Transcripts
1. Welcome to Monochrome world!: Watercolor is a dance
between pigment and water. Let them move and magic happen. Hi. I'm Swati Ji Hegde, a watercolor artist
by passion and a product manager by profession based out
of Bangalore, India, who absolutely loves
to spread the joy of watercolor and help others
also discover their potential. I'm also the brand educator for silver brushes from India. This is a five day challenge. In this challenge, we'll be exploring everything
about monochrome and how we can paint
beautiful misty landscapes, mainly with the misty pines, with one color each day. Monochrome is a beautiful
and calming way to create with just one color. You will learn how to paint
mood filled misty pines by exploring color values from the lightest washest
to the darkest stones, using only a single
pigment each day. I'll guide you through
understanding water to pigment ratios and creating
depth with simplicity. Each day, I'll be uploading
one class project with a different color
to show you how versatile a monochrome
painting can be. And in this, I have also added
one granulating pigment, which will be a very good
way to explore how we can paint using granulating pigments for landscapes as well. Whether you are just
starting out or looking to refresh
your fundamentals, this challenge will
help you grow with your watercolor confidence
one color at a time. So grab all your supplies. Let's go through
color values and get started with the class
projects one by one.
2. Supplies: No let's go through all the supplies that you'll
be requiring for this class, starting with watercolor paper. I'm going to use arches, cold pressed and
fine grain paper. This is of the size 15
into 30 centimeters. I'm going to cut
it into half and get a 15 by 15 centimeter paper. You can also try with
a different size of sheet if you're interested. I'm going to use a
pencil in some of the class projects for
drawing a very rough sketch. These are all the watercolor brushes that I would be using. These are all from the
brand silver brush, starting with silver
brush black velvet jumbo, and this is a small
size round brush, which is a jumbo round. Mainly I'll be using this. I'll be mainly using this for adding the
background wash or even wash of the
pigments where there is more number of
surface area to cover. You can use any
other bigger size of round brush or a flat brush for this purpose if you
do not have the same. Next up is two round brushes
from black velvet series. One is of size six. The other is of size four. Again, from silver brush itself. The other three brushes
that I'm going to be using are from silver brush, but belle aqua series. These are amazing,
synthetic sable brushes, and they give a
very great response on water control for me, and hence, I'm going
to be using it. These are travel size brushes, size four and six round brushes, and this is one liner
brush of size one. You can use any other
liner brush if you have or even the tip of your other
brushes will be helpful, and you will not need a
liner brush in that case. A jar of water, and make sure to keep cleaning this water after each of
the painting because this is a monochrome painting
and we do not want mixes from any other
pigments in your painting. A masking tape so
that we can tape down our paper to a bold. And this is a
transparent bold onto which I'll be taping
down all my sheets. This is a palette
where I have squeezed out all the paints that
I'm going to be using. I will show all the
paints as well later on. And in this palette, it helps me to
divide the pigments, where here I'm taking more
of the diluted pigment, and here I'm taking
less diluted pigment, and this is the maximum the highest value pigment
that I'll be having here. Now, I'm preparing
my palette that is adding all the
colors to this palette. This is a palette from Chero. This is an Indian brand, and I'll be using this because here, I'll be pouring
in all my paints, and here it will help me add
value with additional water or additional pigments so I can have the diluted forms
already available, and I do not have to keep
mixing on again and again. Starting with Tundra violet, this is a Schmiqe watercolor. So let me squeeze out some here. This is a granulating pigment, and it will have traces of brown violet,
as well as orange. I love how it forms
on the paper. We do not have to know much about all the granulating sheets for painting misty
pines, for sure. But using any
granulating pigment that you have for any of
these class projects will be very good because it is mist and it will have a
lot of water as well. So it's very easy to get different texture or
granules on the paper. Next step I would
take is, um Mm. Greenish umber from selineer. Next pigment is indehrneblue. This is also from
the brand selineer. Next is indigo. I would say that none of the misty pines are complete without having an indigo
painting with us. This is from the
brand white Knights. And also one more sepia from the same brand
white knights. I think it's dried
up a little bit. Nevertheless, this
is good enough. Now that I have squeezed
in all the paints into the palette,
while the class goes, I will show how I will
be adding water and making use of these pigments throughout the class project. For each class, we'll be
using one pigment each. So you can feel free
to choose any of the other colors of your choice or whatever you have
in your palette. Granulating pigment is
completely optional, but if you have, it will
give really good results, at least for the misty pines, and you do not have
to worry about any of the techniques you will need to know to use a granulating
pigment as well. So this concept is very good if you want to start
using granulating pigments. So this is about all the
supplies that we need. Now, let's understand what is the value proposition and get started with
our class projects.
3. Watercolor Value study: Welcome to this lesson. In this, we will explore one of the most powerful aspects
of monochrome painting, that is the value of pigments. This is the secret
to adding depth, form, and atmosphere
using just one color. Like how you can see in this painting with just one color, we have added
different variations, and to make sure that it
doesn't look completely plain, we have used the
different values of the pigments that we have. So what is value? Value refers to how light
or dark a color appears. In watercoloor, this is controlled not by
changing the pigments, but by adjusting the water, which I'll be showing
by scratching each of it from darkest to
the lightest shade. Lighter values is equal to more water and less
of the pigment. Mid values is balanced mix, which is these two
lines that I would say. And the darkest value is
less water and more pigment, which is our first line. So for any of your foreground
in your paintings, say, for example, I'll
take the indigo one. So any of your foreground
should be within the first line of your value. The midground should be
within these two lines, and any in the background
should be within these colors. Mostly, I have used
the background for skies so that we can
differentiate neatly. And why is value so important? It creates a contrast, helping objects
stand out or recede. It adds depth,
especially important in misty landscape
like pine forests. So, for example, here,
even with one color, we can see and observe
that there is a sky, there is a background mountain, there is a middle
ground mountain, and there are final pine trees. This is for re reference, and for the rest
of the painting, it's better always to have a value swatch cards
that are provided. This also helps
with water control while painting
directly on the paper, how much water adding
to your pigments? How will it come back
once it dries off? You will get this understanding
when you do a value swatch for each of the
pigments that you are using. I have currently swatched out
only for the two of them, but I would highly
recommend that you do the swatches for each of your
pigments that you're using. Additionally, we can also
control the value of pigments directly using directly with using water on
your paper itself. So once you have painted a
single stroke of the brush, say for example, how we
will do for this one. So we will add a darkest
line, and on that, we will keep on adding
water so that it creates a different
value that we desire. We can also use the
water splatters so that it creates a different depth and it gives
different dimension. So, for example, we
have used it here. This kind of variation we
are able to see because of adding water splatters
during the painting, which dries off and gives different values of the
pigment directly on the paper. Even with water control, you
can achieve a lot of things. But for a reference,
you definitely need to have a value
sheet so that you can understand how much of water addition will help
you achieve what results. So now let's get
started with swatching out for indigo and
Tundra violet, and then we can get started
with the class projects. For value study, I'm going
to be taking two colors, one granulating pigment,
and another one is our plain old indigo. So for the darkest tone, let me take directly from
the pigment here and add it. This is mostly
looking like black. Next up, I'll take the same, add one drop of water and
swatch that out here. For the same, I'm going to
add one more drop of water, mix it, swatch that here. And I'll repeat this process until we get the lightest
sheet that we want. While painting, we do not
have to mix all these colors. We will just go
ahead and mix one of the dilute shades and one
with less water in it. Just while adding
directly on the paper, we can add more water or more water directly
to the palette to make or to get the desired shade that
we are looking for. Next up, I'll do for a granulating pigment
that is tundra violet. So without any water, this is how it will be. It's also, again, very
much nearer to dark, I mean, very much
nearer to black. This is actually even more beneficial for any of the granulating
pigments because you will get to understand
based on how much water and how much
value of the pigment, you are getting, um, the different colors that
we are looking for here. Now that this paint
has dried off, there is a chance that it is not able to
granulate properly. So what I will do, there is one more technique in which we can try this. I'll
show you both. Once it dries off, we can still see the
granulation happening. But now I will add more number of pigment
here directly on the paper, take water and slowly pull it. Oh Once this dries, we can still see what are the different granulating
pigments that are available. This being the darkest tone. Now that we have gone through value study for two
of the pigments, you can see here that this is the darkest value, and
this is the lightest. It looks more like, you know, very light
shade of blue. And here, this looks like a
very light shade of gray. But if you observe, there are different granulations
available here. It is granulating to
a different shade of the pigments of orange also. Based on the tooth of the paper, the granulating pigments
usually settle down. And here you can see how much
it has neatly granulated. There is still some orange color which is trying to settle down. But here we can see that
it has dispersed into different shades of blue
violet, as well as orange. Now that we have gone through the value study for
two of our pigments, we are good to get started
with our class projects. So see you there in
the first class.
4. Day 01 : By the Lake: So let's get started. In this first class project, I'm going to have a rough sketch of how it would be looking. So I do have a separation here. So half of the paper, I will just draw a straight
line, and that is it. You can skip this if
you are very good with, um, not working with loose
paintings, basically. So here, this will be our pines and this will be a
river and a snow bed. To get started with, I'm taking the jumbo round small brush to apply water only to the
upper part of the paper. You can see that
I have taped down my paper to a transparent board. Any other block will also work. It should just be
water repellent. It should not be absorbing
water. Else, what will happen? The water applied onto the
paper will also be absorbed by your previous surface
and it will dry faster. Now that I have applied water, I'll just turn the paper. Okay. That is the water
section is turned towards me. Now, I'll start with
my size six brush, and the first pigment that we
are going to use is indigo. So I'm going to take
some indigo here. And draw a straight line. And I'm just gonna draw some
strokes from up to down. This will help in two ways. One is that I want to make sure this gives me the illusion of pine tree that is very
much background pine tree. And also, it adds
to a lot of value. So I can play with different
shades here and there, adding larger pigments
of indigo here, less pigments there.
I can do all that. You can see that
these threads are getting created because there
is a lot of water in this. So we can easily make
sure that doesn't happen. I'm going to take this
belly aqua brush, which is a synthetic sable
brush and dao excess of water from the
brush and just again, move it with the same direction so that all these water
strands will be picked up. And you can see that already the pointy tips of these
pines are getting created, which is exactly what I want. You can do this with
any of the brush, but just be sure that there is no water in the brush
when you are doing it. Switching back to this and
adding some more here. Now, the paper is
little bit dry so you can see that it is again
not getting dispersed. While this, you
should make sure that your brush also doesn't
have much of water. Take it with more
of pigments here and add additional
pines if you wish. This will create a one level next of the pines then compare
to the background ones. Once it dries off
with the difference in these values of the
pins that we are using, it will give you a very good
visual effect of having multiple pine trees in the different layers in
this background forest. Okay. Now, I'll turn it. I will not wait for
it to completely dry, but we'll start off with the next with adding the
snow bed and the river. For this, I'm going to be using dry brush
technique itself. So for the dry brush, I'll take, again,
the same brush. And now for this, I will take it on to here
and add two drops of water. So you can see this is how much diluted it is if
I just tab it off. So this is how much
diluted it would be. If you want, you can
draw the snow beds as well in the down section, or I'm going to go directly
with adding it with my brush. And one from here. Once I add this, next step is I'll switch back
to the small brush that I had and fill it
completely with the same sheet. This is a dry brush technique, but now what I'm doing again is wet on dry because my brush has a
lot of pigment in it. You can use any bigger size of round brush for this as well. Once it is added, you can see this is the lightest
shade I have been using. So let me take some more indigo, and at all these edges, I'm going to add a
little bit more. And even in bottom
of the painting. I'll make some
more water to this and I'll add here one more time. The whole point here
is not to make it completely one tone, right? So we want different values. So you can keep adding some
of the paints here, there. You can even show
ripples of water with the help of the same sheet, and just keep it different. We do not have to
follow that it is the exact reflection of
the paints or whatever. We just have to make
sure that it is not one single color
throughout our painting. And this is watercolors. So we, of course,
know that it will be drying one to
two shades light, and this is indigo. So it dries even more light. So I'm just trying to make
sure that once it dries off, we do not have a plain
painting with us. Now, I'm gonna let it completely dry for some time and come back. This is completely dry. Now I'm going to take and
add a few pine trees here. I'm taking a size four
round brush for this. You can take any
brush that you're comfortable with for
adding the pines. I'm just going to add
one pine tree here. This is our foreground pine. So you can make it as
detailed as you want. And you can also choose any
type of pine that you want, be it a dried one or the one
which is completely fluffy. You can take any one
that you are willing. Since this is a small one, let me add one more here. Even from this snow
bed, I'm going to add, which will be very
much nearer to us, so I'm going to add
a very long one. So let me add that here. This is a big bar that I have added. Now for this, I'll
be just adding um, dried out bars from this, and I'll stop it there. Here, this is good enough. Even from this side,
I will add one bark. So again, taking
some more indigo, and with one swift
motion, we need to add. So I'll just tilt it a little bit so that I can
get a good edge for adding a straight line like this to the edge here, I
will add some water. And also lift up some of it so that it seems like it's
coming on from the snow bed. And again, I will add
all these branches. In this you're
seeing, I'm adding the darkest tones so that, visually, it appears like
this is nearest to us, and it's almost black when
you're seeing in the video. Okay. So this is good enough. Now for the final touches, I'll take a liner brush, and again, take some indigo with it
and we'll just add some of the branches that might be coming from another
snow bed that is available. Also with the same one, I will add some splatters. So for that, I'll make sure that the other
parts are hidden and just splatter it here, taking a good amount
of water with this pigment and adding it. Similarly here as well. As you can see,
most of it is going outside of the people,
but that's okay. Yeah. For some of them, you can also touch and make
them abstract like this. Okay. This looks good. For the final one, I will also add bird. So do not make it completely. What you have got to do
is add one line and from, I would say, three fourth, add a bulge, small bulge, and then drag it again. This will be very This is a small change that you can do to make your birds
look more realistic. This is the final for
our first class project. Let's do the removal of tape. If anywhere your paper
is still not dry, do not start removing
the tape now itself. Only once it is completely dry, then you should be removing. This is how finally it has turned out. The dry brush which
applied here, it is giving us an illusion
of the snow or a bark, which is very much dry. And all these are our
background pines. This is our midground, and these are our main
foreground pines. Okay, so this is end of
our first class project. See you in the next lesson.
5. Day 02 : By the Mountains: Starting with our
second class project, I'm going to be using
the granulating pigment, which is tundra
violet from Schmike. So for that, I'm going to apply a very thin layer of water. I would say very thin layer just randomly because for
the sky I would need. And for that, also, I'm
using the silver jumbo, but you can use any other brush or a bigger brush that you have. So here I'm going to add
some more pigment to it because I want the lightest shade for the sky that I'm
planning to paint. So I'm adding more and
more water to this. Okay. And with
just some strokes, I'm going to add something
like a sky or a cloud. Once this is done, if required, you can add some more
value at some places. And I'm going to stop here. This is good. So I let
it completely dry for a few minutes and come back
to continue with the next. But before I go, let me tell you what is the plan for this. So here we have the sky. Next up, I'm going to add
mountains in the distant, and there will be
another mountain here, and then we will
have our pine trees. So with this, what we get to see is difference in the depth of the colors that we are using, as well as visually we can see different layers
forming the mist and coming to our pines. In order to fasten the
process of drying, I can also take a tissue or a paper cloth and just
dry it off a little bit. But I dry if I lift off water
somewhere near the clause, then it will create a hard edge, which I do not want currently. So wherever there is no
pigments, but there is water, I can just dab off and
remove. Okay, this is good. I didn't allow it to completely dry because I can
get dically started. Now with the same brush
that is size six, I'm going to take
some more pigment and add one mountain
in the back. Once I've added the
lining of mountain, next up is just taking water in my brush and pulling
those pigments down. And now completely
pulling it down. Okay. So here also, I'm just not completely
adding water anywhere. Just so that there
are no harsh edges, I am making sure that
everything is getting blended. Now for the second layer
of the mountains as well, I'm going to start now itself. So taking more of the pigment, I'm going to add
one more lining, I would say. Okay. For this, I'm going
to add more of paint. And again, the same
bringing them all down up to a certain point. Once this is done, I'm
going to take more of water and mix it here
directly on the paper. You see here there is a distant line that is getting created, and that's exactly
what we want to avoid. So I'll just take some
more water when the paper is still wet and
just try to blend or remove some places here and
there so that we can get that misty feeling.
Same with here. Okay. This is good. And since this is a
granulating pigment, um, the entire concept of
monochrome might not completely hold well because you can see different
sheets forming here. This particular shade,
tundra violet actually disperses into granulates
of orange violet, as well as some of the blues. But overall, it can look like a dark violet and sometimes
as sepia as well. That's the reason
working with granulating pigment for misty
pines will be amazing because even without
knowing the properties of the granulation or how to activate it, how
to work with it, if you simply paint with
the understanding of how a monochrome painting works with the difference of values and
water prepositions in them, you will be able to
get variated results for your misty landscape. And since it is a mist, we don't have to be perfect
with how it will turn out. So this works very
much advantage in this works very well
within your advantage. And now, before it
completely goes, let me also add a single
layer of pine here. Okay. So from the bottom,
I'll do one thing. I will turn it like how we had done in the
previous class as well. Okay. Based on how much
your paper has dried, it will come differently. And no need to worry. This can be different for
each one of you. This is just a very
background pine, I would say. So here, once it is done, I will just take some
more pigment and, um, increase the depth for
value in few of the places. Okay. Now, I'll switch back
to a very small brush, round brush itself, but
this is a synthetic one. And I'll try to add the details. Why? A synthetic brush? Because I want to have no
water contact with the brush, which will disperse it or
create watercolor blooms. So taking more of the
pigments and yeah, this is good enough consistency
and adding the pine here. Now, the paper is almost dry but not completely
dried as well. So this is when I will add
some of the pines here and there so that it disperses again with
the background water. It doesn't come as a
complete pine tree, but also we will get
the effect of having, you know, these branches
that are visible. If your paper is completely dried off till
now, do not worry. You can also paint like this. Say, for example,
here it is dried off. So once I paint, I will just take a tissue
paper again and dab off. So while doing this,
you are again, making sure that it is not of high value. It's not very dark. So it mixes with the back
and we will get the result. Okay. I switch back to size four round brush that I'm using for
adding the pines, as this is a smaller
size paper I have taken. Now for this, I will add
the highest value pine, one here, one straight line. And next the other details. This is also a good
way if there are any mistakes that have
happened in the bag. You can with the help
of this, you can just, you know, um, cover it up. There is another class
where I have thought about how to add these
pine trees as well. If you want to learn how I'm adding all these pine
trees effort Leslie, you can go through that class. But again, the pines
doesn't have to be perfect, so you can go ahead with your version of
pine tree as well. In the darkest value, granulating pigment is equal to not having any granulation. So it will be the darkest color. It may be looking as a black. Switching back to a
smaller size brush. Because of its strong tip, it gives a very detailed
branches that I'm looking for. If you're going with a
thicker branch pine, you can just stop at the
previous step itself. Also, you should
be doing this when the paper is completely dry, else it will again get
matched with the back. I'll be adding one more here. But this won't be
a complete pine, so let me make it a big one. Okay, this switch back
to a small size brush, and I'm going to add
only the branches. So if all the leaves
of the pines are gone, how it looks, I want
to add only that part. So as you go, of course, it needs to be in a triangle. So as you go, keep
increasing the size. And now that the
outer layer is done, make sure you're adding small branches in
the middle as well. Okay. Next to it,
I'll add one more. You can add how
many hour you want, and you can stop also when you feel like it is having
good enough amount. I'll add just a small
foreground pine here. Okay. I'll not add
any more pines here. This is good enough. Again, you can close it off with a bird
or you can leave as it is. I'm going to add a
distant birds here. For Okay. Now, let's remove the tape. Again, make sure your paper is completely dry before
removing the tape, else there may be chances
that it will tear off. You're following and
painting along with me, I would request you
to post this as a project in the project and
resources section so that I can also see how your
granulation has been working and how your
landscapes are coming up. This is how it finally looks. I love how the
granulation here is giving a beautiful
effect of orange. And here for the sky, also, we have a gloomy addition
with the help of that orange. So this is end of our
second class project. Meet you in the next class. Oh
6. Day 03 : By the Valley: Now, for our third
class project, I'll be working with Iditrneblue from selinere and
to get started, going to apply one layer
of thin layer of water, just a glaze, I would
say, on your paper. Okay, this is good enough. I have already taped down
the paper, so that is fine. Now with the same brush, that is the round,
small jumbo round. I'm going to take It's a lot, so let me just take it here. Yeah. You see, this is
a very diluted version, and from one edge, I'm going to apply it
and tilt the board. Okay, and bring it all
down like a gradient wash. Okay. So this is just a simple gradient wash and with just one color,
I have done this. You can also do this with any other round brush that you have or a flat brush as well. Next, I want, again, the glaze of the paper, the water glaze which is here, it to dry a little bit, not too much, but definitely a little bit it should dry off. So I'll wait for, say, two to 3 minutes
for that to happen. So now with this, I'll explain what I'm going to do
with this painting. So we have the lighter
shade which is there, that would be our sky. And the darker shade
which is there, there we will add on more
and more layers of pines. Now, I started with turning
my paper upside down. Reason being it is always easy to start with
the darker shed of the gradient and move it
towards the lighter shed. And hence, I have done that. If you're comfortable
doing other way around, you can also do it that way. Even for the next few
steps of the painting, I will be doing the same
that is painting from here, the other way around, painting
from down to the top. So I will keep it
like this only. Okay, waiting for the middle
puddle which is there, that to be a little bit more dry but not completely
dry as well. So until this middle
portion dries, let me start with the
second part of it. So for this, I'm taking size
six round brush and, um, the consistency of my paint should be good enough
without much water, but also not very pigmented. So it should be flowy like this. Let me show. So this is the consistency
that I'm looking for. Okay, I'll start
again from here and add these white strokes. Okay. Once done before it starts
to dry off completely, I'm taking water in
my brush, lots of it, and dropping on my paper. This is one more way of getting great misty pines
or a misty landscape because you're
adding some water or mist effect with the help of the water droplets
onto your painting, and it will always be random. So that's why it works wonders, and you can do it
multiple times as well. Okay, I'm going to
do it one more time. Now I'll turn it over. And
with a synthetic brush, I'm going to take
more of the pigment. It should not have too
much water in the brush, and this is a size This is
a smaller sized own brush. This is size six from silver
brush belly aqua brush. And I'm going to add pointed lines along
with the pine leaves. Okay. It doesn't have to
go till the end. We just want to add little bit so that it also
disperses from the back, and it's also visible like there are leaves of the pines
that we are adding. So if you have too much
water or if you're using a squirrel brush, it may dispose a lot because it is difficult not
difficult, I would say, it is more challenging
to do water control on these brushes because they work wonders with watercolors
and wet on wet. So now that I want a
semi dry technique, I would go with a
synthetic brush for this. A, I'm not adding this for each and every one of
it, only for a few. So here, let me add
for this as well. If you feel like your paper is getting dried up at a place, I would say focus more
first towards that portion. You can always come back where the water is there later on. Now, I'll take a
small size brush and just add a tip here. This is the smallest
own brush that I have. Okay. More of it, you can try to add
with the same brush, but with a lesser
value of pigments. So for that, I will
take a tissue paper, mix it with the pigment, but dab off most of it
and we'll add it here. This is one movie
because you're adding more water means you're
diluting the pigments. But because of more water, it might dispose a lot on
your paper once you add. So better to always,
first of all, use a synthetic
brush and secondly, to dab off excess of water and pigments
on your paper cloth. You can see how amazingly we are able to control
the water through this. So I'll continue the same. You see, this is what happens
if you have too much water. So let me just go
ahead and fix it. There's already too much
water in this area, so I'll come back to
this later probably and go with different place. Okay. So here with this, we have achieved almost two
to three layers of pine. So there is this one which
is very, just pointed tip, we are able to see a
triangle structure and in a lighter tone as well. Then next up, there is a darker, but again, the triangle shapes. And these are with somewhat definitive leaves that
we are able to see. I'll go ahead and add
more of water droplets. But of course, I'll
make sure that it doesn't go over
the sky region, but just for the bellow ones. Okay. So this is good. Before adding the
next and final lao, I'll see if I have to wait. When I observe the paper, means when I tilt it and try to observe where all the
water is dried off. This part, mostly
the water is dried, and this part, the water
is still remaining. So here I can start adding all my foreground pins
with the darkest value. So for that, I'm going
to again start with size six round brush
from black velvet. And the consistency for
this should be thick. Thicker than what
we had used here. Okay, whichever angle
is useful for you, you can take it to
add a straight line. So this is how big I
want my pine to be. I'm not focusing on
telling you how to add these spines because this
is a free flow technique, and you can choose
any pines to add, but I do have another
class where you can learn how I'm adding these
spines if you're interested. I have shared the
link to that class in about the class
project section as well. Even though I feel
like the paper is dry, there is some water
still remaining. So I'll come back to it once
it is completely dried off. So probably after
ten to 15 minutes. So until then, you can
also leave your painting to completely dry and then
start with the final layer. I hope you're
enjoying the process. And as in when you are done
with each of your painting, please share your projects in the project and resources
section so that even I can see and I can also give you feedback
on tips of improvement, and also you can share
with the entire community. So I'll come back after it
is completely dried off. Now this is completely dry, so I'll start with adding
a few more pines here. Again, taking the darkest value and adding a straight line. Continuing with adding
all the branches. For adding these big pines, you might need a bigger brush for the triangle that
you're going to add there, so you can switch the
brush if you want. I'll continue with the
same round six size brush. M Once this is done, I'll take the smaller
size brush that I have and add the details. This entire thing can be just done with one
process because these silver brush brushes
have a nice dip in the brush. I'm just showing
in case you have a different brush and
you want to still obtain that sharpness to all your pines, you
can do it this way. Okay. Adding one here as well. I If you want to retain at some places
the misty effect, what you can do is lift off
the paint from that place, like say here, and dap off
the excess paint from there. With this, say, for example, I had started
painting this here, which means there is
some misty effect here. So if I want to retain
that with this technique, I can continue to retain that. I'm using just one
brush now to show you how it can be completed
within the single brush. Here I'm adding a dry tree with only the barks
that are available. You can adjust the speed of the video with the help
of options given Wow. I'm going to keep it in the real time so that if
someone is following, they can do it at their own pace and also continue with me. U. This is like a valley where
here there is still depth. If you want, you can
also continue to add pine trees here as well. Now, I'm going to add the
final touch of birds. I think this is complete, so I'm going to start
removing the tape. I hope you are having fun
exploring monochrome, pine misty landscapes with me. If you have any doubts, you can feel free to
reach out to me on the discussions and
also on Instagram. You can also block my time for one on one if you want
to paint along with me and get any updates on
your progress life. So this is how the
final painting looks. This is the end of
our third painting in this series and see
you in the next class.
7. Day 04 : By the River Bed: We'll come back to
next class project. And for this, I'll be using the greenish umber from Seleniu. Let's do a rough sketch, very free hand drawing. It's going to be on a river bed. So this is this would
be my river bed. Okay, a very sharp
pointy this side. And here, there is still this is how the
land mass is going. Okay? And here as well, you have a little bit
of the river bed. So this much part is my river. For each and every painting, I'm making sure to take fresh
batch of water because it's always important to not mix any two colors for
a monochrome painting, and I do not want even
the diluted traces of my previous pigment
to be added here. So make sure you always fill in, absolutely new batch
of water for this. Okay. So for this, we will get started with adding water onto only the
background side of the paper. So I'm going to
apply here entirely. Background, we are always
following wet on wet, as you might have observed. Okay. So this is good enough. I'm just keeping um so that
there are no harsh edges. I'm just keeping some
water here and there. But we'll be mainly
focusing on this area only. To Let me add more of water to this pigment and starting
with the sky, right? So for this, I'm going to add just some strokes of this very diluted pigment and also add more of water
and bring it down. Okay, this becomes my
sky, and I'll again, tilt my paper like this and
tilt it in an angle this way. And now, this is too
much wet already. And here also, I
have a lot of water. So this won't work very well. Either I'll have to wait or I'll have to mix
more of paint to it. Okay. Even after
mixing the paint, I feel this is too much
diluted for the water here. So I'm going to dab off excess of paints here and start with, you see, this is good enough. So again, dab off
excess of water and had these strokes
that we have been doing in almost every class. I'm going to leave some space
here with a very dilute. I'm just going to add some
texture just so that it's not too white and get started with the
opposite side as well. Here, already, my
paper is a bit dry. Let me turn and see
how it is looking. Okay. So now we'll take some
water on my brush and splat. Here, I feel there are some
extra dispersion happening, so I'll just even
them out as well with a small round brush,
synthetic brush. And wherever you
feel like adding a little bit more value
of pigments for the tip, you can go ahead
and add those also. Okay. Now, I'm going to get
started with the river. So entirely for just
the river part, I'm going to add some water. It is okay if this
is still not dried completely. That's totally fine. Okay. With the same
diluted pigment, I'm going to add the water reflection just by starting with some
strokes of the same pigment. I'm going to leave this as it is and not add it completely. Here, I'm planning to
add more of pine trees. So that's the reason here, I'll be adding reflection now itself when the
paper is still wet. So for that, outlining
first, still here, and then again, making
the strokes this way. I will switch back to
the synthetic brush because I need sharper points. Before it dries off, I'll also lift some of the pigments here. This gives more realistic like there are
ripples coming up, water waves or, you
know, those formations. So it looks more realistic. Okay. Now, we'll
start with this one. Mixing a docker value
for the ground part. Once this much is done, we'll take some water
onto the brush directly, and with the same
pigments added here, I'm going to spread this across. Okay. Taking some more here
and adding the pines. These are good enough. For painting the
same kind of pines, you can go through
my other class. In this, I'm just focusing
on the monochrome and how to retain the values
of the pigments. Assuming this is the biggest van and it is coming from here, okay? So let me Even within this one pine tree, you can use different values to show difference in
the depth of leaves. So for example, here, I'm making sure that
the top part of each of these branches are having more
pigments than the bottom. We'll take a liner brush now and add some grass
kind of texture. Coming back to this one. So
here is the darkest value. I'll add some water and yeah, dilute it here
directly on the paper. So here also, we'll go
back to the liner brush and add this grass. I'm just adding some blobs here and there so
that when it dries, there is a difference and
the same here as well. I think I can add
one more dry branch here. So let me try that. This is a very dense, fine forest, I would say. There are a lot of them. It would not be the
same reflection of this entirely over here because
this is a little bit behind. Only the reflection of some of the dense things here
will be reflected back here. That's the reason you won't
see the similarities between these pines that we have drawn and the
reflection as well. For the final few detailing, I'm going to add plates. Okay. Now that these
are come here, let me just add some of the
branches for them as well. The same. I want to add here. So let me take a smaller
round brush instead of the liner brush because
this is more predictable. Okay, let me just go ahead
and add some directly here. I'm happy with how
this has turned out, so I will start to peel off. This is our fourth
monochrome, and by now, you should be able to
understand how value and the change in each of the values will add
depth to your painting, how to use what dilution of
pigments for your background, foreground, as
well as midground. I missed adding the bird here. So let me just add one as
well. A very tiny one. So this is how it finally looks. And this is end of our
fourth day in the series, and I'll meet you
in the next class. If you're following
along with me, make sure to post all this in your resources
section as well so that I can see and admire your paintings. See
in the next class.
8. Day 05 : By the Road: Welcome back to the
next class project. And in this, we
are painting with our last pigment
left that is sepia. And I have already taped down
my paper, and in this one, we are going to paint a road and the pine tree by the road. So for that, I'm going to draw a rough sketch for where
my road would come. So if this is our
horizon line over here, then here I can have a small S. And the end of the road. Similarly here as well. As in when it comes
near towards you, the road size expands. So there will be a curve here, but go like this. So let me just make this a bit straight so that it's
easier for us to paint. Okay. And of course, there will be divider lines
here that I will just add now for our
understanding purpose, and that will end in the
middle of the paper. Okay. Once this is done, I'm gonna get started. For this, we'll apply
water completely. There was some pigment
here on my tape because of which there is blue
colour going inside. Let's remove it with the
help of water itself. Blue is a color which
is highly pigmented. It's very difficult to maintain it, as you all might know. So be very, very careful when painting with any
shades of blue. So. So I will very
carefully remove this. Okay. I've applied
a very thin layer of water onto the paper. Now next step is adding
the background pines. So going to turn the paper. Take the brush and start
preparing the pigment. Before I start with the pine, let's paint a sky, just, you know, very, very diluted, I would say, even more diluted than this. Now that we have the sky, I'm going to turn it. And from this horizon, I will add some of
the pines for that. I'm again taking not a very
diluted one as this much, but a diluted pigment. Since we have already
water on the paper, we should dab off
excess paint, sorry, excess water from the brush and again start
with our strokes. So this would be
our horizon, right? Same thing here as well. I'll turn it again. So
this is what we have now. And I'll continue with
the same dilution, but we'll extend it to here. Same thing with here as well. So this becomes like
our base layer. Now, next up, adding some water droplets. Okay. Now we'll start with
the darker tones. Sepia is a beautiful
color for, um, painting. I'll start by adding value to some places wherever
we would require. So make sure there is
no water in the brush and just adding a outline here. With this, I'll also
try to extend it a little bit towards the
insides of this road path. Similar to here as well on
the other side of the road. Just adding an outline. Here it is too much
more than expected, so I'll just lift
off a little bit. Okay. Now, coming back to this. Just adding randomly. So that once we add the trees, it all lines up
and it look nice. Now, I'll again take
a diluted form and add the basic layer that
we would need for road. But just make sure to
leave this one line here that I'm leaving. Once done, I'm going to take this synthetic brush and try to lift off some of
the paints from here. If it is not coming too evident, I would just add
the divider line with the API itself. So
that should be fine. And now, again, starting
back with the pines. Here, there is one
background pine, but even within the painting, I want to make sure to provide different pines with
different value shades. So for that, I'll start with adding pines with a little
bit of diluted value. So from here and here, all these places I can start. So I'll just add a line. As soon as you see some
of the threads forming, just remove excess of water from your brush, and
you can continue. This is not the final value, so it should still be a
lighter shade itself. This was a mistake, but thankfully nothing
happened on the paper. Oh Okay. With all this, I can
start adding the pines. I switch back to
the synthetic brush because this is my go to
brush for adding pines. You see, as soon as
the brush changes, how water also is
behaving differently. This is what we get
with a synthetic brush, which is just amazing for
any watercolor painting. I will just dab some of the
excess water from here. The furthest one, I want
it to be very light. So I'm trying to get
the lightest sheet. If it is going to be same, I will just dab off so
that it becomes light. So I'm painting
for painting, say, two to 3 centimeters and dabbing it off. Same thing. We will start here as well. The furthest one is this, so I'll be adding
and dabbing it off. Okay. This one can be a bit darker since
it's near to us. Okay, now before it
completely dries, I'll just add some texture
here so that, again, we can get better depth. When here, let me
take very diluted one and add some of the pines. As soon as I add them, I'm going to dab away, so it will be very
distant and very diluted. Before I add the foregone prins, I'll just work on the road. Taking the darkest tone, I will add the divider lines. So as it goes away, it will be much lighter, so I will dab off a
little bit from there. With the lightest tone, again, I'm adding here. Okay. Here, as well, I'm
going to take again, and with dry brush, I will add some additional
depth to this road. Okay. Finally, we'll start
with the pine trees. I'm switching back
to size six brush and taking the darkest value of sepia here for adding these. I add one here, and
the other one here. So here, merging it with the ground and
again, dabbing away. This pretty much completes it. Before I conclude, I want
to add some droplets. So we'll make sure that
doesn't go anywhere else. I'm adding these similar
to this as well. For the ones that
have dropped here, just I'll add some
water and move them. Adding a bird here finally. Let's remove the tape. So this concludes our five day
challenge of painting with just one pigment that is monochrome and also
painting the misty pines. We have explored
different themes even within the misty pines, and this should help you how you can use
monochrome even in other landscapes with the
background foreground, midground concepts as well. You can use any other color
also to achieve all this. These are just my selection of the colors from my palette. I would love to see
all your entries, so make sure to post your work in the project
and resources section. And also, if you
have any doubts, do not hesitate to ask me on the discussions on Instagram.
This is the final one. So now seeing the next lesson for thank you and
final thoughts.
9. Thankyou and Thoughts : Thank you for joining the
challenge of painting five misty pine landscapes with just one color that is
monochrome watercolors. I hope you have
thoroughly enjoyed the class and have
learned how to use water to pigment ratio and the color values of
your colors to use it in any of the monochrome
paintings that you will be doing on your
own in the future. I had absolute fun in curating all these things for you along with these five
beautiful paintings. I would love to see
all your creations, so please make sure
to upload it in the project and resources
section so that we all can see and also I can see and give you my thoughts
about your painting. If you have any doubts, please do not
hesitate to reach out to me on discussions
or on Instagram. Until I come next time with
another such topic, Chiao.
Swathi Ganesha, Watercolor artist
