Louise De Masi - Goldfinch Tutorial

Hi everyone,

Here’s a tutorial of a little American Goldfinch.

I think it's best suited to intermediate watercolour painters, but confident beginners who have some experience with wet on wet techniques are very welcome to give it a try.

For this painting, I’ve let the watercolour flow and create lots of soft edges while keeping detail.

In this tutorial, we’ll explore:

Using wet on wet washes.

Combining hard and lost edges to give the bird shape and form.

Mixing black paint.

Painting loose, textured branches without getting caught up in every little detail.

Making adjustments as the painting develops rather than following the reference photo exactly.

One of the things I talk about throughout this tutorial is knowing when to leave the paint alone. It’s easy to overwork a watercolour, particularly when painting something like branches or feathers.

All the files you need to complete the painting are attached below, including 11 progress photos showing the different stages of my painting.

These progress photos also appear throughout the video at points where you can pause and catch up with my painting before moving on.

You can download everything at once using the ‘Download All’ button, or download the ZIP file I’ve included.

I hope you enjoy painting this little goldfinch with me, and I’d love to see your finished paintings in our Patreon community.

Happy painting!

Louise

The reference photo was taken by Stephanie Gibeault from Unsplash:

https://unsplash.com/photos/a-bright-yellow-goldfinch-perched-on-a-bare-branch--mTy8toWbGY

Painting Thumbnail Index: https://www.louisedemasi.com/patreon-index

Tutorial Word Index: https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-index-34865676

You can also find them in the 'Collections' area of Patreon.

Thanks!