Lesson video

Hi everyone, I'm Ms. Miah.

I'm so glad you've joined me for this lesson today.

In this lesson, we're going to dive even deeper into creating some amazing artwork inspired by the rainforest.

I hope you're ready and you've got your imaginative thinking switched on.

Let's get started.

In this lesson, you will be exploring the shades and textures of a rainforest.

Your keywords are on the screen now.

I'd like you to repeat them after me.

Texture.

Colour palette.

Shade.

Tint.

Great, let's find out what these words mean.

Texture is how something feels or how something looks like it would feel.

A colour palette is the group of colours you choose for your artwork.

Shade is where an artist adds black to a colour to darken it.

Tint is where an artist adds white to create a lighter version of the colour.

So this lesson is all about exploring the shades, textures, and colours of a rainforest.

This lesson is made of two lesson cycles.

Our first lesson cycle is to do with the rainforest colours.

We're going to be creating a palette.

And then our second lesson cycle moves on to painting techniques to create textures.

I'm super excited about this lesson and I hope you are too, let's begin.

Have a look at this image.

What colours can you see in this painting? So, in this tropical rainforest painting, you might have noticed lots of vibrant greens in the trees, leaves, and plants.

There are also splashes of bright colours like red, yellow, and orange from the tropical flowers and the toucan's beak.

You might have also noticed that earthy browns in the tree trunks and forest floor.

And you may have also noticed some of the blues and yellows in the background, showing the sky.

The colours work together really well to make the rainforest look alive and full of energy.

Well done if you managed to spot those colours.

Now a colour palette is the group of colours you choose for your artwork.

Think of it like colours in a box of crayons or paints.

Artists pick certain colours that go well together to make their pictures look effective.

For example, in a rainforest picture, your colour palette might have lots of greens, browns, and a few bright colours.

Now that's one definition of a colour palette.

Palette is also the board that artists use to hold and mix paint.

Now let's look at the colours in more detail.

What colours can you see? You may have said dark green, red, light green, yellow, and brown.

Let's move on.

Izzy is looking at a rainforest image for inspiration.

She is planning her colour palette for a rainforest inspired artwork.

She's noticed these colours.

Red, yellow, light green, dark green, brown.

Are there any other colours that Izzy might find useful? Now Izzy begins to create her palette.

Remember, red and yellow are primary colours, colours that cannot be made by mixing other colours.

These are straightforward colours that Izzy can add to her paint palette.

So let's add red and yellow to my palette.

There we are.

Over to you.

I'd like you to sort the colours into primary and secondary colours.

You can pause the video here, off you go, good luck.

So, what did you get? Well, this is what you should have got.

Primary colours are the basic colours that cannot be created by mixing colours together.

They are like the building blocks for all other colours.

As you may remember, are red, blue, and yellow.

And then for our secondary colours, we've got orange, green, and purple.

Mix the primary colours in different ways and you can create the secondary colours and many other shades.

So here we've got orange, green, and purple.

So when you mix the primary colours in different ways, you create these secondary colours.

When it comes to creating orange, you need to mix yellow and red.

And for green, you would mix blue and green.

And lastly, for purple, you would mix red and blue.

Well done if you managed to get that correct, let's move on.

Izzy now focuses on making the colour green.

How might Izzy make the colour green? Have a think.

Well, I do.

I'm going to mix yellow and blue.

Mixing yellow and blue together makes.

Remember to mix equal amounts of yellow and blue.

Over to you.

So, how did that go? Well, by mixing yellow and blue, you should have got green.

You can now add that to your colour palette.

Green is a secondary colour.

Back to me, I do.

Mix yellow, blue, and red to make.

Over to you.

Mix yellow, blue, and red to make.

You can pause the video here, off you go.

Let's see what you make.

So, what did you make? Brown, that is correct.

If you made brown by mixing yellow, blue, and red, well done.

We can add that to our colour palette.

Now, overmixing paint can lead to a muddy colour rather than a clean, rich brown, so be careful of that.

We don't want muddy colours, we want rich colours.

Now in this painting, some leaves are darker, like the ones in the shadows, and others are lighter where the light hits them.

This helps make the leaves look more realistic.

What could Izzy do to make the colour match the leaf? Have a think.

Well, you can tint and shade colours.

This is a super exciting skill to have as an artist.

Tinting is when you add white to a colour to make it lighter.

Shading is when you add black, or a darker colour, to a colour to make it darker.

Using lighter, or tinted, or darker, shaded, colours can help make our painting look more realistic.

This is known as applying tone.

So here we've got two examples.

We've got one example without tone and it looks quite flat.

And then we've got an example that is with tone and you can see that the leaf is three-dimensional.

I do.

To tint green, I might add a little white or yellow to make it lighter.

I'd like you to have a go.

I'd like you to tint green by adding a little white or yellow to make it lighter.

You can pause the video here and have a go.

So, how did it go? So, by adding a little bit of yellow to green, we end up with a lovely lime green colour.

And by adding a tiny bit of white to our green, we end up with a lovely light green colour.

We can add these two colours to our palette because when it comes to painting our leaves, by adding in the lighter and darker shade, we can have more realistic-looking leaves.

So remember, green is a secondary colour.

I noticed that adding yellow makes the green brighter.

Back to me.

So, to shade green, we add a little black or blue to make it darker.

Over to you.

You do, to shade green, you're going to add a little black or blue to make it darker.

You can pause the video here to have a go.

Click play when you're ready to rejoin us.

So, how did you get on? So you may have got a darker green by adding a tiny bit of black, and turquoise by adding more blue to your green.

You may have noticed that adding blue to green makes the green darker as well.

So, by having these colours added to our palette, when it comes to noticing the darker parts of the leaves, we can add these colours to make our leaf look more realistic.

Let's move on.

So, for this task, you'll experiment with creating colours inspired by the rainforest.

Think about how you will mix the colours to create a realistic colour palette.

What we want to avoid is by using too much paint.

We want to use a little bit of paint at a time to create our colours for our colour palette.

You can try tinting, so adding white, to lighten the colours, and shading, adding black, to darken them.

Paint small swatches of each colour in your sketchbook, labelling them.

So for example, "dark green for shade," or "yellow for flowers." You can pause the video here, have fun and click play when you're ready to rejoin us.

So, how did it go? You may have got something like this.

So, we've got a shading green, a tinting green, and mixing red, blue, and yellow to create our brown.

Well done if you managed to experiment and create your colour palette for the rainforest.

Now let's move on to our second lesson cycle.

This lesson cycle is all to do with painting techniques to create textures, let's start.

You will now explore how different painting techniques can create textures, and this is super important because we want to take these skills so when we do end up painting our rainforest we can make it look as realistic as possible.

So we can use blending, stippling, sponging.

I do.

You are going to blend two colours together smoothly to create a gradual transition.

So, over to you.

I'd like you to blend two colours together smoothly.

You pick which colours you'd like to use.

You can pause the video here.

So, how did you find that? When painting leaves, you might blend light green and dark green to show how the colours change as the light hits the leaf.

You can use a brush to carefully mix the colours on your paper to make the edges soft and smooth.

Back to me, I do, sponging.

Use a sponge to apply paint in a dabbing motion.

Over to you, you do.

You're going to use a sponge to apply paint in a dabbing motion.

You can pause the video here, have a go.

So, what have you noticed? Well, for instance, when painting a tree bark, you can use a sponge with brown paint to create the rough, uneven texture of the bark.

Sponging works great for areas where you want a natural, irregular texture.

Let's move on, I do, stippling.

Use small dots of paint, usually from the tip of your brush.

You do, I'd like you to have a go at stippling, so you will be using small dots of paint, usually from the tip of your brush.

Remember, you can choose any colour.

See what happens when you apply a little bit more pressure as well.

You can pause the video here, have a go.

So, you might use this technique, for example, when painting the centre of a flower or a textured leaf.

So you can use stippling to add depth by layering dots of different colours.

This technique is perfect for adding fine details or creating a textured, grainy look.

Now, using different-sized brushes is a great way to add texture and detail to your painting.

So you've got medium brushes, small brushes, large brushes.

Each brush size creates a different effect, and knowing how to use them helps make your artwork more interesting.

I do.

This time I am going to pick a large brush from my paintbrush set.

I'd like you to have a turn, you do.

I'd like you to pick a large brush, it can be a wide brush as well, and I'd like you to experiment using it.

You can pause the video here.

Hmm, I wonder when we might use this technique.

Well, for example, sweeping paint across the paper to show the smooth surface of a leaf or to create a background like the sky or forest floor.

To me, I do.

This time, using a medium brush to experiment.

Over to you.

When do you think you might use a medium brush? And have a go experimenting using it.

So, so what did you find? Well, you can use a medium-sized brush to create the rough texture of tree bark by dabbing or layering strokes.

To me, using a small brush to create detail.

Over to you.

I'd like you to use a small brush to create detail.

What about when you might use a small brush as well? You can pause the video here.

So, how did that go? For example, you can use a tiny brush to paint the veins on a leaf or the tiny dots on a flower petal, or even for the pollen.

Great, let's move on.

For this task, you're going to select a rainforest image for inspiration.

You're going to focus on the textures like the smoothness of leaves, the roughness of tree bark, or the delicate patterns on flowers.

You're then going to experiment with techniques, blending, sponging, stippling.

Now I'm going to give you some of my top tips for when it comes to each skill.

Now, when it comes to blending, what you want to do is work quickly.

You're going to do this by using a brush that apply the first colour, then add the second colour next to it while paint is wet.

Now when it comes to sponging, what you're going to do is, so you're going to dip the sponge into a little bit of paint, dab off the excess on a plate or paper towel, and use light taps.

Lastly, when it comes to stippling, you could use a stiff brush or even a cotton swab, it works great for stippling.

And the rhythm that I have in my head when it comes to stippling is dip and dot, so just dip the tip into the paint and make small dots by tapping the paper gently.

Dip and dot, dip and dot.

If you want to challenge yourself, you can try and create, for instance, like circles or flowers, or even try shading using the various techniques.

You can pause the video here and click play when you have completed this task.

So, how did you find that? This is what you may have got.

So here's an example of blending, stippling and sponging.

And can you see how different colours have been used here? I hope you also dipped into your rainforest colour palette to have a go at experimenting with.

Fantastic, we've made it to the end of the lesson, let's summarise our learning.

In this lesson, you were exploring the shades, textures, and colours of a rainforest.

You understand that mixing colours creates a range of natural colours for a colour palette.

Blending, sponging, and stippling creates different textures and they're super useful when it comes to, when it comes to painting the different features of a rainforest, such as bark, exotic flowers, and the foliage that you might see in a rainforest.

Tinting involves adding white to a colour to make it lighter, while shading involves adding black to a colour to make it darker.

And what I'd like you to think about is how you might use tinting and shading in the future for when it comes to painting scenes of the rainforest.

And lastly, using smaller brushes allows adding fine detail to your painting.

And from today's lesson you may have noticed that using smaller brushes is particularly useful for when it comes to painting in the finer details.

For example, when painting the veins of a leaf or recreating the pollen or the patterns found in petals and other small details of animals.

By thinking about when you want to use these techniques will really make the difference in taking your artwork and enhancing it to make it look more realistic.

Thank you so much for joining me in this lesson.

I hope you really enjoyed it, I sure did.

I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson, bye.