Transcripts
1. Hello & Welcome back!: [MUSIC] [NOISE] Painting with watercolor is so much fun, right from wetting the paper with clear water, pouring the colors and watching them blend and bleed into each other, and create the whole magic. It's a really beautiful process. Sometimes painting with watercolors can be incredibly challenging. But in the very next moment, it may surprise you with stunning results which you will be really proud of. Hello my dear friends. My name is Zaneena Nabeel. I'm a mother, an artist, and an architect. I have been using watercolors since childhood and my fascination for this medium has grown so much over these years. Winter is one of my most favorite subject to paint, creating those moody, foggy, snowy landscapes is such a thrilling experience. I'm super excited to invite you all to a 30-day watercolor challenge where we will be together painting 30 gorgeous winter landscapes. [MUSIC] This class is designed as a daily challenge, which will run for 30 days. Starting from today, for the next 30 days, we will be painting a gorgeous set of winter themed watercolor paintings. [MUSIC] We will paint a series of stunning northern lights, foggy mornings, chilly evenings and so much more. This class is suited for artists of all skill levels. Even if you have just started using watercolors, this class works perfectly. This entire challenge is power packed with incredible techniques and wonderful class projects. I'm certain that by the end of this challenge, you all will be a lot more confident in your watercolor skills. [MUSIC] Are you guys ready to explore this snowy season with watercolors? Put on a cozy sweater, or grab a cup of coffee and join me to paint a gorgeous collection of winter landscapes which you can flout.
2. Before we begin!!: [MUSIC] Always buy a paper which is made for watercolor painting. You will find a whole lot of varieties of watercolor paper in the market, Some of them are cellulose, some of them are cotton, some of them are a mix of cotton and cellulose. Always try and go with a paper which is 100% cotton. These are two of my favorites, one is Arches. This is 100% cotton and it is 140 lb. Same with the other one. The other one is from Canson. It is their heritage series. Both of these are cold pressed watercolor paper. For this entire course, I'll be using paper from Canson. This is a texture my paper has got, it is moderately textured. Most of the time we get frustrated with watercolors just because you're using the wrong kind of art supplies, especially the paper. Using a good quality watercolor paper has a huge impact on the intracellular. If you're really serious about improving your watercolor skills, never paint on a student-grade watercolor paper. Try and invest on a good quality artist watercolor paper. Trust me, this is going to be a game changer. You will start to enjoy the process and you will love this medium like never before. The same thing goes with sketchbooks as well. It is much more easier to get the right watercolor pad. But to find the right sketchbook is difficult. This paper is quite thick, but it doesn't have any texture. It is only good for sketching and light washes. It is not 100% cotton and it cannot handle multiple layers of water. I have just kept it aside for some sketching exercises. Now I have another sketchbook here. This one is a custom-made sketchbook, and it is made out of 100% cotton watercolor paper, which is made for watercolor painting. A [inaudible] for me is batches and color studies. You can see that card just texture. Ever since I started using 100% cotton watercolor which of minimum 140 lb thickness, I have never bought cheap cheap watercolor paper. I know it can be a bit expensive, but this is going to be a real game changer. If you're really serious about improving your watercolor skills, there is no other choice, you have to go with 100 % cotton watercolor paper, which is of minimum 140 lb thickness. The more the thickness more better, but it can be more expensive as well, so go with a minimum thickness of 140 lb. Make sure to go with a really light pencil sketch, no matter which pencil you're using, whether it's an HB pencil, or a 2b, 1b, or a 4b. Make your pencil sketches as light as possible. Watercolor is a transparent medium. In this watercolor challenge, we are painting winter landscape. To bring in that snowy character, we'll be going with really light watercolor washes and we'll be reading the paperwhite as well. Go to really light pencil sketch, otherwise, your pencil lines will be visible in your painting. We don't want that. You can see the light sketches I have added here. That is tone you should be using for your pencil sketch, not just for this watercolor challenge, this is something you need to keep in mind whenever you're adding a pencil sketch for your watercolor painting. Don't put a lot of pressure. Be very gentle and add a pencil sketch as light as possible. Never study watercolor painting without having any idea about the color palette and the techniques that you're going to use. These are some thumbnail sketches I created earlier for a different project. These little paintings will give you a better idea about how to approach your main project. I still remember I have ruined so many watercolor paintings in my early stages just because I didn't plan out the colors and the techniques properly. This exercise is really important if you are going with the new technique or if you want to try a new color combination. These paintings can be really small and it doesn't need to be detailed. It is just to get an idea about the color palette and how to approach painting. It is going to make the whole process a lot easier. If you really take care of your watercolor brushes, you will never have to buy the same brush again. It is really important to keep your brushes clean. There shouldn't be any leftover paint on your brush after you have finished your painting. I normally use this brush cleaner. I use it quite often for my gouache brushes, but for my watercolor brushes, I just use it once in a month or maybe once in two or three months. This is just like a mild soap. I'll quickly explain the process that I follow normally. First I insert my brush in warm water, then I rub my brush in the soap. There will be some latter that is formed on your brush. Now wash on that plateau in normal water. Instead of a brush cleaner, you can use any mild soap or shampoo. It works the same. Take care of your brushes. Always use two jars of water whenever you are doing a watercolor painting, it is really important to work with clean water to get fresh and vibrant colors. I always keep one jar of water side and whenever I'm in need of clean water, I just grab that one. The other one I normally use will always have the paint from my brush. If in case you're not able to work with two jars of water, try and replace your water as frequent as possible. If you work with muddy water or dirty water, you're painting will also look muddy, it will lose that fresh character. It is really important to work with two jars of water or keep replacing your water frequently. Try to clean your brush properly. Every time you go from one color to another, you might be working with light colors and dark colors. Imagine if you work with blue first and you're using the same brush to pick yellow. If you didn't clean it properly, you will end up creating a green. Always clean your brush properly before you switch from one color to another. Just to be sure, you can dub your brush on a paper towel to make sure there is no leftover paint on your brush before you go with the second color. Always make sure the previous layer has dried before you go with the next step. When you're working with watercolor, you need a lot of patience. Always wait for your background layer to dry before you add in your details. If you want to speed up the process, you can always use a blow dryer or a heat tool. This can speed up the process and you can add your details much more quickly. That is it. I think we are all sort to begin this journey. [MUSIC]
3. Materials you'll need: [MUSIC] Now, I'm going to take you through all the materials you will need for this course. We'll start with the watercolor paper. The one I'm going to use for this course is the Canson heritage cold press watercolor paper. Canson has a lot of varieties of watercolor paper, but this one is my personal favorite. When you're getting a paper for your watercolor projects, there are three things you need to be careful about. The first and the foremost of all, the paper should be 100 percent cotton. If the paper doesn't mention 100 percent cotton, it might be of cellulose, but isn't that great for watercolor projects, so always go with the paper with this 100 percent cotton. The next thing is your paper should be at least a 140lb. This indicates the thickness of your paper, and this means your paper can handle multiple layers of water. The last one is the paper has to be cold pressed. But this one is a personal choice. If you would like to work with more textures, you can go with rough paper. If you would like to work with very minimum texture, you can go with hot pressed paper. Let's take a look at this image. You can clearly see the difference. The first one is hot pressed and it doesn't have any texture. The second one is cold pressed watercolor paper, which has a moderate amount of texture. The last one is rough, which has a lot more texture than the other two. Keeping those things in mind, decide on your watercolor paper. Now, this paper part is 26 centimeter by 36 centimeter, and I have divided this paper into six equal parts, and that is the size I'm using for my paintings. Each of these divisions are 12 centimeter by 13 centimeter. I got this dimension by dividing the paper into six equal parts. It's a small size, but you can decide on the size of the paper you want to work with. If you were to go with a much more bigger size, that's totally your choice. Here is one of the painting we'll be doing. I just took this out so that you can understand the size. That's the size I'm going to go with. You can see, I have just divided that piece of paper into six equal divisions. Decide on the size of the paper you want to go with. Whichever the size you're going with, just make sure to go with 100 percent cotton watercolor paper, which is going to have a huge impact on your painting. Now, I'm going to fix my paper on a board. This one is MDF panel. I'm using this as my packing board. We just need a piece of cardboard or any other piece of hard surface, to fix up a paper on to. For some of the paintings we'll be doing in this course, we'll have to lift our paper and tilt then turn it around to make the colors blend into each other. I would recommend fixing your paper on a backing board rather than on your table. The next thing you will need is a masking tape. We have to fix our paper onto this board, so obviously, you will need a masking tape or a washi tape. Mine is a normal masking tape, which I got from a stationary shop. It isn't an expensive painter's tape or anything, and it works perfectly for my paintings. You can use any of the masking tape or Washi tape that you normally use, which works well on your paper. That's all about the watercolor paper. Now, let's take a look at the brushes you will need. Throughout this course, I'll be using four different brushes. The first one is 1.5 inch Mottler brush or a wash brush. I'll be using this brush to apply water on the entire paper. I don't use this brush for anything else, so it is quite clean. If you don't have such a wide brush or a wash brush, that's absolutely okay. You can use any of your bigger sized brushes. Just make sure it is clean before you apply water on your paper. Now, the next brush I have here is half inch flat brush. You can use any of your medium to bigger size flat brush. Then I have two round brushes; one a size number 8, and the other one a size number 4. The wide brush is from Princeton, and the other three are from silver black velvet brush. Just grab any of the brushes that you normally use which is the same size. We discussed about the watercolor paper and the brushes. The next important thing is about watercolor paint. Throughout this entire course, I'll be using tubed watercolor. These are from the brand ShinHan, it's a coloring watercolor brand. These are their extra fine premium watercolors. I'm not allowed to work with freshly squeezed paint, so I'm not going to squeeze this out onto a palette and keep them in advance. According to the painting we are doing, I'll be freshly squeezing out the paint [inaudible], and at the beginning of every painting, you will get to see the colors you will need for that particular day. But it isn't necessary to use freshly squeezed paint, you can use panned watercolor, or you can squeeze out the paint in advance onto your palette. In both the cases, I would recommend using a water spray. In case if you are using dried out paint on a pallet, or watercolor pans, display some water on it in advance and keep it aside for 10-15 minutes. This will activate the paint and it will make your colors look vibrant and intense. You can easily pick the colors as well. [inaudible] your water and leave it aside for some time, let it act to it. The next thing you will need is a mixing palette. I'll be using this small super cute ceramic palette for my paintings. For all the paintings we'll be doing, we'll just need four colors or maybe five, not more than that. Any small palette will work. You don't need to go with a big palette, even a dinner plate will perfectly work. Just take out anything that you can mix your paint on. It just needs to be a non-absorbing surface. It can be plastic, or ceramic, or glass, it doesn't really matter. The next thing you will need is two jars of water. I have seen people taking this very silly, but it is very important to have two jars of clean water. We'll be keeping one jar aside and whenever we are in need of clean water, we'll grab clean water from the other jar. Always keep two jars of clean water so that you don't need to run in between. For some of the paintings, we'll need to add a pencil sketch, so you will need a pencil and an eraser. Whenever you're adding your pencil sketch, always go with light lines. Don't make it too bold and strong. Only you need to see them when your painting dries, so don't put a lot of pressure. Go with very light pencil sketch. The last thing you will need is a paper towel. You can also use a cotton cloth. When you're doing your watercolor painting, there are many instances where you will need to use a paper towel. Sometimes, it is just to remove the wetness off your brush and make it clean. Some other times, it is for the dry brush technique. Always keep a piece of paper towel or a cotton cloth right next to you while you're painting. That summarizes all the materials you will need for this 30-day watercolor challenge. Now, there are two more things that I want to show, which isn't really necessary material. The first one is a drawing pen, and the other one is a wide sharpen. These are going to make our life so much easier. If you have them, it is going to be a bit easier to add in the detail. Otherwise, we can just use a detailing brush and adding those teeny tiny details using our brush instead of a pen. For this painting here, you can easily add those white snowy patterns on the tree using a wide sharpen. The same can be done using new white gouache and a pen as well. But it is going to be a bit more easier with a white sharpen. The same goes with those thin, delicate branches. If you have a black pen, it is much easier to add those delicate branches. This one is from art line, you can use any of the drawing pen or sketching pen. I just realized I missed one of the most important art supply you will need for this course, which is white gouache or white watercolor. It's a window thing towards watercolor challenge. Obviously, we'll need to add in lots and lots of snow onto our painting. I'll be using this white gouache from an Indian brand called Brustro. If you don't have white gouache, you can also use your white watercolor. For this painting here, you can see those white patches on the tree. For that, we'll be using white gouache. For this painting to add in those stars, we'll be using white gouache. There are multiple uses for white gouache and it is just one of the most important tool to make our paintings look snowy. That summarizes all the materials you will need for this entire watercolor challenge. Quickly go grab them and get ready to enjoy your course in doing watercolor challenge. [MUSIC]
4. Day 1 - Winter Evening: [MUSIC] Let's start with the wafers painting. I have a piece of paper already here. This is the size I'm going good with, but you can go with any size that you prefer. Then I have my clean palette, and two jars of water. Everything is ready. Now I'm starting by applying masking tape onto the four sides of my paper. I'm going to fix this onto this board. I'm using a one inch masking tape. You can either use a masking tape or a washi tape, whichever that you use normally. Well, let's quickly fix the paper onto the board. I prefer fixing my paper onto backing board rather than onto the table. This way it is easy for me to lift and turnaround my paper while I add the details. For some of the techniques we'll be using in this course, you will have to lift to paper and you will have to turn it around for the colors to blend in a very natural way. Fixing paper onto a board, it can be any piece of cardboard or it can be even an old magazine or a notebook. Something that you can fix your paper onto it can be anything. Also when you're applying your masking tape, make sure to run your fingers on top of them multiple times, to make sure that there's no gaps in between. This way you will get a clean boarder. If there are some gaps the paint can sip into and you won't get that clean border. Just run your fingers multiple times after you have applied your masking tape. My paper is ready. Now I'm going to add a line a little bit of the center of the paper. The top part is our sky and the bottom is the snowy ground. That is all you need to add for the pencil sketch. Is it simple? Now let's prepare the colors. For the snowy ground I'll be using these two colors. I'll be mixing indigo and royal blue. I don't want to use indigo asses because it's a dark blue. I want it to be slightly brighter. I'll be been mixing indigo and royal blue. You can also use indigo and Prussian blue or indigo or ultramarine blue or any other blue. It just makes a little off indigo, but any other blue that you're using, and create a slightly brighter version of blue. We don't want it to be too bright and too dull. That is a recent why I'm mixing these two colors. There is one more reason, the indigo that I'm using here, it is from the branch in hand. It is slightly darker than the other indigos. I'm not really a fan of the indigo from this brand because it has a graystone rather than blueish. I really loved the indigo from Sennelier, but that's almost worse. I thought I will just mix a bit of royal blue with indigo to make it a bit more brighter. For this painting, I'm starting with the snowy ground not the sky. To paint the snowy ground I'm using my half-inch flat brush. We'll be painting the sky only after this dries. Just like I mentioned earlier, I'm going to mix indigo and royal blue. If you have a more blueish indigo you can directly use that you don't need to mix it with any other blue. For example, if you have indigo from Sennelier, I think it looks like most similar to this, so you don't need to mix it. This is the color I'm going to go with. We'll be using the [inaudible] technique. The first step is to apply an even coat of water onto the anterior ground. I'm going with my one-and-a-half inch wash brush, and [NOISE] I'm dipping my brush in clean water, and I'm applying it even coat of water onto the anterior bottom part. [NOISE] We don't need a lot of water, just a shiny coat of water it's all we need. Gently apply a coat of water following the line you have added. Now, I'm going with that color I created [NOISE] by mixing indigo and royal blue. Over the bottom we'll be going with a medium tone. As we approach that line we have added over the middle, we'll make the color lighter. Start off with a medium tone and apply that only to half of the area. Now wash the paint from your brush, clean up properly. Dry the brush on a paper towel, and get rid of that dark and intense blue. Now that there are slightly wet brush, blend the color and make it lighter towards that line. That's how the baseboard should look like. If you want to make the color more taco over the bottom, you could do that now because your background is wet, you can make use of that time and add in some more deeper tones over the bottom. But the top area should be lighter. I'm cleaning my brush again and I'm making it a clean blend. Run your brush only in a horizontal way. We need a smooth and clean blend here. I think that looks fine. I will run my brush one more time in a horizontal way and make the blend a little more smoother. That is a base layer that was only ground. [NOISE] Now we have to wait for this to dry. You can either use a blow dryer to speed up the drying process or you can just wait for it to dry naturally. Mine have dried. For the next step, I'm using a smaller sized brush. This one is a size number 4 round brush. I will just wash my other brush properly and I will keep it aside. [NOISE] For the sky we'll be using the same flat brush. I don't want to have any blue stains on it. We'll be using crimson and orange for the sky, so we need a fresh color there. I'm switching back to my size number 4 round brush, and I'm going with a slightly darker tone [NOISE] of indigo. I'm not adding a lot of water. Now I'm tapping my Bichon of paper towel. We need to dry paint on the brush, it shouldn't be too watery. Once you have taken paint on your brush, just tap it on a paper multiple times to remove the excess amount of water. Now using this dry brush we are going to add a pathway. It isn't really a pathway, it is something that is created by the footsteps. You'll have to go with a very messy manner to make it look like it's the footsteps. I'll be adding it in a cool way. I'm starting from that further end. Now using that dry brush, add in a curvy line, in a broken manner. It shouldn't be a smooth curvy line, go with the broken manner and use dry paint. Don't go with a solid color. The background is completely dry and you're using a dry paint. I haven't taken a lot of paint on my brush. I have taken bare minimum paint, which you should really try. Over the bottom closer to the masking tape, you can go with pico patterns compared to the further end. But again, you should be using dry paint. All you need to do was go with dry paint, use a smaller size brush, and using the tip of your brush keep scrubbing on the [NOISE] paper and adding some broken line, which are thin at the further end and thicker and taco at the bottom part. It can be a little messy. It doesn't need to be a perfect shape. Just add in some random shapes in a curvy way. [NOISE] Now I'm washing of the paint from my brush. I'm going with a really light one off indigo. I'm just adding few patterns [NOISE] using that lighter tone. Again, I'm tapping my brush on a paper towel. I'm trying to smudge those darker patterns. I don't want them to be too prominent. Add in some more little buttons right next to those darker ones we have added. I will make [NOISE] the color a bit more darker over here. Going with a much more taco tone of indigo, and just adding that over here. You can see the patterns have added here, they're really messy. This is how you should be adding them because we are trying to make it look like footsteps. That's a snowy ground. You can see how beautifully we have got a curvy pathway there. Now the next [NOISE] step is to paint the sky. For the sky, we'll be going with a variegated wash of two colors. For that I'm switching back to my flat brush. This one has the same path inch flat brush I used for the snowy ground. You can use any of your medium too because it's a flat brush. These are the two colors I'm using for the sky, Warmaline and crimson. We'll be mixing these two colors together to get a peachy color. Towards the bottom, we'll be using crimson acidus. On the top you would have that peachy color, and towards the bottom, closer to that line, you have a crimson shade, so that is how I have planned it. I hope you all have crimson and warmaline. They are common colors. You get it in all the basic watercolor boxes. If you don't have go with any of the colors which are similar. Instead of Warmaline, you can use scarlet red spill if you don't have it. We have the colors ready. As I said earlier, I'm going to go with the peach color I'm not using Warmaline acetus, but if you want to use more often orange color in your sky, you can use Warmaline acetus without mixing that with crimson. I'm going to start by applying a quarter of water onto the sky. I'm going back with my one-and-a-half inch wash brush. [NOISE] I'm dipping my brush in clean water, and I'm gently applying an even coat of water onto the entire sky. We just need a shiny coat of water. Don't add a lot of water and make it a pool. Run your brush multiple times to make sure the coat of water is even. We are doing a wet on wet sky and they're going to go with a variegated wash. For that, I'm going back with my [NOISE] half-inch flat brush. Make sure there's no blue stains on your brush from previous wash. Make sure it is clean. Now, [NOISE] I'm mixing a bit of wamerline and crimson to create [NOISE] pink color. I'm going with equal part. [NOISE] Just mix these two colors well. That's a color I'm going with. I'll be starting off with an intense color. Then as I come towards the middle, I'll make the color lighter by adding some water. I will again make it darker as I'm approaching the horizon line. You can see how pretty this color is looking. I just mix a bit of vermilion [NOISE] and crimson together. Now, towards the center, I'm using a bit of vermilion, [NOISE] just a little bit, and I'm adding that over here, and blending that with the peach color we added earlier. Now, I'm going back with the peach color we created, going with an intense tone, applying that over here. Finally, going with crimson. Again, going with an intense color. Now, filling up that end tail line in crimson. On the top we have a medium tone of that peach color we created, and then we made the color lighter, and we went in with a bit of vermilion. Then we again went back with a peach color. We used an intense color. Now, we're good with crimson. That's the sky. Now we need to create a clean blend of all these colors. To get a beautiful blend, you need to run your brush in a horizontal way. Don't run your brush in any other direction. Just keep running it from left to right, in a horizontal way. Now, I'm cleaning my brush and I'm tapping it on a paper towel. My brush is just dump, it is not too wet. I'm running my brush in a horizontal way to make it a clean blend. That is the sky you can see how pretty those colors are looking. I'm really loving the color combination. Now, there are two things we need to do before the background dries. The first one is adding some trees over the horizon line. The second one is we need to lift off some paint from the sky to create a sun. Those are the two tasks, we need to do them quite quickly before the background dries. First, we will add the trees. For that, I'm using my size number eight round brush. I'm going with a really intense tone of indigo. You can either use indigo or Payne's gray. Go with a really dark tone because we're going to apply this onto the dark background. When it dries, it will look really dull. In order to get the end result really bright and pretty, you will have to go with an intense tone. I have taken paint on my brush. Now, I'm adding this wet paint onto the wet background. You can see how nicely they are spreading into the background. First you can add a line using that dark tone of the indigo and clean up that horizon line. Now, simply drop that paint onto the wet background in some random shapes. As we are applying a wet paint onto the wet background, this will nicely spread into the background, making those trees look little blurry. This is exactly what we need. You can see those feathery effect on the top. Now, at some places, you can pull the paint a bit into the sky and go with a very organic shape. Don't put a lot of pressure, simply dropping that wet paint onto the wet sky. Let it spread in it's own way, don't try to control the way it is spreading. The first step is done. Now, the next step is to lift off the paint from the sky. For that, we need a clean brush. Wash all the paint from your brush, clean it thoroughly. [NOISE] My brush is 100 percent clean. Maybe you can try dabbing it on a paper towel, just to make sure there's no paint stains on it. Now, I'm going to run my brush in a circular way and I'm going to lift off some paint from the sky. Apply some pressure. Then you brush in a circular way. See that? If you're using 100 percent cotton watercolor paper, your paper will stay wet for a longer time and you can easily do this. Every time we lift off the paint, make sure to dab your brush on a paper towel. Keep repeating the same step until you get a clean white circle there. Every time you do this, there will be some orange paint on your brush. Before you go next time, you'll have to clean your brush. If there is a lot of paint, rinse it in your jar of water, otherwise, just dab it on a paper towel. The best part about this technique is that you will get the outer shape of your sun a little blurry, and this will automatically make it look like our sun is glowing. If you're going with a clean white circle, once everything has dried, you won't get this effect. But there are chances your background might have dried by the time you lifted off the paint, or you're not using 100 percent cotton watercolor paper. In that case, don't worry at all. Just apply a white circle using your white gouache or white watercolor. It is just that you won't get the glowing effect but your painting will be still pretty, so don't worry at all. Now, onto the center of this circle I have created here, I'm going to apply a bit of white gouache to make it look like it is glowing. We just need a teeny bit of white gouache or white watercolor. I'm directly dipping my brush in this tube and picking some paint. That is all we need, just that tiny bit. Now, right at the center of this white circle, I'm adding some solid opaque white. This would make that glowing effect more prominent. In case if your background has dried, you can skip the previous step of lifting off the paint and directly go by adding a white circle. Now, I'm running my brush in a circular way to make that outer shape blurry. I don't want to see that prominent shape and that is the reason why I'm doing this. That's done. Now, lets wait for this to dry. [MUSIC] The sky has dried completely. The colors are looking a little dull than earlier. When the painting was wet, the colors we're looking very bright and pretty, but when it dried, it has turned out a bit lighter than earlier. But this is one common thing with water colors. The colors tends to fade one tone lighter when it dries, that's something which we can't handle so we'll let it be the way it is. Now, for the next step, I'm going with peach black. You can use lamp black or mass black or even paint scree. We just need a dark shade. It can be even indigo. Our final task is to add some trees. It's a very simple tree. Which will be the color you are going with, whether it's Payne's gray or black or indigo, go with a really intense and dark tone. Also, you should be using your smallest size brush or any other brush which has a pointed tip. It is good to go with the detailing brush because we need these branches to be very thin and delicate. I'm starting with the main tree trunk, which can be slightly thicker. Go with a thicker tree trunk. Before you do this, make sure your background has completely dried. Otherwise, this can spoil your entire sky. Our task is pretty simple, just adding a tree with some empty branches. The only thing you need to be careful here is getting those branches very thin and delicate. If you're not able to do this with your brush, maybe you can switch to a pen and add in those branches using a pen. Only the main tree trunk has to be thicker. The rest has to be as thin as possible. It is this thin branches which make your painting look more pretty. The brush I'm using here is size number 4, it has a very good pointed tip. I think you can see that by the lines I'm adding here. I'm adding some more branches on the other side. Maybe I will add one more tree right next to this. I won't be adding a lot of trees, maybe just two or three. You can decide on where you want to add your tree and how many you want to add. Those things are totally your choice. If you want to add three or four, you could do that. I think I will just add one more. Right next to this, I will add my second tree, adding as many branches as you can. This would make your tree more and more beautiful, so don't be lazy. If you cannot add these with your brush, just like I said earlier, use your drawing pen or sketching pen. I use my pen quite often, there is nothing to be shameful about that. Whenever I don't feel confident enough to add those delicate details, I just go with my pen, and I will add those details with lots of confidence, which I may not be able to do with my brush. It's good to have a drawing pen or a sketching pen in your collection. You can check all the materials section to see the pen that I normally use. That is from Artline. There is another common pen from Micron. I was just trying to explain it is okay to use a pen, it is so much better than spoiling your otherwise decent looking painting. If you are not feeling confident, just go with your pen. Now, I'm going to add a second tree right next to this one. I think I will go with a shorter one. I won't be making it as tall as the first one. I won't add these many branches as well. [MUSIC] I have added two trees. Now, we need to add some dry brush patterns right underneath the trees. Otherwise, it will look like it is floating in the air. To make it look like [inaudible] onto that snowy ground, we need to add some deeper tones and some shadows right next to these trees. I'm using the same brush and dabbing my brush on a paper towel. It already has that black paint. Dab your brush on a paper towel multiple times and make sure that there's no water content on your brush. Now, just add some dry brush patterns right where the tree is starting. Don't add a lot of dry brush patterns, we just need a little of it, and that too where the tree is starting, make sure to dab your brush on a paper towel multiple times so that those patterns won't be too prominent. We are adding these patterns only at the area closer to the trees, we are not adding it anywhere else. That is it, we are done with our painting for day 1. You can see, I have added only little patterns right next to the tree. You should be adding only this much. [NOISE] Now it's time to peel off the masking tape. [MUSIC] Here's the finished painting. I'm quite happy with the way it has turned out. It was so calm and beautiful. I hope you guys enjoyed it too. Thanks a lot for joining. I'll be back tomorrow with our next project.
5. Day 2 - Northern Lights: [MUSIC] I have taped down my paper already. I have my clean palette here and the brushes are ready. I have two jars of clean water. For this painting as well, just like the previous one, you just need to add in a line. Go with a very light pencil sketch and add a line a little bit of the center of the paper. The top part is your sky and the bottom part is your snowy ground. Add in a line a little below the center of your paper. That is the pencil sketch. This one is going to be a really pretty northern light, which it's going to be the most easiest one you ever painted. Now let's take a look at the colors you will need and squeeze them onto the palette. I have four colors here, indigo, permanent violet, cobalt green, and cadmium yellow light. We'll be using all these four colors for the sky. Just over here at the horizon line, we'll be mixing a little of yellow with cobalt green to make that cobalt green a bit more bright and greenish. We'll be starting with violet. Then on the top we'll add some indigo to make it more darker, and as we come down, we'll switch to cobalt green. Along the bottom horizon line, we'll introduce a bit of yellow and we'll make it more greenish. This is how it was supposed to be. This was the sky I did. But then there was something wrong with my papers so I have taken out a new paper and I'm starting all over again. But I have all the colors ready here. I have indigo, permanent violet, cobalt green, and cadmium yellow. Instead of cadmium yellow, you can also use lemon yellow or gamboge yellow. You can use any cool yellow. I just changed my water into a clean one. I'm adding the pencil sketch again. Luckily, this painting didn't had a complicated pencil sketch, so this was an easy one. Now let's start painting. I'm using a flat brush. This one is a half inch flat brush, and I'm going with a very intense tone of violet. This color is permanent violet. If you don't have a violet watercolor tube, you can also mix and create your own violet. You can use Prussian blue and crimson and create a gorgeous violet of your own if you have an individual tube. To paint the sky, I'm going with wet on dry technique, which means I'm not applying coat of water on the sky in advance. I'm directly applying the wet paint on a dry paper. In case if you're more confident with wet on wet technique, you can apply a coat of water on the sky and then apply your paint. I'm starting with a intense tone of violet and I'm applying that on the top of my paper. Just like the previous painting, I'm running my brush in an horizontal way, and I'm adding the paint. Onto a half of that portion I'm applying violet. Now I'm washing off the paint from my brush and I'm switching to cobalt green. Now I'm adding that right where I stopped the violet and I'm mixing them well. Try to get a clean blend. You'll just need to run your brush in a horizontal way. Don't use any other brush movement. Well, I'm dabbing my brush on a paper towel and, again, running my brush in a horizontal way to get the most beautiful blend. That looks so cool. Such a pretty blue. Clean your brush thoroughly. There might be some violet stains on your brush. Make sure it is properly cleaned. Now, just pick a little of cadmium yellow and mix that with cobalt green and create a greenish color like this. You should use more cobalt green and less yellow. As I said earlier, it can be gamboge yellow or lemon yellow. Now, apply that color onto the leftover area. Just mix a bit of cadmium yellow or any other yellow and mix that with cobalt green. You can see the difference here. On the top, that bluish color is cobalt green, without yellow and the bottom, the color is more greenish. We added a little of cadmium yellow. This is the base idea. We need to get a clean blend of violet cobalt green, and that modified cobalt green. Now, l'm going to pick some indigo and I'm just making the top area a bit more darker. But if you're quite happy with this sky, and if you're background has started drying, you don't need to do this step. You can just keep adding this darker tone. I don't want you guys to spoil your otherwise decent looking sky. Now, I'm going back with little of violet and adding that in and trying to blend these colors. It might be a little tricky if your background has started to dry, you may not be able to blend the colors so skip this completely if your background has started to dry. That's my sky. I'm pretty happy with the colors and the blend. To make my sky a bit more interesting, I'm going to add a violet line where we have added the cobalt green. Again, this is also optional. Add it only if your background is still wet. Otherwise skip this step completely. To add a violet line, I'm switching to my smaller brush. This one is size number 4 round brush and I'm picking a bit of violet, which is not too watery. If it's too watery tap your brush on a paper towel and just add a line over here. Just dry your brush on the right side and add a line. Now, clean your brush properly and switch to cobalt green. Now, pull that line again towards the inside. This will make that line merge into the background. It wouldn't make it too prominent. That's the sky. I'm really happy with the colors. I think it's one of the prettiest and easiest sky I ever painted. I hope you guys are happy with your sky as well. Now, let's wait for this to dry. [MUSIC] The background has dried completely and it is looking slightly dull than earlier but still so pretty. For the snowy ground, we won't be adding any paint. We are going to leave the paper white as it is. We'll just add some shadows and deeper tones at the end. It is going to be mostly paper white. Our, our next task is to add some mountains in the background. For that, I'm using a very light tone of indigo. I'm using my same brush that I used earlier, size number 4 round brush. Load your brush with a lighter tone of indigo, add enough water. Don't go with a darker tone. Go with a really light tone of indigo and add in your mountain. It's a very simple mountain. We are not going to add any other details onto this. You can go with any shape, but don't make it too huge. Go with a low-lying mountain. Because we are trying to make it look like this are really far from us so go with the similar size. Go with a very organic shape. At some places you can make it taller and at some places you can make it lower. This will make your painting look more interesting. Go ahead and add in your mountain however you want to. Along with this, you can also clean up that horizon line, make it a straight line. [MUSIC] I have cleaned my brush properly because I'm going to use the same brush to add some stars. To add a new stars, you will either need white gouache or white watercolor. I'm going to take out the white gouache. White gouache is more opaque than whitewater color so once your painting has dried it will still stay opaque. But with watercolor, there are chances it may tend to fade a bit. Just squeeze out a little bit of white watercolor or white gouache depending on what you have with you and add with your drops of water. Now, to get that teeny tiny stars your paint shouldn't have a lot of water. If you feel like there's a lot of water condensed in your paint, just dab your brush on a paper towel and make sure it is not too watery. [NOISE] Now, take out another brush and gently tap on the smaller brush and create some stars. I'm adding few only on the top area where we have those darker tones. You can add in as many as you want. There is no limit for this. As a very therapeutic process I count of all of those stars most of the time. Feel free to stop yourself whenever you feel like you have added in enough of star. Once you have added enough of stars using the same brush, you can add some bigger stars as well, a [inaudible] in places. To get those teeny tiny stars, consistency is the key. Your paint shouldn't be too watery and it shouldn't be too thick as well. It should be something in between. If you're not too confident about the consistency of your paint, the simple thing you can do is just dab it on a paper towel and the paper towel will absorb all the water content and leave your paint a bit dry. Then you would end up getting those, small splatters. That is one thing you can do. Or you can just try splattering on a scrap piece of paper and make sure the size is right and then splatter on your painting. Whenever I'm teaching to paint the night sky, I focus a lot on the size of the stars. The reason is that it can turn your painting into an absolutely stunning one, and again, also ruin your painting if the consistency is not right. If you're not too sure, always try splattering on a scrap piece of paper and make sure it will turn out right. That's a sky. For the next task, you will either need Payne's gray or neutral tint or black. Go with what you've got with you. The brand that I'm using here, ShinHan, they don't have Payne's gray instead they have neutral tint and that is the reason why I'm using neutral tint for all the paintings. Whenever you see me using neutral tint just use Payne's gray. Now using neutral tint, we're going to add some teeny tiny pine trees in the background, which are going to be in an abstract shape. We are not going to focus a lot on the detail. It is just an abstract shape. You can see the way I'm doing it here. These are really far from us, so you don't need to put a lot of effort in detailing them. In between you can add some bigger ones as well. I'll just take out a scrap piece of paper and I will show you how you can have these. This might be really small for you to understand it. I have a scrap piece of paper here. Now this is more like a water drop shape, but just a little more longer. Add in a similar shape. I don't know if there's any other name for this shape. Now, onto the outer side you can add some teeny tiny patterns. That's the basic idea. For the smaller ones, you don't need to add any of those patterns onto the outer shape, you can leave them as it is. For the bigger ones, you're adding, you can add some patterns on to the outer shape to make it look more realistic. I hope that idea is clear. Now, we can add in as many trees as you want. Some of them can be on the horizon line, and some of them can be on the snowy ground. For the ones I'm adding along the horizon line, I would simply add that base shape; I won't add any other details. Using the tip of your brush, just add some smaller shapes like this. The bigger ones are also not too big. Focus on the overall picture, don't focus on each and every tree. You can see the one I have added here , it's very attracting. In a similar way, at some places, add taller ones, and at some places add shorter ones. The one that are on the snowy ground, you can make them a bit more detailed compared to the ones on the horizon line. Quickly add in as many trees as you want on the entire horizon line. [MUSIC] You can see how pretty our painting is looking already. Over here, I added two bigger trees. Now I'm adding few on the horizon line, those are really tiny. I'm just adding base shapes using the tip of my brush. At some places you can create some group of bigger trees, and at some places you can create a group of smaller trees, and at some places you can go with different sizes. Paint it with all kinds of combinations, this would make your painting look more interesting. Don't add the trees in a similar way. Also, you can leave some gap in between. You don't need to fill the entire line with so many trees. Just add them in a very random order. Now, we'll add some shadows underneath these trees. I'm using my same brush and the same paint and I'm removing the water contents from my brush. You can see the paint I have on my brushes is slightly dry. Using this brush, I'm going to add some dry brush patterns underneath all the trees. Focus more on the trees which are on the snowy ground. As I said earlier, we just need a [inaudible] patterns, don't make it too prominent. Dub you brush [inaudible] multiple times to make sure that there's no much paint on your brush. Add very light and very little dry brush patterns underneath all the trees either using paints gray or neutral tint or black, just make sure not to highlight and make it too prominent. These are really far from us, so don't focus a lot on the detailing. We just need to see some shadows and [inaudible] there, it doesn't need to be too bored. That is it. I'm really loving the way this painting is progressing. You can really feel that sense of distance in this painting. It is really looking like those pine trees are far from you, and that is why we made those trees very small to bring in that sense of distance. Our next task is to add some details on the snowy ground. I'm planning to add a fence over here, not a continuous fence, maybe just one or two wooden post. Otherwise, our ground will look really empty. Along with that, I think we can also add a pathway using a really light turn-off neutral scent, our payne's gray. I will add that first. Depending on that, I will locate my fence. Go with a light tone of payne's gray on your portrait , that will [inaudible]. Add a curvy line which has to be really thin, especially at a place where you're starting your line. Make it curvy and bring it down. Over the bottom, maybe you can make it a bit more thicker. But not the slanted line, go with some dry brush line. In a similar way, I'm adding another line. See that? It looks so pretty already. We haven't added any paint onto the snowy ground. But our paintings is looking so personally without no much effort. That's the magic of paper white white. If you use the right amount of paper white, you can make your painting look super snowy and you can really bring in that window vibes in your painting. We just added a pathway using a lighter tone off neutral tint and we simply use our dry brush line. Next, I'm going to add a fence here, not a continuous fence, just one or two wooden post to make the painting look a bit more interesting. I'm going back with neutral tint, but this time I'm using a really intense tone. I'm adding the first wooden post and deliberately making it slightly inclined. These wooden posts are not really necessary if you're already happy with your painting and if you want to leave your crown very simple, you don't need to add this. Maybe you can check out the end result and if you feel like adding them, you could do that. Otherwise, you really don't need to. That's our first wooden post. Onto this. I'm going to add another one which I'm going to make it look like it has fallen onto the ground. I'm adding an inclined line like this. That's our second line. I'm adding another one which is going to be much more shorter. That is it. Our final task is to add shadow as well as some snow onto these wooden post. Wash all the paint from your brush and switch to a very light tone of indigo. You should be using a really light tone of indigo to add the shadows. If you're not too sure about the color, maybe you can try it on a scrap piece of paper and make double sure that it's too light. Just add in an inclined line. This totally depends on the size and height of your wooden post. The other one is quite taller, so the line has to be much more longer and it has to be in the same direction of the previous one. That's the shadow. I'm going to add a bit of deeper tone over here just to make it look like it has gone into the ground. Similarly, keep doing the same thing onto the other two wooden posts as well. I haven't taken any other extra paint on my brush, I just have a light tone of indigo. The brush has some amount of indigo and it is slightly wet. I'm just marching that same neutral tint of the wooden post, I'm not taking any other extra paint. Finally, we need to add some snow onto these fence. I already have some leftover white gouache from which we used for the sky, so I'm just picking the same. Go with a very thick and opaque version of white gouache or white watercolor, and add some snow on the top of this wooden post. The rest of them are on the snowy ground, so even if you add them, it won't be really visible. Just add some snow onto this one. Along with that, you can also add some dry brush lines on the wooden post as well. Don't add much water to your white gouache or white watercolor, go with dry paint and add some patterns. [inaudible] we don't need a lot, just to make it look like there are some snow. That is it. We need to add some last minute touches on the ground. Right now it is looking quite clean and empty. I'm washing off the paint from my brush, and I'm pulling back with a little of neutral tint, a very light tone. I'm adding some random patterns on the ground, they have to be really small and less prominent. Don't go with a bold color. We just add few here and there, especially closer to the wooden post. That looks good enough, I'm going to leave it here. For the last detailing, I'm going to switch to my drawing pen. This one is a drawing pen from Artline. You can use some very basic normal black pen. I'm going to add some strings onto these wooden post. If you're confident enough, you can use your brush as well. I'm not that confident. I don't want to accidentally add a bold thick line. I'm very sure I won't get this kind of line with my brush, so I'm just using my pen instead. That is it my dear friends. We are done with our painting for the day. I'm really happy with the sight, especially the colors we used for [MUSIC] the sky and the snowy ground. I really hope you guys enjoyed it too. It was an easy one and it turned out really pretty. Thanks a lot for joining me today. I'll e back here soon with our next project. [MUSIC].
6. Day 3 - Foggy Night: Hello. Welcome to day three. Today's painting is going to be a really simple but a pretty snowy, foggy landscape. The entire painting is going to be in one single layer. We don't have to wait for the ink to dry. We can keep on adding the colors in one single layer. You just need three colors for this entire painting, which is violet, indigo, and neutral tint. The violet I'm using here is permanent violet, the same one we used to yesterday, and this is one of my most favorite color. You can see that by looking at the tube itself, I'm almost finishing this too. Here is a closer look of the painting that we're going to do today. You can see those foggy trees and that beautiful snowy ground. Everything's looking super snowy and foggy. It is quite easy to create this effect. You need to add all the colors onto your background while you're background is still wet, so you have to be bit quick and consistent. That's the only important thing in this painting. The rest is quite easy because there is not much complicated details on this even for the trees, we're not going to go into detailed shape, we are going with a very abstract shape, see this? You can do this painting quite quickly as you don't need to wait for anything to dry. Maybe altogether you need just 20 minutes or even less. So for the sky, I'll be using violet. As I said earlier, the one I'm using here is permanent violet, you can mix and create your own violet. That's absolutely okay, or you can go with any other color of your choice. For the pine tree, I'll be using indigo. For the snowy ground as well, I'll be using a lighter tone of indigo. Then for the pathway at the middle, you will need indigo as the last neutral tint or base cream. Then to splatter the snow and the stars, you will need white gouache or white watercolor. Those are the colors you will need for today's painting. I have fixed my paper already. Now let's add in the pencil sketch. It is not a difficult sketch, it is just a road. So start by a narrow road, as you're approaching down, make it more wider. So this is the shape I'm going. Over here, we have some trees. We don't need to sketch them. They'll be going into very abstract shape. We have taller trees on either end and as we are approaching the vanishing point, we'll make the trees more shorter. That's the basic idea. You don't need to sketch those trees. This is just an indication. I just want to show you how the painting is going to look like. Now, let's take a look at the colors. I already have them on my palette because the first one I tried didn't turn out right, so they are already on my palette. We have two colors I'll be using for the sky, violet and white, other than these, you will also need indigo, will be using indigo for the pine trees as well as for the snowy ground. Other than those, you will also need Payne's gray or neutral tint or black, and also white gouache to add the snow. These are the colors you will need. Now, I'm going to start by applying a coat of water onto the entire paper. You don't need to leave the road or anything. You can simply apply a coat of water onto the entire paper. So I'm going to grab my 1.5-inch wash brush and I'm applying a clean even coat of water. Keep running your brush multiple times to make sure the water has reached everywhere, and you haven't left any part of the paper. The paper has to be evenly wet because we are going to paint the entire background in one layer. The paper is evenly wet, now I have the colors ready here. I'm starting off with violet. I'm going with the bright and intense tone of violet. This one is permanent violet, the same color we used yesterday. I'm applying that on the top of my paper. I'm using a flat brush here. I think I may need a bit more violet. That is enough. Now let's add the paint again. I'm adding some water, you can see the color I'm going for, it's really bright. Now, we need to make the color lighter. For this painting, to make the color lighter, I'm not dipping my brush in water, whereas I'm taking some white gouache and I'm making the color lighter. Some people might feel offended by what I'm doing here because this is not the way how traditional watercolor works. To make the color lighter, we always use water, not white gouache or white watercolor. But for me, I do watercolor in my own way, I don't follow the rules. I just do it in my own way and if it makes me happy, that is what I care. If you are so much inclined towards the rules, just use water instead of white gouache or white watercolor and make the color lighter and make it till you reach almost to that road. Our next step is to add the trees. Our background has slightly dried, it is not wet as before. But that's fine, the sky is wet because we just apply the paint onto the sky. We're going to switch to indigo and we'll be adding some abstract trees in the background. As the background is still wet, they will nicely spread into the background looking really blurry and that will bring in that foggy character to our painting. To add the trees, I'm going to use my round brush. This one is size number eight round brush. You can use any of your medium to be size round brush. To add the trees, I'm using a medium tone of indigo. If your bottom part has completely dried, maybe you can apply a coat of water just over here. Now, I'm going to switch back to my round blush and I'm adding the trees, see that. So this is how your paint will spread into the background when you're adding those trees as you're applying this paint on a wet background. Your paint shouldn't be too watery. If you feel like it's too watery, just dab it on a paper towel and keep adding some abstract shapes like this. The tree should be shorter at the center, which is the vanishing point and as you're going away from there, make them more taller. You can see the way I have added my trees here. In a similar way, I'm going to add the trees in the other side as well. Starting with a medium tone of indigo. Over here, your trees has to be taller and as you're approaching the vanishing point, make them shorter. This is the base layer, we used a medium tone of indigo. Now I'm going to go with a bit more brighter tone, I'm adding some random shapes like this. In this one, we're applying in the trees in the foreground and the lighter tone will look like the trees in the background. You just need to drag your brush towards the top and add some shapes like this. It's like a conical shape. We are trying to create an abstract shape of a pine tree here. I'm just pulling the paint towards the top. Now for few trees, we can add a pine tree shape on the top. Again, it doesn't need to be detailed. We are going to create a foggy effect here, this will be really blurry when the paint dries, so just to add a very sharp shape, you don't need to show the entire tree. Just add some foliage on the top. I added two trees on the left side. I will add two or three on the right side as well. Our background is still wet, so you can see how they are spreading into the background. They are now already crisp and sharp shape. I added two trees over here. Maybe another one here, a taller one, so the composition will look nice. I'm just pulling and pushing my paint towards either side and adding some sharp shape. I think that looks nice, maybe I can add one sharp tree over here. It is looking so foggy already. Now we can drop in some darker tones, just some random dots and shapes at the bottom. That is set. Now let's paint the road. I'm using indigo for the road, going with a darker tone. The base layer is going to be indigo and we'll be adding more darker tones using neutral tint. The background is still wet. You can see how the paint is spreading into that snowy ground. That is exactly what we need to create that foggy effect so don't worry about that. You can see the outer edges of this road. Right now the border is looking a little messy. We want to get rid of that feathery look, for that, I'm getting a clean brush. So this one is my size number four brush. You can even use a smaller or a bigger size brush, the size doesn't matter. Go with any of your round brush. It has to be really clean. Now, just keep on pressing your damp brush along that outline and get rid of that for feathery look, you can do that over here as well. My brush doesn't have any paint, it is just slightly wet. Keep pressing on that outer border. This is it, you can see how pretty our painting is looking already. So the base layer is done. If you look at the painting, you will feel like there is some deeper tones and some details missing, and that is exactly what we're going to do next. For that, I'm going to take a bit of neutral tint, you can also use Payne's gray. If you don't have neutral tint or Payne's gray, you can also use black. I'm going to squeeze out a bit of neutral tint. We'll be adding some deeper tones on the road and we'll add some branches on the pine trees and few deeper tones on the snowy ground as well. I'm going to go with the darker tone of neutral tint. I'm using my smallest size brush. When you're adding the deeper tones, don't add it too close to that bottom. We want that indigo shade along the outer border of the road so leave a small gap and then start adding the darker tones. You can make it really dark at the bottom end. And as you're approaching the horizon line, don't make it too dark, so go to a really dark tone and add it along the bottom corner. Then keep pulling that paint and add some deeper tones on the entire road. Now we can make this area more darker, go to a more intense tone of neutral tint, dark Payne's gray. When you are adding a deeper tone on this corner, try to leave a gap in between so you will get a nice line through that road which will make it look like the road marking is visible, which is a really blurry one. It isn't very sharp and prominent. It's a very small detail, to be honest, but then it is going to have a huge impact on your painting. It will make that road look like it's real. Now you can see how pretty our painting is looking already. I have added enough of deeper tones on the bottom corner. I made it a bit lighter as I was approaching the vanishing point. I think the colors have come out really great. This is the line I was talking about. It's just a very simple line, but it made a lot of difference in our painting. Our next task was to add some details on the snowy ground. We haven't added any paint onto our snowy ground, but it is too looking super snowy. I think it looks fine. But maybe we can add some more deeper tones. We'll be adding some branches onto the pine trees as well using the neutral tint. First, let's add those deeper tones in the snowy ground. For that, I'm going with the light tone of neutral tint. We're going to add some dry brush patterns using the lighter tone of neutral tint, add some water and make the color lighter. Once you have taken paint on your brush, dab the brush on a paper towel, and remove the excess water content. Now just add some smaller random patterns. We don't need a lot, just a few here and there. We're going to retain most of the paper white. Be sure not to add a lot. Also, keep in mind, we don't need these patterns to be too prominent. Go with a light tone of neutral tint, dark Payne's gray, and add some teeny tiny dots and some broken lines. You can see the way I'm adding them. I'm just pressing the tip of my brush and adding some messy patterns. That is done. Now the next task was adding tree trunks for these pine trees. We'll have to go the very thin and delicate line as they are too far from us. Be sure to go with any of your brush which has a pointed tip. You can use your detailing brush like size number zero or one. We need them very thin and delicate. It shouldn't be too prominent. If you're not confident about adding these lines, you can either skip them or add them using a black pen. First, I will add some deeper tones at the bottom. Just like how we added on this snowy ground. I'm just adding some little dots and some broken line, but it's a more deeper tone. Maybe we can add few random dots on this snowy ground as well. So that we don't need to add them again. Now adding some branches and tree trunk. See, look at the line I'm adding here. They are very thin. They are hardly visible. This is how you should be adding your tree trunk as well. Go with a medium tone. We don't need a really dark and prominent line. You can add some branches onto that tree trunk. This line has to be really thin and delicate. If you make them too bold and prominent, you won't get that foggy effect. Be sure to go with a detailing brush or just use a pen, as I said earlier. Now, I'm just going to add some more deeper tones at the bottom so that we can really define that area. I think that looks fine. I'm just adding some dry brush patterns over here using a medium tone of neutral tint. Don't take a lot of paint on your brush, go with some dry paint and just keep pressing your brush over here. Our idea is to define those pine trees so we want to make that bottom area more dense. Now I'm going to do the same on the right side as well. I'm just dragging my brush and adding some darker patterns using a dry paint, only at the bottom. I won't be adding this towards the top. The top, I'm going to leave it as it is. We want that snowy and foggy character on the top. Be sure not to add any darker tone over the top. Now we can add those branches on the tree trunk. It is just a simple straight line, but very thin and delicate one. Now onto that, you can add few branches as well. That is it. To define these pine trees, we simply added some dry brush patterns using a darker tone of neutral tint, and we also added some branches. Now we need to add few more details onto the snowy ground. I feel like the right side is looking pretty empty. I'm going to go with a lighter tone of indigo. Just over here, I'll just add some indigo, a really light tone. The other side is looking okay as there is no much snowy ground over there. But this side, it's huge. I'm just adding a lighter tone of indigo over here. I'm using a really light tone of indigo. I'm just dragging my brush towards the inside from the masking tape. Our painting has completely dried. This is how it is looking right now. Now the last step is to add a moon and also to add some stars and some snow onto the painting. Clean your brush properly. I'm going to cover the bottom. I'm grabbing some white gouache. Now I'm going to take out another brush and I'm tapping on my smaller brush and creating some stars. These can be considered as [inaudible] stars. Keep tapping on your brush and adding in [inaudible] dust into your sky. That's done. Now, I'm going to add a moon using the same bright gouache. I'm going to add a tiny circle. You can decide on where you want to add it. I'm going to add it over here. I don't know why I covered the bottom part because I want some snow over there as well. Once I'm done with the moon, I'll splatter some white on the bottom part as well. We'll have some snow on the pine trees as well as on the road. That's going to be the final task. Let me quickly add in the moon. I'm adding some bigger stars as well. Just pick some random area and add a bigger dot using same white gouache. I really love this painting, the color combination and that snowy feel has come out perfect. Now the final step is to add some snow on the road as well as on the pine trees. Just like how we added those dots on the stars, splatter some white dots on the road as well as on the pine trees. You can add it as much as you want. There is no limit. You can make it super snowy by adding lots of white. For me, the best part about this painting is that we didn't have to wait in between for the background to dry. We added everything in one single layer. Everything has to be super snowy and foggy. We need to make use of that wetness of the paper and add everything while the background is wet. Otherwise, we won't get that snowy effect. With that, we're
Zaneena Nabeel, Top Teacher | Artist
