Magical Fairy Garden With Watercolors and Doodles

Hello, hello everyone! How is everybody doing? Thank you so much for tuning in for this week's video. I have been waiting on a couple of sets of new watercolors that I was hoping would arrive by now, but they have not. So I am thinking that I will play with my 48 Kuretake watercolor set a little bit. And because the Baohong watercolor paper is a little bit bigger than when I cut the Hahnemühle in half, I just want a little bit of a bigger size. And yes, I could have cut the Hahnemühle a little bit bigger, but I still have some of this that I need to... whoa, it's almost gone actually... finish up. And so I figured I would do that. I will take it off the block though and work on the back side, because the back side is a little bit less textured. That is the plan for today. And I also brought out the Schmincke gold and the new gold that I bought, the champagne gold. Everything I use in my videos is usually always listed in the description box below with all my other information. So if you want to go have a quick look-see down there and if you're interested and see what I have been using. So that's that. So I think I'm gonna go ahead and take this off the block now, and I will wet the front but work on the back side. And the reason why I do that is so that when I make the side that I'm working on wet, it's not gonna curl up on me, but rather flatten out again. It's just a little bit easier for me to work that way. And this paper can take quite a bit of water, so that's not gonna be an issue. So I will go ahead and do that, and then I'll be right back. Okay, the back side is now wet, and that's why it's all curled up like that. I have taken out greens. I am working with the sap green, the hooker's green, and then I took out the viridian and the forest green. Let me add some of that gold. I always like to add a little bit of the gold before I put down my colors, because when it dries, it kind of settles into the the paper and leaves a nice little sheen for the end result. All right. This gold might be a little bit too light for these colors, but I love it. It just... I don't want it to be too in-your-face, and it's just one of the golds that will do that for me. I have not played with the kuretake colors in a long time, so it'll be nice to when I start tilting my paper, you're not gonna be able to see what I'm doing. move around. I'm really liking this one. It's a little bit more on the blue side. I'm feeling like I need to maybe mop this up a little bit. There's quite a bit of water on there, and while that's good for making things move, sometimes I need to mop it up a little bit. I think I want to bring in some more of that darker green up here. I feel like it needs a little bit more gold down here. I never thought I would use greens in my... and just greens in my paintings. I am on, you know, in my personal life, I am not a very like green color lover per se. I don't have anything against it, but it's just like I don't wear green. Nothing in my decor is green apart from my plants, so I have never found it super appealing, but lately I have been loving the greens. I think this looks pretty good. I don't like how this turned out, so we're just gonna make this one a little bit bigger. It's a little bit... I can't... no, you know what? I'm gonna leave it. I was gonna mop it up a little bit, but I'm just gonna leave it like that. So I will let this dry, and then I will come back and put some splatters on and add some more gold, but I think I am happy with the different greens and the areas. I feel like there's quite a bit of stuff that I can focus on and work on. I'm gonna leave it like that so that you guys can see it, but I will let this dry, and I will come in. I don't know if I will film it or not, but when I come back, it may or may not have some additional splatters. All right, this is how it dried. I had to go in and apply a little bit more of the darker green, and when I did, it had already been drying for a little while, and so when I applied more color, I also had to make sure that it blends a little bit better into what I've already had, and that resulted in this little line over here, but I think it works. It kind of gives this more of a 3D effect, so I'm sure I can play with it somehow and make it look fun. And then I added the gold splatters and a little bit more of the green, just for a little bit more interest, and hopefully I can incorporate it somehow into my doodles. So this is what I will be working with. I have the Tombow, the Micron, the Le Pen, and then this is the Kuretake manga, which is a thicker tip that I can use to thicken up some of my lines. So, and then of course, I will go in with my dotting tools and whatever else I feel like it needs. All right, here we go! The moment I saw those gold droplets on the screen background, it reminded me of a magical fairy garden, and now I just needed to figure out how to make that happen, and what is going to be in this magical fairy garden. I knew I wanted to turn those two gold spots into flowers, so I needed to figure out how to connect them and integrate them into the painting. And the first few lines are always the hardest. It's that, you know, where is this painting gonna go, and can I eventually make it tell a story? That initial line around that gold splatter turned out a little bit more wonky than I would have liked, and after I outlined that bottom part a little bit differently, at first I was like, oh, what am I gonna do with this hanging part now? But after I had finished the flower and outlined it again, and just left that extra part by itself a little bit, it just gave it that much more character, and it's now one of my favorite parts of this painting. What I find so interesting with this process is that I start out with a completely different idea, and as I start working on it, and putting down lines, and they start to evolve, my plans usually change. Like, for example, I thought I was going to put down just lines folding over this back part, and when I had the flowers down, and those tiny gold dots looked more and more like fireflies to me, I felt like instead of just boring lines, it needed little mushrooms, and so I wanted to make them look like they were growing out of this ledge, and I am really happy that this thought came to me. If you feel inspired by this technique, and you would like to try it for yourself, but you don't really know how to begin, my best advice is to create a background that has different layers, or different colors, or just different elements, because it makes it a little bit easier. Then you put your first lines down, and you feel like, oh, this is a great starting point, and I can work with that, but then later on you feel like, I should not have put those lines there, what am I gonna do? That is an opportunity for your brain to come out of its shell, and look for a solution. While it can be a little bit frustrating, just see it as an opportunity to make your painting evolve, and maybe turn it into something completely different than you had initially thought it was going to look like. It's funny, because my initial thoughts are often more boring than what I end up with, and this might just be my own theory, but I have been thinking about this, and I feel like when I first start out, there's a whole different part of my brain that does that, and then my creative brain starts to come out more and more as I work on it, and allowing myself to just be in the moment, and just let those lines come out of me, really helps with that creativity. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because my initial lines for those flowers started at the very bottom of the page, and that was just because I didn't really know exactly where the lines were going to take me, and that is another reason why I like to start out with a thin liner pen, because if I feel like I need to change something up, I can still do that, and it's going to be less visible and noticeable. So, as you can see, I extended those rocks further down. Part of it was because I needed to break up the page a little bit. It felt very elongated, because the stems of those flowers were very long, so I needed to break it up a little bit, and by doing so, I cut the stems of those flowers a little bit. I always knew that those lines were going to change, but initially, I didn't really have a better plan, and so you have to start somewhere, and starting somewhere means putting down those first lines, and as you work on your piece, it just starts evolving, but that's what I mean by, you know, just put down some lines first. Very fine lines initially, and then keep working on them, keep elaborating on them. So, now those thin stalks actually look like they can hold up a big flower bud like that a little bit more. I divided the page again a little bit with another line, for the same reason that I mentioned before, because this paper was a little bit bigger than I am used to, and because I am holding it vertically, it just needed a little bit more in the middle. Now I'm still left with the leftovers of those first initial lines, and I could have extended those rocks down, but I really liked the way that looked, and I didn't want to do that, so I decided to just add some very thin lines, and I ended up going over them a little bit more, because I was still kind of able to see those first two lines. They stuck out to me a little bit more, so I decided to just add a few more uneven lines to it. I have been doodling this way for a little over a year now, and with practice, I have been getting better and better at deciding what needs to go onto my page. An ideal background lends for a few bigger focal points, and then I just go in and embellish, and that can be in the form of lines, it can be in the form of circles, or whatever else I feel like needs to, or is a good addition to whatever I have already put down. I also have really taken a liking to using colored pencils to highlight certain areas, or make them more prominent. I really loved how the texture of the pencils looked almost like moss, and I felt really happy that it had this kind of effect. The rougher texture of the watercolor paper sometimes can be a little bit aggravating when you're trying to get it to look a little bit smoother, but in this instance, it worked really, really well and in my favor. I wanted those mushrooms to almost have a glowing effect a little bit, so because I didn't know that I was going to put mushrooms there in the beginning, of course, I wasn't able to prep that area. Well, with colored pencils, you can do that. I started putting down the white first, and then I went in with yellow, and with a lighter green, and later on I am even putting down a little bit of that gold, and then I did the same thing around the flower buds as well. Of course, there are many different ways that you can achieve that look. You could use white gouache. I have used diluted acrylic paint before, but if colored pencils is the only thing that you have on hand, it works. At first, I thought I was going to also shade in the stems of the flowers with colored pencils, but because I had already done that on the rocks, I wanted those to stand out a little bit differently, and so I used the Schmincke gold to add the gold to the stems instead, and I really like that I did that, because it makes them stand out a little bit better, and make them be more of a focal point. I'm really happy with how everything is starting to look, and now I can start just highlight a few more things, maybe add some thicker lines in certain areas, and just overall see what else can I do to fill in a few spots. Does it need anything else? This is the point where some people tend to overdo it, and I'm probably one of those as well. It always depends where your mind is at at that particular moment, of course. But this is what I like to call the fine-tuning stage of my paintings. I know I am nearing the end, and sometimes it's good to step back and do something different. Maybe have a cup of coffee, or go walk the dog, and then come back and look at it again, and see it with a fresh pair of eyes. As we're wrapping up today, I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who came and spent some time with me today. Thank you also very much to all my channel members. If you would like to join, it is 99 cents a month, and there is a link in the description for you to click if you would like to check it out. I am trying to get a few things done just for you guys, so that I can show my appreciation. I hope everybody has a wonderful weekend, and if you made it this far into the video, leave me a little emoji that fits this background. And with that, I will sign off, and I will see you next time.