Watercolor Basil Tutorial

in this video I'm going to demonstrate how to paint this watercolor basil plant you will need these four colors of watercolor paint along with the size six and size one brush have all the supplies linked in my water color supply list you can find the template for this outline in my Etsy shop in another one of my videos show you three different ways that you can transfer this image to watercolor paper so to start we're going to get our leaf covered in water to help the paint flow the SAP green is one of my favorite greens to use because it's sort of like middle color of green where you can darken it and lighten it I'm gonna start by painting around the outsides and see how it flows so nice let's say put some water down already now it's important to keep in mind that watercolor dries lot lighter so may feel like you're putting in lot of paint it's going to be substantially lighter so I'm gonna pull some of my yellow mix it into my lighter green over here you can make these basil leaves any color green you want these are just some suggestions for you now to do some leaves that are back behind I'm gonna make them darker pull up some of this darker green it's bit more blue than like so I'm gonna pull in some brown and some of my SAP green as well well this leaf is still wet I'm going to go in and add little bit of darks it's not flowing quite as much as I'd like can bring little bit of water in my brush sort of spread it throughout so just go from leaf to leaf during the value after painted it with water can go in with some paint and tap it on one side to let it flow throughout the leaf so I've gone through using the same technique of using water to make my leaf wet and then going in and adding some different greens using lot of SAP green as the base and then using my darker greens as more of shadow this leaf are just straight and went straight into the paint if want to go in and add little extra Brown and go in while it's still wet maybe along the edges or shadow might be this is called wet-on-wet and you're using wet paint on top of wet paint and it's great method to use in water colors so you can even go in and add pretty heavy pigmented line then go in with just wet brush and pull along the edge to fill it it helps to dab some of the water off you can control the flow that's on your brush great way to paint the stems it's also wet on wet first fill it with either really light green or some water we want the tips to be sort of brown so we'll pick up some of that tap it along the edge if we want we can pull in little bit of yellow or lighter brown and we can go in with some of our lighter greens to fill go along one edge or along the whole stone just have fun with it doesn't have to look certain way this is really good for practicing and figuring out how watercolors flow and how they work so let's go to our next stone and pull out my smaller brush if feel like I'm having too much water I'm really Storyful the line is too fine again just got it wet then went in with some greens you so this is getting bigger it's easier to use brush that can hold little more liquid so I'm going to tap some more Browns at the base here while it's still wet it'll flow up the stem the trick is letting watercolors kind of do their own thing but having some control over the flow if you feel like you have too much water on leaf you can dry out your brush and pull some up you can use dry brush they give it been pinning with or part of paper towel and you can kind of blot it well it's still wet I'm going to go in and add some darker greens in here so I'm going to continue to go throughout the rest of these leaves it helps to vary the color of green you're using especially in the leaves that are touching so that it creates more definition in the shape if you touch leaf next to another leaf while they're still wet you'll have some of it flow into each other but you can either go back like it happened here you can either go back and define it after it's completely dry or leave it this one I'm gonna just find little bit more well that's still wet go in with your brown on the tip and vary the colors and these stems as well now have my first layer down and if like it then can be done but if want to go back in now that it's dried can see areas that maybe are little lighter than wanted if want can go back in that's some more dark some more lights try to make things pop little bit just be careful not to do too much outlining where it'll fill more stuff so did outline there but I'm gonna go back in with some water to soften the edge same thing over here you so feel free to play around with it careful not to push too hard with your colors and different layers because the more layers you build up especially if it's not completely dry the more muddy your colors will start to look you know darken some of the stems that are behind right here you feel free to comment with any questions you may have and don't forget to Like and subscribe if you 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