Final Lesson! Watercolors for backgrounds
Materials needed: clean, inked drawing. Markers, bristol board or watercolor paper; watercolors; brushes; white ink/pen/paint; mixing tray & water cup
Well, since I think I actually covered most of my shading/blending information in the previous parts of the class, this last lesson will be almost entirely concerning watercolors. Here is my drawing after I finished the basic markers:
The circle I also later filled in with markers, but not until after I finished the background. XD Anyways, here we go.
I alreayd had a pretty good idea of what I wanted in my background, so the first thing I did was lightly block in my scenery: a forresty clearing space. I used extremely watered down color, very VERY light, and blotted in my tree tops in with a medium sized round bristle brush. I like to dampen the tips of my brush and actually roll them into a slight point before I start painting. I also keep some paper towels near by so I could blot when I needed to. For watercolor painting, try to place or 'sight' where you want your whites to go FIRST. Because its very difficult to remove color, but easy to add color! Watercolors will get darker and blend easily with you add color over or to it. You can lift up color some by using a clean damp brush and swishing, or blotting with a paper towel (never WIPE because it'll tear up your paper. just blot getnly. add a teeny little water, then blot.) You should experiment on scrap paper before trying this. The best way not to mess up your drawing is to paint slowly and carefully.
In any case.. I didn't want my trees to be a traditional green color, so I chose a reddish tint to reflect the pink of the character's dress.Then I added in dark leaves and treetrunks. For the tree in the foreground, I used darker colors, and the ones in the back I used lighter ones to give an illusion of depth.
I also added in darker shades to the bark to fill it in and some purple shades to the leaves for depth.
After that, I started filling in the space around the trees. I painted a light pink into the background first, then went over with light and dark greens to produce bushes, grasses, etc. I also added a little purple to the light between the trees, and a little green to the bottom of the tree's leaves and bark. The last thing I added in was the brown of the ground/rocks.
I filled in the other side of the image pretty much the same way, then added in a (sort of) gradient to the sky, and tried to paint in some fluffy clouds (which failed hard, even worse in the scan than in real life)
In the end I chose a shade of blue to fill in the silvery swirl frame, and a darker shade of blue to draw in some thorn rose-pattern thing. I thought blue would be a good choice because it contrasted withthe green in th ebackgorund, but now I kidna regret it.XD I think it might have looked better with a different shade of blue, or a shade of green. Ah well! This is the first full watercolor background I've done in a very logn time, so I made it an experiment just to see what I could do :3 Which is what this class is all about.
Homework, due Friday, Jan 13th (just to give everyone plenty of leeway/warning):
A finished marker/watercolor combination piece. your use of watercolor does not have to be as elaborate as mine. Use all the techniques so far covered in the class, or the ones which will suit your piece best.
