How I Painted a Magical Dandelion With Cool Tricks!

Hello aqua friends, welcome to my channel. Today we are going to tackle this gorgeous atmospheric dandelion. It's got some avatar vibes going on and it's just beautiful. So let's get started. I have this extremely cool masking fluid pen. As you can see from the reference photo, there are so much beautiful lights leaking through and tiny dots. And this masking fluid pen is perfect for that. So the first step is to add in a lot of these dots, especially around the area where the dandelion fluff is going to be. And I lightly outlined where I was going to put the dandelion. So once your dots completely dry, it's very important that your masking fluid is dry. My bird, he's very young and so he's very inquisitive and he keeps climbing down my arm. I'm babysitting while I'm painting here. I'm trying to paint anyways. So you're gonna wet that background really, really well. I'm putting in some of those gorgeous colors. So I have ultramarine blue. You could also use cobalt blue. Of course my favorite green gold and I do have marine blue. These are very beautiful jewel tone colors. Now I kind of want that background to paint itself. So I don't want too many brush strokes. I'm adding the colors where I want them and then I'm going to get them moving with my spray bottle and tilting the paper. And then they kind of blend together folks and it's just so pretty when it just happens naturally. So spraying, tilting my paper, moving that paint around. It is a little bit of a messy job but so much fun. Now I do have to build up those colors quite a bit. Those darker blues that I'm using, I have indigo blue and lunar blue by Daniel Smith. It's a very beautiful dark blue and it kind of granulates and has these lighter blues in in there. I'm trying to build that up slowly especially kind of around the edges. It has like a silhouette effect. So I'm mimicking some grasses on the bottom there with my mop brush. So you could have a lot of fun at this stage. You're just adding color, spritzing your paper, watching what happens on the paper. I do love that very cool blue that's very close to the center of the dandelion and to a script liner brush and I'm adding in some of the foreground foliage. It's still wet, very wet, and it will soften. And now with all the dark colors I have this gorgeous vignette. You're going to let your whole paper dry and then you can go about doing a couple of the bocalites. I'm using a stencil for this and you're just using a damp brush and lifting some areas. There's not a lot of bit more color. I wanted that vibrancy of the cobalt blue in the middle and so I went ahead and I re-wet my paper. So this just adds a really gorgeous pop of color. I also removed masking fluid on some of the little dots so that that cobalt blue would stain those areas. Not on all the dots because I do want some paper white spots once I remove all of the masking fluid. Now the areas that are really dark around the edges of the painting, I am going back over those areas and I'm doing some very nice curving strokes like I see in the reference photo. Kind of mimicking some of those light effects. If you're happy with the one layer background you do not have to do this step. I just really wanted to have that cobalt blue shining through. I'm just lifting up some areas where I see them lighter and I'm using a magic eraser sheet. It lifts off color really really well. You could use regular paper towel that is damp as well. Once you're happy with the amount of area that you've lifted, I am lifting in the very center of the dandelion where we're going to put some burnt sienna, some oranges. I'm lifting off some of that area as well. So once your whole painting is dry you can now remove the masking fluid and we see all these little pretty dots. Almost looks like fireflies. Very magical looking. So I'm just feeling with my fingers making sure I've removed everything. Alright so now I am mixing my burnt sienna with the cobalt blue to get a desaturated grayish color, gray blue color for the stem, the center of the dandelion. I have added sepia into the mix of my cobalt blue starting at the very tip close to the stem. It becomes a lot more warmer and as I get towards the middle of all these fluffy parts then I'm adding more burnt sienna. Even a teeny bit of my transparent orange. I need to add a little bit more water so that I have a really pretty punch of warm color there. Darkening up my stem. Alright so once I'm happy with that now if you want to continue with watercolor and not use a jelly pen you could definitely make the spokes of the dandelion with a script liner brush and opaque white but you get a lot of precision with these jelly pens. I love to use it when you're working on a darker background and it's very subtle as you can see very subtle but you keep going around increasing that saturation of the white as much as you want. I still want a very very transparent effect and then putting in all of the tiny little seeds at the very end of all these spokes like I see in the reference photo. Super easy super quick project and it just turned out so cute. A little bit of summer magic to brighten your day. At the top of our dandelion is where I added a lot of concentrated little dots of white because that's where the light is really catching on the top here. A few little dandelion seeds that are flying away from the dandelion itself is always a cute addition. So I'm just trying to add a little bit more light effects on the very top of that dandelion with a damp piece of paper towel or magic eraser sheet. Lightening up a few more of these spots that I see in the reference photo. Now this is an acrylic pen and I wanted some more dots on the top of that dandelion so sparingly I'm adding some. Then you guys can sign your painting you're done! You just created a masterpiece! Congratulations! Take off the tape. It is always so nice to see that white border. And another little tip for you notice I do have a little paint that bled through. Take your magic eraser sheet a damp magic eraser and voila it's done. I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial let me know if you're going to give it a try and I'll see you next time.