I want to explain the concepts that we're covering in this section. So it's really important that the first layer is dry before you put the subsequent one on. watercolors are transparent. So if you layer one color on top of another, you can see the color below. It's not like acrylics or oils where they have the opacity to completely cover up the layer beneath. So for the beginners in the class, because this class is aimed at beginners, I just wanted to show you how I make a wash of color to start with.

I'm not going to do this for every color that I mix but it's just so you can see this. So this is our worksheet that we're going to be working on. And we're going to be mixing some colors up here. We're going to be working monochromatic Lee in this first exercise. So we're going to mix three Bluey green washes up. And when I say mix, I don't actually mean mixing colors at this stage.

Wait, we're simply creating a wash of some color straight out of your palette. So this is an emerald grain and I am going to put it in here. I like to mix up the wash rather than picking the color straight out of my palette when I'm doing an exercise like this, because the more you mix in your palette, the more color you dissolve and so it actually changes the depth of the pigment that you're using. So there's my one of my greens I'll be using. I'll also use this one up here, I use a combination of different brands. So I quite like using the app spectrum Australian brand which is an artist quality.

This set here is the Windsor Newton cottman range, but I also have a scenario palette and I've got some quite efficient inky colors as well which I like to just depending on what pigment they have. So I've got the Schmincke this and earlier and the spectrum took Korea or cobalt turquoise. This one's called Australian turquoise radio, we're going to start working in the section here. So we're going to do one that's monochromatic. And then the other is going to be like this, we're going to get clever. And we're going to mix colors from across the color wheel.

When you layer them wet on dry like this, you get this additive effect. Whereas if you tried to do this when they were wet, you would end up making gray brownie really murky colors. So that's the beauty of layering. So let's start. Use a brush that's comfortable for you. We're working quite small here.

So I have got a six. You could even go down to a one or a two. If you like working with a big brush, go for it. Go with a shape that feels comfortable to you. This is a warm up exercise and we don't want it to take hours you know trying to shape each of these. So if a circle II blob is easy for you or you want to do squares, that's fine diamonds, heart shapes, doesn't matter.

I'm randomly filling my space with one of my greens to start off with here. And it's not critical that I mix all of these now, because I'm going to wait for this layer to dry. Before I start using these other colors, one of the beautiful things about watercolor is multitasking. So I'm going to put this color side and I'm going to work on this section here. While this one is drying. It always helps to turn your page so that you don't put your hand in your work that still wet.

Right for this one, I'm going to do some circles. As I said, with this one, we're going to mix colors from across the color wheel. I picked three variations on a primary color and we'll have a monochromatic example over here. Okay, so hopefully, with this first video should be able to paint along with me. We'll do layer one over here, layer one over here, and we'll come back once they're dry and add the next layer. Both these layers are dry now, and I can tell because there's no longer any shiny areas.

And when I touch these, they no longer feel cold. So that can be a good test to establish that difference between slightly damp still and dry. I come back in with my turquoise and I'm going to do random shapes again, overlapping. Now you want this wash that you have mixed to be strong enough that it will cover up part of the layer below but you don't want it to be so thick that it loses all transparency and for a middle thickness of color, not too watery, not too thick. And if you're having trouble with that, then you are in the right place because that is what this Class is all about. Here's a monochromatic and I am going to do this turquoise over the top of my yellow now and finish off with the red on here.

Now you notice that I'm not putting the color down and scrubbing over the top of the layer below it to be very light and economic with your brushstrokes when you are layering one color over the next. If you are if you're scrubbing, then what you end up doing is lifting up and reactivating that bottom layer. And then you're no longer layering you're actually mixing on the page and you'll be losing that definition of the of the circles edges as well. And again, we'll set that to the side and let it dry. I want to give you an example here of how this wet in wet takes place. So let's pick two colors that we don't normally want to mix together.

So perhaps purple and yellow. They're complementary colors, which means that they are opposite each other on the color wheel. If we have yellow and do what we've been doing, we put it down on the page and let it dry. We can then lay a purple over the top of it, and we will still end up with these discrete colors. But if we don't wait for them to dry, and we just try to mix them in, one color is going to siphon into the other and where they mix we're going to end up with a muddy brown color. You can see there it's not going to give us what we want.

Okay, and if we mix yellow, and purple on top of each other, we end up with with a brown color. So this is a way in which you can create beautiful effects. But it doesn't give us the definition that we're looking for with this exercise. Now that these are dry, you can see how muddy this has become and how it doesn't look at all like these layers here. I can see those are so wet and shiny. So go and grab a cup.

Then we'll come back and do the final layer. two layers of dry and we're on to our third. Now with this layer I want you to think about some of them are just overlap the first color. Some of them overlap the second color, so we're making little groups of three. And in some places, maybe you can overlap both colors. Once again, we're not scratching away because we don't want to lift the bottom colors up.

These are all overlapping like a petal There we go. I think this would be a really nice effect. For a greeting card, maybe you want to do circles all over the page, a bit like confetti, maybe some of them down the bottom are really densely packed together. And at the top like bubbles, they are kind of spread out a bit more likely floating away. I think that could be a really simple and effective exercise if you want to play with this some more, but you also want something to to show for your time and maybe, maybe consider something like that. There we are layering one on one.

So layering is working wet on to dry, and understanding that watercolors are transparent. Next, we're going to move on to glazing and I'll talk a bit about how we extend this into a whole range of different techniques for watercolor