Paint Realistic Watercolor and Botanicals – STUDIO BASICS

Australian born, Heidi Willis is an entirely self-taught Natural History watercolour artist. Her work intricately illustrates our native and exotic plants, flowers, fruits and seed capsules, whilst her powerful & distinctive portraits of our spectacular bird life offers viewers an insight into the world as she experiences it. Heidi quickly established herself as one of Australia’s emerging artistic talents, and her reputation as a leading natural history, wildlife and botanical artist is now well established. Her meticulous and intricate studies of botany and birds can be found in significant public and private collections around the world.

Heidi’s work has featured in prominent national and international exhibitions, collections and publications over her career, and she is also a freelance illustrator for Australian Geographic Magazine. Other highlights include The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize six times to date (South Australian Natural History Museum) Focus On Nature (New York State Museum) Botanica and The Margaret Flockton Award (Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney) Her work is held in the permanent collections such as the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation (PA, USA) and the highly regarded The Shirley Sherwood Collection. Her work has also been featured in several publications, most significantly Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, Craft Arts Magazine, Colophon, SA Life, International Artist Magazine, Artist's Palette Magazine and Australian Geographic Magazine multiple times over, with her work featured on the front cover of Artist’s Palette Issue 123. 

With her work now in such demand and her watercolour masterclasses booked out over a year in advance, she has turned her focus to online teaching in order to answer the many painting questions she is asked daily, and to reach and help more people pursue and achieve their own watercolour goals. As requested, the first tutorial to be released is 'Paint Realistic Watercolor and Botanicals - Studio Basics' This tutorial endeavours to address many of your watercolour questions, and it is the starting point for further painting and learning with Heidi. 

For up to date information, Id love to have you visit me in these places too

My website/blogs http://heidiwillis.com.au

My Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/HeidiWillis.EarthenArtist/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heidiwillisart/

Love realistic watercolor painting, but you’re in need of some sound, experienced advice on how to achieve this for yourself? Do you look at botanical art and think ‘I wish I could create this too!’ or perhaps ‘I could never do that!’ Well it IS possible, especially if you are put on the right track to begin with. To learn you simply need a desire. Finding the right tutor can be critical in helping you get on the right track, right from the start. I know sometimes thats not so easy to find, but if you are seeking some genuinely knowledgeable instruction from a renowned tutor with a proven track record in painting and teaching to improve your watercolor painting skills, perhaps this is just the chance for you!

The focus of this tutorial is to help you understand the grass roots basics of realistic watercolour painting, and to prepare you for my subsequent painting tutorials. This course will help you get started with the right materials, workspace, headspace, advice, techniques and information to start building from. We address some of the more common studio challenges and questions students tend to struggle with, and I share many practical approaches and strategies that will help you understand, improve or establish successful outcomes for your own painting,... It is a total start to end watercolour painting process overview. 

No matter what stage you are at I believe this knowledge will benefit your development greatly. With very little commitment or risk on your part, this predominantly informative tutorial offers you a rare and fantastic introductory overview into this new world of painting and how it can apply to you... all at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home.

‘How do I even start’ you ask? Well you’ve already found the answer... THIS is where we begin! all you have to do is LET ME SHOW YOU HOW!

Brushes are a common point of failure for many people starting out, and most don't even realise this is part of their struggle! What to use? What not to use! What to buy? How to get the best out of the brushes you have... Take a few moments to learn about my brushes and hear my recommendations on what to use for realistic watercolour painting. It will make a BIG difference to your work and enjoyment.

Paper is something Im asked about so often... It really can be a never ending discussion, and an overwhelming prospect for many starting out to consider. In this lecture I discuss my own preferences quite simply, and although its a bit like choosing a best friend for another, I point out many things youll need/want to consider when choosing paper for yourself. 

The Humble Water Jar...? Perhaps! But it is actually quite important, so lets take a quick look at this topic and make sure yours is going to serve you well. Its the little things, remember?

Tissues...? So essential, but so easily overlooked... lets change that shall we!  

This lecture takes a look at the important role of masking fluid in the water-colour painting process. Although it doesn't feature highly in my own work, it is important to understand its purpose, potential and use. Used correctly, it is a wonderful material, so we need take a better look at this medium here 

One of the biggest struggles students battle with - is their workspace or work environment. It seems such a simple thing to consider, but so often it is an unwittingly, scrambling mess that unnecessarily bamboozles and clutters students from the start. The good thing is it is very avoidable! This is an critical aspect of having a healthy workflow and an enjoyable painting experience.  In this topic we explore our workspace a little deeper. 

Our selection of palette is critical. Beyond the palette itself, understanding the physical layout and establishing an intimate knowledge of our palette becomes as important to our workflow and process, as perhaps our fingers themselves. Using our palette is a certain kind of art form in itself so its extremely important to know what to look for. 

What could be more important than our paint?! In this lecture we take a closer look at paint, paint quality, characteristics, troubleshooting, colour families, paint selection... and what to buy and why. We experience a lot of problems, frustration and wasted money when we don't get our paint selection right. Getting it right is essential, so this lecture aims to help you make a better informed selection

My approach to colour and how I use it is a theory free combination of logic, simplicity and instinct. Logic I can teach. Instinct I can help you develop. Simplicity... well we can just celebrate that! When instinct or an abstract knowledge can be conveyed in simple logic, we can begin to understand new perspectives and see new possibilities as a result. Dont let colour theory confuse you, just let yourself fall into the feel of the medium, fall in love with it, learn its language and it will be the most rewarding language you will speak. 

This lesson is 'instinct articulated' for you as a first step. The palette and pigment layout is a critical relationship that must be intimately understood and considered. This lecture helps us to understand the basic principles of my work processes and helps you to prepare your palette as practically and effectively as possible. Here, I seek to explain my approach to colour use, the relationships between different 'colour families' as I see it, and demonstrate how this relates to your palette lay out and use for the greatest comfort and success. 

The reference collection process is half the fun! Where do we start? What are we looking for? What do we need to create a painting for ourselves? There are plenty of things to be mindful of in this process. It is not painting in itself, but it is everything to do with painting. It is the soul, the connection, the spark and the information we build from. If we don't get this stage right, we have nothing worthwhile to create! Have you ever heard of the comment 'see the world through the eyes of an artist' This is exactly this process, it is the origins of our inspirations.

From inspiration, we start to form and create a physical painting. This process is about maturing the seeds of our thoughts, to substance. What happens after the reference collection process? How do we transform what has inspired us, our ideas, our images and drawings into a physical painting? The drawing and image transfer process is so critical to successful outcomes in our work. Understanding the process will not only improve your work out of sight, it will improve the efficiency of your painting process as well. In this lesson we explore the processes involved in making this happen practically, cleanly and thoroughly.

Choosing colour for a specific painting, subject or element can be challenging. There is no firm rule in my book for colours, i love and use them all, and you will too... But lets be practical, lets find a strategic starting point, and a process to help you get started in the right place. This lecture is about simplifying the colour selection process, and how to narrow your colour selection down to a manageable, appropriate and digestible palette to work from.  

Textures bring diversity, emotion and interest to our painting. One of the best things about watercolour is the remarkable textural qualities that come naturally with this medium. The variations we can achieve by adjusting our balances, mixes, movements and timing are endless and its imperative that we learn to understand its nature, qualities and potential so we can harness it to our greatest advantage. There are so many textural effects we can achieve in watercolour, so lets take a look at some of the most important approaches for you to explore and have fun playing with. 

There are plenty of approaches to painting watercolour, but this tutorial looks specifically at MY staple diet for painting techniques and everything you'll need to learn to create realistic and botanical watercolours. I take a look at the three fundamental areas I work with - washes, glazes and dry brushing, and demonstrate how these three techniques come together to give fantastic final results.  

This lecture gives you the first round of practical exercises and activities specific to developing the techniques needed for painting realistic watercolour and botanicals. These simple exercises explore 'wet on wet' 'even washes' and achieving 'tonal variations' Its not about creating a masterpiece, its about learning through play... so pick up the brush and have some fun with these exercises. Try different balances, ideas and approaches, even different sizes and paper to really familiarise yourself with the medium and materials.

The techniques themselves aren't terribly hard to understand in theory, but they take a little time and practice to get a feel for. Once you've established a handle on these approaches, its simply a matter of refining the techniques to a finer and finer degree. Your balance, how far you want to take it, or how you choose to apply it is totally up to you. The key is practice of course!

Note* Worksheets and Drawing Template is available in the 'Materials List and Exercise Worksheets' section of this tutorial

This lecture gives you the second round of practical exercises and activities specific to developing the techniques needed for painting realistic watercolour and botanicals. This series of exercises steps things up a little for some challenge, looking at achieving a variety of effects with 'tonal variations' 'multiple colours'  'textures' and we take this even further to some basic 'glazing' as well. Again, its not about creating a masterpiece, its about familiarising yourself with the medium and capabilities of the watercolour medium. Playing also helps us to get over those initial anxieties of putting paint to paper. Remember, try these exercises in different sizes and papers to understand the differences. 

The techniques themselves aren't terribly hard to understand in theory, but they take a little time and practice to get a feel for. Once you've established a handle on these approaches, its simply a matter of refining the techniques to a finer and finer degree. Your balance, how far you want to take it, or how you choose to apply it is totally up to you. The key is practice of course! Try your hand at these exercises, designed to explore and refine the skills needed to produce your best work.  

Note* Worksheets and Drawing Template is available in the 'Materials List and Exercise Worksheets' section of this tutorial