7 Day Watercolor Practice: Learn to Paint 7 Easy Landscapes

1. Introduction: This class, we are going to paint seven simple watercolor studies together step by step. Through these bite size projects, you will get hands on practice capturing a wide variety of landscapes and atmospheric effects, including mountain cliffs, serene beaches, vibrant sunsets, soft cloudy skies, snow clad peaks, dramatic, stormy skies, and more. Painting, theory is good, but practice is the real key to progress. Real skill comes when your brush hits paper. That's when you learn how water actually moves, how pigments mix, and how to master brush timing. That intuition and muscle memory only come from doing the work. To make this as easy as possible to fit into your busy schedule, every single painting lesson in this class is 30 minutes or less. You can easily complete a full study in one short sitting and walk away from each session feeling more confident and noticeably improved. I'm Mandar Marathe, a fine artist and art educator. If you love watercolor as a medium and want to build real confidence through deliberate, enjoyable practice, this class is meant for you. Grab your brushes, prep your paper, and let's jump straight into our first painting study. I'll see you in the class. 2. Important Points - Before We Paint: I want you to treat this as a practice to help you with that, I want you to keep the image size or the painting size very small. In this case, I've kept it four by 6 " that will help you to complete the painting in short amount of time. And also, if it goes completely bad, then you can start over very quickly without investing too much effort in it. One important thing which you have to do while painting with watercolors is to allow enough drying time between two layers. That way you will get your layers correctly and not have any blooming colors or unwanted effects. You can, of course, use a hair dryer to dry your paintings between the layers to speed up the process. All of the videos in this class are less than 30 minutes. Even if I consider the drying time in between, each painting should not take you more than 45 minutes of work with practice, you will be able to do this in lesser amount of time so that you can practice every day. Another thing is not to keep any painting incomplete. Lot of time, what happens is that we reach the middle point of the painting and we don't find it very pleasing, and so we are tempted to abandon the painting. Just don't do that. Go through the full process and see how the painting evolves. Most of the times, even the paintings which appear uninteresting in the middle of the process turn out to be very good in the end. Each painting of course will have some learnings for you. Happy painting. 3. Painting 1 - Vibrant Sunset: Welcome to this video. In this video, we're going to paint this painting which you see on your screen right now. And I'll be using cobalt blue, vermilion, chrome yellow, and burnt sienna for painting this. So I have this paper taped on my board, and I'm going to start with very, very light drawing. I have a line which goes down from here till here. And then there is a line which goes like this, which is a mountain in the distance. And I don't want to draw these lines very dark because I don't want them to show through when I paint over them. And there's going to be a large mango tree here and it'll have its trunk here. And there's going to be a bright streak of yellow orange here. This is a morning scene based on a photograph which I clicked a few years ago at dawn, and I like the silhouette which this scene has, and that's what we're going to paint today. I haven't drawn the streak because I don't want it to have any pencil marks. I'm starting with chrome yellow. And I'm going to lay that color like this. And then to use vermilion to paint kind of around it. Like this. I'm softening the edges, and now I'm coming in with cobalt blue. I want the scene to have more saturated color at the top. And as I come down, I'm going to add more water to the mix. So now I'm adding more water to make this color thinner, and I'm going to carefully bring it close to the vermilion patch and also paint here. I do not want this streak to go through this patch too much, and I need to soften this edge. That's why I've come in with a brush which doesn't have a lot of color on it or rather, it doesn't have any color on it. This is just plain water on my brush and I'm dragging it on this edge to soften it. I also don't want this streak to be too wide here towards the edge of the painting. And again, I'm softening this color. And for better impact, I'm going to throw in this saturated color in this now for it to mix through. But I have to be careful not to add too much of it. And I think I can go more saturated at the top. I'm doing this while this underlying layer is still kind of wet because once it dries, then you won't be able to get these gradations properly. And towards the bottom of the painting, I'm going to paint it more like a blue violet or purple And I'm going to try this color all over because I don't want any white paper to be left. So it'll be easier for me to paint the foreground later on. And I'll allow this thing to completely dry before I add any changes to it. Now that this paper has completely dried, I'm I'm now ready to paint the next stage of this painting. So I'm taking, again, cobalt blue and a touch of red to make a thin purple violet color. And I'm going to paint the distant mountain with this. And I don't want a very saturated and very dark color here. That's why I'm keeping it very thin. Again, I'm going to allow this to dry completely. Because after this dries, I'm going to paint the tree and the foreground and I don't want this color to get into the mountain. Now, this color also has dried and I'm ready to paint the tree. And if you want, you can draw the tree again with pencil if you don't see the earlier pencil marks. I'm not going to do that because I know where the tree needs to be. So now I need to mix a color which is very dark, so I'm taking in cobalt blue. And I'm adding burned sienna to this color. So what I'm getting is almost a black color, but it's not black. It has a particular color, which is not black, but we want it very dark. So now I'm going to come in and paint the foreground first, and then I'm going to paint the silhouetted tree. So I'm starting from the left edge, and I want to indicate some shrubs in the foreground. That's why I'm not keeping this edge straight. I'm going to paint ups and downs in this which obviously read as shrubs against the bright sky in to mix more color. And here, the requirement is not so much about a particular color. We want a color which is pretty dark. That's the aim. And I'm using mostly vertical brushstrokes because I'm suggesting some shrubs and grasses and things like that in the foreground, which is, again, a hill or a mountain on which we are standing and looking at the horizon. Okay, now it's time to paint the large mango tree. So I'm mixing the color again with burned sienna and cobalt blue. Make sure you have a thick color. And I'm going to paint the trunk first and then add the foliage. So I'm going to start like this and paint the trunk upwards. I'm making sure that the branch is becoming thinner towards the top, which is how the Tree leaves or tree branches are, and I'm going to start from here and I'm also making sure that I keep some sky holes so that it doesn't look like a cutout. And you also need to take care that you don't paint this tree very symmetric or manicured, which we tend to do as humans because we like symmetry, but the trees aren't very symmetric unless they are pruned and maintained. And I want a wild tree here, which is not manicured or pruned I'm adding these smaller brush strokes towards the edge of the tree to make sure they read as smaller leaves. And while I'm doing that, I'm also going to add some shrubs at the bottom, maybe some blades of grass which are at the horizon. And since this first layer of dark color has almost dried, if not completely, I'm going to create some marks here which also read as the lighter areas read as flat land which is maybe some very thin grasses are growing, and wherever the color is dark, it reads as shrubs or some things like that. I'll allow this to dry completely and then remove the tape to show you the finished painting. Now, this painting has completely dried and we are ready to take off the tape and reveal the painting. So always pull away from the painted area so that even if the paper peels, it doesn't remove the painted area. And that's the final ready painting. I hope you enjoyed this simple landscape, and you will give it a try yourself. Thank you and see you in the next video. 4. Painting 2 - Snow Clad Peaks : Welcome to this video. In this video, we are going to paint the scene which you see on your screen right now. And for that, I'm going to use ultramarine chrome yellow, vermeilion red. And now I'll start the painting. But before that, we need to sketch the scene on this 300 GSM paper which I have taped to my bowl. And let me start with sketching the outlines. Here is the base of mountain. And this line needs to be pretty much horizontal because this is where the focal area is. This is the outline for the large mountain. And then we have the horizon line here and the top of the mountains which are very much distant and which have snow on top of them. So I'm going to mark some areas which I want to preserve as white. And then we'll have a bunch of trees here. And there'll be clouds in the sky. There'll be one cloud which will be here, which will be a white cloud and a smaller one here, and the rest of the sky is going to be blue. Of course, the top portion of the sky is going to be more saturated blue. And as we come down towards the horizon, it's going to be much more lighter blue. And we need to preserve some portion of this scene or some portion of this water body for the reflection, which is something like this. I'll not paint anything here. So with that done, I'm going to start with wetting my paper here. I'll wet it till the base of this mountain. I'm checking that it should not have any major beads of water floating around because that will not create a nice spread of the color. So now I'm taking ultramarine blue, and the idea is to drop the color and not to apply it so much. I'm dropping the color like this here and I'm going to also tilt the paper as required because I don't want the color to spread more than what I want. Maybe a cloud here. And now I'll get rid of all the color on my brush or maybe a very, very thin color and just apply it here. I don't want any hard edge here, so I need to be careful about this. Yeah. And I would have liked more of this area to be cloud. So what I can do now is dab this tissue to take out some of the blue in that region to make the clouds larger. So this is also one way of suggesting clouds. If I want to get rid of more or I want cleaner cloud, then I can just wet this area with clear water and then dab it again to take out more of the color. And I think I will leave it here because I've tilted my paper. I need to support it like this only till it dries so that it doesn't the color doesn't flow down too much. And what I can do in the meanwhile is to add some color here. And I also lost some of this white area, which I had preserved for the snow. So I'm going to dab color out of that. And allow this thing to dry completely before I proceed. Now, this layer of color has dried completely, and now I can proceed with the further layers. So now to paint the bins, I'm going to use the same ultramarine blue. But this time, I'm going to use it slightly more intense or thicker. And let's see how this looks. And I'm going to make sure that I keep the area for the snow pretty much unpainted. So I'm carefully painting around those areas which I marked. And You have to make sure that the color doesn't dry while you paint paint the scene or paint this portion of the scene, which is the mountains. Otherwise, it'll create some layered feeling. So I'm going to leave this at this Yeah. And also, I had a brushstroke which came out here. I'm not worried too much about that. But what I'll do now is I'll continue with this blue and paint around. Remember, we had marked some area which we should not paint, and now I'm painting the area which we should paint. And why we are leaving this area unpainted is because there is a reflection of the sky or the cloud in there. That's why I'm keeping it unpainted. And the rest of the area of this water poddy I'm painting with this blue. The same blue as the sky Iuntain. As I come towards the right, I should actually mix some vermilion into it to make it slightly darker. I'm making sure that I'm using only horizontals because what I'm painting is water. One important thing about this line is that it should not be horizontal because otherwise, it'll create three uniform portions of the scene which are not so great. So this has to be not parallel line to this. So that's what I've done now, and I will wait a minute for this to dry because next I want to paint this mountain, and for that, I want this completely dry because I won't be touching or maybe to some extent, I'll touch here, but this color should be dry by then. But let me see if this area has dried, yes. So now I can proceed with The color for martin, which is going to be a green. So what I'm going to do is re use this or use this ultramarine and then add chrome yellow into it to make it into a green. And I want to keep it and not too thick. Yeah. Let me see how this looks, looks good. And I'm going to add some variation into this once I start painting this. I'm using brush strokes which come down like this. Maybe I should have used a larger brush, but this is also fine. I'll have to just apply more brush strokes. I'll take it till here. And by this time, this blue has completely dried, so I don't have to worry about it getting mixed with this blue. And I can now this is already semi dried because the color is so thin, so I'm going to use this same color once again and create this kind of texture on the mountain. Always using brush strokes in the direction of the slope. And at the bottom of the mountain, I'm going to paint it again because this area is going to be having some shadow making this area dark. And now I can proceed to paint this area at the bottom. Because this is much closer to me or closer to the viewer, I'm going to paint this even brighter, which means I'm adding more chrome yellow to it. And let's paint it simply like this. I also plan to make this area slightly darker at the bottom, because it's a compositional thing that the corner should be always dark of any scene so that the viewers attention remains in the focal area and doesn't go towards the corners of the painting. So slight value change or color change at the bottom of the mountain. And now I'm ready to keep this again or give this painting a few more minutes to dry before I add any other details. Now this painting has dried completely, and I'm ready to add the next level of details. For this, I'm going to need darker green because I want to paint some larger trees here and some trees or suggestion of shrubs and trees on this mountain and near the focal point. Before that, before I forget, I'm going to make one line of blue near the bottom of this mountain. Which I could have or should have done at the start or when I was painting this, but I just missed that? Yeah. That looks good now. And now let's make a dark color, dark green. So again, starting with ultramarine blue, and I'm going to add some red to it and also some yellow to it. What I want is a dark green, which this is not, so I'm going to add more blue to it. And now I have a green or greenish color, which is very dark. So I think this should be okay. Let let me test this. First, let me indicate a few trees or bushes here. And I want these to be very, very tiny because they are so far away from us. And maybe some here. And I want some trees here at the focal point. So I'm using vertical strokes to suggest these trees. So what I've suggested is a bunch of trees growing on the slope and at the end of this headland. And I want to use this same line to seem dark green color to be used here. And I'm going to paint now the larger trees which are here. So I'm going to use the brush like this. So these are the trees which are on this shore. And I can make or I should make this colour slightly thicker because I want them to be very solid. A. I'm very carefully painting these trees. And something suggesting some dark objects here, maybe a rock or something. And I think I can make some of these areas in this mountain slightly darker towards the right. So what I've done is I've taken this same color, made it dilute, and I'm going to use this brush strokes to kind of give some variation in the color. Yeah. Now what I think is what has happened is this area has become too light. So what I'm trying to do is I'm taking this ultramarine very, very thin, and I'm going to see if I can correct this so that the snow on top of the mountains can shine more brightly. Now you can see that I'm not adding too much of water. I'm using a fairly dry brush because I don't want the color to spread so much now. This is the correction which I'm doing. If you get this color of this intensity at the beginning, then you need not make this correction. But since I did not, the color did not turn out to be that intense which I needed. I'm doing this. So in a way, I'm showing you how to fix things. First, we used a paper towel to take out color or lift color when we needed more white. And now I'm adding blue very sparingly where I want the color to be. And now the only thing remaining is I want some variation in the foreground, which I'm going to do by using the same color but thin, and I just want to make some streaks so that it doesn't look like there is this very flat land. And I think that's enough. I'll wait for this painting to dry so that we can remove the tape and see how it looks. Now, this painting has dried. I don't get any color on my fingers, so I think we are good to remove the tape and reveal the painting. There it is. I hope you enjoyed watching this scene being painted and also hope you will yourself give this a try. So now it's your time and see you in the next video. 5. Painting 3 - Soft Cloudy Sky: Welcome to this video. In this video, we're going to paint the scene which you see on your screen right now. And for that, I'll be using cobalt bloom, yellow ochre, chrome yellow, and vermilion. I have this paper taped on this board, and I'm going to draw the scene, the outlines first before we start applying the colors. So here is the horizon line. When we draw horizon line, especially when we are painting any scene that involves C, we have to make sure that it's perfectly horizontal. So that's what this line is right now. Then there is a headland or a mountain which is seen like this. The seashore is something like this. And some part of it will have darker color, and the rest will have the color of the surf, which I will try to keep white as much as possible. Let's see. And then there is a hedge kind of thing or distant trees which are like this. And then we have a bunch of trees which are closer to us than these trees. This is the area which has some grass on it, and then we have these trees. No drawing them very detailed because anyway, they are going to be a suggestion. These trunks may or may not be visible individually. So the trees will be something like this. And these trees will cast a shadow. Something like this. And the sky will not be very clear, but it will not be filled with heavy clouds. There'll be some suggestion of grayer clouds and then clear sky, which I obviously won't be able to draw here, but you will see that when we start painting it. So now I have to first thing, wet my paper, and I'll wet it only till this point where I will be painting the sea. So clear clear plain water, and I'm wetting this surface here, till here. Okay. Now, I'll come in with a lighter version of this cobalt blue at the bottom. And I'll have to tilt the paper so that it doesn't become too much. I need to keep something here so that it doesn't tilt. Let's keep this nose here. Yeah. And before this is dry, I'm going to come in with grayer color. So I want to make a blue gray, which I will make by mixing this cobalt blue, some vermilion into it, which will make a violetish color and then some yellow ochre. And I want this to be blue dominant gray. So I'll be adding some more blue to it. So what you see now is a gray, and I will test it here. Yeah, that's more than enough in terms of its intensity. So I'll add some more water to this and paint these horizontal strokes. And I will leave this thing to dry as it is so that we get a nice cloudy feeling to this painting. I'm just tilting the bone so that I don't get vertical streaks of color. You can see that the color on my palette is also tilting. And now I want to tilt back so that I also don't get a lot of accumulated color here, which I can, of course, Dave out like this. And I will allow this color to completely dry before I start doing anything else. I have a feeling that I should touch this portion because it's completely white. But, yeah, that's okay. But most of the times, it's good to avoid this temptation because it tends to spoil the thing which I think I'm already doing. Anyway, I'll stop here now and let the watercolor do its job. Now you can see that this thing has completely dried, and now what I'll do is I need to paint the headland. What I'll do is I'll take the same color and apply it again over this headland. The thing with watercolor is that you can use the same color to apply multiple layers and then it just works fine. It creates a darker value automatic. I'll use this color to even paint some of the darker portion of the sea. And while doing that, I'll leave some gaps or kind of surf so that I don't have to paint the surf with white color as much as possible, I'll make this color slightly darker with more blue and that red was too much. I'll add some more blue to it. I'm painting this portion. Again, Okay. Now I need to paint this bunch of trees. So for that, I need, again, a gray, which is similar to this, but slightly darker and slightly warmer because the trees will be catching some sunlight. So I've taken some yellow ochre, and I'm mixing it right into the same color which I have and which will give me a gray which is slightly warmer. It's not blue, and let's test this. What did I mix to make this color? Or let me mix this color again so that you understand it clearly. I'm starting with the cobalt blue, adding some vermilion to it to make it slightly more reddish and adding yellow ochre to it. So I'm getting a green which is kind of moss green. I'm adding some more blue to it because I need to make it slightly bluish. Yeah. And let's see how this looks in comparison to this. Yeah, I think it can be slightly more yellowish. Yeah. And let me paint. I'm using the brush, not with a tip. I'm making this go slightly spread out, and then I'm using it like this so that I get these ups and downs automatically without a lot of effort. And as I go below the as I go down, I'm going to fill these gaps. Even though we won't see these trees behind these larger ones. I'm still painting that because if we do happen to keep any gaps in between, these are the trees which will be seen. I'm taking in some more yellow ochre and I'll apply it in a few places. Also, I will add some more blue in some other area. So basically what I'm trying to do is create variation in the color, which will suggest that there are these trees and some areas of those trees are catching light, and that's why they appear to be warmer in color. Which means they'll appear more yellowish and others will not or will be slightly more bluish. Now we need to paint the sand. I'll start with yellow ochre. And let's see how this looks. I'm just diluting it a lot. Yeah. I might add a touch of red to it. It's not much. Yeah. I'll make sure that I leave some gap between this color and this sand color, which will read as the white surf. And now I can paint without much of a problem. Here I'm using horizontal strokes because the sand is flat. When I painted these trees, I used vertical strokes because that area or that object was more vertical than horizontal. Now, to make this I need to make this slightly darker towards the bottom. So I'll add some red that's too much and some blue. So I have this darker version of the same color, and I'll apply it here. And I'll also use it to show some ups and downs in the sand. And this portion is going to have bright grass. So I'm going to mix this chrome yellow and some cobalt blue and use it here. Now I will allow this painting to again, completely dry before I paint in the larger trees. And now this painting has completely dried and now I can start adding the trees. For the trees, I'm going to need, again, a color which is similar to this, so I can start just for showing this color mixing completely, I'm cleaning this portion and I'll again mix the color so that you can see it clearly. I mix the color for the trees. I'm starting with cobalt blue. And I'll add a yellow ochre to it to make it into a green. And these trees are not going to be bright green. So I'm going to add a touch of red to it to make it slightly darker than what I got. Yeah. So now I'm going to use I'm going to indicate a few tree trunks. I may not paint them completely because, completely in the sense, I may not paint their branches because anyway, they will not be visible due to the foliage. But this just gives me a starting point. And now I'm going to paint the leaves or the foliage of these trees. This one is going to be slightly smaller. And the next one is going to be taller than this one. We won't see the top of this tree. Similarly, these ones. Now I'm not painting the individual trees, but I'm painting the general shape of the foliage. But I'm making sure that I use brush strokes which are either like this or like this to show the branches, so to say. I think I'm going to add one more tree here. I might make the left hand side of these trees slightly darker by adding more blue to it. Um. And I will because I want to show the shadows this way, the shadow will be a dark green, which is very similar to what we have on the palette right now on the area where it is the shadow is falling on the on the grass, it'll be dark green. And where the shadow falls on the sand, it will be a darker version of this color, which is what I had here. So it'll be something like I need to make this slightly thicker, some more yellow oper, some more red, and some more blue. And so it's a brownish color. And the shadow will be like this because the shadow is a darker version or the shadow color is the color of the object on which the shadow falls, but a darker version. So this will be the shadow. And I'm showing the shadow even here because I want to show a shadow which is coming from the tree which we don't see. And I'll extend this shadow like this. And let's see what else this painting needs. I think I can make this see a bit more bluish. I'm taking the cobalt blue again and I'm adding a layer of that. And because I have maintained this white here, it's not going to I don't need to paint the surf again with white color. Now I need some some grey at the bottom of the mountain here because there is a lot of area between where the sea stops and this bunch is there. So I need something which shows that there is something here too. So what I've done is I mix this slightly more bluish color, bluish gray, and I've painted a few blobs. And I think I'm done with the painting. Okay, I'll allow this to completely dry, and then let's take out the tape. Now, this painting has completely dried. I can touch, and then I get no color on my fingers, so let's remove the tape and reveal the final painting. So, there it is. I hope you enjoyed watching this painting being painted, and I hope you will give it a try and learn from it. I'll see you in the next video. Thank you. 6. Painting 4 - Mountain Cliff: Welcome to this video. In this video, we'll be painting the scene which you see on your screen right now. And to paint this, I'll be using cobalt blue, yellow Ochre, burned Siena, and vermilion red. And before we get into painting, I need to draw this scene. So I'm drawing on this 300 GSM paper which I've taped to the board, and with a pencil, I'll be drawing a simple outline. I'm aware that here is somewhere the halfway mark. So I don't want to bring this cliff to that portion. I want to end it before that. Cliff will go down like this. And there are these separate rock formations. This is the scene is inspired by the Yosemite National Park. But I'm not drawing it exactly as anybody would see it there. I'm just taken some inspiration from that. These are the cliffs. These are the distant mountains. This is the floor of the forest and they'll be sky with some white clouds in it. I'm starting by wetting the area of the sky and the first mountain. I'm using a very wide brush two inch brush. And for the rest of the painting, I'll be mostly using this mob brush, rigor and another round brush which is slightly larger than this. I'm not specifying any numbers because you could use any of the similar brushes. All these are soft brushes. And now let me take this mob brush and introduce some clouds. So I'll be leaving some areas unpainted where I want to show the clouds. I'm just applying the color. I'm not totally inclined towards spreading the color in a particular manner. I want the watercolor to do its own thing. I want to leave one cloud here and maybe a cloud here. And as I come down, I'll be I washed my brush. There is no color on my brush now, but it's slightly wet. I will drag this color down. Till this area. I could go down here also, so I could go like this. And now I will leave this thing to dry before I introduce the next layer of colors. Now, this paper has completely dried. Now I'll be switching to a slightly smaller brush, around brush, and I'll take some yellow ochre. And I want to lay down the base color for this mountain cliff. So take a touch of vermilion. So it's a warm rocky color. And let's paint this cliff from top to bottom. Right now, I'm not worried about any specific dark areas or light areas. I just want to introduce this color as the base for the rock. Just make sure that you don't get any hard edges or while you paint this, it doesn't dry on the way because then it'll create those different variations in the color. And I'm using only vertical strokes to do this because the cliff is vertical. So it adds to that feeling of being a vertical object. O. Again, I'll wait for this area to dry before I add any other details. But since this area is dry, I can go in and use the same color, dilute a bit, and I want to indicate the distant mountains. So for that, I'll start here. I know that this is slightly wet here, so I'll not touch that area right now, and maybe I'll indicate some snow at the peaks of these mountains. Now I can go near this edge because I think it should be dry by now. Yeah, that's enough. I can use brush strokes like this to indicate their slopes. And we'll be showing light coming in from here. So I'm making these areas darker on these mountains and leave some areas as light or blue. Again, I can use, or rather I would wait for this whole thing to dry before I add any other layers so that these don't get mixed with any following layers. Now this painting is completely dry and I'm ready for the next stage, wherein I'll be painting this mountain and also painting this area. But before I apply the green colour to the trees here, I want to have the same color onto these slopes also. So what I'll do is I'll again take some yellow ochre and a touch of vermilion and I'll apply it over this also. Most of this color will be covered with green trees later on. But I want some of that to show through, and that's why I'm applying this color here. Now, I want to paint these mountains. And since these are closer to us and the light is coming in from here, there'll be lighter areas here and darker areas on the left hand side, and the lighter areas would be more greener. So what I'll do is I'll make a green here with cobalt blue and chrome yellow. I want this color to be applied on this side. Some of it will be covered later on with a darker blue. But I want to have that here. And now I'll come in with more or I'll mix more blue in here so that we get a darker green, and now I'll be painting this side of this mountain. And I'll use some vertical strokes just to create the illusion of trees. Covering some part of these, light green areas. I'll bring that color to the base of these mountains, and I'll continue this color here also. So let me mix this color again. A lot of cobalt blue and some chrome yellow. And here I'm going to use what call strokes because the trees here are going to be closer to us, so we'll see them more clearly. And I'll continue that Approach. I don't want to paint any individual trees, but collectively, I think this would create a nice forest. And as I go uphill, I'll add some lighter yellow, which is the chrome yellow again. And I'm making short vertical strokes just so that I see these trees as I'm going towards top, I'm adding more chrome yellow. Now you will see why I painted this color here because I want to have some area showing through the rock color. Now let me add much more chrome yellow and some water. That's too much water. Because the trees on this slope will be much lighter because of the amount of light that's falling on them. So I'm painting them with lighter color. While I paint this, I'll be leaving some gaps in between in which I want the rock colour to show through. You see that I'm not using any horizontal strokes. That's on purpose because I want to create that impression of trees. And let me paint a few trees here also. Yeah. Now, the remaining part to be painted is the details in this rock face. So I'll start with now I'll use a very thin brush, which is this, and I'll use burned CNA. I'll start painting them, painting the areas in between these rock faces with this color. Basically, I'm showing the areas where the light is not hitting because these are the crevices. I'm making the color now very, very thin, making it here. I can show some texture on the rocks. Like this. Sometimes I'm taking more saturated color or more color, which is this pool, and this pool has a lot more water on it or in it. I'm painting the left hand side of each portion of the rock with slightly darker color. I'll do the same here also. And again, I'm using only vertical strokes. I want to pick up the extra color. So I'm just dabbing my brush on a tissue and then lifting this extra color here. Now, I will need a much darker color for the shadow areas. So I'm taking burn sienna and adding some cobalt blue in it, so I get a much darker version of the color. I think I'll wait for this to dry so that I can add in more details later on. Now, this color has completely dried and I can add the next layer. I'm reactivating this color. I want a color which is much darker than this now. I'm taking in a lot of blue and some burnt sienna. And you can see that this color is thicker in consistency than the earlier version and also much darker. This dark color represents the areas which are catching the least amount of light. Now I need some details on the main lit areas also. I want to have the burned Cena again, and I want to show some more details. This colors lot of color on that brush. I just dabbed it on the tissue. I'll just use some of this, some of this color here. And add a few trees here with some vertical strokes. Mm. I think that's it. Now I'll wait for this to dry completely, and then we can take off the tape and see the final painting. Now, this color has completely dried and let's take out the tape to reveal the final painting. And that's the painting. I hope you enjoyed watching this simple demo, and I hope you will also give this a try yourself and learn from it. I'll see you in the next video. Thank you. 7. Painting 5 - Serene Beach: Welcome to this video. In this video, we'll be painting the scene which you see on your screen right now. And for that, I'll be using cobalt blue, burnt sienna, yellow hooker, and chrome yellow. And I'll be using 300 GSM paper taped onto the board, and I'll be using just three brushes. This is the biggest one. It's a mop brush. This is slightly smaller than a round brush, and this is a rigor which is for the detailed work. You will see me use different brushes at different stages of the painting. So before we start applying the color, let me start by drawing in the big shapes. So the horizon is somewhere here. And the very distant mountain is something like this. And then there is a mountain which is slightly closer to us, closer to us as compared to this mountain, which goes something like this. And then we have the closest headland which is maybe something like this. For it to look more natural, make sure that the width of this mountain which we see is the largest. This one is the smallest, and then we have this one, which is towards the right. Even the distance between these two, the baselines of these two should be smaller than the distance between the baselines of these two mountains. And make sure you're not drawing them exactly in the center and so on. Then we have the line of the water this is a scene of the seashore or the beach when the water has receded, it's a low tide. And so the sea is not very dynamic. The waves are smaller in size. And there is some land or the area where there is grass growing. I won't be drawing the grass in detail here, but I think I'm done with the drawing part. And now I can commence the painting. So I'm wetting the paper in some areas. What I'll be doing is I'll be using the same blue color in this water, because this is the water body, and I will be throwing in the color. I don't want the sky to be too dynamic. So I'm just roughly applied water to the sky part and also to the sea part, and I'm taking in some cobalt blue. Not too thick, because I want to keep the sky not so dynamic. I'm painting even over the mountains because anyway, they'll get covered. And similarly, I'm dropping in this blue color in the water body. And I'll leave this to dry before I apply any other color. Now, you can see this layer of the color has completely dried and I'm ready to paint the next stage. Now I'm switching to the smaller round brush, and I'll take the same color, just the cobalt blue, and I'll paint this mountain, which is the distant one or the farthest one. I'll wait a few minutes for this to dry because I now need to paint the second mountain. And for that, this edge needs to dry. In watercolor, this is the most important thing that you need to let the first layer dry completely before you attempt painting the second one. Now, you can see this has completely dried. So what I need to do now is I need to modify this color to slightly yellowish color, and this mountain color will be slightly darker. So it's not very green, but it needs to be slightly thicker. Because this mountain is slightly closer to us. And that's why it's less blue and less light. And when I apply this color, this color has to be slightly darker than the previous color, which is what I want to ensure. I yeah. So you can see this color is slightly darker than this mountain color. And I'll allow this to completely dry before I paint this. Now, this color has completely dry, and now I need to paint this mountain, and this will be the darkest shape in our painting. So I'm adding more cobalt blue to the mix, which I had the color which I had for this mountain. And I'll add some more yellow. And this is the thickest one in terms of thickness of the color, I mean, and let's see how this looks. And it also needs to be darker. So once we apply this maybe once or twice, it'll become dry. I'll become darker. So I'm applying this color to this mountain. And I'll use more vertical strokes now. Because I want to indicate the slope of the mountain. I'll apply the same color again as a layer again because as this underlying the first layer is drying, I can create variations in the color just by applying the color again. So light areas, some dark areas, and so on. Yeah. Now I'll come to painting the painting the sand. I'm again switching to the mob brush because this is slightly larger and the sand area is slightly larger in size. So I'm taking in yellow ochre. And let's see how this looks. I need to keep some area unpainted because I want to suggest that as the surf. Yeah, looks good. And as I come towards the right hand side, I will add some burnt sienna to this and use this in this area and in the corner here. I didn't want any hard edge there. That's why I'm brushing this color. And I'll wait for this to completely dry. Now I need to paint the sand bank which is there. Here because the water has receded. This is the sand bank which has been exposed and I'll throw in some burnt sienna towards the bottom of this just to indicate darker or the area in shade. And I'll wait for this whole thing to dry now. Now, this layer has completely dried, and I can see that this is looking a good variation in the light and dark. But this dark hasn't been so effective. So what I'll do is I'll come in again with some burned Siena. And yellow ochre, which was there earlier. I just want to darken some area on this side. I'm very lightly applying this color here. I don't want to cover the whole area. Yeah. That's enough. Now, while this dries, I'll work on the sea. I'm again switching back to the smaller brush, and I need a slightly darker color for the sea now. I'm taking in cobalt blue, and I want to make it slightly dark. I'm putting in a touch of burnt Siena. If it is too dark, I cannot lighten it, but if it's light, then I can darken it. I've added some more water in it, and let's see if the tape is coming off, I'm applying it again. Let's see how this looks, looks good. I just want to ensure that this is a straight line. I'm going to leave some white areas in here which will suggest that it's the surf and as I come down, I actually might lighten this color. So I'm adding more water to it, and I'm dragging in this now. And now I want to leave some white gaps or light blue gaps, which will read as surf when they are placed next to darker blue color. Here I don't want to touch touch with the darker color because this will be very shallow water, and hence it will not have a very dark color to it. You can see that this has bloomed a bit means the water contained in this has crossed above. So I'm coming in with this same color again, and I want to reapply this portion so that I don't get those strange effects you see that I'm using only horizontal strokes. Yeah. Now, as this dries, I can apply. This has completely dried now. So what I want here is a light green colour. So I'm taking in this chrome yellow and mixing it in the green which I made for this mountain. Making it thin and I'll brush some of this color vertically. This is not the final version of this grass, but I want this to be the first layer of that. And I want some dark color at the bottom of this grass on adding some more blue to it, and then just using this brush strokes like this. Now I'm ready to suggest the pebbles on the beach which get exposed when the water recedes. So I'm using a very, very thin brush. This is called the rigor, and I want a very dark color. So I'm digging in this blue, cobalt blue, and burn sienna. And I'm not adding too much water to this. Just enough water to apply this color. You can see how thick this color is. And I'm going to use this to paint a few pebbles and rocks. So this is actually a suggestive thing. We don't paint pebbles to say, or not particularly painting any exact shapes of pebbles, but some dark Objects here will read as pebbles. That's the whole point. Just make sure you don't paint them very uniform of the same size or same shape or bunched together or something like that. Now I'm going to slightly add more burnt sienna to it and so a lighter version of this color. Even though you might see this as same colors, once they dry, they will start looking different or they'll reveal their true colors. Now I want to have some marks on this sand. So I'm putting in a lot of water because I want that mark to be very light. And let's see how this looks. If I say apply it here. Yeah. That's enough. It's only a suggestion. Maybe slight thicker and more warmer. Just to indicate some movement of You might see a reflection of this in this portion of the water which is still whereas we won't see any reflection here because this moment, there is a lot of movement of the water in that area. And then I'm not very happy about this portion, so let me apply that same color again. I'm taking in the same color which is cobalt blue and burn Siena in it. Some more. It What this will do is make it darker in few places, which is actually good. Yeah, I'll let this thing whole thing dry. And also, because this is too white here, I'll just apply a few brushstrokes just to indicate that there is some reflection here. And it's not plain white paper. Now, I can see that this portion has also dried. So I'll switch back to the rigor. And I want to suggest a few dry twigs of shrubs which grow on the beach. So I'm making that dark brown color again, which is blue and burnt sienna. And let me suggest a few needs a bit of water because it's too thick. Make sure you don't have a lot of color on your brush because otherwise you will not get a thin line. And I also want to suggest one or two fence posts which are now defunct. So they are leaning in different angles. So one is like this and another is like this. And let me indicate a few darker blades of grass. So for that, I'm having a green, which is a mix of burnt sienna and yellow yellow chrome yellow. And I'll just use the brush from bottom to top. Instead of using the line as top to bottom, I'm using it like this. I think that's enough to suggest. Some grass. And let me see if I need to add anything more. I think because these dots have come out to be of the same value, I mean, they are equally dark. So let me add a few pebbles which are of lighter value. So I'm just taking in this burnt sienna. There's no other color in it. And let's see if I can paint a few which are lighter in value. This is just to add some interest to the otherwise clean beach. Yeah. And I think I'm done with this painting. Maybe I can add this portion looks too cute and slightly unnatural. So I'm going to add a dark bluish shrub here just to create some contrast here. And maybe a smaller one here. And with the same dark color, I'm indicating a few rocks. One can be here slightly inside the water or away from the shore needs to be very dark. No. Yeah. I think that's enough. I'll wait for this to dry and then we can take off the tape. Maybe I can add some variation in this mountain. So I'm taking in this blue which I had mixed for the mountain and just brush it over here. It will create some variation in the color. Yeah, very minor change. This is the final layer. I'll allow this to dry completely and then we can take off the tip. I'll do a few additions to to the area here. I'll just add a bunch of pebbles because otherwise the pebbles seem to be only restricted to this area. I'm taking in this brown slightly darker brown And I also want to suggest a small a rock or something here, and it will have its reflection. We need to make it slightly bigger because I messed up the reflection. I'm going in and adding these few details on the on the shore here because that will add to the feel of the reflection. Make sure you don't paint these rocks on the same size, otherwise it will not look very natural. Yeah. And I think we are ready to remove the tape. I need not worry about drying this because it's in the center of the painting and not where the tape is. And that's it. This is the ready painting. I hope you enjoyed watching this demo, and I'm sure you will give this a try yourself and learn from your own experience. And I'll see you in the next video. Thank you. 8. Painting 6 - Stormy Sky: Welcome to this video. In this video, we're going to paint the scene which you see on your screen right now. And for that, I'll be using just two colors Prussian blue and burnt sienna. So let me first start by marking the big shapes. This is the foreground, and here is the mountain. This is a scene from the Sikem state of India where it rains very, very heavy during the monsoon. So this is a scene from there. So there is this tree which is here and there is one large tree which goes up like this. We don't see the top of this tree, but its foliage would be somewhere here. So what we are trying to show is the heavy rain and the scene which we see when there is some let up from the rain and what do we see there. So for that, I'll be using these three brushes. This is a mob brush. This is a smaller round brush. And if required, I'll be using this brush, which is a hog hair brush, which has very stiff bristles. And typically, this is used for acrylic or oil painting, but I'll be using this if needed to create the texture. So let's see. And what I have here is 300 GSM paper taped to the board and let me start by wetting this whole area. I might use a large brush of this size just to wet the paper. So let me start by taking some Prussian blue here. And I'm going to apply this here and let it do its own thing. Not worried about it getting into this area because anyway, we're going to have darker value in there. Now I'll have to wait for it to dry or I can go into this area. And here this is the foreground, and for that area, I need a color which is mostly brown and some blue. So this is burnt sienna and I need some Prussian blue in it, and I'm going to apply this here. Maybe some more Prussian blue will do. Sorry, burnt sienna will be good because I want to show some warmth in here of the road. And now I will wait for this to completely dry before I get into further layers. Now, this layer has completely dried and I can come in with the details for the next layer. So the first thing, what I'm going to do is paint this mountain. And I don't want to paint it with a very uniform color. So what I want to do is I'm going to not make this into a point. I'm going to leave this as spread out as this, and then I'm going to use it to paint. So as to create those uneven marks because this is a mountain which has a lot of trees on it, and so they're going to create this kind of texture visual texture, I would say. And now I'll come in with darker color and maybe near the edges or in some places, I'll use darker brush marks. And comparatively, this mountain is going to be much more lighter. So I'm going to use a thinner version of this same color and paint this again, with thicker color and to have some patches in there. The aim is not to have a very smooth area. Now, the clouds are also right now very smooth, but I don't want that feeling. I want to make it into a stormy kind of sky. That's why let's make a slightly brownish color. I'm going to put some burnt sienna into this to make it into a gray but not as brown as this. And let me add a lot of water to it. This looks green because brown is a very dark version of yellow. I'm going to dab it on a tissue so that there's not a lot of color onto it, and I'm going to make these marks like this. I'm spreading out the bristles or the hair and using this to suggest these clouds. Yeah. And we can use this same thing to suggest this is actually a road on the edge of which we are standing and looking into the valley. A now I will come in with I think I will use this brush to first paint out the tree trunk and then use the bristle brush for painting the foliage or the leaves. So I'm taking this blue colour Pocan blue, and I'll add burnt sienna to it to make it into a dark color again, which is very similar to what we made here. And I'm going to paint that tree trunk first. See that I'm using the brush, pulling the brush from bottom to the top and not the other way. That's because I want branches to be thinner at the end. And because this tree is on the slope which we don't see, it's going to be cut here like this. We don't see the trunk below this. And now, just for the ease of painting, I'm going to use this bristle brush and use the same color and make these Paint these leaves. You can do this with softer brushes, which are typically for watercolor, but it would take some more skill to do it because those brushes are meant for smoother strokes. And not strokes like this. Mixing the same color again. Burn sienna and Prussian blue. You can see now the color is very thick. So in some areas I'm going to use this thicker color which suggests areas where the foliage is very thick and so light is not able to penetrate through that. Wherever there are lighter colored patches like this, it's where the foliage is thinner so the light can pass through and you see it. So I'm going to restate the tree trunk because that's become slightly more transparent than what I would like to have. And similarly, I'm going to paint bushes on this side, but these bushes are not as tall as this tree on the right hand side. So maybe till here. So this is a different species of tree, which doesn't grow as tall as this. But because of the rain and low light, cloudy atmosphere, all the colors are muted and what we see are just more of values and not their colors. So this type of bristle brush is very good for creating this kind of texture. Which a normal watercolor brush would not be able to create. At least not with this kind of ease. I'll wait for this to dry and see how it looks and if I need to add anything to it. Now this color has completely dried. And I can apply some more color here because the whole thing is looking very uniform, which is generally not the case with clouds. So I'm going to make this color again, activate this color again. And I'm going to this time I'm going to use this brush. I could have used the mob brush with the way I used it earlier. But this is also fine. And I'm going to remove extra color from the brush and just What I want to create is an impression of a darker cloud here. Yeah, that's fine. I think that's enough. So it's time to now remove the tape and reveal the printing. And there it is. I hope you enjoyed watching this demo, and I urge you to give this a try yourself. It's a very simple two colour painting. And I think you will learn a lot about values when you learn to paint like this, and I will see you in the next video. Thank you. 9. Painting 7 - Winter Scene: Welcome to this video. In this video, we're going to paint the scene which you see on your screen right now. And this is, as usual, 300 GSM watercolor paper taped onto my board, and we'll be using just two colors cobalt blue and burn Sienna. And let me first draw the scene, and then we can get into the painting process. So there is a foreground line which goes like this. And there is a Hill which goes like this. It'll have tree line, but there'll be one distant tree line like this. This will have trees which are like this. I don't want these two to follow the same pattern. I have to modify that when I paint. Yeah, this should be okay. And then this will have tree line like this. And there are a bunch of trees still in the front. One is here, and one will be here. And there is a bunch which is in the foreground, which is something like this. Yeah. That's the minimal drawing which I'm going to do. Now let me This portion and this portion is completely going to be left white. So I'll wet the rest of the area, which is this till here. Maybe till here also. And I'll come in with a gray Discobal blue and Burnsieno slightly more bluish than brownish. And now I'll come in with this I'll take it till this hill which has snow on it. Maybe I'll keep a area which doesn't have trees on it. And now it's time to keep this for drying, and I'll add next layers once this is dry. Now this layer has dried, and I'll come in with a slightly darker version of the same gray. For the tree line in the background. I'm going to bring it till here. And I will allow this to dry again. Maybe if needed, I can if I want to show some details, I might come in with smaller brush just for the edge. And now I'll allow this to dry completely. Now, this layer also has dried, and I'll make the same color again. But again, this will be slightly more thicker and darker than the previous layer. And this is used I'll be using this to show the tree line which is closer to us. Then this line. There is this some snow which is still seen through the tree line. Notice that I'm using only vertical brush strokes because I'm painting the trees. Maybe I'll leave some vertical lines here, which can suggest some tree trunks. Yeah. Again, I will allow this to completely dry before I get into the next layer. Now, I have this bunch of trees which are much closer to us, and so they have much more warmer tone to them. So what I'll do is I will take this larger brush and make a color which is much more warmer. So it'll have more brown in it and less blue in. And I also want this to be of similar consistency. I'm making sure the brush is like this spread out, and I'm going to use use only the vertical brush strokes to show these trees. Again, I'll leave some white areas, white vertical lines so that they suggest tree trunks. Wherever or at least towards the base, I want this color to be slightly darker. So I'll add some more blue in it and try to put it dab it in. And I could also use this brush which I have cleaned and there's no water on this or no color on this. And I can drag it up like this to suggest some tree trunks. So in some places it's lifting color. I think that should be enough of a suggestion. What I'll do is and use this thin brush and make a few brush marks just outside this to show some individual leaves or branches. Just like adding some details to these trees. Be using the bigger brush means there are lesser details in that and so on. Some more darker color goes in here to accentuate the tree trunks. Now, I'll use the same color and the same thinner brush to add a few suggestions of smaller bushes here. And I want to show kind of shadow in the snow. So for that use this cobalt blue, very, very thin. And I'll just drag it like this, which would suggest some shadow and accentuate the lighter areas similarly on this side. This way, when I add this blue here, this color becomes more bright and attracts more attention. Similarly, I can add a few touches of darker color here just to add some contrast. And maybe a bunch of trees slightly closer. So it has a baseline which is not the same as this in the background, this tree line in the background, something like this. I think I will wait for this to completely dry and then think about if I need to add anything else. Now, the painting has completely dried and it's time to take out the tape. And that's the painting. I hope you enjoyed watching this demo, and I hope you will give this a try yourself and learn from it. Thank you, and I'll see you in the next video. 10. Project: Welcome to this final video of this class. I hope you have enjoyed painting all these seven paintings. I want you to post one of the images and let me know if you have any questions about the color mixing, the consistency of the color or anything what comes to your mind so that I can solve your problems and you can start painting better and better. I look forward to seeing your completed painting in the project's gallery. Thank you.