TOUCAN - Paint Realistic Watercolour and BIRDS
What you'll learn
- Learn how to illustrate a beautiful TOUCAN subject in WATERCOLOUR
- Learn about the painting techniques required to illustrate birds in watercolour
- Establish practical and effective strategies for your BIRD PAINTING practice
- Learning to work in larger, pigment rich layers
- Learn about WASHES, GLAZES and DRY BRUSHING painting techniques
- Learn more about working in layers
- Learn how to deconstruct and reconstruct complex elements/subjects to make it achievable
- Learn how to approach complex, multi coloured elements
- Build knowledge and confidence and a love of this wonderful craft
Requirements
- Although each course's instruction is complete in itself, there is an assumed knowledge of 'STUDIO BASICS - Paint Realistic Watercolour and BIRDS or the STUDIO BASICS for BOTANICALS' tutorials as a prelude to all hands on courses.
- This course is a Level 3 or RED course and although its for everyone, it is a little more involved
- An interest in bird illustration
- An interest in the watercolour medium
- An eye for detail and a little positive enthusiasm takes you far!
Description
TOUCAN - Paint Realistic Watercolour and BIRDS explores an extraordinary bird subject, covering all the colours in the rainbow I am sure! A larger subject this time, the toucan is a striking bird, known all around the world for its uniqueness, beauty and outrageous colour, so what better subject to capture together than this? Its an essential addition to my series of bird painting tutorials and I am very excited to share it with you here.
This course walks you through the painting process, end to end, helping you to create your very own toucan painting in watercolour. Often associated with soft, loose and flimsy colours, this certainly will not be the case here! In this course we will create vibrant, precise, intense colours, with our watercolour, just as it is in life. Painting in a realistic style, we will learn about more about our materials, colour, applying large, the all important element of timing, pigment rich layers of wash, and the painting techniques and approaches needed to build, refine and achieve a realistic outcome. Certainly youll learn a lot along the way trying and thats the main goal.
Our toucan is a fantastic painting subject because it is fun, unique and comes with a complex patchwork of crazy beautiful colours to capture... and theres plenty to learn. Whilst this kind of subject can be overwhelming, especially if youre learning, youre in good hands here. I will show you how we can deconstruct a complex subject, breaking it down into simple manageable steps, single or simple colour use and approaches to reconstruct our painting to completion. Its not all easy, but a huge part of the joy in this work is the learning, conquering the challenges, and play, so put any uncertainty aside and walk with me through the process, one step at a time and lest see what you can do!
This course is graded as a Level 3 exercise, or colour coded RED course, as it includes a fair amount of complexity within the subject, but dont fear! My courses are designed for students of all levels, set to expand your learning around bird painting and watercolour even more, so dont confuse this with being 'too hard' at all. Its an ideal painting exercise to grow your knowledge, whilst having fun with this beautiful new bird focus so if you love the subject and want to get playing with large areas of wash, gorgeous, diverse and intense colour, rich tone and beautiful texture, this is the course for you!
An exacting craft, this work is especially suited to nature lovers, for those with an eye for detail, or for those wanting to develop it. If thats you, youre definitely in the right place. Whats most important is enjoying the process, learning a bunch and having fun creating. When you start there, youre already in the right place.
Crossing another of my monthly Patreon Painting Lesson over to my Udemy offerings, this course will offer you a taste of many of the essential ingredients in both bird illustration, and managing the watercolour medium more effectively. I have already seen some wonderful paintings emerging from this course over on Patreon and I have every confidence, and have seen it many many times, how the results surprise my students. I welcome you to join me here for the same, so let me guide you through this wonderful process in this course, from start to finish and see what we can create together. I shall see you in the wash! Heidi
I'd like to send a huge thank you on behalf of us all to Corey Raffel for generously allowing us to work from his stunning 'Toucan' image. Without this gift, wed be so much poorer! Thank you so much, we love our Toucan
Who this course is for:
- Any level of experience is fine for any of my courses. Its important that you choose what appeals to you as we learn best what we love best
- This course is a Level 3, RED or advanced course, but you can do it!
- Come one, come all. Its a course for anyone wanting to learn this craft
Instructor
- 4.7 Instructor Rating
- 5,000 Reviews
- 21,553 Students
- 7 Courses
Heidi Willis ~ Renowned Natural History Artist, Botanical Illustrator and Watercolour Painting Tutor
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. Painting full-time since 2003, Heidi quickly established herself as one of Australia’s emerging artistic talents. Her reputation as a leading natural history, wildlife and botanical artist is well established and 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 over her career. Highlights include The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize six times to date. The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize is one of Australia’s most prestigious and richest art competitions held by the South Australian Natural History Museum. Several of her works have been showcased as a finalist at the Focus On Nature exhibitions, a leading international Natural History Art Prize held in the New York State Museum. Her work has also featured and won awards in both Botanica and The Margaret Flockton Award, hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
Her work is held in the permanent collection at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation PA, USA and her work has also been included in the highly regarded 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 (front cover), twice in Artist's Palette Magazine (front cover), twice in Australian Artist Magazine (front cover) and Australian Geographic Magazine multiple times over, with her work featured on the front cover of Artist’s Palette issue 123. Most recently, Heidi was taken on by Australian Geographic as a freelance botanical illustrator where her work features in the Nature Watch section of the magazine.
With her work in such demand and her watercolour masterclasses booked out over a year in advance, she has turned her focus to online teaching, face to face, on Patreon and here on Udemy in order to reach and help more people pursue and achieve their own watercolour goals.