How to Paint REALISTIC watercolors for beginners

Hey, what's up? Liron and Ruth here and in today's video, I'm going to show you how you can start painting Realistic detailed watercolors today. Okay. So first off I printed two photos two versions of it the printers running out of ink But these are the two I have one in color and another one in black and white now The reason I printed it the number one reason is not only so that I can see the scene in front of me Not just in the computer, but also because it's easier to sample the color like that Using this viewfinder. Now, let me show you if you compare it actually to the screen The screen is so bright that the white could be lighter than the paper and that's a huge Problem because go figure how to match look at the printed picture. The paper white is pretty much the same, right? It's a bit yellowish, but that's fine on the screen. It's actually Lighter, so it's almost impossible to match the color, which is why I always recommend Especially for these kinds of more complex scenes to work with a printed photo Now this brings me to one of the first most important kind of pointers about painting realistically Which is what we're gonna discuss today, of course and that is It's not so much about skill as it is about being very careful Very patient and very deliberate. That's the main thing here If you can really take your time with mixing with painting with everything You too can achieve a realistic result. Let me reiterate and kind of explain So one of the big ideas here is to work in small manageable shapes as small as you can and what I like to do in these kinds of scenes is first off a drawing that is very Very detailed and accurate and you can have access to this drawing I have I'll put a link of course in the description box below But the drawing itself is crucial for that Because you really need to build things up so that when you paint all you have to do is think about painting now Small manageable shapes. So now I'm working on the first kind of shape that I knew how to work I will add one more thing to that. These kinds of processes will include a bit more Glazing in them and that is to be a bit more careful. Yes, I can create this very same painting working top to bottom and just kind of Connecting everything together, but if you truly want to mix things accurately It's much easier to just work section by section The only exception is if some shapes are so close to one another and kind of overlap or touch each other I may use the opportunity to drive to continue a wash like I'm doing here Started with the body of the of the boat. Then I got to the lower part and I'm still Technically in the same wash and it's gonna be the same for the shadow under the boat, but it's still a small Consolidated shape now. I do want to give you one note regarding value There is again more glazing involved here to be more accurate So I'd rather err on the side of caution and go to light and then have to go over with another wash That way I make sure I don't go too dark. So what you're seeing right now, especially for the body of the boat I'm gonna go over it yet again and darken it now. There is one more aspect that goes into this Specifically for this process. Have you noticed that the paper is a little different from what I usually use that is correct This is hot press paper I'm more of a cold press guy But I really want to start improving my skills with hot press paper and look at how much of an uneven wash I'm getting here simply because hot press paper behaves a little differently and it takes some time getting used to There are some advantages that already I can point my finger towards and say this is really big and that is there's no texture So you are less? Constrained with the tip of the brush due to the pencil the paper's Tooth, right? It just does not affect it as much and that's a really important point something to make note of one more thing is Just the smoothness of it You can't see the texture afterwards and that could be a huge advantage Depending on the style you aim for and I think technically speaking if you're painting small It should be not easier But the end result potentially can look a little more realistic due to the smoothness of paper and a lack of texture There isn't anything covering it up, which is why I really want to master this kind of paper But of course, I'm getting started at a square one like everyone else, which is why look at how wet these washes are Otherwise, I know I won't get an even wash same concept with the water here. Okay, I mix a mix of very Strong blue compared to the body of the boat and especially the reflection of the boat I'm going very light here because I'd rather have good flow and mark for myself Where the water goes and what highlights I should skip and then I can always do another wash on top of that to darken And for that following wash, I'll already know exactly where to paint because I marked the way using this wash You see how that works This is why I'll sometimes err on the side of caution of going too light both for technique and flow, but also for Both for looks sorry and getting accuracy and not going too dark, but also for technique and flow Okay, I'm going through the same process for this boat We will see some of that too, but then afterwards I'm gonna skip ahead of it You'll see and skip one boat. So this process isn't gonna contain everything because it was super long Let me know in a comment below if you really want to see everything and then I can make a kind of separate I guess upload of just Everything just let me know cuz it's gonna be like an hour and a half maybe but so yeah Just I want to know before that this is definitely enough to follow along with me You can follow along with me using this video But if anyone wants to see the full thing, just I'm curious to hear your thoughts so continuing the wash from top to bottom one very subtle thing that I noticed here in the reference photo is how the The Reflections in the water are a little more muted So you'll see a common theme where the body of the boat is a gray But a bluish gray and then as you move down and you get to the reflection of the body of the boat It's just a cleaner gray and all of these subtle color matching and subtle, you know careful value matching That's what makes it realistic And the more you can nail those the more likely you are to create a realistic impression and the reality is if You're working in my most typical Impressionistic style you will get something beautiful But it's very hard to get all the details all the accuracy and everything like this without greatly simplifying some things so if you aim for not only realistic watercolor, but also detailed watercolor Sometimes multiple glazes is the way to go. Okay. Now we will talk in just a few moments about patterns of reflections But but for now, just look at what I did I left a few highlights in the water and then I am starting to put some darks in them like I just did earlier But the water is still again too light. Don't forget. We're gonna go over it again Now this color I took a lot of care in matching I wanted to make sure it's a brown, but it's a very beautiful saturated kind of yellowy brown And it's one of those colors that actually shine quite a bit in this scene Which is why it was very important for me to get it, right? You will see this alongside a yellow that's gonna join the scene later are some of the most I guess Strongest contrasts with the blues which is why it was very important for me to include them Now one could argue that I could because I need to darken the body of the boat again one could argue that I could continue from this point and Extend it down to the body of the boat and make it darker But my approach here was a little more a little slower and more deliberate here Had I been using cold press paper I probably would have gone for it and remember this isn't an either-or it's not like you either work super Impressionistically like I'm used to doing or you work like this in small tiny shapes You can do some kind of an amalgam of both a hybrid approach I'm a big fan of hybrid approaches whenever you recognize an opportunity to connect two shapes together That is more than welcome, right? but but overall you need to be aware of Will I be able to mix the right value in the right color if I'm just connecting the shapes? Okay. Now, let me hop on from this thought to again one of the main ideas of Realistic and detailed painting there is nothing special about me or this process This does not come down to skill. It almost does not even come down to Timing or being aware of wet and wet. Yes I am utilizing a bit of that here, but for the most part it's all about putting the right value and right color in the right place and as opposed to our Main approach this time. We're focusing on much smaller areas one at a time Now what's the direct implication of this? You don't need the technique. There isn't anything that I know and you don't for the most part that you can't do What's the byproduct of that? You can go ahead and today paint this very same scene and it will be dependent on are you patient enough? to mix the right color and mix the right value and are you willing to Check yourself and test again and again and start very light and err on the side of caution of not going too dark But also not being scared to glaze if you went to light, right? This is not about technique It's not about something special about me or even experience you can do this This is the point of this video and I would like you if you're interested in that kind of a style To go for it. You know me. Well, I'm not always and by the way, here's that yellow I talked about I'm not always into this style What I like personally is the more loose impressionistic paintings and the more realistic I can get them based on my skill and experience the better, but that's not necessarily the goal in and of itself It's more like how much can I simplify this and push the impression? While maintaining the essence of the subject however Once in a while, I'll have this need this urge to paint something more detailed and more realistic And you know what the way I like then look at I'm making use of again Shapes one next to one another so I'm going yellow and that dark black brown is touching the yellow So I am making some use of wet next to wet It's not all small contained shapes, but that's more of my choice Okay, and as a side tangent, I want you to look at the background and in just a few minutes You'll see how it slowly comes together and it looks great Just because we did it step by step and we took our time But in any case once in a while I'll crave doing a more detailed painting and then I know that I need to allow this to my to myself to kind of Scratch that itch and go back to my more into my looser impressionistic works Now one of my favorite ways of tackling these highly realistic and detailed scenes is to paint small Because what I would much rather is to paint a small painting where technique is a little easier because you know Smaller washes easier to control easier to maintain To work that way and here's that water glaze making it darker again I told you it was too light and now I have a road map I know exactly where to paint right and you'll see how the white will pop much much better and look much much better But in case I prefer smaller because it's easier more manageable You see you waste quote-unquote less paper, right? and one final note in that regard is it just looks really impressive from afar, right because it's small and Detailed but one last point about what I wanted to say about hot press versus cold press is The smaller you paint the more the tooth of the paper is more Significant and think about it that makes sense because the details are smaller and then the tooth can really get in the way which is one of the other reasons I wanted to try hot press because in theory with hot press you can paint as Small as you'd like as long as you have a small enough of a brush, right? So that's the direction from where I'm coming to this process now look at something interesting That's happening here and I will talk a bit about colors in just one second like the specific colors I'm using but once I added this blue darker wash the Reflection of the boat suddenly and here's some wet and wet for you the reflection of that boat became too light. So don't worry We're gonna go over it and darken it it takes time for things to fall into context So have that in mind, it's not gonna immediately look right or immediately look realistic It can take a few moments for it to really find its voice so to speak and really look right Okay, so one more thing to not worry about you focus on the small shapes and examine them one by one and figure out Okay, how does this shape look is it this value that value turn the photo black and white that can really help In fact, you can do a black and white study and that will be even easier, right make everything easier on yourself but you can still paint a highly realistic scene in black and white in small format And get a beautiful beautiful result Even working that way. So now I want to give you a quick note I'm mixing here again a bit more blue and I'm using test paper one thing you'll find in these processes is you're gonna go through a bunch of test papers as we put more emphasis on Really matching the colors. Okay So just one fun kind of fact to have in mind have a lot of test papers ready Because you have to test it out somewhere and make sure that you got the right values, correct in the right colors, especially so Yeah, no colors, you know, I don't usually praise colors They have their place, but if you really want to go for something that's truly, you know Accurate and loyal to the source then yes colors become more important now all these ropes that I painted negatively around so far You could use a masking tape could use a masking fluid. You could use whatever you want to get them, right? Don't let my process dictate how you should do it I just wanted to kind of work on it from start to finish without anything else You know, I'm not a big fan of taping fluid of taping Taping masking tape or masking fluid But if you know how to work with it and you have fun working with it, you do that now a word about the colors I'm you mostly using French ultramarine and phthalo blue now for the water. I actually added a bit of Joan brilliant color Semi kind of opaque yellowish white kind of like buff titanium into the blue I find that it gives it a look that I like but that's more of a personal taste, right? And then I'm using again, of course French ultramarine for the more subtle blues But also for the more like Navy looking blues if that makes sense, and then I'm using Indian yellow That's the only yellow I'm using in this scene And I'm also using Quinacridone rose and a touch of pyrrole scarlet if I'm not mistaken that you're gonna see later on now One more note about this kind of process and look at me go again glazing on top of that part It was too light again. Always reassess. Is it too dark? Is it too light? You shouldn't go too dark because you're gonna work a very careful and deliberate approach So I don't expect you to go too dark again Aaron the side of caution But just something to have in mind right now look at again how much this reflection it asks to be darkened so much and Remember the reflections are more muted. So I'm starting to mix a more muted. Great one more note I wanted to say regarding the process itself. Okay? These kind of paintings I find lend themselves really well to a slow and patient process as I mentioned before Now what this means is you can feel free to finish this in multiple settings sitting Sorry, in fact, what I would say is take as much as long as you need think about it almost like a long-term project kind of like you would with an oil painting that you have to give enough time to Dry and there's a lot of nuances that go into that you can almost treat this the same way Don't force yourself to finish this definitely not in one sitting but also not in one day or one week You can just do a shape feel good about it or do a few shapes feel good about them And then move on to the next one right and because I'm focusing on small shapes I can actually do all these nuances that you're seeing right now and really trying to To paint it as I see it not an easy thing with all of these details in the ripples Okay. Now this brings me to another important point and that is the details on the ripples. There are some patterns here You have to remember one thing. So I'm a big fan of painting things as they appear You don't necessarily have to understand them In fact, it's sometimes better if you don't understand them But you just paint them as you see them as cleanly as you can you treat them as abstract shapes, especially Ripples, but one thing to be aware of is those ripples and reflections in the ripples they reflect reality So they reflect something above which is why there are patterns to them What do I mean by that? If you look at the yellow section of ripples This section is you see it. It follows a kind of Vertical line from top to bottom you don't get much yellow on the left side because there is some kind of a yellow object above It we're not seeing from our angle. Okay, same goes for the darks within those yellow Ripples, right? You can see they follow a pattern where the darkest is on the right and the lightest is on the left Look at what I'm doing Now I'm adding red that you can see some red in the reference photo and then some blue to its left But look at the red it goes vertically from top to bottom and then the blue goes to its left So it's very tempting to just kind of go haphazardly and paint those ripples and that's fine That's great and enjoy yourself, right? And especially if you work a more impressionistic style like my usual work which could be fun to try and paint this in that style You can totally go for it. But just have in mind that just understanding that this reflects reality It is important if you can to get the nuance and the ripples actually take up the water Even takes up half this painting If you notice the boats are the round the middle of the paper Which means the water here is quite a big focal point and you want to make sure you capture it Okay. Now remember what I said earlier about the background. You're gonna see in just a few moments how Beautifully, it's going to connect and I know right now. It looks like a big mess The more details I add to it The more it will start looking like something the more some of its shapes are gonna be Justified some of the shadows and the light and our brain doesn't need to know exactly what it's looking at But if it at first glance can tell oh that makes sense to me then you're good So you can tell there's kind of a boat there or a few boats in the background. That's all our brain Really needs for that Sorry had a cough Maybe there will be another one. I don't know but Notice where we are in the process right now. I'm starting to add some darks So here I'm adding these bronze same pattern see above one above another because they reflect this thing that goes there Right, and now I'm starting to add again some darks to it So I'm starting to put the shadow on these ropes and riggings and whatnot I'm starting to darken also the reflections if necessary and in just a few moments You'll start seeing me putting in the slightly darker ripples of the reflections of the rope. Okay? Now there is a lot of the pattern of light next to dark here the the ropes They're very light, but they also have a shadowy side and the reflections in the water work the same way but the reflections in the water are a Distorted view that's something to have in mind. Okay that distortion Kind of like trees kind of like everything in nature the pattern of ripples is a bit random Try to paint it a bit random Don't don't fall into the mistake of doing the same wavy pattern because that's something that can happen. Okay? So just like trees you have to train your brain to kind of go very abstractly about it It's a fun thing to do anyway And I'm gonna show you in just a moment how I analyze the scene and fix some more mistakes But look at how adding these light blues next to the dark blues to indicate the well-lit side of the boat Really makes more sense of the blue in the shadow because when you look at it in the shadow It's very hard to tell what color it is It's a very dark blue right but once you put it in the lit side of the boat It just brings so much out of it, and now I'm killing some of the highlights In the water that I felt like they competed with the boats too much and while I have this very same color I'm starting to put those darker details I was talking to you about so this this stage of the painting honestly just takes more patience, okay? we're putting in this you know the That red fence or something around a yacht boat. Whatever it is And you just have to be careful now some people like to rotate the paper to get these lines accurately I don't have that luxury because I do want to avoid the disorienting you So I'm keeping the paper at the same angle I know I could move it around But I prefer not to honestly makes my editing for the video easier, too So I kind of rotate my hand and work with it right now in just a moment You'll see me using a very nice blue and look at the back look at how it takes shape now The highlight is justified. There's something that's beveled out, but in any case in just a moment You'll see me using some beautiful Riggings and the ropes in blue strong strong blue that I mixed using Phthalo blue and some of the Joan brilliant the same color just to make it a little more opaque But look at the background it really takes shape and it starts to make sense I love these stages Added some darkness where the boat meets the water and kind of using my finger to blend and move it around Here you are the blue riggings This is so beautiful, and you'll see it in the final scan looks really really nice once I share that with you around the end. Here's another one just small details very small touches here and there And the next stage would be to add a bit of opaque paint once we're done with the dark details and in this in this Way this process is similar to my more impressionistic work starting with the shadows In the details and then I move on to some highlights that I missed or some Corrections and by the way, we could add all the ropes using highlights and paint over them Which I may maybe I should have done and maybe I'll do another attempt at it And that way I don't have to do so much negative painting and the ropes may may look a little smoother and more accurate now Here I'm adding a bit of darker ripples of blue So I pre wet some area in the water and then BAM I'm going wet and wet because I wanted to get smooth edges sometimes it's much easier to pre wet a small area and do some wet and wet in it as opposed to Putting a mark and trying to blend its edges, okay? So that's something I talked about if you just check out the channel I have a bunch of videos about wet and wet technique that you may want to check out and that can Really help Just write down to myself that I said that around the 24 mark as I want to put the link so that it's easier to Access and here we go with those the the opaque paint Beautiful. This is actually designers gouache. So it's wash. It's not watercolor John Got me some and I'm super grateful for that. Thank you so much, John And I wanted to try it out and I love it. I really like it. It's more neutral than my Joan brilliant It's just a white kind of like Chinese white I it looks really good and it's almost like it's like a super powerful tool for Bringing out those small highlights details and gaps even gaps and shapes that you missed. That's a really good way of adding those And Yeah, that's that's pretty much the process again patience working shape by shape small manageable shapes being more deliberate more You know more careful and patient here. I am signing this but look at what happens here So I'm signing this but we're still not done with the process. I still have a few more corrections You know me so I tried making this rope a little smaller to kind of minimize it now I'm blending this edge that stayed a little too hard for my taste So see I'm blending it with a bit of water and a brush scrubbing the edge A hot press paper allows you more of that without lifting the paint, which is actually quite fun So that's another advantage to that and now we're gonna remove the tape but immediately after that I'm gonna share with you a comparison in black and white of The painting and the reference photo and you're gonna see the mistakes Some areas are too light some areas are too dark And so we'll make a few quick corrections after that. Remember you can always take the painting and add correction So let me show you these spots Right here. They're gonna be marked. You can see it's a little too dark or too light So I'm going ahead and darkening this this didn't work out the way I wanted I added opaque white paint to try and lighten some spots. It didn't work. So instead we're gonna darken some spots Okay, same goes for this boat in the background I just felt like a stronger contrast with it will make the boat in the middle pop. Okay a little more Same goes for the those reflections and then we're gonna do the same to the reflections of the boat That's closest to us, but not to the boat itself reason being I don't want it to pop too much because it's close But this look at how much this dark really increases the value scale This is one of the most important parts actually of the improvements that I did here Anchors it to the scene makes it look so so much better But any case here is our final result and I'm gonna also zoom in and show it to you better from more up close Just a beautiful painting. I've really enjoyed doing this one for you And remember if there's anything you take from this video, you can do this too. This is just about the patience It's not even about technique Okay So if you want to learn how to paint realistically like me be sure to check out my watercolor realism course if you still haven't Got to put a link in the description box below. I think you're gonna really like it It's gonna show you how to paint realistically by looking at the different factors. It's very scientific You're looking at the shapes the values the edges And you should be able to by the end of this course paint pretty much anything you want realistically So thank you so much. And now we will wrap this one up. Take care