How to Paint a Sweet Pea Blossom in Watercolor Video Lecture - Master

hi there Lindsay here the frugal crafter
I want to show you what I found when I
was cleaning my studio today I found
this old set of yarko watercolors and it
was really hard to tell what they were
from the pan so I did a little swatch
out colors are gorgeous and I thought
hey I'm gonna do a tutorial with these
today I know um some of my viewers use
yarc of paints I got these who are steal
of a deal about 10-15 years ago Oh had
to be probably around fifteen years ago
now they're like twenty four dollars and
the really really vivid vivid paint now
they're way more than that but they do
still have them available so we're gonna
we're going to draw a Sweet Pea and I'm
just gonna really kind of make it big
I'm working on a common watercolor paper
actually I was just kind of looking
through my filing cabinet and realized I
really need to go upstairs into my flat
file and start restocking at my
watercolor papers cuz I bind my papers
in big sheets and usually in bulk
because most of a studio a big studio
are taught lessons so back then I
stocked up on lots of full watercolor
sheets and I was always so afraid to
have him down here in my basement studio
I was afraid they would get moldy or
mildew or get damp and be ruined because
they are an investment and so I've kept
them upstairs and I'm so glad I bought
them when I did because now paper is so
much more my I got arches paper that I
paid two dollars a sheet for and now
it's like five or six for like you know
through the discount websites it's
insane how much the prices have gone up
alright so I've got my little sweet pea
bud drawn here and just gonna put kind
of like a stalk and I think I'm gonna
throw in a background um the sweet pea
hasn't really opened up too much so it's
gonna be it's gonna be a pretty fun easy
easy little painting I'm gonna just
spray this with water to make it a
little simpler and I'm gonna use a one
inch flat or angular I guess and I'm
gonna take a little bit of yellow
I'm just gonna I need some more water on
there that's not nearly enough there we
go it doesn't want to move there's some
yellow in there you can wet your brush
with your paper wet your brush with it
you want your paper with your brush
strike that reverse it oh my goodness it
is a kids are gonna be off the bus any
moment it's one of those days where it's
like we're what what happened where did
the day go haha oh I came downstairs
like cleaned my studio today it occurred
to me the other day that someone just
popping into one of my tutorials
listening to me gab about what I've done
with my day they're probably just like
what is wrong with this woman she's just
Gavin and talking and there's nothing to
do with what she's doing on the painting
what what's going on here this is crazy
I find some of the YouTube thank you to
were to watch a little yellow ocher here
so I think that's hookers green I don't
have any uh I did swatch out my colors
but I didn't have a color list of what
was in the set um it looks a little bit
too too cool of a green to be SAP I saw
I think it's hookers green and I'm just
making a little rough border like to
keep I like those rough edges sometimes
I will just amount it on some mat board
and then mat over that so I actually
leave the edges and somebody had asked
me how do you get those rough edges well
yeah mold made fine art paper will have
the deckle edges on the sides and then I
just tear it down to the side I want
because and then all the sides will have
those pretty edges oh right
I'm gonna block the flower with a fresh
paper towel just to get any green out of
there this is gonna be a quick easy easy
picture started to rain just have
softball a softball game night and
baseball practice but I don't think
that's gonna happen quite frankly oh
right we need something kind of like and
the other reason i swatched it out I
couldn't really tell what my colors were
this is a really pink
um pinky red and it just looked exactly
like the other red that was on there so
I'm glad I did that and I'm just gonna
put there just a little bit of that
purple I think this is Dax named violet
which I'm sure I'm mispronouncing so
nobody needs to tell me I missed
housing it I I'm pretty sure I am so
what I'm gonna do now that I've got this
basic wash in here I think that I will
let it dry I'll speed things up with the
heat gun but I will pause it so you
don't have to watch me do that all right
it's mostly dry I left a puddle Cup and
it couldn't appear on the edge of you
look at that that's gonna dry and give
me a cool roughly bloom which you'll be
interesting so my backgrounds kind of
big and plain so yeah I use all the help
I can get there I'm using a number 10
round brush I believe 10 round yet royal
aqua on I really like the Aqua on
brushes and you can find them in
affordable sets which are really nice I
know that like our local a/c more
carries them and you probably have a
local art store that carries them the
nice thing about well there's this
there's there's benefits to everything
the nice thing about having a local art
store which we don't have anymore is
that you get to see everything and try
it out and ask advice but the good thing
about the big-box store is that you can
actually use a coupon you get a set of
you know I think the sets are 20 bucks
which isn't bad honestly and then you
can get 50% off which is nice alright so
I'm just doing a little shadow there and
then I'm just going to go in I've just
using a damp brush and I'm going to
soften it and just pull it out pull the
shadow out and I'm gonna bring it a
little bit of that um that pinky red
probably in magenta I'm not sure or
might be red rose deep uh something like
that a pinky or red if you don't have
those colors you know use crimson use
alizarin crimson and you can mix your
purple with alizarin crimson and
ultramarine blue nice thing is every
once while it's fun to uh it's fun to
try you know a new palette I think I was
fortunate it seemed like back in the
late 90s early 2000s a lot of companies
had a lot of companies to come onto the
scene come onto the market here in the
United States and like Jericho was a
Russian company and you know different
different a lot of different products
and so I'm just paying this puddle here
with clear water and so if you took a
chance on some of these companies
you could get some really good deals
right at the beginning like I got tubes
at da Vinci paint the huge tubes of
DaVinci watercolor which are now like
$30 for like three to five dollars it
was crazy
so you know if you're if you're starting
out if you're willing to take a chance
if there's a new company offering artist
quality paints um you know take a chance
on them because if it's artist quality
it's usually gonna be pretty good and if
they're a new company starting out
you're usually going to get a really
good deal I got my first I got set of 12
of the yurka ones through a promotion
from Jack Richardson and then um and
then when I saw the the set of 24 early
24 dollars I jumped on it because I
already knew the quality was good all
right make sure you have your little
credit card scraper handy because when
you use that in just a second
I'm just helping pull some of that color
out over here to the edge of the petal
these are really nice paints I always
like to try new watercolors watercolors
my passion it's my favorite medium I get
asked a lot to do acrylic tutorials and
for you know I'll use acrylic paints and
certain for certain things but I tend
not to just just paint with acrylics but
I think I might I have I have one and I
a couple actually in mind to do so
probably when I'm back from the stamp
show I don't know if I'll do any videos
this weekend I'm not really planning on
it cuz I'm only there for one day but
whole thing I'm not making any promises
alright and I'm just gonna pull some
little veins is really gonna scribe the
paper and make that purple sink in and
make it look really realistic and also
make a really short work of things
detailing for us look at that can you
see that get some really nice uh nice
paint well not easy but you can see it
hopefully now you can see it pretty well
alright and so what I'm doing here the
way I'm working is I'm skipping around a
bit so that I don't have so the colors
don't bleed into each other while I'm
working get a little bit of water and a
little bit of this purple here this is a
pretty decent amount of mixing area my
palette has a little a little flap that
hooks on so you do have a decent amount
of mixing
which is it's handy it's compact so it's
good if you were taking it to a class
and it's also good if I'm like what I'm
doing my tutorials here because it's not
taking up as much space as my regular
painting pallet with the one that the
painting palette I use if I'm not doing
a video because I have more space on my
tables I don't dry pot on there all
right and then it's a little skin I'm
gonna paint this one in here I'm
actually going off the colors run a
little bit once like a watercolor after
all somebody asked me um how come you
don't do more detailed watercolors and
the reason for that is basically just a
limit on my my camera it record stops
recording after 20 minutes and I don't
have time to edit too many videos a week
I edit one or two maybe a week the other
just up on YouTube live so I so that
would be that's the reason for that my I
always start off my paintings loose and
they get and then if I'm going to put
more time into it then I make them more
detailed at that point so the beginnings
in light this is how the beginning for
my opinions always start there loose and
bright and washy that's just how I work
all right I'm just going to go in with
some of this lemon yellow right here on
the stem and I'm gonna pull some of that
down into the top here like the hip of
the flower gonna be careful I don't want
to get it into the the purple or mundo
just gonna make mud when we step mine I
think my my my paint brush my teeth that
would've been good pretty sure these
contain cadmium or something nasty
probably that yellow does that's a
cadmium yellow just throwing some of
this in here and I'm removing any excess
water for my brush because I don't want
to go and bleed where I don't want it
just give it looks like a little hat
doesn't it nice little little bits here
katish all right and to extend the line
up and then I want to put little fuzzies
on there so I'm gonna back in my credit
card scraper tool and just kind of drag
out little little fuzzy marks either
fuzzy little fuzzy little stem
see just gonna pull it out I'm gonna go
all the way up and down the stem while
it's still wet you do have to you have
to do a lot sweater it's not going to
work and you can't really you know you
could be wet it but it's not gonna it's
not gonna work quite as well so here I'm
actually pushing it's actually pushing
some of the pigment out and giving me
some light marks it's dragging some give
me some decorative hairs on there just
uh that's what you want you want that
kind of like catching the light or
shadowing in the light you go you want
that to give it a real realistic take
your time on this I'm going faster than
I would if I wasn't doing a video
because you know the time thing the time
thing in the fact the kids are gonna be
out of us any minute all right I'm gonna
pause it I'm gonna dry it we're gonna
finish up all right so now I'll show you
a little mistake I made here I didn't
realize it when I was scratching my
veins I should have gone all the way up
to the edge of that pedal so I'm gonna
have to paint some a little bit of
something in there to bridge the gap but
I just wanted to point that out so that
when you go ahead to do that yourself
you don't make that same mistake I'm
gonna throw in some washes on this pedal
and I'm just just working with very
watery paint on dry paper because I
don't want to have to stop and dry that
again just blot my brush off there and
I'm gonna do a more cooler purpley wash
over here and I think I'll scratch in
just a few little little veins here
describing really shows up well in this
cotton paper meet it is not 100% cotton
it's a I think it's a blend of cotton
and and wood paper pulp that's why some
paints are some papers are much more
expensive it's because the cotton
content
there we go it's singing children
upstairs on off the cameras picking that
up or not
alright understand a little bit of
shading here and there there we go and a
little bit in there and I'm just
basically drying color around I'm just
kind of playing with it until I get the
the blend of uh colors a lot of colors I
like I can go back in with a damp brush
and just soften and I also want to go in
there
a little bit over of that color over
here so I could just kind of bridge over
to my little veins that I drew I mean I
can even drag some more lines in there I
don't know if I want to him I just leave
it like this and I want to wash over
that maybe just even drag some of the
that coloring around a little bit over
here on the back it's nice to have like
if you have a flower with bunch leaves
like that to just kind of drag colors
around try to pull out the differences
between the petals
Peter's talking to me alright
um and now I think I'll just add a
little more detail to the top flower
here and now this is all done with a
pretty big brush if that if a number ten
feels a little too overwhelming for you
to use go ahead and use a smaller one
there's no brush police out there that
are going to tell you not to I think it
is good to use the the biggest brush
that you can handle though because then
you won't be you fuss too much you'll be
covering more area and and I think it
really helps build confidence when you
use a bigger brush
with that and a good quality brush you
can use it right on the tip and get
quite a bit control but even though it's
so large its drag the hard colors Ram
that goes the furnace again cuz my gosh
it's June furnitures gonna keep the
house above 60 there you go
put some nice weather but I've got to
say we got we've had a few soggy days
this week you get appreciate it when you
get it I guess I'm just adding a little
shadow one stock here and it's grabbing
some of those scribe lines making them
look extra detailed and fun nice and
then I'm just gonna throw my Maya name
in there it's good enough for me it's
done enough for me I had fun painting
this I hope you enjoyed it and I hope
you feel inspired to try it as well I
probably you know what I think I will
see smaller well you know what let's see
if I can sign my name of this big brush
that's gonna subscribe our brush cuz a
number ten one is gonna be able to see
yeah that's all right I'm not great at
signing my name anyway
one for 2014 all right there you have it
I want to thank you so much for watching
if you like this tutorial I would
appreciate a thumbs up and subscribe if
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thank you so much for watching until
next time happy crafting