Hi guys. Welcome back. My name is Shayda Campbell and today I have a little
treat for you. So right now Chris and I are staying in this cottage just
outside of Paris France and I want to share that with you. So I'm going
to sit by the window and do a little watercolor painting. I'm going to
try to keep this painting as close to real time as I possibly can so that
you can follow along with the brush strokes and listen to the sounds of
the garden.
And we're just going to relax and I hope you'll really enjoy being here
and spending an afternoon with me
I'm starting this afternoon by mixing my paints on my porcelain palette.
Now my floral image today is going to be all purples and greens. So those
are the colors I'm mixing. I've got some sap green here and I'll add a
little bit of cadium red. I love mixing green into my red to sort of darken
it and deepen it a little. I've also used hooker's green and raw umber
and then my paint brushes, I am using some larger round brushes and let
me show you when you pull the body of a large brush or the belly of a large
brush like this over the page you just get these wonderful shapes and then
you can lighten up the pressure a little. Use the tip of that brush to
add details and those movements are so important when you're painting flowers
and leaves.
Now I'm going to put some water into my paints here.
I'll mix the hooker's green and sap green together with lots of water to
get a nice depth of color and then I'm going to wash my brush and then
I'll go back and get a little bit of that cadium red and you'll see in
a sec here when I mix in the red into the green because they're opposite
on the color wheel it adds a real darkness and depth to the color.
Red and green cancel each other out. If you put equal amounts you'll get like
a muddy brown but just adding a little bit it gives them more sophisticated g
reen I think a very natural green actually. And then I'm going to mix up
a green that's just a little darker I'll use more of that hooker's green
I'll use a little bit of raw umber. I might even mix a little purple into
that one. And then of course I'm going to mix up a nice rich purple to
use for my flower petals. So when I start painting I have all my paints
mixed up with lots of water and they're ready to go. And you're going to
see me begin to paint here. I didn't have quite enough paint on the brush
but I went back and got a little extra paint and then I am just dragging
the belly of the brush across the page. I can use the tip to add details
as I said and I just try not to overwork these shapes. I'm going to make
four or five shapes here and we're going to call each of them a pedal.
And when I get all of them together then we've got a flower. So I am trying
my best not to overwork these paints and to just let the watercolors seep
out onto the page. I love just sort of watching what they do. I'm using
hot pressed paper today and I just love the way that hot pressed paper
doesn't absorb as much water it's not as dense it's not as toothy so it
cannot take on as much water but the effect that you get from the hot press
paper because of that is really beautiful the paint tends to just sit there
and it's dark in some areas and quite light in others.
So it's very very interesting and it's very out of the artist's control
at least it's out of my control and I love that
And I'm just continuing to paint these purple petals and create flowers.
I don't think the first flower was as successful as the others the paint...
I had a lot of paint in my brush and I wasn't quite in control of it but
I'm really into not working backwards lately. If one flower isn't as good
as the others, that's OK, nobody is gonna notice that at the end of the piece.
And I am using a little bit of a smaller brush now to come in and
start painting some leaves. I love painting leaves in two large strokes
of the brush and if you place those strokes just right you'll get a beautiful
line of negative space down the middle of the leaf and it of course just
looks like a little veigning a little detail on the leaves
and it's a nice design element and it's a really fun way to paint as I
paint the leaves.
As I paint the leaves. thinking about making some smaller and some larger.
I am using both colors of green so of course I had that lighter green and
then the darker green. So just changing things up a little bit as far as
size and color and shape of the leaves those details and design choices
really helped to add to the overall feel and look of the piece. With watercolors
you can always add more water to the paint so that some of the color is
quite bright and saturated whereas other parts of the piece might be a
little lighter.
So just by adding extra water you can change up the color of your green
or your purple.
I am a watercolor artist who definitely loves to add a lot of water to
my watercolors. I love those very light translucent pastel hues.
That's just what I'm drawn to. Painting these flowers and leaves is a wonderful
way to practice your brushwork to practice your brush strokes and really
start to get comfortable having that brush in your hand and using it.
Remember we're using the tip of the brush to add detail and we're using the belly
of the brush
the part that holds all the paint to drag it across the page and create
the shapes of the flowers and the leaves.
If you're wondering the hot pressed
paper that I'm using today is from Canson in it is a block which means
it's stretched and it is a twenty three by thirty one centimeters about
nine by 12 inches.
So that's the size that I'm working on today and I'm basically just having
fun painting until I fill in the entire surface of the page.
And then as I am at that point where I've got a lot of elements here I
decide to add some berries and that is another fun little element that
you might paint as well it just is one more color that you can add to the piece.
I did sort of a burgundy purply color and it's just one more element that
you can use to bring your piece to life. And then I'm going to use that
same burgundy color to go back in and start adding stamen to all of the flowers.
And I just do sort of a loose stippling effect or maybe some little lines.
It's very very free and perfectly imperfect these flowers and leaves are
somewhat abstracted. It is just all about the brushwork today and just
enjoying our time painting. And then the very last thing that I'm going
to do is come back in with some more green a little bit more of an opaque
green and just add some veining into some of these leaves and then I'm
all done.
I think this piece turned out absolutely lovely but it really was all about
the process of painting and sitting by the window in the sun and listening
to the sounds of the garden and not worrying too much about getting it
right but just enjoying the process and the feel of the brush in your hand
and the sounds of the birds chirping. Thank you guys so much for joining
me today. I hope you enjoyed being in my French garden with me and I will
see you soon with a new tutorial. Don't forget to subscribe!