in today's tutorial I'm going to give
you one tip to improve your watercolor
painting right away and that tip is
don't overwork your paints I'll explain
what I mean by that so let's get started
hi guys welcome back my name is Shay de
Campbell and I want to give a quick
supply rundown so it is so important to
have watercolor paper you must use
proper paper this is a Kansan watercolor
sketchbook I love it I also have my
watercolor paints on a pallet here I've
got two glasses of water one for cool
colors one for warm colors and then I
use nylon round brushes for most of my
watercolor painting they're cheap
they're accessible and I've got a bunch
of various sizes there so let's mix up
some paint I am going to do a floral
piece today with a peachy pink and minty
greens and we are going to start and I
am going to do the what not to do
example first so I'm starting by
painting a flower now this flower is
made up of five petals and you can see
here I'm going petal by petal which is
actually not wrong but I'm really
working the paints you can see I tried
to make the shape of the petal by you
know going back and oh I want to change
this one a little so I'll continue with
it and I'm moving the paint around a lot
I'm treating these watercolors like
they're more like acrylics or something
I just keep pushing the paint and
pushing it and now I want to make this
petal larger so I'll go back and do that
and I just keep working the paint's I
don't leave them alone now I'm moving to
the next flower and it's going to be
four petals here and I'm doing the same
thing I keep pushing the paint around in
a circular motion until I'm happy with
the shape of the flower or the petal the
leaves I'm going to do the same thing i
I want to make the shape of a leaf so
I'd keep working that paint for this one
I'll do a real no no I'm doing the
outline first and then I'm coloring it
in or I'm painting it in you can see me
doing that here
that's a bit of a no-no you're just not
going to get the look that you desire
here I'm doing that yet again drawing
the whole form of the leaf first and
then adding more paint you can get weird
lines this way you're going to get very
flat colors you might get those harsh
outlines around the edges of each shape
and as I near the conclusion of this
floral piece you can see that it's just
it's not terrible and I don't want to
insult you by saying at home you make
art that just looks like a big puddle I
think what happened so often is that
your flowers look fine but you might be
left wondering well why don't they look
like the ones I've seen on YouTube and
you can see here these ones there's
harsh outlines all the colors are really
flat there's no variation it doesn't
look terrible
but it could look so much better and so
that's what we're going to do now we're
going to paint this again and I'm going
to show you the right way so each petal
I go one by one just like the first one
but instead of moving the paint around
constantly I just do one two maybe three
strokes and any changes that I make are
very very minor any changes to the shape
so I used the belly of the brush and I
drag it across the page once maybe twice
maybe three times and I make the shape
of a petal and that I leave it alone so
they are one and we'll get some more
paint too and maybe a third stroke maybe
a fourth okay that one I did four and
then any shape changes just keep it very
subtle and minimal and I think as we
move to the second flower you can see
that the paint is settling into the
paper really nicely and there's all
these wonderful variations in the color
you can see parts of each petal are
light and parts are dark some of the
petals guess it's a flat color but if
you're getting 50% of those petals with
a nice variance it's just going to look
so
so alive and so beautiful now let's move
on to the leaves will talk about
brushwork a little if you do put down
too much paint wipe your brush get it
dry and then just stop up a bit of that
paint it works like an eraser and then
again leave it alone
now with this leaf you can see me using
two parts of my round brush the belly
which holds all the paint and the tip
which allows me to do fine details so
here I am pulling the belly across the
page and I get these big beautiful leafy
shapes and then I use the tip of the
brush to lay down these tiny lines to
act as branches and join everything
together so the belly of the brush holds
all the paint that's the wider lower
part of the bristles and then the tip is
what you can use to get some detail on
these leaves and petals so just drag it
across the page once twice maybe three
times and then leave it alone except for
just adding a little detail with the tip
of the brush when it comes to
watercolors it's just about keeping it
simple less it's truly more and when you
go back in when you doubt yourself and
you want to go and fix and redo that's
when you really ruin the the image or
you take it to a place where you're just
not happy with it so be confident use
those bold singular strokes and just
leave things alone this is all about
just not overworking your paints I say
that all the time I really wanted to
make a video to show what I meant by
that and here I hope seeing these side
by side that you can see what I do mean
by that there is nothing wrong with the
one on the left it is a little flatter
it's not quite as lively the variance in
color isn't there but it's okay and then
you can see the one on the right there's
this beautiful difference within some of
the leaves areas of dark paint and
lighter paint so if you've been at home
wondering what am I doing wrong what am
I missing I hope that this video will
inform you a little bit and have you
feeling like I can practice my brush
strokes and I can
get this well guys thank you so much for
watching today I hope you enjoyed this
tutorial if you did don't forget to
subscribe and I will see you soon with a
new video
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you