Magical Cottage Scene: Watercolor Landscape Essentials

1. Introduction: Welcome. In this class, we painting a cottage seen in watercolor. Natural landscapes as simple and beautiful, providing the perfect subject for a beginner watercolor artist. Adding a man-made objects such as a cottage or band can create an interesting contrast and help you to tell a story. Learning how to capture landscape in a quick, fun and loose manner is an essential skill that every artist should learn to master. Watercolour is the perfect medium that allows you to produce spontaneous, expressive paintings. On the goal. Planning is crucial. I'll show you how to simplify shapes and sketching large ones such as foliage, trees, grass, and land. Getting those large components inaccurately beforehand, essential for your landscape painting to make sense. So join me in this class. You see just how easy it is to create these amazing scene in no time at all. 2. Materials Required: I want to talk a bit about materials to help you decide on what you need for this class. And you'll see here I've got some paper and my finished painting, and I'm using 100% cotton watercolor paper, really recommend that in medium or rough texture. Find that when you're using the rough texture or medium texture, you can get these softer effects like the shadows here on the ground. The paper just takes a bit longer to dry. The paint disburses a little bit more in a controlled manner when you using completely hot press paper or just flat, flat paper with no texture that I find that it just spreads all too much in different areas and also can dry, quite consistent, inconsistently compared to a textured paper, which I find doesn't pull up as much of the water just disperses through the little cracks and fissures in the paper. So that's my $0.02. If you don't have access to this paper, just make sure that you have some paper with texture in it, even if it's some cellulose paper. I have a bunch of brushes here. These are just watercolor mop brushes essential for this class because they allow you pick up a lot of water and be able to also getting some details these shadows I've actually got in using the small mop brush and also small angled flat brush here as well. And trick is to load up a lot of that paint on the brush and paint it in while the colour previous wash is still wet. Hope for the best. But as you keep doing this technique over and over, you can get an idea of what the end result will be. So those are a bunch of brushes I use. This is a little round brush. I also use this for small details. So we're getting in the branches of these trees. Little highlights as well, areas here such as these little flowers and things on the ground. I use that too. I've got a bunch of other brushes here that I use this as a rigger brush. Rigger brushes are great for getting in small branches like this because the point just goes right down to very small points and doesn't hold much paint as well, so you don't risk making a bit of a mess. Dunking in a bit of paint and having spread everywhere. Really good for detailing, used a huge world, bring out some highlights. This here is a little fan brush and the fan brush I've used to get in, as you can see here, these little indications of grass. And it just creates some texture quickly so that you don't have to play around with a small brush and drawing every single blade of grass. I do use a small pocket knife as well to scratch off some of these highlights here. You can see off in the distance. Here as well. You can use a credit card or some sharp object. That palette knife as well works great for this and you can just pick up a bit of paint. Also have a little brush here. This is a filbert brush. It blends and helps you to lift off paint. I've used this here a little to lift off a bit of that darker paint. Might have used it here. But it's a good little brush that I have from time to time. But if you don't have this brush, the closest thing you can get to it as maybe a small round brush, smaller than that, or even a little flat brush like that. You can use to scrub off paint quite easily and bring back that previous wash on the paper. You probably wondering how did I get in all these little highlights? I've used a bit of gouache here at the end. This is a bit of whitewash and mix it in with a bit of green or a bit of yellow. We'll just apply strain on the paper to get in these little flowers right at the end while as the painting is drawing or has completely dried. Sometimes you can drop that Guassian while the paint is still drying and you get like a nice soft, misty effect in areas, but you have to be careful with that because it can also cause a really big mess. In terms of the other colors. I'm just using a darker color here. This is just a bit of black. And I've got the palette been neutral tint for all these trees are quite dark, except for the left-hand side, which I've used again, but with gouache mixed in with some yellow. And at some points I think I've used some brown in this mix, brown and black as well. In the ground. I've just got a bit of yellow ocher and a bit of quinacridone. Yellow is the back wash and then I just drop in some darker greens, a bit of undersea green or a little bit of Hooker's green. And that helps you to get in these darker tones and dark greens and the background. Even here in the foreground, you're not having errors that are just completely just one tone of green has many different tones of greens. And I find that if you go in with those darker greens with different concentrations of water as well. So in one case you might mix 50% water with the green. Next case you might mix 20% water or even 80% water. You get different shades of greens in here that just indicates different plants grown in ground in their fund variation. Crazy illusion of detail in the, even though you're not really doing that much, you look at it from a distance and the brain perceives complexity. So that's about it for most of the colors in here, make sure also that you have a large enough mixing area. You can see here I've got two large mixing areas. Really, really handy when you're doing large washes. Or you want to get in areas of the screen or the sky. Because if you having to go back, keep mixing that color again, chances are you getting that same color of very slim. You have to be more experienced to know the exact concentrations. So I think having large areas make sense. If you don't have a palette like this, you can have a pick up a plate from the kitchen cupboard, use that. And I find there's a fantastic as well for palettes 3. Drawing: Let's start off with the during. And what I wanna do is basically putting a bit of a guiding line as to where the green grass just finishes off and the house starts up the top. So roughly about here, the kind of an incline that I wouldn't say. It's almost like about the middle point, starts about the middle point of the paper here and then it just goes upwards like that little, little guiding line. I'm actually going to start with the house first year in the back. And one thing I want to change up about this house as I want to make it a bit more three-dimensional. So for example, we've got this rooftop like that. Yeah. But what I'm gonna do is just increase this side part of the house at touched just like this. Okay. So I've got a bit more here, just a little bit more detail. Three-dimensionality. This house. Yeah, it's the side of it here and then we've got this. I'd like that as well. Okay. All the way off in the background, you can also see just a couple of windows there. There's a kind of looks like another part of it there and there as well. So there's bits and pieces in there. I think I'll just simplify this down actually. And we'll have to see how we go, but we need to simplify that down a bit later on. Perhaps even the side of it. I'm just gonna get rid of that and just leave those windows in there. But that's your house, basic little cottage or something out in the back. You've got all these trees and stuff here, some sticks. I don't know what they are, maybe trees or what have you. Okay. Now, what we have here in the foreground is this large bush here. Draw that in, goes almost all the way up to the house. And I've actually drawn the house a little bit more to the right, which doesn't, doesn't really matter. And here we've got some kind of large shrub in the background like that. Might actually extend something over there on that side of the house there as well. So that we can have an opportunity to create a bit of negative shape for the house because the house is, I don't think anyone's going to be a little bit lighter being that it's in sunlight or something like that. And we've got all these little flowers and things and all this stuff. I'm not going to bother really much with it. I'm just wanting to indicate roughly where some of them are. But the big thing is this tree right here. And I need to pay attention in terms of the detailing of the tree. Now we've got the trunk sort of like this. It comes out on this fork, the fork and comes in a bit and then just comes out like that. Okay, so we've got this grimace, Y-shaped fork. As you can see, with a few of the branches. I'm tapering off and going through the house up like that. This is going to be tricky because it's going to cut over the top of the house as well. But don't worry, we will make this kind of work. I just want to get in those couple of these branches a bit more. Okay? The main thing is these two big branches down the bottom here, these y-shaped, this Y-shaped there, it needs to be drawn in fairly well. Okay. And just bring this one up here. We've even got this other branch or cuts through that. As you can see. Always try not to make it too perfect looking as well. As you know, branches. Interesting shapes, they have a structure to them, but they go off on all these different random tangents. So you have to make sure that you're implying that as well. Okay. Taking more time with this drawing because I know no, this is going to make a difference. This is the one of the most detailed areas of the painting. So I don't want to be thinking later with, with my thinking, Where should I put this in that, this branch, this larger branch here and there with the brush. The other stuff doesn't matter, like the smaller branches, we can figure that out as we go. But the main ones like this, I think quite crucial to make sure you get in. Okay. And we've got all these flowers and things I like how there's this beautiful shadow cutting across the scene. There is even a tree that just runs up, leaves and things there. There's another tree here somewhere. There's another tree that exits out the scene there. Notice there's not really a whole lot going on in here. There's a few little branches and stuff here, of course, I can just imply that and get some detailing with the the brush later. This is kind of a whole bunch of shrubs and things growing in. I think this is a smaller tree. But really that's about it. We've got some of these shadows coming towards the right-hand side from that tree. Like that. I might see if I can just put in more of an angle like that, even though it would be nice to just a slight little angle running to the right, right and downwards. But I think that should be it. We should be good to go to start our painting 4. First Wash: So first things first, I'm going to go in with a bit of a warmer color. And for that I've got some yellow ocher, nice bit of yellow ocher that I'm going to drop in a few places. For example, just in these areas of the tree and these little branches like that. There's not really much in here. There's just this tree comes across this house. And a lot of this stuff you got to remember that it is all jest. Going to be covered over with some darker paint. But this is just to get into a bit of light on the main parts of the tree, I'm going to, later on we'll get into some more. But just a bit of nice light color there. Like that. Even on top of this bush. Got a little bit of a yellow for the sunlight there on the ground. I mean, it's all just green, but the trick is when you use some yellow in there, it just turns to green anyway afterwards. But it gives you an opportunity to get insulin, different shades of green and a little bit, a little bit of a warmer color. Also in some of these areas. The house the house is really quite light. I mean, just go over the top. This part is just to be this yellow down the sides of it as well. I might just leave the sides, this side of it. Anyway. Then over the top of it, I'm going to actually put in some grayish color, maybe a bit of burnt sienna in there as well. Let's just try that. Something like this. Okay. Still pretty light like that. Just cutting around that part of the roof. And on the right-hand side, I'm going to darken up a bit, just drop in extra paint like this, something like that. At the moment, we're not really worrying about details at all. We're just trying to get in some basic background washes, background colors, darken that house a little bit off the top like that. Green, just going to drop into that green in and have a look how it goes. I'm going to be the green there. That's nice. I can also mix up my own green if I have a bit of, for example, ultramarine blue. And drop that in here with a touch of yellow. That will create a bit of a green as well. I think the trick here is just to make sure you've got some Variance. Different variants of green. And with all this yellow ocher as well, it's quite easy with all this yellow ocher mixing different shades of green here. And it's important to do this or while the paint is still wet. Even above here, for example. There's a little bit of lighter green running through up here. And we don't have to get it all in just some bits. Okay. I'd like to leave in some highlights on the trees as well. Okay. That's that Buddhist shrub or that Bush running behind. And not only that, we've got another one that we were trying to get in about here. Okay. Just a soft indication of a shrub or a tree behind just carrying across like that. Something like that. We'll get some more coloring for that a bit later. Some more green up here. We've got a tree or something there. We've got the cow quickly undoing this. Another one here. Like that. Bit of purple maybe to darken up in that upper touch. Okay. It's been a pool of water here. I'm just going to shift some of this paint across like that. Try not to let areas pull something like that. Going up. There we go. We've got a shrub that's going up now. Got all this lovely golden. It's almost like golden greeny color in areas which I'm just trying to imply I've dropped in a tiny bit of the quinacridone yellow to get a quick wash over the surface of the paper at the bottom. And what I like to do is just go over the top of that with some green or a little bit of blue example, we can mix in a bit of ultramarine. Here. Ultramarine and you see how it just kind of Creates a touch of green there anyway. But I want to make sure that there's enough lots in here so we have to be careful that we're not overdoing it. Okay. So it's still greenish. But a lighter green. Dropping in these large brush strokes. We don't want anything too heavy in here. Okay. I'm just letting all these puffy paint and mix and mingle and do its thing. I'll go in and just do a bit of the sky now. And this is cerulean blue. Just to touch a light, cerulean blue, mostly water. Everything in here is just mostly water. Ten per cent paint. Dropping some here. Okay, start out at the top first. Quick wash. And some of this may blend in with the trees. Some of it probably will most likely is going to blend in. But it doesn't matter. You want a bit of that softness as well in some parts. Okay. Just let it do what it wants to do. Notice I'm just cutting around those branches a touch as well so that I don't lose the yellow on them. The rooftop. Little brushstroke like that will do it. Okay. Bring that down. There. We have it. That's a little trick I do. I leave them. It's like a tiny bit of white edge on the sides of things and that will stop the blue from just running everywhere into the scene. And I've got some time now to go play around with some of these wet and wet techniques. So I can pick up some dark colors. Something like this one here. Just getting a bit of darker green. This is a fan brush, which is a kind of a multi bristle brushes. You can see curates these funny little softer edges that I use to imply shrubs and grass. Another layer of detail on top of all this. Don't worry about the colors of those flowers yet we're gonna get it. You get those in with some quash afterwards. The time being all we wanna do is getting a sum of the mid tones. So they're not really the darkest darks and paper, but they are certainly certainly getting there. I'm even considering putting in some of those shadows across the ground as well just to make them a bit softer on. I'll do this bit first and let it, let that dry. So I can get a bit more sharpness in the shadows. But for example, this one here, as you can see, this shadow that I'm doing here running to the right. If I mixed a bit of black in there, for example, started here and just that, something like that. And then we've got a softer shadow running across the page. Probably what would work best is something like this brush, which is like a flat brush. I'm mixing up with a black and a bit of green together in order to get this color. And I'm using a lot of paint. Most of it is just is just paint, 90% paint. A little bit of water to activate it and bring that across like that. Of course, there is some green in there too. Just a very dark or dark green. Now even some back here that goes near the house and it'd be a bit of shadow like that as well. Now it seems like the shadows running upwards a bit. So I'm going to have to see what we do with those other ones. We house as well. You notice sometimes you get a bit of shadow running to the right-hand side of the house like that. Sort of casting casting a bit of a shadow. I don't want to imply that too much because there's a bush there, but we'll see how we will see how we go. There's another smallest shadow here running from the trunk of the tree. Sort of running all cross here just dissipates out, lens out. You can't see much of what's happening to it there. It gets a little softer. I suppose. You can remember this whole area is very, very damped steel And I don't have to worry too much about this because the right side of that tree is also going to be a little bit darker. You know, you've got more shadows and things like that, that there's one kind of running across a pick up more green and a bit more black. Green and black. You got these kind of shadowy shape running up like that. Another one here. Another one here. That's the tricky kind of let that paint settle into the paper while it's still wet. Like that. This kind of already looks like there is some type of branch or whatever here. Okay. Just a little detail like that. Mainly focusing on the shadows though. You can see some more shadows here. They're running across across the ground here, and a bit more here. That you've got these larger sort of Bush to the left as well. Because that's just almost black. But it's I'll put a bit of purple in there as well. You can't you almost can't tell. Just a touch of that running through there. I want to make sure I don't get too much into that trunk if it spreads, I'm going to have to lift out a touch. But I'm just trying to get in a bit of softness in there. And also in the background, trees have some kind of negative shape. I'll show you how to do that in just a moment, because it's just all quite dark. Some more green, Let's put in some more green here. The fan brush probably going to be better for this. Just cover a larger area. Okay, See, look at that. Just these little wispy brush strokes that I can just feather in here. And almost blend out that shadow would touch in areas. That bit of that black. We got going through there, but are these shrubs more of that green? And I'm just dropping it in. Just dropping it in. You draw the brush off a little bit. While you do this, you pick up bit of that green, dry the brush off, and then just start feathering away. And you get this kind of effect blends a little bit. And another cool thing I'll do, I'll show you in a moment, but we're going to scratch out some little highlights as well in the grass and bits and pieces, but we went through that just yet. We don't need to do that yet. We have to wait for it to dry touch. Okay. So I'm just while that's all I'm waiting for that to happen, I'm just putting in why not just a few brushstrokes for grass and things like that. They're running through like that. Keep it. Keep these brushstrokes nice and varied. Remember the paint that you're adding on top of this already wet layer has to be significantly thicker. You want to basically be using mostly paint and the rest of it just the rest of it just a little water. Okay. So what I've done, I've just lifted out a little paint. Their center of that I think gets dried. I can drop in a bit of dark paint through the center here just to block out the center of those trees like that. See how we go like that. I might have to change it later on. Here again, we've got extra darkness in the background for this area of the tree. I'm just going to pick up some purple and a bit of black for this. And there's also a touch of green in there. Don't want to lose that. Okay. They're just cutting around that tree a bit. You'd see it sort of just going all the way into the background. But I'm also leaving, making sure I'm leaving some of those highlights in the background. See how I'm just kind of going over part of it, but not over the entire section. Okay, So there's some of that background colors showing. That's really important. I'm going to do it here as well. Okay? It's just with a little flat brush. And the idea here is just to get in a bit of sharpness around the tree trunk and the branches. Okay. Here, bit here as well. Go through there. I'm going to just work a bit closer to the house now to draw out the air, the house. That little highlight on the roof perhaps. Lift their extra, extra touch of darkness behind there I've really got it quiet dark on the left side of the house to ring out the full contrast of the white. So be careful. Sometimes I can just overwork this if I'm not careful. I mean careful. I mean, just trying to get that brushstroke in quickly to imply what's happening but not spending too much time in there. Look here at the top of the house and we'll put a bit of color in there. Just a bit of darkness on that right-hand side of the rooftop area. Connect that down to the ground to touch like that. Something like that. Just a bit of darkness in there. Okay. I'm actually thinking I might have a larger shadow running across the ground and the foreground, just in the foreground, I'm picking up some black here like this, and a bit of green. I'm doing this pretty quickly so that I can get it in. So I can just quickly get it in while the paper is still wet. I think that's something that I need to complete it. Yeah. Just maybe I have another one like that. Oops. That as well. Kind of a imaginary tree that's outside of the scene. Some more darkness here, a little bit more black here as well, like that. Okay. I'm just going to do a tiny bit of lifting with this brush. Any type of round brush will do as well. Lifting off a bit of paint. For the tree. Like this. We'd lost a bit of it. Here to the down. The advantages that you get this of softer looking edge. I mean, it's due sharp enough to show that it is a tree, but with a bit of a soft edge on the side of it like that. Okay. This helps to imply that light hitting the edge, the side of that tree. Again, this tree is so important major part of the scene. And I'm also thinking of this house, which is also quite an area of contrast. You've got that white, stark white and in the darkness in the background as well. And we're not done with the tree yet. There's more work to be done with all the branches and things like that. So before I do that, I will see what I can do with a bit of this stuff on the right-hand side. Let's get that thin brush out. And my little flat brush. Just some little bits and pieces here. I think what I need to do here is just get some more texture. We've missed out a bit of texture here. So that's what I wanna do. Just, oh, I can just put some of that in. And if you feel that area is too dry, you can also pick up your spray bottle and just quickly miss that area down. And again, you get a sum moments to then work and rework that area. Okay. This some of this darker tree here in the back. It's kind of like greenish tree, dark green tree here and then it's got the light tree in the front, like that there, but it's all just kinda darker bits running through like that. Trying to join it up with the shadow, slightly. Miss that area quickly as well. It's just too sharp. Better. Get some texture for the top part of the tree as well. Help it come out more on picking up some more green. By the way, for this, this is actually a carnival, a wall or something in front of the house. Can just see it's kinda like a brownish looking wall or something that just goes in front. I don't know if I'll get that in I mean, it's really just comes out like that. It's very subtle. And then you've got more of it coming out in front like this. I'll have to rework this a bit afterwards, but you can see it's due to that brown, little bit of that brown and they're dark brown. Let's work some on some of these branches. Now I've got this one here running across the rooftop and I'm mixing a bit of brown with black. And we're going to get in a kind of vindication of these branches. And this is why I said, draw the scene with the, with the with the pencil first because you can do it all here. Do most of it here. And you spend all this time drawing and not actually painting. So take time to do this. I'm just using a larger, as you can see, larger flat brush trying to just keep these movements a little more erratic as well. One thing to keep in mind is that this tree has got lot of dark dog ears and the right-hand side of it. And I want to imply that there's so much detail in this tree. It's really, it can be overwhelming. Start at one point. Remember it's just one tree. So at least you can sit and focus on it. But the branches will have a pattern that come out from the side like this. Some of them come directly upwards as well using very thick paint. Most of this is just paint directly from the palette with little bit of water to activate it. There. I'm trying to put it in a bit of darkness on the right-hand side of the tree, see their touch of that like that and you get a bit of light hitting the top of the branch, the left sides of the branches as well. So that's why I leave out a bit of that yellow. And we used to be that yellow before. So that it helps to imply that sense of a sense of light. Just in black mixed with some brown. Use pure black. I think it's gonna be too overpowering. So coming down, look at that. It's just a matter of doing that same thing down the trunk, leaving a bit of lights on the left-hand side of the tree. Very careful to make sure you've got indication of that light. I've actually made it more apparent than what the reference would lead you to believe. But I'll want to create an extra, sort of an extra contrast. I'm going to soften that edge later where the light meets with the dark. But for the time being, All I'm doing is just trying to get in the limbs of the tree, leaving a bit of that light on the left. So much of it. Putting a bit of darker paint here as well, just to create some extra bits and pieces going on. But I don't want to, I don't want to eliminate the shadows. So you gotta be careful that we keeping those darker shadows in there as well. Here the front also got to be careful here. Right down the front of touch. Have some softer green areas, I suppose here. Let's do a yellow. Yellow coming through 5. Second Wash: He really multitasking a lot in watercolors, especially where you've got bits and pieces that are drawing at different rates. So here I'm just using a little knife to scratch out some little twigs and areas of grass and things. Using just the tip of the knife. You can do this to indicate these little shrubs, as you can see here. Just a little on places like that. And it actually just reviews the previous color on the page. And that some of these little shrubs and things, stems will be used as the basis of the flowers later on. Okay? Not all of it, but just bits and pieces. Even just on the shadow. Sometimes you do get some of these little bits that joined the shadows, like this. Bits of grass and things running through the center of it. So I try my best to get in some of that, scratching out these bits and pieces, some of it you're going to have to wait in terms of I'm going to wait until that paint has almost dried before you scratch it off. Get this sort of effect. You can even do it on parts of the tree. Don't need to really. But an example would be like even don't know if you can do it here. Maybe here like that. See, that can be a bit of a tree branch or something like that. Okay. Maybe here, like a tree branch or something. Some highlights there as well for something. Sometimes you get these little wooden posts that stick out of the ground as well. So that could be an indication of that bit of highlight here, even for the little fence or whatever we've got there. Okay. Here this tiny little I don't know what they are. Shrubs and things and tweaks that just going upwards from this area. So I'm trying to get in some of these verticals that I see like that. While the paint is still wet, this is really the best time to do this. You can always go over the top of some of these little bits afterwards. But once it dries, you can't scratch out any more paints. So you have to, if you want to put in some of these highlights, just scratching out technique, you want to do it now. It's an interesting technique that I have been using quite a lot and I do use it a lot with this type of natural landscapes seem as well. Font works nicely to create extra texture. Sure you got all these softness in this scene. A bit of extra sketchiness and textures or you really just drawing. This knife. Seems funny, but that's what you're doing. Because we're not going to draw in every little strand of grass obviously, but you can get in some bits and pieces. Okay. Change the position of the knife as well, can use larger part of the blade. Some of these, some of this has already started to dry significantly. So a lot of this, if you miss it out, we can always go over the top with some gouache afterwards, so no problem. This gives you another sense of texture and another type of mark. And the more, you know, the varied Marty have on there, the more convincing your scene will look. In a sense, nature is filled with all kinds of textures. Blend of sharpened, sharp and soft edges. Some of this is already drawn. I can't really do much with that. Okay. Bit overboard with the right-hand side day with some of these branches and things reaching upwards. But I think it's worked just to get him some of this sharpness over there. So starting to dry off a little bit, I'm going to go over and continue working on this tree. Got some black, a bit of brown, black and brown mixed together. And that just going through and working on these little bits of the branches as well, I picked up a bit more water on there. It's using dry before that. It's putting a bit like that. And I just always have to remind myself to keep things loose. Don't overwork everything. It's the the trap. I think you fall into a lot of the time. And suddenly you've lost the magic of this scene. Of course, there's so much going on in here. I can only, I can only hope to achieve and replicate part of what I see. And also we can swap to another brush. In a moment. I just want to do my best to get in as much as I can with this smaller flat brush. The moment you switch to a really, really tiny brush like a rigor, I find that you can almost can always add too much detail and draw too much attention to an area. So I try my best to make sure I've got in the basic box on the page first and making sure that the tree has those larger. See I've started make those branches almost too thin already. But I'm just making sure that I've got those main areas of the tree, the main structure of the tree in darkness there. Oops, that should not be seen as dry. Problem. Enlarge that section. Like that. You can just see that house behind, they're still in the light. But further back. I can even get in a little touch of color. Underneath the roof top light here. There can be dual way of something in their black like that underneath the roof top, I could put in a little bit of color or don't want to overdo it. Just a tiny bit of shadow underneath like this. Let's just try it like this. Okay. These little windows or something like that as well, just just do imply nothing too detailed. I don't want to lose that magic. Nice softness that you're getting back there. Okay. Still playing around with this. We've also got some kind of tree here. Almost forgot about it, but there is a tree right there and it's sharp or as well, we've got a kind of something like this. Let me just trying to scratch out a bit of that paint. It's tricky though. I think I'll just have to do it afterwards, get a bit of Guassian and the side, but we do have a tree here and it just goes all the way up through the scene and disappears. Like this, something like that. And some little branches and things that come off it. I'm probably not going to put the leaves on the tree just to kind of stock are looking like this. Notice a lot of these trees actually here in the foreground. That tree anyway, it doesn't have any leaves on it. Some of these other ones, the back that you do see, bits and pieces. And again, we've lost a bit of that darkness out the back There as well. So I can just do this kind of thing and go back into it quickly and quickly dark and offer a bit like that to see some darker highlights. The highlights but darker bits here as well. These poles or whatever. Here I can just put in a bit of brown and a bit of black to darken off the right-hand side of some of these like little poles. Maybe a shadow in place, indication of a shadow here on the ground for some of them as well. Like that. This tree is going to have a shadow that's for sure like that. Simplify that down to touch. They're not really that you've got these, again, these little twigs and things here that just a tangled mess. Really. It looks I mean, it looks like a bit of a mess, but it's probably a smaller tree. But I want to put something going on here because we've got so much detail there. We need something to balance it out that I can even put in a tree here. Just a little thought I had running up like this. I think this will actually balance out the composition a bit better. Just the same, similar trees or the one you see on the left. They're just slightly larger version. And branches going up towards the sky, coming down like that. And another kind of shadow running to the right. This one's a bit sharper. It will dry, hopefully bit lighter as well. That looks a bit better. Just getting a bit more of that light on the edge of this tree. Like that. Just scratch off that paint on the page. Maybe do for this one as well. Oops. Sometimes it's tricky and you need to go through with some Gua Sha afterwards. I think I'll have to do that for most of these. Do some small shrubs and things growing here. And then before that area had dried off, hadn't dry it off completely so I can just scratch off a bit. Here while the paper is slightly damp. Just balance out some of those highlights. Here in the foreground like that. You'll notice as well near the front. Bits of grass and things get larger. We need for the foreground. So you're scrubbing a bit harder the front than you are at the back. I think that looks pretty decent for what we have. Just these little trees and stuff like that. I don't want to overwork it, but I will pick up a rigger brush now and work on the final finishing touches for the trees. So I've got a bit of black and a bit of brown mixed together on the rigor. And this is what I like to do, basically just go through and getting some small little indications for the branches. Okay. Kinda make some golf and an odd tangent as well so that it's not all the same stuff happening. This is tricky to do. But it's really, I think anyway, it's necessary to create variation. Little wispy bits and pieces. Again, I can't get everything from that reference photo in. This is just going to be a indication of what we see. All these little details. Once the reference photo was removed, will seem insignificant. But when we have the reference photo next to us, that's when it looks like every brushstroke makes a difference, which it does. But when we're talking about this level of detail, no one's gonna be able to tell the difference. I'm just drawing these branch off into the tube, then branch off maybe into another two, changes direction. Sometimes this tree needs a bit of work like that. It brands running towards the left, like that. Okay. Right. Like this. Quite a lot going on in there. See if I can get myself in some darker shrubs, darker green, and a bit of black. Just over the top of some of these areas. I want to pick up some more of these little bits of green leftover and just feather some of these scene because I want to just darken some of these a bit more and getting some kind of darker shrubs or something like that here. Look at that. Just a little app with brush strokes like this. And let this dry. It's going to look a bit more detailed and adds another layer of complexity. Just a quick look how quick this is. Just a few little brush strokes like this really makes a difference. And you can do it a few times, go over the top of it a few times as well. But I'm only just going to do it once. I'll get some over here as well. Get that full range, the full range of tones when you do this. Because we think we're just a bit light on the mid tones. Some of these, I can just feather sum of the mean and I think it will be useful as the shadow of the tree here. Even some browns might be good in here too. This is just texture. Dry brush texture over the top of all this stuff. Little bit of white gouache. Now, I've actually mix them up already with some yellow. And I'm going to work a bit on some highlights. Before we do that actually, I will just soften off some of these areas of the branches like picked up bit of water with these brushes, just a little round brush. And I'm just going to soften here. Just soft enough. This area where it joins on with light. Touch like that. Can even use a little towel like that. Deb off that paint. Filbert brushes are really good for this type of work. They're meant for me for scrubbing. But if you don't have one, a little round brush does the trick very well. Bit of water. That's all I'm using. Just a little bit of water. And I'm scrubbing and then lifting. Done too much, a little bit too much this or add in a bit more paint. Liftoff highlights all over the place. You can be phone off here. And over here. Bit of paint with water. I mean, like that. Scrub n, use that tau will lift off. Maybe here. Here. Here. You'd be amazed how all these little bits of scrubbing And things like that will actually help create extra detail in this scene. You'll notice afterwards, like I can even lift off see what she I'm just lifting off a branch. Like that. Made it kinda branch out a little bit off to the side there. Okay. Just by adding a bit of water into that area and shovel work on more as well. So more black in here. There we go. We've got another potential branch to the left. I'll draw that out using some gouache to soften here. Okay. Creating a bit of a softer balance between the light and the dark areas of the tree. I do want some sharper beats as well, mind you, so I'm just doing it to areas. This is probably not going to work there that just got too much scratching off done. Again, a bit of that white gouache, which I will mix with some yellow white gouache and mixed with a bit of yellow, create a kind of a lighter, lots of warm color. I'm going to test this out. Let's see how that looks not bad. Bit more of this golden color in there. Okay, And this is, this is what I'm doing. I'm just creating some more branches that look kind of highlighted. And k, It's tricky because this area is, we've got all these green in here. So it tends to mean even if you mix some yellow into it, you end up going into the end up going into the green. I'm trying my best to keep some of that yellow in. So you can see and just bring it around. Look at that little tiny highlights running it through. They're disappearing off to the side perhaps that, that, that you almost just catching onto some of these branches. You creating extra bits that are coming off as well. More yellow, golden color. A little bit of it on the left side of this tree, bit more of this golden ish color coming downwards like that. Soft and then the base more so in this darker area where the this will stand out, not even using the rigger brush. I don't want to spend too long in here. Okay. Put a bit of that on here as well in this fence or whatever, the background, just looks like there could be something there. Touch on the house. On the trees here. Tiny bit here on the left-hand side. Again, just to bring out some of the highlights. I don't want there to be too much in there though. Just a quick indication like that. See it takes a little bit of light in the left side of these branches. And suddenly you've got a better indication of these branches and details Okay. I'm just going to work and getting in some detail. So these flowers and what have you. So just, so you can see here, I'm picking out a bit more of this white color, white gouache, and there's already some other color mixed in it, a little bit of yellow as well. And I'm just trying to pick out some indications of these like little flowers. You can see them just on top of the stems and just, I don't know, you just have to find a stem that you've scratched out before. And then just dab a bit of a little bit of paint on the top like that. I try to keep make them face. Sometimes the flowers face a different way. And as well. If I have some more yellow as well or some more yellow perhaps. In this mix, I can just create some different colored ones. That's the slightly more yellow. Tricky yellow always just turns to green. In this mix. You've got so much of this stuff going on and you look at that just a little clumps of flowers just growing all over down the front. It becomes a little bit more messy and the flowers become larger. So sometimes the more randomized you do it, the more detailed it actually looks. But you can see how I've, I'm changing the size of some of the flowers as well. Some of them are bigger, some of them is smaller, as well as the direction of how some of them are facing. As well as you get to the background look, you just make them smaller, tiny ones and then more kind of just dispersing them a little bit as well. Creates a sense of depth in your scene. It will kind of like a yellowy green and that's tricky when you're using quash, yellow gouache. Just trying to get some more yellow in here, just a bit more of this orangey yellow color. See, look at that. That's a lot more yellow. The front you got bigger flowers. Look at that and you can just sort of go a bit more haphazard. In terms of your brush strokes. There. We need to balance it out and get some more on the right-hand side though, look some more here, a little. Brush strokes and things like that. Of course, you're getting closer to the front of the scene here as well, so you can put some larger ones in there as you go up. The kids, you're using these little stems that we painted before or scratched out before anyway, to just apply these pushes, clumps of flowers that here, here, here. Here as well. You move out towards the back, I'm just decreasing the size of them. I'm going to pick up bit of white gouache. Just squeeze out some more watts because of losing. Just losing some of the watts. Okay, this is just some normal white gouache. I've picked up a little bit of water in there, actually, just a touch of water that's already turned a different color. It's very tricky. Maybe, just to make sure once you're there you can eat, drop in a few more here. Can't really see too many of them out of the back. Few little clumps here and then dab, brush through, touch like this. We need because we've got more white. Now, these white flowers at the back, I'm going to just drop in a few more here in the foreground and you can make some bigger clumps of them like this, sort of grouped together as well. Look at that composition and try to spread them out. So you've got some different colors. Flowers, got these white ones, and you've also got the these yellowy looking ones as well next to them. Another bit here, for example, we just another clump of flowers. Too much. It more sharper highlight on these trees here. Just getting a bit of that color and blend that to the ground a bit like that. Okay. And I'll call that one done