Transcripts
1. About the Class: Have you ever looked at a beautiful landscape photograph
and thought yourself, that would make a
lovely painting. But when you sit down to paint, you get intimidated looking
at all those details and cave into the peer pressure
of wanting to paint it as realistic
as possible. But fail at it miserably. If this is you, then this class is going to
change everything for you. This class isn't about
painting realistic landscapes. Rather, it is about finding your own creative
style, what to include, and what to leave out, how to mix your greens and how to use gouache to
your advantage. Hello there, My name
is Vidya Kumaresan. I'm an illustrator, surface pattern designer and
Art educator from India. Art had always been my calling, but it wasn't until my
under graduation, that I decided to take it
up as a full-time carrier. Initially, I just started
posting my artwork on Instagram and slowly things
started looking up for me. And in no time I was receiving orders from brands
to illustrate. So far, I have licensed
my artwork to be put on various products
like sketchbooks, notebooks, rugs, calendars,
throws and so on. I would like to
describe my Art as Fun, Modern, colorful, yet bold. I love to experiment with different traditional Art
mediums such as gouache, watercolor, color pencils,
and oil pastels. But for my client works, I usually like to work with a digital platform such as Procreate or Adobe Illustrator. In this class, I will be teaching you how
to loosen up and overcome your fear while painting landscapes
using gouache, I usually like to keep my
style very simple and loose. And this is exactly
what we will be practicing in this
class as well. I will be covering the
materials that I use, the basics of gouache, how to create a composition
using a reference image. How to paint using gouache, how to mix your
colors using gouache, and finally, how to add
details Using color pencils. What you will take
away from this class is the ability and
confidence to paint any landscape using gouache and also find your
own creative style. By the end of this class, you're going to have a
gorgeous landscape painting that is ready to be framed
and hung on your wall. This class is completely
beginner friendly, but is also suitable to all the creative
minds out there who want to expand their creative
skills. So Let's get started.
2. About the Class Project: For the Class Project, we are going to be painting a beautiful landscape
as this one. To paint this landscape, we are going to use a reference image
that has already been downloaded and uploaded to your Project and
Resources section. To access your reference image, all you have to do is click on your Skillshare
class and then go into your projects
and resources. And under Projects
and Resources, you will find that there
is an attachment saying reference image 01 under
the Resources tab. You can download this and
maybe take a print out as well and use this as a reference image for
painting our final project
3. Materials: Let's talk about the supplies that you will need
for this class. Let's start with a paper. For the paper, I'm using a 25% cotton Hot Press paper from a brand called
brustro. This comes in an A4 size and
is of 300 GSM thickness. But for the sake of this class, I am going to cut my
paper into the size six by eight because
I am planning to frame it and hang
it to the wall.. Now, this decision
is totally up to you because if you are
planning to frame it, then cut it to the frame size. If not, you can just use it as it is to an A4
size or A5 size. Next, let's move
on to the paints. For the paints we're going
to be using gouache paints from a brand called Winsor
and Newton designers gouache. Now, this is something
that I prefer and most of the artists prefer
around the world because it is the best
that is out there. But you can feel free to use any Gouache
paints that you have. The colors that you
would require are going to be Primary yellow, Primary blue. We definitely need these
two colors because we are going to mix our
greens from the scratch. So we need these two colors
for sure in a palette. Apart from these two colors, you will also need a white
color and black color. And a burnt sienna color. Next for the brushes. I usually prefer using
synthetic brushes. They work really
well with gouache. And the size that I'm going
to use are going to be four, three by zero and a
Filbert brush of size one. So this alone is actually
a rigger brush, sorry. And these two brushes
are Round brushes. So if you don't have a rigger
brush, that's totally fine. We can still use the three by zero and add the fine
detailing that I would be using with rigger brush right next to you would need
a palette to mix your paints. And I'm using a ceramic palette. You can also use a
plastic palette or even anything that you find
comfortable working with. For Sketching, you need a pencil and in case if you end
up making any mistakes, you definitely need an eraser. And finally, for adding details, I would be using a couple of color pencils in
the shade green. So you don't have to
have all these colors, just a lighter shade of
green and a darker shade of green color pencils is more than enough
for this session. Along with that, I'll also
be using a yellow color, which in this case is
a Lemon yellow color. These are the colors that
I'll be using when it comes to adding details
Using color pencils. And you don't need any
fancy color pencils. Any ordinary color pencils that you have in your
hand is more than enough because this is just for layering on top of the gouache. And usually gouache dries
with a nice matte finish. So color pencils
will work on top of it irrespective of
the brand that you have. And you will also need
a Masking tape to tape down your paper to the
table while we are painting. That's it. See you in the next class.
4. All About Gouache: Now let's talk about
gouache. What is Gouache? Gouache is something that
mimics the property of both your acrylics
as well as Watercolor. It is a very versatile
medium since it can mimic the property of both the mediums that is Watercolor
and acrylic. Now, you can use gouache in
the Watercolor consistency. If you add a lot of
water to your paint, if you want your gouache to
be in an acrylic consistency, which is more of like an
opaque and matt consistency, then you will add just few
drops of water into it. If you're going to
use your gouache, either in a watercolor
consistency or as a gouache gouache in an
opaque and Matt consistency, that's totally up to you. It differs from
artist to artist. So some people use gouache in the matte finish with
like it's quite opaque, whereas some artists prefer to use it in the
watercolor consistency. For this project, we're
actually going to do a mix of both these consistency. So we are going to use it
in Watercolor consistency as well as in the matt
and opaque consistency. So first, let's
try Gouache in it's opaque consistency which once dries has a very nice
matte finish to it. First, I'm going to show you how gouache works without
adding any water to it. I'm just going to
take my paint brush, not going to add
any water to it. So my paintbrush
is completely dry. And I'm going to swoop the paint. And I'm going to paint it. You can see it has a nice
creamy consistency to it, even if you have not
added any water to it. But you can also see
that it's very thick. Like I said, Gouache has a
nice matte finish once it dries and it completely
covers the white of the paper. So it's opaque. So since the paint is squeezed
and swooped right from the tube, you can see that it also has a very thick consistency to it. So once you have a thick paint on your paintbrush and the paint
is eventually wearing off. You can see that it gives you these nice texture lines as well. You can also use
this texture lines to your advantage
in your painting. In case if you want to add a nice texture to your wall
or to even your field, and so many other things, right? So this is how it
looks when you add no water to your Gouache paints. Now let's see if we
how it works when we add few drops of water to it. I'm just adding one drop
of water, then mixing it. Now if I paint, you can see that it still
covers the white of the paper. It still opaque. And it is definitely
going to dry with a nice matte finish to it. but here you can see
that it's easy to paint. It's not as thick as
how it was before. You have a nice flow going on. Now you can see
that you don't get that dry texture that
you were getting before. So the amount of
water that you add your Gouache paints depends upon the size of the paint that
you have on palette, how much paint you have
squeezed on the palette. If you have a lot of paint
going on on your palette, then probably you need to
add anywhere 1-2 drops of water to get this
nice opaque consistency. If you add more water
than it's going to turn completely into a
watercolor consistency. I'll show you what
happens when you add a lot of water into
your Gouache paint. I'm adding more than one
drop of water. Now I'm going to paint with it. And you can see that almost
looks like a watercolor. You can do all the
things that you would usually do with your
watercolor paints Using your, using your Gouache
paints as well. You will get these
beautiful bleeds that you get when your
watercolor paints. You can also try wet on wet technique using
your Gouache paints. So anything that you can do
with your watercolor paints, you can also achieve the same using your Gouache
paints as well. Let's try the wet
on wet techniques. So here you can see I'm just applying clean
water to my paper. I'm going to take the
Gouache paints and add it. You see, it bleeds really
well, just like your watercolor. So the Gouache paints that
I'm using for this project. is a water-based Gouache, which means that it activates
when you add water to it. And at the same time, even though your painting
has completely dried, if you accidentally
spilled water or even if you try to lift the paint, you can do that using water. So since these are water-based, they are not waterproof, which means your final
painting is definitely not. not going to be waterproof. So if you end up adding water or you accidentally
spill water on it, it is going to sort of have an impact on
your final painting. So your paints will
definitely bleed out. But you do have
another version of gouache which is called
as acrylic Gouache, which is more other
side of acrylics. So the name itself can
let you know that it is going to have most of the properties
of your acrylic paints. So you know that acrylic paints, once they dry, they cannot
be activated with water. So your acrylic Gouaches are
going to have that property. The water-based Gouache will get reactivated when
water is added to it. Whereas your acrylic
gouache, once it dries, it will not get reactivated even if you spill
water on top of it. As an artist, I usually prefer water-based Gouache because it is little bit friendly
on your pocket, as well as when
you have paint on your palette that is left
out paint on your palette. You don't have to worry too much about the paint going waste. You can always
reactivate the paint, that's your water-based
Gouache using water. And you can use it
like you can reuse it. Whereas with acrylic gouache, once the paint dries
on your palette, you cannot reactivate
it with water. So you cannot reuse it again. So if you have a lot of
paint left on your palette, it will go completely
waste once it dries. But on the other hand, acrylic Gouache is really
good for Painting backgrounds because we use a water-based gouache for
painting the background. And then you try to paint
anything on top of it. Even though the paint
layers really well, sometimes you might
accidentally lift the background color
using your brush or using your paint
that is on your brush. So these kind of accidents can happen with your
water-based Gouache. Whereas when it comes to
acrylic Gouache, like I said, once the paint is laid on the paper and it has let to dry, your acrylic Gouache dries
completely waterproof so the paint will not get
lifted when you're trying to paint any other color on top of this particular
background. That is the advantage
that you can find using your acrylic Gouache
over your water-based Gouache. Whereas the advantage of water-based gouache
is that you can reactivate the paint on the
Palette anytime you like, so that a lot of paint
doesn't usually get wasted. So this is About Gouache. Another thing about
gouache is that you can layer dark colors
over light background, and you can layer light
colors over dark background. So let's give that a try as well. Like I said, to use gouache. As gouache, you're going to
add very few drops of water. So the consistency should look somewhat like a nice creamy, melted ice cream consistency, which will not be very
thick at the same time, it should also not
be very loose, like your watercolor
consistency. I'm going to layer the dark
background that is Black. Now, once the paint
has been layered, if you are planning to paint another color on top of this, you have to make sure
that the base layer that you have painted
has dried completely. If you don't let
it to dry and you try to paint on top of
this with another color. The top color is
definitely going to pick the base color that is
the background color. So for example, if I tried
to paint white on top of this black before the
black background has dried Probably I'll end up mixing
black into my white. The white is not going
to seen as white, white rather it would
become very muddy. So in case you're planning
to layer colors using Gouache, always make sure that the
base that you have painted dries completely and then you can layer any other
color on top of it. Now that the base layer
has completely dried, I can use a lighter color. And I can draw on
this dark background. Then you can see it does not
pick up the base color. Now I'm going to layer
down a lighter color. Now I'm going to layer another color on top of
this, which is quite dark compared to the
background color. Now. I'm also going to give a
try, to the same technique, but this time instead of
layering on top with a Gouache, I'm going to try layering
with color pencils. Since for this project
we will be using color pencils to add few
details to our final landscape. So let's give it a try. It doesn't matter
if you're using a Gouache paint or a color pencil, you have to make sure
that your base layer is completely dry before
you go on top of it. Coloring with either gouache paints or color pencils or any other
medium that you prefer. Now that our base layer
has completely dried, I'm just using a darker
color pencils and I'm going to draw lines on top of it. Now you can see
how beautiful it layers the color
pencils on top of it. And you don't have
any issue like the paint cracking or peeling off since you
have the color pencils, the tip of which
is quite pointed, but still you can see
that it doesn't pick up the base color or does
any damage to it. Finally, I also wanted to
show you what happens when you add water to a dried
water-based Gouache paint. So you can see that
we have the Gouache paints layered on the paper here
and it is completely dry. But let's see what happens
when I add water to it. Like I said, water-based
Gouache paints get reactivated when water is added to it irrespective of it
being dried or not. So here we have the paint completely dry and I'm
going to add water to it just to show you that you can see the paint will
get reactivated. So if you don't want this to happen to your
backgrounds of painting, then I would suggest you to use acrylic Gouache instead
of water-based Gouache. But you do have the
option of sealing your final painting when you're
using water-based Gouache. So that shouldn't be an issue. It's just a personal choice that most of the artists make. So that's it About Gouache. I'll see you in the next class.
5. Mixing Your Greens: Let's talk about mixing
our green colors. As you see,
landscape majorly has a lot of green
color in them. But what is very daunting is that most of us don't know how to mix our greens from the scratch. So we're going to look
into this topic in depth. In this class, so we're
going to start by mixing our greens from scratch
using our primary colors. If you have already understood
the color theory, you would know that
to mix a green color, you would need a Primary
yellow and a Primary blue Now, your set might not be labeled as Primary blue or Primary yellow. So let me break it down for you Primary yellow here is nothing
but your Lemon yellow. And the Primary blue
that you see here is close enough to your
cobalt blue or Cerulean blue. We're going to use these colors, just your Primary yellow, Primary blue and mix our greens. Some of your set might have green as a color
tube within itself. If you have this, then well and good, you can use the same. But if you don't have, then mixing your colors
would be the best choice. I'm going to take my palette over here and
squeeze a little bit of Lemon yellow and my primary blue. For your reference. I'm
also going to swatch these colors so that you have an idea as
to how they look. So there I have my
Primary yellow. Next, I'm going to
swatch my primary blue. so there are many different ways in which you can mix your green. You can use different
yellows and blues to get different
shades of green. But for this project, I am going to use the Lemon
yellow or the Primary yellow. And this is lovely primary blue Now that I have
swatched down my colors. Let's mix them together. I'm going to take a little bit of my Primary blue and add it
to my Primary yellow. And you can see that the color
is automatically turning into a green. I am going to add more blue. You see it's turning dark. Make sure to mix your paints really well because
you don't want any yellow lying there Now we have a nice fresh green and I'm going to swatch this for you. so there you have your green. Now, a landscape
is not going to be just of one single shade of green, rather it's going to have different variations or
different shades of green. So we can achieve this
by adding more yellow into our green so that we will get a warm and fresh green. And if we want to
darken our green, we're going to add blue into it. Now, if you also want
a muted version of your green, we will go ahead
and add Burnt sienna into it. So first, I'm going to add more yellow into my mixed green here. And let's see the
colors that we get. I'm going to take a little bit of yellow and add into my green here. I'm not adding it to the
entire mixed green here. I'm just adding to a part of it. Now you can see that you have
a very refreshing green color. Now to the same mix, I'm going to add, yellow. You can see as I keep adding yellow,
it's lightning my mix and I'm getting these nice shades. adding more yellow into the mixed green. There's no right way of wrong way
of mixing Your colors. It's just eyeballing everything. Mixing and coming to the a conclusion. So this come with
a lot of practice. So maybe the very first time you are trying to
mix your greens, You might not get the
exact shade or might end up mixing more
yellow into green, or more yellow into blue
or blue into yellow
00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:15.125
But that's okay. Any, anyways, whatever experiment
you're trying to it will end up as a successful
experiment because you will end up with
a shade of green It's just that you
have to figure out If that's the shade of green
that you're looking for. Now that I'm happy with the
greens that I have here I am going to stop adding yellow
and now I'm going to start adding blue into my green. you can take your time to do this. Take a little bit of blue Again I'm going to mix it to the version of green here You can see that our green
is getting Darker. You can also try the same technique with a different shade of blue instead of primary blue. You can also try ultramarine blue. And you would get
a shade of green. But it's gonna be quite different from the
one that we have here. I am adding more blue into the mixed green here You can see that we get a, nice shade of viridian green. So if you have a 12 colored set or a 48 colored set these green colors, you'll
find them as a tube in your set, but for those who don't
have these colors, It's fun to learn
how to mix them so that you don't have to
buy any extra tubes you don't have to necessarily save your money to buy the 48 set or 60 color set. Just your primary colors
are more than enough. And using your primary colors, you can just create a
wide range of any shade of color that you want.
Again I'm adding more blue into this really nice green and you get
this nice teal blue color Okay. I think these shades are more than enough for our painting. Now let's move on
and find out how to create our greens
which are more muted. You can see these
greens are pretty fresh and they are
vivid and bright. But in our painting,
we're also going to use certain greens which are not as vivid as the
greens that you see here rather There are more muted like
on the side of olive green, the darker shade of an olive green. Let's see how we can mix those colors using
our primary colors. I already have my green that you can get by mixing
Your primary yellow and blue to did this, I'm
going to add burnt sienna. So Burnt sienna is a very
good color to tone down the vibrancy of the paints. You can also add red because
red comes opposite to your green in your color wheel. And the color that is opposite
to any color in the color wheel can
be actually used to mute down the color mix. so I'm not going to be using red here. But if you don't
have burnt sienna, you can use red to tone down. your green. So let's add a little
bit of burnt sienna to the green here. I'm just going to swatch some of that green here. you can see how different this green is compared to all the other greens
that we have already mixed. So if I want a darker version, I can keep adding burnt sienna and I can do it. and I would start getting
these nice, earthly tones. which you can use in your
landscape painting for Painting your
branches, tree branches or rocks, anything that you have resembles an earthly item. You can definitely do that
using these paints. I'll stop there because if I add anymore Burnt
Sienna into it, it's going to take the
color of the burnt sienna, and we don't want that. So now to the same mix I also want to add black color and show you the kind of shade that we will get. So when you are using these colors like Burnt sienna or even your Black, be very careful. Don't take a lot of, you know don't Scoop
up a lot of paint, and then mix it in your green Because then your entire green that you have mixed
here will turn completely muddy and it will not give you the desired
shade that you're looking for. So be very Careful, take tiny bits of that
paint and then mix into it rather than taking
a lot of paint on your brush and mixing it into your greens. Take a very little bit of black and mix it. So you can see that still maintains the vibrancy
to certain extent. It's not as muted
as the one we have here but your green has also
become slightly darker. so if you want to darken your greens, you can add Black If you want a more muted
version, you can add, burnt sienna and you can see if I mix a lot of black then, it sort of messes up everything I'm just going pull a little bit of green.
so mixing your greens Like I said, can be a little daunting
experience if you don't have any idea or you don't have any knowledge about color mixing or color theory but now that you have and you already know that you get green by mixing
any of your your yellow or blue. Just take this as a fun exercise and try mixing different
shades of yellow with different shades of blue and see the the different kinds of
green that you get, sort of document those colors so that you have a
better understanding. And you can also create a nice swatch book that
you can look into later. They can label them with
the mix that you have created. Kind of yellow that you have used or the blue that you have used
to mix that green. So when you document
all those things it becomes more fun and
easier for you to refer to it later when
you're actually making any painting. you'll actually
know the recipe, to mix that exact shade,
that you are looking for. So if I add more Black to it, then it's going to get more
dark so I'll stop here. But I'll also show
you another fun way of mixing your green, which is totally from two
different, not two different, but we are going to use yellow but instead of blue we are going to use black. But this time, instead of, let's try
maybe Warm yellow, this one, instead of Lemon yellow and let me swatch this yellow for you. so Lemon yellow
is considered to be a cool Yellow whereas this permanent yellow deep is considered to be a warm yellow. so When I swatch, you can see the difference between
these two yellows. So now I'm going to add black. You can see it is
actually turning into green, which is not a very
vibrant green, but a very muted green more
on the side of olive green. so this is also one way in which, you can mix your olive green. so this is more warm in tone. compared to this green that we have here. If you want to darken it, you
can add more black into it. Right? If you want to lighten it then add more yellow into it so this looks more like an Yellow ocher color. this again can be used in
your landscape paintings, but we will not be
using it in our project today. But in future, you
can make sure mix yellow ochre in this way and if
you don't have a yellow ochre tube, then you don't have to worry. So finally, I want to
also give a try with Primary yellow and black
We have it on my palette here. So just going to take a little bit of my black again and adding to the yellow. Now you see we get a very nice color. You can see that Not all greens are of the same shade Anytime you try to
mix a shade of green Adding more black into it May be a little bit extra black I'm also adding more yellow into it again. So there you go, you have your green shade card which you have created using just your Primary
yellow and Primary blue. And maybe we can say Black and burnt sienna. But you can see that how
many different shades of green and can create by just
using these four colors. And you don't need a specific
tube for each green color. Sometimes we look at
a painting or we get inspired by such certain artist
and they use a certain green. It's okay if they
use it from a tube or sometimes they
would have mixed it from scratch, like how I did. But most of us always
when we are beginner, we think that we always
have to buy specific color paint tubes so that we'd
get the right shade. But that is not
necessary so that this class in general is to explain that very fact
that you don't have to buy separate paint tubes each and every time for
a particular shade. Be it green or any other color, you can always mix them from scratch using any of
your primary colors. So for example, if
you want orange, you can mix it using
your red and yellow you don't have to buy a
separate tube of orange. Similarly for Your Greens, you don't have to always buy a separate tube You can just try mixing
different shades of yellow, with different shades of blue
and just create a swatch card and see how different shades of
green you can get. And you can probably name them. You can name them. You can give them fun
names if you want and you can also create recipe cards
so that you have something that you can refer back to
the future in case if you're trying to make multiple
landscape paintings. See you in the next class.
6. Painting Techniques: Now let's talk about the different painting
techniques that we will be using in our project. As you can see in our reference image, we have this huge mountain which has a lot of trees in it. Now, drawing or
painting each of these trees individually would
be a very difficult task. But using gouache, we
can simplify things. So this is how the painting technique is
going to be of great use. So I'm gonna show you some of the different fun
painting Techniques that you can do using gouache. We're going to use
the brush strokes to our advantage
to create a sort of impression that
there is a lot of trees in that
particular mountain. But on the other hand, we're also not going to
paint or draw the trees. So what we're going to
do is we're just going to press up brush and sort of twirl or rotate in a way such that it forms a
nice round or any shape. It doesn't have to be a
perfect circle, but a shape. And we're going to use that
shape to our advantage and later make it
look as a tree. So let's start with a
darker green first. I'm just going to press
my brush and rotate it. Doesn't matter if it's of a
different consistency. This is just a practice
session so you don't have to worry too much about
the gouache consistency. While we're doing this, We're going to use
different shades of green. Just going to press your
brush and rotate it. So you get these paint blobs which sort of give a texture or a look or an impression that, you know, that there are
trees in the mountain. You can see here that this is not of
gouache consistency. This is rather of a
watercolor consistency. When you're using gouache, It's totally up to the artist. They can either
use it as gouache, which has a matte finish and that reflects in their
painting throughout. or you can use it as
a Watercolor as well. All you can mix and match. So in this case, in our Project today we
are going to mix and match so few of the areas are going to have a
nice matte finish. And few other areas are going to have a little bit of
Watercolor finish. But overall, when you
look at your Project, the end result is going to be a mix and match
between these two. Wet on wet, wet on dry. It'll also have a matte
finish at the same time it'll also have a transparent
finish in certain areas. So we can just keep doing
this until you feel happy or depending on
the size of your mountain. And if it's too big, then
you just keep continuing to the shape as well because you have to follow the
shape of the mountain. And also, if it's too long, then you just keep adding different shades
of green here and there and make it look
like it has a depth. so if you are very keen on using just one green shade and it's not going
to look that great. So try maximum using different kinds of
different shades of green. That's it. This is one of the painting technique that we'll be using in our project. Just to show the
impression or create the impression that there
are trees in the mountain. Next, we're going to
use the wet-on-wet technique and use the gouache in
its Watercolor consistency. We do have certain areas
in our reference image, which is more of a grass field, but it's not very
in-depth or in detail. It's more of like just
ground that you see from a very far, far corner. And all you can see is only the colors but
not any detail. In those areas. We're going to use this wet on wet technique. And you're just going to use it. Like how you would use usually
blend your watercolors Make sure to blend different colors while they are wet, because once they are dry, it becomes difficult to
blend them seamlessly. We are done with another
Painting Technique. Finally, I wanted to show
you how I'm going to use this rigger brush and just create fine strokes
which sort of represent the stem
of the flowers, which we have in the foreground
in our reference image. The reason why I'm using a rigger brushes,
as you can see, this brush, it has
a really sort of, a very long brush tip, but at the same time the
tip is not very broad, rather it's very thin. So this helps us while painting? To draw nice thin strokes. I'm just going to
use my rigger brush and from bottom to top I'm
just going to pull the line. So you can do this again
in different directions, from top to bottom, from bottom to top. Or even straight. Just pressing your brush
and just pulling it out. Don't try to draw a
straight line like this that are not going to look good at all. Rather just press your
brush and pull it out. So you don't have to have
a rigger brush to do this. You can also try the same
technique with a smaller brush like a size three by zero
or even a size zero brush. So try painting like small
lines or like big ones. Just try different variations. This is more like a
warm-up before we start the actual painting
so that you know the techniques beforehand and are quite confident to
paint your landscapes. So before we move on to
the actual painting, my advice to you guys
would be to try this, practice this as much
as possible because this is what we will be doing in our final
painting as well. And majority of
these techniques, we will be actually
applying them. If you practice this really well and have a good
understanding then it'll be easier for you to go ahead
and paint the final painting. You will not feel very
daunting or very skeptical, or fearful about Painting it. I'll see you in the next class.
7. Class Project : Composition: Now let's talk about
creating a composition. Here I have my reference image and now I'm going to break it down into simple shapes so that it gets easier
for us while Sketching. Whenever you look into
a reference image, you can easily get
intimidated by looking at it, and if you don't study your
reference image really well and blindly if you're
try to sketch each and every subject that you see in
your reference image, then you'll probably end
up with a lot of stuffs. And by the time you
try painting it, you might get tired or you just don't want to
paint it anymore. So to make things simple, let's first Break
down the image into simple blocks and see whichever subject
we want to include. And whichever you feel
like we just not include. When I look into this image, I see that there's a lot of Mountains in the background here. Then we have this one
mountain that is quite prominent. And here I can see a nice field which doesn't
have too much of details, but it does look like there are shades of
green and yellow like, I think probably the flowers that you see in the foreground. are also scattered over different
places in this area. So what I'm planning to
do is I'm just planning to include this mountain for sure because it's
the prominent one. And the Mountains that I see at the background
they are like pretty much being one, two like a lot of different
layers of mountains. But I feel like you don't have to include all of these
Mountains in your painting. It's better to keep
you from composition as much as simple as possible. So instead of including
all these layers. I'm just going to take
this very mountain at the back, the just the one below it. And I see there is a little
patch of ground here. I'm going to include
that as well. Maybe this half part of
the mountain next, I definitely want to include this
part of the field and completely and also the trees that we see here. So you don't have to
sketch these trees. We can paint them. on our painted
layer finally. But you don't have to sketch them because anyways
you're going to go on top with gouache
paints so you'll end up covering your
sketches mostly. but remember that we will be
including these trees in our final painting. Next definitely want to include this part and this part. So again, when it comes
to the trees that you see here, I don't want to include
all of these trees and at the same time also
don't want to draw, paint them in the same shape
that I see here. So I want to again simplify it
and sort of just make these shapes which
are very much like shrubs. Over here I see a lot of trees. So if I am going to add those as well, That's it. For the field, We will not be drawing the flowers rather we have to paint the ground first and
then we're going to layer the flowers on top of it. For now. We're just going to keep it as it is. You don't have to
sketch the Flowers or any other elements
that you see here. This is more than enough
for the Sketching part. You can see that once
You start studying the reference image or any other image that
you have planned. to take up for this project. Always remember
to break it into these simple shapes so that you have a better understanding If you're try to go blindly and start sketching things, you might end up Sketching, a lot of unwanted or
unimportant things. In order to avoid that, just try to break all of your elements first,
understand the reference image really well and then move on to the sketching part
8. Class Project : Sketching: Okay, so now I have layered down my paper which of 6x8 ", which is the size of my frame. Now before I start sketching, I'm going to tape it down
using a masking tape. Now that we have taped it down, Let's start sketching
our composition. I'm going to leave
a little space here so that we can add
the sun later on. so I have drawn the mountain
that's at the very back. Next, I'm drawing another
layer of the mountain. Like I said, my style
is very simple and loose and I like my
painting to reflect that. I'm not going to add too
many details to my painting, but you would see that
the end result is going to look completely different
and interesting as well. So it's not about always making your landscape
super realistic. Sometimes you can just
be as simple as much as possible and still have a
beautiful outcome. Now I'm drawing the mountain
that we can see in the front. Now I'm going to draw the field that you see in the foreground. That's it, there you
have your sketch. If you feel like you want
to also add the trees, you can, but we are anyways, going to cover it
completely with the paint. So I would advise you not to
sketch anything as of now. Maybe you can sketch
on the base layer. Once we're done painting
the base layer, because we are again going
to paint on top of it so the pencil lines will be
easily covered with gouache. So for now I'll stop here. I'll see you in the next class.
9. Class Project : Painting Mountains: Next, let's start with
painting our composition. So the very first mountain
that I'm going to paint is this one that is
at the very back, and for this mountain, I'm planning on
something that's a very light green shade, more like a pastel green shade. So to get that color, I'm going to mix olive
green with white. So I already have
paint tubes with me for olive green and white. But if you are not quite sure as to how to mix your olive green, then let's just get back to this chart and
have a little recap. The green that I'm going
to paint is almost very close to this
green over here. And if you remember, we got this green by
mixing black into our freshly mixed
green that we got from mixing lemon yellow
and Primary blue. Just like Primary
yellow, Primary blue. So when you mix these two
colors, you get the green. And to this mix, I added black. So I got this nice olive shade. The olive green that
I have here is, I cannot say very
close to the shade. It's quite darker
compared to this. But there more or less. Same, similar. Just that this is
slightly darker than this color, right? So to this color, I'm going to add white. So I did swatch this
particular olive green color here and you can see it's very dark and I don't want
it to be this dark. But anyways, we're going
to add white into it. So even if it's
slightly to this shade that you see here in the
swatch card or darker, it doesn't really matter
because we're going to add white to it and we're
going to lighten it. So I'm gonna use my
gouache as Gouache paint as I want it to have
this nice matte finish. And it has to cover the
white of the paper. So I have added
very less water to this puddle and have made
it to a creamy consistency. Now to this mix, I'm going to add white color. So if you're mixing Your Greens, make sure to mix them
in enough quantity because we are going to use
them a lot in this painting. So this Painting is more of green and less of
any other color. So if you're mixing
any of the shades, make sure that you mix
them in larger quantities. Because even if you're trying
to mix the color again, any particular shade, its quite impossible to get
the exact shade again. So have them mixed in little extra
quantities so that you don't run out of that
particular shade. Right? Next, like I said, I'm planning to paint like a sort of pastel green
color over here. So anytime you're mixing
any color with white, always make sure that
you mix the color into White rather than taking the white paint into your color. Because we are aiming at
something more like a pastel color. So it only makes sense to
mix the green into White. I'm just picking
up a little bit of green here and mixing it. into this white puddle. Again,
remember gouache consistency. So I'm adding just
few drops on water. And I also want it in
like more quantity because we have to almost
cover this entire rage. Now to this mix, I want to add a
very little amount, like a very subtle amount
of yellow, Primary yellow. Just to get that nice
warm pastel green color. Taking a very little
amount of yellow. I'm just mixing it into
this pastel green. Now I'm going to paint
this color over here. If you have mixed
your Gouache paints in the right consistency, then you will have no issue
in layering your paint. If you end up with
dry brush stroke, it means that you're mix needs a little bit
of water in it. I'm done with that mountain. Next, I want to move
on to the next one that's below it and
for this mountain, I'm going to paint
the same olive green, but I'm going to
add little yellow into it. Again, I'm going to have the paint in my
gouache consistency. So adding very
less water to it. We're gonna start
painting these Mountains. As you can see when
I tried to reach almost towards the end, my paint is turning into
a watercolor consistency. So I want to stop
here and try and mixing the same shade again. Don't worry too much
about the brush texture, even if you end up getting these brush strokes,
that's totally okay. I personally enjoy that
touch in my painting. Next, I'm going to add yellow into this
olive green again. like a lot of yellow shade. Use that shade over here. Next, I'm adding a
little bit of blue, Primary blue into
this dark olive. so Green dominated the blue. I'm adding more blue into
it. So this is the color. I'm using the same to paint this side. I'm going to cover this side of the mountain with
that shade of green. If you end up with
these transparent layer, it is okay, let's wait for the base layer to dry. And once it's dried
we will go again on top of the same
shade and it should be able to cover these
White transparency bleed. To paint this mountain, we are going to repeat whatever we learned in the
Painting Technique class. So we're going to
create an impression of like the mountain has trees. So to make that happen. What I'm going to
do is I'm going to use different greens
and I want to mix and match them and sort of create a texture on this mountain which resembles more like there are a lot of different shades
of trees happening on this. If you look at the
reference image, you can clearly see that
this particular mountain is filled with lots of
different shades of trees. We're just going to
try to mimic that, but we don't have to be
very realistic about it. We're just going to
have little Fun and use the brush strokes
to our advantage. So you don't have to be
very particular about the green color you're
going to be using here. Just mix and match
different shades. That should be more than enough. Pressure. Sorry,
press your brush and make a nice round impression. So here you can see
I'm just trying to mix different shades and that
is light green, dark green. Then there's also a touch of viridian green. Now, I want my greens to be little bright, more like
yellow green. So I'm adding yellow
to my green here. And we get those nice
fresh green color. I'm adding more yellow. As I get closer to the
slope here, I'm adding more dark greens. So I'm done with that Part of the mountain.
10. Class Project : Painting Fields: Next, let's move on to
this part of the field. So for this, I'm gonna try
the wet on wet technique. So let's layer down water. My Water is not very
clean so you can see the greens, but that's okay. You can layer down
the clean water. And before it dries up, you're going to mix
lemon yellow with our green. Have this nice
grass green color. so I'm going to layer that along with the
Lemon yellow as well. Keep it very random. Next I'm going to pull
out my Lemon yellow. Add it. Make sure that they blend well. Next for this side of the field, I'm going to use a green just
slightly darker than this. So you see that we have
patches of green here. right? So I'm
going to just make that green slightly dark and I'm going to
layer it over here. Next we're going to
paint this part of the field where the Flowers
are going to be. So for this, again,
for the background, I want to paint a green which is slightly darker than this one. Because if you are gonna, if you're going for
a lighter shade, then it will sort of
merge with this one. So we need something
that's going to be darker than
these two green. Make sure that you have enough
quantity of this color mix because there's quite large area and you need a lot of paint. So mix it in enough quantity. Don't worry too much about these brush strokes that you are getting while
I'm painting here. Like I said, just loosen up. Don't give too much importance to being perfect even though these brush strokes are something that adds a lot of texture, I know that most of you might feel little uncomfortable adding
it to your painting. But later you will see
that we are going to cover this particular
background with Flowers, so it really doesn't matter and these brush strokes are not
going to be seen at all. Let it be as it is, even if you have
these brush strokes here and there it's totally okay. You don't have to
try to cover it up. I'm going to use this dark
green that I have here. And I'm going to paint those tiny trees that you see
in the middle of the field. Again, you don't have to be
very perfect about this. Just draw it in the way, how you would draw the trees
when you were younger, when you were in your school
days, childhood days. That's more than
enough. I'm going to make the size of the tree slightly bigger than
what we have here. So since this is farther
away from this area, so as we come to this
part of the landscape, the trees are going
to be slightly bigger in size
compared to these. Keep the shapes very basic. Now we're done with
the field, next We are going to move
on to the flower part. We're going to paint all
the flowers that you see in this area using yellow. So you will need Primary yellow and
also your Warm yellow. So these are the two colors
that will be using for the Flowers and your greens, so you don't have
to worry about it. But yeah, mostly greens and yellow are the colors that we're going to be using for the next. See you in the next class.
11. Class Project : Painting Flowers: Okay, Now let's start
painting the floral part. That is this area where all
the flowers are going to be. Before we paint the
flowers, first, we are going to paint the stems. If you remember from our
painting Techniques class. We did an exercise where we drew certain strokes
using rigger brush. So I told you if you don't
have a rigger brush, you can totally go ahead with a nice fine line brush of
size zero or three by zero. So use any brush that
you are comfortable using that can give you
a nice fine lines. Now, since this
area is sort of in already a
particular green shade, we have to draw the stems of these Flowers in a shade that is slightly darker
than this green. We're going to add either
black into this green mix. Or you can also add Burnt
Sienna to darken the green. I'm going to start
from the far point because here the
stems are going to be slightly smaller and When you come to the foreground, the stems are going to
be slightly bigger. So let's start by
drawing small strokes. I feel this color is very dark, so I'm going to lighten
it again with my yellow so make these lines in
different directions so that there's a lot
of variation because your stems in nature they are, When you see a floral field, they're not all in
the same direction. certain flowers are towards
the right side or certain Flowers are facing
towards the left. So let's have that variation
here as well in this field. Next, I'm going to add a
slightly darker shade as well, just to give that depth. So now that we are done
with the grass part, painting the stems and stuff, Let's move on to
painting the flowers. I want to start with this nice, warm yellow, which is
permanent yellow deep. So most of your yellows are usually transparent
though it's a gouache, and though they are
considered to be opaque, yet colors like yellow,
a slightly transparent. So for that I'm going to
add a very little amount of white into my yellow here. I'm going to paint the flowers. Just going to make
a blob. That's all. Since you can see in
your reference image, there are so many of these
Flowers in the field. So feel feel free to fill the entire area with as much
as Flowers as possible. Next, I'm using Lemon yellow, which is a Primary yellow. And adding few flowers
with that color as well. And I'm also using
the Primary yellow to sort of add a nice highlight
to these Warm yellow flowers. Don't have to add this
to all the flowers, just few here and
there is more than enough and I think we can stop here with the Flowers. And next, I'm going to show you how you can add details
Using color pencils. I'll see you in the next class.
12. Class Project : Using Color Pencils: Now that we are almost
done with our painting, and it's almost
90 per cent done. The remaining ten per
cent is where we're going to add details Using
Color Pencils. So what I'm going to
do now is I'm going to choose a darker green color. So this is a shade
called sap green, and I'll show you how it looks. This is the shade. I'm going to use the shade. and I'm just going to shade
slightly on these Mountains. I like how the
color pencils adds a nice texture to these
mountains rather than just keeping it really simple like instead of having the
Mountains like solid color, adding color pencil gives a nice depth and the texture
adds more beauty to it. Now this is a totally
optional thing. If you're not someone who
is into to color pencils, you can leave your
painting as it is. But if you want to experiment
with color pencils and see the different
versions you can come up. It can also be your own style, since this class is more about finding your
own creative style, try experimenting with
different mediums that doesn't have to be necessarily
with color pencils. It can also be with inks. Or even oil-pastels or any other fun medium that you prefer using you can easily incorporate into your
painting because gouache is a very versatile medium and it goes in hand with
any other medium. So you can happily use
any medium on top of gouache as long as it has
a nice matte finish to it. I'm just going to darken the
side edges of this mountain. Next I'm going to pick up
this lighter green shade, which is grass green. I'm going to add this
to this dark mountain. It's not gonna be seen, sorry it not gonna be seen like very well,
but that's okay. We're just adding a slight
difference in the shade to that completely dark
block of color there. I completely forgot
to swatch it. This is also a nice
grass green color. I'm using the same color
to add texture over here as well. Not going very dark,
very slightly. Applying pressure to my pencil. and the same thing I
want to do here as well slightly, just don't try
to make it too dark. Just slight pressure
is more than enough. Now adding a darker color that is sap green color again. And just going to
shade these areas. I'm going to add a little shadow here because the Mountains are definitely going to have slight shadow falling
in this area. Just slightly darken that border of the Mountains where
you see it starting. Adding slight texture
on these shrubs as well. Next, I'm using a
nice brown color, maybe hazelnut color,
which is a brown color. I would like to use
a darker brown. So this is a shade called expresso So this is the color. I'm going to add the stem portion of these trees
that you see here. Then I'm also going to add
few branches here and there. So that it looks like there
are trees in here as well. I'm using a dark sorry, a sap green color. If you have a gray color, then you can use
it to add shadows. Here. I think I'll go with
the sap green itself. you can use the pencils to add
fuel stems here as well, just to have a slight
variation in the color. Next I'm using this
Lemon yellow color and just going over the areas
which we painted yellow. Just to give the impression that there are few flowers
over there as well. Finally, I'm using
this orange color over here and going to add sun and slightly shade, at random so that it's sort of looks like Colored clouds as well. We're done with our painting. And now it's time to
remove them Masking tape. There you go. You have your
finished landscape painting. I hope you were able to follow along and complete
this project with me. And if you had, then I hope you had fun painting, this
landscape painting. I will see you in
the next class.
13. Final Thoughts: I hope you enjoyed this
class as much as I enjoyed teaching it to you and learned something out of it. It would be great if you could leave your honest feedback as it could help other students understand the class better. It would also be great
if you could post your projects here under
the Project section, I would love to
see them and give my reviews and
feedbacks as well. In case if you have
any other doubts, you can always feel
free to reach me out on my Instagram handle,
the wishing ink. I'll see you again
in another class.
Vidya Kumaresan, Illustrator
