Dreamy Sunsets: Paint Dazzling Skies with Watercolor

1. Welcome to Class!: [MUSIC] Hello friends. My name is Elina, and in this class, I'm going to show you how to paint dreamy sunsets with watercolor. It's been three years since I discovered the magic of watercolor. Since then, I'm constantly looking for new ways to improve, and I continue to experiment with different topics and subjects for my paintings. But one thing I'm always excited to paint and that is sunset skies. I love the way the sky is changing at sundown, the beautiful colors put together in a perfect color palette that glides in the sky. It's really a wonder and such an inspiring thing to paint. In this class, I'm going to guide you to the different elements that make a beautiful sunset painting. We'll start with the basics. Mixing and matching our colors is one of the most important steps for harmonious scenery. We'll learn and practice different types of watercolor washes that made the background of various sunset sky. I will show you how you can add some interest by using different elements that will complete your work. Last but not least, I will show you my secret for fluffy clouds. This class is for you if you want to learn how to paint beautiful and harmonious sunset scenery. Are you ready to make some magic? I'll see you in the next video where I will tell you more about our final project. [MUSIC] 2. Class + Project Overview: [MUSIC] For the final project in this class, we're going to paint a beautiful sunset with clouds. I love painting this. It feels so calming and relaxing. Almost every sunset has my favorite colors, pinks and purples, and I love playing with them and watching them mixing and creating magic on the paper. You can use this project as stepping stone for creating more and more complex works just by changing the colors, composition, or by adding different elements to them. Don't worry if this looks too complicated for you. We'll start from scratch and I will guide you through the whole process. We'll start by choosing a color palette that is harmonious and well-balanced. We'll practice the different types of watercolor washes that are the base of every watercolor painting. We are also going to have an exercise session where we'll practice the techniques before jumping to the final project. If you are new to watercolor, I strongly suggest that you take my previous class, Watercolor Secrets: Techniques for Adding Magic to Your Paintings, where I explain the basic watercolor techniques, water control, which is extremely important for painting beautiful skies and clouds, and you will learn some cool techniques that will make your painting look more complex and magical. Otherwise, I will see you in the next video where we'll discuss the materials for the class. 3. Materials: [MUSIC] Here's what materials you'll need for this class. First and most important is paper. I recommend that you use 100 percent 300 GSM paper. Using cotton instead of sales paper is crucial for the techniques we are going to use in this class. Small planes are easier to achieve on cotton paper, plus it stays wet for much longer, which is very important for painting natural-looking skies and fluffy clouds. I will be using Fabriano Artistico cold press. It has very nice picture. I hope you can see. You can use whatever brand you have available, but try to find 100 percent cotton paper. There are so many options on the market, Some of them are quite affordable. You are going to need something to tape your paper to. For the final project, I am going to use this plastic board. Try to find a board that will not absorb the water because I will show you a technique with which you can keep your paper wet for a longer time. For the exercises, you can use whichever board you have or even the back of a sketchbook or a magazine. Of course, we'll need watercolor paints. Generally, they come in tubes and pens and you can use whatever you have already. For this class, I will be using my big tin palette. These are various brands, but most of it is White knight. For my sunset skies, I love to use pastel colors. White Nights are having a nice range of pastel shades, and I'll mostly use them in the class. Don't worry if you don't have pastel colors. I will show you how to make them yourself in the next lesson. Here are the brushes that I'm going to be using in this class. First, I will use my big hake brush to wet the paper. It's very soft and it holds a lot of water. You can use your biggest brush for the purpose. For the washes, I will use my Escoda Ultimo Size 10. For smooth washes, you need a soft brush that holds a lot of water and pigment and distributes the color easily on the paper. Look for a square-end synthetic squirrel mop. I will also use my Silver Black Velvet Size 10. It holds a lot of water pigment and it has a very nice point. For painting the clouds, I will use my Princeton Heritage Size 4. It's a synthetic brush and I have it for a while, so it has lost its pointy tip, but it's perfect for painting clouds since I can be a little rough with it without worrying that I will ruin it. Synthetic brushes hold less water, which is exactly what we need when we paint clouds. We don't want to introduce more water than we already have on the paper. For some of the additional elements, you might want to use a flat brush. I will use my Daler Rowney Aquafine half-inch brush. Don't worry if you didn't have a flat brush, you can use a round one instead. Lastly, here's my secret weapon for painting for the clouds, a smaller hake brush. It has such soft here that I can use to blend the pigments without leaving brushstrokes. I got it for just a couple of dollars, but if you don't have this brush, you can use a big soft brush, but remember to use it while it's dry. I will use a cotton towel to absorb the excess water from my brushes. I got this one from my Ikea and it can take a lot of water. You can use a paper towel instead. I will use both. You will need the paper tape to tape down your sheet to the board. You can find those in any hardware store or the bigger supermarkets. I won't be making any sketches for our skies, but you may want to use a pencil and an eraser. I love to use this mechanical pencil because it doesn't need sharpening. For watercolor paper, I suggest that you use a kneaded eraser. It's more gentle and one mess up its texture. If you don't have pastel colors, you will need white gouache to mix them. Mine is from Raw Talens. A spray bottle, you don't necessarily need this. I'm using it to activate my paints. Next, you'll need something to mix your paint. I'm going to be using a ceramic palette. I prefer that instead of plastic or metal palettes because it doesn't stain and it's easier to clean. You can use just a regular ceramic plate. You will need two cups of water. One you'll be using to wash off your brush and the other we'll use when we need clean water. I will list all the materials in the class description. Please don't feel compelled to go on by any of the materials I'll be using, just use whatever you have in hand. Gather all your materials and I'll be waiting for you for our first lesson. 4. How to Mix Pastel Colors: [MUSIC] In this lesson, I will show you how you can mix pastel colors. If you don't have any, all you need is your regular watercolors and some white gouache. Watercolors are known to be a transparent medium, which means that you can see the paper and previous layers of paint through it. It's one of the most beautiful features of watercolors and it can be used for amazing effects. But there are also opaque watercolors which have a thicker consistency that allows them to cover previous layers at some extent. There are also semi-opaque colors that are basically in-between transparent and opaque. Watercolor paint brands are marking each of their colors with symbols on their packaging so that we know if the color is transparent, semi-opaque, or opaque. You can also check their website, almost all of them have this information available. In watercolor, pastel shades are achieved by adding white pigment to the main color and this is how we're going to mix our colors in this lesson. I have taped my paper to my desk. On the left side of it, I will show you my favorite pastel colors for skies and on right right side, we're going to try and achieve the same shades using more common colors and some white gouache. Let's get started. I love to start my sunset paintings by using some Naples yellow. This one is by Roman Szmal. Next one is coral by White Nights. [MUSIC] This one is called rose quartz. Again, by White Nights. [MUSIC] Next one is pink peony by White Nights. It has beautiful pink shade. [MUSIC] This one is called lilac, again by White Nights. [MUSIC] Lavender by PWC, it's a very beautiful color for sunset skies and for clouds. [MUSIC] Last one is royal blue, again by White Nights. I'm using this color a lot. Now let's try to match those shades by using some regular colors that everybody has in their palette. I'm going to start by picking some cadmium yellow light. [MUSIC] But first, I will need some white gouache. Again, this is by Royal Balance. I'm taking some white gouache with my brush and I will place it here on my palette. I'm not adding water to it, I want it to be thick. I'm adding some of that to my yellow color over here and you can see that we already achieved a bathtub color. I will add some more yellow to it and a little bit of orange because it's too lemony. I want it to be more warm color. A little bit more orange. Let's see. [MUSIC] We can make it even warmer. I'm adding more orange. [MUSIC] This one is better. Next to the very same mix, I will add some carmine. If you don't have carmine, you can add to it any cold red that you have. Cold red means the red that is more on the pinkish side. A little bit more, [MUSIC] more white gouache. [MUSIC] We are already having this beautiful pinkish shade. [MUSIC] Now I will take some quinacridone violet, I will mix it here on my palette, and now we'll add some of the white gouache directly into it. [MUSIC] This is how we match the lilac shade which I love. I need more white gouache. But you can make those according to your taste. They can be more intense or more pastel. I will add some of that color to my mix over here. [MUSIC] This is how we're achieving this dusty pink color. [MUSIC] Next, I'm taking opera rose, this one is by Jackson's. [MUSIC] I'm adding some white gouache to it. [MUSIC] This is how I match the color of pink peony by White Nights. [MUSIC] Now let's try to mix lavender. I'm taking pure violet, adding some of that to my white gouache. You just need a tiny drop because this color is very intense. Now let's see. [MUSIC] I will add ultramarine blue to this mix because I want it to be more on the blue-ish side. [MUSIC] That's better. Lastly, I'm taking ultramarine blue, I'm mixing it with the white gouache on my palette. [MUSIC] This is how you can mix your royal blue. [MUSIC] I will add more white gouache. [MUSIC] This is how you can mix your pastel colors, but also, we will need a darker shade of these colors for our shadows in the sky and in the clouds and we're going to achieve that by adding paints created in mixes we already have. Now let me show you. I'm taking some Payne's gray and I'm adding that to each of the mixes I already have on my palette. [MUSIC] Payne's gray is a very intense color so you need just a little bit of that. By mixing it to our pastel colors, we're getting darker shades. [MUSIC] We're getting different shades of gray this way. But remember to use very little amount of Payne's gray because it is very intense color and it can easily overwhelm your mixes. [MUSIC] This is how Payne's gray looks when it's straight from the pen. Now it's your turn. Try and mix your favorite colors with a little bit of white gouache. Keep your swatch sheet for some future reference. You can also put them in the project section of the class, I'll be happy to see the colors you have mixed. Now let's learn how we can make sure that the colors we have chosen for our paintings are going well together. I'll see you in the next lesson. 5. Choosing a Color Palette: [MUSIC] Choosing a color of palette was never easy for me. I love playing with colors and I often find myself using more shades than I should. It made my paintings look unnatural and unbalanced. Here are a few tricks that I learned and that helped me with choosing the perfect color palette. Tip number 1, use a limited palette, it may sound boring, but it's one of the best advices for harmonious paintings. It's also the best way to learn color mixing, and it's way cheaper than buying lots of shades. What does it mean? Basically, it means to limit the colors that you use for a painting to the bare essentials. Tip number 2, look attentively at your photo reference. Check where are the lightest and the darkest spots, the different shades each color has. Once you start painting, you won't have much time to observe, so, do that beforehand. Tip number 3, and this is what we are going to do next. Swatch your colors and see how they mix on a separate sheet of paper. You need to do this on the same paper that you are going to use for your painting, otherwise, the colors may vary. Here, we're going to try some color combinations. I separated my sheet of paper, so in each section, I will try different combinations. I will use mine as color number 10 mod for that. First, here's a classic combination I love to use. First I'll color yellow on your left, then we warm it up with orange. Carmine to go more on the cold side, some violet, and we finish with ultramarine blue. This is the classic combination and we see that each of the color mixes well with the one that's mixed with. You can actually achieve the same effect with less colors. Again, let's start with the yellow and this time we'll skip the orange because when we mix carmine and yellow, we're getting an orange shade. Again, if we mixed carmine with the blue directly we are getting a purple shade. Here this, we have almost the same result, but we skip two colors. Basically what you try to avoid is that you don't want to mix yellow with blue because it gives you green. Another mix you may wish to avoid is yellow with purple because it gives you such muddy brown color. Sometimes depending on the purple and the orange that you use, they may not mix quite well together. Let's try to use Naples yellow instead of yellow. You see that this time we are not getting green color. If you want to use yellow next to the blue I suggest that you use Naples yellow instead of classic yellow. Naples yellow also mixes well with royal blue without giving us green shade and you can use it again for the classic combination, yellow, gold red, and blue. Now let's try a hot sunset. I'll start this time with some orange, adding carmine, connected on violet, and ultramarine blue, are getting tropical vibes. Now let's try a romantic sunset, I'll start with upper rows, ultramarine blue, and now we'll darken it up with some Payne's gray. Again now, let's try one more. We'll start with Naples yellow again, don't mind, I'll be using pastel shade this time, adding this coral shade. It makes it very nice with carmine. This one is lavender by the way you see it and ultramarine blue for the darkest part. Last one's starting with coral, rose parts, pink peony, I'm just basically mixing every pastel color that I have, lilac, lavender. I will finish with the royal blue. I can darken up this blue a bit by using Payne's Gray. I think I'll be using this combination for our final project. Try these combinations or come up with your own. You can keep that sheet for future references. Just make sure to write down the names of the colors. In the next lesson, I'll tell you more about four types of watercolor washes. 6. Types of Washes: In this lesson, we are going to explore the four types of watercolor washes. The color wash is smooth, transplant layer that is painted with a diluted color. We usually use those cover big colors and more specifically, the backgrounds of our paintings. Smooth watercolor washes require good water control and timing so you need to practice those if you are new to this menu. It takes some trial and error but once you get familiar with the process, you'll find it enjoyable and inner relaxing. Washes can be painted both wet and wet or wet and dry but for the purpose of this class, I'll demonstrate how to paint washes using the wet in wet technique since it gives us more smooth natural looking results. Remember that's watercolor always dries lighter plus you already have water on paper, so mixed a slightly more saturated color. I've got wash is an even layer of color to the whole area. In order to get the seamless washing me to make some big pool of paint beforehand and paint it with broad strokes, not leaving the paper to dry before you covereded in the air. I'll use orange for this one and I start from the top and drag the color down. I'm taking the color there but if you use your own mix unique to mix on big bottle before you start. I'm going with my brush back and forth up and down and I'll try to distribute the color and I repeats this process until I'm satisfied. You can even tilt the board, this way the pigment will flow more easily. Next is gradient wash. Gradient wash you just start with the color from on site role in gradually fade out the color by adding more and more water until you reach the answer. Its basically a gradient from dark to light. I'll use carmine for this, I'm taking fair concentrated paint and I drag the color down, I wash my brush, I get rid with some of the pigment and I continue to drag the color down. I wash it again, so I have less and less pigment on my brush and I continue with the same movement. Now I'm using a completely clean brush and again, I try to smoke the blend by going up and down, left to right, I'll add more concentrated paint on the top. Again, I can do to top to help the pigment flow. Next is a variegated wash. In this wash we start with one color on one side and we smoothly blend it into another color. You might want to make sure first that you two colors make a nice mix. This time I'll start with yellow. I drag it down, I wash my brush completely, and I try to smooth the blank. I'm taking some colored ink and I start from the bottom. I'm washing my brush and I start to drag the color up. Now I'll add a bit more yellow to that part, we finally have some sunshine. I continue by adding more concentrated carmine on the bottom, more yellow on the top. In the middle I try to mix those colors smoothly. Last one is wet in wet wash. Of course, I've the previous washes we're painting wet in wet, but while we were trying to make small transitions ingredients. With this one we're just going to have some fun and play with our colors. This is the most fun part so I'm adding colors just randomly on the wet paper. They start to mix and flow to each other. Again, you can tilt your board, don't purge the colors to flow. Each one of these can be a base for your sensitive guide, you can make its smother or apache according to your taste. If you're not happy with how your colors turned out, you can apply a second layer in order to intensify them. Just wait for the first layer to dry completing, wet the paper again and repeat the process. Now let's try to paint some actual sunsets. 7. Exercise 1: [MUSIC] Before jumping to the final project, we're going to have some fun and we'll practice what we've learned so far. We're going to paint two different sunset sceneries and I will show you the different types of elements that you can add to your dazzling skies to make the paint more interesting. I'll start by wetting my paper. I'm going to be using my hake brush, I'm wetting the paper very thoroughly, I'm going back and forth. I will put my tape like that so that the water and the colors can flow down. I will wipe the sides of my paper tape with my paper towel because I don't want these drops of water to flow back to my painting. I'll start again by using this color mode. I'm taking yellow, I warm it up with orange. I'll start by placing the color on the bottom part of my paper. I'm making some random strokes. Now, I wash my brush and then mix carmine to the same color I already have on my palette. I'm getting this orange color. Now, I add few strokes I intensify the right color. Now, I will add some beautiful ultramarine blue to the top part of the paper. I'm doing these strokes that are imitating the movement of the clouds. I want to try to blend those colors perfectly because there we will have some clouds. I wash my brush and I clean this part a bit. Here we are having white cloud, so I will leave it white. But I will try to smooth the edges like that. I'm adding Payne's gray to the top and I'm already starting to add the darker clouds. I will wipe the part that has formed here below with the damp brush. I will tilt my board, which will help the colors to flow. Now, I'm taking my secret weapon for a fluffy clouds and I'm starting to blend the colors. On the bottom of the paper, I'm doing these horizontal movements while on top of the paper, they are more diagonal. I continue to intensify the color. Now, I will put my Princeton brush, we'll start to paint the clouds. I'm taking carmine and I will mix it with ultramarine blue until I get the purple shape. I won't be using my already violet color because I want to use a limited palette in this one. I'm adding some of the dark clouds. I'm holding my brush on a [inaudible] to help me make more natural movements. I'm mixing orange and carmine for the lightest clouds and I'm adding some of the dark color on top of them. The sun here is below the cloud so the bottom part of the clouds will be lighter and the top part on the clouds will be darker. On the lower side of our painting, the clouds are more horizontal and it's tricky because they're in the distance and we see them from far, while on the top part of the painting they are more bigger and they have more rounder shape. I add some dark colors again. Now, let us move this again. Again on the bottom part, I'm doing horizontal movements and while I go up I make those more diagonal. I spread this part a bit. Now our wash is dry, so we're going to add some stars. I'm taking some white gouache. I'm not adding water to it, I want it to be thick. I'm just placing a few drops that are going to be our stars, just remember to make them different size. I'll make some splatters for more tiny stars, just few more. Now we're going to add our first element to the painting. I'm mixing yellow with orange and carmine and I'm going to paint a mountain, I try to paint this at one go. Don't let the paint to dry before you are ready with the element. Now I'll mix a darker color, add some Payne's gray into the photo I have over here. I'll paint another mountain that is closer to us. Again, I try to do this quickly before the paint dries. With your previous mountain should be dry. We are ready now, let's remove the tape. I'm doing this very carefully and then go. Congratulations, your first sky is ready. [MUSIC] Now have a little break and let's paint another one. 8. Exercise 2: [MUSIC] For our second exercise, I'm going to be using pastel colors, but you can use whichever colors you like. I'm starting again, by wetting the paper. Whereas these tape and your paper to be wet for a longer time. This time I'll start with Naples yellow. I'll mix it with coral. Taking corals straight from the pan, and I'm adding to the bottom of the paper. I'm washing my brush, and I'm taking some of the mix I have already on my palette. I add it on top. I'm washing my brush, and I'm dragging the color up like we did with the gradient wash. I wipe the sides of my paper, and I start to add lavender color on top. I use it straight from the pan. I'm adding more and more pigment because I want the top part to be very intense. I'm dragging the color down. Some paints gray to the top part. Now, let's start to paint the clouds, I'm using my smaller brush and pure coral for the lightest clouds. Again, for these clouds, I'm making such horizontal movement. I'm holding my brush up. I'm adding some lavender to the coral, although I had from my pallet, and I add this color on top of my clouds. Again, this one is below the clouds so the top part of the clouds will be darker. I'm using pure lavender to add more clouds. I mix the colors in my palette to get different shades that I will use for the top part. I'm starting to add paints gray to the mixes, and I'm painting my bigger clouds. I'm adding some of that dark mix to the clouds below. Now I'm just taking whatever I have on my palette to add some interest to the clouds. Few tricky lines. Now, I will wipe this, although that has formed here below with my damp brush. Time to flip it out. Now, I place on tape on the bottom part of my painting to help me have clean horizontal line, and I'm going to be using a flat brush to paint a sea. I'm just waiting my brush and I'm going to reactivate this mix I have over here on my pallet. My brush is very dry, and I will start to make these horizontal movement, from the sides to the center of my painting, and then try to leave the center light. Because my brush is dry, we are getting such nice texture. I continued to add color to this part. Now I will add more paints gray, and I intensify the color on the sides. I'm adding more and more paints gray until I'm happy with the result. You can stop whenever you're happy with your sea. Now I'm taking my silver black violet, I'm taking some dark color. I damp my brush in the paper towel, and I add some more texture. I love the effect we're getting here. Now when that's dry you remove the tape very carefully. I will leave the same mix to add some mountains there in the distance, so they will be very tiny. Don't use too much water here because you're going to spoil your sea, just use a damp brush to pick up the paint. Now, let's paint some birds. Use the same mix and very little water. I'm painting my birds like that. Make sure that not every bird is exactly the same. Use thin lines to paint the birds. We are ready. Now let's remove the masking tape. Always do this when your painting is right and at an angle. Now if you don't have a clean border like me here, here's what you can do. You can take some white gouache and use a flat brush or any brush to fix some of the edges. Use the gouache without adding too much water to it, because you want a good coverage. Great job with these exercises, guys. It's finally time to paint our final project. I'll meet you in the next lesson. 9. Final Project part 1: [MUSIC] For our final project we're going to paint a beautiful sunset with pastel colors. For that, I'm going to use another technique for wetting the paper and I'm going to wet the back side of the paper too. I want to have more time to paint the cloud. This sheet of paper is bigger than the ones I used for the exercises, so I want to make sure my paper will stay wet for longer. If you're painting on a smaller sheet of paper you can stick to your usual routine, but I strongly suggest that you try this one together with me. You will be amazed how long your paper will stay wet, which will allow you to paint for a longer time. Painting wet mode is very important for achieving this mode look we're going for. I'm starting by wetting the backside of my paper. If you don't have a big brush like me you can just go to the sink or in the shower and wet your sheet there. Now I'm flipping the paper again, and now wet the front part the same way. Now I will leave the paper to absorb the water and meanwhile, I'm going to mix all the the colors that I'm going to be using. Here I have some coral, I'll add some carmine to it. Royal blue, I'm adding some purple to it. This is pure violet and again, some royal blue. But this time I will add some Payne's gray to it to make a darker color. Here, I will mix coral with rose quartz. Again, I will add Payne's gray to it a bit more, the rose quartz. We are getting this dusty pink shade. Now let's go back to the paper. I'm wetting the front side again. Now, I will place my towel on top of the sheet like this so that there are no gaps between the sheet and the board. Now I will wet the front side again. This is the last time, I promise. I wipe the sides, otherwise water will flow to the painting. Let's start. I'm taking the coral and carmine mix and I start with this horizontal movements on the bottom part of the paper. I am adding pure coral and pure rose quartz on the top. I make sure that I have enough pigment on the edges. I'm taking this dusty pink, some of the purple mix, and I add it here on the bottom. I continue by adding pure royal blue. Here I'm starting to leave some white gaps. You can see how easily the color flows, because the whole sheet of paper is wet. I'm starting to mix the blue with the pink. I'm getting beautiful purple shade. Some more royal blue and I drag the color down. Pay attention to your edges. I continue to add the bigger clouds on top of the painting. Now I start to add distant things, violet. I still make sure that I have some white gaps on the paper, this will be our highlights. Now I start to add the very dark mixed with the Payne's gray. It always looks better when the top part of our painting is darker. I'm just adding a few strokes here and there. Remember to use more and more intense colors as you go. Now, I will wipe the sides of my painting because I already have puddles of water and paint and I don't want them to go back to my painting. Next, we'll add the clouds on the bottom of the painting. Head over to the next video without leaving your paper to dry. 10. Final Project part 2: [MUSIC] Now we'll start to add the small clouds. I'm going to be using my Princeton brush again. I'm taking pure color-wearing things. I mix it here on my palette. I'm adding some Payne's gray just a little bit and a little bit of carmine to make them more pinkish. My mixture is very thick. I start to make those tiny movements with my brush to form the clouds. Remember that your movements need to be more horizontal, from left to right and from right to left. Now let's add some darker shade. I mainly do this on the top of the clouds because the sun is shining through all of them. I'm adding more Payne's gray to the mix and I continue to add darker shades. Remember to use less water and more pigment. I'm not following any pattern. I just add the colors wherever I feel like my painting needs to have more diversity. I'll add some color here on the top to add more interest. But still, this part needs to be more darker and with more cold colors. I'll make this corner more dark. I'll add more violet here. I add more and more Payne's gray and I'm getting a darker mixture. I add it wherever I feel like it needs more dark color. Now, I will add some warm color to these clouds over here. [MUSIC] It makes them look like they're glowing. I will add more tiny clouds here below. More pinky here. Now it's time to bring those into the sky. Again, I am making horizontal movements here below. While I go up, I make them more and more diagonal. If you want, you can leave some of your clouds with a hard edge. I spread up this part a bit. We're ready for the stage. Look how gorgeous our clouds look like. I love all these shades of pink and purple. At this stage, our paper is still glistening like that, so we will leave it to dry just a little bit before we add our additional element. Again, now, our paper is still this glistening but not so much. We'll start to add our city below. I use a dry brush. I am just taking some Payne's gray and I add it to the mix I have over here. Since the paper is still wet, we need to use very thick mixture in order to avoid blooms. I'm starting to add our buildings. I'm just doing this horizontal and vertical movements. I'm adding buildings that are different heights and different size. I'm not looking at any photo reference. I just add whichever shapes I feel like. I will also make diagonal lines like this because not all buildings are facing us. Now I'm starting to add more and more Payne's gray to the mix and I continue to add darker and darker buildings. Make sure you don't color all of your lighter buildings. We still need those to be visible in the distance. I continue to add more and more Payne's gray. I'm making few lines also. If you notice that your edges are starting to lose color like mine here, you can fluff them out with your brush. This means that we still had some water there. But because our paper is still wet, we can move the pigment a bit. I will add more darker buildings. Our paper is starting to dry now. The edges are going up, so I'm going to tape it to the board. Do this very gently and very lightly because our paper is still wet inside. We don't want to push the pigment. You can skip this step, but this will help our paper to dry more flat. If you are worried that you're going to ruin it, just leave it like that and I will show you a trick that will make your painting look flat again. Leave it like that. I suggest that you don't use a hairdryer here. In my case, I will leave this to dry for at least three hours. Now our painting is dry. You can touch it with the backside of your hand. If you feel the paper is cold that means that it's still wet inside, so you better wait a little bit more. In my case, I am going to remove the paper tape. Now I will use some pure royal blue to add some glowing windows to our buildings. I use very thick paint and I just touch the paper with my brush. You can add as many as you want, but focus on the darker buildings. That's it. Here's how you can flatten your sheet. Spread the backside of it very lightly. Put something heavy on top. Leave it all night. Here's our final project, guys. I think it looks amazing. 11. Wrapping Up: [MUSIC] Congratulations on completing the class. I really hope that now you feel more confident and ready to create more beautiful sceneries. Remember that inspiration is all around us, we just have to look for it. Also, don't forget that watercolors often have a mind of their own. It's nearly impossible to recreate the same painting twice. There will always be something different, and that is the magic of watercolors. Don't be too hard on yourself if your painting looks different. It what makes it unique. Don't forget to upload your project to the project section of the class. I'm so excited to see all your beautiful creations. If you post your project on Instagram, don't forget to tag me and I'll be more than happy to share your work. If you have a question for me, just post it in the discussion section of the class and now I will get back to you as soon as I can. Until the next class, guys. Happy painting. [MUSIC]