Let's Paint Magical Autumn Forest With Watercolor

1. Introduction: Autumn is a stunning season. It's as if nature decides to paint itself with the bright and beautiful colors. From y print ellos to brilliant oranges to splendid dreads. For an artist, this perfect color design from mother nature is a privilege to paint. Hello, I'm so Greta, watercolor, artist and teacher. Today, I'm gonna teach you how to paint a beautiful autumn forest. First, we're going to start by perfecting the color palette and learn a few techniques on how to paint trees and foliage. Then we will begin the class project with a simple sketch followed by painting the background, foreground, trees and leaves. Class is perfect for an intermediate and advanced level artist. And if you are a beginner, do not worry, I will be here guiding you step-by-step throughout the process. Are you ready to paint? Then without further delay, let's get started. 2. Art Supplies: Let's discuss at supplies. I have used Fabriano 100%, gotten 300 GSM papers. I buy them in roles and cut them up into the sizes that I want. If you don't have Fabriano, it's okay. You can use any paper, but make sure it is 100% cotton and 300 GSM. I have used only three brushes, and all three are from Zillow brush. This is hockey brush, the large one. I usually use this for initial washes. This is silver black velvet number 14 brush. It's a round brush. I use this to paint a little bit bigger subjects like backgrounds and whatnot. And this is silver black velvet number six brush, the smaller brush. I use this to paint smaller details like leaves in this landscape. Coming two colors. I have used the two brands of colors, white knights and Sennelier, but I have a different video about color palette. We're going to jump into that in the next video. 3. Color Palette & A Few Tips: Let's discuss the color palette as well as a few tips in this video. There are total of six colors, and I'm going to start from light to dark. Last one is Naples yellow. And this is from the brands and earlier. Kola is golden deep from the brand White Nights. Next is Sennelier orange. And of course it's from the brand called Sennelier. This is French vermilion, red color from the brand Sennelier. And next is burnt sienna from White Nights. And the last color that is the dark color is pines gray from the brand White Nights. Let's watch all these colors now. If you don't have these colors, I'm going to also give you the alternatives on what colors you can use instead. This is Naples yellow, and do not use primary yellow. If you don't have it, you can use Indian yellow instead. And this is cold and D, It's very light orange color. You can mix a bit of white to the orange if you don't have golden D. And this is orange. And I think everybody has this color. This is a French vermilion, red color. I hope you guys have this color as well. This is burnt sienna. You can use any of the Brown shared if you don't have burnt sienna. Final color is pines gray. If you don't have Payne's gray, you can use black color as well. Name all these colors now so I don't get confused. So these colors I have used in certain combinations, from dark to light color. And in some places you can see from light to dark, as well as transition from dark, Payne's gray to light Naples yellow. And here you can see the orange colors and burnt sienna over it, Naples yellow as well. And some places even a mix of burnt sienna and pines gray. It looks complicated. It is not there is only two types of mixes here, from light to dark. Naples yellow, two pints, gray and pines, gray to Naples yellow. So I'm going to make a mixed, two mixes here, just for your reference. Pad with Naples yellow, and then finish it off with pines gray using all the colors together, light to dark. This is mostly the color combination that you see when you paint the village. On my right. Let's discuss the color combination. You see on my left, pines gray to Naples, yellow. We used three colors to paint the foliage on my left binds green, orange, and Naples. Yellow from dark color to light color. These are the color combinations that you see on this entire of the landscape. Let's discuss on how to paint these trees. Absorb those trees. They are not painted with just one color. There are two colors here, burnt sienna and pines gray. I want to show the light as well as the shadow under trees as well. So I have used burnt sienna for the light part and for the shadow. I have used pines gray. Slightly blend them together. Do not let the burnt sienna get mixed up with the pines gray or else you will lose the light part. Aesthetic purposes, I'm painting a stem, but in the Main Landscape There is no stems. Also, I hope you guys understood how to show light and shadow on a tree. I'm going to teach you how to paint the foliage in order. That's what you see most in this landscape. With light to dark. But I'm going to skip Naples yellow, and go directly to golden deep. Start by painting a blob of color. Slowly, give it sharp edges on all directions using a smaller brush. Pick the next two dark color, orange and just paint on it. Do not let the golden deep, you know, get mixed up into the orange. And later I'm taking burnt sienna and I'm adding it in the middle. Bit of Payne's gray as well. So I'm gonna use golden deep. Again. I'm going to drag the paint into a thin line and just put the dots around it so that thin line is the branch. And those dots are the leaves. We want to show the light falling on the leaves. You have to use Naples yellow. And if you want to be in shadow part, you can use any dark color, burnt sienna or pines gray. At the bottom. I'm painting Naples yellow or golden deep to show the light color. And at the top, the leaves are in shadow, so I'm using finds gray and burnt sienna mix. This is how I have painted the village in this landscape. So practice this before you move on to the main landscape. So I hope you guys are clear on the techniques as well as the colors to use in this landscape. If yes, then let's jump into the class project in the next video. 4. Class Project - Background Part 1 : Start the class project with the sketch, and there is no complicated sketch here just to foreground. Make the sketch a bit uneven. So it looks natural. Had to sketch a few times to get the perspective of the road right. At the end, I managed to make it look decent. Getting the perspective right is always a challenge for me. That's why many of my landscapes do not have a sketch. I just paint directly. I know even when you paint directly, you have to get the perspective. But somehow I, I paint without a sketch. Anyway, that's all about the sketching. In today's class project. We're gonna get started by wetting the paper and I'm using my hockey brush. Read the whole of the paper. When wetting the paper, we read too much or too little. My advice is to wet the paper until it looks glossy and you can see the reflection and then stop. It should not be dripping water though, just glossy. Now let's quickly start painting the background and I'm using my silver black velvet number 14 brush. And I'm going to use Payne's gray to paint the background tissue with you. We're going to need it to blend. Add pines gray. And you can see I'm adding it in values. That means in the not in the middle, just towards my left, I'm adding a lot of pines gray, and a little bit more on my right as well at the corner. And remaining I'm just going to be blending with the rest of the paper using a damp brush. As you can see, the pines gray should be dark in not in the middle towards my left, like I said before. So I'm taking some more of the color because it's looking rather dull. If you observe my brushstrokes, you can see I'm not letting the paint have hard edges at the end. So always make themselves by blending with a damp brush. It should be dark and my right corner as well. So I'm going to add a little bit of Payne's gray here as well. By this time your paper will be drying. So we're going to have to walk faster to paint the foreground. So for the foreground, I'm going to start with Naples, yellow. Later, I'm going to add golden deep color. And eventually I'm going to darken it using red as well as burnt sienna. That is it for the foreground. Now I'm gonna add just a light layer of Naples, yellow for the road in the middle. Just very light. We're going to work on that later. I'm going to keep this for drying. And I'm going to also see you guys in the next video where we're going to paint part two of the background that is painting orange color and Naples, yellow and orange mix, just like we have painted the pines gray. It's gonna be very interesting this landscape. So, yeah, see you guys in the next video. 5. Class Project - Background Part 2 : Step is to make sure the first layer of background is completely dried up. Second step is to gently re-wet the paper. I'm using my hockey brush. And as you can see, I'm not putting any pressure on the paper with my brush. I'm applying the water very gently. Just like in previous video. We have wet the paper till you can see the reflection. So here also it is the same. Don't let the water drip and don't let the water be too dry either. You just have to see the glossy reflection. Matter how careful you are, there will always be mistakes. As you can see, a little bit of paint is dripping away from foreground into the background. But that's okay because I was planning to paint with orange and yellow over there. So happy accident. And now I have taken golden deep and I'm adding that paint in-between pines gray, quickly. Adding Sennelier, orange as well. The more different shades of colors you see, the more depth you can bring to your landscape. And of course, I'm going to now quickly remove the extra water from my brush using a tissue paper. And I'm going to soften the edges of this orange and golden deep color. We're going to have to work faster here because the paper is drying up. Now I'm going to take mix of burnt sienna and a bit of orange. And I'm going to add a few trees. Not just you don't have to paint a detailed tree her in-between foreground and the background. So it gives nice contrast color at the end. Now at the same trees in between foreground and background using Payne's gray now, observe how much water is on my brush. Actually it's nothing. There is no water on my brush. It's very, you know, almost damp but it's not dry. This is not dry brush technique. So don't let the paint from your brush or else you cannot paint these trees that we are painting now. You can manage with a dry brush, but I would say keep the damp brush with lots of paint. I'm going to take the red color and burnt sienna and add a few details on the foreground. These look like loose, but we are not painting them in detail. Same goes on the other side of the road as well. I'm gonna take my silver black velvet number six, brush the smaller one. And I'm going to mix burnt sienna, orange. And I get this really beautiful autumn brown color. You can see it right here on my paper. Now, let's add some depth to this background. So I'm not going to be adding any detail. The leaves, just a few random brushstrokes that we have done in tips, video, color palette and tips. So far my paper is not dripping wet here. It's not dry either. Somewhere, is damp and it is not letting the color spread into the Payne's gray area. So I'm thankful for that. And I'm going to take my larger brush and I'm going to blend some of these leaves to give that soft effect in the background. On me, surprised if you don't see the list that we had just painted with the smaller brush. This landscape is all about adding layers after layers. So I hope you guys loving this experimental landscape. And I just love that it's in colorful, bright autumn colors, etc. Challenge to use lots of colors. And also lots of colors brings lot of depth in the landscape as well. So I'm gonna see you guys in the next video where we're going to paint the trees. 6. Class Project - Trees Part 1: The background is tried. And in this video, we're going to paint a few trees. And this is my reference for this class project. But you can see the trees here are very dull and I have only used one color that is pines gray. So instead I'm gonna be using two colors, as well as I'm going to try to paint a few more trees in the background because there are only three in my reference and it looks rather dull and plane. You guys remember how we have painted a tree in our color palette and tips video? We're going to follow the same method here. I'm going to use burnt sienna as well as pines gray. Now, let's get started on painting these trees faster. I'm gonna be using the burnt sienna to really bring the natural and realistic effect in a landscape, you have to make some very tiny changes. E.g. the position of these trees on the foreground is quite different. One is in the front and one is in the back. I guess you didn't notice it until I told you just now. So when you look at the landscapes, you won't notice these differentials very quickly. But when you look at this landscape after it is completed, you will note that these changes, these small, tiny changes are what makes the landscape look very realistic. I'm going to blend the edges of these trees into the foreground using a damp brush. I want to achieve that thick forest. Look for this class project, but I'm not going to be spending hours and hours to paint several of the leaves. So I have found an easy method, which we have discussed briefly in tips video. So painting the leaves using just your brush strokes. So also, another important thing while you are going for this method is using a lot of colors and a lot of layering with those colors to give that realistic look. While painting leaves in this way, take care to not paint just orange blobs. Remember to paint, you know, to drag the paint and make it look like leaves by drawing sharp edges. What happens? You can check out that last when it collagenase that I've made at the top of the video on how that should look like. Also, while you're painting in this method, you should be your own judge and you should know when to stop. My tip and advice is to, you know, from time-to-time stop painting. Step back and look at your painting. If you think it needs some more of the leaves at the edges, you can go and paint them very quickly. But if your intuition says no, please stop right there. Oh, that kind of intuition takes a bit of practice, so it's okay if you don't get it right the first time. After all, this is my third attempt and I think I am getting a hang of it. I think there's a lot of paint in the middle. So I'm going to just remove it using a tissue paper. Now, without wasting any time. I'm gonna be using Naples yellow and golden deep to paint some light colored leaves at the bottom of the paper, just about the foreground. This is where the light is falling, so the leaves should be in light color. Now, I'm going to work a bit on the road. First, I'm gonna be adding a golden deep color. Later, I'm going to mix it up with a bit of burnt sienna that is already there on my palette. As I go up, I'm going to be adding Naples yellow. As you can see, at the top of the road. Between foreground and the background, the role should be in light color. As we come down to the edge of the paper, it should be darker. And while I'm at it, I'm going to be adding a few random leaves with a French vermilion. I'm in red color and burnt sienna as well. So far, I have taken a step back and was thinking about the leaves. I think they are good for now. And I'm going to splatter some burnt sienna on it. And in the next video, we're going to paint the second round of trees, the trees on the foreground. So see you there. 7. Class Project - Trees Part 2: In this video, we're going to paint those two big trees on the foreground. Which is very exciting because that's what makes the whole landscape, you know, come together. And I'm going to paint those trees in a way that we have discussed in color palette and tips video, starting with burnt sienna and later adding the dark color pines gray. Have to paint these two large trees very carefully because these are the main trees that we see when we look at the landscaping hole. That is also why I'm paying special attention with light and shadows. The light here is burnt sienna. I'm going to add the shadow color now, that is pines gray. The first layer that we have painted with burnt sienna is still wet. That's why it is easier for me to blend the pines grain to it. So don't let the bones and our dry work faster. As you can see, I've just removed the extra water from my brush using a tissue and I'm blending the colors together. Now I'm going to blend tree with the foreground using a damp brush. We're going to repeat the same process with the other tree here as well. Start with burnt sienna. While the tree is still wet. Add binds gray, which is the shadow color. And later blend the tree into the foreground. I have taken a little bit of golden deep mixed with the burnt sienna, which was already on my palette. And I'm going to start adding the leaves. As we go towards my left. The loop should look very light in color. So I'm going to use Naples yellow. You're going to have to work on this again after this round is dried up. Because if you add Naples yellow now it's gonna, it's gonna just blend with the burnt sienna we have just painted. I'm going to work on that later again. I'll let start adding the leaves using burnt sienna here at the top of the paper. These leaves should look a little bit darker in color. So that's why I'm using burnt sienna here. I'm going to darken it even more by adding a little bit of pines gray. I'm going to splatter some pain. Now. For this, I'm going to use tissue so that the extra paint will not fall anywhere else other than the place that I want it to. Now is the time to add the light colors. I'm taking Naples yellow, and I'm going to add it at the place where I told you before that. I told you that I was waiting for it to dry and now it has dried. The light shade here in the middle as well. But I'm going to first start with golden deep. Later, I'm gonna end with Naples yellow color. This is the place where the light falls and it makes sense to add lighter shade. Also, it looks so beautiful in contracts with the dark pines gray in the background. Now we're going to paint another round of leaves using burnt sienna and a mix of burnt sienna, Payne's gray later, Naples yellow for this tree as well. The bigger one. Not forget to splatter whenever you think is necessary and also don't forget to use the tissue paper. Think I'm done painting the leaves here. If anything, I'm going to again look back and I'm going to add a few details if necessary. In the next video, we're going to paint the leaves in pines gray color, the dark color later we're going to bring it into light using our Naples yellow and orange colors. So I'm gonna see you there. 8. Class Project - Trees Part 3: This part is interesting because we're going to paint dark leaves to light leaves. So first I'm gonna be using pines gray, and I'm going to paint a lot of mileage and later I'm going to add light colors into it. The same way that we have painted leaves in previous video using burnt sienna and orange colors. We're gonna do the same here with the same brush strokes, but we're going to use binds grid. And also whenever you paint village like this, you have to use a smaller brush. I will keep this skewed thumbnail sketch of mine here so you can see what I'm painting. When you are painting flowers and leaves like this, It's important that you get the shape right for beginners and for even advanced or intermediate artists who are trying out these forest landscapes for the first time, please use a reference picture so you have an idea on what shape the leaves will fall. Now we're going to start adding the light colors. I'm going to take French vermilion fast, the red color, extra width, a little bit of orange. Add the light color into the pines. Gray defines grade still wet, and that's exactly how we want it. I'm going to add a few more leaves using Payne's gray. We're going to take that orange and red mixture of color and we're going to add it here, mostly at the edges. Welcome to my favorite part, adding the lightest color, Naples, yellow. And now this is what makes the landscape look so, so magical. I had Naples yellow to the tip of the pines gray. And just make sure you highlight that light color. We're almost done with the landscape. That is only just one video remaining. So in the next video, you guys do type. We're going to paint the details. So see you there. 9. Class Project - Final Details: This video we're going to see if we can accentuate the beauty that we have already created. E.g. the leaves that we have painted before has a dried-up very light. And this happens in watercolor. So I want to add one more layer of dark color using burnt sienna and a bit of pints gray. If you asked me details are very important. You can completely change a landscape by simply adding or removing a few things. In my experience, I have added 3D effects to a landscape and that completely changed the perspective while adding details. So when you go for 3D, it's important to paint the shadows. And you paint the shadows while you go for detailing at the end of the video. After you think you have completed the landscape, just make sure to sit with it for a few minutes and see if you can add any more noticeable things. It could simply mean a few shadows and a few leaves, in this case. Make the background the place where the the pines gray part and the foreground touches. I'm going to add a few dark trees that will really increase the contrast. And a few shadows, random shadows on my left side off the foreground. And a few leaves here on my right side of the foreground, and a few leaves on the road. And this is very important. It creates such randomness in the landscape. Remove the tape when you are done and when the paper is dry it and I think I'm going to cut off most of this paper using my ruler because I don't like this extra white strip of the paper just on two, on both sides of the landscape. In the next video, we're going to discuss a little bit about what we can do with all the tips and techniques we have learned in this landscape and how we can apply to other landscape as well. So I hope you enjoyed painting this class project with me. Thank you so much for joining. Don't miss the next video. 10. Final Thoughts: We have successfully completed our atom landscape. In this class, we have learned how to bring the landscape to live by painting in layers. Also, we have learned how to bring light and shadow into a tree or into layers. So those are the main elements in this landscape. With these techniques, you can also paint a forest landscape, the green forest landscape. Just replace this orange color with green colors. But make sure you use different shades of green. Can also paint a winter landscape using the same techniques that we have learned in this class. Use monochrome colors are limited palette. When you're going for a winter scape. You guys take these tips and techniques that we have learned in this class and level up your watercolor skills. I also hope you guys had fun painting this magical autumn forest with me. I'll be waiting to see all your beautiful creations under the project section below. So much for watching, I'm gonna see you in my next class.