Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds

Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds

“I really hope that you have enjoyed this course and that you have had fun exploring watercolour to complete a beautiful painting in your own unique style. To recap, in the first unit, you got to find out a little bit about my love of art, nature, and business and how I came to be a professional watercolour artist. You also got to find out who I’ve worked for and where you can buy my work, as well as who has influenced my work over the last few years. Next, we went in to look at all of the materials needed to paint our final project. You learned about the best papers, brushes, and paints to use. You then learned how important it is to see tonal values and you went on to shade a small nuthatch, using a tonal value tool to help you. In the next unit, you got to see how watercolour works by layering, blending, and lifting using wet, moist, and damp paper. This showed you how versatile and forgiving watercolour can be as long as you use the right tools. You then went on to learn all of the different brush techniques so that you were able to paint your first monochromatic bird, paying particular attention to tonal values and paint effects. You then got to learn about colour, how to see it, and how to make it, which was crucial in helping us create a successful colour palette for the final project. I then showed you what to look for in a photographic reference, where to obtain them, and how to make them painter friendly. Once you’d printed your image, I showed you how to make transfers of your birds and how to play about composition. Remember that this is a fun part of the process and one that shouldn’t be rushed! After that, you got to choose your palette and explore different blends to achieve the colours that you saw in the photographs. Once you were confident that you had the right colours, I showed you how to paint your birds, finishing them off with splashes and flourishes using gel and micron pens. These marks are very important to make each piece unique and to add looseness and variety to your piece. I also showed you how you could use a deckle edge ruler to achieve a hand made paper appearance. Finally, I gave you some other ideas as to how you could personalise your work even further with flowers, different compositions, and different bird choices. I would encourage you to explore the work and techniques of others for further inspiration and ideas.

I very much look forward to looking at your final project and seeing how far you have come from your initial drawing. Please keep in mind that I am completing gallery work and private commissions during the week, but I will definitely see and respond to your work, even if it takes several days for me to do so. Please share any discoveries and new ideas you have with others on the forum as we can all help each other with the discovery of new ideas Also please feel free to follow my work on Instagram or Facebook where you’ll see my latest work. Thank you again for joining me on the course and I wish you the best until next time! Sarah 😊 ”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final Project In this video, I'd like to do a recap of what we've seen in this course and the reason behind every step that we've taken. I started by talking about myself and my passion for watercolour and for birds. In addition, I showed you some of the artists that have inspired my love for what I do. Then, I started by presenting the materials that we needed for making this course, and how each one is used, and what they do. I've explained what tonal value is, and why it's so important to the success of each piece. I've talked about colour theory and all its qualities, how it's defined, ...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds

• Level: Beginner
• 99% positive reviews (3468)
• 63292 students
• 5 units
• 18 lessons (3h 14m)
• 6 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Naturalistic Illustration, Realistic Drawing, Traditional illustration, Watercolor Painting