Dandelion Cotton Swabs Painting Technique for BEGINNERS EASY Acrylic Painting | TheArtSherpa

Look at the materials we're going to be using in today's project. This is a nine by twelve canvas board. It's pre-gessoed. You don't need to do another thing to paint on this. Over here I have my materials for making this. I have phthalo green, phthalo blue, cad yellow medium, titanium white, assorted bunches of cotton buds tied together with hair rubber bands, a few loose ones. I have a little bit of black and some brushes for acrylic painting. I have a big wide brush, a small bright brush. This is a number six bright, and I have a little round. This is a number six round. Also, I'm painting this on pallet paper, but you could do this on any paper plate that you have. I'm going to grab my large bright brush. This is about an inch wide, a little bigger than an inch wide. It's for acrylic painting. I'm going to dip it in my water and drag off the extra water because I don't want my brush to be sopping wet. This is pretty firm, so it's going to really help me move my paint and put it on the canvas. I'm going to take a little of my yellow, not that much yellow, over to my white like this. I'm going to come to my canvas on the flat and just kind of paint curved, almost smiling stroke. This is what gives my painting a fisheye effect in it. A little bit of water, dip in, drag off the extra. Pull out a small amount of yellow, a little bit of the white. You can see I've just really put it on my brush nicely. Coming right here, I've got a nice dawn happening. You can use any yellow that you have. I like that this doesn't require a lot of colors. And it's going to go really well. So I'm just making sure all the paint is off my brush, onto the canvas. I'm going to rinse out a little bit, drag off the extra water. And now I'm going to come get a little bit of my blue. It's still a little dirty with my yellow. That's going to give me almost a turquoise, and I'm going to add my white to this. I'm going to come where the yellow is still wet, and I'm just going to go back and forth. Acrylic paint blends where it is wet. So if you go wet into wet, that's where you get the blending. And you can see that it being streaky makes it look like a really beautiful sky. And I'm really fond of this effect. I'm going to get a little more blue here, a little more white. I want it to be darker, but just a smidge, because skies tend to get darker as they go up. And all you're trying to do is create this beautiful feeling of an easy sky. Anyone can do this sky. You can do this sky. This is what you're doing. You're just brushing back and forth, curving. I'm sure you're doing great. I'm sure you're doing ok. That's about all I need out of that, but I have one last thing to do. I'm going to rinse my brush off a little bit. Take off the extra water. I'm going to take a little of my yellow over here by my green. Just get a little bit of green. I want kind of a bright color here. And where the yellow is above the white bottom of the canvas, I'm going to just very lightly put in this bright green. That's what's going to be peeking out from my blades of grass. Paint on my finger there. It's going to help me. It's going to help you. See how you're brushing back and forth? You're just brushing back and forth. Now you're going to rinse out your brush. We're going to dry the canvas and start the next layer. Now you're going to put in the grass. Let me show you how you can do that. Come over to your water. This is my number six round. This is just, you can see from relationship to the size of my fingers, the size of this round. It's for acrylic paint. I'm going to take a little of my blue and green. It's going to mix together. That's going to make a really dark color. See that? All loaded on the brush. I'm going to want that mostly at the tip of the brush. You can kind of see that. I'm going to come here and I'm going to make little grass lines. This is real fun. I use just the tip of my brush. And I let the canvas underneath show through. And this creates this look. I'm going to get my brush a little bit wet. Come back over to my green. If it grabs a little of the yellow there, I don't mind. Don't be too concerned about your painting. Be relaxed. Just how you feel will show. So I'm just, you can see that. This is just, all I'm doing is I press in and flick up. Press in and flick up. That's all I'm doing. This isn't hard. You're just going grass, grass, grass, grass. See, I'm letting a lot of that green show through. That's what you want. Now, I'm going to rinse out a little bit. You can see how that's taking me a couple tries. Sometimes I have to wipe my brush off on a towel. Get a little more water. Pull that out. I'm going to get some yellow. Maybe even a little white here. I'm making this very bright grass green. Twirl the brush. Load up on the edge here. Let's make another layer of grass. Get some more yellow if you need it. To brighten it up. That's all you got to do. Just go grass, grass, grass. So now you've got a couple layers of grass. Your canvas is covered with beautiful paint. Take your brush over. Rinse it out a little bit. And now, let's put in the stems real quick. So we know where our dandelion puffs are going to be blowing away. Now you and I are ready to put in the stems. Let me show you how you can do that. So I'm going to come back over. Get my brush wet again. Take off the extra water. Get that dark green. Which is the blue and the green together. Putting a little bit on my brush. On the edge there. Just on the tip. That's real fun. There you go. And we're going to curve a couple stems. So I'm going to come right here. See this little V of grass? I'm going to start there. I'm going to just make a nice curved little stem going up. He needs a little friend. He's shorter. So I'm going to curve a little stem coming back. Just on the edge of this brush. See? We'll come over here. And I'm going to make an even friendlier little guy over here. Maybe I'll start at the top and pull down. Just using the edge of my brush. Get some of your yellow. Maybe some of your white. You can come make a little highlight in the stem if you want. Just a small one. It doesn't have to be a lot. Grab some of your yellow right here. Come right at the end. And we're going to make a little half circle. A little button. See the button? A little half circle button. Another little one right here. Maybe this one is a little more like a football shape. They don't even have to touch the stem exactly. A little football shape. And then get just a little of the black. My brush is dirty. I just mix it around so I get almost a dark green, don't I? I'm going to come and shade the bottom of my button. Just a little bit to give it some shape. Rinse that out. And now we get to do the really fun part together. Are you ready? Alright. Time to get your little bunches of cotton buds and just start putting in the little puffs that are around the dandelions. I'm going to come over to the very clean part of my white over here. And I'm going to get some white loaded on. See it's just there on the cotton buds. And I'm going to come. I want this one to be slightly open. Just dab down. And make a half circle around the open part right there. Cotton buds. Dabs. You can make this as big or small as you want. You're just saying that that's open. I'm going to get some fresh buds. These can get a little bit. This is three. Now I'm going to make a nice little puffy circle around my center. I don't put my dots actually that much on my center. It can be a little bit on there but not too much. Just a little bit. And I concentrate them the most at the outer edge. So I have that there. I'm going to go ahead and do this guy up here. I think I want this one to be a little bit bigger. Remember it's easy to make something bigger than smaller so take your time. This is just a fun painting that you can do where you can make something nice for spring. Put up on your wall. Give as a gift. Not too much over that because we don't want to lose all the detail, right? Let's put our darkest to the outside. Make sure that we have a nice definition around the outside of this particular one and then I'm going to blow some of these seeds up in the wind. And that's the wish you might have in your painting. So let's get one of your individual cotton buds. Put a little paint on it. And then we're going to travel a little line in a merry little breeze going away. Far away lands. You can see that. And it's just drifted off. And now I'm just making sure I like the shape with my one bud. And if I'm happy I get to do the best part which is sign my painting. And you get to sign your painting. So this is a really fun project. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you'll check out my other cotton swab projects and other many really fun easy beginning painting tutorials. If you like this, go ahead and hit subscribe. Tell me in the comments below. And I want to see you at the easel really soon. Bye bye!