Fun Beginner Landscape Acrylic Painting Super Inspiring

1. Welcome: Painting doesn't need to be a difficult thing. You can have so much fun in the process and still have a successful result. This class is like a warm summer breeze. Complicated terminology and things are very thoroughly explained. You will create this very dynamic composition with very few steps. Playing with colors has never been easier. Hi, my name is George and I've been a professional artist for over ten years. In the last six years, I've been teaching both online and in-person classes with over 10 thousand students, both children and adults. I've developed a very interesting method of teaching that is easy-going and focuses on making interesting projects just like this, this landscape might seem intimidating if it's your first time painting. However, with a little bit of encouragement and some well-placed explanations, you will do this painting in no time. You will not only understand how to paint this specific landscape, but you will develop the core principles and skills needed to paint many, many more landscapes. In this class, you will get to play with warm and cool shadows as well as develop your mark making skills and all of this while learning about color and perspective, if you're ready for a wonderful time and a gorgeous painting, Let's go into the class. 2. Materials : For this painting, you will need a few materials. You will need a canvas. This is 50 by 50 centimeters. You will need three brushes. A beautiful medium flat brush, a small flat brush, and a big boy brush. The medium flat brush is used to cover a lot of ground like the cliffs and the sky. And the small flat brush is used for details and rotating it to create these beautiful leaves. The big flat brush is used for washes and covering a lot of ground. You will need a mixing plate. For the paints. You will need some titanium white. This is Amsterdam acrylic paints, brilliant blue. You will also need some red. This is carmine, red, some primary yellow. Alongside that, you will need a cup of water to dab the brushes into it and dab the paint onto the painting. Of course, you will also need some paper towels and the reference image from the resources page of this class. And that's all you need for this course. 3. Complex skies with minimal effort: In this step, you'll learn how to make complex skies with minimum effort. The sky in paintings is usually a gradient of blue or a different color. And it starts lighter on the bottom of the sky and it gets progressively darker. It's important that you have the reference image of the finished painting so you can have an overall understanding of the entire composition. You will find that on the resources page of this beautiful class, some great things to consider when painting a sky is that you don't always have to paint the clouds at all. What you can do instead is play with the gradient in a textured way to create some really nice atmosphere without being too busy. A great rule for textures is to resist the urge to blend things too much rough transitions between colors give great complexity to an artwork without much effort. In this step, you will use titanium white, primary yellow, brilliant blue, and a touch of carmine red to create a gorgeous turquoise gradients. This gradient, pastel turquoise starts lighter at the bottom and more yellowish. And as it goes up, it gets towards a deeper shade of blue. And towards the end of this step, you will add a bit more red to the blue to intensify it. A key takeaway from this step is the notice how your colors act when you mix them together. You might find your acrylics have a limited color range. This is not a bad thing. Don't worry, if your colors are not learning, you achieved the same shades of turquoise and blue. The way you apply those colors to create the gradient is much more important because in the end, nuances are just a small part of the process of making this painting. Now let's get to some painting, grabbing the flat medium brush and putting it on the side. Let's add some white to the mixing plate quite a bit. Right at the top. Squeeze that white thoroughly onto the plate. Now adding some brilliant blue right onto the left side, a bit less. Whoops. It dropped a little bit onto the Canvas. Don't worry, it will be. And some primary yellow onto the right side of white. Let's take that blue and put it into the middle of the plate. A good thing to consider when mixing colors is that you need a dedicated area to mix them together. Don't go into the actual color, for instance, onto the white or onto the blue, because that will make you need to pour even more and more color all the time. Okay, Let's add some water to this beautiful blue in the middle of the plate. And grabbing some white, mixing that white into the blue to create this wonderful baby blue color. Just a little bit of yellow. We'll create this wonderful pastel color, pastel, turquoise. Maybe it's a little bit too much. Let's add some more white. Press harder on the brush. The brush has a lot of blue into it from the beginning and mixing with the white. So there is a beautiful light pastel turquoise. Now, going on to the left side. You should keep in mind the edge and every mark you make tried to make it very, very interesting. You can observe how diverse this beautiful edge is, even though it's just one brush mark and it's so short. Let's go up and create the edge of the cliff. Let's add some more color to the left side. You can be a little bit more free when applying this left side touch of color. Let's add some white at the bottom over it, just to create more color diversity. The secret sauce of paintings, colored diversity. Fixing that edge a little bit more. And let's add some more color. Adding a bit more blue to this beautiful pastel color to create a more turquoise, darker shade, just a touch more dark, and going higher to create another patch can start to see how distinct it is. Don't worry, it will be a little bit blended. Now let's think of the end of the cliff, the first side of the cliff, you can start to see it's the first step. It's like a stepladder adding some more white and going in-between the first color and the second color you've applied. And blending that edge just a tiny bit, just one pass, going a bit higher to blend that color towards the edge of the cliff. Now going even higher and towards the right. Indicating the corner of the second cliff and a bit curved towards the right and lower. Always thinking of that beautiful edge, Let's cut a little bit of the edge and create more interesting patterns in the wrinkly edge. Let's take a second and notice how it goes up and down. And it has a lot of definition going on to the right and creating more of this edge. Going lower, end a bit higher with a curve. And let's brush a little bit of color with some water. So it covers a lot more area. Brushing in some more blue from the end of the brush. Taking some more from the plate and covering the edge, the top side edge. And as you go towards the cliffs, you should be a bit more present. And notice your movements. Be more conscious of your movements going towards the left corner and trying to cover the whole top side of the canvas. Brushing in the last few dabs of color for the turquoise, It's important that the painting is still wet when you add the second blue, right? In a few seconds. For that you will need to add a bit of reds. This is carmine red. It mixes very well with the brilliant blue, creating a bit of a purple. Now going and adding some red into the blue just over here, just a touch, and then adding a bit more with the corner, creating this vivid blue shade. You can see that it has been mixed over the turquoise just so it blends and adds a bit of color harmony. We will get into that later. And right at the edge of the canvas, the top edge of the canvas. You can blend this color, take some water and blend it in a bit lower with the turquoise, you can start to see why the turquoise still needs to be wet. Now, going on to the right and onto the corner, let's blend a bit more. Brush, keeps on getting a bit closer and closer towards turquoise. That's how the process of blending is. Let's grab some white and make this blue a bit lighter, just so we get a different nuance right over here in the middle and go towards the top, just blending it in a bit more, creating this transitionary color and color variety, going and blending it even more into the turquoise. Don't worry, if the turquoise is not blended thoroughly, you can now add some white, some blue and re-create that wonderful pastel turquoise. Just blend it together. Press hard on the brush and right next to the middle cliff. Just add it. Being careful of the edge blended into the blue. You can start to see how much more integrated that Blue Fields going on the right side and blending towards the top. Don't over blend. Going on to the left side and now into the blue, just creating some semblance of a Cloud. Now, let's think a little bit and add some more white to this turquoise you've just created. And add it towards the right side of the cliff, creating a little bit more light behind the cliff and playing with the edge. Once again, redefining it. If you feel like it's not squiggly enough. And towards the right there are some patches of white. And there you go. The sky is done. Super simple to do. You might have noticed that a medium brush was used to create the sky. This was on purpose because a big brush would not create as much texture and the edges of the cliffs would be far less complex. So whenever you want to create a big textured gradient, use a smaller brush. Resist the urge to over blend things. This will not only look better, but it will save you on time as well. Now let's go into the next step. 4. Brush direction and color Harmony: Usually people have a hard time to create color harmony. This problem actually comes from not knowing in a simple way what color harmony is at a very basic level. Here comes a simple definition. Color harmony, at the most basic understanding is blending colors into each other. Yep, that's it. Super simple, just letting the colors blend into each other. Very often, people are afraid of a dirty brush and a messy color palettes when these things can be the answer to pleasing colors and harmonious transitions. Of course, there is an exception to this overly simplistic definition of color harmony. When you want to create contrast or very vibrant colors, you need a clean brush and pallets. Another way to put it is that messy colors can be a perfect background on top of which you can lay down more and more vibrant colors. In this step, you will start with a messy brush from the last step and combine some beautiful orange brown nuances for the cliffs and the ground. If you clean the brush, just mix a little bit of that tour coils of the sky. Once again, just to have it into the brush. You will notice how it turns the orange brown of the cliffs more gray at some points. This is great for creating some atmospheric perspective. Big words. These big words are very easy to explain. Objects far away tend to have little color contrast, almost becoming one and the same nuances. An example would be a mountain in the distance which is almost always blue or purple. And as you get closer and closer to it, it becomes greener or brown depending on if it has grease on the top, are not. Going further into this step, you'll start to give some direction to your brush marks, creating a very dynamic composition. Okay, enough big words. Let's go into the step. Grabbing the messy brush, some yellow and some red, mixing them together. The blue of the brush and taking some more, creating this beautiful, the brownish orange, getting some more red and some more yellow and a touch of blue, mixing it very well into the bristles of the brush, taking some water and going right on the top cliff. Being very careful not to change too much of the edge you've just created. You still need to go a little bit into the blue, just so it doesn't show the white of the canvas being very conscious once again, of the edge. You can still refine it even more if you need to. As you can see just over here, just going into the blue and here it is, the blue of the brush. Let's take even more to exaggerate the wonderful color harmony. Let's blend this beautiful turquoise into the orange mute and get down creating a beautiful gray tone. Let's mix the red, brownish color once again and go on to the second cliff. This will create the impression that the bottom cliff just goes into the other one. And it will make the top cliff just appear more into the distance. And a little bit of blue just pressing down on the brush so it squeezes some of that turquoise onto the cliff. Taking some more color, a bit of water, and going over to the right and creating some more of this wonderful cliff. Let's clean up the brush onto the canvas just a tiny bit more, squeezing some more of that blue planning a little bit of the edge of the cliff from below. Mixing in some more of this orange. This time a bit more yellow, just to add some variety. Going back into the edge at the top and closer and closer towards the right. And you can start to see there is a fluffy edge right over here. Let's cut it and make it more angular. Going towards the right, can start to see the oranges a bit more intense. It needs a little bit more pressing and blending with the turquoise of the brush. Let's take some more of that orange and continue towards the right of the canvas, creating some more edges. If your color is too transparent, you might need to get over the edge a few times, so it looks crisp and nice. Let's get some more color and finish that edge. Ride by the corner. It doesn't go into the corner. It just goes right next to it by about a centimeter. Let's clean up the brush onto the Canvas. Take some blue and mix it in with the orange of the wonderful cliffs. Let's take even more turquoise and some water just so it blends even more that turquoise into the orange you are just creating on the mixing plate. Let's mix some more orange with the watery blue you have in the brush. And on a diagonal from right to left, you can start to see that beautiful brush vibration and brush mark direction. Just going from the left to the right on an angle, just on the right side. Now let's take some water and accentuate and fill in that white canvas. Don't worry, this is just the wash to give the sense of composition, Let's make some more orange. And when you finish mixing in that orange, you can go over. And as you go towards the left, just go with the marks a bit more flat. Let's fill in that space and blend in those new brush marks into the cliffs so that they connect. Let's create a new brush mark just over here, indicating a new direction. Just going the opposite way on an angle. Okay, Let's take some blue and add it just over here. Just making some more color variety, taking some water and some orange and adding a beautiful mark just in the middle, accentuating that direction even more. And going higher and higher to create this new patch of color. Tried to work a little bit in batches just so it takes your brain out of that linear thinking process. Taking some more orange and going and making another beautiful patch. And now let's create some more on the top, filling in on the right side and moving towards the left, let's add some more blue. And over here connected the two patches with a different kind of color, a little bit of gray, now changing it even more. Let's go with some vertical brush marks. Let's take some yellowish color this time. Let's change it even more and create a beautiful patch of yellowish orange just over here. Taking even more of this yellow and blending it right next to the orange patch, you can start to see how patched it is. They are a bit important the way the colors are layered, because there will be a beautiful Bush just over there in the middle, orange. Let's make another beautiful orange just over here and blend the faraway cliff sides a bit more. Cleaning the brush in the process on the canvas and going in and adding some more of this dry brush and a wash with the water, taking some water and going in mixing a little bit. The connection between the two patches of color. Just a bit more blending. And on the right side just going and touching it up. It needs a bit of a wash, just so it creates some beautiful contrast with the next layers. Let's take some more water and add it into the orange. Speaking of washes, there's nothing better than a big brush for a big wash. Let's take some orange and go on to the right with the big brush. It will create much, much more interesting. And flat brush marks. Going towards the right and in the middle, just brushing those brushing brushing those brush marks towards the right. When it comes to the lower part of the composition, can start to see that the brush, even though it's so big, we still use it onto its side. Going into the left side and you can go towards the edge and finish that wash thoroughly. Taking some more of that color and finishing the right edge as well. Just going with some light dabs and brushes. Let's fill in a little bit at the top near the sky. And there you go with this wonderful step. And look how easy it was. Some more technical takeaways from this step is to notice how much color variety was used, even for a simple background wash from the bottom side of the canvas, you can find blues, yellows, oranges. A lot of variety has been used whenever you are creating an object or a scene, you can easily give it the illusion of detail just by adding another color into the mix even better if that color is part of another object into the painting. For example, the color of the sky that you add into the ground, cliffs, and even the blades of grass. This is also true about the color of a room while painting a still life or a portrait. You can add it to harmonize the color to out the painting. Now let's expand your definition of color harmony a bit on top of just blending colors into each other. Here is a little bit of a definition for color harmony. You need a color that is found in blended throughout the artwork in order to give the sense of integrity throughout the piece. And of course, there is another more complex understanding in that you can choose the color that you want to harmonize the painting two. And now let's not forget about one other thing you've used in this step. It is one of the most overlooked things in composition, and that is brush direction. Clearly defining your brush marks can make the composition looks so much more interesting. And it doesn't need to be very complex. You just need to be conscious of your brush direction. Does it go to the right? Does it go to the left? Does it go from up, down, wherever it goes? And which way will create a more interesting composition. Now, let's go into the next step. 5. Cool shadow contrast : It's time for some cool shadow contrast until now on the ground and the cliffs you've painted with very warm colors. These beautiful muddy colors are perfect substrate for some awesome purple blue shadows. It's important to use the brush marks in the direction you already established. And when painting a new object, you can break it by going in a different direction. For instance, using some vertical marks for a bush, you will see how much the painting changes once you start adding cool shadows to complement the worm nuances. Of course, you will see how easy it is to create warm and cool contrast. Now let's get to painting. Grabbing the medium flood brush. As you can see, the brush is a bit more clean. Let's add some beautiful red to some blue and add it to this area of the plate over the orange. Mix it in very thoroughly. And right in the middle of the canvas, right over here. Let's add some shadow for the bush. There will be a bush there. So let's add the shadow for it. It seems like there is a little bit of a need to mix a bit more color. Let's add some red, take some blue and mix this wonderful purple once again, so it's more vibrant. Let's take some water just so it flows easier. You can start to see how dark this purple is. Okay, let's add a chest over here and then continue on to the cliff, just going with the direction and changing it to a more vertical stroke. Once you go higher, Let's take some water. Move towards the right, creating some more interesting shadows at the bottom of the cliff. Now, let's go in and add some more at the end of the cliff. And right over here, let's add a shadow for a bush onto the cliffs, you can go with some more line like brush marks. And you can vary how thick they are as you go and create new patches of shadow. Breaking down that edge and making those boulders seem more interesting. Going on to the left side, you will create a beautiful patch of purple. And let's vary that color by just adding some water and keeping some patches more transparent and some more dark. You can start to see the direction over here is more vertical. That is because this will be another beautiful Bush just in the foregrounds. Let's mix in to that corner some more paint. A beautiful area. You don't have to go too much into detail. Let's go on to the right side. Weird, another shadowy part for another beautiful Bush. Chest. Easy. And let's blend it a little bit just so it seems more fluffy. Let's add some more dark parts just to create some more diversity. Notice the two brush marks indicating the brush direction of this bush. Taking some more purple and going with some directional brushes, just creating some shadow onto the left side, just going towards the left. Let's go with some more of this beautiful vertical ones, creating another bush chest over here, and indicating the side of this middle bush that you firstly created. Notice how the shadow of the middle Bush just go with the direction of the ground while it sticks out. Let's add some white to this purple and some blue just to add some of that color variety and mix in some new nuances that are closer in value to the painting. Because those darks were very, very dark. Now it's time to, with this purple just at the edges and a little bit over the shadows. Let's extend the bush on the right and create some more shadows just onto the ground in the middle of the composition, taking some more water just so the paint flows better. Now let's keep that directionality and make a big splash, purple just over here and onto the cliffs. Let's create some edges just going towards the right, indicating the top of the cliffs. Okay, taking some reds, some blue, and some white, creating a much, much more blue light color. This will be some reflected light onto the dark parts of the cliffs. Notice how close it is to the color of the sky, and yet it has some purples into it. Let's go and create some of this reflected skylights onto the beautiful clips. Now some blue and some white mixing in, going even closer towards the sky color and going even more onto the cliff sides, adding some more harmonizing color. You can go right over here in the middle of the painting with this chromatic aberration, right where the light meets the shadow onto the left bottom side. Let's mix in some more water and add this color just over here towards the right side, bush. Let's add it into the shadows of this push, creating some more texture and color variety. Of course, this color is perfect for some very distant mountains or trees. Now let's be conscious of that wonderful edge and create some beautiful mountains. You can start to see how much more distant they feel. Let's mix in that color also onto the ground. And now let's go on to the cliffs as the Paintbrush has less and less color going and adding some beautiful touches of blue here and there, don't worry, you will get to add some more oranges later, fixing the areas. Let's brush into the cliff side some of this blue with the brush, cleaning a little bit of the brush, and then taking some lighter blues and adding them right over here above the shadow, indicating some sort of cleft that comes towards the viewer. This is a very interesting part of painting. Notice that by adding ambient color, in this case, the color of the sky, you were able to create some wonderful reflections on the cliffs. Also, this ambient color is quite useful as a transitionary color between light and dark as it was used right over here on the shadow of the middle Bush. This fascinating phenomenon is called chromatic aberration, and it has an amazing name as well. It comes from photography, but it can be used to represent light in painting as well. Here is an exaggerated example of the phenomenon on a beautiful cheetah. Notice the chromatic aberrations both on the outside and the inside of the shape. Where light meets the dark parts of the background or the dark parts of the shape, in this case the cheetah. They can be very diverse in color. Teal blue, orange, yellow, purple, all the beautiful colors. And now you can use them to create colorful transitions between the dark parts and the light parts of your paintings. Here is a great example of using color distortion to make amazing paintings. This painting is by Michael do dash. These chromatic aberrations are especially useful for cast shadows, meaning the shadow that the object projects on the surface. It sounds on, or in this case the wall next to it. And let's not forget about the mountains. Another application of these beautiful colors is for distant objects, like the faraway mountains on the top left of the painting. And now let's go into the next step. 6. Playing with big and small shapes to create perspective: Playing with big and small shapes to create perspective. When it comes to perspective, most people have a few mistakes that they make. The things that they paint in the background are too big compared to the ones in the foreground. In other words, things in the distance tend to be way, way smaller than we think. Now, it's time to think back when you were a kid and you covered someone in the distance with just your thumb, look at how small this person in the distance is, even though it's about 20 feet from the photo. Of course, people have become a bit more inventive with forced perspective, like riding a banana. The main takeaway here is that things that are distant become way smaller than you think. For instance, a small leaf on a bush in the foreground can become an entire Bush in the distance. And this one over here, notice how small it is compared to the one that is closer. The greater the distance between foreground elements and background, the more grand and vast the landscape seems. Okay enough talking. Let's start painting. Let's grab the medium brush and clean it a little bit since you will be using green for this step. Grabbing some blue and mixing it right over here with some yellow. Maybe a bit more. And a touch of red to cut down on that beautiful green, making it a little bit earthy or adding some more blue and mixing a very beautiful and nice dark green with some red and some yellow to make it much, much closer to the shadow color. Starting on the left side. Notice how dark this green is. And positioning it and painting it with a vertical stroke, just going lower into the shadow, creating some more depth to this bush in the foreground. Let's go higher with some dabs, being conscious of the edge, making it very broken and nice. Let's add some more yellow to create a more joyful Green. Taking the brush and mixing in some of that yellow to mix and match the color a bit more light. And yellowy, adding some red just so it becomes earthy, so it doesn't stand out too much. Okay. Look at how much more orange and yellow it looks compared to the other green vertical strokes continuing lower at the intersection between the purple and orange on the left side. And now let's move towards the top, making some very, very small bushes. You can start to see how small and tiny they are. Let's put some on the cliffs. These ones will be even smaller. Going towards the middle and adding some more just sloping down, of course, following that beautiful slope of the ground that you've created. And in the second step, that direction, Let's move and create some more brushes just over here, onto the middle of the canvas. Going towards the left and making some more small bushes just with the tip of the brush. Now it's time to go higher on to the cliff. So it's a good thing to add a bit more blue as you go to the distance. Just so you change that color variety and add more atmospheric perspective. And as you can see, the bushes start to look a bit more interesting. Now let's start in this middle Bush just over here, creating a round fluffy Bush just over the shadow. Adding some more yellow and some more red with a tiny bit of blue to bring back that green. Mixing a lot more color. And going on to the middle Bush, just over here, right where the darkest part of this bush is. And drawing a bit on the top. Now going on to the left push and making the edge a bit more fluffy. Taking more paint and going on to the middle Bush once again, the one right over here. This is a bit smaller than the one closer to the middle. Let's make it a bit bigger. And going lower, you can start to add another beautiful Bush just over on the right side near the edge below the shadow. Makes it in quite nicely with the shadow. And going over the shadow just a little bit to create more of this beautiful foliage. Let's add another beautiful patch of green just over here. Just going with vertical strokes, pushing a bit harder on the brush so it squeezes that green out of it and then brushing it in. Just so there is a little bit more color variety going in. And making this bush a little bit bigger, just so it stands out compared to the ones in the distance. And now creating a lighter version of this color with some white and some yellow. Mix it very well together. Maybe add a bit more yellow and just add it right next to the purple over here, indicating a little bit of a highlight. And of course, onto the left side of the bushes in the middle, you can add some highlights. Notice how it almost perfectly cuts the bush in half. It's still on over the green, so it blends a little bit and creates much more interesting textures. Now, mixing a bit more of the same color, maybe a bit lighter, and going into the middle of the bush. Keep in mind that light comes from the left side, as you can see over here from in-between the cliff and the side of the canvas. Now, notice the textures and the space in-between each brush stroke to create some sort of individual leaf. You're not painting the leaves per se, but you are indicating them. Let's add some bushes in the distance just over here, right by the mountains, creating a soft edge in-between the dark mountains and the ground. Now going into the middle and going with some smaller bushes, with some smaller leaves onto the right side and right where the light orange part of the ground meets the push on the left. Let's add some more of this beautiful light green, grabbing some more color and continuing higher and going into the greens a bit to create some more tensions and more light, more dark. Well, just light. Okay. Going a bit further onto the right side, creating the definition of this bush even more. Just this lower side creating some more of that color. Touch lighter. And going higher right where the light part of the ground meets the bush and going a little bit inside where there is a patch of green. Now for the small pushes the same light just on the left, this time, even smaller, just indicating the light part that is on the left side and the top. You can also add standalone bushes that have no shadow. They have just highlights. The distant bushes need to have very, very tiny fine points of light and shadow. And going and making some lines and some dots. Very fine and small, just here and there. Wherever you see another bush or you feel like a bush without a shadow can stand. Maybe it's a patch of grass going higher and making that beautiful highlight on a few bushes right over here. Okay, with the tip, maybe this one has a bit of a bigger Highlight. Look at how this bush in the dark purple stands out so much. Now going with some lighter bushes just over here on the cliffs and adding some more onto the right side. Just creating more variety. Just random, abstract, brushy, brushy works. Now in the distance, Let's soften up that ground part with some green, getting even higher and accentuating that edge, creating it basically by adding a few bushes that sand on it. Let's accentuate this edge just over here. Once again, maybe it comes down. Maybe there is a path or some branches or something green. Perfect. Just softly brushing some green and making some bushes on top of the cliffs as well. Barely, barely touching the canvas, going in the middle and making another beautiful like Bush. There you go. What a simple and easy way to make pushes and create perspective. Speaking of perspective, you might have noticed that the foreground elements have much more detailed than the background ones. This seems super intuitive, but it's not specific enough. Details means nothing is just a placeholder words. A better term is batches or fragmentations. You choose what term is best for you. This refers to the number of individual patches that formed the whole object, in this case the bush. But it can be true about trees, people, mountains, and animals. Notice out in this middle bush, there is a lot of fragmentation and patches of color. While in the background, there is less and less, the light part becomes one and the dark part is just one patch. You can also observe what we talked in the beginning. The fact that this bush is so much bigger than the one in the back. Now, let's go into the next step. 7. Intermediary washes can change a painting: Intermediary washes are a great way to tighten up your paintings. Think of this as a semi-transparent layer that you put over certain areas to give more definition and contrast things without completely covering what you have already done. They give so much complexity to the artwork without much effort. Just a little bit of a huge change and the few brushstrokes later you have a very different picture. And by changing the color a little bit while you add the wash, you will get color diversity, one of the most important things for interesting paintings. Now let's get into the step. This will be a very easy step. Just grab the flat brush. It has a little bit of green into it, just a tiny bit. Let's grab some light yellow and some red. Mix it in quite nicely. This Earth, the Ochre tone, mixing quite a bit just over here, even though it's a wash, it needs a bit of a paste. Let's start in the middle just over here, fixing those green areas you've just created. Just making them more yellowy, creating a bit of a transition between green and the orange of the ground with a transparent layer just going with the direction of the brush, just following the ground. Not going overboard. Just creating ride over here onto the cliff. Adding over the blue, just fixing those areas. Not fixing them, but bringing them back towards a different hue. Just touching up a few of the sides of the cliff, just in the left side, right over here by the edge. And you can start to see how much more different it looks just with a few touches on the side and in the middle creates so much more diversity. Just one little wash and going over onto the right side and brushing in a bit more as you go down and you have less color into the brush, taking more reds, changing the hue bit more to make it more red and vibrant. Taking some white and mixing it in just to cut that orange down and make the color much more yellow and light. And going into the middle of the ground, grabbing even more white to create little bit of a different color. And going higher. Dark purple shadows onto the clefts. And right over here next to the Bush, just adding this color over the purple and going away, maybe up the cliff, just a few dabs lines. Notice the verticality of the brush strokes. And some lines just over here, over the cliff. Maybe there are some boulders and some lighter parts on top of the cliff taking even more white. This white has a tiny bit of blue into it. And going on to the cliff and the ground with the brush stroke, a bit more different right over here, where it meets the white and then changing it to a directional brush mark. And going in between those bushes and creating that diagonal just going from the left to the right and going right over here by the edge, going a bit over the green and taking some more water just to bring this wash right by the edge without going too much into the green, just covering that area to give it a lot more detail and interesting shapes and washes. Discovering the lighter parts. And over here onto the right side and in-between the bushes, just scraping some of that wash. Look at how vibrant the painting looks. And it has changed a bit more to the warm side. Once again, as you saw in the step, brush direction played a big role in this step as well. In fact, it was always very important. Clearly defining your brush marks can make a composition look much more interesting and dynamic. So keep in mind, where do the brush strokes go? Now, let's get into the next step. 8. Thicker and vibrant paint : Thicker and vibrant paint. Getting vibrant colors can be a little bit difficult sometimes. But this is a very simple problem to solve. It has three parts. The first part is combining too many colors together. A good rule of thumb for when you want to get extremely vibrant color is to use maximum two colors and use analogous colors. If you need to combine complimentary colors to get purple, for instance, your results will be much better if you have a purple and combine it either with red and blue to get to the desired hue. The next thing to keep in mind is that thicker paint is much less transparent. This means that when you apply it, the color underneath doesn't show through. If your paint is still transparent, even if you apply the thicker layer, for instance, yellow is a notoriously transparent color. Then you will have to wait a little bit until the paint is dry and apply another code using the same color. This brings us to the next point. In order to have vibrant colors, you need to wait for the paint to completely dry before you add the next layer. This might seem simple. However, patience is a virtue that not many possess. You literally have to watch the paint dry. Fighting the urge to just touch up a bit more is a hard thing to do. That's why it's important to take a little bit of a break, stretch, drink a cup of tea, or just paint on another part of the landscape. But remember not to put the cup of tea next to the paint water brushes are not very happy when they taste d. Now let's get into the step, getting some primary yellow and adding it to the mixing plate. And some red. Grabbing the E, EBD tiny brush, the flat brush, and some yellow with a touch of red, creating a very vibrant orange. Let's add some more yellow and mix it very well together, creating a thick layer of paint. Now, let's focus on the direction just over here. And paint in some lights can notice the paint is showing through a little bit. It doesn't have to be very, very intense, especially on areas that already have the color. Let's go in the distance and focus on the direction of the brush just going towards the left on a slight angle. And at the top just over here, adding some verticality to the cliffs, slowly dripping down some color, and going a little bit more towards the right, you can start with some more horizontal lines, creating a bit of a patch going in the distance and adding some more horizontal orange patches. Let's grab some more yellow and make the light over here on the first batch. Just a bit more intense. Now going lower and adding more vibrancy and going a bit and changing the direction of the brush just a tiny bit to create some sort of a break over the purple. And going even more yellow. And creating this wonderful patch of light just next to the Bush as well. And going lower. Grabbing more paint each time it's very important to have a bit of a thicker layer of paint. No water is being used over here. Let's accentuate this shadow by adding some more light around it. And in the distance over here, you can start to see the distance. The colors are much more muted. So when you put this vibrant yellow, it stands out quite a bit, especially on to the purple. Let's brush it in. Mixing just a tiny bit. Grab some more yellow and add some more patches and lines further in the distance. Some thicker paint has been applied over there. And now grabbing even more just to add some more lines and a few patches of this wonderful vibrant colors. Now going on to the cliffs, notice how it's even more bright because the cliffs are a touch more dark. Grabbing some red and mixing in some orange. Just to cut that yellow a bit more and create some color diversity, it stands out quite a bit, so it needs a few points of very vibrant orange just on top and towards the right. Slowly inching towards the right and the left with this vibrant color. Let's add some at the top with just the orange. Don't add too much vibrancy everywhere. Just a few brushstrokes is enough. Let's go further towards the right end. Fix this edge right over here and add a patch of orange mixing in some more yellow, bringing back some of that yellowy Hugh and going towards the right even more with a few brush strokes. And even more up to the corner. I'm going lower and moving towards the left once again, just to break that pattern a bit. And going even lower. Moving in-between areas will ensure that you don't overwork a certain part. Let's look and see what it needs. Let's add some more red and add some vibrancy towards the red this time. Just over here, a big splotch of paint and another one going down, you can start to notice how much more different it looks over the purple lot closer to read than any of the colors on the canvas. Now going higher and adding this color here and they're not going overboard just on the cliffs trying to still retain those beautiful purples, blues and oranges, making an even more intense orange. Let's add some more thicker paint onto the edge of the cliff, onto the left side, and on the lower part where it meets the ground. Grabbing some more color and adding some lines onto the middle of the canvas and onto the right of this beautiful Bush, just going with the direction of the brush on the ground, going into the purples higher end, adding this color, just adding patches of vibrancy, just a few, noticing the edge, creating some sort of a contrast between the green and the red. Going with smaller brush marks onto the lower part and even lower, creating some patches. Notice the bigger and then the smaller. Then the bigger and the smaller one just over here. It's a play in between big and small. Okay, let's add some small ones just over the blue, right over here, right next to the blue. And going into the purples, just add some of that heat. Some of that orange, creating more color variety. Which seems like it has a lot of detail and there is a lot going on, but without much effort, let's mix more yellow version of this. Orange is very, very yellow. Almost pure yellow. Just makes it very, very well. Thick coat of paint keeps the doctor away. And going in between and adding some more vibrancy behind the bush and pride over here on the Hill. Going into the purples in, you might notice that there is a play between purple and yellow since they are complimentary. Let's add right here next to the shadows some really yellow parts. And going higher, just a few dabs of paint. And it creates so much beautiful vibrancy. Let's go higher on to the cliffs and towards the left, just to dabs of yellow indicating the edge of the cliff. And towards the left, just one small point and going lower into the orange that is already there. And towards the left, higher on to the cliff, just creating some sides. And even onto the right side, a few dabs of paint. Now lower onto the ground, Let's add some very abstract shapes indicating some foliage or some ground that is a bit more rocky and yellow. Let's add some more vibrancy and some more yellow. Just to add a few textures. Let's roll this beautiful brush onto the purple just over here, the purple blue and next to the bush. And now it's time to add some of this yellow onto the green of the bushes. Just a touch of this vibrant yellow. Cleaning up the brush onto the left side of the bushes, just adding some more color variety. Just on the highlight part of the bushes, grabbing some more paint and starting in the middle Bush and connecting a little bit of the bushes, grabbing a bit more paint and integrating this yellow over onto the left side and everywhere onto the bushes and going overboard just a bit. Rotating the brush, as you can see, can make some nice and beautiful brush marks. Just rotate it and create beautiful textures. Just rotate the brush and it will create the impression of foliage. Very easy to do. Just trust yourself and rotate the brush a tiny bit. Don't worry, you will touch up these areas a bit more with the proper highlights and in the middle, and let's add a bit more yellow. You can start to see how it breaks a bit, the contrast, and it adds more vibrancy. Super easy to do. Let's go to the left and add some of this yellow into the bush. Not all things in painting need to be complex topics and ideas. Sometimes it's as simple as just adding a few splashes of color to add some vibrancy. Of course, there is a little bit of method to the madness. For instance, it's much easier to add vibrancy on top of areas that are very close to the color that you are applying. And you should be conscious of rush direction whenever you paint on an area. Now, let's get into the next step. 9. Variety of color is the secret sauce : Color variety is the secret sauce. There seems to be a theme to this course, doing things in a more simple way and yet, getting the most out of the concepts and techniques being explained and used. For instance, color variety, a subject that can be vast and cumbersome and full of complicated terminology. And yet in this step, it boils down just to analogous colors. Just deciding on what color needs more diversification. In this case, the orange of the cliffs and the ground. So the base color is orange. The adjacent colors or analogous colors would be red and yellow. Adding color varieties super easy. All you would need to do is add more yellow or red to orange. But another way to make things more complex with little effort is to add white into the mix. This way, the orange can become a creamy pastel pink or a beautiful yellow ocher. This brings much more different nuances without deviating too much from the base, orange. Now let's get to painting. Let's add some white to the mixing plate. Right here on the left. As you can see, there is also yellow and white on the plate. Let's mix some of that white into the yellow just over here in the middle of the plate. And add even more white. Grabbing some of the red from the edges with the small flat brush, you can think of this layer of paint as the highlights of the ground. Let's add some patches just over here, creating some more interesting dynamic, just going a bit vertical and then following the brush direction onto the hill. Now going higher with some patches of this lighter version. Now right over here next to the right side of the bush, and next to the dark parts onto the clefts just following that direction. Maybe some of it just in between the distance. And you can also use the brush, just rotated a little bit some more of that rotation, creating some different brush strokes. Getting some more paint and looking for a right spot to add some lines and some rotational brush marks. You can start to see this is some sort of a light shining through, just going down and adding some of it onto the ground, right in front of the bush in the middle. Now ride into the transition. We can accentuate some of that light right onto the orange and next to the blue, grabbing some more yellow, making the highlight a bit more different. This time, the bid more yellow, just adding some more vibrancy and some more light. You can still see the white permeating through the paint. Still much lighter than the yellows previously applied. Now going higher with this yellow word color and adding some beautiful rounded brush marks, organic abstract shapes and dots. Now going over the purple with some lines and brushing in and then creating some more intense color over it. Just a few dabs of paint. To integrate some more lighter version of these yellows. They just add so much more dynamic color variety onto the cliffs right next to the edge, adding some more lights. And at the top, as you can see, they stand very good onto oranges or onto darker versions of that yellow. And right next to the edge, accentuating that beautiful edge going lower. Just to make a little bit of a transition. And in-between next to the purple, the dark, beautiful purple, getting more color and going even yellower, going higher with some round brush marks and some lines. Now going into the reds, taking some red. Now it's very important to mix some of that yellow. You're already having the brush with some reds and some white. Just mix it very well together to get the salmon. Pink, this pastel, beautiful pink, Rosie and wonderful. This will integrate all the oranges. It's a transitionary color between the orange and the purple. And going into the Ground, just adding it towards the purple and also over the orange. Because you start to see how beautiful and interesting it looks. This color hasn't appeared anywhere else before, so it kinda gets right in there and becomes part of the painting quite easily. It was needed for such a long time. Now it's on the painting now higher on to the cliffs. You can add it as well. And going towards the left over the blues, just adding a bit more of this new found color. Okay, going and adding it right next to the yellow as well. And in between the light just over here on the left and lower, just mixing and matching. Some beautiful transitions ride where the darkest shadow of the painting is in the middle of the canvas, going onto the ground and adding some more transitionary colors. Look at how complex it is. And adding some more white just to turn this pink, even lighter. Mixing it very well together. Grabbing some of that paste and going right onto the lower side, right next to the bush. And on the ground, just rotating that brush. Just a few splotches of paints, getting even more paint and going over the yellow right over here. Just a few touch ups to give the impression of more interesting textures. And on the orange right next to the cliffs, grabbing some more yellow and adding it to this color. Just so we bring everything together. Grabbing some more white to create a lighter version of this beautiful color. Mixing them all together, creating a different hue. Thoroughly mixing and spooning the brush. Now going over n between and adding a transitionary color between the yellow parts and the pink parts. Just creating some more interesting lines onto the hillside. Maybe a few more just standalone. Onto the purple side of the hill. Top. Just a little light ray onto the grounds. And right next to the purple, maybe there is a light over here, a beautiful highlights. Now, okay, Let's see where this color fits even more. Maybe next to the dark purple onto the cliff side. Let's grab some more yellow and add even more interesting colors over there. Grabbing some of that newfound color and adding it to the middle of the composition with a few lines. Fixing that edge of this bush. Maybe it's a bit too round. Now going lower and making some more brush direction onto the right side. Just going higher, following that path you've laid down from the beginning and going even more in the middle. You can see how it goes and flows towards the right on the top side. And then it just goes on towards the right corner, creating a beautiful composition. Let's accentuate that even more, just over here. And then going lower with this beautiful color right next to the bush, adding some more light behind it. And in front of it, just calming down a little bit of that color. Now right next to the left side there is this bush that we need to fix a little bit of the edges and maybe go into some darker parts right over here creating a spot where the light shines through the bush and you can still see the ground creating and changing a little bit of the composition with a few simple dabs. And there you go with this wonderful step. In this composition, pink is a color that brings the orange closer and closer to the rich purples in the shadows. It acts like a transition and recolor, making the whole painting more harmonious. The same is true for the light yellow ochre. It brings the orange closer and closer towards the green of the bushes. This is what makes the painting balanced, even though it has all the colors of the rainbow, it doesn't feel overwhelming and all the colors flow nicely into each other. And all of this, without making things overly complicated or impossible to comprehend. What is the use of information if it can't be applied? In order for information to be applied, it needs to stick into the memory easily. By now, you might not remember what chromatic aberrations are, but yet it's much easier to remember the cheetah and the Violet's between the light part and the dark part of it's for, and how you've added purples and blues to the cliffs and the ground to integrate the color of the sky into the painting. Okay, okay, enough mumbo jumbo. Let's finish this painting in the next step. 10. Bringing everything together . Thank you: Finally, it's time to bring everything together. What would be a better way to finish the painting than adding some vibrancy and integrating some more color variety. All while practicing mark making and brush direction, the bushes need a little bit more vibrancy and some more textured highlights. However, since the green will become intense in the process, you will need to transform it into a little bit of a wash and integrates into the ground and the color of the cliffs. This will bring together the landscape even more, making it look much more detailed and finished. And now let's paint. Finally adding some blue to the mixing plate onto the right side, grabbing the small flat brush, as you can see, it's clean and some blue right over here on a clean space. Adding some yellow, creating this vibrant, rich green. Just adding two colors. And start going onto the bushes creating some vibrancy. Once again, you can rotate the brush to create some foliage. Let's add some more white to the color to create even more of a highlight. Look much better. Let's now create some thick, beautiful round points and dots right on the left edge of the beautiful bushes. Remember to rotate just like this, the brush, so it creates some sort of a wonderful texture. Let's add also some verticality. Just so they stand out next to the horizontal and diagonal lines of the ground. Look at how bright and colorful the bush looks. Now. Now let's go into the middle one and add the same brush. This is a very simple and repetitive action. However, you need to be conscious of the beautiful edges and the wonderful sides of the bush, you can start to see how complex and detailed it looks. If you leave the colors from the first layer is still visible. Going a bit further into the background on this small little bush and adding some highlights just to the top. Now onto the left side, right in-between the transition where the ground meets the bushes and right here into the newly created patch of light. And going even more towards the edge of the canvas, creating some more textures and leaves. Okay, going higher, adding some more yellow and onto the right side and some white to create even lighter highlights. Straight onto the metal bush, you can start to see the color has become so much more light. Don't overuse these highlights, just add them just as a special thing over the color you've just laid in. Just small little points and dots and going a bit in different directions. You can start to see over here there is a small bush in the distance. Let's add some highlight to it. Let's make some more paint by adding some blue, some yellow, and some white, mixing it well together. Just so we can add some thick highlights onto the bush, just onto the right side. Some dots, just stapling it down, just adding different kinds of brush marks by rotating or by dabbing the brush, or by making some fine lines and points. Look at how much more textured it looks. Let's go over here and create some vertical lines and dots going down into the ground. And adding some more complexity with just going a bit faster and adding some more interesting lines going towards the left and adding at the edge of the bush just a few more textures. Now, let's move into the distance and add some highlights to the distant bushes, to the far away bushes on the side of the cliff. Look at how they instantly pop. It gives the effect of light. This is because you've laid down some colors that can stand this light version of the green. Okay, while still keeping it simple, Let's go on to the middle Bush and add some more of this highlights just by rotating the brush, creating a section of light and closer to the ground, Let's refine them and make them a bit more horizontal. There is another patch on this bush as well, right in the middle, you might notice it's in the middle of the shape just so it breaks down that illusion. The edges, the lightest part. Now, the lightest part, it's in the middle of the shape. Now going on to the left and going into the darker parts and creating some highlights over there as well. Just simply adding some lines and some squiggly area's. Now it's time to add some water to the paint just so you can create a wash for the ground. Just so we integrate that light green into the ground and the cliffs. This will make sure that the painting feels flowing and the colors just blend together nicely. Look at how nice it just shines onto the ground. Don't go overboard with this swash, just a little bit of color just to find it here and there. It doesn't have to be too logical as long as you keep that direction. And you add just a little bit of a wash and it doesn't feel too mechanical then it's just fine. Let's add some more on this side and on the top of the cliff stands out quite a bit more, maybe just a touch more. And then we can just add some more water so we blend it. Maybe there is another beautiful patch of green over here. And on the right side, just adding a few dabs of paint. Let's look at the painting. Clean out the brush and mix a little bit of the orange for the cliffs so that they blend more in the background, the green areas, just going over the green areas with the salmon, beautiful orange blending those greens. Now they seem much, much more integrated, going over them, cutting them, and almost completely covering them. There you go, the painting is finished. You've also might have noticed how much of the painting is still left undefined, untouched from the first washes and passes of color. And yet somehow these rough parts elevate the landscape beyond logic and reason. These parts are left there so that the mind can wander and fill them with detail and logic. This seems like a good note to end on. Sometimes it's better to leave a little bit of unrefined parts because that's exactly where the magic can begin. Thank you once again for taking this class and being part of this community. Don't forget to leave a review and see you in the next class.