Zen in Brushstrokes | Discovering Stress Relief through Watercolor

1. Introduction: Dive into the world of color and mindfulness, where the canvas becomes a sanctuary and the painting becomes a powerful tool for stress relief. Hi, hi, Mari Rojo, an artist from India. This class is geared towards releasing stress. In a sense, I'm not concentrating on exactly the details of certain things. Just splashing some colors and then get the shape out of it and maybe a little bit of details. Express yourself. Try to get into the mood of releasing your stress. Just splash the colors and then get something out of it. And then as a project from this class, what I would expect you to do is just learn the techniques or otherwise just the way that I've shown, try to get the shape out of it. Just think in terms of exactly how that particular bird or animal or anything you're trying to draw is shaped towards depending on its characteristics. So if you're ready, let's split color and then let's get started. 2. P1_Materials: Let's get to know the material. So I'm going to use 300 GSM watercolor paper. If you have 200 GSM is also fine. I've stuck it behind, I've stuck it with masking tape. That's my watercolor palette. So you can use, I'm not worried about whether you're going to use artist or student watercolor. Use any watercolor, cotton rag and two round brushes. One round bush is more than enough. You don't need two round brushes here. One, I've taken the one with the natural bristles and then the nylon bristles. One round bush is more than enough, and then water for watercolor painting. And don't forget that, you also have to gather spray bottles. 3. P1_Splashing Colors: In this splashing of colors. These are the water colors we are going to use. The colors that I've chosen is crimson and orange and green as well. Let's go one by one. What we'll do is we'll just take some water and mix all of them. When I say take some water, take some 567 drops of water. I'm going to mix them in that particular well itself, Mix it and drop it, just the way I'm tapping my brush. Just tap the brush. It might go here and there. This is splash. You should not be worried about your surface. You can clean it later but go along with me. I'm splashing just with the tap of my finger on the brush. See exactly like that. I'm using magenta. Now, any colors you can use, peacock colorful. We're just trying to make sure that it's actually going to be very colorful. Splash the colors mainly the way that I'm doing. Don't go too close to the paper then what will happen is you might touch the paper. That's one thing. Another thing is don't load the brush with too much of paint in a sense. Like we use it for big washes with big brush and then swipe it across the paper. We'll not do that. Load the brush in such a way that it has enough paint. If you have doubt, try it on a different paper and come back here. Now you can see I load it too much and that's where the problem was. Then I even spoiled it even further. That's fine. So let me just lift off a little bit of paint. I just dried my brush again. Lift it off, But I have to make something out of it. Like I said, nothing as perfect. So we'll just concentrate on continue splashing. We'll make something out of it. That's one thing that you need to remember. Whatever I've mentioned. Just the color. I'm just trying to cover my board here. That's one that is the main favorite board, so I just don't want to spoil it. Splash all the colors, green color, orange and blue and magenta. Even if you have red, you can splash all those colors. Then in the next lesson, we'll try to spray some water with the spray bottle. 4. P1_Spraying the Surface: That's the cotton rag. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to place it just below it just in case that. Remember that my board is at an angle of 2030 degrees. Whatever I'm going to spray, it might come down and I don't want to sp let me just check. It's not spraying straight, it's at an angle. So I'll just hold it at an angle and then maintain the distance spray in one place. Too many times it might start dripping if that's the effect you're after. So you can actually go after that, but spray evenly on all the places and then stop when it is enough and then we'll continue the drawing in the next lesson. 5. P1_Painting the Peacock: Let's start painting the peacock itself. As you can see, my surface is still. I'm going to remove a little bit of water, which might actually be too much anywhere. I see that it's too much of color which is going to drip. I'm trying to stop it there itself. With the brush, touch the tip, it'll suck the color. And then wipe it off of the cloth or your kitchen paper towel as well. That way I'm trying to reduce my dripping. If I leave it or when I connect the dots, that might actually come down. But like I said, if that's the effect you're after, so go ahead. That's fine too, because you might have seen those type of paintings as well. But one of the main important things from these kinds of painting is that one is that you just splash the colors however you want. The second thing is just understand just enough the characteristic of a bird. How does it look like? It doesn't have to have the same color, but it has to have at least the same shape or a little bit of characteristic. So those are the things that you need to keep in mind. I'm going to use this round brush. This is brush pen. You don't have to have brush, pen, brush. What we use, that's what you can actually use, the same thing. Nylon brush is more than one brush, is more than one brush. Does the job for both the paintings. In this class, what I'm going to do, we already have those wet colors. Although paper is wet, remember the splashed colors are not dried, they are still wet. I'm trying not to touch, I'm trying to place my hand on my palette and that's the shape. If you see, I wash my brush again because there's already paint on the paper. I'm going to first make the shape other color. Let's say if I take blue and apply it for the neck, at the bottom of the neck, I will lose that yellowish or magenta color. That's the important point. This time I've taken a little bit of magenta on my brush a little bit just to touch because the other colors can get mixed there. If you see the top head round neck a little bit longer and the body oval shape all under shapes, just keep that in mind. Just the shapes. Some other colors that I'm trying to take is just a little bit. Wash my brush, Come back again, Take the fresh paint because I don't want to mix any other color. Inside is just marks for the wing or the feather. You can actually see the neck. I have to at least distinguish a little bit of neck, otherwise the color, if the value, if that doesn't make any difference between the neighboring color, then I will not be able to show the shape. As you can see, the color which was dripping from top, that orange one when we splashed color. It's just there. But I couldn't do anything. I'll just leave it as in your painting if it turns out entirely different. So then you can try it. This is one shape. I'm not, again, individually painting the shape of the tail for the peacock. It is just a suggestion like how I'm drawing. I'm painting just paint along with me. Just start with thin line and then thin sharp. Continue doing so for the entire right side portion because I'm just thinking that it is not that I don't want to leave a peacock, just the tail which is not opened with all those colorful feathers. I'm going to take it up until I go to the top. And then we'll put some details on that. But things that you need to remember here is the colors. If you take any color, whatever we did for the wing or that feather on the body is the same color what we had on the paper itself. I tried to mix the colors. What was on the paper and any drops that as I went above. As you can see, just a little bit of different colors. But see again blue. I'm going to take, I'll mix with the bottom color splash. Color is the one more thing that you need to keep in mind is that make sure your head and the beak is visible. You might just lose the entire painting just because I'm not talking about too many details. But what you see from four or six feet away from your painting, will you be able to recognize? That's the question you need to ask. But like I said, concentrate on beak round, head long neck, oval shaped body, and then some shapes brakes the way exactly how I'm doing. Those are the Brust strokes, and then we'll make sure that. Those colorful strokes are just then. Once this is done, what we'll do is in the next lesson we'll let this dry because I won't be able to put, I can put darker color, but that might get mixed with the bottom layer because this is still wet. Let this dry and then we'll put a little bit of details and we'll complete that. But that details actually has completely show my peacock a little bit of characteristics. That way, I should be able to recognize what it is. As you can see, complete this in this lesson. Follow this along. Like I said, your painting might not be exactly as mine. But if you follow along with the strokes that I'm doing now, and then mainly the body and the neck, and the head of the peacock, you should be good with that splashing. Like I said, try it on different paper and then see how much you've loaded. Wherever I'm painting. Now, just think that I'm trying to increase the contrast of the color itself. Not to leave it as very light color, you can leave it as very light color. But if I really want to show something, contrast hard edge, that's, that's what I'm talking about. That way actually I'll be able to see the neck. That yellow color is still there. That side. A little bit of darkness. And then the body wise, let me wash my brush. And then that edge, I will take out all the edges. I'll take out because I don't want any hard edges. There is some color. Let me wash my brush. Let's see a little bit again, green colors. All right? Okay. So like I said, follow along with this, complete this lesson and then in the next, last lesson we'll apply some details and make it more beautiful. 6. P1_Final Details: In a final part of this painting, I'm going to use this white. If you don't have white gouache, you can actually use white acrylic, don't use Chinese watercolor white because it's not going to be that opaque. And then you will use that details. I'm going to use a little bit of white. I'm going to straightway take it from there. I will not just white, no water is mixed with that. All I'm going to do is for all the things that whatever we have paint and I'm going to put some design dots, mainly concentrate on here. Whatever you want to do, you can actually do it, but see those dots on the darker colors, actually they look much, much better. I think just the dots, you can actually leave it as is. The only thing that if you really want to do detail in this part, if you don't want to do anything for the tail part, I would suggest you to just concentrate on I use round brush, again, I'm using round brush here again. This time the round brush is nylon brush. But mainly I'm looking for a round brush, which comes to a point, not the spoiled one, which comes to a point where I can actually put those details. The reason behind that is when it comes to a point, the thin lines that I can draw for eyes like the to our oval shape, That's the main thing, that's what I'm actually looking at. Make sure that the eye part, you don't want to spoil it. First, load the brush with the gas or white acrylic and then try it on some dark paper that you can actually draw thin lines, the top of the eye and the bottom of the eye. Those lines, if you can draw just a suggestion that from far, that's the reason you can see that that's where the main thing is. There are some more darts that I'm going to put it just I'm just feeling that I don't want to leave those darks as darks wherever I see dark. I've just applied a little bit of arts on that. Let's try to concentrate on take that brush. See, as you can see, I've just applied paint and then I just made it flat one line on top or bring it to a 0.1 line at the bottom. Bit of art in between, then the beak one line. If you work it out too much, then you might actually lose that line. But then after that, you had to paint that dark color for the head and then come back again. That's one thing you have to keep in mind. Make sure that the reason behind that. Now you can actually think why I made that head a little bit dark because I wanted to paint eye with the white. So that's the main thing. If I had painted a little bit of a lighter color, then I should have painted dark. That's the main thing, only two lines and the bottom one is a small one. Watch this first and then paint. Paint later. Or otherwise paint along with me. But understand exactly what I'm talking about. Complete this. Share your painting. I would love to see your painting. 7. P2_Materials: Let's get to know the material. So I'm going to use 300 GSM watercolor paper. If you have 200 GSM is also fine. I've stuck it behind, I've stuck it with masking tape. That's my watercolor palette. So you can use, I'm not worried about whether you're going to use artist or student watercolor. Use any watercolor, cotton rag and two round brushes. One round bush is more than enough. You don't need two round brushes here. One, I've taken the one with the natural bristles and then the nylon bristles. One round bush is more than enough, and then water for watercolor painting. And don't forget that, you also have to gather spray bottles. 8. P2_Getting Colors Ready: Before we even start off with splashing the colors, let's get the colors ready in our pans. So what I'm doing is I'm taking some color. Setting some water and then mixing the color. Last time, if you remember what we did is for the previous painting previous project, what we did is, I used I've applied two or three drops of water or five or six drops of water inside the paint itself. But this time, what I'm doing is, I will mix all the colors in different on different well. I'm not going to pick it up straight from the color itself. So the only difference between that and this is, I'm preparing the colors like we prepare it for washes, but last time, actually, we picked it up from the paint itself. First is the turquoise. Next one, I'm using burnt sienna. The reason behind that is the paints that I'm going to splash thinking in terms of when I look at the painting, how does it look? The bottom portion of the Kingfisher, little bit brownish, and then maybe it's sitting on the branch, which branch is again brown. That part actually I'll splash some burnt sienna. Then make sure that your colors are actually thick. And the main thing is we're not splashing it on the wet surface. It's on dark surface. So even if your value is not too dark, it's fine, but actually it has to be a little bit darker than the normal washes. Then the next color is I'm going to take some crimson or red ermlion hue and then sap green. Again, sap green, I'm taking in terms of again if I'm going around the bird and the background as bushes or some trees, so that's the sap green. As you can see, there are four colors four five drops of water, and then the color means the good rich color. It's not that Sorry. It's not that it's very light. So good rich color. Then let's see maybe we might need blue on Magenta let's just think about it, and let's take some water first and then think of ultramarine blue, not the cobalt blue. Ultramarine blue, take good ultramarine blue. Like I said, all colors are very bright and less water, more pigment, more color. So keep this ready because when we load the brush anyway, so that's one thing you have to keep in mind, five, six, seven drops of water. So when you load the brush, the brush is actually loaded with color so that I can actually tap on the brush and then splash the color. So that's very important. Then the next color is magenta or the rose. That one is the permanent rose, the last one, so I'm going to go with permanent rows. If you don't want to go for this, you can go for magenta or any other color because I didn't want to go with indigo or any other color which is actually a little bit lighter, but all of them are, I think, in my opinion are bright. Get these colors ready, we'll splash the colors. 9. P2_Splashes and Sprays: Let's get started with the flashing. I'm going to place that at the bottom again to be, to take the precaution off if something actually drips down because my board is at an angle of 2025 degrees or 30 degrees based on all of my paintings, actually, mainly for watercolor, even the other paintings as well. If I'm not using the tabletop easel or any other easel, it'll be on this. Actually, it won't unless and until I do some acrylic pouring. That's entirely different situation. But most of the time this is the board, that's the angle. It'll be easier for me to place my hand. And also for painting as well. Mainly, At least for recording. So you have to keep that in mind that I'm actually recording this. That's one thing. What I would suggest is just follow along with me exactly what we did for the previous project and then complete this splashes and sprays. And in the next lesson, we'll continue with the marks for the Kingfisher bird itself. 10. P2_Painting the KingFisher: There are lots of things going on here. Let me just wash my brush. That's a round brush, again, characteristic wise, that's the oval shape I'm going to take for the head, it's wet, remember? It's just wet for the eye part. I'm going to leave a little bit of white. Remember last one? What we did is we had the entire head a little bit of a dark color so I can actually apply white. But this time I'm going to leave near the I pod lighter white. And then I will go with the darker color and place it. I'm just making some marks. But the characteristics, again, there are different characteristics for all the birds. If I were to go for, let's say if it was something related to sparrow, or a pigeon, or even heron, These are all the birds that if you see the head wise, it's entirely different. So you have to keep that in mind here for this kingfisher. Just think about this. The head is actually not entirely circle, it's more of oval shape and the body is again oval shape. N is not long. Again, characteristic wise, not long neck. Old shaped head, old shaped body, and longer beak. That's what I'm going to concentrate on that with whatever wetness, whatever I had. Because whatever lines I'm going to put, now what is going to happen is it's going to spread out and then get the shape. At least get the shape. In the next lesson, what we can do is we'll, once this is dried during that time, I can actually come up with darker colors and then try to make some shape out of it. For example, darker colors or darker lines under the neck or the wing itself, just above the tail. Those are the things that I can actually separate both of them. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to apply darker colors here just to make sure that my shape and the edges are actually defined. And even if I'm actually see when I do the line, it's all wet. It's just going to go, it's not about even damp, it's just wet. Whatever lines I'm going to put now, it's actually going to spread out and then I won't be able to see much of it. All I'm trying to do is with the same color, darker color, lighter color somewhere. That definition of definition of the contrast of colors. Is there more details we'll put it will try to paint in the next lesson. Make sure that you have the shapes done, that's where it is actually standing. So that's my understanding where tail is actually on top of the tree branch. And then we'll just go along with whatever colors we have and then we'll define more in the next lesson. 11. P2_Shades and Shadows: Let's start with some of the details. As of now, the paper, entire paper is dried, so what I've done, it was a little bit buckled, but anyways, I'm not going to put a lot of paint on the surface. What I've done is the top of the paper, on the bottom of the paper, I've stuck it using masking tape. That's what I've done. I've taken it out of my pad and I've placed it here. Whatever I'm trying to do is the same darker color. And because I need some strokes of brushes for the feather and then the wing, I'm using my finger to blend at the bottom. Just pull it out. But that is a shape. Now under the beak or under the neck, I need a little bit of darker color. That's where I'm applying a little bit of darker color. And then maybe use the brush and drag it along. Or otherwise use your finger and then smudge it at the bottom. All those lines, wherever I need darker colors. Those are a little bit smaller, just draw it along with your finger. If not, just use the brush itself. These are all the wings and the feathers on top of the body. Like I'm using just the curved lines. Try the color lines because now it's dried. Even if you use the same value, I think you'll still be able to see the second layer with the lines for the wings and feathers the same color. I'm just trying to mix a little bit of darker ones under that particular part. Just above the wing. Below the wing and then above the tail. That's where I need a little bit of darker colors. Again, I'm just going to use that. I'll build up the darkness here. As you can see, I'm not straight away using very dark color, but watercolor dries lighter, so you have to keep that in mind. I will increase the darker value step by step so that I know that were to stop again, don't go with too much of details and don't worry too much about the colors itself in the sense the layers. But what I would suggest is just go with color, one darker color, define the characteristics, define the details. Again, I don't want that hard edge here applied the color hard edge at the top, but not the hard edge at the bottom. I've just washed my brush and then pulled it along. Those are the legs here somewhere. Again, most of you actually struggle with the leg. I'm using the same burn, Siena, but I added touch of pain Scra. If you don't have pain scray, what you can do is you can add touch of blue to that. What will happen is you'll get the darker version of the same color, same burn, Siena, little bit of blue. It's just darker. I'm going to make just marks of legs. Don't spoil the legs again, be toes on the legs because you don't want to make it too thick and then spoil the entire painting. Make sure that you have enough paint and then make sure that you're brush comes to a point. And then you can draw those three toes for that particular bird right now, the part for the beak, although we have done all of that for the bottom part, actually what I want is I want that to be a little bit of reddish. But before that what we'll do is we'll try to draw very thin line between the top part of the beak and the bottom part of the beak once I separated. Another thing you can notice is the top part of the beak does not have hard edge. Because I can't figure it out where it is. I can actually leave it as because it shows the definition. But I think I'm going to define a little bit for the top on the bottom just to make sure that it stands out from the background. For the bottom one, I'm going to take a little bit of first, let's put that line a little bit so I can actually define a little bit of hard edge. Now I know where the neck is, where the body starts. That's the same thing what we did for the peacock as well, that we will define. Once that is done, we'll go over the top one as well, just to give it a punch. The bottom one, I'm going to use that red color at the bottom, not too dark, because if it is too dark, I won't be able to define the value. Once that is done, what we can do is a little bit of the color. Let's just, that's where that beak starts. See, the beak doesn't exactly start just after the whole shape of the head. I have to start somewhere between and then we'll try to manage. That's where the is. I'm if you have a reference photo, it's fine. But place the exactly. I'm not going to put the leave that white spot in catch light for the E. Will that dark color actually I've used the same color, whatever I had. And then a little bit at the corner, I want that little bit at the corner on the left hand side and then some lines behind that eye, right. Once that is done, main thing is eye, like I said, here is the darker and surrounding the eye is a little bit of white. And then what we did is a little bit of punch of red color at the bottom of the beak and then the legs. And send some lines for the feathers and the tail. Once this is done in the next, last lesson of the final details, we'll just make sure, use the go and get the details a little bit here and there. That will complete our painting. 12. P2_Final Details: So let's start with the final details with just pure, what do you call this time? What I'm doing is I'm taking some gage. I had one drop of water on my brush and I've taken enough gage on my palette because I need it for more details here. I'm not going to I will just take out excess water. I just want my Gage to be on my brush, not lighter in the sense, Two or three drops of water, one drop of water, and then more of I have taken out extra water from the fu of my brush. Like I said, I had shown two brushes, but one of the brushes was that the liner brush, I'm not going to use that for the entire pending. I've used only one brush. I'm going to use the same brush as well. Bring it to a point and then just put some lines on the wings and for some lines for the bottom belly of the bird. And then dot inside the eye, little bit of shininess on top of the beak, whatever I said. I'm actually going to go through the entire thing for that details on, on top of head, that Kingfisher bud, if I could have left it as is. But I think that small details in the sense, some lines and then some dots on top of the head, everything actually makes more sense. As you can see. That's why what we did is we had all these colors on, on the bird, which we actually used different contrasting colors, lighter and darker color. Now I'm trying to put some lines and dots. Those are the lines I'm not worried about. If you feel that it's too much, Just a bit off with your finger. Another thing, like I said, I'm not going to use water here. Not even water. Just the same thing. Either I rub with my finger or otherwise with the brush, But to get it lighter, the technique that I'm going to use just to smudge it with your finger. Some lines here and there for the feather on top of the wing, again like curved lines. And then a little bit of lines for the tail as well. Just enough that you are able to see like as you can see, wherever I felt that it's too dark. I have just smudged it with my finger. More color. Little bit. I need underneath the under the head and then may a little bit near the belly but I'll just make sure that I have enough shape and I've shown the shape underneath the belly continue follow along with me. I'm just going to make some marks exactly like this. Then also I'm going to detail a little bit of dot inside and then some more details follow along with this, even for the beak as well. Complete the top. Actually, I need that little bit of shining. Apply that. And then maybe rub it with finger or otherwise. Just leave it as wash the brush here that I'm going to use. After washing the brush, I'm going to rub it along. I need just a little bit of shininess on the top of the beak. I don't need too bright because I don't want to catch my entire, my eye to catch that particular part just enough that it has a little bit of shininess to the top of that actually, as you can see, the top one actually has the shininess shimmering on top of the beak. And the bottom one actually has that red one. Just a touch of art inside the eye. Just a touch. Don't spoil it with applying too much of pressure. As you can see, everything is coming along good. I would say follow along with this and follow the entire painting, complete this painting. Don't forget to share your painting. I would love to see your painting however it has turned out, with your splashing colors. And then just or if you have any other bird in your mind, try to paint that and complete the painting. I would love to see you in some other class as well. So I'm just trying to increase my contrast here anywhere if you need or otherwise you can just leave it as so you can call it done. And then I'll continue with a little bit of more details in this and then I'll finish my meeting as well. 13. Thank You: Thank you for being part of this class. I hope you enjoyed the entire class and learned something out of it in a sense. Learn some techniques or learn some way of actually expressing yourself or otherwise. Join some other technique with this and then come out of your stress or otherwise come out with a different technique as well. I hope you enjoyed the entire class. If you have enjoyed, please follow me on skillshare and then I look forward to seeing you in some other class. If you have any requests, just let me know so that maybe I'll plan based on your request as well. I hope to see you in one of my other classes.