Learn to Paint Gorgeous Winter Pines Sunset Landscape Using Watercolors

1. Welcome to My Class: I'm Ditu Chadra Mohan. I am an artist and instructor working in the United Kingdom. You can find me on Instagram as colorful mystique. Even though it is really cold, winter is one of my favorite seasons. I got to experience my first ever snow in the first year that I moved into the UK in 2017. It is really a magical experience and so is painting winter landscapes. Ever since I dived into watercolors and started painting landscapes, I fell in love with winter skates and paintings with snow in it. This class is all about painting a winter landscape. I have carefully designed painting this gorgeous winter pines landscape with snow on its branches. I will take you through each step of the painting process. You will learn to sketch the pine tree, use masking fluid, blending technique for the sky, paint realistic pine trees, and giving shadows using the concept of color contrast. Let us get started and first, let me show you the materials required for this class. 2. What You Will Need: I will be using a wooden board to take my watercolor paper onto it. This is just a plywood board. I'm using this because I'll be putting something under it on the top to give me a bit of gravity while I work with my paints. Watercolor paper, I will be using ArcGIS 300 GSM cold press paper. This is 100% cotton paper. Watercolor brushes. We will need large, medium, and small round-size brushes. I will be using these brushes from silver black velvet series a size 4, size 8, and size 12 brushes, and for applying water on my paper, I will use this Escoda lot size 16 brush because it will hold a lot of water. I will be using the paints from my travel palette consisting of St. Petersburg White Nights paints and Art Philosophy go primer marketing paints. You can use watercolor paints available in pans or tubes. We will need two jars of water, one for washing off paint from your brushes, and the other to take fresh clear paint. A palette for mixing different colors and shapes. A pencil and eraser to make the rough sketch of your painting. Masking tape to tape down your paper onto the surface. Some tissues to clear your brushes and paint and masking fluid 3. Watercolor Blending Techniques: In this class we will learn to get a perfect blend of different shades. I'm going to first make the shape of a rectangle to mark the area where I want to paint. We will first start by applying water onto the paper. I will be using wet-on-wet technique. That is first wetting the paper and then using wet paints on top of it. We have to make sure that we apply water evenly on the surface and it shouldn't form any pools. This is too much water. See See large blob here. We spread it out and make it even with our brush and I'm applying water inside the rectangle. Then I'll take my first color, ultramarine blue, and as soon as I touch the paper with my brush, you can see that it spreads because there's water on the paper. To make an even blend, we should do this swift left and right movement. Then we take the next color, which is purple, and apply it right below the ultramarine blue. But to get an even blend, blend it upwards and never stop your brush from moving from the left to the right and back until you reach the top. If you stop in midway, you'll get blooms or dark edges. Then we take the next color, Indian yellow, and repeat the same swift left and right movement. We have to make sure that the violet does not mix with the yellow to form any brown color. Then we can take the next color, which is Indian gold, and apply it from the bottom. Since I started applying it at the bottom, repeat this swift left and right movement and go towards the top. Ignore the borders for now because I don't have a masking tape around the rectangle. I'm just going to tilt my book to let the paint flow down and let the watercolors to do its own magic of blending. See how gravity has done its work. After that, you will see that the color has gone down and given this beautiful and seamless blend on the paper, this is how you can get a perfect blend. 4. How to Sketch the Pine Tree: In this video, I'll show you how we can sketch the pine trees easily. My pine tree is going to be around this height. I'm just going to draw the center trunk of the tree. As you might already know, pine trees are somewhat like a triangular shape and they get bigger at the bottom. If you want to reference, you can just start with the triangle just to give you a rough idea where you want to place your branches, so here inside this triangle. But of course it's going to have branches extending outside the triangle, so let us try some branches from the top. Because our pine tree is going to have snow on it, the branches or leaves are not going to be clearly visible. Let me show you, if we look at this painting, this is one of the trial runs I did before. If you look at the tree, the snow falls on the branches and on the top part of the leaf or branch, it stays flat and rounded underneath. That is how we will be sketching it. Starting from the top, we're supposed to make rounded shapes, small at the top because the tree is thinner at the top. Usually we paint the pine trees like this. But what we need to remember is that to make it look real and three-dimensional, we have to put in branches in this direction as well that is coming out of the paper. To achieve that, we will have snow covered branches in the middle also. That depicts the branch that is facing us. As you move down, the branches are going to get bigger. This is how we would sketch the pine tree. Just make these different shapes. Some of them to the right, some to the left, and some in the center. At the bottom there's going to be more snow on the tree as the branches get thicker and bigger, there's more surface for the snow to stick on. The snow will be bigger and more at the bottom. That is how your tree will look like 5. Making the Pencil Sketch: This is a GS 300 GSM cold press paper. So this is the paper that we will be painting on. So I'm going to tape the paper onto this board. Taping down the paper will prevent it from warping and will also give us a very nice border. Let us start painting. So our horizon line is going to be somewhere around here. The end of the snow line bends and comes a bit down over here. Then we will start to sketch the tree. The first tree is going to be around here, and the second tree somewhere around here. It's going to start at the top and the smaller trees will be in the background. So now we will start to sketch the snow-covered branches of the tree, just like we learned in the last lesson. We will start sketching the second tree now, but this time we will leave more gaps in the branches. Just so as to make the trees look different from each other and to make it seem more like a distant tree. Keep making the branches just like we learned. So this will be the pencil sketch for the painting that we will learn. 6. Masking the Pine Trees: To mask the pine tree, I'll be using this Molotow masking fluid pen. This is just like a pen, and I can easily apply using the pointed tip. Let us mask the snow on the pine trees using the pen. I'm not going to apply on all the areas, just on the shapes that we did earlier. This is blue in color, but don't worry about it. It will be removed in the end. I'm just going to apply it onto the areas where there is snow because I want those areas to be left white. Keep applying the masking fluid all over the snow areas that we made the sketch. There is a separation between these two branches, but right now it's all connected. Don't worry about that now. It is a hard task applying this masking fluid all over the tree, but you can also paint without the masking fluid if you're so confident that you can leave these spaces white, or you can also use whitewash paint in the end. If you're using whitewash paint, then you would paint the tree as a whole, and then use the gouache white paint on top of it to make the snow. We can stop here because this is the horizon line, and below the horizon line, we will leave it almost white because it has snow. Actually you don't have to mask this bottom part. I just did it in the floor. Let us apply masking fluid to the second tree now. This tree is a bit behind the other tree in the foreground. It's going to be a bit different, and it will have less snow on it. I'm fast-forwarding the video a bit over here. Just keep applying the masking fluid all over the tree. Once we finish masking the trees, we can move on to start painting the sky 7. Painting the Sky: When we apply masking fluid, we have to wait until it is completely dry before we start painting. Now it has been around five minutes and the masking fluid is completely dry so we can start painting. For the background wash, I'm going to be using the size 16 Escoda pointed round brush. It's synthetic hair brush but still holds a lot of water, so it's easy to apply water to large areas. I'm going to take water and apply it all over the sky region. We have to remember that we have to apply the water evenly without any large pools or blobs of water forming on the paper. This is our horizon line. We want to apply the water only on the sky region on the top part of the horizon line that we sketched. See the horizon line bending downwards here, so we have to make sure we apply water on the top. Then I will take my size 12 silver-black velvet brush, round. I'm going to start from the top and move downwards. We will be painting the sky like in the techniques lesson that we learned. Take ultramarine blue and start applying from the top and we let it flow towards the bottom. We will apply a bit more darker value to make it look more vibrant. Then we will take purple and apply it right below the ultramarine blue and blend in evenly. Don't forget the continuous left and right movement with the brush. Don't stop midway at any point of time. Then we will take the next color which is Indian yellow or gamboge yellow if you're using a different brand of watercolors, and we will apply it right below the purple and blend in evenly. Paint all the way to the horizon line. Blend in evenly. Then we take a bit of orange and make these horizontal lines on top of the yellow while it is still wet. Remember, the water on your brush should be lesser than on the paper, so it should be a 70% paint and 30% water consistency on your brush. We have to be really careful along the horizon line. Now we're painting the background layer and this is the reason why we applied the masking fluid on the areas that we wanted to remain white so that when we remove the masking fluid later on, it's going to remain entirely white and it will appear as snow on the trees. While the paper is still moist, let us give it a second layer. So take ultramarine blue again and apply it on top of the first layer. You can see that the ultramarine blue is already flowing down so we have to take purple and add it below the blue. When mixing the purple with yellow, be careful that the crossover region between purple layer and the yellow does not have a darker value of purple because otherwise it would mix together and form browns. For adding the clouds I'm going to be using my size 8 silver-black velvet brush, and I will be making the clouds with purple. I will make small shapes like this on the yellow part of the sky. My paper is still wet or moist so I'm able to use the wet-on-wet technique for the clouds. As you go towards the top, the clouds are darker because the upper part is closer to us, and towards the horizon, the clouds are far away so will be lighter in value. As you apply paint on the wet paper, the paint will spread but don't worry about that because this wet-on-wet effect is what will give the clouds a real look. 8. Painting the Background Pine Trees: My first layer has completely dried. Let us now go ahead and paint the smaller pine trees in the background, which are going to be here. I'm going to use my size 4 small brush. I'm going to take Payne's gray for making the small pine trees in the background. We will start from here. We will paint the snow on the pine trees later. Just make these small strokes to the left and the right to make the pine tree beat be thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. We will stop right when we reach the horizon line. Make similar small trees. Remember that the Payne's gray should be lighter in value and not very dark. You can leave gaps like this. Keep adding trees in the background. We can add some taller trees as well. Once this is done, in the next video, we will focus on painting the snow on the ground that is giving shadows on the ground. 9. Painting the Ground: Let us now paint the snow on the ground and binge to add the reflection of the sunlight as well. For that, first, I would take my sized well brush and wet the paper. Wet the whole area of the ground with water. I will use a mix of cobalt blue, and beans green for the shadows on the ground. First, being the shadows battling to the horizon line right below the pine trees. Then keep adding random strokes to add some texture to the ground. Keep adding the mix of cobalt blue and Payne's gray. When you reach the bottom part of this pine tree, be careful because we don't apply masking fluid at the bottom. The sunlight is blocked by the pine trees or the shadows are going to be darker here. Now, this was the first layer of the snow. Let us give a second layer of snow. For that, I'm going to mix a bit of indigo into the blue and gray mix that we used, and at night at the panel and also right below the pine trees, to give it a bit more darker shadow. We keep adding darker shadows to give it a bit more contrast and texture on the ground. Observe that I'm applying the darker shadows while my paper is still wet or moist. I'm using the wet-on-wet technique for applying the shadows. Because of the wet-on-wet technique, my paint spreads as soon as I apply it onto the paper, and that would give us a very nice texture on the ground. Next, I'm going to add a bit of orange onto the ground to give a reflection of the sunlight on the ground. I will apply using very light strokes and that's it. Then I will mix a bit of Indian yellow and Indian gold. I'm going to apply a very dilute orange to give the reflection of the sunlight. Blend it nicely onto the wet paper so that there is no hard edges. If this yellow mixes with the blue shadow mix, then it will turn green so we have to be careful while blending it. Once you are satisfied with painting the shadows on the ground, we can start painting the pine tree 10. Painting the Foreground Pine Trees: While the ground dries, we can start painting the tree from the top. For the pine trees, we will be using dark green from White Nights, watercolors. I'm going to mix it with a bit of indigo. You can see it turns darker, when I mix it with indigo, then I'll mix it with a bit of paints gray. This is because I want a really dark shade. See this dark shade that we have obtained. Even start applying from the top of the pine tree. We will paint around the masked areas to mark the small branches and leaves visible through the snow on the tree. Also, there will be some branches which doesn't have any snow, so we will paint that also. We'll be painting around the snow. Make these small branches and leaves, just like I'm doing right now. Mostly at the tips of the snow to mark the leaves that are coming out. That is, at the bottom part of the snow because they will not be any leaves visible on the top part. Keep adding the green mix to each of the branches of the tree. Make these small lines below the snow. Now my bottom part has dried, so I will paint the leaves at the bottom part as well. We have to be careful near the ground where we applied the yellow paint. Also at the bottom part of the tree, the branches will be thicker, and darker in value. I had not put the masking fluid at some parts on the bottom part of the tree, so I'm now going to be careful, and leaving some spaces white and paint around it. Now let us paint the second pine tree. For this tree, the tip is extended outside the paper because it is slightly behind the other tree that we painted. Repeat the same steps to make the branches and leaves of the pine tree. Only remember that this pine tree has less volume of the branches and the leaves, so they're going to be bit separated. But repeat the steps that we just did to paint the first pine tree. Use very small brush strokes, which is why I'm using my small size four brush, but you can also use any detailing brush that you have for these leaves on the pine trees. On the right side here, there is going to be the branch of another pine tree, but that's outside the paper. Only a tiny branch of that pine tree is going to be visible on our painting. Keep adding the leaves and branches of the pine tree, just like I am doing here. If you watch closely, you can see that the volume of the leaves on this pine tree is lesser than the other one, and so is the snow that we put in using the masking fluid. This part here is the part of the tree that is on the right side. It is alright to have some gaps in between, and if the sky is visible through those gaps, because it would just mean that the pine tree is not that really thick, and we're seeing the background sky through the leaves. We will paint the whole bottom part of the pine tree because we want to add snow later on. Just like this tree, we will have snow at the bottom part of this tree also, but we will do it in the end 11. Painting the Snow on the Pine Trees: Painting has now fully dried. So let us now remove the masking fluid from the paper. So I will be using an eraser to rub off the masking fluid. It took me quite a while to remove all the masking fluid from the paper. While I was rubbing off, the table was shaking so much so I couldn't include it in the video. But you know how it is, you just have to drop them off. You can see that after removing the masking fluid, it is all white. Now we have to paint the shadows on the snow. We take our small brush and apply water on the white areas. We will use a mix of cobalt blue and a bit of Payne's gray to give the shadows. Apply the paint towards the bottom side of the white area. It will flow up, but it's alright because we want it to have the nice wet on wet effect. We will repeat this step of applying the water and then using the colors at the bottom side of the snow to give the shadows on the snow. Because this is a sunset scene, which is why the snow is not going to be entirely white, it is going to have some reflected shadows on the snow. These reflected shadows could be from the branches or the leaves on top of it, or even another layer of snow, which is why we're giving the shadows. It is so calming and relaxing to see the paint flow on the paper. I'm just applying water to the snowy areas and then putting the tip of my brush loaded with paint and the paint is just flowing and making that snow effect on it. It's just really beautiful, isn't it? I'm not even bothered about as to how the paint flows. All you have to be careful is when you're applying the water just to make sure that it does not go out of the white areas. The shadows on the bottom part of the tree would be darker, this is because the sunlight is coming in this direction and that part would have more shadow. Just freely let your paints flow and create this amazing texture on the snow. Now, let us take a darker tone of the cobalt blue and the Payne's gray mix and make some lines on the snow to mark the areas or the boundary lines, the separation between two different branches. Repeat this step and also do it for all the leaves. But make sure that you don't apply the darker tone everywhere, just at some random places. This will give it a good contrast between the lighter shadows and very darkest of the shadows. We are done with our first tree. Let us now repeat the same process on the second tree. I will apply water on the white areas and then use the mix of cobalt blue and Payne's gray to give that shadow all the texture on the snow. Observe how carefully I'm applying the water. Your water should not spread out on to your tree or the sky. Otherwise, the paint will flow out onto that and it might create dark edges so we have to be really careful. This is our final step in our painting. Once we complete this, our painting will be done. Our painting is done 12. Thank You for Watching and Well Done!: Let us now peel off the masking tape from our painting. When we are peeling off the masking tape, we have to remember that we have to pull it off at an angle. That is, we have to pull it off away from the paper. Otherwise, it might tear the paper. I would like to thank you all for taking your time to watch my class. This is our final painting. If there is any pain that has seeped outside the masking tape, you can just apply some white wash over it or even your white watercolors to clear it up. I just wanted to tell you about how watercolors are my favorite medium to paint with. Because it gives us a lot of possibilities to painting the same thing in different ways. You know guys, this is all about having fun. Nobody is perfect, so we might not get it right in the first try, but it's okay. Don't worry about perfection. It's all about the experience of trying out different topics. I hope that all of you enjoyed this class and if you want to share this painting on social media, you can tag me and I will share them in my stories. My Instagram handle is colorfulmystique.