Watercolor with Me: Loose and Lovely Bunny

1. Welcome :): Hey, creative friends, Let's paint a cute pink bunny today. Hello. Welcome to my skill share class. I'm guessing Sanders color me creo art dot com and I would love it. If you would join me to paint a bunny, it would be so much fun, and we'll learn a lot about painting and practice our skills along the way. We're going to keep it loose and abstract and yet have an element of realism so that we know that the Bunning that we're painting. But first we're going to talk about the colors will be using. We'll talk about our brushes and we'll talk about the different techniques will be using throughout the painting process. Well, briefly go over how to use the reference image, and I'll include a drawing for you so you can try City like we'll begin our painting with the lead and let technique always so much fun on the loose and freeing method for painting . Then we'll go step by step. Layer by layer and paint are cute. Peak butting for the main lesson will be working without a drawing and basically will be drawing with our water color. Using our reference will still be keeping it loose and light and free. And then you also have the option of using the drawing for your painting. You can trace it and I've provided a listen for that as well. It's the same process for both except without the measuring that you do when you haven't drawn it ahead of time. This class is for intermediate students, but I'd love to see you. Beginners try as well. You never know what you can do until you try. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started. Painting are lovely watercolor bunnies. 2. Colors: for supplies, you will need basic water color supplies, water colors, watercolor paper, watercolor brushes, jars of water, a cloth for excess water, plus a white paint pin or gel pin. For this class, we're going to use Rose. We're going to use a gold or yellow color. We're going to use Prussian blue, and we're gonna combined net again with Rose. So this actually only 123 colors and will combine them to make a coral and to make a dark blue purple. And that's all the colors you'll need. I forgot to mention I'm sorry about that, that I have another color of blue, which is just a bright ultra marine blue, just a brighter balloon. Either one works. It's just a matter of personal preference. I'm using Ingraham paints. You may have a different brand. The main thing is that you have this nice, rosy color. Ah, yellow and sort of adult down blue oppression blue, and you can paint this painting. Now we're using a variety of brushes. I used this Princeton select for most of what I'm doing. It doesn't hold too much water, and I can get a little bit better control of how much water and putting on the paper. Because my painting is not huge. It's smaller painting, so I'm using this smaller synthetic brush. Then I will also be using this small brush for some fine details. This is an prince in Neptune four and I will be using this rigger brush. This one is being used for the whiskers because it creates some very cool marks. With that super fine, long bristles you can do without this, you would just need a small brush or a very light touch. You could do with also with this kind of brush. Or you could do it with Pin. So there lots of options. This is just one that I want to play with today, and so I'll show you a little bit about few text meats, and then it started on her pain. 3. How to use our Reference: my reference image is this bunny, this is from picks Obey. It's a copyright free image, so you could paint it exactly like it is if you want to. But we're just drawing inspiration, and we're going to measure some from it, and you'll see that as we go along, when you see me take my paintbrush and do this, that's me. I measuring. That's me. That's me measuring the I as the size of the I, for example, and then I would take it and go. So how far is it from the I to the ear? Well, it's one I length and then I'll know from here. I'll make a mark here to know where to start might. So that's what you will see me doing. I will not be working from a drawing. However. I'm including a bonus video of tracing the bunny rabbit, and I am providing a drawing for you. It's drawing for you so you can have a idea of where you wouldn't place your eyes, your nose, etcetera when you're painting. If you like, these are value areas that you see in the drawing. You can choose to include those or not. It's completely up to you. This is just a reference image from this same bunny, so just keep that in mind. But as you see me painting, I'm not going to have a drawing. I'm going to draw with the watercolor as I go. That's why you'll see me measuring. Okay, let's talk about the techniques will be using and then we'll be ready to get started. 4. Techniques: first technique we're going to use is painting is wet and wet. It's a simple technique. You lay down water on your paper wherever you want the water to be, and then you add in your color. We're actually going to meet making the background this way, adding nice dots and color and just making a really fun and interesting background. So that's wedding let technique very simple. We will also be using the brush on its side to create sort of the idea that there's for our bunny. So I will have get. I will load my pain and then I'm going to tap off my brush and I'm going to use this side of my brush and lightly sweep across the paper and you see it creates lovely texture. Let me get a darker color. It doesn't matter what color used will be using this color a lot in our painting, but let me show you with the darker color. So I like this stark blue purple, barely touching the paper and pulling it across to catch the texture. And you see it makes that we'll make that for like effect when we do that and you can change your way. You're doing it too. Change the way the first flowing. Okay, so we'll be doing that with this brush. And we may do some of that with this brush as well, just to create some texture effects for our bunny rabbit. And then the last thing I want to show you the last technique before we get started was to make whiskers, and I will use start color again because it's easy for you to see. But in the painting, we're going to use our coral color. So this has such a long bristle and you can see I can make a long mark. It still holds plenty of water, and I can keep on going. But for this particular lesson, we're going to just use the tip and we're gonna lightly tough it, touch it down, and then we're going to flick it and you see how creates such a nice fine line again. I'm barely touching the paper. Now, this is something you may want to practice because, like when I do this, I almost cannot feel the paper. That's how light that I'm touching it so you can just keep that in mind. The only thing is if you press down harder, you're going to get a little bit more solid line. There's nothing wrong with that. So don't worry if you were starting out or this something you haven't done before, it's OK. It's none of us. Pick perfect paintings. And this is about having fun and enjoying the process. You know me. Let's enjoy the process. But that's me. Enjoying classes, huh? Okay, So I think now that we know what techniques were going to be using, we can get started. 5. Bunny - Part 1: okay. I'm so excited to get started with our bunny said. The first step is our background. We're going to just do a little bit of wet on wet technique, and all that means is we're going to win our paper before we add paint. And that's what I'm doing now. Just using a big brush that holds lots of water tow. Add water to my paper. Also, I have a spray bottle with water in it that I used to spritz a little bit just changes the edges somewhat. No, I'm mixing up some pain, adding water to it. I have to keep in mind that it will drive lighter, especially when you're doing with him with technique, because you're adding the paint to water that's already on the paper. So naturally, that's more water. And water is what lightens our water color paint. Quick tip for you. I paper kept curling up, and so I flipped it over. I spritz the back sort of evenly with water, and now it's going to let much flatter and I continue adding my paint as before, without worrying about running to the edges. I'm using all the colors in the background that I showed you in the color video section. I want everything to be tied together and so repeating colors will do that for us. So you'll see me. I have the pink, I have the coral, and I will also add some blue. And I threw in a bonus of a little bit of yellow. Just for finite was thinking that yellow would mix with the blue and maybe add some a little bit of green in the mix of the background part. I'm tapping my brush lightly but around some of the edges to create some motion. I'll hit the brush a little harder against my hand to cause that splatter to sort of fly in one direction. I have some puddles on my paper and I don't want that. So I'm tapping with a tissue to get those out, and I spritz with water here and there to move the pain around. Now let this dry and we'll go to Part two 6. Bunny - Part 2: Now let's figure out where to place our eyes. I'm using the small Princeton Neptune brush like a showed you in supplies earlier and going to use the Prussian blue. This is going to be a light color and just going to be the hint of where the eyes will be, so that if I make a mistake in placing the eyes, I can remove the color pretty easily. Jacob are the I is a small curve that comes down towards you and then another curve at the bottom, and there's a little tip sticking out on the I that I noticed. So I put that in a swell. I laid down the color, added more color, and now I'm just using water to pull that color out and give a translucent effect. I also want to soften the edges a little bit. Remember, your brush should be lightly damp and not super wet, and the last step is to add a little water drop in the eye. Next, we're going to measure how far across to put the other eye. So I have the height of one I the measurement, and now I'm using that to determine how far over to put the I. So it's about 2.5. I withs over to the edge of the other. I so go back to my painting. I will measure that I and then I'll use that measurement and measure 2.5 I wits approximately, and then I will place my eye. I start with curve that goes toward the top and add the curl with the bottom and fill in a little bit of color corner of the eye and repeat the same process as the other eye, using Clearwater to pull that color out a little bit. But make it even more translucent on that site. Now it's time to determine where to put our nose. So I'm using the bottom of the nose, the point of the nose and measuring the angle from the I to the tip of the nose. I held it up there 23 times, although it didn't show you that part to get that angle just right as much as possible. And then I put a little line and the V shape. I also kept in mind how many eyes it would take to get to the tip of the nose put the little line that goes down from the tip of the nose to the mouth, and then we'll put a little upside down V shaped like an air row to indicate where the mouth ISS and I will soften the bottom of that edge and pull it out. And pretty soon it looks like we can start to see a bunny here That just makes me so happy . Now I want to soften the bottom it of the nose lines because that's really just a shadow. It's really not actual line, but it's a shadow there. So I want to soften that and then also soft in the middle of it at the top. I decided out at a little bit more of a drop of water, so I put my brush in the water and then I tap it off and then I touch it to the edge of the eye to create that nice bloom effect 7. Bunny - Part 3: well, I'm letting that layer dry a little bit. I'm making sure that my paints are the right value. I want a very light wash, very light, some adding even more water to get a little bit lighter color. I want my bunnies, knows every pink I know in the photo. It's not, but I want mine to be, and that's my painting. So I'm adding pink to the nose, and I'm also at the same time looking at the shape of the nose in the picture, and I'm using that to lay down my pain on my paper. Now, remember the dry brush stroke effect that I showed you by using the side of your brush? We're going to start using that straight into the painting, so I add a little bit of paint, and now I'm going to start using the side of my brush to pull out the paint and create the for texture. I'm going to paint the front of the face and working my way up to the head, and I'm also continuing toe. Look at my reference photo for the shape of the head and the face. Now that I put some of that paint down. I was using the pink. Now I'm adding in a little bit of the coral color, actually quite a bit of the coral color and letting it spread in the already went area of the paper. Keep in mind that watercolors do dry lighter, so even though I'm using fairly strong color here, it will dry quite a bit lighter. I'm going to speak video up a little bit now, as I'm sort of repeating the same process and using the side of my brush to create texture in different areas of the face. And I'll be back when you need me. - Now I'm doing a little bit of negative shaped painting to shape the bottom of the mouth, some actually painting underneath the chin and using again the same technique of creating for. But I just wanted to point out that this was a little bit of negative shape painting by painting the shadow under the chin. The's light layers dry really quickly 8. Bunny - Part 4: now, while that's dry, let's move on to figuring out where to put our ears. So I'm following the lines along the edge of the bunny's head where I could see a shadow and connects the ears to the body. I'm thinking about the angles, and I'm actually practicing how that feels to move the brush at those angles. As I'm going now, we'll paint the edge of that shadow below the side and top of the head just below the ear, and we'll do it with a sort of mid range value. Our color. I'm pretty confident about where this goes is a big shadow there. So I'm not worried. And I'm also going to add water and with the color bleed out into the side of the bunny, I'm following this same shadow of long below the I and the side of the face. And here's where we're just gonna pull that color out and let it bleed out. And actually that will become the back of bunny. I need to soften that edge a little bit. I don't want the shadow to be a harsh line. This is a furry bunny, so I mean again using the side of my brush to move that color and pick up the texture of the paper. Now I need to place the ear and soften that Linus. There you see me pause. It's because I'm looking at my reference photo and deciding where I need to move my brush and how to move my brush. What direction? What angle? How does that third flow now touch that blew into that edge Because I want that back of the bunny to blend. Basically blend with the sky on this side of the painting. So I'm touching in that blue. It's turning purple because mixing with that pinkish color that is perfectly fine. In fact, I love all the mixes of colors we have in this painting. So we're negative shape painting. Dan, don't be scared, guys. It is so fun because now look, the edge of the ear is there, and we just painted that by painting the sky around it or the background. Good job. I'm so proud of you. And now that we can see that edge so well, I'm going to soften it because I don't want that hard edge. There were still going to be able to see the ear, but that blind will be much softer and less harsh. Let's drop a little bit more coral color in that shadow area around the year and the I not quite at the edge of where we pay a visit but close and let it bleed and soften into that. That is so beautiful. Now let's look back at a reference again and measure to find out how far up the head is above the ice. So how many eyes is it to the top of the head? And what is the angle of that little mark, where the ear should go on placing it tentatively with a light pink color and trying to sort of the angles of the ears right? And I just love to drop in even color and see that color move. It's a little bit too low, so I just used a dry brush thirsty brush, and I picked that up a little bit and has no problem. Let's add in a little blue to indicate the background here of sky that's behind the bunny, and then I'll just pull that out and make the shape negative painting again of next year and then we'll just go ahead and go in with pink. Now that we have that edge and paint this part of the ear of following the shape of the dark area of the ear and our reference photo, I made the top of the ear a little bit long. So I'm just going to add some splotchy paint there and to serve white that part out and add a little more texture to the painting while on duty. Now let's paint around the other side of the year again. I'm looking at my reference photo, and I'm paying it into do the angle of the year and the angle of the back of our bunny. Now this area is a little bit wet, but that's OK. It's just let the colors bleed together. And there we have the back of our buddy well, who were making progress, guys. So now I'm going to pull all of that background color out to the edge. I don't want harsh lines and edges there, so I'm softening all of that edge, working very quickly and adding some splatters and texture to that background area. 9. Bunny - Part 5: all right, while the area around the ear in Bacchus trying, We're going to reinforce what we've already placed and are painting. You say we've done the hard part. Now we've done the drawing section, basically of our painting, and now we just get to reinforce and add more texture and depth of color. So we'll use more of a medium value of our coral color and we're going to go over. The same areas were replaced it before, and we'll use that same technique of pulling out the color with the side of our brush to create that for texture. Second, see right now that it looks like my buddy has a beard. But don't worry, we're going to fix that sooner or later, as we continue adding lawyers. - Now , I'm mixing up a color that is almost black. From the paint colors we had. I used my Prussian blue. I used my pink and my yellow to create this really dark black color and testing it on my paper first that looked a little bit green and it looked a little bit blue, so in order to fix that, I would add the opposite color to create it until it looks very grey. There you go. Now I'm going to use this color for the eyes. Say, I don't want my eyes to be blue Even though I started with the blue color, That was just so that I could change the position if I needed to. So now we're going black or grey and doing the same technique of softening the edge of the I. Now, this was still a little bit wet on this side, and I probably should have stopped and derided, but I didn't. I kept going, And so that pain is going to bleed out into the color more. You know, I'm okay with that. I think maybe in any case, that is what happened. And so I decided that I would just accept it. Well, I'm working with start gray. I decided to reinforce around the area around the mouth. Again, I'm softening those lines with a damp, lightly damp brush. I don't want them to be hard. And I'm adding in a little bit more shadow. - I want to reinforce the edge of the face a little bit here, so I'm going to negative shape paint again around the face of the rabbit, and I'm actually painting the back of the rabbit now, which will enhance the shape of the face. I'm going to splatter again. I just can't help myself. I love splattering. Now I know this bunnies looking kind of funny right now with one dark I want faded. I splatters everywhere and the colors. And, you know, if your painting isn't looking perfect right now, that's okay. We're going to keep working on it and it's going to turn out. Okay. Every painting tends to go through a stage where it looks kind of funny, or it looks awkward or it just doesn't look the way you want to work. So a lot of times it's just a matter of hanging in there until the end and not quitting to see how it all works out. I'm going to reinforce that dark area of the year, adding in a darker color, the coral and then again, Maura texture, more texture on the head. With this paint, I love creating all of these beautiful layers. This transparency of watercolor is amazing, 10. Bunny - Part 6: let's continue adding more layers, which will make our shapes more clearly defined. And our buddies really gonna start to pop out from our painting. Now, I did not notice that I have hit the I with that color and the color from the I put out into the peak, and it was just too much. So I used a thirsty brush to pick that up. I left a little bit of it. That's OK, because it just creates a shadow, and I'm okay with that. But I just didn't want it to be so dark, so that's why I removed it. 11. Bunny - Part 7: now let's at the next layer to the eyes. Now we're using that very dark black color going to lay that into the corner and leaving a gray edge this time, and I'm going to add some water to pull that color out and make it nice and transparent. So the inside corner of the is going to be very dark, and the outside is lighter and brighter, as if light is shining through. I'm adding even more of black, dropping in that color. I want to be very intense again. It is going to dry lighter, but I'm hoping that this will be the last layer on the eyes that will be dark enough and there will be enough contrast along the edge. I'm also softening around. The bottom edge is around the corner just to bring that color out a little bit. I want some a mix of hard and soft edges. Now we'll continue to add a few more layers to kick up the darks and add a little bit more depth to our painting. - Let's add some little dots for the whiskers. This is so fun. So after I tapped the very tip of the brush to add the dots. I actually drive my brush and tap in again, which will just lighten and remove the extra water from those little dots. 12. Bunny - Part 8: Let's use our rigor and make some whiskers on this bunny. Now, remember, you can use a different kind of brush to do this. The Rutgers just fun to play with. For me, you can use any kind of brush really that you have as long as you have a light touch. But a small one would work best. We're using a light touch, and we're flicking the tip of our brush out to create the whiskers. And I'm also going to use it to add a little bit of texture here and there, like on the nose around the eyes, their whiskers around the eyes and things like that, too. So just keep that in mind. Let's add our final splatters to the peace. I'm using the pink in the coral. To do this. You could also use the blue if you like. Now I'm using high paint pen to add a little bit of white sparkle tooth. I I didn't have to worry about saving the white of the paper because I knew I was going to come back with this pin. I had a little bit at the bottom of the lid and a little bit where I feel like the light would hit it and just add some sparkle. You can add a few sparkles, or you can add one sparkle, but you probably do need to add at least a little bit of catch light in the eye to bring some life to your bunny. Now I'm going to use the white pinto. Add some whiskers also, and some little white dots. Now when I tap it, that means it's just a little bit more muted that if I didn't tap it, so you can keep that in mind for your own process. So as I was adding the finishing touches, I noticed the mouth of the body just looked kind of funny. So I'm reshaping it by adding a little bit of that peach color around the edges to change the shape back to what it should be. And that's it. You did it repainted a bunny together. I'm so glad you joined me. Now I have one more bunny painting process video for you to see. It's a little bit different, so I hope you'll continue with the lessons 13. Paint a Bunny with a Drawing: Okay, Bunny number two is with the drawing now did. This is a time lapse for you, but I repeated the same process as I did for the first money we painted together. So in this, when I started with wet and wet, I went all the paper around the bunny, but not on the bunny. So you can see that the water color doesn't go on the bunny's face at all because there's no water there. So once the background was dry, when ahead and started with the eyes and the nose, the dark areas that really defined the features of the bunny rabbit and in this case, for by shadows I used the blue everywhere, even on the bunny, See the ears or blue. But in the end of this bunny doesn't look, blew it all. That's just sort of adding some atmosphere and a bat were home to the other colors that will come on top of it. I also went through the same process of mixing and testing the colors to see how Corolla orange it was and see what the value was. And I actually landed on a little bit darker value than I did for the other bunny painting , but that's just fine. That's what worked for this one. So now I'm adding in the color, and I'm going to use the site of my brush to create that texture, males and notice. I'm using the larger brush for this. That means that I have more water in this brush. It's not only because it's bigger, but it's also because of the type of brush it. ISS really went bold with these colors. And then I did the same process of letting those colors bleed and fade out into the edge to become the body of the bunny and sort of mingle with the background. And then I added more layers as I went, and they kept up this layering approach until I finished the painting. So I'll now put on some music for you, and you can watch the time lapse. If you have any questions, be sure and let me know in the discussion section. I'll be happy to answer them, but after looking over this painting, I feel it's a little bit over worked a little bit too many layers for me personally because I really love the loose light approach but it still turned out pretty good. So I really wanted to share with you. And I thought you might even like this one better than the other one. Who knows? Everyone has their own taste in style. Okay, let's talk about your project. 14. Project and Thank You: Thank you so much for taking my class for your project campaign and bunny with me. I'd love free to paint one or both of our Bunning's that we painted today. You can do it with or without a drawing. It's totally up to you. I can't wait to see what you do, so please share your work in the project section. Thank you so much for taking my class. I really appreciate it. I love seeing all of your work. And please be sure and ask your questions in the discussion section. Also, if you enjoy this class, don't forget to leave a review and check out my other classes. Thank you so much.