Watercolor poppies Video Lecture - Master the Art of Watercolour Painting

hey there Lindsey here the frugal
crafter and this is by request I showed
this card the other day and um I asked
if anybody wanted tutorial on it and a
few people said sure we'd love it so
we're gonna do that and I'm just using a
watercolor pencil so I can sketch us in
dark enough for you to see it um but I
don't have to worry too much about about
blending lines I'm just kind of throwing
in a few kind of petal shapes in the
center of the flower nothing too fancy
just sketching it in with a water color
crayon go ahead and do it with a pencil
actually did it with a pencil on the
other one but someone complained that my
lines aren't really dark enough in one
of the last tutorials I did and I
sketched it with pencil so I'm just
doing this so that hopefully you'll be
able to see my lines as you can see it's
nothing really fancy I'm just kind of
throwing in some suggestions of petals
here and I could have drawn this on
ahead of time but I figured just kind of
seeing how easy it is to draw it might
help you guys have a little more
confidence as far as um as far as
drawing some of the best Center in there
oh right and I will sketch on a few
stems even though we're gonna put a
background in here just to give you an
idea maybe a little butt up here like we
had in the and the UH example alright so
I want to show you I know some of you
only have watercolor pencils some of you
only have watercolors um and I want to
make this applicable to either so I
really prefer to use watercolor paints
when I'm painting in a background but if
you don't have paint and you want to do
a background with your watercolor
pencils use your pencil on the side see
how I'm just kind of going on the side
so I don't end up making any deep lines
or grouches in my paper use on the side
and kind of throw in some color like
this um you know I wouldn't do the whole
thing one consistent color I think it
looks a little bit nicer when you have a
few different shades of color um mixed
and blended together so I'm gonna use a
little this blue and some of that green
so my colors can blend
this isn't going to be I mean intense is
usually very very bright but I find that
it's really not that bright when I your
background so keep that mind you may
want to go a little bit firmer with your
coloring than you're used to but use the
side of the pencil so that you don't end
up with scratchy lines because you want
have a nice smooth background usually
and I will thrown a little of that color
that little that green nice sketched
with and I'm also going to show you how
to do this with paint too so hopefully
you'll all get something useful out of
it and I'm just gonna grab a large brush
and I'm gonna liquefy it just like that
now we're going pretty soupy and wet
because I'm going to add some
watercolors to this so if you're doing
this with watercolor what you do is you
would just be adding water to this
background instead of adding watercolor
pencils you would just add a plain water
okay so we're just liquefying this all
up I could pause this right now I
suppose but um I do want I want you to
kind of see how long it takes and get up
a good feel for it I try to use the
biggest brush I can handle when I'm
doing a background even if I am going
around items because I don't want to be
fussing around little lines and I think
sometimes when you use a small brush you
end up getting a little kind of fussy
and freaky with your lines and I really
want you to your backgrounds should not
be in sharp focus your background should
be loosey-goosey and that's what makes
your foreground objects the focal points
of your pictures look so nice
alright well you know I think that's too
bright so what I'm going to do is grab a
little my favorite green and that's at
green and I really think that's a great
color that everyone should have in their
palette and I on my blog if you go to my
blog the link is right below this video
and you search watercolor basics you
will see a post I did over a year ago
and it is um it and I'm just dropping
paint into my wet background here and it
has my recommendation for paint burns my
recommendation for four colors to buy on
a PDF is a link you just click on that
and has a peak my PDF print
Paige you can take to the store with you
and there's all the information right
there it's so much easier than you're
trying to copy it down when saying it on
video I want I think I want to have I'm
going to take I know I'm going to be
using some like alizarin crimson and
this piece so I'm going to take a little
crimson all my palate mix it with some
of that SAP green and I'm gonna make a
nice earthy brown and I'm going to add
some of that in there too and that's
good might look like maybe some leaves
in the background so your imagination
will do all this wonderful work for you
when you just kind of suggest shapes in
the background remember the background
is the background it's not center stage
it is supporting whatever you're
painting center stage so you can see why
I prefer to use paint for a background
as opposed to pencils because I like
being able to keep it really loose just
watch out for any weird edges you want
to refine that now so I'm going right up
to the flowers here and also some of
that red blends in with my grain and
makes a hickie Brown that'll be all Rex
it's in the background and I kind of
want that Yuuki color back there Nikki
Nikki it's a new word for you ha ha it's
a background color that you don't want
to be bright and vivid alright so there
get a background in somebody had asked
me how to do that so I'm glad I could
oblige what I'm gonna do is dry this
with my heat gun and come back and we'll
start painting our flowers actually I
realized while the backgrounds wet
there's no reason I can't go in and add
some color to the middles of my my
flowers here I can totally go in and add
that little bit of green in there and
that can dry along with the rest of my
picture so hey look at that how
fortuitous I'm gonna get that green
lovely spring green color in there cuz
we need that to be dry anyway so we'll
just get that done right now while we're
at it yeah little bit of SAP in there
like that SAP green it off a lot oh
that's a little too much like some of
that
oh well it's what and it will dry a
little bit later there now we're gonna
dry it now I mean business
okay we're dry now I'm going to show you
two different ways to paint these petals
because some of you have pencils and
some of you have paints and some of you
prefer one over the other so um I'll
show you with the with the pencils how
to do it first
I know I did a whole tutorial on a poppy
with the pencils but to tell you the
truth I wasn't that happy with that
tutorial after I watched it I thought my
colors were too dark and out of control
and I really was not happy with it so
what I'm doing here is I'm doing the
darker areas the petals with my carmine
pink I'm going to take a flat angular
brush and I like these a lot for
sideloading and what I'm going to do
here is just liquefy my color so I get a
really nice natural blush of color there
and I think a lot of times with flowers
less is more because you can really
overwork it and then it doesn't look
like a flower anymore it doesn't look
natural and pretty and lovely it looks
forced and awkward and just not what you
want when you're doing a flower so that
just has like a nice natural blush and
you could even just leave that like that
on a greeting card and it would be very
lovely if you want to add some more
detail you can go in with a pencil and
you can throw in some lines mind's
drawing really quick on me today I think
my lights are pretty warm today
leave it on for a bit so I could throw
in a few lines like that you can even go
in with a with a liner brush in some
paint and soften that up a little bit
blend it out while the paint is wet
around the center I'd like to go in with
my purple it's actually Moff watercolor
pencil and I can throw in any little
detail lines I'm going to dip it in a
little bit of water and I'm going to
throw in these little um kind of spiky
bits little phalanges or whatever you
call them there
the purple really makes the SAP green
color stand out and it's a little it's
not quite as harsh as black I'm going to
define that circle shape there a little
point in there and then I am going to
add a little bit of the black black
isn't something I use when I paint whoa
I just totally dipped the entire pencil
in the water we're gonna get some
surprises here but I find if I'm using
watercolor pencils I do tend to go a
little bit off road here with my
techniques and I will do that so there
okay so that I did with the watercolor
pencils another cool technique I want to
show you when we're doing a stem is I
actually like to paint it with the
watercolor paints but you can use the
pencils colored in liquefied if you want
but what I like is I could take this umm
the paint and then it can go in with a
pencil so instead of scraping my lines
and would like the edge of a credit card
I can actually scrape them in with the
pencil tip and actually have a little
bit more interest of color there so
there's just another little little tip
for you I think that's too green so I'm
going to add a little to that brownish
color we made in the background into
that so it's just a little more lively
and I can clean up any bleeding areas
later so that's kind of it that's a very
subtle pretty way to do the flower
another way the way with just the the
crimson is what I'm going to do is I'm
going to clean my brush off my brush is
clean and what I'm gonna pinch off the
extra and just get the tip of my brush
of the angle in the red paint and then
I'm going to turn my work because I like
to have it so that it's most comfortable
for me to work let's back there and I am
going to go around the center here and
look how you get it that's sideloading
and get a really nice blush I'm actually
going to add more water and get that to
blend out a little bit further oh isn't
that pretty
and it's so subtle and it's very similar
to the look we got with the with the
pencils and I'm going to do this here
under these petals so try this I mean
this is a great technique you're you
painting rose or a peony anything that's
got a lot of petals like that
and you know if I want I can go in with
the pedals are wet I can go with my
pencil if I want to add some lines or
its definition or liner brush or just a
credit card scraper you know you can use
different mediums on a painting and you
can get the same effect with different
mediums which is kind of nice and I like
that I can define some of my lines here
because I did sketch it on really
quickly so I can go ahead and do that
because I really think you know for a
watercolor card less is more you want to
have a you want to have a good time and
you want your picture to look like you
having a good time I'm going to go in
with some of that purple pencil again
because I do like that the technique
with a pencil
I like how I get different shades of
purple depending on how wet my paper is
if you need to stop at any point go
ahead and I'll do the black lines this
time I will try not to drop the entire
pencil and then just kind of pull out a
few of the black and I forgot to put my
little lines in the middle with the
purple that I'll probably just leave
that be I cannot add some more detail
with my paint or with my pencils I just
like to pull the kind of pick out the
petals just by going in with a little
bit of paint on my brush and letting it
blend out onto the just playing wet side
of my brush just kind of like that
suggesting little breaks in the petals
here and there that could it looks a
little big like it needs to broken up a
little bit any parts underneath are a
little bit darker so I a little more
paint to those and this final one over
here just to speed things along I'm
going to do it with the with the paint
slide loading in there and I would take
a lot more time if I was doing this and
not doing a video I you know it is a
different experience when when I'm
painting I noticed in
shooting a video because I can really
just lose myself in the paint I find it
kind of hard to do that when I'm trying
to talk at the same time I guess I'm not
the best multitasker in that respect but
um I can certainly hopefully help you
get your supplies used I want to show
you the credit card method guys that is
all my favorites and you just kind of
scrape the lines in here with a Ejim old
credit card that you cut up or the
backside of a double brush like this has
a scraper on I can do that a bit too and
I can you can even go over your paint
after you've done that and it will seep
under those lines you've scraped you end
up with a really cool effect that way as
well and yeah just kind of play with it
a little bit until you really like a
look of it
and then call yourself done if you want
to I need to add the Purple's to the sky
here I kind of notice I get a little a
little free-form when I'm using the
pencils because it's so it's so easy to
add a little expressive lines and I do
like to do that so excuse me if I get a
little crazy and here I can just go
ahead and throw in some of the colors
there with that umm fern colored pencil
I'll get this but up here I'm going to
want some color to show through in there
from the petals so I'm going to color
that area with pink and I'm going to wet
them down separately I'll do one color
then I'll wash my brush and do the other
get the pink I brush and all I noticed
that the pencils don't seem to run into
each other as much as the paint's do so
that's kind of interesting you can have
almost two areas wet side by side and
they won't bother each other I can
actually kind of redefine the edge of my
stem a little bit too if I want you
there
a little bit of that shadow getting
ready to go volunteer at the school
today
and I'm going to there painting a
commission in the stages of being
painted but it's like a some masking
fluid drying on that so I had a few
seconds to come over here
and work on a tutorial for you it's
going to scrape in some of those hairy
lines poppies have hairy
stem so I'm putting some of that in
there you can be expressive it's
completely this is a point where it's
like okay how what kind of painter am I
am i expressive do I prefer more
controlled lines what is it that I like
to do and that's what you uh that's what
you put in your pictures here so your
artwork nobody else is your the only one
that has to like it and if other people
I get to and that's great but if not
then sorry about their luck you've got a
painting you like and that's all that
matters I find that I like it better
when I kind of build up my color slowly
with a pencil sometimes I tend to go get
a little out of hand um so I feel like
these just need a little bit something a
little bit more so I'm going in a little
bit more pencil I love this carmine pink
color um somebody had asked me what
colors were in this kit what colors were
in that kit I found a list on cheap
Joe's calm that told you the colors in
each kit but most of these shops will
sell the colors individually so that's
really good for one if you buy say buy
the big set the 72 set this is what I am
that I love um and you run out of a
color you don't have to go buy another
set you can just replace the color that
you've used up or if you see that you
know you like certain colors maybe
you're watching some tutorials and you
don't want to get the whole set you're
afraid that it'll just go to waste but
you know you really like that fern green
and the carmine pink and you could just
go order those they're a boat
I think they retail close to $3 but I've
seen them about 160 on Dick Blick and
Utrecht art and Jerry's are Duran by
those sites say oh they're all pretty
comparable as far as price kind of
getting shop around and see what other
things you need at the same time neat
huh not funny how I I throw need in
there yeah you're right there with me
right right you know all about our
crafty needs and our crafty wants
they're actually the same right I don't
supposed to be the frugal crafter what
happened I don't know what happened
today but you know what that's a I've
been picking this upside-down for you
I'm so very sorry um there are no right
up uh but I don't think it really
mattered that much whether we're upside
down or right side up I hope you I hope
you got something out of this anyway you
know and you really want to turn your
work as you're working so that you um
you can get at it exactly the way you
want to so there you have it it's a
quick little another poppy painting by
request and the next thing up I'll be
working on will be some holiday tags I
do hope that you come back and join me
for that thank you so much for watching
until next time happy crafting thumbs up
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