 Hello and welcome to my art studio. My name is Sandy Olnok and I work at all kinds of mediums And I create projects from small and maleable things too large and frameables and I love to teach and today is going to be a heavy Teaching day. I'm going to be coloring water because it's World Watercolor Month Get it watercolor coloring water I wanted to create something that will help the marker artists out there not feel a bit of FOMO I'm going to be talking though about the essential Brush stroke that you need to know if you're working in any kind of brush marker Whether it's an alcohol marker or water based marker because these markers have to them a tip and the tip has a Thick body to it and then a thin tip the ratio between the two differs between different brands But using both of them together so that you can get elegant brush strokes that will make a flowing line Is what you're going to need to make water to make grasses to make bark textures There's all kinds of things that require having a delicate touch and today I'm going to talk about how to practice getting that delicate touch I'm also going to be using three different papers that were just sent to me by sketch bar So that I can test them out and we'll take a look. So let's get started the folks over at sketch bar Messaged me and asked if I wanted to try out some new paper pads And I'm always game for drawing up paper because you know, you never know if there's something you have to have So they sent me these three pads one is a Bristol pad one is mixed media and the others a marker pad And I've used a marker pad of theirs before I'm assuming it's the same formulation as it was previously The Bristol pad I did break in by doing this piece and I did that in a short here on YouTube I'll link you to that in the description down below Found out that I really did like the Bristol. So that one. I'm pretty sure is a high recommendation They list mediums that are good on each of these papers. The Bristol is great for pen and ink I found it worked really great with the alcohol markers the mixed media pad is for both wet and dry media So you could do some light watercolor on it mixed media paper is generally not good for just full-on watercolor You don't want to oversaturate it because it's also meant for other mediums And then the marker pad is formulated specifically for alcohol based markers It doesn't work really great with anything water-based And you'll see why because it even has some struggles with the alcohol in the marker itself because it's so lightweight now the Bristol paper is very very smooth and it's very very white the Mixed media paper you can see has some texture to it that's what makes it good for mixed media and It's also a little more yellowy a little more creamy and then the marker paper looks a little grayer next to the Bristol That you'll see because it's so thin you can see through it So let's begin talking about that marker stroke that I mentioned that is essential And this is not the marker stroke. This is just putting some color down I wanted to put some color on the paper So that there would be lighter at the top more white of the paper at the top and then more solid color toward the bottom I picked such a light color that that didn't really do very much to the paper But it did show me something and you can see the mixed media paper looks a little bit greener It's the same color But the other papers look bluer because they're more white the mixed media paper has some tone to it So it changes the tone of the marker be aware of that if you're using a paper that's more on the cream side The stroke that I want to talk about though is this one and there's a lot of people that will make a stroke like that and They wonder why their water doesn't look like it's flowing because it looks like you've got just a whole bunch of These hash marks going across the page now when you're watching a tutorial It's very possible. It looks like that because the person is just taking the marker and Laying it down and lifting it up laying it down lifting it up But in order to get those points on both ends, it's a much more delicate process You need to practice How to lay the marker down so that you don't end up getting that chunky beginning and then Lift it up at the end of the stroke so that you get a thin point at the other side It doesn't mean that just because you've put down a chunky marker stroke because I have some places in which I put down a chunky marker stroke and had to fix it You just have to go back in the other direction and flick the other way so that you end up getting that light airy sort of tip on both ends of the strokes and then the water looks like it's flowing across the entire picture that's just a skill that I find requires practice and Drawing water like this. We're a watercolor month. This is an excellent time to practice that There's a lot of subject matter that Lends itself to this. I mean if you're making grasses Like this is an essential essential skill And it doesn't matter if you're using alcohol markers or water-based markers same deal with the the nibs The nibs are fat and then they taper down to a small point That is so that you can make both strokes You can have a varied stroke like this that gets thicker as you press down and then thinner as you lift up And when you're making water There's a few things to remember as well I'm making water that in the distance is closer together and the waves are flatter And as I move toward the front the foreground I'm getting more of an overhead view rather than a side view because of perspective I won't even let's not go into perspective in this video but because of perspective the distant water is going to be flatter more horizontal and The lines will be closer together But you're going to have more highlight right Close by you like right where you're looking down at and you're also going to have potentially different color And that's where I wanted to have some darker color in the foreground and have it get lighter as we move up So I took a second marker and I'm making some shapes in between these It's darker than the first color that I had put down, but I'm not making it solid in here I'm leaving a white edge around each of the dark shapes and As I move up to the top I'm leaving more open white spaces in that whole top section so that there's more light hitting that and I'm getting more of Reflection of the sky in these mid-tone colors that are in the foreground down here Now when you're doing water you can do as many different kinds of layers of color as you want I love contrast. That's just me And I've taken a dark blue marker and I'm going to start making these same kind of strokes that I've been talking about with this nib and Making those within the dark shape so they're inside the darks When you get to the areas that are off in the distance you can also do more refinement So some of those lines up there look more like stripes at this point So I didn't want them to look like stripes. I wanted them to look like smaller ripples So I'm just going kind of an X fashion criss-crossing some of those to make them smaller Now you have to be aware of what shapes that's creating because you can continue to Add more of those and then it just looks like cross hatching up there And you don't really want that you still want that flow So pay attention to lifting and laying down the marker So you still don't end up getting chunky marks. You want those flowing marks You're not trying to cover up all of the mid-tone color or that that less dark color You're trying to add color into it within each of those shapes Now I'm the weirdo for whom this is not even dark enough for a lot of you This will be like yeah, this is more than I can already do and that's fine But I was noticing that I wasn't getting as much dark in the distance as I wanted wanted it to be much stronger in color so I Was kind of working on fixing these sections and adding in this blue So that when I go and add my super darks my my actual black Which I don't use all that often when I'm doing my drawings when I use the actual black It's gonna have all of this to lay into so I I'm kind of giving myself an outline of where I'm headed with the very darks So here's the black going in and I'm being extra careful to make sure I don't have any chunky marks now because The more contrast you have in it the stronger that color is the more obvious It's gonna be if you end up with chunky strokes in one of my recent videos I mentioned if you have any really bad paper like paper that you don't like then practicing this particular stroke is Excellent for that any kind of scrap paper that you have just grab your markers and Make lines like this. It doesn't have to look like water You don't have to be trying to draw water to practice making strokes where you have a point on one end and a point on the other and How thin can you get your marker strokes to be? Because you don't have to press down very hard You can just lightly skip over the surface and get a thinner line Practicing that on a regular basis is one of the best ways to use that scratch paper stuff That's gonna go in the recycle bin anyway use it to learn something and to train your hand to Be able to create very delicate strokes Whether you're making water or grasses or all different kinds of subject matter This brush stroke is going to stand you in good stead And so here I'm taking the dark blue marker and Softening up around some of those areas with the black marker, which felt like it got a little bit heavy And it's also putting a little bit more blue into the picture. So it's not as Kind of blue-greenish. I want to give you a close-up look so you can see not all my strokes are perfect But it still looks like water. This is with your nose pressed right up against the paper Nobody looks at your artwork that way. So make sure when you do look at your art and assess whether you did a decent job Stand back from it like this if you look across the whole thing. You're like, wow, that looks like water It's way too easy to be overly critical of our work by just looking at it too closely so the marker paper you can see is kind of on the floppy side and the mixed media paper is a little on the yellowed side, but a little stiffer and the Brighter white of the Bristol though just gets my attention as well as the thickness of the paper and it Definitely looks whiter than either the other two papers. So if that's an important thing to you It's a good paper that I can definitely recommend the marker paper does work. It's just on the lightweight side I'm gonna throw down a little challenge to you right now And that is to do something like what I was challenged to do during a several-day painting workshop The first night I was sent home with the explicit assignment to take one hour to paint 100 little figures just little tiny figures Just paint figures over and over and over again because apparently mine were so bad They were so inelegant that I needed to develop that muscle memory practice And every once in a while I just grab a piece of paper and I paint a hundred figures because it worked at that time And I want to challenge you to make a hundred brush strokes Just take a piece of paper and just make that line practice Laying that marker down softly and then lifting it up and just do it over and over and over again Not every brush stroke is going to be perfect. That's okay But as you start practicing and just getting your hand used to that motion the laying down the lifting up That soft touch you're going to start developing that muscle memory That's going to stand you in good stead whether you're making water whether you're drawing grasses bark in trees Doing hair like there's so many different uses for this kind of a brush stroke that goes from a delicate point To a thicker line and then back to a delicate point So go practice that I dare you to share it on social media Or if you're a little embarrassed about that You could email it or you can just pop over to Art Venture because you know everybody there is going to be doing the assignment as well Be sure to create something every day even if it's just 100 of the essential marker brush stroke make sure you're subscribed if you haven't already and I will see you very very soon Bye