Watercolor Animals: Preclass

Welcome to the pre-class preparation for Watercolor Animals! We’ll be discussing supplies, and a little watercolor basics. See links to supplies below each video.

In this lesson are links to the supplies I am using in class videos. Compensated affiliate links are used, which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate your support toward the costs of this class!  Read more.

Supplies:

• Watercolors, with or without a palette (you can mix paints on a white plate, or on a simple inexpensive tile from the hardware store. See more on watercolors below.
• Brushes: I highly recommend Black Velvet brushes; they’re a part-natural part-synthetic brush, and I use mostly a #8 and #12 round. Anything smaller and you will struggle in covering large areas.
  • Silver Brush Black Velvet Round #8 EH – BLICK – AMZ
  • Silver Brush Black Velvet Round #12 EH – BLICK – AMZ

• Black watercolor pencil, any brand…get a single Amazon (used for drawing details)
• Micron pens, various sizes | Blick (use it for your lettering, not usually for drawing)
• White gel pen (Uniball Signo is what I use)| Blick | Amazon | EH
• White acrylic paint (any brand at all)
• Paper: practice in either:
  • Bible Journaling Made Simple Workbook
  • Tomoe River Paper

Watercolors

See the video below to learn more about my palette – but know you don’t need to use my watercolors! Most of the time I’ll say “purple” – and that doesn’t need to be MY purple. But if you want to know the colors in my palette, you can see how I put together my palette:

• Palette (empty) – i like a metal palette myself, though plastic is fine for Bible journaling…here are a few options:
  • 16-color palette (smaller than mine) but made in Italy, comes with the half pans – there’s a cheap knockoff that has awful hinges, so don’t get that one: Amazon
  • 24-color palette (the one shown in this video) Ellen Hutson – need to get the half pans to put in it
• Half pan Daniel Smith Sets: these come in little sets, most have 6 colors and the rest of the half pans are blank; you may like one of these and avoid having to deal with a large palette:
  • Sketcher set
  • Earth Half Pan Set
  • Floral set
  • Colors of Inspiration set
  • Blues set
  • Ultimate Mixing set (all pans filled, no empties)
• Tube colors in my palette, by Daniel Smith (I repeat, you don’t need my colors!)
  • Nickel Azo EH | Blick
  • New Gamboge EH | Blick
  • Aussie Red Gold EH | Blick
  • Yellow Ochre EH | Blick
  • Burnt Sienna EH | Blick
  • Burnt Umber EH | Blick
  • Perylene Maroon EH | Blick
  • Anthraquinoid Scarlet EH | Blick
  • Pyrrol Scarlet EH | Blick
  • Quinacridone Rose EH | Blick
  • Imperial Purple EH | Blick
  • Moonglow EH | Blick
  • Cobalt Teal Blue EH | Blick
  • Iridescent Electric Blue EH | Blick
  • Cobalt Blue EH | Blick
  • French Ultramarine Blue EH | Blick
  • Phthalo Blue GS EH | Blick
  • Indanthrone Blue EH | Blick
  • Serpentine Genuine EH | Blick
  • Sap Green EH | Blick
  • Green Apatite Genuine EH | Blick
  • Perylene Green EH | Blick
  • Payne’s Blue Gray EH | Blick
  • Neutral Tint EH | Blick

Color wheel for mixing

If you don’t have the workbook, you can draw circles, break them into 12 sections, and create your own color wheel.

Color Ways

Colorways are different groupings of colors – ways to select colors for an art piece. There’s an exercise in the Workbook but you can also just draw little boxes to test out color combinations.

Share

• Please do join and share on one or both of the Facebook groups: 
• Bible Journaling Facebook Group that you may join; there are periodic Bible Journaling challenges there, ideas shared by other students and fellow travelers of creative worship! That group permits only Christians, so it’s a safe place to share your faith and grow along with us. Visit the Photos tab to scroll through tons of ideas from me and other students!
• Student Facebook Group  has students from all courses here at Art-Classes; you’re welcome to share there, knowing that it’s a public group where your work can be a ministry to potential unbelievers. Note that proselytizing is not permitted, but you can absolutely share your art from your own experience!

Copyright

I retain the copyright to all the content you are learning in class. That means you cannot sell or give away the concepts from my classes – the instruction, or anything contained or created within these lessons, to others. (Yes you can gift your cards made with these techniques, this stipulation is about not giving away my ideas taught here.) You may not post a video tutorial of your own showing your redraw of my content. But please DO make your own designs and develop your own style – then rock on! I love to see students making strides and taking this content and personalizing it with your own skills.