Acrylic Landscape - Quick & Easy Ways To Make Your Painting Loose!

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, my name is Alicia and I'm an artist here in San Jose, California. In today's exciting and fun painting class, I will show you how to paint in a loose acrylic landscape using a reference photo while still making it your own. Learn valuable skills and breaking down shapes, great for beginners and beyond, will walk you through this painting step-by-step will show you all the materials that you will need. Color mixing techniques, brush techniques as an exercise on dimension and form. Alright, so let's get started. 2. Exercise - Color Mixing: In this color mixing lesson, I will walk you through some colors and show you how to mix colors to get a variation of darks and lights. This technique can be applied with any color of your choice. So we will begin with these four colors here, and black and white. I'm going to make four columns here, one with the plain color right off the tube, which will be in the first column. And then I'll show you the different variations you can get by just mixing white and then black. And then the last column will be a combination of these colors amongst each other. It's, Let's begin with this darker green, which I believe is called it goes green and acrylics Liquitex basics. So here's what you get when you mix in some white. As you can see, there's a huge jump between the original color of this green and then this one. And of course, you can control the lightness of your green depending on how much white you mixing. Mixing in some black can really give you some really nice dark tones. And again, you can totally control how much dark you want your colors to be two. So depending on how much black you add, you will, you can change up the different tones. And if you want to mute this color a bit more, adding some white and black to the screen can give you just that, which I have on my absolute favorite colors to mix. So remember if you want to tone down any color, mixing some white and black to any original color can just can give you that really nice muted tone down version of the existing color. Here I'm adding some more white, just a tiny bit of black, but more white to show you the different variations you can get in this version as well. Alright, so I will be repeating the same steps and all these colors. So I'm going to just speed this up a little bit, but I just wanted to point out how you can get so many different colors by not using that many colors at all. To begin with, the variations that you can get from each color are endless. These are just a few basic examples and I'm able to show you, but feel free to practice with some color mixing techniques if you are an absolute beginner, these can be super useful and handy. And before you know it, this will be second nature to you. And when you really need to reproduce a certain color, you will know exactly off the bat what makes an order to get that exact. Alright, so, so far we have only introduced white and black to an original color. But now I'm going to show you even more deviations and options that you can get by mixing our original colors that we have together. E.g. what happens when you mix both these greens together or mixing the slide queen and raw sienna, or maybe even raw sienna and blue. You get the idea. So let's try some of that to see what we can get. So here I'm mixing in both these greens with some white and black, which creates this grayish tone. And then if you mix more of the darker green, hookers green, you'll get an in-between green from the top. Here you can see mixing the light olive green with why sienna gives you this really nice warm tone. Whereas mixing some black to that will give you a cooler tone. Raw sienna and tailor blue will give you a somewhat sap green color with some warm tones in it. And then mixing white that gives you a muted olive green. But I'm hoping this exercise can help you understand the depth of colors you can get by mixing them together and just playing around with them. These next two colors are some of my absolute favorite colors to paint in. And I often use these colors quite a bit in all my paintings. If you're interested, I got this color by mixing in hookers, green, tail blue, some white and black. And then this next one. If you take that exact same color, I'm mixing a little bit of raw sienna in it. You will get this muted version of the one on top, which is just so beautiful. Here's an example of these colors applied to a painting, and you can tell how some of these colors have been used in this landscape. So in order to build dimension and depth, you need to have these variations of colors in order to make your painting not look flat. So play around with color mixing beforehand to give you a sense of colors you can get from a limited color palette. And this will really help you visualize how you can use these colors in your painting. 3. Exercise - Brushwork: Alright, so now let's dive right into some brushwork. I'm going to show you the different marks you can make with my most commonly used brushes. And I'll show you how I apply and use them. Let's first begin with the flat brush. This one's super basic and clean. I use this one for the sky and you can get simple flat washes with this one, but extremely thin lines if you use the tip of it as well. Hello Lee, the smaller flat brush works just the same. And I use this for simple flat washes for my landscape, especially when I block off colors in the first step. Like mentioned, these next two brushes are my most used and amongst my favorite to paint landscapes. They are very versatile and are great for that loose style landscape paintings which we love. You can get really great, clean like flat strokes with this. I love painting this. When I am painting like huge mountains are just going to block in shapes. I love using this brush to block in the initial stages. This brush is also great for layering paint on top of one another as well. If you change the direction of the brush and hold it vertically, you can get arch like shapes that can be used for bushes, trees and loose objects. Because of the brushes arch like shape. It is great for bushes and hence really great for landscapes. Using the side of the brush or its tip can also be very useful to paint faraway trees or houses, etc. And overall, it's just really great for detailing. The smaller size. Full brush is great for smaller bushes and objects far away. I use this long, thin brush and every single painting, which I mostly bring up at the end for detailing, whether I'm painting florals or landscapes. I always bring this out at the end. This brush can really add some visual interests with just little tiny marks. Today's painting, I use this brush for the grass. I gave it some highlights and just little tiny marks far away. This can also signify and give impressions of little objects far away. So maybe even houses or animals. I even actually assigned my art with this brush. If you are wondering how I assign them, it's always with this brush at the very end. 4. Exercise - Dimension & Form: In this lesson, I'm going to go over dimension and form. A form is a three-dimensional figure as opposed to a shape being flat. And how would you add a fall onto an object? Well, in painting, you can do that by adding color. In this example here we have dark tones, mid tones, light tones, and highlights. This is exactly what you need to turn a flat object and give it some dimension and form. I'm going to show you how I'll be using red, black, and white to demonstrate this. So first, I'm going to block in the shape with just plain red so that we can have a base to start from. This right here is an example of a flat 2D object, which we will now turn into a three-dimensional shape. Now, I'm going to start adding in my mid tones. So I'm going to add some black and whites to the red to create that. To get my dark tones, I'm going to add some more black and fill in that edge. So now we're going to take these two colors and blend them in-between. You can already see how this is forming a shape. Okay, now let's add in some light tones by mixing in some white. Notice how I'm painting in the direction of the ball. Not just painting this up and down, since this is a round shape, you want to kind of paint in that curve. I'm just going to go back and forth in between my dark tones, mid tones and light tones until I'm satisfied and I feel that this looks good. I'm just giving it a rough background so that it doesn't feel like this is just floating around. Alright, and then for the highlight, I'm going to take a lot more white and a tiny dab of red. So a quick recap. Dark tones are achieved by mixing your original color with some black. And then the more white you mix in, you will get a gradient. So you can see how you can move from a dark tone to a mid tone to lighter ones. And then your highlights. 5. Materials: Okay, so these are all the materials that I have used. You will need a bowl for water, a paper towel, just O4 prime in your Canvas beforehand. And some sort of Canvas. I've used a five by seven or teaser Canvas, but you can also use paper or a different size canvas, just whatever you have. Alright, and then for brushes, these are the brushes that I've used. I, let's go ahead and start with the round brushes that I have. I've just used two different kinds of round brushes. Again, I will try and link them below. If I can. Then I have a fine detailed round brushes, but this is just a small round brush I use at the very end. This is a rough bristle brush. I think it's by Princeton Art and company. And it's a full board brush. And then we have another filbert brush bys and art. It's a number four and then a flat brush, which is a number six. And then four panes. We've stopped with a limited color palette. We've just got raw sienna, sky blue, and light sap green from their teaser palette, along with white and black, of course. And then of course you'd need it some sort of palette. 6. Prep Canvas & Sketch : Priming my canvas beforehand. Most canvases do come primed already, but I like giving it an extra layer. So wait for this to dry completely before we move on to the next step. Alright, so let's begin by just roughly sketching out the outline for our landscape here. I'm trying to keep a minimal, there's no need to draw out every single detail, just sectioning out in layers that you want your color difference. I'm also going to roughly draw out some trees and sketch them out very roughly. I just, again, you don't have to do every single tree, right? Because there's a lot in the reference. Feel free to change it up here on there and add how many ever you think is necessary. Unless you know that your intention and you want to copy it exactly like the reference. Okay, and then once you're happy with your sketch, we'll move on to painting. 7. Painting - Sky & Base Layers: So I'm pulling out sky blue here with some white, of course. And to add a hint of some warmth, I wanted to also mix in some raw sienna. I didn't want my sky to be as blue as you see in the reference. My intention was to kinda dull that a bit with some warm. I'm also using a rough filbert bristle brush here, but you can use any, any brush for this guy part. I'm just going to mix all of these in. And I'm painting the entire sky with this color. While I'm at it, I'm also going to be painting the sides as I go along, if you prefer. You can also do this step. At the very end. I'm taking a little bit of that sky blue color and just adding this up, just a tiny smudge of that color to the top and bottom for some variety of color and texture difference to this guy. A little can go a long way. We will come to the sky to add some towns. But that's gonna be a little bit later on once it's completely dries up. Until then, we shall move on to the landscape portion. I'm using some light sap green now and mixing that with some raw sienna and black using that color for the Fordist of the mountains. So my goal here was to have my base color is dark to light from top to bottom. So dark is closest to the horizon and lightest as we come near and closer. Alright, so for my second layer here, I'm making it slightly more warmer by adding a tinge bit more of that raw sienna. Now, mixing white in this mixture for the next layer. Here, I'm making it even more warmer by adding just a little bit more raw sienna with white. As you can see, how lovely and easy it is to get so many colors from a limited color palette, which often creates the best of paintings, in my opinion, it creates a more mature color palette that's easy on the eye. If you need to reference the color mixing lesson that I have listed above, please do so because that will truly, truly help. For my last and final layer that's closest to us. I am mainly just gonna be using light sap green with white, with just a little smudge of the raw sienna. 8. Painting - Trees + Building Dimension: Okay, so now I'm using a novel for filbert brush from Senate. And we will be adding in some details on trees. So do the step after your layers have fully dried. I'm just doing this base layer for the trees, forests and I'm making it dark for the shadow part of it. So I'm mixing in light sap green with some black, raw sienna and a bit of white. And I'm using that color to paint this tree-like bush shape. Use different sides to your brush to make it look organic. So keep changing your breath direction. So go ahead and add how many of the trees that you would like for this painting. And just keep in mind to make them smaller. Far back. Why the tree is dry up a bit. Let's add some details to the background hills. Um, you can do that by adding in some stroke of color to certain places so that the layers don't look flat. So you're not taking in that same mixture that we made for the bushes. And I'm adding some white and extra green to this dark colors to make this muted green color. And adding just simple yet confident strokes to the far back. Keep in mind to play around with thickness as well. So keeping some of your strokes large while some thin. For the foreground, I'm taking in that same muted green color that we have. And I'm roughly getting a few strokes in different directions for a more texture and uneven look to give impressions of grass. I'm adding in some raw sienna and white to that as well. Again, just to build some dimension, you don't ever want to just leave one color as flat. You kinda wanna keep building up just a little color here and there to build dimension and form. So I'm just getting a bit of that shadow part of that grass is I'm adding some darks and creating a few quick, messy strokes. I'm giving some dimension to the middle ground here as well by adding in some raw sienna, white and queen. Highlighting some of this foreground and middle ground with just raw sienna and white. Remember a simple short, quick strokes to keep it loose. Alright, so it's time to go back to the bushes and add in some light source. I'm keeping my left side of these trees darker and we'll have some light source coming through the right. So you want to make a light green mixture here is going to do the green with some white and raw sienna. I'm adding some small strokes to the right of the trees. Only. Keep in mind to change up your direction of brushstrokes and also play with the thickness and size. For the highlight part, I'm getting in raw sienna and mainly white. And I'm just adding that to only a few places. I'm just building on the shadow part towards the left. I'm going back in with green and white for my last stroke to the right. I'm basically just adding my strokes until I'm happy with the trees. So just follow your instincts and stop whenever you feel like you've had enough layers and strokes to your trees. But the goal here is to go slow and somewhat beat for your layers to dry or just a tiny bit because if you just pile on color on top of one another, It's just going to end up looking really messy. If you feel like you need to wait before adding in a new color, then you can do that. So here I'm using the side of the same filbert brush and I'm getting some darker trees far back as well. Again, be mindful of keeping them rather small. I'm just adding in a bit of shadow to the trees. So I'm just kind of elongating the sides of the trees along the foreground. Or actually, excuse me, middle ground. 9. Painting - Clouds: Okay, so now it's time to add some big chunky clouds to the sky. So I'm going to break this up into three different shades. We will have some highlights, which will just be all white, some mid tones, and some shadow. I'm using a number six round brush and forced. I'm just going to simply just get the shape of the clouds here. I'm taking y directly off the tube and I'm adding in some nice juicy texture to the clouds. Keep the brushstrokes going in different directions. And keep your shape organic. Okay, so now that we have our base, it is time for some of those mid tones and shadows. For my mid tones, I decided to add some warmth to this guy. So I'm going with raw sienna and white, of course, to tie in the entire painting together. So I'm just going to be placing that color, the mid tone color in the middle of the clouds to blend the color and just to kind of soften up some of that edges, you can dab your brush and then just blend the color in-between. Lastly, for those shadows, I'm taking in a light gray and I'm just adding that beneath The, the mid tones that we've made. So just some black and white. And to top it off, just to add a little bit more highlights, I'm taking in pure white again and just adding that above the mid tones. I'm applying nice thick layers here for some interests in texture. 10. Final Details + Class Project!: Okay, for final details, I'm getting out my thin small round brush and I'm creating some rough, messy, quick vertical marks for some interests and give impressions of grass. Small little details like this can really pull your painting together in the end. And actually this is something that can also draw a viewer's attention. And that's sometimes the first thing that people do see you in a painting, even though it's like the most simplest thing that you can do at the very end. Here I'm taking in white and adding in little details, inspects across the painting, again for some interest and to also give impressions of objects or farm animals far away. This also creates perspective of distance. But remember to not overdo it just a little goes a long way. Speaking of Richmond, I showed my husband at this painting at the very end after I was done. And the first thing he noticed was the sheeps. And he goes, I like those little shapes. So it just goes to show that the viewer can notice these tiny little details that you just added the very end. They are really, really small and they may seem like not important, but they really truly are. If you followed me so far, Well done, I can't wait to see what you came up with your projects. I would love to see them and do not forget to leave this class overview. Ask me any questions in the discussions tab below. This completes our loose acrylic landscape painting for today. I invite you to explore the different classes I had created for you. Classes and watercolors, as well as acrylics are available if you want to learn more. So do consider following me so that you do not miss out on future painting classes from me. Thank you so much for your support over at my website and also my Etsy shop, you can find original art prints and much more. The links are below. As always, follow me on Instagram to keep up with latest updates, giveaways and all that fun stuff. Thank you once again. And happy painting.