thicken it up, see if I have to change it. I'm starting to get the beginnings of a rainbow here. Going around, thickening it up, thick it up just a little bit further. All the way around here. Then I'd like to round the edges, just a bid, going to take some of that lighter color that we mixed. Just go around the base here, the underside of this rainbow. There'll be a slight little blurring of the two colors. And it just thickens it up ever so slightly. I can go back, make sure that very shape and the edges are rounded the way I want them. So I'll just take a moment to do that. Read, dipping my brush into my pigment. I just want to pick up some pigment and really dab it all over that rainbow just to get that nice intensity. Then I'm going to let this layer completely dry. 7. Painting 2 More Rings: Now that our first layer has dried, I went to work on the remaining rings, but I want to do something different. The first rainbow that we painted, the previous chapters, all the rings were solid shapes. I want to change that up a little. Now I'm gonna take my number two, brush, wet it and I'm gonna take some of this yellow, green and mix it in this puddle here. Then I'm gonna take some of this deep green and mix it as well. And so I have a nice vibrant green here That's not terribly dark. If it's too dark, I'll go back in and add some of this yellow green to it. So now I'll make a nice sharp point on my brush. I want to continue with the art line, but I want it to be dashed. I'm going to start here at the base and I'm going to decide what size dashes I want to make. Again, making a nice sharp point with my brush. I'm just going to make a dash here. And I'm going to follow the curve of that rainbow with these dashes, but to try and make them all the same, approximately the same length, it might not happen, but that's okay because for the modern rainbow, it will look just fine. Again, I'm gonna go back in, sharpen that brush and just create these dashes. Again. Keeping the space between dash is the same, as well as the space between the yellow curve and the green. I'm gonna come back in, sharpen my point again. And I'm going to make a second row of dashes fairly close to the first row. And now I'm gonna really strive to make them the approximate shape and length of the first dash. I'll just take my time, create all of them. Keeping that arc going all the way right to the bottom. Now you could stop here, but I like things in odd numbers. I'm gonna make one more row of dashes. Outer row, I'm gonna make them just a little bit longer than that middle row. This will help create the curve to look a little more coordinated and more like the rainbow. Now over here, my lines overlapped. And that's okay. I'm trying not to do that, but I really wanted to maintain that thickness of the curve. Again, I want my lines to be just a little bit longer on the outer of the curve. And so there I have my second curve to my rainbow. I'm gonna do the third curve here and I'm going to make some cobalt blue. Right on my brush. With little Prussian blue. I get a nice vibrant color. Now I'm going to make lines similar to the outer curve here. But instead of going like an arc, I'm going to have them go up and down. What I'd like to do is start in the center and I just eyeball the center of my rainbow. And then I decide the thickness of the curve I'm going to make. I create my line that's gonna be perfectly perpendicular, the base of my curve. Then I'm going to bring lines approximately the same thickness on either side. Then I go right to the base and I create those lines. This gives me a nice idea of how I want to connect them. I'm going to go in between this line and this line and create another line. The same thing on this side in-between. Create that line. Now I'll start at the bottom and I'm going to go in-between again. As I move up, I'm going just in-between all the curves. This helps me create those curves spaced accordingly with the correct angles. And I'll continue doing this again, sharpening my brush and coming in here. Just dividing the area in-between in half all the way along as I go. Continue. Now, there are some areas that are far more space than I'd like. So I'm going to sharpen my brush and go tackle those first. Now I'm going to come back in and just tackle the areas that I think have a lot of space in-between them. The beauty of this is it's not supposed to look like a machine, did it? I don't want it to look like a ruler or a tape measure. I wanted to have a little flare, a little imperfections. I'm still striving to keep the lengths of each of these ticks approximately the same. But within, within reason. Wanna do one more. Now just take a look at how it looks. I can see over here there's a little bit more space than I want, so I'll sharpen my point over here as well. But overall, I'm very pleased with that. I'm going to let these two layers dry and then we'll think about adding something to the center of our rainbow. 8. Finishing the Painting: Now you can leave your rainbow like this. It looks very intriguing. I want to add something to the center. Now typically you'll see a heart. You can add a star, you can add an initial. You can add any shape you like. I'm going to go with the traditional heart. I'm going to take my number two brush because I have a lot of control with it. And I'm gonna take some purple on my palette and I'm going to mix it with the remaining blue that we already mixed and we used for this ticking layer. Now play around until I have the right proportion here. If it's still a little too blue. Just going to take a little perylene red and mix it in with that and I get a little bit more of a purple. Now I'm gonna take this and create my heart. What I like to do is decide how long I want the heart to be. I just make my line here. And this is really for me to decide where the base of my heart is. I always make it a little smaller than the end result of what I want. From there. I'll just create little sides that go out from the heart and create those little tops of the heart. And then I'll fill that in. I can decide if I want more in terms of more pigment or more of a size to this heart. I'm just going to create a little bit bigger heart. Again, I'm going to try and keep it approximately the same length because I do like the way that fits. But I just have to build the top up a little here. I just do that very slowly, going out from the center of the existing heart and pulling it down. Now I'm happy with that shape. So I'm gonna come in here with more pigment and just dab it everywhere. And this will create a very nice intense purple heart in the center of our rainbow. I'll let this dry. And there we've completed our second single layer rainbow. And I call this a single layer because we're not building up pigments. In the next chapter, we'll come back and paint one more single layer rainbow. 9. Painting Rainbow #3: Now for our third single layer rainbow, I'm going to take my number six brush and I'm going to choose my color here. I'm going to start this time by making the curve that's in the bottom of our rainbow are our smallest curve. I'm going to make some water in my palette. I'm gonna take some of his brilliant pink. I get a very soft color. Put a little more water, mix the brilliant pink, and I'm going to take a little deep yellow with that. That kind of makes it a little bit like a peachy color. Now I'm going to create that bottom curve. I think this rainbow is gonna be a little shallower. The arc is not going to be quite so high. I have the curve started and now I'm just going to sharpen it up, thicken it up just a little bit. Just thicken this up. Creating that rainbow shape. Come back in with the pigment, dab it on. I purposely dabbed in more pigment at the base and kind of let it just bleed up to the top. Now I want to choose a different color and I'm going to choose this vermilion hue. I'll mix it with whatever remains. That turns it a little bit pinky. Now I'm going to create dots. I'm going to start right at the top here and create just a circle. This brush is a little big for this technique. I'm going to switch to my number two brush. I have that dot at the top. Now I want to create a circle at the bottom here, again, spacing it fairly equally distance from the first curve that we created. Again, I'll pick up pigment. I'll divide the distance in half again. Create another circle. And I'll divide the distance again. And I just sharpen the point, adding the pigment each time, trying to make these circles approximately the same size. And we'll just continue until I finish putting in circles all the way in-between the existing ones. This gives me a nicely spaced pattern. And I'm just using the circles here. Now I have all my circles down. I liked the way that looks. I'm going to switch to my smaller brush. I'm gonna take even more vermilion hue and mix it in on my palette. This will brighten it up just a little bit. Now I want to go in here in-between each of our circles that we put down and create just a smaller circle. So I'm making a pattern of circles which is becoming its own ring. It also takes one color and becomes a ring of the rainbow. I have alternated large circles and small circles, slightly different color. I'm going to let these layers dry and then we'll come back and finish our rainbow. 10. Adding the Final Ring: Now for our final curve of this rainbow, I want to add a ticking, but I wanted to be a little thicker than the ticking that we used on the previous rainbow. I'm going to start with my smallest brush because I have more control with it. And I'm gonna put some dark green on my palette. I'm going to add some water, just mix some lemon yellow with that. Look at a very interesting green. Then I'm going to start right at the top here. And I want to echo the arc of that rainbow. I'm just going to create a little bit of an arc. And then it'll create a small arc beneath it. And this is gonna be my ticking that I make. I'm going to combine the two sides. This is the shape of the ticking. I'll come back in, deposit more color, just fill it in with that color. Then I have this interesting shape. You can do straight lines if you like, but I like this little curved shape. I have a curve on the outside and a curve on the inside. But to start with my smaller brush again, go right to the bottom here and create that curve as well as that center curve. And I'm just going to combine the two to make that shape. It's a little unusual shape. Not really a square, not really a rectangle, because the edges are curved. And then I'm going to go to the other side, picking up more pigment as I go and creating that shape as well. Now I want to fill in the distance with that shape, going to add a little more pigment to my palette here of the deep green, the lemon yellow. And then I'm going to divide that area in half, eyeballing that shape and I'll do it over here as well. Coming in, creating that shape. Filling it in con to this side. I want to continue that. Going to come to one side because I think I can get two shapes in-between these. I'll just create one to then make two little bottom layers. And now I just want to combine the shapes. Fill them in. Over here as well. Come to this side, do the same thing. I'm just drawing it with my brush at this point. Making those shapes. Then your eye connects them to making a single ring. You could sketch this out with pencil ahead of time if you like. But I think the beauty of this is just creating those shapes and then doing your best to make them similar shaped, similar sizes. Also very good practice for brush control. I go around creating that shape and I'll do two more over here on this side. I have my shapes. Then I fill it in. Now you can do the same ticking that we did on the previous rainbow. But I like this effect. It's kind of ethnic and it looks very interesting. I can come over here and any shapes that look a little bit off or a little too much off, I can fill in to try and match the existing shape. This one, I just want to add a little height two. Then I'm very pleased with this rainbow. The next chapter, we'll come back and start our two layer rainbows. 11. Painting Rainbow #4: For our first two layer rainbow, we're going to create three curves. I like to choose three colors that are very close to each other on the color wheel, it can even be monochromatic in that it's different shades of a single color. I'm going to start here with some of this crimson lake. It's like a deep pink with a little bit of blue in it. And I just love that color. I think it's beautiful. I'm going to create my outermost arc. I'm going to start at the top and create that arc. And then I'm gonna come over here and try and just connect to it. Going to eyeball where it ends approximately with the first one and then I'm just going to thicken it up ever so slightly. I'm not trying to make a very thick arc. I just want to have it nice and fairly even. That's a good width. I'll just come around here, thickening up the areas I already put down as my guide. Come all the way down, create the final edge. I'll just take a look here. It's a little thicker. On this side. I'll pick up some more pigment. Just thicken up my arc. On this side. Just ever so slightly. Just enough so it doesn't look terribly lop-sided. A little handmade is interesting. Too much looks unprofessional. There's my first color. I'm gonna make my second color where I'm gonna take some of his perylene red and mix it with whatever is left on my palette of that crimson lake. I'll add one brushstroke of water just to lighten it up a little. This is gonna be a thick arc. I'm going to start on one side, echoing the shape of that first arc. I'll continue all the way around again, echoing that shape. As you can see, the colors are ready, different, lighter, but within the same color family. I really want to thicken that up. I'm going to create maybe a half inch thick arc here. Connect it on this side. I'll just fill it in with pigment. Go back in and pick up more pigment deposited. Make that arc a little thicker over here. All the way down. Now I have some splotches of pigment, so I'll rinse my brush with water and just dab them with clean water. Just the splotches. Come back in with a paper towel and pick it up. If it doesn't come off my paper, That's okay. Lastly, I want that third arc, so I'll take some brilliant pink, put that on my palette and mix just a little brush full of that red that we have with it. Just to tone it down a bit. Now I'm just going to have a nice thick arc that goes right to the bottom of the paper. Just like this. Come across. I'm going to fill it in with color. I'm going to let this dry and then we'll come back and add our second layer. 12. Painting the Pattern Layer: Now my colors have dried and now I want to add my second layer. I'm just going to take my number one brush and it would take some crimson lake right on my palette. And I want to really intense color. Now I'm just going to create stripes. You can make dots and you can make any thickness of stripes, I guess want slight stripes. And I'm choosing the same color that we used for the actual curve here. So this one was the Crimson Lake and because I'm using such an intense color, it will show up, but it won't be a very dominant color. I'm just making stripes all the way around. Spacing them somewhat. On this curve. Continue all the way around. Again, you don't have to do stripes. You can do dots, squiggly, lines, shapes, anything you'd like, any type of pattern. But I think it adds a lot of interests to our rainbow. Nobody takes some perylene red, mix it on my palette. Take a little of that crimson lake and mix it in with it. And I want to continue with those stripes. Start at the top, go to either side of them. Just continue. It's a little rustic looking, a little imperfect, but I like the added texture and dimension it gives to this modern rainbow. Now lastly, I'm going to take some brilliant pink right on my palette. Mix a little bit of that red in with it. Maybe a couple of brush strokes to get a little deeper color. Now I'm just going to create straight up and down. Lines here will be at a slight angle coming from the center. But all eyes lead to the center of this rainbow. There we have our first two layer rainbow. 13. Painting Rainbow #5: Now for our next two layer rainbow, I want to create the arcs and we'll do just a slightly different technique. I'm going to create the first arc, the outermost arc, and I'm going to mix some of this. So trillion blue, which is a lighter blue. Add a little water to that and I'm using my big brush here. I'm going to make a shallow arc. Going to start all the way. Bring that arc up. I'll just come over here, thicken it up. It's a beautiful blue color, like a blue sky color. Thicken up the base, get that straight line at the end of the arc. The same thing over here. Pull that color all the way around. I'm going to switch brushes. I'm using my number one brush here. I'm going to take some of this cobalt blue and mix it in with a cerulean blue, and now it's a very much darker blue. I'm just going to create that line at the top of that arc. It's still mostly a single color in that it's blue. But there'll be a little bleeding from this darker blue, cerulean blue that we put down. I just liked the way that looks. For my next color. I'm going to take that color we mixed, add even a little more cobalt blue because I want the intensity to increase. I'm going to create another arc underneath the first one. Again, I work on creating that depth and shape and thickness. Coming all the way from the bottom. All the way around. I have that shape. I'll just go over it with one more brush full of color. Make sure it's smooth and that the color, the pigment doesn't dry in any areas. While I'm here, I'm going to do that same technique and we take a darker color. So I'll take a little of this Prussian blue, mix it on my paintbrush and just create that darker color on the top of that curve. It's very subtle effect, but it creates a little variation in that rainbow. Then lastly, I'm going to switch here. I'm taking a little purple on my brush, mix it in with that blue and create one more curve. Let me go all the way around. I'm gonna make this one fairly thick. I'll just fill it in with that pigment. Again, pulling from the areas we already wet on that paper to create these curves, these half circles. They're not really half circles, but they can be. And I'll just sharpen up the edges here. Again, I'll switch to my number one brush, take a little more purple on my palette and create that top line. I have my first layer done here. I'm going to let this completely dry and we'll come back and add our second layer to this modern rainbow. 14. Painting the Pattern Layer: Now I want to add that second layer for added interest to our rainbow. I'm going to take my number two brush. I'm gonna come over here. I'm going to start with this center ahrq, going to take some cobalt blue right on my palette. Mix it with just a little Prussian blue just for a little depth of color. Now I'm just going to create dots, circles on this center curve. Again, I'll go to the top, highest point and the sides the lowest points. I'll just come in dividing that area in half, staying within that curve. And I'm making my circles as I go. Dividing the area up by half each time. This gives me a fairly set pattern. I like the way that's starting to look. Switch to my number one brush, pick up that same color and just make slightly smaller circles in-between. The first ones that we have. Pick up the pigment deposited all the way around. Now I'm going to take my brush again. I'm going to go with my smallest brush, my number one brush. And I'm going to take just some cobalt blue right on my palette here. And I'm going to tackle the largest curve right now. I'm going to create additional lines right in the center, dividing this curve in half. I'll do sections at a time just following that curve. Connecting them. And I'm making that curve and they want to connect with the area I've already painted. Just going to slowly bring my brush up it just like this. Now I've divided that line, going to take some more purple, mix it in with whatever remained on my brush. And whatever remained on my palette, mixing a little more purple to get it nice and vibrant. And now I want to divide the bottom curve in thirds. I'll start at the top here, create one line. And then I'll just create a second one. I'll come over here. Do the same thing. Finishing and connecting to that first curve. Now you can add as many lines as you'd like. I like the simplicity of that, but if you'd like to add more, Go right ahead with your brush. I'm gonna go over these lines one more time just to create their intensity. Make them a little more vibrant and connect them all in one stroke. Maybe not all in one stroke that time, but it smooths them out. Just like that. And I'm pretty happy with that. The next chapter we'll do our final rainbow. 15. Painting Rainbow #6: Now for our final rainbow, I'm just gonna do three arcs yet again. Going to start just with some lemon yellow on my palette. I'm going to mix a little deep yellow and with that little brush full of water. And I'm gonna create my outermost arc. I just make that curve, tilt the paper around and make another curve. Now just play with that curve to make it nice and smooth all the way around. Looking at it from the outermost shape perspective. Over here, it needs a little work. And then I can come inside here and build it out. Coming around here. Again, I just want to do this as many times as it takes to get that smoothness and the color can come over here, thicken this up a little on this side. Then thicken it up over here. Going to jump to my second color. You can take a little vermilion hue and mix it right on my palette. A little bit more lemon yellow, little more deep yellow. And now I'm going to create that second arc. And I want that to be nice and chunky as well. I'll create that shape. Pull it over, fill it in as I go just because I liked how it looks when the wet pigment attaches to itself to fill it in, it doesn't create these little dry marks. Come all the way around. My last color is to take some brilliant pink and mix it in with that orange that we have. I want it to be just a shade off, might mix in a little more, just a little red with that to get it a little more pink. And I'll create that final arc here. I want this to go all the way down. These are the more traditional colors and that we have a reddish, orangeish, yellowish. This is the closest thing we come to, traditional rainbow. But the colors are a little muted, a little softer, a little dusty, or Emily let this layer completely dry. 16. Painting the Pattern Layer: Now that our first layer has dried a good, take my number one brush and go in there and work on my second layer. But it takes some deep yellow right on my palette. And I loved the intensity of that. Going to add just a little bit of a million hue to make it a little more intense. And I'm going to start at the top and I'm just going to create hearts. Just little simple hearts. They're imperfect, but they're recognizable as Hearts. I'll do the same thing with the point of the heart facing the center. I go right to the bottom because it helps me space it. Well, over here. I'll do that. I'll just fill those hearts in. The color is just a little shade or two darker than the one we've already created for that first layer of that curve. And I'll come back in. Creating those hearts. Just separating them, dividing the distance between them in half. Little more pigment to my palette. And continue creating all those hearts on this yellow outermost layer. Went over here. Divide that in half. Divide that in half. Now I just want to take that same color and make little circles. I'm making a pattern of hearts and circles. It's very simple. And it building up layers onto the existing modern rainbows that we created. For the next rainbow, I want to do the same thing. We take a little more vermilion hue and mix it in with my yellow. Take a little more deep yellow because I just wanted to shade or two darker than once there. Again, I'll do the same thing. I'll create those hearts at the top and at the bases. Again, you don't have to use hearts. You can use dots, you can use stars. You can use squares. You can use anything you'd like. It's just a simple repeated shape. I divide that in half again with another heart. Over here. I'll just put it in the hearts in-between. I want all the hearts to fit within this little curve. Then once I have that, I'll put dots in-between each of the hearts. If the hearts are a little larger on one side or a little spaced together or apart. I'll compensate by altering the shape of that heart of that dot, making it larger or smaller, could take a little more perylene red, mix it within that pink that was here. And instead of making a series of hearts, I'm just going to make a single heart come up from the center, rounded a little bit and then just fill it in. And that's my final modern rainbow. The next chapter we'll take a look at our finished projects. 17. Class Wrap Up: Here are completed modern rainbows that we painted in class today. The top row shows how using just one layer of paint creates your layer. Now the rainbows are modern because they're not the traditional colors. They're not the perfect shapes. They alternate between wide and narrow rings. Sometimes the rings aren't rings at all. They're just patterns put together that the eye sees as that ring. By alternating the colors or at least changing the color is someone, you get something very identifiable as a rainbow. The second row here, we did the same technique except we added a second layer to our piece. It was very subtle, in most cases, tone on tone. And it changed the shape and the feel of the rainbow. We have something very sweet kinds like glue these hearts. Something a little more vibrant and a very subtle effect. And yet it's easily recognizable as a rainbow. You have those rounded shapes, that final design and it's very, very cute. Now I wanted to show you some variations using this technique by altering and changing the ways you incorporate the rings and the colors that you use. Now I took the technique and I made a single layer rainbow here. And I use lots of shapes and lots of patterns to create that rainbow. It's still the classic shape and it has some fun colors in it, but it's a little moderate in its effect. Here I made another rainbow and the colors do not reflect a rainbow in terms of the order of a rainbow, if they're very fun and very vibrant. And I like this last one. I made a super large rainbow with lots of rings to it and patterns on almost every one of the rings. And it gave a really interesting effect. I wanted to show you how you can use your illustrations. Maybe not in the watercolor paper directly. But we start by taking the watercolor image and using a computer to do something with it. Here's an idea where I took just a single sheet of watercolor paper and I just played around making the different rainbows. I played with the color, the shape, and the intensity of the layers. It's the same effect and the same basic techniques. From there, I scan those images into my computer and printed them out just onto this labeled paper. And so now we have stickers of these rainbows. That's a fun way to use your projects without using the actual hard copy of your projects. I hope you found this class helpful and enjoyable and maybe give yourself a chance to try one of these modern rainbows in your work. I think you'll find it's pretty addictive once you get started. If you do, please snap a photo of your work, post it in the project section. Be sure to join me here on Skillshare every Friday for a new class. And thank you for joining me today.