Watercolor with Me: Cheerful Holiday Cards

1. Welcome: Let's create some beautiful holiday themed watercolor paintings together. Hello, my creative friends, Jessica Sanders here, Welcome to my channel. This class will learn to paint three different elements branches, Berries and leaves, and we'll turn those into beautiful paintings. They'll be quick and easy and fun to do, and they you can create beautiful holiday cards from them. If you wish. After the warm up, I'll walk you through each painting step by step, and I'll share helpful tips along the way. The purpose of this class is to have fun painting to have some nice holiday projects you can work on and to set aside a little time for your own creativity. So come on, let's get started. 2. Supplies: Okay, friends, let's chat about supplies. So for this class, you will need basic watercolor supplies, which includes water one or two jars. It also includes a cloth to wipe off your brush and get that access water off. And then you will also need water, color, paint and paper. Now for the paper I'm using Be watercolor paper. This is £140.300 GSM cotton paper. It is a really nice quality paper. It's nice and thick. It's not going to buckle very much. If you use quite a bit of water with it, it can take it and has a nice soft texture. It is cold press, so it is textured, but it's not a very rough texture on this kind of paper. I do recommend, if possible, that you use cotton paper. And that's one reason why I recommend be because it's a very affordable brand of cotton paper and its high quality. But if you don't have cut watercolor paper, have access to cotton wire color paper, that's OK, use the paper you have. The main thing is that it's cold press and is £140 or 300 GSM. The heavier paper. It works better. You will also need water colors. Of course, I am using my mission Gold Professional watercolors. The 36 color said. It's a nice big set. I do recommend it for beginners because it is fairly affordable and has such beautiful, vibrant colors that come in tubes, which you then add to the pans. And each tube has about furry pans worth of paint, which is fantastic. It's a great value that they used the water colors you have. If you don't have the mission goal, that's OK. You just need a variety of reds and greens in this class. I've also using some metallic watercolors. You're probably not surprised by that. I do use metallics a lot. I love them. I have the crew taki story colors. Now you will also need a few other tools. You'll need a variety of brushes. You can get away with a large and a small. If you're really careful, you can get away with just the large. I do use my rigger brush with these long bristles quite a bit for this class, but it is optional. You can use a regular small liner brush or even the tip of your larger brush. This when I also used to make smaller shapes. These air all watercolor brushes. If you choose to turn your paintings in a greeting cards, you'll need a few other things. You'll need a pencil for drawing. You'll need a pin for writing scissors when you what we're going to do with that, you'll need some tape or glue to attach. You were painting to your card base and speaking of card bases, if you want to, you could just use your watercolor paper and fold it, and that could be your card. But that tends to be rather expensive, so car faces are a little less expensive. They come either pre folded or flat, and then you fold them. But they will have the seam. And there a nice way to present your watercolor as a gift and a card all of the same time, so you can just attach it like they said, with some non Cassidy glue, the or double sided tape or even foam tape if you want to stand up off the card. So these air nice to have a little less expensive than just using your watercolor paper which can be quite expensive. I'm also providing you with a copy of our warm up in the resource section. Just for your reference, it shows the colors and the different elements that we use for these paintings and a template of stars. Tree shape. Now, this tree shape is not used in the class specifically, but I love this tree shape. And so that's why I'm including it in our little reference. Okay. I think we're ready to get started with our warm up now. 3. Warm up: Let's get started with the warm up and practiced strokes and shapes for our branches, Berries and leaves. So I'll be using a couple of different brushes. I have this 12 round. This one in particular, does not hold a ton of water, so it will be good for this. And then I either use my liner brush or my rigger brush to make some really small lives. We're going to choose a variety of greens. Who's it for Radiant? Here is a Van Dyke green, which is very Christmassy. Of course, you could mix any of these colors together to my different green. This is Step Green. I apologize. This is all green. All these air mission goals will start with our greens, and we are going to add some. Red varies in. Let's just start here. You can use blues. Turquoise is a lots of different kinds of colors, and let's do a little bit. First, we'll start with some lead, so a leaf is fairly simple to make. It's just a breast stroke or two, so you'll start with the tip. Press down and pull up as you go, and you have a nice Lee shape. If you want. Add more people, and you can start in this case in either direction. So it's just a put the tip down, move a little, press down and pull. Now, if you want to make it a little bit more complex, you could do to brush strokes for one leaf, which would be the same breaststroke. Leave a little space in the middle and pulled down and connected the bottom. That's kind of a wide space, so I'll go back and work on that a little bit more. So that's the second kind of leaf you could do. And then another leaf you could do would be sort of a like a holly leaf. So for that it's not going to be just a brushstroke. Just going to think about the outline of a holly leaf. So I'll go to the side and back in, leave a little tip there and go out more and come around and then I'll do that again. So I want them to be like a little bit tip. No, this is sort of abstract, so keep that in mind. It almost looks like a Christmas tree, but not quite. This is not my favorite kind of leave, so probably won't be using it very much. But just so you know you can do that can add a little line down the middle, go back and add the little speaky tips if you want just a small just to make it kind of speculating. Okay, so that's sort of a spiky looking leave. Could be holly could be for Rose in things like that. Simple, very abstract. You can use multiple colors, so those were kind of pretty much the leaves. What we can use you can to eucalyptus leaves eucalyptus leaf. If you want to include that in your leaves, make a tiny point and then make a circle around. That issue could look to sleep, and you can always add little stems here with just a small stroke of your brush so you could live. This has a little tiny point, and a circle is shaped. It's time getting a little bit of glare, so it's a little bit hard for me to the pain it. So eucalyptus lee Really simple. So those are a few of the leaves we can use. Now, let's talk about Berries. Let me grab a red or pink. You could use a red or pink. I'm just going to add a here to the side. It may mix in there, and that's going to neutralize it a little bit. That's okay. So have a nice read, and all you do is you just You can do a couple of ways so you can make a little dot completely filled in. You just make several of those different sizes and you'll have some varies. And then you just make little brush strokes for the branch that the Berries on. The other thing you could do is leave a little highlight. So just make a stroke, leave a little space and make another shock, and you can just shape that highlight how every link that's a little bit more complicated. You can always go back with a something like a Baskin or a universal signal white pin, any kind of white pin and create those highlights on top of it. It just looks slightly different, and you can leave other spaces if you want river. If we're thinking about say, Ah, holiday tree, it may have lots of lights, and if you want to neutralize that stem, a little bit. Just drop a little green. It's going to make it a little more gray and darker. So simple Berries and simple leaves. You could make Barry's any color. I like the red Berries, but you could do a blue. That would be kind of cool. Remember, as you're making these, the more cool they are, the more they'll recede into the background so we can make look, little blueberries. They're not literal Berries right there, just little circles. And it was just mostly for fun. It's always for fun with me, guys. I'm sorry. It's just the way it is. I mean, why paint if you're not having fun so you can do the raise any color you want. You could also use metallic gold while I have those colors on my brush. So I have the spread. I will write the names at the end, and that way you can see what all the colors are. So for radiant fan dyed green, just very spruce e kind of green tear, and then the more of the yellow green so you can use any greens that you like. Just remember that blew that bluish colors. Cool colors will receive. Here's the blue that I used, although not this concentrate. Go. So those are all the colors I used here. Some of these air mixed colors That's okay, convicts any kind of green with any other time of green. Just be aware of what your own colors will do now. You don't want to mix red and green unless you want a more neutral color. You will get a more grayish color if you mix red and green. Nothing wrong with that. Actually, it's a perfect way to create neutrals, but you may not want that for your painting. Okay, let's talk about branches and pine needles. I'm going to just use my rigger brush because it's so easy. Wet it and pick up a green. I'm just going to use Van Dyke Green, and all you do is draw a little fluid line, right? It's okay. It's cricket doesn't matter, and then you just draw a little draw some in opposite directions. Just draw Djaja and it's OK if they're messy and overlapping and you kind of want them to be thin. So, yes, I'm doing a messy job. That's okay. They kind of go every which direction overlap there coming from all kinds of directions. So you see, you get a nice effect. If you just make small little brushstrokes. I'm using a light touch. Now, if I have this dryer brush, you notice I have some texture here, which is nice. I like that. You may make them shorter at the end, but I have this central branch. If I want to make that branch more of a neutral color, oldest a little red to it at a little more green, darken it up a little, And then if you want to make the background a little bit green, you can just put a little water and let the colorful a little bit which, you know, kind fun splattering here. Okay, so that's easy. Way to make branches. You can make them overlapping. You kind of want to make the pine needles Or are the needles of the tree Go in the same direction as the branch. You wouldn't want them to go ops it too much. You can have a little going weird ways here and there. You can accept the color a little bit, makes some a little bit more worm. They'll come work to the front, so super easy to make these branches just touched down. Press it down a little and lifted as you go and guess what? You can still go back in. I had a little berry, right. It can be a tiny berry or bigger berry, and I don't mind the colors bleeding together. Like I said, if you don't want that neutralize color, then don't let your colors red and green touch so nice little branches and leaves there. And if you want to make something like a bear branch with no leaves or anything, you can use your rigor for that and you just start with the tip and you move quick and then you stop and you turn and change direction. Add a little bit of red to that, and you have something pretty interesting. Branches are wonky and crazy and not necessarily follow some sort of order like we think they should, so you can have just a simple branch. Also, we have some different kinds of leaves, some different kinds of Berries and some branches, and we have our colors. So I think we're ready to begin creating a painting that includes all of these elements or some of these elements choices 4. Quick Tip: share a quick tip with you about using Q tips or cotton swabs. If you're struggling a little bit to make the circles, you can take a cotton swab and you can dip it in water so my waters pink because I have a little bit of red of their top it off. It's going to be very wet, and then you can dip it in your red. And this is a super easy way to make circular Berries right, so you just tap it on, hold it straight up and down, tap it on and you'll get Berries. Now you'll get a nice circles like this, maybe with a little bit less effort. And you know, if you want to include your kids in this, it's a great way to do it. And then you just go back with your brush and add your little stim to your Berries. Easy peasy, right? So that's just a fun tip of a tool you could use. There are also these little tools that are made with foam on them. You could do the same thing within, and depending also how hard you press down on. You'll get bigger or smaller Berries so you know, quick tip about Q tips. A fun technique. Try it with your 5. Berries, Branches, and Leaves - Painting 1 - part 1: Let's fill this entire piece of paper for our card with our Berries, branches and leaves. Now what I will do is start with a light, watery mix of color that leans toward the blue. So I'm going to start with Floridian. It is a slightly neutralized because I have this red in here, but I notice I'm not mixing very much with it, and it's very light and water. Let's just start with some leaves and I'm just going to make some simple leaf shapes. So I will start by I kind of thinking I want my some of it to go this way so I'll just put a line there because easier And then put my brush over and make Simley shapes that go from there and connect them a little. And if my color changes a bit, that's perfect. Good with that. I'll go with a little bit of this and I cream again. I'm keeping it really light right now because thes will kind of go into background. No, I'm not carrying about perfection. You know by now that I just think perfection is overrated. Lancisi, as I say that Miss up, Let me take a little bit of this blue and just on another, I believe there and there it was for fun, and I will use the very tip my brush to enhance this branch. It's a little bit thick, maybe a little thicker than you wanted to be. That's okay. So now I have a nice little branch, that leaf there, and I think I'll have another one go up like this. So using my wrist, making that line more water using this Van Dyke, I keep wanting to call it spruce because that's what it reminds me, Have that it's actually a Van Dyke Green and I will create some leaves that it needs more than one struck. See, I lift a little highlight in the middle, and because it has a lot of water, it may have some blooms in there, which to me is magical. Sony pulled little leave here also now just alternate where I'm touching the branch and I'm making them a little bigger as I go down here. And I think I want stroke for that, and maybe that one, too leaves you're not perfect in nature. They're not going to be perfect on our painting. I a little bit of a blue leaf there, too, And a little bit here. Small. Okay, so far, so good. I like it now. I think I'm just going to continue this idea of these curved branches so I will curve one this other direction working from the bottom off. You'd rather you can use pencil lines for this mark, but I don't mind having that light water color in the background there. So let me just make some leaves. I might have to go back and add a little bit there because I feel like it continues off her sheet again. I'm just pressing my brush down and then lifting it and creating those leaf shapes going for a messy, loose, fun and fancy free. I think that's a movie. But there we go. And I think some of that shapes here filling in where I would love some space more space than I wanted to leave. Now this is going to overlap. It's OK. Remember, watercolors transparent. So be show through. Now I'm going to pull stem down. This one is skinnier. I'm using super light touch. So I feel like I have enough leaves in there for now and I want to go in and add some of the branches that we used in the world. So these some of these branches that we did an hour branches, Berries and leaves warmer. So let me switch brushes. Remember, I do have my towel over here, which I'm when I have to much attack off my brushed. Don't forget to use that. I I know you can't see it, but it is still there. So I have my rigger brush. You can use a small liner brush if you choose. I just like how crazy my rigger brush can be. And I'm going to go starting with spruce and a little bit. I did it again. This is Van Dyke Green and I have thicker mixture of paint. More paint, a little less water than before. So it's going to be a little darker, and I'm just going to pull a branch down from this top area. There we go. And that gives me a guideline. And I'm just going to start putting them in a little longer toward the top. A little crazy, a little curved, right? We want our branch to be sort of natural looking now this is already dry. So when I go over it, it's not going to bleedin together and notice. I'm just not too careful because honestly, I'm gonna matter in the end, if it's perfect or some specific kind of branch or anything like that, I am going to turn my card around because I'm having a little bit of trouble making that stroke and I need the stork for me. So I wanted to go away. Used to be a little longer again. I want them to be cursed. I'm looking. And I do want some to go in the opposite direction because I wanted to be nice and messy. Short ones near the end, little longer ones here and reinforce that branch with a stroke. And I think I will also add a little bit of water just to you can use your bigger brush to do that filling out a little. This branch is not all alone. Okay, let's do warmer branch now using the sap green and this will bleed in together. I'm going to sort of overlap it and I didn't want it to be trying to decide. I want to get more like this again working loose free and keeping your strokes light. You don't need a lot of pressure for this notice. That's very, very great. I'm gonna add a little bit of Van Dyke mixed in, and it's OK if they overlap. In fact, it's perfect. If they do, have you looked at a treaty and then as particularly a pine tree or spruce chickie and their their limbs air very intertwined. Now let's ask him because my stem disappeared, right? I want my soon to go this way, and I want to add a little brown. So add instead of brown out a little red, which will neutralize that green, although, and makes a nice Christmas. He kind of touch. So a couple of branches coming in there and this one looks very much like a pine like countries that I have here in my home. And I'm going to make another green yellow green branch. Maybe even warm it up a little bit with a little bit of the lighter yellow green, and I'm going to just go all the way across this time here. Nice and clip it again. This French is going down, right? Can I just loosely making marks that resemble pine straw or pine needles or something related to that and making sort of some longer some shorter make a few go in the opposite direction because they're not, they're not very. They're kind of unruly, you know, and adding a little bit of our Bandai green in there, dark in it up a little. Just here and there. More strokes now. Right now, it's very thin. This branch is not filled out right, so I'm adding, going to pick up more Sepp Green and a little bit darker now my blue just puddled into here . I don't know if you can see that. Here's my dark green and my blue went in there and I'm perfectly OK with that. So let's continue making He's crazy. Lose free strokes, going mostly in the direction that the branches flowing toward the end of the branch and filling in a little where there's some space. Now I have a really mixed color of blues and greens, all mixed together. It's making my branch be very interesting and color, which is to me very cool, continuing to go over where the others were. No problem. Let me go back to my yellow green and a few more brush strokes holding my brush loosely. That was really big. I will do want to be thicker here, where it comes across as it works its way to the end. It should be thinner. Makes them really well, bones, There any color you want, you go add a little bit of that red in. I really like the effect that gave some just going to do a little more little spot here and there and will create sort of our branch that we're looking for and then maybe a little bit of water. I'll use my bigger brush. So pull loosen that color up a little and let over lack. We're painting now look at that. That's really nice. So you have these in the background, and then we have this pine coming to the foreground and I'm loving it. So far, so far, it's been times Teoh okay, lets that's more branches. I'll speed this part of the video up for you. It's basically a repeat of the same thing, using the same colors, starting with for idiot or starting with Indyk and then moving to a more yellow green so speed this part up for you and then I'll be back to talk with you a little bit more and and some Berries way. - Thanks . 6. Berries, Branches, and Leaves -Painting 1 - part 2: So now I have my branches on here, and I'm trying to decide if I want to put some red Berries or not really am loving these branches and the way they look. Some what? I'm going to just take my card base and put my painting on my card base. Now these airframe a ble you could frame it or you can make it into a little Christmas card . It's a lot of fun, and it's nice to receive. No, if I put it this way, I have the branches coming in and going up and down like they're coming in from the side and I have this nice white space. I could put a sentiment right. Merry Christmas or happy holidays here for season's greetings, Whatever you like. Happy New Year. So this is a nice composition, but I could just turn it and see what happens if I turned the card this way. So it opens up and down how that looks. And while originally when I started paying this, I thought it would go be a horizontal type, landscape type orientation. I actually like it better vertically, but that's completely up to you. So I am not really liking this configuration. I could turn this around and see now looks like the trees were growing up, and I don't like that at all. It doesn't look right to me. No, originally ahead of this way, going vertically and I'm like that. What if I flip it around now? The weight of the painting is here, and it's flowing this way, which seems to be counterintuitive to opening. The cars feel like the balance is off if I put it this way. So let's go back to this orientation, which is the one that I prefer. You may like a different one. That's perfectly fine. And I think what I want to do then is leave space here for a sentiment. If I want to write one, you don't have to write one on the card. It could be just painting, but I will add in some small Berries here and there just to bring a pop of color and make it look really nice. You could also add in some with white Wash would be like snow on the tree, but I think I'm not going to do that. But I do want some red Berries It's a little too plain right now. Now, as I paint the Berries, I'm going to start with it in the orientation I want Keep in mind that I want to leave this wide space. I don't want to put a lot here in this white space either. I feel it has a nice balance there. So I want to put the Berries around in this tree, even though real life this tree may not have Berries in it. You can do this on painting, right? It's your painting. You're in charge. Well, sometimes watercolor is in charge. But generally your inject, you could use red, you could use gold. And I'm just gonna paint some little circles here and there and some little dots as if there's some little Berries hiding in the branches. I'm a prank, some that are not completely visible. So half a circle kind of being. And I'm just putting them where I think they will look nice. Maybe putting one or three in a group. I don't really like a group of two there, some smaller, some larger. You can, because this red will just darken when it goes over the green branch. If you want to put one on top of a branch? That's OK. You can do that. And remember later, you can go back and add in some white to add little highlights if you want. Kind of like having these single Berries here and there. I think it looks nice. Very Christmassy Holiday ish. What do you think? Do you like having the So the little Barry's 16. Now I can. I kind of have him on the branches. Right? And I could almost just splatter a little. Can I do that? Is it okay? How do you feel about that? I was bladder just a little. I remember trying to keep this area fairly clean, so I'll just cover that with my hand a little Do a little splattering. Oh, very good. I like that a lot. You know, almost always like splattering. Now go in with this yellow green and the reds going to mix with it as I go. But I'm going to just make some little connections here with some of the Berries. So they're not just sitting on top, but they actually are connected to our tree a little. I don't see. Let me do It's very subtle. It's not going to be eat a big deal there. But it's just as sometimes the smallest drugs can add just the touch you need. Okay, I actually really love this, and I don't want to touch it anymore. Just going to let it dry, and then I'll put it together on my card. So after letting this dry a little bit, I noticed that the Berries air not quite as dark as I really want him to be. So I'm going to go back in and darken them up. And what I want to do is use less water and more paint with my red. So I have a thicker mixtures you could see it's going to move a lot less going to be a little bit more opaque, and the green won't shifter as much. And right now my Berries looks sort of clear, and I don't want that. So I'm just going to add in just going back over the ones that are lighter than I want them to be, adding little dot of color. If I cover up the whole berry works. Either way, you don't have to cover the whole berry, but you could use red Wash for this. So I said you could use metallic, which I love that idea and some of these I want them to be behind. So I'm not even going to cover the whole entire berry unless it's in the front. Maybe peeking out. I may just to look a little bit. Some of these dots, actually where splattered are lighter than I want them to be. So I also tap some color and where they are, summer in the background, which is really nice, like having this mix of lights and darks and have some of the red retreat because it is so light and then some of the red come forward because it's so nice and solid and thick color . So there we go. Just remember, you can always go back and add to your painting, even if your paintings been sitting, you know, for a while, like some paintings I have sent for a long time. And then I go back and I go, Oh, I know what I need to do to this now, and I'll add to it. There's no reason why you can't add to your painting later on after it's dry, created another wash a layer of color, anything you need. I could actually go back and add more for inches, but I don't feel I need it. I'm really liking this card the way it is right now. 7. Leaves and Berries - Painting 2 - part 1: Let's make a card with our branches, Berries and leaves. But in this case, I don't want a lot of overlapping. So in the last card we overlapped the branches over the leaves, and then we added the Berries on top. But for this one, let's do it a little bit different again. I don't know what orientation I want the car get. I'll decide that later. I don't have to decide that now. But if you prefer to have it a certain way, then certainly turn your paper to be the orientation, horizontal or vertical that you prefer. So I'm going to use a small brush. This brush holds a lot of water. It's the Princeton Neptune, but it is nice and small, and I'm going to start by painting some red Berries. I really had a lot of fun painting the red Berries. Remember, you can use a Q tip if you prefer, and I'll just create little circles here and there in groups. And if they touch, that's okay, some bigger, some smaller, some overlapping. And maybe you believe that little white space here and there. This is fairly thick paint. I think it will dry a little darker than some of the other. So let me just go over here and make some more. I'm using the permanent red you could use red pinks, purples, the holiday colors that you like. You may have a certain theme that you like, and you want to use those colors. Feel free, leaving some little dots on that one, because it's fun, and I'm sort of doing this random. But I do have in mind a composition, and I want to use sort of the rule of threes. Where are the rule of having odds numbers? It always looks nice, so keep that in mind. When you're placing, it looks random, but it's not as random as it may seem. And some coming down over here kind of like that. Those aren't very round. It's almost like leave shapes like that. Okay, so I have a few little Berries. Now I'm going to take my router brush. I have too many rushes over here. Let me move some of these that I'm not using. Right this minute, olive waiting, using my rigger brush, long, thin bristles rate, and I'll pick up a little bit of my green Whatever color Breen you like, and make sure you have enough water so your paint flows off your brush and we want to make a curved line down the middle of the Berries. Now, you could use red if you want to. Yep, to you and getting drop in other colors and just put a little wide spot at the bottom of that branch. This one goes like this. Use your imagination if you're Berries aren't dry yet and it bleeds together. Even better, guys. Even better, that very is behind there. So somewhere in front, somewhere behind Nice. Now this one is a little wacko. I think that I wanted to curve this way, but I don't want it to go over that Barry. So I'm just going to break it. So just go break like this and make metals den. Do all of my little connections. We said it bleeds together. Perfect. I'm skipping this one. This one's on the front. These air really fun to paint. Now, This one I want to come off the which way this way on the side can touch it in use the color green you like, make some tiny branches that that looks so nice. You'd almost think you might think we were in control of this meeting. Were not. Trust me too much. I'm gonna add a little bit of circular bit of circle water there. I don't know why I just wanted it to be more Okay. Very nice. Now we may add more later. We may at some bigger or smaller, but let's add now some small leafs gleams. I think I want to use a blue. I have the peacock blue here very watery, mixed with a little tiny touch of green. Should be a nice Ritter queasy color which will look pretty And then I'm just going Teoh again. I'm making smaller shapes this time. This just going to be sort of like a pattern, but not patterned That makes any sense. So again, I'm using the same stroke tip. Press down, pull up and minor coming, touching que leaves a little bit bigger as I go and actually think I a little bit more blue was just for fun And make this branch car a little bit and even at a little bit of your green here and there. Now, if you don't like the shapes of these leaves. Remember, you can go back and work on it a little bit more if you want. Build the shapes up a little, leave some white areas. He's their imaginary leaves. You can do what you want with. Um, go back. Create. Okay, so it's a nice little sprig. I can tell that mine. My round number four is getting a little worn out. It doesn't make very sharp points anymore. That's a sign. This one out. Now I want to make a connecting one. Same colors. Light strokes were leaves. Now you can put her a little guideline here of a branch I wanted to be. I would like that. Get him pressing down and picking up. This time. My leaves are just one below the other. If they overlap with the other, even better. Perfect. And I'm not worried about the colors too much right here. Actually, like for them to overlap makes it very interesting. If you ask me and you can't quite tell which leave belongs to which plant adding a little water there, That's two stands. I want to do one more stint. Well, let me. I do want to do one more stem But let me add a little bit of a continuous line here and some little dots. I don't know. I just like dots, so well, I little dots there. Okay? Remember, if you don't like this first layer, you can always go back and add another layer. But I'm trying to keep it simple here for this card. And so I have one too. Branches, I think I should have 1/3 but I don't want to go there. So I think I'll make a very small 3rd 1 here and continue the little blue. And there, I think. And I am. You see me at a little dots, and it's just fun. This is for fun, right? So that's kind of pretty right there. That looks nice. Make another little branch. It's time. I'll make it a little bit more yellow green this time. Have up that a little bit warmer using that olive green, which is a yellowy green. If you don't have the exact name, bring it. Name types of these colors Use what you have. Just have fun. Don't take it too seriously and you will actually improve so much faster that way. So this way just my stim where I want to put my leaves. I'll go back to this because I wanted to designate where wanted that to go. So again, I've got the blue green making little strokes for the lease pick. Pick it up, Put it down again. Pressure, less pressure. So light pressure, darker pressure. Turker have your pressure kind of thing. I'm adding a little bit more of the old green as I goes like blew up there at the top and this is slightly different from that one. That's okay. It's actually perfect that way. And then I will do another branch that goes a little bit that so we can add in my you've shaves and some little dots like the way that's looking, Maybe a little bit more blue done it for my palate. I like these little dots. They're fun and then maybe it just a tiny bit Remember keeping him threes. But just like that, actually, let's just make a few little lines at the base. Here we go. I'll do the same here Just for fun. We're doing this for fun and enjoyment. Don't forget that. So how did I have this? I don't even know this is the way I had it oriented. The beginning, that branch coming down. Here's what I see. I need something that goes more in this direction. So let's do that with the rigger brush and go out like that and I will add some leaves to that as well. We could make that a pine branch, but I had so much fun with that in the last one, and it kind of took over So I don't want to make everything like that. So let's just make some small little leaves, short strokes, little tiny strokes again. I want to add in that blue just cause I think it's so pretty, so fun to see the colors go together. Now that's a nice and deeper darker. I love it so much. OK, go back to our green Now This Marie inch maybe a little bit different kind of ranch said Okay, Absolutely. OK, so look at that nice leading color. I love it and then I will speed this part of the video up and then we'll come back. So I I know, chat with you a little more so this way I didn't have any flow there. I like it. Okay. Tiny leaves going for the tiny leaves. That So I want to take a minute now to look at my card and see if I see anything that doesn't quite make sense to me or something I want to change. 8. Leaves and Berries - Painting 2 - part 2: take a minute now to look at my card and see if I see anything that doesn't quite make sense to me or something. I want to change. I have a nice mix of color, the blues and the greens, and the red really pops off there some nice leave shapes, which are really fun. So now I just need to take a look at it and just see if there's anything that looks kind of weird, which I see a couple of things. So this very branch and this very branch are just kind of floating out there, and it doesn't fit with the rest of the card. It doesn't fit with the rest of the car design, so I want to change that up a little. I also want to decide if I want to add in the other accents, but first I want to take care of the berry issue so they're kind of floating there, and I have to decide what I want to do with them. This one is pretty simple and straightforward. I can just continue it down to the edge, so let's just do that. I'll just adds more Berries and then I will continue to stem. And that won't look funny to me anymore. Now, if it looks OK, you if you don't have any issues when you finish, don't worry. You don't have to do this step. This is kind of an extra step. And I just felt like something's need, a little improvement and kind of a theme. I guess with this class is that you know, you can go back and make changes even to something you've already done a little bit. So that looks nicer, continues sort of off the edge, which is better. I think now to this one. It's kind of not working, not going to, like, remove it, right? So I need to figure out a way to make it fit with my composition. So these leaves air flowing down and this is flowing up and out. So let me to the similar thing. Continue this. Now, See, I put that little invest in Guess what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It looks nice when you paint it, but it doesn't matter if you want to change it. So let's continue this our king line right down off there, and that's going to be a big swatch of Berries. Is that okay? Absolutely, Absolutely fine. So I will paint these Berries and then I'll be back. Okay. Like that light? I do want to do some red splatters, some small red splutters. Now, if you have a family rush, that's a great way to do this. But if you don't, you can use a regular paintbrush. And I'm just doing this because I love splatters. So very nice. So let's take a look at this on our card base. Now we can wait until dries. I have this sort of deck, Aled, edge of the top. I'm okay with that. You can always trim it with scissors if you prefer not to tear your paper. This looks really nice. And I think it could look really nice. No matter which way you turn it, it's really pretty. And here's a nice area. If you would like to put a sentiment on a separate piece of paper glue that on top, that would look really nice right there. And you could also do it this way. It looks really nice. So anyway, you want to use this other card. The composition looks really nice, and you can make it into 9. Gold Leaves - Painting 3: Okay, let's try this with metallics. I have mine crew talky. Genz I 10 be started colors here. They're all metallic forms of gold. And I'm just going to do Berries and leaves on this background, and I'll do the same process. A nice light lying There is a little bit of red left in my brush, so it's going to look a little pink and putting some nice metallic leaves on their same process. Touch, pull. These are bigger than the last painting that I did for the most part, and they actually also have a little less water, more pain, so makes it a little bit more pick, and I will get a little bit bigger as I go down the branch general. The leaves don't have to be perfectly shaped. Remember, they could be turned in different directions, which will make them look different then the other. So that's looking nice. So let's do another one. Wouldn't think about this being vertical composition this time, so I want to have this. This is coming in from there. Let's think about this. Say we have a sentiment here. Okay, well, let's leave this area clean and bright and We'll just have a nice, very soft card with metallic, so I shouldn't have as much pressure on there as I did. But there we go. So this area is still going to be clear and these leaves will be a little smaller. And I notice I'm doing this upside down like it's I could do this with this. Brush has a better point than my other one that's a little bit worn out. Turn that a little that way. So I need to remember to keep a nice a bit of water on my brush, though not too much. And then we'll see. We can have one that goes kind of up a little. Now, this is a little hard to see, maybe because of my lights. So I apologize. If that's a problem. I have to have lights when I'm filming. Thank you for your understanding. I really appreciate it. And then one more that comes out and goes this way really light line there, and I'll turn it this time just to make it so I'm not painting upside down, making those loose a little smaller and a little bigger as it gets down. If they overlap that's okay. And maybe one more little branch here. That was also kind of a big stroke, maybe a few little lines with my rigor. Remember, you make sure it's flowing so you can see that nice metallic on the brush. But it has enough water that will flow off of the brush, and I'll just make a few little lines here. Make sure you need more water there. This is not flowing, and I want a full in the same direction of the branches that I already have an from the same area, so you can just have a few little lines there. So if you can see very metallic very nice and light and be a very elegant card and you can put sentiment here, so let's try that out from the card ace. Now, this is not going to show up a lot on the edges. It's going to be very simple, but if you want the edges to show up, there is something you could get. So say you want a metallic on the edges so you can take your brush, pick up more of the same color of paint or similar and just go right around this way, it's going to be sort of so much it a little going to be messy. And it may take a couple of passes to do that, just to add a little bit of sparkle there to that edge and make a stand out from the other part of the card. The reason why it may take a couple of passes because see home smudging it, and that actually removes it from the edge. I'm just using the body of the brush to go along the edge and create a nice It's your frame for this card and of a spotty I'm I'm even happier. So you decide what works for you if you like. If you like it to be more neat, Ben, be morning. If you like to be more splotchy and loose, be more slouchy and loose. Either way will work. I can see this nice Dekel edge, which will look good on the card the way it is now. Go back over one more time, this time without smudging. Just to really define that edge, be careful not to put your but your finger that you smudged with on the card notice that dried really fast because I didn't use much water. Also able to touch it. But if you're still wet, remember, don't touch it. Wait till it dries. Do the edge. I love this, actually. I mean, this is very elegant. Pretty actually feel. I want to add some splatters to this again. That's totally optional. Just something I really enjoy and like to see. And I think as a nice little touch, just a small amount in that area. And if I wanted to, I could make, like, a little golden berry dots. I don't really feel like it needs it, but just to show you some small ones here and there. All right, I love this. Very elegant. Let's move on. 10. Triangle Tree - Painting 4: I want to paint one more piece of watercolor paper for card, and I'm just going to fill this completely with the branches and with some small Berries. So I'm going to fast forward through this process because you've seen me paint the branches and the Berries already. It's the same process, but there will be a little bit of a twist with what we're going to do with this one in the end. Okay, so let's get started there. - The oh, wait, I think the square card base that I showed you at the beginning, we're going to use this for that card base. So it's really rather small, and this won't fit on here completely, and you have some options. You can put it straight on. Just trim it and put it straight on and make a square of it to fit. Or you could do something even a little different so you could cut this out into a tree shape or a circle to be an ornament. I want to cut out a tree shape from something from here somewhere, and I could just decide what I want to do, and I'll just draw that. I give you the drawing on the front or back. But if you don't want the pencil ones to show, then drawing on the back, of course I needed to be fairly small, thanks to be, you know, not as biggest this card. So let's put a dot and we'll just It doesn't have to be perfect. Cut out a tree shaped that can be wonky or it can be perfect. Let's just go with this now. Going to have some left over doused perfectly fine. Like I said, if you want to use this one, it's a complete card. Didn't feel free. I'm going to cut straight across here because I'll show you. You can get multiple uses from this little page, so it's cut our triangle. I set out. So now I have this shape. Have a white tree. Look at that. But that's not what I'm going for. And let me just trim again. It's not about perfection, right? Sometimes when I'm terming, I wanted to be perfect, especially tohave straight lines. But it doesn't always work out, especially since I free handed that right. So, look, we have a lovely little Christmas tree that we can put on their cars, her little square card. It's handmade, and we can just attach it with tape. Or you can attach it with foam tape to make it have a little bit more dimension. I feel like I would put this here and just use draw a little star up top, and that will be a nice little simple. You can use this for something else to make more trees from it. Or see I will cut off the bottom. And now I can make a little bookmark from this over a little tag, a gift tag so you don't have to waste anything. If you do this kind of card making and you cut off part of your paper and that sort of thing, you don't have to waste. I decided to add a little star to the card, so I traced the star, painted it with the gold and cut it out, not just used the double sided tape and added it to the card base. Use your own best handwriting to write a sentiment. It really gives it a nice touch 11. Thank you and Project: Thank you so much for taking my class. I'm so happy that you're here. So let's talk a bit about your project after completing the warm up which I highly recommend that you do. There are four different paintings that are in this class. Now you can choose the one that best suits you and that will be your project. All paintings are quick and easy, So the one you choose is completely up to you. Of course I love seeing your projects. So please do share them with me here and on Instagram. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and I'll see you very soon. 12. Bonus - Gold Metallic Tag: so that would be cool to try this black tag and our metallic watercolor to really cool how the mentality will show up on the black. Now, this is not watercolor paper, although now black watercolor paper is available. But this one is a black card stock, so it's not going to take his much water as a watercolor paper. But we don't need it for this technique because we want our paints to be rather opaque and shiny. So let's make a quick tag with what we just learned. This is just a little bonus video for you. I will start with my rigor and pick up some paint nice and juicy there and like before, I kind of like having a place where I want to G. O. So I will put this upside down because pushing away from me works better than pulling toward me with the brush and I will just make it work and then I'll make another mark and I want to make it lighter. So let me just take a little bit of that and make my pointy on there and make some more a little Frenchy shapes. Okay, so that's just a start, and now we can just make her leave shapes. So I'll pick up some of that metallic paint. Look how juicy this is. I have actually quite a bit of water in there. You don't have to put that much water, but look pretty. I love it. So now just make some leaves and I want my leaves to trail down so they're going to point downward. That's why I'm flipping it upside down. And I want them to be a little smaller here. That's got a drop on its limit on a little smaller at the top, her rather at the end of the branch, because this will be actually the bottom of our attack. Look at that gorgeous color and just pressing it down, making that same leaf stroke that we've been making all along again. I do like that tapping for some reason I'm okay that there's a drop on my paper and that's going to bleed in there. I think that looks nice and maybe reminds you of those Berries that we've been painting. So I'll just make leaves a little bigger as we G O. And they're going to hang off the edge. There and that is perfectly fine. I'll just paint over the edge since I have my service protected with this paper. And if it's watercolor, it's going to wipe right off your surface anyway. So no worries there. Now let's do this. Oh, that's a strange looking one. Let me fix that. Don't like the way those look, Just add another little line there. I had it turned the wrong way in. It went all wacky. Okay, so I'm just working my way back in there and a few more here. I don't have a stem there, but I will put one. And right now they're just because everything's wet. They're just going to bleed in together. Who knows what's on top of what's on bottom doesn't really matter, does it? A few little lines here and then one thing I also want to dio is let me take my rigor. I'll make a few more lines with the recur. If you're wondering why I'm putting it here. I'm just using this paper as a palate to move pain around rather than going straight from my metallic palette, so really lightly putting some little lines in just to show some flow and that sort of thing, and then I'll just go back and going to make some little little marks and dance the brush around a little bit makes kind of like a little spray, just which is nice, I think. And it's really simple, just barely touching the brush down and moving it around randomly, kind of random in a nice little effect there. So I just want to put some of these, like, all kind of all around over there a little bit. You feel like it has a nice effect and working back toward my where my branches come out, it's like a little spray of branches and maybe a little bit over here. Don't want that cut corners to be linked that. So now look at that. We have a nice little a little array and we can right here, here if you want to. I kind of want to add a little bit more of the leaves, so one really lightly maybe go that to create another one, but maybe make the leaves a little smaller. Here you go. So much smaller stroke. What do you think? I still feel like I need a little bit more branching nus up there. So let's go for that. Using the rigor again, kind of fill this in just a little. It's just a little on it now. I feel like it needs more there. It's little blink there for some reason now, of course, I could use multiple colors of metallic. I could use opaque watercolor or mix. Make some white wash with my watercolor to bacon show up on the black. Who knows? Maybe I'll do a whole class on metallics on using black paper, really fascinated with black paper right now. And then, Let's see, maybe a little another small leaf there are running. What do you think? That's pretty good. Pretty nice right there. See that? Nice metallic? Now I do want to do the edge, and so I'll take my rigger brush and gore on the edge. It's still wets. Have to be really careful not to touch. And so I'll just start here and create a nice gold metallic edge right along. And if you want to, you could just smear it a little bit. Just to I had that will make your tag look interesting and nice and pull everything all together makes a little more Christmassy, I think, or Holiday ish. These would be great, actually for a new year because they're so shiny and sparkly, right? Let me just again. I'm not worried about perfection. How many times have I said that, uh, about just repeating myself? But it's so important because you can get caught up trying to make things look exact, and you can lose joy Now. Some people really love realistic realism and all of that, and that's perfectly fine. That's great, but probably not in my class if you like that, because that's not really my style in my way of teaching. But it's all great art, great. So now I'm going back around a second time just to solidify that line. First I smudged it. Now I'm solidifying it, making it more more solid that solidified, making more solid. It's the same word, right? But I think you get the idea. I'm creating a line around the edge with a side of my rigger brush the body of my rigger brush, so holding it at an angle but not too much of an angle. You could do this with your larger brush. Also okay, looking very nice. Very nice. Nice metallic. So that's just a little bonus. Listen, they're using our metallics, making some nice little tags for your gifts, whether it's the holiday season or, you know, any holiday or just a fun gift for a friend. Okay, thanks so much. 13. Bonus - Red Metallic Tag: So let's try another tab. But with Jim Colors, I want to use the red. It's going to look nice and just want to show you how colors can look on. Black card stuck for this bonus tag. Lesson 27 strokes. We can always add more later and then let's make some reshapes. I'm doing this quick and loose. You can be more careful if you like. For some reason, I always like to just tap it after I put leave down. That was just my own peculiarity. I guess you don't have to do that. Were a little bit bigger so you can see this metallic. It shows up on the black because it's metallic watercolor, just like the golden looks Really nice. So he adds more leaves, make these a little smaller, and then let's at a few little sprigs here and I'll just do something. Well, tapping there. Just add some interest. Be better to use my rigor, I think with that, um, let's do we'll make leaves from this one are larger leaves. We don't know which leave goes with which plant it doesn't matter. That's looking really pretty. So far. I'm using nice flowing lines. I don't want them to be stiff. Maybe a few more little like little marks of a spray. I like the way that looks. So just put some little dots overlapping here and there. I'm ignoring this whole to some matter. Do you get adults? Looks pretty nice. I like it looks good. I want to add spotters. But before I do that, I will do the edging because it actually is easier to do the edging before you add splatter . So we'll start on this hard side where the most color is. That's the difficult side to hold because I'm still doing this. Well, it's wet. Please feel free to wait and let it drive. You're less likely to mess it up if you wait and want to dry. All right, here we go. Can some nice spotters and we have a nice little tag that we can put on our day packages. 14. Bonus Bonus: More Berries & Branches pt 1: Let's do a bonus, bonus lesson for our berries, branches, and leaves. I love them. Laid out on my palette a few color, I spritz my paints. I also have my metallics for this bonus, bonus. And so let me just share with you the colors I have here. This is permanent red. These are my mission gold paints permanent red. And this is permanent rose, sap green or olive green. And then this is peacock blue. Alright, so I have those colors, I may use more, but these are all from the Mission Gold. Alright, let's get started with painting and I'm just going to play around with the berries, branches, and leaves and see where it takes me. I don't have a pre-planned design in mind too much except I think I wanted to just go. I don't know. I just wanted to be fun. I have my rigger brush. I have this cosmic topspin, which I haven't used in this lesson before, but I've used in other lessons and classes. And it helps a little bit less water than my Princeton Neptune. Okay, so I'm going to wet my brushes. So to get my brush is pretty wet so they're ready to go. And now I'm just going to play with the design, the composition, and just kinda see where it takes me a bit of this gold to start with my rigor. That go and really good. I love seeing that paint pool up and get on the brush right there. Says really loaded up. I'm really loving this rigor up all the way that way. I can make more continuous line without having to reload my brush. Now I just want to start with a little swirly, nice swirly line. There are two. Just have a little fun, little more water, they're a little more paint. So I'm thinking that this is the area where the center of my composition. Then I'm just gonna go in and make some berries. I have a tissue here so that if I want to add a little highlight and I miss it, I can do that. Tap off some of that excess water by tapping the belly of my brush. Remember the berries are just the dots, just little circles, little circles. They don't have to be perfect circles. I'm leaving also sometimes a little space for highlights. And they can be in bunches, they can be bigger or smaller. And once you get your little circle, you can just tap in a little bit more paint. Yeah. I just wanted to I don't know, as I wanted to start with the berries, kind of placing them randomly in a way, but we'll get that all worked up. Later. Something I noticed about the berries. I didn't notice before when I made the other tutorials for this class, I noticed that they have this little stem on my drive, my brush getting kinda dry. You just tap that off and let me just put two berries to get her there. I can separate them later somehow with darker colors if I want more pay more pigment. Sounds kinda messy. Said okay, it's okay. So something that I noticed, that's what I was saying, is that the berries have a little green or brownish stem on the bottom of them, opposite of where they connect to the to the branch. So I thought that was interesting. Now I'm going to make these a little bit darker by adding in an analogous color, which is this. I'm going to add in a bit of this permanent rose. Just going to drop it in. It's going to create some shadow effects. So I'm getting more of a little bit of more of a 3D effect. This is all still wet. That one's not wet, but that's okay. Because I'm just I'll just glaze over it. Does it cut really light there and I don't want it to be quite that light. Alright, there we go. So I'm going back to that permanent red now. I just want to just enjoy this process so it takes some time. Relax, relax. Wanted that to be a smaller barrier but it's not. That's okay. I noticed that my brush is getting a little bit older and it's not as point D as it used to be. And I add a few more little dots. I can even pick up a little bit on tissue to highlight. Just for fun. You don't have to do that. I'm going to switch over to my other brush, which holds less water, but it's got a little bit of a more pointy tip. I still do the same process though, tapping off that excess water, the belly of the brush. But I can make some smaller berries this way. I said that and then I made a bigger buried, you know, it's okay. I couldn't get my Q-tip out and make better that way. Alright. Partial Barry, part of a berry that may do some splatters before I finish this painting. Man splatters. All right. Let me add a little bit more. I'm dropping in some more that red just to deepen, darken and make those a little bit more. I don't know. I just wanted to be a little darker, a little more red, luscious looking. I have a few berries. 15. Bonus Bonus: More Berries & Branches pt 2: Now I'm just thinking, let's do some branches. Let's do some branches. Let's go for this green. Now I mentioned that these had little dots on them, opposite of stems, but I didn't put any. So I may put a dot or two of that green just to indicate a little bit of that. For fun. You can pick where you want the end of its stem to get a little bit more water. I want this paint to move a little bit more. It's going to dry lighter because of that, but that's okay. I forgot to mention I have a little bit of yellow ocher over here just to warm up my green even more. If I want to use that, Let's just make Let's make some marks. Okay. I dropped my brush, right? That's okay. Not going to worry about that. We're gonna make some marks going out from this center area. And I'm really lightly touching the paper. It's a very light touch. And also I'm rolling my brush. Just so you see, very actually rolling my brush in that paint. To get that really nice tip on here. I can just press down and make marks, but I just wanted to make some really light directional marks going out from here. And I don't mind if it goes over my berries or not. So they don't have to be continuous either. And I can even make some more swirly marks with this green. Oh, look at that. Like that. Just like making interesting marks. I think it's fun. Yeah. I went through that, read it, picked it up, it turned that Brown, picked up a little more, went through that barrier, but it little skipped a little bit. So that's really makes a nice, nice little mark there. And let's go this way. Now you can be much more careful and cautious if you want to. Okay, That's up to you to pick up a little bit of that yellow ocher. There we go, right there. So yellow ocher and mix a little bit with that green now have both colors on my brush. Again, I'm going to spin that brush to get it nice smooth. And then I can just do some flicking here. Looking. So these are the branches, pickups more of that color that makes color just, I'm just putting in some idea branches. They're not actually perfect DO branches, right? So just getting in the idea of those evergreen trees. I don't necessarily have to go where it went before with the branches. I'm not really even concerned about that. I'm just working my way out of the middle, flicking that brush just like it's a flick of your wrist and you move your handout. So flick, flick, flicking that, as I said, doesn't have to go from the same. And I actually really love this picking up some of that red. It just does so interesting. And I can always go back and add more of that if I want to. All right. Remember you flick in different directions because these evergreens kind of have these overlapping needles. When you're looking at them. They're not, they're not this perfect needle thing going on. Like we tend to think in our brain. Our brain makes up that symbol, right? Our brain makes up that symbol of what an evergreen looks like. But that's not what they really look like. It's just an idea or mental image, right? So what I want to encourage you to do is just break a little bit out of that mental image, a breakout of that mental image, just a little bit of what you think. It looks like the symbol of these perfect little branches, right? And it's okay if you'd like to paint those. Perfect, Go for it. But just break out a little bit and go a little, Google a little bit beyond what you might think you've done before and add in a little bit of wildness because they have some wildness. So now I'm just going back over where I had those branches before and going back in and painting. Just want to add the sea or do I want? And I'm just thinking about where I want these in the composition. And then I'm just going from there. They don't even necessarily on as far as I'm concerned, have to come from the exact same branch or anything. Because if you think of it, they could be all overlapping and fun. Fun times, guys, fun times. Now remember if you have a bluer green, It's going to look like it's in the background. If you have a warmer green like a more yellowy green, It's going to look like it's in the foreground. So just keep that in mind. If you want some stuff in the background. You're going to have to paint that. You don't have to. But one way to do that is to paint it bluer. We can even try that right now. I have a little bit of this peacock blue, which is a green blue, and I'm going to mix it with my green little bit. So now I have a bluer green. It's more of a blue-green there. It's hard to see on my palette maybe because it's separated, not in a puddle. There you go. So see you have a more of a blue-green. That's my peacock blue plus my sap green probably has a little bit of the yellow ocher in it and that's okay. Then we're just going to keep adding in some of those and they'll kinda go toward the back a little bit more. You can even use the side of your rigger brush. I just did that right there. Just going to put a few of those because well, that's just what I wanna do. Just wanted to go. Oh, there's some in the background and there's something happening behind here. There's more going on in this painting. More than meets the eye. My love to say that we did a little bit more of that peacock. Oh, I love that color. Right. So may put some of that in the middle here. Now you couldn't painted this ahead and four, but because of the transparency of watercolor, It's okay if you did it before or after. Just realize you may cover up some of your greens and you may want to go back and add that. So you see, I'm just putting them in here randomly in some places, even going over those berries because I don't mind, because I'll come back and work on the berries a little bit more before we're done. All right. Put some really short strokes, even though I've got the rigor really short strokes there. Now I'll go back to my warm green, which is the sap green, which has a little bit of that yellow ocher mixed in, but mostly sap green. Now, I'm just going to go back again. And this dries really fast because why do you think it dries really fast? There's not a whole lot of water here in this rigor, right? It can only hold so much. It holds a lot for its size and shape, but still not going to hold very much because it's just such a small brush. I'm going back in and adding some more of those nice greens. Now they're not going to run together with those barriers anymore because, well, those berries, they're dry. Right? And most of my branches are dry already. I'm just adding to it a little bit. Making a mountain kind of smaller, actually pressing down a little bit more to make those kinda little bit different hallmarks. I think I'm gonna leave this little space. I'm not sure exactly what to do with it yet, but there we go. I don't want to do here. Can go in and all kinds of directions because well, even if it doesn't really do that in real life, That's what I want it to do. Its fun. Okay. Let me go darker, a little bit of darker there because that's all really light. Just add in a bit. Now I'm taking really short strokes now. Before when I started, I was doing the longer flicks and strokes, but now I'm just doing a little short. Tap the brush, flip the brush real quick. Just to add in a little bit of this dark color, a little bit more. Layering is just layering of the watercolors to get some depth. So I'm not going over everything. I want those white colors to shine through. I still want them to be there. I just want to add to it like that so far. I like it. Like it. What do you think? 16. Bonus Bonus: More Berries & Branches pt 3: Go back to my berries now. Some of them I wanted to just add in a little bit more. I don't mind with watercolor if you can see like hard lines. In fact, I'm trying to learn to add more hard lines to my watercolor. But I do want to have some little highlights and I like that sketchy look. I'm layering back over these barriers. Not that, not every one of them, but a lot of them. And that's going to bring them, bring them back to the front a bit. Put a little dot here and a little dot there. Now, if the green is still wet and places it will lead and blend together. I'm okay with that. I love it. All right. Then I'll go back to adding this permanent rose and even adding a little bit more drop in, a little bit more darkness in there, I'm going to add a few little specks of, Hey, maybe there's a barrier somewhere over here. Actually get a man's bags. This is called intuitive painting. And I go, okay, that's the thing I'm doing. Hogan. I'm going to go for it, just go with it and go for it and see what happens. Just what I wanted to do, right. Okay, I can also do a little splattering which I think I'm gonna go to them do. Okay, that's it. I can get carried more than the splattering. Alright. So I am not quite finished. Almost finished. I like the way this looks. I feel like if you want to put a sentiment here, you can, if you want to make it vertical card or a, you can turn it any direction you want to, to make it a card or a painting, right? If it's if it's just going to be a painting that you're going to frame or you're going to mat, then you have this lovely whitespace, which is so nice. Alright, now I want to do one more thing which is add more of that metallic. Alright, so I'm gonna go back to this same color that I was using. Just a metallic. You can actually let me do this color. I just switched. When they use this color this time it's not quite as dark as this one. These are listed in the supplies. Spin that brush, get it all nice and loaded that way you can make some nice flowing lines. And I may pick up some red in here. And actually I'm intentionally stickiness in that red. And I'm going to just go a little slower this time. A little slower, but that same swirling motion, It's the I picked up a little bit of that red and I love that. I love it. Let's do some more. Gives a little like there's some gold ribbon there. Something makes me happy. I'm going to make it a little dot there. So that's, that's what I always try and emphasize. We're not going to be motivated to paint if we're not enjoying the process, right? If we're not happy. So you got to just relax and enjoy the process and do what makes you happy and have fun, have fun. I'm going to go from here into swirls in different directions. And guess what? Another layer. But these are really small splatters because this is a very tiny brush. But if I get more water, I can make some bigger ones. And guess what done that involved? That is all other than signing tiny brush, very tiny. And assign that with the gold right here. It's mine. My initials is how I like to sign on the front. Alright, so here is our bonus, bonus painting. Lucky that, that is so fun. And some who really enjoy getting this for a holiday card, or like I said, you can frame it and decorate it. You can frame it in hanging on the wall is a nice, festive, fun thing to happen. Okay, So thank you for watching this bonus, bonus lesson, and I hope you enjoy it and be sure to share it with me. Don't forget, alright, I'll see you soon. Bye. 17. Bonus - Tearing Paper: If you're using watercolor caper that's too big for your card. You can easily create a nice tackled edge by tearing the paper. All you need to do is fold your paper over. You can fold it in half to make it easy to match the sides and then use something like a bone folder. Or you could even use a credit card. Just press down the edge, open the card up with it inside out, and do that again 23 times. And then you'll be able to tear the paper very easily. Make sure your hands are clean or us bag smudges on your paper like I did on mine. To start, put your fingers on both sides of the scene and get your paper started. Then hold one's side down and pull the other at a 90 degree angle to your service that will give you a nice straight edge. You don't like the tourney edge look, then be sure, and you scissors or paper cut