The Reality of REALISTIC Watercolor Painting

Hey, what's up? Duron here. Thank you for joining me in today's video. This is the reality of realistic watercolor painting. Now, I had to resort to reduce myself to doing a time lapse just because the process was three hours long. If you want a full narrated version, let me know. I may consider doing it in the future, but I do want to share with you the entirety of the process. So, the reality of realistic painting, watercolor, or in general, is that to achieve a realistic impression, you'll end up trying to show more of what's actually there in a more accurate way, in a more loyal to the real life thing way. Now, that gives you less leeway when it comes to changing things, when it comes to interpreting things. A lot of things can actually be still interpreted, but overall, you're still trying to be loyal to the reference, be very representational. There are a lot of ways to circumvent that, go with a bit more loose approach and find your way through it, more direct way, more hinted that way. But if you're trying to literally show everything, there is a lot that's involved here. And I think this wash in particular is a great example of noticing the nuances and capturing them when it comes to the shapes, the edges. You saw me there pre-wetting an area, then filling in the rest with paint to get a smooth transition. And then I got some hints of me, my self-reflection in that kettle, and then all the highlights to the left. So you'll see me working a little more calculated. Now, I do have to say, I was very loose in this process. The mindset, the mentality, I was there in the moment, 100% consumed completely by the process, even though I'm attempting to get the nuances of the very gentle nuances of temperature and color there. The handle of the kettle has a cooler gray. It's a bit of a blue in it. The lower sections are a little warmer, right? Even myself and my reflection there, you see a bit of a brown there. It's not really brown, it's a gray, right? So I'm really nailing down the colors and the values accurately. But my approach, my mental state while painting it was completely free, I have to admit. Now, hopefully, seeing the reference helps, because I never shared it before. This is the first time, I think, I show it. So far, I just showed the painting itself, so I think it's helpful to see what I based it on. It's funny, my processes lately have been going like this. I just follow my instinct. Whatever comes out, comes out. I am 100% just what I want to do. I give no thought to how the painting is going to be perceived or any other person's thoughts of it. By the way, I'm mapping highlights here. Some highlights are blue. I'm still a little weak, so I have my silly Gatorade here. I'm just still working on my electrolytes and just trying to sweeten my life. But I'm mostly out of it, by the way. I'm feeling much, much better. So I'm mapping out, again, the highlights. Some of them are going to be warm, some of them are going to be blue. These will all read better. Once, of course, I'll add the shadows in. For now, it's just highlights in a vacuum. Now, you're going to see how cool it looks once I add those details in. With areas like this one, where there's the liquid inside the bottle, one of the more important things I find, again, for the purpose of realism and being loyal to it, is preserving a clean color and a very specific color in all of your glazes so that it doesn't gray out too much. And it's something that is easier to build on fewer, thinner glazes. So I'll add another glaze that has a bit more orange to it, another glaze maybe pushing it towards the green-yellow, and so I can slowly tilt the color to look the way I want. You'll actually see a good example of it with the coffee bean container behind that bottle of oil and vinegar, which I love. I love this bottle with the vinegar inside the oil. Now, remember, again, context, context. Nothing still is in context. This is very much the initial steps. I know everything here is going to be darker, so I'm just starting out with a light kind of brownish-gray layer to slowly start the process of darkening. And then what I do is usually I'll finish a layer, I'll observe, I'll think what's the next step, what's the next thing I can darken, what's the next highlight I need to skip, and I'm just going with the flow that way. Now, I do want to mention just a big note here. I originally in my mind had a vision of more details. When I finished this, someone commented on YouTube, I don't remember who it was, who said there are so little details here, but it looks so good, and I would never think it has little details, but then as soon as they said it, I realized they're correct. This actually does not have a lot of details. You'll see the finished result. There aren't a lot of textures. There aren't a lot of... It's very smooth, surfacy, and I like it. I think my instinct pushed me actually to leave it like that because it felt very good to stop. I knew, for example, I noted some of my values. You'll see the final values. And by the way, look at how these mid values, these are not fully dark, but they're darker, are going to start putting things in context. But remember, a bottle shows what's behind it. It reflects the area. The only time we'll get full context is once I add the background. We'll do that in a second. But once I finished it, I knew there are some areas that could be darker. My values are not fully loyal. You'll see the end result. You can check it out on the YouTubes and Instas already. But the end result is not fully loyal to the values. And I wanted it this way. I wanted to really be gentle with where I pull the viewer's attention and try to be very subtle about it. Now, look at how mapping those highlights earlier helps us now to know what to paint. So that was part of the logic there. If you're painting around the highlights, the risk you're running into, it's just sometimes hard to see. And when you want to include a lot of details, aka the reality of realistic painting, you do want to show a lot of nuanced details in an accurate way. Look at the pre-wetting and then putting paint next to it to keep a smooth edge. When you want to do that, sometimes it can help to paint the highlights if they're not white. If they're paper white, it could be a little more complex. Or you could decide to give them a bit of a gentle tint and it will still look good. You have a lot of freedom in values, in the colors, in everything you do. The way you set up the overall composition at the end of the day, you have a lot of freedom with that. Now I had to get really close to paint around these highlights. So you see my face. This is more the way I actually work when I just paint without filming. I stick my face in the paper really close. One thing you'll notice with that coffee bean container, that's what it is again, is I messed up the temperature in a later wash. It will be interesting to see and you'll see me correct it as well. I'm panicking and correcting it immediately. So adding these blue shapes, I enjoyed moving between... So this is one of those things, as I paint this, I enjoy jumping between more complex washes and more singular shapes. I find that it helps to preserve my energy and my engagement with the painting. That's just me though. You know, everyone's going to be different, but I love jumping in between the two. Now you'll get to see some very nice wet in wet action that pushes this to the final value. If I'm not mistaken, yes, I'm going to probably start using a bit of very saturated paint here and we're going to indeed push this so it's done. I have to focus. There is a little piece of dirt there as well. Or maybe there will be another wash. I'm not sure after that. But yeah, I like jumping between the more complex washes like this one is a big wash and let's say the kettle as well, the big complex wash and the smaller, more isolated shapes. I find that it really, really helps me just to find my bearing in the painting and all of that. Now a bit of wet in wet there to get these beautiful darks and we're going to add the background here. Warmth for the most part with a bit of grayness on the left side. I'm using a large flat Raphael brush and then switching to a smaller brush as I get down to the smaller details. This wash could be also painted by flipping the paper, starting with the complex shapes and ending on the flatter area. You'll see me do that later on. But yeah, just important to keep these clean and accurate to the shapes I have because again, the goal is realism. The goal is for this to look convincing. Now you'll notice how even when I paint realistically, I think my approach isn't a fully boring dial tone which some of these processes can get. And I have some admiration to people who can hang on to these processes and really push. Look at how beautiful this highlight I left there. I'm going to play an important role later on. I have a lot of admiration and appreciation to people who can actually muster the energy to go through such complex, long processes, which this can be considered. But remember, some people work on a painting for a month, depending on the size and the details. And that is perfectly fine. It's just not really me. So my happy medium, again, not by choice, not because I decided. It's just what happens automatically. My happy medium is something along the line of this process. Now I do enjoy the loose painting process after doing something this complex. I do, but I alternate. This is too cool. If I'm not mistaken, this is the wash that frustrated me. It felt like it completely threw off the temperature. And so I'm not wasting any time doing some wet on wet. I'm not going to waste too much time. I'll probably glaze over it soon. You see, this is way too cool. Now everything is dry and I'm glazing over it again because I just couldn't leave it that way. So I'm glazing with the warm. You can see on the top of my palette, I have a warm mix. The goal is to neutralize the two. Now we have some fun action starting with the darks. These are going to bring a lot of contrast to the deal and we'll start generating that look of realism. Now again, look at what I'm doing here. I'm working the shapes. I'm seeing slowly, carefully, patiently. I did want to zoom in a bit to show you some more of the details. The quality isn't perfect. And again, if you want me to post like a full long, three hour long process or two hour long, or I can cut out some of the mixing, let me know. I can probably narrate it too, or I can just put music in the background. Maybe, you know, in a month or so, I can post something like that as well. Not soon though, probably. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe soon. Maybe before Vietnam vacation. We'll see. We're going on the 30th of August, by the way. I'll have to make sure I have enough content down the pipe for you. Look at this nice blue nuance. I probably will link to the reference below so you can see a larger version of it. There's some blue and warm nuances there. I like to include them. I'm smoothing out the edge to continue that trend of the smooth highlight there. And I'm moving on to the left. Now, I am going to leave these two as highlights on my hands, holding my phone, taking the picture. I will later on cover them. They shouldn't have stayed that way, which is fine. It's not the end of the world. For now, my focus is just to get the wash done, even if it's lighter than the original. Why? Because I need the flow. The light paint will provide me that flow. If I get too greedy at this point, that's what I felt, right? It's very individualistic and very of the moment, but I felt like if I get too greedy, I'll mess up that wash. So I am making preparations for another wash after that, and that will be the more final one. You know, if you're having a hard time with a large area that has a lot of nuance, has a lot of lights and darks, using more water will just give you more time. The result is a lighter wash that will probably require another wash. That's the trade-off. That's just a part of how you may end up doing things, which is fine. Another glaze over the blue. You see, there is no real rhyme or reason here. I don't have a mega ordered list of what I paint when. Not at all. I am just looking for the next thing that attracts me to paint it. That's pretty much how I approach these processes, because they're so long, you just go for it, you know? You get started somewhere. I actually started with the mortar for chopping, you know, basil and garlic too, I think, for making pesto. I call this making pesto, this painting, because of the oil and the mortar. I actually started with the mortar. That's the first thing that inspired me. I painted that first, and then I painted a bit of the... What was it? I don't even remember. Maybe the shadow on the table or whatever. Now we're starting to get into the grays. Now, the background could be darker, but that is the final version of that wash. I won't darken it anymore, just so you know. Again, another layer for the mortar. Kind of messed this one up on the right side, where I smoothened out the edge. I didn't do it well, and I didn't get the edge I wanted. We're gonna fix it in the next wash. It's not a big deal. Don't let these things, you know... Oh, I messed everything up! Just keep going. That's the whole idea, especially with this more deliberate process, where we're splitting washes, essentially. If this was half the size, maybe I could have gotten away with a much more direct approach. Probably. Because it's not a huge piece, but still, it's an A3 size, I guess. So if it was A4, maybe I could have gotten away with a lot more. That's fine. Painting around that beautiful highlight down the table. I believe we skipped some stages, if I'm not mistaken. I filmed like 85% of the process, but some points I just felt like I have to turn off the camera and really focus. It was distracting, just so you know. And you'll notice there's an elephant in the room, and that is the big cast shadows, and the shadow under the marble. We'll get there. More towards the end. It's a big part of the composition, actually. It's a big part of framing the light in the middle. Right now, the light kind of escapes down to the lower left corner. We'll frame it, and you'll see. It's one way to frame things up, is to close all the areas around the painting with darks. This is going to be an interesting wash. Pre-wetting, continuing, going over, changing to a bit of cool as I move down, putting a bit of warmth where my hands are. Now, look at how I'm going to paint myself. Essentially, I believe it's this wash in one go. If I'm not mistaken, it's going to happen now, in wet and wet. Just a few dabs of the brush, and my face is going to appear there. Maybe it's not this wash. Maybe it's the next wash. Adding the dark down below. Very important in merging it with the shadow underneath. You see, I'm taking my time with the shadow under the marble, and it's okay to do multiple glazes of different sections of even the same shadow, the same object. If you feel like you have to merge all the shapes together, notice my phrasing. If you feel like you have to, and you don't want to, like it's a weird feeling, right? That thing that compels you, maybe it's not really that important, you know? It's okay to do it in multiple shapes. Now, if you just want to, because you want to, that's fine. There won't be any anxiety related to it, because you know it's the true thing to do. But if there's anxiety there, something tells you, maybe, I don't know, maybe I want to do this because I saw someone else do it, or because I heard that's how you do it. It's silly. It's silliness. Some details to the, I don't know what you'd call that part of the kettle, the pouring part. I added a line in pencil there, just to show where the next shadow is going to be, and that's the layer I was talking about. Another, yet another wash covering that coffee bean thing, where I keep thinking, when should I stop? Because I'm very careful there. If I go too dark around the edges, it's going to take too much attention from the center too. I don't want to go too strong there. I'm trying to be a little gentle. That is probably, by the way, the final reflection of the bottle, the dark section. A bit of shadow under the mortar, and combine it again with the shadow of the kettle. Smoothing the edges, everything while the wash is still wet. Continuing down to the shadows. Maybe now is going to be the final, final, I believe, final shadow under the marble. I think it's now, yeah. Or not. No, it's not. We're going to have another layer. Look at the beautiful temperature changes. Red, blue, warm, cool. It's not really a pure red or blue. Everything is in the grays, right? Oh yeah, we skipped the layer where I did the wet and wet, and painted myself into the kettle. So my bad. Yeah, I knew there was a part that I skipped. I didn't even notice, it just appeared there. My apologies, we'll be forever lost in time. But yeah, I painted myself there with very loose details. You'll check out the painting again, the scan, the high quality scan. You'll see it, it's pretty funny. You can even maybe tell what I was wearing there, if you've watched a lot of my videos. Darkening yet again the darks here. The contrast should be stronger to convey it's a liquid. But look at how the highlight on the left really tells a story. We're going to enhance it in a second too. Look at this now. We're going to enhance it. And look at how it starts really telling the story there. This is the next day, by the way. So the light change looks a little sunnier and warmer. But look at how things, you know, without really us noticing, just by lots of multiple glazes, I challenge you to go back, re-watch the process. It's just a bunch of washes, one on top of the other, on top of the other, that are very doable, very possible for many people to paint. By doing that, you create a realistic impression. But that's the reality of realistic painting. It just requires that focus, that attention, that noticing what's going on on paper, seeing more of what's going on on paper, seeing, being aware mostly. It's not necessarily a harder technique at all. It's just seeing and being very aware. Now we're going to probably paint that. I'm wetting it to make it go up the shadow, up the kettle. And switch to a larger brush, get that shadow under the marble surface done. Lots of wet and wet there. Very thick paint, just to make sure it lasts, but warm. It's a warm area. It's not that cold of a shadow. Covering these highlights once again, slowly but surely. That's the way I push it to still be very saturated. Lots of layers of yellow on top of one another, yellow, orange, whatever it is. You can push it slowly to be the color you're after. Just some smaller details that need the darkening in this bottle that I kind of missed, really. I should have caught it way earlier because I was pretty advanced there earlier. And you see it better tells the story of the coffee bean container behind it. Just shows where it ends. These things have a reason to them. If you can understand or see the reason, you're going to have an easier time knowing how to paint things. Adding some highlights there. Not too many. There's very few highlights I actually added with opaque paint. Just around some small minor details. Most of this painting isn't based on that. It's not one of these paintings. It's one of the paintings that are just, you know, carried on the merit of the large shapes and large surfaces. I'm going to go over this once more, the mortar. Just felt like it needs some tightening and some bringing out more color. And that's pretty much the end of the process, really smoothing out that edge. Sign it, smoothing out another edge. There it is, the final result. I really hope you enjoyed this one. Again, we ran through this process 20 minutes, but it's over two, two and a half hours. So let me know if you'd like something fuller. I can do that maybe in a week or two. I want to thank you so, so much. Thank you to everyone who supports me over on Patreon. If you want to receive credits at the end of the videos, be a big part of what I'm doing here. I would really appreciate it. Just know it's a huge part of my confidence, you know, in doing this and having it as a long lasting, hopefully, career in business. And I want to thank everyone who got my courses. You have the Frustration-Free Watercolor course, the Watercolor Realism course, which lends itself more to what you've seen here. Mostly focused on black and white though, because that's where I think a lot of the impact is. And this is it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. We'll see you in another vid real soon.