Hi, I’m Darren from Watercolor Mentor, and welcome to House and Building Portraits: Line and Wash Essentials. Line and wash was one of my first introductions to watercolor. It combines the benefits of both mediums and it is a great way to learn the basics of drawing and painting. Buildings and especially homes evoke emotions, a sense of place and belonging as well as deeply personal memories. In this class, you will learn how to create portraits of various homes and buildings using pen and watercolor. You’ll learn how to apply drawing and painting techniques to create portraits of any building.
There were so many things that I wish someone had walked me through when I was learning line and wash. I want to share these essential tips and skills with you so that by the end of this course, you’ll be able to show off some beautiful line and wash illustrations to your friends and family!
This class is aimed towards beginners with 6 line and wash demonstrations which I’ll help guide you through step-by-step. There are scans, drawing, and tracing templates included as well for each demonstration to help you transfer your drawing over quickly and easily. You also have the option to follow along with my real-time drawing and narration videos for each scene.
I take a different approach by narrating my demonstrations in real-time. I explain every technique I use in the context of the painting, such as using watercolor to paint shadows on a building. I’ll be going over the basics of pen and wash sketching. I’ll talk about what materials you’ll need, your options, and which ones I use and recommend. If you have a pen, some watercolor paints, and paper, then you’re set to go.
I’ll show you how to sketch with a pen quickly and accurately using a variety of techniques including drawing lines in segments, hatching, and using different sized nibs to your advantage. I also demonstrate essential watercolor techniques you can use over and over again for any painting.
In this class, I will cover basics such as:
- How to draw simple to complex buildings with a pen, and how to use watercolor to imply light, shade, and mood with a variety of colors.
- Materials – what paints, paper, brushes, and pens you will need.
- Hands-on pen sketching techniques – follow along and sketch with me. Learn how to hold your pen for different effects, draw basic lines and shapes, how to create depth and light/darkness in your drawing through the use of ‘hatching’.
- Understanding light sources and how to paint realistic shadows.
- How to sketch a subject easily by simplifying a landscape into basic shapes, and using a combination of loose and accurate drawing styles.
- Hands-on lessons on essential watercolor techniques such as wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry.
- How to paint skies, buildings, land, figures, trees and shrubs, and other objects.
