Paint a Kingfisher in Watercolours with Matthew Palmer

As far as colors are concerned there's a couple of ways that you can sort of go about doing this and it Really is up to you how you how you work on this Because If you've got my colors my own colors, and I'm sure lots of you know that I've got my own range of paints called natural collection It makes things a little bit easier To be fair primary colors are do it and you could get away with mixing your colors from a yellow red and blue now as Far as which ones would I use for this if I was if I was going for the primary option? Something like natural blue or cobalt blue or French ultramarine blue would be fine Natural red or alizarin crimson or even rose madder you could probably use and some kind of a bright yellow This one is natural yellow light, but you could use cadmium yellow you could use oriole and you could use gamboge Any kind of bright yellow their primary colors? I'm not going to use those on this particular picture I'm going to use my own paints because I've got them and this is the demo. This is not a It's not a workshop. I'm sure that some of you are painting along here So it'd be great to see on Facebook what people have been doing my Facebook page by the way is Matthew palm artist head on over to that and One color that's not part of my range is Cerulean blue. Okay. Now, there's a thousand ways of pronouncing cerulean blue cerulean cerulean Blue, but that blue is gonna be lovely for the Kingfisher the pop a nice Spot of that blue just here It's a very different blue. It's a very sort of Cold crisp blue nice for winter scenes as well. So that's cerulean blue okay, now you can't obviously mix that from primary colors, but what you can do with this color is Use it pretty much neat for a Kingfisher. It's almost bang on. I've got some natural orange now Obviously you can mix an orange from yellow and blue I think you know that one but natural orange is just perfect for the Kingfisher And I'm gonna pop a very simple background in folks. I'm going to use some green for this now, you know You can mix green very easily from primary colors But I've got my own greens, of course called natural greens and these are designed to replicate nature So I've got natural green and natural green light I have popped the materials in the description for the video as well as a couple of links to various things like there's a link to my Facebook page and also to the place where we're doing the workshops and Shadows are so important in any painting for me. Never more so than painting animals because it's the way that you make the Wings lift up you can use it for the eyes and it's got to be the right gray now I'm using natural gray You can mix natural gray from primary colors you could use a big chunk of blue with a little bit of red and a little bit of the yellow and that will give You a gray now lots of you're probably thinking let's use Payne's gray Payne's gray is okay But Payne's gray has got its problems and I'll tell you why because it's basically black I don't want to put any black in your watercolors so I'm using natural gray or I Would have mixed it from a yellow a blue and a red Okay, so if you mix purple pop a bit of yellow with it, it'll give you this gray Okay, but natural grays Michael. It's been around about 10 11 years now. So it's quite a popular one I'm so I'm gonna use a nice chunk of that So that's the colors later on we may well pop a bit of white paint in a bit of goulash There's somebody calls it that I teach or some white watercolors from time We've got refills if we need them and I've got bags and bags of kitchen roll because I do get quite emotional when I'm painting bags of water brushes wise and Pretty standard brushes for animals. I've got a standard set of three here. We've got a a 20 brush around brush here. We've got a 10 round brush a six beautiful pointy brush Most people size six bushes look like that to be honest, don't they? But I mean this one's pretty new That's why it's pointed. I've got some brushes that I want to use later as well. I've got some detail brushes These are my branching detail brushes, but you could use a rigger and here. We've got a square brush It's an half-inch Lift-out brush Matthew Palmer lift that bush. But if you're not gonna lift that bush, you can just use a square brush Are you with me on this? bags of water Darbyshire water this can you say look how beautifully clear that water is you can drink that so here we've got it stuck down I've got it sketched in a 2b pencil Works for me big brush. I want to simply wet the paper I'm gonna wet it all This is the boring bit into this is like watching paint dry and pop it all through Nice coverage now, it's cotton paper. I'm using this is actually my own brand of paper as well But you know, it doesn't really matter what paper you use Long as it's waterproof paper Don't use copy paper with it What school of paper is designed to hold water as long as possible It's designed not to spread and bleed too much as well and a cotton based paper like this will actually hold the water for ages ages and ages and ages Don't put plenty of water on literally wet the whole thing all the way through now because I'm using cotton It's actually going to absorb the water Pretty much straight away, which is a good thing because it stays wetter longer Which is important for watercolors because we need to get a nice loose background in so literally got a big brush And I'm plopping a load of water on To this thing and then we're going to take a look at using Okay, so basically what I'm going to do here I don't want a huge amount of water, but I want to take a little bit of the green Now, this is the light green so you can mix yellow and blue for this It'd be better to use lemon yellow and blue to be honest It'll give you that nice vibrancy. I'm gonna twist this thing in it I'm literally got this thing flat to the paper and I'm twisting Now I can bring a little bit of that green into the Kingfisher because that'll give us like the turquoise pink when we bring in The cerulean blue, cerulean blue later on and it's a twist. It's a vignette So I'm not working to the edge The same lady that calls gouache goulash calls vignettes vinaigrettes So this is the light green. I'm gonna work it in. Add a focus background Soft edges It's basically like this. It's like a three-finger twist if you practice that every morning You'll be all set for this a little twist and you can just basically work it around Now if we just quickly whip back down to the palette I'll clean my brush again I want to get some dark green You could add a blue to the color if you wanted to to make it dark, but I'm just gonna bring in my dark green So I'm using my own colors for this Back to the picky for a second. Let's take a bit of a darker green Not wanting much of this to be fair, but a little bit of shadow and tonal work around here We're actually still the picture quite nicely. So I'm sort of shaking a bit. That's cuz I'm nervous Can you smell it Doesn't have a drink today the coffee and I'll work this around Yeah, what could possibly go wrong I'm gonna get this thing all nicely mixing in now at this point folks I want to put something a bit more interested into the background So what I thought I'd do is I would show you something a little bit different today. I want to take some cling film Yes, you heard right cling film. This is proper. Happy shopper cling film. This is quality stuff Is it called cling film in every part of the world? Let me know I'm gonna crease this thing up here and we give it a good old wrinkle and that's going to give this a nice background Exciting in it something exciting about cling film. So it's nice and dry and if we look close at this we can see How beautiful the background actually is. Can you see that gorgeous? It almost gives like sort of shafts or like that kind of atmosphere But I love that technique and it's it works on any kind of vignette style waterfall painting vinaigrette style And I'm gonna start to work on the bird now what I want to do is We're gonna have a look at actually Mixing some of the colors a size 10 brush is going to do a lot of the work on this So Size 20 the big one I used is pretty much done its job I'm honest So I want to a 20 and my first thing is to bring in some vibrant orange now Like I said, I'm actually using natural orange You could mix an orange from yellow and red and I said yellow and blue then yellow and red But if you haven't got that and you want to replicate natural orange burnt sienna and cadmium yellow will give you a lovely orange Okay, but natural orange is a beautiful Autumnal color and it can be quite strong in consistency as well quite heavy Okay, so a nice rich heavy color nice clean brush and then here we're gonna get a rich cerulean cerulean cerulean blue, which is a nice color Lots of people use this for skies to me. It's a bit flat But if you use thick and heavy, it's beautiful for the likes of a Kingfisher bang on colors. We've got natural orange And we've got cerulean blue if you're not got cerulean blue you can't really mix a blue like it and It's like a chalky color, but you could just do it in any blue and just enjoy it Just just enjoy the whole process now for the minute. That's pretty much gonna do the job I'm just gonna get myself some natural gray as well. Again, if you look at that gray, it's quite cold And you can mix the gray from blue red and yellow so you can mix it from primaries Great it's about 70% blue tiny bit of like crimson or something and then a bit of yellow Right, so we're ready for action here. And that's nice and dry First thing is this very vibrant orange color. I want to get straight in with this and no expense better your size 10 brush and we're gonna work this thing through and I'm gonna pop this on very strong So if you mix in the color yourself, it's probably about 70% Yellow with a touch of red bring this thing straight down papers nice and dry straight past the claws at the bottom the feet into the tail Bring this thing through now Oranges and yellows are very easy colors to blend because they're very fugitive. They're very easy to move around Which is great for watercolors That's giving me that nice rich color nice clean brush And here's the thing right a couple of taps on tissue And then I can just go in and I can move this color and I can move it over towards the wing Okay, so I'm getting that slight lightness here. I'm gonna continue to blend this There's a little bit of orange creeps in just here as well. Keep cleaning the brush. Keep giving it a couple of taps Do you know how hard it is to do a couple of taps on tissue, this is what most people do in slow motion Normal speed that's what most people do for two taps on my favorite one is the crabbit and wiggle move where you do that and Give it a bit of it But it It needs water and again oranges yellows Even cadmium oranges would work for this Nice colors to very easily soften while the brush is a bit damp. I'm just going to like the tickle the edge of the Bird as well I'm just gonna come down and Let it kind of fade in and make sure it disappears over towards the blue So it's getting a lighter. So it's a graduation base What could possibly go wrong now? There's a nice rich bit of orange just at the side of the eye Can I am that one and then what we'll do is we'll put that rich orange as well going around the underneath of the eye Highest 10 brushes what I'm using for this the hint of orange down there as well There's a gorgeous flash of orange on there Clean brush a few taps and then we're going to use the water to soften and to spread And again blue will be coming in very soon so this brush is damp I can revisit people think that watercolors the hardest medium because you can't move it, but it's only pull up You can reactivate once it's dry and the same colors that you can't obviously Kind of work it in fairly easily You got closer to the neck there. Let's get a bit closer into the Super okay, so that's that's working nice Now if we just whisk down to the palette we can see we've got the blue now You'll find depending on what make of cerulean blue you find it It will settle because blue is the heaviest pigment so it kind of separates So if you just make sure that you mix it back together before you start the actual painting and don't be afraid to use it rich the birds and Pictures strong vibrant colors is always going to be a nice kind of solution for you Don't be afraid to have heavy pigment on this now the blue is going to go across the top of the head of course I'm using this just straight. It really is a lovely color for kingfishers now this particular point I'm going to start to rotate the board a little bit just because I'm working on an easel. I'm stood up to paint here and Sometimes I have to rotate the board To get a nice angle if I'm sat down not quite so much of a problem, but if I'm working stood up and You'll often find I'll start to rotate things so apologies you've just tuned in it's not a drunken bird Not be entertaining to watch and paint Now I'm being very careful here painting around the eye And I'm literally at the stage. I'm walking in okay, so there's nothing fancy about this Going to be quite patchy So that's the top there, let's clean the brush really well This time I want to wipe it almost dry so you can do you doesn't wipe some tissue and I'm just going to sort of connect that little space in and smooth out any areas and Where it goes down the back I'm actually going to just slightly spread that pull it down the back of the wing there as well Yeah, and I want to use this brush again. Just ever so gently Soften across the top edge if if I zoom in close To the head here, and you can see that I'm just ever so lightly Sort of feather in the edge no pun intended. They're just gonna lightly soften it With that size 10, so it just smooths it and also where it meets the orange as well just ever so lightly to pull the edge So it kind of connects Now while we're close in folks, there's a lovely bit of rich blue that just comes from the beak now, I learned a lot by by painting keen tissues and The way, you know a male and a female is the is the beak color now I don't know which is the right order but if it's a I Think and you can probably correct me here. Someone can do the research if it's all black beak. It's it's a female If it's got a bit of orange on the top, it's a male possibly all the other way around It's something like that. Anyway, so this one I think it's a male. It's all to do with the size now It's all to do with the beak But there's a nice bit of blue that comes from the beak and it's quite rich these colors I'm not afraid to use them strongly I'm almost painting in there. What's a goulash kind of consistency? Sorry goulash I'll work that across Bring that down here Down the back kind of goes off to a nice point about there somewhere and then it starts to spill in to the wing shoulders Using toes all that business clean brush Nice wipe on tissue here and then just again almost a dry brush here, but just lightly tickling the edge So you can feather rather than blend I'm just kind of feathering the edges away for the kingfisher They can't go wrong with it. And then I just want to lightly Spread that into the wing before painting actual wing itself now over the topless. I'm going to put in much more color on and Because I'm using strong pigment here It's quite easy to go back in and smooth out any areas that you're not like and so where that was a bit patchy I'm just gone back in and just just made it look a bit more of a blend or even go back and put some more Coloring a good tip when you paint animals, not literally animals, but pictures of animals is to go back in and to actually and Follow the direction one of the direction of where the fur or the feathers in this case would be and I've just finished writing a book for search press and on animals in watercolor and it's called animals in watercolor and it Will be out in January. Okay, January is It's got 30 30 projects Animals in watercolor folks and I wrote it last year and that's how long it takes to get a book published Especially in these weird times Beautiful, so that's the head or the start of the head obviously a lot more to go yet folks and Anticipation is after fun. What's been interesting about teaching the workshop days and I've been doing them now for 10 weeks 11 weeks virtual where you paint along at home and People are loving them and it's so nice If you head over to Facebook, you'll see all all the stuff people been doing what's been really good about them is enjoying the chat Actually seeing people and In the first stage of a picture. I always call it depression stage because it looks like nothing on earth You've got to see it through to the end and that is Always been a challenge for me as an art teacher and I've been teaching art for 20 years Longer than 20 years now and it's one of those things that you have to kind of you've got to stick with it You've got to get past that depression stage. Now. I'm going to start to block in the rest of the bird. Yeah, we're gonna be using Cerulean blue again for this Strong color. So just in case you've just joined us recently and I'm just going to show you the palette This is really not cerulean blue either you want to pronounce it's quite a strong color and it wants to be heavy as well I'm using a size 10 events. I will be using a six brush as well We'll get to that stage as we progress to the picky now big chunk of blue here Okay, you just got to close your eyes and go for this one, you know, it's like jumping out of an airplane But it's probably more scary than jumping out of an airplane. But a nice rich color and it's so nice I mean, is this not total escapism folks? You know what I mean and all the chaos When you're splashing paint on a piece of watercolor paper Everything just completely disappears. Does it not and you forget about everything? You forget that there's nearly 400 people watching you just enjoy it and bring this over No pressure Bring this down now again. I'm just going to rotate things here folks because I'm using strong paint again I'm not too concerned about the fact that It's gonna be patchy because I can smooth it out afterwards We're gonna be putting some lovely shadows and that's when these pictures really take shape animal scenes I kind of started off painting animal pictures, I mean, that's how I got into painting when I was a little sprog I started at a very young age and Painting the the cat and dog at home not literally because that would have been proper weird But you know a picture of them and that's something that I really enjoyed doing So animals have always been a big part of my sort of painting life Of course landscapes tend to be more popular as a rule, but animals are a huge part of what I do in my care I'm just finished Look out for that folks. I think you can pre-order on Amazon Now I'm working this in it's very patchy a bit rough clean brush got the magic tissue here You know when people were panic buying stocking up on toilet roll Well, I will I was talking about kitchen roll. I get through loads of this stuff clean brush. Not really. I was not panic buying It's quite relaxed actually a couple of taps on the tissue. I'm gonna use water and they're gonna spread and Smooth the color so it all kind of connects to where it wants to go so I can take this No, there's gonna be lots of highlights and shadows added to this at a later stage in the picture folks I'm gonna work this thing through. Yeah, but already you can see where we're going with this, can't you? And then I'm just gonna basically smooth it in Make sure there's no patchy bits and again right on the edge Here where it connects into the orange just a gentle tickle Like that phrase a gentle tickle on the edge on the edge, it's gonna let this things to lightly soften Nice, that's good. So again smooth is clean. There's a little hint of Green and turquoises in a kingfisher, which is why the background has worked. So well here you can see it Can't you beautiful? So if you want to get that if you do paint this yourself at a later stage Make sure you pop in some of that that light vibrant green over the background if you've not got a natural green light What you could do is you could actually use a Mixture of lemon yellow as I call it lemon cello. That's a nice drink Make sure you put it in the freezer though lemon yellow and blue and that will give you this kind of vibrant green color Okay, and watercolors transparent. We know that so it comes through. That's a lovely thing to say So it's not a crisp edge and I'm just spending the moment making sure that some of the edges aren't too crisp That's ready to dry That's ready for shadows while it's dry off and work on the beak and the the bit that everybody Wants to get right and that's the eye and people panic about painting eyes and it's gonna be gray It's gonna be rich heavy vibrant grays. Now if you're not using natural gray I would suggest that you mix a gray from your primary colors. So you're talking a big chunk of the blue So you could use ultramarine cobalt and allow that add a bit of red So it goes slightly purple or violet and then bring whichever Yellow you using to make that great trying to avoid using pains gray because pains gray is too strong for this kind of scene It's okay for what it does This is actually a little sort of card that I prepped before I start painting here That's pains gray, which you can see just shouts out to you And this is natural gray or primary color gray and see how that's much more Distant and much more chilled out and that's important. Yeah, but a strong bit of gray is important. Okay, okay, so Waters dirty, which is fine, but I'm not gonna drink it, but it's okay to use throughout the rest of the picture I'm working with a smaller brush now with a six brush here. Okay, and I'm happy to stick with that. There's the gray It's strong and it's probably separated if you mix it at the beginning. It's probably separated a little bit so just make sure that you've got the color and Nice and heavy and again, it's all about strong pigments Remember when we do these kind of pictures we can get a little bit close in here as well to the head painted the beak first and the beaks made up of two sections, obviously and We're gonna go in with a rich natural gray. This brush is a six brush Okay, size six This is probably my sort of go-to brush if I'm honest nice and nice and strong here and it also comes down Here and that same gray starts to go around the eye And that can pretty much go all the way around the main elliptical Okay, and then I can bring this down back towards the beak. There's a huge chunk of color There's a huge chunk of gray there. This is a rich color You know, it's quite a cold gray, but that's what makes it work And there's a little bit of gray just disappears back into the head. Okay, clean brush clean brush now I'm getting ready for a clean piece of kitchen paper here. That's got a couple of weeks life left in it Yeah, it's a warm day. So we can dry it off actually a couple of taps on the tissue Watch some teabags on the line as it is. So we can put this next to it. I'm just gonna use a bit of water I'm gonna spread the paint down. I'm just giving it a bit of a tap on tissue So I'm gonna smooth this down so I'm fetching the gray from the top edge I'm smoothing it down towards the bottom edge And again, I can lightly bring it into the Into the head and also this gray that came around the eye as well and I'm likely to pull the edge of that one So it it's got a slightly feathered feel to it. I'm using the tip of a number six brush Make sure we've got that nice smooth eye. It's like a zombie version of a kingfisher at the minute There's something something missing the bottom part of the beak the same color, but the bottom part will always be darker same as a Person's lip. There's always a shadow under the bottom and on that on the portrait. So here The nice and rich color And that works its way back And take it off For sort of disappearing to the body at that point and then we can pretty much kind of just we can almost fill the bottom piece in but not not a hundred percent, but almost bring it down into the Into the orange and then straight back towards the head. That's got a bit more color at the top then sorry at the bottom in the top couple of taps on the tissue I will come back to the Beak once it's had a few moments to try just let you know that one and I'll pop in a few little bits of extra Again, I'm just doing what I did before. I'm just softening feathering and blending here. So it's becoming part of the Part of the head while I've got this rich gray handy and while we're close into the head We're gonna pop it in some some more dark because it's all about the darkness for a little while now. So down the back here Very strong markings very thick gray natural gray. I think a mix if you want to there's a bit of a t-shape there Comes down, I mean there's thousands of reference photographs of it. It's Kingfishers. I've painted Kingfishers and several birds for many years, you know Obviously be careful if you're using anybody's photograph because Think about copyright situation Some nice rich markings again all these markings want a clean brush on the tissue. So the brush is almost dry And if I get a little bit closer in for you, yeah, I can just ever so lightly Ever fiddle and just start to smooth the color out And it starts to blend I'm making use of this lovely textured paper. I've got here as well and in the actual Beach now, it's had a few seconds to dry now with those in I just want to paint in a thin line Now, this is it. You might want to find a brush for this. I want to paint it thin now I'll move the hand in a minute, but a thin line just goes in there With a slight white gap bit of water just ever so gently Feather that upwards again and Kingfishers have amazing nostrils which is And again, I'll pop some highlights in that a wee bit later Now if we're talking about the eye, which obviously we need to get in there we can get close into this, which is great when paint the eye in and It's quite an interesting thing to do so it's tricky to do with a Big brush, but I'm pretty happy to use this because it's quite pointy so I don't mind using this. I'm fine. Okay? Okay, so I'm just gonna pop in This now if you prefer to use something finer because what's important here folks for people that are trying to work along here Is that you're trying to leave a thin white line? All the way around now, that's sometimes easy said than done But if you've got a decent brush like this, you're gonna be okay with it And then what I want to do is I'm gonna block that in at the bottom now, this is seriously a strong bit of gray I'm using here and then at the top here I'm gonna leave a couple of Highlights Okay, so I've left these two little white specks at the top. Let's get as close in as we can Clean brush got the tissue wipe it almost dry And then I want to smooth all that in I'm going to drag the color and it's a great way of tidying up I say watercolor is dead easy to blend and Blending is definitely a skill I've noticed that some people can just do it. Some people struggle. It's all to do with how much water's on your brush But that's the start of the eye. And then what I'll do here is I'll squeeze the brush through the fingers And just ever so gently just make it look a little bit lighter It gives a slight sort of domed feel to it we can revisit the eye if we need to towards the end but equally just want to make sure If I just pop down to the palette again The gray I was using which was quite strong I want to add something to make it look a little bit richer. Okay a little bit more vibrant. So I mentioned Reds and I mentioned using like a natural red oak or crimson or something like the mother if I was to pop a bit of red into this Just a touch. It's gonna make the gray very very strong Now I don't want much of that But you can probably say it's given a slight more of the purple tinge to the gray You wouldn't see it massively on the picture, but it's enough to make a difference from the first color so and I just want to use this because I want to go around and I'm really getting quite fine now with this brush and if you prefer to use something smaller then please feel free But if I get really close in that's as close as I can get without probably losing focus Can you see that slightly darker ring around the edge? and it's basically a way of Making that look even crisper. Is it it's almost like a bit of flesh a bit of dark flesh goes around there Pop that in. I'm also just going to use this color in a slightly dry brush fashion just to work around a few areas And just brushing a bit of texture with this extra dark color now if you're watching this on the phone or something, you might be able to see this, but it is there and It's a crisp color And I'm just adding what are called dry brush texture And I can do the same thing around some of these bits as well. It's that little bit of red Just makes the color look more vibrant There's a little bit of Sort of richness On some of those areas to give it some extra crisp detail, okay Nice So I'll come back to that. Let's have a look at the Bottom section now because we need to start thinking about shadows down here at this point Okay, and I'm back to the normal gray So I keep that dark one with the purple and I'm going to use that normal gray now quite strong. I'm painting rich vibrant shadows Around the wing, okay It's all nice and dry at that point so my first shadow it's going to start about here come down this edge here Don't be afraid to use these colors dark Because the darker the better Then we'll pop this shadow here, and then we'll take it down and that starts to spill down into the tail feathers Don't be afraid of the dark stuff Clean brush, I think that tissues retired folks. I'm on to a new piece now a Couple taps on the tissue and then I'm going to spread that up so it disappears and Then take it down into the body Because we're talking shadows Shadows are so important. They really are now. I can also use this brush down to drag great Into the wing Smooth it out So I keep Recharging my brush and what I mean by that is I keep sticking it back in the water and giving it a couple of taps Because all the time you blend in you're picking up extra color aren't yet, so you need to be thinking about how you How you sort of Blend your brush, and if it's getting too dry it's not going to blend and it wants to be a pretty clean smooth blend of color that's working and then I could also Do a lovely crisp shadow up the back here because the wing kind of separates So you start to see a hint of the back wing coming in down here Again folks when this is a seriously rich color strong color, and I want to say to you Just don't be afraid about using the color strong Pop that little line down there get a bit closer in for you clean brush couple of taps That was four taps. That was a couple of four taps a bit of water. I'm going to soften Make sure you taper that line at the top and just basically just kind of spread it Nice and then also What we're going to do here is we're going to work across here pop a little bit of a shadow just there clean brush up the taps and Then just spread down because that is slightly tucked underneath there So it just looks as though it's slightly under now all these are going to be supported By adding some extra levels of shadows and some highlights will be coming in fairly soon as well And I'm pop a shadow here which starts to separate the the orange part of the tail feather Again, just using the water to spread the color with a couple little shadows coming in here as well Just helps to give some separation to some feathers These are just flicks of the brush really So following the shape, I don't paint every individual feather. I mean if you want to be a photographic Wildlife artist and there's some wonderful Artists like that. I'm not like that. I like detail like sharp edges, but I don't want to paint every single feather for one I don't think it's enjoyable and secondly, I don't think it's my style But it's it's however you like it But every time I bring the line Every time I bring a bit of a line It's a case. Let's come back a minute. It's a case of clean brush Clean brush and Wipe it almost dry at this point and start to feather. I'm saying feather But it's a way to remember what we're doing here. I also want to darken a piece of the back here Little bit not much across the top of the head Great Number six, which is the good old work Is a great way of adding some extra There's a nice marking and if you remember in the palette we had that at color These are the grays if you look at the grays close up on camera this one here That's natural gray or that's your mix of your primary colors now that one you can see is very blue This one's got that bit of purple and it's very thick. I mean you can see that the colors not dripping anyway So I'm gonna use a little bit of that, but I'm gonna give it a tap on tissue Before I actually apply it to the bird. Okay, and there's a nice little bit of a marking and Yeah, it's quite prominent. If you look at some photographs, you'll kind of see just a little bit of a triangular shape So very rich Vibrant color now With that color If you pick it up wipe it almost off and if you get your brush here and pinch your bristles Can you see it's playing the bristles now? You could use a rake for this not physically a rake because that'd be a bit odd woman You know, I mean if you've seen those bushes with the spiky edges and I can start to add Some nice texture now. This is all dry. I'm gonna bring in some Feathery detail to this thing even over the top of the orange as well Now don't laugh I call these skid marks texture lines Talking though. It's a skid marks on a road to me They really do add a bit of texture It's quite an addictive thing to do and I've seen people at workshops in the past that have done this kind of thing And they've ended up putting a few too many on and it starts to look a little bit dirty So you've got to be a bit careful how many of these you do? But it it's a nice way of adding a bit of texture and it's a great way of working around On these areas, which is very nice and I would be tempted to bring some other colors in as well. Let's have a look down at the bottom here Let's pop some of that down. There's literally just Almost nothing on the brush and the brush like I said to you is very very spiky if you show you that close-up You can kind of see what we're working towards. Come on focus. There you go So a nice bit of texture around the head Yeah, and I'm just going to use and Some of the blue as well. Yeah Take some that quite strong dry brush Spiky again. It's what I feel like I want to pop a little bit of blue texture on the bird as well And I'm gonna zoom in close just briefly folks. Okay, because it's these My opinion that starts to make this thing look complete, okay so quick flicks, it's a good time to stand up and Be like a proper artist what I mean by that is stick a flat cap on and do a bit of this sort of Sort of stuff. You know, I mean, don't you? Show you roll your sleeves up at the same time as you do this and start to pop these little bits of detail on little flicks little flicks in one direction Okay, and so I'll do some of those in the orange as well We've not actually used the orange apart from when we started off now again I've used natural orange, but burnt sienna and cad yellow would give you something similar and not Same but close enough again that nice kind of pinchy pinchy brush Is what it's all about and again on the picture here. I'm just gonna brush in some texture of the orange It's all part of the effector in my opinion. It all helps Make this thing look more textured and of course in my mind, this is why watercolor has a textured surface waterfall paper because For that there's other reasons, but that's one of the reasons why it actually works So well, so that's a nice thing to do now I just want to get close in into the edge of the wing where the wing meets The blue meets the orange and I'm gonna come back To the cerulean blue that I've been using. I'm gonna put some some flicks Coming down but not where it goes next to the Shadow so just where it kind of the blue meets the orange There's no reason why I can't pop a few little bits of that Because if I drop the blue over the orange it goes a bit of a great cover, which is quite nice I'm just titivating Not fiddling That works don't it So it's just give an extra texture and I'll do the same here as well. It's got little little sort of bits of feathery lines scattered around Just little hints hints off Okay, which is good Just little random bits on you know does help Loving the turquoise green there. You do get that. You've all seen Kingfisher's. Well Maybe not physically in person. I've only seen one once and it was it was a challenging And it was just a flick, you know a flash of blue and turquoise it was. Has anybody seen one? Now very soon I'm gonna be dropping in a few few highlights folks on this one Okay, and I'll pop the claws in in a second as well Okay now here we've got the claws obviously and then I want to put a little bit of a branch nothing major Not a big branch because you know, we could spend half an hour painting a branch But I'm gonna put it in and the finishing touch to this the big finishing touch stick with me folks It's putting in the highlights and the white gouache. That's what really makes this thing work. So at this stage here We're gonna work around the base And the birds and my first thing I want to do is paint in a Bit of a twig or a stick. So I'm just gonna pick the palette up here actually, so I've got the gray That's natural gray And then over here somewhere on it Makes a bit of a sort of tan color now You could use primary colors this but I'm just going to use natural orange and this just pop some gray in it Make it darker. So a bit of a sandy color so you could use yellow Roka raw sienna something like that. Well, there's the gray Very strong and I want to paint in a bit of a branch or something Okay, and and the claws and those beautiful finishing touches, which will always make a big difference okay, so I want to put some shadows under his clothes here and This color wants to be quite thick as well. So it's gonna come up down here nice and strong with color down the back of that that Tail feather it's so important to put this bit in you really need to get this bit in folks Otherwise, there's like this is levitating and I'll bring that in here And sort of paint around The base of the floor in a few little bits of shadows and a slight hint of this color on the opposite side, but nothing major and Then I'll clean the brush I'll go for this kind of warm sandy color and then I'll fill it all in and I want it To be very loose. So basically I'm blending in get a bit closer in for you if you like and Blending in the stick. I like to say folks stick with me because The best bit of painting this bird is the highlight that that's the spitting polish every time Okay We'll work that in Keep cleaning the brush bit of a tap on tissue I'm looking sort of soften this in and I'm just gonna let it fade away. I mean you could paint as many sort of branches and Bits of Stick and tweak as you want to But what's important is we put those shadows and you can see at this stage here I've made it really dark there where it goes underneath you say and then on other side on the side here I'm going to take the sandy color and just extend it over a little bit here As long as you fade it away Fade it out. It'll really suit that nice kind of vignette effect. I mean you could put a big branch on but it can be quite Distracting when the focus of this demo is all about Wonderful and then if I make the brush a bit spiky again, I can pop some little sort of rings Texture follow the curve The branch We've got a slight pinkiness to them a Very slight pink in this so if I was using a pink, I probably want to get in some pale red here This is natural red. I could use rose madder or crimson Whatever's in your palette you can use I want to chuck a bit of orange in there There it is, so you get that kind of sort of flesh tone terracotta kind of color but very weak and very kind of diluted and There's just a little bit of cloth showing here I will put some detail on and put the chlorine in a couple of seconds as well But while that's a little bit damp, if I grab a bit of gray And I can just pop a bit of a shadow Just make sure it's actually sat Along the edge And I just want to make sure that it is very dark Right under there That's a good advert for using the right brave that was pain spray that that's a leap out a little bit too much And a bit of texture there Nice okay that works now Yes, we're gonna put the core on now for the claw if you remember in the palette we had that nice rich color With the ready-made purple that's gray with that thick stuff. I've just had to pop a bit of water with it on the dry side I'm just gonna paint the claw very thick now. I want to do something right at the end on the floor to make it really pop so I need you to Stick with and then there's a lovely couple of big clothes coming down here And then there's a hint of one just here look these very rich color There's one there, but the paints a bit damp This is better than watching the news now over here I'm gonna drop in one just You'll see these in a minute or two when I put the highlights on because I always think highlights make such a difference Now if I dry the brush and look at that That's proper saving the planet. That's that's almost as good as recycling that Bring in a few little sort of rings Over the edge Texture I'm quite happy sticking with this brush to be honest. This is the six brush On the branch Final lines to this before bringing those all-important highlights Making sure it's really dark in these areas So very soon we're gonna bring some white paint into view Okay, and go ask you lash acrylic whatever this particular white is natural white which is a lovely opaque watercolor, but I want to pop some highlights in first and Highlights are best created with a square brush now. I've got my own special brush that we've designed many years ago You can probably see it's called a Matthew Palmer lift out brush. This one is the extra-large version This makes such a difference It creates separation. So I've got some clean tissue. I'm gonna clean it. This is by far the best bit This is the bit that always makes the difference. I've got a damp square brush and I'm gonna start off by lifting off I'll just show you this close actually because I feel that you should be seeing this if you're trying to work along Lighten the edge Of the wing On these feathers I'll take the tissue Now listen, it's gonna wipe it out Can you see these beautiful highlights and it always makes such a difference you can really add light and because The background color is so strong. It's dead easy to get the color to come out And I can put some little curved lines those little curved lines you can play around with the shape of these So I'm sort of following the curvature of the wings here Tissue do the wife. Okay works nice this up here as well So anywhere that you feel Tail feathers as well would be nice Quite a large bird all in all it's probably about a good 10 11 inches tall on this piece of paper that I'm working on. I said doesn't really matter how how big but highlights So well, I mean look I was lighting that edge there that makes that stand up against the background And here as well some highlights in the orange Likely removing paint, which I'm a huge fan of you don't see that many artists using lift out the technique, but for me, it's so important Because it just put life and I'll learn this technique by painting things like fishes It's a lovely thing to do across the top of the head as well Coming over the top as well Some pop up a little highlight in the beak as well Which works Probably enough highlights there Just gonna do one of my favorite things on a bird scene and that is to Add some white paint now white paint has its as its controversy for some people Don't like using white There's a bit of goulash I always think it's better to have it fresh from a tube, okay rather than trying to use it Never put too much water with water because it just disappears don't it though It's just the water that's on the brush and really get it nice and thick and as you're rotating your brush through your fingers As you draw it over the edge There's a nice way of getting that nice Nice beautiful crisp white brush now I've got to get close in to show you this folks because you won't see it if you didn't get the highlight in the eye Of course perfect time to do it With white paint, but I want to use quite a bit of white around the head You get a wonderful the occasional little white flick coming in Can you see that bit of white going on there when you get that or not? Don't be afraid to use these colors strongly like like It'll sort of feathery flicks every so often and the lovely sort of pattern That runs around the head Little flicking says little flicks going over again. It's worth putting these in It's also worth making sure that the beak central part of the beak Disappears off under the eye okay, and then anywhere around here Little flicks of white paint would be gorgeous Just helps to give a bit of extra detail down in the actual wing itself as well You get a nice little bit of a White edge coming in And it's almost in a bit of a curve pattern. It kind of follows the angle of the wing Little lines coming in it. Just looks like a little bit of light into this Over here as well It's up to you how far you want to go with this white Personally, I think a little bit of white at this stage just adds a bit of sort of feather texture to it It helps it does make quite a striking difference Massive massive difference in my opinion. I can do some on the breast as well Now if your white starts to get a bit dry just drop a bit of water with it But it's a fairly dry brush anyway because that helps the texture One of my favorite bits one of my favorite bits is To pop in a beautiful little bit of highlight just right on the edge of those claws Simple little bit of white you see a little bit of white there. It just kind of makes them Stand up against the Pops and white in this one as well Don't see it quite as much but it's there into it surprising what a difference those little bits do actually make really and