Coastal Watercolor Essentials - Normandy in Watercolor

1. Introduction: In this class, we'll be painting a beautiful coastal landscape of Normandy in France. Will be learning a variety of wet-on-wet techniques and wet and dry techniques. Combining and creating soft and sharp edges can be tricky when you're learning watercolors. Painting wet and wet is often associated with the loss of control. Without an understanding of timing, you can definitely create a mess. But I'm going to show you the importance of timing and painting wet in wet. This will help you gain control and layer effectively to create some soft textures such as shrubs and grasses, or painting sharp highlights, rocks, boats, water. It's easier than you think. Wet-in-wet technique brings out the natural strengths of watercolor is essential for your watercolor journey. Creating fine details to finish off your painting, a crucial for painting things like trees, rocks, grass, create some nice contrast and interests. But understanding when to add the mean is crucial. Before we start with the painting, I'm going to show you how to simplify the shapes and sketching large ones to sky, water, shadows, trees and grass. Getting in those large components accurately beforehand is essential for your painting to make sense. So join me in this class. I'm looking forward to showing you the secrets of coastal landscape painting 2. Materials Required: Before we get started, I want to go through some materials that I'm using. And over here we start firstly with the paper. I'm using 100% cotton watercolor paper. It's a medium texture. You can also use a rough texture. And I find with textured papers fantastic. You mainly get the advantage of all these wet-in-wet Work here. The paint, when you painting want to wet-in-wet spreads nicely and evenly when you're using paper that's just a little flat or hot press paper. The paper dries very quickly and also unevenly. So really recommend getting some textured paper even in the background here you can see nice little slight blending of the water there in the background texture. So you can often find a textured cellulose paper as well if you don't have access to cotton watercolor paper and the textured cellulose paper will allow you can accomplish the same thing. Only issue that you can sometimes liftoff previous layers so you can get cotton, watercolor paper in the medium to rough texture. Recommend that brushes. You can see I've just got a bunch of these Watercolor mop brushes. They're great for getting areas, large areas of the sky, bits of the land, the back slashes large clump of bushes and things here in the front, that background layer. Anyway, I like to use these larger brushes. They hold more paint. Later on down the track when I'm getting in details of the shrubs and branches and individually leaves, like to use these two brushes here. This is a small flat brush and this is a small round brush. And even use them to create some shapes here with these tweaks, things coming up. I've added in some indications of some flowers here on the side as well. And that's also just by using this smaller brush. These are some specialty brushes that I use from time-to-time. And basically this, Here's a little rigger brush and I think I might have used it to get in some of these branches here, but it can definitely use them to get in smaller, tiny details. The sales of these boats as well, find that it's a perfect size to get an, a thin white line doesn't hold much paint. And I think that's an advantage as well because then it just doesn't, doesn't spread everywhere and create a mess. This is little field, but this is a little fan brush and it's great for getting details like tiny areas of grass. You can see here, here, very subtle, but it's good so you don't have to join individually getting each strand, it's just more convenient. Often more natural looking as well. I don't use as much as filbert brush, which is used for a bit of blending. Now, a lot of these highlights here, you can see especially on the sales bits of the rock and the background, these branches and tweaks here, even some of the yellow. I've got those in by using this tube of white quash right at the end. Beautiful, opaque watercolor allows you to go over everything else and getting a lot of color over darker colors. So I tried to use this sparingly as possible in this scene. I've used it quite, quite a bit, especially out in the back on the trees here in the front as well. It's up to you how much you use it. I try not to over do it. That's the main thing. And in terms of the other colors, we've got a lot of green going on here in the foreground. I've just used a dark green and diluted that down to get these larger regions, use more concentration of that dark green hair in the back as well. Sometimes you can add in a bit of black. Your greens can be premixed like a hookers green where you can make you earn by mixing a bit of blue, ultramarine blue, and a bit of yellow, for instance. And that's going to get you pretty much most of these bits in the front. I use also a little bit of yellow ocher in the background. And the yellow ocher just creates a sense of light running through parts of the painting you see here in the back as well, in the heirs of lands of use, the beauty that yellow ocher. There are two contrasts really well with the water, which is basically be just cerulean blue mixed in with a bit of ultramarine blue skies. Just a little light mixture of cerulean blue. At times you might want to get into some really dark colors like that. So sometimes I use bit of black or neutral tint, neutral tensors to pre-mixed gray, you can mix up your in grace if you've got a blue, red, and a yellow, mix them in equal proportions. Pets with a little bit of blue to darken it more. And you can get in these dark contrasts out the back 3. Drawing: We're going to start off with the drawing here. And what I wanna do is find ways to simplify this scene. It's very tricky scene in terms of all the different elements, we've got a very predominant foreground here with a lot of these trees and bushes. And I think were possible if you try to work with reference photos that do have a bit of extra complexity, that way, you can actually choose, decide which bits you want to simplify down. Sometimes when you have a reference photo that is too simple, it doesn't give you much to work with. In a scene like this. What we're gonna do is look at the basics. So where does the sky meet the ocean? So we'll go right back. They just have a look. It's about a third of the way through. A third of this scene, or perhaps even a little less of the scene. But I'll say about a third of the scene. Just sky. Really important to get that in. I'm going to roughly pencil that in here. Okay. May change that around afterwards, you know, feeling it would probably just stay that way. There's something like that. Sky up the top there. And we're going to move, work my way down to the foreground because it's another sort of simple beat to put in. You can see this bush here in the corner of the scene also comes in about a third of the way up from the bottom of the page. So I'm going to just putting a little indication of where it is. Some twigs, branches and things down the bottom. Don't even bother trying to draw in all those branches and things like that because we will get them in later. The scene is actually a little bit wider than the bit of paper that I'm using. So I'm compressing it down a little. Actually. You don't have to use all of it as well. I mean, you can cut out bits and pieces or you might want to shorten it as well, but I'm just going to do the demonstration with everything in here. So I've had to almost compress it down a little bit. There are some rocks and things like that here. There's a large whole bunch of these rocks and it's putting a little indication of few those just floating around in the background like that. You can see they actually like a rocky beach. This is in Normandy, France. Like that. Just putting that in this area here is kinda like the beach. You can see the water actually come in slightly like that. You've got some sharper contrast here with a rocks just meet along the water like this. Okay. Just a few more rocks over here. And I just have a bit of a play around, add what you you think would look nice in here. There's so many rocks and try to get them all in exactly is. The reference picture shows is almost impossible. I wouldn't try. It. Says it's the few rocks, more of a guide for later, so I'm not thinking too much having to figure out where to place them. Okay, there. I'm just going to create beautiful this land going in like that. You can just see tiny bit better. The other bit here in the background like this, where that land connects a bit onto the water. Yeah. The back as well. To simplify it down. And here bit of this kind of violent or something there as well. And also here, the one here as well. Then these are just little bits of land. I suppose. We can change it around later as well. I just wanted to get in a bit more of an indication there like that. Okay. Bits and pieces is often the background. But apart from that, last thing I wanna do is just getting some small boats, keep them to roughly to size as well. So here's one just over here. Just gonna be simplified down. This is the sale there. Lots of stuff going on in there, but I'm just going to simplify it down like that. Here's another little boat. That tiny little boat there. Another one here. The sale, the mass going up here as well. That there. Maybe another one here. At here. A lot of these we can just add in extra details afterwards. More so just placing the rough location, indicating the rough location. Another one here, keep them around at different sizes as well. You find that as you move backwards, the birds just becomes smaller. So just reduce down the size of some of them. But I think that's it. We should be ready to start with the painting 4. First Wash: We've got a small mop brush here, and I'm going to begin with this part and getting in some of the warm colors, got a bit of yellow ocher. I'm going to just getting a little bit of that sand at the back there, that golden yellow colored sand. It's just a warm color. There's even some of it on these rocks here. So just putting a bit there. You can see I am really just scumbling that brush across surface. Not paying too much attention to details. We want to aim for here is just to get in a light Wash over the top and give us some, I guess a bit of a background color could have background warmth. Before we get in the darker colors, we've really cause some browns running through. Here. There's even it's mostly just browns here that most of this is just water. I'm talking about ten per cent paint, the rest of it just water. You're going to bring some of it down here as well. Just to get down to the front. I've already got some brown mixed up here on the side. I can just drop in a touch of this brown. And this is just kinda weird of wet-in-wet work. Of course, go over the top of it later, but being able to just utilize some of these while that previous wash is still wet makes it more interesting. I'm trying to just leave in some bits of whites and tiny highlights in there as well. Some more of this brown if it doesn't matter what kind of brown, I'm just using a brown ocher here. You can also use something like burnt umber, like that. Darker brown. Touch over here. Some green here in the foreground, just stupid with this light wash of undersea green, dropped some of that through here. Again, a lot of water. Most of this is just water. 90% water. Try getting a nice little Wash like that. Notice just how quick I'm doing this as well. In the way of detailing. The first Wash has always just getting in some little areas of light and noise cohesive Wash that joins everything together. We're gonna go in and just start mixing a bit of blue. Now I've got some tiny bit of cerulean. And I'm gonna go into the sky and just work to get in a very light washes to really pick up the larger mop brush for this. And I just wanted to get in a very, very light wash of blue. Bring that all the way down. This bit more darker blue at the base here. Okay. Like that. But still soft enough so that it kind of blends nicely upwards. Okay. Good. And I'm going to start working on the water as well. And this surface think about this might actually, and in that dark area here of the water or the back. Still with that same old brush like I got here, this mop brush. It's quite a dark, much darker than the sky. So sometimes what I like to do is I'll mix a bit as cerulean, mix a little bit of ultramarine together. And you get Wash that's a little bit more little darker. And I'm gonna go through and just create this edge like that. I want it to stick out and not from the sky Wash as well. So I'm actually going significantly darker. Okay. I'm looking at kinda blends up a little bit, that's fine. I'm just going to be the softness there in the background, I don't mind. But this same wash of color, cerulean and ultramarine. I'm going to bring this down. Sometimes I do like to grab out that spray bottle. Today's a pretty hot day in Melbourne. So spray down some of this stuff here so that it joins together a little nicer. A little bit of that blue coming down like this. Yeah. There we go. Cutting around some of these boats as well. Like that. Okay. I just leaving a touch of that. Whites on the page. Don't worry if you go over the boats and you end up getting rid of them because we can always bring bring them back afterwards. Water is more of this actually gotten a bit more turquoise color in it. So I'm just picked up a little turquoise. You can also mix in a little green in there. If you don't have turquoise. Okay. Whoops, there's another boat. I thought I'll just mark them out quickly like this. Okay. Doesn't look like much at the moment. But remember, we're not detailing, we're just getting in the main elements. Basically the water, the sand, the rocks. Even some of the water you'll notice actually comes in here. And doing this wearing to where it actually looks much more interesting. To see these kinda nice blend between the sand and water. You can only do this by Painting, went into wet, and you have a loss of control in a way. But in the sense you also again, nice fluidity and magic. Really. Well, I think it is. Cut around that a bit and just bring some of that water down. I'm just leaving a bit of white there as well to indicate me some highlights of something later on. Tricky is to not paint over absolutely everything me while to figure this one out. Learn to live in highlights. Bit of extra blue in there. That some of it's just mixing down to the trees. I problem. More here. Here. Here. The right-hand side. Well here. And Destic. Good. Looking, great. Now I'm looking is still wet. Good news because we now put in some more details for the Wet-in-wet Work. I think I'll start with a bit of the brown. The rocks maybe on the left-hand side we'll see how we can touch of darkness in here. Do have some black as well. Black and brown mix them together and I can actually getting some nice dark spots underneath. Shadows actually running a little bit towards the right. So I wanted to just indicate some darkness. Maybe on the right side of some of these rocks. Tricky to do this. But we can give it a go. I like that. See that shadow running to the right there. They might be some rocks here on the back just sort of bring out some touch of darkness on the right-hand side of them. Okay. And also you see here where I left in a bit of white. Notice that's also an opportunity to get in another shadow or something running towards the right-hand side. You've got to use your imagination a little bit here. It can be tricky For Beginners. Just remember that you're leaving in the highlights on the left. And trying to get in that shadow to the right-hand side. More of that shadows. Just, I mean, at some point I stopped looking at the reference and I just start putting in my own take on this thing because it makes more sense for me just to focus on what I have in front of me once I've got an idea of everything else. So the general light source, each individual rock doesn't really need to be specified and Editing exactly how it appears in the reference. That beats a little bit wet, actually too much. So I'm just going to wait for that to dry and I'll play around and beat up their first small brown as I move up. And here, I've actually, they've gotta beat with this brown color. I'm going to spray spray that there. The brown just spreads around a bit more. There's just too sharp. Okay. One of the big things you want to remember is this area is quite I'm quite dark compared to the water. It's significantly darker than the water. You want to make sure that you've got you've got that in dark enough. Some of these, the color as well. You can just draw out tiny highlights. Again. Maybe just a bit touching the water, they're here. There's like a more of this stuff. Okay. I'm going to join up. But of course leaving highlights see that's just to an indication. Often what you leave out and watercolours is just so important. And these little rocks here are a good example of that. And I'm just not the end-all, do more later. Here's a bit more something here. The background, sometimes you got bits and pieces of who knows what. Some of this stuff in the background will all have to bring that out with some gouache. Afterwards, Let's put in a bit of something here. That bit of darkness. Here is, well, just the main thing is just making sure that there's a boundary between the water and the land. And it doesn't take much, as you can see, it's just a continuation of this land mess. Going over to the right-hand side. Here we go, that middle one in there somewhere. That's good. Okay. It's getting some more greens. Sweetie. Needs to be wet. Touch with that bottom part of the paper. Some of these water seeping there that we are. To use this little fan brush is great for this type of effect as well. Drop some of them in here. It's just a bit of darker green. And you don't want to make sure that this green is a little bit more concentrated than the layer previous to it so that this lighter green, they're adding any more additional water, you're adding more actual color. And that's going to make sure that you don't get any funny bloom affix. Mean it's not hundred percent green is all you've done. It was like desaturated greens running through in here. Some here. You can even just pick up viridis yellow ocher, drop some of that yellow ocher in to log, yellow ocher. One of my favorite colors. It's kinda like a desaturated yellow and it doesn't really turn into a green if you careful. Whereas if you have more vibrant greens, It's just easy for it to be contaminated. Turn to in green if you use a bit of blue in there. Darker color in here, I'm just going to pick up a bit of black, have actually put a bit of blue in there, but bit of black car something in here as well. As you can see, there's actually some darker spots. And That's what I want to imply, just some darker bits even in here there's some darker spots. So a bit of black or brown, both mixed together. Sometimes I mix up a bit of purple and a bit of brown as well, like that. Just to add a hint of coolness through this, you'll notice this layer start to dry up top here. And this is good because you got the point here where you can then start to put in little sharp edges of these trees and things like that. See just quick, quick indications. I'm not wanting to spend all day with this. But as you can see, looks more interesting that way because we've got a lot of softness in here. And we want to just counter balance that with some more darker sharp looking shapes running through all this. Especially because we're dealing with things in the foreground as well. Some more here. Lot of these magical effects just happened while the paper's wet. You never know exactly what's going to what it's going to look like. But it's always a FUN. One of the most pleasing things that I find about using watercolours, wet-in-wet effect. It's just magical. Just get really drawn into it somehow. Okay, so let's doing its own thing now. This will dry off in time and look a lot better. But what I wanted to do is kinda look in here and think to myself as anything that I can potentially add in some additional bits and pieces that would benefit my composition before I let everything dry off as a bit of yellow here that I, that hasn't dissolved fully. I picked up a chunk of it before. I'm liking generally how it looks at the moment. I think perhaps maybe be the scratching out could be nice. Little trick I do. I've got a knife here. And you can find just spits. Wait to see, but there are some parts that I, for example, here, let me see. If you wait for it to dry, you can actually scratch out a little bit more of the paint here. Okay, see that's created a bit of this white sharp edge like that where you've got areas that aren't dried yet. If you scratch into them, you get these darker looking bits like that. But I'm looking for more of those contrast. So I'm going to draw the paper 5. Second Wash: Let's see how we get these little effects. And I'm trying to mimic some of these branches as you can see, running through the foreground. Because the paint is mostly dry. Just got these white lines that stick out when you scratch the paper. Okay. Some of them come off from odd angles as well. Just try to be more random. In some areas like even here, for example, you can see a touch of that scratching there helps to just merge the Boucher little bit here onto the background. Here's some more. There's not really much in there anyway in terms of highlights, but it's something I wanted to add in. You can see more of these little branches and things coming off here is even something that just comes off on a tangent or something there. I'm actually wanting to put in these, some of these little flowers here and I want to get some of those in afterwards. So I am just putting in a few more of these little strokes like this so that when I put in the flowers afterwards, they look a bit like they're connected to a stem or some sort. Pick up that a fan brush again, I'm gonna get a bit more green. And I'm going to add another little layer. Over the top. I can just a little bit of brushwork like this. Just texture, make it look a bit more dense because we've only got one layer in there. So these little bits of these little brushstrokes here helped to make a difference. And you don't have to use a fan brush if you don't have one, just use little round brush and we even a rigger brush and that helps to create these effects as well. But because the paper is still slightly wet, you get these kind of in-between effect. It's not hundred percent sharp, but it does not oh, just wet-in-wet work as well. So it's a good go-between from because layer or getting some proper wet on dry effects. Okay. Let's try this one off. Okay, everything's dried off now and I wanted to go ahead and adding some final touches a little bit to details and find this is a stage that just brings everything together. I've got that fan brush again, I'm going to pick up below this black and a bit of green that I've had on the brush. And let's just kidding. For example, this little indication, this shrubs, these kind of darker bits in here. Rather than look at the shape, or I guess the general shape of the Bush. I'm also looking at the shadows that are contained within there as well. And working to get in really the darkest colors possible. Because this is the final step really. And this is just some darkness in there. You can see there's even some darkness here. And of course we had put in some of that with that previous Wash before, but this is another exaggeration really. And here we creating 3D sharpness between this dark area in the background with the foreground here where we've got all this kind of lighter bush here. And try and also create this sense of shadow on the right-hand side of these bits and pieces, these bushes and stuff. So a little bit of that shadow or something there. In here. There's a bit of darkness in there. That it's actually a lot easier with this fan brush because you've got this feathering effect. This looks a lot smoother. Stick with that actually, like there. Let's have a look a bit here as well, just to separate out some of this stuff here. So you've got a two layered foreground. You've got the stuff here and then you've got a bit here. Unless I guess it's in the mid ground. But it connects them together. Also creates enough of a distinction. Down here. There's not really much, It's not really much distinction, but I suppose you've got like a bush or something growing like here. I can just put in A bit of darkness like that. Green. That yeah. More here. Using just swapping back to my flat brush. Now, just putting a bit of darkness in here, exaggerate that previous Wash. Swell. You want to try to feather if you can just feather This painting nicely. Here in the foreground. A little trick that I learned is try to create a little extra darkness in some parts and it's looking a bit too dry. I made I just spray here just a few little quick sprays paint to encourage it to move around and touch. But just helps to bring that foreground closer to the viewer. But you don't have to do all over the place there on the left-hand side here. Because if you do it too much, you're gonna get rid of this amazing kinda highlight that you see everywhere. Okay? If you find that it starts overwhelming as well and there's just too much going on. Too much sharpness. You can just give it a misting over the top like that and helps to disperse that color. Here there is little push or something here, just going to get in this, sometimes I do too much as well and a smaller brush, something like this. This is an old mangled brush that I have old mangled round brush. And this again stops me from thinking too much. It's just, as you can see, this, this harsh shape. But because it makes such a harsh looking shape, it forces me to make sure I I don't touch the paper too much. Maybe coming in from the side there. Like that. We have some more. Okay. Let me just make some part of this a bit taller. Make the bushes and things look too perfect. That what have we got here a little bit here. And then you can go on and you can do this really forever. Now, back to that flat brush. One of my favorite brushes, this of course. And I'm going to work a bit more on maybe some of these areas in the background there. Especially where it might connect on with the water. Just extra sharpness. Going to use some more black as well to create a bit more of a contrast to where it touches the water or what have you. Okay. In some parts, not all parts, but just in some areas. Bit of white gouache of squeezed out on the page and on the page on the palette. I mean, to get ready to put in the final highlights. Just want to see if I can maybe scratch out a few more bits here. Yeah, that's better. It's kinda like this. Break it up a touch and make it look a bit more messier, suppose in some parts. And I think what I'll do first is look, alright, can now do the boats first. Just get these boats out the way. A bit of whitewash and the brush. And maybe you've already, you can already see a fair bit of this detail on the boats, just on the bottom of them. But I've also got a little rigger brush. And I can hold that brush further down and draw. You can see these little A little masks that connect on the bottom of the boat like that. Okay. Here's another one here. Like that. Another one here. This one's actually pretty large mass and you actually see part of it come down like that. Catch onto the light and top of the boat catch onto the light as well like that. Here's another one like that. And sometimes using these method where you a kiss, I'm putting, execute that brushstroke quicker, creates this kind of sunlit effect there you can see. It's important just to imply again that light source. These boats or chest so small and there's only need a little detail to indicate that they are, in fact boats or some sort. I don't want to spend all day when using the in the water. You can see these little bullets or what have you just floating in there. And I'm just going to indicate a few of them like that. Okay. Putting the bottom of this book better as well. This is potentially one there have not indicated it so well. It could be one even here like that. If you've missed it out in the first go, There's always a chance to add it in again, as you can see, with a bit of that gouache. More here, just these little, again, these are all odds in the water. I suppose I might change some of the colors of them as well to make it more interesting. Something here and then what it is like on the flag or something, I'm not sure, but it sticks out from that part of the rock in the background. Okay. Here we can just start to play around a little bit with some different colors. For example, I'm going to put in a little bit of white for some of these like flowers or just to try to connect, create an indication of these flowers or something like that on the stems of those bits and pieces and come in different colors as well. We've actually got some warmer colored ones are very light yellow colored ones. So just like add a bit of yellow, bit of warmth in there and you can just do something like that. That and that sort of seep in and do its thing. I'm exaggerating these flowers a little bit as well. Again, to increase that sense of depth and the scene, the foreground. I'm trying to connect them up with these imaginary stems that I had scratched out before. You see here some of them larger at the front like this. And the melting in more due to the paint still being wet in some sections. Notice how we can put in more yellow and get more saturation for some of the flowers like this, it'd be more saturation like that. It's important to try to keep them random in terms of the way that they grow, as sometimes in clusters. And they're not just all in a particular row or in a pattern. So I keep that in mind and make sure that the angles of these flowers as well, we're a bit more varied. Always try to do that. You've even got little flowers here, like just in the center, little ones, you can barely see them, but just these little indications of them like that here, here. Here. And I'm going to add in some of these like twigs or whatever here as well, just in more darker sort of gouache or darker gosh, bit more lighter colored ones. Yeah. Just just redrawing them in the paintbrush And you find that these little branches and things just break up the, the darkness, especially here in the background. The way that you draw these branches is that you start off with the larger section and the bottom, and then you just slowly create these segments where they break off into to these rigger brush I'm using is perfect for this because you don't have much paint on that brush. Kinda skips over areas as well. Some more here. Just to be the balancing out really. But being careful as well not to overdo it. Especially here, notice how it just carrying it on, but also skipping over the paper a bit so that it's not too obvious. Okay. Some of the boats, you get different colors as well when I'm tempted to just adding a touch of color for them. In sports like a beauty, this is red here. Red maybe for something there. Basic than some of them are more bluey, purple color or something in their spirit darkness like this. To mark out the base of the boats. From this angle, you can't really see the reflections in the water as well. Just adding a few birds flying around the sky. This maybe some flying through here. I also like it too. If I can pick up some highlights to again emphasize that light source, I'm just gonna be that yellow, yellow week colored gouache. I'm there. For example, I might pick up a bit and just add it here. More water, actually, more water. Here. Here. Here is these little bits that stick out like that. Little outcrops of rocks and things that we might've lost out previously or just not added the mean. This allows an opportunity for you to add in a few more like that. Just basically putting in little rock some small shapes. But I'm not taking too much time here with this memory to try to keep that hi light more towards the left of these rocks rather than the right-hand side. Because we got that light source from the left. Being careful not to overdo it as well, It's just tricky. There'll be the light in here are some lighter sort of shrubs in parts. Another not really there, but just something I want to put in. Too much. There doesn't matter. A little bit out of the back. You can see this almost these tiny little outcrops of rocks and things there. So the gouache is again, very useful for this. Some more bits and pieces here. Just simplify that down. And we're finished.