Toucan on Yupo using LUKAS Studio Paint Video Lecture - Master the Art

hi there Linda here the frugal crafter
today we're gonna take a look at the
smart art box for May and this is what
I'm super excited about because it's a
watercolor I love watercolor so you
start off of course as with every smart
art box with a brochure it tells you
about the supplies you're gonna be
getting as well as giving you a little
project step by step on the back in case
you just need a starting point of what
to do in this kit you have two brushes
we have a number three round and this is
a long-handled brush so this number
three is probably more like a six like
if you are having a nylon short-handled
brush I don't know why the sizing seems
to be different I typically prefer
short-handled brushes for watercolor but
you know if you did want a short handle
brushy groves cut that off and then
we've got a half inch wash there's a
bucket here I like to rinse out my
sizing and really feel the the bristles
so those those feel really nice and it's
gonna weight off my fingers here
sometimes you want to rinse them off
good because sometimes it's like a glue
they put the brushes to keep them from
eating damaged in the store with a cute
little palette here looks like a flower
I've never seen such a tiny little
watercolor palette so cute and a set of
Lucas Lucas aquarelle studio paint so
these are the the student kind of grade
or kind of scholar grade of paints and
they have twelve little half hands in
here and I'm very thrilled to see
there's no white in fact I think this
might be a shade of blue they might not
even have any blacks I I don't use white
and black very often so it's nice not to
have a whole space wasted on them so
they come out so I kind of like that
because you could replace them with pans
once they're used up or um you can
actually take a pan out or fill it with
tube paint if you wanted to a lot of
options there I love little travel
pocket boxes anyways they're kind of a
favorite thing of mine and it comes with
a pad of yupo paper and I'm actually
pretty pleased this is the heavier
weight you PO the you PO that I have
from the full sheets is thinner so this
is kind of nice and this is what we're
gonna work on today so let's get this
box out of the way and I thought it'd be
fun to kind of do like a a picture of a
toucan Birds it's nice and colorful and
we'll really get to see how this paper
and
behaves and my husband saw this and he
was you know you got to do you got to
put a glue dot underneath each of these
pans to keep them in place and like
that's a pretty good idea I assured him
that I would share that with you and
I've got a just a divided bucket of
water here that I'm gonna be using so
that I can keep my colors nice and
bright and fresh as I work I always have
like two buckets of water going so one
bucket bucket for cleaning my brush in
one bucket for before getting fresh
water for for painting I decided to
voice over this video and speed it up a
bit so I could give you a what to do and
what not to do
version of this tutorial so I'm starting
off here sketching with a pencil like I
would if I was working on normal
watercolor paper but I have to say that
honestly I think next time I would just
go right in with my paint because you
bought was such a unique paper that I
can actually wipe away any mistakes with
a wet q-tip because I noticed that
erasing on this paper was not the
easiest it wanted to leave kind of like
smears and smudges behind it didn't
really affect the painting too much in
the future although on certain time
certain areas it almost felt like the
paint didn't want to stick where I had
erased so I had to kind of go over some
spots in the future but here anyway I'm
getting my basic sketch down if you do
want to start off with a sketch I'd
recommend sketching on like a scrap
piece of copy paper and then I'm using
some transfer paper to put that design
on to your paper so you wouldn't have
those weird smudges like I have there it
didn't turn out to be a big deal but I'd
rather save you guys the aggravation if
you're working with this kid at home too
another tip I have for working with
watercolors especially a brand new set
like this is just spritz it with a
little water from a spray bottle it just
gets all your paint juicy and ready to
go these paints wet up beautifully and I
actually have the professional version
of this set and I compared the two and
that that comparison is on my youtube
channel and they held up amazingly
compared to the artists grade version of
these paints which retail for like
eighty four dollars so I was super
excited about that
that is a mix of the the Payne's gray in
the English red and you can see you get
a really really rich dark color they're
almost like out like an indigo and I
like that I can kind of play with the
the cool and the warmth
Mintz there to get that nice rich black
now I'm going in and blocking in the
beak with a little bit of the green that
green that chrome oxide is a little too
opaque for me I think I'm gonna go back
in and mix up brighter green now you can
go in and wipe your paper with this you
PO usually I tell you never to wipe your
watercolor paper but it's perfectly fine
with this you bow because it's a
completely plastic sheet in fact if you
hit your painting you can wash it off in
the sink and start again so that's kind
of another unique ability to this and of
course with an ability usually comes a
drawback and the drawback is that the
the pigment wants to run together and it
takes a long time to dry so keep that in
mind you want to leave a little gap
between colors if you're going to be
painting next to a wet area like I am
here with the yellow face area next to
the black body area if those areas touch
that paint is just going to kind of
smooth and smoosh in and mix and mingle
together it may look cool but it might
not you can see on the beak how the red
and the green have kind of pulled
together and have created kind of a
black color which isn't as appealing so
I'm just wiping it away with a with a
wet brush just so I can get back in
there and reclaim some of that color so
again the advantages you can keep going
back in as much as you want wipe it away
start over the disadvantage is you may
get your colors laid down perfectly but
if if two of the areas touch then
they're just gonna smush together so
play with that and use that that quality
of the paper to your advantage I think
it's fun to play with but you definitely
have to approach it with a free-spirit
playful attitude or you'll be kind of
frustrated so for that brighter green so
I thought the green that came mixed that
chromium green is a little too dark I
did use a little Viridian and lemon
yellow to make a fresher green for the
beak and I think I'm gonna have to go
back in and clean it up because as you
can see the colors spread around I
didn't like that white background I
wanted to go ahead and get some color in
there and I figure might as well do it
now while I'm waiting for everything to
dry and I'm just dripping in some
ultramarine and letting it flow and you
can see how beautifully the paints flow
on this plastic paper it's really fun
and I'm going to be letting this kind of
first layer dry so I can go back in now
details and touch things up so
try not to be too fussy if the paint is
flowing and it's making you nervous
remember you you can let it dry you can
go back in you can wipe away anything
you need to nothing is permanent on this
paper now I have used markers on this
paper before like watercolor markers and
I did notice that some colors of
watercolor markers will stain the paper
but I haven't noticed the watercolor
paint to stain the paper so just kind of
keep that in mind like your especially
purples and reds for some reason if
you're using like a watercolor marker
those will tend uh stain while others
won't now I've let my paper dry and I'm
gonna go back in I'm wiping out a
highlight area on the top of the beak
and kind of on the bottom of the beak I
just felt like that area of the painting
really needs to be bright and fresh so I
thought I'll just take that right off
back to white paper and I'll start again
I also wanted a sharper contrast between
the body in the face so I wiped out a
little area for that as well I decided
to also wipe out the feet so that I
could get that nice blue color in there
dads have shadowed to the branch again I
mixed my English red and my what's it
called Payne's gray together to get that
nice dark and then I'm highlighting with
some yellow ochre so by layering over
the dried paint I am able to control a
little bit no it does want to kick up
any paint that's underneath when I brush
on top so just keep that in mind as
you're going I'm using that to my
advantage here with the feathers on the
wing I'm trying to kind of add that
texture in there when I go in and add
that second layer of paint and when I'm
painting the eye I'm leaving that little
dot of white and again if you by mistake
paint the whole thing black you can
always go in with a q-tip and wipe out
that highlight I'm going in with more
bright yellow on the face and the beak
and I'm really trying this time with the
beak to keep my colors separate and
fresh so hopefully this time is a charm
and and we'll get it right this time but
like I could see the end of the beak
there I got a little bit too thick of a
brushstroke so I'll have to go back in
and refine that but I'm just waiting you
know to see what else I mess up before I
can open and do that again just be
careful when you go around like the red
area with the green not to touch it but
again if you do a q-tip is a wonder tool
with this paper I definitely would say
you know what go get a handful of q-tips
before you begin painting with this
because you will find it SuperDuper
useful the other neat thing about this I
was thinking if you are to give this
paper to a child maybe even like tape it
onto a clip or clip it to a clipboard or
something with a set of watercolor
paints they could use that over and over
and over again because you know kids are
so into the process not so much a
product of their art so they could do a
painting even with they're inexpensive
kids like Crayolas and they could rinse
it off and start again I mean you could
set them outside at the picnic table
with some watercolor paints and just let
them play and they'll impose down their
picture when they're done and do it
again I love that because you don't feel
obligated to keep paintings that maybe
you wouldn't necessarily want to and
they feel completely free to keep
playing and oh this is something I want
to tell you you can actually use a heat
tool to dry this and I recommend that
over a hairdryer because the hairdryer
is gonna blow your your paint around
I used a heat tool on the lightweight
yupo I had before and it shrunk it but
with this weight I believe this is a 74
weight it's in the red the red cover
whatever came in the smart art box this
month the heat tool was fine on it but I
tell you I did I kind of would heat it
up and then I'd pull the gun off it for
a minute and I'd heat it up pull the gun
off it for a minute if you see that your
paper starting to bow a little bit then
you're putting too much heat on it so as
long as you're careful you can use your
heat tool to hasten the drying process
when you're working on this paper and I
was really excited to find this out
because I had shrunk some of my Yubel
light weight before doing that so yeh
this is this is just heavy enough to be
able to take the heat which is really
really nice and I'm intensifying some of
the colors just by going over it with
some thicker paint basically I'm trying
to cover up the smudges left behind from
my pencil sketch but I know you won't
have that problem because you're gonna
you know do it right the first time and
understanding some shadows under the
wings and again now I am kind of going
in and drying each section as I do it to
make sure I don't have running paint and
they're just going in with that fine
strip of my mixed black there just to
divide the face from the beak a little
bit and add a few details and a little
more detail on the feet I felt like they
needed to be a little bit brighter again
drying between stages and kind of adding
my details and just making sure that the
area I'm detailing is completely
dry before I go back in I did want to
let you know that this painting took the
whole painting time and this was about
30 minutes just to give you a good idea
about how much time I spent there
honestly I think that if I had known it
that I could use the heat tool on it to
begin my painting time would have been a
lot shorter because I would have just
kind of dried things as I went instead
of trying to force my paint to lay down
and then having it smudge I also thought
I wanted some kind of foliage so I'm
just putting in some palm frond and some
just general blob enos there just to
kind of give it the appearance that he's
like sitting in a tree branch I went a
little overboard with the blobby leave
so I'm going back in with some more sky
color there I'm telling you if you
subtract all the mistakes I made from
this painting it probably would have
taken me you know five minutes to paint
but you learn a lot from making mistakes
so I never take those back and I want
you guys to see it just so if you get in
the same situation than I am in you know
how to pull yourself out of it and after
I got that background in I realized that
the beak needed to be a little bit
brighter and warmer so I went in with
some more yellow on the beak just to pop
it up hope you liked this video if you
want to try a smart art box for yourself
but check out the link in the video
description you can order this box or
you can sign up for a subscription and
be surprised next month when the new box
arrives thank you so much for watching
until next time happy crafting