Learn to paint Magical Landscapes in Watercolor

1. Introduction: Hi everyone. My name is Eugena [inaudible] I'm a water color artist and illustrator. Also I teach many water color classes online and offline. Welcome to my studio [inaudible] of magical water color. In today's class, I will show you step-by-step how to paint magical landscapes in water color. We'll focus on wet and wet techniques, which are wonderful for beginners. We'll explore two different color schemes, warm colors and cold colors. I will show you how to properly mix them between each other and get beautiful results. In next data, I will show you a device will be using in this class. If you are new to this channel, press that "Follow" button on top, and let's get started. 2. Colors and Supplies: In this class, will be using the following supplies: water colored paper, a set of water color paint, water, paint pallet, paper towel, we'll need a big brush to put water on the paper and I'll be using a flat synthetic brush, but you can use a natural bigger brush or a natural mop, and also we'll be using a medium round brush, which is number 6, and a medium round brush which is number 4. Also, we'll be using boards. Because we'll be using wet on wet technique, we'll need a board. I have different sizes of board, so it depends on the size of the paper. The board has to be a little bigger than the paper. However, for today's class I'm suggesting to have a normal sized paper. This is 9 by 12. I think this is the easiest size to work with. The other board can be like this, which you can buy in our craft store or in a hardware store, you can just buy a big bored of this kind. That's exactly what I did. It was a big board and we just asked it to be cut in more boards of a smaller size. What do we do? We have a board. When we have a board, I'll just place the paper on it where we are comfortable with. Then we'll need and drafters tape or a blue tape, also in a hardware store. This is drafting tape I bought from an art store. What we'll do next is, I'll just take some of this tape and we'll tape our paper [inaudible] like a frame of a quarter of an inch on each side. It will be very beautiful, it's already beautiful even now. The painting is done, you on tape this and its going to have this nice white frame ready to be framed in a deal frame. Just a quarter of an inch on each side. Try to be straight because we'll have color on all our paper, so our frame has to be straight. Next, let's talk about colors we'll be using today. Today we'll be painting two landscapes. One is going to be in warm hues, warm colors, and the another one will be in cold colors. Which are warm and cold colors? We talked about it in the class, basics of cosmic sink. I will attach the link to the description of the class in case you didn't watch it. If you watched it you probably have a color wheel already. This is a color wheel we're creating there. Well, we can divide our color circle in two parts. The colors closer to the yellow are warm and the colors closer to the blue are cold. The cold colors are the ones which are giving us the feeling of cold and warm are giving us feeling of warm. This color looks warm to me. I will consider only these four colors of coldest in the color circle, this for the warmest, and this, on neutral. Anyway, I hope I didn't confuse you too much. For warm colors, we'll be using maple yellow. You can also use yellow ocre or a raw sienna instead of this if you don't have it. Then we'll be mixing red ocre with magenta. If you don't have magenta you can use a [inaudible] crimson. We'll give this beautiful autumn color. We have maple yellow, red ocre, and magenta. That's how it looks when it's not mixed. I don't like using just warm colors, I think they don't look to balanced, so we'll add some purple and at some point, we'll mix some purple with emerald green, and it'll create this beautiful, pretty, warm color of dark blue. These are the colors we'll be using for our warm landscape. This is the sun. For our cold landscape, we'll be using blue, which is called just blue. Again, we'll be using purple, emerald green, and magenta. It mixed. 3. Landscape in cold colors: Part 1 : As usual, we'll start covering a portion of our paper with water, just clean water. You can see I'm using a flat rotating tint brush and just a very non expensive brush. I'm leaving here about one-third of the paper. I'm coloring because it will dry anyway. On wet-on-wet we will have to work pretty fast. Just cover a portion of your paper with a lot of water, and next we'll take some purple, add some purple to this guy. [inaudible] can use like bigger brush. You can use this flat brush if you want. I want some purple clouds in the sky, and some blue. Don't worry, it's not going to be this dark because it's a lot of water, so a lot of pigment will just dilute in water and will be very light. So this is our sky. You can see I'm working off fast. I suggest you do the same. Next I'II mix some blue with our purple again, and let's add some bushes, some trees, something whimsical. Now some of this lie down below. You can see I have a bottom here and that's okay for now, we'll decide later. You can see how all the paint is running to this point. We'll decide later, if we want it or not. Good. Let's take some emerald green with purple together and we're getting this dark greenish blue because it has more green. You can see this area is all right and dry. So let's work faster and next we'll add some more water. Okay. This is enough. I have a big pile of hair, so what do we do with it? Well, just tap and dry our brush in the paper towel and will absorb. With synthetic brushes, are not absorbing too well but this isn't a big brush, that's why I decided. So let's some trees here like this, they will probably disappear anyway but we can try. This is good. Next let's add some branches. Not a lot because it's still far away. So the trees are not this detailed. You can see on wet-on-wet on the tip of the brush, I have forming these clusters of leaves and that's exactly what we want. Beautiful. This area is still a very wet, so we'll leave it. Maybe a few branches right here. Why not, right? So just go with your imagination and play and don't be afraid. It's even looking somehow tropical a little bit. Next we'll color this portion of paper again with water. I want to leave some areas wet, we'll see if it will be possible because these paintings are always different so we never get the same painting. You know how unpredictable watercolor is. I can add to it a blob of water here. So it will form another shape, like a blooming shape because it was one white spot. I'm adding emerald green to my blue and I want to add some more blue, some grasses here. We'll be varying like the amount of blue and green. Let's add some green to it now. I think it's a kind of [inaudible] for our dreamy magical landscapes. So let's mix some purple to it and get like a dark blue. This is better. Okay. So you can see how paper is drying and it's not diluting the watercolor anymore. I want to add some more grass here, we'll still be going back so it will still change a lot. But while it's still wet-on-wet, I would like to add some flowers right here. So I take some magenta. It has to be pretty wet but not too wet. If it will be too wet, it will blend just like here and it'll be like one big cloud. Magenta always looks so great if too close. You can see how flowers are blooming. Let's just add some bright blue flowers in the mix the same way. Also I would like some white flowers and for it I'll take some rubbing alcohol, this and with a different brush I'll just, this is too much, these are too big. Okay. Good thing it's magical. You can see how our white flowers are blooming. Okay. I think this is enough and now it's important to, I'll let everything dry and then we'll go with the next later. 4. Landscape in cold colors: Part 2 : One out of weather with layer is that anytime we can start adding additional details to our painting and the painting sheet, we'll look into the shapes which are formed by a white and white technique and just make some of them more detailed than others, it consists of trees right here. I'm getting few more strokes to make them more obvious, but I still would love to give this an dreamy magical hills, that's why I'm not making it too detailed and now here also I would like to paint little castle somewhere right here, let's take a smaller and our water a lot, my pigment, I think this will be better because this is blue already painting a line and then long triangle, I will paint just a portion of the castle because the rest of the hidden by the trees or by fog and another rectangle here, and another little right here. It depends on what color adapt your wet and wet layer is, that's how dark your castle would be, if it'd be away, darker like I colored here, I'd have a darker castle. Here I am making this a shape of trees are bushes just with brush strokes. Again, I can make some branches if you want to, or you can leave it all in fog and make mysterious. I get some brush strokes right here and then like a little pond or something and some dot. We have a castle, we have some more detail tree in just a little bit because there's still Guinea and magical and here I'd like to have the darker branch coming out so our painting going to look more finished this way. Again, I'll take some purple with emerald green and just paint the big beautiful branch, you can see I'm not like trying to control a lot my brush and just palette and get our control the shape of the branch, it looks crooked and clear as possible. I feel I can make the second part in here, like this. [inaudible] good. Let's add few more congested details so every gets so blurry and mysterious here and here we'll have trees branch which has more graphic filtered and it look good because of the contrast. You can make it as branched as you like, or you can have just one little and also I'll just add some leaves or flowers, to it just to have bigger branch, some brush strokes and maybe some are falling already. Why not right? It can be bigger or smaller and they will or come some of them will become lighter as they dry. The last thing we have to do is to add some more precise [inaudible] right here. Then again, it's purple wave, a little green, but you can go with blue water to [inaudible] anything you want, [inaudible] diluted with water and just feel here and there not too much. You can do as many as you want. It's really your paintings, if you feel like you need more arms right here, just go for it and the last whimsical detail I want to add to, and the very last it's going to be on your head. Looks more like a moose but it's okay. All looking at the castle and it's disappearing somewhere here in the bushes. This our draw painting and cold colors and I hope you enjoying it. 5. Landscape in warm colors: Part 1 : So we have our paper stretched, and what we'll do next, we'll cover two-thirds of the paper with clean water. It's going to be drying as we go. So you can start with one-third and then add more water to it. So that's exactly what we'll do. About one-third of the paper, I'll color with clean water with a big brush. Okay, so next, I want to take some yellow Naples, bring it to paint palette, and then add it in this corner add some clogs. It's a lot of water, so it will be spreading, and diluting, and making these really beautiful effects. So let's work fast because the paper is already drying. This is enough yellow. Next, I'll add some more water. Here, I have paddles, so I have to balance it and the water. Next, let's take some red ocher and mix it with some magenta. This is the beautiful warm color. So what we'll do next, let's just add some like this. Great. I'll add some more red ocher to make it a little bit different on this side. This is too much red ocher, I'd like some more magenta to it. Nice. I can see they're trying to float on towards another. So we won't let it happen, and next, what I'll do, add some yellow right here and a little bit here. Just let your water go and do its magic there, don't interfere too much, and let's add some more water. Good. Again, we'll go with the same colors. I'm working with a flat brush. So we'll be adding some of this red ocher with magenta, red ocher on its own. Because this brush is synthetic, it will make this a strikes, and it's exactly what we want, and let's add some yellow, too. Here, we have a paddle, so let's dry the brush in paper towel and absorb the excess of water. So you can see the palette is really beautiful, warm, pleasant to the eye. Let's mix some more magenta with red ocher and add some more color here. The paper is not as wet as before, so it won't off-load in here, it will just stay there and the same here. Good. So now let's let it dry, and we'll start painting again when it's dry. 6. Landscape in warm colors: Part 2 : Now when our first layer is totally dry, you can see there tape came out, so you can just tape in there like quite this. Now when it's totally dry and watercolor made its magic and you can see all different shapes created, we can start adding the details, the shadows, and make our painting look more like a painting, than just a water color wash. Let's start by adding some purple into our mix of red ocher and magenta. We've got a darker shadow and by showing where our water starts. So here it's here, and here let it be right here. This is good. Even our painting is in warm colors, I still would like to balance it with a little bit of colder hues, because now it is looking so sweet and it needs a little bit of contrast. What I'm doing I'm just now adding some lines of this darker color because the water is always darker than the sky and the rest of the landscape usually. We're working with a flat brush. Next, what I'll do is, I'll mix some purple with emerald green. Let's add more purple, then green, and what I'll do, I'll water it so well, It'll be very watery and transparent, and I'll add some range of mountains. Well, it needs a bit of mountains right here. Let's soften this line with some water. You can see how beautifully the contrast of this a little colder color, blue looks against all the warm shadows. I hear that a forest is pretty high, so we can add just a little bit, one little peak here. You can see because watercolor is transparent, you can see how the yellow shows through and it's this appearance of yellow light on a mountain. We don't want a mountain there. This line is still so hard, so I'm trying to make it softer. This is good, and with the same blue I'll add in the water. Again, because of watercolor transparency, you can see all the colors are combining so beautifully. Here I will go even darker. It's okay. All these shapes are looking all great. Even if it looks like a water damage at some point, and then I'm switching to a bigger brush, will mix more pigment. Make it darker here and I'll go darker right here. This is so green so let's add some purple to it. Okay. I'm drying the brush and then taking, don't get scared taking some of this color out. Here's our water. Beautiful. So here the forests are reflecting in the water, and still water got its own beautiful purplish color, which is a warmer shade for water. Here we have a little tree showing, let's show it some more and with number 6 brush, again, I'll mix more pigment of red ocher. Let's have a little bit of purple to it and we'll show some more trees. I could have even some of this blue and keep this here, bushes here, and we'll work around them. I'm just adding some lines, and here we can create a way showing a forest and then the center hue on this side. I don't want to get too detailed, but I still would like some a little bit of a dimension and more contrast between this watery patterns and more detailed ones. What I want to do is to add one little boat here. Let's make a thicker paint for it, again, I'm mixing some purple with emerald green. Don't shake your hand of course. Of course, we'll have some shadow under, just like this, and another line here. You can see how this changed my entire landscape. So let's add a little bit more shadow under here, and a little bit here. So it's a pretty easy landscape you can paint if you need something really quick and painting the painting for a show or for something, or a little present. So this is a good first solution, and it looks great. The last touch, I want to add some birds, of course. Our painting in warm colors is ready. 7. Thank you!: Thank you for watching my classes. I hope you had the chance to paint with me. I love seeing your projects, comments, and reviews here and then Instagram. If you like this class, please leave a review and upload your project to a project section of the class. I'm looking forward to see you in my next class.