Watercolor Peonies with Oval Wash Brushes

1. Discussing Supplies: Okay, let's go ahead and take a look at the supplies with which we are gonna be working today. Nothing too new other than the brushes obviously at the focus of our class. I will start with the paper. I'm gonna be using Canson £140 cold press. This is the 11 by 15 watercolor pad. We're gonna be using the smooth side of this paper. So if you don't know already, watercolor paper has two sides. I've mentioned this several times in our classes. So if you've taken a class with me, you probably already know that there's a more textured size like this one, and then there is a less textured side like this one, a little smoother, similar to hot press. So we're going to use the more hot press side. We may flip the paper over, but we're going to start here for now and I'll let you know when we switch over. We're gonna be using a variety of paints. I've listed all of the suitable paints in my supplies. So so long as you have a brand that is artist grade, you're gonna be fine. I'm gonna be using a Daniel Smith, my merry blew. And if you have, like I said, Winsor and Newton or Van Gogh, Sennelier, all of those are fantastic brands. If you have any questions whether or not your paint is suitable, just go ahead and drop me a message and I'll let you know. We're going to use rows of ultramarine, yellow ocher. Step, yeah, green, gold. We may pop in another green here we'll see. And then a little bit of violet. We're going to have a cup of water, a palette for mixing, maybe two, maybe clear way, a couple of different spots for mixing paint. We're gonna be having a lot of different consistencies as we're building these peonies. So I want you to make sure you have room and you're accommodated and don't have to stop as we're doing things. To clean off your palate. Our brushes, which if you are not already familiar with, this is the Princeton Neptune. Three-fourths of a wash. This one is gonna be the big boy of the brushes is an amazing brushes. A ton of water or paint is so great for providing versatility of strokes, as you will see, it has this giant belly and then it has a very fine tip. And so we're gonna be able to do a lot with this. Then its little brother. This is the half wash, this is the half oval wash and this is the Princeton Aqua Elite. Same deal. A nice big belly and then a very fine point is just slightly smaller. As you can see, typically, I use the smaller one a little more often this one I use if I'm painting really big. So we're not painting really big today, but I'm still going to show you how you could use it. If painting big is something that you would like to learn how to do, this would be a great brush to do that with. Then I would also love for you to either have like a laptop or an iPad, something that you can bring up some pictures of inspiration. We're going to be pulling from a couple of different peony images that I found on the web just to kind of get an idea of shape and structure and just the formation of the petals. So spend a little time if you haven't already and grab a couple of images that speak to you in a variety of shapes. So I'd love for you to have a closed peony, for you to have an open one full bloom. Some on their side, some painting down, just a variety, save it on your Pinterest board, or just take a screenshot of it. I'll be sharing the ones obviously that I'm working with as we move along. But it's just nice for you to also have some images that you really love. So that later on you can head back and then paint the peonies that you were really drawn to. The Other than that, we are ready to go if paper towel, obviously for just blotting off your watercolors, but that's it. So we're going to launch into the next portion of our class now. 2. Paint Consistencies: So before we head too deep into familiarizing ourselves with the brushes we're gonna be using. I want to go over consistencies. As I mentioned in the class info section, this is an intermediate class only because we're using brushes that aren't your typical shape. The principles, however, are going to be beginning based. However, we are going to cover intermediate techniques. So if that makes sense, It's going to be like a immersion blend, hybrid of beginner concepts with intermediate technique. And that way we can just all jump on board wherever we're at in our watercolor journey and not feel like it's either too far out of our depth or not challenging enough. So before we had, like I said, into the next part of our less than I would really like to just review consistencies with you so that we're all on the same page. So we're gonna be using three consistencies. If you're familiar with my book which just launched last month, you probably already know all about the consistencies that I use. Three main ones. Horseradish wishes a 90% paint, 10% water, a cough syrup, which is 70% paint, 30% water, and then broth, which is 505050, 50% percent water. Those are the three consistencies is the way I've labeled them out to kinda help familiarize ourselves with what they're supposed to look like and how to use them. So go ahead and pick up your half path, half wash brush. We're going to dip into the violet and I would like us to really roller brush around in the paint. If it's dry, then it may need a little bit of working. If you've just squeeze it out of the tube, it's probably still very sticky and unctuous. Won't need quite as much work. So just kind of take that look at your paint and see what it is that you're working with. Mine is kinda slightly dried, so I'm going to just block my brush off here on the paper towel and then I'm gonna rule the tip of it back-and-forth and it's very sticky. It's like goo right now. I'm just going to roll the tape around, blot off a little bit on the palette, and then I'm going to drag it. This is a horse radish consistency. Basically is paste it, paste consistency of that feels a little bit better to you. You're going to see a lot of dry stroke, dry brush in this consistency. And I, we use this for sometimes to just provide a little complexity, a little interests into the middle of our peony. I love this consistency because it's very similar to gouache, which is a newer love of mine and something I'm enjoying using watercolor can actually be quite versatile and flexible if you know how to use it the right way to, or at least the right way for this technique. So that's going to be your horse radish consistency. Let's just paste. So to achieve what I would call a cough syrup consistency, which is something like I said, akin to like NyQuil. You're going to take your brush, which already has lots of paint on it. And you're going to mix it in your palette. Pulling a little bit more paint, pulling a little bit more water, and pulling a little bit more paint until it is at a pretty high value. Color value is something that we study in our beginner, beginner classes. So if you need a refresher on that, please head back to the cone flowers or the tulips. And you can learn all about that. This is right about at what I would call cough syrup. This is going to look like this. Let's just do a couple of strokes just so we can kind of see what it's gonna look like. Coffee easily. You can see we're losing a little bit of the paint as we move along, but this is a cough syrup. Okay. Pulling it out even further, dipping into our water, starting a new pile, blotting off a little bit. Pulling a new water, we're going to dilute it, decreased the color value until we have something that can tip broth. Rolling the brush around to get a nice even stroke. We have our three consistencies, paste, horseradish, cough syrup, and breath. So just a quick little refresher on that. I wanted you to be able to kind of get a feel for that. The other thing I would like you to do is to keep in mind. 3. Brush Fundementals 1: Okay, In this segment, we are going to basically figure out what our brushes are capable of. We are going to take them for a test drive. If you've never used these brushes before, then you are not going to know basically what it is that they can do and how they will serve you when painting. We're going to do that with both brushes. We're going to start with our big brush this time. So our 3 fourth wash, and I would like you to mix this around in your broth consistency so you should still have some on your palate. Now listen, this brush, like I said, is going to hold a ton of paint and water. You can already see it's soaked up everything that's on my palette. And it's still asking for more. It is parched when it looks like that. So I'm going to dip into the water. I'm going to pull in more paint from my cough syrup, mix that up and it's eaten up everything that was on my palate. It is a thirsty brush. Keep that in mind. If you don't load up your brush properly enough, you're going to get dry strokes, which isn't bad if that's what you're aiming for. But you want to be able to control what sort of stroke that you are cheating. I've ruled the brush. The brush holds the bristles around quite thoroughly. They are ready to meet the paper. We're gonna go ahead and start with very thin strokes. We want to see how fine we can make these lines. So let's do a little bit of stroke implementation right here next to our consistencies. You're going to want to come right on top of the brush to maximize the tip. You're gonna do light pressure and you're going to press down for a downward stroke. Try and get those lines as thin as possible. We want to see what this brush is capable of. To do a nice line, get a feel for what that balances between you, the brush and the paper. I always told my students It's a dance. It's a very delicate balance between your head, your hand, brush on the paper. It's all working together to create the strokes and the artwork. Get a feel for what that feels like. As you make these strokes feel wet comes back to you as you press the bristles into the paper. And even if you miss a stroke or two, That's good because you're learning what is the distance between the bristles and the paper to achieve that fine line, you're gonna do the same thing. I want you to press down just a little bit firmer this time to increase the size of the stroke. We're going to come on this side. You could also come down this way if you like. But with this brush, I typically use it on its side more than I do or excuse me, Flat than I do on its side. Suggest increasing the stroke size. Getting a feel for the bristles and the paper. And then we're gonna do that one more time. Really finding out, Okay, what can this brush do? How big can I get my strokes? Let's go ahead and do that one more time. You want to make sure you're getting quite a bit of size difference between strokes. There's no need to just have a tiny bit of difference. You want to see something significant happening between these strokes. Let's do that one more time. And we'll get the very last and widest stroke. Pressing down as firm as possible, tip all the way until your belly is nice and flat. Slow that stroke down to the, can really feel the weight of the brush against the paper. There you have it. This is what you can achieve with a single brush. This is why I was so excited to teach you guys about these brushes and how to use them, because there is so much you can do with a brush like this because it has that really nice point and that nice big belly. You can make strokes that are quite fine. Moving into medium, into very large. And you'll see as we start to practice the strokes of the peonies, how this works in your favor. Let's go ahead and do the same thing with our half wash. It may seem a little redundant to those of you who have prior watercolor experience. Or if you've already used this brush, you're more than welcome to skip on to the next segment. I want to cover everything so that we're both on, not both. All of us are on the same page. Okay, so let's flip my paper around. We don't need to be running our poem into wet paint. And we're gonna do the same thing starting here at the top, coming on top of the brush. For some very fine strokes, these are going to be slightly finer than the strokes that you used or the strokes that you achieved using the 3 fourth oval wash just because it's a smaller brush. Flip my brush around. Seeing if I can get any thinner. Really figuring out the distance between me and the paper and that balance. We're going to do the same thing. Get a little bit more paint on your brush and press down slightly firmer. I'm going to say instead of a 10%, Let's press down 30%. Again, I'm flat on the brush, not on the side. You can try aside stroke which would be about the same size. Let's go ahead and do a couple of those. You get the point at a different part. So that's something that you can explore later on as you are discovering how to use this brush and pedal shape, turning it either flat or sideways. It's going to slightly vary how the petals turn out with their shape. So again, coming back flat, you have more of a rounded finish here. Okay, Let's go ahead, write about 50%. Nice size difference. We can see a significant increase in that stroke. Let's go ahead and do it one more time. Let's try and go for 70%, but we may not see a huge difference between this one and the final. Yeah, we're right about the same. Increasing pressure a little bit. Not full belly yet. These ones were a little similar. These ones we got a little bit, do a little bit of a bigger stroke and now let's go full belly vessel. Keep wanting to say brush and bristles at the same time. Bristles flat on the paper. Make a nice long stroke. So you're feeling that balance between the breasts and the paper. Okay, So there you have it that is just the basic strokes as you're getting familiar with your brush, I wanted to have a page filled up with all of that. Put this off to the side so that you have it. We are going to continue with stroke formation, but now we're going to get into actual P and E strokes, not just the strokes that we can achieve with the brushes. So let's head into the next segment where we explore this a little bit more in depth. 4. Brush Fundementals 2b: Alright, so let's talk here for a moment about gestural technique. Again, it's something I feel like I need to reiterate for those of you who may just be joining me for a class now or have not taken any of my additional classes where we focus on gestural techniques. So in the loose watercolor spectrum, there is loose, so much as to be abstract. Just wide strokes to intimate that there is some floral representation. Then you can find things about loose art that are a lot more structured and fall not necessarily into the botanical category, but artwork that just feels a little bit more pull together a little tighter in that loose artwork spectrum with gestural art, we're somewhere in the middle. We're not super structured, where we are creating a flower that looks very much like a flower. Something like this, where it's very clear that there's 12345 petals and then there's something in the middle happening. This is still considered loose art. However, it's more structured with something like gestural. We would take a shape like this. And we would do something more like this with it. Just be a little bit more carefree with our strokes. Not singling out any part of the flower in particular, but more looking at the art or the subject as a whole. So with that in mind, we create petals that feel as though they rely on each other and they're balanced. But we're not so over-focused on capturing every single detail and being able to recreate exactly what we see in nature. With something like this, we would have a middle that's maybe just a little less refined, a little bit looser. So you can see that there is quite a bit of difference between these two, these two stylistic approach it approaches. So that's what we're going to keep in mind as we paint these peonies that we're in that middle bracket of loose art, we're going to form them. But we're also going to be gesture with them, intimating the structure and the composition without feeling as though we are so tied to the details that we have to capture every little thing. So I have broken down these strokes to make it a little bit more. Just a little easier to follow something that feels manageable. As you get further into your experience with these brushes, you're really going to feel like you can take liberties. And I already know that's going to happen and that's going to feel so liberating to you to be able to just move your brush around and get all of these really unique strokes. But to begin with, we have some just some foundations to just kinda help build the structure. And then you can again build upon that. 5. Closed Outside In: You'll see I've pulled up an image from a fig and bloom. This is an example of a closed peony. We're going to paint both of these and see how they would cluster together. We're going to start with this very light peony. And then right behind it, we're going to do this additional closed peony kind of on its side here. So what I wanted to do with this class was really explore different angles and positions. Is that was something that was highly requested when we petitioned for student feedback. So I want to make sure we addressed that and we cover that. And you feel as though you're able to move forward with a lot of different a lot of different education as far as how to use it and how it's going to serve you personally. For this very light peony, I want you to take your half wash and I want you to mix it into your paint where it's going to still use the violet here. But we're also going to pick up a little bit of the sepia to just mute it a little bit. So we have a nice muted pink here. And we're gonna be using this in broth consistency. As you can see, it's a very light peony, kinda covers two basis is we're using the broad consistency, which is just very light. Then we're also focusing on what it's going to feel like to paint with this brush with a closed peony. I'm diluting that down, adding a little bit more sepia here until I have a nice broth. And with this, we are going to work from the outside. And there's two different ways. Actually, there's more than two. But typically when I paint, I either work from the inside out or the outside in. I want to show you both that way you can feel like that way you can get to experience both and then know which one works better for you in your approach. So we're gonna start with outside in first. Go ahead and take your brush. And we're going to begin with those petals that we adjust practiced a moment ago with a few outer formational pedals. Swishing the brush around, creating what is going to be the outside of that peony. Coming up on the side here to kinda close it off a little bit. We're using the side of that brush to come up here now. Using the toe of the brush to rough it up a little bit. We're going to have some thinner strokes over here. So some of those wiggles. And then again here, some thinner strokes. There we have based the basic formation of our peony. It's close. We have all of these petals that are folding over and inward and we're just going to continue that on now using a series of wiggles and flicks. So all of these puddles you're gonna see are gonna be a lot smaller than what we were working with on the outer side. We'll do a few more here. As we see them in our picture here. Creating a little bit more depth and interests. Using the toe of the brush to create the inner workings of our peony. And here we have a lot of ruffles. Using the toe of the brush to flick it around. And now we're looking at this again with a bird's eye view. We're not painting it exactly the way we see it. We're looking at what we, what our inspiration is, and then we're feeling our way towards something that feels like a peony, but that isn't so obvious and its representation. Taking the toe of the brush, what we could do now is dip into our sepia to create a little bit of a darker shadow in some of these areas. Taking the toe of the brush and where you see a little bit of whitespace, which is so important in watercolor. We're now adding in a little bit of that darker sepia. Still in broth consistency is just leaning into our sepia now, creating some interests in between those puddles, letting the wet into wet happen, using the toe of our brush to move around. So looking at this, it still feels very formational to me. We're going to try it now with a looser mindset. I want you to do the same thing, but I want you to now just keep in mind, okay, basic structure and shape. Adding intentional strokes that feel represent story of what we're painting. But also as though we were looking at the peony with a bird's-eye. Okay, so let's start with the broth consistency, the pink and the sepia. Let's do that right here. We're going to move a little bit quicker this time. And the reason we're gonna do that is because when we slow down, we tend to overthink the strokes and we're not able to just open up our mind and allow for just the creation of the process. So move a little bit quicker as you make these strokes. Feel the ease of them. And allow yourself to really play. Still using the same approach as before, coming up and down, but I'm not being so slow and so deliberate. You can see here, we really thought about each thing that we were doing, trying to distance yourself a bit here. The idea is just to capture the sense of it. Scratching that brush against the paper, moving it and flicks and jabs and swishes. Taking a little bit of the sepia now and pulling in some shadows. We have something that you can see the difference here. We moved a little bit quicker. We didn't quite overthink everything. We have this closed shape here, can add a couple of different maneuvers here using the toe of the brush. If we wanted to just solidify the shape a little bit more, we could add another close pedal here to close off that shape if we like. We don't have to. Again, the idea is just to capture the essence of this peony, not feel as though we're attached to it. This to me feels a little bit more over thought, overworked, whereas this feels looser to me. We could even then if we wanted to pick up a little bit of that for Xeno violet to get a third consistency. So we're going to have cough syrup. Again, this is our very light peony. But just to show you what we could do if we wanted to plug in a little bit of that pink in here, going over where we had added that step. Yeah, we're taking the toe of the brush running and along that open whitespace. Not in every area, but being intentional about where we lay in that color towards the middle and a little bit on those outer petals. To me, this feels like the perfect balance between consistency of paint and gestural approach. You can see we have something different now. We could also do the same thing here. Now we're dry, but we can still add in a little bit of pink here. This is called a layering technique. This is where we wait until the paint is dry, and then we add darker layers. To achieve something a little bit stronger in value. Some people don't like it because it feels like it breaks those laws of watercolor where everything's just supposed to be loose and wet and running together. But it's a wonderful technique. If it's something that you feel drawn to, you're just taking the toe of your brush, adding in that cough syrup consistency to the areas of negative space and creating a little bit of interest here. Now we can really feel as though we're looking into this peony, whereas before it felt very one-dimensional. Now, we could easily alleviate that by using two consistencies here, which is what we'll do in this next peony. We're going to use both brushes. We're going to use cough syrup on our smaller brush. We're going to use broth on our bigger brush and we're going to see how these two consistencies work together. Let's go ahead. And keep in mind that we're going to be aiming for this peony here on the left over here. Excuse me. Okay, so go ahead and take a moment to load up your brushes. We're going to use the sepia and the Zeno violet in broth consistency. Then we're going to use our half wash in Brasilia violet at cough syrup consistency. And again, we're still working from the outside. N. Alright, my brushes are thoroughly loaded. It takes a moment. So really give yourself the space and time to do so. And then a lot of times what I'll ask my students to do is to move their paper to suit the angle, which it can be extremely helpful for people. I'm not gonna do that just so you can see how I would use my brush, where I not to move the paper. It gives you a better idea of the strokes and how the arm and the hands and the fingers should all be working together. But if you like, you can always move your paper so that it's more facing this direction, a vertical versus horizontal. And that gives you those the ease of the downward stroke. Most people feel more comfortable bringing that stroke down than they do pulling that stroke up. Okay, So again, we're going to try and avoid that really structured feel that we have with this peony. Not that it's not beautiful enough that I don't love it and think that it would work beautifully in a painting. But for this class, we're trying to really lay back, let our minds just open up and achieved something a little looser. Okay, so let's go ahead and we're going to cuddle this peony right here on this side. Let's start with this stroke. We're going to use the side of the brush. And then we're also going to be rotating our risks so that we get some flicking to achieve the pedaling that we see here happening along these outer petals. So here we go. We have our initial formational petal here. I'm going to open it up just a little bit more so that we have some room. Then I'm going to start building from the outside n using just brought consistency. Taking the brush, moving it in nice, generous swoops. Using the toe of the brush for some of those finer areas and bringing it down to connect it. 6. Closed Inside Out: Okay, so same thing, same principles apply. We're gonna be using both brushes, are gonna be using the same approach and technique. We're simply going to be moving from the inside out. So go ahead and load up your half wash brush with the darker, violet and cough syrup. And then you're going to load up your 3 fourth brush with that sepia. And personal violet. Having just a touch of that beautiful muted pink. We do have to be mindful that we're working wet into wet. So we want to be able to conjoin these strokes together. So we're going to lay down that darker pigment and then we're going to be intentional about the strokes we lay on top of it so that there is the same thing that happens over here. We're just doing it in reverse. So starting here, again, this is closed peony formation. So we want there to be a sense of these petals coming over and folding in towards the middle of the flower. Here we go creating our center with a series of flicks and jabs. And we're taking our brush now. 3 fourth wash and laying it on top. Being mindful that we want these strokes to point back towards the inside of the flower here. Try and move a little quicker than what might be comfortable. And move the toe of that brush around to achieve all the different angles. That Wildbelly stroke. And then coming up on the toe of the brush. We can now take our brush loaded with the cough syrup consistency and plug in some darker, darker strokes here. Some ruffling happening. And then continue onward. Using our 3 fourth wash. Pointing those pedals back towards the middle of our flower. Just swooping and cuddling until we have what feels like a formation folding inwards now with our peony in full bloom, which will move on to next, you're going to see how these petals really open up, get big and luscious and voluminous. You can now if you'd like, find a little bit of that negative space and plug in some of that. Cough syrup consistency. Let's go ahead and do the same thing working from the inside out. But let's do a tighter closed peony so something that feels almost completely closed. So for that, we're going to start with our cough syrup in our half wash. We're gonna make some small strokes here and create a center, leaving whitespace in the middle to act as that center, to draw the eye inward and intimate that, okay, this is where the sunlight would be entering. And then we're going to take our brush or 3 fourth oval wash. And we're going to move in the same direction as our center. So we're finding a bot here and here. And we're really grounding the shape of this peony, leaving it very loose, very open. We then later on do is add some leaves to give it some flow, some movement and shape. But this would be the general shape of that gestural closed peony and very simple stroke formation. It's just a few strokes being mindful of where you're placing them. If you wanted here, to intimate a peony that was opening up. So here we have our closed formation here. We would then take a brush and draw a line to intimate. Okay, this is where that pedal is folding back from the flower. And we would take our brush and be very generous with that pedal to intimate that, okay, something's happening here. We're starting to open up. We have the center of this peony and now it's beginning to open up. We could continue on. That it's opening up right here so we can see these are the petals that are cuddling. This is the center and this is where that pain is just starting to ripen. I wanted to make sure I showed you several different approaches and ways to do this because as you can see, there's no right way. And all of it achieves a lovely result. So I want you, the artists, the one who is making these decisions to be able to decide. Okay, I like this. I feel, I feel connected to the way that this looks. And I want you to use this knowledge to develop your style, your artistic voice. My job is just to simply give you the tools and the technique, and then you get to run with it and create something that feels very much like you and represents what you want, what story you want to tell with your artwork. So let's go ahead and do that one more time. We'll create a little bit more of a definitive center with this closed peony. Loading up my halfway wash. Same thing here, but we're going to add a few more markings. A little bit too much water. So I'm blotting off a bit, picking up a little more. Here we have our closed using the toe of the brush, leaving whitespace. But I'm just creating a little bit more interests now. Little bit more happening. Okay, so now we still want to achieve closed peony formation, but we have something a little bit more busier happening. Now. We take our brush, we're going to run it along its side to act as a pedal that is cuddling with our peony. We have a peony that's facing up and towards the left. We're going to cover angles a little bit more as we move through the material, but wanting to show you here as well as we're learning. Cuddling, cuddling. Moving those pedals back towards the center. You can again add in a little bit more of that cough syrup consistency. And if you like, you can dip into your rows of ultramarine, which we're going to be using in the next segment. But we can use a little here. At cough syrup consistency. This is more of a purple, pink. And plug it in here for even more interest and intrigue. You can see what happens here. As we move along, we use more consistencies and more colors. And immediately the flower just becomes riddled with interest and intrigue. So we'll explore that more as we move into full bloom peony. But I wanted to show you a bunch of different approaches to closed moving from the outside in and also the inside out. So hopefully one of those approaches resonated with you if you like them both fantastic. But now you have the knowledge and the tools to feel like you can move forward with this. 7. Full Bloom Outside In: Here to the left you can see that I have a beautiful image of some peonies and full bloom. There's still obviously that clustering towards the middle as P0 and peonies are prone to do. But the majority of the petals are reaching out towards the back. And we're really going to explore that shape and practice painting big. For those of you who have longed to do that, we're also going to be using two different colors. Now, we're going to be using multiple consistency. So we're getting into more of the intermediate, more challenging aspects of the brushes and the approach. And just really deepening your understanding of how it's all going to work together. So you can use the same image if you like, from white flower farm and paint along with me as I recreate these with the gestural mindset. Or you can pick a different full-blown peony that you like and just applying the same principles and technique. Okay, so go ahead and take your 3 fourth wash and you're going to mix up sepia and violet to broth consistency right about here. And then you're going to take your half wash and I want you to dip into the Roosevelt from marine, so that's your purple. And then I want you to add a little bit of sepia to that as well. To kind of tone it down, make it not quite as purpley. Just a bit more of a grape now, makes sure those two consistencies are ready for you so that you can easily reload your brush when necessary. Again, we're going to move from the outside in, and then we will move from the inside out. We're going to start with those most generous and luminous petals. Are those luminous means bright, but that is where the light is touching them. That's where they are the most bright. And we're going to be really playful here. I want you to lean into this brush, really allowing the capacity to enter into the shape and the composition. We're going to aim for doing this peony first right here on the left. So let's go ahead and use that as a guide. But again, we're shaping this peony. We're allowing it to become what we want it to be. If our puddles end up feeling as though they're facing a different direction, we will roll with that. We will allow whatever's going to happen on the page to happen and we're not going to try and control that and miss the opportunity to be a part of the creation process. Okay, so let's go ahead and start with these outer petals here. We're going to start with the side of the brush. We're going to come back up to allow for the toe of the brush to do some flicking. But we're really going to lean into those generous strokes, moving up and down, making sure it's staying mindful that we have a lot of work here to do in the centre. Moving down towards the left here. Coming up on the toe for some of those lighter or those thinner strokes here. Cuddling those petals back in towards the flower. Leaning into this brush to really allow these beautiful petals to take shape. Playing with the shape now, coming up behind it to create some ruffling behind the peony. And now we're going to start moving inward, angling our petals so that they're facing back towards the middle here. Working from the outside n really moving my brush and my wrist around to maximize the capabilities of this brush. Staying playful. Leading whitespace in between our petals. That is watercolor, one-on-one, always leaving white-space as our negative space that acts as the light. Okay, We're going to switch here to our half-life, and we're going to start plugging in a different color and a different consistency and see how this peony really starts to wake up using the brush, flicking it around and jabs, wiggles and flux. Coming back into the whitespace here. Adding in some areas where the petals, we imagine they are dark from the inside and then they are light on the outside. Again, using the toe of the brush here to really play with the shape. Take your time. Don't feel like you have to rush. The media should still be nice and wet. Really play with that color. Dabbing it in there, allowing it to spread into the petals here. Those two consistencies love each other, the broth and the cough syrup. They are a happy union. They're gonna make magic. You just have to take your time. Can even do a little bit back here if you like. You might run into some dry areas, but that's okay. You achieve more of that layering effect. So we don't have something that looks exactly like this, but we have something that's close. This is a full-blown, peony open face. We're looking pretty much directly at a slight angle here. We could, if we like to continue this peony by moving these petals downward, opening it up just a little bit more than taking our brush and cough syrup consistency. And let's watch that magic happen. Beautiful. Absolutely. Standing there, you have it that is outside in a beautiful peony in full bloom. We're going to do the same thing. I like breaking this up into segments so that you can really focus on what we're gonna do. And then the next segment come back with the mindset. Okay, We're working now from the inside out, so we'll cover that in the next portion. 8. Full Bloom Inside Out: Okay. Literally just seconds between these two segments for me, perhaps a little bit longer for you can see my paint is still drying. As we know with watercolor, whatever you lay down in paint's going to try two to three times lighter, which is why I went heavy, heavy here with our open faced full-blown peony. And that way when it dries, it still retains a lot of that vibrancy. Roosevelt's run Marina's a beautiful color. A Daniel Smith, a bit of a splurge, but definitely worth it. And so the primary blue, violet is also very vibrant and very lush two, okay, we're gonna do the same thing, working from the inside out. So mindful, Let's envision that this is our open space here. We want to keep that open. We can always add strokes, but we cannot necessarily take away strokes into Roosevelt's from marine, slightly tinted with sepia. And we're starting here at the center now. Creating a center that feels as though it's full bloom. But there's also some closed petals here happening. Alright, now we're gonna take our 3 fourth wash with the VR Zeno violet and set up yet and we're going to start laying in those lighter petals inside out, building our peony smaller strokes at first. And then we're really going to open up the peony here. Generous side strokes. Then we're going to pull this stroke down. Generous. Coming up on the toe of the brush. Again, moving in the angle, our petals are shaping up. So this peony took on this direction. So we're going to work with that, continuing to mold the shape. Bringing those petals back here. Remaining open face. Then we're going to head back in width are cough syrup consistency and plug in this consistency to our negative space. Let those bleeds happen. Increase the bleeds that had happened initially by just taking the toe of your brush and gently blotting, blotting, blotting the area of wet media. Can sit there for a good minute and just do that. And just watch the magic and be dazzled. We can now come in towards the middle if we like, and create some more flicks and jabs, or we can leave it open. It's completely up to you, the artist, you get to decide. But there you have the same concept of those beautiful petals. You're just working from the inside out. You can take your brush, run it along the outside to get a little more of the ruffling if that's what you like. Really lean into this brushes capabilities, moving it on its toes and full bodied. We're going to do a closed peony using this this, these colors and consistencies. We only did that once, so I wanna make sure that we cover that as well. And we're also going to play with the angle. Like I said, Angles were something that were really important to students. So I want to make sure we cover that in great depth. Let's go ahead and take the sepia and the version of violet. And we're gonna be looking down into this closed peony, creating a nice baseline, coming in with those smaller markings. And then switching to our half wash. For those finer markings. Very loose, very gestural. But you get the sense of what's happening. You can see how these different shapes would work together. We're rebuilding a bouquet where we attaching it altogether, which is what we will do. We're gonna do peonies in multiple angles and different consistencies and our final project. So you can see how this all works together. This nestled up against this and this moving in conjunction with these is going to all look really beautiful together and create a gorgeous bouquet. We haven't even added the centers yet. And we also haven't used the textured technique, which we're going to do next. So exciting things ahead and take a little water break if you need it, and then join me back for the next segment. 9. Full Bloom With Texture: I wanted to mention now that I flipped the paper over, I'm using the practice pages from earlier. I'm just trying to save paper here and do a little something for the environment. But also, I want to introduce you to what these approaches look like on both sides of the paper. So you have a feel for what it's gonna look like. Using a more textured side versus the smooth ER side. You're still going to get great bleeds. Either way. It's just gonna be 11 paper is going to feel, or one side is going to feel more of a hot press and the other side is going to feel like you're more traditional cold press. So I did want to mention that before we move forward. So a lot of times when people look at my work, my watercolor work, they noticed that there's quite a bit of texture and they ask, is it gouache, is it acrylics? And sometimes it is garage, but a lot of times it's just me, it using watercolor as that cough or excuse me, at the horse, radish consistency that paste. And so I wanted to answer that question by demonstration and show you how I achieve that textured look within a loose floral and just give you a sense of how it all comes together. So we're gonna take our half wash brush and we're going to lean into our rows of ultramarine using the toe of the brush to really pick up some chunks. Okay, So it should still be sticky if you've squeezed it out recently. If it's super dry, you'll need to wet it a little bit, get it to a point where it feels sticky almost almost as though the paint blob itself has tar. That's the consistency you need to achieve. The consistency that we need for painting, which is that horseradish. I'm just plotting the brush back and forth. And we're going to create a full-blown peony with texture. And we're going to start from the inside and work our way out. Let's go ahead and start right here at the middle, where you're going to do an open face peony using dry brush strokes. So we're just taking the brush, adding a tiny bit of water to achieve these dry strokes. It's a whole different concept here. Now if you pick up too much water, you're gonna get cough syrups. You gotta be mindful that it's nice and sticky to get that dry stroke. See, I'm verging into cough syrup, which is okay. We're eventually going to move there. But I want to make sure I have this dry stroke. So there we go. We have a little bit of texture here you can see the paper coming through on that stroke. And then what we can do is lean into cough syrup to create those petals touching the center. And then we're taking our second brush here into that sepia. And for Xeno violet. And we're going to start building the Peony using two different colors and three different consistencies. So a little bit more challenging here. Building that peony. Taking the toe of the brush to come up, create some finer aspects. Really giving it some nice shape. Nice open face peony. We can continue building it if we like, adding another stroke here, up and down, wiggle using the toe of the brush to flick back. You might see your peony start to take on an elongated shape. What we do for that is we balance it out with more petals, creating some back petals here. And then we can once more take cough syrup consistency and plug in some areas where there is wet into wet happening. And you get the dimension. Continuing to build out that peony. Nice and generous here. With these strokes. You have a peony that is very much in full bloom. A lot of different things happening here. Trying not to capture every little stroke in the peony, just enough to feel as though it highlights the most beautiful and important parts that's gestural is very intentional. We're taking what we feel most drawn to, what feels most significant about the flower. And then we're tying that together with our creation. Okay, I'm just cleaning off my brush a little bit off to the side. Going to prepare the color again, adding a little bit of sepia to it so that it's ready for me. And then we can once more, if we like, head into the areas where they bleeds are happening and darken things up if we like. So we have a really beautiful centered texture here that kinda acts as the framework and the groundwork for the peony. If you like that, look at something that can be continued and expanded upon. We can take our brush. And let's do another peony. Let's do a peony that's facing down this way now. Using the dry brush, coming around, creating that center flicks and jabs. Really leaving it open for interpretation. Staying mindful that we want this center here. And then we're gonna take our 3 fourth oval wash with the sepia and Bernardino, violet and breath. And we're going to start building that peony. So we can see that peony is clustering up against the original peony and we can head back in with our brush and darken up some of those areas into that wet, into wet for a nice rich dark center. You can see here adding a little bit more sepia to that Roosevelt or marine really darken things up. We can, if we like, blot a little bit of that off, pick up more of the ultramarine and create a bridged color gap here so that it's not so stark between these two colors. There's a little bit more of a gradual fade of color moving from that horseradish to the cough syrup to the broth. And you can do that either way. You can use it. You can do that using outside in approach or inside out. Then you can take your 3 fourth brush, rough up those outside petals a little bit just to create some gestural movement here. And really maximize what's going on with this peony. That's the textured approach. It basically means we're leaning in to that 9010 ratio. That cough syrup consistent or excuse me, that horseradish consistency for the center and then moving into cough syrup and brought. So it's more of a a progressional peony than it is with the two consistencies. Okay. That's that we're going to move into the next segment where we're adding a center. 10. Studying Peonies Angles: I know there is a lot of repeating of things in my classes and I want to thank you so much for your patience and your understanding. I do that to reiterate the material, but also because it is a priority of me and my team to listen to you when you provide feedback or constructive criticism. We want each class to be an improvement upon the last. And so when we sit down and brainstorm these classes and what it is that we're going to do sometimes it's very easy, it's very obvious what it is that we're gonna do. But other times we really need to flush out what's that gonna look like for the beginner and the intermediate, there's a lot of moving parts. We try and make classes that are going to both appeal and appease watercolors of different skill sets. And so with that, there was a lot of ask, a lot of requesting of different angles of flowers. That seems to be something that many of you struggle with. So if that isn't something that you struggle with and you feel as though you are just ready to launch into the next segment, please go ahead and feel free to do that. If not, if you feel as though this will be beneficial to you, stick with us and work with us as we show you peonies in multiple different angles aiming for a positioning of flour. A lot of times when I'm painting, I really like to leave it open. I start with a center, either working inside out or outside in. And whatever happens happens. But sometimes I'm making a bouquet and I need it all to work together. And so things need to be facing the right direction. So we're gonna do that. Now. It's going to basically be a practice for our final composition, which is going to involve everything we've done. We're going to use all of the colors, including the green that we have not even used yet for leaves, the yellow ocher, the Sophia, the purple, different bleeding and different strokes to create a beautiful Peony composition that is rich with versatility. For this, this will be a practice of that. We're gonna be using both of our brushes again, and we're going to be focusing on upward, downward, inside, sideways angles. We've already practiced open face plenty and closed plenty. So we're going to focus on these two positions. Okay, So let's go ahead and if you haven't already, make sure you have a good amount of diverse enough violet and the sepia mixed up. Then I would like you to also have that Roosevelt from marine and step yeah, in cough syrup consistency. Keeping it with outside information. Let's go ahead and let's attempt to create a peony that is facing in this direction. So we want all of our petals to be facing the upper-left. To do that, we start with a center that is aiming in the direction that we want to go. We don't necessarily have to start with the center of the flower, but we need to be mindful that we're leaving room for the center so that when we get there, we're facing in the same direction. If it helps to even lay down a pencil mark, just a very light pencil mark here, or even just lay your brush here as you're moving around, you can work around your, your brush and you can see the shape, and you're mindful that okay, I'm always working in this direction here. This is a good way to reinforce angles, intentional angles where we're really trying to utilize the brush to get the correct direction in positioning of the flower. Okay, let's start with some back petals, creating a line and then being very generous here with a back pedal. Let's do the same thing, but we're now going to cluster up and to the left. Always aiming in this direction. We're gonna do the same thing, aiming up, but we're on the right hand side now. Still working in broth consistency here. Now we're going to do a pedal that is closed, making two markings, roughing it up a little bit so that we can showcase. This is the back pedal here. This is where that pedal is coming up and over the peony. And then we're closing off this area to show that the petal that's happening here is very light. We're going to create one more petal here on his side, using the toe of the brush, leaving Rick negative space so that we can enter in here with our cough syrup consistency. While the media is still wet. Let's take our brush again. That 3 fourth wash and continue making strokes that aim in this direction. These ones are gonna be facing back towards the center of the flower. Working our way towards the center, creating some very light gestural markings here on the outside. Just to show that there's some delicate things happening. But always staying mindful. This is the direction we're moving in. Hopefully that feels like it's broken down and simplified for you. I know angles can be really tough when considering a floral and it just feels like you have no control over what's happening. And I honestly like I said, when I paint, I try not to. I feel like I have better results when I let go. But there are times when you need to be able to know what to do. Working back towards the middle, I'm using the cough syrup consistency. And I'm just finding pockets of negative space to add in the cough syrup consistency and create that beautiful fading of colors. So there you go. That is a sideways kinda open face peony on its side. We're going to do a downward facing Pete peony now. So we're basically going to cuddle it up against this one, how they would lay next to each other if we add one facing this way and one facing this way. So this is all we're doing here, taking the brush and now we're moving this direction. I'm not going to move my paper around so that you can see how I move around the paper. But if I were to move it to get the best angle, I would flip it around just like this. And I would work this way. Because now I'm doing downward strokes. These are so much easier. And I'm pulling this way. And this just creates a sense of ease between me and the paper. I'm not having to do one of these things. If that feels better to you. You're more than welcome to move your paper around. Pam, loading up the three-fourths oval wash. Let's start again with the back peonies or excuse me, the back petals laying in those big, heavy thick strokes guiding this peony in this direction. Closing it off just a tiny bit. Using the toe of the brush to create some finer areas, some delicate parts of that Paeony. And then moving, pulling the brush this way to create that pedal. That's going to act as the pedal that closes that peony off. This is where it's folding over. These are our back petals. These are the peonies that are facing the other direction. This is how we get that sideways angle moving in this direction. Taking the brush, being very playful with it, very gestural, guiding those petals in the right direction. Taking my half wash into my Roosevelt or marine and set up yet in cough syrup consistency and plugging in that color. Really wet media here. So the colors are just very eager to explore the wet media. You can wait until things are a little drier, so there's more of a slow fade. But this is fun too. You can start to plug in a little bit of the darker area. You can, even if you like, pick up your round brush into your yellow ocher, Cynthia and plug in a center here. Just flicking the brush around very playful with it using the toe. And you have a peony now that is clearly leaning on its side. You can close it off if you like, but you don't have to. You can use the toe of the brush to create some really beautiful, delicate areas. That is simply just using the toe, like I said, to come up and create some shape here. So there you have it. You have a peony that's facing clearly in this direction. And you have a peony that's facing clearly it sideways and down. Let's go ahead and face one up. We're gonna do the same thing. Plugging in a little bit of my version of violet and my Sophia has kinda all running together now. I do not mind it. It all works beautifully for this peony we're facing upward. So we're going to have a nice puddle that's closing off the center of our PAD. So we start with a generous stroke. And a generous stroke. We use the toe of the brush to really rough up the edge. Here. We come around the side. And then we create some very delicate back pedaling. Running out of space here a little bit because these peonies are so gigantic and amazing. We're just taking the toe of the brush. Heading back towards the center. Always mindful of where we're heading, which direction. Some petals are coming this way, some are coming out this way. It's all ruffling together. But we clearly have the structure here. To make that a little bit more concrete, we can take our yellow ocher and Sophia and plug in that center. Let those two colors run together so that it's clearly definable. What's happening here? The center most pedals happening right here. We can also take our half wash brush, moving it all together. Finding the negative space, that white area and plugging in the color here, dropping in a little bit of color here and there. As you'll see when we move into our final piece, we won't run out of room here. But you'll see how we can continue this up. And it would continue on here. You wouldn't add too many more petals up here because then you're going to lose that sense of it facing upwards. So there you have multiple angles. You have to the left, to the side and the right, and you have facing up. So hopefully that gives you a good strong sense of shape and positioning. We are going to launch into peony buds and adding green leaves to our project. 11. Open Face Adding the Center: So as lovely as I believe our peonies are with just the three colors, or excuse me, the two colors with three consistencies. Even more, interests can be added when we decide to latch onto the center of the peony. So you'll see in a lot of cases the ***** is closed up so you can't see what's happening in the middle. Also depends on the variety of peony. Lot of times, the way that everything grows, you just can't see what's happening everywhere. It's just the nature of it. But in some cases like the one shown here, you can see that there's some beautiful rich stemming stamen centering happening. And that's something that I wanted to make sure we addressed so that you can implement it in your peony work if you like it. I'd use both. There's times where I just struck by just focus on just the colors and the bleeding and the wet into wet and just allow this to speak volumes. And then there's times where I really liked to play with that third color and add a lot of interests. So we're going to cheat here. I know we said we were just going to use our oval wash brushes, but to keep the consistency and the color loaded on our brushes, we're going to use a third brush. I'm going to use an Aqua Elite eight round brush. If you have a six or a ten, that'll work too. This is just a good medium size. And we're going to use this for that gestural center here where we're showing okay, something is happening here in the center of the flower that is different from the petals. We're going to paint a peony right down here. And we're going to move, we're going to structure it the same way, this one. So we're going to have some beautiful back petals here. And then we're going to shape our peony facing in this direction. We'll modify that a little bit. But for the most part, That's the shape that will be aiming towards. Okay, so you're gonna go ahead and take your brush, your round and I want you to dip into that yellow ocher. Go ahead and start a little pile out a little bit of sepia to it so that it becomes just a little bit richer, more of an earthy yellow mustard. I want you to get that to cough syrup consistency, a little bit of water. If you need to. Then go ahead and just lay that brush off to the side. Because we need to, if you haven't already, makes up more paint for our big brush. So that's diverse enough, violet. And that's sent via want plenty of it in there so that I can get those big, generous puddles without having to stop and mix. Adding more water. It's okay if it's running together a little bit. We're going to work from the outside in, I want to go back and forth so that you're not feeling as though we are favoring one style over the other, but that both work and those are great ways to approach the peony. I'm going to start with these beautiful back petals here, so that I can begin to shape the peony a little darker than I necessarily wanted, but it's also going to dry quite a bit lighter. And we're going to fan out here creating this side of the peony. Scoot over a little bit. Challenge to get it all in the frame and also avoid this little ring of light that pops up. Don't have great light at this hour of the day. We have a little helper here in the light department, but it also creates the ring on the iPads, so we'll work with that. Okay, So let's create these beautiful back petals. We're going to bring this stroke in and then pull it back out. We're gonna do the same thing, drawing those generous, generous pedals. Nice big peony. So there we have the framework for that peony. Come out a little bit more just to create some distinction between this pedal lifting up and this one lifting out this way. Alright, we're gonna do a little bit more of that, creating petals that are moving in this direction. This is the positioning that we're aiming for with this flower. Wiggles, medium wiggles, and pulling down strokes here. We're going to come out on the outside now to really build the structure. Staying loose and open. Don't close it off too much so that you lose. The beautiful ruffling happening. A lot of people that mistake they make is to close off that peanut because they're so over-focused on the ruffling and the layers that are happening here. But we have to be intentional with the layers in this technique so that we're not overburdening the flower. Using the toe of the brush and the side, interchangeably, closing it, but also leaving it open, heading towards the middle of that flower. Now, we have the base shape. We're going to pick up our oval wash and we're gonna do cough syrup that Roosevelt for marine and sepia. And we're going to plug in a little wet into wet here. While everything is still nice and wet. Finding those areas of negative space to really draw from. You can see here we have a lot of beautiful color. We could use version of violet with sepia to do that, create more of that pink. We are leaning towards more of a purple peony here. You can modify if you like, using the version of violet and the sepia to create the same effect. It just won't have as much purple in it. Which might be something that suits you more. Really playing with the shape and consistency here. Laying in to this petal. It's still nice and wet. I want to utilize that to create some depth here. Can even bring it up a little bit. This puddle still nice and wet over here. So I'm going to take advantage of that and play in some more color here, just taking the toe of the brush. Here's where we add the center of our peony. Let's pick up our round brush. And let's create a series of flicks and jabs in the middle of the peony. Nothing too structured here. We're just running the brush very lightly, light pressure to create a center here. Don't have to fill in every little spot. It's completely up to you how much of the peony you fill in. But as you can see, it already starts to add a lot of beautiful texture. And that merge of the purple into the yellow, which is just so beautiful. I'm going to use my half wash just to create a little bit more of a union here between these petals in the center so that they are acting together. We can lean into the separate a little bit if we like, create a little bit of a darker area in here, don't have to, It's just an option, but as you see, as you add more colors, there is just more interest to this peony. You have something that's a little simple, little more loose. And then you have something as you add more colors in more details, it gets a bit more structured. There you have it. A beautiful open face, full bloom peony working from outside in adding that the third color, that yellow ocher and also the addition of the sepia. You have it facing at an angle. So you have these beautiful back petals which are really heavy on the left. And then you have these lighter petals on the right to create that balance of peony to show that it's leaning on its side. So hopefully that gives you a really good sense of open face, full bloom peonies. We're going to take a moment to just play with a bunch of different angles at once. You can kinda see when, what does it look like when we're trying to achieve a certain angle and not necessarily just rolling with it and seeing what happens on the paper. So we'll do that just in a moment. 12. Buds and Leaves: Okay, So I want you to have a little bit of space as you're working. So I'm have this room here where we're going to create a peony buds. It's gonna be a very simple structure, but I just want you to have room to create a stem and to add some beautiful green leaves happening around the bud. And so just make sure if you don't already, to clear away a little space for that. Also going to want to make sure you have your green gold loaded on your palette and ready to go. Go ahead and with your half wash brush. Dip into that green gold. This is a color we haven't used, which is why I chose it. Because I like to try and pick a new color or something we haven't explored yet. And we're going to add a little bit of sepia to it just to make it a little bit more rich. With our peony beds. The less is more certainly applies here. We're going to use two consistencies, but we're going to be very intentional about the way that we paint these so as not to overfocus on the structure of them, losing that, that whimsical when suddenness of the peony bud. So go ahead into your sepia and your version of violet. Create a broth consistency. And we're going to do a nice generous stroke here, a thinner one on its side. And then we're going to close off that peony with another stroke up top. I like to use that three stroke technique when I'm, when I'm doing, but it's now not always, sometimes I do something different. But in general, that's the structure that kinda gets me through. Then I might take the toe of the brush and create a little bit of interest on that side. Then the idea is to let that rest for a moment because what we wanna do is to pick up a little bit more for Xeno, violet and cough syrup and plug it into the edges. We're gonna do a couple of these because what I want to happen is for when we add our green to not dominate completely the petals, we want the petals to be wet, but we don't want that to be so saturated that the entire peony bud takes on the color of the leaves. So let's go ahead and do that one more time. We're going to create a couple here. Generous stroke, a thinner stroke. And then we're going to close it off up here. Can take the toe of the brush, rough it up there a little bit. Then we're into cough syrup consistency, letting it rest just for a moment, and plugging in a bit of color. Let's also create one been using the broth consistency that's closed completely. For that, it's merely a blob. There is nothing elegant or particular about it. It is a shape that is not to round to oval, but something kind of in-between. And then we're also going to play with the shape as we add the green gold and the sepia. I'm gonna go ahead and do that now. A lot of times peony buds have a little bit of leafing left on them. So we're gonna play with that here. As I said before, we don't want it to completely dominate the color which is happening here because we just painted that. But for the bud, I do like that effect. And then we're going to take the toll road brush and we're going to create some thinner leaves along the sides to the same thing, angling them just a bit. And then we're going to create a stem running from the middle of the peony down. We're gonna do the same thing over here. Angling the paper just a bit. Adding the yellow in my green, gold, coming up on the side here. Leaving, coming down here. Just kind of roughing up the edge a bit. Same concept that we use with our petals, that we use with our leaves. We're going to add leaves and I'm going to go into more of that structure soon. But just to give you just the basic overview, it's the same concept. And then we'll take our brush and we run down. I can also add leaves using the side of the brush and then a toe of the brush to roughen up the edges. Same thing applies here. Plugging in a little bit of that green, gold and sepia down here at the bottom. Let's really go for some delicate strokes here. And plugging in that stem right there at the center. I miss the page. Sometimes that happens better to undershoot and overshoot. And adding some leaves here along the stems. That is basic but structure, I like to guess, like I said, to keep it simple. Three strokes, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes just one, like with the peony bud here on its own, it may look a little funky. What exactly is it? But when you combine it in a floral arrangement, it really speaks for itself and it feels like a beautiful, delicate counterpart to the rest of what's happening. I, I chose to do the beep, the buzz on this page so you can see how in conjunction they would work with your beautiful open face, full bloom peonies. There's always the potential to intense, intensify or increase the interest and the buds. You can add a different color. You could use the rows of ultramarine once more to touch along the outer petals here at the tip where they are darkest. That's something I don't typically do. Just because again, it starts to become a little overworked for my taste, but it's something that you can do and explore. As you create these. I'm going to set my brushes down and then we're going to come back and we're going to be adding leaves and practicing how to move the brush to create leaves in the next segment. 13. Practicing and Adding Leaves: I've decided to devote an entire piece of paper to leaves because I love painting leaves, they bring me so much joy. I don't know if you feel the same, but I feel as though they can make the floral. And as, as essential obviously as the flowers are to the painting, I feel like the leaves are what actually tie it all together. The stems, the leaves, and just being very playful with them. So we're really going to explore that. And then what we'll do is we'll take the practice peonies that we've been painting up until now and we'll add leaves using the technique that I am going to show you here. Let's go ahead and use, we'll use both brushes just so you can kind of get an idea of how it's going to work. But let's go ahead and start with our half wash. And I'm just going to refresh my palette here. It's a little more gold than I think I would typically want for leaf. But we use a lot of sap, green, undersea green, Hooker's green. And so I wanted to use a color that's just a little bit different, one we haven't used in our florals before. So that's, like I said, our intent is to always just be increasing the value the classes and introducing you to either new paints, new material obviously, and improving upon areas that may have gone overlooked or just not addressed in previous classes. Alright, so let's go ahead and start here at the middle. And for this leaf, I want you to simply just get the feel of the brush. So I want you to go from full belly to tip. Your starting here at the top with the toe of the brush, gradually increasing pressure and then coming back to the toe. This is a very straightforward leaf that you can create using this brush TO. And then you can create a little stem here. Just do that a couple of times to get a sense for the pressure. If you like. And my book we talk about compound strokes, which is basically the combination of a simple stroke. So we're taking one stroke and then we're combining it with another stroke. Do that again, one stroke and combining it with another one. Now this is all very, for me, very structural, even though it can be used in a loose way. Opening up that wrist, sitting back on the brush, it just feels again, just very structured so we're going to loosen up. But it's a good idea to just have the fundamentals feel what the connection between the bristles and the paper should feel like. I'm gradually changing the pressure so you have that light pressure and then you lean full belly into the brush to get that white stroke. So let's go ahead and create something just a little bit looser than that. Let's come at an angle now. All we're doing is increasing the speed of that stroke. We're starting at half belly and then changing the shape down here to come up on the toe of the brush. And then what we can do is come towards the side and create a little bit of leafing here. And then we can come back on this side, create a little leafing there, are pulling the strokes in towards that center. Let's do that again. Come on the side here. And then come back here to create something that just feels a little bit more gestural. It's the same concept over here. We're using the toe and the belly and then back to toe. We're just coming at an angle now. Let's do the same thing moving at this angle. So we're moving our wrist around, changing the direction from which we pull the leaves, either coming down or pulling them to the side. You can also increase the stem here. I'm coming close to the feral here. You can sit back, but for leaves, I tend to come a little bit closer unless I'm working really big and I want that mobility of my wrist. Let's go ahead and do that just a little bit bigger now. We're just gradually increasing the size of things. If we like, we can also take our brush and pull it down. So we have full belly, median belly and mostly TO and then we're coming up here for Tim TO strokes. And then pulling down. And we worked down through a stem. Let's try that again over here. Nice big stroke. Need a little bit more paint on my brush. Coming down and then coming up and out to the side. And then pulling down for a stem. I want you to feel as though there's a lot of room for interpretation, a lot of room for modification. Leaves are very subjective and I'm merely just teaching you the way that I approach them. I don't want you to feel as though this is exactly what it needs to look like. If you already feel like your leaf game is on point and you need no instruction in that regard. Feel free to add the leaves to your p.sit knees as you like. This is simply one way to approach it. Let's go ahead and do like a wiggle leaf. So we take the toe of the brush, we just kinda wiggle it out. And then we do a stem that again, wiggling it back-and-forth. Stem. I like that leaf. I think it's very playful and fun. Use the right way. I think it could add a lot of character to a painting. Could even do a little bit of adding hair. So we could do a wiggle leaf, we could do a simple stroke and then use some more TO, to create something that's very layered. Having a little bit more paint, a nice big stroke. And then we can wrap up that edge a little bit if we like. Sometimes I like to call it just scribbling. That's all we're doing is we're just scribbling stroke and then we're roughing it up with the toe of the brush. Nice gestural leaf here. You have a lot of different options. You can use simple strokes, compound strokes, sideways, using both the belly and the toe, gradually increasing the size. Wiggle leaves, you can add a combination of these, adding to that. And then you can just do one giant stroke like we showed you here. And just roughing that out. A lot of times I use that stroke and then what I'll do is head back in with a different consistency or different color. So this is cough syrup. We could do the same thing here. We could even add some veins if we like. Very gestural with them, keeping it super loose. Really sitting back on the brush and just allowing your risks to flick and move along. Remember that these are accompanying your florals. They're not the centerpiece. They should feel loose. They shouldn't feel too over structured. Sometimes the vein can really help to brighten and open up the leaf. You have lots of options that the media here is still nice and wet. So what you could do is add that second color in and then wait until the media is dry and then head back in for a third layer where you would get some more layering effect. So the vein would be on top of it rather than this blend of colors though, this is my preferred route. If I'm being honest. Sometimes what I like to do around a flower, which we'll do next, is just some flicking. So let's just take the brush and just kinda flick. We're using the toe of the brush. Flicking it around. Just keeping things really nice and loose and open. Different angles, different directions. Take your brush, run it into the upper right-hand corner. And then take your brush, pulling and pushing. Pulling and pushing. You can thicken up any of those leaves as you like, leaving one side thinner, one side thicker. Adding in a little bit of that sepia here. Running it through the leaf while it's nice and wet. So that is a lot of different options for you to explore. Like I said, leaves are one of my favorite things. They really do, add such great interest to the floral piece. So let's go ahead and put that off to the side. Go ahead and pick up one of your practice peony pages. Let's go ahead and add leaves to our existing peonies. Mix up a little more color here. I'm going to go ahead and see, okay, where would my peony benefit from a leaf? If we wanted to add a stem, we would probably believe that it's existing somewhere around here and we would drag that stemmed down and we would drag that stemmed down. So we can do that. We can take it from the bottom of this petal and just kinda give it a little character here, make it thin and thick. And then we can do the same here. We imagine those two peonies are kind of laying like that on each other. Now, we're going to imagine that the leaves are coming out from the bottom of the peony. So let's go ahead and pull that stroke. Then let's work the sides of it using the size of the brush. And then we're going to pull that stroke so that we have something that's very loose using a combination of the strokes that we just use using full belly and then also the toe of the brush. Let's go ahead and do a little leafing here attached to that stem. Again, your peonies are going to look a little different than mine. So obviously, what I'm asking you to do here is not the exact thing, thing I want you to look at your peony, figure out where it would benefit and then apply the same technique. So I'm going to pick right here is another spot to pull down a leaf. I'm going to come out with a thin stroke and then another one. And then I'm going to start roughing it up here on this side, angling a little bit. So it's not coming straight down. And then I'll wrap it up over here as well. Come out with some thinner strokes, adding the leaves here and here. And I think if I were to add one more leaf, it would be right up here. And I want to go in the same direction that my peony is going. So let's work with that here. Let's take this and do a stroke. And then let's just rough it up a little bit so it's not so over structured. Just using the toe of the brush now to shape it. And then I'm going to use a little bit of the sepia now to plug into the bottom of that leaf. Running what I imagined some veins to be through the leaf. Do the same thing down here. Running it through the center of the floral. I was a little hesitant to use this green gold as the only green because it is very green gold. But I'm loving the combination between the sepia and the green gold. So I think, I think this was a great call. It's very different. It has more of a fern feel to it than it does a peony leaf I give you that is not a traditional dark green peony leaf, but I like to switch it up and take things a little off the cuff every once in awhile. Okay. I'm gonna move that piece off to the side. Let's go ahead and grab another peony piece if you have one. And I'm gonna do the same thing here, adding the stems first. So let's imagine where do we see stems emerging? So this peony is facing in this direction, so we're going to bring a stem right around here. Then this one I would imagine kinda coming down to meet it right about there. This one, we wouldn't really see a stem. If we did, it would probably be coming in that direction so we can roll with that eventually. Like I said, we're gonna be putting this into a bouquet so we want to be able to identify, okay, where would that stem be and how would it work in conjunction with the other peonies? I'm going to start with the leaf right here, up at the top, kinda sprouting out to the left. I want to with my leaves. The idea here is to create movement within the floral arrangement. So rather than having a leaf coming up this way in the same direction as the peony, I'm going to create some movement by facing the leaf going the other direction. This is naturally just going to create an opening, a feeling of openness and a sense of composition on the page starting there. And I'll leave that alone for a little bit. I'm gonna create another leaf down here, kinda coming up over this peony. Really just allowing these colors to play. Not overthinking consistency here. I know I haven't been talking a lot about cough syrup or broth. It really doesn't matter here we're adding in that sepia in cough syrup later, which kinda takes over and is really beautiful. Let's add some finer details over here. Kinda where we would see the stem little roughed up. These delicate little gestural markings really helped to tie together the balance of the piece. If you're gonna make some big beautiful leaves, having these more delicate areas just provide that rest for the eyes at rest for the piece. And then I'm going to create one more leaf right here at the top. Facing in this direction to once more and provide a little balance and direction and sense of flow and movement. Now we can head back in with the sepia, starting with the leaf we did first, it's going to be the driest. We want to catch it while it's still wet. And gradually moving around, this leaf is getting dry. So I'm going to head in there real quick and continue moving around the page, adding in that sepia and cough syrup near the base of the leaf. I'm going real quick here as you can see. Again, the more I stop and overthink and analyze things, usually the worst off my paintings are just going to be honest with you. I like to break things down really simply and really slowly at first. But then when we start to get going and painting, I want to show you the actual speed that I paint with because that is a huge part of how my paintings turn out the way that they do. When I slow things down and I'm really deliberate, my work tends to take on an overworked sensibility. I think this gives you a good sense of leaves, a way to use the belly of the brush for that downward stroke. Pulling those strokes towards the center of that leaf and then also pushing those strokes out to create those beautiful, delicate areas. And again, the toe of the brush is your friend really utilize that? I'm gonna go ahead and switch over to the three-fourths wash just so you can see what it would look like. We have one more beautiful peony painting. I think I'm upside down here. Actually, before I do that, I'm going to add a little bit more step yet while this is still drying. Just because I know what's going to happen. It's going to dry two to three times lighter. So let's get that color in while we have the chance. Here we go. Staying very playful with that color, can even add a little bit of darkening and the stems, they're very playful, very carefree. There we have it. Okay. Let's go ahead and do the same thing with our 3 fourth wash. We're going to start with that big fat stroke, nice full belly. And then we're going to use the side of the brush to wrap it up. There you have it. Don't overthink it. Sometimes this brush is better for leaves because you get that initial big stroke. And then it's just a matter of playing with it. You can see how the difference here, you get those smaller strokes with the half wash. And those are really fun too. But this is great because you get those big giant statement leaves. So if we were to add a stem here, kinda probably come down to off to the side, something like that. To balance out this floral which will do more in our main project, I would add some leaves here, leaning into this peony right there. Coming back in this direction to create some movement and some flow. This thirsty brushes soaking up all of the paints. I'm going to add a little bit more gum. We have our closed peony over here. Let's go ahead and add a stem. Right about there. I usually aim for the center of the peony unless I'm really clearly trying to get a like a severe angle. And then I'm gonna come up here, peonies facing this way. So I'm going to create some leaves going in the opposite direction. I'm gonna do the same thing and I'm going to create leaves lower down here. And the peony, that really gives a sense of, okay, this peony is facing down here. This one's kinda coming up. These leaves could either be tucked into here or they could be on the stem. You don't really know. It doesn't really matter because it all working together so beautifully. We can add a couple more leaves here just to fill in this negative space. And then using this brush again, we're going to pull the stroke, nice, big, generous stroke, and then roughing it up. Using the toe of the brush for some finer areas. Then let's head in with our half wash and add some veins. I like to move all around the page. I pick which area is drying first and I attack that. I do kind of attack it with my brush. Because once things are dry, it becomes a layered look, which is great. And it works. But you lose that moment when things are wet to get that natural progression of color. This should set you up really well for our final piece together, this was a long segment and really takes you through the ins and outs of what we're gonna be doing. The only difference in our final project is we're going to be combining and working with composition to kinda pull it all together. So you'll get to see how these different florals lay next to each other when we're combining them in a bouquet, which was another big requests we got when asking for feedback was being able to put it all into a bouquet together. We've been doing that for awhile, but it's something that we continue to want to provide. And then again, you can use the toe of your brush, creating some delicate areas on the stem here. You can play with it as much as you like that this point I really, I'm just playing with it and that's what I want for you. This is, this is my style. This is my approach. When people see it, they know that it's me, they know that that's my artistic voice. I'm not aiming with these classes to turn you into me. I'm clearly giving you the techniques and the end the tool mindset so that you can take all of this and apply it to the way that you want to paint, in the way you want your florals to appear. So I hope with all of this you feel that sense of not separation, but no obligation to have it look exactly like my work. I'm already in the world, but there is only one of you. And so there is something that you're going to bring to this world, to the canvas that only you can do because there is just one you, and that's what I really want you to tap into. And I want that magic that happens between taking the tools, taking the mindset, and then turning it into what it is that you feel most drawn to when creating florals. So I hope I have done that for you. This has been quite an expansion of our initial class and I hope you feel as though it was very thorough. We're going to, in our project section, I'll put this all together in a beautiful bouquet and that will be the way I send you off. And hopefully you feel as though you have been introduced to a beautiful new brush and a way of painting this particular flower. Alright, I'll see you in class. 14. Class Project Part 1: So we've reached the project portion of our time together. And in this project we are going to be utilizing everything that we learned today. So those big, beautiful open face peonies, the sideways peonies, the buds, the leaves, the stems, all of it tying it together in a beautiful peony bouquet. We'll talk a little bit about composition and why we are putting flowers here and leaves here, and how it all works and balances together. I'll also be making commentary now and again regarding what colors I'm using it, what consistency. But a lot of it is just going to be painting along with me as our usual, with our classes where you are entitled and free to make your own moderation along the way and just really enjoy this process of creating a piece. So without further ado, I have a little classical music on in the background to help just kinda keep us moving through. Hopefully that sounds soothing to you. If not, you can always just mute me and paint along. Alright, let's get started. So we're going to start with an anchor flower. And this is the, this is typically what I do when I'm putting together a piece where I am mindful of all the whitespace around the edges, not wanting to run up against it. And in an essence, crowd in my florals, I like to begin with what is likely to be my biggest, most center centered flower. And I kinda deviate that usually off to the right or to the left, but usually typically right around the center and then I build from there. So that's what we're gonna do. We're going to start with a big, beautiful open face peony right here in the middle. Then we're going to gradually work over to our left, creating a side angled peony. And then we'll come up here for some beautiful peony buds. And then we'll begin to add in the foliage and the stems. At that point. We are going to implement some of just the pink and the purple hues and our flowers. And then we'll also put in some yellows into the center to just create even more complexity within the piece. So go ahead. And if you haven't already mixed up on your palette the Xeno, violet and sepia to broth consistency. And with your other brush, you're going to want to load it up with the Rooseveltian marine and the sepia and cough syrup consistency. Want to have quite a bit of this because we're gonna be peening several peonies together. So make sure you take the time ahead of time to really mix up these consistencies and have them exactly where you want them. So all you need to do is load your brush when the time comes. Alright, we are going to work from the outside in, I'm also using the smooth side of the paper. It is your choice, artist's choice, whether or not you want to do the same or turn your paper over and pick up a little more tooth in the watercolor. I'm going to start with our big sweeping petals as we practice in earlier segments. I'm going to plant that peony. Oh, I forgot to mention. I'm also changing the paper from landscape to portrait just because this is a little bit more conducive to a bouquet arrangement versus a landscape can be done, but typically we don't add stems to that because it runs up against the edges. So I've turned my paper, like I said, port portrait so that we can really get some beautiful length here with our flowers. Like I was saying, we're going to plant our peony right about here. I would say that it's about one inch above the middle of the page. Nice open face peony creating these beautiful sweeping petals, roughing them up along the edges. Curling those petals back towards the center. Creating some finer aspects here in the center. Coming back to the edges to really play with those petals. Now's a good time to use your half wash brush, find some of that negative space, and add in some beautiful bleeds. Coming into the center now, going to use our third brush. Don't worry, you have time if you haven't already loaded, it doesn't need to necessarily run in with these colors. To put a little bit of yellow, ocher and Sophia together in cough syrup consistency. And we're going to add that into the middle here. Can run that into your purple. It should be nice and wet for awhile. Checking in on those bleeds, making sure there where we want them. We want to add a little bit more to the areas we can just using the brush really playfully, dropping in a little bit more color here and here. So we're going to continue now. Placing a peony on its side, right on top of this one is slightly to the left. Using our VR Xeno, violet and Sophia mixture. Let's go ahead and form our top petal. Just playing with it now. Picking up a little bit more of that personal violet and Sophia laying it right in here at the tip, just to create a little bit of a darker edge along the top. I'm going to take the half wash brush and add in some darker elements. Letting those two colors blend together and create some beautiful bleeds can also pick up a little bit of the yellow ocher and the sepia and plug that in here at the middle. And we can even using our 3 fourth wash, head back in for a little bit of layering. Missing a little bit of drama here. On the sides. I'm going to plug in a little bit more color, really allowing these two consistencies to play and read together. Using the toe of the brush to move that paint along. Going to pick up that yellow and really let that run into this top petal too. It's so beautiful when those colors blend together. Really playing with loose form here and gestural strokes. I like to keep an eye on whitespace coming up to the top of the page, the bottom of the page and just making sure along the way the right things are happening. And so I like where this middle flower is slightly deviated to the left and the one on top of it, we're not too close to the top of the page. We're gonna be placing some buds right here on top of this big focal peony to create a little bit of balance to offset the heaviness of the flowers that are happening here. And then finally at the end, we're going to fill in with foliage shooting in all different directions to really bring the whole piece together, angling our stems and finding a way to bring it all together while utilizing the entire paper at our disposal. For our buds, let's lean into the version of violet to get a little bit of a different color. At broth consistency. Way there's a little bit of difference between our peonies here and our buds. Let's go ahead and do that three stroke maneuver that we've covered. Let's go ahead and turn our page just a little bit so that we can imagine the angle of this peony and how it might come down. Playing with the toe of the brush to create some back ruffling here. Then let's go ahead and do one that's just merely a nice circle, oval shape. Nothing to definitive here, just an idea, just intimating that this is a peony bud. 15. Class Project Part 2: Go ahead somewhere on your palette. Clear off some space to mix up our greens. Now that this has been sitting for just a minute, go ahead and use your round brush to plug in just a little bit of yellow into the center of either one or two buds. It's completely up to you. I'm gonna go ahead and plug the yellow into both the centers here. I'm going to rinse off my brush thoroughly. You can always pause here if you like. Rinse out your cup of water, which may be taking on a purple or pink hue when still looking. Okay. So I'm just going to thoroughly rinse my half wash brush and my three-fourths brush. And I'm going to prepare the palette with both breath and cough syrup consistency mixing together. The green gold and the Sophia. A little bit more green gold on my palette. This thirsty brush, it's asking for more. Bring it back to a gold color. Not so ground because when we add in the SFIA, we really want to see a significant difference in color here. I have it about coughs or consistency. So when I need to use it at broth consistency, I will simply add more water to this mixture. I'm going to load both brushes that I know that each brush is ready. And then I can reload as necessary with the excess paint on my palette. I'm going to look for where the painting might be served by adding additional foliage. I see that there's a nice open space here that there's clearly some room for some leaves, possibly creating a northern most part of this painting with a few leaves shooting up in this direction. I don't wanna go too far over here because then I'm going to run up against this side of the page and I'm gonna lose that beautiful negative space around the elements which act as breathing room. I'm gonna do the same thing over here. Adding leaves, not getting too close to the left-hand side, but just enough to create some beautiful thick greenery that serves the florals. Then I'm going to do some stems working my way over to the right, adding more leaves over here on the right, and finishing off with the buds. When I use my 3 fourth wash. Now to create some bigger leaves. Roughing up those edges as we have before. Moving back and forth between the brushes, not getting too close to the side here and creating some nice balance and flow. I'm going to go ahead and plug in the stems now to see where we might want them to land, I'm going to aim for over here in the bottom right. Rather than doing the stems and the direct middle of the page, which is typical of most paintings. I like to put them off to the side. I feel like it gives the page a little bit more movement and flow. I'm going to plug in another stem right here at the bottom of where I would imagine that peony is sitting at in a little bit more roughing areas of the stem just to create a little bit more movement within the piece. I'm going to bend this leaves so that it's coming out from the stem. We have a nice heavy part of the painting happening here with really rich, beautiful florals and foliage. And we're going to aim for something a little bit more light. On the right-hand side, though, no less vibrant. While the media is still wet, you can use your 3 fourth wash and load it with sepia to plug in to the leaves that are drying over here. Adding some stems or just some darker areas. Just really playing now with the watercolor, allowing it to do what it loves. These leaves are still a bit too wet to really see any significant difference. But it's starting to happen. Using the half wash to spread along the leaf and create some darker areas. Coming up here at the top. To really enhance the Northern part of this painting. We can clearly see that there is a top antibodies to this painting and it feels very well balanced while remaining complex. I'm gonna go ahead and plug in a stem to our peony buds. Really being playful with the stem here. To create some movement and flow. Within the piece. I'm going to create some delicate areas here on the peony, still wet. So I'm going to let that green gold sit on the pink here. And let those colors blend together by changing the direction and the thin of a thinness and the thickness of the staff of the stems, we really see a playfulness that comes out in gesture form. Let's go ahead and connect these stems. Pulling them back into our main stems. We don't want them so far apart that they feel separate. This is a moving, breathing bouquet and we want it all to feel tied together. Just running a few lines and the general direction helps to serve that. And then we're gonna take our half wash brush, putting it into the sepia and run a little bit of dark against the stems to create some contrast. We don't really need to know what stem belongs with which floral, as long as we're just indicating that there is some connection happening somewhere in the piece. It's going to all feel tied together. Adding a little bit of sepia to our buds as well. Rinse off my brush and pick up a little bit more of the green gold and rough up the stems a little bit here with some leaves and some delicate branching. Like I said, we wanted to keep this side a little bit lighter to help balance the heaviness of the left side. We're going to shoot for a really big, beautiful leaf here though, so that we don't get so off-balance. Using the 3 fourth oval wash. We'll start with that big giant stroke and then we're going to wrap it up here with the toe of the brush. Having this leaf here acts as a balancing, acts as a balancing maneuver between everything that's happening in between it. A minute. My half wash, brush through the sepia and cough syrup consistency to pick up a little bit of paint so that I can run it through and create some beautiful bleeds. And then I'm just gonna go over the areas where the bleeds didn't quite take and create some more finer, delicate areas. And some leaves. It's nice to see that the stems are really prominent while and others leaving it more open and interpretive as to if it's just a dark part of the leaf or if it is in fact a vein running through. And do the same thing up here, creating a little bit of contrast and the stems. This relaxing classical music has gotten quite intense. I'm not sure if you hear what's happening so much. I can't keep it pretty low so that it's further away from the microphone. But if you're picking up on this, I'm very passionate. Operatic male vocals. Bear with us really now just kinda playing with it. Looking at the piece as a whole, I feel like this painting is well-served by all of the different maneuvers with this anchor flower, a peony on its side facing a different direction, and then well balanced by the three smaller peony buds that are going in the other direction. By having these pieces situated together so as to stay connected, but also moving across the canvas, we really create a painting that feels restful but also exciting. If you'd like, you could take the Sophia and head back into your peony to create a little bit a little bit more detailing. It's not necessary, it's just one step further as to something you could do to add a little bit more complexity and interest to the painting. I really like what's happening up here with the green gold or excuse me, the yellow ocher and the Roosevelt from rain. So I'm not going to really mess with that because I think it looks really beautiful. I also really love the way the green is situated here at the base of the pink. And love that too. So I'm not going to play or tinker with that too much. Hopefully you feel as though you were able to create something that if not similar, it's still speaks to you. It still feels like a well-balanced and beautiful painting. This is only one option. There are so many different ways that you can put all of these pieces together. The open face peony and the side peony and the buds to create something that's totally unique and feels right to you. I hope you will continue to do that even after finishing this painting. I want to thank you again so much for just being here and continuing to learn and grow and explore with me. I always have so much fun and learn a lot myself actually, when we're painting together. Such a great way for me to let go and to just enjoy the process and be able to take you along with me. So I appreciate you don't forget to post your work here on Skillshare so that we can see and if you have any discussions with love for you to begin one so we can keep talking about this project. Or if you like, you can post on Instagram. I always love getting your tags and being able to come see what you're doing and how you enjoyed the class. Thank you so much for your time today and I wish you a wonderful rest of the week.