Transcripts
1. Intro: Mini Watercolor Landscape Painting: Hi there, My name
is Cynthia as well. I'm an artist and
designer living just outside of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania with my husband
and our three daughters. My work is a blend of things, mostly a combination of
passion and skill sets. Currently I spend my
creative time making botanical and landscape
watercolor paintings and creating surface
designs for the home. I also help clients bring to light their own creative hopes, folds, ideas through branding, print, and web design. I've been painting with
watercolor for over 20 years now. And I have participated in Jared arches locally and
nationwide since 2005. I received my MFA in 2020 and has since taught
courses at a local university. Through my practice,
I've found that landscape painting is not
only really enjoyable, but it is an excellent way for me to enhance my
watercolors skills, practice composition,
and strengthened my creative intuition all while enjoying a beautiful view. I think you'll find
the same to be true. For this class project. We are creating a
mini landscape. First, we're going to gather our supplies and
some inspiration. I'll share with you my
favorite materials and how I like to capture
imagery from nature. Next, we'll review how
to set up your paper, create a composition, and begin painting from
top to bottom. I'll show you how to
take a short window of time and create a
finished work of art. And I'll give you a
sneak peek at how that can quickly turn
into a mini collection. To wrap up, we'll share
our work with the class. You're going to snap
a photo of the piece and share it in the
project gallery. This class was created for the nature letting
creators who are interested in enhancing
their watercolor skills in short windows of time. The tips reviewed
in this course are beneficial for composing lab, understanding the
watercolor medium, and building competence
as a creative. All you'll need to get
started as some masking tape, a ruler, watercolor paper, a pencil and eraser, watercolor set,
and a round brush, a cup of water,
and a paper towel. Let's get started
creating your own lives.
2. Class Project: Mini Watercolor Landscape Painting: For the class project, we're creating a mini landscape
painting in watercolor. I chose this project
as it allows you to complete a painting in
a short window of time. It also gives you the ability to practice your preferences, enhance your watercolor skills, and grow a mini collection. You'll get comfortable with
the medium while feeling like you've
accomplished something that you can be truly proud of. I suggest sketching a layout in advance before you
outline on a paper. There are erasers that you
can use on watercolor paper, but I recommend
keeping your outline like to set yourself
up for success. You'll want to choose
a vast landscape with a simple foreground. Feel free to use the composition I have crafted for this course. Put on your favorite playlist. And when you're stuck in
the middle of the piece, keep it behind your
only a few brushstrokes away from pure magic. I have always enjoyed looking
out over a vast landscape. It's something that
I use to seek out as a child and continue
to do that today. It gives me a sense of
possibility and create space for me to daydream while also grounding me in
the present moment. My goal is that you can get that experience by
creating the work. Let's gather our supplies,
references and sketches. Then we'll dive
right into composing your layout and putting
paint to paper. When you're finished
with this project, you'll snap a quick
photo using your phone or camera and share to
the project gallery. If you share it on social media, you use the hashtag, mini watercolor landscapes,
so we can show you some luck. Let's get started by gathering or supplies and inspiration.
3. Lesson 1: Gathering Supplies & Inspiration for Mini Landscape Painting: The first step we
are going to gather our supplies and
some inspiration. We'll get started by
reviewing the materials you will need in order
to complete this course. Then we'll prep your paper. Take a look at how
I find inspiration, layout the composition, and brush up on
your color palette. Let's go over the
class supply list. First, you're going to
need some masking tape. You'll want to grab a ruler. Next. You're going to grab
watercolor paper. You're going to
grab a pencil for lightly mapping out
your composition. Then you're going to
need a watercolor set and a palette if using tubes. So typically I use Winsor Newton professional
grade watercolors. For this course. I'm using the Winsor
Newton Cotman watercolor sketches pocket set. It has all of the
colors you would need. It's accessible and a
really good quality. I wanted to come alongside
you in this tutorial and use the materials that
I envision you would get. So that way you're getting a realistic example
of what's possible. The kit comes with
a tiny round brush that is excellent
for fine details. The one I'm using in this
course is size five, Winsor and Newton Series seven. You could also use Winsor
and Newton Cotman brushes and have a very similar result. Don't forget to grab
water and a paper towel. This sounds really silly, but I often use a mug
from my early childhood. This one features of rainbow
on it prominently and it takes me right back to
my earliest inspiration. I do think it's beneficial to surround yourself with
things that light you up. Good music and his candle. A sweet little reminders
of what brings you joy. If you want to get
precise lines and have the ability to frame
it seamlessly later. I recommend mapping out the space you'll use
and taping it off. The best way to do
this is to measure it. You'll want to keep
the marks pretty late with your pencil. In this demonstration,
I'm making a mini watercolor that's two-and-a-half inches by
two-and-a-half inches. And you can see this sheet
of paper is more like oblong or rectangular
than square. So what I do is actually line up a few squares next
to one another. And I do this for a
couple of reasons. One because I don't like
to waste paper, but two, because it allows
me to dip back and forth into multiple
things at one time, especially when I'm
waiting for one to dry. When you're making the
marks and measuring out the space for the masking tape. You want to make
sure that you're leaving space in between each square so that when
you trim the squares down, you're not having to
cut them, like flush. You want to make sure
there's extra space outside of the painted area for the mat and frame to
fit around the piece. That's really important. Also, you want to make sure
that when you're sticking the masking tape onto the paper
that is not super sticky. So there's a couple of, you can use regular masking
tape or you can also get masking tape that's specifically made for watercolor paper. I use both. And no matter what I'm using, I always just kinda
like stick it to my pant leg before
adhering it to the paper. That way it isn't a
sticky and it's much less likely to tear when you
pulled it off the paper. In this tutorial,
I'm using arches 140 pound Hot Press originally
from a watercolor block. Any hot press paper will work. Before we get started
laying out our composition, I just want to share with
you a few tips that I find really helpful when thinking
about landscape painting. So number one, I think that
it's really helpful to add layers of mountains or hills
to create depth and space. Not only does it help
create that space, but it also helps you play
around with the feeling of the time of day
or the season. Number two, I make
sure I leave room in the foreground to lead the
viewer into the piece. So I'm not just cutting them. Sure I'm giving
them space debris. Those are entering into
the piece. Number three. I'm avoiding placing the lines right in the center
of the composition. And actually with this piece that I'm doing in this class, you're going to see that I'm
very close to the center. And so I would recommend
maybe adjusting your line, even making it lower or
moving it up higher, just to see how
that plays around with the way the piece feels. So these are my tips and you are welcome to use
the exact composition I'm using for this piece. You can also gather inspiration from your
own local landscape. Or just simply play
around with how I'm, where I'm placing the lines. Maybe you place them in a
slightly different locations. Depending on your level
of comfortability, you might want to sketch out a couple potential landscapes before you even put a mark
on the watercolor paper. The thing about
watercolor paper is you don't want to be
erasing on it a lot. So you wanna make
sure that when you do take the pencil to the paper, you're doing it really lightly. And if you do end up
erasing that you have the proper eraser in order to make sure that you don't
actually tear the paper. So make sure that you're not pressing really hard and make sure that you have
the right eraser if you are planning on erasing. And like I said, if you're
not really comfortable sketching or if you're not comfortable with your
composition skills. I would lay out a
couple of sketches on just like regular
sketch paper or notebook paper at a time
just to get the feel for a lab before
you get started. Once you have one solid layout, you're going to want to quickly lay out another one or two, just so you have another piece that you can work on while you're waiting
for the paint to dry. For the final step
in this lesson, we're just going to get
to know the colors that you have that you're
working with. So like I said, I'm using the Cotman
watercolors, Skechers pockets. But no matter which
set you're using, you'll want to just
grab your water, grab your brush and go through and just a little
bit of water and dab it into the paint and find a clean spot that's
not going to interfere with the area you
have marked for your painting and just
get to know your colors. So put each one of them out. You can also mix them together in-between if you wanted to see what happens when you
blend a couple of colors, we're definitely
going to be using multiple colors together
throughout the painting. But this is just a good way to kinda like get your feet wet and see what you're working with before you even
dive into painting. You might be thinking
this is a lot of setup and you're right, it is, there are a lot of little steps to get
set up properly. But the reason that
we're doing this is so that when
you get finished, you have a little work of art that you can be
really proud of. And also, it's just a good way to set yourself up for success. So that's basically
why we do it. And I honestly didn't
even realize it was this many steps until I walked
through the tutorial, the share it with you
to share my process. In this lesson, we reviewed
how to gather our supplies, prep our paper by measuring and taping and mapping
out the composition, and then getting to
know your colors. Alright, we're ready to
move on to the next step. We're gonna get started
with our painting.
4. Lesson 2: Watercolor Skies—Creating Washes & Color Tips: In lesson two, we're going to walk through painting the sky. We're going to start
by using the wet on wet technique using cerulean blue or its equivalent slowly build this guy by
using watercolor washes. I like to layer these in so that I can have
more control over the intensity of the blue versus adding a lot
of pigment at once. This is a style preference and I encourage you to do what
feels natural to you. You'll want to work
from top to bottom, left to right if
you're right-handed or top to bottom, right to left. If you're left-handed,
mostly this will prevent your hand from contacting
a wet part of the paper. In this lesson,
we're going to do the sky and we're going
to work on all three that I have on the sheet so
that I can share with you a few tips and techniques depending
on the time of day or if you have a cloudy
sky or an overcast day, then we're going to
let them all dry before moving onto
the landscape. In the left sky, I'm
creating a clear blue sky. In the center, I'm adding a
few clouds and on the right, I'm creating an overcast fuel. When you have a clear blue sky, it's simply adding water to the entire sky area and then building in pigment to get
the color you're looking for. For the center cloudy sky, I'm making sure to
leave the areas of the paper white where
the clouds will be. Working around that to
create a wash of color. For highlights, you'll be
using the white of your paper. The beauty of working
so small as that you don't have to worry about
getting a large wash, correct? And you can focus
on understanding how the median works
at a small scale. Finally, for the third
sky, more or less, using wet on dry and starting to build
with civilian blue, making the white areas smallest towards the horizon line to
create the feeling of depth. And then I'll go back in with colors I use to make shadows on, on top of the wet areas
and start to build and shadows to create the
feeling of an overcast day. For your shadows,
you'll want a deep red, a darker blue, and a
brown or a burnt sienna. The blend of these
colors create a rich, realistic, shadowy color. Going back into our
clear blue sky. Now that I have a ground
color to work from, I'm going to add more civilian blue pigment with a wet brush. Often I'll dab my brush
on the paper towel before touching the paper to ensure
the pigment is not too rich. I'll also add more water if I think there's
too much pigment. It allows me to
have more control over the final
appearance of the piece. To finish off this look, I'll add a hint of darker
blue towards the top, again, giving that
feeling of depth. In this case, I'm using
ultramarine blue. I'm also going to add
a tiny hint of yellow towards the bottom
By the horizon line. For this demonstration, I'm
using the lemon yellow hue. Again, I'm going to do another
field of civilian blue and the center to enhance
the color of the sky. I liked the way the overcast
day is starting to feel. But I want to soften it
and make the white lesson tense by using the white
color and my color palette. Chinese way. I won't
often use white paint, but this is a good example
of what I like to use it. I prefer the bright whites
of the paper versus the muddied look that you can
have by using white paint. To soften it further, I'm going to take
a clean area of my paper towel and
dab it into the sky. By doing this, I'm
softening my lines and pulling a little pigment
back off the paper. I'm going to finish
this off by going back into each with
another bit of blue and adding a little shadows toward the bottom of the
clouds with the red, blue, brown combo
I shared earlier. Now that you've created
a wash of color for your sky or multiple size, you should have one that you are ready to
move forward with. Next up, we're going to get started on the actual landscape.
5. Lesson 3: Color Blocking Techniques using Watercolor Paint: As you can see, I have a little mini landscape
here that I've already completed using
this color palette. And you can see really clearly
that there are fields of color that represents sort of
like the rolling landscape. So the way that I'm going
to start this off is by sectioning those landscapes, those different hills, by creating fields
of color for each. I'm not gonna go right in
with the darkest pigment. I'm going to layer it. I won't start right
up by the top. The part that's right
hitting the sky because the sky is actually
still slightly wet. So I'm going to move to the next section and
lay that color out. So when it comes to landscapes, I really encourage
you to look at images and also just take in the local landscape and see how the horizon line
changes throughout the day, throughout the time of the year. And also depending on
where you're positioned, I know that there are going to, there's always going to be this bright warmth
to this landscapes. So I'm going to
start by laying down the lighter greens and yellows and build
up on top of that. And because I'm
creating this kind of like road farmland feel
like rows of crops. I'm going to make sure that I'm, even though I'm going to probably whole foreground
will be green, I'm going to create these fields of color
in-between the rows of crops. So basically what I'm
doing is color blocking. So if you were doing that, you're thinking of your
landscape in shapes. And each shape is essentially
getting its own wash at this point and giving
it that ground allows us to start to see how
it's going to form. And then also give the color and a place for
us to continue to build on. As I mentioned, you want to
create these fields of color, but I also think it's
really important to add different colors in it. And also be thinking about how those gradients when you're squinting and
looking at it, a landscape. And so I, I'm gonna have sort of like the center
of the piece be the darkest. So even in these rows of crops, I'm going to be putting
multiple greens. You could even add some blues
depending on the time of day you're trying to achieve or the time of the
year for this. Like I said, it's gonna be a
summer, midday summer scene. And so I'm trying to create
the feeling of warmth, heat, and maybe even a
little bit of dryness. In the farther rolling hills. I'm going to add in some brown hues similar to what I have here in
this finished piece. And then I'm also going to create kind of
like in the middle, in the middle ground. I'm going to make sure
that that's probably the darkest part
of the painting. So the reason to do this
is because if you were to actually see a landscape
like this in real life, it would be what's
in the foreground. You would see the most detail, and some of them would
probably be the brightest. Again, this is going to depend
on the time of the day. Then in the middle ground depends on how far
you're looking out. Like if you're not
looking that far out, if you can't see
a vast landscape, you might, the farthest that you see might be
the darkest point. But if you are seeing rolling hills going out
and like a vast landscape, you're going to see
that they start to feed and they look lighter. And so in this piece, I'm making it seem like it's mid day, it's summer, it's hot. Using some like browns and yellows and those rolling hills that are the farthest out. But if you were to paint
maybe like a dusk, it could even be some sunlight, reds and blues, purples to make it feel
like the sun's setting. But making sure that those far away hills are the lightest in terms of the landscape to create
that feeling of depth. Then I'm gonna go back in and fill in the darkest parts of the painting to
actually start to bring this to life and to show quickly what is going to
appear, dark and light. Then that again gives me a ground to move on
to the next stage, which is bringing in the detail. The final tip I want
to share with you for this color blocking is really just something
that I would really, it's easy for me
to forget to tell you that you need to dance
around the painting. So when you're working
with watercolor, when the paper is
wet, if you touch, if you touch the field
of color that you just worked on and you're
in a new field of color, it's going to bleed
into that in this time, in this part of the painting. It's not that big of a
deal if that happens. And sometimes, and sometimes it can actually be a
happy accident. But a lot of times it can cause the color to change or the feeling of
the painting to change. So you just want to be aware of this and
sort of go back and forth and make sure that when you're putting in darker colors, that you're not putting that in, in an area where there's
a wet nose wet paper. So you want to make
sure each area dries. You can use a hairdryer or something like
that to dry out. Or if it's like a sunny
day, you can just take it outside for five-minutes
and it will dry. But I naturally dance through the painting and I
didn't want to forget to tell you that because you
really need to be aware of how as you're painting
each field of color, allow it to dry in-between. You're going to have
the other field, it's right next to
it, bleed into it. So just something I wanted to mention and
for you to keep in mind as you're finishing
the color blocking.
6. Lesson 4: Achieving Detail in Watercolor & Finishing Your Mini Landscape: In this final lesson, we're going to walk through
adding the final layers of detail into your piece and how to know
when it's complete. It's really more of
an intuitive sense, but I'll do the best to convey how I decided
something's completed. And while I'm waiting for
this fields of color to dry, I'm going to dip into
the second composition and start to block out some
of the fields of color. This one. And the reason I'm
showing you this is because I want you to realize
that it's good. Why it's good to have a
second piece with you. Because it gives you
another opportunity to work on another painting
and complete that painting, or at least get it started while you're waiting for
the other one to dry. So I've laid in the
lights and the darks. And I'm going to
decide basically, if I want to add in more fields of color
or just tiny details, I'm actually going to use the
tiny brush that came with this kit for the fine lines. But you can also
actually just use the, the same brush that I've
been using the whole time because it does have a
very fine tip at the end. The brush that I've
been using all along is just a series seven
brush number five. And that's a Winsor
Newton brush. And it has the ability to get
super fine details as well. So at this point, I'm still going to build, build on the values by
adding in color blocking. And then to finish it off, I'm just going to add in
fine lines and shadows. So for instance, right after, right beyond the field
that I have as like the I'm agricultural
field or the farmland. There is a row of trees. And if you were looking at
a landscape in real life, you would see a shadow
underneath the branches. So I'm going to lay that
in to create the feeling of that it makes it look like it is a row
of trees actually, and there's some depth
to it and textures. Then I'm going to go
into each of the rows of whatever agricultural plan it
is and give it a shadow as well by just adding
in the shadow colors, but then also some
darker greens and blues and the shadow colors
that I went over earlier. So the red, the blue and the
brown or the burnt sienna. Then taking the greens I have in mixing them
with the yellows and adding in some lines to create the feeling of grass in-between the rows of plants. And then also just kinda
looking at that and seeing, okay, Does this feel complete? And so one of the things
that helps this type of painting field complete
is really adding in enough detail in the foreground
to make it come to life. Like if it's all flat, it just kinda gives the
feeling of an impression. And it can feel flat
and it's not finished. Whereas if you give enough
texture in the foreground, It's really going to
start to come alive. This is where the dance of the painting and the fields
of color is going to come back into play because
you might decide to lay in another layer of the sky just to brighten
it up because it might not be feeling as though
it's complete or finished. Or now that there's so much
detail in the foreground, this guy is just too light and it feels almost
like not realistic. It doesn't have to
feel realistic, but it doesn't feel like it takes away from the atmosphere, the vast view that
we're trying to create. And so laying in another
wash over top of this guys, this is a good time for that. And then kinda like
taking your piece and adding little tiny
dots and things. Lecture is really going to
help to bring into life. Turning it all the way upside down and taking a look at it that way and maybe adding
in a little bit more color. You can also turn it upside down throughout the life
of the painting. What? To avoid the paper? With your arm, your hand, if you're trying to work on the opposite side
of the painting, but you really want
to avoid the paper, you just turn it around. Then what I want
you to do is just take a step back
from it and look at it and see like squint, does it look does it
feel like it's right? If there's something
that doesn't feel right, go back in, add another
layer of detail. Or it could be that The
the middle grounds are too dark or too light and
you can always add in a layer of wet, just water and pull some
of the pigment off by dabbing it with
your paper towel or doing the opposite and
adding pigment in. And then maybe the
final step would be to bridge the gap between the foreground and
the background. Maybe adding in a little
tiny bit of detail in those second middle layers to make them come
to life as well. So I hope you had fun with this. I think that there are so many possibilities once you
get comfortable with this, it is a way to really
enjoy and our n degree, it's something that's just a
beautiful little thing that you can hang up in your
house that you can sell, that you can give as a
guest for others to enjoy. And I think it's just a
great way to spend an hour. And I hope that
you enjoyed this. For our final step. We're going to share your work.
7. Conclusion: Share Your Mini Watercolor Landscape : Today we love to gathering
our supplies and inspiration, crafting and composition, getting comfortable
with our color palette, building washes for this guy. Mapping fields of color, dancing in the composition, adding layers of detail by enhancing with additional
fields of color, and by using wet on
dry with a fine brush, building in details and
texture in the foreground. Finally, we looked at how to
know when we're finished. I love sharing my mini watercolor
landscape process with you. And I hope you enjoyed creating these values alongside me. Let's wrap up by
snapping a photo of the piece and sharing
it in the project gallery. Try positioning your
artwork nearby window using natural light and
capture it with your phone. Once you have an image,
you're happy with. Post it to the project gallery. And if you share it
on social media, use the hashtag, mini
watercolor landscape. So we can follow along with you for more on
watercolor techniques, painting with intuition
and to understand how basic design principles can
influence your composition. Take my watercolor
by design class. Thanks for joining me today. It's been so fun to
share a process that has brought me so much joy and
feeling of accomplishment. As a mom of two littles. It is so satisfying to start
and finish a painting in one sitting all while
enjoying a beautiful view. I find the process
so grounding and I sincerely wish that
for you as well.
Cynthia Oswald, Artist & Designer
