Transcripts
1. Welcome: Are you looking for a fun and easy way to practice your watercolor skills? Well, today, I have the class for you. Let's do some leaf prints with negative shaped painting in watercolor. Hello everyone. Just a Cassandra's here. Collar MY creative are thought calm. Welcome to my lesson. I am super excited to be here with you today and I cannot wait to get started with this class. So I going to share with you all the steps to creating some leaf prints with a negative shape painting and will start by collecting some leaves. Then I'll show you how to print those leaves with watercolor to get a loose light impression. And how to use negative shaped painting to bring out those lovely leaf shapes. And then we'll move right on into some example paintings. So I have three different example paintings for you today. And I'll print the leaves and do the painting in real-time for you. That means you'll be right beside me every step of the way as we print our leaves, get some lovely impressions and paint those negative shapes around it. A great practice for negative shaped painting. And you'll end up with some really lovely art in the process. And you can use this art to frame and hang on the wall, or you could even use it for a lovely greeting card for your friends. Okay, so what are you waiting for? Let's get started having fun with our water color printing some leaves, painting some negative shapes, growing our art skills and enjoying the process of creating. Let's talk about the supplies next.
2. Supplies: With this class, you're going to need a variety of leaves that you've collected outside along with your basic watercolor supplies. So you'll need a jar of water. You'll need water color paints, a variety of brushes, pencil, waterproof pin, and you don't want something that runs when you get it wet. So make sure you get a waterproof pin and a consult a cloth for dry, drying off your brushes. And you'll need a little bit of imagination and willingness to experiment.
3. Choose Leaves: So it took a walk and I collected a few leaves for this class. And what I wanted to do is get a variety that I could choose from. Because we're going to be printing the leaves with watercolour paint and then we're going to be negative shape painting. I just wanted a lot to choose from. So I'll tell you what I was looking for and give you a few tips for finding your own way. Now, most of these were already just laying on the ground, had fallen off the tree. But I did clip a couple from my garden like this fern leaf. And one thing I'm looking for is can I flattened it out? So this can be flattened out and printed on a piece of paper, which I'll talk about that in a little bit. And so I wanted an interesting shape and I also wanted the ability to flatten it out so that firm fit that I also thought this one was really interesting because it is really flat, so it'll be very easy to press down, right? The other thing I consider was variety of shapes. Now this one's not going to print like, It's not going to look like this when I print it, but it will leave some interesting lines. So this one won't flatten out as much, but I'm looking for also interesting lines and shapes that are organic and leaf-like. And I could even use this little seed Barry, to print as well. The other thing I was looking for was a little bit of flexibility. So even though this is a dry leaf, it's still fairly flexible. It's not completely dry, so I will be able to bend it and move it without really breaking it. I wanted interesting lines in the leaves. Now you could print with either side. If you printed stem side down, you will get a stronger stim, shape. So I wanted to look for interesting lines and shapes that way. Also this one was flat and has interesting leaf shapes. This one is from a pine and it'll be really easy, I think to print with and will create these really interesting and fun lines. So looking for interesting shapes, fun lines, things that could be flattened and that would be still flexible. So that's what I gathered up from around my neighborhood, actually took a walk around the corner through my neighborhood. And some of these came from my own firm, my own plants, and then some of them, this was from the neighbors art and it was just laying out there already off the tree, so it was perfect. Okay, so next, let's talk about printing. Just cover a little bit of the basics of printing from a leaf. And then we'll move on to negative shape painting.
4. How to Print Leaves: So let's talk about leaf prints. So leave friends are really simple and fun to do and you're not going to get a perfect shape. So keep that in mind. It's not going to be a perfect impression of a leaf. It's not going to be realistic, right? It's the idea of a leaf that we're getting from it, or the idea of the plant. And so you want to have pre whet your paints and mixed up rather large area of paint. Because your leaves are probably, you know, a little bit large and you can have a mix of colors in that paint puddle so that you'll get a variety of color on your leaf. But I do suggest that you limited to colors that are next to one another on the color palette so you don't get an unwanted Grade color. Now if you love neutrals, then mix whatever colors you like, because that's what will happen if you mix compliments, right? So let's just talk about printing a leaf. Now I've picked a couple right here just to try out. And as I said, the first step is to have a large paint pedal. And it's nice and juicy watercolor. Then you're going to dip your leaf and start with this one. And your leaf will not last forever. You will only be able to do so many prints with your leaf before it gets a little undone if you want to call it that. So pick the side of a leaf that you want to use. Either one will do, and then you just press it down into the watercolour paint gently, but firmly. And then you're gonna do the same thing on the paper. It's going to have only little bits of color and paint and you can press it down more than once if you like, to get more paint. And then you press it onto your paper gently but firmly. And then picked it up and you'll have the impression of a leaf. It's going to have a light impression of the leaf. It's not going to be solid. So just keep that in mind. If you're doing something like acrylics and you painted this solid than you might get a more solid leaf print. But with watercolor, it's just not going to pick up everything on there. It's not going to pick up a lot of pain. So you're just gonna get a slight impression and that's actually perfect. And then you can just do it again. And you can decide whether you wish to overlap or not. I'll overlap those a little. Press it down and pick it up. So see you, since I did the bottom side of the leaf with the stem, the stem is very easy to see. And then the outside edge of the leaf is somewhere along there. So let's try the second leaf. I could have flipped it and done this side would have gotten a different impression. But let's just go ahead and do this one. So this one has very soft leaves. And so I suspect it will pick up more paint than our other leaf because it's softer. But could be wrong about that. So let's just find out what happens. So I'm gently pressing it in and see how gentle I have to be because of the leaves. And then just press it down onto your paper. Spread the little leaves out. These are almost like pedals. You could do the same thing with safe flowers. And if you want a wrinkle in there, that's okay too. Let's see how that looks. So we have the gentle impression of three different leaves, right? So just keep doing that on your paper until you get the desired number of leaves that you want. And you can use different sizes and shapes as well. This one is very floppy, so it's a little tricky. And you see I also didn't even use the stem on this one. But just the leafs. So we have some leaf shapes. They're, now I'll do one more impression with this. And let me get more paint and my palate, more color going. Like palate is quite messy, but I'm okay with that. You can always use clean, clear color if you like. And use my brush there. And now I'll use this top side of the leaf. And we'll just see if we get a different effect on trying to press the edges down into the paint because they're interesting edges and I can even just drag it through a little if I need to. And then I'll put, I didn't do the stem. We do the stem there. I'm gonna put this one here. So now we have the shape. A belief. It's very slight, isn't, doesn't do a lot of paint and something like this, maybe do more or less. But we're just getting the idea that there's a leaf there. So that's how you do the leaf prints. Just be careful and gentle with your leaf. Have a large puddle of paid leave and then press it gently onto the paper and you'll have a leaf print. So now let's talk about negative shape painting.
5. Negative Shape Painting: If you're not familiar with negative shaped painting when it comes to watercolor or any kind of art for that matter. Negative shaped painting is when you paint around the shape rather than painting the shape. So for example, we have these leaf prints, but rather than painting on the leaf, I'll paint the area around the leaf on my paper. So I have a couple of different leaf shapes and I want to keep those in mind because our impressions are very loose and light, right? So when I keep in mind the leaf shapes that I have, this triangular leaf shape in this more oval leaf shape here. And I'm just going to think about how the outline looks. And I'll paint around that outline as negative shape. So I will do this with a blue just to make it pretty easy to see. And I just have a mix of blues here. Use whatever color you like. It could be like the sky, right? If you were using blue. This is just a mix and I'll do pretty watery. Now remember, contrast matters when it comes to this. So our leaves or light shaped, lightly shaded right there, really lighten impression. They have a lot of white in them. So if I put a darker color next to them, it's going to make them stand out even more. So I'm in paint around this 1 first, and you'll be able to see the shape of the leaf as I go. So negative shaped painting means you paint the area that is not the shape. So this is the area is not the shape. And the area not the shape can be as shape all on its own. But as I paint around, this shape will see, no that's shaped come to life. Now I can touch intuitive. I want to let's just finish this out here. Grab some more water, tap off the brush. So I have a soft edge, softer edge so that I painted around that particular leaf and I can't go back and define it a little bit more because these are very pointed, right? So you just go right in there, refine it a little bit more in drop in more color. Now I haven't next to this leaf, so I'll just continue right around to show that leaf shape. And that becomes to come to life by painting the areas around it rather than painting the actual shape. So think that's a lot of fun, I really enjoy doing it. So let me show you one more area to paint a negative shape because this is an open area, but there are also enclosed areas, which means the negative shape is a shape itself. Now I may not be a geometric shape and may be more of an organic shape. And I've, so here are two of these triangular shaped leaves right here. And more of those leaves here, plus this leaf next to it. So. In this area is a shape. And it takes a little bit of practice to learn to see these shapes and to pay them. So don't, don't be hard on yourself. Because it does take time to learn the skill. This is, I'm teaching this as a basics class, but when you learn this particular skill, you're going to have a much more advanced ability to do what are color. So we have that stem there. So see I have this really interesting shape of blue within my leafs, my leaves, right? In fact, I think this should be here little bit more. This is still wet so I can paint into it, right? Not worried about Blooms or anything like that because that's a lot of fun. So we have this interesting shape within here. And we can see even this leaf print come more to live because of it. And I think actually I also see that this is a little bit too much. I want to make that a little smaller there, the leaf area a little smaller. And if I go over some areas where our printed, that's okay. So don't don't don't fraud or get too upset. All right. Just continue to paint and have fun. Slow down a little. This makes me slow down. I like to paint quickly. That edge was rough right on this leaf that has a rough edge. So I'm just going to give it a rough edge here. I like to paint quickly, but when you're going in for these shapes, you gotta slow down. Okay, so I encourage you to slow down and observe. And you can paint those negative shapes. So now you can see the impression of the leaf without being painted around, without the negative shaped painting. And now what the leaves look like with the negative shaped painting. And I would probably refine this a little bit. And because I don't like the way this edge looks, so don't forget you have sort of artistic license with this as well. So do what makes you happy and you know, play and have fun. And like I said, it's not this is not meant to be a hard exercise and everything's not meant to be perfect and everything will not be perfectly outlined. So we're doing negative shaped painting with hard outlines here, but you're negative shaped paintings can also have soft areas where the edge gets lost. And you can't quite tell if it's the background or the leaf, or how that works exactly. So keep that in mind. When you're doing this, we're not going for perfection. And then if I were to do a little bit more, I would just put a little dot there, kind of incentive for that one. I've gone on from negative shape painting. Maybe even let that escape a little bit by applying some water. There we go. So pretty foggy, said be patient with yourself. This does take practice to learn. But it really is a lot of fun once you start doing it and you can start adding more and more layers and doing fun things. But for this class, we're really going to focus just on our leaf prints and our negative shaped painting. And we'll talk a little bit about as we go through the demos about some overlapping areas and how to add a little bit of chateaux, but that will be included in the actual painting lessons. Okay, so let's get started with some wave prints with the negative shape painting.
6. Clover Part 1: We're trying to do positive and negative shapes is kind of tricky, but it's fun. So I'm just going to do like the little print of this leaf. These leaves. And I think I'll even pull in some of this fall color, gotten green and orange, and that's going to make a brown, murky color. That's okay. It's really neutral and I'm just going to sort of tap my leaves into there. I think is interesting too, because I have little holes in it and I don't know if those holes will show up on the watercolor paper or not. And you're just going to tap it down on my paper and pick it up by its Tim. And I have a really light, loose outlines. Let's see if we can pick up even more paint and get another one. Again, a little loose outline. We can do bigger one. Let's try this bigger one. I'm using the same colors. Maybe make it even more juicy. Throw in some more green there. And let's just drop these in here. So they're not going to pick up the paint perfectly right? But they do pick up some and creates this, I think is kind of a fun way to do it. So sort of little leaf prints, not sort of leave France, they actually are leaf prints, but they're really light. That was pretty cool-looking. Let's do it again. Let me even throw in a little bit of blue now. So we have a mix of colors. And right now I'm creating positive shape of these leaves by doing this printing on, on the paper. But we will eventually do more of a negative shape. These leaves aren't going to last forever. Who's gonna this down? Some printing the positive shapes of the leaves. It's an organic shape. That's pretty fun. Guy is pretty fun. Now I wanna get some yellow mix in there. Because I have these nice mix of color, really like it. Think yellow thrown in there would be also nice. So warm yellow, you can use the colors that you prefer that you like. And then we'll have variety of color. I see though that that's not going to pick anything up in that area because to dry so and then do two to three. And I will put it with one leaf off the page. Whoops. Here we go. Again, we're not going for perfect, we're just going for fun and interesting. So that's nice. Here's another, this one is about the same size, maybe a little smaller. I'm going to repeat. But with these, just see what happens here. And I'm going to repeat the shape all across the page. Repetition art is important. We're not talking about that didn't work at all really. Let me, let me go back to this one then. We're not talking about really repetition too much right now. But if you want to make a nice composition than using repetition in your art, we're repeating the small, leaf-shaped repeating a largely shapes. That's pretty fun I think. And we're staying all in nice color. Family area of greens and yellows and creating all of these positive shapes. Continuing all across our page. One more, I think, right here. Okay, so now we have all these lovely leaf shapes on our page. We have the positive space. It has some negative space mix in naturally, and that is really fun. So now let's take a different color for our background and create a background by painting the negative shapes.
7. Clover Part 2: Okay, so now we have all these lovely leaf shapes on our page. We have the positive space. It has some negative space mixed in naturally, and that is really fun. So now let's take a different color for our background and create a background by painting the negative shapes. So we're going to look in between the leaf shapes for our clover. And we're going to paint the negative shapes. And I think that we can use a nice cobalt blue. We can mix in much we wish we mix in. So really an ultramarine and peacock blue, so a variety of blues. And you could use any color you like. Maybe you want to go for read or something like that. But I'll use the blues to sort of think of a sky area or something like that. I'm going to paint carefully around. And I'm not going to worry too much though because I'm not going to get right next to the leafs. I'm just going to paint around, not worry about it being perfect because remember this is an exercise about shapes. And now we can see more of the shape of our clover petals. And be careful to go around this one as well. Keep those edges wet because watercolor dries fairly quickly depending on your paper, your environment, and all that. So trying keep those edges either finish at an area where, you know that a line is natural or just use a wet brush and go Oh, over that edge in that area. So keep that light color. The lighter the color, the less of a line it will leave and create an area where you can see a finishing point. So I'm keeping this area watery. And this area of negative space here is where I'm putting my blue paints. Just gonna continue and paint around these shapes that we created with our leaps. And I'm really creating a hard edges around the leaves of our clover. I could soften some of those interests or do whatever I want, right? It's my art from the boss of it. It's not the Boston. And if I have issues with edges, I can always go back and scrub those out and move them around. And what happens if I go over the edge of a leaf? Nothing. The world doesn't end. We don't have to worry. Okay? We're just having fun playing with positive and negative spaces. I'm gonna put some color down into here where it's just water getting a wet and wet effect going on here. And just playing I'm just playing with it. All right. So remember if you're using light edges, if you put darker paint next to, it's really going to make those edges stand out. And just for fun, is going to drop some coloring here and there. And notice now I have this area that is essentially an isolated area. And look at the nice pauses shape of the leaves and the negative shake of around the leaves. I think that's so fun. I want to pick up some of the same color and continue it here. Because there was a puddle there, so I could do that. And I can tighten up some of the edges or whatever. Now this is still nice and wet and I'll continue in this area and add in wet and wet here. I'm thinking about this particular one is a small one and I'm thinking about where that edge, so I can see where those little dots are. So I'm just going to create my own kind of edge right there because I don't have anything like super definite. So I am going to define it myself and maybe even go around there and around here. So I'm choosing where those edges are. I'm using my artistic license to do that. And then I'm also observing where those lines, where those little dots of color are and where the lines are. So like here's a space with its empty that is between the leaves. I also can look back on my positive shapes of leaves and see how they look with this sort of semi straight line and little curved corners, that sort of thing. So that's pretty fun to do. Add a little more color over here. Let me put a little dot there in the center, just for fun. Alright, so just continue painting this way and defining your edges, deciding where you want them to be, and just observing what you printed and working around that. So here's a very tiny negative space right here. This triangular space, this between 33 different, three different clovers there. And I can pick that continue on towards that center. Now there's overlap here and here's a big leaf rate. So I'm thinking about where my shapes are to paint negatively around them. Painting around the shapes. You know, I don't know, I know why they call it negative shaped painting, but I wish there were a better name for it. I really do because it really is not negative. It's really. And it's almost like a puzzle or a wind over the edge there. That's okay. I'm just going to soften that actually and let it overlap. So now I have a soft edge there and not a very well-defined shape. But you can do that. That's one of the beautiful things about watercolor, is how you can just really play with soft and hard edges kinda thing and softness and creating things that blend away and things that go together. And I think I'll actually soften this edge a little bit too. So kinda playing a little with soft and hard edges and lead things disappear little, right? Not everything has to be a well-defined hard shape. But in the negative shape at painting, we can definitely see some definite shapes as in here, taking shape within our leaves, right? So it's pretty fun, pretty fun. Let's go here. Feel like it's something like that. And it's not perfectly the shape of those leaves, but that's okay. And you can get as close as you like if you don't want to leave a white edge, you can go right next to the line. This one is very well-defined. And then you can go leaves whitespace in other areas. So do it, do what you think is fun. Now I'm going to use some water here so I don't leave a hard line because I see a shape that I want to paint in here, right in here. So I don't want it to be super. What I see is this dark, dark And I think also this could be dark area right in here. Really make the leaf shape pop out. Hmm. Yeah, I think that's fun. So we have these nice overlapping leaf shapes, positive shapes, negative shapes. This is a great positive negative shaped painting exercise, okay, to turn this around so that I can work more easily and be in the camera for you. So I'm continuing to work with my blues that I already have and the shapes that I already have. I'm painting those negative shapes ride around those. I want to call it petals, but they're actually leaves, right? And whenever you see me go Here, I'm tapping off extra water. This one. So small one here. Now if you want to campaign in an angle and now help your edges to not dries fast. And I'm just picking a different paints as I go. And defining those edges, how I see them. And you may see them a little differently than I do. And that is. Perfect because we all have a little different ion I kinda messed up there, so I'm just going to smooth it out. Bring in a lot more water over here. I want this to be really watery. I want my shapes, my positive shapes to be the focus. So I want the contrast near then that's why I wanted to dark colors near them and then make it loose and light and watery on the outside. And wherever you want the focal point, that's where you want the stronger colors to be. Inc. I'll just do that kind of area. Maybe political few dots of color and go right over and let that color float out. So I now I'm turning my paper a lot, but it's just so I can get my brush in the right position without touching. Very don't wanna touch. Keeping those nice soft with edges. Adding lots of water, you could add salt in here. Animal color. It's going to dry lighter. Remember it will dry lighter than when you started. And I'm going to have blooms and things because my waters and even, and I love that. Okay, so I painted that negative shape background and I have now made those positive shapes really stand out. Now all I want to do to kinda finish off this piece is to put some little sort of dark centers where these connect. So we'll make it a little bit more defined. So I'm just gonna get a like a dark lean and put some little centers here. And they don't have to be perfect. I like, I like them actually to be imperfect. And it's going to drive pretty dark theorem. And it's pretty, pretty good effect. And then you can actually also take like a rigor, wet rigor and pull that out toward our leaves. So that sort of connects. So I have like a little center that's connecting to our leaves. That's a positive shape. Right at the center. Is positive shaped. Leaves are positive shape. And then the background is our negative shape. Our rights. I think they have lots of fun. There's a lot of things you could do with this. And lots of like, I don't know, I think it's really fun. I think you could turn a lot of different ways. Okay. Let's move on to the next.
8. Branch and Leaves Part 1: For this painting demo, I've taped off the edges of my paper. And I decided I would look, I would try to use this flat leaf stem shapes. And it's a pretty big leaf stick combo to dip into my paint. So I could actually just paint onto the stem itself with my paintbrush and I can pick any colors I like. I've been doing kind of fall colors because where I live it's fall right now, but you can do any colors you like. You can do a bright spring green. Let's put some bright green in there for fun. You can do outlandish colors. You could do leaves if you want. You could do anything you want, right? So I'm going to dip individual leaves and then I will probably paint the stem, flip it over. So I'm gonna dip dip that Steyn there, I think trying to just pick up some paint and I can even just add more pain if I want to. And it does resist the pain a little bit, whatever whatever leaves are made of intent to resist the paint. So beat up a little bit, but that's what makes it really fun, I think. Okay, so painted it onto my stem. Think I'll do it right there. And I'll take a sheet of card stock or paper and I'll use that to press it down. I can press it down more evenly that way because this is a bigger stem, a bigger leaf. And then I'll pick it up. And I have a few impressions of the leaves. And I think I also want to do the flip side of this one. So I will press that down into my paint. Fill like that will be fun and I'll do it here. So I barely got an impression of a leaf, but there's the idea there. So that's one estimate of leaves that I'm using and I want to use a second shape of leaf. And I think for that I'll use this little one. I think this one is so fun and interesting. It almost looks like a grass, but it's a little plant. So there's a lot of fun. And I think I will use a brighter mix of color for this. I'll put some of this peacock blue into that green mixture, go back with more of that. And it does transition into that orangey brown and I'm okay with that. Press it down into my paint carefully, gently. Right. Pick it up and put it wherever I want on here. And again, I can come back with my paper or I can just press them down individually. And I think because I already have some paint on there and this may be a little bit simpler. Now may pick a paint I've already put on there because it's wet. See, I picked up the leaf-shaped from there. That's okay. It's not going to hurt anything. And pick that up. So I think that's a nice combo with this particular leaf. That's pretty fun. And I think I will do it again over here. So let me say one thing about it. When you use these variety of colors of paint, you're getting more interested in depth in your painting, then you might not get otherwise. So I pressed it down into my palette. Just show you that I did in the demo, but I'll show you here onto my paper. Now I'm not gonna get that entire leaf. Squeeze the paint out a little bit. It would have been better to use the other option. I will just drag it through again and put even more. So pressing gently but firmly, but I'm using a sheet of paper this time. You don't pick up more extra pain. I didn't really get the stem. So I wanna get that stem. And I'm okay if I get more wave shapes from trying to get the stem. And I left part of it behind this. What I when I said that wouldn't last forever, that's what I meant. It's going to kinda come apart a little as you go. So just keep that in mind. So I have some really nice impressions of leaves. The idea of some leaves. I wish I had a stem here and I think I will just go ahead and print part of the stem. Dipping that in my paint, I'm just doing the stem and my pain. I could paint onto it with a paintbrush. Then I'll dip it and I'm just gonna press this dim down. And I could just use a paint brush for that, right? And I may need to do that just because I like getting the idea that stem, I want them. So just a little bit of paint here for that. Ok, So that's using a couple of different leaves here. And now we're going to move on to negative shape. Painting.
9. Branch and Leaves Part 2: So we just have the idea that there is some leaves and that gives us a lot of freedom in painting are leaf shapes, right? We get to choose really how our shapes look. And we just get guided by our print, right? I'm going to put these here so I can see them and refer to them as far as the shapes Go, right? So let's keep going here. What color should we paint the background This time, I'm kind of wanting to go toward a blue-green. And you could do really light. Remember, you can do really light, but the darker areas will cause the leaves which are light-colored to stand out even more. And I think it will be easiest to start over in this area and think about the shapes that I'm painting around the leaves. So here's a nice impression of a leaf. And I will just gently go next to it. Now I can leave a whitespace or I can just go right next to it. And that may be wet and the colors may run together and I'm perfectly okay with that. So I'm painting the shape in the corner here. And I'll just drop in some more paint because I think it's been an interesting and yeah, it's just one. Kinda goes this way. So I have part of that leaf. Now let's just continue and I'll paint the shape in between. So in thinking about the edge of the leaf shape, and I'm thinking also about the shape that I am actually painting, which is the negative shape. And this negative shape fills in around that leaf and between the two stems there. Okay? And I will continue. Now this negative shape is much larger, much larger because it's all of this open area. So want to be careful when I'm painting not to leave some hard edges. So I'll just clean off my brush, pick up some water, tap it off a little. And I want to just make it a little lighter because I don't know if I'm going to finish that whole big shape right now. And I'm also painting around this leaf shape at the same time. So these are things to keep in mind. You're just going to ride around those shapes. And you're creating negative shapes in the process. And I want this to be lighter and this was darker. See how that stands out and how this doesn't stand out quite as much because there's not as much contrast. Just something to keep in mind. And I'll just touch right onto that. And I have a few little splotches there, but I don't feel like there's any leaf there, so I'll just connect this area. Now I'm looking at this leaf shape because that's what's in between there. Oh, Trump to water. So I'm using a really light color. I'm still doing negative shape painting right around those leaves. I can drop in more colorful areas where it's wet. I just want to make it where there's not a hard edge. I don't want hard edges out here to draw your eye away. So negative shape around in-between these two leaves and this third leaf and out into this big area. As I said, you can go right up next to that shape or you can leave a little white. The leaving a little bit of white tends to give it the idea that there's some light hitting it, right? So just keep that in mind as well. Ok, so I'm looking now for my next shape. I haven't like a nice light, big area and I don't want to really tackle that yet. I'm kind of going for these smaller areas right now. So I see a shape here that is enclosed. And what that does is gives me the opportunity to paint without having to feel rushed or like I have edges that I need to worry about because all of these this whole, entire shape is enclosed. So I'll just start here and you can use a smaller brush if you feel you need to. But with a really light touch, a ride around that leaf and they're overlapping here. And maybe we'll talk about that when we're, before we're finished. But right now, let's just go around the shape. So we have thinking about our leaf shapes because we don't have a solid edge. So that gives us some room to play right all the way across there. And I'll get some deeper darker paint because I just want that deeper darker paint in this area. Okay. So I have a couple of leaf shapes there. This is not very well-defined. So while it's still wet, I'm just gonna go in here and define it a little bit more with that color, a little, a little more water to saw off. And then I'll, these leaves have pretty smooth edges. They have little dip synced up a fairly smooth. And there's little, little, I'm going to separate that a little bit. And there's another small shape in here. So I'll just go ahead and paint that little small shape and leave a little stem connected to the big sin. At this point, I'm guessing where the stem is. And my job, my brush pretty dry so and a wet it a little bit more. And pain in this little negative shape right between these two waves. Right? There we go. So we have some interesting week shapes now for sure. Two different ones. I'll just continue with this blue green paint pedal that I have here. Maybe even add a little bit more blue in there just for some variation in the background, I am looking for my next negative shaped to paint. And what I see is in this area, it's kind of a big shape here. And this area. Right? But I think I can do that one. And this little dot I think is part of this shape and it's up to you how you do that. But I think that this area, this is our leaf, and then this is the negative shape area, all that area right there. So I'm just gonna go in that direction. Decisive. Quite the size that we there. And I think I actually had another stem there. So I'm going to imagine that there was a Steyn, there isn't a paint in this whole area riot along that little line created by those dots because I think also there's the stem there. And I said I can change it up however I want. If I want there to be used in there, I can put us in there. So it's really up to me and it's up to the artist, right? So now at this point I have this big shape. All right, here. And then I have this really open area here. And I feel like there are two sins here. So I'm just going to paint in between. I'm gonna paint in between these areas because I feel like I have two stems. One is white essentially, and one is the green one that I painted in, right? So I have that sort of Stem onto stems. And that'll continue maybe up that way. Right now I'm kind of back into this area, right? I've kinda worked back into this area where was painting before. So I will just kinda continue right around this leaf, getting pretty close to that and go down. And maybe those are connected. I don't know. I just liked the idea that that's there and so I'm just going to go with it and doesn't really have to make perfect sense. The idea is to practice, practice, practice, practice painting around your shapes, practicing those shapes in between, it takes practice. So just play and practice and give yourself a break and have fun. Now there's another leaf up here. And you know, I don't have to include all these leaves if I don't want to occupy right over that really, that'll be Completely. Okay, up to be, right. And like the way that's looking, that's pretty fun. Now this looks like one big leaf and I don't think it was when I printed it, but I like the way it looks, so I'm leaving it that way. Right? Now. I just have a really light impressions over here. Here's a stem, here's part of a leaf. And I kind of wanted this stem to connect with here. So I'm going to just take that green color that I had. Still make semi palette, put it on the tip of my brush. I can switch to small brush if you want. And HP is going to give some idea that, that stem little marks somehow connected right here to this stem. Okay? So now I have more flow and that gives me this shape right here that I can do what I wanted to. So I can make this another leaf with a little stem, but I feel like this is a stem and then the leaf goes up this way. That's where I'm leaning toward. And then this is all open and there's another leaf over here. So let's do that. Let's go here. Tap off my brush and and have this nice open area in the background. So once I get next to the leaf done, then I can just go a little wacko if I want to just go a little crazy. Paint how alike? Okay, very nice. Now I feel like heres and leaf area right here, elif, elif, elif. So I'll just continue to paint around those. Now this is a real-time painting demo. This is how long it actually takes me to paint this, right? So I am spending time and energy and really enjoying the process, getting this done. And I want this to be SSH. And I remember that I did this leaf there. So I want to kind of, sorry, I didn't mean to shake you. I want this kind of reflect that shape. I want this to reflect that long shape, even though you can't really see that paint there. And then this is also kind of that long shape and in-between. So I'm thinking and referring back to my original. Again, this is also this shape. So referring back to my original leaves to get those shapes in, to get those shapes so I can see them on the paper, but I can also refer back to what I've already, what I, what I started with. Right? That's kinda cool. It gets kinda cool now I think there's a little shape and here, at least I'm deciding that there is. And one more here at the bottom. Okay? So this is essentially a finished painting if you want to leave it this way, or you can add a few lights and shadows, I think see how this is really dark on this side and this is really light. I think I'll add more paint over on this side. You just bring those two together. I it doesn't have to be perfect or anything, but just to unite those areas of little bit and feel like it's too different from each other. And so little wet, I want that texture. So there we go. I'll pull that together a little bit. Maybe dark in this up a little also. Ok. Very cool. Now, if we wanted to, we could do another one.
10. Branch and Leaves Part 3: If we wanted to, we could do another layer. So I can take mine leaf. And this was pretty easy to do. Maybe mix up even a thicker paint mixture. So less waterborne paint. But I still need a big puddle. Right? Still need a big puddle to dip it in. But I need more water. Sorry, I need less water and more paint. And then take my wheat and dip it in there. Now you may want to let your painting dry. You probably need a layer pain dry first if the background is wet, but money's pretty dry in most cases and I can just drop that on there. Go back, press it down with my paper. I think I put the wrong side down. Let me do that again. I put the wrong side of the leaf down. So let me try again. I'm going to position it where I want it. Press it down gently. And now I have another one, positively shape on top of where I painted the negative. So I think that's going to be pretty interesting and I can add more layers if I want to. So let me just do that again, because that's pretty fun. And it makes our painting even more interesting. And I think here's a good spot. Picking a dry spot columns paper, pressing this down, gently. Picking it back up again. I have more leaf prints there. So that is pretty, pretty fun. I like doing that like a lot actually. So I will just kinda continue. And it put one here on top. We have layers of foliage. I never wanna do a little bit more. Right here. I'll just press down with my hand and maybe a little here. Okay, so that I think is pretty interesting. And now if you want to stop at this point, this is a good stopping point. You want to do more a negative shape painting. You can continue. And I think I'll do a little bit more negative shaped painting. Now remember our watercolors are transparent. So that means the color that's behind will show through. So that means I can dark in the areas where it's light around those and it's still going to show up. Nice. And I can negative shaped paint around the ones I just printed. So I'll take the same cholera been using, which is a mix of the peacock blue and this green. A little more blue. Right? And I'll make it nice and watery. Does it have to be? And it doesn't have to be too thick or, or anything. It needs spin ice, some water. It could be a light, kind of a lighter layer. I'm going to be adding more as I go. I'm just going to paint around this leaf right here. And they don't have to paint all the sides, right? I don't have to, but, but I can right around here, right up to the edge of this leaf and I'm not going to paint over the ones are already painted. Painting around in the same area where a payment, the negative shapes before. And now we have even more. Here's a little negative shape here. So we have newer small negative shapes. And here. And then I round on this side and around the original leaf shape. So there you go. I made a little darker, a little nicer. Not, not, not like, nicer, nicer, but more contrast is what I'm trying to say. More contrast there. Alright, here's one. And now I'll do this areas well, but I'm not going to do everywhere, so I think I probably won't do this area. I'm just going with the flow and seeing how this develops. Okay. More water. Getting more water, my paint because the area I have over here is much lighter over here. And I'm going to just do sort of similar thing, right in this area between these leaf shapes, just like before. Except now I have even new leaf shapes to paint around, so I have more shapes to pan around. And that means the areas where a painting, where I'm painting going to be a little bit larger. A sorry, a little bit smaller than they were. Okay, so we've got a nice shape there. And then here, thinking about those shapes of those leaves that I just printed that down into there. And then here. And now I just want it to fade out over here. So I'm just going to wet my brush and soften and just soften this area. More water. Just let it fade away in that area. So it's not a strong layer, right? How is that? It's not fun. Now I do, just for the sake of this painting, I do feel I should do a little bit more. So you can see, you can really get caught up in this video. We'll really a lot of fun. I think in this area want to darken this even a little bit more right around the stem here and the leaf shape that we have. So careful to avoid my stem and using that impression of that leaf that we made by stamping it to paint more in the area. So now I have that leaves stand out even more and I'll continue that color over here a little bit in this area. So now those shapes stand out more. And maybe even right here. Because remember I did that little leaf-shaped. So have interesting things going on. I can even do like little strokes that maybe gives the impression of something is in the background. Alright, I'm going to stop now. I could keep playing, but let's take the tape off and see how this looks. Okay. Okay. We have lovely leaf prints. Isn't that so fun? So you can just go a little crazy with this. I'll do one more painting demo for you. It'll be shorter than this one, but I just want you to know you can take this really far. If you really want to, you can be a lot of fun and you'll practice and learn so much about shapes, about negative shape painting, and about how your watercolor behaves. Alright, so we'll have one more demo for you and then we're going to wrap up this class.
11. Fern Part 1: So for this painting demo, I decided to use my Fern Leaf and our pine needles. And this is going to probably make just some interesting lines. So I'm not going to actually negative shaped paint around this because that's a little too fiddly for me. But if you want to do that, you certainly can't. So I'm going to use this to add a second layer to my painting, but I'll start with my Fern Leaf and I'm just going to print with it. And I have a mix of colors mixed up. These blue and purple are ready and I'm just going to dip my firn into that paints and progress those leaves down gently. Try and get some of that paint. Remember, I could use my paintbrush to add it as well. So got some paint. Remember, it's going to be a loose impression is not going to be perfect. And I'm gonna put this down and trusted with the paper agains gently but firmly and pick it up. So really just got a lot of little lines there. Knows how this is going to work. But it's pretty fun to try anyway, so I'll just get some more paint and put it down again. And I will press it down again. And this time I'll press demo, leaves a little bit more. I think I did a little bit quickly last time. And I got a better impression of the leaves. So this time I didn't press down as this carefully. I press down in the stem is what caught my hand. So this second impression by pressing Gilmore on the leaves area. I God that kind of better impression and I'll get some more paint now. And as you can see, I switched up my colors a little bit. And that's okay. And you can do that. Right? So a few impressions of the firm. I think I want to keep this one really simple. My other demo was quite long, and so I want to keep this one pretty short. Let's, let's just do thoughtless go for fun, right?
12. Fern Part 2: See what kind of background do we want? Let's, let's just do thought. Let's go for fun, right? Let's do pink. You read about, why not? This one is definitely just an exercise and fun is not meant to be realistic or anything. Just, just play in this one. Just play. Okay. Just play with your colors, play with your paints, see what happened. So background-color and negative shapes. So just thinking about negative shapes here in between leaves. And how believes actually look. Now these leaves for the firm would have ago, are pretty rounded at the end and little jagged. So I don't expect perfection here by any means. But I do want I keep the sort of integrity of that and make those edges rounded. Let's pick a small paint. I have really strong paint here. And I may even just go around a couple like that, just the little edges and then get inbetween and some of them. So I'm using a very contrasting pink color. And this actually should, I think dealing here and there. So this is a little bit difficult to see because of the way the shapes of the leaves are. So the leaf choice you have a makes a difference. The bigger, larger leaves are easier to see. The shapes of. This is a little bit more challenging, but you can do it. I have confidence in you. We can do it, right. And so nice color there. And they don't have to be perfect. And then put some little winds of red in here next to the stem because the leaves are not all like connected to each other. So if you put that little line in between, doesn't have to be like complete lines and little dots and dashes will do. Then you'll get the impression. There's a shape there. I'm just going to pretend that the stim that's just too much detail for me. You do. The detail that works for you will try and reorder shape in there between leadings. Right? Look at that contrast that is gore to, Oh my goodness, my leaves may not be perfect. They definitely are not perfect, but it is definitely fun. Look at that color. It is fantastic. I love it. Alright, so let's continue. And then make this easier for me. I'm going to turn my paper because I cannot easily paint this edge if I don't. So I'm going to turn it. I realized that in some places and some art schools they teach you not to do that, but you have to do what works. You have to do what works for you. So don't be deterred by that. Okay, let's do, just do some little rounded shapes here. And they may not be exactly leaves are. Because I think what happened with the firms, especially that it picked up the edges. And it didn't it didn't easily pick up the actual. So where the lines are, are kind of the edges of the leaves. So it's really a little bit difficult to tell. But you know, like you said, we're gonna use our artistic license here and make it work for us. And I add water. Now. This area just create some interests and effects. And we have a little like stemming area there. So pulling that color out so I don't want to dry, don't know, hard edges, some adding lots of water there. That's my method for preventing heart edges. And I'm also lightening as I go, so just get a little bit of color. And like I said, no hard edge. Turning that okay, and then go into here and create that sort of shape again. Sort of a stair step there. And also I have to think about this one next to me. So next to it, I'll do the same thing, right? And then pull that color L2. I'm gonna fill in this entire foreigner right now with water. It's pinky water and that's okay. And I'll go back and pick up my color. Go right around. This is a really nice impression of the edge and I like that. That one showed up more than the others. Which is kinda cool, I think. Pull that color out into there and then grab water. Just filling in this whole entire area. Remember, I did say it was going to use my pi in for this. And I still am an add in a few little dots of red in between where it seems like there should be a little bit. And this is pretty subjective because I can't really see in between there. So just keep that in mind. Not going for perfection, going for fun, going for practice, and learning to paint negative shapes, right? Paint right around that edge is if that stem started there. In between between areas. Little dots and you know what? Now? Oic Look at this straight line. How did I do that? I don't even know how I did that. I miss that edge, so let me fix it right while still nice and wet. Somehow I missed that area and that's okay because I still have the ability to go in and work on it. Don't sweat the small stuff, right? Yeah. Okay. So I have nice impression there of firms, firm leaves and leaves, right? I think I'll do a little spidering. Alright? Yeah, that sputtering adds a lot to it. I think, well, remember this one's going to be pretty quick. So I'm done with that negative shaped painting. I'm gonna dry this and I'll be right back. Okay, that looks pretty dry. Now what I want to do with my pine needles is I want to add lines and texture with metallic. And so I have this really big one and I can break it off. I'm one stamp, so that's what I'm gonna do. So now I just have a smaller stim and I can use this. Now. I don't have enough space in my metallic palette, so I'm going to use a separate palate, move that paint too. I can pick it up with my time. The pickup, I think this darker color of metallic. It's nice and juicy. I already pre wedded, right? And put it in my secondary palette here because I need a big puddle, remember? And they just move that over. So I have some nice metallic there and I'm just going to drag my pine needles through it. And then I will down on the paper, pick up my other piece of paper and press it down. So just see what happens. So I just get a few little or items. So it didn't really work as well as I wanted it to, but it's still fun to try and so I'll do it again. These are pretty stiff and I think that's why they don't work quite as well as the more flexible pieces. But I can still get some nice little lines. It's just not as much as I was hoping for. That's okay. Alright. Now, because that's not quite as much as I was hoping for. What I'm going to do then is take my fan brush because I'm not limited to just using the leaf shapes that I have. I can use these like my fan brush and I will just make the impression of some lines from the pine needles with my paintbrush. And kind of just wanted to add that metallic and I thought it would be fun. And, you know, if it doesn't work one way that's okay. Try something different. Remember to experiment and play with your art. It's so important. So important. Right? So some can be over and under Nazi interesting compressions and now I'm going to read it. You guessed it splatter because yes. Because the answer is yes. That's so fun. Right? So I'm calling this painting done. I will remove the tape and I will show it to you. Okay. This painting is pretty dry. Let me take off that tape. That nice clean edge. There's a little bit of a problem with it. That's ok. So look that how fun is that? There was a lot of fun, super simple and easy. Well, the tricky part was the negative shaped painting, but that's what we're learning about that while we're practicing. So you can expect it to be a little tricky, right? That's the point where learning and growing as artists and painters. And so let me show you this is a little bit wet here, a little bit on there. I can know wet it. Went that area. Take a tissue, lift it, and then if that doesn't work, I can always go back with a white a white pin or whitewash and cover that up. So look at this lovely little painting with Gorgias contrasts with leaf prints and negative shaped painting. So I hope you will drive is it's so a font. So now let's talk about your project.
13. Project & Thank You: So thank you so much for joining me for this class, where we're printing leaves and a painting with negative shapes. This has been a blast to share with you. I've really enjoyed it. It's been a lot of fun. It's a fun, fun technique to try. And you learn so much. So I hope you'll try doing leaf prints with negative shaped painting. Do a little bit of practice first, and remember to keep everything as an experiment. And of course, for your project, you can try any of these paintings that we did in this class. Or you can get really creative and create your own. So thank you so much for joining me. I can't wait to see what you do. Let me know if you enjoyed this class by leaving a review for me, I really appreciate it and I'll see you very soon.
Jessica Sanders, Artist | Designer
