Mini Lesson on How to Paint Leaves. And a Bonus! My Newest Painting reveal for POTMC!

Hey everybody, it's Christie with The Social Easel, and we are here for the big reveal of my newest painting for Painting of the Month Club. So this is something that we're going to start doing on the 15th of every month, um, so I'm really excited about it. I'm going to reveal the new painting to you, and then we're going to do a mini technique lesson taken from that painting. So you can kind of get a sneak peek in how I teach in Painting of the Month Club and what you can expect in there. And then we're going to talk about what you're going to learn this month in Painting of the Month Club. So I'm really excited about this one. I think you guys are going to love it, um, and I think it's going to give you a lot of ideas of fun things you can do with it. Hey Rhonda! Um, yeah, when you guys join, just jump over in the comments and let me know you're here, and then I'm gonna do the reveal. Hey Julie! Hey Pauletta! And I'm gonna grab a drink of a coffee really quick. Hey Sam! Good morning, good morning everybody. Yeah, so, um, let me know in the comments if you are already a Painting of the Month Club member. Rhonda, thank you for letting me know. Um, let me know in the comments, just write POTMC, Painting of the Month Club, and let me know if you are a member. So I've got some fun things for this Facebook Live today. Hey Cassie! Hey Tracy! Um, if you are already a Painting of the Month Club member, I want you to put that in the comments. And then at the end of this session, we will be picking, um, one random winner, and we'll let you know in the comments at the end, um, who is going to win a brush set. Maureen said painting of the month club member would love some new brushes. Awesome. Rhonda said she started with Van Gogh, which was one of our previous ones, last night that she purchased. Hey Christina! Hey Christie! Um, so how many of you have my brushes already? If you don't, I'm going to show them to you. So that is going to be our 1st, 1 Painting of the Month— current Painting of the Month Club member is going to get picked, um, to win the brush set. And then I just had an extra set laying here as I was prepping for this video, and I thought, well, why don't we just give away 2 brush sets? So, um, those of you that are not a Painting of the Month Club member but would like to be entered in to win a brush set. All you have to do is share this Facebook Live and then come back in the comments and just let me know that you shared it. And then we're going to run that until Monday, and then on Monday we will announce another winner from those of you that are sharing the video. So that gives you all weekend to get those shares in. Um, so if you end up watching this on replay, you can still be a part of that contest too. Okay, so 2 winners of the brush set. It comes in a custom bag that I designed with my little flowers on it. This is a canvas bag and it holds all 15 brushes plus pens, palette knives. This is a great travel bag. I designed it specifically for the length of the brushes and a little extra room so you can put more stuff in there. I am going camping this weekend and this is what I'm taking with me to put all my brushes and pens and extra supplies in. And I have— remind me that I have some questions for you guys about camping this weekend ideas. So these are my signature brushes. I designed these, picked them out, obviously picked the color of the handle here, and it's a 15-piece brush set, and it's all the brushes that I use when I teach my tutorials. Um, so you've got a fan brush, you've got a couple different size filbert brushes, um, you have rounds, flats, and angles, also some liner brushes. So you get all 15 brushes, um, in the set. So we're going to have 2 winners for that from this Facebook Live. And if you want to go buy your own brushes, if you don't, um, get them, you can just go to thesocial easel.com and then go to the dropdown and hit shop and you can find them there. But how many of you are ready to see what we're going to do in Painting of the Month Club this month? Let me know in the comments. Send me up some hearts. Good morning, Miss Sally. You love your brush set? I'm so glad. And it's wet in California? That surprises me. Hello Candy and Lana and Renee. Okay, you guys ready? Um, so I'm going to show you— I actually have two different versions of it. Yeah, Bobby, you may hear a little bit of echoing because I'm in my new studio and it's a big space here, so we've got a little bit of echo from that. So this is our newest painting for Painting of the Month Club. This is the Romantic Florals. I absolutely love these. I'm gonna zoom in for you so you can see some of that detail in here. Hey Jennifer, um, said I missed how to enter the raffle. If you, um share. If you are a Painting of the Month Club member, type in POTMC for Painting of the Month Club, and we're picking one Painting of the Month Club member to win a set of brushes. And if you are not, you have a chance to win by sharing the Facebook Live and then coming back in the comments and letting us know that you shared, and we're going to pick a winner for that on Monday. What do you guys think? So fun. So I'm gonna— I'm showing you this one, okay? So this was what I painted with my tribe. Tribe sisters, you already have this in your library, but this was the original, original, like, sketched idea. So same basic design done in two different styles. And if you haven't painted with me before Um, I love to take this same idea and show you different ways you can do it. So inside Painting of the Month Club this month, when you learn this, this is going to be the one that I teach you. This is from the actual video. Um, I took that— this one as my idea, and then when I taught it, I decided to change my colors a little bit. I wanted them a little bolder and brighter. and I just fell in love with the simplicity of this one without the lines and the palette knife. Originally, I had intended to do the background like this, which is a palette knife background in like a soft blue, but then once I got to this point, I was like, you know what, I actually really love it on the simple white background. So inside the club this month, you're going to learn it both ways. I'm going to teach this And then I will also show you at the end how simple and easy that palette knife background is for you to do. And then this just has some extra gold pen work that I added to it. So it just shows you some different ways that you can take the same base design and do them differently. You can do both kinds and then decide which one you like the most. And I did this on an 11 by 14 sheet of my mixed media pad, which I was just holding up from the other one. And then you can just frame it, find your 11 by 14 frame anywhere you want, and then you've got a beautiful framed piece of art. You can turn this into prints and note cards to send to people. So it's just a really fun design that I know you're going to be able to use for lots of different things. So what we're going to do today, um, is I thought it would be— I hear a lot of people say they struggle with painting leaves. So obviously we have some beautiful leaves in this, so I thought that would be what I would do with you guys today, give you kind of a sneak peek of what it's like to paint with me if you haven't before, and how I teach these lessons inside of Painting of the Month Club. So we're gonna do some leaf technique today, and I'm going to show you how you can do that and a little bit of color mixing. So this lesson this month— um, all— by the way, the link is up above in the description. But this lesson this month, you're going to learn how to do layers like this without over-blending so you don't end up with muddy, like, just boring colors, right? Does anyone ever have that problem? You're painting and you keep adding color on and then it all just becomes one color and you're like, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing something wrong. We're going to talk about that. You're going to learn how not to do that, how to layer your colors on top of each other so they don't become a blended mess. And you're also going to learn color mixing. So inside the club, you get the full supply list, colors that I used, but all the colors in this painting were actually mixed from the bottles of paint that I chose for this one. So we're going to learn some color mixing, and I'm going to show you a little bit of that today with the leaves. So yeah, keep sharing. Pam just shared, thank you. Keep sharing this and you'll get entered in to win, um, one of my brush sets too. Now I'm going to adjust the camera and flip you guys around, um, so I can show you that technique. Um, someone was asking what the weight of this is. Let me show you my mixed media pad. This is what I do so much painting in. So I can't stress getting one of these enough. You can get them anywhere, and they have them at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, in my Amazon store. Um, but this is invaluable when you are learning how to paint. So think of this like a sketchbook for painting. So this is just where I do some practice work You can— I mean, like, easy watercolors. I've done that on a Facebook Live. You guys can go back and see where I'm practicing some color theory and seeing what colors I like together. So it's just an awesome book to have, um, to practice brushstrokes in. So definitely get one of those if you don't have one already. And if you want— let me see, I'm going to throw this up on the screen. If you want a link to my Amazon store where I have all of my favorite supplies, just text the word Amazon to that phone number and the text will send that link automatically to you. Um, so I'm gonna throw this up here because this is for Painting of the Month Club. So this is what is coming in April, and what that means is you have from now until the end of March to sign up. And then on April 1st, the tutorial that we break down into multiple lessons is delivered to your membership hub, and then you can log in anytime. These are prerecorded lessons. You do not have to be there live. Um, they're all in your membership library. So on April 1st, you get to log in. Go check it out. You have everything you need when you sign up. You do get immediate access to your supply list, so you can go ahead and prep before you get your tutorial on the 1st. Okay, so I'm going to take myself off the screen, and because this camera is going to go right in front of my face And I'll see you guys over on the painting. Okay, so let me get this set up for you guys. Okay, how's this lighting? I think we're good. Hey Debbie, I can throw that text back up again. The text is 417-217-7044. Okay, everything look and sound good? Just want to make sure our sound is still good as well. I don't know why the light is flickering like that though. See if I can brighten this and get that to stop. I know, isn't this such a fun painting? I love it so much. So obviously that's the original, and then I am just on— I'm just going to scoot this under here. I'm just on a mixed media pad here. Hey Stacy, sorry you had a hard time finding me. Whenever you guys come to find a live, you always just go to the Social Easel page, okay? Um, that's the only place I go live for the public. And then you have to refresh the feed on there. So if you don't see the live pop up right away, refresh it on your phone or your device, whatever you're on, and then the live should pop up. So I'm just going to grab a couple different paint colors here. These are not specifically the ones I used in this painting. I just grabbed what paintings— or I'm not— paintings— what paint I had here at the studio that is similar to what I used in the leaves. So I've got a little bit of a dark blue. This one's navy. And I do want you to get the actual color list that I use And we put color swatches on the side. So if you don't have that brand where you are, or you can't find it in that brand, that you can have those swatches to either hold up on your phone, or if you print it off and take it to the store with you, that you can match, like hold paint color up to and match it. But what I always tell you is pick what you like. Pick your favorite greens and blues. You can't go wrong. They're greens and blues. They're going to be pretty. When you blend them together, regardless of which colors you choose. So I've got 3. I've got like a really pale light green that matches my ring, I just noticed. Um, and then we've got like a dark hunter green and then kind of like a navy color. And then I'm gonna use my brush set. Let me see. I might do a couple different ones with you guys just to show you some different ways that I do my leaves. Um, so I'm going to use my small angled, which is the number 6 out of my set, and then I've got 2 of my smaller brushes. My 1 and my 3 are kind of like small rounds or liners. Is what you would call those. Awesome, Becky, I'm glad. She said, I used the swatch at the craft store, it was really helpful. Good. Oh, thank you for that tip. Um, Mari said if you can't find the live, you can go to the top of Facebook and in the search area type Social Easel and scroll down, and the live will show up that way too. I never do that. That's good to know. Okay, so I'm just going to scoot my palette off to the side here, and the first thing I like to do— let me see if I have— I thought I had my pencil up here. Hang on just a second. Well, for today I'm just going to do it with a Sharpie. It'll be easier for you guys to see anyways. So if you're looking at the original leaves, when I started this painting, the first thing I did— I did it with a pencil— was I just kind of sketched kind of what I wanted my leaves to look like. So you have some freedom in that, but I know for a lot of people say, I can't draw, but you can. I promise you can. You just have to get practicing at it. So, and I draw— see how I'm like real loose and sketchy? I don't draw with like hard lines like this. I just want it nice and loose, and I just kind of play with my shapes. I like them kind of flowy, not like perfect almond-shaped leaves. For this style. And then maybe have like a stem coming off and another one over here. You can just kind of play with it. Okay, so that's the first thing I do. Like I said, you can sketch in pencil, you don't need to do it in pen, but for today that is how we're gonna do it. Um, Vicki, the palettes I'm using are also in my Amazon store. I like these because they're just like it's just a pad and you just rip them off. Of course, now I got paint on there, but that's okay. I'm just going to scoop this back over here and then fold this over. My table is going to have paint on it. Okay, refocus. The camera was zooming in up close there. I like that Katie said leaves are like Smiles, no two are alike but wonderful. So if you're just joining us, I'm giving you kind of a sneak peek at what we're doing in Painting of the Month Club, which is our Romantic Florals, and I'm just doing a small technique lesson with you today on how to do some leaves and different ways I do them. So one is with an angled brush, and I'm loading it up in my dark blue right now, and I'll just use this one for an example. I'm just kind of pushing down and then letting up, and I'm using that tip of that to kind of get that point at the end. So if this is something that you struggle with, this is why I recommend a mixed media pad before you ever actually do your painting, you can come over here and just start practicing. So I'm flipping the brush around and using that angle as my point. And you can just keep practicing until you get comfortable with it. So I want you to notice when I'm doing this, I start off, I'm not pushing down super hard until I get to that middle. So I'm kind of laying it down, not a lot of pressure. And then you see me kind of push down and it fattens, and then I let back up again and pull it to a point, and then I'm going to flip the brush around to get that point better. And then I can go wider in the middle again and push down. So that's an example of some ways that you can do it with an angled brush. Now, if you want it super pointy, You could come back in with your liner brush and come in on those tips. And you're just— I'm resting my wrist on here. And that allows me to have more control of my brush, and I'm not pushing down very hard. Like, you see the amount of pressure? I'm not pushing down like this. Okay, because whether you have a skinny brush or a fat brush, you can get big brushstrokes or skinny brushstrokes depending on the amount of pressure you put down. So if I'm pushing down lightly, it's a skinny line. If I push down hard, it becomes fat. So a lot of people will tell me, I'm really terrible at skinny lines, I can't do them. And that is just practicing and getting used to playing with how much pressure that you are putting down on your canvas when you're painting. So let me know if that little tip helps. And then I'm going to show you why— you're probably wondering why in the world we have navy leaves here, but I'm going to show you why. And then obviously you can come in with the skinny brush This is why they're not great for filling in. So usually what I do— these are really good for points, but I grab one of my rounds and I can do my centers with a bigger brush and just kind of fill in that shape. So I'm not, you know, struggling with a tiny skinny brush trying to fill in all that area. And then I can come back with my liner brush, and you still always want plenty of paint in there. A big mistake a lot of people make is when they do little brushes, they think they need a little amount of paint. You still need plenty of paint so that it can pull and make the full brushstroke. So then you can get those points as pointy as you want them. Everyone's is going to be different, and they don't— just because mine are pointy doesn't mean yours have to be. These are the little details that sometimes will trip us up when we're painting, and we get so focused on the details that we kind of miss the joy of the painting. So I want you to try not to be in that headspace. And just enjoy the fact that you are painting, that it's relaxing, and that you're practicing. And every time you do it, you're getting better and better. It's really about just focusing on enjoying the process and the experience of painting and just playing around and seeing what happens. And don't get upset if you have like a little mistake, because a lot of times in paintings, those little mistakes, as Bob Ross would say, are happy little accidents, and they end up giving your painting character. But look, aren't those looking pretty? So that is with one of the smaller rounds or liner brushes. So that is the base of my flower, but obviously not what they look like in the original. But can you see that dark color in there? So I did have a little bit of dark blue in those leaves. I'm gonna put that down and grab my round, my bigger one, to mix some colors with. So I'm going to take my blue, and I can take a little bit of my green here and just kind of play and make some different colors. So now I've got like kind of a dark foresty green, and maybe I want to throw some of those brush strokes in. And then we've got this really pretty light green. Now I could have rinsed and not mixed these colors, but like, why not just mix them and see what pretty color of green we get? I love this color that this created. This is— if you were to buy this color in a bottle, it would be called like, um, Desert Cactus by DecoArt is really similar to this, or like a sage green. So it's this really light green with a little bit of that blue and dark green mixed together. So you just never know what colors you're going to get. And what I love about color mixing is that really makes your painting completely yours and unique, because that color that you created, no one's is going to be exactly like yours. And so now I have this great mid-tone color, right? I have my really dark I have my mid-tone, and then I have my light, which I can even make lighter by adding some white to it. And so that's going to create the different layers. I'm just going to kind of brush over some of these, and you're going to get a mix on here because in some spots my paint is still wet, and so it's blending with that green from underneath. Let's go ahead and fill this one in. So you push down in that middle. With my round, I can do the same thing, push down and fatten in the middle. Okay, and then we'll come back to that point on the end. So I'm just going to take some of this color and just throw that into my leaves. And I'm not covering the entire blue, right? We're letting some of that blue come through. I absolutely love color mixing. It's one of my favorite things about painting is just seeing what new colors we can create. And sometimes it'll surprise you. You're like, man, I did not think that's how that was going to turn out. And I have extended lessons on color theory and color wheel if you're really interested in learning that. So then I'm going to go back to my liner and make sure you guys have shared. If you're new and hopping on, we are giving away a full brush set of mine. So a full 15-piece brush set is being being given away. The contest is running through the weekend, so on Monday we'll announce the winner. And all you have to do is share the video and then come back here in the comments and type the word share, and then we will be selecting someone on Monday. And we'll tag you in the comments if you're the winner, and then you can email in our customer service with your address and we will ship you out some happy mail and you will get a brush set. So now I'm going in with that lightest green. And see, like, even here I can still change the shape of my leaf if I want to. And we've got that contrast of the light and the dark. And I'm just coming in with light brush strokes. Now this one, I'm going to come back with some dark because I started light with that. So you can go back and forth. Just because you started with dark doesn't mean you can't come back and add more. So if you get your greens on and you're like, oh no, I liked it better before, I liked it when it was dark, that's the great thing about acrylic painting. Is you just let it dry and go back over top of it again. Let's pull a little lighter in here. So that is using that lightest green right out of the bottle, but I'm gonna take a little bit of white and make it even lighter. So that's going to create a new tint of that color. So I've got some white over here on my palette now, and I'm just going to grab some of my green and just bring it over here. That way I'm not mixing all of my colors. I want to have a variety of greens, and it'll be the same with your flowers. I want to have a variety of colors on my palette. And I don't even necessarily mix all the way. It's okay for your brushstrokes to have streaks of different colors in them. But think of how many different— just think of like a value scale, black to white, all the shades of gray in between. Think about that with your colors. You could keep making this lighter and lighter and lighter. I'm just kind of pulling some of that light color in. Just come back and reload your brush. But once you start doing it, it just gets really relaxing. I could just fill a whole page of painting little leaves like this. So you can sign up now for Painting of the Month Club. Again, it's only $20 a month. Sign up starts today and it ends at the end of the month. You have to sign up before April 1st in order to get this full tutorial, and then it is delivered directly to your membership hub. No live lessons. These are all pre-recorded, so you can do them at any time that you want to. You're not having to, you know, do it on my schedule, and you have lifetime access to them. So once you buy these tutorials and Painting of the Month Club, they're yours, and you build this amazing library each month with a new lesson that I handpick. I specifically pick each painting because of the different techniques that I know you will learn in them. And then those are delivered again on the first of each month. You have a full supply list. If there is a template needed, you will get a template, but I don't always do templates, like with this one, because I just show you how to do them. So let me know in the comments if you have Any questions? Um, the other thing I love about Painting of the Month Club is that if you are someone that is limited on time and you're like, I would love to learn how to paint, but there I just cannot fit it into my schedule, this is only one painting a month. This is a great place to start out. This painting is only going to take you I mean, everyone's a little bit different, but this painting shouldn't take more than around 2 hours depending on how fast you are and, you know, all of that. So that is like— think of it like a couple 30-minute sessions a month, a couple times a week, maybe once a week. So you can easily fit it into your schedule and you're learning a new skill, you're doing something for yourself, you're relaxing. And just having fun learning how to paint. So we would love to have you as a member. And if you are a current Painting of the Month Club member, if you haven't done so already, make sure you put that in the comments because one Painting of the Month Club member is also going to win a brush set from this Facebook Live. All right, let me know in the comments what you guys think. If you have any questions, um, Renee, um, let me pull your question up here. Renee said, is it possible to sign up any month of the year for Painting of the Month Club? I have to wait until I get out of my cast. So Painting of the Month Club is opened each month from the 15th through the end of the month, but the paintings change. So, um, What you could do if you love this one, Renee, even though you're in your cast right now, you can go ahead and sign up for Painting of the Month Club so you don't miss out on this painting. And then when you're out of your cast— we're frozen. Okay, when you're out of your cast, then this will still be in the library waiting for you. You're asking how to register. So the link is up above. Let me see if I can paste it in the comments. I'm not sure if I can. There you go. There is the link to sign up for Painting of the Month Club this month. And the other great thing, um, when you sign up for Painting of the Month Club, because a lot of people come in and then they're like, oh, I missed last and I didn't know about it. When you become a member, you do have the option at checkout to buy the previous month if you missed it. So this was what we did. So totally different style of painting, right? I like to teach a variety of things in there. So this is what we did March. This is what students are working on this month. And we did some soft, you know, brush strokes in the background, and I showed them how to use paint pen to add that detail work in. So every month is something completely different. I think someone asked, do I do watercolor? Sometimes I will do watercolor inside the group, and, or can show you how I use acrylics like watercolor as well. So Katie, hopefully that answers your question. When you join the club, do you have access to previous paintings? You have to purchase them. So it's $20 a month that pays for one tutorial. And then you build your library as you go. Um, Kellyanne, if you didn't receive something you ordered, just email customer support. It's Christie at thesocialeasel.com. Awesome, so glad, Deanna. Okay, just checking to make sure I'm not missing any other Questions here. Thank you so much. We are glad you love it. Um, Kelly, right now we do not have a yearly option. That is something that we were actually talking about as a team, so that may be something that we add on in the future. All right, so that is what I've got for you today. Um, oh yeah, I was going to ask you guys— add myself back here. I'm going to turn that off. So this, uh, week is our spring break and we are going camping for the rest of the week. I'm super excited, but we want to— just showing that. So I'm just going to pull this off, then I don't have to worry about it. Wrong one. I'll get it eventually. There you go. Um, so we're going camping, but my question to you is, we always do— we stay in our camper, and it's place where we can go ride our ATVs and side-by-sides and all that good stuff. Um, but the kids love— we hide rocks on trails when we're out there, so we're going to be painting a lot of rocks. I have a whole tub of new paints and paintbrushes that I'm bringing out there, and I want your ideas. What should we paint on rocks? I'm gonna do some fun flower ones, but it's St. Patty's Day this weekend, so I'm sure we'll do a couple like shamrocks and some fun stuff for St. Patty's Day. But let me know in the comments some ideas for us so we can go back to this with the kids and start kind of pulling ideas. You know, like, there's going to be— we have a bunch of kids, um, friends and ours are going too. So when you get them all together, they're like struggling with ideas of like what they want to paint. So drop me some ideas in the comments and give us some fun, um, inspiration, and then we'll share some photos. I doubt we would be able to go live and show you guys rock painting with us because the service is not so great out there, but hopefully I can share some pictures and show you guys what we're doing. Yes, I think so too. I gotta do my cute little birdie. I love painting those birds. Easter? Yeah, Easter is a good idea. We have that coming up. The ladybugs. Awesome, Rhonda, thank you. She said, as a beginner, I love that you offer the free tutorials such as the dandelions, but I'm really enjoying Painting of the Month Club. Awesome, I'm glad that you are. Um, Tina said, I'm confused. Oh, Tina said, do I have to pay to send stars to make comments and get in the drawing? No, you do not have to pay. All you have to do is, um, comment that you shared it. So just comment shared, and then we'll be going back in on Monday and picking a winner from that. You probably don't see it because there's so many comments, it probably got lost in the shuffle. But yeah, all you have to do is come in and type just like you typed that comment and just type the word shared. There was one other question. I just— I missed— okay, no, I got that one. Um, Renee, I'm not sure what you're referring to. She said, how about incorporating numbers so you've— oh, you mean on the rocks? So this place is like acres and acres and acres, like hundreds of miles of trails. Um, so we don't actually go find them. You hide them, and then people who come on the trail behind you get your rocks, and then you try to find other people's rocks. So it's kind of like this game every single day when we go out on the trails. So it's always fun. We'll be driving down a trail, and we're in our side-by-side, and the kids are in the back, and they're like, stop, I see one! Um, and stop. They get out, they go get the— and so it's kind of like a constant Easter egg hunt. Um, yes, Cindy, I am bringing paint pens for the rocks as well. So, um, thank you guys for hanging out with me today. I hope you enjoyed it. Sign up now. You have until the end of March to sign up and get the Romantic Florals, um, delivered to you on April 1st. This is our April painting of the month. So thanks for coming and hanging out with me today for the reveal, and I will see you guys soon. Bye!