Transcripts
1. Welcome to my Northern Lights class: Hello, and a very warm welcome to my online watercolor class, where I'm going to show
you how to achieve a soft glowing
aurora effect that captures the magic of the
wonderful Northern lights. It's a wonderful subject, just perfect for radiant,
luminous watercolors. It might seem a bit
daunting at first, but you're going to
be able to watch over my shoulder as I guide you through it every
step of the way. It's beginner friendly, even if you've never
touched watercolors before, or if you're an
experienced artist, looking for some
different ideas. There's a magical feeling you get when painting
with watercolors. And once you know the basics, it is easy. Anyone can do it. Like any other skill, it just takes a bit of
practice and enthusiasm. We'll be using the wet
on wet technique to mimic the soft glowing
effect of the aurora, and we'll be mixing colors and layering color to paint
the dark night sky. It's jam packed with
watercolor techniques, tips and tricks, and I know you're going to find
it really inspiring. We've included a copy
of the drawing in the project resources section so that you can download
it and trace it, and then not worry
about the drawing because this is a
painting class. I am a professional artist, author, and tutor,
and over the years, I've sold a lot of work
across the world and helped hundreds of people to
learn more about watercolor. Art is my absolute passion, and I truly believe that painting is hugely
beneficial for everyone. You can see examples of
my work on my website. My style leans towards
impressionistic and contemporary rather
than photorealistic. I like to explore loose approaches that
bring out the color, light, and essence
of my subjects. I've tried to
replicate this across all the many other videos
that I have on Skillshare. Please don't worry if your painting doesn't
look exactly like mine. Larry never worried
whether he looked like Van Gogh's or Picasso's. We all have our own unique style just like our fingerprint. And with that understanding, it's time to get on
with the painting.
2. Drawing, masking, paint the sky and snow: - wet-on we, wet-on-dry and blending techniques: Hi there. And a
very warm welcome to my online watercolor class. Today, we're going
to be painting these spectacular Northern
lights or the aurora borealis, as it's often referred to. I'm going to be sharing lots of my favorite tips and
techniques with you, such as how to paint the snow, the lovely light coming
from the little house, and that spectacular lit up sky. I know you're going to love
creating this painting, and I'm sure it will put a really big smile
on your face, too. You can either watch
the whole video through and have a good at
the painting afterwards, or you can paint
right alongside me, as that guide you through it. Now, regarding my materials, these are the ones
that I'm using. But if you have
different colours, then don't be afraid to use the ones that
you've already got. Most of my paints are either transparent or semi transparent, which will allow the white of
the paper to shine through. And this is what gives watercolor
its wonderful radiance. Tend to keep opaque
paints for when I want to cover up the underlying
paper or layer of paint. Now you can see that I've
kept the drawing very simple, minimal details so
that we get a nice, loose free flow painting. And I've included a
copy of the drawing in the project resources section so that you can download
it and trace it, and then not worry
about the drawing because this is a
painting class. You can apply masking fluid to the shapes where you want to reserve the white of the paper, either for highlights or to
paint over by hand later on. Now, you do need to
wait for the fluid to dry fully before applying
paint over the top of it. When it is properly dry, you can just rub
off the hard gum either with a clean finger
or with a putty rubber, and you'll see that it leaves behind crisp defined
white shapes. If the white shapes
are a bit too stark, you can soften them
with a damp brush, or you can even paint over it. Now, don't use your
good brushes for this because the gum
will spoil them. So use an old brush or even
the handle of the brush. I also use rubber tipped applicators because the gum is very easy to clean off them. You can get a ruling pen, which varies the
thickness of the line, but I tend to use an unwound paper clip for
very fine lines and dots. As you can see, I'm using a
rubber tipped applicator, which also has a little stainless steel
burnisher at the other end, which is very useful for very fine lines and also
cleans up really well, too. I've added some masking fluid along the top of the roof and at the side and also the top of the chimney where a little bit of snow is likely
to have settled. I've also added a
little touch to the front of the porch and a few wispy bits for smoke just coming
out of the chimney. Spattering is a technique where paint or masking
fluid is flicked onto the painting surface to produce some interesting
textural effects. Load your brush with some paint, and then you can either
shake the brush with a wrist liking action
to force the paint onto the paper or tap the brush with your forefinger or with a second brush that you're
holding in the opposite hand. You can use a toothbrush
for very fine spatters and just rub your finger over the bristles to spray the
paint onto the paper. I'm using my little
tool to spatter some masking fluid
around the night sky. Later on in the painting, when I remove the masking fluid, these little dots will
resemble tiny stars illuminating the sky alongside
the Northern lights. I am getting mostly small
dots, which is what I want. I've got a couple of dots that have turned out
a little bit too big, and I will rub them off later when the masking
fluid has dried. Whatever tool you are using to apply this
spattering technique, do make sure it's got a
smaller point as possible, and then you will get
these smaller shapes. What you don't want is
any really big blobs in the middle of your
sky that look unnatural. I'm dotting a few
little speckles around the trees and bushes, and then I'm going to
leave all of this to dry before going on
to the next step. We're going to paint the sky using the wet on wet technique. But importantly, before
you commence that, you need to mix all your
Northern light colors that you're going to
use in your palate. I've got yellow,
orange, viridian, ultramarine and
turquoise already mixed to the
consistency of milk. The wet on wet technique
gives you less control. First of all, you
wet the paper with clean water and then
apply wet paint on top of the wet
paper and let it spread into the wet wash. Now, this results in a lovely
diffused effect with soft edges. And because the paint mixes into the wetness of the paper, the color is diluted
and the tone is paler. If several different colours
are used in this way, they will intermix and
blend with each other. So when you drop some
blue into a wet, yellow underwash that will
result in a blended green. You can see just how
thoroughly I've pre wet my paper because now that I'm
applying the orange color, it's spreading and
diffusing really softly, no hard edges showing
into that wet underwash. You do need to be careful
when you're applying a few different colors that you don't overlay them one
on top of the other. For instance, if I overlaid
green on top of the orange, I'm going to get a muddy brown. So I am keeping my colors as
separate as I possibly can. Here, I've kept the
yellow paint in a separate place on the paper to where I've
positioned the orange. Now, it doesn't matter if I get a little bit of overlap because I'll end up with
either an orange or yellow or a yellow orange. So those two colors can be
mixed with relative ease. Do you want to keep everything nice and light at this stage. So if you do put too
much paint on anywhere, just use a bit of paper
towel and dab it off. As I just said, I
want to try and keep my aridian away from
the orange color, but it is okay to overlap it
across the yellow because that'll just give me
some different shades of yellow and different
shades of green. You do need to work fairly
quickly when painting the sky. As soon as the paper
starts to dry, you will begin to get hard edges and a muddy looking appearance. If you're not a quick worker, I suggest that you paint
the sky in two halves, wet the left hand side first, and add your northern light
colors that to that and then rewet the right hand side and add your colors
to the right. I'm happy with where I've positioned my diagonal
Northern lights, and I'm going in between and amongst now with some turquoise. In the second layer that
we're going to apply later, a lot of these colors
are going to be overpainted with a
very dark blue black. So it will look
rather unnatural now. It won't look right
by any means. But you'll see when we move on to putting the darks in that these Northern light colors will appear even more vibrant
than they do now. I'm still being mindful to keep the blues and greens as much away from the
orange as possible. There will be some blending, but as long as you don't
get too much of an overlap, you'll not run into
the dreaded mud. I'm taking the turquoise
around the top of the little house above the roof and to the
left hand side of it, where it's going to be
more in shadow and darker. And then to give a bitter
variety to the turquoise, I'm adding in some touches
of ultramarine blue. That's blending nicely with the turquoise color and
spreading into the wet wash. And Because we're painting wet and wet, some of the color that we
put on may dilute and become a little bit paler
than we first put it on as it starts
to blend and dry. So you can always go back in and add in a little bit more color where you think it's needed. To encourage the paint
to run and blend, you can always pick your
painting up as I've just done and give it a good
shake from side to side. To add a few more
little halo lights, I'm sprinkling a little
bit of household salt, a couple of grains of rock
salt into the wet wash. Now, you do have to do that while the paint is still wet
because once it's dry, the salt will have no
effect whatsoever. If you do it too early, while the paint is
still very wet, the salt will just clag. So you've just got to wait
until the shine is just going off the surface of the paper before you
sprinkle on that salt. If you think that
you've gone a bit heavy with the color, again, just screw up a piece of paper towel and just
rag roll it into some of the areas that
might be a bit too dense and you want to add a bit more light
back into them. Because you do also want to
retain the illusion of that very bright white that
accompanies those vivid colors. And then leave everything to dry before going on
to the next step. We think of snow as being white, so why not just leave
the paper unpainted? But I'm afraid it's not quite
as straightforward as that. Simple and crisp, white is
actually a colorless color. Mixing red and green
and blue light together is what gives
you white light. Now, because it is white, snow can appear a
difficult subject to paint with watercolor. It isn't really a color, but some consider
it to be so because white light comprises all hues on the visible light spectrum. Therefore, as it comprises all other colors in the rainbow, you can effectively paint snow with a palette of
all these other colors. Because snow reflects the sky, it can often incorporate
a lot of blue, particularly where
the shadows fall. However, especially
when the sun sets, the sky can radiate a variety of other colors that
you can add for depth and visual interest
to the composition. For instance, it can be useful
to add a touch of yellow to areas where the shadows transition into the
brighter areas. It may seem counterintuitive. Snow isn't meant to be
blue or yellow or pink, but it will all work beautifully
together in the end. Another point to note
that when painting white, it's all about tonality. So don't be afraid to use some
medium and very dark tones because this will
bring impact and emphasize your
lighter, whiter areas. Before the different
colored paint dries, sprinkle just a little
household salt over it. As it dries, the salt pushes the watercolor pigment
away, creating tiny, little sparkles of light, a wonderful representation
of tiny snowflakes. Because the northern
lights appear in the middle of the night
when the sky is very dark, indeed, the snow
will probably be a little bit darker in
places than it is now. But just in the same way that street lighting lights
up everything around it, so the Northern lights, too, are going to illuminate so
much of this landscape. And although it's not
apparent at this stage, later on when we add the
darks for that very dark sky, we're going to see some beautiful contrast
in our painting. This area at the left hand side behind the house is
away from the lights, so I'm adding more blue
and turquoise colors here where it's in shadow. Although I've initially started
by painting wet on dry, that's wet paint on dry paper. Now that I'm adding
some blue and that's going over the top of the
yellow and orange paint, we're getting some nice
wet on wet effects where those colors are blending and merging softly
into each other. If you do get some areas where you get hard lines
that you don't want, you can use the blending
and softening technique. To blend and soften a hard edge, you need to use a
clean damp brush to pull the paint away
from the hard edge and blend it softly until the color disappears into the white of the paper or the
underlying wash. It may sound like quite
a simple technique, but in fact, it is quite a
difficult one to master. So do practice it
because it will make a massive difference
to all your paintings. As the landscape recedes
into the distance, colors become much more blue. So for painting
these distant hills, I'm just using my
ultramarine and turquoise colors and just softly blending and softening
those into the white paper. And to get a few dark tones, as I spoke about
earlier into the snow, I'm using little
touches of indigo and letting that blend in
to the previous colors. And just a little word of caution here because
I have spoken rather a lot about adding color
to the snow, but in fact, you do need to leave
plenty of white space, unpainted paper in between these colors so that you do have some white
areas as well. So just be mindful of that while you're painting
this snowy area, don't obliterate the whole
of the landscape with color. Otherwise, it definitely
won't look like snow. If you do get too much color on, I'm going to show
you in a later step how you can actually
recover some white paper. So don't worry
about it if you do. In the meantime, I'll let you
watch the video along now, and you'll see how I
achieve this balance of both color and white
unpainted paper in order to achieve
the illusion of snow.
3. Paint the sky - 2nd layer of colour. Mix a midnight colour.: Before adding my second color
of very dark midnight blue, I'm pre wetting the
sky just as I did in the first step because I
want the very dark color to sink in to these
underlying colors so that it looks part of the original painting and not something that's just
been plunked on top of it. It's important to use a large
soft brush and very gently stroke over the sky area with it because you don't want to
disturb that underlying color. Prior to re wetting the paper, I'd already mixed
up my dark colors. I've got a turquoise with a little bit of
indigo added to it, so that's made a much
darker turquoise. And I've got a very dark
midnight blue color by using indigo as the main color and adding a little bit of ultramarine
and some black into it. First of all, I'm using my
darker turquoise color to go around the top and the
left hand side of the house. This is where it will
be more in shadow. Then this is where
I need to take a deep breath and remember
that fortune favors the brave because I've got
to boldly go in with this dark color over some of the lovely Northern light
colors that I painted earlier. Because the paper
has been pre wet, this dark turquoise
color will blend and soften into those underlying
Northern light colors. But I'm not going right
over the top of them. I want to leave some areas
completely unpainted in this second layer
so that I do get that lovely vibrant sparkle
from the paler colors. I'm going to keep the
Northern lights on this left hand side of the composition more subtle
than those over on the right, because I don't want the
two left and right halves of the painting to look
like a pair of bookings. I need to keep some variety
to keep it interesting. Whilst the dark turquoise
paint is still wet, I can use a damp brush
to just lift off any surplus color where
I've gone in a bit too heavy and recover some of
those light colors underneath. You do need to make sure
your brush is completely clean and wipe it in between
with some paper towel. In that also gives you a really nice sort of halo
effect around the lights. The effect is starting to take place with the addition
of this dark turquoise, but I need to sum up
even more courage and go into this left hand side with my really dark
midnight blue. And because I want
to make sure that this very dark color also blends in to the
underlying colors, I'll be working the
sky in two halves, completing this left
hand side first, and then going over onto the right because
otherwise it would be dry by the time I came back over to the left hand side
to add the dark color. You can see from my
painting here that the paper is still very wet because I am
getting some lovely, soft muted blends
with the dark color. I'm not getting any hard edges. Now, if you do fine, you're getting hard
edges, you need to stop, let it all dry again completely, rewet it, and then start adding
in this very dark color. I wondered what my
hand was doing a moment ago at the
top of the video. I was actually just putting a very small box underneath
the top left of my board, and that's tilted the board a little bit upwards at the top, so that it's encouraging
the paint to run downwards and diagonally
towards the center. You can see that
although I'm coming down in diagonal streaks, these are not always
the same size, they're not always
the same thickness. So what you don't want across the top of your
painting is a row of diagonal streaks that look like matches or
soldiers in a row. You want this variety in the way that you're
applying this dark color. Don't be afraid to let the
paint trickle down and do its own little thing
because you'll be amazed if you give the watercolor
a bit of headway, it will come up with the most unpredictable and happy results. But if you don't like them,
you're always in control, and you can simply
lift them off with a damp brush or a
bit of paper towel. But don't get frustrated if your painting isn't
looking exactly like mine, if you're not getting
the same exact effects because this method is
really very unpredictable. If I were going to paint
this scene again myself, I wouldn't be able to recreate exactly the same appearance
that I've got here. When you paint wet into wet, especially on this scale, you're going to get some
very unplanned effects. So just relax into it and enjoy whatever the watercolor
decides to produce. I think the main
thing here is to ensure that your dark
color really is dark. If you go for a mid tone, it will end up looking rather
washed out with shi wash. So make sure you've
got plenty of dark indigo and black and a little bit of
ultramarine in here. And the consistency of
the mixture needs to be thicker than the first
layer of paint that we put on. If you remember when we
painted the northern lights, the consistency was roughly
like the consistency of milk. But for this second
layer, this darker layer, I'm using a consistency
of about single cream. Now, before painting
the right hand side, I have rewet it again
with my large brush. While the water on
the right hand side settles in a little bit, I'm using some scrunched
up paper towel to just dab a few more halo lights
from the left hand side. Then I'm moving quickly back to the right hand side
because I want to get this dark paint on before the wet wash that I've just
applied starts to dry. I'm also just moving
my little box to the underneath the
top right of my board. Again, it's raising the board
up at this top right so that the paint is encouraged to trickle down and run
in towards the center. I'm going to repeat pretty much what I did on
the left hand side. First of all, adding the
dark turquoise color in diagonal streaks and then my dark midnight
blue color over the top. Although I've moved over to the right hand side
of the composition, I'm still keeping an eye on what's going on over
in that left side. And as quite often happens, as the paint runs
down the paper, it loses its tone, the darkness in tone. So I'm just going back in and
adding some more dark over the top of some of those areas on the left
that I've just painted. Now my paper is still quite wet, so I am still getting some
nice blended effects, but I do want to achieve a little bit more contrast
over in that area. The underlying
issue that we have is that watercolor paint tends to dry 20 to 30% lighter than
when you first put it on. So it's not always
that easy to judge exactly what the tone will
be like when it does dry. So although I'm concentrating mostly on this right
hand side now, I will probably be
hopping back and forth wherever I see
little adjustments that might be needed in
different parts of the sky. B
4. Paint the house, trees and bushes - use tonal values to create 3D shapes.: I'm painting the windows
of the little house with some pale yellow and a
little bit of pale orange. Now, you do want this to be
very pale, quite watery, consistency of milk
because we're going to be painting the walls of the house later with quite a dark colour. So we want the light to be shining out from
the little house. I've added a little
bit more black to the midnight blue color
that we use for the sky, and I'm using this with a small pointed brush to paint in a few trees at
this left hand side. Now, you don't want
them to be pure black. Remember, pure black is
just a very flat color. You always need to either add some other colors
to the black or mix it yourself with
some burnt umber and ultramarine or indigo. These trees are in the distance, and I don't want them to
overshadow the house. So I'm keeping the
trunks quite slender. Don't want really big thick ones standing out and dominating
the composition. To paint the branches,
I'm switching to an even smaller pointed brush. It's an Escoda
versatile size note. And I do find it has
a lot of versatility. It holds a lot of water. It's got really good snap, and it allows you to paint very fine details because it
holds its point really well. It's a synthetic brush, so much cheaper than a
Kalinsky sable, for example. I'm taking the trees around
the back of the house, the darkness will
help to show off the snowy white roof a little more and make
the house stand out. I'm also bedding them
in at the bottom, kind of smudging
the paint really to plant the trees into the
soil below the snow. And of course, there
will be more shadow from the house at this left hand side because it's away
from the light. So I'm adding a
little bit more of my dark turquois in this area. Y And I'm moving over to the right hand
side of the house to paint the smaller trees
and bushes at this side, again, using that very
dark black blue colour and my finely pointed brush to paint in a few loose
trunks and branches. I'm not making these
as dense as they were or as tall on
the left hand side. And I'm leaving a
few little spaces in between the clumps of
trees and bushes here. So, again, it's that principle of not making them
all too uniform. And I'll just add one or
two little dark grasses poking up here and there, and then we'll move on to
the next bit of the house. These tree and bush
shapes here that I'm doing now don't
really need to be bedded in or smudged in because they are sitting behind
the drifts of snow. I've mixed some turquoise and orange to make a
quite darkish brown, stroking that on
the left side of the chimney where
it's in shadow, and I'm also just going
to paint a little bit of a shadow underneath
the top tiles, the ridge on the roof. I'm going to paint all the walls of the house with
my orange color. I'm going carefully around the little window here
on the gable end. And then moving across to
the front of the house, taking my orange color
all the way along. But for the front of the house, I have actually added a little
bit more water to the mix, so I've got a paler, more dilute orange because
this is where the light will be catching the house more than it is on
that gable end. I'm using the slightly
stronger orange for the porch, particularly the side that's
facing away from the light. Just going around the
door and then back on to the front of the house
and using my pale orange, dabbing a little
bit off as well at that far right side where it is catching
most of the light. And then, while that
orange paint is still wet, I'm going in with
some very dark brown, so I've mixed my turquoise
and orange and a little bit of black orange going to get this really dark brown
color for the gable end. Now, you might be
thinking, why didn't I just paint it brown
to start with. But you tend to get very flat
colors if you just do that. So I find that if you
had an underlying color, it does still glow through. So you're still seeing
a little bit of that underlying orange through the orange coming
through the dark brown. And that just gives this
nice glow to the house, especially as
there's window light coming through onto the walls. I'm using the same dark color to paint the left hand
side of the porch. Again, this is going to
be in more shadow here. It's away from the light. Just while those two areas
are drying a little bit, I'm turning my attention
back to the roof, adding a little bit more
color to the chimney, and then stroking a few
watery brown colors across the roof to
indicate where the tiles. You don't need to paint every single tile,
because, of course, the snow is covering
up most of it, but there'll be little patches where the roof tiles
are showing through. The area immediately beneath the roof will also be in shadow, so stroking the dark
brown along there and also in the corner just at the right hand
side of the porch. I've forgotten to put the
shadow from the chimney, so I just putting a
few little strokes of my dark brown color across there on that left
hand side of it. Then I've switched
back to my esco brush to paint those very fine
bars across the windows. And if you don't
have a steady hand, you could always use
a watercolor pencil or an ordinary crayon
for putting those in. And I'm using my dark
brown color to also add the sills above and
below the windows. As the paint is starting to dry, I do feel it is drying much lighter than
when I put it on, and I've definitely not
got enough contrast between the left hand gable side and the front of the house, so I'm dropping in a little bit more of my blue black color. Also underneath the roof, again, that color
has sunk a bit, so just add in a little bit more contrast to
give it that three D shape. These tonal values are
really important in creating that sort of multidimensional shape
that these objects have. And I don't think
that the door stands out sufficiently in the porch, so I'm making that
really dark as well. The other colors that
have sunk a bit and lightened too much is
the glow in the windows, so adding a little bit more orange into those window panes, little bit of yellow, just
to give that extra glow, that extra ump of light coming from within
the house itself. One or two little
touches here and there, just tidying up some
of those areas. And then I think
the house is done, and I need to leave
everything to dry before going on
to the next step.
5. Final details: glazing technique, lift off paint with magic sponge, add white paint for snowflakes.: And I've removed all of the masking fluid
with a clean dry finger. And as you can see,
it's left behind some very stark white dots where the stars are in the sky and the snowflakes
are on the trees. So first of all, I'm going over all the little
white shapes of snowflakes on the tree with a clean damp brush and
just knocking those back. Your brush will automatically
just pick up some of the underlying color and drag it across without concealing
it completely. I I'm doing exactly the same
thing over the little white, starry shapes in the sky, knocking them back so
that they don't look too stark and too unnatural. I haven't got any
paint on my brush. I've just rinsed it
in some clean water and partly dried it
on some paper towels, so it's not absolutely sopping, but a bit more wet than damp. And then I'm just stroking
very lightly across the paint, and the brush is
picking up a little bit of that underlying
paint and softening those white shapes into
that underlying wash. Now, you can do it bit by
bit, as I'm doing here, or you could just take
one very large brush and sweep your brush right across the whole
of the sky area. In fact, if you find that using a small brush and
doing it bit by bit, as I am doing here is
disturbing the paint too much, then it would be
better to do it with a large brush in one fell swoop, but make sure you do it gently
and just tickle the brush really across the paper so that it doesn't disturb
that color too much. And you don't have to go over every single little white shape. There might be some
that you want to leave looking a
very bright white. You might even want
to leave all of them a very bright white. It is your painting, so it's up to you how you want the finished
appearance to be. You do need to stand
back from your painting and assess what else might need doing in
these final details. Sometimes it's a good
idea to leave it alone for half an hour
or even longer and come back with a fresh eye or even
look at it in a mirror that often gives you clues as to what is missing or what
needs taking away. In my case, I've decided to strengthen the contrast
a little bit more even between the house and the bank of snow
that's in front of it. So I've added a few
little dark bushes, just not reaching quite
as high as the bottom of the windows along the
front there of the house, and I'm adding a few
little dark touches here and there on
that path that's been trodding and also the shadows here on the left hand
side of the composition. There is always a certain amount of difficulty, of course, in deciding what final details do you actually need to put in and what actually becomes overworking
and fiddling too much. They do say that
you should really stop when the painting
looks about 80% finished. I've never quite
been able to stick to that percentage myself, but the real danger is when you go beyond the
100%, isn't it? And I think that does tend to come with experience, really. I do think I've overworked and overpainted the drifts
of snow in the distance, so I'm going to show you now a little method of recovering
some of those light areas. One of the best little
tools that I've come across for doing this
is magic sponge. Although you can use a brush and some water to lift off paint, I want to introduce you to
magic sponge eraser because this little tool works miraculously to remove
unwanted paint. You can use it to
lighten an area that is too dark or even
strip the color right back to white paper depending
on which color you've used because some colors do stain the paper
more than others. Just tear a small
piece of the sponge, dip it in some clean water, then squeeze it just
damp and rub over the unwanted paint until
the colour is removed. Use a paper towel in between to blot and get the last
bit of paint off, and keep rinsing your sponge
out during to keep it clean or even throw it away
and use a fresh piece. If you accidentally get a
blob of unwanted paint in the middle of your painting or you just want to lighten
the tone of an area, give it some highlights, this little piece of sponge
will become your best friend. Because it's normally sold as an abrasive
household cleaner, it does tend to rough up
the paper a little bit. So take extra care
if you're painting over the area that you've
sponged with another color. If you do think you've
taken a bit too much color, as I think I have here, you can always add a little
bit more color back in. It can be a bit
difficult to get into the smaller shapes or areas
with your magic sponge, no matter how small
a piece you break off because your fingers
tend to get in the way. One solution would be to
actually use a template. You can either make these with some plastic sheeting
or you can buy them. And using the
template does help to protect the areas that you
don't want to sponge away. But for the purposes
of this painting, I think the combined lifting and reapplying is
working really well. Another way of recovering
white areas is to actually add some white paint instead
of lifting off other colors. It was white gouache or white acrylic ink or
white acrylic paint. White gouache does tend to dry a little bit duller than
when you first put it on. So it's fine if you do
want those more dull, soft patches of white, but if you want them
to be a bit brighter, you probably need to
reapply the gouache twice. So I'm using white
acrylic ink here. It does tend to dry very
much as when you put it on, and of course, it is permanent. I'm using my little
burnishing tool that's got a very small steel point to
just add some snowflakes to those little dark
bushes that I put on earlier to just emphasize some of the smoke coming
out of the chimney. And a few little freshly
fallen snowflakes on top of some of these
dark areas along the path. And to finish off with a
few little snowflakes just on top of the trees and bushes on either
side of the house. I think I've got enough little
white lights in my sky. But if you feel that yours
is a bit lacking, of course, you can always spatter
some white paint on using the same technique that we used to spatter the masking
fluid on earlier. Then to make the
little house really stand out a bit more
from the background, I'm adding a few more
very dark shapes around the left hand side, and I'm also taking those dark shapes around
the top of the roof, so it looks like there's a
band of dark trees behind it. Again, this is where
you need to assess your own work might be that you don't actually
need to do this. It's perfectly fine as it is. And I'm very aware
now that I am myself getting into the zone of
overworking and fiddling. So I think it really is time to say that this
painting is finished. I do hope you've enjoyed this painting and that
you've learned some tips and techniques along the
way that you can incorporate into
your own paintings. And why not pop it into
a mount and a frame, and you'll be amazed how good
it looks when you do that? I'd really love to see your
own finished painting, which you can upload to
the your project section. And if you could
just take a moment to leave me a short review, that also would be really great. In the meantime, thank
you for joining me, and I look forward
to seeing you next time, happy painting. O.
6. Northern lights FINAL THOUGHTS: Well done on completing our enchanting painting of
the stunning Northern Lights. We've covered quite a few
different techniques, as you've been following
alongside of me and developed our own interpretation of the beautiful aurora borealis in this lovely, snowy setting. Instead of just copying
the reference photos, we've used them in a more
loose and imaginative way. We use the wet on dry technique, putting wet paint on dry paper, used the wet on wet technique, putting wet paint on wet paper. We layered color in the sky for dynamic contrast and to make the Northern light
shine even brighter. We learned how to
paint snow with color without losing the
appearance of the whiteness. We looked at how to
recover the white of the paper using magic sponge and how to add white
to the paper using white acrylic paint,
ink or gouache. I would really love to see
your own finished painting, which you can upload to
the your project section. And if you could
just take a moment to leave me a short review, that also would be really great. And if you've
enjoyed this video, do have a look at my other
classes on Skillshare, which are packed
with more tips and techniques to help you
on your own art journey. In the meantime, thank
you for joining me, and I look forward
to seeing you next time Happy painting. H
Carrie McKenzie, creating painted visions
