Transcripts
1. Introduction and Supplies: Hi, Welcome to my class. My name is Ken. I'm a self-taught artists with over 20 years of
painting experience. And of course, I'm always learning in my own art
journey today I want to share with you how to
paint this beautiful pair. So for this class, you are going to need
watercolor paper. I'm using a sketchbook today. You can use any kind of
watercolor palette that you have. Some brushes and a paper towel and a cup of water to
rinse your brushes. And that's pretty much it. I hope you'll join me in class and I hope you have
fun painting this. Thank you so much.
2. Step 1: Planning the illustration: As far as planning, I'm going to be using this
reference photo that I took. We're going to be focusing on the highlights on
the left side here. And the values you're going to use darker values as you
go towards the right side. And then you're going to see
the darkest values are here, where there are the dance
and all the imperfections. So this is really good picture to use because you
got a wide range of values and there's a
lot to paint and draw. So let's get started.
3. Step 2: Drawing the outlines: We're going to get started
by drawing the pair, and it's going to
be relatively easy. It's gonna be two circles, one big one at the bottom and the smallest circle
overlapping on top. So I'm using a tool
to make circles, but if you have some bottle caps or some kind of round objects, you can use it to
trace it or you can draw it freehand,
whatever you like. So the bottom circle is
going to be a bit bigger and the top circle is going
to go ahead and overlap. And it's going to be
a little bit smaller. Now once you have
the two circle, you can erase the middle
line that is overlapping. And you can trace
along those lines where the two circles meet, just go ahead and carve it out. We're also going to
draw a little lines to create the place for
the stem to come out. I'm using very light
pencil sketch. Take your time with
their drawing. You can also use regular
pencil or mechanical pencil. Once you're happy
with your drawing, will get started
with the painting.
4. Step 3: Painting the illustration - Part 1: So we're ready to get started
with painting this pair. I'm going to be using these
professional artists brushes, but you are welcome to use
whatever you have at home. If you do love art and
you want to excel in it, I would recommend that you
invest in a good brush. I'm going to start out
with very light yellow. I'm using cadmium yellow
from Daniel Smith. But if you have
any kind of light, bright yellow, you can use that. So I'm gonna go around and paint the pair with the
yellow all over it. This is a very light wash. And I'm doing it quickly so that the paper doesn't get dry. Right after that,
I'm going to wash my brush and tap it
off on a paper towel. And I'm going to go around
the left side and get rid of some of that paint to create a little
bit of highlight. And I'll do the same
with the right side. Just a little bit in the middle. I'm just lifting off some of that yellow color
that I just put. Now I'm going to grab some darker shade of
yellow, almost brown. It's yellow ocher
from Daniel Smith. And I'm going to drop
it in some areas. The paper is still damp so
the paint will spread easily. I'm adding the same
color to the stem area. We're going to build
up on its slowly, starting with a light color and we're going to go from yellow to different shades of brown. The next color that I'm
using is burnt sienna, also from Daniel Smith. Again, these are the
colors that I have. Um, you can use any brand, any color that you have. A similar hue is fine. I'm going to drop
this burnt sienna into some of the areas
where the dense are at the bottom where there's
going to be shadow. Now at impact some of
this cadmium yellow. Because the first
wash was very light. And when I started
adding burnt sienna, I realized that the
two don't connect as well because one is very
dark and one is very light. So to meet the two
colors in the middle, I have to increase my first
wash of cadmium yellow. I'm going to add a little
bit more color of it. Now you can start to see
the pair is taking shape. Painting is all about working with what you
have and trying to build up on what you've
done previously so you can improve it as you go. Sometimes it's also helpful to step back and take
a look at it and see how it looks and it will help you
determine what to do next. I'm taken Burnt umber
from Daniel Smith, which is a darker brown. And I'm going to be
dropping it in some of the areas where there are more
shadow and darker values. Again, I'm working wet on wet, so the paint just spread easily. Just add in some areas
of the stem with the same color to
create that shape. And going over it with
multiple times with this dry or dump brush, clean brush to blend all
these colors together. Adding back a little bit
color to the left side where, where we have taken off the first wash to blend it in with the rest of the colors on the right side. Here adding darker
value off brown. I'm using sepia
from Daniel Smith.
5. Step 4: Painting the illustration - Part 2: We're going to continue adding sepia and go back and forth between burnt umber and sepia to create some of
the darker values. I have dried my painting
right before this step so that the lines that I'm
creating actually stands out. I'm adding burnt umber
to this dense areas. Trying to create a
darker values for those. Using a smaller brush is
helpful for these steps because you can get
nice details in them. And take your time
with this step. Because the bottom layer
is completely dry. Whatever you put on there
doesn't go to other places. It stays where you put it. So that's really nice. I'm also add in this burnt umber to the
bottom where the shadow is. After I added the dark values, I can see that the wash
for the second wash for the cadmium yellow
was very light. So I'm gonna go ahead and
add more hue to that. You can use a clean, damp brush to get rid of some of the hard edges
of your painting. Still leaving some
of the highlights. Adding back some of
the colors for yellow. As I mentioned before, this process is going
back and forth and trying to adjust
based on the values. So once you lay down
the darker values, you can see what needs
to be brought up again. What kind of light
values need to be brought up again
so that there is a connection between the two and they are not disconnected. It's, one is too bright
and one is too dark. Here I'm adding some of
the sepia in the middle. My paper is mostly
dry at this process, so whatever lines I add
actually stays put. I'm going to add a little
bit of shadow at the bottom. It's going to be an oval shape. And very soft shadow. I'm adding some water first, create an oval shape, and then I'm adding some light
paint where the pair is, the shadow is going
to be a bit darker. And then it's going
to get softer. When watercolor dries,
it becomes lighter. So that's why it's
important to keep building up on the layers. Even though when you lay it down the first time
it looks very dark, It's going to dry, much lighter than
what you laid down. So you may need another
layer to create that same value or intensity. I'm still using burnt
sienna and burnt umber, just between the two, going back and forth. And occasionally I
would jump to cadmium yellow to bring back
those lighter colors. To make it a bit more realistic, I'm going to add tiny
dots around the pair. It's totally random and just use a fine tip of
the brush to create these dots and not go in too much over
the highlight areas. Just very light. Tiny dots. A few dots would be good. On the left side, I'm going
to add one or two dots randomly because that's where the highlights are
and I don't want to add too many dots there. As you can see, adding
these dots make make the pair a lot more realistic
than what we had earlier. I'm going to use
that cadmium yellow again to go over some of the dots because I
don't want to make it too technical and just
have a bunch of dots. You know. In real life, the pair, the dots on the pair are sort of some are lighter, some arm. Not exactly a dot shape. It's more like a little line. So this will help create that
illusion of imperfection. Here the shadow already dried, so now I can add a darker shape, shade right underneath that
parent just right on it. And you'll see
that the bottom of the pair and the shadows
blend into each other. There's no like a specific line saying here is the pair
yours, the shadow. You end up sort of
blend in together, just creating that
little dark area. And that, that's all you
need to do in that area. We already sort of gift that oval shape shadow
on the left side. So it's good enough to show
that there's a shadow.
6. Step 5: Painting the illustration - Part 3: Here we're going to continue
adjusting the values. We're going to go back
to our lightest value, cadmium yellow, and
fill it in some of the areas to sort of connect
it with a darker values. Again, the paper is dry so it's easy to add more values without having to worry
about spreading it all over. I'm adding some of the
shadows here using the sepia. Just a bit of touch-up
here and there to make it more realistic. The pair is starting
to take shape and it's starting to get
much better than before. And again, I see that the
yellow on the left side, the highlight side, is very, very pale compared to the
rest of the painting. It feels like it's empty
and there's a whole. So what I wanted to do is try to bring that color up
and add more yellow. And try to touch up on the right side here also
to create that shape. The right side should
be a little bit darker than the left side. Usually the shadow will cast on the opposite side
of the highlight. In most cases, but because I had multiple light sources
when I took the picture, you'll see that the
shadow actually cast on the left side where there
is the highlight as well. So adding back a little bit
of that yellow cadmium, yellow to the right side. Brought all that
picture together. I already have some of
these colors on my palette. I've been going back and forth. So it's easy for me to go
from the light to the dark. All I have to do
is wash my brush and I can just grab
the light color. I'm going to add a few highlights
using the white marker. I wouldn't do too much of this because this white marker
can make it look like you actually draw some lines on top of a watercolor painting. So I would only do it in very bright areas and
very limited amount. Maybe a few dots here and there to make it a bit more realistic. I'm also going to be
using a black marker and very thin lead marker to outline some of
these stem areas. Again, when you're using markers on top of a watercolor painting, just be very careful
because if you overdo it, they would look like they're like markers drawn on
top of watercolor. It's completely separate
from the drawing. And so you really want to
just limit the use of it. Especially when you have
a painting like this where you really don't
need a lot of outlines. So it's better to just
really limit the use of it. I'm adding a tiny bit on the right side to sort
of create that shape. Maybe a slight shadow
just so that it's there and it's not too too dark. But just just a little outline
to show that it's there. You can do any other
touch ups that you like. Mostly the painting is completed and I hope
you enjoy this class. Thank you so much
for joining me.
7. Bonus Lesson 1: Getting to know your palette : Today I want to share with you some tips regarding
watercolor palettes. As you know, when
you started out, you may start out with simple watercolor palettes like these. Then as you progress, you may go to more
student grade watercolors and then maybe move on to
professional-grade watercolors. And whenever you get a palate, it is good to be familiar
with the colors. So if you look at this
palette that I have here, you'll see that these
colors are pretty obvious. When you paint
these on the paper. You'll probably get
exactly what you see. Now, when you get to
these darker colors, it can be confusing. This one here looks very
much like a black color. This one also, this one. You're not sure exactly what color you're going to
get when you paint them. So it's easy to have
something like this where you draw some
rectangles or squares, whatever you want to do. But just sort of follow that palette and exactly paint
these colors on the paper. When you look at this, you'll see that, for example. So I have white here and then light gray and
then there's black. And this one actually, which looks a lot like black, it's actually a brownish color. And this one is
even lighter brown. So you can see whatever
you see on this palette is not exactly translating to
the same colors on the paper. So it is important
to create this kind of chart with any
palette that you get so that you can immediately know what kind of color it
will show up on your paper. So here I have another palette. I did the same thing. This palette here I
have multiple colors. So I went ahead and did a little chart and I even
wrote some names on it. Again, when you are painting, names aren't very important and you may forget those names. But it is important
to know what kind of colors they show up
to be on the paper. So when you're mixing colors, it'll be much easier to think through in the
process of painting. I hope you find this
tip very helpful. And it doesn't matter what kind of watercolor palette
that you have. You can create this
kind of charts and you will really find these
helpful when you are painting. Alright, thanks so
much for watching.
8. Bonus Lesson 2: Preparing your palette: In my own art journey, I learned many tips and
tricks along the way. Today I want to share
with you one tip that I find helpful
when I'm painting. Watercolor palettes tend
to be dry and cracked, even dependent on where you keep them and the temperature
of the room. I use a spray bottle to spray some water on the
palette evenly. Before I start
using the palette. This allow all the
paints to be moist evenly and this
is just a missed. If you let it sit for a minute, it will be ready for use. If you do not do this tab, you may need to use
a brush a lot to get the paint wet and get
the paint on the brush. So I hope you found
this tip helpful. Thank you so much for
joining my class. I hope you share your projects
on the class project page. I will see you in
the next class. Thank you once
again for watching.
Khin, Artist | Designer | Educator
