New York City Urban Landscape in Watercolour

1. Introduction: Welcome. In this class, we'll be painting New York in watercolor. Learning how to capture and urban 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 and expressive paintings on the go. Urban landscapes can be confusing to paint with so much going on and an overload of detail, it can often get lost in our paintings. In this class, I'll show you how to paint any urban landscape easily by using layering techniques and understanding light and shadow. Planning is crucial. I'll show you how to draw and simplify buildings, figures, cars, and shadows. Getting those large components inaccurately beforehand is essential for your painting to make sense. So join me in this class. You'll see just how easy it is to create these amazing urban landscape in no time at all. 2. Materials Required: I want to talk a bit about materials for this class. Firstly, we'll start with the colors. Now if we'd look at the main colors that we've got here, we've got cool and warm colors now, warm colors are basically just anything that go along this yellowy, red, orangey color spectrum. So here the buildings in the background, this is all just a bit of yellow ochre back there. It's not too vibrant though. I do put in a little bit of this hansa yellow as well in some areas. So sometimes that will just draw out some extra saturation and creates more contrast or an area of interests to look at. But I don't do it to all areas. So that's basically just yellow. You get a bit here on the left-hand side as well. This yellow ocher, not too saturated. Now in the sky, I've just gotten a little bit of cerulean blue and also a tiny bit of cobalt turquoise. But cerulean blue is usually the best way to go. Just use a bit of that, very much watered down and you can get in this effect, it should be the lightest color that you have in the sky. I've dropped in a bit more here as well, just to create some contrasts in the sky and make it look like there's some clouds in there. And in terms of all the shadows that we have, lot of these darker colors. So we've got some purples in here. I've also got some black mixed in there. A little bit of brown or fine that purple, blue, and brown mixed creates a nice shadow color, can also use neutral tint. I've got a bit of that here, which is just a pre-mixed gray. And if you don't have a neutral tint, you can just mix up your in grace. If you use yellow, red, and blue mixed together, that creates a really nice gray as well. You can create either warmer or you can create cooler grace. So essentially what I've used there and the same with that shadow there in the back of just watered down that gray. And here in the cars It's the same color as well, just darkened. Now you notice this tiny little highlights here and here. And that's because I've used a bit of white gouache and this is a bottle of it here. It's basically a tube that I got a couple of years ago in fact, and it's lasted me quite a, quite a long time. And then it's opaque watercolor. So what that means is once you've finished with the painting at the end, you can actually bring out some small little highlights and the figures on the buildings, things like there, but just dabbing the brush in some of that gouache. I don't even put any water in it. Just wipe it off on a cloth and then just use that to dry brush top of areas. So that's about it for colors. In terms of brushes. Over on the right, I've got these watercolor brushes. They look a bit different because they have these belly, large bellied areas so they can pick up a lot of water. So they're great for getting in areas like the clouds, the sky, the ground, largest shadows this whole area there. Even, even the light on those buildings that you do all at once and the first wash, fantastic. It also allows you to cut around areas because it's got a nice tip. So I've got a few different sizes here. You just need to pick ones that are large enough for the paper that you're using. You don't want them to be too small, but you don't want them to be gigantic and that you'd losing control of some of these areas of the sky starts mixing into the buildings. So I tend to use these three. They work for a three sheets of paper and also A4 sheets of paper. And here are a couple of other brushes. These are kinda detailing brushes I use. So you can see in the Windows, figures, some of the cars detailing in the streets and things like that. I've got these two here, which is basically a synthetic round brush, number six. And then on the right, a one-quarter flat brush with a angled edge. As you can see, there can sometimes be good handy to get in windows width. In terms of paper, I'm using 100% cotton watercolor paper. Now this paper has a medium, rough texture. If you've got cold press or medium, that's completely fine. Rough is a paper that I use. Sometimes just make sure that the paper you're using has some type of texture on it, whether it's cotton watercolor paper, or whether it's cellulose or just unlabeled watercolor paper, a bit of texture goes a long way because you can create some amazing granulation if affects as it dries nicely, gives you more time to work in as well, you can get in these little bits of highlights. And when you move in that brush really quickly, it skips over areas of the paper juicer that texture. You don't get that with hot press watercolor paper. Trying to get a cotton watercolor paper if possible. But again, I think the texture is something that you want to aim for. And with cotton paper, it just takes a little bit longer to dry, which means you have more time to work. Often cotton papers are much better quality as well. So something to consider. A couple of miscellaneous bits and pieces. This is a little water tub here, it's one liter. So I fill that up right to the top and then you can use that entire tub when you paint. I also keep a rag on the side or just a small tau and that allows me to dry my brush, modify the amount of paint on my brush while I paint. 3. Drawing: Okay, we will be getting started with the drawing. And what I wanna do is firstly mark out where the ground is. So we want to look really at the reference photo very carefully. We want to find out whereabouts. Do the buildings actually finished? So if we have a look at, say it's about here. So it's not really a quarter. You could say about a quarter of the way or just less than a quarter of the way through the scene. Okay. Of course, we can raise it up a little bit if we want, but I'm just going to draw it in roughly about here. And one of the things I've done with this reference photo, I've already cropped it. In fact, this was a portrait style orientation and I cut it down so that it was more of this landscape style orientation for the bit of paper that we're using. So as a consequences, building here has been cut and you can sort of see a bit of the top of it missing. So we're going to actually do something. I'm going to change it lap and just sort of make it fit in to the scene a little bit more. But before we get into that, let's firstly think about the light source. Now, if we look all the way into the distance, we can see a lot of the buildings are eliminated just from the side. You can see there's a bit of shadow behind, just in front of this large building in the center. You can see with this building, just to the center, left there is a large shadow falling in front. So a lot of the light really is coming from behind the scene and it's casting a shadow almost directly behind. So even if you look at the cars, the shadow falls just behind the car, almost like above and behind. So still coming from above. But it's sun perhaps starting to go down very slightly. So we want to keep that in mind for the painting. So let's go ahead. And Firstly, I think probably the easiest thing to do would be to start with this larger sort of building. And I'm going to just estimate. We know that the center of the scene as roughly here. There's the center. And of course you've got this truck here. There's like a rectangular truck off in the distance and I'm just going to put a quick little rectangle there, something like that. But all the way in the distance we actually have little buildings and bits and pieces off in the distance. Very difficult to see. But as we get closer, we actually start getting more and more of these larger buildings and this one here, especially if we just draw this one up a little bit. It's actually the one chest isn't if you look just at this large building that goes out of the scene, there's one just to the right of it juts out like that. I mean, it's just above the center part of the page, so like this going down. Okay. And I'm just estimating for the time being. I'm not exactly and I'm committing to that line yet. So I'm going to bring this line down for this large building. All the way down to the grounds for roughly about here. Okay. I'm gonna just start putting in the top of the building. I can't quite see it. And this is going to be almost like a bit of a silhouette here. There, okay? Something like this. You can sort of see the top of it come up like that detail that a little bit more. And of course, this is going to be more of a silhouette. I don't want to make everything to detail in this building. Dan, mainly just the general general structure of it. We know the front of the building kinda comes down like this and you can see that right-hand side of it. Then you've got some of these windows down the side of the building. Comes down here like that. Okay, fantastic. Of course you got this one here and then we can get into sort of the building. Remember, we're just drawing boxes and this is like a box just sitting on its side like that. Something simple like this. And not only that, we've got another one here in front. Here, just another box. Yeah. This one is kind of more in front. Like that. Disappears off into the background. As you move off into the distance, you find that there's less and less detail. That's really quiet. It's just buildings gets smaller and smaller. All of this stuff is going to be more of a silhouette. Let's move over to the left-hand side. Now we've got this building just cutting through and I'm changing again, just changing this up a touch as well. And one thing I want to just do is maybe reduce the size of this building slightly. And this one as well, just to make Make sure that this building is in proportion to everything behind it. So I've reduced it down to fit it in here. So we don't want these other buildings to be dominating, going to fire up because that will make it appear smaller. Another building here, look at that just popping out this side and then there's the edge a bit like this. Okay. This one here, Let's just again reduced it down. Like this. Yeah. Okay. Bits and pieces. So it's almost like if we're looking back at the scene a bit further from a distance, and I'm going to stop putting in some little guiding lines, like they're okay. Then we can have one line kind of going out like that just to show the directionality for this road going off into the distance like that. Okay? Something like this is fine. And we do have another bit, another vanishing point almost here as well. So I'm just going to draw another line here. Coming out, a few lines coming out from that point. You pick a point all the way in the horizon and then you draw the lines emanating from that point. Okay, like that. And let's have a look. What do we have here? We do have another building behind perhaps there, a lot of this stuff we can just simplify down and it doesn't even need to be so obvious for late. I'm just going to reduce that down a bit because some of these buildings have been stretched to the side as well. But then of course we've got this building here, larger one off to the side. Like that. There's another one in front. I think the important thing is to get in a bit of the side of the building. So you can see here just this little sliver of light coming onto the side of the building. It's really important to make sure you have that indication there. Okay. Now, I'm not trying to get in all the little details on there, but I'm trying to make sure that we have the at least the side of the building in there because that light coming off the side of the building is really going to make a difference once we get in the rest of the details. Okay. So do spend a bit of time on the drawing. Not all day, but enough time to make sure that I've got some details and bits and pieces. And I'm using this reference as a guide. I'm not trying to replicate it exactly, but you can see where I'm drawing that reference from. There is also some kind of traffic sign here right in the front. Like they are. I thought I'd just stick this in somewhere here. It's coming out of the scene. This would be a cool little thing to put in the foreground. Some something here. There is a traffic, Rhode Island here or something like that. So you can see just coming. I'm just trying to get that. Maybe you get that vanishing point in about here instead. Okay, there we go. And over here, we've got some shrubs. It looks like a row of row of the little pod plants just overlap with each other. Like that. Something like this. And then we've got some bits and pieces here. I'm going to simplify that down a bit. I don't want to add too much detail in here. But of course as well. I'm going to actually add in some figures, maybe just walking in this direction. Bits and pieces off your lot of this stuff will be in the dark, so it's kinda just left the imagination. But let me just getting a few more of these little squares just to make it look like this area is representative of what we've drawn in there. Okay. And these figures in the back as well. I do want to see if I can get in some of the shadows for these for these buildings. Let's have a look. This is the truck that we kinda penciled in before. Let's get into this other truck directly behind it. It's like a pickup truck here. Just a box squarish like shape there. And we've got some Thai is there joined up at the base? There we go. That's some kind of a car or a truck. He's another one just next door to it, the one closest to us. Couple of tail lights, so they're bits there underneath the bottom of that car. Two wheels here. We've got another car. We've got another car Turning. We've got the windscreen kind of facing that the right side of the road and then we've got the back of that cost. So to jutting out there like that bit of the side would section of the car and then the front of it coming out there. We'll hear wheel here. And of course a wheel back there as well. There we have it. We got another car, just more on its side and going into the scene, we've got a truck or something here. Let's get this trucking boxy shape. Here's a window like that. He's a little exhaust pipe or whatever for the for this truck. Difficult to see exactly what's going on here, but this large wheel is going to help indicate what we have in there. It's truck. And we can just make it go all the way back kind of thing. And you can see in the distance as well, there are these little shop fronts and things like that. Let's firstly getting the silhouette of buildings over there on the distance. And I'm just inquiry loose with the, with how I'm drawing them as well. I, I wanna get to this point where I'm doing this. What do you call it, this tower, this large tower. I think this is a nice feature that I want to emphasize better. Like that. Place it. Where should I place it? Well, it's kinda closer. So I'm just in the middle. So it's in the middle, like here. Okay. So let me, let me figure this one out. I can put it here and get the side of it coming in like this. Here we go, come downwards. The side of this looks like an important sort of building. Their little floors of it in the top of it. Again, I'm just going to simplify down, put in the different floors of course, the top just becomes kinda like a square and then dome sticking out. Ron on the top. Okay, little dome like this. Here we have it going up into the sky. There. We have it that in getting this side of the building here. Now the building, I mean, like there I'm just going to emphasize, re-emphasize the side of this tower with the dome on it. It's gonna be a bit more work required. We've got the main planning side of that building that we're in the middle of doing this one, which is again a side of another building that's slither of a building like that. Okay. Right of that tower. And I'm going to just move that across like this. Okay, here we go. Bits and pieces at the top of the buildings assumption a billboard or something like that there. And notice that on the bottom area we've got these like sign boards. As you can see, they're just stick out from the buildings and these are excellent at just making the scene look a bit more three-dimensional. We haven't some lines and things, jot them down and I'll put in a few bits and pieces and stuff in the background. Once we actually get the painting, we have a lot of wiggle room to play around in here. Okay, there's another one just about here. There we have it. It's very close to us so you can't see too much of what exactly is going on. And of course, we've got this really large, large building here on the right. That's one of the closest floor to adjust to us like that. Then we will bring this all the way up. Now, we have a lot of detail that we've managed to get in here. Still a little bit more left for this side of the scene. And again, just these kind of buildings that we're putting in like that just to get the side and impression of the side of it. They just get smaller and smaller off into the distance until you can barely see what exactly is going on back there. You want it to look like that as well. You don't want it to have too much detail back there so that it overwhelms. The viewer. Just helps to create that sense of depth. If you've got less detail back there, you know, there is some cost, some overlapping cars perhaps in the distance. We might have a person here that's just decided to walk cross the scene there. It could have could have another person perhaps here walking in front of this truck, Something like that. Okay. That's a two people walking across the road. And then you could have another one. Just I'm thinking I might actually leave this one out. I like that because I like a car there. Close to just going over the top of it, but we should just going to leave that. We'll get a bit of a shadow for that car thing, perhaps one here. Actually keep that in there or not. I don't know what we think about it. Some figures over here off in the distance, perhaps. And this is, this was meant to be a truck, just a rectangle off there. So I'm going to just finish that off, get that rectangle in outline, this top of the car bit better there as well. Got all these figures just all behind this scene here. And it makes me wonder whether I want to just put one over the top like this. Okay. Standing in this area in front, ready to cross the road or something like that. Another figure, perhaps over here, and k just obscured by these pots or what have you. Now the figure there, I like to make it look like they are walking in the distance. I know how you do that is basically you put the head slanted in the direction that they're walking. Okay. There's one that's one back there. You could have another figure over here. Another one here that's just almost behind that car or something like that. So the head position is really important to imply the direction that these figures are walking in. Some direction lines for this building. And look, I mean, there's really just lots of windows in there. But I think that should be good to get started now. 4. Painting the Light: Alright, let's get started with the painting. I'm gonna be using a bunch of these mop brushes and a smaller mop brushes, but they look, they pick up a lot of paint. And also I've got a larger mop brush. I think that should be helpful as well. And I'll move my palette just a little bit closer. You can see the edge of what I am painting and tens of my palette. So let's get started. The first thing I wanna do is getting that sense of light over the top of all the buildings. And we're going to paint this roughly in two washes. The first wash with painting all the light and then the second wash. We're going to paint all the shadows all at once. So let's think what should we do? Let's go firstly, on the building's going to pick up some warmer color. I've got also some a bit of this white, buff, titanium white. And some of these buildings such as this one here that has this kind of off-white color. Same with this larger, this tower over here as well. So you can go ahead and get in bits of this. First. Because I know later if we try to just put it in, it's going to be difficult. We want to get an older the lightest colors first. I didn't like that. Simple. What you can do is also go over the top. Later. You don't have to keep that color through the whole scene. So e.g. we've got an output a bit here. We might put a bit of it here, in here. A lot of the time, it doesn't matter a whole lot. It's just that we have to create a sense of lot through this scene. And I might pick up, say, a bit of brown, could put that in here for this building, little bit of that color. It's just a bit of tiny little bit of brown. And then maybe I've got some burnt sienna. Well, just in the corner down here that I could use. Burnt sienna. Okay. Spread that through like that. They're there. Okay. Still very light colors mind, you're not trying to get in any significant dark areas more just these lots of parts of this building is a truss shrine and get into more of a brownish color. But as we moved closer down to the page, you'll notice it's very, very broad. There's not much that we want to employ in here. I mean, here down the bottom, this is what I like to do sometimes putting a bit of vibrancy in parts of the buildings like that. But you don't wanna do it too much. Here we go, just cutting around these cars and the figures as well like that. You know what, if you go over them, it's not a big deal. Something like this. It's all just warm colors. Warm colors. And creating this all in one big wash. It's important to do it all at once. And the buildings all the way in the background, they kinda just blend into one. And here I'm just going to create more shape for that building. As we move into this building through the center, I'm picking up a little more brown, dropping it in there. Got some of this yellow ocher. It's very, very light. This whole wash is basically 80 to 90% water, and the rest of it is painted with very, very little paint. You want to keep it as light as you can. It's color that entire building in same with this one here. Remember, we're just painting the light first over here when things, things, so to get a bit tricky, we've got trees, these little Which, which you call them reports here at the base as well. I can pick up bit of brown, maybe just dropping a bit of that with a bit of the yellow, yellow, and brown together to create some of these little pot. Like a fix here. Okay, for the plants. Simple, simplified down. Of course. And I wanted to just bring all this light down the page, a bit more of this warmer color. This is just a bit of that same milky color that I've used up the top, cutting around the cars as well. Like this. We're adding a bit more colorful them later, but I don't want to just go over them entirely just yet. Now we've got it. We've just got this nice soft light area in the ground. Mostly water. Of course, if all these pot plants and stuff here and even these buildings, we've got some of these warmer and lighter color here as well. A bit more brown, little bit of that brown burnt sienna floating through in there like that, like that. Tiny bit of even a little bit of coolness back there might be helpful, just a slight coolness off in the distance. I'll just add that in like this. And the rest of it can just be warmed up like that. All the figures, I'll just cut over the top. I'll bring down, get that same light wash in there. We've also got some of these plants and things. I'm just going to add in a little bit of this green, a little bit of green and then just mix it in. In the distance. Some soft greens. Tons of getting the sky. Oops, forgotten to get this top part of the building. I'm just going to quickly call that in. And we'll get in the sky with, Let's have a look. And I'll use some cerulean blue, but also mix it down a bit, just gray it down a touch as well. I don't want it to be too vibrant, okay. Like that, but definitely more on the bluish end. Like this. Tiny bit of teal is drop this into the sky a little bit more, just a cool color. I want a quick wash of this. If you can leave a bit of white, perhaps in there for some clouds, this will be nice, just some of this. You can see tiny little bit of light in there in the sky, the sharp edges, which might indicate like a lighter cloud or something like that. There. You leave off bits. Some darker ones, darker bits of blue. I'm running through. As we move downwards, I'm just going to add more water. Try to blend, touch onto the buildings as well. A little bit of this softness joining onto the buildings. Don't be afraid to leave a bit of white. And this guy, as I'm doing here, just having a look. Do I think that looks pretty good. That might draw some attention to that section as well. Moving to the left. Okay, just more. This guy wash their tend to make the top of it, top of this scene a little darker than the rest of it. Normally. Top of the landscape indicates the sky that's closest to you. So it's always going to appear bit darker. So I'll use a bit more paint in that section. That brush skip over the surface of the paper. As you can see that here. Bring this down, cross here, here, here. And there. I'm just joining this all up with the buildings. So there we have it. We've got the first washing. And what we'll do is we will draw this off slightly and continue on and finish this off putting in the shadows everything else. But before I get in that, firstly, putting some finishing touches, little, just a little bit of color. Maybe for the cars and we'll put it in, it's just a little bit of colorful figures. So I'll put in a little blue for this one. This little blue. Maybe a little blue for this one as well. This is kinda like a lilac color. Change it up a bit like that. But if something here, maybe like a warmer color for this figure, this while the paint, the paper is still wet touch of that color in there. Okay. So lots to do with afterwards is no big rush. Okay. Let's give this a little dry. 5. Painting the Shadows: Okay, time for the next step. And what I'll be using a combination of brushes. I'm going to be using a small round brush. Here, small round brush and a small mop brush. And what brush and the round brush will be combined. You can use them basically to detail. And the mop brushes picks up a little bit more paint. Just having a look around to see. We're gonna do it and you're going to try to simplify this down. We're trying to get the shadows and all the darker colors inch all at once. So I'm going to start, I'm going to start at the back. Let's pick up a bit of yellow. Mix, a bit of this darker color in here, just a bit of gray that I've got left on the palette from the four tiny bit of this green. It's not really green, but it's like bluish black color, maybe a bit of brown and there would be good to talk a little bit more blue. I want it to be cooler. Blue, ultramarine. So start off back here and let's just paint that in very lightly. Like this. More water. Just testing to start out with. They're going to pick up a bit of, just a bit more of this teal color, drop it in there to soften off that background touch. And I'm gonna get a bit of detail of those Background Buildings quickly. Okay, not too much effort. They're just a quick little squeezing. I'm trying to figure out the lowest amount of paint that I need to use here. Just to get in some of these bits and pieces. Building there, e.g. that could be another part of a building. You're just imagining details, the edges, the sides of those buildings here you can see that just a bit of that lot catching on the edge of that building, they're here, e.g. this could be a part of that edge of the building. As we start moving backwards, you're going to find that there is more darkness on the buildings. So I can just add e.g. going in through this one. Putting anybody to color more blue, some purple is great too. I love using purple for building shadows. There. Units drop that in and I'm obviously exaggerating it a touch. But here's another something in that building there. And let's work on this one a bit here. This top part of this little clock tower, whatever it is, this tower, some little bits here. Um, and of course here the top, there's this kind of dome joins on. Something like that. Little dome or something. A bit more color on the edges. And to bring out detail. Good side of this building, I'm going to get in the one closest to us here. Extra darkness, some extra blue in there as well. Okay. Bu and purples. I like to use shadows that have more of a cooler color, especially if we've got all this warm color off in the distance. Join these up as well with touch like that. Could even be like another building behind there that's just darken down like this. Which there is anyway, like that. Good. So lot of it's just implying a silhouette of some kind of building, even though there's nothing really in there. Here. Again, another silhouette. I'm leaving that bit lighter by the way. Coming down, I'm just cutting around bits and pieces. And one of the big things I'll do is cut around these little sign boards, as you can see on the front of these buildings. And as I moved down to the ground, notice I'm just darkening off a little bit, cutting around bits and pieces like this. Okay? But the main thing, I just want to join all these bits and pieces of the shadows up together so that it's just one large shadow and not forgotten to get in this side. What I'm gonna do it now because I don't want that area to dry off completely. And look at that just kinda coming back in here again, this is going to be mainly one. Silhouette except I will leave little slivers of light running down the sides of the building. As you can see, that it just makes it a bit more interesting like that. Be darker here. More of that purple in this mix like that. But as you can see as we move into the distance, the light is more apparent as we get closer to the front, we've just got more concentrations and we've got more sharpness in here. And I think that's really good. It helps to imply this sense of sense of depth. Cutting over that car. Look at that. This is another kind of a building here. There's something here. There's like a part of that building like this. And of course some more of these front parts of the building and establishments like that. Sometimes it can just make them up. You just make them up. It looks like there's something there you find cutting around these figures. Look at that force. There is a truck here as well, and I've not bothered much to get it in. Putting a little bit of color on the wheel like this. Work a bit on this building when you use a larger mop brush. Now, for these and more purple, lot of purple. Let's get this building in. Here we go just up the top, like this. It's just the silhouette of that building. Okay. But I'm using a bunch of colors through here, not just the same color. I've got purple and I've got black, I've got a bit of brown in here. Okay. Bring these down and join it on Join most of it on to the buildings back. Right. Okay. I got that. Just joins on as one big shape. There's a signpost here. I thought I would just cut around that slightly like this of almost eradicated it. Coming down here. Okay. Bit more purple. Let's have a look. Some more darkness on that side of the building. This we'll look more here as well. And little bit of a cut through there. Little bit here. Just implying light on some of these buildings. And without over working everything as well. Look, there's another bit of light on these edges of the buildings like this. Cut around that around and you just leave out bits and pieces. It's often what you leave out that makes it look three-dimensional and creates that sense of light. In a scene. He's bits and pieces on the rooftop in who knows what. Simplify down and as we move into the background as well, soften down and just make it lighter back. They're still buildings but they kind of just concealed enough off in the distance like that. Soft and down. You can even soften the edges of these buildings a bit like this to make them fade into the distance. I don't want I don't want too much going on back there. Okay, Good. Bit more, a bit more detail here. Now, we're getting to this point near the ground where things can get a bit tricky. Let me just quickly getting a few bits and pieces through here. You can put in these little, little lines that run through like this. And they help to increase, get this sense of continuity through the scene. Create kind of like this perspective is a perspective. This all kinda just come straight down as you can see, till we get to this point where all the figures are. And what we will start doing is putting a bit of this green in here as well. I know we forgot to get into some of these little, little shrubs or whatever here, here, just to imply some extra darkness in this section. But you have to keep in mind that this is all just a big shadow. Picking up a lot of this purple now and seeing what we can do to get this large shadow shaping. No, we need about 50 per cent paint, 50 per cent water. Especially if you're using a dark paint, you don't need to go too dark here. So we can see it coming cross this shadow goes across the scene, hits the bottom of this car here. Need more purple paint as well. We want more black in there, maybe not too dark as well. We know that it kinda comes through. We've got hits the top of this trigger and escapes out here just like that. Some color that in okay. Let me go. Brown or something here as well. See it's pretty dark in here. Leave out some of the bits of detail like this. The goal is just to get in a dark, shadowy shape that looks like it's being caused by that building. Tricky. I'm going fairly dark here near the ground, blending it altogether and swapping over to the smaller round brush. Now, I'm going to go in what I can do for the cars. So this darker color on the palette or you can use just any dark color. I'm using some kind of cooler, darker color here. Here. That's the this is like the car. Okay. Just putting in the silhouette of that car, like this. Soft and down. And we've also not only that, we've got this truck off in the distance that we'd almost forgotten about or just put the detailed in for that one and I'm going to leave that maybe a little oh, maybe not. I wouldn't leave some white and I was gonna leave bit of white, but I'm not gonna do it anymore. This come down and this is near the base of the car. I'm going darker like this. And this is the wheel right at the bottom. The wheel just there. And I'm going to join that together like this. This would be like a shadow moving backwards as well. Let's go ahead and get the car here. This one's pretty dark. Just come up like this. And notice what I do as well. When an area's little bit dot wet above the car, I will leave a thin line. And this thin line separates the wet paint, creates a sharp edge, and then gives it a bit more of an outline so that I can focus on the car and not worry about it just blending into everything else. Think about how many brushstrokes you want to use. You want to just use as few as possible relief and getting this impression of a car fairly quickly. Here is the shadow underneath the car. Okay. And it moves is I'm kinda like a shadow that moves towards the back like this. Something like that. I want to imitate that on that car as well. Okay. There is even one behind for this car like that. Okay. Get a bit of that car in there, okay. This one, Let's do the same thing for this car. So we've got this windscreen. I will actually make it darker altogether. That there this is like a the window catching the light or something like that. They're back of the car. We've got these large wheels here which we need to get in. Mostly just paint. As you can see, it's very dark. Wheel and the other, we'll hear that the wheel here. And I'll join the wheels up like this. Again. This sense of the shadow running towards the back. Not only that we have figures. So we want to get the figures into, of course, we've got this one just walking. I'm going to join this, get the leg of that figure. Another leg of the figure there. Okay. Extra darkness or something like that. And trough that brush. Let's get in the shadow of that figure here on the ground. Something maybe like this. Simple. Made that right leg a bit too. Chunky. We'll make do this one here. So there we go. There's the leg at the front and the leg at the back. Like that. And of course, the shadow that is joined together and runs towards the front of the scene. Like they're always important to join the shadows onto each other as well. This could be an arm just outreached there in the head, will get the head in a bit lighter. Actually, there is a fire truck, the wheel, which I'd lost a lot of fire truck, just the truck over in this section and see if I can bring back a little bit of something in here. An impression doesn't look like there's much in there anyway. Good. Through this mix, I'm going to actually put in a few little guiding lines like that. Running through the scene like this. Okay, Please help to get the scene a bit of direction. There's also a figure here. Just make out that figure walking little shadow underneath that bigger, maybe like a head there. We've gotta figure here in the foreground, but I won't bother getting the figure in just yet because it's going to be tricky as the paint here still wet. It's going to show through and blend and bleed everywhere. Let's have a look for the buildings now. Little bit of color in the buildings in terms of the color, but little details. So I'm just picking up bit of darker paint, drawing off my round brush. And I'm thinking to myself, well, look, we, we have some windows in here. Let's, why not just add some little bits of dry brush stroke like these two imply just some indications of these windows but without too much, without too much too fast, just some verticals like that. I don't want to spend all day doing this. And I'm not counting the number of windows either. I'm just just picking out a few that I might want to put on there like that. Okay. A few little lines running across. I think that should do the trick. Let's give this a quick dry. Okay, continuing on with all of this, I'm going to pick up more dark paint and draw it off. Somebody goes from Jupiter dry brush happening. And what I'm gonna do is try to, try to bring out some extra details of the buildings. I can just kind of brushing on these little lines and things to help bring out some bits and pieces that we want to imply in here. So these could be Windows. As you can see that there are windows and you just small little ones and little bits like this. Do they really do help to imply what's happening in there. There's a bit of extra darkness further down. So I thought I would imply that they're here at the top as well, this dome, I thought why not? Just in a bit more at the top and something like this. There we go. This building might have a bit of extra darkness in here. Some of these buildings have some like these little windows around the sides of them as you can see here as well. Not just that there are some windows on the sides of this building, so let's put some of that in. And maybe here as well, we can get in some additional bits that there. It really just using your imagination to detail things. Of course, as you move all the way out to the distance, it's not going to see very much in there at all. It's just a few little a few little bits and pieces really on the back of this car or truck we want just throw, draw something in there that emphasize it, reemphasize it a touch. You really adding in the dark is contrasts. Back here. And, um, he's little, little light touches help. You wanna make them very light as well. We don't want to don't want to make them too obvious, forgotten to put in some legs of this figure here. They just person just standing there. So just decided I'll put miles would just put him in that same kind of pattern as the other ones. Like a speaker. That this figure is, well, I thought I'd put in the legs. One then one. They're just sort of one kind of going towards the back. So you can see in one leg, forwards some shadow underneath that figure as well like that. It's a simplified shadow. This is probably another figure here that I was just putting in before, but I'd forgotten. I thought I'd just put in finish that off. This could be another figure that's just waiting here. Doing something or another fingers off in the background. I'm just going to make silhouettes of them. Not too much detail at all. Use another one, just a little silhouette of a figure there, here, walking off the distance. Here's one as well. You can just put in some legs. Another one here and here. Just because they're so far off in the distance, it's futile to try to detail them too much. But a little bit of effort goes a long way. Little line or something here or there. Start working on this building here. I've got a bunch of paint on, dry off that brush again. And let's get in this row of windows here and just dry brush on some of the windows like this. You don't have to put them all in and just have to put in a few of them and suddenly starts to take form. And I'll just that you can put in a little bit of this side, side stuff on the buildings. These little directional lines give the building a bit more perspective. Bring it back out. This was a signpost forgotten to get the signpost in here. You don't have to cut over the top of that figure. Outline that post a bit better. This that these buildings as well, they've got these little windows and stuff down the side, just tiny, little tiny little windows. So little bit goes a long way as you can see. Just as long as you've got some kind of pattern running across it. The top of the building needs a little bit more detailing. There's like this roof area. Like that. It's just darker. And the Continental see the top of that building, but there's probably extra details and stuff up there that I'm not aware of, but purposes of this scene, it's not so important. Here we go Just more. These little Windows running down the side there side of that building as well. Pick and choose bits in here that you want to just draw out. Okay, few more windows and things. Windows when the ages of these buildings to whoops, too dark. But it doesn't matter that it's funny because sometimes in more deliberate stuff, the mistakes, so-called mistakes even look better than when you try to intentionally. Getting here of detail. The lesson there is that you can just make sure that you get an, a general shape, the general shape of shadow over the top, but don't overthink it. Okay? Okay. We're getting near to the end. Now. Of course, here's some more people, figures and stuff like that. In this scene, I'm thinking to myself, what else could be potentially add in here? I've put a few little, tiny little birds back there because I only because I've actually accidentally splattered some paint onto the scene. So little, maybe a few little off in the distance on the horizon line would be good. But near this tower is sometimes the birds. You get birds that hang around there. They do help connect up everything to the sky. You might sometimes get these little arrows and things that go off the top of these roofs. So I'm going to adjust, apply some of this stuff isn't not that's not really there, but e.g. maybe I'm scaffolding actually on top of this building. Back here. Some back here, maybe just a little connectors that are sitting on top of them. The buildings, birds here, maybe maybe few of those on that. Okay. Now, final touches, I'm gonna be using some gouache to bring out some highlights figures. I'm going to just use just re-wet a bit of gouache that I already have here on my palette. And just getting a few highlights and stuff. And these highlights are going to be a bit of a yellowish, slightly yellowish color as well. Okay. So this is maybe the head of that figure back in, bring it a bit more of that body. Okay. Look here. Shoulders of that one. The head here that the shoulders like that. Maybe the car you get a bit of this highlight on the top of the car, like this. You hit of the figure, the head of the figure here, something that lights on the shoulders. What else do we have? Maybe on top of the car is just a touch of that. White paint. Their white gouache helps to bring back a touch of that. That highlight places, especially when they're in the darkness over here as well. It's tricky to see post some of these little street lamps or whatever coming across the street that maybe yeah. Indications of them. Anyway. There are some sort of on the other side as well, but it's difficult to see just the indication of them. So you can see they're not too obstructive of anything else in there just running over the top. Like that. You might get a few over here as well, just implying the going back into the distance like that. Basis of some of them are a bit more detailed. What I'm doing is just sharpening up some edges. A touch. Windows here, perhaps. Color for the hair or something in their figures. One of them, more abstract, especially the left-hand side. A bit more detail for the just kinda highlighter. Suppose in here. Just helps to sharpen things up and touch. A little bit of white gouache. Can do wonders. Shadow on the shed, light on the car front like that. Pick up a bit of color, just kinda like some lavender and I'm mixing that up. It can be cerulean blue. You can use as well any kind of cooler color. I've mixed it with a bit of gouache. And what I'm doing here is just putting in a touch of blue or something like that every now and then, perhaps for a window or was something back here that might be just catching a glint in the sky. This little bit of blue in the buildings helps to create some extra interests. There. You do notice some of the windows have a little glint of something, potentially of the sky, especially up here actually is a little bits and pieces. And it just creates an extra bit of interest as well back there. So why not? Trick is just not to overdo it. Easily said can be something part of that person. And I'll call this one finished. 6. Class Project: Your class project is to draw and paint your own urban landscape in watercolor. This can be seen featured in this class, are based on one of your own photographs. So scenes you've observed outside. You can also refer to the scan drawing and painting templates attached below, which will allow you to trace the drawing if you choose to do so. I recommend during each scene, free hand. Drawing is an important step in improving your painting skills. This provides you with an opportunity to compose and plan your painting. Once you've finished the drawing, use the watercolor steps and processes included in the class demonstrations to complete your painting.