Transcripts
1. Welcome: [MUSIC] Hey, I'm Denise Love and I want to welcome
you to class. Let me show you what
we'll be doing. In this class we're going
to make some really fun, beautiful abstract,
whimsical watercolor pieces. I'm going to do two
different color palettes. Some of my favorite in
this class look like butterfly wings and then I noticed after I quit filming, that if you turned it this way, it was particularly beautiful, almost like a butterfly
sitting on a branch. This might be the
way that some of my butterfly looking ones
actually end up going. Because doesn't that look like pretty butterfly on a branch or as this was
originally going to be the body and
the pretty wings. Now in my mind, actually even prettier this way. Once you paint some of these, don't forget to turn them around and see do you
like them better, a different orientation because
they're really beautiful. I was inspired by these yummy bright pink
and green color waves. I love that. Then this one with the
pretty almost purpley and the orange ocher colorway. I do several different
types of abstracts. For these pretty ones, they don't all look
like a butterfly, but my favorite ended up being the ones that looked
like a butterfly. If I were going to
paint a series to sell, that might be the series
I decided to paint. Some pretty winged creature that I could turn these into cards or I could
put quotes on them, or I could frame them
and hang them up. Because how beautiful is that? I'm really excited to show you how I layer
and create these. I do talk a little bit about color palettes in the class
and where you can find inspiration if
you're just stumped and you're not creating
things that you love, you can use the color palettes that I've come up
with or you can play on Pinterest and look at different color
palettes to inspire you. I hope you love creating these as much as I
loved creating them because when I get a piece of
art in my mind and I think I want to create
some of these then I create like a dozen of them. That's exactly what I did. I created so many of these and these that
they're so beautiful. Now I have enough to create a little series out of that I'm going to
particularly love. I hope you enjoy this class. I'm very excited to
show you my techniques. Let's get started. [MUSIC]
2. Supplies: [MUSIC] Let's talk about
the supplies to make these yummy little abstracts, these whimsical abstracts
that I'm making. I've kept it pretty
basic and simple. To make these, I am not trying to use every
tool in my toolbox. A 140-pound watercolor paper cold press is what I'm using. I do like the six by-nine, which is the 15.2 centimeter by 22.8 centimeter if you're
on the metric system. I like this size to do
these because it's pre-cut, it's big enough that I could
do something fun with it. Then if I wanted this to
be a bigger piece of art, I could scan this in very
easily and have this printed on a Panama platinum
rag or some type of fine art paper and it will
look just as beautiful and vibrant as the original
that painted and then I can print it in any size. This is a wonderful size to
play in for this technique. You could also do it in your artist journal if
you wanted to do that. I've got some of these
Moleskine journals that I really like that
I do a lot of work into practice and
experiment with, so they're really fun, and those are six by
nine or five by eight, somewhere in that size. I've also got some really
fun Arteza art journals which are eight by eight
that I like to work in. If you want to do these
in an art journal, those are 110-pound
cold pressed, watercolor paper, and I like
to play in my art journal. But for this series, I specifically wanted to come out with a few that I
might like to frame. This butterfly that I painted
in this way that I actually noticed after I had them
spread around the floor drawing looked really
pretty this way, like it was a butterfly
on a branch or something. I'm ready to go get this one
framed. I love it so much. I hope some of the
ones that we do in this class you'll love just
as much as I love mine. I want you to pick your
favorite watercolors. I'm using my favorite
little watercolor pieces that I've pulled out of my Daniel Smith and
my Sennelier box. I didn't actually use any of
these colors in the class. I'd used some that handmade from my handmade watercolor
class that I have. Then I used a color out of
my color palette up here, which was a Sennelier color, I'll tell you what that is. But I like using for something like this my handmade
paints because it just adds to my own pride and
prestige for what I created. Because now I can be like, look at this
beautiful, abstract, whimsical watercolor that I created with the paint
that I made too. How often does that sound? I just love that extra
element of fun that, that adds when you can say, I made this paint and
I made this painting. But you don't have to do that. [LAUGHTER] But I do have
a class out there on making your own handmade
watercolor paints if you want to explore that. That's what I'm using. I'm using my favorite
watercolor paints, paper, a Number 12
Aqua Elite brush, which is a nicer quality brush that you can get
at the Michael's, it's $17 or $18. It was not super cheap, but you can use any
brush that you like. I've got other brushes
that I like too like Raphael Soft Aqua brushes, I like also have really cheap watercolor
brush out of random paint set that I got. But this is the one
I'm using, Number 12. I liked it all through
class and I like it because it has a nice tip on it. Use whatever brushes you want to experiment with during class. Then I used some
mark-making pencil. I'm using a 12B pencil. You can use any type of pencil. One of my favorite
mark-making tools is mechanical pencil. If I didn't have this
handy right beside me, I probably would have used
my mechanical pencil. Then I did use a couple of Charvin pastels
that you can get. This is not very expensive
set and it's got lots of vibrant
colors and I like how pretty and crisp
the lines are, and that's just the Charvin
pastels that I've used. You could also use soft pastels. You can use any of
your art supplies that you want to add marks and color
to the top of your piece. Just keep that in mind. I think that's most of the
supplies I'm using in class. I've tried to keep
it pretty simple, but fun enough that you end
up with pieces that you love. I will see you in class. [MUSIC]
3. Color Inspiration: [MUSIC] Before I get
started painting the little whimsical watercolors
like this, I start to experiment with colors and you
can jump right in and make some of these and experiment with colors
right on the page, which I do a lot of times, I experimented with
several different colors that in my mind just
really didn't end up working for me and I ended up not continuing
and finishing them. That being said,
I do like to pick a color palette and then maybe
do five or six or seven, or eight in that color
palette and then I can pick my favorites
out of it that I might want to frame
and hang [LAUGHTER]. This color palette has
become one of my favorite. It's a raw sienna, a sap green, and like this rose
opera tonality and maybe some Payne's gray. I really like those color tones. What I might do if I've just jumped in and
started experimenting, is I might actually take
some of those colors and put them here on
my color sample sheet. These colors here are some of the ones that I made myself. I'm using a natural
pigment here. That one is Venetian red, which is a natural
earth paint pigment. Then I've got several
custom pigment ones that I've used that are just from color
pigments that I got from an online art store
that don't have a color, but this is a sap
green over here. It's not a green gold, it's a sap green color, but I really love it,
so I'm going to use it. I love this one here, which is in that rose
opera by Daniel Smith. Wait a minute, let
me take a look. No, no, no Sennelier
[LAUGHTER] It's that color, but this is the custom
one that I mixed myself. I think when you mix some
of the colors yourself, it adds a little bit of pride, maybe a little bit of prestige
in there to the feel. Then this one over here is
a Sennelier Payne's gray. I think I really love that. What I would do is make myself a color chart like this of one that I really,
really loved. Then I did actually like
this with a tiny bit of orange as an accent color. I'd make a little
color palette and then go through and list
what each color was and then store that with the pieces
that I might have created so that then later
I didn't have to wonder what was
that, that I used. So get into the habit of creating yourself some
little color cards, this is a really nice
way to experiment with the colors before you get into making the piece that
you want to make. I highly encourage that. Now for some inspiration, if you don't want to just jump in and waste a bunch
of them because you don't end up liking the
colors then I would recommend you look at color palettes and these are some color palette books
that I got from an artist. These are Ivy Newport's
Colorflow books. I like those because they're already printed and they're
convenient and they sit over here on my art cart. But it's color palettes
pulled out of photos. I also have a video on my
website and I might make a little class on creating your own color palettes
for your photos. You can take your
own pictures and create your own color
palette for those photos. Then you don't have to guess what colors are going
to look good together. You can just copy the colors
from those color palettes. You can find color
palettes on Pinterest. I love searching color
palettes on Pinterest. You can make them up
from your own photos. You can get color
palette books like this from an artist that's made
them. They're really fun. If you're looking for
inspiration and you just don't know what your color is that you want to use,
I highly recommend those. I'm going to go ahead and get some pieces of paper
ready and get started, I just wanted to share
some inspiration for color palettes and
then we'll jump into making a few of
these ourself [MUSIC]
4. Getting Started Color Blocking: [MUSIC] So let's get
started making some of our whimsical watercolors. I have a bunch of
watercolor paper just torn out of the
watercolor book. I'm using just a 140-pound
cold press, watercolor paper. I like the cold press
for this because I do know the texture and
how it's going to react. But also like to experiment with hot press. It's super smooth. So you might
definitely play with the hot press with
this technique just to see the differences
that you get and how it works with your
paint a little differently. I've got my better grade paint, watercolor paint brushes that I got at Michael's these run, $18 or so these are
their higher level. Number 12 is the size I'm using today and I like these because they have a nice tip on them. Also got some different
watercolor paints out. I've got some that I've squeezed out that are from
tubes of paint. So these are Daniel Smith and then I've got one
or two Sennelier. Then the ones down
here are some of those medium-grade watercolors
you can find at Michael's. So just pick out some watercolors that are
your favorites to work with, doesn't matter the brand
I'm using a Payne's gray out of this particular set, so I've got that ready. I've got some paints that I
mixed up in the watercolor. How to make your own
watercolor class. So I'll be using those because I love some of these colors
and I need to mix up some more colors and I've got my little palette of
personal favorites because even though
I want to make a whole little set in
maybe one colorway, I might come back, and then experiment with some other colorways
just to see what we get, whether we like them or not. So to get started, I want a whole lot of water
and a little bit of paint. I want to make translucent layers
and I want to put a shape and I want to set it
to the side and let it dry. Then when that's dry, I want to put another shape and set it to the side
and let it dry. When that's dry, I then want to add some of
these top shapes or random abstract
shapes on here. I'm doing each layer
separately as they dry because I want them to be
separate and crisp and clean, not smudging and running into
each other and combining. So that's my goal for these. Your goal may be
different after you see how we do them and
you experiment a bit, but that's my goal. So I'm going to work on a
whole bunch of pages at the same time so that
I can make a shape, send it to the
side, make a shape, set it to the side. I'm going to start off with
this color right here, which is a Venetian red that is from the Natural
Earth paint company. Because I like this color
and I liked the way that it spread out on the paper
and made different shapes. So I'm going to start with that. Then to make these, I want a lot of water, a little bit of paint, and I want them to be just really pretty
translucent shapes. So we might do a rectangle. We'll set that to
the side and now I'll just start making. You could do rectangles, you could do ovals. You could do these
weird wing shape. I want to make them all slightly
different just to play. So I've got that one. Maybe we want to make something
more like a little oval. Then I just keep on
maybe adding some water. Some of these I want a
little bit lighter than they might be turning
out, but we'll see, I'm just going to experiment
here and see how it goes. Maybe you'll see, let's do
maybe an odd shape here. You can see if we have a
lot of paint on the tip, we can get some really nice
edges that when it dries, that's going to
be really pretty. Then maybe we want
it a little more translucent in the middle. So experiment with where you put the heavy paint and
the light paint. I'm going to do this
whole series in a similar color, just
different shapes. Maybe we'll experiment
with a long shape here. Because I want to make a series, I want these to all be. Then we might make
a second series. But for this video, I'm going to start with
the first set of colors. I want to do several because
by the time I'm done with, say Number 8, I can go back to Number 1
and add the next shape. [NOISE] I really like this where it's almost
invisible layer in the center, but they're on the edge, we get that yummy bit of
color, that's fine. So let's go ahead with that. I'll set it over here. I have little tiny paintings sitting
everywhere [LAUGHTER]. But when I'm done and you see the whole series,
it's very exciting. Two, if I've got enough water that I think I can
get some running, I will set some of
these up so that we get nice running in some
different texture there with that paint. So then I might set that up. It looks like a wing. I
left that wing shape. Let's do another one maybe. [NOISE] That's pretty look at that. It's almost too transparent. We can come back and
add a little more paint in there if we wanted. But I don't want to overwork it. I wanted to do its thing and then go back to whichever
the first one was. So now we've come back
to the first one and it is almost completely dry. I really like them to be
super dry in-between layers. This one's got a
little bit of shine. This one's got, well,
let's just go ahead. Let's just move in order. So in this one, I think I want to do two
shapes in the same color because I did like that on the original ones I
was playing with. So come back if
you did a square, maybe come back with
a wing shape or a triangle or a
circle or an oval, overlap, and just see what
you can get go in there. Now it's the time to
that we can experiment a little bit with some extra
color in say this next one, just to add some extra
interest in there maybe. So I like to roll the brush around with
some color on the tip. [NOISE] Here's this one. Maybe I'll do a weird egg
shape [LAUGHTER] [NOISE]. I'm not trying to
hide what's under it. I'm just trying to get
another shape on top. This one I really love. It's almost like
a butterfly wing. So I might come back with another butterfly wing
shape perhaps. [NOISE] Look how pretty that is. That's going to dry
and be very pretty. [NOISE] You can pick
any color to do this, first little double color
blocking set like I'm doing. You could pick any shades of blue and maybe you know what? Maybe blue and green
is your colors. You can pick any natural
shade that you like, you could pick reds. Whatever your
favorite colors is, it's the way I want
you to take this. So that when you're done, your whimsical watercolor
expresses your favorite things. If you don't know what you like, you're more than welcome to play with the colors
that I've picked out. Look how pretty that is, it's like a little double wing. If you do have some
favorite colors then experiment with those. Oh, look how pretty this one
is already. Let's go ahead. Maybe I want to do
a second wing shape with that because of
the way that one dried. [NOISE] This is beautiful. The more of these I make, the more I love them, the more I'm like, wow, I can't wait to do some more. I get obsessed with a particular
little art thing and I'm like I want to make more
and more and more of those. [LAUGHTER] Let's go
ahead and do this one. You can see why now, doing a whole little set
of them at the same time is quite a bit better than
just doing one at a time. Because as I'm coming
back to these, you can see how we've
dried enough to then add our next whatever on top
of that. That's pretty. This is another wing shape 1. Let's just make
another wing in here. I want some color
there but not so much that it completely overwhelms
what I'm trying to do. I want it to be soft and
subtle and beautiful, look how pretty that one is. Maybe we'll let this
one run a little, let's see where those go. Maybe run back the other way, let's leave that.
Let's go back to this. Now, I am going to experiment and use this pretty
color that's a sap green. It's a very sap green, it's one of the
ones I made out of the specialty pigments that
I got that were from Japan. But it's like a sap
greenish color. I'm going to use this. I like having a lot of color
on the tip and some water, because then we get things
like this. I love that. We can do one spot
of that color, so maybe set that
one to the side and we'll start doing one
spot of that color. In a series, they all have a similar
element but they're not necessarily all
identical in the look. That's why I like playing
in a color palette and just saying what can I come up with and how different can
I make? That's pretty. Each of these look
even though we're using the same elements. Look how pretty the
paint on that look, that is so beautiful. That's exactly the
thing I look for. I like holding the paper up sometimes like I'm
doing right right. Just because it
allows me to then get a different feel
with the paintbrush. I roll it around a little bit. That's pretty. You don't
have to leave them sitting, you don't have to
tape them down. [NOISE] Look how pretty that is. Oh, so pretty. These are so much fun to make. While you're making
them, you can be like, wow, look how pretty
these colors are. Let's put this one here. I'm trying not to think
too hard about it. When you first do these, don't make it hard, don't make it complicated. Don't get stuck and think, oh, why did I do that? Or whatever. Just move from one to the next and keep going. This we could actually make
it look like a butterfly. Go ahead and look
how pretty that is. Let's set that to the side. These ones that look
like butterflies, I think I want them
to be butterflies. [LAUGHTER] I'm just getting
a lot of paint on that tip, water in the brush, a lot of paint on the very tip. Then I'm rolling that
on there so I can get just a completely
different look. But adding to my pretty
abstract composition that I've already got
going, I love that. The very heavy bits
of paint will dry and give us just
interesting looks. If I've got enough water on it, I might set those up on
their side so that they then run and we get
that extra running. Here's another one that
looks like a butterfly, so we're going to go ahead
and make it a butterfly. We'll do the same thing I
just did and go this way. Oh, look at that. Could
even be like a dragonfly. That's pretty. Pretty,
pretty, pretty. Let's set this one over here. Now, I want to have
a pop of color. I'm going to be using one of
these ones that I'm mixed, but it's really close to this
Amelia Rose opera color if you're wanting to get a pretty
pop of color like that. But I just think, if you're especially if you're doing
something like this. If you can be like, look at this beautiful
abstract I made with handmade colored
paints that I also made. [LAUGHTER] It almost adds a beautiful little bit of
prestige, tar paintings. It's a bragging
right. That's pretty. Now, this one hard. This one's still wet. Let's move on to
one that's not so. That's pretty. Good, that's pretty. I'm just adding a double, let's go back to this one of this pretty pink
to each of these. Just in different color. Working fast, not thinking
too hard about it. Now do like these
butterfly ones, let's think about
this for a second. Maybe I want this to flow out. [NOISE] That's fun. That's pretty. This maybe I don't want it to flow
out quite like I did. Maybe I want to do
a little different. Oh, I like that. [LAUGHTER] After I get the paint colors on
there that I want, then I'm going to go back and start doing a little
bit of mark-making. I'm going to let these dry and I will be
back in just a bit. [MUSIC]
5. Adding Some Mark making and Color: [MUSIC] I'm ready now to
do a bit of mark-making. You can use any of your
favorite pens or pencils, or pastels, or anything
that really grabs you, but I think I'm going to
use a pencil that is a 12B. It's very bold, it's got a good amount of color and
I'm just going to mark make and do some shapes and total preference on
your part as to what mark-making in shapes and different marks in there that you might be
wanting to make. I'm going to do that
on every one of these, not thinking really
hard about it because I do want it to be a
little more organic but once you make
enough of these, if you get like something
that just happens to be your thing, then go for it. You can make your whole series with whatever thing
is your favorite. You can follow the
shapes that we did with the watercolor, it's getting pretty
there. [NOISE] Just move from one to the
other so that I don't have time to think too
hard about any of it, I just want to lay
some marks down. The butterfly, I do
particularly love. [NOISE] Don't know if I love
the marks that I just did, but that's okay. We're going to add to
it the marks are not your final part of that. Just like the first element. See this one might
be my favorite. Look how pretty this
is drying, so pretty. Once I've got some
marks on there, now, I want to consider, do I want some paint splatter? Do I want some dots of color that might accent
like the Payne's gray. I do like my Payne's gray. I particularly want some
Payne's gray accents. I might make them just like
some brush marks like this. Could be some little dots, it could be some
little brush marks like this little just extra
strokes adding color. You could come back in here and smooth them out if
they're not smooth enough, and then let that dry. I do like these bigger marks like that, that's
pretty, pretty. I'm going come in here and don't have to be as heavy
as that original was, we could have some little marks. These do dry a
little bit lighter. I like the look I get with
these little Payne's gray. Little dollops of color here. If some of your
paint is still wet, you'll see like on this
one it will bleed into it. That's why light work in each layer after all the
other layers are dry. Just in case I didn't expect that or I didn't like
it, or I didn't want it. Didn't have to be like
little brush marks there, it could be streaks
of color like maybe I wanted some streaks of blue
instead of dots of blue, so I could have done that. Like that's pretty so
experiment with these and see, I could also do my favorite
little rolling technique. Maybe I want to roll
some blue right in here with that red and green. That can be pretty.
Little touch of that. Let's see what, we still got a butterfly here, I love that. Here I could do touch of blue going up the
butterfly, that might be fine. I think I want to do some more, maybe some bigger
strokes on this one. I mean, it's dry,
really pretty color, so I don't mind if
they're nice and dark. It's fun. Then this butterfly, I don't know, maybe I want
some pretty little tiny ones. That's pretty. I think this one, I feel like that one could be working its way
towards my favorite. Let's go back here to the first. We could add a
little more green, we could add Posca pen if we liked white and I wanted some white details
that would be fun. I can also add pastels. I have some that might be fun. I've got some pastels here
by sharven that are hard, that are really fun to use. Maybe we could pick a color
out of there that we like. I'm partial to that
dark orange-y color there, that's nice. Let's see what's
down below that. We've got the like
that teal right there. I'm really feeling this
bright orange here. Maybe what we could
do with this is go in here with
some mark-making or maybe some lines,
maybe some shapes. We could just do a little
different something on each. If we pick a color that we love, that we want to have
in there as an accent. Maybe we don't have to have
it even be all that bold just a tiny little touch
would be fun. I like that. We could actually
come through and do some actual mark-making. Look how the color
blended here because some of that was still
wet, that's fun. I could actually color whole
splotches of this color in there if I just wanted a whole area of orange that
I didn't have. [NOISE] That's fun. Try some
different stuff here on these, like this one. I do like this touch of orange. That was unexpected. As just a color accent is fun. That's fun like that. See what else we've got here. One of our butterflies
so we can come out of here with some
extra color. [NOISE] I do like this orange
edging that pink, look how pretty that
is? Very pretty. Another thing that I might do
is add some paint splatter. I might start back
over here with our first one and
start flattering some of our colors that we used. Let me wipe this
pastel off my fingers, so I'm not picking up and making orange fingerprints
on everything but I might come back and think, do I want a little bit
of paint splatter? I really love the
green and the pink, so maybe I want to come back
and splatter some of that. I don't want water from
the brush on there, and I definitely want to do the splatter when it's
mostly dry because I want nice crisp
little splatter pieces. I don't want it blending in with the other
color that's there. I don't want to
splatter on top of things that are super wet. It doesn't have to be too much, just a touch is fine. Sometimes I overdo it. I'll just keep on going, and then I'm like, why didn't I stop before that last bit? [LAUGHTER] That's pretty. That one it's getting
to be really pretty. Hope I just painted the top
of that page, that's okay. This one might not have
been my favorite anyway, but I'm little careful when
I'm working to try not to get extra fingers or extra
paint on the edges and stuff. It's always going to happen
occasionally though, I just don't stress about it. One of our butterflies, I think I want to do the green
out here on these wings. Very pretty. Then you can have two colors of
splatter if you like the green and that
beautiful pink. Two colors splatter
would be nice also. This one is just so beautiful. How pretty that is turning out? I love that. At this point, I might
look at these and think, anything else or do I
like it where it's at? That's going to have to just
be your own judgment as to whether you've taken it far enough or you need to
add some more elements. This is all about making
a little series and then picking out what are your favorites and did
you go far enough? Sometimes you might
just need to set these to the side and come back tomorrow and see is there anything else
that you want to add? Did you like any
elements that you think, I like that so much I want
to add it to something else because as I'm
looking at all of these, I really liked the
blueish stripes that I included on this one. I really liked the
butterfly wing of this one [LAUGHTER] because
that one truly looks like a pretty butterfly to me. Then I also like dots. Do I want to add a little layer of dots
in here somewhere? We could just take for instance, now that I've put all these
out here for us to compare, I could set all these over
here now that I'm like, I see something else that
I could maybe want to add. I don't want to do it on my
very favorite one first, because what if I didn't
like that element? But I could add it to
say an element like this, so perhaps maybe, I want maybe the Payne's gray or maybe some orange, or maybe some other color
that I want to accent but I could take the tip of the brush and come
through here, and add some fun little dot
detail somewhere on it. That would be really pretty. It doesn't have to be a lot, just something to accent that. You're like, that's a nice
little unexpected bit there. Then you can even
fill a whole area in with some type of different
elements that you love. I like the dots. I might come back in
here on this butterfly, and maybe we would do
some fun dot element towards the outside of the wing maybe,
that might be fun. They don't all have
to be exactly the same or the consistent size, but that's a fun
element there to add. I do like that. I like these stripes
on this one, so I might revisit and think, do I want some stripes
on any of them? This one I could
even see maybe even doing an extra dot or something
with this pretty red. I don't know. I'm feeling
that one just like it is. It's beautiful just
in its simplicity. Let's leave that one for now. This one might, could
use a dot or two, so we could look at that and think where would
we want to put that? That's fine right there. Maybe some over here would
be pretty. That is pretty. This one I'm liking
just like it is. This one, it's real
pretty with the blue. I could maybe add some
little short blue stripes. Let's see if we just
added right over here, just some short ones. That's fine right
there. I like that. Super fun. Now I'm going to
sit and let all of these dry. Then if there's any other
element that I want to add, I can decide after I've looked
at him for a day or so, but look how beautiful
all of these are? Then I will tell you, this is probably right here, it's going to be
the cover image. [LAUGHTER] Because I think it's really beautiful
and you may completely disagree
with me and that's okay because this will
hang in my house. [LAUGHTER] We don't have to worry about other people
liking our pieces. We just want to like
them ourselves. Look how fun all of
these have turned out. Hope you have fun
given this a test out. I want you to try and
do different shapes. Maybe of your first color
do a real white one and then a second one to
get your first two shapes. Then do a next color
organic and a little loose, and maybe like I did where
you roll the brush and then add a pop of another
color to the top of your whole composition. Then come back with
mark-making and other elements, and
different marks and dots, and things that you
think that you would love. Then come back and show
us what you came up with, because this is truly fun. I enjoy making these. Here's another one
that I made prior to, that I've had for a while. This one's really pretty. It's almost a lavender
with a yellow ocher and that sap green and a
little orange details, that one's really pretty. I might come back and make a series of these and we
can do a second series. Let's go back into class. I will see you in a bit. [MUSIC]
6. 2nd Set In Another Color Way: Let's do our next
series inspired by the yummy colors in this
one that I did a while back, and it's like an orange ocher. This purply color is ocher color that is caput mortum O-R-T-U-M, and it's a celia paint. Then this green is my Japanese
pigments that I mixed up, so it's like a sap green color, and then the orange is
pretty bright orange, like a cadmium orange or
maybe a shade darker. This is what's inspiring me. I've got some little dark
spots in there that could be like a dark brown, like a Van ****
brown or something, and that's what's inspiring me. I'm going to create another
set based on those colors, and so this one is
that orange ocher, it's a natural earth paint. Then I really liked
this yummy bit of the purply shade with my
Japanese green pigment. When I started
with these colors, it's not necessarily
that I thought wow, these are amazing together. [LAUGHTER] Because like when
they're just like this, it's vivid and bright, but once you get it watered down into more of a
watercolor consistency, it's so pretty and
I really like it. That's the colors
I'm going to use. I've gotten a little
color swatch sample there that I can keep
to go along with it, and let's just go
ahead and get started. I'm going to start with the
ocher, the orange ocher. I'm going to do the same
thing that I just did. I'm going to make
some random shapes, and let that be the start of
my piece and let that dry. Since I particularly liked the ones that looked
like butterflies, I think I'm going to create some butterfly shaped
wings out here, and let those do their thing. I'm still working on that
140 pound cold press, watercolor paper. I'm still working with that. That's pretty, so I'm
just setting each one of these to the side because by the time we do a
whole little series, then we will be ready to go back to the first one and it'll be dry
for our second layer. You can see I'm doing
these in real time, I'm not speeding up
cutting out you know like lots of time so
that you can do these, and by the time you come
back to that first one, you know, you're
back to a dry piece. It doesn't take long for
each layer unless you're working on one piece
at a time and then you're sitting there
twiddling your thumbs, waiting on that layer to dry. You could do every
single one of these in a different color
if you wanted. I just want a little series because I've got
all the other ones drawing on the floor behind me, and every time I look
around and glance at them, they're so pretty. [LAUGHTER] I just get
such joy out of that. While there's one or two
that aren't my favorite, the rest of them, I'm like, oh my goodness, I love that
even more than I thought. Let's just do some other shapes here so that we're not stuck on that butterfly wing.
Maybe an oval. If we get lucky, there'll be one out of here
that I'm like, oh my God, that's my
new favorite too, and I'll have two
favorites or something. [LAUGHTER] Let me
tell you though, the more of these you
do, the better they get. You start. Because the
first few of these that I made in my sketchbook
looked like ***, ***. [LAUGHTER] Let's start back
with our first one now. They look so terrible that
I was just like maybe this is not going to be for me. Because sometimes
I have ideas and I just cannot get
them to work out. Sometimes I have
ideas and I'm like, even better than I
thought. Look at that. If we let it drip a little, that's going to be pretty. Here's one that I
particularly love the wing, so let's just add
another wing on here. I'm just dipping in
to get extra water. I want them to be just like a gossamer layer like
just really interesting, but maybe not that water run and let each
layer dry separately. I love that one here's another
one that's real pretty. Then you can touch
back in and dab some extra color if you
didn't get enough color or if you want to add
some color areas and let them do
some pre-drippies, you can do that right
here at the beginning, get some interesting
little marks. Another thing that you can
do that's real pretty on watercolor is
sprinkle salt on it, and then you get the
watercolor it make little pretty patterns
in the watercolor. You can use any of your watercolor techniques
on something like this to get different
pattern, different color, different things
going When we get different color
blooms and stuff and a color bloom is
this right here, this little thing right
here where you've got that color with that
little edge around it. I love those, which a
traditional water colorist, if you're a traditional painter, that's not your goal. Your goal is not to get
those little blooms because that's
considered like a flaw. But man, it's the flaws that make things like this
so interesting to me. That's what I love. That's why I like doing pretty abstracty things I think because I like things
that are not perfect. I'm not going to paint
a perfect flower, that's not the painter I am. I gravitate towards things like this that are very abstract and the color and the
pattern is what draws me in. That's what I love. It's my own personal preference
there. That's pretty. That's like a real
pretty butterfly wing. I think we're going
to like that one. I'm going to let that one sit
up and even drip a little. Oh yeah. Look how pretty
that is going to be. Pretty. We'll let that one maybe do its little
drippy thing, a little. Sound like the color
to fold in on itself. I like it to just do yummy things that I
wasn't expecting. Look at that. That's going to be
pretty. Let's see. Did I get two of
everything? I think I did. Let's set that one there. Let's go back here. Now, I think I'm going
to add in some green. I think I want this green
here though. Let's see. I think I want a whole little
bloom of green over here. I just totally put more
paint on that than I even intended, but that's okay. We can let it do its thing. Because the rest of
that paint's light. Good to see. This one is
more in our butterfly. I'm actually going to make our
fun little body like I did on that first set because
I love those. Very pretty. If it looks like a butterfly, I'm going to make
it a butterfly. This one is very pretty. Some will go back in here
with our green again. That one is pretty. I don't have to do the
green is the butterfly, I could do this pretty
purply instead. Let's do it on this one. Let me get the green
out of my brush. Go back with the pretty
severely a color. Again, I'm just roll in
that brush because I want that look on there. I like that really pretty. That would've been
a pretty choice. Let's go back here
with the green. I'm going to add
some. Let's see. We don't even have
to fill these in. If I wanted to do some green, like I did on my
inspiration piece, just some green outlines. That's really pretty too. You could add color outlines. Some of your mark-making
on top of your piece. That would be pretty because of the way I've
got that on there. I might even come over here
with some of the green. That's pretty. Look how
pretty that is. Let's see. Let's do another purple
butterfly here on this one. It's not purple, but it's a unusual color in
their, purply brown. That's pretty. I like that. Let's let it do its
thing over here. Maybe we'll do this here too. That's pretty. One
more over here. Let's go back with the green. I've decided to my mind, I want several that looked like butterflies out of this bunch. [LAUGHTER] Now I've
got green on here. Let's go back with
a pretty purple. We might just run that this away over here. That's pretty. It's not as light as I did originally in my original
inspiration piece. I might do it lighter here
on one of these pieces. Because I did like
how pretty that was almost a light purple shade when I had it as the
original. That's real pretty. I think I'm going
to like that one. Let's see, any of
them, let's go back. We've got this one that
we don't have green on. That's pretty. Something like
that would be real pretty. We'll let the watercolor do its little runny
thing for a second. We could do something a
little different on this one. Maybe that green can be
there instead of all over. That's pretty. Let that
do its thing over here. Here we go. Let's go back
with some of this. Let's see. Now that's pretty. Look at that. Let's let that do its thing. What else do we got? Let's see. Let's do this one. I like that. Look at that. So pretty. Another thing that we might do because I've already got
this on tip of my brush, is I might put some dots
of this color up here. I say dots, but it's more
like lines, more than a dot. That's pretty like that. We could do some
real light ones. That's not real light, but
it is pretty out there. Look at that. Just as an extra little mark-make
thing that we got. Let's go ahead. See, it's this way that
you discover things like that right there
that I just did like right along the
bottom edge of that. I thought, how pretty is that? It's prettier on the first one, but that's how you figure out some little
techniques that you like. Then those could be your
signature techniques and things that
define your style. That's pretty right there. Fill upper dots on
there, I like that. That's how you determine
some things like your style. You do stuff like this and you do something
that you're like, game changer when I just did whatever it
was that you did. That's how you get to
these game-changer things by experimenting and
doing stuff like this. I'm going to do some pretty
dots in here. That's pretty. Let's see what else we got. I've got green and got to have that on all
of them. I think I do. This one might be pretty with. I think I've got all
the colors on there. I wanted some of that orange. I'm going to go back with this. It's a cadmium orange color. Maybe I just want these to be something like that where it's just like a dash
of color here and there. It's fun. I don't know if I
love the double dot there, but I do like it. It's pretty there. I might
even like orange dots on here. When we come back to the dots, we may do orange
dots, like that. We don't have to do dots. I could come in here now with a little like that right there. Some type of little orange. Look how pretty that
is just to pop. Just a little pop.
That's pretty. Maybe on this one
where I did these. Maybe just a little pop in there with the blue
would be some prettier. I like that better. [MUSIC]
7. Finishing Up With Marks And Color: [MUSIC] For this one. That's pretty. Just little touching. Almost those dots are dry, so let's grab one of these
that I do like that. Surprise of orange like
that, that's pretty. I like it. I like
that little pop. I like something to be
brighter than everything else, to just give you some little pop that
you weren't expecting, that you're thinking,
wow, look how cool that pop of color
is or something. That's fun there.
Very impressing. We got all our little pops
orange, I think we do. Let's go back with
some mark-making. I've got my little pencil
here and I'm just going to add some of those in
there. That's pretty. I want more organic lines, things that don't
look so natural. You can do any
line or pattern or something that you
like depending on what your preference is. If it's a little more
abstract like this, I might just have some
little abstract lines going, and I may come in here
with some mark-making. Which if you've seen my other
little abstract classes, I like rows of little
lines like that. I love that. This could be one of my favorite little mark-making on the edge or something
that I like to do. It's fun if you can
figure out what your favorite little
mark-making element is and then use that
in one of your pieces. See, I like that. That's fun. I like that. [LAUGHTER] Right back here with
some butterfly. That's fun. You have to mark make on your
piece if you think, I don't like that, with a little marks like that.
That's not my thing. You don't have to do it. These are your pieces. Look how pretty that is. These are your pieces
and I want you to experiment and play and
just see in the end, what is it that you're
going to like and love. I like that. If you want it to be real organic
and you're thinking, my lines are too uniform, they don't look organic enough. If you'll hold your pencil near the end of it and let it be a little bit
less controlled, I like doing that a lot. You can even do it with your
non-dominant hand if you wanted it to really
look organic. But holding the pencil at
the end really does give you a lot less control over
your piece and I like that loss of control for the little bit
more organic feel. Let's see, I think I've now
done all of those with that. I want to come back and add
some splatter, I think. I think I'm going to do some
orange splatter on this. I don't get enough
water on there. I don't want water
drip from the brush, so be careful what you've
got on your brush. You don't want to drip something you didn't intend. Look at that. That little bit of splatter just adds such a sweet
touch. I love that. You can splatter in
more than one color. I'm going to pick
the orange for this. I tend to overdo and so if you're like me
and you tend to overdo, limit yourself to
maybe six taps of the brush for the
splatter [LAUGHTER], and say that's all the
splatter you get so that you're not splattering it, 52 times with 52 colors. Look at that. That one's pretty for a very organic abstract. You can swap up the colors
that you're splattering. You could splatter green, you could splatter that pretty
brownish purplish color that I used here. You can pick some color
completely different. Maybe you want to
pick a contrast, the color that's really going
to pop as the splatter. I'm stick into the colors
in my color palette, but you don't have to. That could've been a tiny bit
overdone, but I do like it. Look how pretty that is. Very pretty. I actually did a little. Let's do more than
one, if we're going to run our paintbrush
down accidentally. We can make it on
purpose [LAUGHTER]. There we go. That looks
it was on purpose now. If you touch your paper
and you think, oops, then do a little on purpose
touch and make it on purpose. There we go. That's pretty. I think now I've got all
my pages splattered. Then I just need to decide, am I happy with where
those have ended up? Or do I need some
extra mark-making? What else is going to
complete this out for me? So you might live with these for a day or two and just see, do you like where
you've stopped? Is that good enough? Do you need more added to it? Some more marks,
maybe some pastel, maybe some lines like we did, that was so pretty
on the original set. I'm going to let these
dry and I will think on if I want to add
any other elements. Then we'll call this project
beautiful and good to go. I hope you have fun experimenting in a
different color way. Then branching off into some of the things that you think
your own favorite colors, maybe you like blue and
green, those would be pretty. Maybe you find a color
palette on Pinterest or maybe you make a color palette out of your
own photos that you take. Maybe you have a color
palette book like I did, that you take your
inspiration from. But I hope you have fun doing some whimsical abstract
watercolor pieces, and I will see you
back in class [MUSIC]
DENISE LOVE, Artist & Creative Educator
