Intermediate Watercolor Landscape Painting : Strategies for Success

1. Welcome to Class!: I could have painting is a medium that comes with its share of secrets. It took me years to uncover some of them and start painting anything I like with confidence. And that's why in this class, I intend to share with you the strategies that I came up with to get to this point and help you level up, as well. Hi, I'm Jasize. I'm a self taught watercolor artist who went from struggling with watercolors back in 2019 and painting from my living room table to building a successful art business and now preparing for my first solo exhibition from this new art studio. Above all, I like to teach and I love to experiment and share everything that I learned. That's why I've been teaching here on Skillshare, but also YouTube, Patrian and my website. I've been painting a majority of landscapes since the start, and because a lot of wet and wet work is involved, I noticed that they are an excellent way to master water control and also get past the notorious OBsge with the confident that you'll end up with a gorgeous painting anyways. In this class, I'll be answering the questions that most of us ask ourselves at some point in our journey, especially when we watch a professional artist paint effort. Let's. Questions like, how do they paint so fast? How do we keep their paper wet for so long? What are they doing to render realism and paint loose at the same time? And how are they able to use that much paint and still end up with a painting that looks fresh, light, and bright? Supplies are just as chip the iceberg, as you know, and I'll share what I find most convenient to paint landscapes with ease. Then I will show you how I get ready for painting. Next, I'll share my full painting process in real time, and you'll get to fully witness and understand what I actually do to keep my paper wet and paint a smooth and colorful base for over half an hour straight without stressing. You'll also practice my loose fries and techniques and learn to take your paintings from looking flat and boring to vibrant and beautiful. This class is ideal for intermediate learners who are ready to level up and paint bigger, bolder and better landscapes. And my strategies can be applied to other subjects as everything that you learn here will be immensely helpful to support your whatever practice in the long run. So let me be your guide and join me in class. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: In this class, you will learn to paint this beautiful mushroom against a blurry forest background. The class is an opportunity to immerse yourself in real time in the entire process of a large watercolor landscape painting and take up on the little secrets that allow an artist to turn a blank page into a finished piece of art. I'll teach you everything that I know and learned throughout the past five years. Things are not often spoken about very clearly, things that most of us have to figure out on our own by just doing and making all the mistakes. I know watercolor isn't always easy, and I created this class to make this level of painting more accessible, since you as an intermediate artist, have enough practice under your belt that if you need to level up, you have the capability to do so. Remember that you can download all the resources from the resources section of the class. And when you're ready, just snap a photo of your artwork and share it with me and other students in the project section of the class if you'd like. Next, I'm going to share about the supplies that I like to use when I paint landscapes, so see you there. 3. Recommended Supplies: In this lesson, I'm going to go over the supplies that I'm going to be using for today's artwork. And I love to use my ash paper is 100% cotton paper. It's cold press, which means it has a little texture to it, and it's 300 grams/square meter, which means it's thick enough that it will take a lot of water and the fact that it's cotton and cold press also helps with that. So that's going to really help us create those beautiful backgrounds on the wet. So if you have that, even if it's in another brand, that's fine. If you're usingslos paper, for instance, that's all you have right now, that is fine, too. You will notice the paper dries a lot faster than mine. So when that happens, just stop painting, let it dry completely, wet it again if it takes more layers, and then keep painting. Size is going to be pretty big, actually, but it's a lot of fun to learn to paint on such large sidelines. And if you want, you can very well pick a smaller one. It's fine. So go ahead. If you feel like 12 by 16 is a little bit too big at the moment. That's just fine. This that I'm using now is actually a block, which means that the paper is glued on all four sides, which I really enjoy, especially when it comes to such large paintings because I don't even have to stretch the paper. We're not going to have to use masking tape, but if you don't have a block like this one and you want to stretch a paper, you can use masking tape and just tape your sheet all around and you'll be just good to go. Now let's talk about the paintbrushes and do not worry. We're not going to be using all of these. These are just my favorite ones, the ones that I use absolutely everything that I paint, whether it is on large sizes or small ones. And in the resources section, you will find a list of the supplies with the references for everything that I use. But if you don't have the same, that's just fine. So first, we'll need a flat paintbrush or we could use a large paintbrush like this one. So that's when you want to wet your sheet before painting. And it will be more convenient, especially on a large size. So I would not look at the number that you see on the paintbrush, and plus it's going to vary from brand to brand anyways. I would think about it in terms of what size is my sheet and what kind of paintbrush would make it easy for me to paint on it quickly. So that's why for a large sheet, I'm going to go with a large flat paintbrush like this one rather than the small one here. To paint on the wet, I love to use my round paintbrushes, and you can see sizes are very different here just because on a large sheet, this one, again, is going to be way more convenient to cover more ground, while these will take a little longer to paint. But, you know, if that's all you have, you can do. That's what I was using up until recently. I just bought this one a few weeks ago. So for me to paint faster on wet, what I'm doing now is just use a paintbrush to the light colors. Use a paintbrush for the dark colors, so there's less rinsing and less worrying about letting all the colors. That's it. I also like to use round and pointed paintbrushes like these too to paint details mostly, and to also paint a subject and focus, which would be here the mushroom because there's more control with a fine tip, it's just easier for me. So if you have one like this, that's great. If all you have is a small round paintbrush, that works too. That's what I was using for a very long time as well. So at minimum for this painting, I would recommend one large flat paintbrush to wet your background quickly. Then you want to use at least one round paintbrush to apply your colors on your wet sheet. And then you want to use a round and pointed paintbrush to paint a mushroom. But if you have a chance and if you have some choice, I would add at least one other round paintbrush, just so it's more convenient for you to paint quicker with light and dark colors. And then I would add an other small paintbrush because it's always convenient to work with two of them. These are the colors that I decided to pick to paint the mushroom. I'm sure you've heard about light tones, mid tones, and dark tones, and how important the three of them are to build contrast and realism in a painting. And actually, what we're going to do is consider these are the mid tones. These are going to be the darker tones. And then the highlights I'm going to teach you to create will be the light tones. I love these colors for autumn paintings because these add a lot of vibrancy and these add a little bit more mystery and warmth to the painting. So first of all, we add yellow, and I always use yellow and red together rather than just orange or just one or the other, because this way it's going to be easy for us to add yellow highlights, red highlights, and everything in between. So depending on how much yellow or how much red we use by mixing both of them, we can get several shades of orange, and that's the beauty of color mixing. I love to use this fallow green light from Sanui It's one of my favorite colors because it is so beautiful and bright. I was in the mood for purple, so I picked this Tundra pink from Siminka, but you could use any other purple. You don't even have to use purple. You could use pink. You could use blue, whenever you feel like using. And this sepia he is also a color that I love very much to add deep shadows and depths to a painting. If you want to simplify this palette even more or maybe you don't have all the colors that I do have, I would suggest to replace these two colors and instead add blue, any blue that you have, and this will be your primary. Remember, you can mix absolutely anything with them, so you can still get orange with the yellow and red. And the beauty of that is that you can get green by mixing blue and yellow together, but you can also get purple by mixing red and blue together. I would still suggest to you dark color. So here, it's going to be sepia for me, but you could replace this with black and gray, any brown that you have. Other supplies you'll need are a pencil, a ruler, and an eraser to draw the sketch. Although you might not need the ruler, but in case that makes you feel more comfortable, you can have one nearby. Then, as always, for watercolor, two water jars are great to have. One of mine is already dirty because it was mixing colors before. So you can try and keep one cleaner than the other. But if you can, that's fine, just empty them and change the water whenever you feel the need to. Paper towels or a rag are also a must have. I always like to lay my dirty paintbrushes on them or just use them for several techniques when I need to soak some water off of the paintbrush. For our highlights in particular, you'll notice that paper towels are great to have. So at least two or three sheets would be very handy for this class. For this painting, we'll also use drawing gum or masking fluid, and I would suggest add a very old paintbrush to apply it or a color shaper like this one. This is silicone. So there's no risk of ruining a paintbrush for this ticky product. Wqh is also very helpful to place extra highlights in those little places where it was very hard to do or maybe just add crisp ones. So I like to have that. Otherwise, white bono colour can work, too. And if you have either, a white j pen can also be very helpful to place those tiny little highlights. Another great tool that I love to use that's completely optional is a heat gun or a hair dryer. And that is, if you're not too patient and you like to just complete your painting in a short time and you don't want to wait in between layers to dry. That is it for the supply, so I'll see you in the next lesson to get dirty on our sketch. 4. Preparing for Painting: In this lesson, we're going to start sketching and preparing for the actual painting. So I've got my sketching tool ready and also the masking fluid because we're going to use it right after sketching. And then we'll be mixing the colored. So let's start with the sketch. On the original reference, our subject is already ideally located in this part of the painting. So that's great because of the rule of thirds, as you know, if you divide your sheet into three equal parts horizontally, but also vertically, and you place your main subject on one of the focal points, which would be located somewhere around here, there, here or there. Then you know it's going to look a little bit more harmonious in terms of composition. And the mushroom is located in that area, which is perfect. We want it to be visible and match the scale of the sheet, too. So I'm going to make sure that it is big enough but still located on that focal point here. And then the beautiful background we're going to paint is going to complement the location of the mushroom very well and make for a very beautiful painting. I'm going to determine where I want my mushroom to end, which should be somewhere around here. There would be good. And then I want it to be located over here. And I want it to end around there. I think this will be great. So now, how tall do we want the stem to be is what we can decide next. I remember this is a mushroom. It's not a human face. So if the stem is a little bit longer than what you see on the reference, or maybe the mushroom is a little bit more elongated over here, that is not a problem at all. I think I'm going to place it over here and then just draw the stem, remember, we can erase whenever we need to. How large do I want it to be? How wide? Something like this, I think. Then we need to draw the cap. You can see my sketching is actually very approximate, but that's good because we can refine things in the way that we want. We don't need to be very precise. I'm trying to look at the mushroom compared to the size of the sheet. Does it look big enough to me, but I do not really like the way that it's shaped, so I'm going to change that a little bit. This is where the refining comes into play. So I'm going to make it a little bit longer. Maybe courier over here. I'm not pressing, like crazy with the pencil, so I don't indem the paper, but I'm not afraid to press a little bit, so I can see what I'm doing. Just so you can erase, you know, if you need to. And that is already better. I I like this soap. Here, we cannot really see it clearly because of the very deep shadow, but see the stem actually starts over here. We don't need to go into a lot of detail right away, get the overall shape, right? You can also make adjustments as you wish. I think this works great so far. So I'm just going to make that stem slightly larger at the base. And again, decide if I like the scale of this mushroom compared to the scale of the sheet. And I think, yeah, it looks great. So now let's see. I might want to refine this part here. We make it a bit shorter than what it was or something like this. And so you see I'm doing more refining. It's like a puzzle. You lay the first piece, and then you keep laying more pieces after that. I think it's worth it to take your time on the sketching part. Yeah, that looks great. So now what I'm going to do is erase those extra lines and then apply the masking fluid. I'm also going to attach the sketch in the resources section, if you prefer to transfer it. Good how beautiful this little mushroom is already. You can keep that line if you want, or just paint it. You know, as we start to work on wet. I'm just going to make sure my sketching lines are visible just so I can apply the masking fluid. Other than that is great. I think it'd be nice to add those little dots over here or we can do it, you know, with the masking fluid right away, too. We don't have to draw them, but if you feel more comfortable, we can do this, at least once on top over here. And you don't want to space them out the same way. You want to make some small, some large, some are next to each other, some are farther apart. I'm excited about spaining. I think it's going to turn out beautiful. That is great. So now the next step is going to be to mask this. I'm going to start and show you how I mask it, and then I'll just jump over to the end of the process because that takes quite a while. The thing that you want to remember when you use masking fluid is to apply it in a thin layer rather than a thick one. I have noticed that when I work on the wet and I have a very thick layer of masking fluid, it doesn't do very well with all the wetting and, you know, when you remove it later, it might just tear that paper off in places. So that's why I try to pull all the masking fluid I apply to other places like I'm doing here, just so it's not so thick. Just a thin layer is enough anyways. And it will be more gentle on the paper, I think. Knowing that also some papers don't react the same. Some like masking fluid, some don't. Then it depends on the brand of masking fluid you use as well. So let's keep doing that over the whole mushroom. And you see what I love about these silicone shapers, is that whenever I have too much of a masking fluid there, I can easily peel it off. That's very, very simple to do. I am done with a masking fluid, and here I applied just a little bit too much. That you can imagine, we're going to have a straight line here once we're done painting, which is not going to be very nice for a realistic paint, but I do have a little trick for that, so don't worry. We'll take care of it. There we go. So an important thing here, and probably already know this is to wait for this to dry completely before even laying a paintbrush on top of it. This should be very fast, though. Now we're going to mix our colors, just prepare them, actually. For large paintings, I do like to work from tubes directly. It's just easier for me to get more paint quickly rather than have to activate the paint from little half pans. That's why I like to do this. Now, of course, you can do it from half pans. I have done this before, too. So it's up to you. Now I'm going to prepare my yellow and red. I'm gonna place them in the same tray. I expect we'll need a little bit more of these for the later stages of the painting when we take care of the mushroom. Green is going to be really important for the background to add a lot of light to it. Let's also prepare a little bit of that purple. It's called Tundra pink, but it looks more like a purple to me. And I'll need some of this color here, which is going to be the sepia. And that is it. So now, to actually use the paints, we want to create creamy mixes, just so they flow easily on paper, but also that they show that the color actually vibrant enough because if we add too much water, then I'm going to show you what I mean here with the green, if we add too much water here, it's not going to show that much, and we're going to have to keep applying paint again and again and again to get to a certain level of vibrancy and realism. That if we make them creamy like this, then the paint is still able to flow on wet paper and intermix while still drying in a way that's bright enough. We would not need to go over two layers, I think. In one or two layers, we should be able to paint, especially if like me, you're using 100% cotton paper, cold press, 300 grams per squamere. So that's what you want to achieve with your paints. And we're going to do that with all of them. And then we'll add more and more pigment as we go to make them thicker and thicker, since the paper will be less and less wet, and the goal will be to increase the vibrancy layer after layer. We're ready to move on to the next part. I will be adding water to each color as I go. This is my way of painting in my intermediate advanced stage and actually tackling large paintings like these. So this is really my way of doing it right now, and we're ready to work on our base layer, so see you in the next lesson. 5. Background Base Layer (Part One): We are ready to start painting. So what we're going to need is a flat paintbrush to wet the sheet. And then you want to have your round paintbrushes ready. So if you have just one, that's okay. It will be better, of course, if you have at least two, then it doesn't really matter which size as long as it's not too small for your sheet. And that is it. Paper towels nearby as well, and we're ready to paint. First step is to saturate the paper with water so that we have a lot of time to paint on it. We really want that water to seep inside the fibers of the paper. That's why I'm going to be adding quite a bit and doing a lot of back and forth. And my masking fluid is dry, so it's fine to paint over it. So right now, the paper is raw, it's very dry. So it's pretty hard to get the water to get inside the fibers, but it's pretty. With you repeating that motion of the back and forth and adding more water, it's gonna force that water inside. And this is really key to paint on wet for a long time. I'm able now to paint just a background in one layer because of that, because I wet the paper very well for a while. And I also try and maintain the humidity of it everywhere. You'll see that as we paint the background together. We try and work on the whole painting and not just one section because otherwise, the risk is that those areas we're not working on dry. So we really want to work on everything at once in a short period of time, and we come back to each section as we go. I find that large painting site, this one really help mask for the wet and wet even better. So now I can feel that the paper is taking the water inside because it's becoming dryer again on the surface slightly at least. So when that happens, I know that all that water I added previously is inside now. And here, I think this is already good going to be able to start painting. And I'm going to start with my lighter colors. So I think I'll start with green because that would be one of the main colors here. I want to make the painting a bit brighter than what it is on the reference. So I wet my large own paintbrush. That's what's going to be more convenient for me. And I'm going to pick up that color, and I'll start applying it without delay. So I talked about keeping the paper wet everywhere as we paint, and that's why I'm just going to add this green everywhere. It's very light, so it's not going to affect all the colors. I would not do this if it was indigo, and I did have some lighter colors with it. But this is just going to be so light. It's just a nice way to start painting and keep the paper wet. While placing that main color. See how little I use down here. Even if I apply another color later, it's not really going to do much. Now I'm going to start to intensify it a little bit. The advantage of working with tubes here is that I pick up as much paint as I want so I can make my mix thicker or lighter. I'm still working with mixes of paint are a little bit on the watery side because this is the early stage. So it's important to work with a lot of water. I'm really starting to block in main colors now. So here is where I'm seeing green in my reference. I keep working on that, but I keep in mind that this area down here is going to start drying soon. So I'm hurrying a little bit. And now I'm going to move on to a mix of yellow and red. Since I was using a very light mix of green, I'm going to stay with the same paint brush. I just rinse it quickly. And now I'm going to mix red and yellow right here. And I'm going to start to apply it over here. We can also overlap colors to make sure this stays wet. I'm also going to start tapping a paintbrush on paper like so. And that's going to help me create those seamless transitions. So you can see here my paint looks reddish, and that's okay. If I want to change it, I can still do that because, you know, this is the urn stage. The paints are very, very light. So if I want to, I just add more yellow and I go on top, and that's it. Nothing set in stone. We can change a lot of things. Now I'm going to rinse my paintbrush again, and remember now this area is going to start to dry. So that's why I'm going to go with my green again and add some more. And this is how you are able to work on a wet sheet for a long time. Make sure to wet it very well, and then you just keep working on all of it. And I'm just basically betting it with the main color, which is green. And if there are other colors appearing over there, here, I have a little bit of red. I don't really care. I do like to also overlap colors a lot. That's key for realism. So here, for instance, I can add some. Something also to keep in mind is that in this area, we would want to make sure that the colors are not too similar to the mushroom itself. Right now, they are, and I will want to change this because I want that mushroom to pop. And if we want, we can add more green than what we see on the reference. Whatever feels convenient. Sometimes you have to adapt a plato to the actual painting process. And what you know is going to look good in a painting. Hey, so now we have a good base. This is starting to dry. I'm going to pick up another paint bra for convenience and go with my purple color. And I start to apply it over here. And again, all of my paper is still wet, so I can work on everything and not worry about it drying. If at any point, it dries, just make sure to dry it completely, wet it again, and pick up where you left off. So I still want my paints to be on the watery side because if I make them thicker, especially in that area, it's going to start drying faster than everything else. And I don't really want that. Now I'm going to add some over here because it's very dark in that area, and it will add a lot of contrast to the tiny white dots we're going to add here later. Don't worry about your paints looking a bit muddy in places. This is not something to be concerned about. This purple here dries in a way that might look a little bit odd just because it's a granulating color. So it has more texture to it, and I really like that. And I'm actually going to start shaping some trees, and we can do whatever we want here. So I would go by the same rule as what we did when we were drawing is to space things out in a way that looks spontaneous and not too similar everywhere. Now I want to switch back to that other paintbrush and keep working with red and yellow. So I'm making my mix directly in there. And I'm going to start amplifying the colors. Here, I do like a little bit of color, just like what we have in the reference. And again, remember, you can change everything to match your liking. Cara, we can even add a little bit of colour back there. Cara, I can tell this is starting to dry, so I'm just overlapping color right now. And I'm actually going to switch to this purple. I need more of it. And I just rewet this part. We really want to take that base layer to the maximum vibrancy that we can get and applying all the main colors for as long as you can work on it. When you feel drying, you stop. That's what I'm trying to do here so that I have less layers to worry about later. Now I want to work on this part back there because here it's drying as well. And go with greens going to be more vibrant. We can keep some of the areas on this background a little bit lighter than others. I'm not afraid to overlap, as you can see, and to let colors mix with each other on paper. I feel like this is what looks natural when colors overlap each other. That looks great already. Starting to yeah, take shape, so that's good. Now I'm going to add darker paints up there. H. That's why I like tubes is that when I need more paints, it's very quick to get. And it's pretty much ready for use. Oh, we could add a little bit of paint over here. And I'm going to darken the bottom afterwards. Here I can see my strokes. So what I'm going to do is just rinse my pain bra, I'm rinsing it and make sure there's not too much water in it, but it's not dry either. I'm just going to move the paint around because if I keep too much water on it, what's going to happen is that I'm going to get blooms forming, and if I remove all the water out of it, I'm going to lift paint. So I'm trying to avoid that. And then to make that transition better, I'm picking up again, red and yellow. I'm going the opposite way, forcing the paints to melt into each other. And you see how we get much better transition now. Now I'm going to start adding more paints down here with a lot of tapping the paintbrush. That looks better for a ground effect. And now I'm going to work on my lighter colors, which would be yellow, red, but also green. Adding my paints over here. Add some vibrancy over there. Here, the colors are not accurate compared to what you see on the reference, but that's okay. You can decide wherever you want to add, what color doesn't really matter. I'm also going to add a little bit of that over here. I mix to the purple, it actually looks more like a color for soil effect dirt. So it's kind of nice to have it, too. Don't worry if your base doesn't look perfect yet. I mean, it looks a little bit messy, actually. It's okay. I'm overlapping. It looks a lot better as soon as we start doing this. And now I'm going to use it a little bit more green. So you see why I like to work with two paintbrushes, it takes a long time to clean a paintbrush. And when things are drying, we don't really want to waste too much time. Now, intensify the greens. 6. Background Base Layer (Part Two): Again, I'm not afraid to overlap. I'll just make sure to use my chosen color in a better quantity in the highest ratio of taint for it actually to show. So, for example, here, I have more pigments in my green so that I know my green is going to show on top of the orange color. This looks great already. We could consider adding a little bit of brown, and I'm going to use this paint brochure that I use for P Ball. So this is a strong color. And I'm only adding it now because I feel like I've already blocked in the main colors so it doesn't feel too risky to go darker. I also like to make sure the bottom of the painting here is a little bit darker than the rest to build an impression of depth. Over here, too, I'm going to go by what I see on the reference and add some de starting to add shadows over here. And I still feel that I can work on this paper still wet enough just because I keep moving from section to section. That's the key, remember. So I'm just gonna tap my paintbrush over here. Create a little pocket of shadow just like the one we see on the reference. So I do take cues from the reference, but I don't stick to it 100%. Sometimes I go with whatever I think is more convenient for me. Right now, I like to add this dark color here just because it helps me define the ground a little better, and I'm actually noticing it's a little bit bigger than what I would like, so I'm lowering that line, and you see how that helps me shape. The ground line. So yeah, I think it's important to add this color. Here, remember, we're going to have a strong contrast with the white, so it's okay to add that dark color. Here, however, it's already really dark, so I might want to preserve some of those lighter parts. Even though in the reference, it's dark. I also like to darken this area just like the reference to keep a harmony with the dark bottom, too, so it's not just dark down here and light over here. I'm going to start adding a little bit of texture to the ground by just adding strokes and maybe intensify the shadows over here. Now, you can take a look at your painting if you feel like you have the time, just a quick look and see where you might want to change things. For example, I might like to add on a bit of a shadow over here. I feel like this is too perfect, too much the same. I would also like to add more of the red and yellow highlights in here, maybe green also. So I'm going to work on that next. I'm rinsing my paintbrush. I'm mixing my colors so you can decide to add more red if you want. Let's do that. That adds so much to the painting. And again, we can overlap. Look at how beautiful this is now. Yeah, I think this is great. I even want to add some down here. So let's do that. And I'm also doing this for color harmony, so we have a little bit of red showing here, but also in other places. Where else would I want it maybe a little bit over here? I taped a paintbrush on paper. So nice to have several colors in a painting from just a few colors. I can see this is drying a little bit here. So I'm going to use a paintbrush to add more purple over here. Yeah, it looks great. I do not like the fact that the grad line is so perfect, so I'm just gonna have to paintbrush once more. This is a great technique to create a natural ground line. And now I do want to add more red. This is so beautiful. So maybe add a little bit over here. And again, I just increased the amount of pigment from my color in a way that even when I overlap it another color that is darker. I actually shows. Just because I started with very light washes of paint, and I'm going a little bit thicker now. So that's really all you need. I want to add some more here. And extend that there. One thing we could do that would be really cool is to actually splatter, but first, let me just add green and csify that. And now I'm just rinsing my paintbrush. That's why two paintbrushes is just, like, so much better than just one. Imagine if we had to rinse the paintbrush every time between all the colors. I'm just going to intensify the greens in places. Starting to dry and being careful. I like that motion here because for a forest painting, it would suggest that there are trees in the background, I feel like. Yeah, that looks great. If I want to add more brown in this area, I just picked up the sicker version of it because it's starting to dry. I'm just creating a deeper shadow here. What else? Would I want a deeper shadow, maybe over there? We can play again with adding tree effects. I'm trying to decide where it'd be nice to add more, maybe here. And I might want to make it a little bit darker down there. And also actually tap my paintbrush for more of that ground effect. I'll help that melt into the purple color with tapping paintbrush some more. Okay, how great this is. This looks awesome already. So now we're going to use the splattering technique to add to this background. So let's splatter some paint now and you want to do this towards the end of the process when the sheet is starting to dry but still wet because then the splatters will be impressed a little bit better and remain as you place them a little bit more while still melting into the background. So you want to be careful to not make them too watery because then you won't get blooms, although it could be nice. But if you do want splatters of color, you want the paint to be thick enough to match the humidity of the sheets. So now that's what I'm doing. I'm creating orange splatters, and I'm going to add some here towards the bottom to create a natural gradient between this part here and the rest of that area. And it makes something that looks a little more natural. I also feel like adding that color down there. I think it will look nice. You can even add a little touch directly with the paintbrush, if you like. Could even add some yellow ones. And that was also great for the ground because it gives it texture. And this part is going to be more detailed than the back. So that's also a good place to add those platters. So now I just added more yellow into it. I'm adding paints directly with a paintbrush and pastes to create more of that soil effect. We can even start to create it over here and decide if we want to add flatters anywhere else, if we prefer to keep it this way. I would mind to add a few in the background. Maybe not overdo it too much. I'm going to do that with red again, mix to a little bit of yellow. So for instance, here to do it. I may be up there. And it won't be that visible, you'll notice afterwards. It won't just be a subtle touch. There we go. Just adds a little bit of magic to that painting. No, another thing we can do is make some splatters with water to actually create blooms. And this is best done when the painting is near dry. So it's not dry dry yet, but I think it's dry enough, especially in that area that they will show. Cause if it's not dry, this is really not gonna show that much. So you can make some large ones with more water in your brush and some very tiny ones. And that is also a great way to create texture for a ground effect. Okay, I think that looks great. So now you have two options. You can either let this dry completely on its own, or you can dry it with a heat gun or hair dryer. If you do this, be very careful to cover the whole area in your painting so that you don't end up with things. So I'm going to do it with the heat gun, but I'm going to be very careful, and I'm going to really do it until the whole sheet is dry. And then I'll meet you in the next lesson. To maybe place a second layer or start working on the mushroom directly. We'll see what this looks like. So let's do this. When your sheet is completely dry, we're going to be able to remove the masking fluid and then decide if we want to do another layer. I think it will be nice to actually add to this background, especially to create darker shadows over here. That will be easier to do on the second layer since the paper is not raw anymore. But first, let's just remove this. And I'm using some paper towels once more. So make sure there are no remaining spots of wet paint. And now we're going to go with circular motions and take that off. And the reasons why I remove the masking fluid, even though there will be a second layer is that will help this mushroom melt into that background a little bit better and a little bit more naturally. So now you can see that the masking fluid is off, and there are a few marks on paper, which is okay, and to me, actually normal. There is not a lot, so don't worry. We'll be able to make sure that this is not visible in the final painting. There's really no problem with that. So for now, I'll just meet you in the next lesson and we'll just work at making this background a little bit better to finally paint our mushroom and concrete this beautiful painting. See you there. U 7. Background Second Layer: In this lesson, we're going to rework the background, and a reason for this is that I'd like to add a little bit of contrast to that area down here to really be able to tell the background from the ground line. I would also like to intensify colors in places, melt the mushroom into the background a little more so that this line down here is not as harsh as it is now. So make sure before you start to change your water if you haven't done it already. I also took advantage of the little brick to clean my thin brushes so they're ready for use. And I also checked that all my paint mixes were ready. So now let's just repeat what we've done before. First, we're going to wet the whole sheet with this black paintbrush. The only difference is that we're not going to take as long to wet it, and we're also going to make sure that our paint mixes are a little bit thicker with pigment. I'm also going to wet the mushroom this time, and actually a tip, since it's white, is to start there to wet it first, and then keep wetting everything else around it after. I'm now trying to contour the mushroom because I've noticed that this is very hard to do, and there are often some drying lines showing, so I think it's better to wet everything. And if a little bit of paint creeps onto it, don't worry, because this time we're really not going to use a lot of water at all, and there will just be a little bit of paint that's not going to do anything. And actually, it's going to make that mushroom look even more natural than if it's white, then we paint it right there. So that's actually a good thing. The pain mixes are already a little bit thicker this time, so they're not going to spread as much. There's more control in the second layer. And you see that wetting that sheet was very fast that second time around. And now what I'm going to do is use one of my round paintbrushes and start working on contrast. Sepia is ideal for this. And here, actually, I find that they're a little bit runny. The paints a little bit runny, so I'm just going to add more pigments. So that it sticks better and shows a little more. And to add that paint on wet, as you can see, it allows us to redefine that ground line, but in a way that looks very natural still since that paint is melting into what's already there. I'm adding a little bit of paints on both sides around the stem just because we want it to show and pop. So adding something dark on either side is really going to help with that. So see how you can reshape that background as you please, and I still like to tap my paintbrush on paper to do that. One thing that I like to do now is grab another paintbrush that's clean, not too wet, just damp. And I'm just gonna move that paint around and just soften places and just make it melt into the background that a little bit better because it's so dark. See, here I have a little bit of brown. That's okay because it's on the right side of the mushroom and that one is actually a lot darker on the reference. Remember what we talked about before the paper tends to dry very fast. That's even more true here because we added so little water that second time around. That's why I'm just going to apply a very thin wash of green over that background to be wet it. And now that I have this, I'm going to go ahead and intensify the grains. This time, we really want more pigment into the mix for it to actually show. And remember, we don't have to cover everything up, some parts that maybe you want more vibrant in your painting, but it's still nice to keep those light parts from the base layer there in places again for contrast and we have those light tones, mid tones, and dark tones in the end. Also, your painting might be a little bit different than mine, so it's really your call to decide where you want to add what. I think my best advice here will be to retake a step back real quick just to see where you feel like adding what color. For example, I'm deciding that I'd like to add a little bit more green here because green is going to contrast well with the red color in the mushroom. Down here, I can see it's drying already, so it's time to add color, and I'm going to go with purple. I also want to make this a little bit darker. I'd like to add depth that way. And let's add a little bit of purple over here. And actually, since it's so thick this time, it shows better. It's nice because it helps create some effects. It helps reshape the ground, and it really helps with color harmony and contrast, all those things at once. Remember, we want to take care of that area down here so that it melts into the background a little bit better. We really want to try and get rid of that harsh line. So notice how there is no need to be afraid of making mud really because for the mushroom for instance, it makes it look a little more genuine already. And the background, when you add more pigment into your paints, you'll still manage to get more of that color showing even if you overlap other colors before, as long as you really start light and go darker and thicker little by little. It's really the key. I want to add purple there. It gets more noticeable. Now, it's thicker, and it really helps tie that top of the painting, that background, that blurry background with the more detailed ground. So by just adding those little touches, you can see already how much that background has improved. Here too, we can make another line to create an impression of maybe a tree that's gonna be a little more visible than what we added before. That's still blending to that background nicely. And I'm also adding some down here because I really want some texture showing and more detail on that ground line. So that'll be important to just make sure and create it with different techniques. Can be tapping the paintbrush on paper, can be adding sweaters. I can see this paper is drying more and more, so I'm assessing which areas I want to improve still. And I like to add more reds and yellows in places. So with red, I really don't want to overdo that color in this specific painting, mainly because the star of the painting, the focus is going to be the mushroom. So I really don't want to draw attention to other places in the painting than the mushroom, so it's nice to have it there, just, you know, so we have that harmony going between the mushroom and the rest of the painting. But we want it to be subtle, still. I want to use more sepia again just to amp up the contrast a little bit more. And I want to add a shadow over here on the right. Can maybe splatter on paints, too. We don't need to know exactly what this is. It's just a blurry background, so we're free to do what we want, pretty much. I really like splatters because they add that watercolor touch to a painting, especially when it's realistic like the style of painting. Let's also add some red splatters. We get not too much so we don't take away from the mushroom. And look at how those brown flatters I added before have actually disappeared, and that's because of the fact that their sheet is still too wet, obviously, for splatters, at least the consistency of paint was not big enough for them to actually stick to the paper. So that's an example of playing with the wetness of your sheet, waiting that it fries a little bit, and also making sure not to add paints that are too runny. M. Let's add some all over the ground to create texture and more harmony with colors. It also helps because that ground is very brownish, so it adds color into it. Now, a little more trick here is when your paper is close to trying to really pick up thicker paints like I'm doing now with the sepia and add these dark dark touches. It really helps to find that ground even better. But another thing to do is avoid outlining the whole thing. Like just outline a few spots in that ground line, and it will look more natural. I find sometimes my around paint brushes are better to just make that paint glide on paper. Notice how much the stem pox now we're adding this dark color right next to it, and also how it doesn't creep that much onto the mushroom because it's so oh Now I want to add some green to the ground line to make it a little bit more colorful, create a mossy effect, and again, tying the background, the blurry background to the ground itself. And so I tap my paintbrush on paper. I don't really mind if I make some mud. If you do want your color, your green colour to show more, remember to pick up more pigment, not too too thick, but thick enough that it actually shows. And then another tip here is to splatter some paint for a moss effect is going to be sensational. And it's really going to finish the effect that you were creating by adding that green colour. It's really going to look like moss all the mar. And it just looks nice in that background. It really adds a lot of color to it. I think it's also nice to conceal the bottom of the mushroom, you know, the line that we had from applying the masking fluid even better. Mm I think a nice thing to do, too, is to add a little bit of sepia, just to tad. Sometimes I'll use my paintbrush out on paper to apply more paint. And now I think it's a good time to re add those batters, those sepias batters on the top right to the painting. One thing you can do now is lift that paint that just creeped onto the mushroom with a clean and almost dry paint bro. That's why I'm using my paper towel. What I like about this is that it's easy to do because the paper is a little bit wet, and it really helps me reshape the stem as you can see. Let's try this completely now. That looks great. So in the next lesson, we'll start painting the mushroom itself. But before that, if you want to share your work in progress, feel free to do so from the project and resources section of the class. See you next. Mm. 8. Mushroom Base Layer: In this lesson, we're going to start painting the mushroom, and I'm going to be using these two paintbrushes. So what's important here is to work with one that has a fine tip. It's gonna be easier to get into all the nooks and crannies of the mushroom, and then another one to soften the paint. So it could be one like this one or just a round one that's, you know, small enough that it's convenient to actually soften the paint within the mushroom. And that's it. And we're going to work mainly with red and yellow here, also with a little bit of purple, and I'll probably add some sepia later on. So let's get started. I'm going to pick up a mix of yellow and red. It'd be more yellow to start with. And I'm just going to paint within the shape. So for a base layer to be a little bit quicker and not see the paint dry so fast, you can just dip your paintbrush in water and, you know, make it just a little bit faster to paint. I would also paint this part here of the mushroom, and we'll just go over it later with darker colors. I'm going to add more yellow here. Again, I'm trying to achieve an effect where I have several colors showing in the painting. I also want to soften the paint here with a clean and damp paintbrush, which is why I remove the excess on the paper towel, and I'm softening the paint here because we have very light spots up there. Let s pick up more yellow. And again, soften the paint with a clean and damp paintbrush. Adding red over here. And if it bleeds onto this part, that's fine. As long as we soften the edges or use more red over here. And why not use a little bit of purple, too, since this is darker. And it will bring a nice touch to the mushroom, make it look more realistic already from just doing a base layer. I'm going to soften paint over there. I'm just going to add a little bit of that color to the stem here and even add a little bit of purple, actually. I think that will look great. So see the base is right here. I'm softening again the paint. Out of shadow here already. C let's soften the paint. While it's still wet, I'm going to start painting this part here. And follow the curve. We've got ourselves a nice base already. And I want to add a little bit of yellow. If you look at the reference closely, you can see them. It's actually it's gonna be more like orange over here. And even in other places, again, just overlapping colors, making sure there are several colors in one area is key. Key for realism. I also want to add some over here. And right now, of course, it doesn't look finished. It doesn't look quite right, but that's because this is just a base er. There's no worry over here. When it's still wet, if you need to lift paint, you can do that by just rinsing a paintbrush, making sure it's almost dry. And then lift the paint wherever you would like to. And that looks great already. So this part is actually very short. We will meet in the next lesson to paint another layer. Here. Make sure this is completely dry before you do so. And for now, let's just meet next. 9. Mushroom Second Layer: In this lesson, we're going to add a second layer to this mushroom painting, and we're going to start adding sepia to add strong shadows. I'm still working with both paint brushes I showed you before. One to paint, one to soften the paint. And I want to really start strong here by adding the sepia color. So let's just pick it up. So we don't want it too thick, that it will be hard to paint, but thick enough that it won't require many layers. And I'm going to start over here, and I still keep that paintbrush ready here to soften edges if I need to. So I'm starting wherever the edges are super sharp. Um, Over there, I want to start softening just that part. So the line is sharp down here, but not up here. And I'm going to keep painting my shadow. I'm not worried about the white spots yet. We'll create these later. Before this dries, I really want to soften the paint over here. I'm even going to add a little bit of yellow paint while we're at it so it melts into this part and looks even more natural. I think that looks great. And now, again, with Mar sepia. And it keep adding the shadows. No, I want to soften the top over here, too. Started drying already. It's gonna be a little tough, but I don't want it to be that sharp. Even here, I'm doing this a little bit late, but that's okay. And I also want to include purple into the shadows. I find that adding just brown is a little bit boring. So let's add purple. You find it looks a lot better, actually. And why not add a little bit of shadow over here? Soften this. Add a little bit more soften it. I actually add some more. I'm just looking at the reference as I'm doing this. I also want to strengthen the shadows up here. And what I'm going to do this is wet. I'm going to make sure those brushes are a little bit dry, and I'm going to lift some paint slightly. And now we don't have a harsh edge anymore. It looks a lot better, and the cap really pops. Thanks to the lifting technique. I still add a little bit of shadow down here. I'm just gonna wet the entire thing now and keep adding my shadows. And the key again is to soften the paint, at least if you like the smooth look in the painting. And while it's still wet, I'm going to rinse my paintbrush and amplify the colors in places. So, for example, over here. He maybe add a more yellow and then it a bit more red over here for tough vibrancy. Now, again, I'm going to lift a little bit. And again, we don't have to outline the whole thing. Just a part will be enough. I'm even going to lift over here. And that looks great already. So now we're going to need a little bit of shadow in this area. I like to soften it still. Maybe create a little bit of texture to mimic what we see on the reference. And soften that slightly. In that part of the painting, I also like to add a little bit of yellow. And I'm really going to strengthen the shadows over there while it's still wet. But I want to do this in a few spots and not necessarily everywhere. So it looks more natural, mainly. Again, I always avoid to outline anything completely from one end to the other. And now soften the paints. So some areas are a little bit stronger than others. And we can do the same down here, so I just want a little bit of purple. I don't really like that area, so I'm removing some paint. And they pick up a little bit of purple, and I'm going to repeat with a stronger shadow over here. And actually here, you see, can we can just change the painting by just adding to the mushroom in that area because the dark paint goes over the paint so easily. I soften this part. And I'm gonna add a little bit of texture when I'm at it. I'm just gonna soften it, too, so it's lighter. And I think we would benefit from a little bit of yellow as well for some light in here. I also would like to add a much darker color, and that would be in this area. I'm going to soften this once more to create gradients and maybe make the shadow a little bit better here as well. How where else can we improve this? Maybe here, I feel like we need a stronger shadow. And actually, I think what be good would be to try this first. So let's add a shadow over here. A better one. I'm going to add a little bit of yellow now. I mix it up over here right on paper. And I'm going to soften pain slightly. I want to increase the shadow over there. And I actually don't like the way the shadow is. So I'm just going to wet this what you can do. If you want, she paints a subtle shadow after adding a DTep one. Just do it on wet and it will naturally be a little bit more subtle. So yeah, this is better. Notice I'm following the curve of the mushroom to do that. Still following the curve. Oh now I'm going to lift some paint, so I'm cleaning a paintbrush, making sure it's a little bit on dry. And while things are still wet here, I'm just lifting a little bit. I always following the curve of the mushroom. And now, also on this side here, And now I'm gonna cool that darker paint over there. I'm also fixing a few things. And we're not bad here with our second layer. So, of course, this is not finished yet. We have details to paint. So we're going to dry this Now, before we move on, I want to glaze a little bit of color. That will always make your paintings look a little bit more vibrant if you feel like you need more vibrancy. So I'm going to pick up yellow in a thin coat. So that means not too much some pigment, but not too thick. Still creamy, like what we were doing in the beginning when we painted the background, and then I'm going to apply it on top. Like this, I'm even going to apply it down here. Again to do it that way allows me to kind of blend in this part of the cap and underneath here because I'm applying yellow all over. So between the brown color and the red yellow colors, we get a bridge. Again, we can lift an mint paint. It will be subtle, but that's just fine. Try this. And now we're ready to meet. In the next lesson, we're going to be adding details. We're going to be adding highlights. It's gonna be beautiful. We're going to finish. It's beautiful painting there. So if you want to post a photo of your work in progress, feel free to do so in the project and resources section of the class. Otherwise, let's move on and finish this painting. Mm. 10. Details, Shadows and Highlights: In this lesson, we're going to create some details and highlights. We're going to do this with several techniques that are going to put the light back into painting. The first one is using a paper towel to create a bouquet effect. So I'm going to look for a clean paintbrush. So we want to cream paintbrush, and we want to paint some circles or half circles. For example, here, I'm going to paint one, and then I'm actually going to paint another one, a bigger one. And once you've got that you want to run your paper towel over that to get that bouquet effect going. So now let's do it in other parts and you don't need to follow exactly what you see in the reference. Whatever you feel like doing is fine. And make sure to overlap those circles so it looks natural. You can see this is pretty effective and quick. You want to also change the side of the paper towel we're using? I think this is good on this side. And now let's create some over here. And we can still go over it again if we're not satisfied. We don't want to do this too too much because at some point, the papers not gonna like it. But on thick papers like these, it's possible to go at it several times, as you can see. I'm going to change to paper towel now. I'm trying to decide if I want to add any elsewhere. I don't want to overdo it either without a facts. Mm over here. I want to improve this one up here. That looks great. We could consider doing one over there. Try to shape in better. It looks good. So now let's take care of the white parts on the mushroom and put this whitewash is going to be great. So you'll knead it in thick amounts. It will show better. So you want it to be pretty sick, almost pure, add a little bit of water. So it's easy to paint with. And we're going to add a little specs of it, and I'm gonna use another paintbrush to soften the paint, so this one is clean and down. And I'm going to start adding this. And to make sure to soften the pain every time. So you see how we almost don't need to plan for those little dots ahead of time because they're so easy to add with guash. I don't need to be perfect at all. M. I'm gonna make some more over here. But I do like to soften because they look like they're part of the mushroom a bit more. So notice I never try to make them exactly the same or anything. Even add a little bit of yellow to the pink, so now it's going to be a yellow with gase. And I'm even adding a little bit of sepia to make it a little bit dirty and create that shadow effect a little better. Sisto shows, but it's a little darker. This actually a little bit too dark, so I'm going to add some white quash. Also going to add this over here. It's nice because we can create them in the way that we wish. There's no row. Do you want to get something that looks natural? At the end, I'm just gonna need my white quash again to finish the ones that are located over here. Gonna add a little bit of white quash there because it's still light enough in that area. The shadow strong shadows are towards this side. They're starting here. That's why I'm adding a little bit of white. Some over here, too. Soft Nut. And in the mushroom, we might consider emphasizing the whites in some areas, not everywhere, but it can be a nice addition. And now, the side. Making sure to still have some shadows over here. And I'm pulling paint, as you can see, creating a little bit of texture. Is looks pretty good. As And if she details over here. And off all slightly. Now that we're done with the dots, we can add shadows underneath. If you take a close look at the reference, you will notice these shadows underneath. And so I'm going to use red, yellow, and a little bit of sepia to do this. I'll be like a very light brown, something that would show on top of this orange color. Again, we want to soften this so it doesn't look odd or anything. So I soften it into the white gouache and I also soften it a little bit into the mushroom. When you're quick enough with it, you can add it on several dots at once. So it's a little bit faster. And it really adds a lot. It really changes everything as soon as we add the shadows. Makes them look pretty all of a sudden. It's important to add them up here, too. You can also create a slight separation between all of those little dots things to that darker pain. And I always soften some of it, but not all of it so that it shows in places. Keep in mind that if there are areas you don't like, you can still add white quash again afterwards. So it's all these little variations that really create the realism, like starting with white, bright whites and then ending with paints that are going to be a little darker to match the shadows. All these are little details, but that's really going to impact the looks of your painting. You can even consider adding more brown into the mix as you go so that the shadows show a little better. Again, we need to match how dark that area we're working on is already. And I do want to add a little bit of white, bright white to these areas a little in places, not everywhere. So they still pop? So now we have dark shadows. We have that color that we added before that was quite dark. And that helps with the three D effect. We really need the highlights, even in dark parts, as you can see. Here is one area that I do not love, so I'm going to fix it by adding bright whites. I would like to splatter a little bit of paint on this mushroom over here, so I'm going to use yellow, red, and a little bit of the set piaz that actually shows. And if it doesn't work, that means you need to add a little bit more water. So I'm trying to do this little by little because I still want those platters to show. I could have done this before, but that's okay. Here we go. Yeah, it's a lot nicer. And now I'm going to use the dry brush technique where I'm going to pick up still that mix of yellow, red, and sepia. So now it's like a dark light brown, that's a little bit orange. And I'm going to remove the excess here. And now I'm going to add a little bit of color to the mushroom, so it needs to be subtle. I don't want to overdo it. It's a nice way to to add a little something there. And a little vibrancy and I'm doing the same over here. I'm going to add a little bit of it in that area. And that is it. You can see that it's nice to have a little bit of color up here over there. So, yeah, I think we can stop this here. If there's anything else you want to do, of course, K. We could choose to bring more realism to the ground. I've chosen to keep it quite loose, and I prefer to have everything showing on the mushroom more. So that will be it for me. Maybe I will improve the bouquet effects over there a little bit. I'm trying to see if there's anything else to do. I think that looks good. So I hope you've enjoyed painting this so long before we meet in the last part of this class. The conclusion, I would like you to share this with us if you like, in the project and resources section of the class. If you have any question, of course, please let me know, and I will see you next. Mm. Mm. 11. Final Thoughts: Congratulations for completing the cours. I've enjoyed sharing my strategies with you today, and I am sure that you will be able to reuse them in future artwork and level up fast. Remember that you can share your work with me from the project and resources section of the class and even leave reviews so that potential students know what to expect. For more of my Waterf art tips and techniques, you can also follow me here on Skillshare and get notified by email every time I upload a new class. And to learn from me consistently, you will also find me on YouTube and Patri and every week, and I also teach on my website under the name painting and chocolate. Thank you so much for taking this class with me today and see you in the next one.