Watercolor Painting - Practice Fundamentals & Water Control w/ Popsicles

1. Intro: Hey there, welcome to my studio. I'm Tanya. Amounts of space in Denmark and I've been a professional artist for the past eight years. Though I enjoyed creating art within a variety of categories. In my work, my main focus is usually food. And in my paintings, I like combining and histologic field with new and fun components. Sometimes I also create some slightly obscure pairings. The first time I tried painting with water clause properly was back in 2016. Even though this was a medium I'd spent my entire life avoiding for different reasons. I instantly fell in love. In this class, we're going to take a look at some of the basic watercolor techniques and practices. Water control, flat washes, wet on dry, wet and wet, blending, lifting and different effects. And we're going to finish off by creating this fun painting that allow us to practice using these techniques and hone our watercolor skills. Food is one of my absolute favorite things to paint. And it's such a beginner friendly subject as well as the visuals of food is never about perfection. It's okay to make mistakes. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but rather something that can add personality to your paintings. So painting food is opportunity to experiment. I'm really excited about painting this little ice cream or popsicle with you. So whether you're a beginner and you want to practice your basics, whether you have some experience, but you just want a chance to play around all you here only because you want to paint this popsicle. I'm excited to have you here and I hope you'll join me for this class. So let's jump right into it. 2. Supplies: Let's take a look at this place. You're going to need some paint. I'm going to be using my Schmidt, get what are called pains. Throughout this class, you've got to meet a minimum of three colors. So you're three primaries are red, yellow, and a blue. I'm using scarlet, red, lemon yellow, and Phaedo blue. And optionally, if you like, me, want to add a fun color background to your final painting, you can add one or maybe even a few more pins. And again, this is completely optional, but I'm also going to be using some metallic watercolor paints. Just to have something fun and a bit different. You'll need some watercolor paper. I'm going to be using Fabriano artistic who extra white, which is a 100% cotton paper. And I'm using hot pressed for the demonstrations of the different techniques. I'm also going to be using this 50% cotton paper, which is cold pressed. You're going to need some brushes. And all you really need is a couple of brushes. But we're going to talk about one choosing to add another couple of brushes later in the class. Since we are working with watercolors, you're going to meet some water. A cloth, awesome tissue to wipe your brushes, as well as some tissue to help lift paint, some white gouache. If you don't have this, you can also use white watercolor pencil for sketching. I'm using my point to mechanical pencil. And then you're going to need one or two erasers of your choice. But if you do have a kneaded eraser, I do recommend using that just so you don't damage the surface of your watercolor paper. You're also going to need a pallet to mix your paints. I'm going to be using two different ones. One of them being an actual watercolor palette and one of them being a tap as type snack plate. And of course we cannot make a class about basic watercolor techniques without salt. Okay, let's get started. 3. Paint & Paper: When it comes to your three main watercolor tools or supplies, paint, paper, and brushes. Paper is a one-word recommend that you prioritize getting a quality product. You can get lots of paper that is advertised as being suitable for wet mediums like watercolor. And if you have some experience or just wants to do some quick sketches, swatches or something like that. That paper may be okay, but where I think a lot of people go wrong when they first decided to give water closet go, is that they go out and get a few materials that are maybe not the best quality. Because, why get higher-quality supplies if you end up not enjoying the experience today, you can get brushes that are really good and at the same time very affordable. And the same with paint. A lot of it comes down to personal preference. The two main watercolor brands that I use are Srilanka. I love that they're often more natural looking in color. And unless you'd get their new super granulation paints, they don't tend to granulate all that much, which is something I personally, unlike a lot of watercolor artists prefer, as I like to really be able to control my paint. I don't want it to create random textures if I don't ask for it. And then I use Holbein again from there, 108 P set, not a lot of the coolest granulate, so I love that and they offer lots of fun costs as well. Or design a cause, which means that they've had an opaque pigment, usually white, added to create these pastel colors. That's not something I would recommend using if you're painting something that requires lots of mixing or layering because they can quickly make your paintings look dull. But again, everything when it comes to paint is down to personal preference. You might get better light fastness or pigmentation in some of the top brands or artist quality paints. But a lot of the student grade paints like Cotman from Winsor Newton, which is a really well-respected brand, a great place to start. But when it comes to paper, I highly recommend getting 100% cotton paper. It is going to make the experience of painting with watercolors much more enjoyable. It's more resistant. I can take more abuse than your typical non cotton papers. And it can hold a lot of water, which will allow you to use those beautiful techniques that are so unique to water color. I'm not going to give a long speech and all the basics of properties when it comes down to paper. But just a few main points. There are two main types of watercolor paper that you'll see most often. Hot pressed, which is very smooth, cold press, which has some texture to it. The way I used to remember the difference is that when your iron, your clothes, the iron is hot. And so pressing the hot iron onto the fabric will smooth it out. The brand you choose is up to you and comes down again to personal preference. Fabriano, artistic cool, extra white is my personal favorite. I like how it performs. Its not one of the most expensive brands. And more importantly to me, is the fact that it's more white in color than a lot of the watercolor papers, which tend to be more of a creamy or off-white color. And getting your paper or on a pad like this means that you don't have to worry about taping it down or stretching it if you don't want to. When you go to play watercolor paper on the pads other than the brand, the size, and the surface texture. You'll also be able to see this thing called sizing. This is something I didn't know what meant until I experienced it firsthand and saw how it can affect a painting if the paper is not properly sized. There are two types of slicing, internal and external sizing. So if we take a look at these two paths, the Fabriano paper is both internally and externally sized, whilst the one by Lana is only externally sized. So what does this mean? Well, sizing is a gelatin or starch treatment. It can be added to the pulp during the manufacturing process, which would make the paper internally sized. Or it can be added to the surface after the paper has been made, which is the external sizing. This treatment is what allows the water and the pigment to not just be soaked up by the paper. And instead allows you to create these beautiful effects. I'm going to paint a wash onto this paper that I know has some sizing issues so that you can see how it affects a painting. Sizing can deteriorate over time. Starting your paper in a place with higher humidity, also in the paper for too long when I'm stretching, it can affect the sizing. There's not much to do really. You can apply what are called ground or a sizing medium to restore those surface properties. But if this is something you noticed early on in a painting, it's often better to just plot. And if this happens with a brand new pad of watercolor paper, maybe contact the manufacturer fault possible replacement. But other than that, any 100% cotton paper in the texture of your choice should give you a good start to your watercolor journey. 4. Choosing the Right Brush: So we've got our paper ready and now we need to find the right brushes for the job. Although there are lots of different options out there in this class, we're going to keep it simple and just focus on round brushes. Because really with a few round brushes, you can paint anything. So when choosing which brush or brushes to use, we want to consider what are we getting to paint and what is the size of our painting and subjects? There are two main types of brushes, natural inherent and synthetics. Synthetic brushes are often associated with holding less water than a brush with natural fibers. But that's not necessarily the case state because there are so many amazing and affordable options out there. And synthetic brushes have come a long way. But just for the sake of this demonstration, I'll be using three very contrasting brushes. We want it to be able to lay down a nice flat wash as the base. So we want a brush that can hold enough water and one that's big enough to fill in our subject before the pain starts drying. For these first two examples, I'll be using n number 0 or not sized brush. This is a Winsor and Newton sable brush from their series seven line of brushes, which are top of the line in terms of quality. I'm using the same paint mixed for all of these examples. And as you can see, we can fill in the smallest square without too much of a hassle. If we then try and use that same brush for this latch square or rectangle, it won't do as good of a job. Now, to be fair, this one has had a rough life, so it doesn't work as well for fine details anymore. But that's not what we're looking at here. Depending on the paper you're using, as well as the climate in your location, you may be able to get away with using a smaller brush like this. The paper I'm using here is cold pressed and it's very forgiving in terms of how much working time you have. This flat wash is not looking terrible, but it is splotchy because of brushes running out of paint you frequently to keep up with the drying paint. And just for the fun of it, let's repeat this on a piece of hot press paper which will dry faster. So this blushing is, is going to be a lot more noticeable. Let's do another rectangle. Clearly we need a larger brush, so let's use this one. This is a cheap synthetic student. Greg brush potentially even meant more as a craft brush for children. And it's a number six by fabric Estelle. Now, this one will be able to better fill in the rectangle because of its size and ability to hold more water. However, it would still be struggling to keep up if we were working on paper that was less forgiving. And it doesn't hold as much water and paint as I would like, at least not for this purpose. Lastly, we'll have a quick look at another natural fiber brush. In this case, we're using a mop brush. Mop brushes are made to whom large amounts of water and paint under ideal for creating washes of color. And on top of that, this is squirrel hair, which is extremely soft and again known for its ability to hold large amounts of water. Now we don't need a brush like this or a mop brush to fill in a rectangle of this size. But just to put things into perspective, you can see how easily it fills out this entire area without us having to reload it. So far in this class, I'll be using this number eight is good at versatile. This is a synthetic Kolinsky brush. The bristles are nice and soft, which is often a good indication that it'll be able to hold a decent amount of water. And they find that soft bristles are especially good for creating soft shading and transitions. We also need a brush that will work for creating some fine details. And even though you could use a lot of brush, if it has a nice point, sometimes it's helpful to use a small brush. One of the reasons for this is that a small brush is not able to hold as much water. Instead, the water and paint it does hold will be more controlled. But we'll get back to that when we're going to take a look at paint consistency and water control brushes like this one where the fibers are not as soft as let's say with the vesicle are often better for details because there'll be able to hold their point better. So we're *** off the bristles. All fibers are going to be more limb and floppy. A fiber like this is going to have an easier time springing back to its original shape. And you can use a bit more pressure when painting with them without worrying about the fibers fanning out when we're spreading as easily, which is going to cause wider lines. With these two brushes really have only need for this class and the final painting. But I am going to add in another couple of brushes. These are some old Kolinsky brushes that I've completely destroyed. And in this class we're going to do some stippling. So if you have a cheap or an old beaten up brush, I recommend using that so you don't destroy your good brushes. And while on the topic, if you're working from pens like I am especially half pans but any pinch really, I recommend that you don't use your brushes to pick up paint directly from the pans. Because all this swirling around and being bashed up against the edges can damage your brushes. You use a brush that you're not as precious about. In my classes, you'll often see me using this one, which is n squared at Perla. This too is a synthetic brush, but the fibers are not as soft as the versatile. And even though I love this brush, I'm not going to be assayed if I just draw the fine point on this one. So for this class with a few exceptions quite brain decide to forget about my own rules. I'll be using this brush to pick up the paint from the pains. 5. Paint Consistency: Understanding you want to call it can help you a lot when painting. Different subject matters are styles may require different consistencies of paint. So we're going to take a look at the three main pink consistencies. The first one we're going to mix up is a watery mix. This pink mix contains a lot more water than it does pigment. So the colon intensity or the value is not going to be very strong at all. Watery mix is great for painting large surface areas, for creating smooth flat washes and for glazing. Because we're going to talk about this later in the class when going through the different exercises and techniques. The key to a nice even flat wash is that you don't want to leave any dryer just behind. All this water is going to help keep your paper wet so the pigment can evenly spread and disperse on the surface. Because in water caught, the pigment is going to move where there's water. If you're looking to paint details, this may not be the right consistency to use though. Next, we're going to create a wet but not as watery other pink mix. This is a good all-purpose mix. You can use it to cover some decent areas before you start seeing those drying lines or drying edges. But you can also use it to paint some details. I particularly like using this for more controlled shading. And we're going to practice that as part of the exercises. Well, depending on what you're going to paint and what you need, you can add a bit more and less water to this mix and still be able to control it like this. I mean, there's no wrong amount of water, whether you add tons of water to your mixes or check the watercolors straight out of the tube on any consistency in-between, they all serve a purpose. And a lot of it comes down to personal preference as well. So I encourage you to play around and really get to know your paints. The third mix is a much more dry mix. This will give you a lot of control and the paint is not going to budge from where you placed it on your paper. Unless you go in with some water and help push it around. It's great for extremely fine details, especially if using very small brushes. The only thing you have to note about this mix is that usually when you paint with watercolor, the pigment will seep into the layers of the paper, allowing you to work on top of those layers without disturbing the underlying paint. But in this case, almost all of that pigment will remain on the top surface of the paper. So if you go over it with a wet brush, even after that stride, it will smear. So have a go at mixing and playing around with these different consistencies. Trend create different types of brushstrokes or lines. You can also go in with some of your other watercolor brushes to see what combination of watercolor brush and paint consistency you prefer. 6. Water Control: Now, both with the brushes and the paint consistency, water is the common ground in both scenarios, we're trying to control the amount of water that ultimately ends up on our paper. But switching out our brushes for different size or adjusting the pink consistency on our palate is not all there is to it. There are three places you can add water. You can add water to your paint, to your brush, until your paper. But no matter where or how many places you've added your wire, you want to know how much water you're working with at a time, how that is going to affect your painting and techniques. As an example, let's revive not the watery mix, but the slightly less runny wet mix from the last lesson. Make sure your brush is clean and nice and salt gently wipe off some of that excess water on the edge of the glass, pick up some of the paint and paint a small square. So this is going to be the baseline for this pink mix. To darken the value, we don't necessarily have to add more pigment to the mix. We just need to decrease the amount of water precedence. So since we've got both water in our paint mix and in our brush, we've got two options. We can let our paint mixed dry out a bit. All we can get rid of some of the water in our brush. So let's do that. Then to lighten the color compared to Alpha Square on the baseline, we need to increase the amount of water present. And so again, we've got a few options. We can add more water to the mix. We can add water to our brush, but we already did that. And we can also add, I want to tell paper. So let's repeat what we did with the first square. But this time we're going to wet the paper first. Soak and gently wipe your brush, pick up some paint and apply to your paper. For this one, I'm going to wipe off some of the excess on my cloth and spread out the pigment we've already put down on the paper. The water on the paper is going to help disperse the pigment and thereby change the ratio of water to pigment. So we're going to get this lighter value. Let's do a similar exercise. This time we're starting out with wiping out brush and picking up some of that paint. Try and really soak your brush in the mix. Then paint a square or a circle or whatever shape you like. Dip your brush in the water to increase the ratio of water to pigment. And paint another square to move it along a bit faster. You can also gently touch your brush to the cloth to get rid of some of the pigment. The more you swirl your brush in the water, or the more pigment you wipe off onto your cloth each time, the faster the values will change. Next, we're going to take a look at a way to get rid of some of the water. If you applied your paint, it's too wet and it started to creating puddles on your paper. This is not something you necessarily need to fix. What will often happen is that you're going to create these harsh edges along the outside because the wet paper will start to warp and the water will push the pigment away from the most race point on that paper. Which means it'll be pushed out to wants the edges are certain things. You might want those edges. It can look really cool. But let's assume you don't. The ideal scenario is of course, to control the water you got on your paper by controlling the water in your pink mix, brush, etc. But in case you've applied the paint already and started to pull in order to prevent those hard edges forming, you simply want to wipe off your brush and use it as a small vacuum to soak up some of that excess water. So if we were working with this very watery mix and wanted to avoid getting those edges and pulling in the first place. We just want to pick up the paint and take out some of the water from our brush before applying it. Lastly, we'll take a quick look at how the moisture in the paper affects the paint. We're going to wet the paper to the point where it's visibly wet and you can see the shine or glossiness from the water. Then apply the different pink consistencies and see how they react. After doing that, we want to wait for the paper to dry a bit until it's more of a damp feel but still wet. And then apply the same mixes again. To really properly test this out. You can time it and make sure you apply the paint after, let's say 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, etcetera. I just eyeballed it and looked at the paper in order to find out when to add the paint. But timing, it can be super helpful, especially if you're a beginner, to really learn how much time it takes for the paper to dry and for you to get the different effects. Different types and brands of paper are going to dry at different rates and different brands of paint will react and spread in different ways. So practice, experiment, and get to know your tools and materials. The goal here is to understand which consistency of paint and what level of moisture you want in your paper in order to get either vary, just slightly soft edges and dispersion of pigment. This way you'll be able to pick the best combination for your paintings. 7. Flat Washes: Let's go with some basic watercolor exercises and techniques, starting with flat washes. So just a flat layer of color. Now, I'm going to have some fun and paint popsicles, but you can also fill out a standard rectangle if you prefer. I have provided my sketch in the projects and resources tab, so feel free to either trace that all printed onto your watercolor paper. If you don't feel like drawing your own. There are two ways of doing a flat wash. You can paint wet on dry, which means that you go in with wet paint on dry paper. Or you can paint wet-on-wet, which means you use wet paint on wet paper. So let's do wet on dry first. We want to mix up our pink and we want to have a good amount of water present. Clean and wipe off your brush and then get it nice and soaked in the pink mix. For this first step into the paint mix, it's a good idea to give it a good mix at the same time. Because if there is water in your brush, that is going to change the ratio of water to pigment in that brush compared to the rest of the pink mix. So by mixing it around, you're making sure that the paint within the brush as well as outside of the brush is consistent. Then fill in the popsicle starting from the top and working away to once the bottom. If your brush thoughts running out of paint, just quickly redeployed into the paint mix and continue. And as we talked about in one of the previous lessons, want to use a brush off the right size compared to the area you want to paint. If you're having troubles filling out the entire area without getting those dry edges, you may need to use a larger brush or add more water to your paint mix. What you don't want to do when doing a flat wash is to go in like this and start adding paint to chew launch of an area at once. This will give the edges more time to dry before I get back to them. Because this specific paper is very forgiving as we discovered previously in the class. I'm really trying to work slowly and give it some time to start drying. The next thing you don't want to do is to try and fix something like this before the paint has fully set. If you go in and you introduce more water to an area with less water because that area has already started drying, the water's going to push the pigment around. The best thing to do is to leave it to dry completely. Once dry, you can either try and go in and lift some of the car all blend some of the edges. Another solution is to work in very thin or very transparent layers and gradually build up that color saturation and value. In that case, these mistakes you might see in the first layer will be much less visible as you build up more layers. Now, let's do a wash by painting wet and wet. So we're going to wet my paper first. Then get out, brush nice and soaked in the paint mix and applied to the paper. The water that is on the paper already is going to help spread and disperse the pigment in an even layer. And so even if you get some uneven areas, awesome patchiness, the edges of those patches will be soft and feathered out and thereby less noticeable and distracting. When painting, my pad of paper or surface is slightly tilted. I'm just using a thick sketchbook to lift it up on the side opposite of me. And so because of that, I have these pools forming at the bottom. So I'm just going to get rid of those using my brush. The third wash We're going to take a look at is a gradient. There are different ways you can approach this. But in this case I'm choosing to go to straight in like in the first wash with our first color. Then I'm picking up the second color. And because these calls are so similar, I'm not worrying about cross contaminating them. So I'm not worrying about cleaning my brush. And then I'm picking up my setColor and applying that as well. Because the area is still wet as you go to apply the next color, the edges school blend together. Now, I just told you that you shouldn't go back in before a washes dried, but we're just practicing and having fun at it because I can tell that my paper is still very wet. I'm going back in to this top section with some more paint, which means that we're not working wet and wet. And so we can use this to our advantage and get a softer transition between those costs. Don't be afraid to just experiment and play around. If you end up getting some harsh edges, awesome effects you didn't necessarily want. Don't worry about it. Besides, food is not meant to be perfect. Those monks or effects could be IC frosty effects on your popsicle. I just make the whole painting look more playful. To finish off, we just want to apply some color to the sticks as well. You don't have to mix the color directly on the paper like I am. And depending on the paper you're using, I don't necessarily recommend it. If you aren't interested in a quick breakdown of color theory, I recommend watching my class on mixing skin tones, but basically by mixing together a lot primaries all by mixing together complimentary cause you're going to get neutrals. So by adding some blue into the orange, we're going to get a more muted tone down orange, or a more brown color, which is going to work perfectly for the wooden sticks. 8. Glazing: Another term or technique you'll often hear in watercolor is glazing. I believe the term comes from oil painting, but it basically means to apply thin or transparent layers of color on top of each other, which is something you might choose to do to either teeth null value or adjust the color. Super quick and simple. Let's say we want this popsicle to be a bit brighter, more saturated, and more yellow. We just going to take out yellow mix here and apply a thin wash. And that's all there is to it. When glazing, generally better to use a softer brush and a light touch so you don't disturb layer of paint underneath. As I mentioned previously, when you paint with watercolor, the pink or the pigment seeps into layers, the paper. Now, the more layers you apply, the close to the surface of the paper that paint is going to sit. When you go to apply, let's say the fifth or sixth layer, there's a greater risk of affecting the underlying pink layers. And using a soft brush and a light touch can help prevent that. Also means that if you're working with more concentrated washes where the ratio of pigment to water is higher, you're going to saturate the paper Foster. So dark rich layers of paint are often easier to affect or disturb than very watered-down layers. So using glazing you can also deepen the value. And so you can use this technique to add shading, adding one layer at a time like this to get that gradual transition in color or value is going to be time-consuming. The one thing to bear in mind when glazing is that watercolor is a transparent medium. That means that at least with a traditional approach where you don't use white to lighten and Ariel, but rather avoid getting paint on that area in the first place. With every layer you apply, you're automatically going to D1 or dark the color and the value. So as an example, let's take this magenta paint. We're going to apply a thin wash. We then decide that we want it to be brighter and more vibrant. So we add another layer. And we might even add a third layer. But if you look at the pen, you can see how dark that ping is able to go. So at some point, this beautiful pink or magenta car is no longer getting brighter and more vibrant, but instead it's getting darker. In this specific case, we may be able to remove some of the paint to at least somewhat get back to a stage where we're happy with the color. But it's worth being aware of the properties of a color or a medium to understand what to do or what not to do in order to get the result. We want. 9. Blending: Next, let's take a look at blending. Just like with the washes, you can do this wet on dry, on wet and wet. Let's do wet on dry first. So what do you want to do is pick up your paint and it's up to you how much water you want in your pink mix. It depends on how dark you want to go. Though, if you are painting a larger area, It's a good idea to have enough water in the mix for the paint to not set to quickly. Then apply this to the paper. Quickly go back and clean your brush, and then use the moisture in the brush to blend out the edges. The amount of water in your brush may determine how much your edges will further out. Because as we know, paying all pigment will go where there's water until the paint set. You want to keep an eye on the edge to see if there are any hard edges forming if the pigment gets to that line where there's no more water. Or to just generally see if you need to help push the pigment into the right shape to keep it controlled. So going over to one of our popsicles so we can add some shading and dimension by laying down some layers of paint and blending or softening those edges. And if you want to go in and apply another layer, just wait till that first layer has dried. To then blend wet and wet. We're going to apply water to the paper first. Make sure that the paper has that nice wet sheen, but try to avoid pools of water and then go in with the paint doing a wet and wet wash. This will give you those nice soft edges a lot more easily. You may still want to keep an eye on it as it sets just to make sure the paint behaves the way you want. Blending wet and wet is especially useful if you want to apply multiple cores in your blend. So let's add some shading to this popsicle. We're going to wet the paper, add some paint, and then keep an eye on it. Can just help control where that pigment flows. 10. Lifting: So lifting, lifting can be used to make adjustments on correct mistakes and how easy or difficult it is to live paint will depend on the paper you're using, as well as a pigment in your paint. When you go to buy water costs, they'll usually have an indicator on them that tells you how staining that particular paint is. Staining paint will be more challenging and sometimes impossible to remove once it has been applied. But as we talked about previously in the class, different papers will also react differently to lifting. Some papers hold onto the pink font year life, whilst others will allow you to lift almost any paint fairly easily. And so this is just yet another reason why you want to familiarize yourself with the tools and materials you are using when lifting paint. It's a good idea to maybe not use your most precious brushes because you can damage the points. And it can also be helpful to use a brush that is on the more stiff or rigid side of the spectrum. So in my case, I'll be using this is called appellate brush. And you may in some cases even want to use a brush that is made for acrylic painting, just to be able to really scrub away some of that pigment. Let's try and go back to the magenta square to lift car. We want to wet our brush, get rid of some of that excess water, and then go in and gently scrub on the surface of the paper. Be ready with a piece of tissue to dab away moisture. Because in some cases, again, depending on the paint, that paper and how dry the paint is, the moisture can end up pushing some of that pigment and form those hard edges that we've been trying to avoid. It's worth noting that scrubbing the paper like this works best on good quality paper, acids more resistant. But with that being said, it's also worth noting that when the paper is wet or damp, that is when the paper is at its most fragile state. When you scrub on the surface like this, you can damage the surface of the paper and no matter how good the quality is. So even though lifting is a great technique, in a lot of cases, It's maybe not a technique you want to use repeatedly on the same section on your paintings because new layers of paint may not go down as smoothly. A more gentle way of lifting pain is a dude right after applying it. So while it's still wet. So if we were painting as fear and wanted to highlight, but we accidentally got too much paint on the highlight spot. We can gently dab away some of that pink using our tissue. Because the paper has now been dried off. This also means that the water won't continuously flow into that area. And because there's this line between the wet and damp paper, you will need to keep an eye on those edges as the paint sets just in case you need to soften them with your brush. I didn't have a lot of water in my paint mix, so I have to help soften those edges. Sr going absolutely nowhere on their own. We can also live paint with our brush. This will usually create *** off the effect if there is more water on the paper because it brush still has some moisture in it, whereas the paper or the tissue is completely dry. So we're going to paint another sphere, clean and wipe off our brush, and then use that to lift some of the paint. In my case, I'm still not working with a lot of water, so I'm able to get a very clean edge. So moving over to our Popsicle, I'm not going to add any highlights, but we can try and get rid of some of the paint that went outside of the sketches or lines. And even if you don't get back to it, completely white background, it can still improve the overall look and make it look more clean. 11. Textures & Effects: Finally, let's take a look at a few different techniques you can use to achieve some interesting textures or effects in your paintings. I'm not going to go through every technique out there, but I feel like that five that I feel as some of the most useful, number one being blooms of blooming. Some people also refer to this as cauliflower ears. So going back to when we made the flat wash is one of the things we wanted to avoid was introducing more water or moisture into an area with less water, I said would push the pigment and create these well blooms. So for this first effect, that's exactly what we want to do. We want to drop in paint and water at different stages in the drying process to get some really interesting patterns. I typically paint in a more realistic style. So don't use this technique a lot, but I do really love how it looks, especially when used for backgrounds. The second effect we're going to take a look at is dry brushing. For this, I'm going to switch to one of these beaten up brushes. You can use any brush you want, but I like what is messy parcels contribute to this technique? For dry brushing? You want to work with a very limited amount of water or moisture. So wipe off your brush really well and just add enough water to your paint to get it moving. You can use this technique to create textures, and you can even use it to paint or draw or repair small area. Well, water for whatever reason could ruin what's already on the paper. Before moving over to our popsicles, we can also take a look at stippling. You can do this with any consistency of paint. Look may just vary a bit. And again, this is a technique you can use to create some interesting textures. But please don't use your good brushes for this. That's how my Winsor Newton Series seven brushes ended up like this. And you don't want that. So if we go back to the popsicles, we can use stippling to add some more shading and texture, which is going to help bring out this more rough look, which in this case translates into a more frosty appearance. Then if we take the white gouache and go in with a combination of dry brushing and stippling. We can use this to then also paint a really nice frosty or IC look. Next up, we can do some splatter effects. There are a couple of ways you can do this. One way is to dip your brush in the pink and then use your fingers to flip back the Harris or the bristles. I don't tend to personally use this technique because they don't have a brush specifically dedicated for this and it can be rough on the bristles. So instead, what you can also do, which is going to be a lot more gentle on your brush, is to pick up the paint and tap it on your finger or hand like this. If you don't want the splatters to hit your main subject specific area of your paper. You can just simply cover it up with a piece of scrap paper. This is another technique that can quickly add a lot of interests and playfulness than just some really interesting effects to your paintings. Lastly, let's bring in some salt. This is another well-known technique. You can use any basic solid you have in your kitchen. I like pretty stuff. So the only salt we have at home right now is Himalayan salt, but any salt will work. The salt is going to suck up or draw in the moisture surrounding it. So for this effect, you want to simply apply some of the paint, sprinkle on some salt and let it do its thing. The effect may vary depending on how large or small the grains of salt or how much solid you add all how much water on your paper. But once dry, brush away any excess. So have a go at playing around with these different effects, even if you think you may not use all of them in your own work, getting comfortable with using them could spark some new ideas. Or if you find yourself in a situation where you need to fix a mistake or maybe you want to add something to your painting, but you're not sure what to add. One of these could be the answer. 12. Final Project: Sketch: Okay, so I think this is a critical though I might refer to it as a popsicle, and I apologize. But either way, I've provided my sketch in the Projects and Resources tab in case you don't want to draw your own. So feel free to either trace that all print that onto your own watercolor paper. For the sketch, we want to take a look at our reference. And we want to begin by getting the basic proportions so we can see that the height of the stick is about a third of the length of the popsicle. See, I already said popsicle, please don't take me. And we can also tell Pat this distance is about the width of this top section of the popsicle. So using that information, we can make our first marks. For this popsicle, I'm choosing to sketch directly on my watercolor paper. But if you're not comfortable doing this, definitely feel free to sketch on a separate piece of paper and then use a window or light box to trace it. There's no wrong way of doing it. From there, we can draw the basic shapes. And once we have that, we can draw in some of the details from this broken chocolate. I find that for upticks like this, which are fairly symmetrical, it can be helpful to draw a central line, sometimes even a vertical one as well. Just like if you were to draw a portrait of a person. It just helps your brain process the information and what you see if you create these smaller, more manageable portions. But most importantly for this one, you really don't have to worry about being accurate. Food is not perfect and no one is going to know if each piece of chocolate was broken off in the exact spot or the exact way in your reference. Just have fun and make it your own. As long as you have some sort of potato shape on a stick, it's a popsicle. You're good to go. Use your eraser to get rid of some of the more rough lines and create a more clean outline. If you haven't seen my class on sketching portraits, I really do recommend watching it if you want to get better at drawing from a reference. Because even though we are tackling at different subject in that class, a lot of the principles and basic you use when drawing from a reference are the same, no matter the subject. The techniques I talked about in that class can be applied to something like drawing a popsicle as well. Once I was happy with the sketch, I use the kneaded eraser to just go over the lines and make them a bit less visible. Because this popsicle does have a lot of dark browns in the chocolate. The lines are not necessarily going to be visible. So this wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but I'm just doing this more so out of habit. Now, let's move on to the fun part, which is the painting process. 13. Final Project: Basic Color Mix: Let's take a closer look at the paints, all colors. We've got some variation of our primary colors. So red, yellow, and a blue. In my case, I've got scarlet, red, lemon yellow, and fallow blue. Super quick crash course in terms of color theory, when you mix it, gather your red and your yellow, you're going to get orange. And when you mix together on your primaries or two, couple of mentor college, you're going to get neutrals. The complimentary color to orange is blue. So by adding in some blue, we're going to get a more neutral orange or a brown. Different ratios of the primaries will give you a more red and more golden, one more muted and tone down brown. And some of the Lidar, more golden brown can give you some really nice colors for the wooden stick. If we mix together blue and yellow, we're going to get green. And again, if we add in the complimentary cost to the complimentary color to green is red. We're going to get a more neutral color. And that means that within this column mix you're going to get some really nice tones that can be used for the vanilla ice cream portion. I'm going to say something that's going to sound not very helpful, but it is true when mixing these colors for this painting, you don't have to worry about getting the exact color you want or need. In other words, it's okay if you are looking to get a more red brown, but you end up with a more golden tone. I'm actually purposefully not worrying about mixing the exact cause I need for this class or this project, because we want to try and go through and cramming as many of the basic techniques as we can. And so one of those is going to be glazing, which means that we'll be able to make some slight adjustments to the colors. So instead, what you want to focus on is mixing up some paint that is going to give you the right values or close to the right values. So a light, medium and dark mix. Maybe don't go too crazy with the color choices. You still want some browns that makes sense and look decent. So as I'm mixing up these three main calls for the painting, I'm just going in with different ratios of these three costs or paints, creating some nice wet but not too watery mixes because there's no need to build up the color to gradually or the values when we know we're going to want this nice chocolate color. You can see that on my final swatches, although they are not too dissimilar, the second and the third color a definitely a lot more muted and time-bound than that first color. But that's completely okay. So we've got our column mixes and let's get painting. 14. Final Project: Building up Value: We're going to go straight in and start off this painting with a nice flat wash. I'm loading up my brush with my lightest color, starting at the top and moving my way down. And as I come down to what's the bottom, I'm allowing some of that pain to start pulling to get a darker shade. If you're not a fan of this technique, feel free to come in once the paint has dried and add another layer to allow me to go to that slightly darker value. You want to work quickly, but you also don't want to stress because that usually doesn't lead to anything good. So just make sure that there's enough water present in your pink mix to allow you to create this nice even layer. And then fill in the rest of those little bits of chocolate. Watercolors going to glide out once dry compared to when you first apply it. And so as the paint is drying, you'll be able to see that we do need to build up the value on that ice cream or the chocolate quite a bit more. So I'm going to be adding some more water to that second column x. And this is where you have to trust your own instincts and experience because as we progress with this painting, the ratio of water to pigment in the wells in our palettes are going to change. That's an inevitable factor. That's going to vary depending on how much time you spend on your painting and geolocation on your climates. But I want to be able to use this model on neutral comics and be able to apply it in a glaze that is going to determine the value without darkening it too much. If, like my comics is, your first column mix is a bit more golden or vibrant and bright. You can also apply that and adjust the value followed up by a layer of blue, just a thin layer or wash, just enough to make that slight color adjustments. And wildlife wash is still wet. I'm going to go in with my third comics and just thought building up the shadows near the right side and the bottom. Depending on how much water you have in your mix, those may or may not make too much of a difference. But we can then go in with more layers and really build up that shading or shadow in a more controlled or targeted way. And then blend out those edges. So the light source is coming from the top and left portion of the picture. So over here on the left side, I'm just going to be using my brush to lift off some of the pigment just to lighten this area at tiny bit. We can then go in with those more targeted layers and start working on that shading. And from here it's really just a matter of going back and forth, looking at your reference and seeing where you need to deepen the values, where you need to make some more adjustments in the car or at some more shading to get this popsicle to a point where you're happy with the result. It doesn't have to look exactly like the reference at all. It's completely up to your own personal interpretation. The goal for this painting all project is just to practice these different basic techniques. So in this instance, mostly placing or layering, water control and blending. And further along in the process, we are going to get a chance to really practice control when it comes to painting details while still keeping it very relaxed. Not a lot can go wrong when painting food because food, as I've mentioned previously, really doesn't have to be perfect. And most quote unquote, mistakes are just going to add some more interest to your painting. I'm going to clone or the wash to slightly turned down the cost them more and make it a bit more neutral on doll. It's also going to ever so slightly deeper in the value. And more importantly, it's going to give us a nice wet phase so we can work with. When adding some more shading, some of these super soft transitions and just a lot easier to get down in a wet and wet layer like this rather than having to apply multiple wet and dry layers. Although as with anything, it's completely up to you. Feel free to use whichever technique you want. All the one that makes you feel the most comfortable when painting. We want the painting process to be fun and enjoyable. And so even though I encourage you to try out multiple techniques to really practice them and hone your skills. This class. And everything I'm saying is just the guideline. You make up the rules. And we don't want to forget about these other bits of chocolate. If you're like me, happened to end up with some pain, worried, don't want it to us. Well, can practice lifting. Let's just pretend I did this on purpose, right? Next, let's get some color on the stick. I mixed up orange and add some blue to get a slightly more neutral shade, but still pretty orange, applied a thin wash. And then at different stages, ask the paint was drying. I added in some shading or detail. The more wet the paper is when you apply the color, the more the pigment is going to spread out and less wet the paper is, the more detail you will be able to get in, but still maintaining those soft edges. And then for the shading where the stick meets the chocolate, I'm just going to be using my third color mix, which is my most neutral shade. All I'm going to do for this final bit of this lesson is just go over everything and deepen the values, especially on the edges of that broken chocolate and the client one final wash to further deepen the value, just a tiny bit on that main portion of our ice cream or chocolate. 15. Final Project: Details & Class Project: Even though we still want to adjust the values and the carpet, we also want to begin bringing in some of those details. So up here near the top, I'm starting out by doing some lifting because I want to bring out a few of those highlights where the light hits the surface of the small pieces of chocolate. And there's also a small highlight, the line that goes onto this main portion of chocolate. So we can bring out those details by just lifting some of the pigment. Next, we're going to really take a look at the color of our ice cream or popsicles. So I can see that I want the color to be a lot more red or less yellow. So I'm going to go in with a watered-down wash, which is mostly red with a tiny bit of blue. And I'm going to apply this, although it's not bound or knock back some of that yellow color. It's still not quite the color I want. So I'm going to go in with a watered-down wash of blue to further change the tone of that chocolate. Next up we can begin adding some detail to that vanilla ice cream. So I'm going to be mixing through shades. The first one being more of a bluish green, blue, and yellow. The second one is going to be similar, but I'm going to be adding some red to make it more of a dirty blue, green, all kind of grayish tone. And the third one is going to be more of a dirty or olive green. These adjusted cause I'm choosing to mix and use. You can use whichever color you want. White can be painted in any cost. So if you want to add some purple shading, make it more blue, or maybe even keep it within these browns, oranges and yellows. Feel free to do so. Again, you want to focus on the value rather than the color. Value in general, is so much more important than the color choices you make, as long as you have highlights and shadows and you have this and some different values, your brain honestly doesn't care all that much when it comes to what colitis. So for the ice cream portion, I started out by painting some of the more crisp details, taking inspiration from my reference, but not really worrying about making it accurate. I'm just trying to get bits of the shading in some of the same areas, leaving some very harsh edges and soften in others, is going to give the ice cream some really nice texture. And your eye is going to pick up on that variation. So just have fun and experiment. You really can't go wrong. Even though the calls I mixed up for this ice cream, we're kind of in the green zone within the color palette. Once you start mixing on them, on your painting, it becomes more of a gray tone or gray color scheme because you're mixing all three primaries. And I've talked about this in other classes, but one of the advantages of using a limited color palette like this is that you really can't go wrong on the college. You can mix from these three cars are going to go well together. You're not going to get any question of cost. If needed, you can make a final few adjustments and beaten value or define the final details on that chocolate. Then bringing your whitewater color on white gouache, mixing it with your watercolors, you can create a more opaque like chocolate color to add some highlights to those edges and make everything look nice and crisp. Time for some stippling, Let's add that frosted look to the chocolate. Be careful about overdoing it though. Too much is going to make your chocolate look pale and mute it. You just want to add a tiny bit to clot off and then work your way up. And if you add a bit too much, just weathered and dab it off using a tissue. And for some of those final highlights on the edges of those small pieces of chocolate, I'm mixing and using it very peel almost like a light flesh tone type color. That may seem a bit weird, but it's really just because I don't want that stock white contrast. Let's add some details to the stick. The column mixing here is really just a dirty yellow or orange car or a very golden brown. So you want to use mostly yellow, then add in some red and finally a tiny bit of blue. You should detailed brush or just careful use of point on your larger brush and make a bunch of tiny lines to soften the look and make it look a bit more realistic. I'm using my wet brush and gently scrubbing on it and then using my tissue to lift off some of that excess pigment. If you want, you can definitely leave it like it is without any background. I think it looks great with that white background up against the chocolate color. But I want to have some fun and bring in another one of those techniques. So for this, I'm going to bring in the magenta color that we used for some of the exercises. And I'm going to apply this all of the background. I'm not worrying about making it look neat and I'm not worrying about getting a nice even layer. I'm just quickly getting some paint onto that surface. And while the paint is still wet, I'm going to go in and drop on some water. Because I think that blue all cauliflower effect is going to really nice together with the ice cream theme. And to me it almost looks like a frost or ice crystal type effect. Again, if you want to leave it like this, feel free to do so. I'm gonna go in with one tiny detail and that is some metallic watercolor. This is another one of those effects that I love, but I don't really get to use it all that often. So just for some added interests, I'm going to be applying my popsicle or ice cream using some gold metallic watercolors. And that's it. Your project for this class is of course, to paint this popsicle or ice cream or a different subject of your choice. The goal is to really just practice and include as many of these basic techniques as you can to try to use glycine or layering, blending, maybe some lifting, soft effects and crisp detail to really show water control and brush control. If you want, you can include some of the texture so effects so that blooms, splatters, stippling or maybe even the salt. Just a fun and work on mastering those basics.