Watercolor Seahorse

1. Class Intro: Hello. I'm Daniella Melon and author and artist. Thanks for joining me for today's class on painting a watercolor seahorse. Well, actually paying to see horses The 1st 1 is a warm tone, one using wet on wet techniques to create a background and the brilliant colors. The 2nd 1 uses subtle, cool colors and elegant features. Both seahorses are made using the template, which can be downloaded and traced for use in class. This class is for intermediate water colorists. Using simple painting supplies. We'll start by sketching our image UNWTO watercolor paper, then selecting the colors to pay the seahorse. Choose either vivid and radiant or understated and refined. I hope you enjoy this class working on loose, wet on wet techniques to practice using different concentrations of paint to achieve a certain look or using MAWR controlled wet on dry techniques. To achieve details for your class project, create your own seahorse and post a photo of your work in the project section. Please be sure to follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes, consider leaving a review and thank you for taking the time to join me today. Now let's get started 2. Class Supplies: the class supplies for our watercolor seahorse class include the template that you could find in the project section. And I printed two copies of this because I'm going to use it a little differently today. I'm gonna make a mask with one, and I'm gonna use the other as a template. I have some water color paper. This is £140 I have this cut into eight by tens. And then I have my usual supplies. A pencil and eraser. Some brushes. A 10 6 to 1, A one. I have my paints. I have a white gel pen, a pair of scissors and water jug in the next chapter will go over using the template. 3. Using the Template: to use the template. I use it in two different ways. For our first seahorse that we're gonna paint. I use a mask as well as tracing the image. So I just cut one of these seahorses out and they do flip over. So you only need to cut out one to use it in this fashion. And you can either trace around this or use a light source to trace it onto your paper. This is just a light pad. You could also use a window with sunlight coming through it. And all I do is I put my template down on my light source, illuminated, and then I put it on my page where I want to have my image. So I'll just put it just like this. And then I take my pencil and I very carefully make the outline and I'll speed this up and here I create my seahorse, Um, facing to the right. I also make one facing to the left for our second image. So after you have that, we can start painting 4. Seahorse #1: The Background: to start our first image. We're going to start in the background and I'm gonna set aside my mask for now and will use this later on. So to make the background, I'm gonna make my background to try and look like water light shining through water. So I'm gonna use yellows and greens with this, and the first thing I'm gonna do is with my brush. I'm just gonna paint the background, avoiding the actual seahorse here. I'm just gonna paint enough water on it. Toe toe, wet my paper somewhat. I'll just go around the seahorse. I don't have to worry about getting close. I have a lot of paper here, and I'm gonna try and leave about a one inch border all the way around my paper where I'm not going toe wet it. So once I have my paper fairly well saturated, I'll just make some colors because it's a background and I want it to look very subtle. I'll take a little lemon yellow, mix it on my palette, and I'll water that down. And then over here, all mixed some whatever's on my brush. So I still have a little yellow tinge to that with some of this permanent green, and it's a beautiful color, and again I'll water that down as well. Then I'll rinse my brush, clear off some of the water and just take a bunch of this very light lemon yellow and run it in places here. And I want to leave dry splotches of paper around where I'm depositing the color so I'll stick to an odd number for now, and I can always go back in maybe a little here. Then I'll take some of this green and I'll deposit it and I'll have it run over some of the areas of the yellow and just cover up some of the white. But again, I want white of the paper showing through, so I'll take whatever's on my brush, keeping it nice and full of pigment. And it's very subtle, so it will have a beautiful soft effect, and I'll just create my border and I'll go over 1/2 of it. So the top, and then down one side with the green. Then I'll rinse my brush, come back and pick up yellow, and I'll do the same thing opposite it. So I go down one side in the bottom. So I have my frame here and I will just go in there and deposit some pigment very lightly. And just again in spots is no straight lines of just pigment, and I'm butting right up against the seahorse in areas I don't have to get every place, but I just want and I'll switch colors. I just want to create a background as if the water is shining behind it. The late and the water behind the seahorse trying to be careful not to, um, paint on the seahorse, but because of color so light it's OK if we make a little little error, take one more look, maybe add a little more lemon yellow to a wet brush and just deposit some lemon yellow here and there. And when I'm happy that I have the background soft and kind of splotchy, I'll let this layer completely dry. 5. Seahorse #1: Body Layer 1: Now that our background is drive, we're gonna create our first layer here of our seahorse. So all mix my colors first with my number six brush, Put some water on my palette and I want to make foot three colors, three distinct colors for now. And then we'll blend them on the seahorse, so I'll start with some of this lemon yellow. I'll just put this in one of the sections and I want this to be a lot darker than the background, so very vibrant. And then I'm gonna pick up this deep yellow over here. It has a little orange hue to it, and I'll make another section over here of more deep yellow. But I'm gonna combine that with a little bit of this for 1,000,000. You I had a little more of this deposit, A little more water. I have a feeling I'm gonna need more pigment here. So it makes a little more of this lemon yellow. Then, with a wet, clean brush, I'm gonna go and I'm just gonna saturate the entire seahorse. I believe a little border so that I could make a nice edge, but I want it nice and saturated. so started the tail and work my way up. Ah, go over one more time just to make really wet. And then there started the head. And I want three basic spots, very light color, and that's gonna be that the main head and nose here. So just deposit that color that very vibrant lemon yellow, and I'll go around and create that shape. And again, I don't have to get the entire area with color. I couldn't leave a little white spots is like. Then I'm gonna come over here on the back end just underneath this section of the tail, and again, I want to create that nice outline, and then I'm just gonna do a little bit here a the end of the tail because it's the lightest color. The other colors will overtake it, so it's OK to do a little more than I intended originally while coming here, it's drop in more pigment, so it's nice and saturated, particularly on those major areas I wanted and just let it blend the color blend on the others. Then I'm just gonna switch to my next deeper color. This is the deep yellow, and I'm gonna come in here and I'm scared. Add more pigment and create the shape here. This little I call it a crown using quick little strokes. And then when I reached the area where there is the lemon yellow, I'm gonna deposit it and just let it run. So once I have a nice outline, I'll come over here and go down the back a little bit of the ways, pick up more of its lemon yellow, and I'm going to stay on the back. Here is well, but I'll leave a little spot over here, and then I'm not gonna do all go all the way up the little I don't know what this is on his back here, but I'm going to just go to the edge here. Then I'll come here. Carry this medium yellow down through the tail, in on the side as well. So now we have a good portion 3/4 or so of our seahorse colored in with various shades of yellow gonna switch to a smaller brush because this deeper oranges so dominant. So this is my number to brush. I'm gonna come in here and just pick up a little of this deep yellow and I'm gonna go over the belly, creating the outline. She'll be very careful creating that outline, and then I'm gonna pick up this deep color and I'll just drop it in various spots again. I want to be careful in the areas that are on the border of the seahorse, and I want to create that beautiful edge. And then I want the colors to run. So to make sure that happens, I want to make sure the area is still wet. When I deposit my color, it's not what I'll go in there and introduce some more water or some more pigment, the lighter yellow. And I'm gonna take my brush and it's gonna go over that area on the belly. Pick up more pigment. I wanted to be darkest at the edge of the belly. I'm gonna come over here on this little section of the back and introduce that orange while I'm creating the outline. We'll pick up my painting and have the colors run a little getting nice blends over here, them to take this orange as well, and I'm gonna go over the color, have already put down just depositing it in little dabs on the end of the tail. Put a little right at the end here, and this is what I mean, where the original pigment has dried, so deposit a little bit of color. Rinse my brush to remove that deeper orange color. Pick up more of the lemon yellow and I'll add it back here, catching some of that color. We just like, just introduced take more that lemon yellow re wet the face, and then, with whatever's on my brush, I'll mix it with a little of this orange. Just add a little bit of the orange in various spots again, just hoping to get a nice color blend and really play with it to see what you like that will turn this around. Color didn't run exactly here the way intended, so I'll just give that a little helping hand, and I'll let this first layer dry 6. Seahorse #1: Body Layer 2: So now that are, seahorse has dried. I want to go in with my pencil and add a few little elements that I'm gonna paint on the next layers. So underneath the jaw here gonna make, like, a diagonal line in my mind and I'm gonna put the eyeball in, so I'm just gonna make around it. I If you put it too high up, I think it looks a little weird. So it's just a round circle and then I want to do something here with this belly. I think it's kind of an interesting look. So I'm gonna come around with my pencil very lightly and sketch it, and I'm gonna kind of follow the curve here, and I'm gonna come out around and kind of just work my way into the tail just like that. And I like the way that looks kind of a snake like image. Then I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna start coloring that I So I'm gonna add just a little black on my brush with some water, and I'll make that eyeball make that outline. I could leave a highlight, but I'm gonna color it in, and then I'll just add a highlight afterwards with the white gel pen. And now for this area here, I want to work on some striping. I think I'll add some striping over there. So I'm gonna take my number six brush and I'm gonna add some of this deep yellow. And I had a little over 1,000,000 que with that as well. So I have a kind of a muted orange. It's not quite as bright as that one at a little more. And then I'm gonna take my, um, brush here with a nice point and I'm going to kind of create two stripes every so often we'll have a little curve to them as well. So again, no straight lines. Just little curves just like that. I'm gonna take my brush again, make another sharp point, and I'm gonna just thick in these stripes up so I'll just go maybe quarter inch or so underneath them, running parallel to the first line that I made. We'll go down the length of the seahorse, gonna switch brushes to my smaller brush, my number to brush, And now I'm gonna add just a little more pigment, Little more virile Vermillion Hugh and I'm going to deposit that right at the top closest to the center of the belly after I deposited close to the belly and God help it run. So make a nice sharp point of my brush and just pull that color can thick in some of these stripes. I'm gonna remove some of the pigment for my brush. Rinse it. And now I have kind of a very pale pigment on my brush. I'm just gonna pull any of that color to make a nice soft blend. Tidy up those stripes, and I'll let this layer completely dry. 7. Seahorse #1:: Layer 3: So now I want to work on some outlining and some detail work with my number six brush. I'm just gonna mix my color here on my palette again. I'll put some water on my palette and I'm gonna pick up some of the sepia, put it down on a nice rich color here. So added quite a bit of pigment here. And I also want to mix in a little of that for 1,000,000 Hugh with it just to help tie those colors together, Add a little bit more. And now I'm gonna switch to my smallest brush, my number one brush. So when a nice sharp point and I'm going to start outlining my image, I'll move my paper around to make it easier. And I just wanna barely touch the brush to the image to create that outline. So start with the stomach area. I think it's a beautiful shape. I'll go all the way around following the right to the tail, continuing down connecting my lines when I feel I need toe, rotate the paper to make it easier. Do that continue all the way with this beautiful rounded shape again, barely touching the paper Middle work on these little detailed shapes right on the back. Here. Flip it over. Keep doing the back and the back of the crown here. And then finally, the jaw in the head that as much pigment as I want to get that rich color. Now, one at a few little spots here to really accentuate it. Good. Outline the back of this stripe here and again. I really want to play up that beautiful shape. Kind of like making emphasizing the belly. And when I have that done, I'm gonna pick up a lot of pigment on my brush with a nice, sharp point. And I'm just gonna make some dots here and there. I'll make a few freckles down the nose, make a little parallel line to the I just behind the eye, and that'll make some freckles over here. I'm gonna do it on the back spot of each of these little crown pieces. I think I'll connect, um, as well and then going down the body, I'm just gonna make little sections of three dots here and there. When I get to the back part here, I'm going to add the same dots that I did on top of the crown just to make it coordinated. And then I'll just add a few more down the tail again with my groupings of three. Maybe add some on this side as well. And when I get to the base of the tail, I'm gonna add some dots just like we did in the crown, and we'll let this layer completely dry. 8. Seahorse #1: Spatter: So now I want to take the mask that we cut out from our paper. And I want to put it right over my piece here. And I'm trying my best to cover up what we repainted. Just like that. I'm gonna take my number six brush and I'm gonna make some pigment and we're gonna do some spatter. But to start with this lemon yellow color, I'm gonna put it down on my pallet, load my brush Then I'll just put my hand here and I'll just make some spatter. And I'm trying to focus on the areas closest to the sea horse. This is the mask protects the area of our seahorse. So the spatter is really in the background. I'll rinse my brush, pick up a little with Vermillion Hue and loaded into the what was on my palette. And I'll do the same. And because it's colors darker, I'm gonna go a little distance away further away and just tap a few here and there. And then lastly, I'm gonna take this sepia that we have. I'm gonna add a little more pigment to make it nice and rich and just get a few at a few little splotches of that as well. Carefully lift up my mask, set it aside and a little bit ran into our peace. But for the most part, it's protected quite nicely. Well, let this layer dry and we'll come back and add some final touches with the gel pen. 9. Seahorse #1: Final Details: So now that everything on our seahorses dry the background, the spatter in the seahorse will add some final details with our gel pen. So I wanted to add a little highlight to the I, and then I'm gonna come over here. Just add a few dots, and if you touch the gel pen very lightly, you'll have more luck with it getting it. If the harder you push, it's kind of like a resistance thing. It doesn't release any pigment. I'm gonna come over here, just add a few little dots around my little clusters and then over here, this Is that where I'm gonna put the majority of my gel pen right on these stripes. So I'm gonna turn it this way so that the stripes were heading towards May, and I'm just gonna make dots. I'm gonna eyeball it, but evenly space it down the length of each stripe kind of creating the outline. And this will help create that rounded shape of the stripe and emphasize it since our strife is really quite subtle, so and you can add them as close together as far apart as you like. The closer together will result in a more of a line in the further apart. Dots. Just kind of your eye has to work a little harder to follow that line. Well, just look for any other spots. I want to add some dots to few. Here and there. We have our first seahorse. 10. Seahorse #2: Llayer 1: to start our second seahorse, we're going to use cool tones as opposed to the warm tones we used in our first illustration. So to do this, I'm gonna create a very saturated area of my seahorse, and I'll go over most of it again. I'm not getting too close to the little spaces on the outlines here, the crown or the back. But I am bringing my water all the way throughout my image and they'll mix my color. I want this to be a super subtle color, so I'm gonna put some water on my palette and I'm gonna take a little of this ultra marine blue. I'll mix the even the smallest amount of vermillion Hugh with that and now they're switched to my smaller brush will remove as much pigment as I can, and I'm gonna switch to me Number to brush. I'm gonna pick up a lot of pigment here, and I'm gonna work on the outline and letting that color bleed in on the area that we wet on our illustration. So again, I start all on the outline here. I love how it feathers in and bleeds in. I worked my way on the tail, and I'm working right up to the pencil marks where we created using our template. Then on the areas here that aren't bleeding or blending. I'll go in there with some clear water on my brush and just let that blend deposit a little more pigment here and there on the edges, just to create that shape. And then I'll continue over here depositing that very light color, and it will dry, even lighter and be very subtle and cool. After I have all these little sections on the back, go in there with some water. Just help that color to run, pick up more of the pigment, go around the outline and continue on the head. Here again, I go in there with my brush with clear water just to help that color move along and blend, picking up the last of my pigment to finish up the little face area here in the head and once again making sure the color blends. So now we have a very subtle color. We have a little deeper pigment on the exterior of our shape, and I can go in there and just deposit a little more color here and there just to make the edges darker. And so that way the center will be our lightest color. And once I'm happy with that, I'll let this layer completely dry. There we go. We'll let this dry. 11. Seahorse #2: The Background: So now our first layer has dried because it's such a light color. And I love the variation we got. I want to go in there and erase any pencil marks that I can We're gonna paint over them when we do an outline. But for now, I just wanted to go over the pencil marks and remove anything that was easily removed from here. I want to work on the background a little bit. And unlike the first image that we painted where we had a full background, I just want to paint some, like help or some seaweed. So I mixed my color using my number six brush. I'm gonna come in here and take a little of this dark green and I'll make another little pile over here, and then I'm gonna take some of this permanent green and mix that in. And now I want to dilute these colors. So add a few drops of water to each again. I'm looking for very subtle colors, and then I'm gonna take a very sharp brush, my number to brush with a point and I'll pick up some of this light color first, and I'm going to start up, and I want to end up with my the majority of my kelp or seaweed 3/4 up the seahorse here. So I'm going to start with a very sharp point, very barely touching. And just make that line. Once I have that line, I'll go back in and fill it in, thicken it out at spots, so it looks like a blade of grass floating in the water. I want to make sure the end is tapered and it comes just to a little point. And then I'm gonna go here, and I'm gonna go behind our seahorse a little here. So I'm gonna have this come around, and I'm gonna imagine it going behind the seahorse and then coming out here behind the seahorse again and coming down and again, I'll go in there and taper that as well. Deposit some little spots of little more pigment than others. And again, we're going with a very diffused color. Put a little more color underneath just to create a little shadow base of the seahorse. And I'll do one more of these. I think I'll do this one a little taller. We'll start up here the height of the seahorse and just continue to drag that all the way to the bottom and I'll go back in and deposit more pigment to make that very visible. I'll come in with my second color, and I'm gonna cross over the second over the first calorie put down just in some spots. Still want to go in there and make it nice and tapered, repeating that s shape that we have on our seahorse. Come over here. I'll imagine this going behind our seahorse coming out here maybe and then down and I'll do one more. We'll have this coming behind and in some spots on top of this other, this piece of seaweed here and again, I carry it right down, deposit a little more color and I'll do one more over here. I'm gonna take some award that deep green and make some of that ultra Marine. Let's make some of that ultra marine blue with it. So I get more of a turquoise color and then that water that down. I want to take a few pieces. Here is well, make a nice sharp point. This will be coming down this way and I'll come in behind this piece here and I'll let this layer completely dry. 12. Seahorse #2: Details: so that our background is dry, our bodies dry and we erased pencil marks. I want to go in and put in an eye. And so I'm gonna do that 3/4 of the way up the head just right around here. Just gonna make a round circle there and with my smallest brush, I'll go in there with some black and just fill that in. You can leave a highlight if you'd like. I'm gonna come back in after everything's dry with a gel pen to make that highlight. Right now, I just want to create that shape just like that. So from here, I want to give a little kind of ah, little necklace of flowers. I think that will look very feminine and very unusual on a seahorse and rather pretty. So I'm going to switch to a larger brush to mix my colors, and I'm gonna mix two colors here, so I'll take some of this brilliant pink, and I'll put that down and then just clean a live a little bit of off my brush, and then I'm gonna take a little of this parallel in red and mix that in with that brilliant pink take a little of this Crimson lake mixed that in just to make that a little more vibrant, I'm mixing whatever's on my brush with that first spot of brilliant pink, clean my brush and then take a very small amount of this four million hue to mix it in here To make this almost like a peachy color, it's still pink. It's very pretty, but I want to mix in just a little more and I'm gonna add a little deep yellow as well. There we go. It's a little more what I was going for. So I'm gonna take my small brush again and I'm gonna play them, making three flowers around the neck here and I'll start with my peach color and I'm gonna make three circles. But I'm not gonna make complete circles. I'm going to make just the rounded arcs just like this. So that's one. I'm gonna go a little lower on the 2nd 1 and then a little higher on the 3rd 1 just like that. And I think I'll put one up here. So there I have a very abstract flower. Gonna come in and take a little of this red on my brush just enough to control it. And I'm gonna go and create more of those little curved lines here and there, and I'll let the colors bleed together and run. And it's still noticeable that there's more than one color going on here. Just like that. Take a little of his brilliant pink on my brush. Just put a little bit of that in there as well. I don't want a solid color. Just just a hint of a variation from there. I'm gonna take some of this permanent green and a little this deep green, and I'm gonna make little pedals of leaves here, coming out and I'll do the couple of pedals on each of these. Rose is here very abstract. They come to a point on one end, bring them fairly close to the actual flower. And I'll do this on this one as well. And lastly, I'm gonna go in there with a little yellow so I'll take some of this deep yellow, and I'm just gonna put in a few little circles here and there just to tie everything together. Well, let this layer dry and we'll come back and add some final touches 13. Seahorse #2:Final Touches: so never like pieces dry. I want to just create a little highlight in the eye. So I'm just gonna take my gel pen and make a little highlight just like that. Then I want to work on actually adding a little detail to the actual seahorse. So with my number to brush, all mixed some color and I want to shades of blue here, so I'll start with the Prussian blue. We'll make too little splotches on my palette here, and they'll take some this ultra marine blue in one of them, and I'll rinse off my brush and add a little more Prussian blue to the other. One could take a little bit of this for 1,000,000 hue and mix it in with our first mixture , and then I'll add a couple of drops of water to this Prussian blue. So we have a slight variation. If you want more of ah, distinction, you can add a little more this pigment, so add a little more ultra marine blue with my smallest brush. I'm gonna pick up some of this very light color Here are Prussian blue diluted Prussian blue, and I'm gonna go around very carefully, barely touching the page. Just outline our seahorse. This will dry lighter given interesting effect. But I'm barely touching the page here. This really emphasizes the beautiful shape of the seahorse, the silhouette. It's very simple and very subtle. Continue around the head and I'm skipping over any areas where those flowers are. I'm gonna go in here just behind the eye and make that little see again and then using my deeper color blue, I'm gonna come in here and I want to make some dots and I'm gonna make some dots at the top here of this blue right on the tail. And I'm emphasizing that arch, it's a beautiful shape again, with the deeper blue, I'll come here and emphasized the arch over here on the big part of the tail. I'll make one row and then I'll make second row just a little smaller again with that color , I'll come in here on this little area here, and I'm gonna make just like a little path to where the body would be if it didn't have this sticking out part on the back. And again, I want to emphasize that shapes the curbs right to the center of each of these pieces just like that, when we come over here to the same thing just on the back of each of these little things on the crown and I'll do a few little dots whips with the darker color on the news as well. Start here and here and just work my weight together, maybe have a second row. And now for the centerpiece here again, with that dark blue, I'm going to start and I'm gonna try and envision a curve here parallel to this curve. So I'm gonna pull some colors in and stop at where I would imagine not gonna make a line, But I'm gonna pretend there's a line there. We'll come back in once again. You can add the dots is close together or as far apart as you'd like night coming just like this. Now I'm going to switch colors and I have this much lighter blue I'll start at the top and work my way down the piece, and I'm gonna just make 1/3 layer and I'm gonna be echoing the taper that we make for this little spot up here. I'm gonna just add another row A hero at a rower two. For each of these, I'll start with one row and see how that looks. And when it dries, there'll be more of a difference than when the pigment is wet. I think I'll go in and add a another row of our lighter blue. Come over here and on our back end. I'll add just a row of blue to either side of the initial row that we put down, really play with it and see what you like for patterns where you like to emphasize. I'm trying to really emphasize all the rounded shapes of this unusual creature. I'll add another row here, maybe two or three, going smaller as I go and the same thing over here. Now I'm seeing over here. I think I want to add just a few dots in between connecting each of these little stripes just on the outskirts. And there we have our completed seahorse 14. Variations & Class Wrap Up: So here we have our completed seahorses. We have the 1st 1 we did in really cool colors with the orange and the yellows. We highlight it with gel pens. And we used a spatter technique where we also use our mask and the mask is actually really kind of cute. I'm gonna use this in some of my journals as well. Just the shape and the spatters. Quite pretty as it is. Then we have another one here where we did cool colors. We did blues, greens and Thiel's. And this is a more elegant, very unusual seahorse. I want to show you a couple of variations as well. So for our first seahorse that we did and cool in warm colors, I have this one that I did where I used same warm colors. And then I put it up against a purple and blue background. I think I prefer the lighter background, but there's quite a bit of contrast here against the blue and purple, the cool in the warm. I also didn't do the spatter technique on this, but I would like the way because I didn't want to, um, distract from the background here. I thought it looked like reflections on water. And the 2nd 1 we worked on the cool tones. I did the same thing here. I used slight variations in color, much lighter color on this one, and I faced my seahorse in the opposite direction. So I guess that would be more appropriate, I hope. Youll try your hand at one of these seahorses. Use any type of color combinations that you like and have a lot of fun with it. Feel free to post your work in the project section. Be sure to follow me here on skill share to get notified of future classes and please consider leaving a review.