Watercolors for Beginners: Paint a fun Bat!

1. Introduction : Hi, welcome to this course. Today we're going to paint this fun little transparent crystal bat. This is a course that will just allow you to unwind and relax a little bit. So if you're interested in doing something that's a bit more unique and special, this course is for you. It is very beginner friendly. I'm going to walk you through everything, materials, the first steps and all of that, and then we're going to paint it together. So I hope you're going to enjoy this course. Just do it at your own pace, relax. Don't stress about the perfect result, and I'm sure you'll have a good time. 2. Materials: Okay, so let's go over materials quickly. I have my watercolor paper. This is 100% cotton cold pressed paper. Then I have my outline printed out. It's the size. So it fits on my kind of like a five paper. Then to trace my outline, I'm going to use this charcoal paper. Um, I also have this tape that I'll use to tape my outline onto the paper so that I can trace it and it doesn't move. We'll be using masking fluid for this project. This is a monochromatic picture, so I'll only be using one color, my gray, and then some white quash. And for brushes, Um, I have a size four round brush here. I think, excuse me, if these are the biggest areas that I'll need to paint wet and wet, or actually, I might use this one. As well, this is a size 12 round brush. And when it's wet, it has this really, really fine tip. And I might be using this to do an overall first wash because it holds a lot of pigment and a lot of water here. And this becomes a really fine tip, so I can use the fine tip to make sure I don't paint outside my outline. So I might be using this one. And then, of course, smaller brushes, 30, a size two and a size zero, and this is the size four, I always have these ready. These are more or less the only brushes I use these days. And then I also always have my eradicator brush, should I need it too, if I sometimes I paint outside my lines a little bit, and then I'll use this brush to clean up the edges. But this is I just always have it ready. I don't always use it. And then here I have my mechanical pencil, which I'll also be using to trace the outline. And then water and a paper towel. And that's pretty much it, I think. 3. Tracing the Outline: Okay, so I'm just going to show you how to trace your outline. If you already know how to do this, you can skip. You can skip ahead. So I'm placing my outline in the middle of my paper where I want it, and then I'll take some of that tape. And I'm taping the outline onto my paper so that I can check where I've already traced and where I haven't without the paper moving. Then this is the charcoal, the tracing paper. It has a mat side, and it has a shiny side. And the shiny, I don't know if you can see the difference. The shiny side goes down because that's where the pigment is attached to. And then you place it and since this is cold press paper, not hot press paper, No, my pencil isn't working. This is great. I'm going to use a bit more pressure. Then I do when I paint on hot press paper. And then I have a mechanical pencil, and I'm just going to draw over my lines. Like this. And then because we've taped it to, to the paper, we can always check. Sometimes with these crystal illustrations, when there's so much detail and so many lines, um, I need to check every couple of seconds if I've done this one and that one already. So, yeah, this is the process. I'm not going to show you all of this. I'm going to do this because I don't want to waste your time. But yeah, this is how it's done. So I'll do mine, and you do yours, and then I'll come back when I'm finished with this. 4. Color Mixing: Okay, so let's get our color ready. Like I said, this is a monotamatic painting. Um, so I'll just use my gray color, which is neutral tint. I prefer neutral tint to pains gray because Panes Gray usually has such a blue tint to it. Also, depending on the brand, some are a little bit less blue, some are really blue. But just use the gray that you already have in your palette. Don't feel the need to buy a neutral tint just for this tutorial. So I'll just get it ready here in my palette, and we're going to use different concentrations of it. So for the first wash, which we'll do all over, we're going to use a very, very watery, transparent wash. And then as we build the layers, we're going to use more concentrated versions. And then since this bat is black, we're going to use it more concentrated, and then the neutral tint will look like it's black. So here I have just a scrap piece of paper. So this is like a medium concentration. And then if you use it more concentrated, it really just becomes black. And then like a super watery version is something like this. So we'll just play around with it and adjust it. And then if we do need to use white highlights, I'm going to use whitequah for that in the end, but we're also going to block in the highlights with masking fluid so that we don't lose all of our white. And that's it for color mixing, very quick and easy. 5. Applying Masking Fluid 2: Alright, so this is the masking fluid that I'm going to be using for this painting. This is B sneer. Um, I purchased it because it has this needle tip. Um, and I'm still on the hunt for a masking fluid that allows you to like, work with really fine details, and this one is not as bad as the other ones. But one thing I've learned is do not shake the bottle. If you shake the bottle, you produce like 1,000 little air bubbles in here, and then all that comes out of your needle point is, like, air bubbles, and it is a nightmare. There'll still be air bubbles coming out of it, but not as many as if you shake the bottle. So if you see that there's kind of, like, residue on the bottom, depending on how you put it down, I just, like, slowly move it around like this. Like, for a minute or so so that everything it mixes up again, but I'm not shaking the bottle anymore. That gives me a migraine. So, okay, let's get started. If you look at the reference photo, you see that there's like 10 trillion details in it. And I've decided to not paint all of them, to leave most of them out because it would be just, like, tedious. And I think we can get the nice glass looking effect without painting, like, every little detail. But I am going to block in some white highlights. And if you have the same type of masking fluid by chance, I'm just holding the bottle. I'm not even squeezing it. So I'm not applying any pressure to this. I'm just, like, moving this needle over my page. And then the amount that comes out just by gravity is the amount that I'll that I need. So I'm just gonna I don't know. Do some little dots, maybe, and some fine lines here and there. But maybe some here. I'm just trying to scatter these around, really. Usually, I try to follow my reference photos exactly, but this one is just too much. And also, I don't want to make the tutorials too complicated because it would be intimidating for you to even get through it, I think. So I'll try to simplify. But this is also something that's that I'm still learning is, um what to include and what to not include in a realistic painting because you don't have to paint every little detail that you see in a photograph to create a realistic painting. And there are some artists out there who are excellent at this. And when I see one of their paintings, I'm thinking, Oh my God, this is photo realistic. Then you zoom in and you realize, oh, it's actually not that detailed. But I think as you gain experience as an artist and as you just keep painting over the years, you you learn and you develop an intuition about what a painting actually needs in order to look realistic. So here are the eyes. I'm going to include more masking fluid in the eye, I think. And then there's the nose, maybe, like, a curved something here. Um, so, yeah, we're all continuously learning So I don't know, maybe here. I'm just putting these. I'm just adding these pretty randomly, to be honest right now. Make sure your masking fluid is completely dry before you touch it, because if it's, like, semi dry and you smear it, you have this, like, super thin film on your paper, and that's hard to get off. And also, if you start painting before it's completely dry, you'll you'll get problems. So the only thing that I'm trying to do when I add the masking fluid is I'm trying to follow the direction of form of the shape. So in the reference photo, there's, like, a sharp line, and I don't know where that's coming from. It's some kind of reflection, but I decided to put this one down curved because I'm thinking, Okay, it has a round belly, so I want to do the light reflection round as well. Just let's just be random and quick with this. Maybe one more here. Um. Something like that? I think. Yeah, I think let's leave it like that. Some of my drops are pretty thick, so it might take about 20 minutes or so for it to dry and then we'll continue with the first base layer. A 6. Base Layer: So that's the masking fluid dry, and I'm going to take my big brush and dip into this very transparent gray mixture because even the lightest areas of this painting are not as white as the paper. So I'm going to test it again on my scrap piece of paper. Yeah, I think this is a good good consistency. Okay, so there's really not much pigment, and it dries even lighter. Okay, so um what? I'm going to protect this. We can paint in sections. So I'm going to start just by painting this wing on the right hand side. I tend to start on the right hand side of a painting because I'm left handed. Um, you are statistically more likely to be right handed, so you can also start on the opposite. Page. Okay, um So, like I said, this brush comes to a fairly fine tip, and I can just move it along here. And then feel free to turn your page as you need to. I sometimes try not to move my page around too much when I film for Tutorios because I don't know, I thought maybe it's not very pleasant for you to watch. But it's always easier, and it's easier to paint accurately when the tip of your brush is pointed towards the edge of your illustration. So I'm just soaking up some excess moisture on my page here. And then I'm taking it up to this line. And if I get a hard water line here, when it dries, I'm not going to care much because Yep. That's totally fine. We have some uneven this here because the masking fluid created a bit of a barrier for the paint. But that's really not an issue. So if I feel like it's a bit too dry, I can swipe my damp brush over the paper and soak up some more of the paint. And then once it's dry, it's going to be even lighter than this. And then once we add the darker colors, this will in relation to the dark colors appear very light. Okay, I'm going to continue with the head. Same thing. Go to start here. So this just gives us a base color to start off from. And I think it's also always nice to already have some color on your page. So it doesn't feel so empty anymore. I think I always find it's easier to keep painting and to continue when there's already something there. Like the blank page. Sometimes it's a bit scary. So again, soaking up like some excess paint there that's pooling here, I can smooth out that unevenness. So I don't know if you can see if I can zoom in. But like this little mistake here, I can easily correct with my eradicator brush once it's dried. So that shouldn't be a problem. Okay, then I'm going to do the body here. Could also do this step on wet paper instead of on dry paper if you're maybe a bit unsure if you can cover larger areas quick enough before the paint starts to dry. But in this case, we don't need a super even wash because if you look at the reference photo, there are so many lines and sections that will go over it. So should you have a paint line somewhere, it's probably not even going to show. I mean, like a hard water line. And also, this is such a transparent wash, and you can see how much water I'm putting on my page. It doesn't dry that fast. But if you did want to do this wet in wet, just remember that the more water you have on your page, the more pigment you need in your paint mix because the water adds up. So if you already have water on your page, you need less water in your paint mix, otherwise, you're not gonna have not enough pigment on your paper. So here, I can correct the edge a little bit. Soaking up any extra water that I don't need. Yeah, all of this I can easily scrub over, but the edges aren't too bad, actually. This is a really handy brush. Okay, and then so now I need to make sure that my hand doesn't cover the part that's still a little bit damp, so I'm trying to place it here. Okay. And again, I'm just soaking up any extra pigment. All right. So we're going to let everything dry completely before we add another layer. 7. First Layer: Okay, so now I'm going to keep painting on the right wing here. And let me just see if I can, can you see without the lamp distracting? Okay, so I was thinking, I'm going to start here in the middle kind of like dent of this section of the wing. And you can see how there is, like, another transparent layer here. So I'm thinking to continue with the same wash that we used now and just add a second layer of it on top. So it's still the same super transparent wash. And, um I'm just again, this is on dry paper, and I'm just gonna try to just paint some irregular lighter shapes. And I paint the light shapes by adding dark paint around them, if that makes sense. I'm having a bit of a hard time explaining what I'm doing while I'm doing it. Usually, I used to record the tutorials without speaking at the same time and then added voice over afterwards. But because that prolongs my editing time by so much, I decided I'm gonna switch and paint and talk at the same time. But then I'm concentrating on the painting, and I'm a bit lost for words. Okay, so something like this. Do you see what I mean? Um, and I'm going to do this for down here as well. I really don't think we need to stick exactly to the reference photo. I think that would just, like, give us a headache. So I can see that this part is light, and then it's darker here, so I'm just going to add I'm trying to, like, keep a loose and relaxed wrist. And the more relaxed you are, maybe grab your brush a little bit more towards the middle and not here at the front. If you hold your brush like this, it's easier to paint loosely. And then this one here is darker except for the highlight, but that has masking fluid on top of it, so we can just cover it. And then There's gray here. And then there are these like lines here. So I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm also painting this for the first time. So I'm really just, like, closely looking at it for the first time while I'm doing this. I just saw it and I thought, This looks cool. Let's try and paint it. Oh. That's my mom calling. Hold on. Alright. Sorry about that. Um, okay, where were we? Here. Okay. I'm picking up some more of the transparent mix. And moving down here. So one very important thing, and that goes for any type of painting that you do is that contrast is key, basically. And if you do your own, like, concept, maybe like a landscape, and you're thinking about, okay. Where do I put what? And you're placing your focal point and your contrast and your color scheme, everything very systematically. The key to painting contrast, and that's what I'm doing right here is the masking fluid, we're going to take it off. So below this is going to be the lightest, whitest point. And this is only going to pop if we paint, like, really dark around it. So I'm already placing the second layer around the highlights here and here as well. And we're going to add some more like the darkest colors, like, a little bit of black around it because if we keep a light around the highlight, we're just going to have, like, and it'll be like white of the paper here, where the masking fluid is, and then this is the color next to it. This is not contrast. This is like, so the highlight is not going to pop, whereas if this is like our white highlight thingy and then black is right next to it. Here you have contrast. And then the highlight is really gonna pop. So, wherever you place your masking fluid, it's probably in, like, it's not exactly the same as mine, but that's totally fine. Just paint over it with the second layer a little bit, because you don't want to take it off and then be disappointed that disappointed that it doesn't really have, you know, that light effect that you want from it. I hope I'm making sense. I feel like I'm just blabbing. Okay, so I'm also gonna paint around here, like I said, around all the masking fluid. Bits and pieces, and then actually, like, this whole area is actually darker now that I'm looking at it. Like, something like this. If your shapes aren't exactly the same as mine, don't sweat it. I wouldn't even call it a mistake. Like, nobody can look at a glass illustration and tell you that the reflection is wrong. Because, like, depending on where the light's coming from, what angle the photo was taken from, those light reflections always look completely different. So, if yours doesn't look exactly like mine, it doesn't matter at all. As long as you get, like, the general shapes and everything, right, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Which is why contrary to popular opinion, I do think that these glass illustrations are actually beginner friendly because it's not like botanicals, it's not like when you're painting leaves and then you get the lights and shadows completely wrong and the leave just doesn't look natural. This can barely happen with an illustration like this. Because all you're trying to do is paint transparently, which is hopefully what I'm able to teach. And then the rest, like, nobody can tell you, Oh, but, you know, here it's supposed to be light, and here it's supposed to be dark. It's so random. That even if you don't get it right the way I'm doing it, it doesn't mean that you're getting it wrong. Um, I think this is looking actually pretty good for a second layer. I'm not unhappy with it, and it's moving fastly along. Um, okay. I'm looking at this foot, and it is looking very dark. So I'm I'm coloring. I'm painting all over it. Um, I'm staying inside this little section with it where, um, I added an outline. And then I'm looking at this section, and there's there's a lighter bit in the middle, which I'm going to leave out. I would really love to see your paintings here in the project section. Like, not many people upload their stuff. I don't know why. Because, for one thing, I would love to be able to give feedback. And then I'm also, like, I'd be really interested to see how your Sorry, I got interrupted. My phone was ringing in. Um, it's a weekday and people are calling. I forgot I completely forgot what I was saying. Um, Okay, I'm looking at this section here. And, um, so it's lighter here, and then it gets darker here in the middle. Um, Let's do it wet and wet. I'm wetting the paper below this line here. And I'm painting the water around the foot. It's okay if it if it goes into this foot, there's no paint there. And then I'm picking up some more concentrated gray because there's already water on the page, so I need more I need less water in my paint mix. And then Let's paint here and a little bit here. And then it's salt darker here. And then it's darker at the bottom, as well. And then I'm cleaning my brush and I'm dabbing it off. And then I'm picking up the paint that's bleeding a bit too much for my taste here. This is where I prefer a stiffer brush than the these black velvet brushes. I don't think they're the best for lifting because they're so soft. Ah. Let's let it dry and see. This is very much the ugly phase of the painting, I feel like. But I've learned to have faith and keep painting, even though things tend to look a bit wonky in the beginning. Okay, so I'm back with a more transparent mix, and I'm looking at the reference photo. There's a white line towards the edge here, but I'm taking it around this bit of masking fluid. And then there are, like, small highlights that separate the toes a little bit. So I'll try to keep that. I'm looking at the photo, and there's, like, so much going on in this foot with white lines and Different concentrations, different hues of black and gray, and this is not looking great. I am aware of it, and I'm also, as I'm doing is this aware of the fact that I did not leave out any lighter separations for the toes here. So this is great. Let me see if I can lift it. Okay, so I'm taking my eradicator brush and I'm dampening it. Mm hmm. Okay. Let me take a different brush. Let me let me try this round brush. I'm just trying to lift some color, basically. Oh, this has yellow on it. Jesus. But this is what it's like. This is what happens when you, you know, when you do stuff. Okay. Okay, so this is not lifting. Like, not at all. Good to know. Is it the paper or the pigment? Yeah, this is not working. I'm just adding yellow from whatever's left on that brush. Okay, I'm I'm gonna ignore this and deal with it later. Okay, moving on. So this whole thing is pretty dark. But this is only the second layer. However, um, let's use some slightly more concentrated gray and paint around these bits. When I paint diamonds, which are still my favorite things to paint, um, I also find, like, the first and the second layer are the the ones that are most time consuming because you just keep staring at your reference image and trying to figure out the reflections and the hues and because there are so many detailed, um, fun. So many detailed bits and pieces, and I like to call it the what goes where phase. And once that layer is down on the paper, everything just gets so much easier because you just know the reflections and the gradients and the colors and everything. But it's just that first and second layer. That's a bit of a headache because it's so easy to lose orientation in your painting with all the glass reflections. So here, I'm just like, again, I'm trying to keep a loose wrist. And I'm adding just some random strokes here and we'll deal with the details of it all later on. Okay, so I'm looking at my image dark light, dark and light. All of this between the eyes, except for here, it's dark as well, up until here. So let's start with that. Let's start with the mix that we had here just to save us some time. So I'm going to start here. This is looking a bit more concentrated, so I'm picking up water on my brush. And you see how I'm just adding a bit more water here. And you can oftentimes mix paint on the page on the paper. So here I'm diluting paint that's already on the paper. I know. I'm trying to erase this little mishap by squatting water on top of it and then soaking it up. When you do this, when you have a paint splash accidentally, like I just did, most of the time, you can fix it like that. Now, because I've been busy down here, I'm gonna have hot water lines up here, which is great. Look. Okay. Anyway, Yeah, that's a hard water line already there. It's fine. Mm. It's darker here as well. And then there's a light area there. If you feel like you would like to switch down to a smaller brush, by the way, please do. This is still my size number four brush. This is what I'm using right now, but it doesn't mean that this is the brush that you have to use for these sections and areas. You should and I keep saying this in every tutorial, you should always use the utensils that you need and that you're most comfortable using. So if I use a size, number four brush, but the area is actually a bit small, and you feel like you should you want to use a size two or maybe even zero. And then just spend a bit more time in that section, doing whatever. Then please downsize or use a bigger size, like, whatever you can achieve your best results, with is the type of brush that you should be using. So, um, I'm just giving you suggestions. I'm just showing you what's good for me here, but it doesn't mean that that's what you have to use. And that requires, of course, a bit of practice and getting to know your, your materials and everything. Okay, so here let's again use the super diluted mix from the beginning for this area here. This is again a bit random. Let's just paint around that, and then the rest is maybe like this. And then this whole area here is slightly darker. Again, I'm going to paint slightly outside my line because I want to cover the masking fluid from both sides. Um, like I've just explained earlier, here it's bleeding a little bit. That's okay. Okay. Let's move over here. This area is quite light, and then we have, like, a medium dark here. Maybe going to leave a little bit some small lighter spaces in between this section, and then we'll come back to it and add more shapes and everything. Um, This is, again, the very diluted light mix, and I'm trying to, again, cover the masking fluid from both sides here and then keep it a little bit random. This area here is quite dark. What helps whenever you try to paint something. Sorry, my camera stopped because it does that when one memory card is full, it switches to the next one, but it doesn't make a sound or anything. It doesn't alert me. Um, I hope you didn't miss too much. So I was just finishing here. And, okay, now let's move on to the eyes. And let's take, let's use our smaller brush. I'm going to use my number zero brush, and with the very diluted paint, I'm going to cover the top two thirds of this eye, and then we'll come back again with more concentrated black for details. And then for the nose, we're going to do the same thing. So there's, like, a cross section. It looks like the reflections of a window in a tree. Let's just cover it here and then we'll add more detail later. The other eye, little bit different. I'm going to paint this one like that. And remember this and this is going to be the white highlight. Okay, and then the mouse, let's use the diluted version again and paint the bottom part. And then I'm cleaning off my I'm cleaning up my brush and dabbing it off, and then with a clean damp brush, you can smooth out the edges a little bit, so it looks like you've painted wet and wet, but you didn't. So cleaning brush, dabbing it off, and just scrubbing along the wet paint line here, and then you have a little bit of a gradiend. We'll see if it even makes a difference in the end. So I'm going to do this wing on the left side just in the same manner as I did all the other ones. And I don't think I need to explain anymore. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do it, and then I'll be back with more instruction once that's done. 8. Second Layer: So this is what the bat looks like right now, and I'm going to come back to this right wing here, and I'm basically going to do the same thing. So it's quite easy because it's repetitive, and I'm just going to mix up some more of that gray. I'm going to keep it a little bit stronger than I just had it. So this is the it's almost the same. Let's make it a little bit darker. Yeah, like this kind of consistency. And since we're building up layers, and the layers are on top of each other, the color is gonna be a bit darker because of the layers underneath. So I'm using this towel to protect my painting here so I don't get any grease from my hands onto my paper. And then I'm just looking at the reference photos photo, and I'm identifying but let me just this area right here needs to be darkened. This whole top area of the wing. And then this area is darker. We have some darker spots here, and then here on the inside of this little indentation, as well. And then there's detail around these areas. So I'm just going to start by doing the exact same thing that I just did. Which is paint on dry paper with, like, a semi diluted mix. And I'm just building up layers, basically, and I'm still trying to keep a very loose grip on my brush and a relaxed wrist. And I'm just adding color, and I'm trying to paint in, like, interrupted wobbly lines. And maybe this mix is a little bit too dark. I'm just going to add a little bit of water to it. And like I said, I am looking at the reference photo, but I'm also not painting strictly from it because I think it would be too complicated. So I'm just I'm just identifying where the medium and the darkest areas are, and I'm just trying to, like, loosely copy the types of shapes that are in the photo. And yeah, I think anything else will be just too complicated to paint. So and then sometimes I'll start with, like, a smaller line here and then push down on my brush and then lift it off the page again to get a bit of variation with the sizes of the brush joke. Here now lifting it up again. And I want to encourage you to also come up with your own little patterns on this, and I want you to look at the reference photo and try to paint off the photo as much as you can and not only off my instructions here. I think the best way to learn and to get better at painting is to start painting from reference photos as early as you can. And then if it's a tutorial that you're doing, come back to the tutorial whenever you feel you're stuck a little bit. But now with a section like this where I've explained the technique and the technique is not going to change. It's just diluted paint on dry paper. So you don't need to you don't need to copy exactly what I'm doing. And I'm also not copying exactly what I see in the reference photo. So I really want you to encourage to kind of make it your own because this is the best and the most effective way to learn and to get better. To not copy the brush strokes of an instructor or a tutorial. But to look at the reference photo and then realize what you can do on your own, and when you get stuck, you come back to the tutorial. I wish I would have learned that way. I didn't for, like, the first year and a half when I was painting, and just like afterwards, I realized, I could have made much greater progress, not necessarily faster progress. And it is like, it's a little bit harder in the beginning. But then if you keep at it for a while, then suddenly you make this, like, huge jump in your skill set, and you have much more confidence in your own ability. And I just stuck with copying artists and painting exactly after tutorials for, like, a bit too long, I think. Um, so that's the only reason why why I'm saying this because I know that there's a more effective way. Anyway, um, so, yeah, you can see what I'm doing. You can see it and I'm um just trying to create little shapes here, and I'm trying to add some more mid tones right now while at the same time, I don't want to paint over my lightest tones because I don't want to lose the light. So I'm placing the mid tones over the second layer that we painted. And you can already see this is what I said in the beginning that our first layer may have looked a little bit dark in the beginning, but now in contrast to these medium tones, the mid tones, this is already looking much lighter than it did. So it's all relative And then, here's a darker area, as well. That had lots of little wobbly lines, and we're going to add our darkest colors. Towards the end, we're going to add very, very concentrated gray. So it'll be black. You can also use black, of course, but I think it's Yeah, easier to just stick with one color. But if you want to use lamp black, for example, if you have that in your palette, you can, of course, do that. You can also add the smallest lines of black at the end with colored pencil, for example. That's a very handy and easy way to finish your paintings. So I'm just trying to keep with the shapes here. I'm trying to I'm painting around my masking fluid bits because I want to increase the contrast around them even more so that they pop when we take it off in the end. Um, so I think I'll just continue to do this on this wing and then on that wing, and I don't think I need to bore you with my talking for much longer. So I'll just speed this up a little bit. If you want to watch it in real time, you can just toggle in the settings and just slow it down again. But, yeah, for those of you who want to move along a bit more quickly, I'm going to speed it up, and I'll see you in a little bit. Okay, so I just recorded a couple of minutes without actually recording it. Um, I'm sorry. That sucks. What I did was I wetted this area with clean water, and then I added some concentrated neutral tint, and I started painting from this side into that side, and then I cleaned off my brush, dabbed it off on a paper towel, and then I was blending the pigment that was already on the page into the, like, top left side over here. Um, so that's what I did, but it wasn't recording, and I apologize for that. Um Okay, that sucks a bit. I'm sorry. Um, but it is what it is now. Um, so maybe I need a new paper towel. Just to protect my page here, because I have some hand lotion on my hand. Um, let's continue up here, and I just really wanted to show you this. This kind of annoys me now that it's not recorded. Um Okay. Um, let's continue here with the ears or actually, no, actually, hold on. I'm going to show you the same thing here with the body of the bat because that's also a similar darkness. And if you look at the photo, you can see that it's not the same dark black all over. Like, here, it's a little bit lighter. Here, it's a bit darker. Here, it's also lighter, and then here it's a bit darker again. So I'm gonna wet it with clean water again. And the reason I'm painting this wet and wet is because there are subtle color variations in it, and I think that's the easiest way to recreate that is to do a wet and wet wash and then have it more concentrated like down here. And then up here again, again, I'm trying to not recreate the photo exactly, but I'm trying to capture the essence of it. So I'm just applying a lot of color here. And then I'm applying a lot of color here because I want to create a stronger contrast between the light and the dark. And then maybe here as well. And then I'll leave the middle part a bit lighter hoping that that will make sense to the eye. I'm just dragging the color down here. And then this bit is really dark? I'm going dark now straightaway because these are the blackest areas off the bat, and I think it's just gonna save us some time. There's no need to do another two layers here. It's still wet, so I can still drop in some more. But when it starts drying a little bit, you should stop painting. And then if you want to get it even darker, just wait until it's completely dry and then just add another layer, which we might do at the end. Okay. Yeah, I think that's alright. So this is exactly what I did over here. While we're already here, why don't we do the I, and I'll switch down to a smaller brush. This is my number zero, and I'm dipping in some concentrated neutral tint. And then I'll add a dark area around the masking the masked highlight here. Oh, there's a piece of fluff on my brush. And then there are some shapes in here. Just some reflections. Now, I'm painting a super fine line. And then on this side, it's slightly different. Mm. I love it when artists do animals in watercolor. And then I just do the eyes absolutely perfectly. Like Louis DeMasi, for example. I haven't watched her tutorials in ages, but I used to do them a lot when I started out painting. And like, whenever she does eyes of the animals, it's just like it doesn't look much in the beginning, and then suddenly, it's the most realistic accurate thing. So, but this is different because this is not an actual life animal or human. However, when you do eyes, it's like, really important that you don't get the general shape of them wrong. For example, this one here now, it's a little bit more flat than this one here, which already annoys me because it'll look like he's bonkers. So I'm just trying to adjust that without messing it up when you mess up the shape of the eye, just like the whole thing looks like slightly insane, which can be adorable if that's what you're going for. But if it's not what you're going for, I don't even know how to correct it. Once it's messed up, it's really hard. So that's why I'm, like, painting super slowly right now. And then I'm also going to add some little details here. And I think that's it. And I'll come back to this once I've removed the masking fluid, and then I'll see exactly what it looks like with the white reflection. Can't really tell right now. Okay, um let's let all of that dry, and I don't want to do the ear now because I don't want to touch this area with my hand. So I'll move down to the foot here, which also has some really dark areas. But let's start because they're overlapping with the mid tone. Let's do the mid tone first. And then and then we can cover it with the darkest of gray. So I'm mixing up. I just added a bit more water again to my gray. And There's a lot going on in these little feet. I'm remembering that I forgot to save those little highlights here. It's just one of those things that nobody might notice. Um, okay, so I'm starting I'm starting down here. Like those toes are a bit pronounced. And then, again, I open my brush like this, and then I press down, and then I lift it again. Um Okay, and then this is a little bit complex because the foot kind of, like, stops here. And then there's more reflection. Happening on top of this here. Oof. I didn't want to add too many lines in the outline because I mean, it's helpful, but then it's also not helpful because, like, when you're tracing it, you're like, going crazy because there's, like, 1,000 lines in the outline. So I'm trying to keep them relatively simple thinking that you can add the detail later. I'm looking at this foot, and I'm thinking, What is going on in here? Okay, I'm just Um, sure. Okay, let's pick up some more concentrated gray. Sorry, I'm just like, I'm really not used to talking while I'm painting yet, so I'm staring at reference photo. I'm trying to figure out what to do and explain it in a coherent way at the same time. So this is very concentrated gray. It's pretty black, actually. And, um, I'm just going straight in with it. There's the white highlight here. And then there's, like, a whole black area here. I'm going to leave out a little line here now for the separation of the toes. And then it's got the toe shape. And then this is all like one block of black, more or less. Um, And then there's a bit of black around this highlight. Again, I'm saving a little light line here. And then there's wobbly lines happening at the back here. Okay, let's cover that. Okay. It's a bit darker here, as well. Okay, now it all makes a bit more sense. I think, does it? Who knows? Um, okay. I'll leave it like that and then come back to it when we do details. Um, I just added a bit more water to my brush. So this is slightly lighter. And then there's black happening in here. Um, so there's weird lines in the reference photo here. Like Jeeps. Okay, go like that. I don't want to include them. I think if we replicated that, it would look odd and a bit strange. So this is, again, not the darkest. This is, like, medium dark gray, and I'm painting this here. And then, again, with the medium dark, I'm painting below this little highlight that we have here. Um and then there's a larger dark area. I'm leaving a tiny line here. There's a larger dark area that covers half of the foot. It goes down here where the toe is. I'm just staring at the photo and at my paper every couple of seconds. Me dark here. And then we can add detail. I have more concentrated gray here. I'm just dropping that in right away. And then ops. This extends down here. And then there are two small lines which will do like this and they'll be separated by the masking fluid. Okay. Okay, then the body of the bat. So this will stay lighter than this. This is still not as black as it needs to be, so we'll darken this, and then we'll also darken that later on. Let's do this wet and wet again. So I'm switching to the number two brush, slightly bigger, and I'm wetting the center of the belly with clean water. And then with a smaller brush, picking up concentrated, pretty concentrated gray, and it's darker here in the middle. Let's bring that all the way down. Take your time when you're touching the edges. And just dropping in some color here before it starts to dry. Cleaning off the brush, dabbing it off, using it to smooth out these water lines that are forming. Mm. Okay. I hope it doesn't bother you that I sometimes, like, make little mistakes. Like, I'll drop my brush and, um, or have a little mishap or sometimes I'm just not quite sure how to do something yet, and then I try what could work, but this is just I haven't rehearsed this painting. I haven't painted it before. I recorded for the tutorial. So what I want to do and what I think is just more authentic is to just, like, bring you along to how I paint and how I approach things and, you know, how I try to correct when I make a little splash where I'm not supposed to. And so this is just the real authentic painting process of how I do things. There's always different ways of doing something. I'm not saying this is how it has to be done. This is just, like, how I paint. It is by no means the only way to approach illustrations like this. So yeah, let's let it dry. And let's do the ears here. I'm actually, let's also look at the nose. We've done the eyes. Why shouldn't we do the nose? I'm again, concentrated, neutral tint, almost black, and I'll just do the same thing. I'll add these dark shapes here. Just like when I did the eye. Okay, I'll let that dry and then probably come back to it again. Okay, I'm going to do the ears in the exact same way that I did the wings, and I might also already pick up some slightly more concentrated gray than I did here or here. But you'll see that when I do it, and I think I'll just go ahead and paint for a bit. And again, if you want to slow it down to really follow me stroke by stroke, you can just slow it down in the settings. 9. Detail Work: Okay, so now we can move on to the detail work. And I'm going to start again on the right wing at the top here. And on my iPad, I'm zooming into the reference photo. I encourage you to do the same. And then on the side here, I have my neutral tint again, and I'm going to make one more concentrated little puddle. I don't know why I mix my color with my smallest brush. And then on the other side here, One puddle that's a bit more diluted. So we're going to do mid tones, some more, slightly darker ones, and then the darker colors. And I want to finish it in this last layer or step. So I'm looking at my reference photo. I'm looking at this area right here. And let me switch to a different brush. So I have my size two brush here, and I'm dipping into the semi concentrated mix. And, um, I'm going to start here at the top. All of this is on dry paper, cleaning off my brush, dabbing it off, and then just pulling the color a little bit. To get a bit of a gradient here. And then I can see that this area is also slightly darker. We're doing this in separate steps because when you look at the photo, you can see that there's, like, different layers overlapping and different segments overlapping. And I think that's what makes this what creates this transparent look. And if you do it all in one or just two layers, I don't think you can achieve that. So then I'm looking at this area here, which is, like, much darker overall. So I'm giving it a glaze. This is called a glaze. And then we'll go in here with more concentrated details. And then all of this is darker as well. I'm switching down to my size zero brush again. Again, I'm using the semi concentrated mix, and I'm going to start here and then paint a darker line on the outside. Or actually on the inside, sorry. And then the same thing on this side, but I'm not going right up to the edge. Because there's a light line or stripe in between. Then here, we also, um, have some darker lines. Let's start around here and carefully go down. Then there's a lot going on here, and I'm going to try to follow the lines that I already have because I don't want to create too much confusion. So I'm not covering it completely, but just partially. These lines are getting a bit intricate and thin now. So if you want to I'm holding a size zero brush right now, but if you have, like, a 20 or 30, and you want to use that, feel free to size down. It makes sense at this point. I have smaller brushes. I just don't have them handy right now, so I'm I'll keep using this one. I don't want to go look for them now. So all of this is on dry paper, of course, just in case you were wondering. Okay, let's come back to the top here before we move down too much. So there are I'm going to actually, I will size down. I don't know what I'm talking about. M30 is right here. Okay, taking my 30, and, um, I'm dipping into my darkest gray mix here, and I'm looking at the reference photo. And I'm just adding detail lines now. So again, you can also create a bit of variation by holding your brush like this and paint with the very tip and then press down and then lift the brush up again. And I really want to go super black now, so I'm making a really creamy mix. I think I can go even darker right away. Yeah. So now if you want to use black, you can also use black. Okay. Maybe you can create a little bobbly. That looks like a sperm. I apologize. That was not intended. Okay, and then here at the corner, there is a there are some little, rounded interrupted. And then at the top here, it curves. And then I'm going to go over these ones again this time with the Black Mx. Okay. And this is just how we move along the different segments. I find it easier to tackle intricate illustrations like this. And by intricate, I just mean it has a lot of detail. Segment by segment, just compartmentalizing what you see. And now that we're adding the darkest, the darkest of dark, and I think it is starting to look what we want it to look like. Okay, this area is lighter. And then we have some more black here. Then it gets a lot darker, down here. So here, again, I'm trying to follow the lines that I already have on the paper because I don't want to create, um, a whole mess on the page. Then we have a lot of lions and like these oval shapes here. No, I'm making a mess. So I'm really just moving down the wing here, painting with concentrated gray on dry paper. And I'm I'm trying to follow the reference image but not copy it exactly like I mentioned before. I'm trying to stay within the shapes that we created with the midtones, the medium dark gray. So that I don't have too much going on there. This is why I like to add midtones in the beginning. I mean, first of all, it makes sense for the layering process of light to dark colors. But then it's also, I like to call it the what goes where stage. It gives me a sense of orientation, and then I have my areas blocked in, so to speak. And then within these areas, I can add detail. So it just helps me not to lose my sanity. Um now I'm picking up the slightly more concentrated. So the lighter gray that I just used up here and I'm going to add another layer of midtones here in this area. And then maybe I can blend that out a little bit with a cleaner brush a little bit. Then again, with my black with a concentrated gray, I'm continuing down here while this is drying. And there's a little bit. There's like something happening here. Around these white highlights as well. And then, again, with the medium dark gray, I'm filling in this bit here. I can see that it's darker, and it also makes sense because there's probably shadow falling on it from the side of the face, and then picked up some water with the brush, and now I'm just dragging it up until like here, and then it disappears. Maybe I can add some more here just for contrasts sake This should be dry. So we can add some black lines there as well. And then with the medium gray again, I'm adding a little bit here. I'm pressing the brush down onto the paper because it's a small brush, so I need the whole belly and then with some clean water, which is not so clean anymore. I'm smoothing that out again. Adding a little bit more. I just want a bit more shading on this. And then with the dark mix, I'm trying to be very intricate here, only using the tip of the brush. To add some chaos. Um, okay, I think that could be Let me just come back up here and maybe add B now these are so fine and concentrated. Let's add some more up here so that it's, um balanced. But then I think this is it for this wing. And I'm going to do the second wing and speed up the video again. And again, I want to encourage you to do the second one on your own, and then just match it to the one that you just did and then come back to the video and see what I did and how I did it. But I want to encourage you to do the second one on your own. If you do want to paint the way I painted, you can slow down the video, like I already said. And then I'll come back and we can do the head together. Okay, so those two are done, and I think the glass transparent effect is really working quite well, so I'm quite happy with it. And really, we're just gonna keep doing here what we did just now. Let me grab my paper towel. I've made a bit of a mess here. I should probably cover all of this. Like that. Okay, so I'll just continue with the concentrated gray. And I'm looking at my image here. I like to start at the outside and then move in. You can also do it the other way around and start at the inside and then move towards the outside, but I think it's just always good to have a bit of a method. So you know where to start and then it's a bit less overwhelming when you have a clear method, okay, always outside in or, you know, always left to right or something like that. And we're going to keep this edge light here. There's reflective light bouncing off it, so the outside edges of many objects are much lighter than the insides. Also when you paint fruit, for example, it's a very popular subject amongst botanical painters, and then the outside of the cherry or the tomato or the eggplant, whatever it is, has, like, a light gray, whitish line or rim, and that's reflective light bouncing off it. And that just happens when you have round objects. Um, this seems pretty straightforward. So I'm still using my number 30 brush. I'm painting on dry paper, and I'm using very concentrated neutral tint. And then there are some darker areas here. I'm going to use the slightly more watery, less concentrated gray and give this here a glaze. I added this highlight. It's not in the reference photo, but it was there, so I decided I'll keep it. Okay, then there are more black lines here. Then again, with a more watery mix, I'm going to go over this area. I guess the inside of an ear are just darker because there's less light reaching it, so I suppose that makes sense to darken it a little bit. Now, again, the black mix. Just adding a bit of. These are not really random enough. They're very straight. I wanted them to be a bit more random. It is difficult to paint something that's supposed to look random. But you're doing it intentionally. That's quite hard. It has a lot to do with the way you hold your pencil, actually. One artist, I forget who recently posted something about, like, Don't imprison your brush. And I suppose it makes sense for people who do, like, loose illustrations But I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to my brush, not just my brush, actually. It's it's a character trait. I'll just be honest. Okay, I'll paint more black around this masking fluid bit here. And then this gets darker as it morphs or moves into the face. Now, I'm cleaning up my brush, and I'll just try to soften this a little bit. Um Is this black enough? Is the question. I feel like this black is darker than this one. I don't know. Sometimes, when you stare at something for too long, you get a bit blind and you don't really see anymore. Um Okay. And I'll do the other ear again, like I did with the other wing before, so see you in a little bit. A All right, so the ears are done, I think. And let's move to the center of the face again. I'm going to mix up some more thick gray or black. I'll be using my number two brush, I think. Mm so we can see that we need a lot more darkness here. We need more darkness there. We need to add detail around the eyes, and we need to darken the mouth inside. We need to add detail here, there, but that's easy. That's just a couple of lines. And then this gets darker as well. So I'll start by by wetting this area up here. And then dropping in a little bit of color. I don't want to darken it too much, but I do want a bit of a gradient there because I think the way it is now, it looks a bit boring. Also, when I paint jewelry and when there's a larger segment that doesn't really have much on it in the photo, I usually add more detail when I'm painting. And one way of doing it is just to add subtle color gradients in an area that otherwise would just be a bit blank. And then, now I have the less concentrated gray on my brush. And it's still pretty concentrated. I'm painting on dry paper here, cleaning up my brush and then dragging the color or smoothing it out because this area is too small for me to do wet and wet now. And I'll do the same thing here. I'll pick up some of the medium concentrated gray, and I'll add some color here, clean up the brush, dab it off, and run the tip of the brush alongside the edge of my pigment. Okay, and then we'll do the same thing for inside the mouth, medium concentrated gray and so my brush is fully loaded now. And then quickly, clean it out. Turn the paper so that the tip of the brush faces the edge of your paint. And then you just run it along there and you smooth it out a little bit. If you're not comfortable with this technique, you need to practice it a little bit, Um, you can do so on scrap paper, and you can for practice sake, draw through a few squares or rect angles and then paint on dry paper in one corner and then practice smoothing out the edge. Just It's just one of those practice things like when you're watching TV or something, you can do it on the side without having to, like, commit to a whole painting. Okay, this is still not dark enough for my taste. So again, this time, I'm only adding some more paint on the outside, like on the bottom of the mouth there. Okay, we'll let that dry before we touch this area. Now, the here and there needs to be darkened. So again, with the medium or the lighter gray, I'm painting on dry paper. I'm not painting over these highlights that I have here because they come in quite handy. On this side and then on that side as well. And then when that's dried, we'll add black lines. Okay. Then with my smaller brush, the 30, I'm dipping into the dark black. And I'm painting over this inside here because I want to be pitch black dark. And I'm being careful not to thicken the lines that I have there already. If yours are already black black, then you don't need to do this. So this is the stage of the painting where you kind of, like, look at your own painting, and you make a judgment call of what you need to darken or keep lighter. Here, I'm not painting over the whole thing because I do see a bit of variation there in the photo. So I'm not covering the whole nose with the dark black. Okay, I think this is dry. So with the black again, um I'm coming in on this side. And I'll just add more like spaghetti lines. This one is quite thick, so I'll add some more tiny ones here. And then on this side, as well, I'll paint black around the side of the highlight. All right. I think that's okay for detail. Now let's move on to the center of the face. I'm going to switch to my size two brush again. And on dry paper, I'm going to add some black here. Okay. I'm cleaning out my brush, and I want to So now I want to smooth it out a little bit, and this is less concentrated gray. It's not super black. So more black here. Or, actually, now I'm thinking maybe we should just cover the whole thing. Let's cover the whole thing. Sorry, you guys. This is what happens sometimes. I just felt like the bat needs some solid some solid black in some areas. Now, down here needs a bit more black, actually. And then there are like one or two tiny lines around the eyes. Don't want to add any more. And then continuing with the black down here. I'm leaving a little lighter line. We might need to adjust this and darken this as well. Okay, now I'm loading my brush with a medium dark mix, and I'm moving swiftly towards the belly here. I'm covering everything with medium, dark gray, and I'm trying to work quickly here. And then I'm picking up the black, and while it's still wet, I'm dropping that in. Yeah. That looks good. While this is drying, let's pay some attention to those two little adorable feet. There's not much to do there, I think. Let's just darken some of the areas. Are always just like these weird body parts. Also, when you paint birds, and then you get to the what do you call them feet and claws? I feel like this is always where the bird gets strange. So I don't want to, I think maybe one shouldn't do them too detailed because do you really want to drag attention towards the weird claws? I don't know. I think feet are just a bit weird. Animal feed anyway. I don't paint humans, so I don't know. I don't know about that. So, yeah, I'm just adding a bit more detail here. I'm not I'm trying not to obsess over this right now, and I'm just trying to let my brush do the work. Just making sure that it's really black. And then this is just to excuse me, I have a bit of a sore throat. I don't know why. So here, I'm just adding some more random lines, but this is just to adjust the tones so that, you know, the darkest colors there are the same as the darkest colors anywhere else. But I don't want to, like I said, um, pay too much attention to the feet. Okay. Looking good. I'm using my number four brush, and I'm loading it up again with diluted gray. We're going to do some wet and wet again, same way we did there. So I'm wetting the whole thing with color, not with water, with color. I turned on the heat yesterday, and now the humidity has changed and everything dries much quicker. And then quickly before it dries, coming in with the dark gray, I hate it when people say that. Now I'm coming in with my gray or with my black or it's obnoxious and now I'm saying it. Anyway, this is not quite dark enough for my taste yet because all the darks need to be the same tone. So I just grab some more gray from the straight from the pan. Let's maybe connect that up there a little cleaned off my brush a little bit so that I can smooth that out. Yeah, let me take a step back. Um, what are we missing? We're missing here and here. Okay. Smallest brush. Now I need to make sure I don't touch this area. Here is black. I can maybe clean this up a little bit. This is just generally darker, so I'm dipping into the diluted gray, and I'm glazing over this. Letting it dry and glazing this side as well. This needs to be darker. But And we want it to darken the mouth, as well. Let's do diluted gray again, and I'm turning my paper so that the tip of my brush touches the outside of this mouth. This is careful layering, similar to what we did in the very beginning with super diluted layers. We can slowly adjust and we don't need to be scared about messing it up. Dipping into my water, cleaning it off on the paper towel, smoothing over the edges. Okay, now it's getting messy, so I need to get out of it. Okay, now for over here. Hmm. It's like 80% dry. Okay, let's add a little black shape that we see here. Actually, there's also stuff going on in these reflections. They're not completely blank. Let's do that while the rest is drying. So this is the diluted gray mix again, needs to be quite diluted. These are just more reflections and random shapes. Then there's one here. Maybe you smooth that out a little bit. Too late for over here. It's already drying. That's a game. Okay, so now this should be dry, and I'm I have the black on my brush again. And now I'm pressing down to get some variation in the strength of the brush stroke. That's a tongue twister for me. Brush Stroke. These are coming in from the side like this a little bit. Then here we have some curved shapes. Okay. I feel like I've been rushing. Um Okay, let me have a look. Let's just go through the whole thing because I think we're about done. This looks done. We added detail here. We added detail. Oh, we've made this way too dark. Compare it to the belly. Is that a problem, is the question. Um, I don't think it's a problem. I think it's fine. Uh, no, I think it's okay. It looks different. The belly should have remained much lighter. But okay. Can we maybe darken this even more is the question. Because what I'm not like I don't mind this being darker than in the reference photo, but what I do mind is this waterline, if I'm being honest. So on dry paper, let's go back in there. Did that make a bit of a difference, maybe? Um I do want to darken the mouth a little bit, so I'm picking up some very diluted gray, and I'm painting another layer on top here cleaned off my brush and smoothing out those edges a little bit. B. 10. Removing Masking Fluid: So we're pretty much done with the Well, what I mean pretty much we are done with the painting part of this fun little Halloween guy. Now I'm going to take off the masking fluid, and I have this little rubber thing here. You can also do it with your fingertips, if you like. Just make sure that everything you've painted on is completely dry. And really just try to only pick up the masking fluid and not to to rub over all of your paint and everything. You don't want to damage the paper. So I'm just trying to make it stick to my my little rubber cement or cement rubber, I think it's called. And then it, like, collects here at the end, then I think you have to peel it off. I'm not quite sure. Um Okay, so that's the masking fluid off. And now I'm looking for my eraser. I'm just trying to clean up the page as best I can. There are some little marks here, but, you know, stuff happens. What are you gonna do? Get that in the trash so I don't have to vacuum. Okay. So, um This is our little Halloween bat. I hope you had fun painting this with me. I hope you weren't too overwhelmed with all the little lines and details. And please do share your final painting here in the project sections. And please, please, please do give this class a rating here on the platform, it helps the class to stay on the platform, actually. It helps it not get deleted. So please do give this class a rating if you liked it, and I hope to see you next time. Bye. 11. What's next?: Thank you for completing this course with me. I hope you're happy with your result. You can turn this into an invitation or a Christmas card, whatever you want. It's just a good illustration for the winter season. And I really, really hope that you'll just take a super easy quick snapshot of your painting and then post it here in the discussion section so that we can all have a look. I can also give you feedback if that's something you're interested in. You can also contact me on social media, on Instagram or my website or here on the platform if you want just any additional painting tips or advice or feedback. I'm really happy to get back to you. Yeah, thank you for doing this course and I hope I see you next time.