Winter Watercolor Illustration: 7 Festive Holiday Painting Projects

1. Welcome to the Class: Decked up trees, ornaments, gifts, wreaths, and many more winter classics, painted in a relaxing step-by-step manner, that's what I'm bringing for you today. Hi. My name is Garima Srivastava, I'm an artist, illustrator, and a top teacher here on Skillshare. Where I've taught thousands of students my way of making art that not just beautiful, but also achievable. Working as a surface pattern designer, I do know that holiday art is worked on throughout the year to be finally used on all products during the holiday season. Although there are trends, there's always space and demand for subjects, we call Winter Classics. That's why I've put together seven projects featuring some of these winter favorites. In this class, I will teach you how to paint nine easy stylised Christmas trees, an elegant wreath, lovely tree ornaments, three beautifully wrapped gifts, a dove symbolizing peace on Earth, a cute red car loaded with a Christmas tree and gifts, and finally, a quaint woodland cabin. We're painting all of this with the medium most of us already have at home, watercolors, with a touch of some holiday shimmer and shine. This class is suitable for all skill levels. While working on these projects, beginners will learn important watercolor skills like painting wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, working in steps and layers to transform flat washes into detailed, eye-catching illustrations. An experienced artist can explore these seven projects and add their own unique touch. Each of these 20-25-minute long project has been divided into smaller lessons that you can follow at your own pace. Apart from the projects, the class also includes lessons on art supplies, brushstroke practice and watercolor techniques, extra practice of watercolor botanical elements, and a discussion on inspiration sources and color palettes. Although inspiration is all around us, you can check out my previous class, Transform Inspiration into Illustration with Imagination, if you would like to see my process of developing my design ideas. As a project for this class, you can choose to paint one or more of the seven projects. By the end of this class, you will not only have beautiful holiday artwork, but also the skills to further explore watercolor illustration. I'm so excited to see which project is your favorite. Whether you plan to get started with watercolor illustration, or want to create some holiday-themed art as gifts, greeting cards, or gift tags for your friends and family, or simply want to relax and paint some festive goodness, then go and get your watercolor art supplies, maybe a hot cup of cocoa, tea, or mulled wine, and let's paint some holiday favorites. I'll see you in the class. 2. Your Project & Downloads: As a project for this class, you can choose to paint one or more of the seven projects. I would love to see your work and give my feedback. Please do share your projects here on Skillshare. You can go under the tab projects and resources, and then click "Create Project" button to submit a photograph of your project. Use the discussion tab to ask any questions and I will try my best to answer them. Under the projects and resources tab, you would also find some of the downloads for this class. You will find the list of art supplies and the colors I've used, my original color swatches, and my color mix formulas that I have used in this class, line drawing and finished project images for your reference, and a list of resources for inspiration. 3. Class Framework : Let's quickly have a look at how the class is formatted. Following this is the lesson where I'm showing you all the art supplies I've used in this class, followed by some brushstroke practice and a look at some of the watercolor techniques that I have used in this class. After that, we'll be painting some watercolor botanical elements. Next up is a discussion on inspiration sources and color palettes, followed by seven individual projects, starting with three stylized Christmas trees and a bonus lesson showing six more styles, followed by a winter wreath, three ornaments, three wrapped presents, a peace on earth dove and wreath, a car with a tree and a woodland cabin. Now, let's get started. 4. Art Supplies: Let's have a look at the art supplies I've used in this class. But please remember, you do not need these exact ones. Feel free to use the ones that you already have. Let's first talk about paper. For the illustration we'll be creating in this class, you have an option between a smooth-surfaced hot press paper or slightly textured cold press paper. Cold press paper is more readily available. Feel free to use that. I personally prefer to paint on hot press paper. The paper I've used today is Hahnemuhle 300 GSM hot press paper. It's gummed on all four edges. One of the corner doesn't have any glue on it so you can insert a palette knife or any sharp object like this to detach the paper from the block, and then further chop it down into smaller pieces, or paint directly on this, let your painting dry, and then detach your paper. I have chopped up the paper into pieces of 20 by 20 centimeters. This also gives me small pieces to try out colors like this. I have not used much water in my paintings, so I do not need to tape down my paper. But if you prefer it that way, simply use a scotch tape or masking tape to tape down your paper to a hard board. As I said earlier, please feel free to use your favorite brand of cold press watercolor paper that's perfectly fine. I just use hot press paper out of my personal preference. This is Canson XL, aquarelle watercolor paper. It's relatively smooth to touch and quite affordable and very easily available. Another one that I have here is Canson Montval. This is slightly lower in weight. This is 200 GSM in weight. But the paintings we are doing today, we're not using too much water. You can use a paper which has a weight between 200-300 GSM. Apart from my watercolor paper, I'll be using a normal printer paper to give you some rough sketches of the paintings that we're going to do. To transfer my sketches, I often use a tracing paper, but you can also use a lightbox or freehand draw your art on the watercolor paper. For drawing on the watercolor paper, I like to use 2B pencil. It's dark enough for me to see the guidelines and soft enough for me to erase them as well. For erasing, I'm using a kneading gum eraser. I also have a dust free eraser like this. For my drawings to be better visible to you I'm using a watercolor black pencil. You will need something to draw some circles for this class. I'm using a simple compass here. You can also use some other circular objects that you can find in your house. Let's have a look at the brushes I'm using today. For mixing my colors, I'll mostly be using this brush. It's a number 6 Da Vinci. It's a pretty old brush, has lost its point. I do not paint with it anymore. It's quite fluffy and is able to hold a lot of water, so I'm able to quickly mix good amount of color. I'll be mixing my colors in this ceramic color palette. The brush I'll mostly be using today to paint is number 4 round Princeton Velvet Touch brush. It has got a really nice point and holds good amount of water, but not too much. For more detailed work. I'll be using Da Vinci CosmoTop Spin number 2 round brush and a similar one in triple zero number. I will also show you how to paint with the number 8 Da Vinci CosmoTop Spin flat brush. Flat brushes are quite versatile so it's good if you practice with your flat brush. There is a brush practice lesson right after this one. Do check it out. For one of the projects where I needed to cover a bigger surface quickly, I have used Da Vinci Petit Gris Pur number 0. It's a mop brush, holds good amount of water, and comes to a really nice point. To add some color to the hand lettering that I've done in the projects, I'm using number 0 Van Gogh selected filament brush. It doesn't have very long bristles, so that gives me a nice control. Apart from my watercolors, I will also be using some metallic colors. These are from Art Philosophy metallic semi-watercolor range. I'll mostly be using a darker gold and this lighter gold to add little gold details to my project. Feel free to use your metallic gel pens for that as well. To add little white details I will mostly be using my bleed-proof white. It comes in a bottle like this. Mine has dried up a little bit so what I do is just spray a little bit of water in it. Let it sit just for a little bit. Then with my brush I can simply pick color. To add some snow splatters, I'll be using this really old brush. With that you can make lines, details or simply hit it against a pen or a pencil to create these platters. To add some white details. You can also use your white gouache or a Posca pen like this. When you are using Posca pen after a while, you will need to shake it a little bit before you open. You can paint directly with it or you might need to pump it a bit on the paper before the color starts to flow. With this, you can create nice sharp details. Apart from this, you will need your usuals. I'll be using two jars of water. First one is to mix clean color mixes, and the second bigger one, to wash my brushes. To activate my colors I use a little spray bottle like this. I always keep some kitchen paper rolled right next to me to soak up excess water. Now let's have a look at the colors I'm using today. I've chosen a few extra color so that we can quickly create some of the mixes we need. All of my watercolors I've laid out in these two color palettes. Let's have a look which ones I'm using. I've got Transparent Yellow, Cadmium-free Yellow, Quinacridone Gold, Transparent Orange, Rose Madder Genuine, Opera Rose, Quinacridone Magenta, Winsor Red, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Perylene Maroon. I've also got some Lamp Black and Burnt Umber in here. Now for my blues, I've got Indigo, Phthalo Blue, French Ultramarine, cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue. I've also got some Dioxazine Violet here and some Sap Green in the middle. Now let's practice some brush strokes. 5. Brush Stroke Practice : In this lesson, I want to show you some of the brushstrokes that you can practice. Let's activate the colors. I've got my tube colors laid out here. You can also use your pan colors, just activating the color. To mix my colors, I generally use a number 6 round brush. It has lost its point and I don't usually paint with it anymore. To mix your color, you can use a mixing tray, a ceramic plate. Here I have this color, if I'll paint directly with it, this is the color I'll get, if I'll have a bit more water in my brush, I'll be able to paint a lighter version of this color. By varying the amount of water in your brush, you can go from dark to light intensity of that color. The first brush that we're going to practice with is Flat number 8 Cosmotop Spin brush from Da Vinci. I'm going to rinse my brush, pick some color in it, I'm holding my brush here at the base comfortably, I'm going to move my hand. I'm not pressing the brush too much, just ever so slightly and I'm able to make these broad marks. Now, when I tilt this brush, I'm able to make these lines. If I'll reduce the pressure to minimum, I'm able to make really fine lines. When I press the brush quite a bit, I get this mark. You can make waves with it, using just the corner of the brush. I can make fine details like this. But one thing that I want you to practice is filling up geometrical shapes with a brush like this. Make rectangles, squares, triangles, try to create sharp edges. Don't need to practice a perfect circle, but try to paint little circular shapes. This way, you will learn how to move your brush around to fill up shapes with solid color, which you need for illustration to create a solid base color on which you can build up more details. So practice these brushstrokes. I'm filling up some geometrical shapes with your flat brush. Next brush is Da Vinci Petit Gris Pur, number 0. It's a pointed mop brush. I'll rinse my brush, pick the color. It holds a lot of water in it. So with that, I'd like to quickly paint big shapes but with it you can also create fine lines like this, and if you press it a bit more, you can create a bit broader lines. It's also perfect for loose floral shapes, so to make a leaf, just touch the tip, then press the belly down and lift as you coming out. One more time, touch, press, and lift as you're coming out you can make these swirly shapes. By varying the amount of pressure that you put, you can make thin or broad marks with this brush. The third brush that I have used most often in this class is this number 4 round brush. It's Princeton Velvet touch. It has a really nice point. I'll mix some more color for it. In this brush, I'm going to rinse it, pick some color, and with this brush, you can do same practice, so thin marks, I'm holding the brush quite low to have more control and as I push my brush down, it makes a bit thicker line. Using just the tip of the brush, I can make really fine wavy lines, curves, add little details, it's pointed really nice, I can create really fine details with it and it's also perfect for botanical shapes. Again, let's make a leaf shape. So touch the tip of the brush, push it down and lift as you're coming out and go again, but on the other side this time, touch, push, and lift as you're coming out. I also use this brush to fill shapes. You can create boxes with it, try to paint little circular shapes with it. Filling up geometrical shapes helps you learn how to control your brush, how to turn it around corners, around tricky shapes. If you're painting really big shapes, try to use a bigger number brush, for smaller shapes, I reduce my brush number. This number 4 brush is perfect for the size of painting that I do, but if you're painting bigger, increase your brush number, and if you're painting even smaller, reduce the brush number. We will also be using my 000 brush and number 2 round brush for detail work. They are simple round brushes just like the number 4. You can practice the same things; make fine lines, little dots and dashes, curves. This is the 000 brush. Once the shape has dried, we will be adding details on top. For example, the circle has dried, now in my number 2 round brush, I've got some Indigo and with that, I'm adding another layer on top, adding some detail. No matter what brush you have decided to paint with today, you can do a little bit of brush warm up before you start with the projects. 6. Watercolor Techniques : Let's look at some of the watercolor techniques and concepts that I have used in this class. When it comes to watercolor application, there are many ways. One is wet on dry. What that means is you are applying wet color on a dry surface. It can be a fresh color applied on paper that is dry. So here I'm applying some quinacridone magenta on a dry paper. It can also mean that you are applying a layer of color on an already dried layer. So this is also wet on dry application, wet color on dry surface. Now let's see what wet on wet means. I'm going to wet the paper here with plain water, and here with a block of cobalt blue. So in both the cases, paper is wet. Now if we will add a wet color on this little block, it's going to bleed. This is wet on wet. You applied wet color, on wet paper. Similarly, if you apply this green on this cobalt blue, it's still going to bleed. So this is also wet on wet. You are applying wet color, on an already wet layer. So you can see the difference between the two. When you add something on a dried layer or a dried paper, your lines are crisp, the edges are sharp, while the details are quite fuzzy on wet on wet. For most of the projects, we are going to be using wet on dry technique, but for one of the projects, we will use some wet on wet. Something that I want to show you is how to soften up edges. So let's paint a little line here. Now what I want to do is I want to keep the top edge sharp, while I want to soften up the bottom edge. So I'm going to rinse my brush, pat it slightly dry, and then run this slightly moist brush along this edge that I want to soften up. Rinse my brush again, pat it dry again, and do the same. So you can see how the top edge is still sharp and the bottom one is now all fuzzy. So this is called softening the edges. You might need this to soften up some shadows that we will add. Now when you're a beginner, sometimes it's hard to control the amount of water in your brush. So if I've just rinsed my brush, I'll pick a lot of water in my brush, and now I'll simply paint with it. It's going to paint a big puddle of water here. Sometimes you do not want that. See? Again a big puddle. So to control the water, always keep some kitchen paper on the side. After rinsing your brush, dab it slightly, and then pick the color, and after that, paint with it. This will apply color more evenly, it will not pool up. What you can also do if you think your brush holds a lot of water, is before putting the brushstroke down, just dab your brush against the kitchen paper towel to remove excess moisture. You can keep on painting with your brush, but after a while, it will start getting streaky. When that happens, it means it's time to reload. So simply pick the color and start painting again. Always rinse your brush, pat it dry, and then pick the color to paint. Now let's see how we are going to add splatters. I'm using my bleed-proof white. This one has dried a little bit, so I'll add just a little bit of water to it. I'm using an old rough brush. Pick some bleed-proof white in it. You can also use white gouache for it. So there are a couple of ways of adding splatters. You can simply flick the brush, or you can hit it against something to create these splatters. If you will have a lot of bleed-proof white or white gouache in your brush, it's going to make bigger droplets on the paper, else this will create really fine mist of white dots. Now let's have a look how we can fix some of the mistakes. So each color has its own staining quality. What that means is how good it's going to stain the paper permanently. If it's a really good permanent staining color, then it will be really hard to remove that color off from the paper completely. At the same time, the lifting quality of the paper shows how well you can lift the color out of the paper. Some papers have a great lifting quality, while others don't. I'm going to put a little mark here and a little one here. Let's say these are two of my mistake dots. I'm going to let this one be. This one I'm going to quickly pick the excess moisture from my tissue paper, while this is just as it is. Now if we want to erase this little dot, rinse your brush, pat it slightly dry, and then gently rub on that little dot. This is an old brush, slightly rougher. Again, rub it with brush and then pat it dry with the kitchen paper. So as you can see, I was able to erase most of the little dot that we had placed here. There are more ways of erasing an accidental mistake. So one of them is through water, the other one is to take a blade and very gently scrape off the top layer of the paper. Very gently, very small amount of the color, don't scrape off more of the paper, you will cut the paper, but very gently rub it and it will scrape off the top layer of that color away. So you can always use a little bit of white gouache to cover it up, and if nothing helps, then you can use some digital correction. Throughout the projects I'm going to ask you to wait for a layer to dry before you paint on top of it. So to check if the paper has dried or not, you can simply tilt the paper, to see if the shine of the water has gone, but that will only ensure that the puddle of water is gone but the paper can still be wet. So just touch it from the back of your hand, if it feels even a bit cold to you, that means the paper is still wet, and if you're too early with your details, they will bleed. So just check if your previous layer has dried before adding another layer on top of it. You can get up, do something else during that time, or simply work on another part of the painting while this layer dries. These were some of the watercolor concepts and techniques that we have used in this class. 7. Winter Botanicals Practice Part I: In this lesson, which will be helpful for beginners, let's paint some winter botanical elements that I have used in this class. Let's start with a pine frond. For that, I'm going to mix some Burnt Umber with a little bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. With my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick this color, paint a curved line. Now, I'm going to paint the needles. I use almost three types of greens for that. For the lightest green, I like to mix some Sap Green with a little bit of Quinacridone Gold. If you already have a color called green gold in your color palette, you can also use that. With just the tip of the brush, I'm creating these fine needles coming out right from the center. They're not all upward facing. For the second green, you can either use sap green all by itself or mix a little bit of French Ultramarine to it. I'm adding another layer of these needles. You can also paint this with just one type of green, let the lightest layer dry, and then add more color on top. For the darkest green, I sometimes mix a bit of Indigo with my Sap Green, or sometimes I mix a neutral green by mixing some black with any kind of yellow. I'm picking some Transparent Yellow, and with that, I'm going to add the final layer of the needles. Either Indigo or any kind of dark green that you have, you can add as a final layer. Once it dries, I like to sometimes add little red spots on it. Some Winsor Red here just to give a bit more festive feel. This was a pine frond. Next step, let's paint a simple twig of berries. For that, either pick some Lamp Black or some kind of brown. I've already got this Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson mix here, so I'm going to pick that. With that, just add a little twig like this. Now, for the berries, I start with some Winsor Red. I'm leaving some gap in-between. Now, I'm going to rinse my brush, pat it slightly dry, and with this moist brush, I'm going to paint a few berries touching the earlier ones and that makes the color bleed giving me a few fuzzy-looking berries, intense ones, and a few lighter, fuzzier-looking ones. If you want, you can add a third color, something dark like Permanent Alizarin Crimson. What I like to sometimes do is add a bit of gold to these berries. You can either paint circular berries with it or just encircle a few berries that you already painted just to add a few golden details. Now, let's practice mistletoe. I'm going to paint it upside down. For mistletoe, you need to paint these little twigs that are bifurcating. Now, for the leaves of mistletoe, we can mix our green. I will start with some Cobalt Blue, add some Transparent Yellow to it. At each bifurcation, paint a slightly rounded set of leaves keeping the top round. Now, to paint the little berries with them, I like to mix a gray. One way of mixing your gray is, you can obviously combine your primary colors. Winsor Red, picking Cobalt Blue, some Transparent Yellow, and then to that, I'm going to further add some Cobalt Blue. You can directly use this gray or sometimes add just a touch of yellow to it. With that, you can add these little berries. You can add them at the bifurcations underneath the dual of the leaves. Now, with some other green, just going to add the stem. If you want, you can also add a little vein in between the leaves with a slightly darker green. I'll pick a little bit of Burnt Umber and add a tiny dot on the berries. This was a very simple mistletoe. 8. Winter Botanicals Practice Part II: Let's paint holly leaves. For that I like to mix Sap Green with indigo for really dark green. Let's paint three of them together. One curved line and then this vavy pointy edges. Then fill them up with that color you've mixed. Then you can also add some berries. For finishing touches, you can add little vein in-between. This was a simple way of painting holly leaves. Next step, I'm going to show you a festive but a very generic leaf, so some brown twig. Then for the leaf, I'm going to make some dirty teal color. Some Phthalo Blue with a touch of Sap Green and some Indigo. With that, by just touching the tip of the brush, pushing the brush down and making really simple leaves not a particular plant in mind. Just some really broad leaves. You can leave them like this. Or if you would like to add a bit more detail, you can pick indigo or a darker color and add a little vein marks. It's entirely up to you. You can also leave them just like this. Another leaf that I've not used in this class, but it is nice to have in your winter bouquets, that's a eucalyptus twig. For that, let's start with that neutral green. Some black. This time and add some Quinacridone Gold to it. I'm going to pick some Burned Umber in my brush. Starting from top, I'm going to create a dashed line, leaving some space. Now with my number 4 round brush, I'm going to pick this color. Create one big leaf. Another one right next to it. Another one in front. A thin one on the side. I'm going to repeat this similar leaves all the way to the top, keeping them rounded but reducing their size as I'm going towards the top. I'll make the top quite tapered. This was a simple way of painting a eucalyptus twig. Next step, I want to show you how to paint evergreen trees. For evergreen trees, I like to use different types of green. In my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some Sap Green. You can pick any other lighter green. Create a little guideline and then starting small on top, create these downward facing swish marks. Now change your color to a darker green. This time I have the mixture of Sap Green and Indigo. Going back-and-forth, increasing the size of my brush strokes. Sometimes I also directly use some indigo. Make the base of the tree broader. If you want a bit more prominent top, increase its height a little bit. Some pure Indigo. This was a very basic evergreen tree. Now let's paint one with some snow on it. For that, let's pick some sap green. Again, some guideline start on top. Leave a little bit of gap. Paint the layer of leaves, leaving some gap in-between, and keep increasing the width. Some burned umber at the base. Now, with my number 4 round brush and clean water in my brush. I'm just going to gently touch the bottom layer. Let it bleed a little bit into the whitespace so that it's not stark white. But it does give an impression that there is something white in between the layers. You can go back in with some dark green, and right underneath the white, add some darker bits. This was another simple way of painting an evergreen tree with some snow on it. To add some snow, you can also use some bleed proof white, white gouache or white ink. You can add some snow marks with little taps like this. Or if you want to make them a bit more prominent, then make them round shape like this with either gel pen, Posca Pen, or with your brush. I hope this lesson was helpful to you. With a little bit of practice, you'll be easily able to paint these for the projects of this class and for your other projects. 9. Inspiration and Color Palettes : For holiday illustrations, usually the inspiration can be found in abundance. You can always start at home, whether it's your own ornament collection, your holiday decor, or a winter edition magazine, there are plenty of options to pick your inspiration from. Outside your home you're surrounded by plenty of inspiration with shops and malls all decked up for the holiday season. Of course, we also have the online options, be it Pinterest or other social media websites, there are plenty of art challenges with curated prompt list to pick your subjects from. For reference photographs, you can use some of the copyright free stock image websites. I do suggest you to add your own imagination to these inspiration and ideas to make them your own. Now, let's talk about color palettes. These days, you will easily find a variety of color palettes suiting all tastes during holiday season. But nothing really beats the charm of the classic red and green. You can choose from a variety of red and greens with light, medium and dark variance, add a few neutrals like beige, brown, gray, white, and black, and some silver, gold or pearl to add the festive touch. Another variant of this color palette is with the addition of cool icy colors for ice and snow. You can also very easily find modern holiday color palettes with vibrant shades of pink, magenta, and violet. Pastel color palettes can also look nice with the use of some shimmering colors and a little bit of contrast. Here are a few traditional and contemporary color palettes for your reference. You can always expand these five color palettes by adding a lighter and darker color variant and increasing the number of neutrals. You can add some light or dark neutrals. Pure neutral colors are your gray, white, black, and brown, and you get derived neutrals from these by combining other colors with these pure neutrals. Some of the examples are caramel, khaki, cream, pewter. Here are my original color swatches, and these are some of the extra colors that I have mixed for some of these color palettes I just showed you. Now, let's get started with the projects. 10. 3 Trees Part I: Let's paint some stylized Christmas trees. They are great subject for wall art, greeting cards, and gift tags. For this project, I will be showing you three different styles of painting Christmas trees. In the bonus lesson after this project, I will show you six more styles to choose from. To arrange your decorated evergreen trees, you can simply put them all in one row, here I've got three of them. I've kept them almost the same height. You can also put them in a uniform grid, like three-by-three, or here it's a three-by-two grid. I've got three trees in each row, and if you would like to arrange them a bit more randomly, here is another example. Now we can get started. I'm not going to be using too much water, so I don't need to tape the paper down and I've tilted it a little bit so that I can paint easily. We will start from left to right so that we don't smudge the colors. Before we start painting, I'm going to pick the excess graphite with my kneading gum eraser. I'm just pressing it down on the paper. Now, let's mix the colors. For the first tree, I'm going to create a pretty blush color so I'm picking some opera rose, to that I'll add just a touch of Transparent Yellow, a bit more Opera Rose. We can test the color here. That's nice. For my guidelines, I've got a very simple triangular shape but that is just a rough guideline. For this tree, I'm going to create first a triangle. I'm using number 4 round Princeton Velvetouch brush. I don't have too much water in my brush, and with that, I've drawn a small triangle up on top. Now, I'm going to add a little trapezoid right underneath this triangle. The top of this trapezoid is slightly smaller than the base of the triangle. One more at the base and then I'm simply filling the shape with this color we have mixed using Opera Rose and Transparent Yellow. Now we will let this dry. In the meantime, let's work on the second tree. For the second tree, I'm going to create these little broad leafy shapes and create layers of them. I'm drawing them with pencil. This is a 2B pencil. These are just layers of these broad leafy shapes. I'm increasing them in numbers as I'm moving towards the bottom. You can also freehand paint these. Now, I'll simply pick a little bit of excess graphite. For this tree, we will need some green. We will start with some Sap Green mixed with some Quinacridone Gold, and we also need a darker green later for this, so I'll mix it already. Some Sap Green mixed with some Ultramarine Blue. Now with my same Princeton Velvetouch number 4 brush, I'm going to pick the lighter green mix, that's Quinacridone Gold and Sap Green, and I'm going to simply paint these leafy shapes all of them with the same color. My mixes are not too watery. It's okay to leave a little bit of white behind. If your brush is holding too much water, simply dab it against the kitchen paper like this to remove excess moisture. Now we're going to wait for this to dry. For the third tree, we are going to mix three different colors. First one will be an icy blue. For that, I'm starting with Phthalo Blue, to that I'll add just a touch of Sap Green, and with a lot of water in my brush let's test this color, it's nice. We'll be using the light green from this mixture itself and let's also mix a purple. I've got some Dioxazine Violet here. If you want to add a bit more magenta to it, vary this purple and violet a little bit you can add a bit of magenta, or keep the color as it is right from the tube. I've mixed a little bit of Quinacridone Magenta to Dioxazine Violet here. Here's the color. Now I'm going to take my number 2 round brush and just rinse my brush, I'm not drying it and with that, I'm going to pick some color. I'm creating a little ball with this color, slightly bigger one somewhere else. I'm simply using this one color to create these little balls all over this tree. I'm simply following the triangular guideline I had created earlier. I'm not drying my brush in between, that helps keep the moisture in my brush and keep the color quite light. Now, let's pick the lighter green color and quite close to the blue balls, I'm going to add a few green ones. I'm not worrying about them bleeding into each other rather that's exactly what we want. Keeping the balls towards the bottom bigger. Don't worry if they have gaps in between, we'll be filling them later. Now, let's add the third color, Dioxazine Violet and Quinacridone Magenta mix. Don't worry about the colors bleeding. Now I'm going to go back in with that blue, add a few more blue balls, smaller ones just to fill the gaps. We'll be adding extra little details with gold once all of this dries out. For now, this looks nice. 11. 3 Trees Part II: Now we can return to our first tree with my same number 2 round brush. I'm going to pick a little bit of Rose Madder Genuine. With that, I'm going to create a little demarcation line between the two boxes. The first triangle, and the box underneath it. Just a little bit of shadow. Simply picking some Rose Madder Genuine. Going over the line between the two boxes and carrying it down a little bit to create the shadow effect. With that same rose madder genuine, I'm going to add these little curvy lines for all the lights and decorations. Going in one direction and then towards the other. Now we'll leave this to dry. For our second tree, we can now start picking with the same number 2 round brush, our darker green mix. I'm going to follow the little guidelines I created, and with that, I'm going to create the same leafy shape that we had made, but with the darker color this time. I'm leaving the very top layer light, then I'm adding a darker layer after that, leaving another one light, adding a darker one underneath it. If you can't see the lines anymore, your pencil guidelines, don't worry about it. Simply draw them with your brush, like this. I can barely see my guidelines anymore, but I'm still able to paint these. We're going to alternate just light, dark, light, dark. We can also add one small layer right underneath here. Now we will wait for this to dry. In the meantime, we can start adding some gold details to our this tree. For that, I'm going to pick the art philosophy's metallic watercolors. I'm picking this darker gold color. You can use any brand that you have of metallic watercolors. What I like to do is simply add this color, and then if you would like to add a little bit more color to it, either add Quinacridone Gold. It makes it a little more orangish. With that, the mix of this gold and Quinacridone Gold, I'm going to go and circle some of these balls we had painted earlier. If you want this gold to bleed into your colors, you can add this detail while the colors are still wet. It gives a nice effect. The gold bleeds into the colors and creates a coating over your watercolors. You don't need to do this for all the balls, but add enough to add nice festive touch. Now with the same color, quinacridone gold and some of this darker gold, I'm going to add little light on this pink tree. I'm just adding little dots with the tip of my brush. You can also use metallic gel pens for this. With this same color, I'm going to run it over the little lines we had created for these lights. Let's add little stars, up on top. I'm going to go back in with the darker green color, fix a few of the smudges and add a little bit more shadow underneath some of the lighter ones. While we are waiting for this one to dry, let's add little tree stumps. I'm picking some Burnt Umber with my number 2 round brush. I'll add just a touch of transparent orange to it, and with that, I'll add little rectangular stamps at the base. Just making sure it's almost in the middle. I just go around and add any little details that I need to, to fill this one up a bit more. Now I'm waiting for this one to dry. In the meantime, let's add the bleed proof white, a few little snowballs on this one. I'll also take a bit of Burnt Umber and add a little bit of shadow right underneath the tree on the tree stamp. You can get a little darker close to the tree. While this is drying, I'm just making sure to demarcate these leafy shapes using the darker green color. Now that this middle one has dried, I'm going to pick that darker gold color. Add just a touch of Quinacridone Gold to it. With that, I'm going to create these little loops for the lights and decorations. With the same, I'll add little round dots. You can add these details with white gel pen or Posca pen as well. That would also look nice. To remove the little smudge that I have here, I'm picking a clean brush with clean water and gently rubbing that color. Using a kitchen paper towel, to simply dab it. I also want to add a little bit more of white to this tree. With my Posca pen, I'm just using the tip of the pen to create little white snow dots. You can also use white gel pen for this. With this, our three stylized Christmas trees are ready. I hope you enjoyed this project. Do check out the bonus lesson to learn six more different techniques of painting stylized Christmas trees. I'm curious to see which styles are your favorite, so do share your projects. 12. Bonus Lesson 6 Extra Trees: As a bonus lesson to our stylized Christmas tree project, I want to show you six more ways of painting them. I've drawn six trees in two rows, simple triangular shapes for guidelines. For the very first and simplest tree, all you need is a number 2 round brush and simple black or dark green color in your brush keeping it quite thick. With that, I'm going to start up on top and create these little curves. Then you can simply add some gold. I'm picking some deeper gold color, a little star up on top. You can also add little gold dots on it. For now, I'm letting it dry. Now let's see the second tree. Let's pick some Quinacridone Magenta into that earlier violet mix we had created for the project. Some Quinacridone Magenta and with that, some Dioxazine Violet. With that here as well, I'm going to follow the triangular shape and just create these little frill shapes leaving some white in-between. Simply some frill shapes using the tip of my brush. In-between these, you can add colorful dots or golden dots. Let's try to pick some of this metallic pink color. You can go back in on the first one and add some gold dots keeping it simple, not adding too many. For third one, we're going to keep it very simple and take some of this Opera Rose and Transparent Yellow mix that we had used earlier for one of our project. I'll add a little bit more of Rose Madder Genuine to it. This is better. With my flat brush, I'm going to simply fill this triangular shape, wait for it to dry a bit, and then we will add little details on top. For this fourth tree, I'm going to pick some Rose Madder Genuine, add a little bit of Quinacridone Gold to it. If you want to keep the edges crisp, you can also add some masking tape along these two edges. Now we will wait for this to dry. For the fifth one, let's pick some Quinacridone Magenta in our brush, add it to the violet mix, and with this, I'm going to use my number 2 round brush and create these little swirls in the tree simply following the triangular guidelines, not worrying too much about the direction of the swirls. Now for the spaces towards the edges, I'm just adding these little curvy shapes. Now while it's still wet, I'm going to pick some darker gold color and run it along these curves we have created not covering them entirely, letting my colors bleed at places. For the sixth one, I want to create stripes with this blue, which is a mixture of Phthalo Blue and Sap Green. I'm going to leave a lot of space in-between these stripes because I will be adding some green in-between them. With my same number 2 round brush, I'm picking that lighter green color. This tree is nice for those of you where you have warm Christmas. Now we have three unfinished trees. For this third tree we have painted, I'm going to pick some of that deeper gold color and with that, I'm going to add little dashes facing downward all over the tree. You can also use white for this or black or even a darker base color. Add the star to finish this. With that same darker gold, I'm going to add little lines for this tree where we have added those round dots. I'm going to take some Quinacridone Magenta in my number 2 round brush and with that pure color, I'm going to create some lines in this fourth tree starting with just the tip of the brush and then pushing my brush down. While this dries, let's add little details to this one. With the same gold color, some triangular shape. The color got smudged a little bit here, but that's okay. Now while this magenta is still drying, let's add the gold in-between. The gold will bleed into it, but it's a nice look. In-between the two magenta lines, I'm going to add one gold line. You can keep this tree just as it is or decide to add little white details. Now with our Burnt Umber, let's add little stumps. You can leave the trees like this, but I like to add little stumps underneath them. I'll add a little bit more Quinacridone Magenta just to give a bit more color to this tree. Let's remove the pencil lines. Here you have six more ways to paint stylized Christmas trees. 13. Wreath Introduction: Welcome to another project. The idea for this one is to write a holiday greeting and enclose it in an elegant winter wreath. To create the wreath you can hand draw the circle. This will give a bit more enhanced hand-drawn look and a bit more looseness to your wreath. Or you can use any circular object or a compass to create a little guideline. You can randomly add different winter shrubbery around on the wreath. Or if you want a bit more uniform distribution, what I like to do is add one element at regular intervals, say a pine frond like this. Second one here, and the third one here. Now in-between these, you can add the other elements. Little twigs of leaves, mistletoe, holly, our simple berries. We'll be adding these little twigs which have both leaves and berries. You can keep this wreath quite minimal and elegant. But feel free to add as many elements you would like. If you'd like to make it denser, simply add more leaves. For the middle, you can find any message, any holiday greeting that you would like in your own language, or something simple like, I would write in a playful lettering style, winter wishes. You can write Merry and Bright. If you have some elegant calligraphy style, this is the perfect place to add the holiday greeting . 14. Wreath Part I: I've already drawn this wreath on this watercolor paper with very faint pencil lines. You can also further remove excess graphite using a kneading gum eraser like this. I'm not going to be using too much water so I have not taped the paper down, but feel free to use a masking tape to attach the paper to a cardboard if that's more comfortable to you. Now, let's mix the colors. I'm going to first start with the three pine fronds, one here, another one here, and one here. For that, let's first mix some Burnt Umber. Going to add just a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson to it. With my number 2 round, pointed brush, da Vinci Cosmotop-Spin. I'm going to paint the central line for the pine frond, keeping the direction clockwise. Now while this is drying just a little bit, let's mix a few different greens. I'm starting with some Sap Green. To this first puddle I'll add a bit of Indigo, turning it into a really dark green color. I'll make some light green as well. To this, let's add a little bit of Quinacridone Gold. Let's also create slightly duller green. For that, I'm quickly picking some black. This is a neat, little trick. Simply pick black, which is a neutral color and add any yellow that you have and it gives you a dark but neutral green. Here's that green. We have a really dark green, a light green, and a duller green. For this, to create the little pine fronds, you can use number 2 brush or if you would like them even finer, you can use a triple zero or zero brush. Let's first try with the lightest color and just adding these little marks, don't worry if your brown is still wet. Little lines just using the tip of the brush, not pressing it down. Making these fine lines close to each other, moving along the central line. Starting with the lightest color first. Now I'm going to pick that duller green. Add a few more. Our aim is to make them nice and full looking. Don't worry if your earlier layer is slightly wet. I'm not covering the earlier layer completely. This is a very simple wreath, but feel free to add more elements to it. Before we add the darkest green to it, we're going to wait just a little bit so that we can add some red dots to them to make them a bit more festive. For that, we need the colors to dry a little bit. In the meantime, let's concentrate on these leaves and berries. I'm going to start with some Burnt Umber. To that I'm going to add just a touch of Indigo. This will give me a color almost close to black. With that, I'm going to draw a little twig with alternating leaves and berries. This side leaf, that side berries, the other side leaf. Just using the tip of the brush. Leaf, berry, leaf, berry. For berries, I'm keeping the twig a little longer. Now to add the berries, I'm going to pick some Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I've also got some Winsor Red for more brighter red. With that, I'll add a few berries here. You can also decide to first add the leaves so that you have a bit more idea where to fill the berries. Before we add the leaves and more berries, let's add these remaining twigs. Now, let's mix the color for our leaves here. I'm going to start with some paler blue. To that I'll add just a touch of Sap Green, more water. Adding just a touch more of Sap Green. That's a nice color. Now with my number 4 Princeton Velvetouch round brush, let's use this mix to create the leaves keeping them broad on top. Touch, push, and lift and another stroke to complete the leaf. Sometimes I start near the stem and go outwards and sometimes I start from top and come back in. Feel free to rotate the paper. While the leaves are drying, we can start adding the little berries. For that we have Alizarin Crimson and also Winsor Red. Simply alternate these colors. Some lighter, brighter berries and a few darker ones. Make them smaller as you go towards the outer side. This is an imaginary shrub, but feel free to add a bit more recognizable element in here, maybe a mistletoe are a holly, or if you have any local holiday shrub that grows, feel free to add that as well. With the same bright Winsor Red, I'm going to add a few red dots on the pine fronts as well. 15. Wreath Part II: Now let's go back in with the darker berries. With Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I'm just using the tip of my brush to create these round shapes. Feel free to rotate your paper if it's easier. There's always the danger of smudging the colors. I'm straightening the paper to see how the wreath is looking. With my triple zero brush, I'm going to pick that same mix of taylor blue and some sap green. With that darker mix and not too much water, I'm going to create little veins on all of these leaves. You can add these with gold as well or white. I plan to add little gold berries as well. That's why I'm not painting these with gold. Keep rotating the paper if it's easier for you to add these little details like that. Now with that triple zero brush, I'm going to pick that really dark green mix and just add a few needles to the pine fronds. Don't add too much of this color. The little smudge of red here. It's okay, we'll fix it. We'll just add an extra berry there. Going to rinse my brush, patted dry slightly, and just join that little smudge into a round berry. All of these elements have now dried. I'm going to take my Van Gogh number 0 brush and pick some black in my brush. Doesn't have too much water, but I need it to have enough moisture in it so that I can letter easily. With that, I'm going to carefully add color to the lettering here. I've added the letters. Now with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick that light bluish green mixed with which we have painted the leaves and add a few dots. Scatter them around the whole wreath. This is just a little extra touch. You can skip it if you don't like this. Now with the metallic watercolors, let's add a few golden berries. For that, let's pick some Quinacridone Gold first. To that, let's add this deeper gold color. With that, let's add a few berries with gold. We can add a little bit of this gold also to the pine front here. Just go around and see if you would like to add a little more visible twig using that same burnt umber and indigo mix. Using that same color we used for the leaves, just adding a little bit more of the color to some of the leaves. Not entirely. Just a little bit along one of the edges so that they don't look very flat. With this, our wreath is finished. I hope you enjoyed this project. I'm excited to see which wreath elements you've chosen, and what message you have added with your wreath. Do share your projects. 16. Ornament Introduction: Let's paint some Christmas tree ornaments. The idea is to paint tree ornaments and I'm going to hang them from this display branch, like a wooden branch. We will add some pine fronds, some berries and then from this, we are going to hang three ornaments. For the first one I want to take the inspiration from Retro Ornaments. With the help of the compass, I'm going to draw three circles. We're going to add some designs to this. For the second ornament, I'm going to paint a star made out of wooden sticks and twines, and for the third one, I want to paint an ornament in the shape of a pine cone. Something like this and then we can further decide to decorate this with a string of beads. This was my rough sketch. Now let's get started with the painting. 17. Ornaments Part I: I've already drawn the rough sketch on my watercolor paper. I'm not going to be using too much water, so I'm not taping the paper down to the table or a board. We are going to be painting the first and the third ornament with bright colors. For that, I'm going to be picking nice and bright magenta and a pretty blue for this third one. I'm going to first mix a light wood color. For that, you can directly pick Burnt Umber. With my number 4 round brush, using just the tip of the brush, I'm adding some color to this wooden branch. Try to keep this a little light initially, so that when you add the little strings with which you'll attach the ornaments to it, they can be visible. For now, just a basic coat is all it needs. I'm going to pick that same Burnt Umber and mix just a touch of Transparent Orange to it, and with that, I'm going to paint the outlines of this star. You need to have a bit of a steady hand to make straight lines. But feel free to create it in little portions, and also, if it's more comfortable to you, turn your paper around. For this first one, I want the center to be nice and yellow and the outer part to be magenta in color. For the center, I'm going to start with a very light wash of Cadmium-free Yellow and just carefully color this whole center, this smallest circle. While it's drying, let's try the magenta we're going to use. It's pretty all by itself, so I'll mix a good quantity of it. Now in my Mop number 0 brush, I'm going to pick that magenta and carefully try to color the outer circle, just being careful around the guidelines. You can draw this project a bit more loosely and not worry too much about creating perfect circle and don't worry about creating a smooth wash. You'll be adding more details to this. I followed the outer edge nicely but the inner one is slightly not so perfect, but you're not going to worry about that. While it's still wet, decide on one of the sides, whether left or right, and deposit a little extra color there. Something like this. Let it dry like this. While this is drying, we are going to get back to our star here. I'm going to pick some Quinacridone Gold. Add some Burnt Umber to it. I'm trying to see which brown would look nice for the twines on it. We can try this brown, is a little more yellowish. I'll try adding a little bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson to it. This is a nice reddish brown, like mahogany wood's color. With number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick this color. I'm going to draw the strings. Crisscross on all of the points. Again, don't worry about making it perfect. I'm keeping strings just a point bigger than the sticks that we had added earlier, so that it looks like the twine is wrapped around the wooden sticks. Coming on to the third one, let's pick some pure French Ultramarine Blue. For this, you can also pick a nice darker green color. In my number 4 round brush and with this, I'm going to paint the overlapping layers of these broad leafy shapes. While the ornaments are drying, I'm going to slightly turn the page around and add a few fronds of pine to decorate. For that, you can pick any one of the browns you have mixed. Let's pick some green. I've got some Sap Green, to that I'll add some Ultramarine Blue, and with that I'll add these fine lines. Keep turning the page around to see exactly where you want to add these extra bits. I'm not going to add too many of them because we also will be adding a few twigs of berries. Just being careful not to smudge the wet color. It's always a risk when you're simultaneously working on other parts of the painting but it does save a little bit of time. If you want to make the needles of these bind fronts even finer pick a smaller brush, like a zero or triple zero. Now, I'm going to use my brown mix to create a few extra twigs. Now, with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some Quinacridone Gold and add a little flower shape in the center. Instead of a flower shape, you can also draw an ice crystal. For this, feel free to pick any design that you like. I'll add the same Quinacridone Gold mix to the top holder part of the two ornaments. While all of this is drying, let's add a few twigs of berries. 18. Ornaments Part II: Now my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some Winsor Red. Let's first start by covering this little smudge. Here goes a little berry, another one here. Rinsing my brush, patting it dry and without picking new color, I'm adding more circular shapes. They will come a little lighter, a little fuzzier looking. I paint a few berries with pure color and a few of them with just a rinsed brush. You can also add a few of these red dots on these pine fronds. I'm not trying to make them perfectly circular, just little round shapes, bigger at the base and smaller up on top. This first one is still a little bit wet, so I'm not going to touch it. But in the meantime, let's pick French Ultramarine Blue color. With that, let's add the little shadow marks underneath the layers. For this ornament, I'm going to choose the left side to add a little bit more color. I'm going to add a little bit more of Indigo to our Sap-Green mixture, to add a few darker needles. With my Quinacridone Gold, I'm going to add the little loop on top of the ornaments. With that same color, a little bit of shadow on the left side. Now in my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some Winsor red. With that, I'll follow the guidelines and attach the ornament to the wooden branch here and where it meets the ornament, I'll add a little bow. Same for this one. With the help of the compass, I'm going to make the second circle's line a bit more visible because I need to add a design there. In my Number 2, round brush, I'm going to pick the magenta with which we painted this ornament. I'm just going to follow the outline a little bit. Rinse my brush, pat it dry slightly, and then soften it. I'll add a bit more color right underneath where the hanging part of the ornament is. While all of this is drying, let's add a little bit more color and texture to the wooden branch here. With my same reddish-brown mix I'm going to add a little bit more color. Just mixing a little bit more of Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson for a few darker spots. I will also draw a little loop for the garland, either of light or you can put colorful beads. In my Number 2 round brush. I'm going to pick some darker gold. With that, I'm going to add these gold dots. With the Burnt Umber, I'll add the little string in between them. Still using my Number 2 round brush, just using the point of it. While we are adding the gold, I'll pick pure gold, again in my Number 2 round brush and with that, I'm going to add this little layer demarcating marks to this ornament. Now in my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some bleed-proof white. With this, I'm going to create this leafy circular shape to decorate this ornament. Feel free to use your white gel pen for this. Now, let's pick some gold, add it to the central design we had created. With my Quinacridone Gold, I'm going to add little boxes inside the holders of this ornament. Now, I'm just going to add a few berries here and there. We're almost done with that project. Let's go around and see if you would need to add more details. A few finishing touches. If you would like to, you can add a little bit more darker color where the sticks are joining. I can spend a long time adding little details here and there. But I think our three ornaments are ready. I hope you enjoyed this project. 19. Wrapped Gifts Part I: Who doesn't love some nicely wrapped presents? And that's exactly what we are painting in this project. I'm going to be painting three of them. The first one will be in the shape of a box with a lid on top, a ribbon wrapped around it with the bow on top. For the second one, I like the idea of a drawstring bag shaped wrapped gift. We'll add some berries little pines, and a gift tag. And for the third one, we'll keep it simple. Making it a square. Tie it with a string and a bow in the center. I have my drawing ready here. To prevent smudging, I'm going to paint from left to right, since I'm right-handed. For this very first one, I want to start with the base of the box, and I want to paint red plate design on it. For that, I will first add a very light red base. Picking some Winsor Red, adding quite a bit of water to it. Testing the color and with my flat number eight brush, I'm going to paint the base of this box. If you want to paint them loosely, just quickly create the shape to add more hand-drawn effect. I'm leaving the little strip for that ribbon in-between. For the second one, let's create a very light blush color. For that, I'll pick some Rose Madder Genuine and to that, I'll add just a touch of Transparent Yellow. That's a nice color. Now with my number 4 round brush, I'll pick this color and paint the entire shape with it. For this third one, I'm going to pick some Burnt Umber, add a touch of Quinacridone Gold to it, and add plenty of water. Bit more Burnt Umber. That's nice. So it's burnt amber plus Quinacridone Gold. And with that, I'll just paint this little square that I had drawn covering it completely. I'm not worrying too much about painting very smooth shapes. We'll be adding texture up on top. Just a base coat is all you need. I'll pick some pure Quinacridone Gold, add just a touch of Rose Madder Genuine to it and with that, I'm going to paint the little lid for this first box. Extending it just ever so slightly outside the edge of the base. Now in my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some Winsor Red, add a touch of Alizarin Crimson to it. With that, I'm going to create the plate pattern. For that, I'm going to draw a few broad stripes. Now in between these broad stripes, I'm going to add few thinner ones. While these are drying, I'm going to pick some Burnt Umber. Add a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson and with that, I'll create the strings around this present. Adding a little simple bow in the center. The center one has now dried a little bit. I'm going to pick a bit of Quinacridone Magenta, add some Dioxazine Violet to it. Add quite a bit of water to the mix and with this light color, I'm going to create some vertical stripes. I'm following the shape of the back so that it looks like it's scrunched up in the middle. The red horizontal stripes have dried. So now it's time to add the vertical ones. Same Winsor Red and Permanent Alizarin Crimson mix and I'll follow the same pattern. First, a few broad ones and then thin ones in-between them. Now with some Permanent Alizarin Crimson, my number 2 round brush, just going to add a little extra color, where the broad stripes are crossing each other. Just to add a little extra. It's nice to add these little details. Now I'm going to pick some gold in my brush. Same number 2 round brush, and add a few gold lines in there as well. A bit more loosely. Now, this one has dried, so I'm going to mix a green color. So for that picking some Sap Green. Since it's a bit darker base, light green won't be that easily visible so I'll add a little bit of Indigo to my Sap Green and with that, I'm going to add the pine frond little pine leaves, fine needle shape. We'll let that dry and in the meantime, we can pick deeper gold color and add a little polka dot pattern all over this wrapped present. Now with my same number 2 round brush and the same color which we had used to create this top lid. I'm going to pick that color. Moisture has dried from it so it's a bit darker and with that, just create these fine lines. Adding a little pattern to the lid. 20. Wrapped Gifts Part II: Now, let's add some Pine fronds here. For that, we'll again pick the Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson mix. Add a couple of loops of strings here, a few twigs of berries, and a few fine leaves. Picking that same darker green mix we used earlier, sap green and Indigo in it and with that, adding these needles. With that same burnt umber and Alizarin Crimson mix. I'll also add a little gift tag here. Now, let's add a few berries. I'll pick some Winsor Red. I'll take a little bit of Lamp Black to attach the gift tag. Now, we can get back to this first one. For the middle ribbon, I'm going to mix a very light green. Some Sap Green. You can directly use that as well. I like to add a little touch of Quinacridone Gold and with that, I'll paint this ribbon in the center. Nice red and green combination. I'll use the same color to paint the bow. We'll be adding two holly leaves in-between. I'm waiting for this to dry. I'm adding a few faint marks on the tags so that it looks like somebody has written on it. I'm going to pick my darker green mix of Sap Green and Indigo. With that, I'm going to add the holly leaves. A straight line and then these pointy curves, some Winsor Red and Alizarin Crimson in the center. Now, that lighter green mix with which we had painted this ribbon, I'm going to add just a touch more of Sap Green to it and with that, I'll paint the shadow for the inside part of this ribbon. You can obviously leave these things as it is and not worry too much. But it's nice to add little details to your work like this. Just a few extra bits, picking a bit more of the darker green color. Adding a little bit of shadow right here. Rinse my brush pen to dry, just soften it a little bit. Now, with some Permanent Alizarin Crimson I'm going to add a little bit of shadow right underneath the ribbon on one of the sides. I'm choosing the left side. A little bit of that orangish, yellow mix we used for the lid as well. A little bit more shadow right underneath the lid. We're almost reaching the completion of this. I'll add a little bit more of that orangish color towards the base here as well. Just giving a little darker color to some areas of the stripes on this drawstring package. Just giving a little bit more color, little bit more green to this ribbon here. Now, I'm dipping my brush in some gold. I'll add the central vein to the holly here and a little bit gold to the berries on the bough as well. You can just go around and see if you would like to add more details anywhere. I'll just add a little red berry here and with this, our three wrapped gifts are ready. I hope you enjoyed this project. I would love to see what you made out of these, so do share it in your projects. 21. Dove of Peace Introduction: For this project, I want to paint a stylized representation of a symbol of peace, a dove, surrounded by some winter botanicals in the form of a semi wreath with a ribbon bow on top and words, peace on earth accompanying it. To create the drawing, you can first start with a circular guideline, add a bow on top. As with the rest of the projects, please refer to the drawings provided in the download section if you would like to use it as a reference. Next to the bows, we're going to add some winter foliage, so some pine fronds, some winter berries, some mistletoe. You can paint this wreath quite loosely if you would like that style. We can add some rose hips, some holly. In the middle, I will add a stylized representation of a dove, with the twig of olive leaves held in between the beak. We will add some color on top for our stylized representation, and you can also add the word peace on earth in your favorite lettering style. Now, let's get started. 22. Dove of Peace Part I: I have transferred my sketch on my watercolor paper. Now we can get started with the painting. I'll first start with the bow, and I'm going to pick plain Winsor Red. With this, I'm going to cover the entire shape of the bow, not worrying about the shadows at this point. Simply covering the entire shape of the bow, the two loops, the knot in-between, and also the remaining part of the ribbon. Let's mix a little bit of a reddish-brown color to add some twigs to the semi-wreath. For that, I'm going to start with some Burnt Umber and add a little bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson to it. Now, with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick this mix and add a few twigs following the circular guideline. Let's give a base color to our dove. For that, I need to mix a gray. With that, I start with a bit of Cobalt Blue, add some Transparent Yellow to it, and some Winsor Red, so my three primaries. A bit more Cobalt Blue, and here I already have a nice gray. To make it bluish gray, I'm going to add a bit more cobalt blue to it. With lots of water in my brush, this is the color I want for the body. Using my number 4 round brush for this. Now I will wait for this to dry. In the meantime, let's mix some Permanent Alizarin Crimson along with Winsor Red. With that, we can create some details on the ribbon. I'm adding darker color to show the underside of the ribbon on the top side of the loop, also where the knot is formed. Just giving the bow a bit of shape rather than making it look quite flat. You can decide to leave the bow like this or add some pattern on it, dots or stripes. For now, I will leave it like this. We'll decide to add a pattern later. Let's add a nice and blue ring to our dove. For that, I'm going to pick some French Ultramarine Blue and paint the ring with it. Nice and bright blue. This is a stylized representation, so don't worry so much about the color, the pattern. With the same color, let's also add the tail. Now while this is drying, we can start mixing our greens and add a few winter foliage here. For that, let's mix a couple of greens. I'm going to pick Sap Green at a couple of places. To this first petal, I'm going to add some Quinacridone Gold. This will give me a really light green. To the second one, I'm going to add some Indigo for a darker green and this third one is Sap Green all by itself. I also want a duller neutral green for that. I'm picking some Lamp Black, and to that, I'm going to add some Quinacridone Gold. This is a quick way of mixing a neutral dark green. That's nice. Now we can start adding some foliage here. I'll first start with my light green, which is Sap Green plus Quinacridone Gold, and paint one pine front here. Another one here. Now I'll pick the darker green mix, sap green, and indigo, and add a few darker needles. Now with my neutral green, which is lampblack and quinacridone gold, I'm going to paint a few mistletoe leaves. Still trying to follow the lead guidelines. For this side, I want to add two rose hips. Picking some Winsor Red and Alizarin Crimson mix. With that, I'll paint one and the second one. Before I forget, I'll also add some lampblack to their bottom. You can add some holly here. I will simply add a few more of pine fronts here. Some light green followed by some darker green needles. Adding a few more twigs. Now we can start adding a few berries. I'll first start with some Winsor Red painting round circular shapes. Not too many with the pure color. Adding a few on the pine fronts as well. After adding these pure color berries, I'm going to rinse my brush, let it slightly dry. With this moist brush, I'm going to slightly touch these wet berries and create more round, fuzzy shapes right next to them. This way, my berries are a few really intense-colored ones, but a few of them fuzzy and faded look. If you feel you need to add a few extra, simply go back in with the color. I'll add a few extra twigs to give support to some of these extra berries. Let's also add a few berries to the mistletoe leaves. For that, I'll pick that gray we had mixed and add just a touch of any of the yellow. With that, at the base of the mistletoe leaf duo, I'll add one little berry. We'll wait for this to dry before we add the little darker dot on each one of them. 23. Dove of Peace Part II: Now I want to add some pattern on the body of the dove, I'll be using a couple of blues. I've got Cerulean Blue here, let's see how that looks like. Then I have Phthalo Blue, I have Ultramarine, Indigo will be too dark so we'll leave that one. I will also mix. These three blues I can directly use, I'm going to mix an icy blue, which is Phthalo Blue, with just a touch of Sap Green in it, and lots of water. It's quite close to Cerulean Blue, but has a nice vibrance to it. I'm going to pick my 000 brush and pick this nice icy blue and paint the very first stripe with it. Now I'll pick a little bit of ultramarine blue, paint a triangular pattern. For this pattern, you can take inspiration from folk art, you can draw some floral pattern or some things slightly geometrical. You can add dots, stripes, it's entirely up to you. All I'm doing is simply changing the blues I'm using and how I'm making the strips, some of them are abroad, some are slightly narrower. I also plan to add some gold details to it. Now, let's use some gold. I will activate some of the lighter gold color this time. Before I add some gold details to the bird, I'm going to quickly pick some Indigo in my brush, add it to the gray I had mixed and just add a little shadow right underneath the vein here, and a little bit between the two wings. Also, adding this darker color to the tail. Now, with my 000 brush, I'm going to pick some of the lighter gold color and add a few stripes on top of the ones I've painted already, and a few where some blank spaces visible. Feel free to use your metallic gel pen for this. Now, we will pick the same light gold color and add a few marks to the feathers. You can add these details with white as well, that would also look nice. Don't forget the feather at the back, you can add a different pattern to it or same one. That's looking nice. Well, I have golden my brush, I'm going to add a few golden dots to some of the berries as well just as a little extra. Before I forget, I'm adding a darker dot to the mistletoe berries. Let's add the beak to our bird. You can pick orange or yellow for this, I'm picking a bit of transparent orange. We'll wait for the beak to dry before we paint a little olive branch that it's holding. Now I want to add a little pattern on this ribbon. For that, I'm going to pick a bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson, a bit of Winsor Red, dilute it a bit. With this, I'm going to paint some stripes. I'm starting from the outside going in, I have three of them here, three on the other side. The stripe got too close to the edge so I'm rinsing my brush, painting it dry, and just running this thirsty brush along where I've added the stripe a bit too broad so it brings back the base color. We just have a few more details to add to the ribbon but in the meantime, we can add some color to our lettering. I have written "peace on earth" here, so I'm going to pick in my numbers zero and go, selected filament brush, some lamp black. I'm going to pick a little bit of Burnt Umber added to the Alizarin Crimson and Winsor Red mix. I'm going to add a few darker color shadows to the ribbon. Now, with the help of my 000 brush, I'm going to pick that neutral green I had mixed with some lamp black and Quinacridone Gold. With that I'm going to paint a little tweak, and with my 000 brush and some Lamp Black, let's put the eye. You can also make a little u-shape if you want to show the eye closed. We are pretty much done with the project, just go around and see if you would like to add a little touch up anywhere, a little bit of extra color, a little bit more of gold. With this, our little dove sending the message of peace and art is ready. I hope you enjoy this project. I'm excited to see what patterns you have added to your doves. 24. Car Part I: Let's paint a fun project inspired by this little ornament. For this one, I want to paint a little red car, so you can take the inspiration from your favorite car. On top of this, I want to add a tree. Let's not stop at that, let's add a few oversized gifts. This is a bit of exaggeration but why not? Then we will tie it all with the string. I sometimes paint them without drawing with a flat brush but that gives a bit of loose touch to the stack, so take your time and draw your car nicely. Feel free to use the drawing in the download section to use for your reference. I've got my car drawing ready here, now we can get started. Let's make some colors for our car. I'm going to start with some Winsor Red and a touch of Alizarin Crimson. For this shape, I like to use my flat brush because it covers bigger amount of area quickly. But if you're not comfortable using a flat brush, feel free to use your round brushes for this. I sometimes tilt my brush when I need to go into smaller areas. Flat brushes are quite versatile if you know how to use them. I'm leaving just a little white gap between the car and the wheels. I'm not a car expert so if you are, take your time to add little details to your little cars. I just want to make this one a bit more playful than our other projects. Instead of a car, you can also paint a red chevy truck. In the meantime, let's give some color to our tree, so for that, let's mix some colors. Let's mix two types of greens, this is pure Sap Green. Here, I have added some French Ultramarine to my Sap Green. You can also pick some Indigo to darken up the Sap Green a bit. First, let's paint the tree with simple Sap Green. With that, I'm going to simply paint the basic shape of the tree that I have drawn. I'm trying to keep the style consistent between the elements. If you would like to paint this whole project quite loosely, and in that case, you can make this tree a bit more loose. Being just a little bit careful, when I'm coming close to the car. I'm dropping that darker green very close to where the tree is touching the car. A few more places which are still wet just dropping the darker green, so this is called wet-on-wet. I'm adding some wet color while the base layer is still wet. Now, let's wait for this to dry. In the meantime, let's give some color to the wheels here. I'm going to pick some Lamp Black in my number 2 round brush and with that, I'm going to paint the outer circle. Not being very precise with the wheels and adding a little dot in the center. While all of this is drying, let's add some color to some of our gifts upon top. Let's start from the first one on top. For that, let's mix a pretty lilac color. Picking some Dioxazine Violet, add just a touch of Quinacridone Magenta to it and with that, let's paint the gift up on top. Our red car has almost dried, but it's looking a little faded, so I think it needs another coat of color. This time I'm picking my round brush and with that, I'm depositing a bit thicker mix, that same color with which we painted the car initially. I'm going to pick some more Quinacridone Magenta and with that, draw a straight line, a broad strip for the ribbon on this one. Let's add some color to the remaining two gifts. For the one on the right, I'm going to start with some Phthalo Blue, add a touch of Sap Green to it. Let's see how that looks, it's nice. Now with a lot of water in my brush, I'm going to color this gift with it. I'll pick a little bit of Burnt Umber, add just a touch of Alizarin Crimson to it and with that, I'll add the tree stump. Now I'm going to take my round number 2 brush. With that, I'm going to pick some Indigo and mix it further into the darker green mix. You can simply there mix some Sap Green with some Indigo. With that, I'm going to add some shadow marks on the tree. This gift is still wet here, so I'll wait. I'm not decorating this tree because it should look like it's going from the tree farm to a home where it will be decorated. That's why I'm not going to put any lights on it or any decoration. While all of this is drying, I'm going to take some of the lighter gold color and add a little polka dot pattern on this gift on top. 25. Car Part II: We just have one more present left for that one. I want to add a slightly yellowish ribbon in the middle. I'll pick some Cadmium Free Yellow and a touch of Opera Rose to it. With that, I'll first paint ribbon in the middle then loops outside. While this is drying, let's add a little stripy pattern to this one. I'm going to pick the same base color. Add just a touch more of pale blue to it. With that, paint some alternating broad and thinner stripes and do this, we're going to give red color bow on top. In my flat brush, I'm going to pick the same red mix, dilute it a bit, and with that paint this gift here. Again, if you feel more comfortable with the round brush, use that. I'll wait for it to dry, in the meantime, let's mix a slightly gray color. For that, let's pick a little bit of Cobalt Blue or Ultramarine Blue, and a touch of Transparent Yellow. Some Winsor Red so my primaries. Keep adding them till you reach the gray to your liking. That's a nice bluish-gray. With that, let's color the windows a little bit so that it doesn't look like we forgot them. I need a bit darker red, I'm just going to try how Perylene Maroon looks like. You can directly use Perylene Maroon or mix it with Winsor Red or you can mix with a green with your red or a brown with your red to darken up the red color. I like how Burnt Umber and Winsor Red together look like. With this, I'm going to give a little suggestion of some details like this wheel fender. I'm going to pick a little bit of black in my brush, and give us addition of steering wheel. I'll make two little lines on the window to make it look like it's glass and now all that remains is this gift here. We'll pick some Winsor red and create a little plaid pattern here. You don't have to be precise with it, just make it nice and playful. Now I'm going to pick some bleed-proof white, add a few details. Now I'm going to pick that darker red color, which was Winsor Red plus sun Burnt Umber, and give some crossover boxes on this plate pattern a bit darker color. You can skip all of this. These are just little extra bits to add. Some nice details. Also adding a little bit of shadow right next to the ribbon. Now, I'm going to pick some lighter gold color and with that, add a few lines to the gift here. My initial plan was to add a black-color ribbon running all the way from top to the car here and then tie it with the little bow. You can stop at this. I would like to give my initial idea try. In my Number two round brush, I'm going to pick some Lamp Black since I will have to cover places where there is color. I'm not adding too much water in my brush, keeping it quite saturated. Now I'm going to simply pick some of my initial red mix, just add a few more shadow marks to the car. Now that this black has dried, I'm going to take my Posca pen and with that, I'm going to add this little pattern by dots. You can also use white gel pen for this. At this point, we are almost done with our illustration. Just check if you would like to add any more details anywhere. I would like the top of it a bit more pointy. I will add a little bit of that gray color to the center of the wheels as well. With this, our little beep car is ready carrying a tree and overloaded with gifts. I hope you enjoyed this project and have fun creating it. 26. Woodland Cabin Part I: For this final project, let's paint something relaxing. For this project, I want to paint a cute little scene featuring a red cabin and some evergreen trees surrounding it. I want to keep the cabin really simple, trees right behind it. I do want to add a little bit of blue color to the sky, just really roughly, you don't need to paint a very smooth wash. Just give a bit of color to the sky right behind the trees and the cottage will also be creating some snow marks with some bleed-proof white splatters. Now let's get started. I've got a really simple drawing of the cottage here. I will leave the roof white and paint rest of it red. You can pick any red of your choice. Let's see which ones I have. This is Winsor Red, and that's Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I'm going to pick some Winsor Red in my Flat number 8 brush, and with that, I'm going to give the base of the cottage red color. You can paint this project really loosely, so very quickly paint this cottage. Now I will wait for this to dry just a little bit before I wet the area around it for the sky. Let's already make some color for this guy. I'm going to pick some cobalt blue. Now with my pencil I'll also give a little bit of white sliver here for the other side of the roof. Now with some clean brush in my fluffy Round number 6 brush, I'm going to wet the area around the cottage, plain water in my brush. I'm picking this water from a clean jar. Just red a big area around the cottage. Keep the paper nicely red. Don't worry about creating a very smooth wash. This is just to give a little bit of color to the sky. Now, rinse my brush but it's slightly dry, and with that, I'm going to pick some of that blue color and add it to the sky close to the cottage and just let it bleed into the wet paper. This is a wet-on-wet application. The paper is wet and you're adding wet color to it. Now I will wait for this to dry before I add the trees. While this background is drying, let's make some greens to paint our trees. For that, I'm going to mix a couple of greens. You can obviously mix your variety of yellows with your blues to create different types of greens. I like to start mine with simple Sap Green. This is pure Sap Green. To this one, I'll add a little bit of Phthalo Blue, gives a nice bright green, and to this one, I will add Indigo to give me a dark green. Now that the background has dried, I'm going to quickly pick some Winsor Red, add a little chimney right up here. Now, with my number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick all of these greens that we have mixed, starting with some simple Sap Green upon top, quickly change to the other greens, some darker green. I'll pick some of that darker green and drop it on the tree. I'm simply varying my green mixes and using a swoosh brushstroke, starting from the middle, moving away. I'll go and pick some pure Indigo as well, add some darker marks, closer to the cabin. Let's paint a few more, so draw a guideline, make some lighter green first for the top smaller brushstrokes, change the color as you're going down. Making some pure Indigo, again, dropping it in while the tree is still wet. Let's add one more here, slightly smaller one. Now I'm going to pick some Lamp Black in my same number 2 round brush, and with that, I'll paint a few trees without any leaves. I keep their branches thinner as they are going outwards. 27. Woodland Cabin Part II: Now let's give some attention to our cottage. With my number 4 round brush, I'm going to pick some Winsor Red and add just a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson to it. With that, I'm going to paint some vertical stripes to depict wooden planks. I will also mix a little bit of gray color to create some smoke coming out of the chimney. For that, I've already got Cobalt Blue here. If I add all of my primaries, so some Winsor Red, a little bit of Transparent Yellow, I will get a neutral color and to that, I'll add a little bit more of Cobalt Blue to get a nice bluish gray. Adding a lot of water in my brush. With that, I'll just add a little bit of this gray color. Now I'm going to take my number 2 round brush, pick some Burnt Umber, mix it with the red we just used. With this deeper red I'm going to paint a little bit of shadow right underneath the cabin's roof. Now with some black, I'll add a little door here. Two little windows here. Two small ones on the other side. Waiting for this door and this red to dry just a little bit before I add a little bit of color on the ground here and a few more grass or dried shrubs right on the foreground here. A little bit more of that gray, the Cobalt Blue, Transparent Yellow and Winsor Red. Add just a little bit of color to the roof at some of the places. Just a few marks. While the trees are drying, I'll go back in with some pure Indigo if I want to add a few deeper color marks. Now I'm going to pick that same gray color, add a little bit more of Cobalt Blue to it. Just with my number 6 round brush, it's a fluffy round brush. I'm just running it along the foreground at a couple of places, just to depict some snow that has fallen. I will pick my number 000 brush. With that, add a few dried shrubs. These are just very minor details. You can leave them, but they do add a nice touch. With a little bit of Burnt Umber in my brush, I'm going to add it to that same gray and now it's slightly brownish. With that, I'll paint a little path coming out of the house. I'll pick that Winsor Red and Burnt Umber mix again just reinforcing the shadows right underneath the roof. Now for the fun part, I'm going to pick my bleed proof white. You can also pick white gouache or white ink. With a really rough brush, let's add some little white splatters. Very fine. A few bigger ones. Not covering the entire green with it. This much is enough. Now with my triple zero brush, let's add just a few little birds flying in the sky. Before I forget, I'll add a little bit of snow on top of the chimney. With this, our little cottage with some evergreen trees is ready. I really hope you enjoyed this relaxing project. 28. Closing: I really hope you enjoyed these projects and I can't wait to see which ones you will create. Please make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare so that we all can admire them. If you're sharing them on Instagram, please tag me. I love sharing your projects with my audience. If you have any queries, please use the Discussion tab and I will try my best to answer them. It's also a great place to interact with other students of this class. If you enjoyed this class, please consider leaving a review to help with the class reach, you can follow me here on Skillshare to get updates about my future classes. Thank you so much for watching and until next time, stay creative and have lots of fun creating some holiday art.