Winter Watercolor Workshop: Paint 10 Festive Holiday Greeting Cards

1. Introduction: Hand painting holiday greeting cards is a beautiful way to show your love to your friends and family. And to get your greeting cards ready for this gifting season, I'm bringing you this winter Watercolor workshop. Hi, my name is Garima Srivastava. I'm an artist, surface designer, and a top teacher here on Skillshare. With my art classes, I've taught thousands of students across the globe my stress free way of making art. Winter holiday themed illustrations are some of my favorites to paint, and I've filled this class up to the brim with greeting card lessons to bring you plenty of inspiration for this holiday season. This class is suitable for all skill levels, as I've included special lessons for beginners to get you quickly comfortable with watercolors. We'll be having a look at important watercolor concepts. We'll be practicing our brush strokes. I will show you how to mix the perfect winter holiday theme colors. We'll be practicing painting various winter botanical elements before we move on to setting up our greeting cards and painting ten beautiful festive projects with bite size lessons. Whether you like painting traditional themes like wreaths, trees, or baubles, or would like to explore some fun ideas like a cute snowman or a winter hat, I've got it all covered. We'll be approaching all of these ten designs with simple brush strokes, eye catching color mixes, and finish them with plenty of festive shimmer and shine. As a project for this class, you can choose to paint one or more out of the ten designs that I've demonstrated in this class, either as a greeting card or as a wall art or simply have fun and paint them in your sketchbook. I won't keep you waiting too long, so get your watercolor art supplies and join me for this winter watercolor workshop. I'll see you there. 2. Class Framework and Resources: Let's have a look at some of the resources that I've shared for this class. For each of the ten projects, I'm providing line drawing and a photograph of my finished painting for your reference. List of all the art supplies, color names and brands, and color mixing recipes have also been provided in the resources. You can find all of these resources under the Projects and Resources tab of this class. Before we move forward, let's have a look how to navigate this class. In the next lesson, I will show you all your project options for this class and how to submit to your project here on Skillshare. After that, I will show you all the art supplies that I've used for this class. The lesson after that is for watercolor beginners to quickly get acquainted with basic watercolor concepts and techniques that have been used in this class. We will do some brushstroke practice. I will teach you my way of mixing winter botanical color palette. We will also practice painting a few basic winter botanical elements. I've also included a short lesson on how to prepare your greeting cards to paint. After all these informative lessons, we will then move on to painting ten beautiful festive projects with each of them being close to 10 minutes long. You can simply go sequentially or jump directly to the ones that you really like. 3. Your Project: As the project for this class, you can choose to paint one or more of the ten designs that I've demonstrated in this class, either as a greeting card or as a wall art or simply have fun and paint them in your sketchbook. Your project options are a botanical pattern, a botanical border design, a wreath, a winter bouquet, a decorated festive candle, a cup of hot chocolate, a cute snowman, a winter hat, a bauble, and a deck up tree. I would love to see your progress and results. So please make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare. You can simply click photograph of your work and upload them here under your projects. You can always use the discussion tab to ask me any questions about this class, and I'll try my best to answer them. Now let's have a look at the Art supplies 4. Art Supplies: Let's have a look at the art supplies that are used for this class, but please remember that you do not need these exact colors or art supplies to get started. You can simply start and enjoy the process using what you already have. Since we are painting these illustrations and greeting cards with watercolors, I do suggest to use Watercolor paper, minimum 300 GSM in weight. Based on your personal preference, you can use either hot press paper or cold press paper. Hot Press paper is quite smooth to touch, and the cold press paper has a bit of texture to it. You can buy branded cold press watercolor paper, 300 GSM in weight. There are so many different brands out there. You can use any one of them. You can also buy your cold press watercolor paper from your local hobby store. So this is cold press paper from Flying Tiger. It comes in a block like this, which has two glued sides. So I can paint directly on it. But if I want, I can also detach this sheet very easily. Now I can chop it down and then fold it to create two separate greeting cards that I can paint. You can also find more budget friendly brands like Canson XL or Canson Montval they come in paper pads like this and you can detach them here and then later fold this into a greeting card to paint on. One of the surface has a bit of texture, and the other side is a bit more smoother. So you will need some paper to paint your greeting cards. If you have already folded greeting cards, that's really nice, but you can also use your Coldpress watercolo paper and fold it and have to paint your greeting cards. Now let's look at the brushes I'm using today. For my color mixing, I'm using a Da Vinci Pure Kolinksky number 6 pointed round brush. It is a really old brush and has lost this point, so I use it for color mixing and to create big shapes. The brush you will see me use the most in this class is a pointed round number 3 brush. It's from a lesser known brand called Intrend but you can find this size brush in any of the popular brush brands. I will also be using a number four pointed round brush. This is from Princeton's velvet touch range. Will also see me create some finer details with a 000 brush or 3/0 brush. It's a really fine detail brush. I might also be using a flat number eight brush to create some bigger shapes. These will be all the brushes that I need today. Apart from this, you're going to need a pencil to create some rough sketches. You will be needing an eraser or a kneading gum eraser to erase your pencil lines, a Scotch tape or a masking tape to attach your greeting cards to a cardboard surface to prevent them from warping too much. You're going to need a spritz bottle to activate your colors. For the colors, I've got my favorite tube colors squeezed out into these small wells. You can also use pan color sets or freshly squeeze out your favorite colors onto your color mixing palette. For color mixing, I like to use this porcelain color mixing plate, but you can also use a plastic color mixing plate or a simple white porcelain dinner plate. You will also need some bleed proof white. You can also use POSCA pen, white gel pen, white gouache. To add some festive shimmer and shine, I will be using this Royal talens' metallic gold, but you can also use metallic gel pen for that. Apart from this, you will need flat cardboard surfaces like this to attach your greeting cards while you paint them. I have saved these from my previously used watercolor paper pads. They always come with a hard cardboard surface like this, so you can save them to use later. To control the amount of water in your brush, you can use kitchen paper towel or even a toilet paper to remove excess moisture from your brush. And I do suggest to keep at least two jars of clear water with you. One of them will be to create some fresh color mixes, and the other one will be to wash your dirty brush. The entire list of art supplies, color names, and color swatches can be found under the projects and resources of this class. 5. Watercolor Techniques: If you're new to Watercolors, let me show you some of the important watercolor concepts and techniques that have been used in this class to get you comfortable with them. I will give you a few tips to quickly get started with watercolors. Whether you have tube colors that you've squeezed out earlier or you're using a pan color set like this, you're going to need a spritz bottle or something to spray a little bit of water on top of these watercolors to activate them. If it's freshly squeezed out tube color, they will be very easily activated and you'll be able to grab a lot of color with just one pick. But for the dried colors, you will need to quickly sprits a little bit of water on top of your watercolors and let it sit for, say, half a minute or something just to activate the colors. For mixing your colors, try to use a not so new brush because color mixing can be sometimes a bit hard on the brush. So try to use an older brush. Before you start mixing your colors, simply rinse your brush and pick your color. Like this. Then on a mixing plate, whether it's plastic, ceramic, porcelain, you can see it has gotten moist again. In my brush, I've got quite a strength of color. There's not much moisture in my brush. With that, if I'll paint something, you can see how dark the color is coming out. Now, to the same amount of color, I'm going to add brushfuls of water and show you what a difference water makes to your color mix. Simply add one brushful of water. Let's test the color out now. You can see with just a brush full of water, there is a difference in the strength and the darkness of the color. I'll add another brush full of water. So you can see that as I'm adding more and more brushfuls of water to my watercolor mix, your watercolor mix becomes more and more transparent. So these are the values of your color. You start from the darkest value, add a bit more water, a bit lighter, and it keeps getting lighter the more water you add. When you're new to watercolors, it can be hard to control the amount of water in your brush. Sometimes when you pick your color, you simply pick the color and then start painting. Your brush doesn't have enough moisture and your brush strokes come out quite streaky. This is a sign you need more moisture in your brush. Sometimes what can happen is you rinse your brush, you pick a color mix. And then you paint with it and it creates a big puddle like this. To prevent both of these cases, it's important to know how to control the amount of water in your brush. Simply rinse your brush and then remove the excess moisture from the brush against the rim of your water container. With that, you can pick color and directly paint with it. Or if you want to further control the amount of water in your brush, rinse your brush, load your brush, and then simply touch the brush against a paper towel like this to remove excess moisture. And with that, when you will paint, you won't have the problem of puddles like this. So this way, you're able to prevent dry, streaky marks and also big puddles like this. Let's see a few different ways of applying watercolors. So watercolors can be applied wet on dry. What that means is, you're applying wet color on a dry piece of paper. With this, you get quite defined edges. You can see the edges are quite sharp. This is called wet on dry. What wet on wet means is your paper is wet. So I'm wetting the paper here with just simple water. And now, when I will add this wet color here, you can see how fuzzy it's becoming. This will give you soft fuzzy edges, and this is called wet on wet. You're applying wet color on top of a wet surface. Wet on dry gives you defined edges and wet on wet gives you softer, fuzzier look. While the paper is still wet, you can also add some other colors to it. This way, they will mix while the page is still wet and it will give you soft fuzzy color mixing. Another concept that I will show you is how to soften an edge. If you paint something wet on dry, so I've painted this little mark here, wet on dry. If I leave it like this, it's going to dry sharp all around. But if I rinse my brush after painting this mark, remove excess moisture and simply run this slightly moist brush. Along the edge I want to soften up. You can see that the really sharp edge goes away. Simply rinse your brush again, remove excess moisture and keep softening this edge. So you can see with this technique, we were able to soften up an edge. Had we let this mark dry, it would have dried up exactly like this, quite sharp. But here you can see, we have softened this edge here. Since we will be painting mostly wet on dry and in layers in this class, I will show you a few ways to add some details to your watercolors. So these four shapes I had painted already and they have completely dried. Details, I try to use smaller brushes. I've got triple zero brush and with that, I'm first picking some burnt umber. On this first dried shape, I will show you how to add details with just watercolors. The bottom layer is completely dry and now I'm able to nicely add details and they will stay sharp. With the use of just watercolors, you can add details to an underlying layer that has already dried. For the second one, you can use any kind of opaque white, whether it's a Posca marker, acrylic marker, white gel pen or something like this. This is a bleed proof white. You simply spritz a bit of water if it has dried and pick it out like this in your brush, and with that, you'll be able to paint opaque white marks, which are perfect for snow. So this way, you're able to create white details on your paintings for the third one, which we'll be using the most in this class, we'll be adding a little bit of golden highlights. This is a metallic gold color. You can simply use a wet brush to pick gold. And with that, you can add details on top of your dried watercolors. You can also use this while your watercolors are still wet. It will just bleed a little bit into your watercolors. Let me show you how it looks so you can see the shine of the golden color. So I've got a little evergreen tree here. It is still wet. I want to show you how to create splatters, which you can use with both watercolors, but also with opaque white to create marks like snow. For that, you will need your watercolor base to be slightly dry. If it's completely wet, then all the white and other colors you're using for splatter will go and blend in there and the splatter effect will get lost. So you want your watercolor layer to be a bit dry before you start with splatters. For Splatters, you can use any slightly harder brush. For that, simply rinse your brush, pick a good amount of color, remove excess moisture and use your finger to simply push the bristles against your fingers like this. This creates smaller splatters, really fine ones. You can also create slightly bigger splatters. Simply pick some color in your round brush. Remove excess moisture and simply tap your brush. Against another brush like this to create some bigger splatters. You can do the same with some opaque white in your brush. To create splatters, you need a good amount of moisture in your brush, but not too much. It's loader brush with some opaque white, a more xus moisture. And with that, we're able to create these white marks that look like snow. This is how you create splatters, which will be perfect for all your winter illustration projects. Now that we have seen some important watercolor concepts, in the next lesson, let's do some brushstroke practice so that you know how to use the brushes. 6. Brushstroke Practice: It's really important to feel comfortable with your brush, and for that, brush stroke practice is what you need. In this lesson, let me show you some of the brushes that I've used in this class and what kind of brush stroke practice you need to do if you're completely new to waalors. Color mixing, I'll be using a number six pointed round brush. It is a very old natural hair brush. It is losses point, but it is made out of natural hair, so it holds a lot of water in it, and with that, I'm quickly able to create big mixes, but also paint large areas very quickly. I've rinsed my brush, and I'll create a color mix here. It holds good amount of water, so one brush full of water is quite a lot. And with the brush like this, this is the number six round. I'm able to paint big areas quite quickly. It holds a lot of water in it, and it's perfect to paint geometrical shapes. So something like a round bubble. It has lost his point, but I'm still able to hold the brush straight like this, my wrist comfortable, and with just the tip of the brush, I'm able to create these lines. Whether it's vertically or horizontally or diagonally. I'm just using the tip of the brush to create these fine marks. I can also create petal like shapes by touching the brush with just the tip and then pushing the brush down and lifting as I'm coming out. By changing the amount of pressure you're applying to the brush, you can create fine lines, put pressure, broader line Fine line again. Broader line, fine line again, broader line. You can do this brush stroke practice to get acquainted with how much pressure you need to apply to your brush. You don't need to completely push your brush down. But with just a little bit of pressure, you'll be able to create wider marks. Leaf like shapes. And this is actually a damaged old brush. It's not at its finest anymore. But even with an older brush like this, I'm still able to create the marks I need some smaller dots, lines, and other botanical shapes. But I still mostly use this brush to paint bigger shapes and to create my color mixes. Brush that you will see me use the most in this class is a pointed number three round brush. It has got a really nice point. I got this brush as a complimentary gift along with some paper I bought, but you can buy this size of brush. In any brush brands, it's a pointed number three round. With this brush, I'm able to create really fine lines using just the tip of the brush. You can see how I'm holding the brush quite straight up and I'm using just the tip of the brush and dragging my wrist along to create these fine lines. This brush is perfect to create needle like leaves you need for winter foliage. So see, I'm just moving my wrist and using just the tip of the brush to create these fine marks. Since it's a pointed round brush, I'm also able to create slightly wider marks if I push the brush down a bit. So using just the tip, I create fine line. Push the brush down, it makes whiter marks, and lift the brush up again back to its tip for fine lines, push the brush down, lift it up, push the brush down, and lift it up. You can also do this practice with wavy marks. Go up, come down, go up, come down, go up and come down like this. You can create curved marks like this, small marks. You can create leafy shapes with it, fine line for the central stem and then thin leaves like this. So a flexible brush like this gives you the power to create wavy wispy lines like this. You can also use this brush to paint some bigger shapes, but it will take a while and a lot of brush loading to create a bit bigger shape with this. So for that, try to use your bigger size brushes. Similar to number three pointed round, this is number four pointed round. Works almost the same. Just has a bit bigger size. And with that, I'm able to paint bigger shapes. You'll see me use this brush to paint bigger shapes, slightly wider brush strokes. You can do the similar brush stroke practice of creating fine lines, find smaller marks, and also try to vary the pressure on the brush to create wider lines. Curves. So this is your pointed number four brush. To create really small, fine details, I use a triple zero brush or three by zero brush. And with that, I'm able to create really fine lines and tiny details, dots or use metallic gold or opaque white to create some details on top of my painting. So you can create really fine marks with it, curves, dots, lines. So this is your zero brush. Can even use a number zero brush for this purpose. Another brush that I've used in this class is a flat number eight brush. It has a flat chisel like this. And if I'll hold the brush like this and drag my wrist along, I'm able to create a uniform with broad line. But if I'll hold my brush like this and just use the edge of the brush to create this fine line. So broad and fine using just the tip of the brush. Just by changing the angle at which I'm holding this brush, I'm able to create different size lines. By using just the edge of the brush. Now let's see what we can do when we press this brush down. So when I'm holding the brush like this, simply dragging, it's making a mark like this. When I push this down, it will make slightly wider mark, and I'm now lifting it back up. You can also create vertical lines with it. Perfect for any tree trunks. You can also use the corner of the brush and paint almost like you're painting with a round brush. So start with the corner, push your brush down and lift back to the point to create a really nice leaf shape. Let's see it one more time. Start with the corner of the brush, push the brush down and lift it gently back up to the point. So you can practice, if you have a filbert or a flat brush like this, you can practice using that brush. With a brush like this, you can quickly paint bigger areas So it comes handy if you need to paint large areas like this. These were the brushes that I've used in this class. Try to practice these brush strokes with your own brushes to get more comfortable with them. 7. Color Mixing: Let's create some of the color mixes that we have used in this class. Throughout the project, I will mix these colors again. But if you would like to see them mixed freshly here, let's get started. Before getting started, if your colors are dry, simply sprits a bit of water over them to activate them. We'll be using a lot of green in this class. You can mix your own green by mixing your yellow and blue together. But what I like to do is start with a ready to use green, which is Sap Green, that's my base color for most of the greens. This is Sap Green all by itself. To create a few variations of green, what I like to do is modify this sap green. For a really light golden green color, I like to mix sap green with a touch of Quinacridone Gold. If you have a green gold or golden green color, you can also directly use that. But I've picked some Quinacridone Gold and to that I'll add just a touch of green. With this, you get a green gold color. This is sap green plus Quin Gold. I will put the colors here so that you can compare them. To get a really dark green, I like to mix some Indigo with my Sap Green. And it gives me a really dark green. This is sap green plus indigo. To create some cooler leaves, sometimes I like to use Phthalo Turquoise. You can use it all by itself to create these icy leaves. But what I like to do is combine a bit of sap green with this Phthalo Turquoise to create a slightly cooler green. This is your Phthalo turquoise plus sap green. Another favorite green mixes of minus, combining Sap Green. With a touch of Winsor Red or any other red, you can also use some brown for it. To create slightly olive green color. This is sap green plus Winsor Red. You can see just by modifying the sap green, we were able to create quite a few different greens and you can create furthermore combinations with all the colors you have, but these will be the greens I'll be using today. Another color mix that I often create is a slightly teal color for some of the eucalyptus like leaves. For that, what I like to do is mix a bit of Indigo, Phthalo Turquoise, and a touch of Sap Green. And add a lot of water to this mix. To create a very light cool color. This is one of my favorite mixes to create for my winter illustrations, sap green, indigo, and phthalo turquoise. For the reds that we'll be using to create the berries, I like to use some Winsor Red. I like to combine it with some Transparent Orange. It gives me this nice and bright red color that I need for the berries. You can create winter berries or berries for the holly, Winsor Red plus Transparent Orange. For any deeper red, if I need, I can always pick some Permanent Alizarin Crimson. For any sticks and stems, I like to use some Burnt Umber. So this is burnt umber by itself, but you can also mix a bit of Transparent Orange or some red to it to modify this brown. So here's the Permanent Alizarin Crimson we had mixed earlier. Another color mix we'll use is for juniper berries. For that, I make some French ultramarine. You can also use just ultramarine, and I add just a touch of Indigo to it to create the color a bit more deeper blue. Apart from this, we'll also be using some other colors. We'll be using some Quinacridone Gold by itself. We will be creating a near black mix by mixing some Burnt Umber with some Indigo. To create a nearly black mix. You can also use a black color for this. You will also see me create a blush color mix. So for that, what I like to do is mix a pretty pink color. This is Quinacridone Rose. And to that, I add a touch of Cadmium-free Yellow to give me a nice soft peachy blush color. For any nearly white color, I like to use a bit of Cobalt Blue, just all by itself. So if you add a lot of water to it, you can get an impression of white color on top of a white paper using just a touch of cobalt blue. So these are some of the color mixes I've used in this class. Throughout the projects, we'll be recreating these mixes. But here's an overview of these colors. You've got all your greens. You've got your reds that we'll be using for berries, some blues. For any impression of white, you can also use just the cobalt blue. Then you've got some Phthalo Turquoise here for some eucalyptus leaves. I'll be using this slightly icy blue color mix, burnt umber, for any sticks and stems, some near black color. Some burned umber with transparent orange if you would like to change your brown. a blush color, and Quinacridone Gold. Last but not the least, we'll also be using some metallic gold. It comes in a small dry cake like this and you can simply use a wet brush to activate this gold. You can paint with it both on wet colors and dry colors. On the wet surface, it will bleed a little bit. These were all the color mixes that I've used in this class. Throughout the projects, we'll be mixing them again and I'll announce the colors again. 8. Winter Botanicals: We'll be painting plenty of winter botanical elements throughout this class, but let's try practice painting them beforehand, especially if it's your first time. The first element we are going to learn to paint is a spruce or a fir leaf. You can start with simple sap green for the mid line, or you can also use burnt umber for the central line. With my number three round brush, I'm going to pick some sap green and with that, holding my brush at an angle like this, I'm going to create a fine line like this first, and then coming out from it, these needle like marks slightly overlapping, either going towards the central line, or out from it for these spruce or fir leaves, the needle like leaves. This is with just sap green, but you can also paint the central line with some burnt umber and then add the green leaves, the needles going either towards the center or coming out from it. It just creates slightly different look. Next leave that we will practice is cedar leaves. For that, let's start with some sap green or a mixture of sap green and Winsor red. Again, number three round brush, first create some lines to give you a guideline, starting from top one mark, another one close to it. Smaller marks close to each other. I'm using the mix of Winsor red and sap green. You will often see me change my green mixes to keep the leaves looking interesting. Just small marks close to each other for the citar leaves. Another leaf you will see me paint are dark round leaves. These are just generic leaves. I've picked the indigo and sap green mix, and then touch, push and let go and touch, push and let go to make these round leaves, sometimes with just one brushstroke and sometimes with two to make them wider. And then you can connect them either with blue or with brown. These are just generic leaves to act as fillers. Another botanical element will often paint throughout the projects are holly leaves. For that, I start with a central line with some sap green, and then on both side of this line, I'll create these wavy marks. And after that, I fill them in. Try to keep these points sharp. I do like to add a red berry next to the holly leaves here. For that, I pick Winsor red and transparent orange mix and with it, you can create round berry shapes using your pointed round brush. Once this dries, I will add some central vein to it. In the meantime, let's see how to paint a twig of berries. For that, I like to start with some burnt umber. Just create slightly wavy stick first, using just the tip of the brush, keep giving it a little bit of jitter to create this stem. Then on top of that, you can use the red to create these berries. You can rinse your brush and paint a few berries with just water next to the ones you've painted. We'll also be painting some juniper leaves and berries. What I like to do is paint the needle like leaves with green. And then add with French ultramarine and indigo to add the blue colour berries to the juniper twigs. You will also see me paint something like eucalyptus leaves. For that, we had a very light teal color we had mixed with indigo, sap green, and To turquoise. You can also use just To turquoise. With that, I like to paint leaves that are close to eucalyptus. Round leaves close to each other, sometimes a bit flat, sometimes attached at the bottom like this. Another round. Then you can connect them with either brown or red color. And they are a beautiful element to add to your winter botanical compositions. Now that our holly has dried, we'll simply pick the green we had used to paint it, to create the central line. You can also use metallic gold for it. So what I like to do is simply pick some gold and add it along the edges of the holly and also to the central line like this. Last but not the least, we'll be painting some Ponsetia. So for that, I like to start with some unacreton gold dots in the center, and then with the red and transparent orange mix, I create small fine petals first, leaving space in between them. And then I start painting slightly bigger ones in between these thinner ones. You can keep going and add a few more. Don't worry. Since we are painting it quite fast, some of the smaller leafy shapes do get blended, but don't worry about it. With some more red, you can redefine them and then simply add the central line and vein marks. So with this way, you don't have to wait between layers. You do paint them quite quickly and quite loosely. You can also use a deeper red like a lazaren crimson to add some shadow between the bigger and smaller ones. And then later, you can also add some gold around the edges of these leafy shapes in the center as well. These were some of the main botanical elements that we have painted throughout this class. Don't worry. I will give you instruction every time I paint these elements. 9. Greeting Card Setup: In this lesson, let me show you how I set up my paper to paint greeting cards. Since we are creating these greeting cards with watercolors, I do recommend using watercolor paper. It's able to take on a good amount of water, and you are able to do a lot of watercolor techniques with it, but you can also use some heavier weight card stock or some watercolor postcards like this for these illustrations. This is my 24 by 30 centimeter watercolor cool press 300 GSM paper sheet. It's quite big by itself. What I like to do is I like to chop it in half. That gives me smaller sheets like this that I can fold in half. You can also use your scoring board to make this folding easier. Now I have a greeting card with two surfaces on which I can paint and the inner side is usually a bit smoother based on the kind of watercolor paper you're using. So before you start painting, you might want to prevent it from moving too much under your wrist. So you can attach it to a piece of cardboard. There are a couple of ways of doing that. Here, I have folded the greeting card and attached it on two of the sides. This prevents the card from moving too much. But if you're using a lot of water in your technique, then try to add tape on all four edges to keep the paper flat. And once your painting has completely dried, then remove the tape from the side, you can use scotch tape, masking tape, washi tape, if your tape tends to rip the paper while you're removing it, you can use a blow dryer and quickly run the blow dryer over the tape area. Once the painting is dried, run the blow dryer over the taped area, and then it will become a bit easier to remove this tape without ripping the paper. This was one of the ways in which you can attach the greeting card to a cardboard surface. You can add multiple of them on a bigger piece of cardboard. And continue painting similar kind of greeting card, multiple of them in one go. Another way to do this is, here's your greeting card. We've decided where the fold is going to be. You can tape this whole edge down. You can also attach the tape here. And then use a tape and let it align with the edge of the fold. This gives you a nice painting surface. And if you would like to keep this area covered so that you don't accidentally paint something on the backside, simply put a piece of paper like this, and then you can simply paint directly here. A So for something like this, you do not need to tape all the edges. It's a very small illustration. Doesn't use too much water. So this much of taping will still keep this paper flat. But if you're painting a lot of background, adding a lot of water and layers, then I do recommend taping all the edges to keep it flat. Let it dry completely. I will dry flat. And then as I told you, you can remove the tape. So once you remove this tape, Scotch tape is a bit easier to remove. So now you have a greeting card. You can write your message inside. You can write your name as the creator at the back. So now we can get started and start painting some greeting card designs. 11. Botanical Pattern-Part II: Our botanical pattern has dried, so now I'm going to gently remove the tape from the middle of the page. Now you can use this space to write the letters. I would like to write Season's Greetings. So I use a pencil to first write down my letters. So I've just written my greeting here with a pencil, and now I will go in with a smaller brush like number zero to add some color to these letters. You can use black or red or mix a near black color. I like to mix a near black using some Burnt Umber with some Indigo. And with that, I will carefully letter these words. This is not a strict calligraphy, my own lettering style. You can use brush pens. As a finishing touch, I would like to add a little bit of gold. Pick some of this gold with my number three pointed round brush, and I'm just going to create a slight outline around the holly. I'm not being very precise about the outline, rather keeping it quite loose. The intention is not to cover the whole outline of the shape, rather have a slightly offsetted look. I'll also add a few needles with gold here. Not trying to add gold to every element here, but just to a few to add a bit of festive touch to it. What I'm making sure is that my gold is not too wet because I don't want to disturb the watercolor layer underneath it. And with this added gold, our design is now ready. 12. Botanical Border : Let's paint a botanical border design surrounding some handleted greetings. Let's start with another design. For this one. I have handleted the word Be Merry in the center of the page, and the idea is to create a winter foliage border around it. I like to practice my lettering first for designs like this so that I can decide the exact placement of the design. I've already practiced the lettering. You can decide to choose any style of hand lettering that you like. Now with the pencil, I'm creating a rough guideline for the border I want to create. I want to keep the design a bit heavier in this corner and a bit here. Now let's mix our colors again. We will again mix some sap green with Quinacridone Gold for our green gold. Some more Sap Green all by itself. So Indigo and Sap Green mixed here. For really dark green. we already have some Sap Green plus Phthalo Turquoise mixed here. We will also keep some Turquoise mixed separately here. Some Quinacridone gold mixed here. And then Sap Green mixed with some Winsor red. That's here. So Winsor Red, mixed with Transparent Orange. Right here. For some juniper berries, I like to keep some French ultramarine mixed with a bit of indigo ready here. And for any darker, deeper red you can have Permanent Alizarin Crimson, as well. We're going to start here in the corner. We will start with a couple of holly leaves along with some berries. So for that with my number three pointed round brush, that has a nice fine point. I'm going to paint some holly leaves. So a central line, and then these pointy wavy lines on each side, and then simply fill them in. You can go back in and make them a bit more pointed. I'll go in here. We want to paint these quite loosely. So don't worry too much about making them exactly the same on each of the corners. Now, with my golden green color, I'm going to create some spruce or fir leaves coming out from the sides here. So just fine lines joined to a central line. Need to marks. Don't worry so much about colors bleeding into each other. We're painting it loosely. I will keep reminding you throughout this design that try to be loose with it. With designs like this, it's very easy to try to make it perfect, perfectly symmetrical. And you can obviously do that if that's the style you want. What I'm trying to say is don't take too much pressure about it to make it perfect. Now while these colors are still wet, rinse your brush and pick some of that red and orange mix that we had and add it to the center here and let it bleed a little bit. Don't worry about it. These are the berries for the holly. We'll also add a few around it that we will join later with a stem for the winter berries. Now we can start going around this border and start building it up. So my idea was to either use brown for the border or even already start with some gold as the base and then attach some floral and leafy elements to it. So you can decide any one of these ideas. I'll pick some bunt umber. Add just a touch of transparent orange to it. And with that, keep my brush straight to create the fine lines. Create slightly wavy, bit broken kind of lines around this border, not making them perfectly straight. So now let's start adding some elements. I will first add with some Quinacridone Gold and Sap Green mix, the lightest spruce or fir leaves. Just going around this border we have created with brown. What I'm trying to do is create this side flowing upwards towards this side, and then from here we will flow downwards and meet here. You can decide any direction. Try to keep it loose, reminding you again. Now that we have added the green, let's add some red before this green dries completely. Just some berries here and there. You want this red to bleed a little bit in that light green, you will add some more berries later. Now you can either pick a darker green colour to add some more rounder leaves in between, or you can also pick Phthalo Turquoise if you would like to add that color in your composition. I will stick to some darker green and add some round. Leaves, keeping our theme almost similar for the foliage designs throughout this class. Again, like previous projects, I'm trying not to be very sectional about it, making them overlap a little bit among each other. Let's mix a very light muddy color with some burnt umber and some cobalt blue or any other blue, very light color. There's barely any color in it. Just go around and make this border a bit more fluffier by adding these needle like marks all around. What this does is it pulls the wet colors out a bit, giving it a sense of looseness. And second, it also makes the whole border a bit more fuller looking, trying to keep the direction similar to the foliage around it. Kept very light color for this almost just water and it's picking up color wherever it meets a wet floral element, and just continue with it. Now our base is ready. Let's add a few more red berries. Some of them have faded a little bit mixing with the wet colors, just give them a bit more strength. You can also go back in with some burnt umber and add fine lines connecting some of these berries. And we can go in with the red again and add these berries coming out from some of these stems that we have just added. For now we are done with the foliage elements. While some of these colors are still wet, I do like to add a bit of gold. You can obviously wait a bit till all the colors have dried to add the gold. That way it will not bleed, but I do like the look of some bleeding gold. So with some gold in my brush, I'm adding some dots and also some central line and a bit of a border around the holly leaves. They have dried since we painted them first. So just some golden specks scattered around. Just giving a little bit of border to some of the round darker green leaves. Now that our border has dried, we can add some color to our letters here. For that, you can either use a smaller brush like number zero, or you can also use your pointed round brush. I'm going to use some red for the letters, picking some winsor red. To that, I'll add transparent orange, remove excess moisture from my brush. I'm doing this lettering with watercolors, but you can also use your markers, adding a few extra elements to the lettering, a trio of berries here and there. And with that, I think this piece is ready. . 13. Wreath: Let's paint a lovely wreath. For this project, I want to paint a wreath here with a bow at the base of it. We can write the words Noel inside it, or you can also write another greeting underneath the wreath. For the wreath, I'm using this glass to trace a circular shape. You can also use any other circular object or a geometric compass. Let's have a look at the colors we had already mixed in the previous project that we can also use here. So I've got some sap green mixed with some Quinacridone Gold here. This gives you a nice green gold color. We've got sap green all by itself. Sap green with some indigo for a really dark green. For a cooler green, we've got sap green with some Phthalo Turquoise. I've also got some sap green mixed here with Winsor red. We have some Quinacridone Gold mixed here. So Winsor Red mixed with just a touch of Transparent Orange here, burnt umber here. And these two colors we had mixed earlier, we won't be needing them. We will be needing some Phthalo Turquoise and a very muddy color. So for that, you can use either any of the muddy color you already have mixed in your palette where the palette you've already used, you get quite a few colors mixed together. You can use that color or you can also mix a gray by combining your cobalt blue or any blue with brown. So this is Burnt Umber plus cobalt blue. If you want to add a bit of color to it, you can add any of your other colors to it, a red or a green to give it a bit more color. It has barely any color in it. Quite a gray color. I will quickly draw the bow at the base here. Now for the leaves, I'm going to use my number three pointed round brush. We're going to first start with some Quinacridone Gold and sap green mix we'll be working fast and we'll be overlapping these leaves so that the colors kind of mix into each other, give us this really nice loose look. So starting close to where I want to place the bow, I'm placing these spruce or fir kind of leaves, one central line, and then some thinner needles coming out. I'm not being very calculated where I'm placing the leaves just loosely following the circular guideline that we had drawn earlier, now changing to Quinacridone Gold continuing near the leaves we already painted, some overlapping with them. So slightly jutting out from the circular shape, keeping it looking organic, now changing to burnt umber, going in between these leaves. Now let's add some red already so that it can bleed nicely into the wet color. So just some dots of Winsor red, some smaller, some bigger. Now we will go in with some sap green plus indigo mix, and this time, make either some long ones or some round leaves, slightly overlapping. So I'm not trying to be very sectional about it. So mixture of some round leaves and a few longer ones. Going in with some sap green plus Winsor red mix, adding a few more leaves in there. Go back in with some Quinacridone Gold, add a few elements that are jutting out of the wreath fine lines, little leaves at the bottom, and then little dots along these fine lines. These are just filler elements that you add to a wreath. We will now go in with the really light color that we had mixed and add to a couple of places where you need to give wreath a bit more fullness. Let the wet colors bleed into it a bit. Don't worry about it pulling the already painted colors out. Let's go in with the deeper green again, add it to a couple of places where the colors have faded. I'll pick some of that red again. Add that. Not very big marks, just a few dots here and there, especially where the colors are still wet. Now, towards the end, we will pick some of the Phthalo Turquoise. With this Phthalo turquoise, I'm just adding a few dots and leaves around the wreath. You can decide to paint the bow with red or Quinacridone Gold. I will use the red we have here. First, the knot in the center, and then the two loops of the bow and then the loose part of the bow. You can always step back just to see where you would like to add a bit more color. I'm just adding a few darker elements slightly more delicate that are coming out from the wreath with the sap green and indigo mix. Just a few dots placed close to each other. I've got my gold here. If you want to, you can add the gold while it is still wet. It will bleed into the already painted colors. Or you can wait for the wreath to dry a bit and then add the little gold dots to it. I would like to add it while it is still wet so that the gold can also bleed into the already painted colors. I will quickly add a bit more demarcation to the loops of the bow here. Since we had painted it while the colors were still wet, it has faded a little bit. I've added the word noel in the center with some pencil. I've just used some free hand serif lettering. You can use any lettering style you like. Now I'm going to use my zero brush, and I'm going to pick that really dark green color, which had some indigo and sap green mixed together. With that, I'm going to add color to these letters. I had a little colour spot here in the center while painting. So I very strategically covered it with the letters here. I'll just pick a little bit of that red colour and demarcate the knot at the base. So I'm just adding a bit of gold to the ribbon here first, giving it a bit more of a festive touch. I've added a bit of gold around the letters on the left and the bottom side of the letters. And with this, our wreath is ready. 14. Bouquet: Let's paint a winter bouquet. For this next design, let's paint a winter bouquet tied up with a ribbon. For that, you can simply create some directional lines with pencil of how big you would like your bouquet to be. And then later you can add some hand lettered greeting underneath it. Now, let's get started. So we have our usual winter foliage color mixes. This is sap cream mixed with Quinacridone Gold. For a green gold color. This is sap green mixed with indigo. We've got some sap green mixed with Phthalo Turquoise. We barely use it, but it's nice to have a cool green as well. We've got sap green by itself. This is sap green mixed with some windsor red. For the winter berries or for berries with holly, I've got some winsor red, mixed with transparent orange, some burnt umber, for the stems, French ultramarine. For the juniper berries, if you would like to add them, we will need a few different mixes. First of all, we'll need a slightly blush color for the ribbon. For that, I'm picking some Quinacridone Rose. And to that, I'll add a bit of yellow. So I've got this Cadmium-free Yellow. This gives me a nice peachy blush color. Keep it ready for the ribbon. We also keep some Phthalo Turquoise ready. We also need a really light blue or even grayish color. So for that, I picked some cobol blue, and to that, I'll add just a touch of burnt umber. This is nice. Let's also mix a bit of color for some eucalyptus leaves. I'm going to paint them a bit more cooler than they actually are. So I've got some indigo here. To that, I'll add a bit of Phthalo Turquoise and some sap green. This is nice. If you add a bit more water to it, you'll be able to get a nice cool color. With my pointed number three round brush, I'm going to pick some burnt umber and with that, create a few stems to add some spruce leaves. You don't want to fill the whole bouquet with one kind of leaves. Now let's add the needles. Again, with Quinacridone Gold sap green, you can also pick some sap green by itself. Again, we are trying to paint it quite loosely. So change your green mix. So fine needles coming from the central line. Don't worry about your colors overlapping a bit or bleeding into each other. Now, with that same burnt umber, let's insert a few strands, slightly wavy to add some round leaves of the eucalyptus. Just insert in between the spaces you can see, rinse your brush, and now pick the color we had mixed, add just a touch of Pthalo Turquoise more to it. I've got quite a bit of water in my brush to keep the color light. And with that, let's add some round leaves. Keep them loose, let them bleed. Don't worry about it. You might need to use two brush strokes to make them rounder. It's okay. Overlap them with the previously painted leaves. Can turn the page around to make it easier. Now, my favorite part that is to add some stems with some berries. So again, with some brown for their stems, insert that brown in between the leaves you've already painted. We're trying to find space between the elements you've painted. Now we can start adding the berries. I do like them nice and bright. So for that, I mix a bit of transparent orange in the Winsor Red that I use using the tip of the brush, add the berries. I do like to add them in between the elements so that it looks like they're just peeping through They add a lovely touch of festivity to any bouquet. I do try to step back from time to time just to see if it's looking balanced. If I need to add some elements anywhere else, can also add some darker leaves inserted here and there for some other foliage. This is sap green mixed with indigo. Now we have added most of the elements. I'll just take a little bit of that really light color we had mixed, the grayish color, and just add a few needle like shapes around the bouquet to make it look like filler elements. And now let's paint the bow. So we'll pick that blush color we had mixed. We'll create the central wrapping. And then two loops for the side. To lose ends. We will wait for the ribbon to dry before we add the stems underneath it, because if we add the brown now, it's going to bleed into this blush colour ribbon that we have just painted. While the ribbon is drying, you can go ahead with the gold. I'm deciding to add some gold to some of these spruce leaves. Not to every needle, scatter it around a bit. And also to a few of these winterberries. Now that the ribbon has almost dried, I'll pick some burnt umber and start adding little stems starting from the base. And don't add too many. This is fine. Can add just a touch of green to them. The ribbon has kind of become fused a bit, so I'll pick the same color mix this time with a little less water. To create a bit of demarcation. So just giving a bit better shape to the ribbon that looked a bit fused, bit darker colored to some of the stems. I'm adding these little dots around the bouquet. They're not attached to any stem, it's just to give it a nice full visual shape. I'll pick a bit more burnt umber, mix it with just a touch of indigo for really dark, almost black color, just to add some darkness to the stems here. Just a few spots, not too much. Just adding a little bit of gold around the ribbon. And with this, our winter bouquet is ready. 15. Candle: Let's paint a decorated festive candle. For this next design, I want to paint a candle with some winter foliage around it and also a ribbon on the candle holder. So for that, I will show you how I will create a sketch. You can create a central line to keep it perfectly straight, or you can also very loosely draw your candle, some molten wax up on top. A flame. And for the base, you have the option of adding the foliage here directly or add a ribbon here and then add foliage around it. Or you can also create a base holder like this first. Either tie the ribbon here or add the loops hanging like this. Let's get started. I've got my sketch ready here. We will try to paint this quite loosely, but like most of the projects for classes like this, I do tend to get over obsessed with them and they turn out a bit tighter than I had initially planned. So let's see how this one goes. Let's try to mix the colors. We've got our usual colors for the winter greens we've been using for the projects. I've got Quinacridone Gold mixed with sap green for green gold, you can also use ready to use green gold. Then we have got a darker green, which is indigo mixed with some normal sap green. After that, I'll use some normal sap green here. We've got sap green mixed with some Winsor red here. For the stems, we will use burnt umber and for the berries, like I've been using some Winsor red mixed with some transparent orange. If you would like them to be a bit more deeper colored, you can also add a bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson to it. For the candle, I would like a peachy color. So for that, I'm picking some Quinacridone Rose. And to that, let's add some Cadmium-free Yellow. It gives us a nice peachy color. For the flame, we will use some yellow. For ribbon, you can decide to either paint it with the same color as of the candle to keep it nice and loose, or you can add a red ribbon or a golden ribbon for that. You can make some Quinacridone Gold keep it ready. For the candle holder, I would like to use some Quinacridone Gold so I might paint the ribbon red. Since candle is a bit bigger shape, I will pick my number four round brush and with that, I will pick the color we have mixed for the candle. I'll add a bit more color upon top to make the sides a bit uneven as if some wax is dripping down. I'll take some Quinacridone Gold and with that, add some colour to the base here of the candle holder. Trying to be a bit loose with it. Leaving some white between my brush strokes. I'll take some burnt umber, add it up on top in a fine line here. While the candle dries, we can also add the flame. For that, I'm picking my number three pointed round brush. I'll pick some Cadmium-free Yellow, add it to the flame here. Now, the base has almost dried, so we can start adding the leaves and foliage around it. We'll try to add the foliage quite loosely. So for that, let's start with some burnt umber and create some stems. Don't worry some colours bleed, it's okay. We will start with some holly some sap green and indigo mix for the pointe leaves of holly. Keep reminding yourself you intend to paint this loosely. It's very easy to try to perfect the leaves. I'm trying to stay away from the bottom because I intend to put the ribbon in there, and if it is a lighter colour ribbon, it won't show if I paint too many dark leaves there. Now with some burnt umber, let's add some more stems to add some fur or spruce leaves in there. With some really light green made out of sap green and Quinacridone Gold. Let's fill in the space here. Don't worry about colors bleeding. Remember, we are painting it loosely. Now with some Burnt Umber, let's add some fine lines for adding the berries. Also some going above on the candle. Add some more green out here in the front, some sub green, some leafy needle like shapes. Now we can get the red and start adding some berries. So near the holly to add berries for holly, but also some independently for the winter berries. I intentionally like to add these berry shapes where the greens are still wet because I do really like how it looks. When the red bleeds into these colors, you can also pick some of the darker green color and add some rounder leaves around the foliage. Now we can think about adding the ribbon. Let's go with a red ribbon. So we're planning to add a couple of loops here. So one. Second loop. And another one. That's nice. Don't worry if the colours are bleeding. Now, let's pick the same candle color. And with that, just add a little bit of color here, just in a wavy shape, just so that it looks like it's molten wax, a bit of shadow to it. Giving it a bit of texture. Pick some more of that cacroton gold, add just a touch of burnt umber to it, and add a bit of shadow on one of the sides of the candle holder, can go back in with that dark sap green and indigo mix to add some central line to the holly leaves. If they've gotten a bit faded, just giving a bit of border, a bit defined shape to some of these holly leaves. Since we painted the ribbon while the colors near it were still wet, tends to get a bit faded. So it's not a bad idea to sometimes go back in, redefine your ribbon a little bit. Now for my favorite pat, let's play with some gold. Holly, always get some gold. You can wait with adding gold once your colors have dried. If you don't want your gold to bleed, I do like it, so I tend to not wait. I'll give some design to the candle. And now some random dots all around the foliage. Also some to the ribbon. A ribbon is still a bit wet, but since we are painting it loosely, we can be impatient. Let's add with some yellow. Some of that shine. Some more burnt umber mixed with Quinacridone Gold. Give a bit more shadow to the base. So now I'm going to stop over obsessing with it. You can do the same, or you can add a few more berries like I do. There can never be enough berries. So now remove the tape from this and erase the pencil line as the colors have dried already. And here you can see the gold on it. And with this, our decorated festive candle is ready. 16. Cup of Hot Chocolate: Let's paint a cup of hot chocolate. For this next design, let's paint a cup of hot cocoa with some whipped cream on it. You can also add marshmallows on top of it and a few winter greens to decorate around it. So I've already drawn the shape of the cup here. It takes me a while to create a symmetric drawing, so you can also use something like a tracing paper if you want your cup to be a bit straighter. But you can also freehand draw your cup. Let's have a look at the colors. We've got some of the usual colors we've been using for all the projects. Quite a few different kinds of greens. There is some red here, some brown. I will announce whichever color make I'm using from here. For the base of the cup, you can either use red, create stripes or any other pattern. I would like to have a nice darker blue. So for that, you can either mix your French ultramarine with your indigo to create that nice deep blue. Let's do that. We will start with French ultramarine. And to that, let's add a touch of indigo. This is nice. It's a big shape, so I'm first going to add the color to it with my number six round brush. Doesn't have a good point to it, but it's able to cover big surface quite quickly. Being careful where I'm reaching the edges. I'm not adding the handle with the same color because I want to add kind of a golden color handle, so we'll either use the gold or Quinacridone Gold for the handle. Now we will wait for this to dry. In the meantime, let's start adding some whipped cream up on top. For that, let's mix some color. I want a really light, slightly peachy color, so we will mix some Quinacridone Rose rwith a touch of Cadmium-free Yellow. And add a lot of water to it. If you want to, you can with pencil create some rough guidelines, how tall you want the whipped cream to be, how wide you would like it to be with my pointed round brush, I'm going to pick this really light color and create these horizontal curved marks with some rough edges. I'm stopping just very close to the rim of the cup. I don't want this colour to bleed into it. Add a bit more color. You can also paint this whipped cream with a touch of blue in it. While it is still wet, I'm going to go and pick some wincer red without too much water in my brush and add up on top here as a cherry and I want it to bleed a little bit into the color that's for the cream with this same color. Let's also paint a candy cane. Now that the whipped cream and all the top parts have dried, we can start working on them while the cup still dries. We can start by adding some red stripes to our candy cane here. This is the number three pointed round brush. So first making some broader stripes and then some thinner ones in between them. I would also like to add some winter foliage around. So for that, we can add some winter red and sap green mix behind here, just some needle like leaves. It's a simple project. You can decorate it as you like. Add some here as well. For here, let's place a couple of holly leaves. So for that, let's make some sap green just by itself. And we can add a tree of holly leaves. So for that, I'm creating three lines just as my guidelines. And then I'm adding the outline for these pointy leaves. So I first like to create this wavy outline and then fill them in. I'll go back in to some of these leaves, give them a bit deeper color. With some of the winsor red and a touch of transparent orange, I will add two or three berries at the base of the holly leaves with the same color with which we painted the whipped cream. Let's go back in and give another layer of some marks to show some levels, some demarcation between each of the level. While the cream is still wet, I will go back in with some of that red and transparent orange mix and add some red sprinkle marks. Not adding too many because I'll be adding some gold ones a bit later. Now let's concentrate on the handle of the cup here. For that, I will pick some Quinacridone Gold just by itself, but you can also use any other yellow. Add some color to the cup handle here. We will add some metallic gold to it in a bit. I'll pick just a touch of cobalt blue, just a small amount of color. With that, touch the edges of the candy cane. It will make the colors bleed a bit, but it defines it a bit more since its base color is very close to the whipped cream. This gives a bit more definition to it. Now that the cup has almost dried, let's start adding some finishing touches. I want to add a small drip mark of some chocolate. For that, you can either use burnt umber all by itself, or if you would like to add a bit of red to it. So some burnt umber. And to that, I will add just a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Now, the space we had left in between the cream and the cup, you can add a layer of this brown color and also a few drip marks. The red on the candy cane has faded a little bit. I'll just add a small layer to some of those stripes of that same red again, just giving them a bit brighter color. Now let's pick our gold and start adding some finishing touches. We will add some gold to the handle here. We will also add some golden specs here. A little bit of border and a central vein to the holly. I also want to create a small ice crystal here with the gold. First, a plus sign. Let's add some dots near it. And now with this, our cup of hot chocolate is ready. 17. Snowman: Let's paint a cute snowman. With a pencil, you can create a rough guideline of how big you would like your snowman to be. I want to add a little muffler. So two snow globs, one smaller for the head, and another one a bit bigger for the base. Now, let's mix the colors we need. For the snowman, you can use any kind of blue that you have. I prefer to use some Cobalt Blue for this. With my number six round brush, which doesn't have a point anymore, but it holds good amount of color in it. I'm going to start from the top. You can see how I'm not filling the entire shape with color, just creating the boundaries around it. Especially adding a bit more color towards one of the sides. Now rinse my brush, remove the excess moisture, and just run it along on this completely white area. So whatever color is in my brush and the moisture around it will help give a bit of color to the white area. Keeping it nice and light. Now let's mix some of the other colors. While this snowman's base is drying, we will need some indigo for the top hat. So here's some indigo. You can mix a little bit of French ultramarine to it if you would like a bit more blueness in it. Indigo is a bit darker neutral color. You can also create the hat with a black. We will need some winter greens. So for that, I've got some sap green here. For the muffler, we will need some red. For that, I like to mix some transparent orange to my winsor red for a nice and bright red. You'll also need a near black for all the facial features and the hands. You can use ready to use black or you can mix your burnt umber with your indigo to create a near black color. With my point in number four round brush, I'll pick some of that indigo and French ultramarine mix. With that, I'll add the hat. You can see how I'm leaving some of the white behind. That's just to add a touch of looseness in it. Rinse my brush, remove the excess moisture, and just run it along on this lighter white area. I'll rinse my brush really nicely now and pick that red and orange mix to create the muffler around the snowmans neck Another loose end here. While all of this dries, you can take a pencil to create the facial features. With my zero brush, I'll pick that nearly black color that we had mixed with indigo and burnt umber and add two oval shapes for the eyes. Sweet smile. You can make it quite a big smile, but I like to keep it nice and sweet. Then rinse my brush, you can either pick an orange or the red that you had already mixed for the muffler to create the carrot nose. While his muffler dries, let's add some leaves here around his hat. For that, you can either pick some sap green or any of the greens that you have to create these needle like leaves. While they are still wet, go ahead and pick some of that red that you have and add it as little berries here. The red won't show much on the indigo, but it will show on the white near the leaves and on the leaves themselves. Using that red, I'll add a few marks on the carrot as well. If you want to, you can also add two buttons here with either black or red. Let's add some red buttons here. Rinse your brush, and with a smaller brush or your number three round brush, pick that nearly black color. Let's add some twigs for his arms. One behind the muffler, and another one here coming out from his body, giving the sticks a little bit of wave to make them look natural. Add a bit more color where you've added the stick I'm waiting for the muffler to dry before I add some final details. In the meantime, if you want, you can add some ice crystals falling around him with the same color as his body. So ice crystal shapes. For greetings, you can write underneath him, let it snow. I will take some more of that indigo and add a little border here for his top hats bottom part. With some Alizarin Crimson in my brush. Going to create a little bit of demarcation for the folded part of the muffler here. Red can be a pretty transparent color. Sometimes you need to add more than one layer. If you want to cover up some of the bottom parts. While the muffler dries, I'm adding a little bit of details to the ice crystals we have painted. You can leave them like this as well. With number six round brush with which we painted the snowman, I'm going to pick some of that cobol blue and with that, I will add a bit of base, some more snow underneath the snowman this time with a little less color in my brush, it comes out a bit lighter than the snowman. Now that the muffler has almost dried, I'm going to pick some of my gold and we will add some golden stripes to his muffler. You can add dots if you like. Where the muffler is still wet, your gold will bleed a little bit. Don't worry about it. Also add a few golden berries here on the top hat. Pick some more of that Alzarin Crimson just to give a bit more demarcation to the muffler one more time. A little bit of shadow underneath the buttons here. With some opaque white, I will add two dots with a twinkle in the eye of the snowman. I'll just take a little bit of that original cobol blue color and add a little bit of shadow right underneath the top hat here. Also underneath the muffler here. And with this, our sweet little snowman is ready. 18. Winter Hat: Let's paint a winter hat. I've sketched a very basic winter hat shape here with a little folded part here as well. Now let's look at the colors. I want to have a color combination of white, red and green. For white, you can use the paper white, but I would like to give it a slight color. So we'll use a little bit of cobol blue to give the base a bit of color. So let's mix our colors. These are the usual colors we've been using, so I'll tell you which one of these we'll be using here. So first, let's mix some cobalt blue. So just a touch of cobalt blue. We won't be using too much color for the base layer. We don't want to make it blue, but just a bit of color will help. We will be needing the bright red we've been using till now for the berries. So it's a mixture of winsor red and transparent orange. For any deeper red, we have got Permanent Alizarin Crimson. We will be needing some green so we can either use sap green by itself, or we can mix a bit of Quinacridone Gold to the sap green to have a bit of a green gold color. Let's try these colors. So this is green gold. This is sap green by itself. Rinse your brush nicely. Since it's a bigger shape, you can either use a flat brush I'm using my color mixing fluffy number six brush. It holds good amount of water, so I can quickly paint the shape. With this really watery mix, I'll just add a bit of color to the shape. You can decide to have any kind of pattern on the winter hat. Doesn't have to be the way I'm painting. Now that the base layer has almost dried, let's add some colorful stripes on it. For that, I'm picking my number four round brush. And with that, I'll first start with the red, and I'll start on top, add one full colour layer, add another one, leaving some space in between the two. Add some wavy ones. I'll also add some of this red color to this folded band here. It can be a fun project to create multiples of these with different patterns on them. Now let's go back in with the sap green and Quinacridone Gold mix and add it in between these red stripes. With my pointed number three round brush, I'll pick some of that red again to create some more design marks. You can paint some triangular shapes for the trees. With that deeper red, I will go in between one of these red lines, give it another line in between them. With some of that deeper red, I will also create some vertical knit marks here. The base layer is still wet, but that's fine. Gives them nice loose look. Adding some of that Alizarin Crimson and sometimes some of that red back onto the stripes we have created. Just keep decorating whichever way you like. Let's also add a little pompom up on top here. With some of that green. It's okay if it bleeds into the red, don't worry about it. Make it round and fluffy. Just fine needle like marks, quite close to each other. You can leave it like this to dry and it will dry pretty crisp like this. But if you're like me and itching to bring back a little bit of looseness into it, what you can do is take a fluffy brush like this number six round with which we added the base layer, rinse it in clean water, either pick just the clean water or the base color mix, and just go very gently along the Edges, It will bleed into the colors. That's fine. And just go along the edges. Let them bleed. Don't worry about it. A bit more deeper on one of the sides. So on this left side, we are going a bit more deeper. And on this right side, just ever so slightly, make the edges wet. Let them bleed a little bit. Don't worry. While this is drying, I'm just going back in, adding a bit more color to some of the stripes that have lost the color, but not too much. We don't want to lose that looseness, giving a bit of shape to some of the edges. Bit more color to the pompom here. Don't worry about colors bleeding into each other. It was our clear intention. Now with that darker Permanent Alizarin Crimson, let's reinforce those lines we had created and also add a bit of shadow here for the fold. If you want to, you can add some gold to it or some opaque white. I know opaque white will look great, but let's also see how gold will look. So we can add tiny tree shapes here. So just a few triangles. Not adding too much water in my gold because some of the base layer is still wet. We want it to bleed, but we don't want it to uncontrollably bleed. You can also mix a little bit of brown to your red if you don't have a deeper red like this to create these shadow marks. At this point, you can add some greeting down here saying warm wishes or maybe it's cold outside. But for now, our winter hat with a touch of gold in it is ready. 19. Ornament Part-I: Let's paint a bubble hung from a floral arrangement. You can have just the winter greens in there, or you can add a poinsettia or any other flower in there. I've got a circular shape here for the ornament, but you can also use a tracing paper to create some other shape for the ornament. Let's have a look at the colors. So these are the colors we've been using till now. We will mix some of them freshly. So this one is sap green mixed with some Quinacridone Gold. And this gives you green gold. This one is sap green mixed with some indigo for a really dark green. Here is sap green by itself. This one is sap green mixed with Winsor red. For the berries, I like to use Winsor Red mixed with some transparent orange. We'll also be using this to paint the poinsettia. For any kind of sticks and stems, we've got burnt umber. For any blue juniper berries, you can use French ultramarine or ultramarine blue, and for any deeper red, I've got some Permanent Alizarin Crimson here. Apart from this, we will need some Quinacridone Gold. And for the ornament, I would like to paint a slight blush color. So I've got Quinacridone Rose to that, I'll add just a touch of Cadmium-free Yellow for a peach color. I would also like to make some teal color for some leaves that are close to eucalyptus leaves just in case if I would like to add them to my composition, so I'm picking some Phthalo Turquoise to that, I'll add just a touch of indigo and then a bit of sap green. Then if you add a lot of water to it, you get a nice icy teal color. Now let's get started with the painting. I would like to start with a small poinsettia here and add some leaves coming out from it. You can create an almost symmetric arrangement. Both sides, the same kind of leaves, or you can add slightly different arrangement on the two sides. I'm using pointed round number three brush. You can pick any other smaller size brush if you would like to paint small and keep your poinsettia a bit tight, but if you're painting loosely, then don't worry about it. With that, I'm going to pick some Quinacridone Gold and just where I would like its center to be, add a few dots. Rinse your brush. Now, let's pick the red, we had mixed, starting with the center, create some thin leaf like shapes coming out like this, leave some gap in between. Now we are going to add similar but slightly bigger and broader shapes in between these ones. You can change your red a little bit, add a bit more orange sometimes. So one fine line, and then slightly bigger shape. Don't worry if the shape next to them are still wet. They will slightly bleed a bit, but don't worry about it. So a fine line, and then two separate brush strokes, trying to make their tip pointy. Add a few more around them. Since we are not using too much moisture, they are drying quite fast. So what I'm doing is picking some more of that red and adding some fine lines, especially on these big ones that we have painted. Some veins. You can give a bit better shape to the small ones that look a bit fused. So this is a very fast way of painting the poinsettias. We're not waiting in between for the different layers to dry. Now we can go around it and add a bit more foliage. Let's start with a bit of burnt umber and add a few stems or sticks on which we can attach. Some other foliage doesn't have to be perfectly symmetric, but I'm just trying to keep it slightly balanced. To this bottom one, let's add some of those teal colored round leaves. They're not really eucalyptus leaves, inspired by them. For the top ones, we can add spruce or fir leaves. So for that, I'm picking the sap green and Quinacridone Gold mix. And with that, I'm adding these fine needle like leaves. Just fine lines, using the tip of the brush. Getting quite close to the poinsettia to make it look like they're underneath it. Let's also pick some sap green mixed with Windsor red and add similar kind of needle like leaves near here. Don't worry so much if they overlap or bleed a bit, going back in with some burnt umber for a few more twigs. We can pick the same mixture of red and transparent orange and with that, add a few berries, some twigs of winter berries. Also adding them in between the leaves here, and then we can pick that French ultramarine. For some juniper berries up here. Once they dry, we might add some leaves around them, but you can also leave them just like this. Our poinsettia has dried, so what I'm going to do is pick a bit of that Permanent Alizarin Crimson, which is a bit deeper red than the red we have used to paint them. With that, I'm just creating a bit of shadow on some of the leaf like shapes. Because when you paint something this fast and they are overlapping shapes, they all tend to get slightly fused together. So this brings back a bit of shape. I'm not adding the colour to every possible edge, just a few places, adding some more veins, some of the bigger leafy shapes here. Now I'm going to pick my number four round brush. You can also pick a flat brush, and with that, I will pick some of that slight peachy brush color. And with that, I will add a base layer to this ornament, being just a bit careful around the circular shape. Don't worry so much about adding a uniform wash because all of this will have a bit of a pattern on it. I will go back in with my number three round brush and with some Quinacridone Gold in my brush. I will add a small holder up on top here. With that same color, I will also add a ribbon coming down from the arrangement and add a ribbon bow here. While we wait for this base layer to dry, we can go in here and just add some deeper green leaves. Some round leaves here and there with the indigo and sap green mix. Connecting these with thin stems as well. Making the composition a bit more fuller. Let's continue adding a few more details in the next lesson. 20. Ornament Part-II: The base layer for this ornament has dried. So now let's add a simple pattern on it. You can pick even smaller brush like zero or number zero brush if you would like the pattern to be a bit more delicate. I will pick this zero brush. And with that, I'm adding some wavy twigs in here. And you can decide to add any kind of foliage pattern or even any geometric pattern on the bubble. If you would like to balance it out that you have a floral arrangement up here, you can add some geometric pattern in here as well, and it would look pretty nice. After adding this, you can decide to add just one type of foliage, just simple winter berries or you can decide to add a mix of foliage, some berries, some leaves. Let's start with some berries. Again, our winsor red and transparent orange mix for just these round berry like shapes. And now I'll pick some of that darker green to add a few needle like leaf shapes as well. Smaller brush like this helps to make these needles sharp and thin. Now we can just add some finishing touches with some gold with my zero brush. I will first of all, add some to the center of the poinsettia Also around some of the leaf like shapes of the Ponsettia. Not every single one of them. Okay. Now around some of the spruce. I'll just add a few dots. A few dots on the winter berries. A dot around the teal color leaves we had painted. Just a touch of festivity all around. I'm adding a few golden berries to the ornament here as well. Adding some more gold spots. Some more gold to the ribbon. With some of my bleed proof white, I'll pick some of that white. You can also use POSCA Pen and add a few white dots. I'll just pick some of that sap green and add some fine leaves behind the juniper berries. Just needle like shapes. Bit more Quinacridone Gold to the ribbon and the ornament holder here, making the tips of the leaf like shapes bit sharper. Once this dries, you can erase the pencil lines for the ornament. And with this, our ornament is ready. 21. Christmas tree: As the final project, let's paint a decorated Christmas tree. For this next design, let's paint a decked up Christmas tree. You can start with a pencil and create a vertical guideline just to make sure how big you like your tree to be then add some curved marks for where you would like your lights to be one of them close to the base. Some people like to block the lights by adding some masking fluid, and then they paint the tree. Once the tree has dried, then they remove the masking fluid and then color the lights the way they want. But I like to first paint my lights and then paint the tree while saving the areas of light. So let's have a look at the colors we'll be using. You can decide any kind of color combination you like for your lights. I would like some bright pink, some yellow, and maybe some red in there. For my bright pink, I'll either pick some Quinacridone Rose You can also pick something like an Opera Rose. For the yellow, I'll pick some Cadmium Free Yellow. For the red, I already have Winsor red and transparent orange mix here. Now let's look at the greens. We already have quite a few greens we've used throughout the projects. I've got sap green here all by itself. We will need some deep green. So for that, I've got some sap green mixed with some indigo here. Let's test these colors out. This is sap green mixed with indigo. This is sap green by itself. For any lighter green, we can also use sap green mixed with some Quinacridone Gold for green gold color. We will use some burnt umber for the tree trunk. For now, let's get started with these colors and I will let you know if we add some more. I will pick my number three pointed round brush, and with that, I will first start adding some lights and ornaments, just some round shapes. I will alternate between the pink and the yellow. But you can choose any color combination that you like. Just loosely drawing these round shapes. Some of them will lose their shape once we add the tree. But for now, let's add them. Now I'll add some yellow in between them, very loosely. You can wait for these to dry before you start adding the tree, or you can also start by adding the tree already. Some of these colors will bleed a little bit, but that gives a sense of looseness to your tree. I'm starting with the very light green, which is sap green plus Quinacridone Gold and pointed round number three brush, starting with the central line and just little curved marks attached to it. Wherever I come close to the ornaments and lights, I go a bit careful some of the marks, I press my brush down a little bit then simply start adding these curved marks in between the rows of ornaments and lights. It's okay if some of them get the color. This is just the first layer of the green. If you want to, you can pick a bigger brush as well to make it easier. So just long swish kind of motion for these brush strokes. Touch, push and lift. Now let's go in with some overlapping marks. Not covering the entire area we just painted, but adding some overlapping green marks creates a bit of depth with different kinds of greens in there. Now, let's add the deepest green. Be a bit careful with this one, can quickly take over. Adding it close to the arnaments for each of the layers close to the base as well. With some burnt umber, I'll add a bit of the trunk here at the base going in with those similar brush strokes to give the tree a sense of fullness. Now while everything dries, I will go in with some of that burnt umber and connect some of these lights with a string, just a bit visible in between a few of them so that it doesn't look like they're just hanging in the air with my flat number eight brush, I will take some burnt umber and add a touch of transparent orange to it. With that, I will paint a small basket here for the tree. At this point, you can start adding some more ornaments if you would like to. So with your bright pink, you can add a few more. I'm going to pick some of my gold. And with that, I will create some more ribbons and tinsel. You can see I'm not waiting for the green to dry completely because I'm not worried about my gold bleeding into the green. It's rather a nice look. If you want to, you can go back in with some of that really light green to add some more color to some of these gaps between the various layers. But you don't need to cover every bit of it. Let it look loose like this. Don't worry about it too much. With our gold, let's add a little star up on top, or you can also add a ribbon. I'm using some burnt umber to add some vertical stripes to this basket. Now with my opaque white, I'll add some white dots. You can obviously use the splatter technique on this, but it already has so much of white in it. Splatter technique can very easily go out of control and it will add too much white into your design and will take away very easily that lush green of the tree. So I'm not adding them with the splatter technique, rather just adding a few dots here and there. I'm just going back in with the pink and the yellow to give a bitter shape and a few extra ornaments here and there. A little bit more gold won't hurt anybody. And with this, our decked up tree is ready. 22. Closing: I hope you had as much fun watching and painting along with this class as much I had creating it. I would love to see your progress and results, so please make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare. And if you're sharing them on Instagram, you can tag me. You can use the discussion tab to ask any questions about this class or simply to interact with other students. If you enjoyed this class, I would be so thankful if you can give this class a skillshare review. It will help me reach more students here on skillshare. If you enjoyed my teaching style, I invite you to check out my other classes here on Skillshare and my Instagram page where I share my daily art journey. You can follow me here on Skillshare to get updates about my future classes. Thank you so much for watching, and I hope to see you soon with another class until then stay creative.