Beyond Basics: Paint Light, Texture & Atmosphere in Watercolor Landscapes

1. What This Class Covers: Ever wished your landscapes could glow with atmosphere without fussing over every detail, or maybe you struggle with trees that look lifeless. Hi, I'm Maria, artist, author, and your waterco instructor. In this class, I'll guide you through painting this liminous sunset scene from glowing skies to bold silhouetted trees, using a beautiful photo I took on a hike in the south of France last year. Here, you will learn how to create depth through contrast, work wet and wet with confidence. Use splattering and scratching for expressive textures, paint lively branches and leaves. And mix shadow colors that feel alive. I will also walk you through the materials. You'll only need a few brushes and limited palette. We will even do a quick splatter practice before starting a final piece. This class is perfect if you already know the basics and want to feel more confident and intuitive in your painting process. And if you're a brave beginner, you'll still discover a wide range of watercour techniques to grow your skills. Join the class and enjoy watercolors. 2. Materials Overview: Let's start by going over the materials we'll need for this project. Keep in mind, you don't have to use the exact same brands I'm using. Feel free to work with your own favorites. For paper, I'll be using Sandra's Waterford. It's 100% cotton, cold pressed, 300 grams paper, and also I have some scrap sheet for testing colors. My paper comes in a block, glued on all four sides. If you're using loose sheets, just tape your paper down to a drawing board using masking tape on all edges. I'll need the pencil and eraser for the initial sketch. Since I'll be working a lot on wet paper, I need to brush specifically for moistening the surface, and my to go is a natural gold hairbrush. The size depends on how large your paper is. For painting the background, I'll use a smaller flat squirrel brush, and it can also be a soft round squirrel brush or a good imitation. A mid sized round synthetic brush will help me adding darker accents and details. Also, this Chinese calligraphy brush is one of my favorites for painting trees. Thanks to the unique shape of its tip, it creates beautiful natural looking forms. You can also use a soft squirrel brush of similar size instead. I will also use a few liner brushes for painting branches and find details in the landscape. Plus, I've prepared a small synthetic brush to create splatter effect. I will show it in the technique section later on. Another tool I'll be using is this plastic card, which I use to gently scrape the paint and create texture details. And any plastic card will do just make sure it has a rounded corner, and a painting knife can also do this work. For paint, I'm using a selection of tube colors. I'm placing some of them in the corners of my plastic palette, since the red and yellow are not part of my usual palette. You don't have to use the exact same shades. Just pick from the paints you already have. Almost any primary triad, a yellow, red and blue will work for this scene. And I will explain my color choices in the next part of the video. And, of course, don't forget clean water, paper towels and hair dryer. Once everything's set up, we're ready to begin. 3. Choosing Colors: As I promised, let me explain why I chose this particular set of colors for today's painting. These paints have a more muted, earthy tone compared to the ones I normally use. On the right, you can see my usual palette. Those colors are brighter and more transparent. And I actually tested both sets of paints in a preliminary sketch of the scene, and as you can see, the result looks quite similar. So why bother to switch to new paints when the outcome is nearly the same? Colors in my reference photo are more natural and subdued. So every time I wanted to match those natural tones using my usual palette, I had to tone them down. To muted color, you generally add it's complimentary. That's the one located opposite it on the color wheel. But since I'm only using the primary colors in this setup, I often had to mix all the three yellow, red and blue just to neutralize or tone down the hue. And as you can imagine, it takes quite a time and effort, especially when you work with colors like yellow. Because yellow is very sensitive color. It not only shifts very quickly, but also darkens easily when mixed with other pigments. Also, my regular paints are quite transparent. In contrast, venetian red, which I'm using in this set is more opaque and slightly granulating. That gives me a nice dense layer when mixed with blue, which is perfect for creating deep foreground shadows. Helps get a solid contrast to the transparent sky and like this, emphasizes the contrast in the scene. But as I said earlier, you can get good results with almost any set of primary colors here. Just make sure to write down the name of the colors that you use for your painting when you will share the result in the project section. And let me know if it was easy or difficult to mix your colors. Now let's go to splatter Exercises. 4. Splatter Techniques Exercises: In this section, I want to focus on one of my favorite techniques for adding natural looking details to watercolor painting. It's different types of splashes and drops. I'll be using this technique quite a lot in the foreground of today's painting. If you're not very familiar with watercolor splatter yet, I encourage you to try a few practice exercises. It's really a fun and expressive technique. To begin, I will place a bit of paint here on the left. I'll come back to this area later once it has dried. For making splitter, I love using the small synthetic brush. I have had it since 2016, and it's still my favorite tool for this purpose. And you can use any small synthetic brush for that. Here's my usual way to create drops. I love the brush with quite watery paint and simply flick it by tapping the handle with my finger like this. If it doesn't work well for you, you can try tapping the brush with a pencil or even tapping the brush against the pencil. Just be careful. In this case, the drops might fly off in all directions. So cover the areas that you want to protect from accidental splashes. You can also use a larger brush to make drops, and they usually contain more water, so you will get bigger drops. And it doesn't have to be just paint. You can also use clean water. If you drop water onto a still wet wash of color, you will get soft light dots like this. And paint works, too, of course. On a very wet surface, drops will spread out a lot and blend into the background. And as the paper begins to dry, the drops will become more defined. You can see that with this method, the splatters spread quite chaotically in all directions. Sometimes I prefer to have more control over their direction. So for that, I will use the following technique. I hold my brush in the direction I want the splatters to go, then pull the bristles back with my finger and release. This creates small controlled drops. So as you can see here, the droplets are smaller, that's for sure, but they also spread in the desired direction. Of course, you can also use this method just to create finer splatters, even on wet paper. Why not? Obviously, you will need some sort of a springy brush for this, and it won't work with a soft squirrel hair brush. And once again, I want to emphasize how important the paper's moisture level is. When the paper is very wet, the paint spreads a lot. You saw it here with these blue splashes. But when the paper is getting dry and looks almost mat, the droplets remain sharp sometimes with clear dark pigment edges. Hopefully, you can see the difference here. One more thing to keep in mind, the effect of drops will vary depending on what's underneath. If you're dropping onto a clean paper, the drop might appear almost white. But if there's already painted layer underneath, like the orange one that I have here, the drops will reveal the base color instead. We'll be using this effect to support the warm light and cool shadows in the grassy foreground for our landscape. So take a bit of time to practice this. It's a great way to add texture and interest to your painting. And then move to the main project. 5. Drawing: I often use the rule of thirds in my paintings. But here in the photo, you can see that the image is divided almost in half horizontally. The sky and the foreground take up most of the space on the paper. But I also notice the two vertical lines here. And the point of interest, our light source, and the area of strongest contrast fall right along one of these vertical lines. So it's like in a classic balanced composition. I will keep this in mind while painting. Now let's start the drawing. First, I'll sketch the horizon line, the boundary between the field and the distant forest. I probably won't need to draw the lines inside the forest in detail because they will be covered by paint later. Plus, I plan to paint the trees in this area wet and wet, so the details will naturally soften. Still, I think it can be useful because I feel that this initial sketch process helps me better study my photo reference. In the distance, there are sort of hills. There is no need to detail those. The most interesting part is, of course, the tree here. The sun will be somewhere around this area. I like the outline the basic shape of the tree, which I will fill in later with leaves using the brush. It's also useful to place the trunks of the trees right away. But you don't need to draw the trees exactly as they are. Approximate shape is really enough. Something like this maybe a bit wider here. In this bright background area, you don't need to make your lines very dense because the paint here will stay light and the details will show through. But for these trees here, if you want to see their outlines clearly, you can draw this area with a darker pencil line, so it will remain visible under the wash. Either way, you don't need to draw much here. Maybe add a little grass, some bushes or a few branches. But this can also be painted later with the brush. What else might be helpful? This tree here, for example. So I want to leave some open space around it and also roughly mark where the branches will go. And in general, I think that the goal of the pencil sketch is not to draw every detail but to give yourself a simple guide for painting. It helps you know where to put branches and leaves later, so you won't really have to guess well doing watercolors. You can sketch the largest branches, too. Notice how I hold my pencil. This way allows me to make loose flowing lines. And if you hold it like a pen, your lines will be tighter and shorter. It gives you more control but less spontaneity. This tree will be somewhere around here. I will add some branches and leaves, of course, later with paint. I draw these lines here very loosely and light because I'll be working white on white here, so the boundary between the field and forest will be really soft, so I don't really need those lines. Alright, I think that's enough for the drawing. Let's move on to painting. 6. Preparing Paper and Colors: We can see that the entire sky has a smooth color gradient. That means we'll be painting wet on wet, a technique that allows us to achieve soft, seamless transitions. To do this, we need to prepare and wet the paper. My goal for this first stage is to cover the whole sheet with a light wash, except for the area where the sun will be. Even the lightest highlights on the grass will have some color. But the sun, the light source, is the brightest part of the painting, and the brightest color that we get in watercolor is the white of the paper itself. In fact, for contrast and light to really work in the painting, we need to get very bright highlights and very dark shadows somewhere in the composition. While we can always add darker shadows, later, the white highlights must be reserved right from the start. It's quite warm here today where I am, so the paper will dry relatively quickly. That's why I will prepare the paint for the background wash right away. I find it handy to have a paper towel under the cup and one in my hand during the process. I mix the colors with the same brush I will paint with. This way, the brush already holds the right amount of pigment. I'm starting with my yellow. And a bit here as well. The sky isn't a bright blue here. It's quite neutral with a slightly grayish tone. And to get that, we still add a little blue here. And this you see creates this grayish shade that we need. Now I will moisten the paper surface so it shines, but without excess water pooling. And I'm not going to wait too long. I will start painting right away on this wet paper. 7. Paining Skies and Background Light: So I'm finished wetting the paper and I'm starting to work immediately. It's easier for me to paint this part standing up. First, I'll begin with the blue, not a pure blue, more of a grayish tone, and then we'll move to the yellow. Here is where the sun will be. I need to keep that spot white, so I start outlining its shape much larger than I wanted in the end. This way, I prevent the flowing paint from bleeding into the sun area. Once I see the paint isn't flowing too much, I can reduce the size of the spot. I'll add a tiny bit of red here, maybe even a touch of orange from my usual palette I mentioned earlier, but that's really optional. I think this part of the sky near the horizon needs a little highlight. If you look at the father reference, it's a bit darker down here. The upper part of the sky is still not completely dry, so I can add a bit of darker blue here. It might look a little greenish, but that's intentional. I'd want a bright blue sky. The light in this scene is very warm and I want this warm atmosphere. Be careful at this stage when the paper starts drying. I want to load more pigment and make the sky slightly darker. But your paper might already be drying and it can be tricky to get a soft edge now. Keep an eye on whether the paper still shines. If it starts look mad, it's better not to add more paint and just leave the sky as it is. I think for me, this moment has already come. It's okay if the wash isn't perfectly even. It's just the background after all. I might want to adjust something more, but since the paper is drying, I will leave the sky as it is and move on down. Now I want to fill the whole lower part with paint. I will continue working wet on wet, but try to use less water so it does not run into the sky. I can add a little bit of red or orange here for a warmer kind of reddish tone. I won't touch the sky anymore. I will leave it as it is. Oops. Oh, that's a little drop. But, well, no worries. Sometimes it's better not to interfere and just let it spread gently on its own. I will see later if I can do anything. A bit warm reddish color here, and over here, it's cooler because that's the shadow from the trees. The colors are generally colder. Paint this area, I really look carefully at the light tones I see in the photo. If you look closely, you'll see the hints of blue, some pink, some orange in different spots. And so I try to layer these colors accordingly. At this stage, also, don't be afraid to put on quite saturated paint because it will be covered by darker colors in the next layer anyway. What else we can do? Here I think I can lightly swipe this area with a dry fluffy brush to help the pigment spread gently while the paint is still a little wet. In that way, the spot will be less noticeable, hopefully. Also, now I will take my splatter brush, my small all synthetic one, and I add a few light drops here and there. This step is not essential since we'll do a lot more splattering in the next layer. So I think this concludes the first wash. And the next step is to let everything dry completely. Just wait enough amount of time or use a hair dryer for that. 8. Distant Hills and Trees: After the first layer is done drying, I'll start painting this distant background part. It will create a nice contrast for our image right away. One important thing to notice is that near the sun area, the background is lighter and warmer. And as we move farther away, this horizon line gets cooler and darker. And this distant background, we can basically divide into two parts. First, the trees that are closer, they look greener and darker, and behind them, the more distant background is lighter and cooler. That's what I will try to recreate. There's no need for too many details here since it's far away, so I will work quickly and wet and wet. For this, I will use a synthetic brush about the size. I will also prepare a bit of yellow paint for the part near the sun. My son ended up a bit more to the left that I planted, so I'll probably shift this tree a little left as well to keep the effect of light shining through the leaves. So I'll just paint this branch further here, maybe, like that. But that's not a big problem at all. Here, I will use a greenish color based on my yellow and blue. I will paint the forest with that. It's better to prepare several colors now since I'll be working quickly on dry paper, but still try to use rather fluid paint. I will start with the lighter, warmer area under the sun. See the paint is quite liquid. This will help me blend the whole distant background into one wash. And I will need a second brush at this stage. I will wet this one with clean water and you'll soon see why. Here at the bottom, I will create a soft transition. So the distant background gently merges into the field, but I won't do that just yet a little later on. So now I add a bit of reddish transition here and then move into a bluish background. Yeah, here, there is some red in the background from the clouds, but in fact, the clouds won't be very visible because it all went down, but that's okay. This part can be made darker. It's important to work really quickly here. No need to overthink or mix the perfect color. Just lay down a darker cooler tone here and move on without hesitation. Now I take yellow with a drop of blue to paint the foreground trees here. Some trees will have the light hitting them while others will be more shaded. So on some trees, the shadows will be pretty dark. You see, everything is still wet enough, so it blends into one big spot. I can add some more blue over the yellow now, I think. Remember those outlines of the trees we made earlier. They're invisible under the paint now, but that's fine. I can even add a few more trees in the fire background with mostly blue. Here and there, I add shadow with blue. I keep the illuminated parts separate from the shadows. At some point, I need to stop because at this stage, we only work while the paint is still wet to keep these smooth transitions. Another thing to do is the soft transition at the bottom, we talked about. I want it to be smoother to create gentle atmosphere here. I didn't do it earlier to let the pigment settle on the paper first a little bit. This way, it won't round down too much. Maybe I will add a bit more yellow here with a different brush to create that kind of soft light transition. We'll see if it will work. Since it's all still wet, you can add some shadows here and there if you want. But it's not really necessary because this area is still distant background, blurred and just meant to emphasize the light in the landscape. In the end, I see I could have skipped adding that yellow here because now I think I'm just washing it off with this clean water brush. And by the way, I'm working on cotton paper. So the first paint layer is already fixed in the paper after drying, and so it won't wash off easily when I do this. You can see that the paint when dry will get much lighter. So we can safely add some shadows here and there. But it's not necessary, especially if the paper is drying already. Oh, where I added fresh paint recently, see how it's spreading right away. I need to adjust it a little. And that's where I will stop for this step. 9. Preparing Shadow Colors: The paint is completely dry out here and see how much lighter the distant background has become. Now, let's move on to this part in the foreground. This area is very contrasting and rich in details, and I'm going to prepare the paints for it. Adding some fresh yellow paint. We need a lot of dark paint as well. So I will mix a thick blend of my red and blue right away. We'll also work white and wet on the foreground. So don't be afraid to mix a dense paint with a lot of pigment. I will also use a second brush for some fiiner adjustments. And I also need my splatter brush for adding droplets. Be ready too. 10. Painting the Foreground on Wet Paper: Before I start, I'll gently wet the paper surface with this large brush. The first paint layer is completely dry now, so the pigment is firmly set into the paper and won't wash off when I brush over it. Remember this effect only works on cotton paper. On cellars paper, the paint would wash off the surface even after drying. I always keep the napkin nearby to control how much water is on my brush. Now I will begin applying a darker shadow color here. Something was a reddish tone. A bit of the same color will go here as well. I want to keep this illuminated area light and paint everything else in a darker tone like this. And here you have to work really quickly. Also, I want this layer to be quite dark right away because as you've seen, the paint lightens as it dries. If you notice the paint spreading too much, it usually means your brush is too wet, so keep an eye on the water amount. I will even work here with a different brush just like this. The color will be cooler here because it's in the shade. Yeah, this part looks very dark to me, but don't be afraid of using such a dark paint. Right now, I'm not focusing on details, just large shapes. Wow. Everything looks really dark so far. This part is already dry, as you can see, so I will gently moisten it here to keep a soft transition. But be careful that the paint doesn't run too far upward. It's important to keep the paint wet because I will add more shadow soon and then we'll add many details while the paper is still wet. I'm matting some very dark paint here and there. You see the paint layer is getting a little lighter, but it's still wet, and I pay attention to this all the time. Now what I'm doing is taking a clean water brush and just putting these little droplets horizontally over here. I make small drops and watch how wet paper is, whether the drops dissolve or keep their shape. It's still pretty wet at the moment. And you see this creates a glowing effect in the fields. I do this with clean water because I want lots of light. Plus, under the droplets, you can see the first paint layer shining through. So it's not just bare paper. I will do the same here and in the center part. Maybe some smaller droplets, too. All right, what else can I do? With the same brush, I will take some darker paint. Maybe add a bit of pains gray for a natural dark tone, and let's flick a few drops. We've already seen these unexpected droplets before, so you know, that you can move the pigment around a little bit with this dry, fluffy brush. Now I will need to add more water splitters here because I'll just smooth out some of the lighter details here. Overall, I'll be working a lot with these droplets. Notice, I use different techniques for splatters on the foreground and the background, depending on the size and direction I want the drops to have. I can add a few yellow drops here, too, for example, on the foreground, just a couple here. But the main cluster of details will be here in this bright part. Oh. You see there are some illuminated blades of grass have such interesting shapes, and I want to try scratching them with this plastic card. But maybe the paper is still too wet for this, so the effect might not work well yet, so I'm going to wait. I really like the effect here. The red paint granulates a bit, creating some, like, interesting texture here. I wait a little more for the paper to dry so I can add sharper details as it dries. And yeah, I think I'm happy with how it looks now. Is as as a Is yeah, especially in the lighter spot, I want to see some clearer details. Maybe I will try adding a bit of yellow to soften this very bright white light. Your result will probably look different from mine, and that's totally okay. It's the beauty of what and what techniques that each painting is unique. Now I'm waiting for this part to dry a little to become more made. Then I'll take a thin brush, wet it lightly with clean water. And I'm drawing a few lines here and there to imitate the blades of grass. And you see that they don't appear immediately. It takes time. But how come we can draw with clean water? Because water pushes the pigment on the paper surface, creating effects like this. It's like with droplets, but here the drop is elongated into a line. And for this effect, it's important not to overload the brush with water and to draw the line quickly. And, of course, we can also add some lines with paint. Maybe add some more droplets here. I think now it's also a good moment to scratch out some details with a plastic card. 11. Scratching Details in the Foreground: Now I want to add some scratched in details with sharper counters. The paper is almost mat by now, but the pigment isn't completely dry yet. So I'm going to emphasize some highlights here and there. I think it looks really beautiful like that. Although right here, it's still quite wet, and the paint is bleeding back into the scratch areas, so I will need to wait a little longer before working on details in this spot. And don't forget about perspective. Have you noticed how the droplets in the background are smaller than those in the foreground? The same principle applies to the scratch details. Elements up close will be larger and more defined, while in the distance, we won't see such sharp shapes just like in real life. And here, behind the scenes, I wipe the paint of my plastic card on the napkin every time. I can even try scratching in some twigs or leaves this way, for example. And also a few random shapeless dots here and there. Well, the paper is still a bit wet. It's a good moment to add some small finals letters. As you can see, the whole process really depends on how fast your paper dries. Your result will be unique and I'm very curious to see it. If your paper dries very fast, don't hesitate to add droplets and details on dry paper as well. 12. Tree on the Right : Light Area: Now it's time to paint the trees. I'll be using this Chinese brush and also some liner brushes. I'm going to follow the same principle for the tree as for the distant landscape. The part around the sun will be warmer and more yellow, and the tree will become darker and cooler as it moves away from the lead area. For this, I'm preparing my paint right away. I mix red and blue and add some paints gray to get a nice dark tone easily. Since the sun in the background ended up slightly to the left of where I originally planned, I will need to shift the tree a bit to the left as well. I start with the light part first and then quickly switch to the darker paint. So the paint patches blend softly into each other, creating this nice, smooth, glowing effect. I can add some branches right away using this brush. Sometimes I like to hold it vertically like this. It helps make more spontaneous and natural lines. And now I will just continue working on the tree this way with the light, gentle touch. No. 13. Tree on the Right : Leaves and Trunks: So I continue working on the tree and painting now this shadow part. To spin up the protest, I sometimes will be working with larger brush strokes like this. I try to vary the shape of my strokes constantly, often using the brush imprint to create textures. I add some small details to give a sense of distance from the tree. And from time to time, I add branches to structure it and clarify where the trunk is. I change the pressure on the brush to vary line thickness and also shift the pain tone slightly. It remains dark but not flat, you see. Everything starts with small separate details, which then merge in some areas into larger patches. With a slightly bigger brush, I add the almost black trunks on the tree here. Down at the bottom, I will add some grass or bushes, changing the stroke direction a bit. Even though in the photo, those look more like small trees. Like really red ones. I might soften the edge of this patch a bit so it blends smoothly into the field. Overall, I like having more air or openness in this part. So I think I will leave it as it is. I will connect some leaves with branches here, too. And that's probably enough for this section. Let's move on to the next part. 14. Tree on the Left : Beginning: There's just one last piece of the painting left to work on here, this tree. I'll try to begin with the brighter part, maybe. Although this tree looks quite dark overall, I can see some lighter and warmer leaves along the edges here and there. So let's start with this yellowish area, I think. It's important to slightly change the direction of your brush strokes to get more variety. So it looks more natural. I add a little bit of gray here. And it's important not to rush and work slowly and gently, really take your time. And at some point, you'll need to start structuring the mass of leaves, combining them into larger groups and giving shape to the tree. And then we're going to add some branches. 15. Tree on the Left : Branches: Now I will add some branches here. They are really dark in this spot. And also quite broad. So I press the brush more firmly here to get this bold line. Overall, you see that I keep working in the same way. And here you can either switch to a bigger brush or simply vary the pressure and also the angle at which you hold the brush to keep this natural effect going. M we see that the shape is already becoming a bit more clear here. Let's add some more details now. 16. Tree on the Left : Final Details: I'll continue filling in the tree in the same way. And also, it's not necessary to copy the photo exactly, by the way. Here I like how it really gives this impression of more air and more space, and I really prefer it this way. Now here I will add some reddish paint with this gesture to get the impression of the grass. This way, yeah, some bushes appear at the bottom. Like, now I'm checking what might be missing in the upper part. Maybe a few final branches here and there. And I think that's it. I think I can stop here. Once finished, let the paper dry while stretched. It will keep it relatively flat. 17. Conclusion: And here's the result. I hope that you enjoyed following this step by step process and found it helpful. Feel free to share in the comments what was new for you in this lesson, and don't hesitate to ask any questions about the technique, materials, or anything related to the class. I'm here to help. You'll find a list of materials and the reference photo in the project section below. I'm really looking forward to seeing your beautiful sunset films, so please don't forget to share your work here. If you post on Instagram, be sure to tag your paintings with this hash tag so I could easily find them and admire your creations. Thank you so much for watching this tutorial and spending your time painting with me. See you in the next class. Bye bye.