Elevate Your Painting: How to Paint Light in Watercolor Landscapes

1. About The Class: Have you ever found yourself looking at your watercolor paintings? Wondering how to infuse them with a sense of light that brings them to life. Do you find it hard to paint light? If you're nodding along, you're in the right place. Hello everyone. I'm Dankayala. I'm a watercolor artist and educator. I'm also a skillshare, top teacher. I work with brands like etcher Studio, Silver Brush, Limited, Schminka, Arcanuns, and all about Art International. I truly believe that painting is for everyone. Over the years, I've taught thousands of students across the world and it is my purpose to inspire people to discover and pursue their creative passion. As artists, we all share the desire to make our paintings more than just visuals. We want our paintings to evoke emotion, tell stories, and come alive with a sense of light. Just like you, I have struggled with the same concern and I'm here to help you overcome it. No matter your skill level, this class is designed to empower you with the principles and techniques to bring luminosity to your watercolor paintings. For a class project, I will walk you through a step by step painting tutorial of this serene farm, bathe in warm glow of bright and sunny afternoon. This project is designed to not only immerse you in the beauty of rural landscapes, but also to sharpen your skills in playing with warm and cool colors while understanding how to strategically position light and shadow. We'll begin by understanding why light matters in our painting. We'll look at the paintings of great masters and see how they portray light in their works. And then we will move on to learning the techniques to depict glowing light and learn how to apply them in an actual painting. By the end of the class, you'll have created a vibrant water colored painting of a sunlit farm on a bright afternoon. And your understanding of warm and cool colors, along with the placement of light and shadow, will bring a realistic and radiant quality to your artwork. I'm excited on how this class can help you craft not only vibrant watercolor paintings, but also infuse sheer magic into your artwork through the captivating use of light. Get your paints paper and brushes ready and LCN class. 2. Materials and Class Project: Let's begin by gathering all the materials we'll need for the class. The method to paint glowing light would require the use of wet on wet technique. With that, we need to use an appropriate paper to help us achieve great results. The choice of paper can profoundly influence the outcome of your artwork. It is not just a surface, but we are looking at the texture and absorbency needed to achieve desired results. I recommend using Bohn, 100% cotton cold press paper in 300 GSM. Its texture and weight provide the perfect foundation for our painting. Since we will be wetting our paper on both sides. We need a water resistant board to ensure our paper stays flat and stirred. An acrylic sheet, whiteboard, or any water resistant board will serve this purpose for a watercolor palette. I'm using Shenka watercolor paints in the resource section, you'll find a photo with a list of colors in my palette. However, for this class, focus on warm hues like yellow ochre, burnt channa, and cool tones such as cobalt blue, turquoise, cobalt violet for the sky. Don't forget olive green for the fields. For the brushes, I recommend brushes from silver brush. Limited, grab a flat brush made of goat hair for wetting the paper. A Renaissance brush made of natural sable hair, in size ten, for laying down the base wash and silver silk. Eight brushes in sizes 8.2 for detailing and contrast. You'll also need a pencil and eraser for sketching. Keep two cups of water handy for rinsing your brushes, and don't forget tissue paper for blotting and fine tuning your masterpiece. In the ser section, you'll find a photo listing the specific colors of used from the palette, the reference photo, and final painting. Feel free to use it as a reference guide while taking the. I want you to upload it in the project and resource section so I can see it and share feedback you work. When you add your project, be sure to include a link to your Instagram so that anybody who's curious about your work can find more about you. I also provided the downloadable copy of the reference and final painting in the resource section of the class to help you in creating your class project. 3. Why Light Maters: Light is not just a technical aspect of watercolor painting. It is a powerful tool for storytelling, mood, setting, and creating a visually compelling and immersive experience for the viewer. If you look at the works of great watercolor artists like Alvaro Joseph Z Nudes even more. They use light to set the mood, evoke specific emotions through color and atmosphere. By understanding how different light sources impact the colors and atmosphere, you gain the power to convey specific emotions in your artwork. For example, sunlight may introduce warm tones, while moonlight might create cooler use. When you understand these variations, you can make intentional color choices to evoke specific moods in your work. The strategic use of light also helps you highlight certain elements, certain natural focal points, within your composition. This not only adds visual interest, but also helps tell a more compelling story within your landscape. In the next lesson, let's break down the watercolor techniques for depicting glowing light in your painting. 4. Techniques To Paint Light: To depict glowing light, we need to understand some important elements. First is understanding light sources. It is very important to identify the primary light source in your scene. Whether it's natural light from the sun, moonlight, or artificial sources like lamps or street lights. Understand the direction and angle of the light as it will influence the placement of shadows and highlights. Second is contrast and value. We need to create contrast between light and shadow areas. We do this by ensuring that your values or the lightness and darkness are distinct to convey a strong sense of illumination. Bold contrast can make the light appear more dynamic. Another important element is color temperature. This means that we need to consider the color temperature of the light. Achieving glowing colors in water. Color is all about contrast, which can be accomplished by combining warm and cool colors. Use warmer tones like red, orange and yellows for sunlight, and cooler tones like blues and purples for moonlight or artificial lighting. This helps evoke a specific mood and reinforces the feeling of light. Next is atmospheric perspective. Utilize atmospheric perspective to convey the effect of distance and in the landscape. Objects in the distance tend to have lighter values and cooler colors, while those closer may have darker values and warmer colors. Lastly, use light to highlight focal points. Concentrate the brightest area of light on your focal points. This draws the viewer's attention to specific elements in the landscape that you want to emphasize. 5. Planning Your Painting: Before we even start our pencil sketch and painting, let's take time looking at this very crucial step, which is understanding the language of light in your subject. This analysis will guide us in capturing the essence of our scene. First, let's identify the light source. Take a moment to pinpoint where the light is originating. In a reference photo, it gracefully cascades from the right, casting its brilliance onto our farmhouse landscape. Now let's observe the play of light and shadow by looking across the elements. Notice how the right side of the farmhouse roof mass in the direct sunlight, creating a play of warm use. Now let's take a look at the effects on the farmhouse. The front wall of the farmhouse, being on the opposite side of the light source, is covered with a cool embrace of shadow. This interplay of light and shadow adds depth and dimension to our composition. Now move towards the ground to see the cast shadows stretching towards the left. These shadows under the trees, farmhouse, and other little elements in the picture add some drama and storytelling to our scene. As we try to paint light, remember that the secret key is understanding the direction of light and shadows. It is our guide to creating a realistic and unified picture that tells a single story. To help you even more in planning your painting, let's draw a quick thumbnail sketch here. In the lower part, we draw the horizon line. Let's serve the farmhouse off center and some trees around it. Note that the light source is from the right. The effects of this on the farmhouse are, first, the right side of the farmhouse is illuminated while front wall is in shadow. We apply the same effect also on the trees. Lastly, we see cast shadows on the ground extending towards the left. We see cast shadows under the farmhouse, on the little fences, on tree trunks, and also on figures we'll add on the scene since our focal point is the farmhouse, make this part of the roof the brightest part of the painting. Infusing light in this area will surely make her painting glow. Let's continue shading the foreground and the background sky with the appropriate tonal value, so the farmhouse remains to have the lightest tone in the picture. By adjusting the tone of the surrounding, we make the farmhouse the brightest part of the painting. Let's do the class project in the next video. 6. Pencil Sketch and Preparing the Paper: Let's do a very simple and easy pencil sketch here, below the midline of the paper. Let's draw a horizon line. It doesn't have to be so straight and perfect. Just sketch lightly. Then next, draw the farmhouse of center. This is our focal point. We should make it a little big. I started with a roof, then the front wall, and next the side of the farmhouse. When drawing this, keep in mind the parallelism of the sides of the roof to show perspective. Next I draw a tree here on the right and another bulk of tree on the left. Basically, our farmhouse is being surrounded by trees. So we can show the overall shape of the house by painting the trees around it. We also call this negative painting. Let's finalize some lines here. I'm just fixing the roof area so it doesn't look off. I also add a hint of mountain at the background and maybe some elements to make the picture extra interesting by adding a cable post and some trees on the corner right. We can also add a figure of a farmer here on the right side in some small, tiny lines and details to make the picture more dynamic. I'll add one more figure here beside the former, and we'll just add details as we paint. Let's finalize the pencil sketch with some windows here and we're done. Now let's prepare our paper. I get a wet brush and start to pre wet the back part evenly with clean water. Now, I wet the front part also evenly with water. Notice that the paper is completely and thoroughly wet. I let the water sink in a little bit before I start painting. We wanted a well soaked paper, but there shouldn't be water puddle within the sheet. Now, the timing is very important. When you apply paint, it shouldn't feel just moist as that would mean that the paper is already running dry. The paper should also not be too wet that it has a puddle of water. The paper has to be just right in comes of wetness. 7. Class Project: First Wash: The paper has nicely absorbed the water, We can start painting. I begin with my yellow ochre paint. I load my brush with a nice milky mix of yellow ochre and start painting the warm colors on the sky. As we paint this, think of it like we are painting the glow of light. I place this yellow ocher here in the middle part of the sky, and just let the paint softly spread on the wet surface. Next, let's take Torquoise, cobalt violet and cobalt blue as your cool tone. To paint the sky, I add a bit of burn anna to diffuse the saturation. See that I have a nice cream mix of blue for the sky. I damp my brush flat on the paper and paint around the yellows at the bottom part. Notice that I intentionally leave some unpainted fragment to make the light glow even more. I take a thicker mix of cobalt blue to add a slightly darker tone on my sky. Don't worry if you might feel quite unsure of how the color spread or if the sky would look like one. Trust the process and lay the strokes very lightly. This way we prevent our sky from looking overworked or muddy Sometimes you'll also appreciate how each fragment looks like when you are done painting the entire picture. Now let's paint the distant mountain. I take cobalt blue and olive green to get a cool, greenish blue color for the mountain. The tone should be slightly darker than the sky, so the mix should be slightly creamier with a full belly stroke. I also add a bit of burn chena on the lower part to create a play of warm and cool tones. Now let's paint the glowing light on the roof. Using a clean brush, I get a very light wash of transparent yellow. My initial stroke seems dark, so I dilute it with water. I get a very light tone for the roof and the wall facing the light source. It's okay if the colors, light is spread out. Since the paper is wet, we will define the house later on. Now let's place warm colors to the middle ground of the painting. I take yellow ochre and a bit of tarquoise for a warm, yellow green color. Placing warm color in the middle ground ensures that the warmth and saturation are focused in the central part. Which will help direct the eyes of the viewers to the focal point. Next, I will increase the tone as I paint the field further, I add olive green to my initial mix to get a darker tone. Then to paint the foreground, I add burn Anna and a bit of cobalt violet to my warm green mix to get a darker tone. Notice that as we transition the tone, we also create atmospheric perspective. Now let's add some special effects. By splattering tiny drops of paint on the field fragment. I use burn chena, cobalt violet, and some olive green For this, be creative and expressive on this part. Let the paint flow and create a natural and unique effect. Just a tip. As you splatter, the brush shouldn't have too much water in it, so it won't create a big unwanted blooms on your field. Now let's paint the shadowed part of the farmhouse. I get cobalt blue and burn chena for the cool gray color of the shadow. Again, control the mixture of the paint. There has to be not much water in your brush, and your paint has to be creamy to get a nice defined stroke, even if your paper is still moist. Now I'll platter some water with my fingers to create blooms of light on the field. Now let's paint the trees. On the left, I take yellow ocher and a bit of olive green. Notice how I press my brush hard enough and flat on the paper to create organic strokes. However, as I paint this tree on the right, I shifted and do a very light and gentle stroke as I don't want to fully cover the light coming from the sky. Now let's create dimension on trees by painting the meat values. I mix olive green and indigo and a bit of cobalt violet. I paint the leftmost side of the trees while preserving some light values. I let this dry a little bit. Now I take a size to brush with water and do quick downward strokes on the field to create impression of grass by lifting the paint. Now you can see those tiny strokes of lifted paint. Let's go back to the farmhouse and enhance the contrast using size ten synthetic brush. I paint dots as impressions of windows. I feel that the paper is still wet, so I decide to dry it up with a blower. When the paper is dry, it is easier to paint defined and hard edged strokes to enhance the contrast and defined shapes. 8. Class Project: Painting the Shadow and Details: Now my paper is dry on the front surface and mostly moist on the back. We can now add some details and define more shapes using synthetic Brush size two, I take burn china mix with my leftover paints to outline the shape of the roof. I do a stroke, then to soften it, I will dab it with my finger. This way the stroke won't look too strong. Now I'll change to a size eight brush to paint the initial outline. Then shift to size two. Now I'll change to a size eight brush to paint the initial outline. Then shift to size two to spread the paint. I do this style so we soften the outline and the house won't look like a cut out piece. I enhance the shadow color still using cobalt blue and burn Chana. When you introduce cool colors such as cobalt blue in the shadow areas, you create a greater sense of depth and glow of light. The contrast between warm and cool gives visual interest to your painting, making the glowing light stand out even more. Using olive green, indigo, and cobat violet, I paint a cast shadow underneath the house. I paint a quick stroke towards the left, and now we can slowly see the light coming through. Now let's conter the shape of the roof by painting the dark portions of the trees. As we do negative painting, we bring the farmhouse to life. The strong contrast between the dark trees and the lighted farmhouse makes the roof really shine bright. I did the same with the trees on the left. I darken some tones with a dry brush and conter the shape of the roof. Next, let's add a bit of details on the roof with some dry brush strokes, I also darkened the outline of the roof a little bit with some suggestive strokes and dabs of pins here and there. Let's add this window on shadow in front of the house as accent. I also paint light strokes of windows here on the right to create interesting details on our focal point. I encourage you to avoid overworking or over complicating the details in the shadow areas of your painting. It is always better to paint the shadows in one single and neat stroke. Next, I'll paint some ships here on the right side part of the house. It doesn't have to be a specific object. Painting connected ships that serve as shadows help enhance the painting and support the main character. Keeping the shadow era simple and even abstract or loose, directs the viewer's eye to the highlighted and glowing parts of your painting. Now I'm taking another dark green mix to paint the darkest portion of the tree closest to the roof. The goal here is to make the roof really shine bright. By intensifying the contrast here I'm spattering some water on the trees to break the solid feel of color and create a subtle glow of light. Now I'm just carefully defining the shapes and adding a bit of strokes to finalize the farmhouse fragment. Next, let's paint the tree partly showing on the right. I paint it with a rich, dark green color since it is in shadow. Also, using a size to brush, I paint some twigs and branches. I also scratched a paper with my nail to lift off color and create impression of branches. Don't make the twigs too dark, especially those tiny ones, so it won't take away the attention from the focal point. Here I'm painting the cast shadow under the tree. And always paint cast shadows to connect everything together and make your work look realistic. Using brown mix, I paint some wood fences in the middle ground. And I dubbed the stroke with my finger to soften it. Next, I add a bit of dark tone for dimension on the fences. And lastly, add cast shadows on the ground. I want to add some texture on the field. With a dry brush stroke, I do a very light and few horizontal strokes don't overdo this one, so it won't look like cast shadows over the place. Let's put some branches and twigs on the trees and lift off some paints too. I try to add a bit of dark dots on the windows just to enhance it a little bit more. Now let's paint human figures here on the right. To make the picture more alive, I use cobalt blue, since infusing a cool color and a warm color creates a nice highlight. When you paint human figure, remember that the head should be within the horizon line to ensure that figure will not look awkwardly, tall or short. And don't forget also to paint cast shadows, I'll add some more details like this wire post at the background just to keep the background by and exciting. And as you add this, keep the tones very light and the strokes very thin and not overpowering. I'm adding dark spots of paints around the human figure so they will be more defined. And then I'll add some shapes here. Again, it doesn't have to be a particular object. You can simply paint shapes and let the viewers think and imagine. To enhance the foreground, I'll add some tiny wild flowers with thin strokes for the stem and dots of bottery paint for the flowers. Here I use naples yellow since it is opaque. But you may use any color and mix it with white. If you want to make it opaque and stand out among the field. I dotted some paints first, then splatter afterwards for a loser effect. Next, I'll add few more strokes to darken the stems using green mix of paint. And I keep my strokes very relaxed and as much as possible, not so stiff so we can create that swaying movement of the flowers. I'll add numerous platters to add a bit of highlights here in the foreground and we are almost done. As we end, I want to recap that the key to depicting glowing light in watercolor involves a strategic use of warm colors in the central area, simplifying shadow details and introducing cool colors for contrast. By following these three steps, you guide the viewer's focus to the illuminated areas, creating a luminous and captivating effect in your watercolor paintings. This is our glowing painting of a serene farmhouse we'll see in the next video for some final thoughts. 9. Final Thoughts: Congratulations on finishing the class. I hope you enjoyed exploring the interplay of warm and cool colors, mastering the dance of light and shadow, and infusing life Intel artworks. Don't hesitate to revisit the lessons, explore new techniques, and most importantly, be fearless and creative. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and get in touch with me on Instagram at Bianca. I'd love to see your creations. Share your masterpieces in the class project section and let's celebrate what you have created. When you add your class project, be sure to include a link to your Instagram so that anybody who's curious about your work can find more about you. Encourage you also to take my other class to further help you in your practice. No more flat paintings, Mater Value and Contrast in watercolor, this class is designed to help you understand value and contrast. To give your paintings a sense of and dimension watercolor for beginners techniques to paint loose landscapes. In this class, you will learn powerful and effective strategies to loosen up your painting style and to create captivating masterpieces using watercolor in wide variety of techniques. Thank you so much for joining me and painting with me. Paint to inspire paint from the heart, see in my other classes. 10. Giveaway: To make your learning experience more exciting and motivating. We're doing a special giveaway. I'm giving away one year Skillshare premium subscription to one blessed student. Here's the mechanics to join. Watch my Skillshare class, elevate your painting. How to paint light in your watercolor landscapes. I encourage you to watch the full class, to be included in the master list of students, and to leave a class review for extra points. Upload your class project and leave a class review. Follow me also on Instagram at Ankaayala and share my IG giveaway post on your stories With the caption, join Ankaraala giveaway. This international giveaway ends on February 28, 2024. And the winner will be drawn by random and will be informed by a skill short e mail and personal message from me on February 29, 2024. Thank you so much again for joining and I hope to see your paintings.