Watercolor Background Tutorial It'S Easy - Paint With Me! (Botanical Magnolia Bud Background)

A really easy, Botanical style background. That'S what we're doing in today's video welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Michelle and on this channel we do all things watercolor, as well as drawing mixed media even a little bit of business and motivation for artists too. Please do consider subscribing it's completely free if you click the little bell, icon you'll get notified every time. I have a new video for you. I do at least one free video a week here on YouTube, so I already mentioned that I was going to do some really quick and easy tutorials this year, sort of Step by steps were concentrating on very small things, so that you can paint along with me Without being overwhelmed and having to do a full large painting now this week I was planning on doing a magnolia bud, but when I showed you the photograph, so many of you said you'd also like the background, so this week we're going to do the background next Week or at least very soon, you'll be getting the the flower tutorial itself, so you can paint along with me for the whole thing. I'Ll also tell you how you can get the photograph I'm working from and it's a really beautiful sort of soft background. It'S got elements of Botanical in the background; in other words, you can sort of see a hint of branches and things this kind of background works well for so many things, not just for Botanicals. So I'm going to take you through it step by step, I'm going to show you how I analyze the techniques and the colors that we use and then how we achieve it now, always with watercolors. You can't guarantee that you'll get an exact replica of a photograph, because it's not like oil painting. You can't you know fiddle with the same spot for three weeks and expect that it's gon na look okay, so we're taking our photograph as inspiration for colors for shapes. I think you're going to find it really easy and pleasant to do so. I'M going to point the camera downwards and let's get started so the drawing is not included in this tutorial. If you would like the photograph, I will leave it in my Facebook group. Now a lot of you go over there and say you can't find the photographs you need to go to the top of the Facebook group click media, then click albums and you'll find an album in there for YouTube tutorials. Now I wish I could sort those albums and put the YouTube tutorials at the first, but Facebook simply won't. Let me rearrange them, so it's the only album that has the title in capitals and the capitals say all YouTube tutorials. I was hoping by starting with an a it would automatically order them by alphabetical order, but that didn't work. But anyway, if you have a look for it, you'll see that it's in capitals and then in there you'll find all the photographs for YouTube tutorials. So, let's have a look at this background. We'Ve got this lovely soft, blue gray. Now, if I were not wanting to lift any of that color out, I might be inclined to use a Payne's gray. It would be the perfect color. We'Ve also got these neutrals here and we're going to drop these in now. The neutrals here you see they're very soft and some me when I look at this background. There seems to me a strong hint of the bokeh technique where you lift out circles, so we're going to do that too. Don'T worry, it's very easy to do so. What we need to do initially is start with this uh with this layer of background color and then, whilst it's still wet, I'm going to drop these shapes in here now. The reason we're doing that, while it's wet, is because we want them to be soft edged and, where possible, to avoid drying lines. It'S not that easy, but really as long as you keep your colors light, you can't go far wrong. So let's look at my color choices so for the tutorial I've chosen this quinacridone magenta now you might think well that has nothing to do with the background, but actually it's going to enable us to take our blue towards gray. I'Ve got some Cerulean here. You can see it's mixed with other colors here I was testing out my yellows. I'Ve landed on this one, which is an SAA Primrose, yellow, be aware it's from their previous range. They have reformulated it's basically a nickel titanate and I've got this color here which sepia - and this is a challenge rembrand the quinacridone magenta is Jackman's and the Cerulean is also Talon's Rembrandt. I'M going to use these colors to mix a gray, so I'm going to use the three primers to mix my gray and then we're going to use this color here to drop in some of these dark areas. Here then, we're going to allow it to dry and we're going to lift out on top of that later on once it's dry. So let's look at mixing the color that we need, first of all for the background gray. So let's talk about basic color mixing now, if we mix three primaries together and we have our blue, our yellow and our pink, which counts as a red, if we mix three primary colors together, we will get a neutral. So how do we know what sort of neutral we get if we use more of the yellow or more of the red which are the warmer colors, then we will get something brownish. If we use more of the blue, then we're going to get something grayish, because gray is mostly blue pigment. This is a very weak blue as well, so I'm going to want to start with this. Now, if I started with the pink, which I need, the tiniest amount of it would be quite disastrous. I would end up with something that was you know, bright, pink or bright purple, and so we're going to start first of all, with plenty of water and with the blue. So I'm going to put Lots in here. As I said, it's a very weak color. I need to mix a large amount, so I'm actually going to tip some water in and then I'm going to mix now. One thing to be aware of is this is a granulating color. That means it's got little tiny speckles in. If I show you the color swatches I was making, if I hold it close up, I think you can see how granular that paint is all the little bits of pigment in there it's caused, because the pigments are slightly larger than some paints, though that can give A nice effect it does mean that this paint will separate. It means that those pigments, because they're a little bit heavier, will sink to the bottom of the paint mix, they'll sink to the bottom of the water here, and that will change the color. What this means is that, once we've got the color as we want it, we'll need to stir it frequently in between applying so that the color doesn't change through the painting. Now I'm going to go in with some yellow and this will turn it green I'll start with just a smallish amount. As I said, we're going for mostly blue pigment here - and this is a fairly weak yellow if you're, using something like a lemon, be even more cautious than this. So it's gone kind of turquoisey, but it's not too green. Remember to rinse your brush each time so you're not polluting your palette, I'm going to grab now just a tiny amount of the pink and pop that in and we can start swatching still. The overall effect is blue, although it could be said that there's somewhat of a blue effect in places, I want to go a little bit more towards a grayish lilac, which means I need more yellow and more red. Let'S try this one, I'm actually liking that one. Quite a lot, I think we could go a little darker, so I'm just going to mix more pigment in more of the blue balance it back out again and see if I can go a little bit darker, because I'm aware that watercolors always dry a bit lighter. So I've just repeated the process: more blue, more yellow and a tiny touch more pink, it's almost there. I think I want a little bit more of the pink in it, though, because I think that lilac color is going to be really pretty. You see how we only need the tiniest amount, I'm pretty happy with this. As my base color, it's a little bit lighter than what we've got going on in the picture, but I'm going to be working in and doing several techniques. I think it's going to be just what I need, so I told you the granulation would make the paint separate. You may not have believed me. This is less than two minutes ago. Look how purple it's gone now. The paint itself hasn't changed. Color. All that's happened is that the blue pigments have sank lower because they're, larger and the pink pigments which are smaller, have stayed on the top so watch what happens when I stir and we bring the color back. This is why you'll need to stir as you apply, and you need to make sure you've mixed enough to cover the whole background. I want to try the technique out now. I'Ve actually got some more brushes here, so why have I got so many brushes? It'S because I want to be able to keep applying this background. As I go around the flower methodically and then I want to be able to go in with some of the brown, but I don't want to get all of this in here. I don't want to have to keep rinsing my paintbrush, which is going to slow me down and we need to work quickly, so I'm going to make sure I have other brushes on hand. So I've got another brush. I can apply the brown wood. This is an old one, soft splayed out, but I want a soft effect to that anyway, so we don't need to be precise. I'Ve got this large one here. The reason I've got. This is simply because I can apply some of that gray to the background really fast. If I need to get around a large area, but I've still got the smaller brush for going up to the edge of the flower. We won't be taking the background behind the flower, because that would dull the colors of the flower down. It'S really important, that we keep the paint off of the flower area and before we start to give ourselves the most chance of success. I want to try this technique out, so let's have a go on a little scrap, so let's just apply some paint here. This scrap is actually a little bit smoother than the paper I'm on today. If you want to know all about the materials I'm using, you can have a look in the video description and, let's just grab a little bit of the brown. Now I don't want this color to be too drippy or it will spread further than I want it. Look at that we can just place that in and get a soft background effect at this point, if you're enjoying this tutorial, if you're getting some value from it, if you'd like to see more tutorials like this, can I please ask you to press the like button? That'S the thumbs up button. It just sends a signal to the YouTube algorithm that this is a good video and if you like, share subscribe or leave me a comment, YouTube will push this video out to more people. I can help teach more people to paint and draw. It will also enable me to keep making free videos like this one for you for a first layer, I'm pretty happy with that. So let's get on and put it on our background, be brave with this. Be bold if you start to get drying lines and marks, it's almost always better to leave them alone and let them dry before you fix them. The last thing you want to do is start panicking and blotting at your paper. So don't do that. Just let the paint do what it wants to. This is, after all, a loose background. You don't have to get it precise, so we're going to apply our first layer. You can see that I've got some paper tissue here. You could use some cotton rag. You need something to dry. Your brush on the trick to the success of this will be in keeping the paint spread evenly not leaving areas where the edge dries. So we're going to start methodically we're going to start here and go all the way around we're not going to leave any puddles or put particularly wet drippy paint on which is going to lead to excessive spreading a little bit is fine, but we don't want too Much of that for this technique we're not going to stop once we start here we're going to go all the way around. I hope the Amazon driver doesn't call with anything for me, we're going to make sure we've got everything ready, all the brushes all the paint. Everything set out having said we're going to start here, I'm actually going to start here because I'm right-handed I'm also going to roll my sleeves up slightly, because I've just made this sweatshirt on my sewing machine. I don't want to ruin it. So I'm going to start here, I'm going to start bringing the color up and then, as we go around we'll, also put some of this darker brown in don't worry if this doesn't go right first time you can always put a second layer on once. It'S dry. It won't hurt at all to do that. Remember as well that you don't have to get things exactly the same, but do look how the shapes go in here and come out the top. So try not to make any shapes that look too awkward. If you found this really really difficult, you could actually make it easier by putting some stronger hard Edge stems in it and almost dividing this background area up into pieces. I sometimes do that if it was bigger than this, I certainly would, but I'm going to have a go at doing it in one go. I'Ve got my paint here ready mixed. You see that I'm going to need to keep stirring this, so I'm going to stir, stir, stir and I've got two jars of water here that I'm using one for cleaner water and one for dirtier water and remember when we apply the second color in when we Apply the brown don't have your paintbrush dripping wet stirring in between applying we're going to start down this end here here, I'm going around these edges fairly carefully. Now, if the paint goes across onto the stem of the bud, that's not going to make too much difference but try and keep it off of The Petal area, particularly because that's where it's going to be most noticeable. I'M going to come down here like this and down the bottom. Now, once we've got that bit there we're keeping that Leading Edge wet all of the time I'm going to swap to this larger brush again stirring and I'm just going to fill that area in there quickly like so this edge here is the one that we need To keep wet so don't allow this to dry, keep going back to it. I'M going to very quickly grab some brown paint and take it in here speed over accuracy here, because already this Edge is starting to dry and I'm going to keep that paint moving upwards without leaving puddles this bit. Here I'm pretty happy with: let's just bring out a little bit more there you can see as soon as you get a pad all you start to get more spreading. A little of that looks nice, but don't go too far with it going to come up here. Most of the background up here is just plain in that there's not too much of the brown in it there's just a little bit in places that you can see so you're going to put a tiny bit more up here just for interest. Let'S lift that water out there and keep going round again keep stirring, try not to leave puddles, so you're going to spread this paint up and what we're doing is keeping this Leading Edge. Moving. I'M not going back to the flat brush here, because really it's pretty easy to spread quite a large amount of this paint with this brush. I'M using here being a little bit more careful around the edges of the petals here, because some of them go into white and it'll be really hard to cover up any blue again, I'm going to go in here with a bit of brown. If you feel like it's gone too dark, you can just rinse and dry your brush and just wipe a little bit out, but I'm actually pretty happy with that keeping this Edge moving all the time. If you get a drying Line, Please don't panic we're going to do some lifting out techniques later on, so we have actually got some opportunity to adjust any mistakes later on I'm going to come down here. We'Ve got a lot more Brown on this side here. So I'm going to try and paint this area quickly. So let's work that color in there. Let'S start taking this brown down here would be better to come up from the bottom, but we don't have the time because this is going to start to dry. So, let's bring that down stopping this edge here from drying. Let'S join that up we're almost there. We haven't messed up too badly. Yet so, let's bring that paint down to the line I've drawn there and there's our first layer done now. You can see we have some bleeding in areas. I'Ve got a little bit of a background up here, but actually I don't mind that I think it looks rather interesting. I'M pretty happy with this first layer. What we need to do now is let it dry and by let it dry. I don't mean five minutes, because it's going to be literally a video clip and you're going to see me start again, I'm actually going out it's my mother's birthday. I'M going to drive a gift over to her house. I want you to leave it at this stage, even as much as an hour or two until it is absolutely bone dry place it near a heater if you need to, but I wouldn't go as far as using a hair dryer, but if you've got somewhere warm You can place it that'll assist it in drying, so I am back from my mother's house and um everything's nicely dry. Now, I'm actually quite pleased with how it's going so far. If we compare it to the picture, it's not doing too bad. Is it now you'll notice here that we've got these um circular effects? I'M not talking about the bits I've dripped paint on I'm talking about this slight bokeh effect, which is a photography effect where sort of light in the distance forms circles and we're going to try and copy that a little bit. So what I've got here is I've got a stencil. Now you do not need a fancy. Stencil like this anything, that's circular will do you can use a cookie cutter. You can use. You know a lid off of something. If you cut the middle out anything, you want, if it's circular and we're going to lift out some of this color here, which is why we didn't use a staining color. I am going to use some cotton wool, so these are fantastic for lifting color out they're. Not the only thing you can use. If you don't have these, you could try using something like some old t-shirt fabric. You can use a sponge but you're going to have to be really careful with the sponge. The thing about sponges is, they hold a lot of water and we actually only want this to be slightly damp because we don't want the water going underneath the stencil. So I've got some clean water here, I'm just going to dip in a little bit and then I'm going to sort of squeeze out as hard as I can. I may even Place between some paper tissue like this and squeeze more so that I get all of that excess water out and it's just lightly damp. If you have any kind of arthritis, you can't squeeze hard, then just place it on the floor, and you know between some paper towel and put your heel on it. That'Ll do that nicely. What we're going to do now is going to take out some random circles. I'M going to concentrate them on the areas that are in the blue gray, not only because the sepia is more of a staining color, but also because that's how it looks in the picture, you see how they kind of butt up to the edge. So we'll take a little bit out the edge of some of these areas and that's going to look really nice now I sometimes go back in with a little bit of color and place some color in some of the circles. We might do that here, but if you fold my bokeh technique tutorial before we're going to keep it a lot lighter and a lot less sparkly this time, because I don't want anything to compete with the flower. We just want to give it a nice subtle background. So what we're going to do now is we're just going to place this down and you can go over the edge as well or at least onto the edge of the flower in places, so you want them going behind things as well. You don't want them looking to kind of staged, as it were, don't want to make them. Look too even, and you can see what's happening here - is we're picking up some of the pigment now if you've got very cheap paper, you might find. If you do too much of this paper starts to sort of go bumpy and bits of it. Sort of bead up so do be careful. If you get to that stage, then stop you may find that you don't manage to lift out as much pigment as this. It all depends on the colors you've used, but you'll get some kind of effect, and all we do now is we're going to turn it round so that we've got another clean area and I'm going to vary the size of these and the location. So let's do another one here: let's just get it, I think so it just tips the edge of that little brown bit there. Look at that lovely. So I'm going to do a few more of these I'm going to do some large ones and some small ones and Dot them around in places I'm going to let them overlap other things or even overlap each other. So that's what we're going to do next. So here's where we are with it, I'm really happy with it actually now you could just leave it at this stage. I mean it would be fine to me. It'S got more color contrast than this one here you see how the white areas here. Actually, if we look at them, tonally they're a lot darker and I think the background is a little too distracting as it is. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put some colors very subtly in these circles, I'm just going to paint them on. I don't want to go into anything. You know crazy, like bright, pink or anything. I don't want anything to take away from the plant, but I've got to start actually just with mixing a little bit of a light green. Keep it fairly tonally pale similar to the first background that was on, and I can just Swatch it and see how it looks. I think that's a bit too wishy-washy because it's going to dry lighter, so I'm going to just put a little bit more paint in and I'm happier with that, I'm going to paint random circles now. So I'm not going to do all of them. This color we may leave some of them pale or have some of them other colors. So I'm just going to pop that color in I'm not going to go right to the edge of the white circle and that's going to give that Circle. A lovely sort of glow, I'm just doing it by eye it doesn't have to be geometrically perfect, because the outside of the circle is good, but the outside of these circles is still you know, it's still quite soft, which I think looks really nice. So I'm going to put this in here as well, I'm going to paint a few more of them, this color and then I think I might go for a bit of a lilac for some of the others. So I think before I do some lilac ones. I might just do some that are just pure blue, like this now, when you're making a background, it's important to think about the foreground, that's to come. So what I mean by this is don't put a green circle that goes right behind a green leaf, because it's not going to give you much contrast: don't scrub out a white area next to a white part of a petal, you want to do that next to A pink part of the petal you're, always thinking about how things are going to show up when all parts of the picture are in always playing off light against dark one color against another. So you get plenty of real contrast and interest by the time. Your picture is finished so really happy with this. I'M now going to put some lilac on the remaining white areas, so we're just going to mix this again, we'll start with the blue. I might have to grab a little more paint off camera and then we're just going to add in the tiniest amount of pink and that will give us a color that tends slightly towards lilac keeping all of these kind of mid-tone, not too dark and not too Light we're going to save all of the drama for the flower, so just painting the very last one of these bokeh in now it is my painting style to be a bit patterny and a bit dramatic. You can use this technique in a much more natural way. If you want to, you, can stop just at the lifted out circles, or you could take it even further than this. You could go in again once this is dry and lift out again more light circles or you could lift out smaller circles within the large ones. It'S absolutely up to you as it is. I think it looks quite pretty so I'm leaving it there. So I'd love to hear from you in the comments, if you like this tutorial, if you want others like this, I have loads of tutorials like this. In my head, mostly because they left out the ability to do math, so there's extra room for art stuff. So if you'd, like any other type of background, tutorials or any other type of techniques, do let me know what sort of videos you'd like me to make? Don'T forget to make sure that you're subscribed, so you get to see the the butter tutorial that I'm going to do next time and before you leave this video, don't forget to have a look in the video description if I've talked about any other videos that I Reference in this one you'll find them in the video description, there's also loads of free stuff down there there's some free downloadable, PDF guides. You can even take a free, watercolor painting course. Now, although we didn't draw in this video, you know that I'm a big advocate for drawing skills and if you do have trouble with drawing flowers, I've got a great video for you. That'S going to give you some tips. You can watch that video right now.