Transcripts
1. Welcome to Class!: Have you ever looked
at a misty forest and wished you could paint that atmosphere of
magic and serenity, but felt it was too complicated. Well, I'm here to show you how easy and funny can
be with gouache. Hi, I'm Hans is a Skillshare top teacher and passionate what color
artist from France. I've been teaching art
for over four years, both online and in person, and I absolutely love sharing
my discoveries with others. And when I first
started using gouache, I struggled with how streaky it looked because
it dries so fast. That's when I developed
a technique that gives a smooth, atmospheric feel. And now I cannot wait
to share with you. In this class, I'll
guide you through everything that you need to
know to create stunning, misty forest
landscapes with quash. We'll cover the supplies, essential quash
techniques, and how to layer to create
death and atmosphere. By the end of the class, you'll have the skills to paint magical forest scenes with
just two colors and white, keeping things simple
and accessible. This class is perfect for anyone who loves
landscapes and wants to explore quash
in a new creative way. So whether you're a
complete beginner or you already have some
experience with quash, you'll find this
class refreshing, easy to follow and inspiring. If you're ready to paint
magical atmospheric forests with a simple and
unique technique, this class is for you. So let's dive in
and get started.
2. Class Projects: In this class,
you'll be painting two misty forest landscapes. For the first project, you'll create a classic
misty forest scene with distant birds
flying through the mist. For the second, you'll
paint a close up version of it as though you were
standing within the trees. Throughout the entire class, we'll keep everything simple. For example, we'll use just
two colors and white paint, and don't worry because there is no sketching or
drawing involved here. It is all about enjoying
the painting process. What's especially great
about this type of landscape is that you
get to see how easy it is to create more of your own by adjusting things
like the tree sizes, their placement, and
the misty effect, add birds or leave them out, or even experiment with other elements to make
your forest unique. The possibilities are endless. For extra support, you can download a photo
of my artworks as well as a list of supplies and some references
for inspiration. You can do that from the project and resources section
of the class. As you're painting or
when you're finished, you're welcome to share your art with me and other students from the project tab or ask for feedback in the
discussion stab. I'm excited to see
what you create, so now it's time to
move on and meet me in the next lesson for a
quick look at the supplies.
3. Recommended Supplies: Welcome. In the first
lesson of the class, we'll start with the supplies, and the first thing I want
to talk about is paper. Here I'm going to be
using watercolor paper, and mine is Asha. It's 100% cotton paper, and it's called press, which means it has a
little bit of tooth to it. Now I want to be very
clear that you do not need to use this paper here. You can use any other
watercolor paper that you have. Because we'll be using
little water in the class. So it doesn't really matter
whether or not the paper is very high quality like this
one or a lower quantity. For the exercise, we'll
need a small sheet. And then for the
projects, we'll just need an eight by nine sheet. It can be slightly
bigger if you like. We'll separate it into
two parts, and that's it. As you know, you will
need gouache paint, and it's very simple
here, just basic colors. So here I have ultramarine
hansa yellow and white. And it doesn't really
matter the brand that you use or the exact shade
of yellow or blue. I made sure to
write the names of the colors that I'm
using in the brand in the list of the
supplies that you can download in the resources
section of the class. Something very convenient to use with gouache is a palette. So mine is just a
ceramic palette. You could use a plate
instead. Why not? Or anything that you have that's plastic or metal or
you can mix colors in. We will be using what I
call the paintbrushes, and I like these here because
they have a pointy end, and that's going
to be very useful to create details like trees. Synthetic or a blend like
this type of paintbrush here is going to be just
fine to create fine details. So you don't need to overthink the paintbrushes as long
as they're going to be thin enough for you
to actually paint those trees on such a
small scale as this. That's all you need
to worry about. That's actually how I would
determine what size of paintbrush to use for
this particular project. Make sure that its size
matches the sheet. Other paintbrushes
I want to introduce here are those
foam paintbrushes. You can see they're around
and you can find that easily online by just
typing foam paintbrush. They're pretty
inexpensive as well, and I've noticed
they are extremely convenient to create smooth
backgrounds with guash. We'll be using this
for the mist effect. You will need two jars of water, as well as paper towels. Masking tape is going to be convenient to tape
the sheet all around, so we can paint without
worrying about it moving. And then that's
completely optional. You can use a heat
gun if you like, or a hair dryer to make your
backgrounds dry faster, even though with guash and the very little water
we'll be using, it's going to dry very fast. And just to precision here, we will not need anything for the sketch because
there's no sketch at all. So now we're ready to move on. Let's meet in the
next lesson and practice some techniques. What
4. Let's Practice Key Techniques: We're ready to get started
with the techniques. I just want to show you the main ones we'll be using here. First thing we're
going to do is tape that sheet all around. We will need our palette
so we can mix colors. And we're going to need
our paints as well. I have the water jars here and the paper towel, paint
brushes as well. So let's start with a quick
color mixing lesson here. The reason why
we're able to paint finished landscapes with very
little colours is that you can easily mix new colors from very simple
ones like these. So, for example, let's
take yellow and blue. And And let's mix
them up together. So I'm just going to
wipe a paintbrush here. I make sure it's
not too wet because the guash that comes out of the tubes that I'm using
is pretty moist already. There's really no need to add a bunch of water to it.
Just a little it's fine. If yours is a little
bit more dry, though, you might want
to add more water. Now you can see that when I mix the two, I'm getting green. And if I was to use more yellow, that green would get a
lot lighter and brighter. If I use more blue, it gets a lot darker. So you can really
play with this. And now to create
our mist effect, we'll also be using white. So now look at this. If
I add white over here, I'm getting something a
lot lighter, a lot softer. So that can be great for backgrounds where you want the color to be
very, very light. And we're actually going to get started that way with
this color here. So I'm going to grab, I
think, this paint brush here. And what you want
to do when it's very dry is just wet
it a little bit, so you just dip it in
the water very slightly. And then you want to get
rid of most of the water. You really want it
to be just damp. And when it's ready, you
can pick up the paint. Remember, mine is
actually pretty moist and I've added
some water to it, so it's easy to pick up.
That's how it should feel. And when you have it, you're going to start adding
it on paper like this. So you can hear that noise
here that I'm making, and that means the paint
is actually pretty dry, and that's what we want
with this technique. You want it to be easy to
apply but not too easy. Here, for example, I'm
noticing it's a little dry. See, I'm having a hard
time to apply some, so I'm going to just add
a little more water. Make sure to remove most of it, and then pick up more
paint. And so on. So, of course, if you want it
to be a little bit easier, you would add more water. And that would do the trick. Now, it's a lot easier, but you can see we
have leftovers here, and for smoothness,
that's not best. This is why we want
to make sure that paintbrush stays pretty dry. And then just move that paint around when it's on the drier
side. It's a lot easier. And now you see I'm getting something that's quite smooth. There are no lines from what you could see with using maybe more paintbrush like
this one, a flat one. Those tend to leave lines. Here, we don't
have that problem. So this is the first technique
we're going to be using, and that will go for the
background and the mist effect. The second one is just
painting details. So you want to wet a paintbrush, one with a fine tip. Want to make sure
it's not too wet, so we're getting rid of the excessive water here
on the paper towel. Now I'm going to
pick up some paint. So here I'm imagining I'm
going to paint a tree. So this dark green
is perfect for it. And now we're going to start tracing a line
with the tip of it. If it's easy, that's fine. That means you have enough
water in your brush. If it's hard, you can use
a little bit more water. Just not a lot. So now
you have your line, you can go ahead
and add branches. See here I'm noticing
it's a little bit harder, so I'm adding more water. But I want to avoid
having too much water. Keep more control
over my strokes. So you can practice this, and this will help
you decide what feels right and when to add more
water or remove some. So notice I'm making curvy strokes here because
that's my preference. Now, if you want to
draw your trees in a different way, you're
welcome to do so. I also like to overlap
those branches together, and don't worry we'll
go over that again as we paint the actual projects. So now notice I made
a little line here that I do not like What
is great about backwash. It's easy to remove. So I just clean my
paintbrush completely. I'm going to remove most
of the water out of it. I'm just going to lift this, and it's almost gone. It's very easy to
remove. That is it. For the exercises, you can see how smooth this
background is here. And now we're ready to
move on to the next part, and we're going
to start pinning, starting with the backgrounds. But
5. Painting a Smooth Background: We are ready to
paint the projects, and we're actually
going to start with both of them and
backgrounds first. Masking tape and take
the sheet all around. We are now ready to paint, so I'm going to go ahead
and mix some more green. So we need a little bit of yellow and a little bit of blue. We are also going to need
a little bit of white already because we want
to create that soft look. In this part we'll only be
using the foam paintbrush. Remember, we want to wet
it first a little bit. And get rid of the excess,
just so it's damp. And now we're going to
create a little mix. So it's totally up to
you what you want to do. Do you want just green, a very light green, like sage? Or would you prefer
a blue color? It's up to you or
maybe something that's more on the white side. The thing is, we don't
want to make it all white because we need a
little bit of contrast, even if it's tiny and I'm
going to show you what I mean. So I think my first
landscape here is going to be more
blue with white. So I really used a little bit of blue and more white here. And don't worry if it's
a pronounced color, we can conceal it later. And now we're ready to apply. Remember, if it feels
a little too dry, a little hard to do, you can
add a little bit of water. For now, it feels just right here. I'm going to keep going. And notice that I'm going in circular motions that really helps avoid those tricky look. I'm starting to have
a hard time here, so I'm just going to add
a little bit of water. Go to remove the excess, and I'm going to pull more paint from this side over
to this area here. For a background, we can
really go a little bit crazy on this step.
Doesn't really matter. And now that my whole sheet
is covered up in paint, I'm going to start
with circular motions. And while I'm doing this,
the paint is drying already because I really added just a little
bit of water. It wasn't that much at all. Just very easy to get back
to very, very smooth look. And see, now I have a part in my background here that's a little darker,
and it's just fine. It's actually better
this way than having something that's
the same everywhere. It creates that contrast I
was talking about earlier. So this background
here is finished. I would like to go for something a little
more greenish here. And that's because
we're going to be looking at some trees that are going to be way closer to us, so the green background
will make more sense here. So now let's do this. I'm just going to add a
little bit of water here. Include yellow. A little bit more And notice that a little bit
of white could be good here so that we stay
on the misty theme. For a plain landscape
background, you could just keep
it green like this. Here we go. And once more, it's
very easy to apply. It doesn't feel too wet, but wet enough that I
can do this quickly. Again, I'm not worried about having streaks to begin with. Because that background
is wet and still possible to soften it and to
make it smoother. So I keep going in
circular motions. And I'm getting
something pretty smooth. Now, I want to
point out one thing is when you're looking
at those backgrounds, you notice that they're still pretty strong
for a misty scene. We have a bright blue sky here and a pretty strong
green background there. So what we want to
do now is add white. And by now, this should
be already almost dry, and we actually don't need
it to be completely dry. It's just fine as long
as it's almost dry. We can start adding
white paint right away. Making sure to get rid of
most of the water here. The idea is to really
add the white on top and not mix
everything up again. That's why you really don't want to work with a very wet brush. Is to be just damp. Now pick up a little bit
of paint and we're going to start adding it
onto it, layering it. Now it's interesting and it's going to help with
contrast is that you don't have to add that color
absolutely everywhere. You can keep some areas
a little bit more bluish and others more whitish,
doesn't really matter. I didn't rinse my
paintbrush when I did this. I do have a little bit
of green here showing, but it doesn't really matter. This is really
just a background. We're just setting
up the scene here. I'm getting a more light. And I really want to
lighten up this background. This is more like it here. We're going to have trees
towards the bottom, so maybe you can leave
the bottom to look a little darker, a
less white there. Start creating variety
with your colors. And now it's up to you
to decide if you want to work on it a little bit more or you want to stop there. Keep in mind, we can layer as
much as we want afterwards. I'm going to keep it
this way right now. And now I'm going to repeat this for this background here. So I'm going a little bit
heavy on the white color. And I'm going to target
some areas more than others to start creating that
interesting variety here. I need to wet my
brush a little bit. And look at all the
water that comes out. That's why we really need to get rid of a lot of it
before we do anything. See how wet this is now. That means there's
too much water, and now it's lifting
that area underneath. All the color comes off. This is a bit better. I add more wait till we here. And more whites up there. This looks good for now. We're going to stop here. If you want you can dry
this with heat gut or hair dryer and then we'll
move on to the next part. But before that, feel
free to share this on the project and
resources section if you want to show
your progress, or maybe even ask a
feedback or a question. That's it. Now, see you
in the next lesson. We'll start painting some trees.
6. Painting Trees: It is time to paint some trees. So we're going to start with
our regular paintbrushes. For colors, so far, I'm going to go with something
on the lighter side, which means this
would be perfect here because there's a
little bit of white in it. I'm actually going to grab
my bigger paintbrush. It's gonna be easier. So remember, you want
to wet your paintbrush, but you don't want it
to be dripping wet. And then we activate the paint just so
it's easy to paint. I'm going to add a little
bit of color to this. And now I'm going to add hills, and they don't need to
look perfect or anything. You can really do
what you want here. It doesn't matter if the
strokes are visible. So Now I'm going to trace little lines
here, vertical lines. So this can be done
pretty quickly. You really just want to
create an impression of trees and avoid to make it
all look the same everywhere. So sometimes they're
going to be bigger trees, sometimes they're
going to be smaller. Sometimes they're all going
to be clubbed together, and at times they'll
be gaps in between. Try to keep it natural. This, I think, looks good. I might just add
darker green here. And it's very messy, and you'll see that this
doesn't matter at all. We just want to add color here to represent the
ground. That's it. So let's try this. Down here, we're going to start
adding some trees. I'm going to grab my
smaller paintbrush for this and mix yellow and green. Just so it's a tad darker
than the background itself. We wanted to show I think that's good. We'll see maybe a
little bit more blue. And now we're going
to trace some trees. So these are supposed to
be in the background. So I'm starting with a line with the tip of the paintbrush. And I can even start painting on the masking
tape. It really helps. So I'm just making branches. And you don't need to
make branches everywhere because we can still add mist on top of those bare
areas if we want. We could keep it like
that. We could even add a few branches over here in the corners that always
looks more natural. And let's just
keep adding trees. And again, it can be very messy. Now, I'm trying to decide where I want to add more of them. So you can see they show
better on the lighter parts of that background because the
color is light to begin with. That's why it's important to
make sure that your green here is going to be a
little bit darker than the background
itself, so it shows. Don't be afraid to
overlap trees together. Can add branches to elsewhere. So here, it looks like I'm spacing out all the
trees in the same way, which I'm actually going
to try and change. That's why I'm adding
a tree over here. I'm looking for variety, just like for the colors,
same with the trees. I think this is good. So I'm gonna stop
here, try this. And I'll see you in
the next lesson, we'll be adding more mist.
7. Painting Mist: We are ready to add
mist and we need white as well as the foam brush, and slightly wet it and add paint and now start adding
that mist effect everywhere. And I'm seeing it's a
little too wet here. So I'm removing more moisture
and picking up more paint. And now what's important is to cover up this
area a little bit. You don't have to cover
up all of the sky, it's up to you and see
what you want to do. But to go here really is
to have this area that's mountain here show
behind the paint. You'll see that it
will be transparent. I would encourage you
to leave some parts of the sky as they were previously. Again, so we have an impression of mist passing in
front of certain areas. Here, for instance, you see, you don't need to add the same amount of
paint everywhere. Some areas can be a
little more visible. So a little more concealed
underneath white paint. There we go. I'm still going
with circular motions here. And I'm going to
start picking up more paint and just
adding to this. And the paint right
now is almost pure, and you can see you can really see it a lot better and really
get that sense of mist. So I'm not really going by a
reference photo or anything. I'm just improvising. So you can really add that mist wherever is convenient for you, wherever you feel like it. Just focusing on leaving some areas a bit more
visible than others. That's it. I want to add a
little bit over here. It And we already have a nice base here. So now we're going to do the
same with this painting. And make sure the
paint is quite thick. And we don't need to
cover up everything. I'm trying to make
sure that some of those trees are
still visible, but not much can see here, clearly, that this
effect showing. I like it this way here. I'm gonna stop, try this. And now let's beat next
to paint more trees.
8. Middleground Trees & Mist: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to paint more trees, and the goal here really is to build depth in this painting. So we already have
a soft background. We can see some trees
in both paintings, and now we want
to add more trees that are going to be
a little bit darker. They're going to look
like they're a little bit closer and build depth
that way. So let's start. I'm going to grab my
small paintbrush, mix a little bit more green. But I'm going to make sure it's a little bit darker than before, which means I'll be
adding more blue. Et's start, and we're gonna
just overlap some trees, make sure to make them
look a little bit bigger, a little bit taller than
the ones in the back. So it looks logical that these are going
to be closer to us. So I'm trying to decide where
I want to add them here. Remember, we want to avoid and space
them out all the same way. You shouldn't look the same. Now, let's add some over here. And it's up to you to decide
where you want to add yours. If you're having
trouble deciding, you can take a little break and come back to your painting, look at it with fresh new eyes, and that might help you
make that decision. A Now, I'm just trying to see where I might want to add any more. I think this is good, so
I'm just going to add a little more blue to the mix and create
now a few more trees. And I'm not afraid to overlap. See, the paint's
not dark enough. It's not gonna show that much. That's why it's important
to add more blue. I'm trying to make
those trees look like they're in front a little more forward
a little mark on my edge. Why over here. Now, we're going to do
the same in this area. So I'm making those trees a lot bigger because here
we're really inside the forest and not looking
at it from a distance. So I'm keeping those trees still towards the back
rather than the front. I'm overlapping with
others in the background, and I'm trying not to
cover everything up. There we go. Let's try this. And now you already
know how to add mist. We'll do this right away
here in this lesson. So I'm going to pick up
that foam paint brush, more white paint. I'm not going to
wet this too much. By now, we also want that miss
to stick and really show. And it's actually a
little bit too wet here. I'm carving up some of the
trees that I've added earlier. I'm just gonna need more paint. And I need it to be a
little bit more dry. You can also add some in the sky and just
pretend, for example, the mist is going
this way here heading that way always with
circular motions. Try and keep those layers in the back visible
in part, at least. I'm just taking a look. I like this and the way
this is looking. So now let's do the
same here. More paint. Remember, we're not trying
to cover everything up here. I really like this here, so I'm gonna try leave it alone. I don't really like this part. Covering it up a bit more. You can really decide depending
on your own painting. I think that looks good. So now let's try this.
And in the next lesson, we'll work on the final layer. So if you want, you
can share this in the project and
resources section with your questions or ask
for feedback at anytime. Otherwise, let's beat next.
9. Foreground & Last Details: In this lesson, we're
going to create the darkest trees and
finish those paintings. So we're going to
need more blue. Actually I added a
lot of yellow here, but it's the blue color
we're going to need more of to make those
trees stand out. So we're just need
a little bit of yellow with a lot of the blue. To get something really dark. I think this is good. We
really want this to pop here. It's important. So once you have this, you're
ready to paint your trees, make sure paintbrush is
not overloaded with paint, just so the tip is
still very thin. And now I'm going to go
with the rule of thirds. And if I was to divide the sheet into three parts
vertically and horizontally, there would be
four focal points. And I want to actually place
one of the trees here, one of the biggest trees on
one of the focal points, which would be
somewhere around here. It doesn't matter if
you cover up some of the other trees you painted
before on the opposite, we really want that overlap. And you want to bring more care to those
final trees here. So they look fine. I need a little more water here. Now, let's add North. But I also want to add one over here. And some over here.
I'll look nice. Use the masking tape anytime to finish your trees. They'll
look more natural. We can add some more
trees over here if we feel like we need more
in the middle ground. So in that case, let's add more yellow. That's
what I want to do. Just add more trees
there. Why not? H Let's add some trees now over here. And this time, I'll make sure
that they reach the bottom. Let's overlap with
another tree here. I'll add some
branches over there, and I'll use again the
masking tape to do that. I would like to add a
very big tree over here. Now let's see what
else to add them. Uh Now, you want to take a look
and see if this looks bounce to you and whether or not you
want to add anything. I think, for me, that's
going to be fine, although I might like to add
a tree close by somewhere. Not sure. Maybe over here. Really trying to get
it to look natural. Even here, I feel like it
would be nice to add a trunk. That's it. So now
let's try this. And now let's work on adding more mist,
and we'll be done. So we want to work with paint that's going to be
pure out of the tube now to make sure these trees get covered up pretty well and that
that mist stands out. And now let's start. Do you really want to
try and imagine how that mist would move
across landscape? Here I might need to
dry the sheet and add more paint because it won't stick in that area.
Let's do this. That can happen when we've
added a lot of layers already and it's a
little bit harder for the paint to stick on paper. But you see now it's
working really well. So now let's see. I
want to add some here. Have it get down towards the trees over there
just slightly. Have some bright touches of
it in the corner over here. And now towards the bottom
to help those trees melt into the whole landscape and make the whole thing
look more magical. You can really see it here. I think this looks
very satisfying, so I'm not gonna do
anything else here. Just go to work on
the painting below. And saying we want to kind of try and get some
movement going here while trying to preserve
some areas of the back. Remember, you can dry the
sheet and add more paint. If it doesn't stick on paper well, that's
what I'm going to do. There we go. So now I want to
leave it like this. And I might add maybe
a tree in front. That's the kind of
choice that you can make towards the
end of the process. I'm gonna dry this first. I
want to add a tree up front, but I need more blue. And it's going to be
different for everyone. Not everybody's
gonna want to add the same trees in the same area. It's preference, but also what your own painting
looks like right now. And we can add mist onto this
or not. We don't have to. Trying to make the bottom
of it a little bit darker. I think another tree
here will look great. Final touch, if you like, you can create dark blue again. And why not add a few birds trying to decide
where I want to add them? Maybe on one of
those focal points. So remember, mentally divide your sheet into three
parts horizontally, vertically, and
wherever those lines meet is where your
focal point is. So let's just draw
some birds here. That looks great. So now it's time to
remove the tape. So here we go. We now have
two beautiful landscapes. You can see how easy it is. Just take it step by step
and you'll get there. And, of course, you can add
as many changes as you like, which is great about this technique and this
kind of landscape, too. Please feel free to share
your art with us in the project and resources
section of the class, and I will see you next
for some final thoughts.
10. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for
taking this class. I hope you enjoyed
my techniques, and you're ready to create more landscapes of your own now. I love to see your work, so please make sure to upload your art to
the project gallery, and please leave
a review so that potential students know what to expect and if the class is
the right fit for them. And if you want to stay
updated about future classes, follow me here on Skill Share. You can also learn
from me weekly on YouTube or practice
Tutorials along with me on Patron or take one of
my in depth courses. Happy painting and see
you in the next class.
Francoise Blayac, Professional Artist
