Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone. My
name is Will Elliston, and today we're painting a hot air balloon
scene in watercolor. Although the painting in this
demonstration looks bold, it's actually very
adaptable for beginners. We'll lean on big sky washes, gentle color gradients, and simple balloon silhouettes to create a sense of
height and calm. You can keep the sky
open with no clouds, paint a single balloon
or none at all. The design is flexible to
suit your comfort level. We'll also touch on
atmospheric perspective in the distant hills and warm cool harmony
around sunrise light. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of different
subjects from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes
and countryside scenes. I've always been entranced by the possibilities
of watercolor. But when I started,
I had no idea where to begin or
how to improve. I didn't know what
supplies I needed, how to create the
effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now I've taken part in many
worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough
to win awards from well respected
organizations such as the International
watercolor Society, the Masters of
watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Watercolor can be overwhelming
for those starting out, which is why my goal
is to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium
in a step by step manner. Today, I'll be guiding you
through a complete painting, demonstrating a
variety of techniques, and explaining how I use all
my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have some experience, you'll be able to
follow along at your own pace and improve
your watercolor skills. If this class is too challenging
or too easy for you, I have a variety of classes available at different
skill levels. I like to start off with a free expressive
approach with no fear of making mistakes as we create exciting textures
for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and
make it stand out. I strive to simplify
complex subjects into easier shapes that
encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty
of tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn
mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress out of
painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with
my watercolor mixing charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in the
discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and
respond to everything you post. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the
Follow button at the top. This means you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston
to see my latest works. So, let's get started and enjoy painting an uplifting sky.
2. Your Project: Thank you so much for
joining this class today. You can make this painting as minimal or as
lively as you like. A clear sky with one
elegant balloon, a couple of drifting
shapes for rhythm, or a fuller composition if
you're feeling adventurous. Focus on a spacious sky, a pleasing placement
for the balloon shapes and layered distant hills
that quietly step back. Let color drift from warm to
cool to suggest early light. Keep edges soft where
the air feels gentle and allow plenty of clean paper
so the sky can breathe. In the resource section, I've added a high
resolution image of my finished painting
to help guide you. You're welcome to
follow my painting exactly or experiment with
your own composition. As we're going to be focusing on the painting aspect
of watercolor, I've provided templates
you can use to help transfer or trace the
sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to
have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction
you take this class, it would be great
to see your results and the paintings you
create through it. I love giving my
students feedback, so please take a photo
afterwards and share it in the student project gallery under the project
and resource tab. I'm always intrigued to
see how many students have different approaches and how they progress with each class. I'd love to hear
about your process and what you learned
along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend
that you take a look at each other's work in the
student Project Gallery. It's so inspiring to see
each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your
fellow students. So don't forget to like and
comment on each other's work.
3. Materials & Supplies: Before we get started
with the painting, let's go over all the materials and supplies you'll
need to paint along. Having the right materials can greatly impact the
outcome of your artwork. So I'll go over all the supplies I use for
this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and we'll make it easier for you
to follow along. Let's start with the
paints themselves. And like most of the materials
we'll be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium
red, alizarin crimson, Opramarne blue, cobalt blue,
serlean blue, lavender, purple, viridian, black, and
at the end of the painting, I often use white gouache
for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand, although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Windsor and Newton
for Holbein paints. So let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush like this Escoda Purl brush
or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile because
not only can you use them for detailed work
with their fine tip, but as they can hold
a lot of water, they are good for
washers as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few
in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for
broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth
transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details. But for really small details, highlights or anything
that needs more precision, I use a synthetic
size zero brush. All brands have them,
and they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles
and a very pointy tip. They're perfect
for adding texture or creating dynamic
lines in your paintings. You can even fan them
out like this to achieve fur or feather
textures as well. And that's it for
brushes. Onto paper. The better quality
of your paper, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to
rework mistakes. It's harder to create
appealing effects and apply useful techniques
like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, not only allows you to rework
mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you'll be more likely to create
better paintings. I use Arches paper because that's what's available
in my local art shop. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. It also allows you to
reactivate the paint if you want to add a smooth
line or remove some paint. I also have an old rag or t shirt which I use
to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before dipping it in the water will make the
water last a lot longer. It's always useful to
have a tissue at hand whilst painting to
lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs
wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper
to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's
important to have them a similar consistency to what
they're like in the tubes. This way, it's easier to
pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful
to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the
dampness of the paper. And lastly, masking tape. And this, of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on
painting to the edge, it'll allow you to create a
very crisp, clean border. And that's everything
you'll need to paint along and
be on this class. Of course, experiment with whatever colors or supplies
you want to use, as well. Let's sketch the painting out.
4. Preparing The Composition: This painting in class is all about making what
you want to make. So I'm going to draw out
these hot air balloons, but you don't
necessarily need to paint them if you don't want to. Maybe you just want
to focus on a clear, clean sunset sky. But if you do want
to paint them, start as I am,
starting with circles, just to arrange
your composition. I added the main one
slightly off center. And then a kind of a kind of diagonal direction with
the next largest ones. And then two distant ones extra small at the bottom there. So there's a balance to them, but they're not symmetrical. There's asymmetrical
balance to them because we don't want it to look
perfectly symmetrical. We want to add a bit
of uniqueness to it. So once we've drawn out the circles and we're
happy with the placement, then we can start
building on that. So add a vertical
line going through the direct center of the
circle and going a little bit further below
the circle and then follow the pencil
line along so that it meets that little point
of the vertical line and then just draw a tiny little
box at that little point, the corner at the bottom. Then you can add a few wavy swirly lines
for distant hills. It doesn't need to
be too precise. And then the pencil will be
quite thick at this stage. So we want to use a rubber
just to thien them off, especially in the sky so
that when we use the paint, we don't see the pencil
lines underneath. So that's what I'm doing
now just tidying it up, and now we can get
ready to paint.
5. Applying Masking Fluid: So before we actually add
the paint to the paper, I'm going to use masking fluid. Of course, if you're not
painting the hot air balloons, that you don't have to if you're a beginner and you just want to experiment with some
paint and have some fun, you don't have to paint
these hot air balloons. It's still going to be a fun adventure if you choose not to. But if you're feeling
a bit more experience and you're not a
complete beginner, maybe you can just experiment with three hot air balloons. As you can see, I actually
squirted a little bit of masking fluid directly onto the paper where this first hot air balloon
is on the left, and I didn't buy
my masking fluid in that squirty little tub. It came in a glass jar, Windsor and Newton, but it's
so much easier to squirt it. So I bought this
little container. You can find one online
or in your craft store. It just makes life a lot easier, and I'm using a tuh pick just to move it around
what's on the paper. And I found this useful tool
also in my craft store, which it's a bit
like a tough pick, but it's actually for sculpting, but I found it's specifically useful for moving
around masien fluid. And I'm not scratching
the paper here. I'm just touching it
lightly enough to agitate that marcien fluid so it goes where
I want it to go, but I'm not
scratching the paper.
6. Combining Masking Tape & Fluid: For this main one, actually, I'm not going to use
masking fluid to begin with because it's
such a large space. I'm going to take masking tape and fill up the
majority of the center. I'm not being too clean
and tidy about it. It doesn't need to
be perfect. I'm just tearing away, using my fingers. I'm not even using scissors, just to fill up a majority
of the space inside, and then we can
use masking fluid to fill that gap between the tape and the border
of the silhouette. Because we're going to want
to preserve the white of the paper for these
hot air balloons. Making sure it's pressed
on nice and tightly. I'm using cotton based paper, which is very forgiving
with masking tape. You could stick it on tightly, but when you pull it off,
it doesn't tear the paper. Sometimes cheaper papers can tear when you pull off masking
tape and masking fluid. So squirting a bit of masking fluid
around the edge there, and then using my tool or toothpick to spread
it across that line. You might have to
get up close to see how precise you are going. That's what I tend to do
when I'm painting by myself, but I'm filming this with
a camera over my head, so I don't want to
block the view. So I'm kind of judging
from a distance here. But usually, I'd be
bending over trying to see that it's
nice and accurate. If you find that your
masking fluid is too thick, you can slightly water it
down and give it a good mix. You don't want to put too
much water in because it'll completely
change consistency. But I found the sweet
spot here where I can squirt it out my tube and move it around on the paper, and it still dries as a
thick kind of masking fluid. There's a balance between adding too much masking
fluid and not enough. And it's easier to work with
if you apply less than you think and keep on
adding a bit more once you run out rather
than overloading it, and you find it's harder to work with because there's
too much there and you can't take it away. And also, it takes longer
to dry if it's too thick. If you do happen to
go over the lines, or there's too much on there, don't try to take it off with a tissue whilst
it's still wet. Unfortunately, you have to use a hair dryer and make
sure it's completely dry, rub it off, and then reapply
it again from the beginning. Because if you try smudging
it while it's wet, it actually dirties the paper, because it's wet, it's still got the sticky quality to it. It's almost like a glue, and it's impossible to get off. It turns into a big smear. So even if you overlap
or make mistakes, it's not the end of the world. Just use a hair dryer dry it out completely,
and try again. And you can allow yourself
some areas where it overlaps. You don't have to get it
all perfect because we can refine it with
the paint later on. So even I'm not being
really strict upon myself. I'm not going over the
pencil and some areas I do. So it's not going to
be completely clean. This is just a little aid,
something to help us. But when it comes to painting
the paper, later on, that's when we can
make it look all slick and as slick or
expressive as we want it to be. So using the hair dryer
to dry it completely.
7. Starting The Sky: Before you start any
painting or apply any water, make sure that the masking
fluid is completely dry. It should go
completely transparent because you don't
want to agitate it halfway through the
drying process. We're starting off with
a very simple step, and that's just applying clean water to the
whole of the paper. I'm using a large brush to
do this just to save time. But you can use any brush just to get the paper
nice and moist, not overly saturated, just so it has a
slight sheen to it. You can see the
slight reflection of light bouncing off the paper, making sure it's nice and even, so I'm stroking it at different angles horizontally,
vertically, diagonally. And that means that our brush strokes will
be very wet on wet. So using pure cadmium
yellow to begin with, and we're starting with
lighter colors first. And I'm just laying this over
where the sun is placed, which is slightly off
center on the left, and you can see how light it is. It's barely perceivable, but I just want to
get the whiteness of the paper away in this area because I want there to be
a warmth where the sun is, a yellowness without
overworking it. So just to get the ball rolling, we just added a light
bit of yellow pigment. Now we can start thinking
about what colors we want. For the rest of the painting, I was considering Cerlean blue, and I think I am going to have that as the main sky color, but we've got to think
about the procedure of it. So we can mix these colors on
our palette to begin with. And when we're ready to paint, then we can put the
paint to paper, but we're preparing
all the colors on the palette first just to
see what they look like. So I have serlean
blue at the top, and I left a bit of that
serlon on my brush while I picked up some
alizarin crimson. And it looks like a dark blue, but it's actually
slightly purple. There's a slight
more warmth to it, but because alizarin crimson
is a very dark pigment, it also makes the tone
a lot darker, too. And then I'm using
the next pan along in my palette and adding a stronger
mix of alizarin crimson. So even though we have three different colors
on our palette, we only use two colors
to achieve that. Now, I clean my brush, and now I'm trying to get
a nice rich warm color. So I used yellow ochre
and a bit of cadmium red. It's a slightly
orange red there. And I'm going to leave the
bottom one as camium yellow. So we've got a nice range of
colors from cold to warm, and we can start using a large mop brush
or any large brush. It doesn't have to
be a mock brush because the papers already wet and we're using only
horizontal strokes. It's quite well diluted. You can see it's not that thick. And we're working our
way from top to bottom. And I really don't care
that I just painted over that yellow section
that we painted before. That happens a lot
in watercolor. We go over our paint
strokes and really, it was just to get
the ball rolling, just to get over that fear
of starting the painting, getting the pigment
on the paper. But I'm still leaving that
area lighter on the left, mid section because
that's where the sun is. And gradually we're
picking up the tone. So basically at the moment,
it's just pure cerulean blue. Just switched over to a
smaller mop brush. Okay.
8. Sky Gradient: Now I've cleaned my brush and
I'm going to start working from the bottom to the top
this time with warm colors. So I'm using a nice
warm yellow ochre. That's pure yellow ochre. And then as we go up, it's getting more
and more diluted. So that when it meets the blue, it doesn't actually go green. I just kind of blends softly. I'm keeping it rather light. If it's deep pigment, dark pigment, then it would
go an obvious green color. And technically it
is going green, but because we're
keeping it light, it doesn't look so green. Also, the pigments
are different sizes. The particles in the
pigments are different. So as they dry, they land on top of each other. It's quite a technical way
of thinking about things, but they lie on top of each other in a way that
makes it not so green. And now on top of
that, I'm using that blue that we made using the alizarin crimson
and burnt sienna, which basically looks
like a dark blue.
9. Adding Clouds: I think there is a little bit of cobot blue in there as well. Now, because the paper has
started to dry a bit more, these smaller brush strokes
with a thicker consistency, they hold their
shape a bit more. And they look a bit like clouds because clouds have soft edges, and sometimes they gradually disappear rather than
having a hard edge. And some of them do have
hard edges as well. So as the paper
continues to get dry, our clouds will start
to have harder edges, and we'll have a nice
range of different clouds. And we're using that warm
from the orange pigment below and using a bit of it at the top and using this warm orange pigment on the underbelly
of these clouds. Because if you imagine
the sun at sunset, of course, is coming from below and warming up the
clouds underneath. So I'm trying not to add any warm pigment on the top of the clouds
only at the bottom. And this is all about play, experimenting, having
fun with a pigment, and forgiving yourself
and not being harsh on yourself if it
goes a bit wild or ends up being ugly because
that's the only way we figure these things
out is to push ourselves and be bold with it. It's impossible to work this out timidly and not
pushing yourself. You'll just never reach
it. But if you are bold and experiment
and not afraid, you will still make mistakes, but at least you're going
the right direction. And eventually, through
practice, you'll find the way, and it will be more intuitive and it will be a less
of a conscious thing. It will be a muscle memory thing that it just you feel
your way through it. And it can be a
frustrating thing, but that's the only way to do it is to practice and push
yourself to experiment. Because you can look at your mistakes and
learn from them. If there's something wrong with your painting or it hasn't turned out
the way you like it, you can pinpoint what exactly it is that you don't like about it or
what that error was, and then you can figure out
how not to do that next time. What's the reason
that that happened, and then you can be aware of it. And by chipping away at
all these little things, you figure out the
right way to do it. Now I'm using a very thin stroke of alizarin crimson right
down at the horizon.
10. More Clouds: No. Right where the sun is. I'm not actually
directly painting a sun. I'm using a clean tissue, obviously a dry tissue
to just dab that area of the sun and a few strokes
horizontal around that, just to give the lightest
area where the sun is. So I'm not drawing a
circle for the sun. I'm just making the paper
as light as possible. And whilst this
tissue is in my hand, I'll just go over some of
the other areas just to pull out some of that pigment
to indicate some clouds. So at the moment, it's
all been wet on wet. We're using the
different levels of wetnesses starting off very
wet to where it is now, which is more moist to achieve these kind
of ethereal effects. But like I said, with your choice as to whether to put hot air
balloons in or not, you can purely focus on the sky. You don't have to have
the hot air balloons as a distraction if
you're just a beginner. Likewise, you don't
have to make the sky as complex or messy as
this necessarily. You can just have a smooth
gradient from blue, yellow to reddish orange. You can start working
on that to begin with. And when you master
that, then you can experiment with
some simpler clouds. Maybe all your clouds can
be blue just to begin with, or red or just keep them purple. And then after that, then you can start
experimenting with all three, blue, red and purple clouds. Adding a few streaks
of cadmium yellow just over where that sun is to increase that contrast
between the light of the paper. Because without those streaks, it's actually difficult to see how light that paper is
because it's quite subtle. So adding a single bold stroke of cadmium yellow or you could use yellow
ochre on top of that, just points it out a bit more, makes that contrast
a bit stronger. I'm purposely making
the right side a bit busier than the left side. Because on the left side, I want the focus to be
or the message to be the simple sun is keeping the lightness of the paper,
gradually getting darker. And then as it spreads out
to the right hand side, we're adding a bit
more darkness, a bit more clouds so
that the tonal aspect of the painting revolves around that sun in the
most vibrant part. So it's almost circular
in terms of tone. But the motif in this
painting is very horizontal. We've got horizontal clouds. We'll have horizontal mountains. So there's a very
horizontal feel, and that brings
with it stability. We associate horizontal
lines with stability. And then we've got the contrast of the free form
hot air balloons.
11. Distant Hills Underlayer: If you're happy with
your sky at this point, you don't have to keep on
building it just because I am. You got to hear your own vision and see
what you're painting yourself and make
your own decisions to what feels right for you. I like where mine is going at the moment, and I could stop, and I would be quite
happy to stop, but I'm just intrigued to put it a bit further
with the tones, especially around the
hot air balloons, I'm choosing to add a
bit more blue pigment because with the
hot air balloons, I really want to make them pop. And if it's too light behind, then there'll be the same
tone and that there won't be enough contrast in the
tone to really make them pop. So I'm trying to make
it feel natural, but still adding more tone
behind the hot air balloons. So all the hot air balloons on the right hand side are going to be a lot lighter
than the background. But that single hot air
balloon on the left, I think is going to be dark
on a light background. So we've got light on
dark and dark on light. Now I'm going to play around with the underlayer for
the distant mountains, and I'm going to continue using the colors
that I have on my palette. So I have this blue, which is made up of
ultramarine, serlean cobalt. Those are the three
blues that I use. It doesn't matter
which at this stage. And then I'm mixing
in some cadmium red and a sure and crimson, which are the two reds
that I have on my palette. So actually, it doesn't
look blue anymore, but I didn't want
to use pure red. So it's a kind of
very reddish purple, and I used a hair dryer
to dry it about 90%. So it's still a bit damp and I'm using a tissue just to draw out the extra wet areas just to
add a bit of not highlights, but certainly lighter
tones in some areas. We have some lighter
clouds, maybe. Trying to achieve that glow
of the sun on the left. That's definitely the area
that I want lightest. But it's not important
for the whole composition if you accidentally make
that area too dark. There doesn't actually
need to be a sun there. It's just a nice
little exercise. These are very subtle
changes using the tissue.
12. Wet on Wet Clouds: I think I want to add one more cloud just over where the sun
is using wet on wet. But at the stage that it is, it's very sensitive
at the moment. So I just use a hair
dryer to completely dry it so that I have more
control over how wet it is. So at the moment,
it's completely dry, and you can see that
because when I apply these fine little
lines of purple, just at the bottom, these will be above the distant hills, but of course, they're
below the hot air balloons. Using the side of
my brush just to achieve different
length of the stroke, a different thickness
of the stroke, rather. Now, drying it out
completely, like I said, and then using pure
water very quickly, not going over it
too many times, one or two times in
the area that I want that wet, soft edge cloud. See if I added that pure water when the paper was
still slightly damp, it would create a
horribly ugly edge. But because I completely
dried at first, it's almost like drying on clear paper again. Plain paper. So you can see how it's achieved that soft edge despite having
already painted onto it. Again, you don't have to risk
that if you don't want to. If you feel like it's above
your level, that's fine. I just felt I needed
something out of that area. But if you don't feel like it's necessary for your
composition, your painting, you don't have to follow
everything I do because every painting is different and watercolor can be
so unpredictable. Literally, you go
with the flow of it. So if I were to
paint this again, I might have to make
different decisions because the painting has
gone a different direction. So as your painting will have gone a different
direction to this, you have to make certain
decisions different to mine. So maybe it's not so necessary to add this warm cloud here. And whilst I have this
warm pigment on my brush, maybe I can warm up
some other areas. On the areas that don't have strong blue
on the background because orange on top of blue will actually
turn to mud or gray. So I'm being quite careful as to where I'm
applying this orange. In the lighter areas. And then using a clean brush just to soften it out so
the edges aren't hard.
13. Starting The Distant Hills: So now I've completely
dried the paper, and I close my palette or move my canvas away
when I do that so that I don't dry the paints inside my palette so that
they stay wet. Starting with the
very distant hill, which is very faint, and it really
doesn't even matter what color pigment you're using because it's so light that
could be any color, really. It could be brown,
green, purple, blue. I think I used a bit of purple with a bit
of blue on top of that and connecting it. We're trying to create a sense
of depth and perspective by keeping the hills and
the distance lighter. And also, they'll
be higher as well. So from now on, all the hills that we'll be painting will be below this one. So paint this first row of hills as high as makes you
feel comfortable. Of course, we did draw
it out with pencil, but you can see how
I've rubbed away that pencil line so
that it's not obvious. I'm using cobalt yellow, maybe a bit of
lavender for this one. And it looks quite
strong to begin with, but I'm not going
back to my palette. I'm using all that pigment
that was on my brush, and now I was on the paper
to fill out the rest of it. So as it spreads aquat across, it does dilute
itself quite a lot. And I'm making it darker at the very top and then
fading it out to nothing.
14. Second Row of Hills: That's the first layer done, so dry it out completely. I only put my finger down on
the paper to keep it still because I don't want the
canvas to move around so that it moves away
from the camera. You don't have to do that
if you don't want to. Now, starting the next row of
hills with slightly darker, it looks significantly darker, but it's not too dark. It's like a mid tone
consistency of pigment. And some of it is overlapping, some of it's going below, but not much of it
is going above. Adding a bit of purple
and violet into there, making the tips the darker part, and then it fades
out at the bottom. And we can try and make this clean and tidy and
smooth with its transitions, which is a fun exercise. But we don't have to
keep it nice and clean. Sometimes happy little
accidents are made, and these textures that
are created through these inconsistencies bring
magic into the medium. So it's about experimenting
with playfulness and control, a bit of chaos and
a bit of control. We're also playing around with different tones and colors. So some areas are darker, some colors are warmer, some colors are cooler. Sometimes we just drop pigment
in and watch it flow down. And it looks like I'm connecting it to that other distant hill, but as it reaches that contour, we create a little division, and we actually make it
overlap rather than connect. And you can add as many
layers as you want. I'm adding a bit of white
guash, not white watercolor. I find gouache
actually is better for white because I'm using white because it's
a bit more opaic. It's a bit more chalky, and it's getting rid of
that heat in the sky from the underlayer and achieves
a bit of mistiness. And you can see when
I first apply it, it looks very white,
but as it dries,
15. Third Row of Hills: As the white dries, you can see how it's
not so potent anymore, but it adds this
kind of misty feel. So it's dried out completely, and we're going on to
the next layer down. Same process again. And we're not necessarily
adding more pigment to this. We're not making this layer that much darker from
the layer behind. But because the last layer, we started dark and
then faded it to light, it's always going to be dark
onto a light background because we're creating
that transition from dark at the top to
light at the bottom, where there's mist
settling in the valleys. I'm also experimenting here with a slightly softer edge
for this blue hill in particular because
all the other hills have very sharp
lines, sharp edges. But this hill in
particular is not so high, so it only goes halfway up. So I'm trying to imply that there may be some fog in there that's
softening that edge. Then we can continue along. I'm using my pencil lines just as a very,
very rough guide. Sometimes I'm not
even following them. If anything, it's just to help me visualize it in my mind, and then once I have the idea, I can continue without
looking at the pencil lines. In the distance, we have kept the hills very
clean and obvious. We can obviously tell
that they're hills. But as the hills get closer, there's going to be
more detail in them. Well, if in real life,
that's how it is. The closer something is, the more detail you
see of that thing. But when it comes to painting, we don't necessarily want
to put in all that detail. We just want to
imply the detail, make it look a bit
more mysterious. So that's why even though there's more going on in the
foreground in terms of tone, I'm agitating it a bit, and I'm being less clean and
tidy than the distant hills. I'm achieving an
imbalance of texture, a bigger range of
textures and tones. That maybe imply
trees, little houses, little banks, maybe fields, just different
textures going on, and it doesn't have to
be specific to anything. Just a way to avoid
having to paint detail, not because detail is a
bad thing necessarily. But sometimes over detail
ruins the illusion, and just implying detail
makes it more captivating. So I'm trying to structure a bit more tone to
get a bit more form, a bit more information, but not necessarily more detail. And now, again, we
can dry this layer completely so that we
can paint the final row.
16. Final Row of Hills: With this final layer, we're going to do it a
little bit differently because I want there to be more interest going on
because it's the foreground. It's not the focal
point, of course. The main point of
the painting is the sky and in particular,
the hot air balloons. But even within these hills, I want something more going
on in the foreground. And I'm going to
refrain from calling it detail because it's actually
going to be very abstract, but it's going to be abstract
in a way that makes sense. It's not going to be
like nonsense abstract. We're using it to take advantage of the
watercolor medium, the most exciting parts of that. So already we're adding little sporadic dots that
might be trees, huts, hills, maybe a village, and even a bit of dry brush
mark you can see in the middle by applying a fast brushstroke against
the tooth or the paper. And I'll try my best to
keep that texture in there. Using very bold pigment in the bottom and
working my way up. We achieve interesting
textures by creating inconsistencies
in the pigment, having very watered down areas, touching areas that aren't watered down at all that are
very thick with pigment. Having some areas that have very smooth
transitions right next to areas that have sharp transitions or
no transitions at all, like hard edges, having
small little shapes like these little dabby
breast strokes next to broad, large shapes, having little white areas
well, it's not white, but the underlayer,
the light area from the previous wash right
next to a dark area. So there's still
little gaps that I'm leaving preserving in this. You can see in the
bottom right hand area, the pigment is so thick, it's almost like
black. It's not black. It's just a very dark purple, ultramarine blue and a alizarin and crimson can achieve that. But you can see,
looking at my palette, black is at the top left, but ultramarine blue, which is the third
one up on the left, is so dark that it can be used as black if used that thickly. Using the tip, my brush. Again, using swirly
horizontal lines. This is your time to be really bold because the sky had
to be somewhat controlled. But here, it can be very
abstract, very bold, go as thick as you
want in some areas because the hot air balloons
will be nicely detailed. So we need something to contrast and have something playful.
17. Hot Air Balloon Underlayers: So I've completely
dried everything now. I don't want the paper to be
wet at all whilst we peel off the masking tape
and masking fluid. Doing it bit by bit. It's vital that there's no wet on the paper because
you don't want any smudges. I want to make sure your hands
are completely dry, too. Again, if you're using paper that isn't so expensive
or cheaper paper, be careful that it's not
actually peeling the paper. And I'm going to paint
these hot air balloons from left to right because
I'm right handed. So I don't want to smudge the hot air balloons
that I've already painted. And with this
balloon on the left, we're painting a
dark hot air balloon onto a lighter background. And that's going to be
unique because the rest of them are going to have lighter elements
against a dark background. So I'm continuing to make the use of the colors
already on my palette. I already had a
yellow and a red, so I'm using those
to make the orange, and that keeps
everything harmonized. And at the bottom, dropping
a little bit of purple. Not necessarily
because I want it to be purple, but
because tonally, I wanted it to be darker at
the bottom and at the top, starting off with a nice
underlayer, really, so keeping most of it
soft and wet on wet. And again, this is
where you can add your own personal
touch to the painting. If you want to keep
this simple, of course, and not paint the
hot air balloons, you've already
finished the painting. Maybe you can add a few distant birds into the background, silhouettes of some birds. Or if you can think of anything else to add it to your sky, you're welcome to adding some underlayer on some of the other hot air balloons just because it saves a bit of time. We don't have to complete the first air balloon and
then go on to the next one. If I paint the underlayers
to begin with, now, then it'll be dry in time
for the next layer later on. So using some pure cadmium yellow for this because it's the most vibrant color I've got. And I used a bit of
a alizarin crimson there on the bottom
so that there's a bit of a transition
from this vibrant yellow to a nice
vibrant red as well. Clean my brush and
then soften it up. Bit more cadmium red right at the bottom there and draw it in, not painting all the way up, but allowing the water
to take it there.
18. Adding Pink: And actually, I'm going to
take out this opera pink, which is a very vibrant
color because I think I want to use that to
really make it pop. It's almost like a
thorscent color, really. And I'm going to use that on the highest hot air
balloon on the top right. And you can use whatever color
takes your fancy because hot air balloons exist in all
the colors you can imagine. So if you want to try a
turquoise or you have any pigments that you want to experiment with, that's fine. It'll be interesting to see
the student gallery full of all different types and
colors of hot air balloons. And maybe you just want to keep the hot air balloons
a single color, maybe a slight bit of tone at the bottom and at the
top to keep that form, the feeling of it being free D, but you don't have to make it complicated if you
don't want to. I'm painting these
as an underlayer, and then I'll go
back over each one, painting little stripes,
vertical stripes. So we've got a little bit
of vertical lines going against the main horizontal
theme of the painting. I added a little bit of opera
pink to the cadmium red in that lower hot air balloon because you can see that the sky is very
orange down there, and red is just one color away from orange
on the color wheel. So it's a bit too close to add a bit of difference to
help create that contrast. I've added a little bit
of opera pink so that it takes you a bit
further away from orange, a step away on the color wheel. So this is also
good practice and a good exercise if you want to start thinking
about color theory, because you have to be
aware of the colors around the hot air balloon so that there's some
contrast against it. You can see with a big
main hot air balloon. I've added yellow in the
top left hand corner because it's slightly purple. The clouds are purple
and purple and yellow are complimentary colors. So they naturally
look nice together. Other complimentary colors in the painting are
orange and blue. The sky is blue at the top
and orange at the bottom. Those are complimentary colors, so they naturally
look nice together. Something I haven't explored in this painting is green and red, but green and red are other
complimentary colors. Maybe you can
experiment with that. Now that I have this
opera pink out, I'm very excited,
so I'm using it. Maybe a little bit in all
of the hot air balloons as a anchor to bring them
all in harmony together. Notice how I've used
a very hard line in the center of this
main hot air balloon.
19. Left Hot Air Balloon: Now I've completely
dried it out. That's the underlayer done
for the hot air balloons, now starting from
left to right again, starting to work on the stripes. Now I'm using this dark blue, this ultramarine and
a bit of cobalt blue. But see how using it
on top of the orange, it just looks like gray
or very dark black even. That's because, as I say, orange and blue are
complimentary colors. So the halfway point between yellow and purple
from blue to orange, from green to red, is
always going to be gray. But I don't mind that here. It's a gray that's in harmony. It's a natural looking gray. I'm using it more for tone, rather than for the
blueness of it. These stripes just helped to
add a little bit more form, volume to the shape and see how the central stripe is pure vertical because
it's in line with RI. But as the hot air
balloon balloon curves around to the sides, the curves get accentuated. And by the time it
reaches the side, it's impossible to see because it's on the
side, obviously. So that's how you
can work it out. You can start off vertical in the middle and then
look at the side. And depending how close
the stripe is to the side, you can adjust it, adjust the strength
of that curve. My pencil lines are virtually impossible or invisible to see. But if you're unsure
with these stripes, you can go back in with a very fine mechanical pencil to be a bit more
precise with lead so that you can rub
away and make sure that your guide is
absolutely spot on, rather than using the
paint to work it out and then discovering
that they're wrong. But even still, it doesn't
need to be so heavily worked. You can see my stripes
are quite abstract. They're not too tidy. There's a general sense of form.
20. Smallest Hot Air Balloon: Now we can move on to the smallest hot air
balloon in the distance. So we can take a little bit less time
because the smallest one is arguably the one that has the least amount
of attention on it. So rather than actually
painting stripes on this one, I'm just going to give
it a little bit of form and tone just to sense
the volume of it. This one is actually quite
dark as well on light, too. Of course, I'm using a
small brush to paint this, but it's not one of those minute tiny
brushes that you see. It's not the smallest
brush available to buy. And I don't want to use that particular brush because
it doesn't hold enough. And ironically, the smallest brushes don't
have the finest tips. You need a brush a certain size, and this is usually the
smallest I go because the water tension and the pigment bring the tip
to a very fine point. I don't know the
scientific term of it, but it draws it in. And if the brush is too small, there's not enough to suck
it into a fine point. So there's actually
a sharper tip on a brush like this than
those tiny little ones, those zero size brushes
that you can buy. Dabbing a little bit
of dark at the bottom.
21. Starting The Main Hot Air Balloon: Now moving on to
the focal point, the most important part of
the painting visually because it's the center of attention and the thing that the eye
is drawn to first. And because of that, we have to spend a bit more time making sure it's correct. All the other hot
air balloons are secondary and are not as
important as this one. So taking a little
bit more time to make sure that the stripes
make a bit more sense. Using my pencil line as a guide, starting with a nice mid tone orange on the
left hand side. And at the moment, there's
not much gradient. It's all just a solid stroke. We can use water to soften
it out a bit later. And I really want to highlight
the highlights of the sun, the reflection on the surface
of the hot air balloon, reflects that light of
the sun on the left. And that's why I used yellow as well just to make it glow. And then we've got
yellow on this side, I'm thinking of using purple as the dark on the other side. So we started off
with that orange, and now I'm gradually adding this dark
purple next to it. And that's what makes
this painting pop really. We don't want to paint
everything with a lot of detail. You can see how the ground, the distant hills, is very
abstract shapes down there, but adding this
controlled detail here anchors the whole painting, and it gives it an
illusion of detail, even if only this 5% of the painting actually
has detail in it. I'm working slowly and
carefully because I want to preserve the lights
in the right places. And if I get too over enthusiastic with
this part of the painting, I'm likely to go
over the whites. So I'm taking it step by step. The good thing with watercolor, it's not a permanent medium, as in acrylic dries
once it's dried, you can't reactivate
it likewise with oil. And then we can use
gouache at the end if we feel like it to tidy up a bit. So, of course, these stripes get thinner the closer
they get to the side. And every other one changes
from yellow to purple.
22. Adding Shadows: I started with that
orange underneath that purple because it's a
little bit of a midground, because, like I said, yellow and purple are
complementary colors. So actually, mixed together, they turn gray and the
vibrance goes away. So adding that orange
is kind of a tonic. It brings out it preserves that vibrancy
as it transitions. Using a light tone
just to fill out the area that I'm working
with, this particular stripe. And then once it's wet, we can start dropping in the colors that
we actually want. Like in the middle, we
can add a bit of red. In my case, I'm using
a alizarin crimson. And then at the top
and the bottom, I can drop in this cobalt blue, which at this stage,
it looks very dark. But you can see as it gets
thinner and dries out, we can start to see
some of that color. And I want to preserve some of that red down at
the bottom there. So the left side of this hot air balloon is going to be glowing because
it's reflecting that light. But on the right hand side,
it's going to be in shadow. But I still want to define
the ribs, the stripes. So I'm still going to paint
them out to begin with. And then once we've
painted them out, I'll go over to bring the tone to a level
that I want it to be. I always try and connect as
much as possible as I can. Sometimes it's difficult, especially when there's
lots of different shapes. But by connecting everything, the paint mingles together
in a much more pleasing way, and it can be hard to do, but it just really
helps unify everything. It allows lots of
nice soft emrges. And it also makes
your eye a bit more observant because it trains your eye to simplify
what you're looking at. And it's a strange
kind of paradox because it takes a
bit more work to do, but ironically, it makes it look for the viewer as easier. It looks more
simple on the eyes, but it's actually a difficult thing to
simplify something. It so this shaded area
is all connected, but at the same time,
it's very specific. I'm leaving these three
white little stripes of the paper below. And that's the main
shape of that area. I'm allowing some
of these edges to dry a bit so that
in a minute or two, I can do another
layer over there, and those shapes will remain, but they'll be softened a bit. There isn't so much
color variation going on on the right hand
side of this hot air balloon. On the left hand, there's
quite a lot we've got orange, red, yellow, a bit
of purple in there. But on this right hand side, it's just that pink and blue.
23. Softening The Edges: Now that we're allowing
that area to dry a bit, let's paint the little
box underneath. So just a very simple
square, a rectangle, actually, then using the
tip of the brush just to connect it with
a hot air balloon. Using a lot thicker pigment whilst it's still wet so that it blends into there quite nicely. And I think the whole area actually needs to be
a lot darker in tone. So I really bringing this
cobalt blue all the way up. It's the same area,
filling it out, making it a bit darker, making it pop against
the clouds below. Okay. Now I'm going to clean my brush completely
so that there's no pigment on it at all so
that it's slightly damp. So when I brush
over these areas, nothing much happens
straightaway. You can see it's not
softening that much. But as I agitate it a bit more, we're adding a bit more tone, and due to that, we're creating that
feeling of form as it's darker in the top and the bottom and lighter
in the middle. So I'm gently softening those edges And allowing that lightness
underneath to remain. Adding a bit more red or purple as it
mixes with the blue. Trying to fine tune
the tones a bit. Painting in strokes that
follow the curvature. So they're all lines. A,
24. Lowest Hot Air Balloon: Okay, you can take a deep
breath out now because we've finished that most detailed
part of the painting. And we can move on to the last two hot air balloons that don't need to be as
detailed as that one. In fact, you don't
have to push yourself to paint any of these hot air balloons if you don't feel like
you're ready for it. I'll always advise giving it a go maybe on a separate
piece of paper, but I don't want you to
if you are a beginner, I don't want you to, um, make you feel uncomfortable pushing yourself if
you're not ready to it. Although I do find that any painting is suitable
for a beginner because you always learn something from it and just the exercise
of being bold with the paint and being
fearless no matter what the consequence is
a good mentality to have as a beginner. You don't need to compare your painting with the one that you're following
along with. The measure of success is what you've learned
from the painting, not how closely it
matches to the original because you'll find that as
you develop as an artist, your style will
be unique anyway, because you'll be
taking influence from so many different artists that you'll find your own
unique voice within that. I set myself a challenge when I first started
learning watercolor, and it was to select my top 50 watercolor paintings from a whole variety
of different artists, and to go through
each one painting them and studying them no matter how difficult
they look like. I gave myself permission to attempt it no matter
the cost because all the cost really is is
the paper and the pigments. The rest is just mental. Even the brushes can be reused. The first few paintings were an absolute disaster and
I was okay with that. I learned things from
it and bit by bit, I became a bit better. A bit more confident.
But after I reached the end
the 50th painting, even though I could
see the progress, the clear progress from the
first painting to the last, I still felt like I needed more, so I actually went
through them again, and they were even
better that time. And I kept on repeating them, learning bit by bit from all
these different artists, not from their instruction, but from my own experiments. And that was the most useful
exercise I have done.
25. Highest Hot Air Balloon: So now there's one more
hot air balloon to paint, and then the painting
will be done. And I've been trying to think of what other things
we can paint in the sky if you don't want
to paint hot air balloons. And maybe kites will be an easier thing if
you're starting out. I often think of better
ideas closer to the end. That's why it's
often a wise idea to watch all the way through
before you start painting, and then when you're
ready to paint, have it on in the background
pausing as you go because I've seen through
other students in the project gallery that seems to be the best
way to go about it. But as we're drawing
to a close here, let's go over a few
questions to ask yourself. To help you figure out whether your
composition is the way you want it to be and what your mentality should be
when planning your painting. Maybe you want to ask yourself, what feeling is the sky achieving and does it
match your color choices? Is this a calm sky,
a dramatic sky? Maybe it's hopeful or slightly stormy and are the colors
supporting that mood? Because a calm,
peaceful sky usually lives in soft gradients and gentle temperatures and
nothing very extreme. But this one's quite dramatic. We have stronger contrasts,
we have deeper values. We have more broken
cloud shapes. So that choice is up to you
when it comes to design. And then is my big
gradient clear and simple? If you squint your
eyes at the sky, can you see a clear gradient or have you broken it into lots of small patches or fiddly clouds? Then where is the
light coming from? And does everything
agree with that? Of course, I've added the sun just off
center and the left, and clouds have light sides and shadow sides just like the
balloons and the mountains. The lit sides of
the cloud should generally face
that light source, and the balloons should
follow the same rule as well. So if a balloon looks odd, it's often because the
highlight doesn't line up with the direction
implied by the sky. So that consistent light story is often more important than actually copying
every single detail because sometimes you're using references from lots
of different sources. That's what I do.
And I have to make these differences for it to match the composition
that I'm actually painting. Now, in this particular
composition, it's obvious which is the
star of the painting. It's that hot air balloon, just off center,
the largest one. But maybe you want to experiment
with different shapes and sizes and create
your own focal point. Whether it's a hot
air balloon, a kite, or even some birds, you have to know which is the main character
in the painting. Does it have
priority in terms of size, contrast, and color?
26. Tidying Up: It took me quite a few sketches to figure out this
composition before actually figuring out what the
main design will be because these hot air balloons need to have a
certain rhythm to it. They're not completely random, and they're not
completely forced either. They have to spatially have balance yet not
look like they're artificial and lined up even so if you take away all
the other elements in the painting the sky and the hills and only
look at the balloons, do they create an interesting
rhythm of sizes and gaps or are they lined
up and evenly spaced? And you can practice
this without paint. You can sketch on your sketchbook
and try and figure out different compositions
for hot air balloons. As I said before,
maybe instead of five, you can play around with three. But I found that odd numbers make the best
compositions because two, four, it's just hard to find
the right kind of balance. There's something about
using odd numbers that creates a kind of
interesting dynamic. Another variation you
might want to play with is instead of painting
mountains and land, maybe you want to paint
some sea or some waves. They do look like they could be waves if approached
slightly differently. And with that, you've
got to ask yourself, does the land and the sea feel simple enough
to support the sky? Is it atmospheric enough
or does it compete with the floating objects in
the sky in sky paintings, the land is usually
the supporting actor. So we can keep it in
a narrow value range with soft edges and just
a few sharp details. If it really starts to
steal their attention, we can use a glaze, which is a very light, diluted wash, using
a large brush to push back and reduce the
contrast to make it fade a bit. You can always reduce the information by
adding these glazes. So if I felt like that
land was a bit too busy or if I think the
sky is a bit too crazy, I could add a very light wash with a very large brush just
to soften it out a bit. But you have to do it
fast enough not to agitate the painting beneath. So just a final few details
using a bit of gouache, just to sharpen some edges, clean up some of the
lines if necessary, and that's the painting done.
27. Final Thoughts: I Welcome back and congratulations on
completing this class on painting a hot
air balloon scene. We explored how broad sky
washes carry the mood, how soft transitions
create glow, and how simple silhouettes, plus thoughtful spacing,
suggest distance and height. Layered hills provide depth through value and temperature, while a restrained palette
kept everything harmonious. These ideas translate
beautifully into seascapes, sunsets, distant mountains, any subject where the
sky and atmosphere lead. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and
personal style. I encourage you to
continue exploring, experimenting and pushing
your boundaries to create your own unique
watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the
end of this class, I hope you feel
more confident and comfortable with your
watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes
to improving your skills, so keep on painting
and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for
watercolor painting is so inspiring and I'm honored
to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. So please share your painting in the student projects
gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can
share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston, as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves
seeing my students work, so tag them as well
at Skillshare. After putting so
much effort into it, why not share your creation? If you have any questions
or comments about today's class or want any specific advice
related to watercolor, please reach out to me in
the discussion section. You can also let me know about any subject wildlife or scene you'd like me
to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews
fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best
experience for my students. Lastly, please click
the follow button Utop so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means that you'll be
the first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. I hope this class gives
you an understanding into big skies and
bold, simple shapes. I look forward to seeing you in future classes until
then bye for now.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
