Loose Watercolor Landscape - Paint Quick Using Wet on Wet Technique

1. Introduction: Hello, everyone. My name is Alifya, and I'm an artist here in San Jose, California. In today's class, I will show you how to paint a loose watercolor landscape using a reference photo that is fall-inspired. I will show you all the materials that you will need. I'll walk you through the basic techniques, layering, and washes. Then we'll walk you through this painting, step-by-step with the guide of reference photo at all times. If you like this reference pic and you want to learn how to paint this in acrylics, I do have a class on that already. I will link it below. This class is perfect for all levels, so beginner and beyond are welcome to try this. I will be adding in a class project at the very end. I cannot wait to see what you guys come up with. 2. Materials: This is everything that I've used for today's class, Arteza watercolor paper, which I've cut to a five by seven. I've also used Arteza palette. Both a water washi tape and paper towel. Then this is optional, but I like using acrylic paint at the very end. Then also for the brushes, these two are the main brushes that I've used for most of the painting. Then for the thin brushes, there's one long thin one and then a small filbert brush. The soft brush is again optional. You don't have to use this, but it's good for little splatter paint. You can also print out the reference I've linked below. All the materials and paints are also mentioned below. 3. Exercise 1 - Techniques: Before we start, I just want to go over some basics with you. I'm not going to overwhelm you with a lot of techniques and brushwork, but I'm just going to cover the techniques that we will use in today's class so that you can get a more practical approach for this. The two most common watercolor techniques are; wet on wet and wet on dry. For the wet on wet paint is applied to wet paper, you can layer different colors on top of existing web paint, which will create this blurred out expansion effect, where you will notice the color is bleeding into one another. The second technique is wet on dry, where paint is applied onto dry paper, it is as simple as that. Let's look at the effects that these gave us. The wet on wet gives us soft edges, it's more blurred out. This is great if you want more delicate softer paintings, great use for backgrounds or far-away objects. You can also blend easily while getting an effective gradient and also creates a misty effect. It is also unpredictable and hence not so much in your control. Very opposite of the wet on wet, is the wet on dry, which gives us sharper edges, so you can definitely have more control where you can get well-defined shapes. The wet on dry also allows you to lay your paint as much as you want. We will go through layering in the next step. 4. Exercise 2 - Layering: Here I'm going to show you how you can layer your paint in watercolors. I'm going to show you three different kind of washes here, each one with a little more pigment to show you the effects of layering. If you want well-defined shapes when it comes to layering, you will have to work on this wet on dry. I'm drying out my paper with a blow dryer to speed up the process before I begin to layer my shapes. Once your painting has dried, layer your shapes little by little, getting darker each time, but also wait for your paint to dry in between each layer that you add. As you can see, the lighter your initial wash is, the easier it is to build up on layering. So keep that in mind when you are painting with watercolors, you always have to work light to dark, unlike acrylics where you can get away with working from dark to light. I think watercolor as a medium does require you to be more patient. 5. Prep Paper: First step, I'm using washi tape to tape down the edges. This actually really works compared to regular masking tape. It does not tend to bleed once you take it off, and also, it does not tear into your paper. I'm working with a five-by-seven-inch Arteza paper. Once you tape down your sheet, we'll move on to the next step. 6. First Layer - Initial Wash: First step is the sky, I'm taking in some indigo blue and very loosely dabbing the sky. I'm not being too perfect or precise, I just want a light tint of color. Rinse your brush off and take some yellow ocher and brown to create a light background mountain; adding some dark green mixed with some gray at the very top of the peak and then the lower half of the mountain as well. This technique is referred to the wet on wet technique, where wet paint is applied to wet paint or damp paint on paper. It's great when you need things to be hazy or give perspective of distance, so it's okay if your pain bleeds into one another, that is what we want. This entire painting will be used mainly in the wet on wet technique for the most part which also adds to the loose wipe, which is what we are going for. Here I'm just using the tip of my brush and very likely and gently dabbing my way through some of the dark greens that we see far back. Again, you do not need that much pressure at all, just the tip of the brush will do and just lightly go across the mountain. Now, we're going to dive right into the colorful middle and foreground trees. I'm taking in some yellow-orange and dabbing my way through them. Think of this step as making little blotches along the way; it may look confusing or messy right now, but it'll all come together once you add in some branches and definition. This is the part where you can have some fun, add in your colorful colors in places you see in the reference pic, or you can make up your own, but make sure to rinse your brush off with every new color you add to prevent it from getting brown. All of this is done wet on wet. Tapping your brush every now and then, like I did so right now, is also a great technique to add some random little dots or splatter to give you more texture and variety. You can also use a rough brush for more of the splatter effect, and I think I'll use that in a little bit as well, but for now, with any brush that you use, you can just tap on it lightly and it'll still give you that effect. Let's now paint the road so we can have some ground to work with. I'm using some pale blue and gray here to start with a darker brick wall to the side, roughly getting into lines to the side there. Remember the goal here is to work quick since you don't want your paints to dry too much. Think of this entire painting class as like a rough sketch. Sometimes painting quick references like this can be a great learning practice, it forces you to paint loose while giving that lovely painterly feel at the end that can look quite mature and intentional at the end. Don't be disappointed if yours is turning out to be a bit more messier than expected, just learn from it and then move on. Following the reference pic, I'm keeping the middle part of this pathway a light gray with a little tint of that yellow ocher, and I want to keep them light in the center and then dark at the edges just so that we can distinguish the shapes better. Be intentional of leaving some of the wide gaps every now and then to break up the shapes. For instance, those white lines on the road can be left alone so don't paint over that, and then also when you paint your trees, leave some gaps open for more interest. Now, let's move on to the left side tree. I'm starting with some yellows for the background and then I will work my way through some of the darker greens on top of it. Remember when working with this medium, it's always important to build up light to dark, it's easy to work your way through light to dark, but once you've laid down the dark tone, it is much harder to make that lighter. Very different from acrylics where you are still able to lay down your light tones and tense on top of darks. But yeah, watercolors is not so forgiving in this case. Here I'm just setting in my base for the big tree to the right, again, same method and same brush so far, simply dabbing gently to block off that shape. It's easier if you squint your eyes when looking at the reference picture, if you struggle with getting the bigger picture of shapes in general. Trust me, it may sound weird, but it helps. Now, I'm getting in some dark green and blue and building on that tree little by little, still working on it, wet on wet. At this point, my paint is mostly dry but still damp in places, so I figured now is a good time to define some branches and twigs to make more sense of this painting so far. I've switched to a much thinner brush for more control and simply using its tip and belly to make vertical lines. We will keep coming back to this as well, so don't make it too dark yet. One method of lifting off paint in darker sections is to simply use the corner of your paper towel to dab on sections you want to lift off; this method will only work if your paint is still damp. 7. Second Layer - Building Layers: I will consider this our first layer, which was the hardest part, now it's just a matter of building up paint layer by layer to bring out the colors and shapes a bit more. You are basically repeating all the steps we did so far by going over the sections, again, by adding more color. For your second layer, it should be done wet on dry, it's okay if your first layer is still a little damp, but make sure it's not too wet. Just have fun with the second layer and play around with your colors by simply dabbing your brush to make these trees, just remember to rinse off your brush in between each new color that you add. In between, feel free to add the splatter method technique by simply tapping on your brush, but be intentional of when and where you use that method. Don't go overboard because you can get carried away and then just have splatter paint over your entire painting, so be intentional and in certain sections, if you don't want your spatter pain to go everywhere, make sure you take a card or a piece of paper and hide those sections which you don't want your paint to reach if that makes sense. I'm going into the background to define those far away trees on the mountain a bit more. Using the side of the brush, you can dab in watercolor brush marks to make impressions of those far away pine trees. I wanted to define some of the edges to the right tree, so I'm using a smaller brush and I'm getting just loose brush strokes to define some of those leaves. I'm going back in to build on the branches and twigs more, again, using my smaller brush and just going up in vertical strokes. Little details like adding some color and leaves to the sidewalk gives your painting more character and feel, and also adds a sense of mood. Details like this can really help. You can also use a splatter method for this as well. 8. Third Layer & Details: Like I mentioned before, watercolors is all about building on those layers, so going back in with our third layer to build on these colors even more. Remember, watercolors do dry lighter, so keep that in mind. It's never going to be as vibrant as you forced lay out your color. But once you get the hang of this, you will realize that it is quite therapeutic because it is so repetitive, teaches you a lot of patience too. Here I'm taking out a rough [inaudible] brush to use the splatter method technique. Rough brushes will give you smaller and finer splatters, so it's a good combination to add. If you watched my other classes, you do know I like to use some white acrylic paint with watercolors to create some highlights. It's a good alternative if you need more white spaces in between shapes. But like I said, the best way to give natural highlights is to simply leave those spaces blank and work around it. Here I'm just defining some of the road marks and we'll give the tree a bit of negative painting by adding some strokes of white directly on there. This breaks up chunky shapes, adding more visual interest. Just like highlights are important, don't underestimate how much darks can also affect a painting in a good way, so add some touches of those in places as well. For the brick wall to the side, I'm using a dry texture method by adding more paint and less water and scrubbing the brush back and forth. This adds for additional variety of brushstrokes and interest to the painting. 9. Final Touches & Class Project: Before we add some final touches, I wanted to take off this tape so you all can get a better visual of what's going on because the tape can be slightly distracting. There we go, it's much better. Now let's add some last-minute final touches to bring up the colors a tad bit more. By any means, if you are happy with how your painting looks so far, you can very well stop right here. But I just wanted to bring out some of the lovely fall colors a bit more before I stop. Working on this wet on dry and dabbing in clean, fresh color directly. Fixing the edges a bit and also using acrylic white paint to cover the slight bleed to the right here. Once the painting dried completely, I did feel like it was missing some of that predominant darks towards the right tree so I wanted to go back and correct that. Using black and green, I intentionally added some paint to a few bits over there. This will dry even lighter once it's completely dry, so don't be scared of using really dark blacks. I will show you the final piece once it's fully dry. There we go, all done and fully dried. This completes our loose watercolor landscape for today. Hope this put you in a fall, autumn cozy mood, wherever you are. If you like this reference pic and want to learn how to paint this in acrylics. I do have a class on that already, I will link it below. Share your projects. I would love to see them and do not forget to leave this class a review. If you've enjoyed this class, make sure to follow me so that you do not miss out on future painting classes from me. Thank you once again and happy painting. To shop my art and merchandise, do visit my website where I sell all my original landscapes and florals. Art prints in a lot of variety and much that includes phone cases and mugs and much more arrivals to come soon. To keep up with latest news, do follow me on Instagram where you can stay up to date with my new lunches. I love connecting and making new friends so stop over, DM me and say hi.