Painting a Loose Watercolor Elephant in Bold Reds: A Real-Time Tutorial
Why Real-Time Painting Matters
I usually speed up my painting videos for viewing pleasure, but today I wanted you to experience something special—watching watercolor bloom and granulate in actual real time. There's something magical about seeing how the paint moves, settles, and creates those organic textures without any manipulation. It's like watching nature happen on paper.
For this demonstration, I'm painting a loose elephant head on a 4x6 piece of hot press paper. Small format, bold choices, real speed. Let's dive in.
My Color Palette: Going Bold With Reds
I'm using four main colors for this piece, though I'll bring in some white gouache later for highlights:
Winsor and Newton's Winsor Red Deep (https://amzn.to/42xfeme) - This was my first layer color, establishing those warm, powerful tones
Daniel Smith Quinacridone Gold (https://amzn.to/43G5Pdc) - One of my absolute must-have colors! It brings radiant light into any piece and creates that luminous glow
Daniel Smith Red Fuchsite Genuine (https://amzn.to/3IRFf9i) - I chose this specifically because I wanted some sparkle in this painting
Daniel Smith Bloodstone Genuine (https://amzn.to/4ocmJar) - This looks almost like a dark black-brown with warmer tones, and it granulates beautifully, creating amazing organic textures
I'm painting an elephant in red, so obviously I'm not going for realism here. And that's the fun part!
Starting Without a Sketch: The Three-Value Approach
Like pretty much all of my paintings, I don't sketch first. Instead, I have a reference image off to the side that I've converted to black and white and isolated into just three values: white, gray, and black. This way, I can focus purely on shapes and how dark something needs to be, rather than getting hung up on matching colors perfectly.
I've got my small block of paper propped up at an angle, which means when I apply paint, it naturally drips downward. This creates those flowing, loose effects I love.
Challenging Myself: Embracing Hard Edges
One way I challenged myself with this piece was leaving white space with hard edges on each lower side. I have a tendency to smooth everything out because I don't typically like hard edges. At first, it really bugged me—not because it didn't look good, but because it went against my usual instincts.
But I'm glad I pushed through that discomfort. When you're using super hot colors this bold and eye-catching, those hard lines actually work beautifully. And here's the thing: small pieces of paper are fantastic for experimenting with techniques outside your comfort zone. If it doesn't work out, well, it's just a small piece of paper. No huge loss.
The First Wash: Letting Granulation Work Its Magic
Even on just the first layer, watch how that bloodstone genuine granulates and moves—it looks so organic! I'm dropping it into the shadow areas of my elephant: around the eye, the folds in the ear, and I'm being intentional about where I want my light source.
The left side has more of that luminous quinacridone gold, while the right side features the darker bloodstone genuine. But I still bring some of that dark pigment over to the left because otherwise things feel disconnected. I want cohesion throughout the piece, even while being playful.
Here's an important principle: just because an area reads as "black" in your reference doesn't mean you have to use your darkest color. It just means use a dark value. In some areas, I went really deep with the Winsor Red Deep because that worked perfectly for creating form, and already I could see an elephant emerging.
Problem-Solving: When to Lift and When to Leave It
A giant water puddle had formed at the end of the trunk. I could have left it to create a bloom, but I decided against it. I pulled out a paper towel and lightly dabbed the bottom because that bloodstone genuine is so granulating that sediment was pooling there, and I wasn't sure I wanted it concentrated in that one spot.
But I loved the sediment in the other pockets! It shows off the beautiful quality of that paint, and it's nothing I could plan—it just happens naturally when you add water. That's the magic of watercolor.
The Importance of Natural Drying
Here's something critical: you don't want to take a blow dryer to granulating pigments because it'll blow the sediment everywhere and you won't get those natural granulating marks or watercolor blooms. Patience is key.
Adding Details With a Liner Brush
I've switched to my liner brush now, and I'm finding marks that naturally formed in my piece and building them out. The important wrinkles, placing the eye, using linework to suggest form and motion—that's my focus right now.
With my liner brush, I'm being very light-handed, and when I make those marks across the elephant's body, I do them quickly. Speed keeps the line confident. If I went slowly, the line would get shaky and look like a mistake or like I didn't know what I was doing.
On certain parts of the trunk where the wrinkles are thicker, I move my brush more to the side to get that broader line, taking those marks a bit more slowly. But I'm not worried—confidence is everything.
Elephants have those strong horizontal wrinkles on their trunks, but there are vertical ones too. Because I like to paint loosely and atmospherically—let's face it, I have the attention span of a rodent—I don't want to put in every single detail. I like to paint freely and quickly because I'm always excited to move on to the next thing.
Lifting Paint: When Accidents Become Opportunities
The paints I've used lift really easily, especially that granulating bloodstone genuine. On hot press paper, it's usually even easier to lift. So even though my paper was completely dry when I added the next layer, because I went in so wet, some parts started to lift where I didn't intend.
If this happens to you, don't panic! If you start panicking and trying to fix it, you'll just lift more paint or draw more attention to the area. Who knows—maybe it'll create a really cool texture you can incorporate into your piece.
Here's my recommendation: if you get a bead of water where you don't want it, lightly dab it with the corner of a paper towel, then let the area dry completely. Just leave it alone. Let it dry, then reassess. Don't keep fussing with it.
Color Strategy: Why I Chose Red
I'm using a lot of red in this piece, which is unusual for me. Honestly, as far as sales go, red is a fantastic eye-catcher, but it doesn't coordinate with home decor as easily as blues and greens do. So when I'm planning for a show, I make sure to have plenty of blues and greens because they sell well.
But having a few red pieces serves a purpose: they're going to stand out and be different, which draws the eye. Hopefully, someone brave and eclectic will fall in love with that big, powerful red piece. But even if they don't buy the red painting, it got them over to your booth, and they might pick up one of your blue or green works instead.
That's just my experience and what I've heard from other artists—your results may vary. I can only speak to what's worked for me.
Going Bold: Don't Fear Dark Pigment
Here's another layer of advice (see what I did there?): don't be afraid to go really dark and thick with your pigment. Having that strong contrast brings attention to an area, and painting is as much about confidence as it is about fun. Go ahead and put down those bold brushstrokes.
This is something I have to remind myself constantly. I usually shy away from hard lines because I love how soft things look in watercolor. But a combination of hard and soft edges—those "lost and found" areas—makes things really interesting visually.
It's actually a little hard for me to paint in some of these wrinkles because they are definite, hard lines. I do end up softening some of them because that's my comfort zone. But if everything is too soft, it's like I never painted those details to begin with. The area gets muddy and loses definition.
Working With Wet Paint: You Have More Time Than You Think
Notice that even now, my paper is still wet in areas I've already painted. In watercolor, there's this saying that you have to work quickly, and depending on what you're doing, yes, that can be true. But don't rush! Things will stay workable for quite a while—sometimes to the point where it gets frustrating because I have to step away and let areas dry naturally for my technique to work.
Placing the Tusks: Sketching With Paint
I've picked up some red fuchsite genuine, and since this elephant has tusks, I'm painting them in with this color. Now, this isn't where they'll stay forever—I mean, they'll be there, but the final tusks will be painted on top with opaque white later.
You can't really work backwards in watercolor because it's a subtractive art form—you're taking away the light. To get light back, you either have to scrub and lift the paper (and certain paints like quinacridone gold are very staining, so I'll probably never get back to pure white), or you use opaque white media on top.
I'm not a watercolor purist, so I have no problem using opaque water media to reclaim my whites, especially for something as unique as elephant tusks. Using a different medium actually draws more attention to them, which I like.
But right now, I'm using the watercolor to place them so that later when I add the white on top, I know exactly where to put it. Even though I don't sketch first, this is kind of my version of sketching—just with red fuchsite and a paintbrush.
Managing Multiple Layers: Know Your Pigments
Watercolor dries paler, so areas I made dark earlier became lighter than I wanted as they dried. That means going back in for another pass.
Be careful with your water content when you're doing multiple layers. Some of these paints like to shift around. You really need to know your pigments. Maybe yours don't have this issue because you're using different colors, but for my pigments in this painting, I need to make sure my pigment-to-water ratio is higher on my brush—that heavy cream consistency people talk about.
Strategic Line Work: Guiding the Viewer's Eye
I've also used some hard lines to define the top of the elephant's head and ear. I don't want to outline the whole elephant because that would be boring, but things were getting a little too loose. Adding a few broken lines—and only more on the left side—gives information to the viewer: "Okay, here's where this form stops."
Then when viewers look at the right side, which is far more abstract and in shadow, their brains can fill in the missing information. Trust your viewers—they're smart and creative too.
Adding Highlights: The Power of Gouache
Now that everything has dried, I've gone in with my tiny liner brush and some white gouache to paint in more of those wrinkles. Sometimes wrinkles catch the light, and having that little bit of opaque white on top adds shine and dimension.
But I want to be careful not to put it everywhere and go overboard. If everywhere is special, then nowhere is special.
I'm also adding the eyelashes because that was one detail about the elephant's eye I found really interesting—you could see how long and thick those lashes were. I went in with a bit of dry-brush gouache so it kind of feathers out at the end, really giving it that look of hair.
Then I picked up more gouache that was slightly wetter for the base of the lashes. Even with opaque mediums like gouache, your water-to-pigment ratio matters for how it applies. Because I don't want the gouache to fade and I want it to go on really thick, I keep it at a thicker consistency. But if it's too thick, it won't move at all.
It just takes practice—getting those brush miles in and knowing your materials. I do recommend synthetic brushes for gouache, though. They're easier for water control, and with gouache, I don't like having a whole lot of water on my brush.
The Final Touch: Watercolor Ground for Texture
I want those tusks to really stand out, so I'm using Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground (https://amzn.to/4ocnbp9) in titanium white. I've mixed it with my palette knife and grabbed an old, small brush—one of the first brushes I ever bought.
Watercolor ground is a surface prep. If I were painting on wood or canvas, I'd apply this in a couple coats first, and then it would allow watercolor to work on that surface (though it doesn't completely mimic watercolor paper).
But I like to use it to bring opacity and white back into a piece while also adding texture. Because I'm applying it in visible brushstrokes, that texture remains on the tusk, and I love that effect. It's a cool way to add a tiny bit of three-dimensionality without it being overwhelming.
Important note: When you use watercolor ground, you have to let it dry naturally, and it takes about a day. So if you need to finish something quickly, stick with gouache, which you can blow dry.
Also, if you use a paintbrush for watercolor ground, use an old one and really wash it out thoroughly when you're done.
Final Thoughts: Small Paintings, Big Learning
And there you have it—a loose, bold elephant in reds! Working small on this 4x6 format gave me the freedom to push outside my comfort zone with hard edges and dramatic color choices. Sometimes our best growth happens when we give ourselves permission to experiment without high stakes.
Quick Tip: Small studies are perfect for trying techniques that scare you. The investment is minimal, but the learning is huge.
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Happy painting! 🎨