Have Fun with Watercolor Interior - Easy to Follow Watercolor Tutorial with Pen and Ink Dog

Good morning guys. Are you ready to paint? This interior is based on a couple photos from Pixabay but you can make it your own by choosing your favorite colors or adding your pet. My pup is named Edgar. There's a lot in an interior, a lot of things to paint. To help keep it simple, I'm going to work in layers. You want to get color on each area before you start the detail. To begin, I'm going to paint my walls green because green is my favorite color and it's also the complement of red so it will look good with the red brick fireplace. Good tips for painting a smooth wash of color are mix up more paint than you think you'll need. It's incredibly easy to run out of color and I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. Start at one side and keep painting until you get to the other side without going back into your wash. Get in, get out, and leave it alone. This wash brush is a big help. I'm using a silver black velvet three-quarter inch oval wash brush. I have never worn one out even after hundreds of paintings. I think it's worth every penny. Next, let's paint the couch. The couch is a dark brown. It's darker on the left side and there's highlights on the right but we don't have to worry about the detail much right now. Just get a good coat of paint on it and we'll come back with the detail later. For big areas like the couch, use your big wash brush. When you work on smaller areas, switch to a smaller brush. I'm also using that dark brown around the bottom half of the rug. I'm going to skip around to areas because I don't want to stop to dry it so I'm just working on things that are still dry. The interior circle on the rug, I'm going to paint that red. My color scheme is going to be red and green. I don't want the red to be too bright so I'm adding some of that dark brown to the red to darken it and tone down the color. I'm going to work with the same colors in this painting as much as possible. Using a limited palette will give your work a professional and unified look. The red bricks on the fireplace are a similar color to the red of the rug. To make a brick red, you can start with the red and tone it down by adding either brown, black, orange or even some green. Before you start the bricks, make sure that the wall is dry and that your pencil lines are dark enough that you'll be able to see them through the wash of color. You want to paint everything in the entire brick area except the fire. While that dries, paint the lampshade. Mine is going to be yellow like the photo. To give it a glow or lighter area where the light is, you can dab up some of the color with a paper towel while it's still wet. The bottom of the lamp is beige and I make that by adding some of my brick color to the yellow. I use a thirsty brush, that means a brush that's just damp, to lift out a lighter area along the bottom and then I add a couple darker outlines for the top and bottom shadow. The red in the rug is dry, so I mix up a darker green and paint the outside rug area. Your rug can be any color you like, but it is nice if you can match the color of the walls. Painting is a lot like home decorating. You want to use a limited amount of colors to make things look professional and coordinated. My floor is going to be brown. I'm going to use a small brush for this. It's not easy to paint around all these straight and curved lines, so take your time. Once again, start at one side and keep painting until you get all the way around. The coffee table is dark brown like the couch and I should have waited because the legs are spreading into the floor color a bit, but it's not too bad. I'll just leave it. The dog's ball is also yellow in my painting. Now most of the objects have their first wash of color. The second part of this tutorial is all about adjusting the values so that your interior looks realistic. Let's start with the That would be the inside of the fireplace. I'm painting black where I see the dark in the photo. The top line is a straight hard line and then as the black comes down it gets softer edges below. The wood that's burning is also dark and there's an unburnt stick in the front. Now we need more red brick color. Paint the front of the bricks a darker color. The inside corner gets a hint of darker color too, especially near the inside edge. Now a great tip for making objects look more realistic, when you have an edge and both sides are the same color, is to paint a line of color just a little darker along one edge, then rinse your brush, wipe out most of the water, and use that damp brush to soften the line on one side. We're going to use this trick a couple times for our interior, but it works well with buildings too. The coffee table gets a black line of shadow under the top edges and along the right side of the legs. The frame is also brown. The top of the table should be a little bit lighter with the light shining on it, so re-wet the top and lift off a little color to indicate that. Next, let's jump back to the couch. In the photo, the couch is pretty dark and it has the highlights on the right side. You can re-wet the right side and lift up the highlights, then mix a darker brown, brown plus black. If you like the couch the way it is, just stick with it. You can quit at any time. I think the darker colors really improve the painting, that's why I keep layering, but your painting is up to you. Back to the fireplace. Let's do the dark edge trick again on the front top line. Paint the line darker, rinse your brush, and soften the bottom edge. When I compare my painting to the photo, I think there needs to be more color on the left floor of the fireplace going about halfway over, and more color going up the left side just a little bit. Okay, now the fireplace doesn't look bad, but I think the wall is too light. I mix a darker green and give the wall another coat of paint, starting with the dark color on the left so that it's lighter on the right side between the lamp and the fireplace. I thought about adding something on the mantle, but I didn't want this to be any more complex than it already is. With the wall darker, I think the corner of the floor also needs to be darker, where it's the farthest away from the light. That would be along the bottom and the right side. The light is coming from the lamp and the fireplace. Darkening up the edges helps keep your viewer's eye in the composition. The picture hanging on the wall is the last bit that's too light, so I'm adding dark brown to the frame and just a little light gray to the white area so it doesn't stand out. I think we're ready for the fire. Fires are mostly white with some yellow and a touch of orange or red. If you like detail, we can suggest some bricks in this fireplace, but just suggesting a few bricks will give you better results than painting every brick line. I know you guys out there who love detail could really get into it and measure them exactly. Be a little more artsy. It's easier and you get better results. Use a damp brush to re-wet a line of brick grouting and then dab up the paint with a paper towel. Don't outline individual bricks. It's going to look better if you just lift a few horizontal lines and then add a few vertical ones. Most of the bricks I'm suggesting on the front parts of the fireplace and I'm going to leave most of the inside just plain. Add a dark line at the base of the fireplace also. Now that the fire is dry, we can soften up some of the edges. Use a damp brush to gently rub the line of the fire and dab up some of the paint. That leaves a soft fuzzy edge that looks like the fire is moving. You can soften all the edges or just a few. Down to the last bit. We're going to paint this pup. This dog is a golden retriever, so his color is raw sienna and if you don't have that, use your brown plus yellow. You see that golden color on the top of the dog where the light is hitting it and then the color gets darker as it goes down toward the bottom where the fur is in shade. I'm going to leave his face white like I see in the photo. I think this was an older dog. I'll add a touch of color to his face once I get the rest of him painted. While that dries, I'm using an ink pen to write Home Sweet Home in my frame. I use Pigma Micron pens. They work well with watercolor and they don't smear, but only use them on dry areas. Then I also use the pen to outline the dog, especially the ears, eyes, and nose. I know this tutorial is longer than most, but it's really fun to capture scenes that warm your heart and your home is where you're going to find a lot of them. Put your pet on this rug when you paint it and you'll have a painting that you will treasure forever. Happy painting!