How To Paint The Northern Lights In Watercolor | An Easy Winter Landscape Painting

1. Northern Lights Watercolour Painting: Hi and welcome to this lesson where you're going to learn how to paint this fun and colorful Northern Lights watercolor painting. I'm going to take you step-by-step how I painted this beautiful painting using a limited palette. I'm going to show you how I mix my paints. And I'll be painting this step-by-step so you can follow along with me at your own pace. You don't have to paint this whole painting in one go. You could follow my step one, allow your layer to dry, and then we'll move on to the next step. Like I said, I'm gonna be using a very limited palette. And I'm also going to be showing you how I sketched the mountains. I'll be showing you how I painted in layers. And I'll also be showing you my color mixes and some very clever tools that you can find around the home to add texture to your mountains and also to splatter those stars in the sky as well. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started. In the first section of this class, I'm gonna be showing you the colors and supplies that are used. 2. Colours and Supplies: For the Northern Lights painting, I used Winsor Newton professional watercolor tubes. I used Winsor lemon, permanent rose, cobalt, turquoise, aqua green, and Winsor violet. The paper that I'm using today is 100% cotton by Fabriano artistic. This is 140 pound cold press paper and it's on a block. So it's gums down on all four sides. So this is going to keep my paper nice and flat. If you don't have a block, I do suggest either taping your paper, download, stretching your paper. I'll be using some cloths for dabbing my brush on for plotting the water out of my brushes. I like to use three jars of water, but you can just use any water containers that you've got. I'm also going to use a large jug because I'm gonna be using this flat hake brush for adding my largest washes and some scrap paper as well. I'll be using a size 12 round brush. So this is a pointed round brush. And I'm also going to be using a size six, and this is in the silver black velvet range. I've got my has lead mechanical pencil for sketching. And also my designers gouache, which is in white. And I've also got an old toothbrush, and we're gonna be using this for splatter in the stars in the night sky. And then I'll be using some old credit cards. These are actually some store cards. I've just cut up and we're going to use this to get some texture in the mountains. And next will be laying down the mountains. First, wash of color. 3. First Layer On The Sky: A Light Under Wash: I'm going to start off by sketching the mountains and then we'll pop the first layer of the sky down after that. So I'm going to start off with these wavy, sketchy lines. So with mountains, they are really simple to draw. All you need to do is wiggle your brush a little bit up and down, make them quite irregular shaped. And don't make them too straight because otherwise it won't look very natural. If you have a look at rocks and mountains, they do have lots of bumps and dips and jagged lines. So I am just joining up these lines and making a few of these lines inside the mountains as well. And he is a clearer picture of what the mountains look like once they're finished. So I'm gonna take my large hake brush now you could use a large flat brush or just the biggest brush you've got. And I'm going to dip it into some clean water. I'm going to start applying the mean of the sky with the large wash brush. And then I'm going to take my oval pointed wash brush and just go around the mountains because this is a bit more detailed and I needed a finer brush. I'm going to mix up a nice minty green now for the lights in the sky. So we're going to paint on this middle light area. So I'm taking some aqua green and really watering it down. Then I'm adding some Winsor lemon so that aqua green to get this lovely minty green color. And I did decide to add a little bit more aqua green to that because I do want it to be more of a turquoise green. I'm just applying this note, the wet paper. I'm making sure that I really like lights to the left. And then I'm using the tip of my brush to add some little wavy lines just here and there. Because if you have a look at the reference photo, you'll see parts of thought, turquoise green color shining through the night sky. So I did want to make sure that I got that lovely minty green color in. Then I'm painting some very diluted aqua green over the edges of the mountains. So if you have a look at the reference photo at the top of those mountains, it looks like in the background there is that lovely turquoise color. I want it to get buy in because that is one thing that really stood out to me. I really love all the beautiful to crises and greens in the background. Now I'm painting some of the cobalt turquoise stone, this one side of the mountains as well. As I'm also going to take the cobalt turquoise into that green light area while that light area is still wet. I'm also going to paint a few thought to cross into. These are the green areas as well. And I'm using my size 12 round brush for this. I'm also painting some of the cobalt turquoise in a few areas in the background. Because I want that color to shine it through the darkest areas of the sky. Because this is going to make the night sky look very illuminated, light on for me colorful. I'm also adding a slightly thicker mixture of the cobalt turquoise into areas of this light area in the middle. And then washing my brush off and we need dabbing it onto a paper towel so it's just damp, quite dry as well. Just taking off some of the color in the middle. If you have a look at that light in the middle of the northern lights sky, it's very light in the middle and almost white. So I just wanted to take off a few areas. Now I'm adding some Winsor violet and this is quite diluted. And then painting this onto the wet paper so that background is still wet. If your paper has dried, I would allow your paper to dry completely and then we wet it because you do want to have nice soft edges in the sky. So I'm just kinda paint carefully around that light middle that we've already popped down. So I'm just carefully painting around the green that we've already put down. I'm just using a larger brush because I found with the size 12 brush, it just wasn't large enough and it was taken awhile. So I'm just using my large oval pointed wash brush. I just felt like I needed a bigger brush to cover that area quicker. And you'll see that I'm not painting that violet over the turquoise that we've put down at the bottom. And that's because I don't want to turn that area purple. If you pop the overlapped area is going to be more of a purple blue color. And I didn't want that rainy. But I am going to just paint to the bottom here. I'm also pop in a few streaks of the dioxazine violet over the turquoise as well. Now I'm going to take a thicker mixture of the dioxazine violet. So you'll see me just pulling that sticky mixture over into the wet area to get a thicker mix. And I'm going to just pop that into the background. This background is still wet. I'm painting wet into wet, so we're getting lovely soft edges. And you can see that I'm not painting that dioxazine violet on very thickly. So you do want to build this up in light layers. Start off with a lovely light wash and then we will build the color up slowly. If you'd go into dark, then you're not gonna get those lovely light areas shining through. And you need that for northern lights sky, because the northern lights sky so beautiful with all the colors. It's lovely to have those, a range of colors shine into r2. So you can see I'm using my brush now to angle my paint in a certain way. And now I'm taking a clean, damp brush. I'm just adding some water into the edges of thought light middle because I wanted to cause some purposeful back runs, is because I want a nice light, fuzzy edge where it pushes out the purple paint. Now I've got some aqua green and it's a bit thicker than the first layer we popped down and I'm going to start popping this into the dioxazine violet. So when those two colors mix together, they make this beautiful blue color loss I absolutely love. I'm just sort of waving my brush, so I'm not painting it across. I'm not just using short dubs either. I'm actually using some long strokes and I'm trying to sort of mimic the look of those wavy lights that you have in the northern sky. I'm going to just paint some of this aqua green over the tops of the mountains as well. But I'm not taking it all over those mountains in the background. So I'm just carefully painting over the tops of those mountains with that aqua green and then taking a thicker mix of the dioxazine violet. So I'm basically just taking my sticky pigment. Then I'm taking my aqua green, nice and thick with a damp brush. I don't want my brush to be too wet. And I'm mixing the dioxazine violet and the aqua green together to get this gorgeous blue. Look how gorgeous that is. I do much prefer to mix my own dark colors. I usually do that by using the colors that I've already used in the painting. This is just a stylized preference. If you don't have these colors, by all means, use a dark color that you've already got. I think a very dark phthalo blue or very dark ultramarine, or a dark indigo is work really well for this painting. I'm just waving my brush, leaving some of that lighter dioxazine violet color showing through as well. Then I'm just sweeping my brush along the horizon line is equal to horizon line, I think it is. I'm just switching my brush along that line anyway and carefully painting around that middle light. So I'm so careful not to actually paint over the edge because I do want to still keep that lovely lights fuzzy outer edge. And you'll see in a minute what I mean by that. For these backgrounds, I am using my size 12 large, round, pointed round brush. So I do suggest using a larger brush because if you try to use a small brush, you are going to be there forever. It all depends on what size paper you're using. Now I've got my clean water again, so a nice clean brush. And I'm purposefully adding some water to the edges of that light to push the paint outwards and you can see those lovely fuzzy edges on the edges. Next we're going to paint the first layer of the mountains. 4. The Mountains: First Wash: In this quick lesson, we're going to pop down the first layer of the mountains. So keep this firstly, a lovely enlight. Add lots of water to this. I'm painting on some very diluted aqua green to the right-hand side of those mountains. And just a lot pink mountain I am using a damp brush just to blend that out because I want a nice soft edge there. So in carefully just using my size two round brush and painting lots or Louver the right-hand side of the mountains. Because the right mountain is going to be that lovely, aqua green. So it's going to look more blue. And then the mountain on the left is going to be permanent rose. I'm taking a very diluted permanent rose and I mean, add lots of water to this. You want this lovely and pale. I'm going to paint that onto the left-hand side. I am going to paint slightly over that blue color that we've already pops down. So don't worry, when those two colors you mix together, they all going to create a bit of a violet color. And it doesn't matter about that because we have got the violet in the sky. So it's still going to be a nice cohesive painting. And now I'm going to paint the second layer of the sky. 5. Second Layer On The Sky: Darkening The Values: We're going to work on the second layer of the sky now. So I'm gonna be using cobalt, turquoise, and also Winsor lemon. I'm going to mix these two colors together to get that lovely, minty green. Again, we're going to pop this onto the middle lights that's in the sky. So I'm just wetting this middle light with my clean water. And then I'm coming in with the minty green. I'm going to pop it onto the left-hand side. So you see I'm just using a smaller brush here to make sure that that paint doesn't travel too far. You can also just run that paint easily done the left-hand side, and then just smoothing it out. So I'm just going to add this to a few areas of this middle light in the sky. And I'm actually going to join those two colors up in the middle. I'm also going to add this minty green to the bottom. And you'll see there was a bit of a harsh edge to that bottom color. I will come along a little bit later on with a damp brush and just blend it out. And I am going to add some water to this edge here because I do want that edge to be fuzzy on light owned when you add clean water, but it helps to push the pigment out. So that's the look that I was going for. I'm going to smooth this color out now because I felt it was a bit too harsh. And knowing going in with some aqua green. So this was quite diluted. This aqua green is still going onto the wet paper so you can see it blend in outwards and it's nice and soft. I was taken off a little bit of the paint that traveled a bit too far. And then I added a very diluted wash of the aqua green to the bottom as well, just to blend the edge to make it look not so harsh. Let the lights in the sky drain now because we're gonna be moving on to painting the darkest area of the sky. Now, what I'm going to be mixing aqua green and dioxazine violet, like we did earlier. This is gonna be very dark in areas. I am going to use it a bit more diluted so it's a bit lighter in tone. And then a little bit later on we're going to come in with a really thick and creamy mixture and really dark in this app, I'm going to start off with some clean water all around the mountains. And again, I'm using my oval pointed wash brush and I'm really smooth like water because I want a nice even layer of water. I've got my large hake brush now. This is my large flat brush and I'm just adding the rest of the clean water and I am going to paint around that night, the lights in the sky as well. I'm not sure if you notice that I accidentally painted the water over the bottom of those lights in the sky. That's not going to matter too much because we're not going to take the dark color right close to those lights annually, so we're going to keep that dark color away from those lights. Now I'm painting on some cobalt turquoise just onto the bottom. Because I felt like I needed a bit of brightening up and I wanted it to be very sort of blue. So I'm just painting the turquoise onto the very tops of the mountains. And I would say this consistency is like a milk consistency. So it's not creamy and it's not very diluted either. It's got lots of pigment mixed in, so it's lovely and vibrant. I've got aqua green now. I'm painting that answer this area. I'm just using a few sweeping motions with my brush. So I got those lovely sorts of sweeps in the sky. Now I've got the blue. This is diluted, so it's not completely creamy. And I'm going to also add a few sweeps in the sky. If you have a look at the reference photo, you've got some sort of lines of color within that sky. And I was just trying to replicate that. And I was blending this out a little bit with my damp brush because I felt like some of those lines needed a bit of softening out. I'm going to also paint that blue color over this area as well. I'm just taking a little bit up into the sky near those lights, but I'm not coming into close to those lights in the sky there with that blue because I don't want that blue to seep into the minty green that we've put them. I'm just using a sweeping down motion with my brush as well in these dark areas because I want some of that light, lighter under wash to show through. And if you have a look at the reference photo, it looks like there's lights in the sky that a wave in or sweeping down. I'm using some sweeping motions with my brush. So I'm Kevin, some of the brushstrokes to get those lovely wavy lights in the sky. Now I'm gonna be using some permanent rose. I'm going to be mixing this with dioxazine violet to get this lovely more of color that we're gonna be using on parts of the sky. And I could see that in the reference photo. So I wanted to get this color in. I'm gonna be adding this to a few areas while the paint is still wet. I'm just going to use the tip of my brush to dab in a few little brush strokes here and there. Topic my paintbrush onto a cloth to take off most of the moisture. I'm going to pick up that darker color that we got for mixing the aqua green and the dioxazine violet together. And this is very thick. So if I did lots of paint straight from a tube and it's very dark as you can see. Now what I decided to do was actually wet the background because the background was a bit too dry. And then I'm going back in with that dark color. So you did see me take off a bit of the color where the paper was a bit too dry and I was getting some harsh edges. And I wanted to leave that part of the video in rather than taking it out to show you the difference between the harsh edges and soft edges. I do prefer to paint on the wet paper. And then I always add in a little bit of water into the side of those lights in the middle. And that was to push the dark paint outwards so that we get a nice light fuzzy edge on the edge where the water pushes out the pigment of the paint. I'm still using a pulling down motion with my paintbrush because they want to follow the lights, the shape of the lights in the sky. I'm also going to follow the shape of that middle lighter as well. You'll see that I'm not really moving my paintbrush back and forth. I do want to have some sort of shape to those dark areas in the Skype. Then using a clean, damp brush, I'm just going to lift off a few little areas. And that's going to create some sort of highlight. If you look at the reference photo, it looks like there are some lights shining through in the background. So I just wanted to use a dump brush to lift off some paint. And then I'll be w my paintbrush on a cloth and then rinsing it off in-between. 6. Adding Shape and Shadow To The Mountains: We're going to start adding some shape and structure now to the mountains with some mid tones. So I'm going to take some cobalt turquoise firmly bolted down, and this is a lovely light value. And I'm just going to use the tip of my brush really to add some shape to the mountains. I'm basically looking at the shadows that fall within the mountains. Within the mountains, you'll see that the shadows mainly fall to the left-hand side within these mountains that I'm painting. And obviously when the light falls on the rocks, then it cast shadows and you're going to have a darker area. And you'll see that I am just using this nice light layer to start with. I'm going to take the cobalt turquoise onto the blue as well. But because it's going onto the blue, it looks a bit brighter. Because when it went on the pink it looked more of a purply tone, but I promise you this is the same color I'm using. And I'm going to just add a few shapes. You'll see that these shapes are very irregular, so make them quite sharp and jagged aids and just sweep some of them don't, don't make them completely straight because you want these rocks to look very sort of jacket and dp, if that makes sense. We're going to add the two crease at the top of this mountain here and on this backwards here I am adding some as the aqua green on top of the turquoise. That's because I wanted a slightly darker color in the background mountains because if you have a look at the reference photo, then this Back Mountain is a bit darker. And then I'm adding that blue that we used for the sky, which was the dioxazine violet mixed with the aqua green. And I'm going to add that to this mountain, touching the aqua green while it's still wet. So those two colors blend into one. And then I was just using a clean, damp brush to blend out the edge on the right-hand side there. Now using the cobalt turquoise, again, I'm going to also add a few little shapes here and there. And then a bit of the blue pop in that in as well just to add a bit of shadow and depth. And now some aqua green. So this aqua green is a lot thicker now, so it's not completely thick. It has got some water mixed into it, so it spreads out a little bit. But it's a lot darker and more vibrant. So it's gotten more paint mixed into this. Now I'm using some of the blue that we used in the sky and this is very watered down. So if I did lots of water to this, it's a nice and light value. And I'm going to just add some texture to this mountain on the left. So in painting on the pink mountain, I'm just using the, the tip of my brush with a damp brush and just blending out some of those edges to make them a little bit softer. And then again, just adding a few bits of color here and there. So this is going to create lots of depth within the mountains. It's going to create the illusion of shadows and just lots of texture to the mountains. We are going to come along on the darkest values with lots of texture with some old credit cards a bit later on. But I wanted to get these mid values in. And so that's going to add lots of shadow shape and just make those mountains really stand out. I'm going to also add that color to this Back Mountain. And I'm wiggling my brush back and forth, just making these look very irregular shaped and following the edge of the mountain as well with some effect color to make the edge really stand out. So it makes those front mountains pop more forward and make them look individually so they're not so sunken into the background. I'm also going to add some shape to the bottom, so a bit of depth to the bottom as well. And next we'll be adding the darkest values to the sky. 7. Adding Darkest Values To The Sky: I'm going to add the darkest values to the sky now. So I'm going to start off with my large hake brush and wet all over the background, smoothing water nice and evenly. And then taking my oval pointed wash brush, I'm going to paint the water over the tops of the mountains as well, but only in the background. And then taken a nice thick mixture of that dark color that we got from mixing the dioxazine violet and the aqua green. This has got hardly any water mixed into this now, so it's lovely and creamy and really thick and very pigmented. I'm just going to paint that dark cola mainly over the edges and also a little bit at the top. And I'm going to just take a little bit of that color here and there in the mid sky. Personally not going to cover the whole of the sky with this because I do want to keep lots of light undertone shining through. And by leaving those first layers shining through, That's what's going to make this northern lights sky look very luminous and bright and colorful. I'm using the tip of my brush and I have to pull them some of that color. So I have got quite a clean brush. It's not got much paint on it. It's just got the residual paint left in this now. And then I'm also going to paint some of that color on the bottom here. So I'm just taking it over the tops of these mountains. It's more diluted now, so it's not very thick at all. I've had lots of water to this. And then just using my size two brush to paint carefully around the tops of the mountains. So my brush here is a lovely pointed round brush. It's got a very nice narrow tip to this. And I can get into the fine details easily with this brush. If you're not very confident with painting small details and getting the control from a bigger brush. You use a smaller brush around the tops of the mountains. If you feel more comfortable doing that, I'm going to just continue with painting around the top of this mountain and you can see how light that color is. So do add lots of water to this and then I'm just going to sweep some of that color up in strokes. And then I'm also going to add some clean water to the edges of this mid-tone lights and that will push the paint out. Taking an old toothbrush now with some clean water, I'm going to just flick my toothbrush like this. So I'm just basically pulling back the fibers of the toothbrush and adding some clean water onto the wet paint. And what happens is it will create some sort of styrene background. And we are going to come along with some gratia, Let's bit later run for more stars. In the next part, I'll show you how to add texture and shadow to your mountains using some old credit cards. 8. Adding Texture and Shape To The mountains: Grab some scrap paper. We're going to practice with our credit card first. So taking a cut up credit card, I'm just going to sweep my credit cards in the paint, making sure I pick up enough paint on the edge of my cards. And then I'm going to focus on the edge of the mountain. I'm basically just adds in the flat edge to my mountain edge and then sweeping it down in a fast motion. You can also use the corner of your credit card as well. And that will create some lovely texture within your mountains. So you'll see me doing that here just using the corner of my credit card to get into the fine corners of the mountains and just pull the edge down. So pull the edge of your credit card down fast. And that will pull out some of the paint underneath some lovely texture. And you can see that by using the credit card, the paint actually skips in areas, so it creates lots of jagged texture, which is great for rocks. You can also use the edge of your credit cards in a sweeping motion along the side of the mountains or the bottom of the mountains like I'm doing here. So now let's move on to the real thing. I'm going to mix up a new color by using permanent rose. So I'm taking it nice and creamy and my palate. And then taking the aqua green, I'm going to add that to the permanent rose to get this lovely more of color. And it's more of a purply pink, so it's literally move purple color. And then using the edge of my card, I'm going to swipe that in the paint and make sure I pick a plenty of paint on my credit card. So this one is a matter lung card as you can see. And then just using this to map out the edges of the mountains, I'm pressing my credit card or store cards quite flat to the paper. I'm just using the edge then to pull up pains quite quickly, downwards or across the paper to leave that texture laying down on the paper. And I'm also going to use the very corner of my cards to get into the fine corners. And this is a great way of using these credit cards because you can use the corners to get into fine corners and tight corners. But then you can also use the edge for lying detailing with areas of the mountains. I was sometimes accidentally putting on too much paint. The edge of the credit card was going over areas that I didn't want it to. But I quickly remedy remedied with a damp brush and just took off the paint while it was still wet. And now I'm just painting on this mountain on the right-hand side. So this is the Turquoise Mountain. And you'll see me just using the very edge of my card here to school into the paper wasn't actually scoring it, but it looks like I'm scoring. But I was just add in some very fine textured lines. And then I'm going to add some texture lines to this mountain as well. Because the credit cards are flexible, they're great foot pressing down onto the paper so you can add more or less of their credit cards. It all depends on what look you're going for. I'm using that dark blue that we used for the sky now. And I'm going to add that to this mountain area here. So parts of this mountain, I wanted to be quite dark. So that's why I'm using that color that we got from mixing a dioxazine violet and the aqua green together. So it's lovely and dark this color. And you can see me here just using a sweeping down motion with my little store cards. And on the right-hand side here I did add a little bit too much paint. So that's why it looks like a big blob. So I'm just taking a dump brush and taking off that paint while the paint is still wet. And then that quickly remedied that using the mauve color. Now I'm going to use my small paintbrush and I'm going to dab it on a cloth to take up most of the moisture because I want to use a bit of a dry brush technique. I'm just using the belly of my brush, so I'm using my brush on its side and then just sweeping that across the paper. And where my brushes very dry, it's skipping areas of the paper and creating and lots of texture. I'm also going to take that dark blue again on my paintbrush. It's got hardly any water mixed into this, so it's lovely and dark. Then just running down the edges of the mountains to really make them pop out. I'm also going to diffuse textured areas. I'm also using a darker mixture of the move. So this has got less water mixed into it. And it's just the same color that we've been using on this pink mountain. And I'm just going to add some shadows with the tip of my brush. I'm going to paint on a few dark areas onto the tips of the mountains. So really make them stand out with the right-hand mountain, the Bloomington, we're going to use the dark blue and the aqua green. And then the left mountain we're gonna be using the Move. In the final section, we're gonna be adding our stars in the sky. So grab that toothbrush. 9. The Stars: To finish our painting off, we're going to be splatter in the stars in the sky. I've got my white brush here and then go into spray it down with a bit of water to get it moving and then taking my old brush, I'm just going to scrub the brush within the gouache, making sure that we cover the bristles completely but not having it too watery. I am going to cover the mountains with some scrap paper. I'm going to be using my toothbrush or flicking the size on the sky using a sweeping motion. So I'm pulling from the bottom of the toothbrush upwards. I'm holding this about 8 cm above my painting at a diagonal. You can see that those tiny little goulash flicks look exactly like stars now in that northern lights sky. I hope you enjoyed this painting. Your project now is to go and paint your own northern lights sky, using the skills that you use in this class. So have a lovely rest of your day. Remember to upload your project in the projects and resources area. I would also be really happy if you left me a review on this tutorial as well. I hope you had fun learning today.