7 Day Watercolour Challenge - Sunsets and Silhouettes - Improve your painting in 1 WEEK

1. About the Class: Hello, my name's Emily Curtis. I'm a full-time artist based in the UK and a specialized in acrylic and watercolor painting. This class is a seven-day watercolor challenge, where we'll be painting seven different sunset skies and silhouettes. I've designed this class so that each day increases in difficulty from the first to the last, so that we can develop our skills with watercolors throughout the week. We'll begin by going over all the art supplies we'll be using over the week. We'll be mixing up a color chart for each project so that we can go over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. And then I'll guide you through step-by-step how to paint each project as we progress in difficulty throughout the week. You don't need any prior knowledge of watercolors for this class. As I'm going to go over all the techniques step-by-step. Let's begin. 2. Art Supplies: Let's start by going over all the art supplies we'll be using throughout the week. We won't be using every single piece of equipment in every class. But this is what you'll need for all of them together. First up, we have watercolors. You don't have to have the exact same set as I do. Just use whatever you've got. Then we have watercolor paper. I'm using 300 GSM paper, which can be bought in pads like this. You'll want to take that paper to the table to stop it from bending when it gets wet. I recommend using scotch tape. Then we have a water pot and tissues to wash and dry your brushes. We're going to be using full brushes throughout the week. First we have a small square brush, and this is about a centimeter wide. Then we have a pointed brush in size five. We'll be using another pointed brush in size three for smaller details. And lastly, we have a big square brush. This is about an inch wide. 3. Starting the Challenge: Hello and welcome to day one, where we will be painting a super fun and easy blue and pink sunset. As we're going to gradually be increasing the difficulty throughout the week. The aim of today is to start with the foundations and set down the groundwork of our techniques in a very simple painting. So have fun with this first piece and take it slow. Really try and focus on your technique so that we master the basics before developing our skills later on in the week. 4. Dreamy Sunset: Colours: Before we start today's project, we're going to go over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. We're going to start with the colors in the sky. First up, we're mixing up a nice bright pink. I'm using permanent rose for this. Try to keep the color nice and saturated so that it's vibrant, but make sure to add enough water so that it's going to be easy to paint across the paper. And then we're going to mix up a bright blue. I'll be using Winsor blue, which again, I'm mixing up nice and vibrant, but still very watery so that it's going to be easy to paint with. Remember, you don't have to have the exact same paints as I do. You can replace these colors with any pink or any blue that you have. And then we're going to move on to the colors. We'll be painting the silhouettes with. First up, we're going to mix up a medium gray. I'm using Payne's gray for this. And I'm adding quite a lot of water so that it's fairly light and a little bit transparent. And then for our darkest silhouettes, we want to mix up Payne's gray again, but this time making it super dark and saturated so that it appears almost black. If you don't have Payne's gray in your palette, then you can mix up any grade that you have. All use a black instead. Use varying water quantities to mix up both shades for the silhouettes. And this is what our color chart looks like when it's dry. I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. And now we're ready to start the project. 5. Dreamy Sunset: Painting the Gradient: We're going to start off today's painting by preparing it for the wet-on-wet technique. To do this, we're covering our paper with clean water using a large square brush. The wet on wet technique basically means to apply wet paint onto wet paper. This will allow our paints to diffuse outward as we're painting and create a nice smooth gradient. Make sure you cover your paper evenly and don't leave any gaps. We want the paper to have a nice light sheen to it that we can see that it's wet but without having large puddles of water sitting on the surface. Because those will cause an unevenness as our paint dries. Leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper before we start applying any color, I'm switching over to using the small square brush to paint the gradient. We're going to start by mixing up our lightest color, which is permanent rose. We're going to start painting the pink at the bottom of the paper using long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper, gradually painting upwards towards the center. You can take the pink a little bit above the center of the paper. Towel blue has something to blend down into. And once we've got down the base of our pink, we're ready to move on to the blue. We're mixing up our Winsor blue and making sure that it's watered down enough so that it's easy to paint across the paper. This time we're starting at the top of the paper and working gradually down towards the center. Once again, using long smooth horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. Don't worry too much about trying to blend the blue and pink together. The wet on wet technique will do that for us. I can see that the blue is collecting at the top left of my painting. So I'm just going to drag that back towards the center of my painting to make sure it dries evenly. Once you've completed the first layer, leave the painting to dry. If you have one, I do recommend using a hairdryer to dry your painting to speed up the process. It's important that the paper dries completely in-between each layer so that the layers don't mix together and create a muddy mess. And watching paint dry is pretty boring. There's even a saying about it. Once your painting is completely dry, we're ready to start on the second layer. We're starting this layer the same way we did with the first by covering the paper with clean water using a large square brush to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. You might be thinking, what's the point of drawing the paper to only wet it again immediately after drawing the paper regularly allows us to work in layers, which means that we can keep adding more color to increase the vibrancy of our painting. However, if we were to try to just keep putting more paint and more water onto the paper. Within the same layer, the paper will end up over saturated and can actually start to disintegrate. Leave your paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink in before adding any color. And then we're ready to mix up our pink again. Once again, paint the pink onto the painting, starting at the bottom of the painting and gradually workup towards the center. I think you can see already that despite the fact we've only got one layer underneath, the paint looks a lot more vibrant on this layer than it did on the one before. Do take the pink a little bit higher than the center of the painting and into the blue to allow the wet-on-wet technique to blend the two colors together smoothly. And once that's done, we're ready to go back in with our blue. Just like in the previous layer, we're going to start at the top of the painting and work the blue gradually downwards towards the center. To finish off this layer, we're going to go back in with our pink and go over it again to increase the vibrancy a little bit. Make sure you're still using long, smooth horizontal brushstrokes to keep the gradient as smooth as possible. As you can see. Sometimes the paint will collect at the sides of the painting where the paper is taped to the table. We want to clean that up so that the water doesn't get underneath the tape and unstick the painting. Once you've finished this layer, leave the painting to dry completely. Before continuing. I'm going to use my hairdryer again to speed up the process. If you're also going to use a hairdryer to dry your painting than to take note of what I'm doing here. I'm holding my hair dryer several inches off the paper, which we'll make sure we're not causing unevenness in the painting by concentrating the air all in one place. I'm also moving the hairdryer around a lot so that the paper is evenly covered so that it's drying as a whole instead of one patch at a time. This will help the paint to dry smoothly. Once the painting is completely dry, we're ready to move on to the next layer. Once again, we're beginning this layer by covering the paper and clean water using a big square brush. Try to be as gentle as possible when doing this. Because watercolors can reactivate when they get wet and start to move around to the paper again. This becomes more of an issue, the more layers we put down because there's more paint on the surface of the painting. So try and keep a gentle grip on your brush and just graze the brush over the surface of the paper. There's no need to overwork it because the water will sink into the paper naturally. Just cleaning up the sides of my painting using a tissue before we get to work so that we're not smearing water all over the workspace. Then leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the painting before we start adding our colors. This time we're starting with our blue. The sun is setting in this painting. So we're aiming to have the very top of the sky be darker to show that the light is fading. So we're going to build up our blue at the top of the painting to darken the top of the sky. This is where the limitations of only using two colors in a gradient like this comes in. Windsor blue is naturally quite a light blue. So even if we add loads of layers, it's not really going to get that dark. However, for day one, I wanted to start with a simple gradient of only two colors so that we can focus on the technique before developing it into more difficult gradients later on in the week. Now we're going to go in with our pink and we're going to build up the vibrancy of our pink starting at the bottom of the painting. And gradually workup towards the center using long smooth brushstrokes going right across the width of the paper. I think you can see on this layer why the wet-on-wet technique works so well for gradients, we have two very distinctly different colors. And yet they're bleeding into each other perfectly with no harsh lines in-between the two. Then I'm going back in with my blue once again to emphasize the top of the sky just a little bit more. I can see the blue collecting at the top left of my paper. So I'm just going to try and smooth that out a little before the paint dries. You can do this by using quick light brushstrokes over the area of unevenness to swipe the excess paint away. If you are finding that certain areas of your painting are repeatedly collecting more water in them. It could be because the surface you fixed your painting onto is a bit uneven. Water is naturally going to follow gravity. So if the painting is on a slant than the water will travel in that direction. It could also be that you haven't taped your paper to the table securely enough. Therefore, it's buckling and bending as it gets wet. Then I'm going to clean up the excess paint out the sides of my painting and leave it to dry. And of course, it's always the last day of the painting where the gradient decides to dry unevenly. As you can see, the paint has collected at the top corners of my painting as it's dried and left those areas a little patchy and uneven. You have two options if this happens. Number one is to just leave it. I do more often than not recommend people just leave it. When painting, we can have a terrible habit of getting into a perfectionist state and trying to smooth everything into a perfect even gradient. And I can assure you that by the time he finished the painting, any slight imperfections in the gradient in the background will probably not be noticeable. However, if it is bothering you, then there is something you can do to try and fix it. I'm going to demonstrate how you might fix unevenness in a gradient. But I would point out for issues as minor as this, I wouldn't actually recommend bothering to do anything. The trouble with touching up a painting is we can just end up causing more problems. I'm going to start by mixing up my blue again. Make sure to keep it very watery so that we can paint it over our painting smoothly. Note that the painting must be completely dry before you do this, because we're not using the wet on wet technique, this tongue. Then I'm going to start at the top of the painting and paint the blue over the areas of unevenness in long even brushstrokes right across the width of the painting. And then I'm going to clean my brush and paint over the edge of my last brushstroke to smooth out that edge. And I'm finishing off by taking my big square brush with clean water on it. I'm starting where the blue is lightest and working up towards the top of the painting. Then I'm taking clean water on my big square brush again. And just painting over the lightest areas of blue and down towards the center a little bit to make sure the blue has lots of space to diffuse out into to avoid any harsh lines. Then I'm going to clean up the areas around my painting and leave it to dry. And here we have our finished gradient. Once it's dry. As you can see, by using the wet-on-wet technique and only two colors, we can create a very effective smooth gradient. If you'd like to challenge yourself, then you can take this gradient as a base in the future and to paint all sorts of scenes on top of it. Perhaps you'd like to paint some birds flying in the sky or a city skyline. Whatever you choose, take a photo and post it in the project down below, because I'd love to see what you come up with. Make sure your painting is completely dry. Before moving onto the next lesson, where we're going to paint in the silhouette. 6. Dreamy Sunset: Silhouette: Now that we've finished the background and the painting is dry, we're ready to paint in the silhouettes. In this painting, we're going to paint a very simple silhouette of some hills, slash mountains depending on how you want to look at it. As I've said before, we're starting with something super simple to get the technique of painting silhouettes on a landscape so that we can build up to more complex compositions later on in the week. We're keeping with our small square brush to paint in the hills. We're going to start by mixing up our lighter color for the silhouettes, which for me is a watered down version of Payne's gray. If you don't have Payne's gray, then you can use any gray or black. I'm taking this color onto my brush and I'm painting the outline of my hills. Keep a light grip on your brush and move your brush up and down as your guiding it across the paper to create the hill shapes. While this is still wet, fill in the gaps beneath your outline with your gray to complete the silhouette, I recommend keeping to using horizontal brush strokes to fill in the hills. It's best if your brushstrokes follow the same general shape of your hills so that as the paint dries, if there are any brushstrokes or streaks left in the paint, then they will blend with the shape of the hills. Then leave your painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Do make sure your painting is fully dry or else the hills will blend into each other and will lose that sense of depth. This time we're mixing up our Payne's gray, very dark so that it appears almost black. We're going to keep with our small square brush. And just like we did before, we're moving the brush gently up and down to paint the outline of the hills and then fill in the gaps below. Leave that to dry before peeling off the tape. And here we have the finished painting. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before peeling off the tape or else the paper will tear as you remove the tape. The best way to remove tape from a painting without tearing the paper is to lay one hand over the paper and hold it still while you peel the tape off with the other hand, peel the tape off outwards and away from the paper so that any monetary that does happen tears away from your painting instead of into the painting. And this is the end of day one. I do hope you enjoyed this class. And for your class project today, I'd like you to paint your own version of this painting, either using the same colors as I have or using your own colors. Then posterior results down below. I'll see you tomorrow when we start to develop these skills further. Bye for now. 7. City Sunset: Colours: Before we start today's project, we're going to make a color chart with all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. As usual, you don't have to have the exact same colors as I do. Just use this chart as a general guide. We're starting with the colors we'll be using in the sky. First up, we're mixing a nice bright orange for the lightest color in the sky. I'm using Winsor orange for this. I'm mixing this up nice and bright, but with enough water so that it's going to be easy to paint across the paper. The second color I'm using is permanent rose, which is a nice vibrant pink. For the darkest color in my sky. I'm using a deep purple, which is Winsor violet. Not everyone's watercolor palette has a purple in it. So if you don't have one, then just mix up a dark purple using any blue and red you have. Then we're going to move on to the color we'll be painting our cityscape with. In this class, we're only using one color because the city is going to be painted in as a silhouette. I'm going to use my Payne's gray for the silhouette. And I'm mixing this up super dark so that it appears almost black. If you don't have Payne's gray and dark gray or black, we'll do. Here is what our color chart looks like when it's dry. I suggest mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. 8. City Sunset: Sky: We're going to start today's project by preparing the paper for the wet-on-wet technique, by covering it with clean water using a big square brush. Make sure you've taped your paper securely to the table so that it doesn't bend when it gets wet. Cover the paper evenly with water so that there aren't any gaps or areas with puddles of water. Yesterday, we use the wet on wet technique to create a smooth gradient. And today I'm going to show you another type of sky that can be painted using this method. Leave your paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink in before we start painting. Do clear up any excess water around the sides of your painting so that we don't mess up the workspace too much. We're going to switch over to using our small square brush to paint the sky. And we're going to start off by mixing up our lightest color, which in this case is Winsor orange. If you don't have Winsor orange than any orange, we'll do. Saturate your brush with your orange and then start painting it in long sweeping brushstrokes across the paper. I'm using the thin edge of my brush to do this because it's going to give me more control over my brush strokes. I'm also leaving lots of gaps in-between my brushstrokes. Keep in mind that we have two other colors we're going to use. So don't go overboard with the orange just yet. Next, we're going to mix up our medium color, which is our pink. I'm going to paint the pink onto the paper in the gaps I left in-between the orange. Once again, we're going to use long sweeping brush strokes to do this. These long brush strokes are going to help create the impression of clouds in the sky. Don't worry about trying to blend the two colors together. In this lesson, we don't really want the colors blending together too much because we're trying to create the impression of clouds. And the wet on wet technique will make sure that everything diffuses out softly so that we don't end up with any harsh lines. We're taking the pink almost up to the top of the paper, but we're leaving the very top of the painting blank so that we have room to put in the purple. We're painting our purple starting at the top of the paper and gradually working down into the rest of the painting using long sweeping brushstrokes. I'm leaving lots of gaps in-between my brushstrokes that we're painting the purple in streaks to create the impression of clouds. This is only the first layer, so we're just mapping out where our colors are going to go. Don't worry about trying to make your colors super vibrant at the moment. We'll build up the vibrancy over the next few layers. Once you're happy with your colors, they feel painting to dry. Before continuing. As with day one, I'm going to be using a hairdryer to dry my painting in-between each layer to speed up the process. If you're doing this as well, then makes sure that your hairdryer is several inches away from the paper and constantly move the hair dryer over the painting to stop it from settling in one place for too long. This is for two reasons. Firstly, we want to avoid setting anything on fire. To be honest, I imagine it's actually quite difficult to set a piece of paper on fire using a hairdryer, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Secondly, we want the paper to dry as a whole. If we dry the paper in patches, then the paint will dry unevenly. We want our painting to look as smooth as possible. When the first layer is completely dry, we're ready to start on the second layer. We're going to do this by once again, covering our paper in clean water using a big square brush. You'll notice that watercolors dry a lot lighter than when they're first applied. Which is why I always recommend using several layers to build up the vibrancy. If you try and do everything in one layer, then you'll end up over saturating your paper and most likely create a muddy mess. Now we're ready to switch over to our small square brush again and mix up our orange. Once again. We're going to paint our orange all over the same areas we did in the previous layer. Once again, making sure to use long sweeping brush strokes to replicate a soft cloudy sky. Then we're going to mix up our pink. And just like with the orange, we're going to paint this in all the same areas as we did last time. On this layer. I'm bringing my pink right up to the top of the painting. This is to lay down a little bit of warmth underneath my painting at the top of the sky to make sure that the painting is balanced and harmonious. And finally, we're going back in with our purple. Starting at the top of the sky, we're painting our purple across the sky in long brush strokes. Working down towards the middle of the painting. You can create some variety in your brushstrokes by using a mixture of the flat edge and the thin edge of your square brush to put down a combination of wide and thin brushstrokes. For this painting. I recommend using wider brush strokes at the top and bottom of the painting and thinner brush strokes towards the center. This way we have the darkness of the night sky coming through the top of the painting. The pink from our setting sun at the bottom of the painting. And a mixture of all three of our colors in the middle to show the clouds. Once you're happy with the second layer, you can leave the painting to dry before starting on the third layer. Now that the painting is completely dry, we're ready to start on the third layer by covering the paper in clean water using a large square brush. Be very gentle with your brushstrokes. As you do this, watercolors can reactivate when they get wet and start to move around again. Make sure you're using clean water to cover your paper. The trouble with using darker colors like purple, is that it can stain the brush water a lot faster than other colors. So we want to make sure that we're not dragging purple water across the painting. Then we're going to switch over to using our small square brush and start by mixing up our orange paint to the orange over all the same areas as we have in the previous layers using long sweeping brushstrokes. I think you can see now why layering the colors is so effective. Now that we're on the third layer, the orange looks so much more vibrant because it's got the foundation of the two layers before. Next we're going to mix up our pink. Once again, paint that over the same areas as we have in the previous layers. And finally, we're ready to mix up the purple. Start at the top of the painting and work downwards in long sweeping brushstrokes with the purple to add in some areas of darkness and shadows in-between the clouds. I'm using the thin edge of my brush a lot more with the purple this time. This has to be a bit more precise with my brushstrokes and getting some more texture into the sky by using the purple to add in some shadows and contrast. Once you're happy with your sky, clean up to the edges of the paper with a tissue and then leave your painting to dry before starting on the next lesson. 9. City Sunset: Silhouette: Once your painting is completely dry, we're ready to start painting in the silhouettes. Do make sure your painting is completely dry. Or else the silhouette will bleed out into the background. And we don't want that to happen. We're going to start by taking our small square brush, mixing up the color for the silhouettes. In this painting, we are going to be painting a silhouette of a city smashed suburban skyline. In day one, we use two layers of silhouettes to add depth. However, today we have lots of depth with this guy already. So we're just going to use one layer of silhouettes and to then challenge ourselves by adding in more detail into the skyline. This time, I'm starting by putting a line of paint right along the bottom of the painting as a baseline. And we'll be building up our suburban seen from there. I'm keeping my skyline quite low because this is a sky dominated painting. We want to show off the sunset. We're creating our city suburban skyline by blocking out some basic roof shapes and building blocks using our small square brush. Take advantage of the sharp edges of your square brush. To do this. Consider what angle your brush needs to be at to paint the shape you want. Then use sharp, sharp brush strokes to paint the shape. You can keep turning and repositioning your brush in order to build up more complex building shapes using several brushstrokes. Once we've painted the general shape of the skyline, you might want to go over everything we've painted again to make it as dark as possible. Now that the basic shape of the Skyline has been blocked out, we want to switch over to using our pointed brush in size three to put in some details. Make sure to mix up your gray or black as dark as possible so that the details blend down into the main silhouette. The most common details you're going to see on the suburban skyline, or the electricity wires and telephone poles. So that's what we're going to paint in first. Tried to keep a very light grip on your brush so that you're painting with just the tip of your brush. This is going to allow your line work to be as delicate as possible. If you want a challenge, you can paint in whatever details you'd like. Perhaps you want to go even further and put some birds flying in the sky. You can get creative and look at some images of suburban skylines and then paint whatever you like. Then we're also going to put in some street lamps as well. I'm painting some details smaller than others because then we get a range of depths so that the things that our smallest or further away and the things that are larger or slightly closest to us. In this painting, we've painted the telephone poles to be smaller than the lampposts to show that they are further away. Once you're happy with your skyline, leave your painting to dry before peeling off the tape. It's absolutely essential that you make sure your painting is dry before you peel off the tape. If it isn't, you're going to end up smudging the black from your silhouette all over the painting and ruin it right at the end. Just like before, you can peel off the tape very easily by holding the paper down onto the table with one hand while peeling off the tape up and away from the painting with the other. And here we have our finished painting that shows a different kind of sky that can be painted with the wet on wet technique. We also developed our learning from day one by painting a more complex skyline. Today we introduced painting in details using a smaller pointed brush. And in day three, we're going to develop that further. See you next time. 10. Palm Trees: Colours: We're going to start today's class by going over all the colors we'll be using in this project and how to mix them. As always, you don't have to have the exact same colors as I do. You can just use the closest you've got. Or you can experiment by using completely different colors. We're going to start with the colors we'll be using in the sky. Today's sky will be a gradient. So we want a light color, a medium color, and a dark color to show the sunset. For the lightest color, I'm going to be using a nice bright orange. This is Winsor orange. I'm using pink for my medium color. And I'm mixing this up nice and vibrant. I'm using permanent rose for my pink. For our darkest color. We're using a deep purple. I'm using Winsor violet for this. You might have noticed we're not doing much color mixing throughout these projects so far. We're mainly focusing on brushwork and techniques. I'm trying to keep it simple in the colors so that we're not working on too much at once. But you can definitely try out some color mixing of your own to challenge yourself, or mix up your own version of these colors if you don't have them in your palate. And now we're ready to move on to the colors. We'll be painting our palm trees with. We're going to be painting our palm trees in as silhouettes. We're only using one color. I'm going to use Payne's gray for my silhouettes. And I'm mixing this up to be as dark as possible so that it appears almost black. If you don't have Payne's gray than any dark gray or black will do. Payne's gray has a slight bluish tint to it. So I personally prefer this over black. You could mix a little bit of blue into your black to achieve the same effect if you don't have Payne's gray. And here is what our color chart looks like when it's dry. I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. 11. Palm Trees: Painting the Gradient: We're starting off today's project by painting the background. We're going to cover the paper with clean water using our big square brush to prepare it for the wet-on-wet technique. Make sure you've typed your paper firmly to the table before doing this, so that it doesn't bend when it gets wet. I've designed this week's worth of classes to gradually increase in difficulty and develop on the skills we've learned in the previous class. So if you're just joining us today than I do recommend going back to day one and gradually working your way through. Make sure you cover your paper evenly with water so that there aren't any gaps. Occasionally, little fuzzy bits can come off your brush when you're doing this. So just pick those off with your finger and then smooth the paper out again with your brush. Then leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. Before we go in with any of our colors, I'm switching over to using the small square brush to paint the background. And I'm starting by mixing up our lightest color, which is Winsor orange. Starting at the bottom of the painting. We're going to paint the orange in long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper, gradually moving upwards until we've covered the bottom third of the paper. Today, our pink is going to be our medium tone. So we're going to place it in the middle third of the painting. We're going to start by painting the pink in the middle of the middle third, and gradually work it upwards, towards the top and then downwards into the orange. We want the pink to be most saturated in the middle of the middle third, and diffuse out lighter as it goes up and down into the other two-thirds of the painting. Don't worry too much about trying to blend the pink and orange together because the wet-on-wet technique will do that for us. And finally, we're ready to go in with our darkest color, which is our purple. For the purple, we're going to start at the top of the painting and gradually work it down towards the pink using long smooth horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. Make sure to always begin at the top of the paper and work down with the purple so that it's most concentrated at the top and it gets lighter as we transition into the pink. And here we have the first layer of our sky. As you can see, the wet-on-wet technique is already working to blend everything together smoothly without us doing too much work. Clean up the sides of the painting and then leave it to dry. Once your painting is completely dry, we're ready to start on the second layer. We're going to cover the paper with clean water using our big square brush. Make sure your paper is completely dry before starting on this layer. Or else all the layers will mix together and the colors will turn muddy. Do clean any excess water off the side of your painting. As it can unstick the tape holding the paper to the table. Leave your paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. Before we start painting. We're going to start this layer by going back in with our lightest color. Once again, we're going to start painting orange at the bottom of the paper in long, smooth horizontal brushstrokes and gradually work upwards towards the pink. Next, we're going back in with our pink. Start at the middle of the middle third with the pink. And paint it in long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. Gradually take the pink down towards the orange and then work back up towards the purple. I think the pink is probably the most difficult color to work with in this gradient, because we're having to blend it out in two directions instead of only one. Try not to obsess over making it look perfect. Because the wet-on-wet technique will smooth out any imperfections. And then we're going in with our purple. Just like last time, we're going to start painting our purple at the top of the painting and gradually work it down towards the pink in long smooth horizontal brushstrokes. Always be careful with your darkest color. It's very easy to accidentally put too much on and then suddenly find that your darkest color has taken over and dominated your entire painting. I'm going back in with my pink once again in this layer to increase the vibrancy. I'm starting in the center of the pink and working upwards towards the purple and then down slightly into the orange. Bit careful here and make sure that you don't accidentally drag purple streaks into the orange section of the sky. I'm making sure my brush strokes are very gentle this time, so I don't disturb the paint underneath too much. We're just finishing off this layer by going back in with our orange, starting at the bottom of the paper and working it up into the pink to increase the vibrancy. Then we're going to clean up the sides of the painting and leave it to dry. Now that the painting is fully dry, we're ready to start on the last layer. We're going to start this Nia the same we have with the others by covering the paper in clean water with a big square brush to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. Be very gentle with your brushstrokes when you do this. Because watercolors can reactivate when they get wet and start to move around to the paper. You might need to change your paint water before you start this layer working with darker colors like our purple content, the water more than normal. Which means if we're not careful, we can end up covering our paper in purple water instead of clean water. Leave your paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper before we start painting. Now we're ready to go in with our orange. As usual. We're going to start by painting the orange across the bottom of the paper in long, smooth horizontal brushstrokes and gradually work it up into the pink. And then we're going to mix up our pink and start in the middle of our middle section. And work that gradually down into the orange and then upwards towards the purple. Note that I'm being very gentle with my brush strokes in this layer. We want to make sure we're not disturbing the paint in the layers below too much because that can cause unevenness in the gradient. So keep a light grip on your brush and paint in one direction across the painting to keep the brushstrokes as smooth as possible. And finally, we're going to go back in with our purple. Starting at the top of the painting, we're going to paint our purple in long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper and gradually work it downwards into the pink. As you can see, a combination of layering onto the wet on wet technique has produced a really vibrant and smooth gradient. Clean up the edges of the paper, and then leave your painting to dry before starting on the next lesson. 12. Palm Trees: Silhouette: Now that I will painting is completely dry. We're ready to paint in the silhouettes of the palm trees. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before we do this, or else the palm trees will bleed out into the background. We're going to switch over to using our pointed brush in size three to paint our silhouettes. And I'm starting by mixing up the color for the silhouettes, which is Payne's gray. Mix your color as dark as you can so that it's super saturated and appears almost black. You do want to make sure that it has enough water in the color though, to make it easy to paint across the paper. We're starting by painting the trunk of the first palm tree. I'm painting this first tree slightly to the left of center of the painting to leave space to put in other trees at different sizes to add depth later on, using a light hold on your brush. Start at the top of the trunk and gradually drag your brush down towards the bottom of the painting. You can increase the pressure on your brush as you go down the painting so that the bristles spread out and the tree trunk gets larger towards the bottom. And then we're going to start painting in the palm leaves. We're going to paint the shape of the palm leaves by starting with a single line for the stem of the leaf. And then paint the sections of the leaf starting from the top of the stem and paint outwards in short, spiky brushstrokes that angled down towards the tip of the leaf. Make sure to keep a very light hold on your brush as you do this, so that we're painting in nice fine lines. Put about four palm leaves on each tree. We're going to leave that to dry for a moment before starting on the second tree so that we don't smudge it as we're painting. The next palm tree is going to be slightly smaller than the first one so that it appears further away. This is going to help us add depth to the painting. Starts at the top of the trunk and drag your paintbrush down to the bottom of the painting. Gradually adding a bit of pressure onto the brush, if you can, so that the bottom of the trunk is wider than the top. Note that I'm not painting the trunk of the palm trees completely straight because palm trees naturally grow at slightly bent angles. Then we're going to add on the leaves. As this palm tree is smaller than the first one. We're also going to paint the leaves smaller than the first one. Begin by painting the stem of the leaf and then fill out the leaf starting at the base of the stem. And paint short, spiky brushstrokes outwards towards the tip of the leaf. Next, we're going to paint a larger tree to the right of the painting. As the tree is larger, we want to use more pressure on our brush when painting the trunk. The trunk is wider than the other palm trees we've painted so far. Still start at the top of the trunk and drag the brush down to the bottom of the painting in one smooth brushstroke. As this tree is larger, that also means it's closer to us. So we're going to be able to see a little bit more detail. I'm putting this detail in by varying the sizes of the leaves on this palm tree. As you can see, I've started with quite a small leaf, and then I'm putting in several larger ones so that we have some variety in the tree. You might also notice that we're varying the angles of the leaves. Palm tree leaves are very flexible and they can blow about a lot in the wind. So they often stand at lots of different angles and can also bend upwards and downwards. Whatever angle you're palm tree leaves are going in, you want to make sure that you're still painting the spiky parts of the leaves downwards towards the tip of the leaf. Through all this, keep remembering to use a light grip on your brush so that we're painting in nice fine lines. You want to be using the very tip of your brush to paint in the palm leaves. Now we're going to paint in the largest tree at the right of the painting. Which means that this tree is going to be taller and the trunk is going to be even wider than the previous tree. Paint the trunk by starting at the top and guide your brush down towards the bottom of the painting in one smooth brushstroke. You need to make sure that your brush has plenty of paint on it to do this, so that you can paint the tree trunk smoothly. However. You can go back over any sections if you want to darken them up. But ideally, we want to do it in one brush stroke. As this is our largest palm tree, it's going to have the largest leaves. Start by painting the stem of the leaf and then fill out the leaf using short spiky brushstrokes angled towards the tip of the leaf. Make sure you're using a light hold on your brush to do this. And you can even leave a few gaps in-between your brushstrokes to really exaggerate the silhouette shape of the leaf. To add variety, you can paint in the leaves at different angles and sizes. If you really want to go all out, then you can paint the spikes at the tip of the leaf, slightly shorter than the ones at the base of the leaf to show how the shape is tapering off into a point. Then I'm going to leave these trees to dry before painting the final tree on the left of the painting, so that I don't smudge my work as I paint in the last tree. The final tree on the left is going to be about the same size as the largest tree on the right. So we're going to use quite a bit of pressure on our brush as we're painting in the tree trunk to make sure that it's just as wide as the tree on the right. As you can see, this tree formation put depth into the painting because it looks like the trees at the edge of the painting are closer to us because they are larger. And the trees at the center of the painting are further away. Same as before with painting in the leaves, start with a single line for the stem of the leaf to map out the direction and angle the leaf is at. Then we can fill in the leaf using short spiky brushstrokes that are angled towards the tip of the leaf. As this tree is quite close to us, we want to make sure that we're painting in the leaves fairly large, at least as big as the tree on the right. Make sure you're keeping a light hold on your brush so that you're painting in the leaves using the very tip of your brush to keep the lines nice and fine. We want our palm trees to have a light and flexible feel to them. Now, somewhere along painting this, a little blob of black has settled next to my tree at the bottom right of the painting. This isn't the end of the world. And if this were anywhere else in the painting, I would just leave it. But in situations like these, as it's so close to the tree, a sneaky trick you is to simply widen the trunk of the tree a little bit at the bottom to cover up that stray blob of black. Then leave your trees to dry before removing the tape. Do make sure your palm trees are completely dry before you remove the tape so that we don't smudge paint across the painting and ruin it at this stage. That would be so sad. Put one hand down over the painting to hold it in place. Then use the other two, peel the tape off and outwards away from the painting. This way, if the paper does tear as we're removing the tape, it should outwards towards the edge of the painting instead of into the painting. This is why I recommend using scotch tape over regular seller take because scotch tape tends not to tear the paper. In this class, we developed our skills with gradients by progressing onto using three colors in a gradient. And we also began developing our skills using a pointed brush to paint in a more detailed type of silhouette. In day four, we're going to develop this work further by refining our skills to paint more complex details without pointed brush. And we're also going to try out a new type of sky. See you next time. 13. Evening Tree: Colours: Before we start the project, we're going to go over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. We're starting with the lightest colors we're using in our sky. For the lightest color in the sky, we're using a light orange. I'm using Winsor orange for this. This is for the lightest color on our clouds. As always, remember that you don't have to use the exact same colors as I am. This color chart is just a guide for the darker color on our clouds. We're going to mix up a bluish purple out of cerulean blue and permanent rows. We're aiming for a muted type of purple with this color. We don't want anything too dark here because we don't want the background to overpower the painting. And for the color of our sky, we're going to be using cerulean blue. We're mixing this up quite watery because again, we don't want anything too bright because we're going for a soft sky in the background. So the tallow tree silhouette will really stand out. Then we're moving on to the color we'll be painting our tree with. As with all the lessons in this class, we're going to be painting our tree as a silhouette. So we're only using one color. I'm using Payne's gray and I'm mixing it up super dark so that it appears almost black. I like Payne's gray because it has a bit of a bluish tint to it. So I think it's a bit more harmonious against my paintings. However, you can use any gray or any black as a replacement if you'd prefer. And here is what our color chart looks like when it's dry. I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. 14. Evening Tree: Sky: We're going to start today's project by painting the sky in our background. First, we're preparing the paper for the wet-on-wet technique by covering it in clean water using a big square brush. Make sure to cover your paper evenly so that there aren't any gaps. This week's projects are set out so that we gradually increase in difficulty as we go on throughout the week. So if you're just joining us today, I do recommend going back to day one and working through them in order. Leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. Before we start painting, We're starting, as always, with our lightest color and we're mixing up our orange. Make sure your oranges quite watery so that it's going to diffuse outwards with the wet-on-wet technique. I'm switching over to using my pointed brush in size five to paint the sky. This is a bit of a change today because so far we've only used square brushes to paint the skies. I find that pointed round brushes are best for painting skies with clouds because they are naturally better at forming soft, fluffy cloud shapes where a square brushes can start to look a bit sharp. We're beginning by using our orange to block out some basic cloud shapes into the sky. As you can see, I'm using a sort of scribbling motion with my brush, almost like you do with a crayon. To create the vague, abstract shapes that clouds form into. These clouds are going to be out of focus. And they also cumulus clouds, which are the ones that are big and fluffy. So we want to keep a very free and relaxed feel with our brushstrokes. Remember, we're just trying to create the impression of clouds in this painting. It doesn't have to be super accurate. Don't worry about making your orange super vibrant here. As we're just blocking out the general shape of the clouds. Once you're happy with your clouds, we're going to mix up our blue for the sky. Keep this color really light and watery so that the wet-on-wet technique can soften everything out. Then we're going to paint the blue all over the sky in the gaps in-between the clouds. Note that I'm not attempting to mix the blue into the clouds to merge them together. We're just going to place the blue next to the child's said that the wet on wet technique can do the work. If we were to attempt to blend a blue sky into orange clouds, the two colors would mix together and create Brown. Keep your brushstrokes very light and relaxed throughout this process. Finally, we're going to mix up our purple. We're going to paint this just on the tops of the clouds to put in some shadows. In this painting, the sun is setting. So the sun is coming from underneath the clouds and lighting the bottom of the clouds. While the top of the clouds are in the shadow. Once again, don't try to blend the purple and orange together. The wet on wet technique will merge the two colors together without modifying the colors. Then we're going to clean up the sides of our painting and leave it to dry. Once the painting is completely dry, we're ready to start on the second layer. We're going to begin the second layer by covering our paper in clean water with a big square brush to prepare it for the wet-on-wet technique. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before doing this. Because if it isn't, the layers will bleed together and over saturate the paper. You might find that water collects at the sides of your paintings when you're covering it with water. I recommend drawing this up quickly so that it doesn't unstick the tape holding your paper to the table. Now we're ready to go back in with our first color, which is our orange. We're switching back to our pointed brush in size five to paint the sky. We're going to paint the orange over all the same sections we did in the first layer. To brighten up the colors. Remember to keep a nice night. Hold on your brush and use quick free movements to paint your clouds. That we get a lovely soft look to the clouds. Then we're going to mix up the purple for our clouds. And just like with the orange, we're going to paint the purple over all the same areas as we did in the first layer. We're just placing the purple next to the orange and allowing the wet on wet technique to merge the two colors together. Don't attempt to blend the two colors together yourself because they'll just mixed together and create brown. And lastly, we're going back in with our blue for the sky. We're going to paint the blue in the gaps in-between the clouds. Make sure to keep the color very watered down so that the sky is nice and light and not overpowering. We're still keeping a very gentle grip on the brush so that this guy has a nice soft look. Once you're happy with your sky, leave the painting to dry before moving on to the next lesson. 15. Evening Tree: Tree Silhouette: Once the background is dry, we're ready to paint in the tree. As you can see, the wet-on-wet technique has allowed us to create a nice soft blended sky with the impression of fluffy clouds in the background. This is going to allow our tree to stand out really nicely against this guy. Make sure your painting is fully dry before starting on this lesson. Or else the tree will blend out into the background. We're starting this lesson by mixing up the color we're using for our tree. In my case, is Payne's gray mixed up super dark so that it appears almost black. You can use regular black, gray or dark brown if you'd prefer. We're switching over to using our pointed brush in size three for the tree. In this lesson, we're going to be painting the main bronchus and shape of the tree. We're starting at the tip of the lowest branch. And we're going to paint it by dragging the tip of the brush towards the right bottom corner of the painting. Moving the brush slightly to create a few bends in the branch. Note that we're starting with very little pressure at the tip of the branch. And gradually a prime more pressure to the brush as we reach the bottom corner so that the branch gets thicker as it gets closer to the base of the tree. Next we're going to paint the top branch. This branch is going to begin at the top middle of the painting and go down towards the middle of the right side of the painting. This branches thicker. So we're going to apply quite a bit of pressure to our brush all along the branch so that it's wider than the first one. Once again, we're going to move the brush slightly as we're painting to give the branch some natural bends to it. Next we're going to paint in our tree trunk, well, All the branches are going to connect to. In this painting, we can only see part of the tree trunk along the right side of the painting. We're going to paint the trunk from the top of the painting right down to the bottom, moving our brush slightly to give it some natural areas of imperfections. Then I'm going to smooth out and round off where the branches meet the tree trunk so that the connections look a bit more natural. I'm just darkening up the top branch to make sure it's the same color as the rest of the silhouette. Next, I'm going to paint the smaller branches. And these are the branches that connect into the two main branches we've already painted. These branches are going to be thinner than the first ones. We want to use a lighter hold on the brush when we're painting them. So that we're painting in thinner lines. Gradually increase the pressure on your brush as we connect this branch into the larger one so that it gets thicker closer to the base of the tree. We're going to round out where the branches connect into each other to give it a more natural appearance. Then we're going to paint some small thin twigs looking branches onto the branch we've just painted. These are the thinnest types of branches were painting. So we're going to use the very tip of our pointed brush to put these in. Then we're going to paint in a branch that's going to connect into the bottom branch. This is going to begin by crossing over the branch we've just painted. And we're going to come down a little way with our line and then stop. Then we're going to pick that line up again, starting at a slightly different angle and connect it down into the bottom branch. If you can add more pressure onto your brush as we get to the bottom of the branch so that it's thinner at the top and wider towards the base. Then we're going to paint a smaller branch using the same method again. And now we're going to paint in some of those small tweak type branches onto the bottom branch. Make sure you use a very light grip on your brush to do this. So that we're painting with the very tip of the brush to create a nice fine lines. The top of the painting is looking a bit sparse. So we're going to be adding a few more branches up there to balance it out. We're going to start by putting in two of our thicker style of branches to fill out that section of the tree. Then we're going to finish off by putting in some smaller, thinner branches to add some variety. Here we have the main shape of the tree. Once you're happy with your tree, leave your painting to dry before moving on to the next lesson. 16. Evening Tree: Adding the Leaves: Now we're ready to paint in the leaves. Make sure your painting is fully dry before you do this. So we don't smudge the tree branches across the paper as we paint in the leaves, were keeping with our small brush in size three to do this, to give us as much control over the details as possible. Control doesn't mean to get tense though. It's much easier to paint in details if you're keeping a fairly relaxed grip on your brush so that your hand is able to move around easily. We're painting the leaves on this tree in teardrop shapes. I recommend varying the sizes of the leaves slightly and painting them in with slight imperfections in the teardrop. To give them a more natural feel. You may find that you have to keep mixing up more of your silhouette color so that it stays nice and opaque as you're painting. Make sure you don't add too much water to your paint here because that will make it difficult to paint in the detailed shapes of the leaves. We're going to add the leaves to our thinner branches. And at the tips of each branch. This will allow us to paint uneven spread of leaves across the painting without having to paint hundreds of leaves to fill in the entire tree. Paint the leaves using the very tip of your brush so that we're painting in nice fine lines. I'm painting the leaves by painting the outline of the teardrop shape and then filling in the center of the shape. Keep gravity in mind as you're painting in the leaves. We want most of the leaves to be either facing downwards or at least bending downwards towards the ground as they would in real life. Painting details can be a bit tricky because it's hard to keep your hands steady. My tip for this is to use your little finger as an anchor point on the paper to steady your hand while still allowing you free movement with your brush. Just be careful as you do this, that you don't smudge any paint across your paper with your little finger? I do actually smudge paint across the paper later on. I'll show you how to fix that when we get to it. You might find as you're painting, that you want to add a few more smaller branches to put leaves on as you go. So feel free to do that to wherever you want to fill out the tree. While we're going to be painting in the leaves in little clusters. Still make sure that you're leaving slight gaps in-between each leaf to allow us to see the silhouette clearly. If we have too many leaves overlapping, then we risk them turning into a black blob on the paper. And we're trying to keep a nice light and delicate feel to this tree silhouette. This is where I smudged paint onto the paper. As you can see, I rested my hand over where I just painted in a branch. So the paint was still wet and I ended up smudging it further up the sky. This isn't the end of the world. We can easily fix it by taking clean water onto a brush and painting over this much. Then take a clean tissue and dab away the paint. This highlights another thing you need to consider when painting in your leaves. And that is try to work in a way that means you're not going to be resting your hand over where you've just put down paint. If you're right-handed. This generally means to work from left to right on the page. And if you're left-handed, then work from right to left. Really, if I was being sensible, I would have worked from top to bottom on this painting, instead of starting on the bottom branches and working upwards. But hey, we live and learn. If I were Bob Ross, I'd throw in a line about happy little accidents here. Make sure you're varying the sizes of your leaves slightly so that we get some natural variety into the tree. I also recommend making sure your leaves face in slightly different directions because leaves on the trees don't all go in the same direction. It's probably a good idea to look up some pictures of trees before you start painting so that you have an idea in your head of some natural leaf formations. With that said, don't get overly concerned about making this super accurate. We're painting in the impression of a tree in a silhouette. We're not trying to create a perfect replica of any specific type of tree. You can challenge yourself in this painting by looking up different types of trees and perhaps painting one with different shaped leaves. I thought the classic teardrop shaped leaf would be a great way to practice our skills with a pointed brush while still keeping things very simple. However, feel free to branch out into other leaf shapes if you want to. I make no apologies for the palms and I shall leave you alone now. I challenge you to leave your best leaf and tree pons down below in the discussions. This process can take awhile, so do take a break if you want to. It's important to keep your focus while painting in the leaves so that we remember to keep a nice light hold on the brush to keep our brushwork delicate. The beauty of painting in silhouettes is that you can easily take a break at anytime and come back to it later, because we're only using one color. So it's very easy to mix up that color again later on. Now we're adding some larger leaves at the very top of the painting. These are slightly larger than the other leaves because they are closer to us. The idea here is that they're coming down from a branch that's just above us, which is why they're being cut off by the top of the painting. Once you're happy with your tree, leave your painting to dry before peeling off the tape. Put one hand over the painting to hold it down while pulling the tape off and away from the painting with the other. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before doing this. Or else you're going to smudge dark paint all over the painting at the very end. In this class, we've developed our skills with painting skies by moving on to painting clouds in the sky using a pointed brush. And we've also practiced our skills with our small pointed brush. I've learned how to use different pressures on the brush to paint different kinds of lines and add some very small and delicate details. In the next project, we're going to develop our skills with color mixing and learn how to get the most out of our square brush. 17. Orange City: Colours: Before we start today's project, we're going to go over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. As always, you don't have to have the exact same colors as I do. Just use whatever you've got and use this as a guide. We're starting by mixing up the colors in our sky. The lightest color we're using in our sky is a light orangey yellow mixed up using Winsor orange and Winsor yellow. I'm mixing this up quite watery. That it's going to be easy to use with the wet on wet technique. Next we're mixing up a deep orange out of Winsor orange and a little bit of Windsor red. Some red pigments can be very powerful. So be careful when you're mixing this in. It's best to start with a very small amount and build it up slowly. Once again, I'm mixing this color quite watery so that it's going to blend out easily with the wet on wet technique. Next, we're mixing up our main blue for the sky. For this, we're using mostly cerulean blue. And then I'm mixing in a tiny bit of Winsor yellow to give this guy a slight turquoise tint. Be very careful here and only use a tiny amount of yellow. Or else we'll turn the sky green. Then we're going to mix up the color for our silhouette. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you at this point that I'm going to be using Payne's gray for the silhouette of my city. I'm mixing this up super dark so that it appears almost black. As always, you can replace this color with any dark gray or black if you'd prefer. And here is our color chart. When it's dry, I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. 18. Orange City: Sky: We're starting today's project by painting in the sky. We're going to begin by preparing our paper for the wet on wet technique by covering it in clean water using a big square brush. Make sure the paper is covered evenly and there aren't any gaps. The fuel paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink in. Before we start painting. Today, we're going to be practicing with our small square brush. I'm going to be using this to paint in our sky. Start by mixing up our lightest color, which is a yellowy orange. Then beginning in the center of the painting, we're going to paint this color across the painting in long sweeping brushstrokes. We're keeping this color mostly to the bottom half of the painting. Make sure to leave gaps in between your brushstrokes. For us to paint in other colors. I'm mostly using the thin edge of my brush at the start here to keep the brush strokes fairly thin so that we can leave lots of space for the other colors. Next, we're going to mix up our deeper orange. We're going to start by painting this at the bottom of the painting. Long sweeping brushstrokes work upwards towards the top of the painting. Place our deep orange in the gaps that we left in-between the first color, leave space at the top for the blue of the sky. Next we're going to mix up our blue for the sky. We're going to paint this in starting at the top of the sky and fill in the gaps we've left in-between the other colors. Note that we're just placing the colors next to each other. We're not trying to blend them together. The wet-on-wet technique will merge everything together for us. If we try to blend the colors together, they'll mix together and create Brown. Try to make sure you've covered the whole of the painting and there aren't any gaps of white left. Then we're going to clean up the sides of our painting and leave it to dry. I realized here that I'd forgotten to take down one side of my painting. Fortunately, with only the first layer painted, it's not going to make a huge difference to the final outcome. But I thought I'd keep this in just to highlight that you want to make sure you're typing your paper to the table securely. Especially when using techniques like the wet on wet technique. A lot of water gets applied to the paper. Because this water can make it bend and warp as it gets wet. And we need the tape to stop that from happening. Make sure to press the tape firmly into the paper so that there aren't any air bubbles for the water to get underneath and potentially unstick the tape. Now that the painting is fully dry, we are ready to start on the second layer. We're starting this layer the same as the first one, by covering our paper with clean water using a big square brush to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. Then I'm going to go in and clean up the sides of the painting. Make sure I'm not dragging excess water across the painting as I work. We're switching back to using our small square brush. And we're going to mix up our first color again, which is our orangey yellow. We're going to paint this all over the same areas as we did in the first layer. Make sure you're still using wide sweeping brush strokes with your brush so that we get the impression of soft clouds in the sky. Then we're going to mix up our deep orange again. And just like with our first color, we're going to paint this in all the same areas as we did in the first layer. In this layer, you can try to alternate using the thin edge of your brush and the flat edge of the brush with your brush strokes to get a combination of thin and wide brush strokes. This will help to add a bit of variety into the sky. And finally, we're going to mix up our blue again. Start at the top of the sky and to paint the blue down the painting in long sweeping brushstrokes. Fill in all the gaps left between our other colors. Make sure you're just placing the blue next to the oranges. That they don't mix together too much and create brown. I'm just finishing off by putting a bit more of my deep orange at the bottom of the painting to make sure I haven't left any gaps. Then leave your painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Once your painting is completely dry, we can start the third layer by covering our paper in clean water using a big square brush. Be very gentle with your brush as you do this. Because watercolors can reactivate when they get wet and start to move around to the paper. As blue and orange are on opposite sides of the color wheel, risk than blending together and becoming muddy. If we disturb the layers underneath too much, then we're going to clean up the sides of the painting and allow the water to sink in for about 10 s before we start painting. This is the last layer of the sky. So we're going in a bit differently this time. We're going to start by mixing up the blue of our sky. And we're going to paint the blue along the top of the sky with a flat edge of our brush. So that we're using wide brush strokes at the top of the sky. Then as we near the orange colors, we're going to turn the brush onto its side. So we're painting with the thin edge of the brush. This will allow us to work in more refined brushstrokes as we go down the painting. I'm placing the blue in-between the oranges to put some gaps between the clouds where we can see the blue of the sky. This is going to break up this guy a bit and put in some texture. Next we're going to mix up our deep orange. I'm painting this starting at the bottom of the sky and working upwards towards the middle. This time I'm working with the thin edge of my brush. And I'm painting in slightly shorter brush strokes to add some small streaks of clouds across the sky. Now I'm going to mix up our orangey yellow. I'm going to paint this across the paper in short streaks using the thin edge of my brush. Some sections of my sky at the moment are looking a bit stripy instead of the softer cloud look I'm going for. So to fix this, I'm going to take clean water on my brush and swipe at the edges of some of the streaks of color to soften them out slightly. Then I'm going to clean up the edges of my painting with a tissue and leave the painting to dry before moving on to the next lesson. 19. Orange City: Silhouette: Now that the painting is completely dry, we're ready to paint in our city. As you can see, by using the wet-on-wet technique and different types of brushstrokes with our square brush, we've been able to paint a really beautiful dynamic sky. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before starting on this lesson. Or else the city silhouette will bleed out into the background. I'm beginning by mixing up the color we're going to paint in the city, which for me is Payne's gray. And I'm mixing this up super dark so that it appears almost black. Make sure you don't add too much water to your paint because that will make it difficult to paint the details of the skyline. I'm keeping with using my small square brush to paint in the city skyline. I'm going to start by painting a solid line of color right across the bottom of my paper. Tried to paint this line as straight as possible. You might need to go over it a few times to make sure it's super dark. This line is going to be the base of our city skyline and everything else will connect down into it. Then we're going to start with the building right in the center of our Skyline to mark out to the central point. Turn your brush sideways and paint a tall, thin building, starting at the top of the building using short brushstrokes with your square brush, one below the other, until it meets our baseline. This is going to be the tallest building in our Skyline. Make sure you don't smudge your hand across your baseline as we're painting. You can leave the baseline to dry before painting in the rest of the city skyline. If that will be easier, then we're going to paint in another building a little to the right of our first one. I'm painting a short brushstroke to mark out the height of the building. Then I'm turning my brush vertically and painting the building with the flat edge of my brush because this building is going to be wider than the first one. The next building I'm painting is going to be midway between the second building and the right edge of the painting. This building is shorter than the second one and thin. So we're going to paint it using short brushstrokes with the thin edge of our brush. Then I'm going to paint a small cluster of shorter buildings between the last building and to the right edge of the paper. As you can see, now we have a general line on the right side of the painting. Maps out the buildings descending in height as we go from the center of the painting to the edge. You might want to go over these buildings again to make sure there is dark as possible. Don't worry about filling in the gaps at the moment. We'll do that later. Then we're going to leave the painting to dry before starting on the left side of the painting. I've left the silhouette to dry a little bit before working on the left side of the painting so that I don't smudge it with my hand as I work on the left side, I admit it probably would've been more sensible to start by working on the left side first and then progressing to the right side so that I wasn't leaning on the work I've just painted. But I've never claimed to have much sense. Anyway, we're going to start by mixing up our silhouette color again. And I'm just straightening up my baseline before we start. We're going to start with the shortest building on the left side of the painting. I'm making this building quite wide. So I'm painting it using the wide flat edge of my brush in vertical brushstrokes. Then I'm leaving a small gap and painting in a thin building using short brushstrokes with the thin edge of my brush, I'm making this building slightly taller. The next building is going to be in the middle of the gap between the building I've just painted and the central building. Once again, I'm painting a wider building. So I'm going to use vertical brushstrokes with the flat edge of my brush. I'm starting with one line going from the top of the building down to my baseline. And then I'm layering another brushstroke next to that first line, slightly above and a little bit to the right. Painting straight down towards the base line. As you can see, this creates a slightly different shape of building. Perhaps the type of apartment block that has a penthouse apartment on the top. And now we have a general shape to the city that shows the buildings decreasing in height, starting at the center and going down towards the edges of the painting. From here, we're going to start filling in the gaps. I'm starting by putting a small cluster of thin buildings to the left of my central building. You can paint these in by almost dotting the thin edge of your brush onto the paper to put in some super thin lines. You can vary the height of the buildings in small clusters to make the skyline look more interesting. Just make sure that overall the skyline still follows the general shape of the central building being the tallest and gradually decreasing in size as we go outwards towards the edges of the painting. Next, I'm going to put in some buildings just to the right of our central building. For variety, I'm painting these buildings wider than the small cluster I put on the left. You can use a combination of the thin edge and the flat edge of your square brush to do this. Then I'm putting in two small buildings to fill in the final gap on the right. Now we have all the buildings in our Skyline. However, our skyline looks a bit odd at the moment because all the buildings are coming down into the baseline. And with the gaps in-between the buildings, we can very clearly see the baseline running across the bottom of the painting. We're going to bring the baseline up higher in-between some of the buildings. This will add variety to the bottom of our silhouette and help to disguise the baseline. If you'd like more of a challenge in this painting, you could practice some more with your small pointed brush and put in some birds silhouettes in the sky. Then we're just going to go over any of the buildings that look like they're drawing too light. Once again to make sure the silhouette is all the same color. Then leave your painting to dry before peeling off the tape. In this painting, we've developed the sky painting technique. We tried out in day two by mixing up our own colors for the sky, instead of just working from the pigments in our palette. We've also progressed our work with the small square brush by learning to use both the thin edge and the flat edge of the brush to create different kinds of lines and paint a complex cityscape silhouette. Tomorrow we're going to continue to develop our work further by learning how to put depth into a cityscape. And we're going to continue our work with color mixing. 20. Layered City: Colours: We're starting today's project by going over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. As always, do remember that you don't have to have the exact same colors as I do. Just use whatever you've got and use this as a guide. If you want to experiment, you could use completely different colors. First up, we're going over the colors we'll be using in the sky. The lightest color we're using in the sky is a bright orangey yellow mixed using Winsor orange and Winsor yellow. For the medium color in our sky, we're going to be using a nice bright pink. I'm using permanent rose for this. Make sure to mix these colors for this guy up nice and watery. So they'll work well with the wet on wet technique. And finally, for the darkest color in our sky, we're going to mix up a deep purple out of permanent rose, a little bit of Windsor blue. Don't use too much blue because we're aiming for quite a warm pinky purple. Then we're going to mix up the colors. We'll be painting our city silhouettes width. We're going to be using three layers of silhouettes in this project. And each layer will use the same color at different strengths. I'm using Payne's gray for my silhouettes, but you can use any gray or black that you have. I'm mixing up my gray for the first layer of silhouettes with lots of water so that it's very light and transparent. The second layer is going to be a midpoint between the lightest and darkest. I'm mixing up my Payne's gray with less water than the first time so that it's lighter than before, but still leaving myself space to make it darker in the final layer. In the last layer of silhouettes, I'm mixing up my Payne's gray, super dark and saturated so that it appears almost black. Do consider however, that you need to mix the color up with enough water so that it's easy to paint across the paper. Here is what the color chart looks like when it's dry. I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the project. 21. Layered City: Painting the Gradient: We're starting this course by painting in the background. And just like in day one and day three, we're going to be painting a gradient in the background. However, this time we're developing our work by mixing up our own colors for the gradient. To prepare our paper to paint the gradient, we're going to cover it in clean water using a big square brush so that it's ready for the wet-on-wet technique. Make sure you cover the paper evenly with water and there aren't any gaps. We're looking for a night glossy sheen over our paper and avoid any puddles of water sitting on the surface of the paper. As these can cause the paint to dry unevenly. Leave your paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper before we start painting. The eagle-eyed among you might notice that I've changed my nail varnish since the last project and that is how long it took me to plan and record this weeks of lessons. We're switching over to using our small square brush to paint the sky. I'm starting by mixing up our lightest color, which is our light orangey yellow. Make sure to mix this up with enough water so that it's going to be easy to paint across the paper smoothly. We're going to start by painting this color at the bottom of the paper in long smooth brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. We're working our orangey yellow upwards towards the middle third of our paper. This time, our silhouette is going to come much higher up the paper than in the previous projects. So I've taken the lightest color further up the painting so that we will still be able to see it. Once we've painted in the silhouettes, then we're going to mix up our medium color for the gradient, which is a permanent rose. We're painting the pink starting at the center of the middle third of the paper. And paint it in long brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. Then work your pink down into the orange and then upwards towards the top third of the sky. Make sure to clean your brush when you do this. And make sure you don't drag any orange up into the top of the sky. And then finally, we're going to mix up our deep purple for the top of the gradient. As you can see, I've only left a small amount of room for the darkest color this time, with the silhouette coming up higher than normal. We're going to have a lot more dark colors down the bottom of the painting. So if I put too much of my dark purple in the sky, then overall, my painting is going to end up looking very dark. To keep the painting looking bright, we're going to only paint a small area of purple at the top of the painting. I'm going to paint my purple starting at the top of the painting and work it down towards the pink in long smooth horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. At this point, I realized that my pink and purple basically looked the same. So I added another layer of each color to exaggerate that part of the gradient. It's only the first layer. So we don't want to obsess over making the colors super vibrant, but we do want them to look noticeably different from each other. So we're building up the foundations of our gradient and color blending in this layer. Then I'm just taking clean water onto my brush and smoothing out to where the pink meets the orange. Then we're going to clean up the edges of the painting and leave it to dry before starting on the next layer. Now that the painting is completely dry, I'm starting this layer by once again covering the paper in clean water with a big square brush to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. Then I'm going to clean up the edges of the painting to make sure I'm not smearing excess water over my painting as I work. They feel paper for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. Before we start painting. In this layer, we're starting once again by mixing up our lightest color, which is our orangey yellow. I'm switching back to using my small square brush to paint this layer. We're painting the orange, starting at the bottom of the painting and working it gradually upwards towards the pink. Make sure you're working in long smooth brushstrokes going right across the width of the paper so that the gradient will be nice and smooth. Next we're going back in with our pink. We are taking this starting at the center of our middle third and blending it down into the orange. And then upwards towards the purple. There's a bit of a harsh line in-between my pink and orange. So I'm going back in with my pink and orange a little bit to smooth that out. And then we're mixing up our deep purple again. We're painting the purple starting at the top of the painting and taking it gradually down into the pink. Remember to only pay the purple down a little way into the gradient. So the towel sky doesn't get too dark. We start at the top of the paper and work down with the purple so that the color is most concentrated at the top of the painting. And to naturally diffuses out and gets lighter as we go down into the pink. Then clean up the sides of your painting and leave it to dry before starting on the next layer. Now that the painting is completely dry, we're ready to cover it with clean water using a big square brush. Once again to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. You might need to change your water to do this because working with dark colors like purple content the water faster than other colors. And we don't want to cover our painting with purple water as this is the last layer of our gradient. Be very gentle with your big square brush so that we don't disturb the layers underneath too much. Then we're going to clean up the sides of the painting to make sure we don't smudge excess water over the painting as we work. Leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. Before we start painting. Then we're switching back over to our small square brush and mixing up our orangey yellow again. Just like before, we're painting this starting at the bottom of the painting and working it across the paper in non-smooth horizontal brushstrokes. Graduate paint to the orange upwards into the pink. As you can see, the benefit of our layering is really paying off here. And our orange looks much more vibrant in this layer. Then we're going to mix up our pink again. We're painting our pink starting at the center of the middle third, and painting it downwards into the orange using long, smooth, horizontal brushstrokes. And then we're taking the pink upwards into the purple. Finally, we're mixing up our deep purple. Once again. We're starting at the top of the painting. And painting this in long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the painting. And then we're taking it down a little way into the pink. You can go back in with your pink a little bit to make sure the transition between purple and pink is nice and smooth. Once you're happy with your gradient, clean up the sides of your painting and leave it to dry. Before starting on the next lesson. 22. Layered City: Silhouette: Make sure your painting is completely dry before starting on this lesson. Or else the silhouettes will bleed out into the background. Now we're ready to start painting in our city silhouettes. We're starting with the silhouette that's in our lightest gray. So we're mixing up Payne's gray, nice and watery so that its light and transparent. We're keeping with our small square brush to paint the city. We're going to paint this silhouette just underneath where the pink blends into the orange in our gradient so that we can still see the transitions in our gradient. This is roughly a third of the way up the paper. Remember our work from last lesson and paint the city silhouette using a small square brush. Turn your brush at different angles to paint in different heights and widths of buildings. As we're doing three layers of cityscapes, we're going to bring our silhouette color right down to the bottom of the painting so that each silhouette will be layered one on top of the other. By using three layers of silhouettes. We're going to be able to put in a lot more depth into our city scene in this project. This first layer, which is our lightest layer, will be the background. As the light gray will fade off into the distance. I will. Medium gray will be the midground. Under the darkest gray will be the foreground. You might need to re-mix your color to make sure that you have enough paint. Natural unevenness will occur when painting the city like this in a lighter color. So don't worry too much about that. But do try to re-mix your colors as accurately as possible so that there isn't too much discrepancy between the shapes. Just make sure that each layer is identifiable, be part of the same silhouette. Once we've layered all the silhouettes together, we won't notice any unevenness too much anyway. Then I'm going in on smoothing out the bottom of the silhouette to make sure it's blended right down to the bottom of the painting. Then leave your painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Do make sure your painting is completely dry before starting on this layer. Or else the layers of silhouettes will merge together and just create a blob of black. We're starting this layer by mixing up our medium gray for the second layer of silhouettes. For this, I'm mixing up my Payne's gray, slightly darker than the layer before, but still light enough to allow me to go even darker. In the next layer. We're painting this layer of silhouettes underneath the first one. So you want to leave enough of a gap that you can see the first city skyline clearly above the second skyline. Once again, keep changing the angle of your square brush so that you can paint in a combination of thin and wider buildings to get some variety into your Skyline. While we want the overall skyline of the second layer to be below the first one. You can vary the height of the buildings in the skyline so that we get some contrast in the silhouette. Make sure you're taking your gray right down to the bottom of the painting so that we're layering the silhouettes fully one on top of the other. And we're building the foundation for a super dark silhouette in the last layer. I think you can see the benefit of having two layers of silhouettes that are slightly transparent. As this allows us to see some of the gradient in the background behind the city skylines. Once you're happy with the second layer of silhouettes, leave your painting to dry before starting on the last two layer. Once again, make sure your painting is completely dry. Before starting on this layer, arouse the silhouettes will bleed into each other. It's important with paintings like these that we don't get impatient right at the end. I'm starting this layer by mixing up the darkest color for the silhouettes, which for me is Payne's gray mixed up supersaturated so that it appears almost black. We're painting this silhouette underneath the second layer so that we can see the skyline of the layer above clearly vary the heights and widths of the buildings so that we get different shapes in our Skyline. Take your gray right down to the bottom of the painting so that there aren't any gaps. You might need to re-mix your color a few times to make sure that it stays as dark and saturated as possible. Make sure you don't add too much water into your paint because that will make it difficult to paint with and we'll lose the crisp edges in our brushwork. As we learned in the last class, you can layer different types of brushstrokes over each other with your square brush to create different shapes with your buildings. I think you can see that the depth in our painting is starting to emerge as we now have a background, mid ground, and foreground in our cityscape. Good. Once you're happy with your city, leave your painting to dry before peeling off the tape. Make sure your painting is fully dry before we peel off the tape so that it doesn't smudge as we remove the tape. Also, damp paper is more likely to tear on dry paper. So if you find your paintings often tear as you remove the tape, it could be that the paper is still slightly wet. In this lesson, we developed our work on gradients from day three by painting a gradient with three colors. But this time mixing up our own colors to put into the gradient. We practiced our brushwork from day five by using our small square brush to paint in three city skylines. And finally, we developed our painting skills by introducing multiple layers of silhouettes to add depth. Tomorrow is the final project of the week, and we'll be painting a scene that brings together all the skills we've learned over the week to combine the techniques into one painting. 23. Final Challenge: Colours: Before we start the class, we're going to go over all the colors we'll be using and how to mix them. As always, remember that you don't have to have the exact same colors as I do. Just use the closest you've got and use this as a guide. We're starting this lesson by going over all the colors we'll be using in the sky. The lightest color we're using in the sky is a bright orange and yellow mixed using Winsor orange and Winsor yellow. Make sure to mix this up with enough water so that it's going to be easy to use with the wet-on-wet technique. Next, we're mixing up our medium color in the sky. I'm mixing up a bright pink using permanent rose. This is also going to help us transition between the orange of the sunset and the blue at the top of the sky. And finally, for the last color in our sky, we're mixing up a nice bright blue. I'm using Winsor blue for this. You'll notice we're not doing too much color mixing here. Because doing a gradient out of orange, pink, and blue is a bit more challenging than what we've been doing so far. So I want to keep the colors fairly simple. Next, we're moving on to the colors we'll be using for the silhouettes. Just like in day six, we're going to be using several layers of silhouettes to add depth to the painting. For the first layer, I'm mixing a light gray by mixing lots of water with Payne's gray. In the second layer, we're mixing up our Payne's gray with slightly less water so that it's darker than the first layer, but still leave room to go even darker in the last layer. For the final layer of silhouettes, we're going to be mixing up Payne's gray, super dark and saturated so that it appears almost black. You don't have to use Payne's gray. If you don't want to, you can use any dark gray or black that you have. Here is what our color chart looks like when it's dry. I recommend mixing up your own color chart so that you have something to refer back to during the class. 24. Final Challenge: Sky: We're starting this project by painting the sky. We're starting by covering the paper in clean water using a big square brush. Make sure you cover the paper evenly and don't leave any gaps. We're looking for a light glossy sheen to the paper to show that it's been covered evenly with water. But make sure there are no puddles of water left on the surface of the paper because this can cause the paint to dry unevenly. We're switching over to using our small square brush to paint the gradient in the sky. We're starting by mixing up our lightest color, which is our orangey yellow paint. This color, starting at the bottom of the painting in long smooth brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. Gradually paint up towards the middle third of the paper and go slightly higher. Because our silhouettes will come quite high up this painting. And we want to make sure that the orange can still be seen. Next, we're going to mix up our pink. We'll be painting the pink starting just above the orange. And then we're going to paint it downwards into the orange a little way. And then upward slightly towards the top of the paper. Leave a gap at the top of the paper for us to paint the blue. Next we're going to mix up the blue. Paint, the blue starting at the top of the paper, and gradually paint down towards the pink using long smooth brushstrokes right across the width of the paper. We're only taking the blue a little way down the painting because we don't want it to dominate the sky too much. Then we can go back in with the pink again to brighten it up, start in the middle of the pink section and paint upwards towards the blue to blend the two colors together. And then I'm cleaning off my brush and smoothing where the pink and orange meet so that we don't have any harsh lines in our gradient. Then clean up the edges of your painting and leave it to dry before moving on to the next layer. Now that the painting is fully dry, we are ready to start on the second layer. As always, do, make sure your painting is fully dry before starting on this layer or else they all merge together and we end up with a muddy mess on our hands. We're starting this layer by covering the paper in clean water using our big square brush. Leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper before we start painting. Clean up the edges of your painting. So we're not smearing excess water over our work as we paint. Then we're going to switch back over to using our small square brush. We're starting this layer by once again mixing up our lightest color, which is our bright orangey yellow paint. The orange starting at the bottom of the painting in long horizontal brushstrokes right across the width of the painting. Gradually work the orange up into the pink. Then we're going to mix up our pink paint this starting in the middle of the pink area, and then paint it up towards the blue and then downwards into the orange. It helps to paint this with your brushstrokes going in one direction right across the paper to make the gradient super smooth. And finally, we're ready to mix up our blue again. We're going back in with our blue in the same way as before. Start at the top of the painting and paint the blue gradually down into the pink using long smooth brushstrokes. Try to keep your blue to the very top of the paper so that it doesn't dominate the sky. Leave your painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Now that we have our gradient finished, we're going to be adding in some clouds. We're starting the same way as before by covering our paper in clean water with a big square brush to prepare it for the wet on wet technique. Be quite gentle with your brush here so that we don't disturb the paint underneath too much. Clean the edges of your paper and leave your painting for about 10 s to allow the water to sink into the paper. I'm switching over to using my pointed brush. In size five. We're starting off by putting in some pink clouds, by once again, mixing up our Permanent Rose. Think back to the technique we used for the clouds in day four. We're going to take the pink onto our brush and paint some basic abstract fluffy cloud shapes across the sky using the very tip of the brush. You can paint a mixture of larger and very small clouds to get some variety into the sky. Try to keep your clouds mostly to the top half of the painting. And then I'm going to mix up the blue. We using our blue to add some shadows on the tops of the clouds. Just dot the blue lightly over the top of the clouds with the tip of your brush to add on some shadows. Then we're going to darken up the larger clouds at the top of the painting. Go back in with the pink and dot this over the top Cloud to increase the saturation. Then add a little bit of blue onto the very top of the cloud to add some shadows. Then we're going to do the same thing with the second cloud. Start by going over the Cloud with the pink dotting over the areas where we want to increase the saturation. And finish off by adding some blue to the top of the cloud for the shadows. You'll notice I forgot to clean my brush in-between painting the pink and blue. So I accidentally mixed it into a purple. That doesn't matter here as the wet on wet technique would have merged the two colors into a purple anyway. Once you've finished with your sky, leave the painting to dry before moving on to the next lesson. 25. Final Challenge - Class project: Now that the painting is fully dry, we are ready to paint the silhouettes, just like we did in day six. We're going to use multiple layers of silhouettes to create depth in our painting. We're starting by mixing up the color for our first layer of silhouettes. I'm using Payne's gray and I'm mixing this up with lots of water so that it's very light and transparent. We are going to be using our small square brush to paint this layer of silhouettes. We're going to paint the silhouette of some mountains in the background. If you can remember all the way back to day one of these lessons, then you'll notice that we're expanding on those mountains we painted in day one. But now we can create a much more advanced painting with the techniques we've learned throughout the week. Turn your brush on its side so that we're painting horizontally with the flat edge of our brush. For wider brush strokes. Start just underneath where the pink meets the yellow, leaving enough space so that we can still see the transition between the two colors in the sky. Paint across the width of the paper in one smooth brushstroke. Gradually move your brush up and down as you paint to create the outline of the mountains. Then we're going to fill in the gap underneath the outline and make sure we take our light gray right down to the bottom of the painting. Fill in the silhouette using long horizontal brushstrokes. Moving your brush up and down to follow the shape of the outline. This will prevent any harsh lines on old brush strokes from forming in our silhouette. Once you're happy with your first silhouette, leave your painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Now that the mountains are dry, we're ready to paint the next layer. We're starting by mixing up our medium silhouette color. Because in this layer, we're painting the mid ground. We're going to paint a silhouette of a line of forest trees in the midground. If you've ever visited the mountains or scene photos, then you'll know that it's very common to find these thick, densely packed forest trees at the base of the mountains. Once again, turn your brush onto the side so that your painting horizontally with the flat edge of your brush. We're starting the tree line below the line of the mountains, leaving enough of a gap so that we can still see the shape of the mountains. Clearly. Paint to your tree line by moving your brush up and down in quick motions as you paint across the paper to capture the shape of the tops of closely packed spiky trees. You can move your tree line up and down a bit as you paint across the paper to give it some variety. Then we're going to fill in the bottom of the silhouette and take the gray right down to the bottom of the painting. Once you're happy with your treeline, leaves the painting to dry before starting on the next layer. Now that the painting is fully dry, we are ready to start on our darkest layer of silhouettes. For this, we're mixing up our Payne's gray as dark and saturated as possible so that it appears almost black. I'm switching over to using my pointed brush in size three to paint this layer, because we're going to be painting in some details. We're starting by painting some small hills below our treeline to replicate the flatter planes that we often find surrounding mountains. Try to paint the hills using long smooth brush strokes with your pointed brush with quite a bit of pressure so that the bristles of the brush spread out to make wider brush strokes. This will help us to keep the silhouette nice and smooth. Make sure to leave enough of a gap in-between the hills and the tree line so that we can still see the treeline clearly. Remember to take your paint right down to the bottom of the painting and don't leave any gaps. You can move your brush up and down a little bit as you're painting to put some slight imperfections in the hills to create a more natural appearance. Once you're happy with your hills, we're going to leave this layer to dry before continuing. We're leaving the hills to dry so that we don't smudge the paint as we put in the details. But the next silhouettes are still technically part of the same layer and we'll be painting them using the same color. Now that the painting is completely dry, we're going to call on our knowledge from days 3.4 because we're going to be using our small brush in size three to paint in some details. We're going to begin by painting a tree on the right side of the painting using the very tip of your brush so that we're painting a nice fine lines. We're going to start at one of the top branches of the tree. And take this to the right a little way and then paint downwards into the ground to paint in the trunk of the tree. Then we're going to add the top branch of the tree in, starting at the tip of the branch and just paint that downwards into the tree trunk. Then we're going to add two very small branches coming off the branch we've just painted. And then we're going to add a larger branch coming out of the right of the tree. I'm going to widen the tree trunk now that we've painted in a few branches to get the shape because the tree trunk should be wider than the branches. And then we're going to add a few smaller branches onto the tree to add leaves to. In a minute. We're going to add leaves to the tree by dotting the very tip of our pointed brush over the ends of the tree branches to fill out the shape of the tree with the silhouette of some leaves. Make sure to use a very light hold on your brush as you do this, so that we're painting delicate leaves with the very tip of the brush. You don't have to put too many leaves on the tree, just enough to paint the impression of a tree silhouette. If we put too many leaves on the tree, we can accidentally turn the tree into a black blob and we don't want that to happen. And then for balance, we're going to paint another small tree on the left side of the painting. Start at the tip of the top branch and paint left a little way and then downwards into the ground to paint the tree trunk. Try to add more pressure onto your brush as you paint the tree down into the ground so that it gets wider. The lower down the tree we go. Then we're going to add a branch to the right of the tree and a small branch onto that as well. And then we're going to add branches to the left of the tree, starts at the tips of the branches and paint in towards the tree trunk. Try to add a bit more pressure onto your brush as the branches meet the tree trunk so that they're wider as they join into the tree trunk. And then we're ready to paint in some leaves. At the leaves by dotting your brush lightly over the tips of the branches in small clusters with the very tip of your brush. You can also bring some of the leaves inwards towards the center of the tree to fill out the tree a little bit more. Then we're going to help blend our trees into the ground by using short spiky motions with our brush around the base of the tree to paint in some grass at the base of the trees and over some sections of the hills as well. Remember to use a light hold on your brush so that we're painting with the very tip of our brush for nice fine lines. Once you're happy with your painting, leave it to dry before painting off the tape. On. Here we have the final project of the week. Make sure your painting is completely dry before peeling off the tape so that it doesn't tear the paper or smudge paint across the painting. Today we've combined all the techniques we've learned over the week into one painting. We've developed our simplistic Hills from day one by painting a luscious mountain scene. We've used three layers of silhouettes to add depth to the painting and put in some lovely details using a small pointed brush. We've also developed our skies from day one. As we now have a three color gradient in the sky using a little bit of color mixing. And we've combined this with some fluffy clouds as well to add texture into the sky. Your class project for this class is to pick at least one painting from the week's projects and follow along with my instructions to paint your own version. Then if you can take a picture and leave it down below so that I get to see all your lovely work. I'd also appreciate it if you could leave a review or a note in the discussions letting me know if you like this style of class. This is the first time I've put together a much larger class with several paintings developing from one to the next. And I'd love to know what you think of it if you enjoyed this style of learning or if you prefer my usual shorter singular projects, you can find more of my work on Instagram at art of Emily Curtis are on my website, W, W dot md hyphen curtis.com. I also have an Etsy now where you can purchase a range of different types of paintings from small postcard paintings, too large canvases. I hope you enjoyed this class and I'll see you next time.