and welcome to what I hope will be

a beautiful, calming video for you.

Maybe you want to do something while you watch this.

Maybe you want to paint along with us.

Maybe you just want to find out

what on earth we manage to paint.

I've recently been approached by Skillshare,

which if you don't know, is an online learning platform.

They have a variety of classes

that teach you really a whole range of things.

My God, I had a look at it.

Some of it terrifies me.

It's about how you could do better

in your career and productivity,

or graphic design, which also could be your career.

But also fun stuff, like hobbies and that type of stuff.

And the reason they came to talk to me

is because where they didn't have captions before,

now all Skillshare originals,

and many of their other courses have captions,

which is very exciting.

But I didn't want to just do a little like,

boom, spot and talk about it.

Instead I thought, it would be really exciting

if Claudia and I actually gave...

There's now a dog in this video.

Wouldn't take no for an answer.

So instead of doing a little spot, where I just say,

"Oh, Skillshare is this, you should join up.

If you click the link in the description,

you'll get a two-month free trial,"

although you do,

instead, I thought that Claudia and I

would take on one of these tutorials

and challenge each other to see who could do it best.

So, we picked a course that is

all about watercolor painting

and we're going to try and paint each other in a,

as close as we possibly can,

whilst also being inspired by this beautiful,

beautiful bunch of flowers.

Stay watching until the end to find out

what beauties we create,

and have your say on which is actually better.

I mean let's be honest,

I take five times as long to do everything,

so probably not mine.

(crickets chirping)

In the meantime, don't forget that you can join

7 million other creatives who use Skillshare

to enhance their career,

better themselves or their hobbies,

generally be awesome human beings.

If you want to up your Instagram game for instance,

there are all types of courses on that.

Photography, they've got that.

Editing, they've got that.

Just lovely fine arts stuff, they've got that too.

Even gardening, which we really need,

because our garden's a waste land.

(light jazz music)

- Well, this is a nice activity.

- You're happy I pulled you in for this kind of a video?

- Yes.

Right, I've got some paper.

- Yes.

- That we can sketch our initial--

- Okay, beauty - plans.

initial drawings, and plans.

I'm not the tidiest of people.

- [Claudia] Yes, but you've got very controlled hands

for small detail. - Yes!

- You love that kind of stuff.

- I'm weirdly good at drawing.

- Where is I'm way more where like,

I love stone carving.

- [Jessica] Yeah, massive things.

- [Claudia] Acrylic paintings more my thing.

Watercolors, I've always botched up.

It's just like I just get too carried away,

I'm too impatient and the water and everything

just merges.

- (laughs)

- It's not like a nice watercolor bloom.

- Matilda, I have to say,

I do actually use

my right arm.

There we go.

- I put this in - Get the dog down.

Just to look at for an inspiration.

- Oh, yeah.

- This we bought in Malacca in Malaysia,

which is a very artistic place and they have

lots of artists live there.

It's got these old nyonya,

which are kind of quite influenced from, like, the Dutch.

- When was this, - Yes.

when they went there.

Then they've got the shutters and things,

but you can see it's quite still,

like penciled marks here.

And so on, and then they've just sort of done

this kind of wet wash kind of look,

which is a bit different from the video we watched

which was more controlled, - Yes.

like, what is it, wet on dry?

This is, I think this was done,

look at me, talking like an expert now.

- Oh, she knows everything now.

- Oh, wet on wet.

- Oh, yes, okay.

- This is the watercolor paper that I've got.

- And they're obviously recommended acid free stuff.

If we want to cheat,

well it's not cheating

but I have got watercolor pencils.

- [Jessica] For sure.

- [Claudia] So you can like--

- Always an option.

- Get some really fine marks with that.

- Yeah.

(light jazz music)

- (laughs)

- (laughs)

(light jazz music)

- I'm kind of drawing as I go along.

- Uh huh.

- I mean I'm planning as I draw kind of thing.

- I feel quite stressed about this already

because I know that you're going to go,

"That doesn't look, do you think that

really looks like me?"

Like when I did the Sims of you.

- You did hilariously!

So we made each other in the Sims.

Claudia made me look like a drag queen.

Can you look down but at me?

Sorry, no (laughs)

- (laughs)

(light jazz music)

- [Jessica] Oh, I'm putting it down.

- Okay, fine. (laughs)

- (laughs)

- [Claudia] So, what we call pans...

- [Jessica] Yes,

have you got tubes?

Okay, we've got pans.

- And tubes.

- [Jessica] That's a pan.

These are tubes.

- [Claudia] Should be like an art exam.

I'm going to be hungry soon,

it's 1:30 already.

- You're always hungry.

- 45 minutes, darling.

- 45 minutes.

- We'll just do as much as we can,

doesn't need to be finished.

(laughs)

- Did you make me look like a drag queen?

- The placement--

- She gave me flower boobs.

- But the placement of them was...

- Starting now.

(urgent cello music)

(boing, boing, boing)

(urgent cello music)

- (laughs)

- Every time, I look...

- Literally just staring in one place.

Please, please.

- I'm trying, I'm looking at you.

(urgent cello music)

- Okay, we have 30 minutes left.

- Oh my God.

- Do me a favor.

Put your head in a position

and just keep it there.

- I'm trying.

- You don't have to rub out the whole...

- It's happened.

- (laughs)

- [Claudia] But the idea is that you draw it

and then very lightly rub it all out,

isn't it?

- 25 minutes to go.

- Oh my God.

- That's it,

this is just one of our many sets

of watercolor paint.

We came into this relationship with like

two sets of each type of paint, each.

At least my Dad would be proud

of this video.

My Dad is an artist.

He is amazing.

I will never be as good as him.

I realized that when I was like, three.

- Aww.

- I had a little breakdown about it.

- So you were, what, three, - (laughs)

so he'd have like

how ever many years he was that old

to practice like that.

- Yeah, yeah, no, I've lived with an intense,

intense, "My art will never be good enough" feeling.

(urgent cello music)

(alarm rings)

- Oh my God.

- What? No, no it's my medication!

- Oh, gosh.

- It's fine.

- I was like, "What!".

- Okay, not a lot of time left, honey.

To be fair, I've not even started painting you.

- You've just been leaves.

Am I just leaves to you?

- (laughs)

- [Claudia] Guess the whole idea, as well is that

we're so used to things being so instant now,

with digital processing and like Photoshop.

"I want it to be like that color" and it just

like fills the whole thing.

Like, having to do things by hand,

the reason it's rewarding is because

it takes patience and time

and like time actually is, you know,

a really special thing that we should value.

You know, we see someone's artwork

- Yeah

- Or craftwork, the reason we value it

and like it so much, I think,

is because you realize how much time

went into it. It's like--

- Right, wonky cakes taste better.

- Yeah, I got that.

- Their made of love, not by machine.

- [Claudia] I must say, having watched that video

on Skillshare I do feel a bit more confident

with my technique of watercolors.

I've always struggled with watercolors

but just having watched that, and like watching

someone do it and taking the time to sort of have it

explained to me--

- [Jessica] I'm pleased with these overly detailed leaves.

- (laughs)

Unfortunately, none of Claudia remains painted.

- (laughs) But--

(alarm rings)

Oh, no!

- No!

- Let's give ourselves an extra, we started at

twenty-five til, - Yeah.

Let's give ourselves an extra 10 minutes.

- Ten minutes.

(urgent cello music)

- Why don't we both be like, "Hey, let's paint a flower."

- I know, well I did say that to you.

- (laughs)

- This morning, to be fair.

I did say, "Why don't we both just paint a flower?"

and you were like, "No, we're going to do portraits."

and I was like, "Christ, that's like the hardest thing

you can probably do in a watercolor."

- Yeah, I hate me, too, right now.

So, we've eventually reached the point where we have

to be like, "This is the end now. We have to stop

doing this."

We've definitely pushed over the limit

of when we were supposed to be going.

But, you know what, I'm actually kind of calm with that.

- Yeah.

- I'm quite chill with it.