- Lesson Details
- Transcript
- References
- Instructor
- Charles Hu
- Subjects
- Drawing
- Topics
- Drawing Exercises, Light & Color, Sketching
- Mediums
- Gouache, Marker, Pastel Pencil, Pen
- Duration
- 1h 51m 14s
In this lesson, instructor Charles Hu will teach you how to create lay-in drawings of insects and tropical animals using a variety of drawing tools. Then, you will learn to sketch with color, specifically in gouache. Charles will show you how he loosely lays in the drawing, paints the overall color, and adds temperature shifts.
This lesson belongs to the course Visual Development: Dynamic Sketching. In this 12-week course, Charles Hu will teach you the core fundamentals of dynamic sketching. You will learn to focus on gesture, shape, and structure while drawing various subjects. Charles will first introduce you to the materials needed for the course and give you basic drawing exercises that will help strengthen your hands’ muscle memory. From there, you will learn to manipulate organic, geometric shapes and add surface details. Charles will demonstrate drawing animal skeletons, marine animals, insects, landscapes, cars, and many more. In addition, you will explore sketching in colors using gouache. After this course, you will develop an ability to break down any 3D subject into a 2D structure, and from there, draw with confidence.
Throughout this course, you’ll have access to the NMA community for feedback and critiques to improve your work as you progress.
Transcription not available.
So this lesson, we're going to look at entomology, which is bugs and also some
tropical animals because I know some of my students, they kind of afraid to see bugs.
I don't blame them.
And so we're going to have, we got, you know, a few beatles and some
lizards using our photo reerence.
And so we're going to just, you know, draw those.
And this is, this is an exciting week because this is the week that I'm also
going to be introduced how coloring.
So I'm going to also do a gouache demo.
And so here's some of my previous examples that have been done.
So we're going to start off every, all, every week start off, just
basically just drawing analysis first.
You got to know how to draw, you know, how to break down to be able to do colors.
So here's some of the, like the rhino beetle, I believe, the rhino beetle
there, the largest beetle on earth, which they can be big as your forearms.
And so I just, I still focusing on drawing process, gestures, shapes,
and structural and making sure that it's down solid and your perspective
and it's also it's it's a, you know, for organics, for organic
subject perspective you can screw up a little bit, that's that's okay.
You know, but later when we get to the mechanical stuff, then you know, it's a
little bit has to be a little, a little bit more accurate on perspective, but
as long as you still know, get a sense of where it's, where that top and how
things converge and all the sides planes
so to have a, you have to have a sense of all of that, you know, sense of that box.
You know, again, like I said, even a box is not perfect
that'd be, that'd be all right.
So here's some, some coloring the I have done previously and you can see
just I had a lot of fun and I the reason why I use gouache because
it's, it's, it's it such, such organic flex, you know, unpredictable medium.
It can be very predictable.
You can do gouache.
Oh, I don't have an example here.
You can do gouache that looks something a little more I
guess, more, more, more refined.
And matter of fact I actually mix medium and I probably would do that too.
Once I finished, once I finished this painting, I come back and see,
I have some liner went back to it.
That definitely this one I did you can see some liner, you know, go back to it.
I think the reason maybe because I'd run out of the paint and I'm
too lazy to squeeze out more paint.
I decided to come by with liner just to finish it up.
I even go back, come back, maybe I think with some white charcoal pencil just
to go back, to give some highlight.
I might have done that.
So whatever it takes, you know, whatever it takes to make your,
your work the end result looks, you know, the way that you envision it.
That's, that's, you know, if you want to use whatever you want to use.
And so here's another example of something a little more colorful.
I don't know what I'm going to paint today, but again,
here are some, some example.
Here's another colorful frog and this more monochromatic lizard, we
got a lot of lizard pictures today.
And so let's just start with, with, you know, with a drawing first.
All right.
Put these away.
And again, see how all the paper's all crumbled and a little wobble
a little bit, and it will happen.
And it hopefully there's what, what I will do on the camera
because it's going to get glare.
When you paint, you will get glare.
That's part of the, you know, just part of the nature.
So a lot of times when I paint, I have to lift out my paper like this and
hopefully one camer can capture it because otherwise if I leave, I leave it flat,
I'm just going to get a lot of glare.
So we'll see.
All right.
So let's start with this beetle here.
Remember what our process.
Gestures, shapes, and structure.
All right.
Always go back, go back and print like a - go back to this three process.
You need to put a sticky note in front of you do that.
All right.
So first thing, it's a slight - he's slightly tilted or also what I'll do is,
you know, what's the, what's the the, the most obvious shape that presents to you?
And then just put it down.
Like I said, well, the process can always like the rule can always break.
Right?
You don't have to know in a way to have to kind of, you know,
every time have to follow exactly.
And at certain points you can have your own, you know, whatever you feel
comfortable with, you know, for you.
And then you know, for example, you know for example, if I ovoid - I see
an oval, I'll just start with that, you know, and then I can come back
and get, you know, get that gestures.
Versus I have to go with gesture first, every time
I - and then go with the shapes.
So I kind of, you know, I kind of reverse it this time, but most likely
the one, two, three process going, you going to be working simultaneously.
But as I say before, the design come from the first two,
you want to make good design
always, always the gesture and the shape makes the design looks more interesting.
It's more of a graphic idea.
The structural comes afterwards just to make things look - if
you want to make it a little more volume, more three dimensional.
A lot of animation they just keep it more of a 2D and they looks, you
know, it looks just, just amazing.
All right.
So,
and I'll bring down to the comp components.
Small, medium, large.
I, the reason why we start with the, the bugs while we still were
in the Marines animal, our first subject, because it's so, just.
You know, it's it's, you know, like I said, if you start, you know screw up a
bit of structure doesn't really matter.
Cause they just basically just kinda this rubbery, like this like rubbery gestural
tube and, and, and has some fins, has some fins stick out and the bugs have a
lot of hard shells on them, they give a lot of corners, evidence on the corners
which in this case it really is about
you have to think about perspective a little bit more so, as you see,
I'm still tracking that center line, making sure that rises up, come, it
comes down and it goes into the head.
I'm thinking about, I'm looking at top of this, this, you know, the subject.
So I'm actually looking at a top of this box.
So have an idea of what that box looks like in your head.
This, in this case, it's going to be like this.
Again, doesn't matter if it's not perfect.
It's okay.
You know, if it's perfect, tis actually going to converge a little more.
Like I said for organic stuff, as long as like I said it could be like a soap
bar, a soap bar, that will be fine too.
Just a rough, just a rough box idea.
But later when we get to them, like mechanical stuff, you need to be, we
need to be a little more accurate.
All right.
So just have somewhat like a, an idea, a box idea in your head.
Here's the eyes and here's the other eyes.
And you better off making the eyes a little too big than too
small and this my experience is even drawing the facials too.
And cause it engages to the audience, right?
So that we look at the head first and anything we draw, we look at
a head first and we look at a head and we'll look at the eyes first.
So I make this a little bit - probably a little bit too big.
Let's make it bigger.
Let's make that big.
All right.
And got top of the head coming down like this.
It's a little hard to see on the reference.
It looks like you got a little tentacle coming out.
Oh no, no, no.
This antenna looks that overlap coming out this way.
See, that's the thing you also learn from, from this picture too, is that see
how the silhouette is very important.
In character design classes, we put emphasis on silhouettes a lot.
And a lot of times what they do in the first assignments, all they
do just doing like a silhouette and they just pick a marker and
just painting it flat, no details.
The silhouette shows that identity, it even shows that - shows the characters.
You see how the antenna right here on this closest side,
it's almost, it gets confused.
Right?
Versus the side over here you can definitely tell what that is.
So that's one example right there.
So it depends if you want to, if that doesn't work out, doesn't serve with
your concept and you can, we can move it.
So now it's - for now, I'm just going to kind of just base on
what's the reference shows.
See the thing I got another one here
that's why I thought this is this, this is the same thing, got me confused a little
bit, but anyway, so here's the head here is the, the nose, like the shoulder area.
And come out to the side plane, rose down.
When you draw drawing through feel goes underneath ahead.
All right.
So you've got to - the wing case, this is what a wing case is, cause it actually
opens up the ashes soft wing underneath, this basically to protect that.
It's very like armor.
You got almost like a corner plane and it coming down like this.
Well, I make it, I already know I make it too long, but I think it's okay.
Again, it's all, it's all - it's your call.
If today you want to give a little more extreme, like foreshortened feel, you want
to make that the - everything close to you as bigger and everything away from us
you want to foreshortening a little bit, that's, that's fine.
That's - I think that's probably good error to make in this case, but for me,
I know maybe I just want to draw bigger or maybe I just want to make you feel
as a little more, you know, more heroic.
So, so I think it doesn't really bother me.
So I'm going to come over here.
It looks like this shell come rises up, coming to the side
and turn it down this way.
Again, track where the center line coming here.
Got a little about that top plane, a lot of the side plan right here,
corner, top, and then side like this.
And then it wraps around, comes in and wrapped around like this.
Right?
And keep in mind you can see - well we can deal with this later, because
this is actually, we had a little step in, he doesn't just kind of
fuse up to that, that shoulder area so we can deal with that later.
And then gold is scary lake coming out and all the, just basically just
lines at first, just, just these cable coming in, coming out like this.
Don't worry about the details.
Just do some cable coming out like that.
Mainly it's about the alignment about the bigger, the big compositions.
I think it's, it's, it's easier too.
You know why you wanted to make yourself more complicated for anything.
You know, is there an easy, you know, easy way to start in this and then have a
little more - and allow you to have more of a clear process, allow you to, you
know, give you better placements, allow you to, you know, stretch or a caricature.
And I think that's a way you know, you should, should be doing it.
And this case now I see an overall I already get the whole layouts.
And this could be done much quicker, obviously, since it's a demo, I take,
take my time, but I have all that I need.
I'll come back and I'll break it down.
Okay.
And there's something interesting here you see.
I made this - I wanna make this a little bigger cause close to us.
And you notice I'm always, if you look at it too, see how the nature
works and comp, like compliments.
You got, you got a side as more straight and I can guarantee you the other side
gonna be feels a little more curved.
And and now usually I'll go with the straight, straight side first
cause it makes sense, right?
From point A to point B.
And, but then you don't want to do, but then you, you don't want to just
do a, a, a both sides straight cause it ends up, it looks like, you know,
it looks like a, it looks like a tube.
It looks like - and then it ends up the whole drawing gonna
look too robotic, too stiff.
But because straight line is the quickest way to get to from
one point to another point.
And usually what you do to keep that and make that shape, looking more, somewhat
more organic is keep - start with straight and then curve the other side like that.
And you see, look at that leg, you can see it.
And let's look at it right here.
See straight and drawing through on a curve.
And make sure it has to end.
All right.
And how to complete that shapes.
And what I did here, that, that upper, that the first segment right there,
I did a little bit of a trick too, cause it's coming out towards us.
So it's a, it's a, you know, it's a box or a cylinder.
I just think of a cylinder.
So your cylinder coming out like this.
So what I, what I did, I reinforced the perspective a little bit.
The picture reference looks about, you know, is about even.
But what I did was
I'll make it a little bit extremes.
It's a box, but it's the box that's
I'm going to appreciate evem more if the box looks like this.
So definitely you can feel it coming out towards, you know, towards the
audience versus you make it all even, which looks at all like the top, the
top and the front end looks about even.
First of all, you never want to do that anyway and now it's going to look very see
- doesn't feel really coming out, bends out
towards us.
All right.
So that the little, you know little perspective trick, but
it's going to come a long way.
You're going to see this a lot, even in shadow too.
All right so here see the other leg's coming out.
I'm looking at - so again, I do look at silhouettes.
Because silhouettes, like I said, where our eye sees first and the silhouette also
defines, show us where the negative space.
And so see right here where my legs, my leg come in like almost flushed, almost
connect with the eyes on the further side.
That's not smart.
So I want the eyes, and I want a negative space.
And that's gonna show where that leg is.
Straight and curved Oop..
So I make it to -, I probably could push out to the side a little bit.
It's all right.
I just go with it.
Go with that.
Alright.
And for coloring, that's a box right there right?
Not coloring, shading.
So again, learn the science, understand what the science, the laws of light,
the box logic, the perspective.
And trust me, it's gonna make your life a lot more easier because a lot of time when
you draw things out of your head sometime to reference moves, drawing from life,
you know, the animal move all the time.
Even drawing figures sometimes, you know, you stand, you'll be sitting
like six feet away from the models.
It's going to, you're going to run into a lot of hurdles but having some of this
these knowledge, fundamental knowledge is going to help you tremendously.
All right.
So you got, see this plane, this plane's kinda coming down like this.
I can see - so this guy has a very reflective surface.
A lot of times we'll do - dealing with a reflective surface.
The core shadow tends to be a more darker and you can see, you can see
right here that's a pretty strong core.
And all this is side, side plane right right here.
I'm just going to follow the planes with my strokes.
And it looks like I need this cause that shows a separation of
the, the shoulder to the head.
And I also want to show that front plane a little bit.
It's not really much in shadow, so I don't want to make it too dark.
I can make the eyes darker, but here I just wanted to
get those strokes like this.
Here I'm going to drop this to that.
So again, I'm going to feel those, you know, those planes and here
earlier, I say, I want to dig this.
Again thicker here, thinner in the middle.
Tucks underneath.
I'm just going to focusing on that, that's - this edge right here.
Just going to call it this is the top.
This is the side
I'm ascending my, my pen and I can feel it.
And here, it just gets darker and goes up to the light.
One of the benefits of the photo is that
you can draw this thing life, from life of course.
And to able to get to understand all these details you have different reference,
or you had to get a dead one to do it.
But see in this case like I said, after this study of this drawings is my data.
I remember it.
I remember the - for the rest of my life and then you probably
still need to do some practice.
Cause sometime I forget, but in terms of this to that to that.
That's very easy to remember and you might forget how many
legs or the connectional leg.
Then you can go back and revisit the pictures and draw again, but
see the overall is already there.
It's only how - look how simple that is.
Let me clean this up a little bit.
So let's clean this side.
And I'll probably want to kind of angle this end.
Kind of just throw forward a little bit quicker.
I can come back with my, my China marker.
Right here I can clean out the back.
If you don't want to use the gel pen, you can, I can come in like this.
See how it covers it up nicely.
And I just hit some highlights and highlight right here on this edge.
Looks like there's more highlight right here on this top plane,
a little bit on that top plane.
All right, and if you want it would be fine, if you can throw cast shadow to
make a page looks kind of give a little grounding and it can be part of the
like the graphic, this graphic design to the, you know, to the, to the drawings.
Again, so everything you're putting down is part of it, is it for design purpose.
So I do that and to see f it works, like I said, I wanted to see and, and like
I said, also help, you know, besides, you know, besides for design elements
and also part of it maybe could help to brings out the actual, the contrast.
It brings out the, the the body of the bug itself, or maybe the shadow can serve
as a gesture to if you want it to flow the audience to look somewhere else.
Like this.
Again, keep, you know, keep that concept clear.
Don't make it too, don't make it too busy.
You know start taking away from your main focus, like main focal points,
or your like your main concept.
Because that means this is the way you want the audience to look.
And then you don't want to get too many noises from something else and
distract, and kind of distract the idea.
Alright just leave it like this.
All right.
Let me look at the other reference.
See what we have.
And I got another, I don't know what, I don't know what this guy
is, but let's just - let's draw him.
Looks like - look somewhat like those what's it called, Japanese superhero.
Those like almost looks like the what's it called?
Ultraman?
Isn't it?
Ultra something.
All right.
Where I'm going to put it?
Got this right here.
Should I put it - maybe I'll put it right - well, I'll put a smaller one.
I'll do it right here.
So keep it very direct, very simple.
So one side curved, then I'll keep the other side straight.
Okay.
Some - get some, find some symmetry in there, got this
the thing goes over his head.
Here's the center right here.
I need that center line.
Here's his head coming over to the side.
And what's the overall shape?
This, this comes in.
Here's we got another, it looks like a triangular shape that's over his forehead.
Here it protrudes out, come in, and they want to make sure, I want
to make sure he still sits on his forehead right here like this.
And that's where the antenna comes out.
One antenna goes over here.
The other one coming out right here.
Right below that, this is the further eye sits right here and coming over, I'm going
to just get it big, a large egg, right
below this antenna right there.
I'm going to force a perspective.
Overall this looks like above his mouth looks like it's just an edge.
It kinda rounds over.
I'm going to, I'm going to force it.
I'm going to angle like this, little bit, you know, reinforce the perspective.
Again drawing through.
Wraps around to the side.
And every, all these details, just to support the volumes.
Because the wing, can see the wing coming down like it radiates out from this point,
you can see one wing here coming - there's a one wing right here coming to the back.
And this is another wing, come sits below.
Here's the like the sternal area right there, coming down.
You got one pack right here on this side.
The other pack coming up this way right here.
So that going to help to introduce that front planes.
To show that front plane.
Here's the connection on the first, his first leg.
Ball joints and coming down, here's the foot.
Again I can curve.
You start with - you start things quick and direct.
And then when you're refining it, then you can curve it and make it more, more,
more organic or more, or more gestural.
Good.
Make sure drawing through, feel where the body, the bottom, like
the stomach area go all the way to the, the front of the bottom of
the head, all the way to the butt.
Like that.
I'm going to - actually, that's my lay in right there.
I'm going to shade this darker just this leg so we can see the separations.
And then the bottom of stomach, I also want to make it darker.
I'll just pretend the light source is above.
I'm going to draw both this leg in the back or, or things in the distance.
Somehow - maybe there's a value separation.
I'm just going to keep it all in the shadow because I want to set it back.
Alright.
And then let me glaze this down.
Again, a couple more highlights.
All right.
That's it this guy right here.
All right.
Let's let's see what we have.
What else we have.
Well this guy looks just like he's wearing a nice like a long gown.
And I - actually what I'll do, kind of what I'll do I just start seeing
all those characters in my head and all like stories or personalities.
So when I - you know, that helped me with to make it, like I said,
make choices or you know in terms of
if I, if I - in terms of how I'm going to design them.
In this case, I'm going to make this really long.
I want to keep this straight.
It looks like he's wearing almost like he's wearing a cape behind him.
And you see how these legs, it kind of radiate out from this point.
That's why it was mentioned before in nature, it's always a pattern and you
want to look, I kind of look for that.
Because otherwise, if you draw it all vertically it's not going to look good.
So I'm going to draw this like - I'm going to compare this knee off top of his head.
Compare from this point to this point.
See how I plugged the triangle.
Yeah.
Obvious this feels too straight.
I'm going to come, come over.
I rise the back.
I'm going to bring out this, that's the detail, that's the detail, I'm
going to bring out all this whole the, like the, the shoulder sections.
And I guess I could add some environment.
I do that for also for compositional purpose.
How that looks on a page.
Right now seeing as this is the only single drawings here so it
doesn't really matter so much.
The thing that's going to help make decision on where the
next drawing is going to be.
All right.
All right.
And looks like we did three sketches and
let me do a, one of a lizard.
And I'm going to paint.
I'll just use this guy.
So I'm gonna think about - see how I'm thinking o gestures, all the shape
on his head all the out to the, to this this kind of flappy area, almost
looking, it looks like a like a cloth.
It still kind of goes around this way and also following where the main line, the
line of action was animation, you know, kind of animation call it the gesture
also call line of actions and
the, the, so everything's still kind of geared up to that.
Yeah.
Bring this shoulder, come over on this side.
Looks like there's a little - that shoulder girdle dropped and
it goes to the upper arm.
Yeah.
Move your arm.
Going this way and come over here.
And remind yourself aware this is stretch side.
You want to keep it, you know, keep it lined a little more, you know, subtle.
And the pinch side, you know, you can, you know, you can push a curve
more, see how the stretch side is more, just a one straight lines and
a pinch side then have overlap and have little more - have a more a little
more kind of bulge out like this.
And often what I'll do is notice I've drawn a lot of egg shapes.
For volume, for proportion, cause a lot - cause I knew all his claw, the
palm area has a little volume to it.
The finger - obviously the finger, just a thin, kind of thin long
tube kind of going out from that.
I want to get a sense of the volumes.
Like even in the stomach, the head, you know, it's a, it's a quick
shape, you can, you know, you can come out with and you can adjust it.
You can go, you can go bigger if you need, or you can go, or can
reduce down smaller and you're not really committed to anything.
Long as you're getting used to the style of your pen
you're not going to have the kind of heavy imprints on your, on your page.
And then you can work off on that.
It gives you, it almost, it almost gives you a sense of where that three
dimensional volumes that you can work, you can kind of work around it.
Feel
how that, this overall, the volume of his proportions.
I'm looking slightly below it, I think, because I'm seeing
a lot of his front torso.
I'm seeing part of his bottom of is his chin too.
His eyes probably going to be right here.
And again if you screw up, make it a little too big.
Check in the back and obviously his mouth is about, looks
about somewhere right here.
Can see, look, can see how the pattern coming here, coming this way.
Like that.
All right.
All right.
So I don't want to go in and start putting more tones on this cause it's
going to, you know, I think you guys will be - most important I want you guys to
understand the - and understand the lay in process and so I did four drawings here.
They all slightly a little different, kind of different take on, but all
through the process, you know, is
the same.
You know, now I can see this as his stomach is somewhat an egg.
And then knowing, just by knowing where light source is coming from
above, I can just kind of, all I need to do just to kind of shade,
you know just shade the bottom, and I can do this quickly with a marker.
See how quick that is?
All right.
So, let me get set up with my paint and I'm going to do a color demo.
Transcription not available.
I got my paint supply set up right here and these are
gouache and then some brushes.
Let me talk through my supply first.
And so I just look at the paint.
So mainly you want to have a primary color, your red, your
blue, and your, your yellow.
So I have these, and you have your black and white for controlling
controlling the the dark and light shade.
Primarily you can just paint with these, these five tube, but you know, I'm
going to throw a couple of ones just to make my life a little bit easier.
It seems we probably going to be doing a lot of outdoor scenery later, or,
you know, or even the subjects that we're doing is probably also outdoor.
It's going to have a lot of green inference from the,
you know, from the grass.
Mainly when working with outdoor environments, they pretty much
influenced by, you know, by either the sunlights or, or the earth.
Right?
So it depends if, if it's, you know, if this surrounded in a forest,
probably a highlight or a green color and reflected to it, if you doing it
in that one open kind of open field
probably get a lot of blue because the atmosphere, well, maybe doing a more
of a, somewhat of a direct sunlight probably get a lot of orange and yellow.
So it depends.
And now so since you know, there's probably going to have earth involve,
so I'm going to have throwing a too a little more of an earthy color, the
yellow ochre, and also burnt sienna.
Just a, my kind of - in a way a go-to color okay just, if everything gets
a little too saturated, probably very easy to get, you know, to be very
saturated with these primary color.
And now I just go with these guys just to tone down a little bit.
Cause otherwise, you know, I don't want to make my, my, you know, my color too
too much like a candy land unless we're dealing with something very colorful.
So these are my, my color palette.
Am I going with this color all the time?
Probably not, depends on how - it depends on the subject matter, but a lot of
times, I do a lot of landscape also kind of location, landscape paintings.
I don't want to carry a lot of stuff.
Actually, right now gouache is the supply that I use when I go out.
I used to, I used to paint - used to take my oil paint with me, but they just gets
very heavy and paints and the easels, all that stuff, it gets very heavy.
So now when I go outside I just basically take, take my gouache with me.
This is the palette paper, you know, obviously you works, it
doesn't work if you know if you are carrying in your hands.
So these are palette paper and then there's - once, because once it's
done, I can, I can toss it away.
If I'm going, if I go on to the landscape, I have a little, I have a palette.
Look, it looks like a little, you could use a little - they sell
in art store, like a little bit, a little butcher butcher plate
and you can, you can throw this in there too.
You have probably have trim them a little bit to fit inside a butcher plate.
You can, you know, you can you can use that.
Have a little palette I make for myself.
I actually took this little plastic of box they make for acrylic, but I put
some plastic glass inside, so I can use that for my, for my, you know, a palette.
And I, when I closed that I can, I can store the paint.
The problem was the, the gouache it's you know, it dries really quick, and it can
really, you know, you might be able to use the next day, but the day after probably
going to be dried out pretty quickly.
So that's why a lot of times, you know, it seems
- that's why I'm starting to just, you know, just use these.
And once I finished, finished the painting, I just toss it away because
if you got to try and clean this in your sink, even just a little bit of a pain
still has you know, still on on your palette, it gonna just pollute the whole
sink and it take you forever to wash it.
So I've just, I guess, everything right now I think it gets older I get, lazier
I get, so I just like to get things, I like just, I like clean up quick and
like just do everything, you know, do everything more, more quickly, you know?
And here's my, some of my brushes.
There's nothing really,
I guess, nothing that would have particular.
I have a wider, we just going to do small, you know, small paintings.
So you don't need a big giant brush.
So I have a one flat brush that can be for the wash.
And either wash water or wash color, but so you want to have one flat one and you
need to have brushes to has more like a - like a real hair versus synthetic hairs.
And so, you know, the like the, obviously the, you know, softer hair
you have that it contains more water.
And then cause I like to work wet in wet and a lot of painting, you see that
I've done is all that's I like the wet in wet when the, you know, the, the
way, how the water itself that's creates some interesting, kind of interesting,
you know, effect and textures.
So you need a nice brush that they able to do that, they able to
contain a lot of water can do that.
And then but the problem with that is it's hard to control the shapes and
then the, like the details, so you need something a little bit, you know, in
this, these, these guys are synthetic and they're nice brushes, they're very
inexpensive because they control, they don't contain much water, but so they're,
they're line is going to be a little more visible and kind of visible and and the,
the edge going to feel a little bit firm.
Basically it's it's for - it's, you know, it's probably a little
better for, you know, for detailing.
And that's it and you have some just various different sizes, something
smaller if you need, if you need to get to a very tiny, tiny area.
Well, I, I just have a few more.
I have a - obviously, see, I have a spray bottle right here, is important.
Again keep your paint wet.
So occasionally I only gonna- indoor it's not that - indoor it's not that
bad, especially go outdoor while they, I, one time I was doing paintings in
then desert, I think it was summer, man, that it dries out like instantly.
I have to keep spraying it.
Keep, you know, keep it, keep them moist.
And then obviously a bucket.
That's a bucket right here.
I have to put outside the frame because I think in the cast a shadow
and then, and can be a little problem.
I'm going to put it, put it out here but you see the bucket.
And definitely need a paper towel to dry to brush.
And seeing as I paint pretty wet, I definitely need a paper towel.
I have a lot of paper towel.
All right.
So let's do this.
Thing with the gouache is not, it's not like oil paints.
You have to squeeze out a lot.
A lot of times, sometimes oil paint we are, you know, sometime a lot of oil
painter like to build textures because the oil paint allow you to do that.
Get a thick paint, a thick paint on the, on the canvas, but gouache, it's
not really, not really about that.
Maybe at the end for the whites, you can, but usually, it's
pretty, you know, pretty thin.
And any gouache is fine.
Like I said, these just happen to be the ones that I have access to them.
These actually is not really your gouache.
I learned that from my student later.
I always thought this is gouache, this actually is highbrow acrylic and gouache.
Like I said, I just liked the, like, there, I'm kind of like
the, the way they - so it's not,
not very dry, like the Windsor Newton makes.
And so they're constant - like their consistency, just the
their, kind of their consistency.
So, I mean, the paint kind of keep wet for a little bit longer.
Yeah.
When I sketch full paintings, I sketch really loose.
It will be actually a lot more looser than the actual, the actual sketch.
The reason why, because I know I'm going to apply paint over it so the painting,
the paint itself is going to describe a lot of things for me, in terms of
value, I can use the paint, you know, to know, to know, to show where light
and shadow, you know, shadow difference.
And also I don't want to make this too tight of my drawing
and it ends up when I tried to paint within the lines and into my, and
then my color wouldn't feel, you know, feel beautiful, my edge, it wouldn't
feel, you know, wouldn't feel nice.
So I wanted to just keep it, you know, keep it a little bit loose.
Yeah.
All right, let's just do that.
Alright.
Let's start with this.
So, the first thing I need to do, I need to give a little wash and
so I'm going to take my flat brush.
I'm just going to just wash over on a page like this.
What it does is kind of activate the pores of the paper kind of
letting it know okay I'm going to, I'm going to be painting you now.
And
so when you put - and also when you lay the paint down,
it's going to blend nicely.
So this guy overall, overall it's in somewhat a red purple shade.
So I'm going to thin out a lot, almost using my water as my white.
So I'm going to see painting over then and they would not going to be too dark.
And if I, if I make it opaque is going to seem, you know, it's going
to feel very, you know, feels darker.
And and sometime these are transparent paint.
That's what - and I can layer too.
I can, I saw with thin and more of a wash and layer the opaque paint over, you
know, first of all, you've got the texture difference and also feel the more - you
got a little more of that transparency.
A lot of times the beautifulest, the beautiful things happen at this,
at this very first stage, all this transparent kind of, transparent
kind of wash that we see here.
See I'm kind of letting the kind of the brush does its own thing a little bit.
It's okay you paint over the drawings.
Probably you should cause otherwise you'd be painting by - painting by number.
All right, so that's an overall tone and next thing I want to
go, I want to go right to the shadow or darker, darker areas.
I'm going to take this.
I'm going to make it a little bit darker per - slightly darker purple.
I'm going to right attack to the shadow area.
See, I use a lot of water.
It can pick up, pick it up with the kind of, oops, dry brush too.
I have a wet brush but no paint.
Just get that shadow, shadow in there.
Yeah.
And then
I see some yellow, see some warm.
Almost feel I indicate some of the, some of the sunlight hitting on the shell.
Okay.
A little bit more of a warmer shadow underneath the shell, right here.
Maybe the rock - rock reflecting light, bounce into it.
And then I also see some super dark areas.
Let's paint that shadow in there.
So I'm going to get the shadows.
And I'm gonna shift the color and shift a little bit blue.
I'm going to go to my shadow side, I'm gonna add a little bit of blue.
Why?
I see, I just kinda feel like I see a little bit blue in there.
Because if you look hard, I feel like I'm seeing blue here.
On that reference.
Let's switch to a smaller brush.
See how it doesn't bleed as the other brushes have.
So as I say the stroke is gonna be a little bit firm.
See these legs, pretty warm.
So I'm going to add some these kind of orange.
And here it's quite warm too, but I don't want to keep the same temperature.
I want to feel like it's this close to us and still feel a lot more intense.
And that's a little bit away from us and things that when, when
the subject gets slightly away from us gets a little bit cooler.
You can still add pure white because the white actually just a very
light blue, but we can do that.
Or maybe not that light.
Or you can actually add blue too.
But that might be shift too much purple and I don't one day either.
So I'm just going to, I'm just gonna add white.
I'm going to push my dark.
I usually don't like to take just pure black or white and using straight,
unless it's very opaque area.
I usually would like to add some other colors within my black.
In this case, I use a red because the whole this crab is kind
of harmonized in the ed color.
Yeah.
I'm going to keep a little bit of a light on the, on the shell on, on his back.
One thing you also have to know with almost paint, when the paint
dries, it dries it dries a little bit darker, especially the more water you
put in is going to dry even darker.
It's just gonna when the water evaporate out and that's, that's,
you know, that's, you know, that's when the paint becomes darker.
I'd like to shift my color temperatures like just like I like
to mix up my design, my drawings.
I don't like to repeat my design.
So every time I like to shift it.
I have a couple like just pure white and I'll shift a little bit warmer.
So here's very, these, all these little, like little textile, it
looks like a little pokie dots.
They'll - they are really they are deeper side, deeper yellow I'm
going to add some burnt sienna.
That turned a little bit too warm.
I'm going to come back and mix it again.
I change up my strokes too.
You see how that was pure white.
Right now it kind of, when it dry, it looks a little darker, huh?
It looks like, looks warmer too.
See how the paint's already dry, see the idea to get the surface so it
looks like a skin like dry, like a skin, that's why I probably, that
tells me I need to spray some water.
That was sprayed onto your keypad.
I want to, I got big shadow right here.
I want to throw some nice, again, reference, very kind of
just some way it's hard to read.
I'm going to throw some nice warm in the.
And I think great thing about paintings it doesn't have to be
kind of tight as the drawings.
At least not as an impression kinda impressionist way to paint, which I
- that's the way I do enjoy to paint.
Then I usually just find certain area that I spend a little more
time and the other area, I just kind of, again, just kind of hint it.
Right now, I'm not fully liking the composition.
I probably need to figure that out later.
Just feel a little bit busy, I guess.
Something has - just not quite there yet.
Oh, I know.
Let's, let's bring this out a little bit to see it going to help.
Helps a little bit.
And I wanted to counter balance that I need to make this also a little
bit, just a little bit oranger.
Here we go.
That's - I feel - that feels better.
Yeah, that's better.
Push that a little bit.
I am going to give a little bit of the environment.
This is somewhat in gray, gray color.
I'm going to take whatever already have my palette and make some of - use
some black and white, you know, to get a gray, but could just make something
that will be have on my palette.
And also that can kind of make a nice gray that also harmonize with what I have.
So right now, my
- what I need to know is, do I want to make that rock darker or lighter than my crab?
I think that looks okay.
Cause when he dries he's gonna dry darker..
A little bit warm, just kind of, kind of set it back, like this.
Let me just - I'm just going to wash the front.
It looks like a lot of lights here.
Right?
So let's do that.
All right.
So here we go.
And then, and I would, I would wait till it dries.
Cause right now, sometime when it dries it turns, actually
it turns totally different.
And especially like given when, when, like I said, when the water vibrates
out, it gets a little bit darker.
If I need to go back and work and work into another layer, I can.
Or like I said, it could be a mixed media.
You can come back with, you know, a liners, you know, to outline some of
the things if you get lost, take your white, your white charcoal, you know,
your white charcoal, pick out some highlight or separation if you need.
You can still do that.
Again it's a sketchbook, or you can do what - you can do whatever you want.
And and it's actually sometimes good to, to, to, you know, to mix medium,
to exper - and to kind of experiment.
You're going to get something surprised and that's a part of your result.
You can apply that to your somewhat more ambitious, you
know, kind of ambitious project.
All right so, let me see, let's take a break, wait until it dries.
I'm going to come by and take another look.
All right.
So I give a few minutes to rest.
If you don't want to wait here, you can almost have a hairdryer.
I don't have one with me.
You can also kind of force to dry with hairdryer, but there's thing was
something with the hairdryer is it when, when the heat blows and it kinda,
you know, it kinda, it made the paint dry a little bit inconsistently, so
sometimes I like to use but I think, cause I paint pretty thin today.
I think if you dry, you know, it dries pretty quick and it's good for allow me
to step away, step away from my work.
So when I come back, I have a fresh eyes to look at it.
So it's knowing, you know, stems kind of sitting on a position
and just this whole time.
And, and sometimes it does you get, they get your eyes kind of get
trapped and you can't tell which, you know, where the mistake anymore.
So I actually quite liking what I have here.
I was surprised.
I thought, you know, this at one point, I thought this is not going to work out.
Actually most of my painting kind of felt that way.
And then, I guess I know when I stepped back, it looks like
this actually is not bad.
So, I can probably still come by with my liner just to sharpen some, you know, a
few things you don't want to overdo it
cause otherwise you get all these hard lines and then so I obviously, now this
is the - now these is actually the hard choice to see like how much, anything you
want to put in and not too overly done.
So let's see.
Instead he looks almost kind of tearing, crying.
Maybe I should go over with the eyes a little bit.
Okay.
See the, the paper buckled up a little bit.
Again, I was fortunate enough to be involved with all different,
different feel, different major, different types of art.
So it was like I said, I was, I was illustration background.
I was involved with illustration that's more, in a more realistic style and also
involves, you know, illustration is more kind of juxtapose, more graphic style.
And I like them all.
I think they are, again, anything that's kinda attract me.
I, you know, speaks to me and, and, and, and, you know, it
doesn't matter what type of art is.
Maybe could even be abstract and probably something that stirs my, my I know my
kind of stir my interest is something probably must be kind of, like I said,
to kind of capture my tensions and
yeah.
And anyway, so I involved with, you know, and like the things I was, I went to, I
went to Art Center, Pasadena Art Center, Art Center, and Art Center is big on
this kind of pop art and objective pose.
I was involved a year or something involved with that type of art style.
And there's some of my friends, they did beautiful, beautiful work.
And like I said they would paint they would draw over the outline
or sometimes the painting can be really simple, but they look amazing.
They look great because all it has to do with designs, the shape, the
shape design, or simply the person understand how to just, you know, just
understand how to organize a value.
And so, and in a graphic kind of graphically, which, which animation they
call notan, means there's not necessarily need to have a fully render light or
shadow, just the local color itself.
So, and, but they know where to, you know where, where to be dark, where
to, you know, where to be light.
So you still get that nice, you know, contrast variations.
So I like, you know, so I kind of, I still pretty much as an artist, and then we
need to basically, as you know, work at - think of - we should be like a sponge.
Probably should have - not just an artist, every, you know, every
profession should be a sponge and just need to absorb, to turn everything
that's that you feel like it's beneficial for you.
So I draw over, I don't, you know, just not necessary a rule of any
supplies you have to do it this way.
Like, you're not suppose to use white or watercolor, you know, you're supposed to
leave the white paper as the highlight.
You know?
Just, try to put white over it, put gouache over on, on,
on the on the watercolor and to see how, how that will work.
Again
sometimes you might get resolves that you didn't expect.
And then, like I said, you will feel what the next project.
For a while I thought I discovered this accidentally, but later I realized
somebody actually already did it, it's when I started learning paintings and
oil painting, I was, I wasn't really, I wasn't really know how to mix color,
mixing colors, something it's - I was very good drawer, I draw a lot,
but mixing color is always a little trickier, so it ends up what I did was
I was, I was, I got myself a set of pastel, the soft pastels and a big set.
I got the, the, the Rembrandt brand, because other brands are
expensive, they can get pretty pricey.
Rembrandt's a little bit less expensive and I kinda like
they be a little bit firm.
So almost like painting I can put down strokes.
And like, Sennelier and other brands they're so soft as soon
as you touch it it just crumbles
and it's, it's like a three dollar, four dollar stick right there.
And just like, you know, it's just gone.
And then, so I was doing pastel for a while, learn the color because all
the colors already for me so I just basically pick and choose and paint and
try to memorize what those colors were.
And - and then I was using, and now I was trying to play
with the watercolor, like this.
And I'm horrible at it.
I never learned how to paint watercolor and apparently wasn't
following any of the technique.
I don't know any of the technique.
So I was doing a live portrait painting with a watercolor and
it turned out just horrible.
And it happened again have the dry - that box of pastel next to me.
And I thought, well, the paint is dry.
And it was, I work on illustration board too, so I just take my pastel and it
basically just paint over it and that turned into one on my my favorite piece.
They still kind of hang on the wall today.
In my house.
And after that I did several and now all this I love this, the fact
that there's, there's the wash of a watercolor, the paint drips with the
opaque paint, dry pastel paints over.
You can see that, that the texture difference.
And it was wonderful.
I did a couple of these pieces, I sold some, and then
it was great.
And I thought, like, I, I discovered neat technique.
And I think one time I was looking at like pastel, maybe pastel or watercolor.
I can't remember which, like a magazine.
I, I, I know I seen somebody already kind of doing that, but like I
said today, if I don't pick up that box pastel, I wouldn't know
there's the, I can, you know, I can do that.
So, mixed medium.
Nothing wrong with that.
It's actually you should do that.
All right.
So I don't, I think this is good enough.
I don't want - I don't want to ruin it cause I kind liked it how it, how it is.
I,actually from now on it's all going to be the same assignments as you
guys - as I mentioned on that, on the marine animal, last lesson, it's
all going to be eight pages, but only different is from now on seeing as I
have introduced color with you guys,
youe don't have to use gouache.
I'm going to continue to do some gouache demos in the later sections.
But like I said, if you never done with watercolor, you're intimidate with
watercolor, if you don't have access to get, you know, to get gouache that's fine.
You can, like I say, you can use, you can use color pencils, you
can use color markers, something maybe a little bit cleaner.
Less clean up to do.
Okay.
Like I said, as long as the color is color and then so from now
on, I would need to see colors in your, you know, in your pages.
Transcription not available.
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1. Learning Recommendation
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1. Drawing a Beetle
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2. Drawing a Grasshopper, a Mantis, and a Lizard
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3. Learning Recommendation
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4. Color Demonstration with Gouache
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5. Refining the Color Sketch Using an Artist Pen
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