Beginner-Friendly Watercolor Challenge: 10 Days of Vibrant Landscapes

1. Welcome to the Challenge: Have you ever sat down to paint hoping it would help you relax? And instead, you found yourself overthinking every brushstroke. A lot of us come to painting looking for calm, but somewhere along the way, it starts feeling like pressure instead. This year, I invite you to join me in the journey of exploring the art of watercolors. Watercolors is such a relaxing, soothing medium, and often we forget that in the rush and pressure of it. Let's step back, Let's enjoy the peace. Let's try something relaxing. This ten day challenge is a chance for you to just paint without any rush, any expectations, and without any pressure. Hi, I'm Madhu. I'm your instructor today. I'm an artist, published author, and I love painting nature. Every time I paint nature, I feel like I'm stepping into the world that I've created, and it always brings me so much joy. And I want that for you. Over the next ten days, we are going to be painting simple, soothing landscapes skies, mountains, and water. One small project at a time without rushing or trying to make things perfect. Each lesson is short and easy to fit into your day. You don't need fancy supplies or a lot of experience, just your paints, brushes and a willingness to show up. After the material checklist, we will practice some simple exercises together. Your goal is to complete all ten of the 15 to 20 minute projects with ease, taking aside a small amount of time from your busy schedule. By the end of this ten day challenge, you will end up with some incredible paintings that you will cherish forever. So get comfortable, take a deep breath, and let's begin. 2. Materials: Let's dive right into materials and what you would need for this challenge. We're going to be doing ten beautiful paintings in a five watercolor sheets. This is Cold Press, 300 GSM sheets. All the materials are listed below. If you have any questions, please add in a question in the discussion tab. So we need ten of these. We're going to do a little bit of practice before we begin, so a little practice sheet would be great. Also, we would need two different round brushes. One is a size two, and the other one is a size 12, one that can be used for backgrounds and larger spaces, and one for the smaller details. These are basics and it's going to be really useful for our paintings. Next we're going to need a beautiful watercolor set. I'm using the Art philosophy Woodland set, which has a beautiful mix of browns, pinks, blues and greens. This is going to be perfect for our painting. This set has all the beautiful colors that we're going to be using for our projects. From the browns, you would need bear sandrig, some blacks, such as greystone, even a pink Foxberry, two type of greens, which is pwd, which is a lighter green and deep moss, which is a darker forest green. I love the blues that they have. Again, two shades of blue, one is stream, and one is mist, which is an indigo blue. And then you have your daylight, which is a yellow. If you have your existing set, you can pick the similar shades, and that's good and works really well. It's the standard colors that you could find. I think some of them are unique like pond is harder to find in other brands, and that's why I like this set, and I'll be using this for the entire challenge. Additionally, we'll need some masking tape. This is going to be useful for the edges of our painting, as well as some pencil, some water cup, rubber eraser tissues, and the other basics that you would need in terms of watercolor painting. Once you have all your supplies ready, let's begin. 3. Let's Practice: So I want to dive into a couple of mini exercises for you to get a little bit more comfortable with watercolors and so that when you get into your painting, you're not too scared. This is to build a little bit more courage and to also share some key pointers on what to do and what not to do. So taking a little bit of color, I'm just spreading around the paint. Notice how I don't lift my brush, and I try to go side to side. It's always important to have these long brush strokes, so you avoid more of brush lines coming through as the paint dries. Now I'm doing two sets. The first one, I'm going to let it dry for a bit, and that kind of happens. Maybe you're busy or maybe you took too much time doing that first layer, and I'm going to show you what happens with that one. So let's move with the second one. I've added in a secondary color, adding in a third color. And notice every time I add the color, I start from down and then gently move up. What happens is you end up with more clear colors instead of everything getting mixed up and getting muddy. This is so important when you get into painting. So always start from down and move the second one, sorry, going back to the first one, you can see how I did the same thing. But because it had dried up, there's a patch of line in the middle that is layered. So try to work quickly with your painting instead of letting it dry and then getting back into it. So that's a really important tip. Now for the final one, I've taken a lot of water and paint, and here I'm adding the color right on top. You can see how it's a lot more muddy. And it just looks a little bit mixed up, going into the next color, the yellow. And you can see, again, it's become green because I painted it on top. So make sure, as I shared to always start from away and then move upwards on top of the existing layer. Once you're done with the sky, let's say you've created this, let it rest before you attempt to do anything. Do not go back and try to paint over it again and again and again, allow it to just be. When it dries, watercolor kind of surprises you. Sometimes it turns out beautifully. Sometimes there are lines. If there are lines, you can always paint over it versus trying to fix it while it's still wet. So that's super important to remember. Try not to fix your painting when it's still wet. Let it dry, see how it turns out before doing that. Now, here I wanted to show you two different colors and how you can create some clouds. Now, there are a couple of different ways and there are a couple of different techniques. One of the really cool ones, and you'll see me do this at times when I'm trying to get a misty effect is that I would wash my brush fully, dry it, and then take a dry brush and lift up the paint while it's still wet. Get some tissue in hand for this process, and just dry out your brush. And using this dry brush, you can lift up the paint. Look at how cool that is. If you're getting too much of paint on your brush, again, wash your brush, take that dry brush, and again, lift up the color. This is great for clouds. It's great if you want to do something misty, if you want to blend in the colors a little bit more because it lifts up the paint. Remember that watercolors is kind of learning techniques and learning how to get more in control of them. And sometimes you may not get it right, and that's okay. You can always try again. So having these tools and tips in mind is so helpful. Don't you think you're feeling a little bit more confident to get started? Well, let's keep going. The next one I wanted to show you is a quick sample of painting mountains. It's all about how you hold your brush and how you fill it up and what you can do. So I'm going to take some brown on my brush, and I'm just going to paint some mountains. Mountains have a little bit of a jagged edge. So you can see how I'm doing that. It's not soft, nor is it completely stiff. So it's a little bit more in between. Once you do that, add in some clear water and blend out the edge. You can see how that creates a misty look almost immediately. You can even take a dry brush and just smooth out that blending even more. The next cute little practice we're going to do is bushes as well as trees. It's forage. So taking green, let's just mosh around your brush. So you're literally just moving it round and round on your paper. I'm really pressing it down so that the whole of the brush is touching the paper. Once I get to that, you can add in a couple of strokes to represent leaves at the edges of this. And you can see it's the starting to look like a bush just by this simple technique. Adding a little bit more of darker green, deep moss green. And you can see how now I have a shadow, and the other side has become more lighter and this has become more darker. You can go in with a little bit of misty blue, so a little bit of indigo and deepen it up. And look at how that looks. It looks like a bush. If you add a tree trunk, branches, it would look like a tree. It's such a fun technique. A really interesting trick to add in thin lines is to keep your brush perpendicular. So just the tip of the brush presses the paper, and you can see how easily you can create some thin lines. If you press down your brush a little bit of an angle or you're noticing that your lines aren't thin and looks like this, it's because your brush is at an angle and isn't perpendicular. Now we get into some leaves. We're going to use this for again, a couple of projects, taking a thinner brush, adding in a thin stem. And one thing to remember is you want to make sure that your brush is perpendicular, as we discussed before. So making sure you do a nice thin tip and then pressing down your brush for each leaf. If you've been painting for a while, this is something that you'd be very comfortable with, but I just wanted to go into it in case you're new, in case you're not sure and to see a little bit of that placement and how it looks. Now for some trees, let's start with a thin line, keeping a little bit of gaps between, and we start by adding a couple of leaves from the top following a conical shape. I just moush my brush around and then add in some dots towards the end to create the tree. Adding a little bit of gaps, pressing down more. And you can see how as I press down more, even the paint is getting lighter and it's almost creating its own misty effect without even trying. And that's how simple it is. You can try another one right next to it. Similar techniques start small from the top and then just press down more and more as you go downwards. Try to not take more paint. You can see I started with some paint, and I'm just using the same amount because as I go along, the paint is getting over and it's more of just, you know, water, and that looks so interesting. So these are just some of the exercises that would be useful when we get into our projects. I wanted to do a final one. And this is just to show grass. So when you're doing grass, we're just doing flicks of your wrist. It can be side to side, but it's all starting from down and going up with simple flicks of your wrist. Practice these movements a little bit before we begin with our challenge. I'm so excited to get started and happy painting, everyone. 4. Day 1 - Soft Skies: Take a moment. Today, we are going to be diving into this beautiful piece. Let's start with our AFO A five sheet, and I've tipped down all the four edges with my tape. Starting with the subtle blue, it's a beautiful warm color going all the way from the top. Make sure that your brush has enough of water to really smoothly move it. Starting with the next color. It's a beautiful pink color. Gentle shade, starting from below and slightly moving upwards. Now, if you notice I do my skies with quick rapid motions from side to side. This is so important that you bring it all the way from side to side. That way you don't leave any gaps. With watercolors, things can dry up very quickly. So you want to make sure that you cover all the edges before it dries up. Take enough of the yellow to gently move the brush. And I've left a little bit gap in the middle just using water to blend everything. Going back and forth with the pink, and this is for the sea, for the water part of it. So I'm just actually copying the top layers on the opposite, having blue at the bottom, pink above, and then finally yellow. You can see how that turned out. Very quick, very gentle. And now we're going to let the whole thing breathe, let it rest, and we can start with our next layer. Time to switch to the smaller brush. Go to start adding in some simple trees in the background, using the same blue that we used for the sky, or you can take a slightly darker indigo. That works well, and I'm gently building up the tree. As I move downwards, I'm not taking in more paint, so it becomes a little more subtle and fades into the background. Remember to keep the shape of the trees where you have that pointed tip and gently moving downwards in the form of a triangle. We're going to build slowly and just layer up all the details. At this point, can you feel the calm? Can you feel the relaxation? The peace? Isn't it amazing just to take this moment to just disappear into your art? As we move downwards, what we're going to do is take more water and we're gently fading this layer with more and more water so it becomes more transparent, keeping it very subtle, and this is also going to be our horizon. So make sure that you add a straight line, adding a lot of water to the mix. I like using my palette for this so that I can really mix in and make sure that I get a very light layer. You can notice how I hold my brush in this step. It's more like I am swishing it about. I'm going back and forth. It's not like the background. And so that's really important. You're moving your wrist a little bit more here and trying to create more of a scattered playful movement. And that's what's going to give it a better look and feel. So try to avoid having straight lines going in and just play around with your brush. Adding in more water to blend it out and so that a whole mountain or the background just fades in. Time to take some blue, and we're going to add in the reflection. So adding a lot of water, let's start by adding a straight line. And we're going to just add the reflection for this mountainous treetop that we just painted. And all you're going to do is flip the design or the elements and paint it downwards. Make sure that you have enough water so that it is much more subtle and leave a little bit of a white space between the two layers. There is no rush, no deadline. Take your time in this process, trying to get it to look very similar and create that beautiful reflection. While doing the bottom, it doesn't have to be perfect. You can see how I'm just squiggling it out just to try to show that there are tree tops. A We're now going to take a little bit more of the blue and add in the gentle sea. I love painting the ocean. It's so peaceful and it's so relaxing. And just yesterday, I was talking to a friend and I was just telling them how much I love the ocean and just being near the sea. I don't really enjoy swimming, but I just like being around water. And that's when I realized that I've always lived in the city and even if I was living in an island, I was more towards the center, so I never got to spend too much time near the water. So that's why it brings me so much peace. It's something that I don't have, and that's why I enjoy painting it. And even today, I decided to paint this because the ocean is there, but it's kind of far away, so let's create it at home in the comfort of my home and just feel that peace and create that feeling. So what I've done is added in quick water lines, and you can see how I just did that by swiping my brush from left to right quickly to create a very thin line. I'm using my thin brush for all of this so that I can get really into the details. Now, we're going to let this dry, and if it has dried at this point, we can continue, and we're going to add in some little nature in the water to give it some movement, to give it some composition, and just make it look really nice. Using black, I'm adding thin strokes for grass. Just very quick lines and keeping my brush perpendicular to the paper, so I'm making sure that I'm almost just waving my brush from on top to create these thin lines. Once you get all the way to the bottom and you're happy with the lines, let's add in some stalks, some details. This could be like a quick floral detail, but you can't see it because it's on shadow, so it's just going to be dark in color. And I'm just gently tapping my brush to create this very similar to the tree. If you notice, it's very similar design. Once we have that, we can just fill up a little bit of the bottom in case there's a lot of white spaces. Let's do a similar set a little bit further away to the left. This is all love to be easy and gentle. So take your time and just enjoy the process. You can practice this a bit before starting with your main sheet if you're not sure and just gently flick your wrist to create these beautiful lines. Bree all of these little crust from the center, and then we can add in some more of the flowers, fill up a little bit of the bottom. A The next step is really important. We're adding the reflection for these. I've added a little bit more water so it's not as dark as the original. That's what shows that it's a reflection and blending it out a little bit more, but just making it a bit more subtle. Now, allowing the piece to dry up, and I am getting into the next step. This is the final step, adding another layer of mountain, and that's going to kind of lift up the entire piece and just give it a little bit more of vibrance and spark. These small details can really uplift the painting with watercolor, since everything becomes a little bit more subtle, this pop of color and layer ring really helps the piece look complete and bolder. I'm going ahead with my dark green. You can use even indigo, that's going to be really nice and we're creating the same trees this time making them bolder and more prominent. This is your landscape and your pace. You get to take how much of a time you want. You can slow down. You can go quick, add one tree if you want to or just add a bunch of them. So there's no wrong answers. Just have fun with this with this next layer that is popping off the sheet. Finally, adding some clear water and blending out this layer so that it fades into the bottom. Once the painting is completely dry, we can remove our tape from all four corners to reveal our beautiful piece. Notice how it feels to have slowed down and just with a gentle quick approach, create something so beautiful. I 5. Day 2 - Into the Forest: For this painting, I wanted to create something unique, a walk in the forest and make sure that you take your A five sheet, tape down all four corners, making sure that it's extremely flat. We're going to start with our bigger brush and starting with our bright yellow. This is our daylight yellow from the woodland set using clear water to blend out the colors. We now move on to our brown, our sandy sand ridge brown color, just to subtly blend the colors through, using a lot of water to blend this layer and creating a very subtle background. Slow is powerful, and this is love to be easy. So just enjoy the process step by step. We now move into one of my favorite colors from the set, and this is called pond. It's a greenish blue color, beautiful, bright, vibrant, and I'm so obsessed with it, and this is going to be the background for our forest today. Remember that painting is a process, and it's not always perfect for it to still turn out beautiful. So even if your background doesn't look as great and it's a little messy, that's okay because as you keep painting and adding more details, you can work on it and it looks beautiful. Time to create our footpath using Sandig the brown shade for a very subtle color. I've used it in the middle of the pathway, and then using darker green, the deep moss, adding in bushes and a little bit more of the forest along the sides of this footpath. Notice how I've switched around my brush and how I'm kind of dabbling it and just making it mushy. I'm not going for straight lines. It's more like switching it around the paper to give a little bit more of texture. I'm still using my bigger brush, and I haven't moved on to my smaller one so that I can cover more area. This is still the background, and we haven't gotten into the details yet. Try to go a little bit more with the green. It will lighten down, and that is something to remember with watercolors that the colors will fade. But that's okay, and that's why we layer out. This is where the painting needs to breathe. You can use a dryer to dry it up, or you can just take a break and come back to your painting. We're now going to go into some trees. I think a forest is so important when you add in these layers of trees. We're trying to make the layers softer and more subtle as we move away. So the closer the trees are, they're going to be bolder and in our face. So you can see how I'm adding a lot of water to the mix and just giving subtle shapes. So it's not obvious that they're proper trees, but they're there is just a shape or a silhouette in the backdrop. Going very light with the colors, you can go in for a light blue or a green, just adding a lot of water to the mix. Let's add another tree. Here I'm going for a little bit of a deeper blue color. This is mist from the set. Then you can see how I'm making it a little bit more bigger. It's longer, it's more obvious and it's going all the way to the top. Adding in some branches in the shape of s a very quick trip tip here. If you're starting to paint and you kind of have these questions on how to do a branch, remember that your branch doesn't need to be straight. It can be a little bit crooked trees don't grow completely straight. There's a little bit of movement. The other thing is when you create branches is to make sure that your branch is thinner than your main trunk. And that is very obvious. But I've noticed some people don't realize it, and then they make the branch thicker than the trunk. And then that looks off and it doesn't really suit the painting because that's not how it is in nature. So we're trying to keep a little bit of, I would say a little bit of concentration of how nature looks and just following that. Adding more of this beautiful green for the leaves. Still using my bigger brush for this, and I'm just cushing and pressing down my brush with the green. And you can see how I'm just focusing it more on the top part of the painting. You can switch around to a little bit of blue, so you have a little bit of mix of colors. As you can see, it's so interesting and so powerful. This is all about excitement and joy. And imagine like you're actually walking down this path, how your mind calms and you feel that sense of relaxation, just feeling close to nature, feeling like you're just breathing in that fresh air. Taking more of the deeper moss green and adding in more details to the grass. As you can see, I'm adding thin lines along the edges and then adding some quick strokes to create the effect of grass. Again, press down your brush and smoosh together some of the areas. What this does is create some texture in those sections. Now that we've done one side, we're going to continue and do the other side with a similar technique. Maybe deepen some of the branches, add in more branches for the trees. Let's just make this whole forest vibrant. I As you keep painting, you will notice that some of the areas have dried and we can add in more color because it just becomes so soft once it's dried. So now I'm going full on with the moss green and just building more deeper layers. Notice along the edge of the leaves, I add a little bit more of strokes to show that the leaves are maybe pointing outwards. We're taking advantage of nature here. And as you've been painting, some areas of your painting would have already dried. So you don't need to take a pause and stop. You can just continue painting like the footpath. It would have dried by now because we've spent so much time working on the trees and things like that. You can allow it to dress for a bit in case it hasn't if it is done, if it's dry, let's continue adding in some thin lines using Sandrig. Beautiful brown color that just creates some depth to the footpath and also makes it a little bit more imperfect. Drying time is part of the process, and I read somewhere that it's actually part of painting. It is an actual technique. I found that very interesting because it's so true in watercolors, how much time you keep for drying and how well you dry your piece is also so important to your painting. It can actually help, you know, avoid messy mixes and also protect your art if you can just give that time to dry. If you can use a dryer or a blow dryer, that is also convenient and you can work much more quicker, which is what I do. I do use a blow dryer, but sometimes in some of the paintings you will see in this challenge, I just took a break. I decided to walk around my room and just maybe think a little bit about gratitude or think a little bit about the positives that I enjoy or just value the fact that I could take some time for myself and paint and then get back into the painting. I decided to take the pause as a way of working on myself and feeling a lot better. I think that was so interesting, and I think it was much needed. Instead of just rushing and rushing and trying to paint and making it perfect and trying to get the piece done, I decided to just take that break. So we're going into adding more depth to the painting. Let's go back to the painting. And we're going to use a little bit more of the mist. So it's an indigo blue. Or a little bit more of the deep moss, and we're just adding more depth by adding more layers to what is already dried. As you can see with the tree, I just went in and added some darker layers. Same thing I'm doing on the left side as well. And you can see how that has just kind of lifted up the painting, and just made it a lot more bold. Gently tapping your brush, on either side, for some splatters to come in for it to give you a little bit more of a grass leaves look, not grass, actually leave suits on top of the trees. And we're almost done with the painting. I just wanted to add a little bit more shadow along the footpath, adding a little bit brown just right below shadow areas. Wherever the grass goes forward where the footpath winds, just adding a little bit more of depth in those sections. And we're done with our painting, we can let it dry naturally or use a drier and then remove out our tape from all four corners to reveal our beautiful piece. You didn't rush this piece, and that is what matters. Enjoy it. 6. Day 3 - Calm Ocean: Today's painting is all about how you slow down. And there going to be a lot of pauses and breaks for the painting to dry. Take that as an opportunity to just sit down with yourself and enjoy the piece. Yes, you can use a blow dryer or a dryer and dry up the piece and paint quickly, but just take it as a practice to slow down, step back and let the paper do its thing, and you can just feel the calm. I've started with a foxberry pink. It's a beautiful color in this set, and you can see how it's bright and bold, starting right at the top, using a lot of water to just glide it through the paper. Now, the next layer of sand ridge basically a subtle brown shade. Connecting it to the Foxberry pink. As we move lower, just wash your brush, and let's pick up some daylight yellow, bright yellow to just add that pop of color to your painting. One of the important things I learned about watercolors is to not over work the piece, to let it just be simple strokes, let the colors blend into each other and don't force them. Once we do the sky, let's repeat the same thing for the sea, the ocean by repeating the similar shades at the bottom. Remember, again, don't go back and forth too many times. It's going to create more lines. So it's important to just be as gentle as possible, just a few strokes back and forth and letting the peace, the water do its thing. So just a few moments later, I decide to mess around with my sky because I felt like it just wasn't right. It's interesting that looking at it from the video, it looks great. But in person, I felt like there was something off that I had to tweak. Now, one thing I would say that even if you want to fix it and I know some of you have OCD and I have a little bit of perfectionism in me that I need to get it exactly right. If you're doing that, just try to do a couple of quick swipes. Don't go back and forth too much. So we're going to take a pause, let the piece dry, and then we can get back to it. I took a little bit of a break and just decided to think about all the things I'm grateful for this year, make a list of five things, and really feel into the gratefulness. Just enjoy all the things that I kind of forgot that happened in the month or the week and just remember that I'm actually really happy with things that are happening in my life, and it can be the smallest of things like having tea in the morning that makes me so happy or something as big as launching a course, just the tiny things, the big things, and just taking that pause to feel a little bit of gratitude before getting back into our painting. So here I've tried to do the sun. So I've taken yellow for the sun and then adding the reflection at the bottom on the sea by following some quick lines. Once you're happy with it, let's get into the Foxberry pink and add in some mountains. I'm keeping the layers for these mountains very subtle, so add in a lot of water, switch to your thinner brush so you can get more detailed in this step. Your art is unfolding and so just enjoy it and take it layer by layer. Adding a little bit more of that Foxberry pink along the top, and you can see how that creates a beautiful effect where just the top outline has a little bit more of that pink. Let's repeat that on the other side as well. Now, wash out your brush completely, and using clear water, let's just blend out the color so it fades into the ocean. And you can see how this is already bringing such a soothing, calm effect. Let's now mix Foxberry with a lot of water and add in the reflection of these mountains, keeping it very gentle and soft, adding a lot of water. So it's very subtle following the shape of the mountain on reverse. Reflections are such a beautiful part of painting, and it really adds in so much to the piece. It completes it and really shows how crystal clear the water is. It's interesting how confidence can quietly grow stroke by stroke. Every piece that you paint, you just end up feeling more relaxed, more confident, and more sure about your skills. And that's what I love about these exercises. This challenge is meant to make it easier for you. Gently taking in some deeper Foxberry pink and gliding your brush back and forth. We're keeping the movement very light. And remember to keep your brush perpendicular to the sheet, so just the tip is touching the paper. And that way you can get some really thin lines using your thinner brush. It's really useful to switch brushes when you're painting, and you will notice me do that in every project. For the background, I use the bigger bolder brush so it covers more space and then using the thinner brush for details. Allowing your piece to rest for a bit and then we're going to go back and work on it. As I said, this painting has a lot of bricks where we let the paper dry and rest before moving on to new layers. As you add in more layers, your piece also gets more vibrant, more energetic, and just beautiful. Again, using clear water to blend out these mountains gently. And we're done with our painting. I love the painting to completely dry before you remove your tape. This is so important. There have been times where I've been a little bit impatient and then just removed out the tape while it was still wet, and I ended up tearing my paper. So just make sure that you take that time, dressed it completely to unveil your beautiful painting. 7. Day 4 - Mountain Views: Welcome to today's incredible painting. It's full of color, super vibrant, and we're ready to just get started. Starting with our Foxberry pink, let's go all the way from the top and gently glide the brush downwards, using a lot of water so that the paint blends gently into the paper. Once you're done with that, we're going to go ahead and add beautiful layers of color just to brighten up this sheet of paper. Whenever I paint landscapes, I notice that my breath slows down, and you might find that that happens to you as well without even trying adding a bright daylight yellow gently bring it downwards, using a lot of water to blend it out. Now that we've done the sky, let's move on to the ocean using the Foxbery pink, starting from downwards, gently moving up, adding a lot of water as you move up, the layers just lighten and playing around with it a little bit. Add more water towards the edge so it blends into the paper. After this, once you're happy with the overall look, we're going to let the painting dry, let it pause before moving on. Time to add in some lovely mountains. We're building form slowly layer by layer using mist, indigo blue to create some mountains along the backdrop. Keeping the mountains very subtle and making sure that the edges are more jagged. We don't want to have a perfect edge, dropping some more paint along the ends and using water to blend out the remaining. Now to create some mist, wash your brush and using a clear dry brush, just pull through some of the paint. Let's do that again and dab out the s, water, and paint. And you can see how that creates a beautiful misty look. Maybe we can do that one more time, and you can see how I do that. Just pulling through and dabbing it out, pulling through, dabbing it out. I can see how that's fading so much more into the background. Meanwhile, let's drop in some deeper indigo at the top for more depth. Time to add in some lines for the ocean, using blue, going back and forth. And once we're happy with that, using water to blend out the rest. Notice how I'm getting it all the way to the right side, so it is actually the reflection of the foresty mountain that we just painted. So trying to get more of the color on that side. Pause for a bit before moving on to the next layer. Once everything is dry, you can tap it gently with your finger to make sure it's dry. Let's go on to our thinner brush, and we're going to add in some beautiful trees, some bold leaves, and just pop some color. Starting with brown, it's adding a little island for all the trees to sit on. Drop in some green to the mix to form the basis of this little island adding in more green, adding another brownish color. Something I've been enjoying through all of these paintings, and we've just halfway through, is that every time I paint, I kind of feel a little bit more calmer. I feel like I'm near the ocean, and it's bringing back so much of joy. Don't you feel the same? Do you feel that calmness when you paint or just this piece of creating something beautiful? Or if you're struggling, you're kind of seeing some parts that you like and some parts that you'd want to enjoy. And each painting is just so fun, isn't it? So we're going to take the trees. We've added in some branches, and now let's go ahead and add in the leaves, taking in deep moss to do this. Notice how I'm just gently wishing around my brush, adding some thinner dots along the edges of the tree. What I'm trying to do is create a conical shape that moves all the way and because the background is a little lighter, has a little bit of yellow, as I move upwards, the green as well becomes lighter. So I'm not switching around shades. I'm just continuing painting with the same brush, not taking in more paint, but just using what is left in the brush. And that's why it's lighter and lighter as I move upwards. This is a very important technique to use when you're trying to lighten up color so that they just blend in. You don't need to wash your brush and add or take more paint all the time. A little paint actually goes a long way. Now again, I've filled my brush up with paint, and then as I move upwards, I'm not going to be taking more paint and just using what is left in my brush. If needed, if my brush feels really dry, I can use a little bit of water, but that's about it. A time to use green and add in the reflection for this little island that we just painted out. Okay. These sort of landscapes remind me of the US so much. When I went to US, I think I saw so much of these kind of beautiful settings. Every time when we drove from the West Coast, we would stop and see the mountains and the calm oceans. It was so nice. And I think same thing as Scotland, as well, has its beautiful mountain views. It's just so relaxing. And I feel like I can sit there for hours and just stare at the water. I feel like after a point, I might get bored. But I think I still enjoy that calm even for five 10 minutes. Continue adding in your lines to create more effects of water. You can see how those thin lines really brings through the painting, makes it look like the water is just there and it's simmering, and it's very calming. By the end of this session, you may realize that you created more than a landscape. It's a moment of inner reflection that you gave yourself. And that is so important with how noisy the world is and how many things going on and all these stresses that we all carry with the start of the new year, it's nice to just do something for yourself and to let it be fun and let it be a moment of peace and a moment of pause. I'm adding more shadow to the layers and you can see how by just adding a little bit more green, you add in more depth to the painting. At this point, I feel like the painting needs to dry before I can add more depth. I couldn't get as much depth in the previous layer. So once I let it dry, I feel like I can add in. So adding a thin line of black along the bottom, and you can see how that's created shadow, we're going to add a little bit more on the island as well to give it more. I feel like with this painting, I felt like reworking it and painting over and over and over again. So I decided to put a stop and then just go like, This is it. I'm done. This painting is over. Usually, when I get to the darkest layer is when I know that my painting is completed. So there's always a background layer, a secondary layer, and then a third where it's much more detailed. And at that point, I stop. That has been kind of my go to way of figuring out if my painting is complete and not overworking it and adding more and feeling the need to do more. Once the painting is dry, let's remove the tape from all four sides to reveal our final painting. 8. Day 5 - Framing through Leaves: Now we move on to this beautiful ocean view painting. It's going to be beautiful blues and yellows and greens. Get your paper ready, taping down all four sides, and we're going to start one by one with our beautiful and bold. I'm actually thinking should I do the pond or should I do the stream B I really like both colors. So I decided to go with the pond. Such a vibrant color, I cannot get enough. I think every time I see this color, I feel like painting more. I used to think that I had to control every brushstroke until landscapes thought me that I had to just enjoy and love the painting to come together. Following this beautiful pond, we're going into daylight, so the bright yellow color gently weaving it all the way to the middle, keeping a little bit of gap. Let's start again with the yellow and move downwards. And here we're painting out the ocean. I'm using a lot of water to just really dilute the colors and make it very subtle, creating the perfect background for our painting. Moving back to pond, let's start from the bottom and gently move upwards. As we went through the practice exercises, remember when you're adding in a secondary color to always start from down and go upwards. That way you don't muddy up the colors, and they still remain vibrant and visible. Now, let's take pond directly from the pan, a deeper shade, and we're just adding some quick strokes all the way to the middle to showcase the water and create those water lines. As you keep adding the colors, you will see that it's becoming deeper and much more vibrant. We're going to let the painting rest for a bit, or you can use a drier and dry out the painting before moving on to the step. Now we're switching to details. We're going to start with some really simple mountains and some leaves and trees and just create some greenery to the painting. Starting with deep moss, a dark green color, going ahead and just swishing around your brush to create some leaves at the top. Notice how I'm still using the bigger brush so I can cover wider area. We still haven't gotten into details, so there's no pressure to be perfect at this point. You can just have some fun. But one thing I would say, which is so important as you continue painting is to not overwork your painting and just to let it be. There comes a point where you can overwork it, and then there's a point where you underwork it. So this is, I think the most important part as an artist to learn to get good at. So I actually tell my students to try both. So if they use a lot of water or not sure about how much water to use, I tell them to go above and beyond, use a lot of water and see how things turn out and then go to the opposite end of using very little water and see how that goes. And that way, you can figure out what your point is and you understand a little bit more of how much is required. I've also noticed that people tend to naturally do this. So I have students who are just scared of using water, and if that's you, I understand because you've heard so much or seen so much where it's like, Oh, my God, if you use too much water, you're going to destroy your painting. So you hardly use anything. And that doesn't work. So a little practice exercise of testing this out will really help. Now, you can see I've kind of painted a couple of steps. I had to skip some of it because I ended up making some I forgot to record. So what I did is the first layer, as you saw, I loved it to rest, and then we're going in with a deeper layer. We've done this in our previous painting, so you already know how to do this. We're just layering on top of the other to give more. Adding in some brown for the branches of the tree on top. And here you can see I've switched to my thinner brush. So I obviously forgot to dry this completely, so there's a little bit of merging going on, but I'm going to use it to my advantage. It's okay. There are no mistakes. You can actually fix anything that goes wrong in your painting. So you can't, some you can. So something like this, I can very easily fix. So I'm just going to continue adding in the branches through the top part of the painting. Now, let's take some green, the deep moss green color and paint on top of the area that blurred a bit because of the water. I'm also deepening up the color a little bit more in that section, adding more of the green to make it much more vibrant and adding some dots to showcase the leaves that are peeping through. This makes it more realistic and also shows that it's leaves instead of just random blobs. I think it adds a little character to the painting. A Once you're happy with the top part of the painting, let's add in some shrubs to the bottom part. I feel like this in a way frames the art so that the mountains become the focus, but then you also have this beautiful greenery around. So quick strokes, gentle wrist movement to add in a little bit more for the bottom. A quick thing that I'm going to do here as well is add in some splatters to the top. This is also going to give a little bit more of character. Take your brush, take a little bit of that deep green, use a little bit of water and gently tap. I use a secondary sheet to cover up my mountains so that they don't have splatters on them. Then you can lift it up and you can see how this is just going to look much better. I Finally, I wanted to add a little bit more of green in the mountains because it's blue. I felt like there's something missing. So taking deep moss, let's go ahead and add in another layer of trees, mountains at the bottom. Continue adding in those pushy lines or just swishing around your brush. To give it more texture. And you can see how that green actually adds a little bit of pop of color to the painting. It's these small details that really add to the piece. We're almost done with our painting. We're going to take a little bit of the deep moss forest green color, and add the reflection of what we just painted onto the water, showing that the water is so crystal clear that you can see the beautiful reflection of these trees. Let yourself feel quietly proud of painting this artwork, letting it dry, and then you can go ahead and remove a tape from all four sites. This is a painting that you created, be proud of yourself. Look at what you did right and see what you learned from this. 9. Day 6 - Rocky Beach: Welcome to today's peaceful, soothing painting. It's gonna be effortless, natural, and just fun. Are you ready? Let's begin. Taking my A five sheet. I've taped down all four corners, and we're going to start with our blue and just go back and forth, adding more water and gently creating a soft Backdrop using pond for a little bit of dreamy skies. Adding more water, more green to blend into the backdrop. Once we're done with that, we're going to add some deep blue color, mist, and from downwards, moving upwards for the ocean. There's a natural softness to this painting acernity. Using clear water to just blend all the way as it connects to the sea. Keep your touch very light so you don't end up with harsh brushstoks. Make sure to go all the way side to side. To make sure you don't have any lines or anything that just doesn't sit well. There's a quiet confidence in this process, and trust that it'll turn out exactly how you hoped. We can take a little bit more of that mist and gently move upwards. As I go upwards, I'm being more intentional to keep the lines very thin and very soft. Now, let your painting dry for a bit before moving on to add our rocky landscape. Using a dark brown, let's add a rocky wave. We're going to add in some color to this and create a very crisp edge. Don't worry about the colors as of yet. We're going to play around with it a little bit more as we continue with the process. As your brush moves, the scene comes together, and you'll end up with beautiful results. Sorry. So trust the process and just enjoy as we go along, creating a fun painting. While this is drying, let's go on and add in some leaves for the trees. We're translating a feeling through this painting and capturing a mood. So using our deep mose, let's add squishy lines just swishing around your brush at the top, leaving a couple of dots at the edges to showcase the leaves. Okay. I've learned that trees don't need to be perfect. It's all about getting those little details like those thin lines that add character and make it look more real in a way. Now, let's allow the entire thing to dry. But meanwhile, we can paint some of the areas that are not touched by these sections like a simple, soft edged mountain in the background. Use a blow dryer and dry up your painting before proceeding. We're going to take a darker brown and just paint the trunk and then add in some branches. Like I mentioned before, the branches need to be thinner than the trunk. That's very important. We can then take in some more details, maybe adding a branch towards the edge. Keep your hand loose while continuing to add more details. I've also switched my brush to the thinner brush, so I can really get smaller strokes by switching around my brush on the paper using deep moss. This gives it such a natural look and also creates depth. Add in a couple of lines to represent leaves along the edges of the outline. And that brings it all together. So our tree is done. We have a couple of more details like the rocky shoreline as well as the water lines. First, before that, let's add in some splatter to the top, create some texture before continuing. At this point, I would suggest taking a break if your piece hasn't dried, but if it has, you can continue with details. So I'm taking in the brown. This is called Cavern on the set, and you can see how I'm blocking out certain sections. We're going to keep switching around colors, different shades of brown to really build up the layers. Painting rocks is very interesting. So it's all about getting those dark lines. Correct. So you can see I'm Now, starting from the top top part, we're going to just block out areas with brown. Just follow along how I create these sections. I'm making sure to leave in gaps between the lines and those areas that are a little bit more uplifted. At some point, I was thinking that I should do a class on how to paint rocks. And if that's something you're interested in, just comment in the discussion tab, and I'll keep that in mind as I continue planning out my new challenges. But I think rocks would be a very interesting topic. It is a little bit more complicated to do. So what we want to do is actually get darker spaces and lighter sections. Rocks are all about creating light, and that creates its dimension. I remember talking to a fellow artist, and she was just telling me how art is honestly shouldn't feel like shackles, it shouldn't feel like stress and pressure. And let's say you're beginning to paint and you make a mistake or you don't get it right. The maximum you're going to do is, let's say, waste a little bit of paper, waste a little bit of paint. That's it. You can always buy more paper. You can always use more paper, and you can always use more paint. It's not as, you know, it's not So scary. And so, just remember that if you make a mistake, you can always just take a new sheet of paper, and it's not anything big mistakes happen, and more than that, learning is a process and it's learning over time. So don't be that scared to try it. And don't be that scared to stress. Just enjoy a love yourself to make mistakes, a love yourself to try again and again. And remember that all you need to, let's say, buy again, would be some paper and paints, and it's not that scary. I think that really I found it very interesting. I've been painting for a while. It never I never thought about it until she mentioned it, and I felt like it was such a good thing to tell anyone who's a big ner or just starting and is a little bit scared. They don't have to worry. It's just paper and some paint, and they can always buy another paper, and they can always buy some paints. And watercolor uses very little. So a little goes a long way. Now you can see how I added in the little bit of rocky textures. All I did is actually leave spaces of the base and added in darker sections. Now, adding a little bit of blue for the shadow of this rocky space. Let's add in some water lines very gently with pond. I was thinking about how I could mix pond. It's the bluish green color, and I actually don't know what I could mix to get that color. You could try mixing a little bit of blue and yellow, but you need to have the right amount of white to get it to look like that color. It's not a very easy color to come by, but I love it. It's beautiful. It's so bright. And it's just so rich. Continue adding in those soft lines, keeping them relaxed and just layering them up. A Time to add more depth to these rocks. So you can see how I'm adding black just along the bottom side of any line that I painted out. So notice how I'm not getting it all the way up. It's just the downward sides. And I think that makes it a little bit more easier. I'm not, again, painting all of them. I'm not layering them up too much, doing those bottom side of any shape. This touch of black is going to make it more realistic and you can see how the rocks now are starting to look more like rocks. The more layers you can add in, the more realistic it becomes. Once we're done, we can allow the piece to dry. I see dry as invitation to pause and take a break, remove your tape to reveal your final painting. Remember that some paintings are about learning and not just finishing. In this one, we learned how to do rocky terrain, how to do those beautiful branches and leaves a subtle backdrop and creating depth within your painting. And that is such huge progress. Don't you think so? 10. Day 7 - Sunrise: Of all the projects for this challenge, I think this one is my favorite. It's just so fun and playful. At the same time, it makes me want to stare at it for a really long time, just feeling the breeze, imagining I'm right there. And if you live in a place that looks exactly like this, then that is amazing. Starting with a little bit of pink from the top, let's gently add it in swishing up brush, side to side, adding more of that pink so it deepens up at the top. This section isn't going to be seen as much, but I still thought that pop of pink color was so interesting. Using in water to just blend through the pink gently as we move downwards, a little bit more of pink. Very subtle. And now we can switch to another color. Let's do a blue. Now with the blue, I'm being a little bit careful and not going over the pink as much because blue and pink is going to give you a purple. We're going to be a little careful about that and just make sure we don't go too much into it. Switching to another color, yellow, again, starting from down and moving gently upwards. Every time I switch colors, I make sure that I wash my brush completely so that there's no residue of previous color. You can use a dry brush to just gently blend these two colors together. Blue and yellow generally gives a green, so we're trying to avoid that. Let's continue on this process. Line at a time. Moving on to the ocean, we're going to use bright yellow followed by water, clear water, and then finally blue. So just flipping the sky when we paint the ocean. You are on the right track with this painting. So just keep going, adding more and more color as you get to the bottom. So we're really fading into the background. Um, when I first started painting landscapes, I felt like my painting looked very flat, and I thought that meant I was doing something wrong. And then I realized that as I was painting, I needed to create layers. So the paws, the breaks, allowing your painting to dry was really important in creating something special. So don't worry if your painting is taking time or you had to stop for a bit and then layer up. The more layers you can create, the better your painting looks, and it starts looking much more natural. Now is the time I step back, make some tea, and then decide how I want to proceed with the painting. Usually, I would rush this part of drying the piece, and then I realize that even using a dryer, if you go into the highest fastest speed, you sometimes move around the paint, and I would notice that my water has moved up a bit. So I started actually start using it in a slower speed. And then increasing it as I went along. Even allowing to just let it dry naturally had a better effect as well. But it depends if you have the time to spare, you can. Otherwise, you can just take a little bit of a pause and continue. Let's add a little sun using orange, a simple circle right at the horizon. Lift up a little bit of the paint in the middle to create a little texture for the sun. You can see how I'm doing that, using a dry brush and just lifting a little bit of that paint along the center. To create more interest in the background, I'm adding in also some very soft subtle mountain using blue. It's just very transparent, but it gives a little bit of detail and it makes it look more natural and aesthetic. Using your thin brush, let's add some quick lines for the water. And this feels very natural. Nice. Let's keep going. We're going to continue with our tree, starting with our trunk followed by some branches. Let's get brown ready for this purpose. One really interesting trick that I learned while painting trees with sunlight, add in a little darker brown in the areas that are darker. So you can see near the water, it's more darker in color, whereas near the sun, it's more of a light brown. That gives a very natural shadow effect and makes it much better. You can see also with the branches, I've just split it across, making sure that the branches are thinner than the trunk. Again, very important. I mentioned this a lot because I've noticed it happen with students, and it makes the painting look a little bit off. And it's these small little details that these small little techniques that can really make your painting go form. Oh, that's okay, too. Oh, that looks amazing. And I think that's what a lot of artists when they say practice makes perfect or, you know, art is a skill, it's because as you keep painting, you learn the technical aspects of how something should look, whether it's a tree, whether it's sunset, you learn the technical details. And they might be such a small detail, but even those small details can really turn a painting from basic to incredible. Now smishing down your brush to add in some leaves for the tree, starting with a very light green, and then I'm going to add in deeper colours to give more of a shadow. I really like how this is going. The painting is coming together already, and it just looks so bright and vibrant. Switch to a darker green, and we're going to add more depth, and you can see how I'm not doing it everywhere, but just areas that are kind of closer to the trunk so that it looks like those are more in the shadow. Continue by adding little dots along the edges to show the leaves. All these tiny little marks really add to the painting. Mh Now comes a very interesting part, we're going to take some time through this. I used to rush this process. I used to rush this part and I would try to just add in some dots, and it really showed. And then I realized that I needed to slow down. And instead of just trying to mush together everything where I would have usually stopped, I decided to slow down and add in some leaves, one leaf at a time, having some of those branches falling down, those leaves really framing that sun tries or the morning sun, I would say. And those little leaves, it takes a while, but it looks so nice. So in this part of the painting, go slow, paint each leaf and take your time. We're switching to our thinner brush. Remember that any of the smaller details what we want to make sure here is to go slow, add in a couple of strings of leaves, but really stand out and showcase and frame the sunrise. Going a little bit darker to the edge of the paper using our beautiful green continue through this process using different leaves in some of the areas. Really filling up the space. There are no wrong ways to do this. So just have fun. And if you want, you can kind of play around with a different type of leaves. You can add in some circular leaves or if you want to use a marker or a sketch pen, just play around and have fun with it. Aren't you enjoying this process? I feel like this is very calming and just really brings you back to painting. This looks so good. Am I right? We're almost finishing up with the painting. We have just a few steps left. As you go closer to the sun, you can even switch around the green to a lighter green shade, and that's going to create a very natural effect in terms of making it look like the light is hitting the leaves. Again, a really, really fun way to create color. Continue with this process until you've filled up the entire section. We'll add a couple of grass at the bottom near the tree trunk because it just looks like it's standing in between the water and add in some splatters and we're almost done with our painting. A Now, let's protect everything that we've painted and add in some splatters to the tree. I'm just using a rough paper that I had, and then taking some paint on my brush, gently tapping it onto my tree to give some little texture. I like this little splatter effect because it just brings everything together and makes it look really nice. You're doing so well at this point, and I'm so proud of you for getting this far and for completing this. Look at how pretty that looks. And with a few simple steps, we were able to get here with ease, isn't it? So let's allow this to rest for a bit, and then we're going to remove a tape to reveal our final painting. We just have few projects left for this challenge to end. How are you feeling at this point? I think it's been so fun creating artwork with the intention of peace before we began, and that has made the whole process so much more better and intentional. 11. Day 8 - Fog and Mist: Welcome back. And today, we're painting this miss team. I would say interesting piece. Start by taping up all four sides of your sheet. And making sure that it lays flat on the table. This is great for when you do seas and landscape and use a lot of water so that the paper goes back to its original shape. We're starting off with mist, which is our indigo, going all the way from the top, adding a lot of water, and blending it into the paper. Use your bigger brush so you can cover more area. This is one of my favorite parts because skis are very forgiving, as far as you don't go back and forth too much. If you can just do a couple of lines, add in lots of water, they come out really great. They don't need to be perfect, which is amazing. So as you lay down your colors, don't overthink it, enjoy it. Let's start with our next color. Gently blending in the blues, so it really fades into the background. You can go in and deepen a little bit of the indigo right on top to darken the sky a bit more. Now, the paint is still wet. We're going to go in and paint in the sea. For the sea, I decided to go with a different color. I mixed in a purple. So for purple, all you're doing is mixing blue and pink to get a beautiful vibrant purple, and that's what we're going to use for our base, and then continue blending it with blue all the way to the bottom. Using a lot of water in this step, so it really fill out and blend the sea gently. I'm adding in blue to the edges to give a little bit more depth to the water. Now that you've gone all the way to the bottom, let's go ahead and add in more deep indigo by swiping across your brush quickly to form thin lines. You're doing so well. Give yourself a pat on the back for getting this far. Once we have this beautiful base, we can allow it to rest, breathe for some time before we go into adding other details. Remember that watercolors is a process, and the pause is as important as painting. For this one, we're going to add in some very subtle forest trees in the backdrop. And for that, I'm adding a lot of water and just creating a very soft mix, starting at the top, gently painting our conical tree to a midway point. Notice how I'm not taking in more paint, and so it gradually fades out and blends in. Let's do another tree right next to it. Remember, like we did in our practice exercises, to use some dots along the edges to really show the leaves in a way. Continue this process, gently adding in trees. You can see as we continue on, it really fades into the background. And one of the good things is we're going to let it dry, and that is going to really soften the colors and make it much more light. Now that we've completed that, allowing your piece to rest for a bit, we can go on and add in more details. Here, what we're trying to do is get in some foreground, and we're going to add in some grass, some details that really focuses the eye. I think, along with painting landscapes, knowing compositions really helps in creating something beautiful. And it's something that I have been kind of working towards and creating something unique. Making that bottom layer really dark, and then we can add in some quick lines for the cross. Remember to switch to your thinner brush at this point so that you can really get those thin lines. Let's take another break so that we can deepen up our colors. You can see how that once it's lightened out, once it's dry, the layers become subtle and just merge into the background. And that's why we let it rest. So now we can layer it again and make it even more bolder. I'm going in with a really dark color. You can go for a black if you have. I'm going for a midnight blue just by mixing shades that I had with me. And let's start at the bottom filling up that grass section. So adding more layers, and you will see that it's a lot more relaxing. Don't you find that painting is calming and a little break in life being so busy. Using my thin brush, I'm just gently adding in some lines to showcase the long grass. I'm taking this process slowly, so I get really pretty grass that looks and makes sense. I also want to take my time because it is the foreground. It is the focus of this painting. One of the big things as an artist to understand and learn is to build courage courage to try out your painting, and to create the brush strokes that you want to. It's the courage to continue painting, even when you're not sure how the piece is going to turn out. I think watercolors really puts that in perspective because there are many times that I've painted, and midway through the painting, I just feel like this looks bad. It doesn't look great. It's not going to turn out amazing. I'm not happy with it, and then I trust the process. And when I do, I see that there's a shift and the painting starts looking amazing. It's kind of like life where sometimes you just have to sit through uncomfortable situations to get to the other side. And when you get to the other side, it feels like it was all worth it. Or you learned something that made you realize that it had to happen for a reason. You'll notice as you go along painting landscapes and just getting into art that you feel more confident with your brush strokes. Let's add in some quick dots to show the shadow of some flowers. One quick tip is, if you notice the way I did the grass, they're all not pointed in one direction. They're moving here and there, and that creates movement in the piece. So you want to have some of them falling down, some of them going sideways, some short ones, some longer ones. And that variation really makes everything look so unique. There is no wrong in this step. And if you've gotten this far, just give yourself a little pad on the back and just enjoy creating. For the finishing touches, let's use some splatters around these grass elements. So take another paper and just lay it down to protect your sky and trees. And then we're going to take our brush and gently tap it to add small platters at the bottom, creating some texture. And I like how this is going. It's working out really well and looks very natural. Let the piece rest for a bit, and you can remove the tape from all four sides to reveal your beautiful painting for today. See you in 24 hours for the next painting. 12. Day 9 - Pink Mountains: Welcome back to a new project. The softness of the sky is that it always is changing, and we're going to have so much fun on this one. I initially recorded this for a different course, so there is a shift in terms of the paint supplies, but it's colors that we already have and that we can easily mix, so don't worry about it. And the other thing is that I haven't taped down the four sides, so we're going to paint directly onto the sheet. Starting with my bigger brush, let's start with a little bit of purple. If you have something that is a deep blue or a pink, you can mix the two together to get a beautiful rich purple. That's what we're going to do for our edge. This entire project is going to have very few colors, maybe two or three colors maximum and that's going to be really fun to play with. We're then going on with our yellow, adding a little bit more of that sky and playing around with the different blends. You may notice at this point that you feel like you're trusting the water more and your painting is starting to come together easier than it used to when you first started this challenge. You're more comfortable with painting skies and that is as we go along, you have gained more confidence in your skills. Make sure to go all the way back and forth with the colors, taking a little bit of pink, all the way side to side. Et's now continue on downwards to the ocean continuing with the pink, moving slowly downwards, adding more of the yellow. Very gently tapping your brush onto the paper, soft movements, and then going back to the pink. Using a lot of water in this process, you end up with a very subtle soft background. Time to add in purple back to the base. And what I've tried to do is create a reflection of the top layers. The sky had purple, yellow, pink, and so the ocean has pink, yellow, purple. It's the same combinations in reverse. When I first started painting this, I initially thought I would make it a mini course where it would be five different projects that you could learn. And as I continued and I created this challenge, I felt like it made more sense to add it to this challenge. You guys get an incredible piece to paint that brings you that calm. And I think ten days is the perfect timeline where you can really tap into that mood. And anytime you feel like life is getting a little chaotic or you just want to pre, you can always come back to these projects and paint them again. I'm using a dryer to dry out my painting, letting it rest, and then we can get back to it with our next set off. Layers. First, we start back with a very soft translucent layer of pink, adding a lot of water, we're going to do a base mountain layer. Adding a lot of water and creating some gentle edges for the mountains, going all the way to the horizon point and making sure that it's a straight line. Using the pink, we're going to add some quick lines along the ocean. This is a love to be easy. Relax, release the pressure. You don't have to control the outcome. Just get curious of how it's going to turn out. Using those thin lines going back and forth, all the way across your painting. You can see how subtle that is that it just gives an impression of what can be. Now, again, letting your painting dry. This painting, I think, has a lot more layers because I was trying to really build up depth, and you're going to end up with something bold and beautiful at the end of it. So it's totally worth it. Now that the painting is completely dry, we're going to go ahead and add another layer of pink. This time, making it a little bit more bolder, so it's going to have less mix of water and more of the pigment. And we can add another layer of mountains. Can have them go upwards a little bit gently blending in. With this layer or this pigment, we can add it from the bottom of the paper and just bring it up more for the water part. I actually haven't seen pink yellow mountains in nature. I've seen photographs, but not really in nature, and I think I would love to see it. It would be amazing. Until then, I'm going to make do with creating beautiful paintings where I get to see them and enjoy them. I think what's also great is I don't know if it actually exists in nature. I think it does because I've seen enough pictures. But even if it doesn't the really fun part about art is you can create your own world. You can add in the colors that you like. If you love purple, you can do, you know, the entire view, scenic view with purple. If you like blues, you can do everything in blue. It's your choice, and you get to create whatever you want to. You can add in some flowers. You can add in birds. It's your it's your world, in a way, and when someone steps into it, they're stepping into your world when they look at your painting. And that is so incredible. And it just is exciting. So we finished this part, letting it dry again, taking a little bit of a break and just thinking about how we want to proceed. If your paper buckles a bit or is bending a bit, just make sure you just turn it around the other side. You can leave it underneath some books if you want to once you finish to kind of flatten it up a little bit more. Now that we have this, we have few more details to kind of continue with our painting. I'm going to do one more layer of mountains because I feel like that's going to make the entire thing pop, and this is going to be a darker pink compared to before. Adding more water, let's add in the reflection for this. One thing to note is all of the layers of mountains are different shapes. You have the top one that was taller, the next one a little bit more shorter, and then the final, which is much more smaller as well in width and height. And that's what also creates the differentiation. If they're all the same, they kind of would merge into each other. We are going to let this rest for a bit. And if you want, you can kind of continue painting. I just decided to take a little bit of a break. I wanted to get some tea in hand before continuing with my painting. And now we have a final layer of very deep pinkish purple. This is the same color that we used in the background initially. So a little bit of pink, a little bit of blue. We're making this layer really deep in color. You can see how because of that, all the other layers are popping out of the paper. Using this to add in some thin strokes along the water as well. Something I'm really enjoying about creating challenges is that it's very focused on one topic in a way or one theme, one mood, but it also gets you to explore different paintings. Then you have this range of paintings that is so unique to the theme and every time you can look back at it and remember how you felt. Kind of becomes a representation of how you felt at that moment, and I think that's very special. So for me, this collection will always remind me of the start of the year, the time that I felt like I was very overwhelmed and I really needed a break, and this is what came about. And every time I painted these little snippets of painting, it made me feel a little bit more centered, and I want that for you. And that's why I put it together, and I kind of created this space so that you have that momentum center yourself and feel a little bit more grounded. Um, I think I really needed that this year, especially right at the start. So it sets us up for a good year ahead. Now going into a couple of more details, I wanted to have a couple of shrubs or greens poking out of the water poking out of the frame to create a little bit more of focus. Adding in some branches at the bottom to frame the painting. Using greens, just press down your brush, adding little squish not squishy. I would say a little bit of bubbles or texture. I don't know how to actually describe this shape. It's a little random, but you can see how it's coming along, just adding a little bit of shrubs, along a branch, especially towards the bottom, left. And this is going to frame our mountains a bit better as well. There's no wrong way to do this, so just have some fun and enjoy this part. You're learning at your own pace. So you can pause this, you can replay it or you can watch it on full speed if you want to. Now let's add in some splatters at the bottom. So just using another sheet to cover up your mountains. We're going to gently tap our brush to add in some splatters, and that's going to create a nice texture to the painting. I initially tried to tap it, and then I realized that my mountains are going to have some paint. So let's not take that risk. Let's take another sheet and protect my art. For this piece, because I didn't add in a tape, I don't really have to do much, allow it to dry and it's ready to go. I hope you enjoyed painting this piece, and I'll see you guys in the next 24 hours for our next painting. 13. Day 10 - Peace and Calm: Let's dive into another interesting quiet calm painting. We're going to take a little bit of time on this one, enjoy the movement of the flow of water, and just relax while we get into it. Starting with a very interesting background, I decided to do some clouds. We're doing a good background so that as we move ahead with our next steps, it gets easier and really fill up the space. Using a soft blue gently, add in the clouds by just pressing down your brush. Gently. The beauty of the sky is that it's always changing and you can't really control it, so you're just allowing it to do its thing. Once you have some clouds done, we can move into adding more details such as a simple mountain. Keeping the edges a little jagged and not so perfect. We're going to fill it up with clear water and blend it into the background, so it just fades in. These soft subtle mountains really add to the painting and it's just going to bring it so much more depth. Let's go into the water, starting with the same blue and gently working our way up, using a lot of water to blend through the colors. Good job. Keep going. Add in more water, more paint, and slowly build in the color upwards. Remember to take your brush side to side, you end up with a straight line instead of gaps. It looks more natural and reflects the water. As we continue, let's add a little bit of blue and add some thin lines for the water line. This is going to really add some movement to the piece. If this is let's pause the painting, and I'm going to continue while we're drying it up, I'm using a dryer to dry it up so it speeds through the process. If this is your first time painting landscapes and this challenge has been your first step towards it, I would encourage you to take more time and experiment with different colors. One thing that got me into painting nature, which I used to resist for a while, I didn't really enjoy it. I was like, It's in the nature. You can see it. But then what I started doing is emboding how I felt when I painted nature. So it wasn't just that I was painting this and it looked fine. It was more like I felt like I was almost there. Like, I was sitting in front of these mountains. I was feeling these the breeze you know, just comfort me. And that changed the painting. It made me feel like I was in it, and I was just painting a part of the scenery around me. And I think that's what got me more inspired to paint landscapes and to reflect a little bit more within me. It became part of my meditative process. It became a part of my self love. And I think I started liking it more because usually I just do florals and I love florals and I paint florals all the time. But painting nature is still, I think, not something I was excited about. And now every time I need to break, I need a little bit of a pause. I go back into painting landscapes, creating these soft, flowy landscapes that just make me melt into the painting. So as you can see, I've used green to add another layer of mountain. I'm not going into too much of the detail because you know exactly what I'm doing. So now we're going to add in some leaves at the top of the sheet, and this is going to frame our mountains a little bit more. Using light green, just swish around your brush and add in a layer right on top. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can see how I'm just kind of messing around with it. Some sections are coming a little bit lower, some are a little bit more towards the top, and we're just playing around with that. There is no need to be perfect at this time. We're just having fun, aren't we? Once you're happy with this overall layer, we're going to let it rest, take a pause, get some cup of coffee or tea, and just sit back. We're going to start with our next layer. Here we're going in with our darker greens, and we're going to layer them on top of our previous layer. And this is going to give a little bit more of brightness and a little bit more of depth. Starting with the mountains, I'm going in with a darker bluish green. If you have green, that's great. If you want to use a dark indigo, that works as well. And you can see how I'm gently adding a very mixed, you know, irregular shape to showcase the trees and the bushes and that it's very foresty in this mountain. Et's continue the same technique on the other side. Now, this immediately lifts up the painting in the sense that all the colors get a little bit more vibrant and layering is so helpful with watercolors, and the more you layer, the brighter your piece becomes. And it just gives so much more depth. Again, this is something I think that only watercolors as a medium can achieve with oils and acrylics. It's not as easy to do, and the medium is a lot more flat with watercolors because there's so much of flow, there's really fun techniques that you can play around with. Once you have those really fun mountains at the bottom, we can go back to the top and add in the leaves and branches. We're going to start with some branches, and notice how I make them a little bit more stiff. Not really painting the entire branch but breaking it up into sections. We might paint over it, but we just want to have some branches showing through once we're done. There is no right way to do this. I think as someone who is a perfectionist or if you have OCD, it's such a struggle to just let go. There's this need to make everything symmetrical, everything perfect, everything exactly the same. And that's not how nature works. Nature is very messy. There's a lot of fluidity. There's a lot of asymmetricity when you look at it as a whole. And so that's what we want to capture. Don't get into too many details of, Oh, this has to be exactly the same shape or size or angle that she painted. Just let whatever is happening happen. Now we're pressing down our brush and we're adding our next layer of leaves. Again, swishing it around. We can add more deeper colors. Here we're being a little bit more careful along the edge so that we can really get some details. You can add in some dots or something details to make it look like leaves. As you do this, the base layer that we created, the light green almost fades into the background and creates very interesting background to this. It's such a fun process to layer up. With the green, we're going into some of the sections, adding some dots along the edges and having fun with us. While you're doing this process, try to tune into how you're feeling. Do you feel the calm? Do you feel the peace? Are you enjoying yourself? And just really dive into the moment. Now, to make the details a little bit more bolder and much more clear, we're going to add in some lines or strays of branches. So you can actually draw in a proper branch and add in some very thin leaves. Make sure to use your thin brush for this so you can do it with ease. And you can see how this extending protruding branch with leaves looks so interesting and actually adds a little bit more detail and playfulness. One of the main tips here is to not make it straight. So just curve your stem so it's more flowy and creates movement into your piece. You can add as many as little or as few leaves as you want. It's up to you. I wanted to go a little bit more bolder and I really was enjoying the process and the piece of it. So I am going to do a little bit more of these and just tune into myself and just give myself a little bit of repetitive painting to just calm down to be in the moment. And to just trust that it's already looking so beautiful, just like life, things are always working out, and sometimes stressing creates more stress, and breathing in and just relaxing can be more of a benefit. Aren't we doing so well? I'm so proud of us for getting this far. We have a really interesting painting, and we're just going to add more details to the bottom because it looks a little empty. And just start with the same set of leaves. We've been doing this, and I think this is also my moment of feeling a little bit more of play. These small details add movement to the painting. Composition is such an important part of creating an incredible artwork. And when you can create a very interesting composition, you can create something beautiful. I'm adding some leaves. You can add in some flowers if you want to have fun. If you want to just do leaves like me, you can just add in some thin lines. I'm using my thin brush to really get into those details. We don't want to add too much. Just keep it subtle, soft, and just enough. Recently, I posted um a photo on my Instagram, one of the paintings, I think it was just this one that I had posted, and I mentioned breathe in, calm, and breathe out stress. And the next post was the only thing you can control is how you feel about something. And I think that's so powerful, and we forget that so much of the time, and we try to focus on control other actions and how they are thinking or what they're doing. But the fact is all we can do is just focus on ourselves and make ourselves feel better, and that is our power, and that is our strength. Time to protect our mountains and everything that we've painted and adding some splatters on top. I love how soft this looks and just makes everything so natural. When I first started painting landscapes, everything felt a little bit flat, and I thought that that meant I was doing something wrong. And soon I realized by adding these little textural elements, I was able to create more playfulness and movement in my piece. And look at that. Take some time to step back and just look at your painting. Be proud of yourself for getting this far and for creating something so amazing. Through this entire process, remember that art is for fun and it's for learning, but it's also for enjoyment. And this was your chance to do that, and you created some beautiful paintings along the way. Adding a couple of more details, like a couple of lines, adding more depth, and we can keep working on this painting forever. So we can stop right now and just let it be. 14. Thank you and What Comes Next: And just like that, we are at the end of the ten day challenge. I hope you were able to get back a little bit into the calm and peace of enjoying painting. This is not about perfectionism, and I hope you kind of were able to step back and just fall in love with watercolors. It's not about how perfect your landscapes turned out. It's about showing up even for a few minutes and letting yourself create. If you haven't already, I'd love for you to share your projects in the class section. Whether you finished all ten days or just one or two painting, it truly counts. Your work might inspire someone else to pick up their brush today. If you enjoy this class, it would mean so much to me. If you left a review. You can simply share one thing you loved about the class, maybe the relaxed space, the short lessons or how the painting made you feel. Your feedback helps other students decide if this class is right for them. Thank you so much for joining me in this challenge, and I hope you take a little bit of that calm and confidence into your future artwork. I can't wait to see you in another class soon.