Transcripts
1. Intro: [MUSIC] Portraits,
in my opinion, is one of the most fun and rewarding subjects
to draw and paint, and watercolor is my
medium of choice. Sure, portraits are
not considered to be an easy subject and it may
require some practice, but it doesn't have to
be that scary either. Hey, there, I'm Tanya. I'm a professional
artist based in Denmark and in this class, I want to try and demystify the process of painting
realistic portraits in watercolor and give you some
tips that can hopefully help you in your approach when painting faces from photos. We're going to go
with the supplies. Some basic watercolor
techniques and practice using these
for painting a face. I'm going to go a basic
column mixing before and throughout the
process and I'll take you through the process of painting this portrait from the initial base layers
to adding shading and details right through
to the final painting. In this class,
we're going to skip sketching and get
right to painting. This may not be the
easiest subject, but no matter your skill level, if you're interested in painting realistic watercolor portraits, I encourage you to join
me for this class. On my account, you can also find some more in-depth classes
on mixing skin tones, sketching portraits
from a reference, and the more detailed
class on painting eyes. I've provided my sketches
for you to use if you want. If this sounds like
a class for you, join me, and let's
get right into it.
2. Supplies: Let's take a look at the supplies or
materials we'll need. Even though we're not going
to sketch in this class, you're also going
to need some way of getting your outline
onto your paper. I've provided my sketches in the Resources tab
below the class, feel free to trace those
onto your watercolor paper. You can also use
your own sketch or trace the reference
directly, it's up to you. You're going to need an eraser, any erasable tube, but if you're going to
erase on watercolor paper, a kneaded eraser is going
to be the most gentle. I'm using a normal
eraser as well as the one on the end of
my mechanical pencil, but I'm being careful
not to ruin the surface of the paper by
rubbing too hard. You may have guessed it already, but you're going to need some
watercolor paper as well. I'm using Fabriano
Artistico Extra White. This is 300 gsm and
it's pure cotton. Cotton papers tend to work best for doing lots of
layering, lifting, and scrapping, but any decent quality watercolor
paper should be fine. As for the paint, you
can use any brand and you can use paints or
tubes, it doesn't matter. I'm using tubes for this class. You're going to need
your three primaries. I'm using ruby red, quinacridone gold hue,
and ultramarine blue. You're also going
to need a color for the monochrome portrait we'll be working on as part
of the exercises. You can use one of
your primaries, or bring in a fourth color. The only requirement is
that you want a color that can go super dark when
applied in a saturated layer. I'm using Payne's gray. We're going to need
some white gouache for the final highlights. If you don't have this, you can also use white watercolor. For the brushes, I'm going to use
three different ones. Escoda Perla in Number 10, Escoda Versatil Number 10, and the Escoda
Versatil Number 4. It's up to you how many
brushes you want to include, but I recommend having at
least a decent-sized brush that's able to apply washes
of paint to larger areas, one that can work on
more general shading, which could very well
be that same brush, and you'll also need a brush
that can paint fine details. Again, could very well
be the same brush. You will need a pallet
to mix your paints. I'm using this tapas plate. Tape to tape down your
paper if you're not working directly on
a watercolor pad. Finally, water, as well as a cloth or some tissue
for wiping your brushes, and some tissue to help lift
paint. Let's get started.
3. Study: This lesson has been added in after the class was
originally published, and the reason why is because I wanted to show you
that you don't have to set aside a lot of time
in order to be able to practice portrait painting
or portrait sketching. Even if you want to practice painting realistic portraits, simple exercises and studies can be one of the most efficient
ways of improving. What we're going to do is do a rough value study of this man, and if you want to use
a different reference, feel free to do so. But the goal here is to capture larger shapes and the values. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's a very low pressure
exercise and it's something you can easily
do even if you only have, let's say 10, 15 or 20 minutes. The two small studies I
made for this lesson took me just over 20
minutes in total. If it makes you feel
more comfortable, feel free to go in and make a
rough sketch with a pencil. What I did is I measured approximately where
the eyeline is, so the line between the two eyes and then
the slant of the head. From there, I just
went straight in with paint and started working
on the shapes I saw. You want to start exercises like this with a no pressure mindset. The goal for this is not to
make it look super neat, it's not to make it
look perfect or have the correct proportions
necessarily. A sketch or a study doesn't
have to be good at all for it to have value to us
or to teach us something. Every time you sit down, and do an exercise similar
to this or a study, you're practicing and improving on your observational skills. You're becoming better
at capturing the angles. You're becoming better
at noticing the changes of values in the
skin or the subject, and you'll become better at figuring out what
makes the difference. What changes can
you make in order for it to look more
like the reference? Is the forehead or the general shape of the
skull the wrong shape or size or other things that
may be less important? As an example, is
the neck on mine going to be too far down once
you see the final result? Definitely, it should
have been higher up, but that's not going to
change the face dramatically. That's not going to
change the overall or the most important
features of this image. That's not going to be the area of the reference that we need to focus the most on in order
to capture likeness. Now, if you are painting something that is
going to be realistic, it's always better to
have your reference on a printout as the
cause and the values are going to be a lot more accurate and they're not going to be illuminated like it would be
on a phone or a computer, but if you do have your reference on your
phone or computer, something you can do
when doing studies like this is to just blur the image. For studies like this,
you really don't have to worry about all the
teeny, tiny details. Try to focus on those
larger shapes and angles. Details and polishing
up or fully rendering something is important if you want it to
be fully realistic, but they don't always
bear the most weight. Of course, some
details will be more important than
others and keeping things within the correct proportions will be important if you want a painting
or drawing to look like a specific person. But let's say you have a
photograph of a loved one. Now, if that photo
is slightly blurry, that doesn't mean the photo is not going to look
like that person. You may not be able to
see every single detail, you may not be able
to see every eyelash, but you're still able to see the general shape of their face. You'll probably be able to
somewhat read their features, so the size and shape
of their nose, eyes, and mouth fairly well, and that photo is still going to give you all the information you need in order to be able to see that that is your loved one. Likewise, if you have a high quality crisp photo of a loved one and you run
that through Photoshop, move a few features
around Picasso style, even though you have all
the right ingredients, that is not necessarily going to look like that person because having the right proportions and the right size
of everything is so much more important than placing every fine line
in the right spot. I really hope that makes sense. By doing these quick studies, you're going to improve on your ability to see
what is important. There's also nothing wrong with spending more time on a study. If you want to spend
30 minutes, an hour, or maybe even two
hours on a study, by all means, go ahead. All that matters, whether you're doing
a two minute study or an hour long study is that
the study is helping you understand something that
you want to understand or helping you improve on something you
want to improve on, in one way or another, giving you a better
understanding for something. It truly doesn't matter what
the end result looks like, and I think that's a hurdle
a lot of us struggle with if we want to approach something
as advanced as a portrait. The idea that anything less than perfection or great
isn't worth it, but that's simply not true, so we want to get
rid of the mindset that everything we
create has to look good, and especially get rid of the
mindset that we can't use our goods supplies and our
good paper on exercises. I'd say just use the materials you have and the materials
that make you happy. They are made to create art
and that's what we're doing, even if it's just a study. But even though we may not personally like the result of these studies
as much as a final painting, these studies may be what we need to do in order to get
to that final painting. You can stop as soon
as you'd like or go in as many layers
as you'd like. You can keep it super rough
or as detailed as you'd like. What I did, and you'll see this closer to the end
of this lesson, is that once I'd finished painting a rough version
of this man's head, I went in and did just a
small study of one eye, just to be able to put
in a bit more detail or add in the more correct shapes to that area that I found to be especially interesting
on this image. It can also be a good idea to make studies like this before starting on a larger painting or a painting that
you're going to finish, because you'll be able to
do a lot of problem solving before you even get started
with the actual painting, and that accounts for both cause or values, composition, testing out background ideas, which is something
that can hugely impact the final result or
the final look of a painting, and maybe even one of the most helpful things you'll get from it is that
you're going to familiarize yourself
with the face that you're going to be
doing a portrait of. Once you start working
on the actual painting, you're already going
to be familiar with the rough
shapes of that face, the lighting, so
with the values and the contrasts in that reference, and you'll just have a
much better understanding for that subject. I can't recommend
doing these studies or exercises enough. Let's move on to going through some basic
watercolor techniques as well as how to approach painting a more detailed face.
4. Basics; Washes, Lifting & Blending: [MUSIC] When painting
realistic portraits, they're really only a few
techniques you need to learn and the better you are at
controlling these techniques, the better the outcome
of your painting may be, because you'll be able to
tell your supplies what you want rather than having
them boss you around. First up, we have flat washes. There are two ways you
can create a flat wash, wet on dry and wet on wet. To paint wet on dry, mix up your paint and get
your brush nice and soaked. Then go in, starting in one
spot and work your way down. The amount of water present, as well as the type of paper
you're using will dictate how much time you have to work
your paint before it sets. Hot pressed paper will dry faster so you'll have
to work faster as well. Likewise, if the
paint you put down on your paper doesn't
contain a lot of water, it will dry faster than
a very wet paint mix. Once you've applied your paint, you want to let it dry. Don't go in and try to fix errors like this
because you're going to introduce additional moisture to an area that is only damp. The new water is
going to come in with a lot more power than
the small amount of water that is already
on your paper and so it's going to be a bully,
and push the pigment away. If you have to
color a large area as an example for background, you may want to
use a larger brush and if you want to do a lot of flat washes for backgrounds
and for landscapes, you may even consider using
a flat brush as these are made to cover large
surface areas quickly. The second method is wet on wet. For this, wet your paper and make sure it has
an even sheen to it. You don't want spots that
look more dry than the rest. When applying washes, I recommend
using a softer brush as a softer brush tends to be
able to blend more easily. Then go in with your paint mix. The water that is already
on the paper is going to help spread, and disperse
the pigment evenly. Wet on wet is especially great, not only for covering
a larger area, but also if you're planning
on doing some lifting. When it comes to lifting
with your brush, think of the brush
like a vacuum. The vacuum can hold a
certain amount of liquid. If your brush is soaked, in order to lift paint, you need to get rid of some of the water that is
already in the brush. You can do this by gently
touching your brush to the cloth or tissue or wiping
it to get rid of the water. Or if your brush has
too much pigment in it, you may want to clean it first. As long as the paper is wet, all you need to be aware
of is to not introduce more water than what is
already present on the paper. Going in with an equal amount of water usually doesn't
cause any problems. The paint or pigment will
flow where there's water. On the top brushstroke
I lifted I'd removed most of the
water from my brush. On the one below it, my brush has more water in it, which means that the lifted
area will appear much softer as there is
still enough water for the pigment to move
back into that area. In order to maintain that area, you may want to go in
with the brush multiple times as the paint sets. But because this is
just an exercise, I'm going to allow the
pigment to flow back in. For a more dramatic lift, you can blot off
pigment using a tissue. This is going to dry off
the paper a lot more. It's great for texture
and effects or if you need to lift as much paint
as possible quickly. If you have a pool of water
or pigment on your paper, you can use your brush like a vacuum to get
rid of some of it. You can also lift paint
off that has dried. To do this, go in with a clean, damp brush, gently scrap the area, and use your brush
to lift up the pigment. For this, I switched to a
slightly more stiff brush. A stiff brush will be more
efficient for scrapping. But generally, any
brush that you're less precious about is probably the brush you want
to use for lifting. You don't want to go in with
one of your top quality, most expensive
natural hair brushes and risk ruining the fine point. Being able to control the
value of the paint you put down on your paper is another
essential watercolor skill. The more pigment you have in your mix compared to
the ratio of water, the stronger and darker
the color will be, and the more water you add, the lighter the color
or value will be. You can practice controlling
values like this. After painting each square, I'm picking up some more water, which is going to dilute the
paint mix within my brush. Another option is of course, to mix the ratio of
pigment to water you need on your palette so you have a consistent
value to work with. Let's try and apply the
first wash to the portrait. Before doing anything, I'm going to talk about
the three P's, which is something
I've made up myself. But nonetheless, it can help you achieve better results
in your paintings. The three P's are plan, prep, paint. Sounds
pretty simple. I'd like to ask you to keep
these in mind when painting. What exactly do they mean? Well, plan; before
painting anything, stop and think about what
it is you want to do. What are you going to paint, which effect do you
want to achieve, and which technique do you
want to use in order to most efficiently give you
the result you want? Prep. Do you have
everything ready to go? Do you have clean water
and the right brush? Is your paint mixed
the right consistency? Do you have a cloth or tissue ready in case
you need to lift paint? Finally, paint. Once you have a plan and you know what you're going
to do, and how you're going to do it and you've
made sure that you have everything ready
to go, then paint. I promise you, stopping to think and going in with
a plan can make such a big difference to both painting experience as
well as the final result. You may even want to
plan multiple steps ahead in your mind
before doing anything. I've stopped myself in the past before I've even
started painting because I realized that
what I was planning on doing was a bad idea. Now, even though I recommend keeping this three P's in mind, it of course doesn't mean
you should overthink things or be afraid
to even get started. It's not meant to paralyze the way we approach
your painting, it's just a way to be more
confident in our approach. We're going to start by
wetting out paper, and making sure that
it's evenly wet. You may have to go over
the paper a couple of times to make sure
that it isn't just damp, but has taken in
enough water to allow the pigment to properly
flow across the surface. For these first few clips, I'm going to keep everything
in real-time so you can see exactly how long
it takes me to do this. Then as we're repeating the same techniques
multiple times, we're going to speed up
the video a bit. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Soak your brush and your paint mix, and
apply your first wash. In the reference, there's a highlight right on the temple above the eyebrow as well
as on the cheekbone. So use your brush to lift
some of the pigment from these areas and keep them
lighter as the paint dries. Your goal for the
first wash is to create a base color
that is still a couple of shades of values lighter than what you want your
final result to be. This will allow us to come in
with more washes of paint, building up the shadows and the shading, and
allowing us to get some nice shape to the face and head without going too dark. [MUSIC] Even though the footage
you're currently looking at is real-time, I have still cut out
the drying time. The one potentially
annoying thing about building up a
portrait slowly like this using lots of layers is that there is going to be
quite a lot of drying time. Now, if you're impatient, one thing you can do to help
this is to just get out a blow dryer or hairdryer
and dry off the paper. I'm a big fan of
procrastinating, so I usually just
let it air dry, allowing myself to have
some more time to watch a movie that I often have
playing in the background, sing along to some music, or eat snacks, all
valid options. In case you end up
with some mistakes or uneven areas in
this first wash, it's usually not a
big deal because we'll be able to cover it up
with the following washes. Keeping the three-piece in mind, if you end up messing up the original plan a
bit, just reroute. Look at what you now have to
work with, and come up with a new plan to help push the painting in the
direction you want. [MUSIC] I'm going to roughly
paint the background. This is optional, but because the background in the
reference is so dark, getting in some more contrast
may help us better judge the likeness and spot differences between the
reference and our painting. Next couple of techniques
often go hand in hand. Layering and blending,
which are some of the most efficient techniques for creating
realistic portraits. In order to create the shading, we need to add layers of washes
on top of our base layer. In order to create soft shading or transitions between colors, we want to be able to
confidently blend those washes. We can go in wet and dry. So pick up your
paint, apply a wash, and then quickly clean
your brush and use it to go back in, and
fade out that itch. [MUSIC] You can go in and add
lots of water down washes to gradually build
up those darker tones. I'll go in with more
pigmented and tangled washes, and apply fewer layers,
it's up to you. Just make sure to let each layer dry before
going in with the next so you don't risk accidentally messing up
your previous layers. [MUSIC] When layering you can
also go in wet on wet. This is especially
effective if you need to create soft shading or
make subtle changes. The more water you
have on your paper, and/or the more water
you have in your brush, the more or less the paint
is going to disperse. You can play around with
different paint consistencies, as well as allowing
your paper to dry at different
amounts of time to get familiar with the correlation
between the amount of water present, and the
effect you get from it. [MUSIC] Allow yourself to really
practice these basic techniques. Being in control of our fundamentals is going
to yield better results. The more you do something, the more it's going to
become second nature. So by being in control, you're also giving yourself
more freedom when painting because you'll be
able to do things without really
thinking about it. [MUSIC] You can also drop
in some clean water and see how this
affects the paint. [MUSIC] Let's go in with
our second layer. Remember to plan and check that you have
everything ready. I often keep the tissue
in my other hand just in case I need to
quickly lift paint. Wet your paper,
this time we want to slowly start building
up the shading. So looking at your reference, we want to tackle areas with slightly deeper values and avoid in this case that
temple and cheekbone. You may also want
to lift paint along the bridge of the
nose and right at the outer edge of the forehead where the values
become lighter again. [MUSIC] With each wash we put
down on our paper, we want to be more purposeful as to where we add the paint. You can see that I'm
moving more slowly, pushing the pigment
to where I want it, and at times I'm even holding my brush still whilst
looking back at my reference and checking to see the shapes of the
shadows on the face. The reason why I'm not lifting the brush when holding still is because that'll
cause the brush to empty out more of its content. I don't want to drop lots of
uncontrollable paint right around the eyes or other
delicate parts of the face. [MUSIC] As the paint is drying, keep an eye on the edges. If you see hard edges forming, blend them out if you can. But with that being said, don't be too precious about
the painting and don't be afraid of messing up,
we're just practicing. Have fun and experiment, that's the best way to learn. If something doesn't pan
out exactly as you'd hoped, so be it. It's just paint. Just continue, and don't stress
about potential mistakes. Watercolor is known for having a more loose and sometimes
unpolished look to it, that's part of the
charm, so don't worry. [MUSIC] I'm choosing to work
in very light layers, one, One I preferred at least one painting
something like a portrait, but secondly, because this is a class, I'm hoping that by going in
in these lighter layers, it's going to look
less scary to you. Each layer is not going to make a huge difference
and it's not going to have a detrimental impact if you do end up
making a mistake. It's going to be a
bit less stressful. But hey, I'm not here
to tell you what to do. So if you feel confident and you think this
is going too slow, feel free to go in with more saturated layers, and work your way through
the portrait that way. If nothing else, it's
always a good idea to experiment and try
different techniques. So you won't really
know if you prefer doing it one way or another
until you've tried it. [MUSIC] We of course don't want to leave out the rest of the face. So if you want, you can go ahead
and start adding some contrast or shading
around that ear, maybe even inside the ear
to the color of the shirt, as well as to the back
of the head or hair. The process from here
on out is mostly about repeating the same steps
using these same techniques. [MUSIC] Then adding another layer, again, deepening
some of the values that are darker
in the reference. At this point, I'm
also choosing to go in and paint the
iris and the mouth. I'm not painting them as dark as they need to be on the
finished portrait. But getting in these
darker tones is going to help us better see how much or how far we need to push the rest of the
values in the portrait. Because one of the problems, a lot of people have is that
they're afraid to go too dark or just using darker
colors and tones in general. So having, as an example, a very dark iris is going to be a very visual cue
telling our brain that we need to go darker
with the rest of the tones. [MUSIC] For the current layer, I've also started
working wet on dry. This is just to be able to place some more controlled shading. Remember to stop and think
and plan and go in with a technique that you feel
is going to be the most efficient to achieve the
result you're looking for. When working wet on dry, and you're working on
different features, you still want to be aware of whether the paper you're leaving behind is still wet or damp when working on
the next feature. If you're working on features
right next to each other, just be careful to not add new water into an
area that is drying. An easy way to get
around this is to work on features that are not
right next to each other. So let's say we
finished up working on the eye then we can move on to the mouth or
even to the ear before going on to
working on the nose. [MUSIC] Of course, we do also want to go in with some more detail, which may require some
more brush control, which is something we're
going to be talking about in the next lesson. In this lesson, you can dip
your toes into creating some detail by going
around that ear, or also by adding some
texture to the hair. This is a very low stake area. It's far less annoying
to mess up the hair a bit than it is to mess
up an eye or the mouth. So for this, I'm wetting the paper where I want
to apply some paint. I'm not going to be working
on the entire head of hair at once because
sometimes what can end up happening if you've taken on too large of an area at a time is that the
paper is going to start drying before you
properly get to it. Again, it's not a big deal, but I just prefer working
in smaller sections. It makes it a bit
more manageable. After wetting the paper, I'm going in with my brush and the paint, and just
applying some fine strokes. So you can use this area to practice adding
finer strokes and it's not going to have much of an impact because due
to the paper being wet, the pigment is going
to spread out. [MUSIC] Study your reference. Notice all the
small color changes or value changes in the skin. The more you can build these up, the more realistic and
believable your portrait can be. With time, you can
even learn to kind of pick and choose which
values you want to include in your
painting if you are to make a more
stylized portrait, or a more
graphic-looking portrait that you don't necessarily
want to look as soft.
5. Basics; Details: When it comes to
painting details, our brush is the first
thing to look at. Throughout this class,
I'm using three brushes. All of them buy the same brand, which isn't important, but two
of them are the same size. Why am I using two
different ones? Both are synthetic. Perla, which is the
one on the right, is a tad more stiff and springs back to a
point more easily. Versatile on the left
still has a nice point, but not as fine and crisp and it gets misshapen
more easily. We can also look at
a brush like this, which is squirrel hair. It's super soft and doesn't spring back to the
original shape at all. The type of fiber, the shape of your brush, and other factors all
affect how much water the brush can hold and how
it disperses the water. You may think that a small brush has to be
better for detail work. But that's not
necessarily the case. The thing is that
if used correctly, all the brushes I'm
showing you in this class can be used for creating
some pretty fine details. Some of the brushes may just be easier to control than others. Effector that is often more important is your
pink consistency. Going in with a very
wet mix will make it quite the challenge to
get proper fine details. If you get rid of
some of the water and maybe even use a
dryer a pink mix, you will instantly
be able to get more precision in your lines. Get out your brushes, play around and
have a go at seeing which ones end up being your favorites for
creating details. If I had to stay, as a rule of thumb, stiffer synthetic brush
is usually better for details than a soft brush
with natural fibers. But it can depend so much on
the quality of the brush, not necessarily the
price and the brand, but more so how
the brush is made and what the quality
of the materials are. Now going in with the smaller brush
of the three and going in and adding some more defined
details to the portrait, as well as deepening the
values around the eye. Though I am adding some more defined strokes
for the eyebrows, I'm not concerned
with getting all that precise because this is more of a loose portrait with the sole purpose of
allowing us to practice. You don't have to use a
smaller brush for this. But I do recommend
that you experiment with the brushes
you have to find out which ones you
prefer using for certain parts of the
painting process. You may prefer certain brushes
or others for blending. Some may be particularly
good for creating washes and some of them will shine when it comes
to adding details. Even though this portrait serves as a way for us to practice and I'm
choosing to keep it fairly loose it's up to you
how far you want to take it. If you want to continue layering and
adjusting the shading and details for longer
than I am, go ahead. The more you practice, the better you'll
become at both using the different techniques and
using watercolors overall. But you'll also become better
and better at noticing details in your references and the subjects
you're painting, which in return and
will help you when recreating them
on your painting. When you're working
on a portrait with its monochrome or full color, and you're looking at the
value changes in the photo, try to notice which areas of your reference are the
same tones or values. As an example, in this picture, the iris and the shading
around the eye have a lot of the same values as we can see within the
mouth and the lips. When painting this,
we know part of the shadows on
details within and around the mouth have to be just the stock as the
dark tones of the eye. That may sound logical. But oftentimes
you'll see portraits where the entire
portrait is kept within light values to maybe mid tones and maybe you only
have one detail. It could be the eyelashes
that are pure black. Depending on your reference, this might not be inaccurate, but usually you'll
have more areas that need to have some
pretty dark values, not just one, like the
nostrils and pupils. Maybe you don't want
the nostrils to be as back as the
pupils or eyelashes, depending on the
reference, of course, but they're likely
not going to be particularly light
in value either. Keep an eye out for this
and try to really get in both the darkest darks
and lightest lights. We can also build up some
more layers for the hair when painting details using
the wet on wet technique. Remember how in the
previous lesson I didn't lift my brush when
placing more precise shading. If you notice here, when I'm
adding strokes to the hair, the direction your
paint matters. As I mentioned in
the previous lesson, when painting wet on wet, the brush is going to disburse more paint when you lift it. Whereas you'd naturally move from the root to the
tip of the hair, you may want to consider going in the opposite direction, at least if you
want the strokes to come to a more fine points. Try it both ways though. The strokes are going to fan out because the paper is wet, so it's not going to
look too strange. You can also stick
to just doing this in the areas of the hair
that are going to be much darker because that way you won't be able to see
it in the end at all. Again, I'm going
back-and-forth alone, one area to dry
in this instance, the hair whilst working on the next area in this
instance, the face. Once the hair is dried, I'm going back and adding a
few more layers of washes, letting the details and
shadows on the face dry, and so on and so forth. Remember to think
of the three P's, even though this portrait
is more of an exercise, practicing getting
better at planning is still a useful
technique to include. A quick note to include before you pass me for not
following my own advice. I'm not claiming that this or my version of this portrait is
perfect by any means. I definitely don't have all the right values in
all the right places. Areas of the hair should
be as dark as some of the dark tones within
the eye or the mouth. But the face really
is the focus point and we don't have to
strive for perfection. That's not the point
of this exercise. It may also be worth noting that
when adding texture, as an example to the hair, you don't have to wait till
the last steps doing this. You don't have to have
all the right values in place before you start
adding the texture. Because of the beautiful
quality of watercolor, that is transparency, when adding washes
all layers on top, they're going to deepen
all the values underneath. The texture is not just
suddenly going to disappear. Well, depends on how crisp
or how feathered out and also how dark it is compared to how dark the wash
you're adding on top is. But generally speaking, everything underneath
the new layer is going to darken so that means both the lightest and
the darkest tones. Once you're ready and you feel like you've got a decent grasp of all the
different techniques. That will be washes,
lifting, layering, blending, details,
and of course, our three P's plan, prep, paint. I'll see you in the next lesson.
6. Setup & Basic Color Mixing: Even though we're not going to be sketching in this class, I still want to give
you a few pointers and helpful hints. When choosing what size
to paint your portrait, you want to make sure
that you're able to paint within
those dimensions, so you don't want to paint
too small if you're not able to handle all the detail, and you don't want to paint
too large if you're not able to apply a wash and cover the entire area of the
face in an even wash. You want to choose a size
that is going to be comfortable for you to work on. Measuring from the bottom of the neck line up to
the top of the hair, my sketch is just
slightly less than the height or length of my hand. Next, you want to make sure that your sketch includes
all the details you're going to need
in order to be able to read the details
when painting, meaning that if you find
it helpful to mark off where you want the highlights
or some of the shadows, definitely do include that. As an example, I've left out
the pupils on my sketch, but if you're not comfortable
adding those in later, you probably want
to add those in, right from the get-go. Also, when working on
your painting whether you're sketching
or applying paint, if you tend to rest
your hand on the paper, I recommend having
a separate piece of scrap paper
underneath your hand, so you don't transport
oils from your skin onto the paper because
this can affect the way the paper
absorbs the paint, and we definitely
don't want that. I'm working on a
slightly tilted surface, which really is just a stack of notebooks and sketchbooks and then a MDF wooden board
that I've put on top. So, top-notch quality,
as you can tell. Next to my paper, I have my cloth to wipe my brushes and I even
have a second cloth or rack to lay my brushes on just so they don't roll off my
table or wooden board. I have my palettes and
my water and then, in this case, I have a
tablet with my reference. Oftentimes, I'll use my phone or if I'm
being good to myself, I'll print the reference, which really is often
the best option, just because you'll
be able to better judge the true colors, since it's not a screen or
monitor that lights up. If you'd like more
in-depth information about color theory and
mixing skin tones, I recommend checking out my class on mixing skin
tones in watercolor. But you're going to need
your three primaries. You're going to need your red or preferably more pink
or magenta tone. I'm using ruby red, and you will need your yellow. I'm using quinacridone gold hue, and you'll need a blue. I'm using ultramarine finest. Try to stay away from colors
or paints that granulate very heavily because you don't want granulation
on the skin. At least not in this case. You want to mix
together your red and your yellow to create an orange, and then mixing your
blue to neutralize it. You can then adjust
the ratios of each of the colors in order to create skin tones
that are more golden, more rosy, more green, blue or neutral and by
adjusting the ratios, especially of that blue, you're going to be able to get your browns and your grays. If you're like me, don't end up using the
entirety of your paper. You can use the
bottom, like I am, to swatch both the colors
or the paint you're using, as well as your color mixes to remember what they
look like throughout the painting process
and just for notes or whatever you
feel like adding. Ready to get started
on this portrait, do a couple of stretches, brings some snacks, and let's
get started and remember, you don't have to finish
this in one sitting.
7. Baby Girl; Base Layer: Once we have our sketch and our set up ready to go, we can begin mixing some paint. In this lesson, we
want to just get those initial base layers
down onto our portrait. I like to begin by adding paint
to the white of the eyes. Because this is going to give you a great
starting point in regards to how dunk you need to go with the rest
of the portrait, since the white of the
eyes is never really wide and often it's a much darker
shade than you'd think. We're going to mix up
a bluish-gray color. We know that if we mix
together our primaries, we're going to get our neutrals. It's really just a matter of
grabbing small amounts of each color and mixing them together until we get the
color we're happy with. Of course, because we
do know that we're going for more
blue color or hue, we know we'll need
to mix in more of the blue than the
other two colors. If our mix appears too pink
or purple, add more yellow. If it appears too yellow
or green, add more pink. Then apply a wash of
this to the eyes. Because she has a dark eye
color and because we're going to use gouache for
the final highlights, we don't have to worry about avoiding painting only the iris. Though, if you prefer, definitely feel free to
paint around the iris or even mask it off
using masking fluid. When applying these initial
base layers to the portrait, what we're aiming for is to get a sense of the color
and the value. But we still want to keep
it one or two shades lighter than what we want
the final result to be. Keeping it lighter will leave
room for future adjustments so we can come back in at a later time and not
only make it darker, but we we'll also be able
to tint the color and still get to be the right value
without going too dark. You can also make the
color viewing tool from the class about
mixing skin tones in watercolor to help
isolate and better see the individual colors
on your reference. For the inside of the mouth, we want a dark pink tone. Again, we can mix together
our three primaries, but this time focus more heavily on the pink or magenta color, and then use the blue
and yellow to pull it into slightly more
neutral territory. This area is going to be very
dark on the final portrait, so no need to worry if you don't get the exact right shade. You just want to get it fairly close and then we can always get back to it later and
tint the color if needed. We're just going to keep
it those one or two shades lighter than what we want
on the finished portrait. Do not leave out that
bottom lip completely, I wonder what with
magenta mixed with just a small amount of the
other color we just mixed. You could apply a thin wash
of magenta on its own. The amount of the other color that I mixed in is
not going to make any difference on
the final portrait because this layer is so light. We just want to be able to differentiate the lips
from the rest of the skin. This is optional, but I'm choosing to mix together some of those colors in the palette
to get a very neutral brown. I'm using this to add some contrast down
where the shirt casts a shadow onto the skin and
also up where the hairline is. Again, this is optional. If you're more comfortable
waiting until we've gotten some paint onto the skin
or with the face itself, or even waiting until we start working on the hair
later in the class, go ahead and wait. The reason why I'm choosing
to do this now is to give myself a better visual of
the shape of her face. Getting in at least
somewhat of a hairline can sometimes help you better judge the lightness
in a portrait. You can also go in
with your pencil and define that hairline
a bit better instead, adding in some more accurate
detail without adding paint. This can also help
you better see or judge the shape and
likeness of the face. Let's mix up her skin tone. For the skin, she's got
a nice golden skin tone. Start off by mixing the
magenta and yellow, or pink and yellow, whichever colors you've
chosen to work with. We do want a more yellow
tone rather than pink, just to get that
nice golden hue. Then add in some of your blue to help neutralize the color. The color we want to mix is what appears to be
her base skin tone. If you look at the
forehead where there isn't a
highlight or shadow, that is a color we want, though we are going to water down quite a bit since
we don't want to apply layer with too much
saturation right away. We want to be able
to slowly build up that intensity as we
progress with the portrait. Right before adding that
gouache to the face or skin, I decided to just go in
with a neutral brown over the irises and a wash off
the magenta to her tongue. This isn't completely necessary, but it felt odd leaving out
just those two features. Honestly, getting
some color onto the irises especially makes
it look a lot more human, which is quite nice. Now back to the skin, because this is going to be
quite a large area to cover. I'm going to wet my paper
first and go in wet on wet. That way we decrease the risk of having hard edges forming in the center of her face or some other place where
we don't want them. The best way to apply
a wash like this is to apply it starting at the top
and working your way down, especially when working on
a tilted surface because the moisture or water
is going to move downwards due to the gravity. It's going to take a bit longer for the paint to
start drawing in this area and for those hard
edges to start forming. If you, like me, accidentally add some water to the white of the eye
or some other area, just use some tissue to go in
and blot it off right away. Always make sure to have
your tissue paper ready. There's nothing more stressful than making a small
mistake like this, which can so easily be helped, and then having to
scramble around trying to find your tissue paper
and then it's too late, or it's just a lot
more difficult to fix. After applying the wash while
the paper is still wet, you can go in and just use
your brush to lift off paint from where the most visible highlights
are on the face. That spot on the forehead, down the bridge of the nose, maybe even the tip of the nose, as well as on the cheeks, and just a bit on the chin. At this point, I haven't
rinsed off my brush, I just wiped it on my cloth because I'm not looking
to introduce more water. I'm going back a couple
of times and each time, I'm wiping off more
water from my brush. The more water you pull
out from your brush, the more water it'll be
able to take in when you touch it to the
surface of your paper. If you're looking to create
some more defined highlights, you want to really
wipe off that brush, whereas if you want to create
a more soft appearance, you don't want to take
out too much water. I definitely do
recommend practicing lifting on a separate
piece of watercolor paper. But if you end up lifting
a bit more paint than what you wanted from your
portrait, no need to worry. These are just the
first initial layers. You can always apply
a new wash on top. On my pencil sketch, I did a mark of approximately where I wanted those highlights. Although when you apply
watercolor on top of the pencil, it's going to somewhat lock that pencil in and make
it harder to erase. On these areas around the
highlights where we just got a really thin
layer of watercolor, it is sometimes possible to
raise some of that pencil. Just make sure to
let your paper dry completely before going
in with an eraser. Be fairly gentle or
at least as gentle as possible because you don't want to ruin the
surface of the paper. Though a lot of watercolor paper can take at least some abuse because it is made to be able to handle some
scrubbing as well, so as long as you're just not vigorously erasing,
it should be fine. I wasn't able to get rid of my pencil marks near the
highlights completely, but I did minimize their
appearance just a bit. Next up, we're going to start
working on the shading.
8. Baby Girl; Establishing Shading: We're going to begin working on the shadows and
the shading of the face starting with some
of the deepest shadows. We want to mix a
brown similar to the color of that deep shadow on the right side
of the forehead. This is going to be
a similar color mix to our base skin tone, but we're going to mix in some more blue to neutralize it a bit more and add less water to
make it a richer color, so we're going to end up
with a nice brown color. It's important to
neutralize it fairly well or make it
more cooler in tone compared to our
base skin tone mix because although there
may be exceptions, the rule of thumb is that light is warm and shadows are cool. This is why you need
to keep an eye on your pink mixes and mix them up really well before you use them. Some pigments separate
quite dramatically, pretty quickly if you don't mix them up
before applying them. I only left this
mix for a minute or two and it's already
separated quite a lot. Brace yourselves. This
next step is going to momentarily make the
portrait look worse. I'm going in with the brown mix, getting rid of some
of the moisture from my brush because
it's a very wet mix, and then using it to
add some contrast to some of the shadow
areas around the eyes, wiping off or rinsing
my brush as I go in order to quickly come back
in and blend out the edges. What we're doing is locating the shadow areas
we want the most, noticeable shadow
areas in our reference so where the colors or where
the values are deeper, and then trying to place some
of those on our painting. For the shadows, I'm
going in wet on dry. I find that it's easier to get the colors to stay
exactly where I want them when applying the paint
this way but you need to work faster in order to be
able to blend the colors, especially when working
on hot press paper. You can also go in wet-on-wet, which is going to
aid you in getting a soft look to those
shadows more easily, so use whichever
method you prefer. Remember to stop and
think about what it is you want to do before
you start painting, where do you want
the shadow to be, what technique do you
feel is going to help you achieve this effect
most efficiently, wet-on-wet, or wet-on-dry, and you have your
tools ready to go? Is your paint mixes ready, do you have tissue paper handy, and clean water in case
you need to rinse off your brush quickly
on lift paint? Really stopping to think and planning out your next step
before you do it can make a big difference to the
painting experience and of course to
the result as well. I'm also going to apply this same brown as a thin wash as a base
for the eyebrows, and I'm going to use our base
skin tone mix from before to establish some of the
shading on the left cheek, as well as around the eyes where the shading is more
of a golden tone. You can also apply some paint to the most noticeable shading on the bridge of the nose between the eyes as well as the
right side of the chin. Other than giving
us a visual cue as to where the shadows
fall on the face, this is also going to help us divide that face into
smaller sections. Rather than just
having one big area, which is the entire face, we now have separate areas. Hopefully, you
understand what I mean. On the forehead, the
brows are now visibly separating the forehead from the lower portion of the face, and the cheeks are now
separate from the nose. More than just separating the
face into small sections, similarly to when we painted the white of the eyes
as the very first step, this is going to give
us a good idea of how dark we need to go with
the rest of the shading. For the shadow on the
right side of the face, I'm choosing to divide
it into two sections, first the forehead and then the lower portion of the face. The reason for this
is when taking into account the paper I'm
using, so hot-pressed, the level of moisture I know
I'm going to be working with in my paint mix
and on my paper, as well as the climate
in my location, I know there's a great risk of the paint drying
too much before I'm able to blend out the edges if I were to apply it in one go. This is part of the whole
stopping to think and plan. I'd rather play safe
and apply paint to smaller areas at a
time than trying to take on too much
and then regretting my decisions after the
fact but of course, sometimes even when you do everything by the
book so to speak, and you stop and think and plan and you have
everything ready, it still takes practice, so don't beat yourself
up if you make mistakes. As annoying as it may
be in that moment, mistakes are opportunities
to learn and grow and you never know what the
end result is going to look like until you
complete a painting. Maybe the so-called mistake we make end up just adding
to the painting instead, so always remember to just have fun and enjoy the process. That's the most important part. I'm also applying our base
skin tone mix to the ear on the right side and since there are still
more layers to go, I can tell I'm going to
run out off this pink mix, so I'm just going to
mix up some more, mixing in mostly magenta or ruby red together with the yellow
or quinacridone gold, and then adding in blue
to help neutralize it. Though not too
much because we do want that nice golden skin tone. Also just got a quick side note, swatching your paint mixes
as you go is a great way to keep track of them in
case you need to mix more, but don't stress out
if you're not able to mix the exact
same color twice. If there's a slight
difference between the first base skin tone mix and the second base
skin tone mix, it's really not a big deal, and as you progress
with the painting and you compare your
painting to your reference, you may find that
you want the hue up that base skin tone mix
to be slightly different, if you find that
your portrait is too pink, too yellow, etc. Now, the area with the
least detail is the neck, so I recommend starting
out by applying a wash here because just in case you find that the mix is too dark or we feel like
we need to tend it, it's much easier to
go back in and fix the neck rather than having
to go in and fix the face. This wash is going
to get us closest to the full saturation
we need for the base skin tone
though there's still room for one
or two more washes. I'm going in wet on
wet to help me get a nice even wash and
after the first pass, while the paper is still wet, I'm picking up
more paint without rinsing my brush and
applying this to the top of the forehead
where we can see a slight transition
into a darker shade, which is what is
going to help give the forehead back rounded shape. I'm also applying this to the right side of
the face where we have the deepest strata
tones just to further darken this area and also
make the transition between that harsh shadow and the base skin tone
appear a bit softer. Make sure to keep an eye on the edges as the
paint starts to set to see if you need to carefully blend out or lift any paint. You also want to make sure
to maintain the highlights. If your paper is wet enough,
you can use your brush. In my case, I went in with the tissue and carefully
blotted off some of the paint more pigment and I did this in light
damping motions. Once your paper has dried, we're going to do a second
pass over the face. But this time we
want to go in and add layers to the
separate sections, starting with the forehead
and moving our way down the face adding paint to the section between the
eyes and the eyebrows, to the sides of the nose, the cheeks, that section
between the nose and the mouth, which barely anyone knows
what it's called and finally, the chin and the nose. The reason why I
recommend adding paint to the nose and chin last is because they are placed
in the center of the face. It'll give all the other
sections more time to dry because if you
choose to work on two sections that are
adjacent or right next to each other and you don't allow each
section to dry completely, you may risk having water or
pigment bleed into an area where you don't
want it and create an uneven wash or shadow. On the left side of the face that has more light, we need to create shading
using warmer tones. For this side, I'm going in with the base skin tone mix
and on the right side, I'm using a mix of both, so anywhere where the
more dramatic shadows meet the base skin tone, you want to apply a mix
of both and letting them bleed together in order to
create a nice soft transition. Study your reference
and try to notice the changes in value and color. Notice where you need a warmer
shadow or shading color, in which case you can use the base skin tone mix and
where you need a deeper, more cool tone shadow, in which case you
can use a deeper, more neutral brow, or if you feel like you
need a color in between, you can mix them
together to create that. If you're working with
different reference from the one I'm
providing in this class, you may even find more
color shifts in the face. Some areas like under
the eyes may have a more blue or green tint so
depending on your reference, this may be the time to begin adding in some
of those colors. Plan out where you want to apply the paint and which color
you're going to use. You can go in with washes
that are as thin or watered down or a saturated as you
feel comfortable with. In the second pass, our focus is not only to deepen the darker
shadows on the face, but also to build
up the mid tones. Those subtle changes in values that are
going to help give the forehead and cheeks as an example, their rounded shape. Do this at your own pace. Then once you've
put down these one, two or maybe even
a few more layers, we can go back in and push
the values and details a bit further on the
eyes, nose, and mouth. Let's allow our painting
to dry and then come back in and work
on those features.
9. Baby Girl; Eyes, Mouth & Nose: Let's get some more color on those main features of
the face, shall we? I'm just going to start
by cleaning this one well on my palette to make room
for some new color mixes. First off, let's mix up our brown so we can
work on her eyes. Mixing together the ruby
red and quinacridone gold, and then adding in a
small amount of the blue. On my sketch, I didn't
mark off the pupils. If you're also
using the sketch or if you lift them out
on your sketches wall, you may want to use
a pencil to just place them before
quoining with any paint. I'm using this brown pink mix to first outline the iris
and then place the pupil. Getting the pupils and really the eyes to point
in the right direction can be one of the
trickiest things on a portrait so it's important
to take your time. That's why I'm moving in
such small careful motions. I really do recommend using a pencil to
place them instead because you'll be able
to erase those marks a lot more easily
if you need to. Mixing in a bit more
blue to a portion of my pink mix to get
something very close to black. Using this to fill
in the pupils, correcting the placement
from those original marks. I then filled in the remaining portion of
the iris using the brown mix. Then looking closely
at your reference, try to copy some of those
variations in color. Because her eyes are
as dark as they are, you can use a mix
of the brown and black depending on how
dark you want to go. It's up to you how precise you
want to go with this step. Personally, although I do want some of those
color variations, I'm not really worried about getting them exactly
like in the photo, just because it really isn't that noticeable from a distance. But having some of
these color variations, rather than having just
a flat wash of color, it's going to add so much
more life to the eyes. Making the eyes look more
believable is our goal. The most important thing when painting the eyes
is to make sure the irises and pupils are
pointing in the same direction. Again, do feel free to use your pencil to make
those initial marks. Quite honestly, I should be
punished for not doing that. Using that same brown mix, mostly as well as a
bit of the black mix, deepen those shadows and
values around the eyes. At the end of the class, we're going to go through everything at least one more time
per area or per feature. It's okay if there's room for more layers or
adjustments to be made. Though, of course,
as with everything, if you prefer doing it a
different way so in this case, if you prefer to really fine tune this area before
moving on to the next, go ahead and spend as much
time as you want on each step. You can use what I'm
showing as a step by step guide or use it
more as a guideline, mixing it up using your own
techniques and preferences. There is no wrong
way of doing it. Using a clean wiped off brush, I did some light scrubbing
and lifting on the eyelid, because when taking a closer
look at the reference, I wasn't quite happy
with the shape I'd given it with that
first layer of shading. For the left eye, you
may want to bring in our pink mixes from
previously as that eye is being hit by more
light and the shading around it won't be as
deep or cool toned. Again, you can work
on these features for as long as you want
and fine tune them as much as you want before
moving on to the next step. That'll just mean less work
on layers to be added later. I personally find
it helpful to work on everything a
little at a time to make sure everything
matches up in the level of value
and color tones. With the magic of the
surrounding contrast, we can now see that the white of the eyes need to be
darker in value as well. I'm adding a thin
wash of the blue to get it closer to what we want. If the blue is too blue
for your painting, feel free to neutralize it and mix up more of a gray tone. Before moving onto the mouth, I'm choosing to also deepen
the values of the eyebrows, at least where they're
the most full or dark. This time I'm painting
small strokes in the same direction
as the hair grows in the reference because
every time we go back over an area of
the face or a feature, we want to build up and
define more detail. You may also want to add a couple of highlights
in the eyes. This is optional. I find that it helps to bring up the right expression
to the face, and again, just helps us
better judge the likeness. There's still room for
adjustments to be made, but we're going to
move on to give it some time to rest before
coming back in at the end. Going back and forth, working on different areas
of the face like this can make it easier to spot where we need to make
those adjustments. If you stay at the same area or feature for too
long at a time, sometimes everything
becomes a blur. If you find it helpful, let your pen rest for awhile, maybe even go do something else, leave it for a few hours
or till the next day, and then come back and look
at it with fresh eyes. You might suddenly see things
you didn't notice before. For the mouth, I'm choosing
to dip my brush into this mysterious color down here at the bottom of the well. Maybe it's not that mysterious, it's really just the pink and yellow that has pulled together. I'm using this to deepen the color of the
inside of the mouth. Then for the even darker tones, I'm picking up some
more mysterious pink, which appears almost black when applied in a well
saturated layer. Let's build up the layers a bit on
the lips and tongue. Both are very pink and
definitely deep on value than the layer of paint that is currently
on the paper. We can easily add another layer
of the pink and lift paint if needed from the area on the lip that has the
most light hitting it. For the shading in tongue, we can tell that it takes
on a slight purple hue near the back and has a warm
pink shading throughout. I'm first mixing
up a purple tone, placing this near the back on top portion and
blending out the edges. Mixing together the
pink and yellow to get started on the
remaining shading. Again, we want to refer back to our reference and really
locate the changes in value to see where we need to apply more paint and
deepen the color. Getting some of those
deeper tones on the bottom lip as well
and then go back and forth repeating the
steps as much as you'd like before
moving on to the nose. It doesn't have to be perfect, we can always come back in at the end and make those
final adjustments. We just want to push the
values and the amount of details further compared to the first layers of
paint we put down. For the nose, we're going to need our two first four initial pink mixes. I'm just going to re-wet
those on the palette. Working wet on wet, we want to come in and add
some more defined shading, all wet and dry if you prefer. Using the base skin
tone mix for most of the shading on the
large surface area, as well as anywhere
where you don't have defined shadows, and using the deeper brown, mostly on that right side. The noses on babies and kids are
usually not very defined. Each wash of paint
may only give you a small change just because
the shading is so soft, we tend to most easily notice
the bright highlights and the deep shadows who some of the mid tones can
sometimes be overlooked. But getting these in and having those nice soft
transitions is going to make far much more
mild expression, which is what we want. Take your time and work
through this at your own pace. The cast shadow next to the right nostril has
a very warm tone. For this, I'm going in with that mystery color
from the palette also known as a mixed
between the pink and yellow. Go back and forth as much as you want. Looking at your reference, deciding what your next step is, and planning the technique
you want to use to go about achieving that
effect and then paint. I'm fairly certain I've talked about this
in other classes, but I'm pretty slow painter. I don't enjoy rushing
or trying to get a painting or drawing done
as quickly as possible. I like to take my time, put on some music or a
movie or documentary in the background and
really just sown out and enjoy myself with some
relaxing painting. As you apply more layers, you should start to get a more three-dimensional
look to the nose. Even though the changes from one layer to the next is subtle, once you get a few layers
of cost down on your paper, the values will
build and you'll see the nose and really the
entire face slowly emerge. We're really starting to see her joyful expression
shine through. Let's let this part
of the portrait rest for a bit and move on
to working on the hair.
10. Baby Girl; Hair: Before putting down
layers of paint, I decided to go in and make a few adjustments
to the sketch. I wasn't sure if I was happy with the placement
of the head band, and at the end of
this lesson you will see that I ended up moving
it up even further. Not to worry though, if you're using this sketch
I provided for this class, I've made sure
that the head band is indeed in the
correct location. We're not going to go in depth with painting realistic hair in this class as that's a
whole thing on its own. But I'm going to show
you how you can build up layers in a way where we still get the sense of having
curly hair without having to go with every lock of
hair in great detail. To start off, we're
just going to apply a couple of portions of the pink color to
the head band as well as the neck
line of her clothes. For the headband, you
might be able to tell that I'm painting
outside the lines a bit. This is only because
I know the color of her hair is dark enough to
be able to cover it up. You then want to mix up a brown color. I mixed together
some of the paint in the palette to see what I got and ended up with
a nice warm brown, a bit too warm though, so I added some more blue
to help neutralize it. Then went in wet on wet and
added a light wash of this to the main two sections of hair in front of and
behind the head band. You can go ahead and lift paint if you feel it's getting too
close to the edges of the outer edges of
the hair consists mostly of flyaway type locks, all curls, rather than a
full opaque hit up here. Having this feathered
out look to the hair is going to make it look
slightly out-of-focus, so we will be able
to get away with skipping more detail
than we would have if we kept everything as
crisp looking as the face. As the paint is drying, you can go in and add
more paint if you'd like. Maybe even add in a
suggestion of curls in a few places or use
the paint almost to sketch to mop up some of the most noticeable sections of hair that you see
in the reference, just to use as a
guideline for yourself. When working on the hair closest the hairline, we're going to just focus
on the main section of hair for now and we'll deal with all those little baby hairs right at the edge of
the forehead later. Let this dry. Meanwhile, you can mix
up some more paint. I played around with the
ratios of each color until I got a fairly
deep neutral brown. We can now go in wet on wet and add another wash to
this front section. Keep an eye on the paint near the hairline and try to maintain this shape you see in
the reference while still getting a soft
feathered out edge. From here, we can build up details as much as we want, so once your paper has dried or at least has mostly dried, go in and add strokes
in the direction you can see the hair sits
in the reference. You want to repeat this step, allowing each layer to dry
or mostly dry in-between. With the first layer you want to look at the larger shapes, so if you were to squint when
looking at the reference, we wouldn't be able to
see individual hairs. Instead, we'd see the
larger shadow shapes, and then with each
layer we want to use thinner, more
precise strokes. With that being said, the
hair in the reference is very dark and in this lesson, we still want to work
one or two shades lighter than what we may want on our finished portrait
unless you choose to finish it up before getting
back to working on face. But working with these
lighter values gives us the perfect opportunity to
loosen up our wrist and hand movements and practice mimicking the shapes we see as well as experiment with the
strokes we're putting down without affecting the
final result too much. Especially on the
section of hair behind the head band
where all the curls are, even though we want
to be purposeful to an extent and have it
resemble the reference, there's no reason why
we can't play around and allowing to look
more painterly. If you get tired of
waiting for the paper to dry in-between layers, feel free to get a hairdryer, or if you feel comfortable, you can work in less
transparent layers. On that back section of hair, I'm just using my brush almost like a
sketching tool to just loosely mark off some of the shapes I pick up when
looking at the reference, even if it does appear
very dark in the photo. Then similarly to working
on the front section, build up layers to increase
the values and play around with adding some
smaller more defined strokes. When adding the
individual curly strands of hair around the outer edge, I'm going on most of them
with clean water and lifting some of the pigment
to softened their appearance. Even going on some of these locks with just
brush can help soften the look of them and help spread the pigment far more
out-of-focus look. There's really not
much more reason to the madness that is going
on here. Just have fun. If anything, the
main thing to look out for is the general
shape of the hair, as well as the proportions of the hair in relation
to the face. The reference is
cut off right at the top leaving out
some of the curls, and if you're choosing to
remove the bow like I've done, we will have to do a bit
of guesswork either way. Don't worry too much
about perfection. Just play around with this
out-of-focus type look and try to copy some of the
main shapes or curls you see. It's nice getting to be a bit more loose
before getting back into focusing on details on
the face, so just have fun. Right here at the end, before going back to
working on the face, I again decided
that I wasn't quite happy with the placement
of the head band. I went in with my brush and some tissue
and lifted as much of the pigment as
I could without damaging the surface
of the paper too much. Then cleaned it up and added
a few new layers of paint. This ended up giving
it a soft, again, out-of-focus look,
just like the hair, so I decided to keep this way. Even if your headband is
placed in the correct spot, going in and
scrubbing this area, allowing some of the pigment
to flow together will give you the same
effect if you want. If you don't like this effect, feel free to having it
stay nice and crisp.
11. Baby Girl; Final Layers - Face: To finish up the face, we're going to mix a third
base color, for this one, you want it to be more pink
in color and less neutral, so you want to add less blue. We're going to use this
color for areas of the face that has more
blush to it like the cheeks to further enhance the
mouth and anywhere else where we see some nice red
or pink tone shine through. These are three main
colors as it stands. Let's push the values
of the face further. Wet your paper and apply
another wash. For this layer, use our base skin tone mix as the basic skin tone and add in the darker mix to some
of the shadow areas, as well some more red or
pink mix near the cheeks. You want to always refer back
to your reference to check the values and color changes
and just take your time. You'll notice that
in the first wash, I didn't include the
cheek on the left. The reason for this is that as I mentioned
in a previous lesson, I'd rather play safe
than take on too much. I wasn't sure if
I'd be able to add a wash with the
different color changes to the entire face. If I also had to make
sure that the edges were blended and make sure to also keep an eye
on the highlights. You can apply as many or as
few layers as you'd like to, as large or as small of an area as you'd
like, it's up to you. I added a second wash to the right cheek before
moving on to the left cheek, just to deepen the values
and really start to focus on adding some
shape to this area. From here it's just a matter
of going back and forth, working on the different
sections of the face, looking at your reference and
trying to copy the shapes. All color value changes you see. We're also getting to
a point where there is a few layers of
paint on the paper, so if you're working wet on dry, it's likely going to
be easier to blend out the new layers since
a pigments it's closer to the surface
of the paper. A lot of these
small adjustments. As an example, adding a small
amount of the pink shade to the eyelid or evening the value of just a small
area on the cheek. Each adjustment may not
visibly make much of difference on its own as you're
working on the painting. But if you try and take
a picture before and after going in and making
these little changes, I'm pretty sure you'll be
surprised of how much of an impact it can have
on the painting or all, but also on the likeness. Taking pictures at
different stages in the process when
you're working on a painting can be super helpful, especially if you're
less experienced with a medium or you're
trying to improve on painting at certain subjects
where you may not have a fully developed method or approach to your process
like in this instance, portraits, having pictures of your process from the sketch to the final result
can help you really pinpoint things you're
doing right and likewise, things you may want to be aware of for your next painting. It can also help you remember how you
went about achieving certain effects like a
much more visual notebook. On the chin as well as under the eyes, I do see a more purple hue, so I'm mixing up a nice pinkish
purple and adding this. You can mix up as many colors as you want or
feel the need for. You don't have to stick with
just the few mixes we have. Likewise, if you're overwhelmed
by the different colors, you can always create
a portrait with slightly less variation in color and not
necessarily monochrome, you can still get a
beautiful result, even if you don't account for the smallest color
changes in the skin. Values are more important than color so practicing getting the value changes right is much more beneficial
to the final result. Shadows and highlights weigh so much heavier than colors when it comes to giving our
eyes a cue as to whether or not something
looks realistic. You know what, even if you feel overwhelmed by the
different color choices or keeping an eye on all different color changes of the skin in your reference, I still really want to
encourage you to give it a go. Never worry about
perfection because perfect doesn't
exist within art, so drawing and paintings, there's no such
thing as perfect, but there are different styles and different takes
on something. I know I've mentioned this in previous classes,
but watercolors, one of the mediums
that lends itself so beautifully to being more
loose and less perfect. Every "mistake" we make is
an opportunity to learn. We learn much more and much faster by making
mistakes and trying to avoid them and we discover a lot more
things by stepping out of our comfort zone and
trying something new or something we're not
quite sure of how to do. We want to get rid of
the mindset of chasing perfection and just allowing ourselves to experiment
and have fun. It makes the whole
painting process so much more enjoyable. At this stage as we're finishing up the
last errors as well as in the next lesson
when finishing up the final touches and details, rather than looking at
the entire face at once, you want to really
just focus in on each feature or
area of the face. With each layer or
application of paint, focus on getting more
of the smaller details. As an example, the
cheek on the right, when we first look at it, there's a clear distinction between the light
and dark areas, so where that shadow is. But looking at it close up, we don't just have
a dark shadow. Within that shadow, we have what appears to be almost like the shape of a bowl and that's something you can build
up with the next layers. The closer we get to
finishing the portrait, this more of these little
adjustments may be perhaps a wise person once said,
size isn't everything. These small changes and adjustments can
have a huge impact. At this stage, I decided that when looking at the painting composition wise, I didn't quite like how the
top of the head was wider than the bottom of
the portrait due to the way it goes out at the top, because of the hair and
narrows at the neck line. You don't have to do anything. There's not necessarily
anything wrong with this. It comes down to
personal preference, but there are a couple of
ways you can change this. One would be to extend the
area down at the neckline to include more of the clothes and maybe even part
of the shoulders. I decided that in my case, I wanted to create a
more even shape to the portrait throughout
by adding a background. Now you can mix up a
shade if you want, but to make it quick and easy, I brought in the Payne's gray and applied a rather messy wash, bringing in some of
the pink or ruby red down at the bottom to better
blend with the clothes. I purposefully brought water up into areas that
had already started trying to get some
slight blooming just to add some more interest. This makes a portrait
to look as if it has a more even
volume throughout, which I personally think
looks really nice. But as I said, it
all comes down to personal preference and
if you don't agree, you definitely don't
have to do this. Right at the end before moving on to the finishing
touches and details, I applied a wash off quinacridone gold to
most of the skin. As I felt her skin
tone didn't look quite as cold as I'd like. It's very watered down, so it's not going to
make a huge difference. It's just going to
add some more warmth and give her a nice glow. I think we're ready
for the final details, so if you're up for it, join me for the last lesson.
12. Finishing Details & Class Project: The final scratch, we can do it. I brought in another
palette and mixed up some more of the darker skin
tone mix in order to be able to zoom in and still have all three colors well visible. You've probably got
a good feel for the different column mixes at
this point in the process. As mentioned previously, values are more
important than color. Don't worry too much about
which specific colors I'm grabbing from the
palette, trust yourself. If you need more pink on
an area, use more pink. If you need to apply another wash to fill
the tint colors, go ahead and do that. This is one of the
most enjoyable, if not the most enjoyable
part of the painting process. We've established the
shadows and built up the contrast and
values only have to do now is continue to go
back and forth and make adjustments to the shading
until we decide to stop. You can stop now if
you don't feel like reworking details any further, I want to take it as
far as you'd like. I'm especially going
to focus on getting the final details
into the eye area. But I'm also adding in a few more shading details
to the general face, deepening some of the tones
in the hair and irises. I'm getting a few layers
of paint onto the ears. I'm not concerned with fully rendering the
ears because we've left the hair as well as the neckline of the
cloth more loose. Having the ears be more loosely painted as well
is not going to look as strange as if it had been the only feature we
didn't fully render. It's okay to allow a watercolor painting to
look like watercolor. We're not going
for hyper-realism. Once you're ready
to add the lashes, I recommend that you go
in with less water to be able to get in some
of the more fine detail. Either let some of
your paint dry in your palette or touch
your brush to your cloth, awesome tissue to help get
rid of some of the water. For the first lashes, I didn't go in with a
decent amount of water. This won't give me as much
precision and I won't be able to paint
super fine iris, but the water will dilute or lessen the strength
of the color. You can begin to
add in the lashes or the suggestion of
lashes and still feel some sense of security in the fact that you're not
going to suddenly have a super dark line
that you may have difficulties lifting
or softening. Because this is a
very young child, we don't necessarily
need to make all the individual lashes
make them super defined. Just picking up on the
general shape they have from a distance
is all we need. This is also the perfect time to
start bringing in the final highlights
using the gouache. If you've gone a bit
too dark in some areas, you can always make
some white quash with your watercolors to form a
more opaque paint to help. Just be careful, especially
with the lighter values. Light colors of gouache
will dry darker so add just a small dab on that, on a test piece or somewhere where it may
not be as noticeable before using it on the center of the forehead or
somewhere like that. If you have watercolor pencils, these can also be a great way to help make some of these
final adjustments. Even normal colored
pencils can be used as our final layers. A student on a previous
class had used some pastel to make some
of the final highlights. Pastel is another medium
that can be a great option. I've used pastels in
the past to help even out skin tones or
to add backgrounds. Just be mindful of the fact that some materials like
soft pastels or normal colored pencils
don't tend to do well with having additional layers of watercolor applied on top. So use these mediums for
the very final touches. When comparing my painting
to the reference, I could definitely
push the values of the shadow on that right
cheek even further. But I'm choosing
to just leave it. It could help bring out
the likeness even more, at least when I'm
comparing it to the photo. But I also don't mind having a slightly softer
look to the face, either or it's perfectly fine. It's completely up
to you how close you want to follow the
reference or how much you want to stray
away from it and take advantage of
artistic freedom. Let's talk about the
project for this class. You may have guessed it already, but I'd like you to
paint a portrait. You can create a monochrome
portrait or a color portrait. You can use one
of the references provided or use a
reference of your own. But I'd like you to
really try and build up the values in the
face using layers. You can keep it more painterly or more loose if you prefer, but try and push
yourself to really focus on the values and getting
some depth in the portrait. If you're using a
reference of your own, please do share together
with your painting. We're not striving for
perfection because we've already established that
perfection is not a thing. Our focus should never
be about perfection or comparing what we create to what someone
else has created. We want to focus on
our own journey and our own improvements,
our own victories. That's really all that matters. Take up the challenge of really pushing yourself to create these layers in order to create
depth in your portraits. As always, I'd love to
see what you create. For the eyebrows
similarly to the lashes, you can easily go for
less defined look, focusing more on the
overall value and shape rather than
the individual iris. I went in with much
less water in my brush to get somewhat of a
defined look to them. But I didn't focus on the
exact placement of each hair. I also wasn't too concerned with getting each stroke
as thin as I could. I even ended up
softening them by going in later with
another wash and keeping these details list of fine can really just help bring out the innocence and
softness of a child's face. The same practice or theory
can be applied when painting an elderly face because colors
are often much less harsh. Whereas if you're
painting something like a really gritty or more
manly men-type portrait, harsher lines can help add
something to that portrait. For the hair, I mixed
up a very deep brown and went in and darkened
it with a few more layers, starting with more purposefully
placed strokes targeting the details on dark areas
I see in the reference, but also with the wash to
really just deepen or darken up the base color of the hair as both the hair and
irises are too light. Now, one of the final
details we need to add in order to
better judge where we need to further
make adjustments to the portrait are those baby
hairs along the hairline. Even though they aren't going
to be particularly dark, they're still going
to help frame the face and make the
forehead look less big. Almost as if we were
to add a contour or shadow to draw attention
away from this area. Go in with a trial mix and very little water in your brush and move your
hand in quick sweeps, barely touching the
brush to the paper. If you're unsure,
I highly recommend doing a few test strokes on
a separate piece of paper or making the first few
strokes further up where they'll blend into the hair
we've already painted. If they appear too
harsh or dark, just lift some of the color. We've got a good
amount of paint on the paper so lifting
or softening the strokes shouldn't
be too much of a hassle. Take your time. I also chose to bring in
some of the deep brown to the background and
added strokes in the same way I did
with the Payne's gray. I just do this to make
everything look more coherent and to further
enhance the fact that we are, after all, painting
with watercolor. If you're having troubles
deciding when to call it a day and declare
the painting finished, one of the best things
to do is to walk away. It can be really difficult to decide if you should add more to one area or change
something on a different area. Just walk away and come back
to it later in the day, the next day, or even
later than that. It's just like when
looking for mistakes, even though we're not necessarily
looking for mistakes. Although that can
definitely be part of it. By walking away, we get to view the painting
in a different way. You can honestly continue reworking a painting
for all eternity. For me, I felt that this painting at this
stage had done its job. We've gotten to play
around with creating art and having a fun
and relaxing time, which is probably one of the best reasons you can
have to sit down and paint. We've gotten to play around
with our watercolors, practicing layers
and building up values in order to create depth. We are at least in my case, have even had the chance to
play around with backgrounds, which is something that can dramatically change the
look of a painting as well. I really hope you
enjoyed this class and I can't wait to see
what you create.
Tanja Jensen, Artist - Sculpting, drawing and painting
