Winter Doodles | Gouache & Watercolour Leaves & Berries

1. Welcome!: Welcome to this doodle session of winter wonderland, glossy leaves and beautiful bright berries. We're going to start by taping off the page into four sections. I was thinking that they would make lovely card toppers or gift tags. We'll be starting off with the rowing leaves and berries. And then I wanted to contrast those, so we're going to be using a blue to create some Scots pine needles, and then some rich glossy leaves. We're going to call in lots of techniques to create depth in our little paintings. In our choice of color, how thickly we use the paint, how we overlap motifs to create layers, and also use texture to create visible brushstrokes, especially when it comes to painting our Christmas roses with simple sea curves and ginger colored centers. We're going to do some subtle doodling with pencil, and then we've got to get our pigma micron out. We're going to go round the leaves and also really bring out the red rowan berries. I do like blue berries, too, so we're going to paint some snowy black thorn slow berries. Bringing all of these techniques together allows our eye to travel right down from the bright red berries to the soft green rowan leaves. And we can spend some quality flow time just doing our little doodles and finishing touches to our wintry foliage and bright berry project. You'll find a full list of materials in our class about section. There's no pressure to share your work, but if you'd like to, you'll find it under the video in projects and resources. And then on the right, you'll see submit project. I know some of you also share your projects on Instagram. So do tag me as I don't want to miss anything. Okay, so let's stroll, wheel or scoot our way into this winter wonderland. 2. Taping Off & Colour Prep.: So I'm using my sh, hot pressed square block and just taping off the sides. And then I'm going to eyeball it 'cause I don't like measuring. I'm going to put some tape across the middle to form four little squares. I just wanted to add here, one of our fellow skill sharers, Natalie Nichol used a tape which was double the width of the outer margins, and she made two tent cards. So that's always another option rather than cutting right up to the design. Doesn't have to be perfect. I think that's okay. So let's prepare our colors, and I'm using a mix of gouache and watercolor. So the first was ultramarine blue. This is undersea green. And then we have a lovely bright red in the pyrol red. Some white, this is titanium white, and hands yellow light. And some lamp black. We're going to just mix up a green, which is one of my favorite greens using black and yellow. I'm just getting another palette out so that I can water some of these colors down. So I'm gonna mix up this lovely natural green from the black and yellow. Isn't that gorgeous? And some of the undersea green. So I'm adding water to these because it would be nice to put some more watercolor shapes down and then start to add layers. 3. Rowan Leaves & Berries: So I'm going to use my size ten scoo versatile because I want some nice, larger leaves really for the background. So I'm going into our undersea green. This is just undersea green and water. And laying down some lovely, larger leaves. The reason why I'm using undersea green is it's a very natural green. It's a lovely foundation when you're creating layers. I should have mixed up a little bit more. So what we're doing is going over the central reservations, if you like, and try not to think about these as four squares, but more like one flowy painting from which we will take our little card toppers or gift tags. So I'm constantly thinking about how they can all cross over each other into each square. So what we need to be mindful of here is not doing too many. We need to leave space for all the little details we're going to add. I'm just adding some tiny little tips to some of the leaves. So that looks random, and I like that. That's what I was going for. I wasn't really thinking about any particular tree or plant. I mean, I guess these very, very loosely could be rowan leaves. But of course, they would have more leaves and clusters of berries, but I don't want to have them take over the page. So I'm just going to add a few red berries using our pyrol red, a little bit of water. And then just to make it a little bit more natural, I'm adding a tiny touch of green. It just knocks back the brightness a little, and that's what we want here. So I'm taking the excess off, making sure there are no drips. And just creating these little circles they're so fun to do. We can leave a little white space where you could just fill in the whole berry. And I'm just painting a couple over the edges of the tape. Very simple. Tiny clusters, maybe some a little smaller than others. It's almost mesmeic doing these so restful. I love doing berries. So you can see, I've only added a tiny bit of green cause these are still very, very bright, and that's what we're wanting. I'm not worried too much about placement, where I like, really. So you just go for it. You could do more berries than I'm doing here. I'm going over the leaf there, as well. Oh, little tiny one. These could be tags just as they are, so you don't need to go any further. You could just make these into tags for your presents. 4. Painting Our Scots Pine Needles: So I thought it might be nice to bring in some contrasting leaves, and these are going to be very different to the flowy rowing leaves that we've just put down. So these could be Scott's pine, and I'm just mixing up the handsome yellow light and the lamp black, and then a tiny bit of the ultramarine. So what I'm looking for really is kind of a deep greeny blue. I think I'm going the other way round now. I think I'm going to do predominantly blue and just taking over a little bit of that green mix. So I'm using now my size two escudda. So any size two round brush that you have or that you're familiar with, it could be a larger brush. So again, just taking the excess off, and this is what I would say is a watery mix as you would use for any watercolor. And we're just creating these little spike to leaves. Nothing to them, really, a few little lines. And we can afford to not go in with too much of a paint. You know, we're thinking about value of paint here. We've got a light value with the roans, and we want just a slightly darker value for these. No rules, though, and no mistakes. It is about the journey, as well. I know everyone says that, and sometimes I get a bit goal orientated, but just enjoy the process. Once you've done a few of these, you really get into the flow as well, and it gets easier, becomes more fun. So I'm just trying to keep these fairly loose. They have a spiky shape, but we can still bring movement into them with a curly stem or just changing direction of the fur needles. So we can overlap the rowing leaves if you like. At the moment, I'm kind of threading them through and just again, keeping an awareness that we want to be crossing over and barging into the neighboring square. So now I'm going to mix a green that will go with this blue nicely just to add some shading and a different color. That's quite pigmented. So I'm just going to dab off the excess again. And thread in some of these green leaves with the ultramarine. I could do a little scribbles. It doesn't take much, really. This is a lesson I'm learning a lot lately. And, you know, I always overworked things. I think I still do sometimes. Now I realize that a slow and steady wins the race sometimes, just taking your time, having those moments of consideration. I do hope you've got a nice hot drink next to you, and you can just stop every now and then. Maybe a hot toddy or a cup of coffee, hot chocolate. So not a lot added, really, these little tiny marks in amongst the blue. It's just enough to stop them from looking too flat. I really like the spikiness contrasting with those leaves. I'm really glad I've done these now. I have to say here, I had absolutely no plan. I often just launch into things and just see what happens, and sometimes that doesn't work at all, but on this occasion, I'm very pleased that it seems to be going well so far. So I'm in danger of doing too many things here because we want to be careful about leaving lots of space for the other motifs. So I'm going to stop. 5. Glossy Holly Leaves: So, again, I want to vary the leaves here. We've got the spiky pine needles. We've got the flowy kind of rowing leaves. So I thought it might be nice to have some glossy leaves. And what's glossier than a holly leaf? So I'm going back into that black and handsome yellow light mix. So I am adding water, but I still want it to be quite pigmented because what we're doing here is we're going from that very watery layer, and we're increasing the value of the paint as we layer up. So as I lay these down, you might be wondering where the spikes are. So, fun fact. Holy, when it's been nibbled by deer, actually has the ability to switch genes and make their leaves spiky. So, apparently, that's called epigenetic modification. So, isn't that fascinating? I've always seen holly leaves that are smooth and never understood why. Suppose I've always thought that it's similar to the female and male ivy leaves. So it is predominantly because of animals eating the lower leaves and trying to defend themselves, so they start to produce prickly leaves. Absolutely fascinating. And these, of course, are stylized holly leaves. So these leaves are just two strokes of our brush. I've always liked these leaves that have a little white space in the middle. And we are at that stage now where we can start to go over some of the motifs underneath. I'm just going to add in a little bit of a stem. I want a bit of movement in it because the leaves themselves are these kind of solid glossy leaves. So I just wanted to make them a little bit more fluid. I mean, they don't have to be holly leaves. They could be buckthorn or bay. So, again, I am incorporating the tape because I don't want these just to end at the edges. I thought it might be nice just to add the odd little leaf along the stem, as well. Isn't that glossy green gorgeous next to the red? Such lovely wintry colors. Just two little strokes there like a V. And I am loving these because they're bringing a totally different quality to the pine needles or the rowing. Much richer. And I also like the dark against the light. That was something I really wanted to achieve in this. So putting down a very watery leaf in the background just really helps this sink. As soon as we start to add the greater value leaves, it just looks so nice and suddenly you've got that dimension and you've got the feeling of depth So, just looking around, adding a few finishing touches. And I'm happy with that so far. So let's move on to our next lesson. 6. Christmas Roses: Bringing In a Little Texture: So let's mix up a white. I'm using titanium white guash, and I'm wanting to mix a cream. And I usually use handsy yellow deep, but I have this lovely quinacridone gold here. So let's see what that looks like with the white. We're quite like that, and that's lovely. Bit more white. I want it to be able to be seen but still be close to a white. So a little bit more white. I want to take my time because it's quite hard to mix a white to paint on a white page. So I want it to be creamy enough to show up, but not to have too much color in it. And I also want it to be of high value, so a lot of pigment to water, so probably 80% pigment 20 water. There are ways to bring this out even more. So I'm really just doing sea curves. And you can stick with your size two round brush. But I'm going to use my pointed filbert, and I'm really not bothered what these are. They could be Christmas roses, which are actually helleboros niger, which flower in the depths of winter. But I do like that comb of white, red and green. I just love it. Let me show you the brush strokes. So I'm starting off with a small stroke and just getting a little larger as we curl around. Very simple shapes. Don't worry about the center because we're going to add those later. And that's it. Let's just keep it really simple. And I think that's going to work really nicely. I know I'm going to get frustrated with myself because I haven't mixed enough color, so I'm going to do that now, so I'm just going to add a little bit more white. Maybe I touch more of the quinacridone gold. I'm just taking my time to mix enough to keep me going. Okay, so I had a drip on the brush, and that's kind of come out with a daub of water, which I'm not very pleased about. I'm just gonna try and forget about it and go over it. I'm not happy with that color because I think I got some green from my brush in it, so I'm just going to start again in a clean well, put lots of white down. Clean my brush really well. And then bring over some of the quin gold. And that's much brighter. I think I just got a little bit of green in the mix before. It was just a little dirty. So, likes just said, don't worry too much about it not showing up fully because I'm just gonna lift that bit of water there because we can add some pencil around it and some centers. So they're going to have a lot more life about them. For now, let's just create some very simple sea curves. And with these flowers, we can start to actually embrace a bit of texture as well. So let's just put a little bit more paint still than the glossy leaves on our brush. Don't be afraid to go really thick here. Just checking that that's dry. 'cause I want to go over that. It'll be quite nice just to bring some of these petals over the darker leaves. It all adds to the layering effect. And I'm going to do another one over this darker leaf here. And one just coming into the page from behind the tape. 7. Christmas Roses: Centres: So I want to mix a color for the centers of the flowers now. So I've got the quin gold. I'm mixed with the creamy color that we've just done. A little bit of green. I'm just really playing around with the colors that we have down until I get something that I would like. I'm gonna see what that looks like with a little bit more quin gold. Oh, I'm quite liking that. That's like a mustardy colour. So I'm going to use my pointed filbert just because I really love this for the centers of flowers because you can get these tiny petal shapes just by using the tip of it and also dots. So it's a really lovely brush for that. So I'm literally just tapping in some color. You could also.in color using the base of a brush or as I've done in other classes, actually, with a clay modeling tool. Yeah, I really loving this mustard color. And I do like a few colors in the middle of flowers. So I might come back to these. If you'd like to. We can always add a little bit more color there. Not sure where the center is for that one, but little dots and dashes. I think I have them all just checking over. So now I'm thinking it would be nice to have a few stems. So I'm going to go down to my liner brush. Again, you don't need to swap brushes here. You can use your size two round brush. It's just that I kind of get on very well with my liner brush, and I use it a lot for the finer details. So I'm now mixing some of the mustard in with the green mixture, which was the lamp black and handsome yellow light mixture. So we've got a nice warm green here, a green gold. These are hardly anything at all, but they just add a little bit of movement. And I'm just adding some leaves. I'm not really sure what flowers these are, and I don't think those leaves are anything near a helibut or a rose, but I really don't mind. I just love doing these little stems. And just threading them behind other motifs. I mean, they're hardly anything, really, but you'd be amazed how much movement it can bring to a little painting like this. I'm just doing some leaves at the top of the flowers now going beyond. And I think that's it. So let's move on. 8. Doodling With Our Pigma Micron: So it's time for some doodling, and I have a pigma micron 003, and this is in black. I do often use this pen in sepia. This is where you can bring your own individual style of doodling. I tend to just go round the outside of leaves, but not all the way round. Just some little embellishments. Maybe a few lines. I'm trying to restrain myself and not do absolutely every leaf. This is the beauty of using a very light color in the background, 'cause we can also then go in and doodle and it will show up really nicely. It gives us lots of scope. So at the moment, just sticking to the row and leaves. And then I think I'm going to do these little Vs on top of the berries. This is one of my absolute favorite doodles. They just seem to pop alive. I love it. It also seems to serve a purpose in bringing the berries to the fore, as well. I suppose, 'cause it just has more detail than the motifs underneath. Super, super restful to do. And it is that simple. I try not to do too much. We might add some shading to them. So if I were to mix a darker red, I think the quickest way is with some green. And this is an example of mixing colors which are opposite and complimentary to each other. So mixing a greening with red creates this lovely rich darker red. Such a simple thing to do, as you would with yellow and purple and blue and orange. And I'm just doing these tiny little curves just on one side of the berries. And this too seems to give them life. I might have to just do a berry class for you at some point, because I would happily paint berries all day long. We've also reached that stage in the doodle where we've got all our main motifs down, and it's now a very peaceful process as we can slow down as we add our embellishments. M. It's tempting to edit this. But I'm not going to heavily edit because I feel it's really important that we just have time to sink into a kind of reverie and relaxation. I aspire to be given the name Doodle Queen. I think I have a little way to go yet, but wouldn't that be great? So, while I have this red mixed up, and in the interest of tying all of this together, I'm going to use a little bit of it in the center of the hellebor dotting it in amongst the mustard color. Just creating a little circular center in places. Everyone can look slightly different. And again, I think it's about using your favorite brush, really, for this in one that you trust and know well. And we might even add a third color to the centers. I'm really liking the idea of a little variety of colors going on. Lovely Robin red dots. Gorgeous. So I'm just spinning a page, making sure that I have all of the flowers done. And I think I do. Yes. Yes. 9. Blue Sloe Berries: So we have that red echoed, and I think it would be nice to do the same with the blue just to bring in a little bit more blue. So step by step, we're just thinking about all these elements which start to bring together a cohesive painting. We've got all these layers and this use of color, the use of value. So I'm going to mix up one of my favorite blues and using the colors that we already have. I'm putting down the French ultramarine. Some titanium white. Both of those are gouache, but you could do this in watercolor. No problem. And our friend quinacridone gold. I may not use it because I actually just like the blue and white together. And talking about the opposite on a color wheel, of course, orange is the opposite of blue. I have a tiny touch of the quin gold on my brush. So it's actually turning it into the color that I was meaning to do from the start. Some gold has got in there, and it makes this lovely, rich powder blue. It's one of my favorite mixes. And it's that simple. It is just ultramarine blue and white and a very tiny touch of gold or yellow. So let's do some more berries. So I'm back to my size two round brush. And I want to add a bit of texture with these. So we're using a high value of paint, and it's almost too dry to go on the page. I've started to do this lately, and I really like it as a technique, so just wanted to share it with you. So you kind of just going around in circles until there's enough paint on the page. It's very, very tacky in the well, and then just slight dry brushing effect when we put it onto the page. So you can see here how dry my brush is. Of course, you will run out of paint, so it's about a balance between having enough paint on your brush, but not too much, just so you get those lovely scrunchy rough edges on them. This is another element that we're using to create this painting, and that is texture. So we've got a little bit of texture in the white flowers, and now we're bringing more into the project by having these lovely little textural berries. They could be Well, they're not dark enough for crowbrries. They could be bilbery or slow. It'll be really interesting to see how you interpret this. You may have different local plants to me. I'm in the Lowlands of Scotland. I know we have quite a lot of you across the water, across the pond, and also over into Asia. So I would love to know what your local plants are, whether you have wild blue berries and what they are called? What's the plant called? Same with the white flowers. What do you see? And what do you have locally? So throughout, I am keeping mindful of those edges. I really want to create a feeling of these being off cuts of a design once we've actually finished. So some are coming into the page, some are going over motifs underneath. 10. Rose Centres in Blue & Snow for Our Sloe Berries: So while we have the blue on our brush, why don't we add a tiny touch of blue into the centers of the roses? So I'm just sticking with my size two round brush. Very swift movements. And that's then done. What I would like to do now is add some snow to our slowberries snowy slowberries. Because, you know, why not? I do love snow, but it doesn't stay here very much. We do have the odd winter where we have snow for a couple of weeks, but, um, we're on sea level. So it doesn't stick, sadly. So I'm just cleaning off my brush and sticking with my small round brush. And I'm mixing this very, very neat. It's just enough water for the paint to move. So you're probably 90% pavement ten water. And taking the excess water and paint off my brush, as well. We want lots of control, just for these tiny, tiny touches on our lowberries. Oh, that looks so nice over that green leaf. I love that. Kind of serves to bring them forward a tiny touch, but not further forward than the red berries. And that's what we're looking for, really, to keep them in the middle distance. Is this not one of the happiest little pastimes adding snow to berries? Just see curves cradling one side of the berry. I'm so glad I did this now because they look so gorgeous. And it especially highlights them when they are painted over those leaves underneath. Just double checking. I don't want to miss one off, and that's it. So sweet. 11. Doodling With Our Pencil; Adding Outlines To Our Christmas Roses: We're nearing the end now, but I want to add a little bit of definition around the cream flowers. So I'm using a mechanical pencil, and I like just to break off the nab as it were, and then I've got a nice sharp pencil to work with. And I'm just going to very gently outline the petals. It doesn't have to be on everyone, but I'm going to see how it goes. And the reason why I like to use pencil, especially when I've got pen elsewhere, again, it is bringing a different texture. And it's far gentler than using a black pen when you've got these delicate, white, creamy flowers. So it's a nice, gentle way of nudging them forward. Again, super restful to do. You can see them moving forward already. It's very easy when you're doing a painting of lots of foliage and flowers to overdo things a little bit. So what we're trying to do here is maintain a balance and a harmony. And it's quite a skill to practice trying to allow each motif to have its day to shine without outhining any of the others. These flowers are so cute. So whilst we're here, I'm going to do those little Vs on top of the blueberries. I don't want them to come forward as much as the redberries. I want them to recede cause blue recedes, red comes forward. So we're using that vehicle here to create depth. So for that reason, I'm not going to use the pen for these but the pencil. So the berries would be at the top, and the blue would be somewhere in the mid background, I would say. Very cute little detail. So easy. So I'm just double checking now that I have cared for every Bilbrey. And, yes, I am really happy. Everything seems to be working fairly well together. I'm just going to have a bit of a break and then come back to it. 12. Extra Holly Leaves & Shadows for Sloe Berries: So I've taken some time just to look at it. Use my handy tip of taking a photo of it, and I've noticed that I would like some more dark leaves in places. There's a couple of corners maybe that I think it would be nice just to balance out those darker leaves. So I'm going back to this green gold that we mixed earlier, and I'm going to try and color match it. So I'm adding some undersea green because I know that's quite a deep, earthy green. And that if we mix that in, we should be fairly close. And that's not too bad, but it's actually a bit too deep. So I'm going to just take over some of that green gold and add a tiny touch of white. And nearly there, just a tiny touch more of the undersea green. And, yeah, that's good. So it's just in these corners, really, and I don't want them to be too big. So I'm literally just adding a couple of leaves there, and I think I'll do the same over in this corner. I'll have one just coming into the page. So you can see that that's just balanced it a little bit, and now I only see one little area maybe in this corner. Maybe just a couple more. Yeah, being careful here not to overdo it. It's that merry dance all the time between all of these little elements. So, what I'd like to do now is just mix a darker version of the blue that we had for the Bilberys. So I'm adding more French ultramarine to the original mix and taking over some of the Undersea green mix. I don't want it too exaggerated, so just a wee bit darker would be excellent. Can we just try that. Yeah, that looks good. I'm just going to go round creating these little sea curves just as we did with the roan berries and just add these tiny little shadows. And that coupled with the white highlights, we'll again, just bring these forward a little bit, but not further forward than the roan berries. So we're kind of still playing in the middle distance. Just checking over my work, making sure I have not missed steady berries, don't want them to feel lonely. 13. Adding Filler Leaves: So I've added some undersea green to the cream mix from earlier. And it's a trick I often use at the end of a painting to bring a cohesion, and it's usually a green of this color, or if it's predominantly another color, I would use a soft blue. So this is like a pale chantreuse at the moment. Is that what I want? I'm just trying it out on a scrap piece of paper there. Let's just practice the brush stroke very quickly. So you can do tip belly, tip, or you could do the side stroke that we use quite a lot in classes, and it gives you this slightly blunter leaf. But I like using both together. I think they're lovely. So we might do some side sweet leaves here around the flowers, just to define the cream a little bit more and to allow those flowers to shine. So I'm just trying to find spaces that are blank where I'm not going over too many motifs and also places where we've got some dark leaves down, and we can start to glance over those in places as well, adding to the feel of layers and depth. Again, just around the cream flowers there to accentuate them. And just adding some tiny leaves where there's a black space. I should have a term for this by now, because it's a technique I use quite a lot, one color that seems to be the final color to go down that brings everything together. It also means that we've got a few greens going on, which adds variety. This is a very considered process at this stage. Just stopping every now and then and then adding the smallest of details. I like that there's a lot of foliage now. Just another one glancing over the glossy leaf underneath. So going off the edge again. And I'm happy there. 14. Adding Extra Rowan berries: So one final adjustment, talking about that kind of dance between the different elements again. And now that we've added some more foliage, I just want to be sure that the red is not completely overshadowed now. So I've added quite a lot of water to the pyrol red because I don't want these berries to compete with the ones that we've already got down. So I'm thinking of just going in very softly, really, and adding a little sphere of water, and then a drop of the watered down red. So it's more of a diffused color. Very simple and easy to do little pools of water and a drop of red. And we won't embellish these. We're not going to add any detail to them. I just wanted a few more splashes of red, and this is another way of creating a highlight. So as we did with the other berries using a white squash, what we can do here is take the excess water off our brush and then just do a sea curve around and lift some of the color. Making sure that tape is securely down. And we can vary the size. I'm just lifting again with a tiny sea curve. I'm just trying to keep them random. And remembering to go right up to the edges and beyond tape. Lifting that that's quite a bright one. And this blotting my brush and a little sea curve and lifting. Such an easy and cool method to add highlights. And it feels like we have that balance again. And we are using predominantly opposites of complimentary colors on the color wheel, red and green, which are just ultimate kind of wintry colors, I think. 15. The Reveal!: I think it's now reveal time. And this time, I'm going to try and take them off in order, so they go over each other. Like, you see, because I eyeballed it, it's not perfect, by any means, but, um, because we're cutting these down, of course, they don't all need to be the same size. Almost there. And then the very final veal. And taking the tape off just allows these to breathe. And also, you find that although they look very busy when they're taped off, and they're actually not so once you've removed the tape, they've all got their own little character. So these would make lovely cards, extra special gift tags or frame them. They're gorgeous as little pictures. I just can't wait to see what kind of life they have beyond the class. I'm going to use mine as card toppers. Can't wait to get started on those, and I'll share them in projects. 16. Thank You!: Together, we've explored quite a few things in this class, color, value, layering, texture. And also, we've worked with a difficult balance and dance, if you like, between all of the motifs, allowing elements to shine but not to outshine its neighbor. And that's a merry dance. But above all, I hope I've given you the opportunity to take care of yourself and have some time just relaxing and doodling. Whatever you celebrate over the winter, I hope you have a wonderful time, and I look forward very much to seeing your projects. So I'll see you over in discussions or on Instagram. Take care. Okay. Mm hmm.