Atmospheric Landscapes: 7-Day Painting Challenge | Paint Mist, Meadow, Lakes, Reflection, Grass

1. Introduction - Atmospheric Landscapes : I wanted to paint the magic of nature, flower filled meadows fading softly into mist, delicate grasses in the foreground and serene lakes holding quiet reflections. Hello, I'm Shanan Subhan, a watercolor artist from Bangalore, India. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to my Atmospheric Landscapes, a seven day painting challenge. In this class, we will explore how to paint dreamy atmospheric watercolor landscape. Over the course of next seven days, you will learn how to paint flower meadows with misty backgrounds, delicate grasses, calm lakes with reflections and use aerial perspective to create depth and distance. This class isn't about perfection. It's about showing up daily, experimenting and letting watercolors do its magic. Beginners can absolutely attempt these projects while more experienced artists will discover new ways to expand their practice. By the end of the week, you'll have seven finished projects and a stronger foundation for creating atmospheric watercolor landscapes. So grab your brushes, set aside a little time each day, and let's paint together. I'll see you inside. 2. Overview of the Class: In this class, here's how our journey will flow. We will begin by going over the art supplies you will need so that you're clear on what to gather before we start painting. Each day, we will start with the reference image. We will look at it closely, understand the approach, and decide the flow of the painting. Before jumping into the main artwork, we will create a small thumbnail sketch and even paint a mini version of it. This helps us see if the colors work well together on our palette and gives us a chance to practice the composition. We will also swath the colors and go over the techniques we can incorporate in that day's painting. Then we will move on to the main project, painting step by step. Along the way, we will make choices. Sometimes we'll skip parts of the reference photo. Sometimes we can change the colors because painting isn't about copying a photo. It's about interpreting it in your own way. My goal is to make this process liberating and therapeutic. Not about chasing 100% perfection. I'll share my way of approaching these projects, but you're free to take your own steps and add your own creativity. I'll be attaching the reference images with each project so you can follow along easily. Are you excited for this class? Come, let's begin our seven day Atmospheric watercolor challenge together. 3. Art supplies: Before we dive into our painting, I'll walk you through supplies that I'll be using and remember, you can always adapt them to whatever you already have. Let's talk about paper. I'll be using Chitrfu 100% cotton, 270 GSM, watercolor paper. It has nice textures and it is ideal for landscapes. You can also use cold press or hot press paper. Anything available to you works fine. Next, let us talk about the brushes. I'll be using these four brushes. First one is the mob brush. This is for wetting the paper and for the larger washes. Next, we have round brush. This is size 12 for bigger brush strokes. This has a pointed tip, which is good for some control and detailing work. Then we have size eight round brush. This is for medium sized brush strokes and size two round brush. This is my detailer brush. You could use any fine liner brush that you have Okay. Flat brushes are also fine, if that's what you prefer. And moving on, let us talk about the colors. So I keep my paints stored in this air tight container. I'll be using a mix of brands like seno, major lomion, white knights, art philosophico, et cetera. Before each project, I'll show you the exact colors and swatches. So you don't worry if your shades look different. What matters the most is the technique. And white gauche paint for creating the highlights and some opaque touches in the painting. If you don't have white gauche paint, you could also use white watercolor that will also have some opaqueness to it. Some other tools that we would need are spray bottle. This is to re wet the paper in certain areas during the painting process. We would need masking tape and a clipboard sort of thing. I have this glass sheet for placing my paper like this using masking tape, and that will help me to keep the paper intact during the painting process. Next, we would need some napkins or tissues for lifting the paints and wiping the brushes. Then we would need pencil and eraser for sketching. I have this kneading eraser, which will help me to lift off the pencil marks on the drawing. I'll be using two jars of clean water. One is to take clean water for the washers, the initial washes, and the other one is to use it for cleaning the brushes. The brush gets dirty during the process. So I'll be sticking to only one jar for cleaning the colors, and for the clean washes, I'll be using the clean jar. Alright? Yeah, that's pretty much about the art supplies that I'm going to use in this class. You can use any similar supplies that you already have. Let us get started with the first project. 4. Day #1 Thumbnail and Practice : Hello. Here is the reference image that I'll be working from today. It is a sunset scene, as you can see, but instead of using the strong orange and yellow tones, I have chosen to keep the palette very soft and muted to create a calm atmospheric mood. You will notice there are grasses in the scene. I'll be painting them in several layers. The mid layer will stay blurry and muted to suggest a sense of distance, and the foreground grasses will be sharper, giving depth and focus. We will also include some birds in the painting. There are also hints of wildflowers, which we will suggest with loose and simple strokes. Before we jump into the full painting, let's start with a thumbnail sketch. This helps us quickly decide composition, placement of elements, and overall flow. Remember, this is not about making it perfect. It's just a guide for ourselves. To begin, I'll make a quick thumbnail sketch with pencil to map out these layers. So first, we have the sun and then the blurry wild grasses. So these grasses will be painted with wet on wet. And then in the foreground, we will have the sharper wild grasses, which are in focus. A Now I'll make a small colour thumbnail. This is where I test the muted palette and see how the shade works together on paper. So I'm going to start by wetting the paper. So this will set the base for the painting. I'll paint the sunset first with yellow color. This is permanent yellow. This yellow will look much lighter once it dries. Next, I'll take violet and paint gray. This will create a gray with the mild violet undertone. Apply this gray around the sun and make sure to blend it well. We don't want a patchy appearance around the sun. Next, for the upper part of the sky, I'll use diluted cerulein bloom. So you can compare the two skies. I have changed the approach here by adding the blue color on top. Next, let us paint the midground wild grasses, which are in the blurry format. So to create the blurry effect, I'm going to use wet on wet and cover the lower area with the same paints. Once it dries, we will then add the foreground wild grasses. Now, using darker color, we will paint the grasses in a very sharp and detailed manner. These are the grasses closer to the viewpoint. So they appear in focus. So one thing I have observed is that the background grasses, they appear much dull and do not hold their shape. So we will use slightly darker color when we are working on the main painting. That way, it will dry slightly darker. Next let us have a look at the colors that will be used. First is cerulean blue. You could use any other color like cobalt blue or sky blue. A similar color that you already have, you'll be using mid tone of this color. Next, we have violet. This is to mix with the gray color of the sky. Next is burned tamber. I'll be using this for the grasses, both in the blurry and sharp format. Next is Payne's gray. This is for the sky as well as the grasses. Ultramarine blue. I'm planning to use this for the grasses to bring in a sense of variation in the color. And next is permanent yellow. You could also use cadmium yellow or any warm yellow. Do not use lemon yellow. That's a cool yellow color. Alright? Then we will also use white gauge paint. This is for adding some final white highlights. Okay, that was about the colors. Next, let us practice the techniques. First, wet the paper. We will practice the wild grasses in blurry format. Okay. So I've wet the paper. So to achieve the right amount of blurriness, your paper should not be very wet. Wait for some time when you are painting this. Initially, what happens is, if the paper is too wet, the colors will spread out and not retain its shape. So try to have the moisture level somewhere 50-60%. Let the paper absorb the water and the slightly darker color so that even after drying, they hold the shape and still appear like wild grasses in the background. About the shape, we will have to paint it in a triangular manner. It's not necessary, but that will appear like grasses in the background. Also, paint them in different angles, some of them facing up, some facing right or left, some facing downwards, so that we will have a mix of all kind of shapes. If the paper has dried, it will not create any blurry effect. You will get hard edges. So try to avoid that. And if it is very wet, it will spread out very wildly. We don't want that as well. Find a right balance. Next, let us move on to the focused grasses and let's start practicing the stems or the branches. Use the tip of the brush for a very gentle and delicate stems. And for the flower part, we will dab our brush simply to create the impression like this. Try to approach it in a loose manner because we can't be sitting and creating all these petals or leaves one by one. Practice this on a rough paper. If painting loose feels difficult, then you can draw it one by one. Otherwise, I would recommend you to go for a loose approach that's quick and also looks natural, but it requires practice for this brush effect, we will vary the pressure on the brush. At some areas we apply very minimal pressure and some places we apply more to get these varied brush strokes. Next, let us quickly have a look at painting the sky. First, we will wet the paper and I'm going to use yellow leave some white space in the middle to depict the sun. And around this yellow area, we will be painting with gray color for the natural sky color. You could mix some violet with the gray to have a violet undertone. And then on the upper area, we will add the blue color. So that's about the techniques and the approach of the painting. Let us move on to the painting process. 5. Day #1 Soft Sunset Grasses : Welcome to the class project. I hope you have already gone through the techniques and practice chapter and have a better sense of how we will be approaching this painting. Firstly, let us begin by securing our paper. I'll use masking tape on the back of the sheet and stick it onto this glass board. The paper stays in place and I can still move it around easily if needed. Note that I'm not taping down all the edges, so my painting won't have any border. If you prefer a neat border, you can tape along all the four sides in the traditional way. Okay, so let's get the paper ready and start painting. I'll take my mob brush and start applying water on the surface of the paper. Apply even coat of water and make sure there are no pool or puddles of water on the surface of the paper. If there is excess water, then you can lift it off using a damp brush. Let us start painting. I'll take yellow on the palette and mix it with about 50% water. Take a napkin and wipe off all the excess paint. We want only a little amount of paint in the brush. Imagine a small circular shape in the center. Apply paints around that to leave a white space. This will depict the sun in the painting. Spread the color so that there is no patchy appearance. We're trying to keep the colors very minimal and not very flashy. Next, I'll apply slightly darker tone of yellow. This will prevent it from appearing flat and have a sense of depth. Next, let us take pains gray and mix it in mid tone consistency. That is one is to one ratio. You'll apply it about the yellow part. This was by mistake. My brush fell on the yellow part, so I had to cover it up. Now, apply the pains above and below the yellow region. Try to blend it with clean water as well. I don't want this to form a patchy appearance. Trying to blend as well as possible. For blending, you can use clean brush and pull the paints in whichever direction you like. I'll apply the gray paints in horizontal and slightly diagonal manner. Leave some parts of yellow as it is, do not apply any color over. Now for the upper part of the sky, I'll use diluted cerulean blue, leaving some blank white spaces for the white, cloudy effect in the sky. I'm trying and painting a very minimal and simple sky. Nothing too dramatic over here. Take paints gray and apply it on the lower part of the wild grass area. This will form the base for the grasses that we are going to paint. It will act as the shadow or the darker section on the lower ground. Now, move the brush in upward manner, creating some vertical lines. These lines will create the illusion of distant stems or the branches. At this point, I feel that the yellow part of the sky looks very light and after drying, it's going to look even more lighter. So let me apply paint some simple brush strokes over the existing yellow parts. Okay. Now let us move on to painting the wild grasses in a blurry format. For that, I'll mix three colors. One is burned tamber, other one is let, and the third color is paint gray. I'll have these three colors ready. We will be switching between these three colors. So I'll take brown first. Now let's paint the grasses wet on wet. We have wet paint and wet paper, so it is wet on wet technique. You can switch to a smaller size brush. I'm taking my size eight round brush. And with this, it is slightly easier to paint these shapes. I'm painting the grasses in a loose random way. So you can just touch the brush lightly to the paper, leaving some small gaps so that it doesn't feel crowded. Try to keep overall shape slightly conical, almost like a cluster. Since these are wild flowers or wild grasses, think of how they move in the wind. So leaning towards the right, some to the left, and few standing upright. Wearing their direction will make the painting look more natural and organic. I'm using slightly darker color in some areas because the lighter shades tend to dry even lighter and can look a bit dull, like we experienced in the practice session, how the background appeared very light and we decided to go for darker color. And also, don't forget to vary the size of the flash. Keep some smaller and others taller. So that the group has a nice sense of rhythm and movement. You can even apply some tiny dots in between as filler elements you need to finish this step while the paper is still wet. If the paper dries up, you will get hard edges. I'll paint a few grasses on the upper area as well. Next, take a fine liner brush. I'm using size two round brush. With this fine liner brush, I'm going to paint the stems of the grasses. A Now, let us splatter the paint on the lower area. This acts as the filler element inside this space. There is no fixed pattern as such. If you observe nature closely, you will see it doesn't allow any fixed pattern or formula. Its beauty lies in imperfection. It's completely okay if it doesn't turn out exactly as you imagined. I'll be adding some random lines and dots in the lower region so that it looks fuller and creates a sense of depth in that area. All right. Now let us dry this. I'm using hair dryer to speed up the drying process. You can let it dry naturally if you want, or you can use the hair dryer itself. All right, the paints have dried completely, and you can see that they appear slightly dull, which is fine because we are going to build another layer with the detailed grasses. All right. So let's paint that. I have mixed two different colors. One is violet and brown, another one is violet and paint gray. Okay, let's start. I'll be using size 12 round brush with pointed tip. The pointed tip will be helpful for me to paint these tiny dots. And whenever I want thicker strokes, I'm going to apply some more pressure on the brush that will create thicker brush strokes. If you're not comfortable with a bigger brush, you could use a fine liner brush. The problem with using a fine liner brush for this detailing is that it will yield a specific result, all the grasses are going to appear uniform or similar in shape and size, which will in turn result in an unnatural appearance in the painting. So to avoid that, I would recommend you to use a bigger brush with pointed tip and try to vary the pressure as you paint these kind of effects. As you're painting the stems or the branches, apply very minimal pressure on the brush tip. This will give us very thin lines. Next on the lower area, I'll paint some grasses with varied brush strokes. It's like painting some wobbly lines. I don't have any fixed pattern in my mind, just moving my hand and brush by applying more and less pressure. I'll repeat the same technique for the upper grasses as well. These are flowers inside the grasses. Wildflowers, they are very wild and unpredictable. So we don't have to follow any fixed pattern or shape here. As I paint this, I'll let you watch and observe the process. Okay. Keep adding these vertical and diagonal lines as stems and branches. I have already added a lot of grasses, and I feel there's something missing in the lower area of the painting. So I've decided to add darker colors in the lower part so that it adds a sense of depth and shadow in the lower region. I'll take paints gray and apply on the lower part. Now to spread this, I'll use water spray. Spray some water and let it spread in the lower part. I'll take some brown as well. The paper is slightly damp now on the lower area. Use the belly of the brush to push the paints against the paper. Now, in the lower part, we can see a patch of darker paint, and the upper area is lighter. So to blend them and create a smoother transition, I'll move my brush in upward direction so that there is a nice gradation from light to dark. Moving on, I'll paint some more grasses. You can take any color. I'm taking violet and paints gray, and now I'm using fine liner brush. So with this, it is a little difficult to get thicker brush strokes. But we can manage by wearing the pressure. You can add as many grasses you want, but know when to stop, don't overdo it. Next, let us splatter some paints on the lower region of the grassy part. I'm splattering darker and concentrated paints. A more grasses on the upper part. Sometimes I have this tendency of jumping from one element to other without finishing the previous one. I would not follow one particular order of painting, and I would feel very ashamed about it earlier. Now I'm learning to embrace my creative process. That is my way of painting things. I get excited in the middle and jump onto other things. But at the end, I somehow managed to gather all the pieces together. I'm sharing this because I know some of you might be like me who jump from one task to other. I just want to say that I hear you, and it's totally fine. You don't have to feel bad about it. Let's just embrace imperfection. All right, so you can see, I have added some darker colors on the lower part, making the area intense. Also, if you observe, I have left a few tiny gaps in between suggesting the reflected light. Now let us add some birds freely flying in the sky. And some tiny birds in the faraway sky. Now take white gauche paint directly from the tube. You could even use white gelpin if you have, and I'm going to drop in some white paint on the darker area. This suggests the reflected light on the leaves and the flowers, making it look attractive. You could even splatter the paint in a random manner. Next, I'll apply some thin lines using fine liner brush. Next, we'll take Gauche paint and mix it with the existing paint on the palette. It will give us opaque light gray paint. I'm going to take that and splatter onto the darker area and some on the upper area as well. The benefit of using opaque paint on watercolor is that it will retain the shape and the color. If you are splattering the watercolor, that is a transparent color, it will not show after drying. So that is the reason I have used opaque paints for splattering. Alright, we are done with this project. I hope you enjoyed painting this with me and had a fun learning session. So let's remove the tape and reveal the final look. Here we go. I really love how this painting has turned out, soft, subtle, yet so powerful in its mood. If you enjoyed and painted along with me, please do share your class project under the projects gallery. I would love to see what you have created. All right. I'll see you soon in my next chapter until then bye bye. 6. Day #2 Thumbnail and Practice : Hello. Today, we are going to use this image as a reference photo. This is a very soft and subtle sunrise scene. You can see the mist around the horizon. Here, we will first paint the sun and then create the sunlight around it. The same approach we will be applying to the reflection as well. Next, we will work on the misty area and then add the trees along the horizon line. Instead of painting all the trees, we will include only a few to keep the composition simple. In this section, you can also see a fence. We will try to add that at the end maybe. Notice how we can separate the two layers. The distant one appears slightly lighter in tone, like light gray color, which makes it look further away, while the main tree in the foreground is darker, making it appear closer to the viewpoint or the viewer. This is how we build aerial perspective by using various tonal values. Also, the tree has orange color on the top, suggesting the sunlight effect. Alright. Let's try sketching a quick thumbnail. I'll divide the area into two section. So the line will be in the lower half. The upper will be around 55 and the lower part around 45%. So here we have the horizon area. O this line, we will draw the mountain and sun in the background. So where we have the sun around that area, we have this sunlit part. We'll try to put our focus on that area. Similarly in the reflection part as well. We'll be drawing some trees around the horizon area. Next, I'll draw another thumbnail image and see which colors I can use. Sometimes we may not have the exact same colors. So we can do some trial and error on this smaller size thumbnail. I'm going to roughly paint on this thumbnail part. I'll start with the sky and then paint the other elements. For sky, I'm leaving this negative space for the sun, which is very bright and paint around that area using yellow, orange, and some pink. Then I think I'll paint the reflection of the sky in water so that it matches the sky next, the background mountain area. So wherever we paint the sun right below that, I'm leaving some space and adding brown or orangish brown color. This is to suggest the reflected part of the sky. Here I'm painting it very roughly, but I hope you're getting the idea of what I'm trying to achieve. Now below that, I'll use clean water to pull the paints down to create a misty effect. Now, repeat the same thing for the water reflection part. You can take this whole exercise as your practice so that you get familiar while we are painting the main project. Water control is one of the important aspect here because if you apply more water, you will not get the misty effect. You need to have that balance where in the mid section, we're applying more water to get a soft misty effect, whereas on the edges part, the water is less. Then again, around the horizon, we will add a line, creating a separation between the two areas. Now, while the paper is wet, we will drop in some darker color to depict the trees. Also, let's not try to copy everything from the reference image. We will only try to capture the essence of the image. Now let's dry this area. So far, it was wet on wet technique. Now, once the paper dries, then we will go with wet on dry. Now I'll paint some trees using wet on dry. So when wet on dry, we get these sharp edges in the painting. The element appears very crisp and detailed. Okay, so this was a rough depiction of the painting. Now, let's have a look at the colors that I have used here. You can use any similar shades that you already own. The first one is permanent yellow, which I'm going to use to paint around the sun in a very diluted manner. Pick a warmer yellow that you have. Do not use lemon yellow. Okay. The next color is Pyl red. I'll be using this color in a diluted tone. So you could take any other red as well. The next color is opera pink. You could also use crimson rose pink, Cacdon pink or any pink that you have. Okay, so the next color is violet. And then pains grey. You could also use indigo if you do not have pains grey. Next, we would need burned tamber. You could also take Bnciana or sepia. Any color that looks brownish, next, let us try mixing some of the colors that will be used for painting the mountains and the trees in the background. So when we mix paint gray and violet, we will get this darker gray with violet undertone. I'm planning to use this for the gray parts in the background. The next color mix would be burnt tamber and let. So this will again give me a letty brown color. I'm planning to use this around the transition area. We can mix all three colors and get a very darker color. That's also one possibility. So yeah, these are the color mixes. Next, we will practice the techniques. So first, let's practice the sky. I have wet this small rectangle area. And I've taken permanent yellow and a bit of red to make a warmer orangy yellow color, leaving some white space in the center. That white space will depict the sun. Okay. Now we will apply orange and then pink on the sides and corners. Creating a nice, beautiful sky. If your colors have spread inside the white area, you could use a clean tissue paper and lift off the paints. And let's say your yellow is not bright enough, then you can add in some colors and make it slightly vibrant because watercolors tend to appear dull once they dry. Moving on, we will practice the misty sunlit mountain in the background. So first, let me paint the sun and the sky. I'm roughly painting this semicircular area depicting the sun and the sky. Around this area, I'm going to paint the distant mountain line. Now, if you observe the reference image, on the corners, the mountains appear grayish, but around the center area where we have the sun, that area is sunlit, meaning it appears orangish in color. So we will try to create that. On both the sides, I'm painting with gray. Of course, it is roughly painted just for practice purpose. And now in the center area, I'm going to paint it with the brown and orange color. So once this line is created, we will try to pull the paints down, creating a soft misty effect. We can wash your brush so that you have nice and clean effect. Or if you apply more paints, you could take a clean damp brush and try to lift off the paints. That is also another possibility. So once we have the basic shape in place, then we can try to add more trees or some effects on the mountain. Now, leaving some white space, we will paint some trees. That will be trees around the horizon area. So this is just a rough depiction, as I said earlier. In the actual painting, we will take our own time to create all these effects in the painting. Next, let us see how we can create sunlit tree. For painting sunlit tree, I'll be painting with the darker color on one of the sides, we will add some orangish brown color so that it looks like the tree the parts of tree is reflecting the light. You could also do it the other way, which is painting the orange or the brown color first and then adding the darker colors. That's also possible. So, that was all about the techniques. Now let us move on to the class project. 7. Day #2 Misty Sunrise Lake : Welcome to the second project of the seven day Atmospheric Landscapes Painting Challenge. Today, we are going to create this artwork. And here is a reference image for this painting. I hope you have already watched the previous chapter where I have explained all about thumbnail, coloring and the techniques that will be used for this chapter. So let's get started. I'm going to apply the masking tape on the backside of the paper. If you want a border, you could apply on all the four sides. Once the tape is applied on the back, I'll gently press the paper against the glass sheet. Paper is ready to paint. Now I'm going to mark the rough composition. So somewhere in the lower half, I'll mark the horizon line and then some area for the ground part, roughly marking the trees. It is just simple vertical lines. Not drawing the tree shape as of now. I usually like to create the elements as I paint because that gives me the freedom to change the subject as I want. But if I have something sketched or drawn on the paper, then I'll have to stick to it, which makes it very restrictive. So let's wet the paper. I'm using a mob brush. Apply generous amount of water throughout the paper. Let the paper soak the moisture. Okay, let us mix the colors. I'll start from the sky. So for sky, we'll start with yellow. Take permanent yellow in diluted or mid tone consistency. Now, using size 12 brush, I'm creating a circular shape, leaving white space for the sun. Now spread the colors around that area. We do not want a patchy appearance around here. You could also lift the excess paint around that area by pressing the brush against the paper. The brush should be a little damp. Next, I'm mixing yellow and red, creating a nice orange color. Apply the orange color after the yellow part. For the pink part, I'm going to mix opera pink, a bit of red yellow, and also let. I don't want very vibrant pink here. That's why muting it down by adding a bit of yellow. Apply this pink paint around the corners. Apply yellow on the area where you feel it looks lighter. Next, I'll turn around the paper and paint the reflection of the sky. Next, I'll repeat the process to create the reflection. We'll have to perform the same steps that is applying yellow in a semicircular manner, then adding orange around it. Then you can add the pink color. I have not fully applied the paints because we are going to have the trees in the lower section. The reflection doesn't have to be the exact replica of the sky. Now, turning the board and then giving the circular shape because there was a little bit confused about creating the circular shape. Now I can clearly understand where the circle falls. Now, let us start painting the trees. I have taken paint gray and bit of volet. This gray color has volety undertone. Now let's paint the trees. I'm dabbing the brush in vertical to and fro motion, creating the shape of pine trees in the background. This is the initial layer. We are going to build multiple layers like this. So I'll apply the colors as per the reference image, leaving the gap for the sunlit part. Once the paints are in place, then we will take a clean brush and pull the paints down, creating a misty effect. We will keep the area around the horizon blank as of now. Do not apply any paints there. Next, let us paint the sunlit area. I'm going to use orangish brown for that area. So let's take burnt amber, yellow and bit of red. You could mix your own orangish brown. Now again, I'm simply going to apply to and fro vertical brushstroke motion. Apply some more orangish brush strokes around the gray area as well. This will create a smoother transition rather than having a sharp and sudden change in color. You can see I'm simply applying these vertical lines. Nothing complicated as such. Now take a clean brush and pull the paints down. So this is pulling technique where we pull the paints down using water. This helps in creating softer atmospheric and foggy effect in the background areas. I'm lifting up the paints from the border areas so that it looks clean and neat. Next, I'll take paints gray and let mix and apply it around the horizon area. This suggests the ground part near the horizon. If you want to leave more white space here for a denser foggy effect, you can do that. Apply some thicker paints, creating a sense of depth. Then we will push it upwards using clean brush. Have a tissue paper on napkin handy so that you can wipe off your brush. Now, to add a sense of variation in the misty part, I'll add some volety gray around the mid section. Use a clean and damp brush to lift off the paints, something like this. Now, let us paint the trees around this horizon area. I'm using the same violet gray color. You could also use plain gray or indigo. It's up to you. I wanted this violet undertone in my misty area. And darker tone of this gray color along the horizon line. Now let's go back to the sunlit tree area and using orangish yellow brown color, I'm going to paint some trees around this area. This is to define the shape of that particular area. Ending some trees along the horizon line. Whatever tree you paint, same thing needs to be painted in the reflection part as well. We will create some sunlit trees along the Horizon nine. There is no right or wrong way here. You are just trying to depict what you're seeing in the reference image. So feel free to add your own touches in the painting. Never hesitate to explore and try different ways of painting. Next with paint gray and let mix, I'm going to paint some trees on the corner side. Paint it quickly. Be fast. You don't have to create perfect shapes. Few quick zigzag lines will do. Don't have to sit and draw each and every tree individually. Even these vertical lines will do the job and then you can simply add some zigzag br strokes. So what happens is, if you're using 100% cotton paper, the paper will remain wet for longer duration. But if you're using a cellulose paper, the paper tends to dry up very fast. In that case, you get hard edges in different parts of your painting. For that, I suggest you to be a little faster, especially with wet on wet techniques. Adding some more trees on the right side, on the tip of the misty area. Same thing for the reflection. If you feel there are hard edges, you can blend it with your fingertip. I'll introduce some more new trees. It's okay you don't have to do it if you don't want to. But I'll add more trees to add a sense of depth that will make it more interesting. You can keep it minimal as well. You don't have to worry about that. I personally feel that painting should be relaxing and therapeutic process and not about rushing and struggling to figure out things. You can create your own version and be happy with it. With time, you will definitely improve. These classes and tutorials help you understand the painting process and techniques in a better manner so that you don't repeat your mistakes. With time, you will surely feel confident with your painting skills. So don't rush through the process. Here, I have added these tiny rock like shapes. Sometimes I just add a few elements and leave it up to the viewer's interpretation. Now, I'll use the corresponding colors to create the ripple effect in the water. You can skip this part as well. It's not mandatory to create these ripples. We can also create still water sort of effect where we have no ripples at all. The water is simply still and calm. But here in this painting, I'm going to create them and add a sense of movement in the water. Because if we create still water, the reflection should be perfect, close to perfect. I don't think I have achieved that. It's better to cover it up by adding the ripples. Now, if I observe my painting closely, I see that it is of same color. So to add a sense of contrast and depth, I'm adding darker color around the horizon so that we create a nice harmony and balance effect in the painting. Take a clean brush and try to blend it into the tree areas. I think I leave it here and not overwork on the wet layers. The paper is about to dry, so it might ruin the painting if I work more on this. So let's dry the paper and come back and see what we can do. All right, the paper looks dry. Next, let us move on to add some detailing work. For details, I'll go with wet on dry technique. The paper is dry and I'm going to use wet paints. Okay. Let's start. Let us mix the colors. So I have mixed paint gray, more of pinks gray, and a little bit of let and burn tumbo. Loading the pains in my size two round brush, and I've painted the tree shape. Now for the sunlit effect on the tree, I'll add orangish brown color on one of the side. That is the left side of the tree. When painting the tree foliage, leave some tiny gap in between blank spaces that will create organic looking tree. Paint the trunk and the branches. Using the fingertip, I'll blend the tree trunk into the ground area. Next, I'll paint the reflection part. So for reflection, I'm not creating perfect tree shape. It will have some rippled effect. Since I already mentioned, I'm not creating still water, so the reflection can be distorted. It's totally okay. And around the tree, I'll add some fence like shape. Another fence in the center. A Now, let's add some ripples using wet on dry. These ripples will appear sharp and very clear. Choose the correspondent colours. For gray areas, I'll use darker gray ripples and for the yellow sunlit part, I'll be using orange ripples. Adding some pine trees along the horizon line. So there is no fixed number as such. You can add as many trees you like. I'll strengthen the separation between the land and water. Adding some darker colors, make sure to add brown around the mid sunlit part. Now, to soften the hard edges, I'll use clean brush and blend it into the background. I'll take pink and orange and splatter the paints in the foreground area. I have no reason for this. I just felt that it was looking plain. So I thought of adding the splatters, but I instantly regretted it. So lifted it off using this napkin. Okay, so we are done with this. Let's clean the table and reveal the final look of the painting. There you go. This is how it looks. I love the soft misty effect with the sunlit part. It turned out really pretty, right? I hope this was fun and therapeutic session for you. If you have any doubts, you can reach out to me on discussion session below. If you have painted along with me, please share your class project under the project gallery. I would really love to see your artwork. 8. Day #3 Thumbnail and Practice: Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Atmospheric painting series. For day three, this is our reference image, and let's see how we can simplify it. I'll start off with this yellow color in the sky, adding some blue and orange streaks in the lower part. That will be for the sky part. And the trees in the background, I'll try to create a blurry effect using wet on wet. Then for the next layer of trees, that is the darker colored trees, I'll go with the slightly darker color, maybe mix of wet on wet and wet on dry to show some details. And now for the reflection of these trees, I'll be painting some distorted, like, simple horizontal lines. So yeah, that's about the reference image. So let's try to simplify it as much as possible. If you want, you can use this image and create the detailed version. But this is how I'll be painting it. Okay, so let's draw a simple thumbnail. Marking the horizon line and this is for the yellow part in the sky and the reflection as well. Then some orange streaks in the lower part. In the background, we have these trees that appear bluish because of the atmospheric haze. Show aerial perspective, use cooler color or bluish color. That will depict a sense of distance in the painting. And for the elements that are closer to the viewpoint, use warmer or much sharper details. Now I'm drawing these midground elements. These are closer to the viewpoint when compared to the background. So try to make them little detailed. And in the foreground, I'll be drawing these little grasses. These are not our focus point. Our focus is on the midground trees, so I'm keeping these grasses blurry. Next, let us paint a mini colored version thumbnail. So I'm going to wet the paper first. Please don't mind my messy palette. I don't like wasting colors, so I try to use them for muting down some vibrant colors or sometimes for shadows. I'll first apply yellow, suggesting the sun in the sky and also suggesting the reflection in the water. Now around this, we will apply other colors like this orange for the streak in the lower part of the sky towards the horizon. And in the upper area of the sky, we can apply cerulean blue or some other blue as well. Doesn't matter much. Next for the background trees, I'll be mixing ultramarine blue and paints gray, and to make it opaque, I'll add white gouache paint. You could also add white watercolor if you want, just in case if you don't have white gouache. Applying the paints in vertical manner. This will suggest the pine tree shapes. Once that shape is painted, you can then go back and add tiny lines suggesting the tip of the pine trees. Next, let us mix a darker green color. For that, I'll take pinch gray and olive green. So with this, we will add the midground layer. First, paint the ground part and then add the trees. For the reflection, I'll simply apply some sorry, horizontal lines. This will suggest a distorted reflection in the water. In the foreground area, I'll add these grasses. I'm trying to keep it slightly blurry and out of focus because I want the attention to be on the pine trees. On these grasses, I've added red color depicting the flowers. Let's see how we can do it in the painting next. But before that, let's have a look at the colors that we can use for the painting. First color that I've taken is permanent yellow. This is a warm yellow. I'll use this color for suggesting the sun in the sky. Next for the streak that I mentioned, I'll use orange. I don't have an orange in the palette, so I'll mix red and yellow. Next for the sky, I'll take cerulean blue and ultramarine blue. I'll mix these two colors, and it will also be used for the distant tree line. Next, we have paints gray. I'll not use this color directly, but I'll mix it with other colors. Next is olive green. If you don't have olive green, you can use sap green and mix a bit of red or orange to it to make it warmer. And for this project, we would need white gauche paint to mix it with the existing paint and create an opaque color. Moving on, let us discuss the color mixing part. I'll be mixing cerulean blue and ultramarine blue. This will result in a color like this. I don't know what this color is called, but it looks something like this. Our next shade will be a mix of olive green and pinch gray. So when we mix these two colors together, we get a darker green color. This color, I'll be using to paint the pine trees in the midground area. Like I said earlier, if you don't have olive green, you could use sap green and mix a bit of orange or red or even burnt amber. And then to that warmer green color mix, you can add pinch gray. It will form a darker green colour. The next color mix is ultramarine blue, paints gray and white gauze paint. Here we are trying to mix an opaque color. Why opaque color? Because it will cancel out the transparency property of watercolor. And because of the opaqueness, it holds the shape in the background area. But if you're using only transparent watercolor, the trees might end up looking like clouds in the distant area. Now let us practice the technique. I'll be going with wet on wet. So first, let's wet the paper. During the painting process, we will already have the sky layer as our background. Let's mix the color. That is ultramarine blue, paints gray and white gauge paint. We have opaque color. Now apply this in to and fro vertical bratroke suggesting the distant pine tree shapes. Suppose you paint wet on dry, then this is how it will look. I'll choose wet on wet to achieve a blurry appearance. That was our first layer. Now we will take a darker tone and paint some trees you can paint as many trees you want. There's no restriction on that. Sorry, if there is any background noise, there is some construction happening in the neighborhood. Next, let us paint the midground tree layer. For this layer, let's use darker almost black color. First, I'll paint the ground part that touches the water. Then I'll add the trees. So now let's practice painting some pine trees. I'll show you the easier way first paint the trunk, then add the branches. Then at the end, you can add the leaves, make it look like conical shape with irregular foliage. I paint pine trees in multiple styles. This may not be the same time that I paint in the class project. So you can follow along with me or you can paint your own style of pine trees. That's totally up to you. Whichever style you paint around that area, we will add some filler elements just to make that area look dense and build a sense of depth. You can add some lines and smaller sized pine trees as simple filler elements. We'll keep the reflection quite simple. Don't have to do any detailing. In the reference image, there is no grasses in the foreground. But here, I have simply added them as an extra element in the composition. You can skip it if you want, or you can add them. It's up to you. Painting these grass plates are very simple. Apply upward brastrok in repeated manner. I'll not add much detailing over here because I want my main focus to be on the trees. Then I'll use red colour to suggest some flowers. This is optional as well. All right, let us move on to our class project. 9. Day #3 Calm Lake: In this project, this is what we will be creating, and this is a reference image that we have. I hope you have gone through the previous chapter where we learn about the thumbnail, colors, and techniques. All right. Let's begin by taping down the paper. I'm taping it on backside of the paper, like you have seen in the previous chapters. If you want a border, you could tape it down on all the four sides. All right, the paper is ready. Now, let's get started. Using my mop brush, I'm going to wet the paper thoroughly. Apply generous amount of water so that the paper absorbs good amount of moisture. Next, I'll switch to my size 12 round brush. Now let's mix the colors. I'll take permanent yellow in mid tone consistency, and I'll apply it on the planned areas. Upper one is for the sky. The below yellow area is for the reflection part. Next around this, let us paint some blue sky. For the blue sky, I'm going to make cerulean blue, ultramarine blue and white gauze paint. Make it diluted consistency and leaving some gap apply on the top part of the painting. When blue gets mixed with yellow, there are chances we might see greenish color in the sky. So to avoid that, I'm leaving this tiny white spaces. I'll apply second layer of yellow around the same area. Now, let us mix yellow and red, creating orange color. I'll apply this around the horizon area to create a sort of streak in the sky. Now with clean brush, I'm softening the hard edges. Now on the upper part of the sky, I'll add some grayish blue color to suggest the clouds. Same goes in the reflection part. Here's a gentle reminder that you don't have to get exact same sky as mine. Moving on, let us mix the colors needed to paint the background tree line. Here, I'm mixing ultramarine blue, paints gray, white gauche paint, and maybe a tiny bit of eludin blue. Now I'll paint a straight line. This is the horizon line. Now press the belly of the brush against the paper, move the brush into and fro motion. By doing this, you're creating the reflection at the same time. That was our base layer. Now let us add multiple layers to add a sense of depth around this area. Paint the trees in different sizes, keep some of them shorter and some taller. When you look at this tree line as a whole, you should have different tree sizes. We need to make sure it doesn't look uniform. Next, let us separate the land and water. I'll use clean damp brush and lift off the paints, creating a sense of separation. Use clean damp brush and a tissue paper, wipe off all the paints that you have in the brush and repeat the process. Next, we will paint another set of trees with slightly darker tonal value. So this time, take less water and more paints. This is layering where we build multiple layers to build a sense of depth. If your painting lacks depth, then it looks flat. Okay, so the background tree line is done. Next, let us move on to the midground area. I have mixed olive green and paint gray to make darker green color. Use a tissue, dab off the excess paints, and only have little amount of paint so that you get nice control while painting this. First, let's paint this smaller patch. Now let's paint the bigger patch with the pine trees. Here we are painting wet paints on a damp layer. The background is still slightly wet. Then add smaller patches and connect them together. This should depict a partly submerged area in the water. Let's paint the trees now using the same darker grayish green color. Before starting the trees, I'll paint the reflection of this part. Like I said earlier in the practice chapter, we are going to paint the reflection in distorted manner, so don't worry about creating the details. Now, let us start painting the trees. Here, I've drawn the trunk first. And then I'm dabbing the brush, creating the foliage. You could also paint the trees in other way, the regular method where we draw the tree branches and then the foliage. Whichever looks easier to you, you can follow that method. Now we will dab the brush, creating smaller brush strokes. This will suggest smaller leaves and foliage. Now adding the reflection of the trees. Again, it's simple horizontal brass strokes. They're not creating exact shape of the trees. Now I'm adding some lines as filler element makes the area look fuller. Same lines in the reflection area as well. Adding tiny dots on the tip of the tree. This step will make the tree appear organic and kind of realistic. Adding tiny dots and lines in the reflection part. Next, I'll add some ripples using yellow color on the yellow parts of water. So for blue area, use lighter blue colour. So here, I'll use very diluted paints for the blue part. Here the paints have dried around the reflection of trees. I'm going to add some lighter diluted pains trying to blend those sharp edges. You can take very diluted paint gray and apply it around that area. Let's add some boards. So I'll take this darker color mix and add some darker lines in the reflection part. All you need to do is paint some horizontal straight lines and some zigzag lines. This adds a sense of character and movement in the water area. Vary the tonal value, if possible. Some areas you can apply lighter tone and some darker tones. So we are almost done. You can stop at this point, or you can follow along and add some grasses in the foreground. I'm going to paint some grasses and flowers. I'll take olive green mix and apply it in the foreground area as the base. Then using upward brushstroke motion, I'll paint these grass blades. Next take darker tone, probably a darker green color. This should create a sense of contrast. Now take any flower color of your choice. I'm taking red. Now drop in the chosen color suggesting the flowers. Alright, we are done with this painting. I'll remove the masking tape. There you go. This is how the painting looks. I hope you enjoyed painting this with me and had a fun learning session today. Do share your projects under the projects gallery. I would love to see how you have created it. And also, if you have any doubts, you can ask me under the discussion session. All right. I'll see you in the next chapter. 10. Day #4 Thumbnail and Practice: Welcome to day four of the series Atmospheric Landscapes. So today, we are going to paint this artwork, and let me show you the reference image. So this is the reference image, and we will try to simplify it as much as possible. Around the horizon area, we have orangish sunset happening, and in the background, we have this misty area with some trees in the background. Then in the midground, there is some darker volety color lavender field. And in the foreground, we have this bright lavender field. So the attention goes to the foreground area. We have tree as well in the midground. That's about the reference. Now let us draw the thumbnail. Draw a rectangle landscape box. Our previous artworks were in portrait orientation. This one is landscape orientation. We will reserve the upper half of the paper for the sunset and along the horizon line, we will be painting the trees. In the midground, we will have slightly less saturated lavender field. Towards the foreground, we will keep it lighter and very bright so that our attention goes straight to the foreground part and around the midground, we have this tree. Around the midground, we'll paint it slightly dull and darker in color and the foreground field area will be brighter. Now let's paint the color version of the thumbnail. I'll start off by wetting the paper. Apply clean water on this selected area. Now let us mix the colors. We need orange for the sky. I'm mixing red and yellow. You can also take direct orange color. With this orange, I'll paint the sky, the sunset hues around the horizon. For the trees around the horizon area, I'll use blue and violet. I'll also add this blue colour on the top part of the sky, creating a nice transition from blue to orange. Next, let's paint the fields. You can leave some white spaces to suggest a light and glowing effect. And for the lavender field, I'll use volet, opera pink, and mauve. These are similar colors, but I'll try to bring in some variation with these three colors. I'm also dropping in some olive green for the green leafy color. I hope this turns out well. So now let's add the tree that is in the midground area and some trees in the background part. Well, I have not really liked how this looks. I'm going to paint another thumbnail and see if that works well. So remember that whenever you have a reference image, you can try out many versions of the reference image. Do it as many times you want as long as you are satisfied with how your painting is going to look. So here I am trying another version. Let's see how it goes. Let me wet the paper. I'll use the same technique for the sky that is painting the orange streak around the horizon area. This part looked fine for me. But I want to have a small circular shape depicting the sun. Now, let me paint the upper part of the sky, that is the blue sky. Next, let me paint the distant tree line. So in the reference, I see a bluish color. I'm going to paint that first. For this will depict the hazy and misty environment in the background. Now let's paint the lavender field. So as discussed, the midground area is not very prominent. The foreground area needs all the highlight. Now, this is just a rough depiction. I don't want to go for all the detailed work. Okay, let's go back to the background area and add the tree line. Now this looks better, right? I'll add some details on the lavender feed. So tiny dots. Okay, so let's dry this and come back once it dries. Okay, so the paper is dry. Now let's do the detailing work. I'm going to add the details. In the main painting process, you can either splatter these dots or you could manually draw all these details. Remember, the dots in the foreground needs to be bigger when compared to the midground dots. These dots depict the lavender flower in the field. Now, let's add the pine tree in the midground area. Blend the tree into the field using clean water and some details on the trees in the background. Next, let us have a look at all the colors that we need. First is orange. I have mixed red and yellow to get this color. The next color is ultramarine blue. Then we have Mauve. This color is similar to purple. You can mix crimson and violet if you don't have one. Next color is violet. And then we have pains gray. You could also take indigo. Next, we have opera pink. You could take any pink color doesn't necessarily have to be this color. Next, we need olive green, or you could mix sap green and orange to achieve this color. This is basically a warm green color. Next, indigo. This is an optional color if you don't have paints gray. All right. These are the colors that I'm going to use for this class project. Now let us have a look at the techniques. So first, let us practice painting the lavender field. Now let me wet the area. This is a small square area. For the field, I'll be using volet, opera pink, and mauve I'll use this color in variation so that we have nice contrasting effect in the field. We will also use the white space. Apply few diagonal brushstrokes. Once you have laid the foundation, you can then splatter the panes, creating these tiny dots. You could also add these dots manually one by one. Keep in mind the rule of perspective. The elements in the farther area appear smaller. So the flowers in the foreground will appear bigger, and the one in the midground area will appear smaller and less saturated. I'm also adding some greens in between. Now, when I talk about green, let me show you the color mixing part. So I'll take olive green and paints gray, creating a darker green mix that will be ideal for adding the shadows in the field. Suppose you do not have any white space left in the field. You can use lifting technique by pressing the brush and lifting off the paint. Use a tissue paper if needed. So you will dry the base layer using a hair dryer or let it dry naturally for five, 10 minutes. Now, once the paper is dry, we will splatter again creating these sharper dots. Now, let us practice the background area. I'll wet the area first. Now, take orange and paint something like this, leaving a semicircular shape. Apply some darker streaks of orange color. You could change the color of the sky to pink or red, maybe, but I would stick to orange. Next, around the horizon line, we will add this bluish color suggesting the misty appearance in the background. Now over this area, we will add these darker colored trees. During the painting process, maybe we will wait for some time to add the trees so that it retains its shape. All right. That's about all the techniques that we are going to use in the fourth project. Okay, so let us move on to the painting project. 11. Day #4 Lavender Fields: Welcome to the fourth project. This is the artwork that we are going to create in today's chapter, and this is the image that we are referring to. I hope you have gone through the previous thumbnail chapter, where we discuss all the possibilities, the colors, and techniques. Okay. So now I'm going to ap down the paper and begin painting. I have put four pieces of masking tape on the backside of the paper, and now I'll stick it onto the glass sheet, press it tightly. This way, the paper will remain intact. Now, if you want boater, you can apply it on all the four sides. It's totally up to you. All right. Let's begin by wetting the paper. I'm using my mob brush to wet the paper thoroughly. Gently apply even strokes of water. Make sure there are no pool or puddles in the center or anywhere on the paper. Lift off all the excess water. We need our paper to absorb good amount of moisture and a a tissue, wipe off all the water droplets on the sides. Sometimes what happens is if there are drops of water, it comes back inside the paper and creates cauliflower effect on the edges. Now let's mix orange. I'll be mixing permanent yellow and red to get this nice bright and vibrant orange. I'll paint the sky trying to create this small semicircular area for the sun and I'll be applying the paints around that, leaving some tiny white gaps. So this is the orange streak around the horizon area. Next, let us paint the blue sky on the upper part of the paper. For that, I'll mix violet and ultramarine blue. You could also use blue directly. There's no restriction on that. Remember not to apply very bold colors. We are trying to keep it subtle and bring out that soft mood. You can go back and add some more orange strokes if you would like. We will be imagining this as our horizon line. Next, let's paint the background area. So I'm going to mix blue color. You could mix a little bit of white gauge or white watercolor to make it opaque and apply the paint along the horizon line, imaginary one. Now, let us paint the lavender field. So I'm going to mix the colors first. This is mauve and violet. The mauve color is by Vincor and Neuter. And the opera pink is Michelomssion. I'll have two to three colors ready. One is mauve and violet, other one is mauve and opera pink. The third may be directly violet color. Next, in my size 12 round brush, I'll take opera pink and mauve mix. I'll be applying it something like this in a diagonal manner. Changing the color to let and leaving some space, I'll apply in the foreground area. White space is very important here. Now mixing paints gray with violet for the midground color. Like I mentioned earlier in the thumbnail chapter, we need to keep the midground slightly less saturated and dull. I'm applying that in the midground. Again, leave some white spaces there. I'm going to mix the colors again. So take let and move or purple, whichever you have. Mix it in mid tone consistency. Now before applying, I'm going to take a little bit of white gauge and mix it with that. So you can see it has become slightly opaque. Now I'm going to manually add these dots. You could also splatter the paints. If you're splattering, cover the upper part with a paper or tissue. I forgot to cover mine so you can see what has happened. Now I'll have to fix that trying to blend it as a cloud in the sky. Don't do this mistake. Even if you have done it, it's fine. We can try to cover it up. Next, I'm going to add some opera pink colored dodge. In the foreground, we will try to paint bigger dots that is bigger flowers. And for the background, sorry, midground, we will be painting smaller dots. However, it's not very easy to control wet on wet as it might bloom, but try to gently touch the paper. I'm also adding these pink dots in the februm. If you feel that your paper has dried up, then you can use your fingertip to blend the dodge. We don't want very hard edges at this point. We will add them later on. The paper is slightly damp, which means about 50% dry. When you add the colors, it will hold the shape at this point. Now I'm going back to my background area and adding the trees. While painting the thumbnail, I realized that I need to make it hold shape. I gave it some time for the previous layer to dry. Notice how softly the colors are spreading. The edges are not hard, but we have controlled blurry effect. I'll try to paint the trees in different sizes, some shorter and some taller to bring about an organic look in the painting. If you have any hard edges, you can use a clean damp brush to blend it out or maybe your fingertip I Next, I'll use olive green and paint gray, and I'll be adding it in the background area, suggesting the green leaves of the lavender field. Slowly, we are approaching the foreground area as well. You don't have to completely fill this area with green. Just some tiny suggestions here and there would be enough. My paper is about to dry on the sides so I can see some hard edges around the bottom part. If I see any hard edges, I'll use my fingertip to blend them out. We will try to create some diagonal guiding lines. Now, let's paint second layer of greens. I'm adding some more paints gray to this olive green mix. Applying second layer of grassy lines on the green areas that we painted earlier. I have applied a lot of paints here, I'm going to use tissue paper to dab off the excess paints. Now the paper has almost dried. So I'm going to simply apply these tiny dots depicting the flowers in the foreground, we will draw bigger dots. And as we move towards the horizon, we will decrease the size of these dots. And for the background area, I don't want them to be very sharp and have hard edges, so I'm blending it out with my fingertip Now, I'll cover the upper part to splatter on this lavender field. Okay, so let us splatter the paint. This splattering will create tiny dodge. Now, let us paint the birds. I'll paint on these areas where I have the dotted marks. Easier way to cover up. Using a tissue paper, I'll remove the darker spots around the horizon because I don't want that area to grab so much attention. Just some minimal suggestions would be enough. Next, let us make spains gray and a little bit of let. We have gray color with let undertone. Now let's paint the pine tree somewhere in the midground area. We'll start with the trunk. Gently add the branches, try to form a conical or a triangular shape. Now add the foliage. Try to paint the leaves in a very irregular manner. We don't want to achieve uniformity here. Next, let us try to blend this tree where it touches the field area. So I'm applying some green color around the field and adding some shadow using diluted color. So make the area around tree slightly darker. So white areas in the field appear very blank. I'm filling up those areas with the pink color. Now, let's add some tiny leaves and a sharper tip on the tree. These little details make the overall appearance organic. Now, let's go back to the background area and introduce some newer trees. I'm blending the lower part of the tree into the background using my fingertip and only keeping the upper part sharper. Now, I'll add some brush strokes on the existing tree trying to define their shape. The lavender field around the midground area looks a bit more dull. I want some attention and detail over there. So using diluted purple and applying some wobbly lines around that area. Okay, so we are done with this painting. There you go. This is the final look of the artwork. I hope you enjoyed painting this with me. Do share your artworks under the project's gallery, okay? I'll see you soon. Bye. 12. Day #5 Thumbnail and Practice: Hello, hello. Welcome to Day five. Today, we are going to use this image as a reference. This is a foggy sunrise scene. In the background, there is a beautiful sunrise happening. We have dense foggy layer around the horizon. Then there is gentle tree line in the midground. In the foreground, we have this slope land with some grasses and some trees. That's about the reference image. Now let us draw the thumbnail to understand the composition in a better manner. Let us draw the pencil sketch first. So somewhere in the middle area, we have this sunrise. Upper part of that will be blue and around the horizon, we will paint with yellow orange, and then we have this dense foggy layer and a simple midground layer. Then in the foreground, there's a slope land with some grasses. We'll just create some texture for that and we have the trees. So whenever you see a reference photo, analyze the darker and lighter areas so that you can adjust the total values. Next, let us create the colored version of the thumbnail. So first, wet the paper because I'll be performing wet on wet initial layers. So let's paint the sunrise happening. You can also assume this as sunset. Sometimes I can't understand if it is sunrise or sunset. So we'll paint the yellow, orange hue in the sky, creating a small semicircular shape for the sun. Next with the bluish gray color, I'm going to paint the dense foggy layer. For that, we need to create a smoother transition suggesting foggy area around the sun, let's add some brown color, suggesting the sunlight effect on the mountain. I'm darkening the upper part of this mountain. Now let's paint the foreground area with brown color. In this we will be creating some texture in the main painting. And in the midground, there is another layer of trees, which appears very light. Next, on the left side, we will create some trees. We will create the trees in two layers. First one is the base layer. Then as this dries, we will add some detailing using wet on dry. No we can also add some textures in the foreground area, creating some visual interest. Next, let us have a look at the colors that we are going to use. First is orange, so mix yellow and red or take orange directly. Next color is ultramarine blue. Then we would need paint gray. The next color is violet. Indigo. Burnsiana. If you don't have burn siana, you could mix some red with burned tamber or any brown color. This is basically a brown with reddish, orangish undertone. Next color is burned tamber. And lastly, we would need raw umber. This is an optional color. You can still paint without this color. Now let us practice the elements. So I'll first wet the paper using a mob brush. Now, let us practice the sunrise scene. We will paint a semicircular shape and paint orange color around it. This is just a rough depiction. I may or may not add some extra steps in the painting process. Next, let's take paints gray and ultramarine blue and apply some paints along this imaginary line of horizon. This is the dense foggy layer that we are painting, and around the sun, I've left a tiny gap. This gap, I'll use to paint the sunlit effect. Around that area, I'm going to add burnt Siana. You can see how naturally glowing it appears. Try to create a smoother transition. You can add more darker colors or use lifting technique to lift off the paint. So it's basically doing some trial and error to get the right kind of foggy effect. Keep the upper part darker and gradually reduce the tonal value. Next, let us paint the foreground part. I'll use brown. I will also add bit of Bnciana with some darker brown, let us platter some paints, creating texture. So this will add a sense of character or definition to the foreground area. Since it is closer to the viewpoint, so we need to add some detailing work, right? Next, we will mix indigo and Bnciana to make this greenish color and we'll paint the trees. Next for midground layer, you can use diluted tone of brown and blue. That will look somewhat grayish. Use that to paint the midground layer. I'm showing these elements separately, but we will combine them in the main painting. All right. Let us move on to the main project. 13. Day #5 Foggy Sunrise: This is the painting that we are going to create in this chapter, and this is the reference image. I hope you have gone through the techniques chapter. All right. Let's get started. Okay, so let's start. I've already taped down the paper. Now, let us wet the surface of the paper. Gently apply water throughout the surface. Make sure there are no extra pool or puddles of water on the paper. Let the paper absorb good amount of moisture. Next, let us mix the colors. I'm going to use permanent yellow to paint the sun. Take this in mid tone consistency, and let's paint a semicircular shape. Now, around this area, we're going to paint the same yellow color. This area depicts the sunset happening in the sky. Next, let us take ultramarine blue, a little bit of violet and paint the upper part of the sky. This will suggest the bluish clouds in the sky. Be careful while blending the yellow and blue part. You can leave some white gap and leave it as it is. Don't have to mix them together. It might result in a greenish color, so better to avoid that. Next, let us mix the blue colour. I'm taking indigo and mixing a tiny bit of red. This will cancel out the warm tone of blue. Now I'm going to apply this as the background misty layer. So around the sun, we will leave some extra space. This will suggest the sunlit part in the background area. Like I said earlier, we can assume this as the background forest or even mountain. It's up to us how we take it. To give this bright sunlight effect, I'm adding burnt sienna around this area. It creates a warm glow around the mountain. Tried giving shape around the sun but didn't work out. So I'm gonna lift the paints using tissue paper. Next, let us try to create a misty background effect. We're trying to paint misty mountains in the background. So make sure we are achieving this smoother transition from darker blue, then mid tone and diluted, and then white color. So on the top, I'm adding darker colors to bring a sense of smoother transition from darker to light. Suppose you're not able to achieve a smoother misty effect, then you can use a clean damp brush to soften the hard edges or you can use water spray bottle. Next, we will paint the foreground area. So I'm mixing burnt amber, raw umber, and a little bit of burnt siana You could take any one color as well. That is also perfectly fine. Any brown color that your palette has, I'll take this color mix in a mid tone consistency and glide my brush in a diagonal manner from left to right. Now, fill up this area. This is a slopy land in the foreground. Next, I'll take brown and blue color, mix it in diluted form. This will look like a gray color. Applying this somewhere in the middle, like a midground layer between the background and the foreground. This part of the painting is not very prominent. It is simply there without seeking much attention. But this needs to be there in order to connect the foreground with the background. I'll use the back of the brush trying to create the tree branches. Next, I'm going to splatter the paints in the foreground area. So for that, cover the upper part and load your brush with some darker brown paints and splatter it on this area. This will create some nice dots which suggest the texture in the foreground part. Splattering some indigo paints as well. Next, I'll mix indigo and Bnciana. When you mix these two colors together, it gives a sort of greenish color. I'll use this color mix to paint the trees. Dab your brush, creating the impression of these tiny dots. Collectively, it will look as a tree. Alternatively, you can paint any tree of your choice. Two. Slightly increasing the size of this tree, creating a pointed tip for this tree. Dabbing in some darker layer on the trees. Okay. Now, let us dry this area. I'm using my hair dryer to speed up the drying process. Okay, so the paints look dry. Now let us go with wet on dry. The paper is dry and we are using wet paints. Moving on, let us add some details in the midground area. I have mixed Indigo and BonsianaThi will create a greenish, mild greenish gray color. I'll use that color to add details in the midground area. This part is equally important because it connects the foreground with the background part. Gently add these details by dabbing the brush. A next, let us add some details in the foreground trees. I'm mixing the same paints in darker version that is indigo and Bonsiana. It will give us a darker green color. Now using this color, apply some details on the tree. You just have to apply some repeated brush strokes in different sizes. Keep some of them smaller, some bigger, so that you have nice variation. I'll again mix the same color that is indigo and burnt sienna. If you don't have these two colors, you can mix your own similar shade. Now, use the pointed tip of the brush or a fine liner brush and add the branches inside this tree. I'll repeat the same steps for the other trees as well. All you need to do is create some brush marks and connect them together using branches and simple lines. Okay. Next, let us also create some brush marks on the brown area. This will form a sense of connection between the trees and the ground area. Applying some thicker brush strokes on the bottom part of the tree. Moving on, let us add some details in the foreground area. I'll be creating simple brush marks using burnt Siana. These are more like grass blades in the front part of the painting. These brush marks create a sense of texture in the foreground area. Now, I'll cover the upper part of the painting again and splatter some paints. This time, it is wet on dry. The paper is dry, so the colors remain as it is, creating hard edges. The previous layer was wet on wet. Now let us paint some birds. I'm painting these birds on the blue part. These birds are painted using almost black color. And next, I will be painting some birds around the sun with a brown color to suggest sunlight effect on the birds as well. Painting some tiny birds using diluted burnt Siana Alright, we are done with this painting. There you go. This is the final look of the artwork. It has turned out beautiful, right? I hope you liked your painting as well. Please do share it with me under the project's gallery. I would love to see it. 14. Day #6 Thumbnail and Practice: Welcome to day six of the series Atmospheric Landscapes. Today we are going to use this image as our reference. So let's try to simplify it. In the background, we have this hazy distant mountain, and then there is another mountain in brownish color. In between, we have this tiny lake, and in the foreground, we have a beautiful meadow. This meadow has white wildflowers in it, but I'm thinking of adding pink flowers just like that. The sky in this picture has kind of pastel effect. And overall, if you see, this has a pastel vibe to it. So let's try to create this painting. First, let us have a look at the thumbnail sketch. We'll simplify the elements. So this is the distant mountain and another distant mountain. This will be brownish in color, and we'll reserve this tiny area for the lake. The major part of the paper will be for the meadow. We have the grass blades and wildflowers This midground mountain has some detailing in this. Moving on, let us create a colored version of this. We will have to create our own pastel colors. Pastel colors are nothing but the colors that has some white color in it. It's not transparent. It is opaque. So by adding white gauge or white watercolor, we can turn any transparent or any watercolor into opaque color. Okay. In our previous chapters, also, we have used some opaque colors. Now let's mix the color. So I'll be mixing opera pink and white to achieve this pastel baby pink color. So with this, we'll paint the sky and I'll be using yellow and red for orangish pastel color. That is for the sky. Next for the foreground color, I'm going to mix a pastel greenish color. Here I have mixed olive green, forest green and white. You could use any green colour in your palette and mix it with white. It's fine if it differs a little. Next for the mountain, I'm taking paints gray, let, and a little bit of gauche colour and paint the distant mountain. In the reference, it is very light, but I'm trying to make it slightly darker. And for the bigger mountain, I use Bnciana If the paper is too wet, you can lift off the paints and clear the bottom section for the lake. Clean dam brush for lifting of the paints and leaving some white area for the lake. Now, I'll use darker color. A darker color will do to paint the details in the brown mountain. First layer will all be wet on wet. And Next, I'll paint some grass blades in the foreground area. Here we'll paint all upward brass strokes to create grass blade like shapes. Then I'll dab the pink color depicting the flowers. This is just a paste layer. We will be adding more details later on in the next layer. Now for the lake, I'll paint cerulean blue. So the boundary along the meadow and the lake area, we need to create some darker grasses. This defines the boundary. I will quickly dry this area. Now, we will have to add all the detailing work using wet on dry. Adding all these grass blades in upward motion. Then I'll add some pink flash. Lastly, adding some white highlights using white gauche paint. Next, let us have a look at all the colors that we need for the class. First is Opera Pink. Next is permanent yellow and red. I'm mixing this to create orange. This is only for a little part in the sky. And next color is violet. Pain grey. Olive green. Forest green. Indigo Bonsiana cerulean blue. White gauze or white watercolor paint. Now let's practice. I'll wet the area using more brush. So let's practice the mountain area using Bnciana. So paint the shape of the mountain. Now with paints gray and some green, we will add the trees. And then there is a distant mountain, which I'll create using Pains gray and wallet. For painting the foreground meadow, I'll be using a pastel green colour, which I'll mix using olive green, forest green and white. Once the base color is laid, we will add all the darker details. This is the boundary near the water and the meadow area. For the water, I'll just add a hint of cerulean blue. The main focus of this painting is meadow. So we'll be painting that very carefully. Don't have to achieve perfection, but, you know, we need to bring out the essence of the meadow. We'll also use some brown. Now with wet on wet, I'll be adding some pink flowers. This is just a rough depiction. I might change the techniques a little bit. Now let us dry the colors, and then in the next layer, we will add the details. So the base layer was wet on wet. Now let us add the details using wet on dry. Painting upward brushstroke motion. You can also splatter some paints to fill up the area. Next is adding the flowers using opera pink. Add white highlights to make the meadows stand out. You can splatter the pines for achieving different size of dots. Alright, let's move on to the main project. 15. Day #6 Pastel Meadows: Hello. This is sixth project of the series Atmospheric Landscapes, and this is the artwork that we are going to create today. This is a reference image for the project. I hope you have gone through the previous chapter where I talk about the thumbnail, color palette, and the techniques needed to paint this artwork. So let's begin. All right, let's begin our painting process. I have already tamed down the paper on this glass sheet. Now let us begin. I'll first wet the paper using mob brush, apply water throughout the paper, and make sure it is fully wet. There shouldn't be any pool or puddle of water anywhere on the paper. Spread it equally throughout the surface. Okay, the paper is wet. Now let's mix the colors. As you know, today we are going to paint using pastel colors. Let's mix the colors. So to create pastel colors using regular watercolor, we would need white gauze or watercolor. So let's take opera pink. You could also use crimson or any other pink you have. And I'm going to mix it with the white gauze. Take a little bit of white and mix it with the existing color that is pink. You can see it already looks kind of pastel. I'll mix an opaque yellow as well. When I say opaque, it means pastel. I've taken red and yellow, which looks like orange. Then to that color, I'll mix white. We have two colors ready in the palette. Now let's paint the sky. I'll start with the pastel pink. Next, let us take violet and mix it with opera pink pastel color. It should look like lilac color. Now take this purple pastel color and apply Now, towards the horizon, I'm going to apply this orange pastel color. Apply the paint almost towards the center of the paper. We have achieved a soft pastel looking sky. Next, let us mix our pastel green color. For this, I'll take olive green and forest green, mix it with white colour. It should look something like this, like a sage or what color is this called? Not sure what this is called, but it should look something like this. I hope you'll manage to get this color. If not, that is also totally fine. You'll apply this color on the lower part. This is the base layer of the meadow that we are going to paint. Next, let us mix slightly darker version of this color. That is by adding paints gray. So I've got this darker color. I'll apply this on the bottom part as a shadow for the grassy area. Apply upward brush strokes, creating the brass blade effect. Next, let us paint the distant mountain. So I'm going to take violet, paints gray and white gauche. Now let's paint a distant mountain somewhere in the middle. This marks as our horizon area in the painting. Next, I'll paint another distant mountain. So take Bnciana and paint a slopy mountain shape. I'll extend the lower part of this mountain, bringing it a little forward when compared to the previous mountain. I Next, I'll add some tiny trees and some grasses on the brown mountain. So here, I'll take paints gray and green. This will form a darker green colour. With this, I'll create the impression of trees. Adding some brush marks on the background mountain as well, suggesting the trees. Lift off all the excess paint using a damp brush and a tissue paper. We want a nice and sharp border here. The area below this mountain part is for the lake water. Now let's add some more details. Using darker tonal value of burned Siana, I'm adding few brass strokes around this mountain area. This will create a sense of depth. I leave some gap for the lake. Now let us paint the boundary between the water and the foreground meadow. I'll take darker green color and dab the brush creating the impression of distant grasses. This is the separation between the water and this grassy meadow part. Next, let us paint the lake water. I'll first wet that area below the mountain. Now take diluted erlein blue and apply on this wet area. This blue region depicts the lake water. Blend it well with clean water. We want it very subtle and diluted in color. Next, let us go back to the foreground area. I'm re wetting the paper using water spray. Now mix indigo, forest green, and some olive green. We want a darker green color. You could mix any of your greens and create this green. I'll manually apply tiny dots this will suggest the leaves inside the meadow. Towards the bottom of the paper, we will apply bigger dots because this area is closer to the viewpoint. Next, take a fine liner and mix burn tumber Using brown color. I'll be painting some grass plates, some simple upward br strokes depicting the grasses and stems inside the meadow. Next I'll switch to my size 12 round brush with pointed tip. And with this, I'm quickly applying some upward brush strokes. Be quick and try to paint it loosely. You don't have to achieve perfect grass blade. In watercolor, we need to learn to work faster. Next, we will perform splattering technique. So cover the upper part and let us platter some brown paint, suggesting the leaves and other filler elements inside this meadow. Next, let us paint the flowers. So I'll take opaque opera pink, that is the pastel color that we created earlier, and let's splatter it. You can see how these splatters look. Try to achieve similar effect. Now, let's dry this layer using hair dryer. If you don't want to use a hair dryer, let it dry naturally for about 10 minutes, and then we can come back to paint the next layer. All right. The paper looks completely dry. And the colors also look very dull. But that's fine. We are going to add detailing work in the next layer. Let us mix our greens. I'll be mixing olive green, forest green and white gouache, making this nice opaque mixture. This is the pastel green. Now with this, let us paint the details. Paint the brush strokes in upward motion towards the bottom of the paper, we'll paint bigger brush strokes and as we are painting the mid part of the meadow, we'll use smaller brush strokes. We'll paint all of them in upward strokes. If you feel it is darker, use a tissue paper to lift off the paints. Don't leave any major area empty. Try to have one or two grass blades in all the places. Next, I'll take more of opera pink than a little bit of white. I want this bright pink colour. I'll paint some tiny flowers in the meadow. I'll paint all the flowers one by one here. Also remember the rule of perspective. The area closer to the viewpoint will have bigger flowers and away from the foreground will have smaller. In this case, the area near the lake will have smaller flower because these are away from the viewpoint. I'll let you observe as I paint all these flowers. Y. Next, I'll gradually make it more opaque. This time it is almost equal amount of pink and gouache paint because I'm going to paint this on darker areas. If the color is opaque, it will not show us the underneath darker green color. O. Now, I'll splatter the paints using my size 12 round brush. This is to achieve smaller dots in the meadow. Do cover the upper part. Otherwise, it will ruin your sky. Now let's paint the birds. Next, I'll take paints gray and give border to the mountain area in the background. So I'm just defining the boundaries where it touches the water. Also, to add in some contrast inside the meadow, I'll mix paints gray and green, creating a darker green mix and we add some grass blades with darker green color. It is always very important to have a sense of contrast. Otherwise, the painting looks very flat. Gently paint the grass blades. Here I'm using my fine liner size two round brush. Paint the grasses in upward motion again. You can add some tiny grass blades in the mid section as well. I. Now, cover the sky and lake part and we will splatter some green paint in the meadow. You could use different tonal values of green here just to bring in a sense of variety. Next with white gauge paint, I'll add some highlights on the flowers. You could also use splattering technique, but make sure to use thick and very concentrated paint so that it retains its shape. Now, with thick concentrated paint, I'm splattering the white wash colour. This will create a nice balance between pink and white flowers. Okay, so we are done with this painting. Here you go. This is the final look of the sixth project. I hope you enjoyed painting this with me. If you have any doubts, you can ask me under the discussion section. I'll be there to help you. And please share your projects. 16. Day #7 Thumbnail and Practice: A for day seven, we have this reference image. I'm going to create this darker background trees and a sort of misty layer. Then we'll paint the trees in the background and midground. In the foreground, you see these grasses and fallen leaves. We have trees and dry branches. Here we have a sort of moody atmosphere. Let's try to create that. I'll first go with the pencil sketch to break down the composition. In the left side, we have dense trees, and on the right side, the area is covered with fog or mist. Then we have some midground and background trees. In the foreground. There are some grasses and fallen leaves on the ground. We have some were trees of different sizes. Now let's paint the colored version. First, I'll wet this area. Will perform wet on wet technique. Painting the sky in a very delicate manner, leaving empty white spaces. Then for the background trees, I'll mix paints gray and violet. This will form a violet gray color. For painting the trees, I will dab the brush, creating the impression of the foliage and some empty spaces. Around the right side, I'll try to create misty effect. Next to suggest mist around the midground area. I'll leave some gap. I have applied diluted let below this white part. This is to create a smoother transition from the mist into the ground area. Next, I'll paint with brown color. I think I'll mix burn tumbo and burn siana I Now with darker gray color, I'll paint the background trees, adding some darker brown brush strokes to suggest some character or axture in the ground area. We'll also paint some fallen leaves on the ground. On the left side, we have denser forest or trees. So I'll cover that with some paints. I'll add some more vertical lines suggesting the trees this time in darker color. Once this is painted, we will let it dry. Okay, the paper is dry. Now let's go for wet on dry. The trees will look sharp and focused because we are painting on a dry surface. Gently paint the trees. We'll paint some trees thinner and some thicker to bring about a sense of variation. In the ground area, I add some brush strokes, suggesting the grasses and some fallen leaves on the ground. I'll also add some tiny branches on the trees. Next, let us have a look at the colors that I would use in the painting. First is cerulean blue. This is for the sky in the background. Then I'll use paints gray and let. I'll be mixing these two colors to form a violet gray color. Next color is burned tamber and then burn siana. This is for the ground. If you don't have burn siana, that's fine. You can use burned tamber or any brown color. Next, let us practice the elements. Let's wet the paper. On wet surface, we will apply the pains like this for creating the denser tree like effect in the background. We are just creating the impression of the trees and you can add lines like this trying to connect these foliage. Now let's practice the ground area. On wet surface, we will paint with brown color. You can mix, burn siana, burn tamber, any brown color. Once you paint the base color, then you can add in some texture by splattering, or you can manually add the brush marks suggesting the texture or the fallen leaves. Here, we need to try to depict the mist in the background area. For that, we will use diluted colors to paint the background trees. This is just a rough depiction of how tonal values can impact the overall depiction of mood. Next, we need to paint some trees in the painting. We will paint with wet on dry, which means sharper looking trees. So when you're painting trees, paint the bottom part in a thicker manner. And as you paint the branches and other details, you will use the pointed tip or a fine liner brush for crisp and tiny details. Avoid painting the trees in same thickness. Always maintain that thicker root and the upper part should be thinner. That's when it will look organic. And for painting grass blades, we will move our brush in upward motion, creating these kind of brush marks. When you apply these brush marks repeatedly, it will appear like grasses. You can vary the sizes, keep some smaller, some bigger, or you could simply splatter the paints creating textures. 17. Day #7 Moody Forest: Welcome to day seven of the series Atmospheric Landscapes. This is the painting that we are going to create in today's class, and this is a reference image that I'll be using. I hope you have gone through the previous chapter where I explain all about techniques, breaking down the composition and colors. Let's start. I'll begin by wetting the paper using a mop brush. Apply generous amount of water without leaving any pool or puddles of water on the center or anywhere on the paper. It should be evenly distributed. And you can wipe off all the excess water that's there on the side. We don't want any water droplets to go back and create the cauliflower effect on the edges. Okay, so let's begin the painting process. I'm going to start off by painting the sky. So here, I'm taking my size 12 round brush, and for the sky, I'll paint with diluted cerulean blue. So we will apply the paints very randomly, leaving some white spaces. This combination of white and blue leaves a nice effect of sky in the background. However, the sky is not the focus in the painting. Next I'll take Pains gray and violet. Mix these two colors. We get a violet gray color. Take this color mix and we will start painting the background trees. We will start painting the tree from the left side. On the upper part, I'll apply some tiny brush marks. This will suggest the distant tree and some gaps in between the foliage. Let's paint some more trees. Towards the right side, we will paint fewer trees because if you notice the reference image, it has fewer trees there. Next, I'll slowly blend the color using clean water, trying to achieve misty effect. Imagine this mid area as our horizon line. This is where the sky meets the land, applying some tiny dots, something like this, creating the foliage in an organic manner. Use the tip of the brush or maybe a fine line or brush. Next, I'll switch to slightly darker tonal value. Wearing the tonal value can add a sense of depth in whatever you paint. So I have painted these foliage. Now let's try to connect them with some fine lines in between. Next, I'll add some brush marks using slightly darker tonal value. Here you will take less water and more pigments. You can already see two layers. One is lighter colored tree foliage and another one is darker colored foliage. Next, let's take violet and mix a little bit of blue or paints gray. So I have this violet color. And I'll apply this below the white part to create a smooth or misty transition. Next, I'll take burnt amber, burn siana and the violet gray mix. Mixing it together, this forms a very bright brown color. I'll apply this below the purple area that I have just painted. This creates a nice transition from the mist into the land part. I didn't want to paint the brown color directly. Adding some more trees around the horizon line. Dropping in some tiny dots inside this forest background area. It will add more depth around that part. So remember, it doesn't have to look perfect. Here I'll paint a tree so that it looks that we have put some efforts into it and not just random depiction. In the midground area, I'll paint some grasses. You just have to paint some upward brush strokes repeatedly. And as you reach the right side will slowly reduce it. Next, let's take the brown color and we will add some brush strokes around this foreground part. Just apply some zigzag diagonal strokes to add a sense of texture around this area. This could look like the base for the fallen leaves. Next, take let and paint gray mix. With this, we will be painting the trees. So I'll start by painting the straight lines. This will depict our midground trees. Let the origin point of trees be different areas. Observe how I start the root from different areas. Now I'm going to extend some of them and add the branches. This is partially wet on wet. We will get a sort of blurry effect. We are creating the trees in multiple layers. So this layer trees will look blurry. And the ones that we will paint next, which is the wet on dry one, the hard edges, that will look very focused and sharp. Towards the left side, I'll paint the trees with slightly darker color. And for the rest of the trees, I'm adding a sort of shadow on one side. Next, let us define the root of the trees. Naturally, if you observe the trees, they look wide at the bottom area. So that's what I'm doing here. Now, with pointed tip of the brush, I'm adding some line as filler elements. These are not very focused trees. These are just there to make the overall scene look good. And let me remind you again that I'm not entirely following the reference image. I just want to capture the essence of it and not every detail. Now let's take darker brown color by mixing burnt tamber, burnt siana and a little bit of paint gray. With this, I'll add some brush marks on the foreground area. This will depict the fallen leaves on the ground. You just have to apply repeated brush strokes. No need of achieving perfect shapes or anything as such. Just keep repeatedly applying. And in the background around the misty area, apply some diluted brush strokes. This will suggest a sense of haze around that area. Adding some branches on the trees on right side. Now, let's dry this area. I'm using my hair dryer to speed up the drying process. You could also let it dry naturally. If you need more time, feel free to pause the video and come back again. All right. The paper has completely dried. Next with paint scray, I'll paint some trees. These trees will be wet on dry and it will appear sharp and have some focused effect on it. I'm using size a round brush. A So here, I'll paint the tree trunk with diluted color, and next, I'll mix burnt umber, paint gray, and burn siano to make a darker brown color. So in this diluted area, I'll drop in some brownish color. This will create a nice transition from brown to misty area. You. Adding a few more trees. You can add as many trees you want. There's no restriction on the count. So next I'll switch to my fine line of brush. This brush will help me create tiny branches on the trees. Now, if you feel you have painted trees with darker color, you can lift off the paints using tissue. Or to avoid that, you can use diluted colours, like very diluted ones. Paint tiny, tiny branches in upward motion. Next with brown color. I'm applying some brush marks. This is such as the fallen leaves and grasses in the foreground land. You don't have to cover the entire part, some random suggestions here and there on the ground. As you paint the background area, keep the paints diluted. Now, I'll splatter the paints on the ground part. I'll cover the upper area and then splatter. I'm splattering with a fine liner brush so that it gives me these tiny dots. If you want bigger dots, you could go with a bigger brush and more diluted paints. Let's take paints gray and darken some of the branches on the tree. I'll introduce new branches as well. Painting some darker grasses in the foreground area. With these darker grasses, we will create a sense of transition from darker to lighter area in the background. Adding some more branches using the fine line of brush. I'll introduce a new tree as well. In the upper part, I'll splatter the paints using diluted paints gray, and to lift off the darker color, I'll just dab it off with tissue paper to lift the colours and leave a mild impression of leaves in the air. Alright, so we are done with the painting. Now, I'm going to remove the masking tape. There you go. This is the final look of the painting. I hope you enjoyed painting this. If you have painted along with me, do share your projects under the project gallery. I would really love to see your version.