Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi friends. I'm Geethu, an artist and
illustrator from Cochin, India and I live in the
UK with my husband. You might know me from Instagram
as Colourful Mystique. My Instagram profile
is where I post pictures and Dan loves
videos of all my paintings. In this skillshare class, we will be learning six
different techniques to paint watercolor mountains. I have also included two class projects where
you will learn through step-by-step
instructions to paint a beautiful mountain landscapes. This winter landscape. This gorgeous serine
mountain landscape, which shows the transition
from winter to spring. Mountain landscapes
are one of the most delicate at most interesting
subjects in watercolors. Once you master them, you will be able to paint any mountain landscapes
from a reference picture. I'm sure that at the
end of this class, you will be able to master all the different techniques to paint watercolor mountains. I have also included to reduce focused on painting the sky
in watercolor landscapes. So without any further delay, let's jump into the next
lesson that I'll be telling you all the art supplies that you will need
for this class.
2. Art Supplies: I will now tell you
all the art supplies that you will need
for this class. First of all, you will
need watercolor paper. I will be using Chitrapat 440 gsm watercolor paper,
for this class. This is because of the
really nice texture that this paper has got. But you can also use any other watercolor paper
that you might have, such as this one. This is Arches 300 gsm, or 140 pounds cold press paper. These are 100 percent
cotton paper. I would really recommend 100 percent cotton
paper for this class. When using watercolors,
always go for a paper which has
minimum 300 gsm weight. Otherwise your paper
will start warping or bending when you add multiple
layers onto your painting. This is an A3 size paper, but you can go for
smaller size such as an A4 or even an A5. I will be doing both my
paintings on this paper, but you can go for
the smaller sizes. Next, you will need a pencil and an eraser to do the rough
sketches in your painting. I mostly use a mechanical
pencil like this one because it doesn't need any
sharpening and I only have to replace
the lead in it. But you can use any other
pencil that you may have. Watercolor brushes. You will need a flat brush and pointed round brushes of
various sizes for this class. I will be using a three-quarter-inch one stroke of flat brush from Daler Rowney. A size 12, size eight, and size 4 brushes from silver
black velvet series. These are squirrel hair brushes, and is one of the best brushes
that I have used til date. It holds a lot of
water and paint, and comes to a
really nice point. But don't worry about using the exact same brushes
that I'm using here, use any brushes that you have. All you need is a
large round brush, and a smaller one to
do the detailing. Next is of course
watercolor paints. This is my custom-made
palette of watercolors that I have glued together pans from [inaudible] and White Nights. The full pans are
from White Nights, and the half pans from
[inaudible] I have chosen the colors that I mostly use
and glued them together, because that way it
is easy for me to carry around and do
my travel paintings. But we won't be needing
all these colors today, we only need eight
shades of colors. These shades are: bright blue, ultramarine blue, sap green, green, sepia, Payne's gray, raw umber, and burnt sienna. You can use any of your
favorite brand of watercolors, which may be in tubes or pans. Next, you will need
palettes to mix your paint. I mostly use ceramic
palettes for my paintings, because it's so
easy to use and mix the paints really well as
opposed to these plastic ones. For today's class I will be
using these ceramic bowls, which has got deeper
[inaudible] and thus it is easy for me to mix
separate colors on these. You will also need
two jars of water, one for washing off
paint from your brushes, and the other to take fresh
clear water for new paints, and also for applying onto your paper for the
wet-on-wet technique. If you don't use two jars of water the fresh paint
that you pick up will mix with the
dirty water from the previous paints and
form really muddy colors, which is why we're using
two jars of water. That is always the
ideal scenario. Some tissues to dry out
your brushes and to remove excess water from
both your brushes and paper. You will also need masking fluid for the fifth technique
that we will learn. This is a masking fluid
from Winsor & Newton. But you will need a
masking fluid brush or a masking fluid applicator
to use this one. I use one of my old brushes for applying this masking fluid, but in this class
I will be using a masking fluid
pen from Molotow, because it's a pen,
and I can simply draw on the areas
that I need masking. Lastly, you will need
masking tape to tape down your paper to prevent
it from warping or bending. Also, taping down your paper will prevent
and hold the paper firmly onto the surface by your painting so that
it does not move. But please don't be
worried if you don't have the exact art
supplies that I have, let's just have a wonderful
learning session ahead.
3. Colour Values & Their Importance: First, let us learn
about the colors that we need for the mountains and
their characteristics. We will be swatching
out the colors on this paper using
Payne's gray. This is the darkest tone of
the color that is straight out of the ban or tube with
very less water in it. You can see how
dark the shade is. Now we add a bit more water into it and swatch
the next shade. We keep on adding more and
more water to it so that we get the lighter
and lighter shades of this color, Payne's gray. This technique will also
help you to understand the tonal values of each of
the colors that you have. At the end of this video, I will explain the
significance of the different tonal
values of the color we use and how visually we can represent different
subjects in watercolors. Adding a bit more water to the previous shade
that we swatched, we get an even more
lighter shade. It is not about having a large quantity of
water on the brush, but rather mixing
more and more water to the color on your palette. You can see here
that after adding water each time to
every previous shade, I have obtained a lighter
shade than before. See the range of colors obtained with just one color,
Payne's gray. Now I'm going to teach you some important things
regarding tonal values. In a painting, the subjects
that are closer to you will be having
darker edges or tones, and the subjects that are far away will have lighter shades. You can see here that the
shades that are on the top are the subjects that are closer to you from the horizon, and the shades at the bottom for things that are far away. Actually, I should
have held the paper like this because this is the ideal representation of
how the color should be. These tones indicate
the shapes of the detailing that you
would do on a painting. The darker values
represent details, and the more further away the subject is the
less detailed it would be and thus it will be represented by lighter tones. Before starting a painting, understanding the
tonal values of different subjects in a
painting is very important.
4. Techniques Part 1 - Wet on Dry Mountains: I have just taped down the paper so that it
does not move around. The first technique
that we're going to try is wet on dry technique. First I'll make a rough sketch of the mountains with my pencil, then we take Payne's
gray and start applying onto the mountain
sketch that we just made. Make very random strokes. You can make these
irregular strokes. Leave as much white
spaces as you can, and just make these random
strokes with your brush. Because it's a small mountain, I'm using my size
full brush here. There is no specific
rule as to how you should put those
lines onto paper. Just make irregular strokes
wherever you want them to be. Note that the paint is really
diluted and we're using the medium tone from the tonal swatch that we did
earlier for Payne's gray. But do not load up your
brush with a lot of water. Your brush needs to
be only moist or wet and you pick up the
paint on your palette. These are ice capped mountains, as you might have
understood by now. The white part of the paper is the ice capped part or the
snow on the mountains, and the black or the
Payne's gray part is where the rocky part
of the mountain is, which is visible through
the ice or the snow. You can see here how
sometimes I paint along the lines of my pencil sketch
and sometimes I don't. Don't be stressed up about the pencil sketch
of the mountains, just add a bit of uneven peaks, some which are large,
some which are small, and they do not need to
be at the same level. I do not want the entire peak of the mountain to
be covered in snow, so I leave a lot
of white spaces. Observe that there is
no definite rule as to how you should put the
brush stroke on the paper. I'm just making irregular
shapes wherever I want. Now, I'm going to apply a bit of sap green to
the bottom part of the mountain to bring
a bit of color into this painting and to represent the areas where the
snow hasn't fallen. As before, you only need
to make irregular shapes. Now we take Payne's gray again, but this time a darker tone than the one we used previously. Start applying onto the
top of the first layer, but again, these need to
be only random strokes. At some places, leave the lighter tone of
the Payne's gray as it is. This darker value of
Payne's gray is actually what would give your mountains
are visible shadow effect. This represents the darker
part of the rocky mountain. This is because the rocks on those mountains or the surface of the mountains are
not really flat. The surface of the
mountain has texture, and depending on how light
falls on these mountains, we see the texture as different tones of the
color Payne's gray. I'm applying the darker tone
on top of the first layer, but I'm also leaving that
first layer in the background so that it will appear as if my mountains has some texture. I'm fast-forwarding this
video a bit over here, but remember that you can always decrease the speed of the
video and screen-share. We will also apply
a darker shade of the green onto
the first layer so that we give a
bit of the shadow on the green part of
the mountain as well.
5. Techniques Part 2 - Wet on Wet Mountains: The next technique that
we're going to learn is mountains with
wet-on-wet technique. Let us get a random shape
of the mountain again, and this time I did
it a bit differently just to show you that it can be done in any way that you want. This technique is called
wet-on-wet technique, which means that the
paper should be first wet before we add
any color onto it. Apply clear water along the
inside lines of the mountain, make sure that the
water does not form any lumps on the paper and
that it is evenly distributed. You can see clearly how much water I have
applied over here. Now, let's take
Payne's gray and use the same random strokes that we used on the
wet-on-dry technique. Here you can see that
as soon as you touch the brush loaded with
paint onto the paper, the paint starts
to spread out and this is exactly what is called as the
wet-on-wet technique. Paint the rocky part of the
mountain with this technique. Let the paint flow and don't be worried as
to how it spreads. That's exactly what we want. Again, the white part
represents the snow and the Payne's gray represent the rocky part of the mountain. Now, onto the next layer, we will use a
darker shade of the Payne's gray that we just used. Apply it onto the top of the Payne's gray
that we just did. Remember, your paper
has to be still wet. This is where the importance of good-quality watercolor
paper comes in. If you have
watercolor paper that has got good cotton
content in it, then your paper
will remain wet or moist for a longer
duration of time. It is totally alright if
your paper has dried up after the first layer and
that it is not moist anymore. You will still be creating
wonderful mountains, because now we'll be using
wet on dry technique because your paper has dried and you're using wet paint on top of it. I'm going to create some
shadows on this mountain. My paper is still wet. I take some ultramarine
blue and I'm applying it onto the sides of the rocky
parts that I have painted. Every stroke is done
while the paper is wet and hence this technique is called as wet-on-wet technique. Fill in the gaps where
you feel you need to add the shadows and your
wet-on-wet mountains are done.
6. Techniques Part 3 - Dry Brush Method: Let us now move on to the third technique for
painting watercolor mountains. Sketch the random shape of a mountain again,
with your pencil. This technique is called
dry brush technique. This is because we will be using a dry brush for this technique. First dry your brush on a piece of cloth or
tissue thoroughly. Dab the paint on the brush and start applying onto the paper. As you start applying
on the paper, you will see that these
textures are formed. This is because the
brush is really dry and the paint does not have
enough water on it to flow. If the paper is a rough paper which has got good
texture on it, it will also add onto
your dry brush technique. This is because the dry paint will not flow into the pores of the paper and we will get small dots which are
clustered together, which we otherwise
cannot obtain. Again, we're going to use
random strokes and there is no definite rule as to how you should apply these strokes. Leave as many whitespaces as you want and make sure
to hold the brush at a 30 degree angle to
the paper and just sweep across it to get
that dry brush effect. It is always the shadows that gives you a painting
a sense of depth, a sense of reality. I'm taking a darker
shade of the Payne's gray and applying it on top of the layer that
we just painted. We're applying it only at random places and making sure to remember that we leave the first layer at
some places as it is. Using the dry brush
technique really simple. The third type of mountain
techniques is done now.
7. Techniques Part 4 - Spring Mountains: Next we will learn a very
different type of mountain. This is a mountain which is
half green and half rocky. Let us go ahead and make the sketch off the
mountain with our pencil. Here we're going to
use a combination of the techniques
that we just learned. First start with sap green paint at the bottom part
of the mountain. Here apply as much as
sap green paint as you want and leave only
very little white spaces. The white spaces in this
mountain represents the lighter part of the
grasslands at the bottom where the light is falling on it or it could even represent the large chunks of ice that is yet to melt as
the spring stops. Keep applying more and
more sap green paint. This would make the
mountains a bit more darker and give
it a sense of depth. Adding more layers also increases the vibrancy
of the painting. Now let us use sepia for the
rocky part of the mountain. Apply the paint along the lines of the sketch
that you have made and also make sure to merge the sepia onto the sap green, so that there is no
definite line where the rocky part of
the mountain starts. At some places, we will use raw
sienna to represent the lighter shades of the
rocky parts of the mountain. We're using raw sienna
because it is somewhat like the lighter shade of the
sepia that we have used. But you can also use any other
light drawn that you have. Remember that to get a sense of depth and the shadow
effect on your painting, all you need to use is a lighter shade and a
darker shade of the colors. If you're using dark brown, then try using a light
brown for the highlights. On top of the raw sienna, I'm going to apply a
bit of burnt umber or sepia to give it a bit
more sense of depth. A darker shade of
brown on top of it will definitely give
it a shadow effect. I'm adding a bit of this dark
brown or [inaudible] onto the greenish middle part
of the mountain so that it appears as if there are
some rocks on the spot. Add as much shadows as you want. There is no definite
brushstrokes or lines that you need to apply. When you put in these
darker strokes, the shadows will form by itself, and which would mean the rocks have shape
that you decide. Just like we did on
the first mountain with the wet on dry
technique, now, I'll take some dark
green or green from white nights watercolors and apply to the greenish
part of the mountain. The mountains are
not always flat. They have a texture on it, and to represent this texture, we use a dark green and
give it a bit of shadow. Shadows are formed when one
sauce release on another. That is why these haley's more texture parts of
the mountain would always cast a shadow onto the bottom part of the mountain. On the first three mountains, do not be worried about the
pencil sketch that will be visible in the white
spaces that you have left. These will be masked out
when you paint the sky. Lastly, I want to show you the difference in
watercolor papers. This is a Saunders
Waterford hot press paper. I'm going to try out the dry
brush technique on this. You can see when I'm using
the dry brush on this paper, I'm not getting the
similar texture as to what I get
in a rough paper. This is simply because
the hot press paper has less texture on it and hence
lesser number of pores, the paint would
simply flow on it. This paper is mostly
used for detailing, whereas rough paper is the
best for dry brush technique. See the texture on
the rough paper.
8. Techniques Part 5 - Using Masking Fluid: For the masking fluid technique, I'm taping down the paper
in a different way. In this video, we will cover painting watercolor mountains
with masking fluid. First, let us start sketching
the mountains again. Observe how I'm sketching
these mountains. I'm not making any
straight lines, but rather just
moving around with my pencil and
making shaky lines. Next, we will take
some masking fluid. In my case, masking fluid pen, which is from MOLOTOW. You can use other masking fluids such as this one from
Winsor & Newton, or any other masking fluid. You can apply
masking fluid using any sharp objects such as a very old brush which
has a pointed tip. Similar to the brush
strokes that we did for the first part
of the paintings, start applying the masking
fluid onto your paper, making these random strokes and covering different
parts of the mountain. Remember that the
places where you apply the masking fluid will
be the white spaces. If you want more white
spaces on your mountains, that is more snowy
areas on the mountain, apply more masking
fluid onto it. It is called masking
fluid because you're basically masking the areas where you want to
leave it white. Don't be confused with the blue color that is
coming out of this pen. Masking fluid can be
blue or white in color. Masking fluid is a liquid
latex-based product. That is, it is a rubbery fluid. Applying the rubber
onto the paper, it prevents the
paint from reaching the paper and when you
peel it off at the end, it would expose the
white areas and the paint would be
formed all around it. Also make tiny dots here and there using
the masking fluid. The masking fluid has to dry before you can apply
paint over it. We have to wait for the
masking fluid to dry. Now, it has been around five minutes and the
masking fluid has dried. Let us take some
Payne's gray and start painting on the mountains. This is the easiest technique for painting
watercolor mountains. Start painting the whole of
the mountain with Payne's gray and do not worry about
leaving any white spaces. Apply Payne's gray all over the sketch that you
have just made, even on top of the
masking fluid. I'm fast-forwarding this video from real time a bit over here. If you want, you can
play the video in half the speed in Skillshare
from the settings. Once you are done with the
first layer of Payne's gray, take a darker tone
of Payne's gray and apply it at random places. These will be the shadow areas. Keep giving more depth
to the mountains and shadows using a darker
tone of Payne's gray. Now is the time to remove
the masking fluid, but you also have to
wait until the paint is fully dry before you can
remove the masking fluid. Use an eraser to rub off the masking fluid
from the paper. Remember while using the
masking fluid that it may not be compatible with all the
watercolor papers out there. You should first experiment
with the masking fluid by applying it onto your paper and seeing if it works or not. If it's not, maybe
you should choose a different kind of
watercolor paper. Look at that texture
you're getting. Look at that white
spaces that you're getting when you rub
off the masking fluid. Isn't it easy? Look how your mountain
is forming into a very beautiful
snow-capped rocky mountain after you have rubbed
off the masking fluid.
9. Techniques Part 6 - Using White Gouache: The next technique will be
to use white gouache paint. This color is titanium white, which I will be using to paint
the snow on the mountain. Let us first sketch
the mountain again. Taking Payne's gray again, we even start painting
the mountains. This is also a very
easy technique because all you have to do is first fill the whole of the mountain with Payne's gray, just like you did before with the masking
fluid technique. The paper that I'm using
is 100% cotton paper, which is why I'm not getting any dark edges when I'm painting with
watercolors on this. The previous strokes
that I applied using the brushes has
not dried when I'm applying the next
row and they do merge together without
forming any dark edges. We have to wait for the
first layer to dry before we can apply gouache paint
on top of this layer. This is the ceramic
palette that I normally use with
my gouache paint. Let us now squeeze out a bit of this white gouache wash
paint onto the palette. Don't worry if you don't
have any gouache paint, you can also use white
from watercolors, but remember to use it in
a very concentrated value. This technique
using wash paint is exactly opposite to what we
have been doing till now. In all the techniques till now, we have been leaving whitespaces or masking out the white spaces, but now we will be painting the whitespaces onto
these mountains. There is no said rule as to how you should paint
those whitespaces. These whitespaces
like before are going to be snowy
parts of the mountain. So just sit down and have fun painting those white
strokes onto the mountains. Make any irregular
or random shapes that you want and enjoy
the painting process. If you want to separate
out the mountains, you can paint along the lines of the sketch or where the
peak of the mountain ends. Add layer by layer and
add more white if you want the snowy part of the
mountain to look more white.
10. Quick Tips & Recap: Let us have a quick
recap and some tips. Wet-on-dry technique is more
detailed, more vibrant, and thus apply to paint
mountains that are closer to us and
clearly visible. But as wet-on-wet
technique spreads the paints and thus is
a bit less detailed, it's used for painting mountains that are far away
from the viewer. Dry brush technique represents a bit more textured
and detailed mountain. It is more rocky. The rocky green mountain
is more vibrant because of the green and it is
used in spring landscapes. Using masking fluid is the
most easy technique to do, and also the masked areas
remain entirely white. Using white gouache paint is opposite to all the
other techniques, we paint with white all
the mountains at the end.
11. Winter Mountains - Part 1: The Sky: Let us start our
first class project. As you can see, I've taped down all the four sides of the
paper with masking tape, because this would
prevent it from warping or bending when we're using
a lot of water on the paper. First, let us begin by sketching the outline of the mountain
from the reference picture. I have uploaded the
reference picture in the resources
section for you all. Do you know the best thing about painting from a reference
picture is that you as an artist is free to change anything in that
reference picture? If there's a subject
on the left, you're free to move
it to the right or from the right to the left, and you can even delete some
portions of the picture. My whole point is, when you're trying
to sketch this, please don't be worried as to, oh my God how am I
going to get this done, this is a hard sketch. Don't think it like that. You don't have to
get the curves of those mountains exactly as it is in the reference picture. The only thing that you need to focus on is to try and get the peaks of those mountains roughly in the same position. It doesn't even have to be the same height as you
see in reference picture. Just try to make
a loose sketch of whatever you see and
what you can proceed. Additionally, you can even mark the shadow parts
of the mountain, just like I have done here. This video is
entirely focused on the sky and how we can
make it more vibrant. The first thing that we
need to do is to wet the paper at the areas where
the sky is going to be. Let us apply water
onto the paper at the top part of the picture
where the sky is seen. Make sure that you apply evenly across all parts of the sky, and that it does not form any
pools or bubbles of water. Water consistency when
using watercolors is one of the most important thing that anyone needs to
learn and master. It comes with a lot of practice, but that is an easy
way to find out if there is a lot of
water on your paper. Try to put your paper
under some light. If your light is
falling from the top, try to look at your paper
from the side so that you can see if the water has formed
any bubbles or blobs, or large pools of water. If you do see such large water on certain areas of your paper, spread them out
with your brush so that it has a unique
consistency throughout. Note here how I'm painting
along the lines of the sketch on the top part to separate the
mountains and the sky. Next is the most
interesting part of the painting process for me; using and putting down my
watercolors onto the paper. With my silver black
velvet size 12 brush, I've loaded some
bright blue color from white Nights
watercolors onto it. I'm now mixing it onto
my ceramic palette. We want our paints to be
slightly thicker consistency, and do not use a lot
of water to dilute it, because we want our
skies to be vibrant. Start applying the
paint onto the paper, and also note how I have left the slide white space over here, because I want that
part of the sky to be lighter just as it is in
the reference picture. When you reach closer to the
sketch of the mountains, be careful not to paint
over the mountains or to spread the paint
on top of it. Use straight lines of brush strokes to paint
this part of the sky. Take some tissues or
dry clothe and dry your brushes to remove
any excess water in it, and blend in the paint onto
the gaps that we left behind. Blend in evenly. Notice how evenly I'm blending the paint onto the wet
portion of the paper. Take some more of the
bright blue paint and start applying in even
straight strokes, and remember to leave a
slight gap in between, as you can see from my
final reference picture. In case you find that
the paper has dried, then you can go ahead and apply some more water to
make it wet again. The next color that
we're going to use is ultramarine blue. Let us start applying it again evenly in straight
strokes from the top, and remember to leave a big
gap of white space over here. This would form the clouds almost in the shape
of a jet stream. I'll use the dry brush again
to even out my strokes and to remove any excess water from the paper and
spread the paint. I'm going to remove
a third of the ultramarine blue from
this part of the sky. I'm going to sweep
out my brush across, wipe it on my tissue, and repeat the same process
to remove any paint. This is because I want to mix it with a bit of
bright blue so that my sky would look
like an even blend of the bright blue and
the ultramarine blue. If you want your
sky to be really vibrant and your colors to
look bright and beautiful, you probably need to give
it a second coat of paint. This is because the
watercolor paper absorbs some of the color. I have started to give it a second coat using bright blue, using the same method, same straight lines of bright
blue, spreading the paint, blending the paint,
using my dry brush to remove some paint to
create more white spaces. Then using bright
blue or ultramarine blue over at the top again. Add more ultramarine
blue at the top. We want this portion of the
sky to be a bit more darker. This is because
the top portion of the sky is actually what
is more closer to you. Lastly, we use a brush to remove any paint that might have
seeped onto your mountains. Use a dry tissue to wipe off this water that
you just applied. Don't worry if there is
any more paint remaining. We will cover it up when
we paint the mountains
12. Winter Mountains - Part 2: The First Layer: Once the sky is completely dry, we will move on to the
most exciting part of this class project,
the mountains. For the first layer, we will be using the
wet-on-wet technique. Let us go ahead and wet the
remaining part of the paper. I'm using my three-quarter
inch one stroke of flat brush from Dilarani
to wet the paper. Take clear water and
evenly apply water across the surface of the paper without forming any blobs
or pools of water. When you reach the
edges of the mountains, be careful and very carefully apply water across the
surface of the paper. Don't rush yourself and take
your own time to do this, and just be careful not to
cross over onto the sky. Remember that when you're applying water on the mountains, the sky should be
completely dry, otherwise the paint
will seep in when you apply water
onto the mountains. Once you've finished
applying the water, let's now dive into
our watercolors. The first color
that I'm going to be using is Payne's gray. Dip your paintbrush
onto your palette, and pick up some
Payne's gray color in a very light consistency. You don't have to be using
a very concentrated color, but rather just a diluted one. This is the first wash, so we do not want it to be
very dark or highly pigmented. Start applying the
brush strokes at random and irregular
places on the paper. If you look very carefully
at the reference picture, you can see that there
are some places where it is not entirely white, but there is a lighter
shade of green color. For achieving this, we're
going to use the Payne's gray. Keep making those
downward strokes on the left side
of the mountain, because if you look at
the reference picture, you can see those lines coming down from the peak
of the mountain. In order to do
those rocky patches that you see on the mountain, do not stress yourself
that you have to place it at the exact
point where it is, just try to make it at random irregular places and still your mountain is going
to look very beautiful. Keep painting with me so you
don't have to worry about where you exactly have to put
those strokes on the paper. Notice again that I'm using a very diluted version
of the Payne's gray, and you do not want the
concentrated color for this. Also, when you're picking
up the paint on your brush, you do not want your brush to be loaded with a lot of water. If you find that your brushes are loaded with a lot of water, try to dab it onto a tissue
to remove the excess water, only then use the
paint onto the paper. Add small dots towards the
bottom side of the mountain. In the reference picture, I'm looking at places where
it appears a bit darker. That is where I'm putting
down the Payne's gray. Next, we take some sepia
and start applying it onto the areas where you see the rocks on the mountains. This is, again, the first layer, so make sure that your paint is diluted and not
very concentrated. We are going to apply it just like we did with
the Payne's gray. Wherever I see that there
are rocks on the mountains, I start applying sepia onto
that part very lightly. Do not press your
brush onto the paper. Use very light strokes. Sweep away at those places where you want your rocks to be. Of course, you can paint
over the masking tape, it doesn't matter because we will be peeling it
off at the end. The best thing that you see when you start putting
those strokes onto the paper is that you start seeing your painting come alive. You get that energetic feel. Just like here, look
at those mountains, you can already see it forming
some shape, don't you? I'm going to paint the peak of the tallest mountain over here. I'm going to take sepia
again and start applying onto the rocky areas that I
see in the reference picture. Keep painting on those rocky
areas on the mountain. Remember, this is wet
on wet technique, so it does all
right if your paint spreads wherever you are
applying it onto the paper. Also, there is another hack
that if your paper is not 100% cotton paper and the
water that you applied dried. You can always apply some
more water on the top, but make sure it is even and does not disturb any areas
that you have already painted. If you observe the reference
picture very closely, there is one thing
about the mountains. This mountain that we have
been doing right now is in the forefront and
the other mountains are at the backside. That is going to
be a bit far away, and the entire detailing would be on the mountain
that is in the front. I have added a bit more sepia to make it slightly
darker at the bottom. Do you see that blue color
in the reference picture? That is actually
the shadow cast by the front part of the mountains
onto the snowy areas. Can you see some dark rocky
areas on that shadow part? That is what we
are painting now. Once you are satisfied
with the first layer, we can move on to the next
video which will focus on adding the next
layer to the mountains.
13. Winter Mountains - Part 3: The Details: For the next layer, we're going to be using
the dry brush technique. To use the dry brush technique, we have to make sure
that that our paper and brush is both entirely dry. This means that we will
paint the next layer only when our first
layer is completely dry. Dry your brush directly on the tissue by dabbing it so that all the water
on it is removed. I'm using the Size 8
silver black velvet brush. Dip your dry brush onto your palette and pick
up that sepia paint. But one thing to remember
is that the pain that we are picking up should
not have a lot of water. Remember, this is the
dry brush technique. We want everything to be dry. Hold your brush at an
almost 30 degree angle to the paper and start making
these small strokes by sweeping it across in a downward motion just like we learned in the dry
brush technique lesson. These strokes are going
to be on the top of the areas that we just
did in the last lesson. This is bad the rocks of the mountains are
going to be formed. When you look at the
reference picture, do you actually see
those rocks form a small cluster of
many small dots? This is actually very
hard to achieve if we put down each of those
rocks using our brush. This is why we're going for
the dry brush technique. It would also give us
a very nice texture, especially when you're
using rough paper, the dry brush technique
allows you to put down the paint onto
the top of the paper. That means that the paint
will not go into the pores of the paper and it will only be applied on that
rough texture. Don't worry about where
exactly you're going to put the paint using the
dry brush technique. You can put it
anywhere you want. It doesn't matter
where you put it. Because if you put it in other places that are not
in the reference picture, it might also mean that you want some rocks
to be over there. Notice the swift
downward motion that I'm doing to get the dry brush
technique on my paper. At this point, I'm going to fast-forward this
video bit because you don't have to put
down those strokes exactly wherever
I'm putting them. Just look at the
reference picture and try to do it on your own. If you want, you can slow
down the video using the options in Skillshare
or if you want, you can pause the
video and continue painting and play it
again when you finish. Once our dry brush
strokes are finished, we're going to move on
to the next layer which we'll be using the
wet-on-dry technique. Load the wet paint, the sepia color onto your brush, and start making the detailing
lines onto your mountains. This is not going to
be the final details, but rather the beginning of the detailing that we're going
to do on this mountain. Using the wet-on-dry technique that we learned in
the first lesson, we're going to put
random strokes on the mountain where we
want our detailing to be. You can also use a combination
of both the techniques, the wet-on-wet, or wet-on-dry, or even using the
dry brush technique. The way to use a mix of
these techniques are to load your brush with wet paint and start applying
onto the paper. Once you start applying, you will see a point
where your brush has lost the water content in it and it has started to become dry and it has only
the paint in it. At this point, if
you still go on painting rather than
taking up more wet paint, it will become the
dry brush technique. Because your brush
has become dry, but it still has some
paint left on it. Keep applying and painting those little details
on the mountains. As you are doing this, you can already see the
mountain come alive. Now I'm painting down the rocks inside the shadow
part of the mountain. Load your brush with more wet
paint and start applying it onto the layers that you have already done at some places, wherever you want it to be. This is exactly what I have
been talking about all along. I have changed a lot of elements from the
reference picture, and my painting is not entirely similar to
that reference picture. You are also free to change
anything you want an add any additional elements
that you want your painting, and note, at present, we are only working on the
mountains in the forefront. The mountains that you see in the background are far away and they need not be as detailed as the mountain in
the foreground. Now, I'm going to move on to the mountains that are
in the background. That is the far of the
mountains over here. Because they are far away they're not going to
be much detailed. We're not going to be using
concentrated sepia color. We're going to be using
very light strokes with very diluted paint. It need not be
wet-on-wet technique. You can go with either of the wet-on-wet, or
wet-on-dry techniques. I'm now using Payne's gray. I'm going to paint the
background mountains with that. At times, if my brush
strokes become much darker because I have
loaded concentrated paint, I add a bit of water onto the paper and just
spread it out. This will also give
you a good texture. You can see here that
I'm now spreading all the Payne's gray that I
applied onto the paper. I'm not going to focus
on much detailing of these mountains because they are behind the
foreground mountain. One thing about
painting mountains is that every mountain
is different. Even if many of you
tried this painting, each painting of yours will be different and unique
from the others. Every outcome of the
Skillshare class is going to be unique and beautiful because it is you who decided where you want those rocks and the
mountains to be. Fair you want those
dark lines to be, how you want to work
on your mountain, whether it is wet-on-wet
or wet-on-dry?
14. Winter Mountains - Part 4: The Shadow & Final Details: Next, we will focus on painting the shadows
on the mountains. From the reference picture, observe where the blue shadow
part of the mountain is. That is what I'm going
to paint right now. I am using ultramarine blue
to paint the shadows on the mountains using a size 8
silver black velvet brush. Do you know why the
shadow is actually blue? This is because whenever an object casts a
shadow on a surface, the opaque object is able to
block the light of the sun, but not the ambient
light which is coming from the
sky on top of it. So the sky is blue, which is the result of
the atmospheric molecules scattering the blue
light more effectively. This is the reason why
we see the blue color of the sky on the
snow as shadow. So this blue shadow is actually the shadow cast by the
ridge of the mountain. Right below the ridge
of the mountain, the ultramarine blue is
going to be thickest. When you move further
away from the ridge, we see only lighter shadows. So you can go lighter as you
move towards the right side. You can observe how I'm
doing this very slowly, taking my own time and
enjoying the process. When I see those time lapse
videos in YouTube, Instagram, or other social media sites, I have always wondered
how those artists paint. Because these time lapse videos are really misleading as to how much time the artist
spend on that piece of paper. These videos are fast
forwarded by multiple times, like x10 or x12. We tend to think that they
work faster on the paper. There are many artists
who spend hours on one single painting and end
up creating a masterpiece. It doesn't matter
if your painting is created in half an
hour or five hours, or even more than that, as long as you put all
your effort in it. Have a sip of your drink, and listen to some music and just paint
along with me here. Leave some tiny white spaces on the blue areas near the top of the mountain
peak if you want. This is wet on dry technique. Keep painting the shadow slowly and taking your
own time to do it. Give smaller shadows to the
rocky patches on the right. Let us now give some shadows to the mountains
on the left side. Make this with downward motion with your ultramarine blue. Once we are done with the shadows of the mountains
on the foreground, we will work with the shadows of the mountains that are far away. Because they are very far away, we have to paint with a very lighter tone
of ultramarine blue. So use diluted ultramarine blue and start giving shadows, but remember that
it has to be really diluted and the color has to be on a very lighter tone than what you applied in the
foreground layer. Many artists usually paint the background layer first
and then the foreground. But if you look at the
reference picture, because there is a separation between the background
and the foreground, it really doesn't
matter which order you paint this layer in. I'm going to add a
bit of paynes gray to the areas that I feel I want
it to be a bit more darker. This is a very diluted
tone of the paynes gray, almost at the end of the tonals watch
that we did earlier. To that diluted paynes gray, you can add a touch of
ultramarine blue if you want to give it a mix of both the
shadow and dark areas. Sometimes when I'm
working on the mountains, I don't even look at
the reference picture. Sometimes I just
look at it once and wherever I feel that I want
it to be a bit darker, I apply the color onto it. I'm giving a bit
more lighter tone to the background
mountains over here. I'm adding some more ultramarine
blue at certain places. I'm extending the shadow part of the foreground
mountain a bit. I'm going to now work on the detailing of the
mountains a bit more. So I'm applying sepia
again onto the details that I did earlier to make
it darker at certain places. I'm applying sepia onto the places that I
feel that I've left out earlier and it looks as if it is too much
white or empty. To paint the rocks
on the shadow part, use sepia again on top
of the ultramarine blue. Observe how very carefully I'm applying those details
and taking my own time to do it because I do
not want to rush on this and ruin whatever
I've done till now. We can already see how the
mountain has come alive. Those mountains have
already formed the shape and now we're just adding more
and more details onto it. I'm just repeatedly adding more and more details to cover up the places
where I feel that I've left it a bit too
white or that I feel that I'm lacking a bit of
details on my mountains. So I'm just adding more rocks onto that
part of the detailing. Now I think we can say that
this painting is complete. Congratulations guys. You just created a masterpiece.
15. Spring Mountains - Part 1: The Sky: We will now start with
our second class project. In the following lessons, we're going to paint
a mountain landscape which is so serene
and beautiful. Have you seen when the spring starts and the winter
is finally over, the snow starts to melt on the mountains and at the
base of the mountains, you start seeing those
meadows and green valleys? That serene, beautiful landscape is what we're
going to paint today. Let us first start with the pencil sketch by looking
at the reference picture. I'm using the bottom part
of the paper that I did for the first-class because
my paper was an A3 size. You need not do
it in an A3 size. You can do it in an
A4 or even an A5. You go ahead with whatever paper that
you have in your hand. Like I keep saying, your sketch from the
reference picture does not have to be exactly as it is. Feel free to make any
changes you want. In order to give a
bit more clarity when you start painting, I'm going to draw those separation lines
between the green and the gray and the white areas of the
mountains as well. It's easy for me to
know when I look at the reference picture where
my color needs to go. We will first start
with the sky again. Just like before, start applying water onto the paper evenly on all the
portions of the sky, making sure that there is no large blobs or
pools of water. If you accidentally
step over onto your mountains when you
are applying the water, you can always wipe it
dry with the tissue so that the paint does not
seep into the mountains. Look closely how carefully I'm applying the
water when I reach the pencil sketch
of the mountains. You should never rush any
part of the painting process. Now, let us start with
coloring the sky. We're going to use
bright blue for the sky. I'm using my Size 8 brush and I start applying the
blue onto the sky. The area on the right side, which you can see in the
reference picture is left white so that I can work
on the clouds later on. Because the paper is wet, you can use any
strokes on the spot. If your paper is not wet and use any random strokes
it would appear haphazardly and it would be really visible that there is something wrong with the sky. Wet on wet technique
is the best method to paint sky in
landscape paintings. As you can see, I've left
some white spaces because I want those spaces to
appear as clouds in my sky. Next, I'll mix some
ultramarine blue and I'm going to apply it
on the top side of the sky. This is again, because the sky
is darker at the top side. This is due to the fact that
what we see in that picture, the top portion is what
is actually closer to the viewer and the bottom
part is very far away. Use your brush and tissue
to slowly blend in the color on the areas where your mountain and the sky meets. As I said, those parts will be very lighter because
they are very far away and that point
where the sky and the mountains meet is the
horizon for us in this picture. Blend in the bright blue evenly. Notice that the cloudy part on the right side has
been left white. We're going to add a tiny
bit of the sky onto that one using a very diluted
tone of bright blue. Clouds are not entirely
seen as white, and they do have shadows. Let us now paint the
shadows of the clouds using a very light
tone of Payne's gray. Do not paint all over
the white space. Just put down the
strokes at places where you think the shadow
of the clouds can be. Remember to use a
very lighter tone of Payne's gray for this. Now, our sky seems almost done. If there are any spaces where the bright blue has seeped
into your mountains, apply some water
over it and just dab it off with a
tissue to clean it up.
16. Spring Mountains - Part 2: The First Layer: Let us move on to the first
layer of the mountains. We start again by
applying water evenly on the surface of the paper along the lines
of the mountains. From the reference picture, do you see that brown rocky part at the bottom of the picture? We're not going to
paint that right now. We're not going to apply
water on that surface. When you apply water
along the lines of that, be careful that
the water does not seep into that part
of the sketch. We should again, be careful
when applying the water that it does not form any large
blobs are pools of water. You might have
understood by now how important water control is
in watercolor paintings. Button bed technique is my most favorite
technique in watercolors, because it lets
the paint to flow, flow in an
uncontrollable manner. This uncontrollability of
watercolors is best part of it. Carefully along the
edges of the mountains. Also, if your sky hasn't dried, then when you're applying
the water and you accidentally touch your brush
to that part of the sky, your paint is going to seep into the area and ruin
your mountains. Be careful as to start painting this part only when the
sky is completely dry. The snow-capped part of
this mountain is not very different from the
winter landscape that we just finished. You can go ahead and
start using Payne's gray to paint the first
layer on these mountains. Apply lighter tone
of Payne's gray onto the mountains where you feel those lines should be from
the reference picture. You can paint this in
whichever way you want. Paint it to your
heart's content and not be worried as to how you
should put those strokes. It need not be exactly as it
is in the reference picture. One example of what I changed in this reference picture
is the aspect ratio. If you look at the
reference picture, you can see that it is a
one is to one picture, but I have made it
into an A5 landscape. I did this by extending some of the mountains so that they do
not look cramped together. This part of the mountain
where I'm painting right now is the
background mountains. As you can see there
behind the mountains, that isn't the front. This is wet-on-wet technique
that I'm applying to it, and it will make this
layer look very far away. If you want your
mountains to look snowy rather than more rocky, you can also change that. The best thing about
mountain landscapes is that you could change the reference picture the way you want it and you would
have a beautiful mountain that looks entirely different
from the reference picture. In some places, I'm not even looking at
the reference picture, because as I said, I made those
mountains a bit more extended to cover the A5 paper. Remember that you have to work fast when you're
working with wet-on-wet technique because
you want your paper to be wet when you're
applying the paint. If your paper has dried, you can apply more water, but just be careful not to apply water over the surface that
you've already painted, because this will make
your paint to spread away and form blooms
on the paper. For the mountains
on the right side, you can see a brownish
tint over here. For this, we're going to use the sepia paint and
apply it onto the paper. Next we paint the
grasslands at the bottom. This is the place
where the snow has dried and the spring
has blossomed. We're going to use sap green for the surface and we're going to let that sap green mix onto the sepia that
we just applied. Make sure that your
green does not cross over onto the rocky part of
the painting at the bottom. We will let the green flow and merge into the other
colors that we applied, such as the sepia and
the Payne's gray. By letting in the green color to blend in with
the other colors, we would achieve
the transition of the snow we bought
to the grasslands. Just try to make sure that
you put those strokes on the paper in the direction of the valleys of the mountains. Here I'm making downward strokes because the mountain valleys are facing in that direction. Green and yellow are
my favorite colors, and I find the utmost happiness in using these colors
in my painting. If you feel that some parts of your grasslands are lighter, you can go ahead and apply a second coat over it while
the paper is still wet. But remember, if those
green strokes that you made earlier has dried
and you're going to apply more paint on top of it, this would either form
blooms are hard edges, but if you really want
to work on it more, there's a simple way. Just try to apply paint over the dry area and blend
in towards the wet area.
17. Spring Mountains - Part 3: Adding Details: We will start working on doing the details
onto the mountains. First, we will
start with Payne's gray and start applying it onto the fresh areas that we
painted in the first layer. I'm using a medium to darker
tone of Payne's gray here. From the reference picture, you can see the ridge of
the mountain on the right, so first we will start making the ridges using
the Payne's gray. Keep taking more
Payne's gray and blending the color with
the previous strokes. You can add additional lines onto the green paint over here. It is always better to blend in the color if the layer
underneath has not dried. But if it has dried, you can always go ahead
with wet-on-dry technique. Next, we're going to
paint the darker tone of sepia to mark the shadow
areas on the right. I'm blending the sepia with the Payne's gray adjacent to it. You can leave some areas white and leave gaps or
blanks in-between your strokes so that it
would appear as if there is no or lighter parts of
the mountain over here. Keep painting with
me and it will be an easy task to replicate
this landscape painting. Next, we will use dark
green or green color from White Nights on top
of the sap green to mark the shadow
areas on the mountain. Using your paintbrush,
make the shape of the mountains that you
see at the bottom part. I'm using a size 8 brush
and using it's pointed tip. I'm outlining the shape of the mountains and
the valley part. Keep adding green or dark green onto your painting to mark the shadow areas on the grasslands or the
valleys of the mountains. This is, as I said before, it doesn't have to be exactly as it is in the
reference picture. I'm going to take
Payne's gray again and continue on painting the
gray parts of the mountain. For some of the strokes, I'm going to leave
white spaces or gaps in between so they form like a texture apart from the already existing
texture on the paper. You could also achieve this using the dry brush technique. Keep adding more and
more details using the Payne's gray on top of the
first layer of the mountains. I leave a lot of white spaces
in between because it is easy for me to get that texture in the wet-on-dry method, but you can always
go ahead and use the dry brush technique
if this is too difficult. Use Payne's gray to paint
the darker parts of the smaller mountains at the
bottom side of the painting. Apply it on top of
the sap green along the outline that you made
the mountains earlier. You can also add
some lines using Payne's gray on top
of the sap green. I'm adding more and more details on top of the mountains, more and more darker each time. Like Payne's gray on
top of Payne's gray, dark green on top of sap green. Keep working on the details
until you're satisfied. Add more and more details. Using Payne's gray, add more details onto the
foreground mountains. I will be fast forwarding
this video at certain places, but if you're painting
along with me, then you can always go to the Skillshare options
at the bottom of this video and set
the speed to 0.5. I'm now adding more details with Payne's gray on the
mountains on the left side. Observe how I'm using
wet on dry method and applying my paints on
top of the first layer, but I'm also leaving a
lot of gaps over here so that it forms like a rocky
texture on the mountains. But like I said, you can also achieve this
using the dry brush method. It is always the
fine detailing that takes most of the
time in a painting. When working with watercolors, the wet-on-wet method is
very easier and takes less time because
naturally you working faster because you do not
want your paper to dry. On the other hand, wet-on-dry
technique is the toughest because now you're focusing on putting your strokes
at the right place. Otherwise you would be forming
hard edges on the paper. You also want your detailing
to be right and at exact places where
you want them to be, so that's why the
detailing part is the most toughest
part in a painting. Now, I'm going to give a darker tone of sepia
onto the mountains. If you're using
cold press paper, that will also give you the right texture that
you would need to use for wet-on-dry technique
or the dry brush technique. Cold press paper
or rough paper are the best paper for watercolors if you're painting landscapes. This is because they have a
very nice texture and it is easy to work with
different techniques such as wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, or the
dry brush technique. Here, I'm able to apply
the final details onto the paper because of the
very texture of the paper. If my paper didn't have any texture or if it was
a hot pressed paper, it will not be this easy
to make those strokes. But of course, it
does not mean that hot pressed paper is not suitable for
watercolor painting. Each type of paper
has its own uses and painting landscapes is not one of the many uses
of hot pressed paper. For that, you will need cold
pressed or rough paper. Add the final details onto the mountains and the
valleys in the front. The detailing part
is almost done and we can move on to
the foreground rocks
18. Spring Mountains - Part 4: Foreground Rocks: Now let us paint the
rocks in the foreground. I'm going to use a mix of sepia and raw umber
for the rocky areas. I will also leave
certain areas white because this is where I
want to paint those rocks, but if you do not want to
leave those areas white, you can use a
masking fluid here. I'm mixing raw umber
here with sepia so that I get a mix of both these
colors for the rocky areas. Remember to leave
white spaces or use masking fluid to mark the
position of the rocks. Now I'll give final
detailing for the rocks, so that they have a shadow. Apply a bit of sepia
or dark brown right underneath the rock
so that they have a shadow and will look more real
19. Final Thoughts: Peeling off the masking tape is the most satisfying part
after you finish painting. You'll get to see the final
beautiful masterpiece that you have created. A big thank you to
all of you who made the effort and spend the
time to watch my class. I hope you had fun learning
about mountain landscapes. I'll definitely try
to come up with more and more such landscapes for my next Skillshare classes. If you were painting
along with me, then please upload
your paintings to the class project and I'll be happy to share them on
my Instagram stories. You can find me on Instagram
as colorful mystique. See you all in my next
Skillshare class.
Geethu Chandramohan, Colourfulmystique - Top Teacher, Artist
