Subjects where everything blends / Cacti, Blackberries
As you have experienced in the previous subjects, we switch very quickly from dry techniques to damp and then wet techniques. Embark on more ambitious works, mix your knowledge... To familiarize yourself with watercolor, there's nothing like taking the plunge!
Cacti
For the drawing, draw the ellipses as if the pots were transparent; otherwise, they will not be realistic.
Prepare a yellow wash, apply it mixed with a little sap green or blue, reload with yellow in certain places so that the yellow dominates, and in others let the blue take over.
You will obtain yellow-green and blue-green nuances.
Prepare a chart of greens (see the one suggested here) so you won't be caught off guard when applying the color.
For the color of the pots, the orange can be applied pure or mixed with a little red or yellow, or even darkened with a violet (a mixture of Winsor blue and red). If you don't have scarlet lake, use Winsor red, which is a bit duller.
The cactus on the left is darker, so it benefited from a denser wash.
The shadows are sketched with a light bluish wash and then highlighted with a diluted red wash in certain places. This creates cold areas and warm areas that liven up the composition.
If you like this subject, you can add other cacti as you go along following the same method.
Blackberries
Prepare a chart of greens: yellow and cobalt turquoise, yellow and ultramarine, greens obtained previously broken with cadmium red (very little) or perylene maroon.
After carefully drawing the blackberry branch and leaves, wet the sheet in all directions with the large wash brush. Empty the excess water. Deposit light cobalt turquoise washes and then anise green (light cobalt turquoise more or less yellow).
Do not try to rewet the paper; if it dries, continue with washes using the medium brush.
On the still very damp paper, deposit the cadmium red in cream on the blackberries with the beveled brush. For the redder areas, go back over them several times. Make a violet with magenta and a little ultramarine blue.
Darken the violets with a little more ultramarine blue in the mixture.
On dry paper, with the medium brush, paint the dark background leaves using a more or less blue green wash.
By painting around the light leaves, you make them visible; this is what is called "negative space painting" (travailler en négatif). Never start your brush stroke from the outlines; go from the background towards the outlines to avoid the "marker pen" effect.
Darken your greens by adding small touches of red to the mixture.
Illuminate your backgrounds with cobalt turquoise washes and light, blended oranges.
