Paint 10 Unique Gouache Landscapes and Build A Daily Painting Routine

1. Welcome to the Class: The time I spend in my studio is my favorite time of the day. The whole process of gathering my art supplies, working on an idea that I have for a painting, or just sitting here with my thoughts and observing things happen outside my window brings me so much joy. For the past few months, I have been experiencing a creative block. This has made me feel so uninspired and demotivated to sit down and create anything. This is a feeling a lot of artists go through more often than we think. It is completely okay if we find ourselves in that situation. A little motivation and push has helped me slowly come out of it and I'm still taking it one day at a time. Hello everyone. My name is Pile. I'm an artist and art educator and a skier, top teacher based in Para. If you're new here and unfamiliar with my work, make sure you're following me on Instagram at the Simple Esthetic where I'm constantly sharing about my artworks, any upcoming classes and workshops, and a little about my daily life. In this class, I would like to welcome you all on a ten day painting adventure where we're going to be using my favorite medium, Guash. The main goal for this class is to take it one painting at a time and give ourselves a little push every day while learning something new about color mixes, blends and compositions, and enjoying the entire process. This class is designed for people who are going through a creative block or want to build a daily painting habit. If you're new to the medium, uh, no. You're welcome here too, because everything in this class is explained in real time, which is like a little paint along with me session. As I guide you through the entire process, we'll start this class off by knowing the right type of art supplies you need to have with you when you're painting with the medium wash. And then we'll dive into a few ph techniques that will help you understand the medium better. Before we begin with day one, we will do a little exercise lesson where we explore our brushes and different brush strokes. Once you've gathered the basics, we'll start our ten day challenge. We're starting today. Every alternate day, I'll be uploading a class project. By the end of this class, you'll have ten beautiful paintings with you that you can show off to your friends and family and hopefully the confidence and motivation to paint more. If this is something that you find interesting, then join me in the class and let's paint together. I will see you in the next lesson. 2. Class Overview & Structure: I'm so happy you decided to join me in this class. Before we begin, let me give you a quick overview about the structure. We're going to start this class off by talking about the art supplies that you need to have with you when you're painting with quash. And then dive into the different techniques that will help you understand the full functionality of the medium. Now if you're new to the medium or have forgotten what it is, make sure that you're watching this lesson because we're going to be using a combination of these techniques for our class projects. Next, there's an exercise lesson where we're going to be exploring our brushes and brush strokes to create different plant elements that we'll be using in our class projects in the foreground. Once we've gathered all our basics, we're going to dive into the first class project starting today. Every alternate day, I'll be uploading a class project. And each class project takes about 30 to 40 minutes to finish. And you have ample time to finish one before the next one goes live. In this class, we're not painting from a reference image because I did not want to pressurize ourselves into the hundred details that we might see in them. But I have uploaded the final artworks for each day under the project and resources section title, Project One, Project Two. So you can download that so that you have a reference with you for the composition of that day. Just because we all like looking at what the final painting is going to be right now. Before we begin each day, I will mention all the colors that I'm using for that particular painting. So you'll see a list pop up on the first part of each day. And you can collect and gather those colors, those shapes that I've mentioned or you can go for shapes that you have with you and are similar in nature. Next, if you're painting along with me, don't forget to upload your projects under the project and resources section because I would love to see it, and I'm sure the other students will love to see it. Let's motivate each other and support each other and create a little community under this class. Lastly, if you're here because you're going through a creative block and are here to probably form a daily painting habit, just make sure that you're taking it one day at a time. Don't be so hard on yourself. Be kind, just show up for that day. Some days, it might seem a little bit more difficult than the other, but just show up for yourself. Maybe sit down for 2020, 5 minutes, and stop whenever you feel like it's getting too much. And you can always continue based on when you feel comfortable. All right, this is it from my side. Let's dive into the materials used in the next lesson. 3. Art Materials Used: Let us discuss all the art supplies that you need for this class. Starting off with the paper. Now for this class, I will be using a sketch book. This is from the Brand Canson, which has the saunters watercolor paper inside. It's an A five sketchbook and has 300 GSM, 100% cotton cold pressed paper. Now, if you'd like to not use a sketch book, please feel free to not and blue sheets of paper, you can do that. This is an A five. If you'd like to split it and use six, please feel free to do that as well. The sizing of the paper is completely your choice. You don't have to use a sketchbook or the exact size that I'm painting on. Here's a glimpse of our artworks. And the sketchbook has this beautiful grainy texture that I really enjoy painting on. Especially for the kind of artworks that I do that is the landscape paintings using the medium. So this is it about the paper. Again, Guash is very versatile, so you can literally paint on any paper and size that you want. Next, let's talk about the paints. If you've been following my classes on skillshare, you know how much I love the designer wash from Windsor and Newton. I'll be using those along with the titanium white from the brand brews stroke. Feel free to use any brand that you have with you. I'll also be mentioning the colors that I'll be using before each class project. In the beginning of the video, you'll see me list down all the colors that I'll be using for that particular project, so you know exactly the colors that you need to pick out and keep with you before you start the painting. So this is it for the paints. Moving on to the brushes. I'll be using these five brushes for my painting. Starting off with the flat brush. So I've got two sizes here, size ten and size 18. This helps me cover larger surfaces and create the backgrounds and the blends in the backgrounds. Next I've got two round brushes, so I've got size zero and size four. You can see they do come to a really fine tip, which gives me a lot of control over the kind of shapes that I want for the details. And again, the last brush that I have is a spoilt brush. As you can see, the bristles are all over the place, but it creates this beautiful texture when you're painting trees and the foliage and details like that. We'll show you how to achieve that in the upcoming lessons. So we will cover that in slight details where we know how to approach those kind of elements. This is it about the brushes. Moving on to the palette. I am using a ceramic mixing palette. Feel free to use any mixing part that you have with you. It's completely what we have next. We have two jars of water. This is something that's very important as you can see. One nice and opaque and one still slightly clear. So you'll be using the left one for rinsing your brush. And the second one is going to be for double rinsing so that you get rid of any pigment that remains in your brush so that you're not creating muddy mixtures. When you're trying to mix your colors, do keep two jars of water with you. Next I've got tissues. I'm just using your normal kitchen towels and tissues that you have. I've got tape. This is something very important, you need to tape down your edges to create the beautiful sharp edges around your paper. And lastly, you need your basic stationary items, like scale, pencil eraser, to create the basic sketch of the composition that we're going to achieve together. But overall, very simple list of supplies that you need, gather them, and I shall see you in the next lesson where we're going to be discussing the gage techniques. 4. Brushing Over Gouache Techniques: Let's talk about some guash techniques that are going to help you understand the medium better. If you're familiar with the medium, I'm sure you know the techniques, but if you are new to the medium, let me give you a quick overview for the medium as well. Quash is a medium that's in between acrylics and watercolors. It has the goodness and properties of both of them. And how that is is because you can re wet the surface. You can thin down the consistency, use it like watercolors, but at the same time you can make it nice and opaque. Layer darker colors over lighter colors and lighter colors over darker colors as you do for acrylics. So that's just like the major difference between the two medium, between acrylics and watercolors, and this is a combination of both of those mediums. So let us talk about some gach techniques, and as we go, I'll also explain how wash works. Starting off with consistency, I have my flat brush and I've taken some colors out on my palette. So basically, what is consistency? It is the ratio between the paint and the water. Let me show you how that works here. I have a flat brush, it's completely dry, no water whatsoever in my brush. And I'm going to dip that in my freshly squeezed paint. Now, guash as, as without any water has this buttery consistency. You'll immediately feel it when you dip your brush in your paint. This consistency is the thickest consistency that you can work with in guash. And you can use that when you're trying to create dry brush strokes and things like that. But it's not really a, something that we work with when we are just painting *** from the tube To make it workable, we add a little bit of water in it. This helps us move the paints around a lot easily, and this consistency feels like milk. If I were to put it in some sort of thing that you can relate with, and if I add more water in it, I would say it becomes like tea. Like a black tea consistency. So you would say it's watery, but it still has that kind of consistency in it where you can move the paints around. Now, whenever you want to make the consistency thinner and the more water you add in it, the more your paint starts behaving like watercolor. You can clearly see the difference where in the first watch, you could not see the paper through the layer of paint that I added whatsoever. But now, as I add more water in it, it started behaving like watercolors. And the color has definitely gotten lighter, but so has it lost its opacity? You can see how I'm clearly able to see the paper through my paper and through my paint. And this is very transluscent, I would say. Right. So whenever you're working with Gah, you want to make sure that you're working with a second and third Swatch that I showed you. Especially for the backgrounds where you want to know, move the colors around and create that nice opaquelaer, the thickest one. The first one is for the dry brush strokes. I will teach you how you do all of that. And the last one that I showed you, it's not like you cannot use it. You will be using it to show reflections and just reflections on water. I'll show you again how to use those, but these are some different consistencies. Do swatch your paints out. This helps you understand how your paint works and how you know the medium looks and feels altogether. Now, as you notice, when we add water in our paint, it made it lose its opacity. So what do you do when you want to make a lighter color? You add white in it. So here I've mixed a white section, a little bit of white in my blue paint, and you can see how the opacity is maintained, the consistency of my paint is maintained. I'm not seeing the paper through the layer that I made, but it has gotten lighter. Now, in wash, when you want to create a lighter color, you want to make sure that you add white in it. The more white paint you add in your paint mixture, the lighter the color is going to be. Now one thing to keep in mind is you want to make sure that you are maintaining the consistency of your paint, which means you're not adding more water in your mix or making the mix very thick. It might happen that you might load up some white paint and your paint, the mix starts feeling a little bit thicker so you will add a bit of water. But at the same time, the basic idea is to make sure that you are maintaining the consistency for all these 34 swatches that I'll make you see how the consistency of the paint remains the same. There is no change in the consistency, but the color is getting lighter. Whereas if I was just supposed to add water in my mix, that would hinder the obesity and my paint would start behaving like watercolors. So this is where the major difference comes in. And over here we use it like acrylics, whereas, you know, to make a lighter color, we add white instead of adding water, unlike watercolors. I hope that's making sense. So this is it about consistency. I hope you understood how consistency plays an important role. And I'll tell you why that plays a very important role as well because you'll be using that in blending layering, you need to have the basic concept of consistency and how it works so that the process of blending and layering becomes easier for you. So like I said, do swatch your paint out. That will give you a better understanding of different water ratios in your paint and how your paint is going to work before you begin with the blending process. Now the next thing that we're going to talk about is blending. And blending is basically blending two colors together, 2345 as many numbers you want. Over here I have my paper. In three different sections, I've created three different blocks to show you the first blending technique is between the colors that are on the same side of the color. So let me give you some examples. Over here, I have blended pink with yellow. Over here we're blending 34 colors. Over here, we've got different shades of yellows and orange blending in. Over here, we have a gradient of just blues or different shades of blue and so on. We've got different examples. We're going to be using this blending technique a lot in our class projects where we are creating the background and just mixing colors, one or two colors together. So the first type of blending is going to be the one where you're going to blend colors on a similar side of the color wheel. Now why that is very important to keep in mind is because you're not going to be making that muddy mix or a complimentary color when you're kind of blending those two complimentary colors together so you'll not be making any muddy mixtures, is what I'm trying to say here. Over here, I'm making a mix of yellow and red together along with a bit of white. And you can see how the consistency of my paint is towards the T like consistency like I was mentioning earlier. When you look at it, you know that this is the consistency that I'll be working with a lot when I'm creating my background. So I will not be making it really thick. I want the layer to be light. And we'll talk more about that in the layering technique, why that is. So this is the consistency of the paint. I'm going to use my flat brush and just apply this paint at like one bottom one third of my section or the block that I've created cleaning my brush, making sure I double rinse it. And next I'm going to go ahead and just spread it out properly. I'm going to add a little bit of red into my paint and then create a color that's slightly darker than the one I just applied. Now over here, we're starting off with a lighter color and we're adding more pigment to make the color appear darker. So it's the same puddle of paint that I used, but over here as I move up, I'm adding more of the yellow and the red that is making the orange appear more vibrant and a lot more darker as compared to my first swatch. Now, over here, you can see how the colors are just resting next to each other. They have not been blended into one another. To do the blending process, I'm just going to rinse my brush and hold my brush kind of like perpendicular to the paper. And just with my flat side moving left and right, I'm going to blend it with one another. Once I reach from bottom to the top, I want to make sure that I'm cleaning my brush, dabbing off the extra paint, and then moving from the top in this left and right motion, bringing it all the way down. When you're working with gas, it's very important to rinse your brush and dry off the extra paint and water and making sure that you double rinse. These are some things to keep in mind. Now, this blend doesn't have to be straight. You can blend it at different angles. The process is going to remain the same. The only thing that will change is the angle at which you are working. And you can see how this has created this beautiful gradient, where we're moving from this lighter color to the darker color at the top. This can be done again with various different shades. The process will remain the same. Let's talk about the next type of blend. All right, so this type of blending is where we're going to be mixing two primary colors and making sure that we don't create a secondary color or get a muddy mix in between. So I'm going to start off with this lightish shade of yellow. So I'm going to mix my yellow paint with white and see how the consistency is maintained here. I'm not messing around with the consistency of my paint. I'm going to go ahead and add that at the bottom part of my section. And then I'm going to clean my rush. Make sure that I'm double rinsing and I'm going to go ahead and re wet the orange that was on my palette. In case you want to use a shade and it has dried, go ahead and add a bit of water. And if it gets too thin, then add a bit of paint to just maintain the consistency of your paint. Now I'm just going to go ahead and add that orange and now I'm going to re wet the blue section that I've used for my earlier swatches and add that at the top, leaving a little bit of space in the middle. Now, if you have watched my previous classes, you know how this type of blending works. But we leave this little space in between because we're going to be adding white in that section. And that is going to help us blend the colors with one another without creating a muddy mix. Now double rinsing and with just a damp brush, I'm going to start moving the color upwards, re wetting the yellow. Blending that yellow with the orange and then the orange with the white paint. And I'm not moving into the blue, I'm just moving and blending the orange and white together. Cleaning my brush and starting off from where I left off, moving in this left and right motion and adding maybe a darker blue at the top if you feel like it, if your color has got into a light between the blends of white and blue together. And then with the damp brush again moving in and blending everything with one another. Moving in that to and fro motion. Now over here, because we use a staining color that is brush and blue, there are chances that you might see that harsh line in between where clearly you can see where the blue swatch that I first laid out rested. Now in case that happens, there are a few methods that you can do to get rid of it. First is add more white and move it upwards and downwards just to create that seamless blend. So you'll have to have that trial and error method where you're just okay, adjusting more blue, adjusting more white might take a bit of time. In case that doesn't work out for you, then you just let the whole layer dry all over, make sure it's completely dry. And just repeat the process that is layer another layer over it where you're adding the yellow orange and the kind of blending everything with one another. Over here I could see that harsh line. So I'm just going in that to and fro motion and ensuring that that blue line just goes away. So I'm just adding a bit more white, bit more orange, bit more blue. So you'll just have to keep going back and forth with that until you get a seamless blend here. I could still see a little bit of those harsh lines. I'm adding more white where the harsh line was adding more white. And just blending it in and then making sure that that goes away as I add more white into this. This comes with a lot of practice. You'll have to ensure that you are creating different types of blends so that when you are doing that on your main painting, you're not stressing out over it. And sometimes if that happens you can always cover it up with the elements in the foreground. That's completely okay as well. I really like the way the blend looks, so I'm going to let this completely dry and you can see how we've gotten that blend from yellow, orange to the blue with that white in the middle. We're going to let this dry and talk about the third kind of blend. This third type of blend is basically something that inspired me from the wet on wet technique in watercolors. But over here, instead of having like a wet surface, which you can actually do that with a wet surface as well. I have taught that in my previous classes, but over here we're not going to be talking about that over here. I'm just talking about how you can kind of mix two or three colors in the same layer that you're adding. This works a lot in, let's say you want to create these mountains in the background and you want to show different tonal values of the mountains. But you don't really want to work, you know, at them separately. Because Guash is completely different, right? It's not like watercolors. So you're kind of using the watercolor concept here and just adding different shades. You can also add more water to kind of lighten the color as you go. So you can just do so much with gash. I feel like there's so much you can learn and just apply both knowledge you have of acrylics and watercolors in it to just create a mix of your own. So you can see over here how when I just move the colors in the same layer, it doesn't really flow with the paint. And the water, like water colors would do, if you add water in it, it doesn't flow. But at the same time, the edges are not harsh, which means it just blends in with the previous color or the color next to it. They just bleed into one another. But at the same time where you lay a brush stroke, it rests there without really moving around uncontrollably. This is like a difference that you have between watercolors and quash, where in watercolors it will just flow into one another. But over here they rest but just bleed into each other nicely. Let me show you a few examples where I've used this. I've used this in the background here where I've got lighter browns blending in with the green or different shades all at once. Next, I've also used that in the mountains here. I've got some lighter orange where the sun is, and then you've got the deeper color next to it. And then I'll be using that in a lot of mountain examples. And even over here where you can see different shades of green, I've got lighter green, darker green. And they're all resting next to one another in that similar layer. So we're all using this third type of blend here for creating something like that. So this is all about blending. We've learned three types of blending. Of course, you can do that at different angles like I mentioned earlier. But the concept will remain the same. We will be using blending a lot in our artworks. So this is something that you can practice, so you get a little bit of practice before you start with the painting. Now you're layering. You want to make sure that the layer that you add over it is slightly thicker than the previous layer over here. If you see, as soon as I create a little leaf stroke, it reactivates the paint below it. Now, this will also happen on the left side because we're painting with white. If I was to do this with a darker color, it wouldn't show up that much. Because it's white, it is going to reactivate the paint. That is something that will happen, especially when you're painting with white. You will have to kind of work in two layers at least, or use a very, very thick consistency of paint. But at the same time, it will be a lot lesser. In this section, it will not reactivate as much as it did on the left side because the background layer is slightly thinner. Either way, the white is going to kind of let the background color peek through it. And you'll have to work in two layers, like I mentioned earlier, to make sure that the white is nice and opaque. This is something that happens again, like I mentioned, with a darker color, it wouldn't show up that much. And you don't really have to think so much into this right now, especially for this class, because we are working with simple colors and very nice, beautiful silhouettes. So we'll make sure that we're not in that situation where we feel like, oh, si, the white is kind of reactivating the paint in the background. In case that happens, just make sure that white dries fully and you can just add another layer over it to make it nice and opaque like I did here. Now, once you're done with this, you can add a bunch of different strokes and just play around and see how many layers it tastes for your white paint to become nice and opaque. Again, it's all about testing out your own paints while you're doing these gage techniques, so that you understand and are familiar with how your brushes and your paints work before you go ahead and start painting altogether in artwork. Right? So I'm just adding a few more strokes here and you can see the difference between the two sections that I have. Now the next thing that I want to show you is how when you brush, you know, with a lot of pressure, it kind of reactivates the paint. So that's something that happens. So again, when you're working with gas and you have a thick layer in the background, you want to make sure that you're not applying a lot of pressure. Now you remember how I show you that the thinnest consistency that we use, we use it for glazing and showing like reflections on the water. I will be using that in my class projects, so you can see how when I add this, it kind of, you know, the background color peaks through the one that I've already added. Now over here, when you do the same thing on the thicker layer, what happens is it starts reactivating the paint a lot more than the right side. Let's say I'm going to go ahead and create a bunch of strokes over here and you can see how the orange has been reactivated and it's moving along with the color that I'm just adding. This will happen if you have a thicker layer in the background. See how when I just brush my brush over and across the section with a lighter consistency, it's reactivating the paint. Now, this will not happen or like it will be a lot lesser, I would say on the right side. Over here you can see I have used a thinner consistency of paint. It's just that there's a little bit more of the pigment tears. It looks different, but you can see it is not reactivating as much compared to this side, the same color I'm adding here. And you can see how the orange has been reactivated and it's a mess on the left side. You'll have to ensure that the background layer that you're adding is of that milk here t like consistency. Now here is all about the things that we discovered. When you're working in layers, you want to make sure you've got a thinner consistency in the background so that when you're adding different layers over it, you're not reactivating the paint. That is something that happens and it takes a bit of practice for you to get used to. We will be using a combination of all these techniques that we are learning for our class projects. We've got consistency blending and layering, and a combination of these are going to be used in our class projects. For consistency, you remember how you're going to be working with that milk or tea consistency. And the more water you add into it, you get a lighter shade. I mean a thinner consistency. And for a lighter shade you add white. Here you have three different types of blending. You've got blending on the similar side of the color wheel, where you don't have to really think so much, you're just blending the colors into one another. The next one being blending between two primary colors and trying to avoid that muddy mix in the middle, we will be using a lot of this type of blending. The third one is just blending a bunch of different colors in the same layer so that when they dry they're drying in one single layer. And lastly, if we've got layering, main thing to keep in mind is you want to use a thinner consistency in the background so that when you're adding a thick consistency on top, you're not reactivating the paint. So I'll show you how all of that works in a class projects, but in the next lesson, let's talk about the different brush strokes. 5. Exercise: Get to Know Your Brushes & Brush Strokes: Okay, so in this lesson we're going to do a little bit of a warm up exercise. Get to open our wrist, especially if you're painting after a really long time. Rotate your wrists clockwise, anti clockwise, side to side. Just kind of do a warm up exercise in your wrist. And then we'll also be learning how to use our brushes. Get to know our brushes and create these beautiful brush strokes that are going to be used in our class projects. So I'll be teaching you how to create these reeds, these leaves, a bunch of different trees. How to create those foliage effects, little branches, and how to act those little details into your paintings that we're going to be using in a lot of different places in our foreground. So here are some examples for it. I'm going to show you how to create those. I try to keep it as simple as possible so that we're not really stressing out about trying to make it look a certain way. And we are rather enjoying the process and just keeping it nice and simple, and flowy and slow. Let us talk about art brushes. On my palette, I have a black paint taken out. The first two brushes that I'm going to show you are these flat brushes. Now these flat brushes, I tend to use mostly for the background washes. We've got the sky. If you're painting a lake, you've got the lake. Whatever's happening in the background, you'll see me create most of it with my flat brush. I'm just adding a little bit of water in my paint and creating my beautiful, workable consistency with the flat side. You can see that this is the thickness of my brush. This is a size 18 brush overall with the maximum pressure that I apply. This is the brush stroke that I get. If I kind of tilt my brush, like let's say make it 180-90 degree angle. This is the side brush stroke that I get. Another brush stroke that you can get is holding your brush perpendicular to the paper, using the thinner side of your brush. That's the kind of brush stroke that you get. You can use a combination of these movements for creating the background. Next, let us watch out my size flat brush. Over here I have my brush lowering it up with some paint. The thickest brush stroke that I can get from the flatter side is this. You can see there is a big difference in the sizing of the brush next, If I tilt my brush sideways, this is the brush stroke that I get. We don't generally tend to use it sideways that much. But this is just to show you the difference in the thickness. If I were to hold my brush perpendicular to the paper, this is the brush stroke that I get. You can see how the perpendicular to the paper remains the same in between both the brushes. But if I hold it flat, there is a huge difference in the size of my brush. So this one size 18, this one size ten. I'll be using these two flat brushes for creating any background bushes. Next, let us talk about my size four brush. Over here, I have size four and size zero. These are my round brushes. And I'm going to go ahead and show you the different brush strokes that you can create using your round brushes. Now this one is more like a long round brush, so it comes to a really nice fine tip, which can be used in our finer details. The maximum pressure that I apply in my brush, you can see that's the brush stroke that I get on the top. As I decrease the pressure on my brush, you can see I can get these beautiful thin strokes. And how do you control the pressure that you're applying? I like to rest my wrist on the table and using the smallest pinky finger, I like to change the different pressures that I'm applying on my brush. It gives me more control over the pressure that I'm applying. Now, this again, depends on how you feel and how you tend to use your brushes completely your choice, the basic idea is to just change the pressure that you're applying. Next, I'm going to show you my size zero brush, which I tend to use a lot for the finer details. This is the maximum pressure, so this is the brush stroke with the maximum pressure on my brush. And you can see how as I decrease the pressure on my brush, I get these beautiful thin strokes. I can really like barely touch my brush and create these thinner, thinner strokes. Very fine details can be created using my size zero brush. And I really love this thing about this brush that I have, that you can create these finer, finer details with very, very light pressure on your brush. So hold your pinky, you know, change the different pressures that you're applying and make sure that you're resting your wrist on the table. That kind of gives me more control over it. But then feel free to do it the way you like. So these are the four brushes that I majorly want to show you. The last brush that I want to talk about is the spoilt brush. This brush, I use a lot when I'm creating these foliage and I want to show leaves and details. But I don't really want to work on individual strokes, so I just use this brush, load it up with some paint, and just kind of tap, tap it wherever I want to create a fuller foliage effect. Fuller leaves and details on the trees and things like that. I tap it out using this brush and then using my size zero brush. I tend to add finer details, which I'll show you next. This is a size zero brush as well. You can obviously have different sizes for different areas, but the size zero is the one that I'm going to use. These other five brushes that I'll be using. Again, I'll be using a combination of these brushes to create details in the background, in the foreground, all of it. Now let us talk about the different brush strokes that you can use to create different plant elements, right? So first I'm going to talk about this reed that I have here, or a wild flower, you could call it a bunch of different things. So this one is going to be a combination of size zero and size four. Again, you can use brushes depending on what's more comfortable to you. I'll be using size four and size is zero. First what I'm going to do is take my size four brush, make sure that I have a nice consistency of paint, very workable, movable, I'm able to create a bunch of different strokes without having my brush dry out. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and create a little warm up exercise where I'm just moving my brush in different angles, applying different pressures, making different strokes. I'm tapping in this one just you're going to warm up and create a bunch of different strokes before we go ahead and create those plant elements itself. Now using a combination of these little strokes and taps is what you use for creating these plant elements. So that's why it's important for you to go ahead and practice with your brush a little bit before you go ahead and start painting these elements. Now, try to create some lines and strokes towards the left, towards the right. And try to give it that shape where it feels like a fountain. I would say it's not really curving out as much, but it's kind of like a fountain. It's like a fan. Imagine a fawn. And then try to create a bunch of different strokes. You can do the same with your size zero brush as well. To create a bunch of curves, bunch of lines, bunch of slanty lines going left, going right. Just to warm up your hands, you create those little taps. You can see how there's a difference in the taps that you create. The sizing varies. This one gives you a more idea of the way you want the things to be, right? A bunch of taps, a bunch of dots, a bunch of dragging lines. Short ones, tall ones. I'm just practicing here really just warming up my hands, just creating a bunch of strokes to understand my brushes better. Understand how much pressure I should be applying in my brushes. Should I be applying more pressure? What happens when I apply more pressure? What happens when I apply lighter pressure? What is the thickness of the line that's getting? So all of these, you'll find out when you practice it on your own. Now, my brushes look a certain way, your brushes might look a certain way. And that's why this exercise is important for us to, you know, understand our brushes, get to know them, get to know our hands, get to know how much pressure you're applying. Now over here, let's create a few different strokes. So what I've done here is created a slanty line and then added a bunch of taps around it. As you can see, they're all around it and they're going left and right. Don't really focus more on the direction in which they are moving. Let me give you a closer look. So I'm going to create a slant line and then add a bunch of taps dots. Don't focus again, don't focus on the shape. Focus more on creating a bunch of taps around it. And you can see how slowly this resembles some plant element that you might see. Could be a branch, could be something that you're seeing on the trees, could be something that you see on a shrub. So you've got the slant line over here. I'm doing the same thing with my size four brush. And you can clearly see the difference in the strokes. This one's a lot thicker as compared to the size Zto that I was doing previously. And that's how you can vary the sizes where you want to show thicker elements, you can use a size four. And wherever you want to show finer details, you can use a size zero. Just create taps, lines going left, lines going right, and just some random strokes around it. This is how you're going to warm up and know a lot about your brushes. Just feel free to do it however you want. In that section, we're not really learning something, we're just warming up. Now that we're done with our warm up exercise, let's go ahead and create a bunch of plant elements. The first one that I am going to teach you is this Read again. It's going to be a combination of your various warm up strokes that you made. Again, we're not focusing on trying to make our painting look a certain way. And that is why in this class, we're not going to be painting from reference images, and we're just going to have fun with it first. Let's talk about this, read. For this, I'm using my size zero brush. You can use your size four brush as well just to create the background. Maybe for that little stem. I'm using size zero because I want it to be fine. Now from there, I'm going to start releasing strokes in this left direction. And some taps on that, coming out towards the right. And some taps on that. The basic idea to keep in mind that it's going to have this conical shape. The base is going to be slightly increasing as you go there, and the tip is going to be very fine. That's how that shape comes in. Again, if you see very closely, I'm just tapping it from the left and right, I'm releasing it. And you can see there is no definite shape to this, right? We do not want it to have those definite shapes for the leaves. I'm just going to create a stroke upward. If I want to create that leaf effect, I will bring it down. It can do that in different directions as well. You can, you know, drag your brush, apply pressure and then release it for the grass. For these tall grass, you're just going to go ahead and drag your brush in different directions. So just a combination of a bunch of different strokes to create an element that looks like that, red. Let's talk about the different kind of plant elements that's right next to it, right? This is our first class project, so we have to be very particular about understanding the shapes because first class project is always so exciting. Now over here I'm going to drag my brush over here. We're using the same concept with the read that we did on the left. But over here, these strokes that I'm taking out from the left and right side, they're closer to one another instead of having a little bit more of a distance next to it, right? So this is like very closer to one another, very compact. It's not creating that conical shape, but rather it's following the structure that we just made. Just slightly increasing, I would say the tip is still a little bit shorter, but as you come down, you're not making that drastic change in the size. And the way it spreads out, you can see how it's very compact and it's just coming down following the shape of the stem. And then you can just add in a bunch of grass next to it just to make it appear fuller. Again, when you create a bunch of these elements together, it makes a huge difference. And you can also always play around with the sizing of it, along with the strokes that you add on the left and right, you can add in some in the middle just to make it look fuller. Next, let's talk about this tree. Now, I'm not going to be making that entire tree, I'm just going to show you a small section of it and how I am creating this shape. Now like I mentioned earlier, these taps can be done in various different ways, in various different shapes and sizes. It does not have to look exactly like mine. I wanted to make sure that this class does not focus more on creating something that looks like a reference image, or creating something from a reference image. But rather just look at a reference image that's completely okay, but the way you create it, it's more about how you imagine it to be and how you want it to lurk. And as you go, you're not really applying that pressure on yourself to make it look a certain way, but rather enjoying the process. Now for this, I have a very similar concept to the read itself. Like I mentioned, everything is interconnected here. It's very similar to the red. But the difference here is it's a tree now and it's coming out more, it's spreading out more along with the left and right branches that I have, creating these shorter taps on it. Moving upwards just to show a bunch of different maybe leaves, some sub branches that you're not seeing in complete depth because it's at a distance. And along with the left and right strokes, you'd also make some in the middle to make it appear fuller. Now you can see how I create a stroke moving towards the right. And it slightly moves upwards and then just a bunch of taps around it with very light handedly. Again, like I told you, I'm not really focusing on the way the shape looks or if it has to look a particular way. I wouldn't even name this tree. I'm just enjoying the process of creating these strokes and just adding these branches. Adding a bunch of sub branches and just creating taps around it and just warming up my hands and not focusing so much on the final outcome. Just create a bunch of different dots that are kindly kind of closer to one another and that will give you the shape that you need. Next, let us talk about a pine tree. Now, before we go ahead and talk about a pine tree, I also want to show you a different kind of tree. And that is your trees where you want to add foliage in it and make it appear fuller. And how you can do that with your spoilt brush. I want to show that before we go ahead and talk about, you know, our pine trees like stuff like that, where you've got branches coming out from the left or the right side and you want to just kind of show. That there are leaves and you're not really seeing so much detail of it, but you know that it's fuller and it has a bunch of leaves around it. For that, you'll basically take your size foe brush or even your size zero brush and you're going to create a basic structure of the tree. It doesn't have to be a perfect structure because you can create these leaves in different places as well. But if you have just create a basic structure for the tree, a bunch of main branches and sub branches have been put on my paper. Next, I'm going to take my spoilt brush, load it up with some paint. Make sure that you're pressing it down perpendicular, just to spread out the hair of your brush a little bit more. Then you're going to just start tapping. Don't again, focus on where to tap, how to tap. Just make sure that you're with your spoil brush, just tapping in some foliage. Because the major details come in when you go ahead and connect everything using your round brush. Now over here, you can clearly tell these are taps and it doesn't really blend in that well. To blend everything and add in some finer details, you go back with your size zero brush. Wherever you see the ends of these taps that you created, you're just going to add in some little branches and some extra taps around it. And that's going to give you that overall shape for it. It's going to enhance the structure a little bit more. You can see a little bit of some extra extra dots that you might see. And that's going to put the entire structure together. Is that a way that I would like to put it? It brings the entire structure together. You can clearly see how these little details made that major difference. Right earlier when I just created the background and the taps, it kind of just looked not in tune with one another and you could clearly tell that there was a difference between them. But now that I've added a few of these strokes, you're able to see some finer branches, some tinier leaves and things like that. So you can just always go back and, you know, create a connection between all of them so that this entire composition of this foliage and branches and leaves kind of come together. So we will be using this technique a lot, at least in like three or four class projects. I would like to say where we are going ahead and just stepping in and then creating these extra shapes around it and making it appear fuller. So I really like this technique, honestly. This is one of my favorite ways of creating trees, especially when you're working in silhouettes. You don't really have to focus so much on the entire detailing. All right, next let's talk about the pine trees that we'll be making in our class now. Again, the pine tree concept, very similar to the tree and the red that I showed you. Just that this one's a lot more structured for here. I'm just creating a section of my pine tree because I'm not creating a whole long pine tree. And we'll start off by releasing these finer strokes at the tip. And as you come down, you will be increasing the size of your taps. So I'm just going to have a branch come out, taps around it, branch come out to the left, taps around it. Along with the taps left and right. I'm creating some taps in the middle as well so that it has that fuller effect. Don't forget to kind of tap a few bunch of strokes in the middle as well. Otherwise you'll end up with a tree that looks straight up and you'll see the stem or the main trunk. And then you'll have left and right strokes coming out, so you'll not see an entire structure in it. So make sure that you are creating some taps in the middle so that it shows that, okay, this branch is coming towards you, facing you, but you're not able to see that branch entirely because of the trunk, but you're seeing the leaves around it. I hope that's making sense to you. So you can see over here how I have a branch coming out. It curves down. Remember? See how it curves down And then it moves up and then I've got taps around it. Again, not focusing so much on the way the tap looks. It's obviously going to be thicker at the base. And as you know, the ends of it is going to appear thinner. And you're just going to repeat the process all over the tree, like all the way from top to bottom. And each time you kind of come down, you're just going to slightly increase the size of it. And you can make some of them in that same size where the span is the same, but make sure that you're only slightly increasing the span of it. Otherwise, you're going to start off very small and you're going to end up with a really wide tree. You do not want a really wide tree to avoid that, you are going to make sure that the way in which you increase the sizing is very, very minute and fine. But overall, when you look at it, you can tell, okay, there was a gradual increase in the span of my trees. Now, along with this pine tree, I want to show you the smaller version of it, how you can create the smaller version of it. This one's slightly bigger, obviously, you can go all the way down and, you know, create a longer taller structure. But for a smaller structure, we're going to be omitting a lot of these details. So you just start from the top and you've got these details coming left and right and you can see howI'm not really focusing on the leaves and the way the structure looks a lot. I'm just going to focus more on gradually increasing the size of these branches going left and right. And I'm just creating a bunch of taps around it. Just a bunch of strokes around it is going to give you an effect of a tree like this. Again, this one's going to be in the background, so you're not going to be seeing a lot of details for it. But when you look at the painting, you know that it's a pine tree in the background. Now, the next type of pine tree is the one that we're using here in our class project is just a part of it. This pine tree is probably very close to the observer and he's only seeing a section of it in the view that he has taken. For this, you will create a stroke, a curve, like the one that I've created. Imagine that you are going to create a pine tree in this structure, but you're following the structure of the curve that you've made. So you're releasing these strokes around it and you are following the curve. You're following the structure and you're just creating a bunch of strokes around it, curving in that same direction, and you're creating these taps so that they kind of look spread out. This one I would say looks very similar to those fake pine trees that you get. The fake Christmas trees that you get, the plastic ones. The structure looks very similar to that, but again, it is inspired from a real pine tree, right? So we're not really focusing so much on the detailing, but trying to capture the essence of what we see and what we observe. This is an example of a part or a section of the pine tree and we'll be using a combination of all these elements in our class project. Now make sure that you are practicing this, understanding your brushes, warming up your hands, Warming up your wrists. Because honestly, when I started with my first painting, I could feel a strain in my hands. So this will happen to you. So make sure that you are warming up your wrist, especially if you're painting after a really long time, it might feel very different. And that is why this warm up exercise is important just to kind of, you know, bring back those memories from the past that you've had about creating certain things. And then bring them back on paper and just feel good. Have a little bit of familiarity about your structures before you go ahead with the painting. All right, now that we're done, I will see you in our first class project in the next lesson. 6. Project 1 Part 1 : By the Lake: Hello and welcome to your first class project. Here's what you're painting today. You can download the final picture for your reference from the Project and Resources section under this class. And I've also listed down all the colors that I'm using for this particular project so you can gather the shades that I've mentioned or the ones that you have with you. And let's begin starting off with the sketching process. So I've got everything settled in. I've taped on my paper, taken the colors out on my palette. Two charges of water paint, paper brushes, all of it is ready. And let's begin with this sketching process. So the first thing that we are going to do is sketch out the basic composition of what we're supposed to achieve from the final painting. If you take that fair reference or if you're just painting along with paint, the first thing that we're going to do is determine the horizon line. Somewhere around more than half the paper, I would say is where you're going to go ahead and create a line. Now the one third or the top part is going to be the sky. Here you have the horizon line, and below that you've got the lake and the other details. Let's just add all of that in. This gives us a clear idea of where the horizon line is going to be above the horizon line. I've got a hill at a distance and it's really, really far away, so the size is very small. Can you see how that height of my hill is so small? So you're going to go ahead and just create this irregular shape. Go up and down as you please sketch it out as you please. The area above that is going to be the sky below that is going to have the reflection of the sky somewhere on the bottom. Like leaving a little bit of space, 1.5 inch or 2 " from the bottom. I'm going to have all my plant elements in. You're going to have that wildflower or the reed. I'm going to have a bunch of different shapes that I've taught you from the practice lessons or the exercise lesson. And we're just going to be adding all those details in, in the foreground. So this is going to be a basic composition. I'm not sketching everything out properly, especially the details of the plant elements, because that's something you do as you go and we just want to make sure that we're covering everything in. Anyway, as Guash is an opaque medium, your sketch is going to go, so you don't really have to spend so much time in the sketching process. So once you have your sketch in, let us start with the painting process. So we're going to start painting now. All right, so we're going to start off with the Sky First. I'm taking my flat brush, my size ten flat brush. So that I have more control over the areas in which I'm supposed to be applying the paints, and it helps me cover smaller areas. The first mix of yellow that I'm going to create is a mix of cadmium yellow with a little bit of primary red. Very, very tiny amount of primary red and white. And also notice how the consistency of the paint is in that milky consistency. Here's a swatch of the color that I'm using. You can see the color shade that I've mixed. It's very vibrant, but at the same time it's a very light shade of yellow. And I'm going to add that in the right side of my painting, somewhere around the middle, right side. You're going to go ahead and add that color. Now, if you notice very carefully, there are these streaks of blue. There is some pigment left over in my brush. So that's why I say make sure that you're cleaning your brush properly. Next, I'm going to mix my yellow and red together with white. This time a little bit more red so you can see how I get this pinkish peach color. I would say you're going to add that in right next to the yellow. When you're blending this, make sure that you are not applying a lot of pressure on your brush very lightly. You're going to spread that around. Because if you apply a lot of pressure, you might just mix the yellow and the orange in a way that you might not like. And we want the right section of our painting to have that yellow effect, right? So just be a little bit careful. Very light handedly, you're going to be doing the blending process next. I'm mixing red and blue with a little bit of yellow and white. Very, very, very tiny amount of it. So make sure that you are just barely kind of touching your brush to the paint. And once you have the mix, you're going to add that on the left more section, again bringing it in. Now, if you notice very carefully, I start from the left and as I move towards the right, I'm just releasing my brush very lightly releasing it. It is that to and fro motion that I say, but over here we're just releasing towards the right side so that we don't have that harsh blend and we're just trying to get the paints to merge into one another if I were to put it, but very lightly. Now that I have these colors in, I want to create a darker shade that I'll add at the bottom. I'm using a mix of blue. Black and a bit of red. This is a slightly darker color as you can see. If it's too dark, you can add in a little bit of white to get this gray, bluish color. And you're going to add that at the very bottom of your sky. You can also add it in the mountains. That's completely okay. Anyway, we'll be adding that layer over it so it's completely okay. If it goes into your section, make sure that it is just above your horizon line. Now that you have all the colors in place, it's time for us to blend them. Because right now they're just sitting next to one another without really being blended in. What you're going to do is just create the colors that you did earlier and you're going to start adding that again this time. Add in a little bit more paint into your brush and just blend everything into one another. Right now I've added the yellow. I'm moving it up, ensuring that I'm also blending this light yellow shade with that purple, grayish purple that I added at the bottom. And you can see how it's just slightly blending into the yellow. Once I've done that, I'm going to create that pink shade that I had or that peachy color that I had, which was a mix of yellow and red together. The Swatch I've shown you here, you're going to add that right next to it, in the middle of the painting, right the middle of the car, you're adding this peachy color. Again, blending it in very lightly, very light handedly. If you think you're, you've added too much of the pink, you can go back and add some yellow in. That's the best part about guash. It's very forgiving. You can always go back and change things and move your colors around. If you don't like a particular color, like I felt like the pink was too much, you can add a little bit more blue. Make it more purple. Move the colors around, change things a bit. We're here to have fun. If you don't like the blend in the way I've done it, feel free to do the blend in the way you would like to do it. Like I said, this class is about getting back to your painting regimen or coming out of a creative block and there is no right and wrong. Your painting is going to look good and you are just here to make that effort towards, you know, showing up for yourself and creating a painting. I really like the way the blend looks. I can see that there is yellow, orange and there's purple color blended in. If again, you don't like something, you can always go back and fix things here and there, change things here and there. I felt like, I mean, I had another look at it and I'm like, okay, maybe I should be adding a little bit more pink into my, you know, section in my sky. So I went ahead and added pink in the place where there was a lot of purple. So I just wanted to add a hint of pink there. Again, if it looks like the paint, it's just sitting there and you'd like to blend it. Move, Then all you have to do is clean your brush completely. Just rinse your brush. Double rinse it to make sure that you have no pigment. Tap off the extra paint off and the water off. And just lightly with your brush, with a damp brush, you're going to move the colors around. So I'm just using a damp brush to move the colors. And right now I think I could say that I'm really happy with it. I don't want to do anything more and just wait for it to kind of blend in and dry out, and then I'll make my final judgment. But right now, I feel like this looks good. The purple has been blended in. You've got the pinks, you've got the orange, and you've also got that bright yellow in the right most side of my painting. So we're going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next step. Al, right now that this section has completely dried, it's time for us to work on the elements that were above the horizon line. For that, I'm going to use my size four round brush and I'm going to create a darker mix. I'm mixing my blue, that is Prussian blue with my black paint. I'm just going to make a darker color to show this mountain that has at a distance. Mix them together, you'll get this color which is very similar to indigo. And this is a swatch of the color. You can see how it's nice and deep using this color. Go ahead. If your sketch has been, you know, covered up and it's not visible, go ahead and sketch it out. Or you can just free handed go with it, go with the flow, and just create your shape of the hill at the distance however you like. There is no right and wrong here. So I'm just going to make sure that I carefully go above the shape of it, how I want it to be. So I'm just, you can see I'm just creating that line to kind of capture the entire shape and the structure of my mountains. Once I'm done with that, I'm just going to carefully cover up the remaining spaces, make sure that I am above the horizon line. Honestly, nothing's going to really go wrong if you go below the horizon line. Like I said, Guash is very forgiving that way. But I just like to keep my sections clear. So I'm just going to go ahead and cover it up right above the horizon line and you can see how put together this looks, how beautiful they said effect of the mountains. You can always go ahead and change the shape if you think you know you don't like the way you've made it. Make more uphills and downhills to it, and once you're happy with it, you are going to let this dry completely. So I really like this, I'm going to let this dry. And in the next lesson we will be painting the lake and adding the reflections to it. 7. Project 1 Part 2 : By the Lake: All right, so now that we're done with painting everything that's above the horizon line, it's time for us to focus on the area below the horizon line over here. You'll be seeing a straight reflection of what's above the horizon line. Along with that, we'll be seeing more of the darker color because we want to show the hill and the darker parts of the sky being reflected on the lake. And then again, of course, we have the yellow on the side and that little bit of orange and purple that's blending in. So we have to show all of that in the reflection. It doesn't have to be perfect and exact, but we're just trying to capture that similar sence that's above the horizon line over here. Again, I will be using my size ten flat brush and I'm creating that darker purplish shade that we have over here. I'm mixing red, a little bit of blue and white together. And to this I will add a tiny amount of black as well, so that I get that deeper color that we see in the sky. We're going for that slightly gray mix, adding a little bit of black and you'll get this darker grayish color. So I'm just going to swatch this out here for you. We've already seen the swatch, so we don't have to swatch it again. But if you were to, you can just test it out again to see if you're getting a good color match over here. I'm just going to carefully go ahead and apply that in. You can see how the consistency of my paint is not very thick because again, this is in the background, I do not need a very thick layer. Go ahead and cover the area very carefully below the horizon line. And just bring it down slightly like probably half an inch you cover with this color, clean your brush completely. And then over here, I'm going to mix my red paint with a little bit of yellow paint and white paint to get that orangish shade like a G color. I'm going to go ahead and start blending that in. If you feel like your paint is not blending in, you can always use water just to make it a little bit more workable. And it's okay if this the consistency of this paint is a little bit thinner because you're going to go ahead and add another layer over it. Or just once you're done with placing all the colors, you can always go ahead and add in more of the similar shades and blend it in like we did earlier in the sky as well. So once I'm done adding that orange, peach color, I'm going to go ahead with my lighter yellow color. And I'm going to spread that out. So I'm going to bring it in, blend it out, very similar to how you've done the sky above. You're just going to place the colors in a similar manner so that you're getting that reflection in place as you go. Once I'm done with the yellow and you can see how I'm moving it from the right to the left and I'm releasing my brush. Once I'm done with the yellow side, I'm going to clean my brush. And then I'll add in that pink, purple color that you're seeing. And then you're just going to blend it in a similar manner. Now over here I'm mixing my red with a little bit of yellow and white. And then I'm adding a little bit more of the red and blue in it. So I'm trying to create a purple shade. So this is something that you go back and forth with. You can add more red into it to make it slightly more purple and a little bit more blue if you want to make the purple a little bit more intense. So I wanted to go ahead with the pink first before I went ahead with the purple. So the pink is a mix of your red, white, and a tiny, tiny amount of blue so that you get that pink but slightly purplish color. I hope you're getting the mix that I'm talking about. Once I'm done with that, I'm adding the purple, the grayish purple that I use, and blending it in properly. And as you can see, as I mentioned earlier, you're going to go ahead and just kind of blend everything with each other. You'll be adding more of the paint so it's completely okay if you are not having a very, very thick even layer initially and you don't need that thick even layer, you want the layer to be slightly lighter so that when you layer over this, you do not end up creating a very the layering mix that we learned. You're not ending up with a very thick layer in the background. I'm going to go ahead and add in a bit of purple. And I'm going to blend that with that peachy color that I laid out next to it. And you can see how I go from left and I release it towards the right side, leaving a little bit of space for that yellow to shine through. And I'm also blending it with that grayish color so that there's an even blend. Once I'm done with that, I'm cleaning my brush and just loading up my brush with a little bit of that yellow color and going back and adding that in and blending it with the colors next to it. So you'll have to keep going back and forth with this until you end up with a blend that you like. There might be places where you do not want to add any color, but you want to blend it slightly in those places. What you do is you just go ahead and use a damp brush to move the colors around. I wanted to bring the purple a little bit more further down below my sketch. So I went ahead and just bought it a little bit down in places where I felt like it could use a little bit more of the color. I went ahead and added that. Then again, going back with my damp brush and mixing the colors around until I find that I'm able to capture the colors in a similar manner as they appear to be in the sky. I felt like my lake reflection lagged a little bit of the orange color. So I went ahead and added that. But right now, I feel like we were able to capture the essence of the sky on the lake as well. We've got the beautiful blend that I like. Let's let this dry and then we'll move on to the next step. Now that my layer has completely dried up, it's time for us to add a little bit of texture on my lake. Now, I'm not going to go ahead and add all the details for the movement of the water and things like that. I'm just going to add a bit of texture to show the reflection and slight color variation on my lake. And we're going to be focusing more on the details that we add in the foreground, right? We're not really focusing on a lot of details for the background and we've got a lot of stuff happening in the foreground at the bottom which ends up covering major part of the lake. You really don't have to spend so much time trying to capture all the details in the background. So for that reflection or for that texture, I'm mixing my purple with a little bit of blue and red and black. We're getting a deeper purplish color. And what I'm going to do here is I'm trying to create a mix that, again, is slightly thicker than my usual mix over here. What you're going to do is tap off the extra water that you might have and the paint that you might have. You can see how when I brushed across my tape, it's creating a bit of texture. You want to ensure that you're not loading up a lot of paint and very light handedly, you're just going to go ahead and brush your, you know, move your brush across the paper. And the cold pressed texture of the paper is going to help you achieve that beautiful, uneven texture, that dry brush stroke in your painting. This is how you end up adding a little bit of texture in the background. You can see how I load my brush. If I feel like I'm loading up a lot of paint, I just go ahead and tap off the extra or just brush it across the side where the tapes are so that the extra paint is going off. And then brush it across the painting. Just a little bit of texture that I wanted to add. I really like the way the texture looks right now. And while that's trying, let us sketch out are foreground elements. Now, over here, if you would like to sketch it out, please feel free. If you do not, it's okay. You can free hand the whole thing as well. I'm just going to place main elements. I've got these long reeds where I want it to be, some grass shapes where I want it to be. Along with that, I'm just going to go ahead and just add the main stems in place so that it gives me a basic idea of how I want my structure or the composition to look. Of course, you can always go ahead and move things differently. Add a few more in the places that you feel are empty. But over here, we're just sketching this out roughly to give ourselves a basic idea of how we want the structure to be. Again, I don't want my structure to look very flat, So I'm not going to go ahead and create that ground space how it looks. Because I want it to have that unevenness and flow along with the way I add the tall grass and shapes like that. If I make it flat, then it just ends up looking not going with the flow. I would say it would just look like a layer just resting over the flat surface. Just to avoid that, I'm going to go ahead and not create that. In the next lesson, we will add all the details in the foreground. 8. Project 1 Part 3 : By the Lake: All right, let's go ahead and start painting all the details in the foreground. Here I have a mix of my brown and black paint. So there's a lot more brown and just a tiny amount of black to get this deep shade. It's very close to black, but I didn't want to use black directly. That makes my paint look very flat. To avoid that, I'm using a mix of brown and black. And I'm using my size zero brush as it provides me more control over my brushes and the fine details that I want to add. Right at the bottom, I want to add some leaves and some reeds that we practiced in the Get to Know your brushes lesson. We are going to be working in sections. You can see how first I know where the ground is going to be and what it looks like and I'm just going to go ahead and create a bunch of leaves and these tall grass shapes. And then eventually as we reach towards the bottom, we will fill that in more so you can create these different shapes, these plant elements, however you want to make and place them however you want. This is something in the foreground, give a different directions, make it go in different places. Play around with the shapes of the leaves, play around with the way it bends. This is all something that should come or will come actually to you naturally when you just sit down and paint where we're not thinking so much. And that is why we're not painting from a reference image because I did not want us to feel very bound to make it look a certain way or get lost in the details. Over here, you have the full creative freedom of making these elements and making them flow however you like. I'm going with some shorter ones. At the leftmost section, we can see I've created this half a section coming or like peeking through the leftmost. And when I peel the tape off, you'll see how only a part of it is shown in my painting. And I'm just going to create a bunch in the left. And you can see how as I reach the bottom, I'm creating a bunch of tall grass shapes moving in different directions. And I'm bringing it down and filling up that entire section. Now over here, I'm using a mix of brown and black. Over here, the quantity of brown that I'm using is a lot more because I want a slightly lighter, darker color. I hope that makes sense. And what I mean by that is you don't want to use a very deep tonal value for all the shapes that you make. When you add these little variations, it, they're all dark, but they do appear different. That's the concept that I'm going with in very, very easy terms, if I were to put it right so you'll have different, different shades of the darker color, You can achieve that easily by varying the quantity of brown that you add in your mix. Now, very carefully, I'm making the stem first, bringing it all the way up, and you can see how my movement is very light, very gentle. I'm moving it upwards because I want the tip to be very fine with very light handed taps. I'm creating the shapes, those little taps coming in from the left and right side, keeping in mind that it's supposed to be conical. It needs to have that. Like I say, all those shapes that we're painting in this class resemble the pine tree. For some reasons it has a triangular shape. And you can see how as I release it, each stem or the, each sub part that I'm releasing for this reads longer. It is moving upwards, so you can see how there is an angle play over here as well. And other than that, it's all just small, tiny, fine taps Again, you'll have to be careful with the pressure that you're applying on your brush. Make sure that you just load up enough paint. You're not overloading your brush with paint, otherwise, you're going to have bigger, thicker blobs of paint. And you're going to just get rid of the extra paint and very finely create these little tabs along with those reed shapes. I'm making some leaves, I'm making some grass coming in different directions. I'm making two different heads to the reed coming in from the same stems. You can always play along and add different things. Now, over here, the process is very repetitive, right? So you can see how I'm creating these reeds flowing in different directions. As I've mentioned earlier. Feel free to do that in different directions. You don't have to stick with the same direction. You can clearly see how I'm not even sticking to my own sketch. This is something happens to me all the time where I create a particular sketch for like a branch or a tree coming in, picking in from the right side, left side, whatever. And then I'll have that idea. And once I start painting, I just deviate. That happens because when you are in that flow, you end up thinking that, okay, this one looks better. Maybe the placement of a leaf here would look much better. The branch moving this way would look much better. This is something that really just happens when you sit down to paint and it's completely okay. We're here to have fun, right? Go ahead and create this red. As many as you want. And then as you come down you're going to go ahead and create these tall grass shapes and then fill it in like we did in that left most section. So once I reach that point, I will pin that out for you so that you know, but whenever the process is going to be repetitive, I'm going to keep quiet and let you enjoy the process as you paint along with me. Oh, oh. All right, so now that we're done with the main shapes, it's time for us to release some leaves. You remember how I told you you have to apply pressure and whichever direction in which you're moving, you will just tap your brush, apply the maximum pressure, and release it to create that shape. This can go left, it can go straight, it can move towards the right. There are so many different ways in which you can do that. Now, once we're done with that, once you're happy with the number of leaves you've at it, you're going to go ahead and load your brush, make these thicker grass shapes. And then as you bring it down, you're going to start filling up the bottommost section of the painting so that it looks like a uneven ground. Along with the shape that I'm creating. As you can see, I'm making sure that the ground does not look very flat. You want to make sure that the strokes that you're making does not have a very straight line effect to it. If that's making sense, you can see how it does look like it's very nicely spread and very uneven. And of course, I'm making some thicker strokes. And then as I release it, the strokes are getting lighter. I've added some more grass here and there, some more leaves to fill up the space. It's just coming from within. There's no thought behind this. I'm not trying to make it look like something. I'm just, you know, going with the flow and adding things as O and making that bottom section look fuller. Now that we're done with let's say one third of the bottom, it's time for us to move on to the next bit. So I'm going to be adding different variations for these plant elements that we're seeing. So I don't want the entire section to have just a similar kind of reed. So I want to play around with different elements. Now over here I'm going to add in some tall grass shapes and then I could also add some branches in there. And those little taps that we learned in our practice lessons, you're just going to unevenly create that kind of shape. Now over here, if you pay attention, I am holding my brush perpendicular to my paper. And that's why you're not able to see those strokes that I'm making. But if I were to put it and explain it to you, what I'm doing here is I'm just creating a few branch shapes and creating these little taps. You can always split around with the shape and sizing of it. I am going to concentrate more on this little section to not go all the way up like the left section that you can see. I'm just creating the smaller branch. These fine details just taps. There is literally no structure to this and I'm just going with the flow. I'm just filling the space in. That's the basic idea that I have for this. Create a bunch of strokes, create a bunch of taps. And you're focusing more on the top section of it. And as you reach to the bottom, just load your brush up with some paint and fill that section in. And I'm also going ahead and filling up any white empty spaces that I might have left behind. And just moving it around and you can see how I'm going in, the circular motion, very random uneven motion so that my structure does not look so flat. And I'm not creating these straight lines, I'm also creating some more of these branches and these little taps to fill up this particular section. Go ahead and add them however you like. As I've mentioned, there is no order to this. And it's all about having fun. All right, so now that we are done with more than half of the foreground, it's time for us to focus on the area that is towards the right most you can see. Again, the size of it increases. We're going to have some tall shapes come up here. I'm using mix of my brown and black, very similar to the ones that we've been using so far. Over here you can see how I have added a tiny amount of black just for that intense color. But again, majority of it is still brown. Now over here, the shape that I'm going for is something that I've already taught you in the get to know your brushes and brush trokes lesson. If you have missed that out, please make sure you watch it because I do explain the examples of these brush trokes that I'm going to be using and where I'm going to be using in my class project. Now over here, the shape and the structure is very similar to the read that you've made on the left thing that changes here is it is not spreading out as wide. And you're going from the top all the way to the bottom of the stem that you've made. And you're going to be following the structure of the curve. If you've made something move towards the left, you will be following that base structure and releasing these little strokes left and right. But you can see how I'm not increasing the span of it. It almost looks like it's the angle between these strokes is very fine. Can you see how it's not spreading out as much? These are a few things that you'll have to keep in mind. But again, if you want to go ahead and add those ads that you're seeing in the leftmost section, please feel free to do that. Again, it's all about having fun and building that creative habit. We're here to just create something at the end of the day, be it something that's similar to mine, be it something that you have imagined and something that's in between. A combination of both of those. We're here to have fun and enjoy the process of this repetitive motion. Now you can add these shapes as many times as you want. I will be adding about 56 of those, and then I'll focus more on adding the finer details. But over here, the process is very depetaitive. I'm just going to keep quiet and let you paint along with me. Nothing extraordinary and new is happening here, honestly. It's just the repetition of this shape and different sides and different angles and different curves. That's the only thing that's changing here. But the entire process is very depetitive to fill up the bottom section of it. Again, I'm creating these long tall as shapes, Just some of them so that, that uneven ground shape is coming into the play as I bring it down. You can see how I'm just moving my brush across in the circular, random motion so that I end up filling that section and I'm not making it look very flat. That's something that I have made sure to keep in mind that I don't want the structure to look very flat. Go ahead and load up your brush and just make these uneven shapes. At the rightmost section of my painting, I'm going to create a very similar shape to the ones that I have been creating so far. But this one is a little bit taller, which shows that maybe this one's a little bit more closer to the observer and it appears to be a little bit taller. But the entire structure and shape of it is again, very similar to the ones that we have been doing in that rightmost section. Again, create the shape. The strokes do appear to be slightly bigger because again, this one is closer to the observer and that's why he sees it in that way. You can always play around with the sizing of your brush strokes to bring in that concept of depth. Even though your painting is too dimensional and it's like a silhouette, you're not really adding that many details. But at the same time, you can bring that character and that sense of depth into your painting. All right, so if you've almost reached the end of the entire structure in the foreground, I'm just going to go ahead and add in a few more strokes to complete that section, you can add some of these plant elements peaking in from the outside of your painting surface as well. You can see how I have some of these strokes created on the tape itself. And that actually brings in that beautiful effect that, okay, you are capturing just a part of this whole scenery, right? When you click a picture, you only capture the section that you know you want to capture. And obviously there is a continuation of the entire section towards the left, right, up and down, right. So when you create these structures, coming in, slightly peeking in through the left or the right. When you peel the tape off, it creates a beautiful blend that, you know, It leads us to imagine that there's more of this and we've just captured one particular section of it. I hope that's making sense. Anyway, so I've reached towards the end of it here just to fill up the space. I am creating a bunch of tall grass shapes just so that that area appears fuller. And so you can always add these grass shapes to make it look fuller. So now I'm done with this. I'm going to let this dry and then see if I want to add some finer details in to complete the painting. All right, so now that this section has completely dried up, I am seeing a few white spaces at that bottom middle, towards the right side. So I want to go ahead and just create a bunch of tall grass shapes and just add in some few strokes so that it looks fuller. I'm also going to add in some final strokes just to make, again, wherever I feel like there is an empty space, I'm going to go ahead and add in a bunch of grass, some leaves, and some shapes around it. So that, again, the basic idea is to make your structure look fuller. And wherever you feel like there's something that's missing, something that looks empty, go ahead and create this. If you're happy with your painting right now, you do not have to do this step. This is something that I generally tend to do, is when I finish the painting, based on my idea, I have a look at it for a while. Once it dries and see that, okay, if there is something that I should add, if maybe a few more branches might make this structure look a little bit more put together or if not, I'm just going to let that be. So this is something that I do towards the end to analyze it and I always like doing that. There's always something that you can add, some grass, a few, five or six strokes of grass that you can add and make your painting look more put together. Anyway, I went ahead and added my five or six strokes of grass, and I really like the way this looks. So we're going to let this dry. All right. So now that this section has completely dried, I'm happy with the way this looks right now. We are going to carefully make sure that we're peeling the tape. Now, if your tape peels off the paper, then I would suggest that you just heat the section. You just use it dryer to kind of heat the tape so that the adhesive kind of loosens and it's easier for you to peel your tape. Mine does not have that problem, so I can just go ahead and peel my tape. I do be a little bit careful here because sometimes you end up tearing a painting, and that is not fun. Be careful over here. But other than that, just peel your tape off and just look at those beautiful, clear, crisp edges that we've gotten. Let's have a closer look at our painting. I love the glow that we were able to capture in this painting. That blend that we were able to work on together has turned out so beautifully. I love the texture of the lake. I love everything that's in the foreground. We've got a play of different plant elements, so it does not look very monotonous where you've just got one single element flowing from the left to right, and we've also got some peaking from the left and right side. So it shows that we've just captured one particular section of this beautiful landscape. All right, so this is it for the first class project. Here's a glimpse of what's coming on a two. So see you there. 9. Project 2 Part 1 : Pastel Sky: Hello and welcome to two. I hope you're excited to paint along with me today. Here's the artwork that we're painting, which you can download from the project and resources section as a reference. And I've also listed down all the colors that I'm using for this class. So let's gather that and get started. All right, so I've taped on my paper, I've taken out all the colors, as I mentioned in the previous part that's on my palette. And we're going to start off with the basic sketch first. So you're going to take your scale and your pencil, and the first thing that we're going to do is determine where the horizon line is going to be. Somewhere around half of the paper, I would say. A little bit below then half of the paper because we want the majority of the area to be for the sky. Somewhere below that, we are going to draw a line. So you can see how I've just divided the space up major portion for the sky and a little bit for the ground. Now for the eros above the horizon line, I am going to be seeing a beautiful pestal sky with a little moon. And then right above the horizon line, I'm seeing a bunch of trees. Okay? For example, just so many trees come back at the horizon. I'm going to roughly sketch that out. It does look like a mountain here, but when we sit down and ain't, you'll see that they are cluster of trees in the foreground. We're going to have this beautiful tree as like the main object in the foreground, right? I've shown you this picture. You can also download the final image. That'll give you a better idea of what the composition looks like. I'm not sketching out the tree entirely because it's all going to get covered up. So we'll do that when we going to start painting the tree. And other than the tree in the foreground, we've got some grass. We've got some flowers that we'll be tapping in using the, you know, tapping your brush, creating some splatter method. And then we'll do all of that, but that's the main thing in the foreground. So you've got your tree, and you've got some grass and some flowers in the foreground. So that's going to be a basic composition and the basic sketche that you need to have before we start painting. All right, now let's start with the painting process. For the painting process, I'm going to start off the sky first. Here I have my size ten flat brush because I need to be mixing a bunch of different colors so we don't need a wider brush in this area. A size ten works perfectly fine. I'm going to start off with the purple color first, so I'm going to take the purple color out on my palette because I feel like I haven't mentioned it. No, I have taken the purple color out. I have not taken yellow. I need a little bit of yellow on my palette. So, we needed seven shades. Now I have all seven shades that I mentioned earlier. All right. So I'm going to mix my purple color first, which is a mix of my Prussian blue and my primary red color. Now, this is going to give me a purple shade. Now you can see our purple is very dark, but when I add a bit of white in it, it looks a lot more opaque. Now, you can obviously change the value of the purple. That is, if you want it more towards the red side or the blue side, you can change that by adding more red or blue into your paint. I'm going for a purple that is more towards the red side. Chickens have added more red into my mix and I felt like this was a little bit darker. So I'm adding a bit of white to kind of lighten the color out. So here's a swatch of the paint. It's a very beautiful, I would say, lavender color. Right? I'm going with that shade first, rinsing my brush, making sure I'm getting rid of any extra blue or red that might be on my brush. And loading up this color and starting off by going in this left and right motion at the bottom so you can see how I keep moving in this left and right motion, making sure that I'm covering everything. Now you've seen that I've left a little bit of space above the horizon line, that it's completely okay because, you know, we've got some other elements in that area and it's okay if you're not going to cover that entire section. Either you can or you can just leave it. As next, I have a pink color which is a mix of red and white. And I've added a little bit of the purple that I've used from before just for that beautiful transition to come into place. I've added a bit of that color in. And then I'm blending it out again with the purple that I laid out earlier. We're here just at that section where the intersection is between the pink and the purple. Keep going over that a couple of times and the paint should just blend into one another. Now into the pink, I have added a bit of yellow, and you can see how it became a bit muddy because we had blue in there. To avoid that, make sure that you are making fresh set of paints, especially when you've got two primary colors in, they might make a secondary color or a muddy mix. So make sure that you're careful of that. Next, I'm mixing yellow with a little bit of red and white. And here I get this beautiful, light peach color. And I'm going to load my brush with that paint and blend it out into the pink color. Now you can see how when I do that, you can see the harsh lines, right? So to avoid that, I'm just going to go ahead and use a damp brush. So make sure your brush is clean. You can double rinse it to ensure that you have no paint in your brush and tap off the extra paint. And then you can always go ahead and blend it out. That's one trick and the way in which you do it. Next, I'm going to add some blue. The blue mix that I've made is a mix of Prussian blue, black, a little bit of red and white. I'm just adding a bunch of shades to get a blue that goes in with the entire vibe or the color palette of the sky. I didn't want just prussian blue and white because I would look very off. And that's why I've added a bit of a very, very tiny amount of red and black. I'm going to use the blending with white method here because we've got a color that still has yellow in it, so they might blend in together and create a muddy mix. To avoid that, I'm going to make sure my brush is completely clean just using my white paint. I'm going to blend the ch color and the blue color together. You're going to go in this left and right motion. Move upwards, slowly, move downwards and ensure that you get a beautiful blend. Now if you feel like your paints look very unblended, like over here, I can clearly see that there is a bit of that PT color that's not blended with the pink. Then I'm just going to go ahead and use my damp brush and move it around. The basic idea is to have this beautiful blend in your sky, where one color just seamlessly transitions into the other color. Now, blending can be a very therapeutic process. I personally feel like blending is such a therapeutic process where I'm just constantly going back and forth and just trying to ensure that the color is mixed into one another and that's just something that I enjoy. I mean, you could differ from my thoughts, but I really find blending very therapeutic. So you can see how I'm just going back into the areas where I've laid out the colors from before and now I'm just moving left and right to ensure that I get this beautiful, seamless blend. So that is something that's important. You can always ret your surface and ensure that the blend takes place properly. I really like the blend now, so let me let this try and then we'll move on to the next step. All right, so another section has completely dried up. It's time for us to move on to the other element that we see here. I'm using my size four round brush and we're going to focus on all the trees that we're seeing at the distance. Now over here, we're going to mix two different shades First, just so that we have two different colors to work with for a reference. And then we can go ahead and add lighter taco colors as we please. Now over here, I'm going to mix my burned Sana color. So I'm rolling up some burned Sana on my palette, adding a tiny amount of green into it, so you can see how the consistency remains towards the milky side. I'm just going to go back and forth with the color. So I'm adding a little bit more brown, a little bit of green in there. And this is the mix that I get. It's still towards the browner side, but it has that green hint to it. The next color that I'm mixing is my sap green with a little bit of black. And you can add a little bit of brown in it so that you know that transition shade is in that same color palette over here, I'm going with this color which is a mix of my sap green, black, and my burnt Siena. Now, these two colors are going to be used for adding various shades in the trees that I'm seeing at the distance. And I'm going to start making these vertical strokes. Can you see how I'm just going with these vertical lines? As I'm done adding the details for the vertical line, I'm just going to go ahead and start creating these random shapes to fill up that entire section up until the horizon line. Now over here I am, you can see transitioning between the browns and the black. So I'm trying to keep the brown at the top part of these vertical strokes that I'm adding. And as I bring it down, I'm trying to make vertical strokes, but I'm trying to make it using the darker color. So this way we're going to add variations in our shades with the lights and darks. I'm also adding a little bit of some strokes using just black color, but I felt like that was too dark. So I'm going to go back and just add some browns in and you add that lighter color into that area. So I'm just literally just playing around with different shades of browns and greens that I can add at the distance so that I can just add some different color variations in that area. If you're not comfortable with this, feel free to just add this section using a single color or make a mountain at a distance. Feel free to change and switch things up around as you please. You don't have to always stick to what I'm trying to tell you. Because this class mostly is all about creating something and focusing more on that rather than perfection and something that looks beautiful. We're here to have fun. Anyway, so I'm just going back and forth with the lights and darks. As you can see clearly, it does make a lot of difference because you can pretty much see where the difference in the color palm is in. You've got the top parts which is lighter, especially when it dries, it will show up a lot more. I'm trying to keep my strokes vertical up until I reach the bottom, And only at the bottom section. I'm carefully going in these horizontal strokes to fill up the space. And if you'll notice very carefully, the consistency of my paint is in light, so that creates that uneven watercolory effect when this dries. So you'll be seeing some lighter parts and some darker parts come into play and it will not look very flat. So this is some ways in which you can just trick your wash paints into trick them. They do have watercolor tendencies, so you kind of use them in that manner. Next, I'm adding a lighter brown color. I've added a bit more white into the mix. And I'm just adding some vertical strokes to show some lighter colors in these trees that I'm seeing at a distance. Now again, like I said, I'm just playing around with the colors here. There is no do that. I'm following, I'm just trying to pick up different sections as per my imagination. And I'm going to go ahead and add that in. I'm switching to my size zero brush because it provides me a little bit more of precision when I'm trying to lay these strokes down. So you can see not only at the top section of my shape that I've created, I'm also adding some in the middle, some slightly at the bottom. So this way you kind of ensure that there are different sections and clusters of trees as they are placed. And it's all not just one single layer, right? And sometimes you might feel like you've added too much of the lighter color, what do I do then you can go back and just add in the darker color. And if in case it looks like it's standing out a lot, then you can always re vet that section slightly and ensure that they kind of, you know, merge into one another. I wouldn't say blend, I would say merge because you just don't want the strokes to stand out so much. I felt like there's too much light color, light play happening and I need to add a little bit of darker shades, have gone ahead and added that. And you can see how I'm adding this color at the bottom section because I felt like it was too light and it looked a little bit flat. So I'm going ahead and doing that. So this is what I meant where you can always go back and forth with your colors and just play around and add a bunch of strokes. I really like the way this is turning right now. Initially, like I said, it starts off looking very flat. So you'll have to put in a little bit of effort to go back and forth with your colors, with your lighter colors and darker colors to ensure that you are achieving what you have in mind. It's very easy for it to not look like that because it's squash. And unlike water colors where things just merge into one another over here, you have to put in that effort to achieve what you want to look and what you want it to look like. All right? So just go ahead and play around. Give it some lighter colors, some darker colors. Lay them one over the other. If it doesn't look good, bring back the previous color. If you don't like any of it, just blend it all in and start again. So you always have the option to revet the surface and start again if you don't like something, All right. I'm really liking the way this is looking. I feel like it could use a little bit of the lighter brown color. So I'm mixing burn Siena with a bit of white. And as I lay that in I feel like it's a little too white. So I'm just going to go ahead and load up a little bit of green into that and then, you know, add that in and blend it out. So this is what I mean when I say go back and fix things if you don't like it, so you might not like a particular color that you lay down and it's completely okay. It doesn't mean your painting is drawing. You'll always find ways to fix it. So I'm just adding a bit of brown in my areas and overall, I'm actually really liking the way this looks. So I'm going to try and not overwork this entire section that much, and I'm going to just stop right here and let this dry. Now, while that tries, I will see you in the next lesson, where we are painting the foreground elements. 10. Project 2 Part 2 : Pastel Sky: All right, so now that we're done with the elements that are above the horizon line, let's focus on the background for the area below the horizon line. For that, I'm again using my flat brush itself and I'm going to create a green mix. Now for this green mix, I'm using my sap green. I'm adding a bit of white and a tiny amount of black into it. So we're going for this green that is not too dark. I'm going to add more white to light in the color. So this is the mix that I get. It's black and a bit of white. So this is the color that I have. Now, we're going to be using that for the background all over, so you're going to use a slightly, I would say milky consistency. It's not too thick but it's not too thin. It's very workable. And using my flat brush, I'm just going to go ahead and cover this entire section using this particular shade. Now, why am I using this particular shade is because I need to add a lot of darker colors in place as well to show the darker parts of my ground. So you can see how I'm just roughly adding this color everywhere. It's not very even. I'm not making sure that the blend is very nice and flat and everything is kind of blended into one another. That's not what I'm ensuring. I'm just making sure that I cover this entire section roughly in these random horizontal strokes everywhere, right? So now that we have this color in, we are going to go ahead and mix a bit of black into our paint and a bit of green. Now we're going to go and create this darker shade of color because we want to show the darker parts of this ground. Now you can see how if you feel like it's too dark, then you can always go ahead and add a bit of green. And you want to do the step while your paint is still wet and while your layer is still wet so that it just blend in merges into one another. You remember that section where I showed you the third type of blend where you're just adding a bunch of different colors while the paint is still wet so that it just merges into one another. Like the wet on wet technique that happens in what colors? I'm switching to my round brush so that it gives me a little bit more precision. And I'm focusing more on these vertical strokes at the top. So it gives me this grass like bushy effect. And obviously the lower part of it is a little bit more flat. So wherever you've created this section, ensure that the tops have that bushy effect so that once it dries, you have the opportunity to add strokes over it and add more details over it. Along with these four large sections that I've created. I'm also going to go ahead and just brush this across, you know, areas a little bit randomly so that you're still able to add a little bit of depth. And it's not just these four particular chunks where you're seeing the darker parts on the ground. So I'm just roughly blending that in very lightly over here instead of leaving the paint just as is. I'm kind of trying to go back and forth and blend that with the previous color. And this way it doesn't look that flat. It's not like, it's just sitting there. It kind of just merges in with the green color that we added. So now we've got this rough section in the ground and you can always go back and just add things wherever you feel like it. I felt like there was a little bit of white spaces that I wanted to cover, so I've added that in. All right. Now that you're happy with this, we're going to let this dry and then sketch out and work on our tree. Okay, so now that this section has dried, let's go ahead and sketch our tree out. Now, obviously, you can always just freehand the whole situation. You don't have to sketch it out. I felt like over here, I wanted a particular shape for the tree and the vision that I had in mind that needed a little bit of sketching. I've gone ahead and done that. So I'm going to create the slightly slanty looking tree and it's going to have these branches just like pine trees coming from the left and right side. So I'm just sketching out the branches and you can see how there's a little bit of that curve in my branch, right? It just curves upwards and then goes downwards and then moves upwards again. That's the kind of concept that I have in mind for this tree. So I'm just going to roughly sketch that out. And as I go lower with my tree, it's the span of the tree, right? The span of the branches, It's increasing. And I wouldn't say it's increasing by a lot, but there is still that increase that you can see as it comes down at the extreme bottom, I'm going to create a bunch of these crash shapes and just a bunch of branches around it and make sure that my tree is full. So this is something that's really helpful when you're trying to create plant elements or just nature elements in your trees. And sometimes when you paint a lot of trees, you actually have an idea in mind, okay? This is how I want it to look, and that is something that just comes naturally to you. But if you are someone who's new to this, you might need to sketch it out. And there's nothing wrong in that, you can always sketch it out. It's good to actually sketch it out and, you know, paint accordingly so that you have a little bit more control over what the shape looks like. All right, now that I'm happy with this, let's go ahead and start painting my tree. For this, I'll be using my size zero brush. Okay? So the color that I'm going to be using for this ray is going to be a really dark shade. So I'm going to mix my black color, so I'm going to add a bit of water in it to make it workable to which I'm adding my burnt CNA color. So basically the color that I'm actually looking for is this deep brown color. Like I said, we do not use black directly in our paintings. And we mix a darker shade of color to kind of create that harmony between our paintings so that, you know, it doesn't look like you've got, you did all that work in the background and you've got a black, deep color just resting on top of it. So you want to create that harmony in your colors. So you go ahead and create a mix that is dark, but at the same time it's using the shades that we've used in your paintings. I'm going to go ahead and start creating the main trunk. First, I'm carefully loading my brush up with some pain. I'm going to bring that upwards. Have more control over your hands here, because if you do not have good control over your hands, you might not end up with the desired shape, that fineness in your strokes. This is why you need a lot of control. In this section, I'm just carefully going to create the trunk and I'm just going to start following my structure. My structure as in the sketch that I've created. So you're going to have these steps coming in from the left and right once you create in the branch. And these taps are just random dots that I'm creating. Now, when I say dots, I do not entirely mean dots. A perfect circular dots. No. What I mean is these dots are like little curves. Now, again, this could be confusing to a lot of you. When you hear me say taps and let me create these dots, is I'm really focusing more on just dots. I'm creating these very fine structures, very fine shapes next to one another. And when it's all put together, it creates this beautiful illusion of tiny leaves or tiny sub branches and just tiny details that you can add to a tree. And if you notice very carefully, I like to hold my brush perpendicular to the paper. This provides me with a lot of control over the finer strokes that I need to add, along with the structure that you're adding on the left and the right side on the branches that are on the left and right side. Don't forget to add in some of these taps in the middle as well so that you bring in that three dimensional view. And by three dimensional view, it means you've got branches coming from the left, you've got branches coming from the light, but you've also got branches coming straight up at you, right? So you need to have some details in the middle as well. You don't want your tree to just look like it has two branches on the left and right side. So let me just give you a closer view of the strokes that you get a better idea of the taps that I'm creating. All right, so here's a closer view of these dots and these taps that I keep talking about. You can see how I release the branches on the right side, and then very carefully I'm adding in some taps on the left. I'm also adding in some taps on the right, some in the middle. And the structure is not like the entire branches are straight out. You can see how there's an unevenness in my shape, right? And this is constant to and fro motion. And I clearly remember when I was painting for the first time or painting this particular artwork, after a really long, I felt the strain in my hands because this to and fro motion is something that I work whenever I'm painting landscapes, I work with a lot. This hand movement is something that comes very naturally to me. And I can understand that it might be a little bit tricky for you to achieve a similar look because it's constant movement in my hands. It does make your hand, you feel that strain in your wrist. And I did feel it because I was painting after almost what it felt like four months or five months easily. So there was a lot of strain in my hands. I was not able to endure this for really long as I could before. I could clearly go out for like an hour using this hand movement. But when I was painting after a really long time, I felt that strain and I was like, okay, I need to stop now because I feel it hurts. It kind of hurts my wrist. Go slow in this step. You might feel a strain, so you can always just take it slow and then come back to it once you're done with it. One thing that you will notice in this brush strokes that I'm adding is how all these little taps that I keep talking about is slightly moving upwards. Now that is something that I wanted to do with this tree. Now again, as I've mentioned before, there are so many ways in which you can paint a tree. Not all trees look exactly the same, right? And of course we're not trying to name our tree, so you can always play around with this shape and say that your tree looks this way. If you feel like adding a tree, maybe going towards the left, go ahead and do that. Maybe you want to change the shape of the moon that I'll add. Feel free to do that. I always say that you have the creative freedom to change things in these artworks that I teach you. Because you are not copying me, but you're learning from me. And you are going to paint something which is probably your version of the same kind of artwork that we're doing, right? You always have the creative freedom to change things here and there. Now, over here, I'm just going to go ahead and, you know, complete my trade. This is a very repetitive process and there is no order to this. You're just following your sketch and sometimes not following your sketch because you can always change things around and you might maybe want the branch to be slightly upwards or slightly lower. It's completely okay. And in this step, you're just going to focus on painting the tree. This is a very repetitive process, so I'm just going to keep quiet for now. And once I reach the bottom of the tree, I'll show you how to proceed and let that merge into the background. All right, now that I've reached the bottom of the tree, what I'm doing here is just trying to create these branches moving upwards. Now you'll notice how these don't have a lot of these taps. And these shapes that I was talking about and majorly focuses on these branch like shapes emerging from it. Once I've added that at the bottom, I'm going to go back and start finishing up my tree now. You can always increase the span slightly if you'd like, but I kept it shot at the bottom because I wanted to add a bunch of these other grass like elements around that particular area. So I've just left that in so you can see how I'm adding these little branches, trying to add different elements around my tree so it doesn't look like the tree is just resting on top and it's very flat again, I told you I'm going to tell you how to merge that in. So you're just creating a bunch of different branches around it and going to complete the shape of the tree that you initially sketched out. Now that I'm done with the major part of the tree, I'm just going to go ahead and look at what the shape looks like. And maybe add in a few taps and few shapes and little details here and there just to make it appear a little bit more fuller, maybe try to bring in that transition between the branches. Maybe a few more details that you'd like. Overall, I'm really happy with the way the tree looks. Like I mentioned, I'm going to be adding a few details of the grass at the bottom. I've gone ahead and done that. And to make our tree look not so flat, I'm mixing a little bit of the darker color that I was using for the tree with a little bit of a white and using a slightly thicker consistency of this. I'm going to brush that over towards the left side of my tree, on that trunk that we have. Now, this dry brush texture is going to add that unevenness that you see in a tree. It's not going to look just this dark shade, it's going to have a bit of texture. And once it dries, it will show up a little bit more. And I'm focusing more on the left side because I'm creating a tiny moon on the left side of my painting. So the light is going to be coming from there. And that's why you've got the texture towards the left side. Now over here with my size zero brush itself, I'm going to lower up a little bit of white and add a tiny, tiny amount of water in it to make it workable. And lowering it up carefully, we are going to create this tiny little circle so you can see how I'm creating a tiny little circle. Now, you don't have to worry so much about the shape of it because we are going to re wet the surface that's around it. How you do that is you just clean your brush and with a damp brush, you re wet the surface and you blend it with the background. Now, I just wanted to slightly blend it with the background. If you feel like if it still looks very harsh, then you can always clean your brush and go back to it and clean the edges out a little bit. And then I'm loading up a little bit of white again and making sure that this moon shows up a lot more. And then again, if you feel like you want to blend the edges out, you can go back to it and using a damp brush, just move the paint around. And this where you create that damp in shine around the sun using the damp brush. Anyway, so we're done with this part. In the next lesson we are going to be adding further details to our foreground. 11. Project 2 Part 3 : Pastel Sky: All right. So what I've done here is I've actually used my size zero brush and created these grass like shapes on the darker parts of the ground that we had. My phone did not record this part, so I'm just explaining what was being done. Here was a swatch of the color. It was a mix of green and black and a little bit of brown. Just carefully, I have added these grass shapes over now. You can add as many or as little as you want. Once you're done with that, I am just using my round brush, my size four round brush, and I'm going to start tapping these dots in. So I'm just going to go back and create a bunch of grass shapes using my darker color. So you can see how I've added that. They're very randomly placed. We're not trying to make it blend into the background or anything. It's just standing as a layer over and it's completely okay. That was the kind of effect I wanted it to have. Along with these grass shapes, I want to add a little bit of texture on the ground. So I'm just making sure that the color is nicely mixed in. And using the dry brush stroke, that is very little paint on my brush, very thick little paint on my brush. I'm just lightly brushing it over on the white or the lighter spaces of my ground, and it's creating this beautiful texture on there. So you're just going to go ahead and brush your dry brush over the section and it's going to create a little bit of texture in that section. And once you're done with that, you can always go back and forth with this. You can add in some more, you can add in some more grass shapes, a little bit more texture. So this is something about personal preference over here. It doesn't have to be entirely exactly like how I am doing it at the bottom. I wanted to add in some more of these grass shapes and try to fill that up a little bit. And that's exactly what I've done. I've added these grass shapes and then a little bit of texture back and forth. Once I'm done with that, I am going to switch to my size four round brush. Here's my size four round brush, and I'm going to use a mix of my white paint with a tiny, tiny amount of blue, very, very, very light blue shade. Now this is just to kind of make it not appear completely white and have a little bit of a tint to it using my round brush. Wherever those little grass shapes that I've created, I'm just going to add in dots over it now. You don't have to add it over all of them. You can leave some of them as is. And on some of them you can add the shape in. And you can also vary the size of these dots that you're adding. So you can add in some bigger ones, some smaller ones. This is again something that just happens as you start painting. We're not putting a lot of thought in it. Go ahead and start adding these dots. Some bigger, some smaller. One thing that you'll have to keep in mind, especially the ones that are closer to us will appear to have all these variations in the shapes. The ones that are in the background will, you can have variations but they will still have variations. In the smaller dots, the shapes are going to be very, very tiny, so that way you can bring in that perception of depth. The ones that are closer can have bigger dots, can have some smaller ones, but major bigger ones, the ones that are in the background, will have even tinier, tinier ones. Go ahead and add that wherever you please. And once we're done with that, we will see what our final touch ups can be in our painting. Now that I'm done with the dots, I'm going to just apply a paper over my section, cover up the sky. And using my size four arm brush, I'm just loading up my paint and tapping it against another brush to create these platters, just to have these white dots scatter around in different areas. That's pretty much it. Once you have these platters in, you're just going to stop right there and not overdo this. Once section completely dries, you are going to go ahead and see where the final details or if there are any final details that you would like to add. Now over here, I feel like I could add a few more details to the tree. So I'm just going to go ahead and do that. Maybe add in some more grass shapes wherever necessary. Now, this is again something that is a personal preference. If you feel like your entire structure looks well and good, then you don't have to do any of this. You can just peel the tape off directly. But in case you feel like, okay, there is something that I would like to change, there's something that I'd like to add. Then feel free to go ahead and make these little tweaks here and there. I am really liking the overall look of it. It just needed some more work on the tree. So I went ahead and added some final strokes around the tree, around the branches, and more details for the leaves. And once I'm done with that, I actually really like the way this looks. So I'm going to let this dry completely and pay the tape off. All right. So now that my painting has completely dried off, it's time for us to peel the tape. Now, I'm going to peel the tape against or away from the paper so that I'm not tearing up my painting. Again, make sure that you're careful with your tape peels, because sometimes if your paper, especially with these handmade papers, there are chances that you might tear your painting. So just be careful around that. But it's not, you're just going to go ahead and carefully peel the tape off and you'll have these beautiful, crisp edges, and your painting is going to pop up even more. Now let's have a closer look at the painting. I am so in love with the color palette of this class. I love how the green nicely blends in with the colors in the sky. We've got this beautiful tree that just stands out, there's a moon in the background and all these little flowers that are on the ground. It just gives you that, you know, that pretty sunset during spring kind of energy, I would say. I'm really happy with the painting and I hope you enjoyed painting along with me. This was it for day two and here's a glimpse of what's coming in day three. So see you soon. 12. Project 3 Part 1 : Mountain View: Hello and welcome to your third class project. We're painting this beautiful Mountain View. Today I've listed out all the colors that I'll be using for this particular project. You can use shades that are similar to this. Gather them and let's get started with the process. All right, so I've taped on my paper, here are all four sides. I've also taken out all the colors that I've mentioned on my palette. So I've got all my supplies ready. Now the first thing that we'll be doing is determining the composition and understanding what the basic painting idea is. Now the first thing that I want to place is the Sun. If you look at the final painting that you can download from the project and resources section, if you look at it, I have placed somewhere towards the middle and the right side of my painting. That's exactly where I've used my pro circle and placed a little circle, a tinier circle. You can do this freehand as well. You don't really have to have a perfect circle. Now, once you have the placement ready for the sun, again, you can apply it anywhere you'd like. It doesn't have to be in this particular area itself. My left section is going to have this beautiful tall pine tree, and that's why I've added my son majorly towards the right side. Now once I have that in place, I'm going to start creating my series of mountains. Now I've had one come out from the left, I have some in the middle, and then I've added one in the right side. Now they're all overlapping, so once you are happy with what's front and what's at the back, you can erase those lines. I'm just going to go ahead and create a bunch of different series of these mountains. I've got one at the back, and then if you notice very carefully how bring them along is wherever I have like the peak of my mountain, the one below that has that more slanty towards it, so I'm not going to have two peaks in the same area basically, that's the rule that I'm going with here, because I want to show you the ones in front and you're going to have this beautiful viewpoint of it. So you can just create that however you like. There's no particular order in which I'm following that. Please feel free to change it around and switch it around. Now in the foreground, I have this beautiful pine tree. Again, you don't really have to sketch out all the details because you know they do get covered when you're painting the background. So it doesn't make sense for you to draw all the details out. But just to understand the basic composition, you can just lightly sketch it out. So I've got this beautiful tree in the foreground and then I have a bunch of these little plants that are around it. So shrubs that are around my pine tree. So we'll be adding all those details in the bottom part of my painting. So this is going to be my basic composition. Once you're happy with the sketch, we're going to start with the painting process. All right, so the first thing that we're going to start off is by painting and creating the background for the sky. But before we go ahead and do that, I'm erasing my son, the placement of my son, and my son actually felt really large, so I went ahead and erased that and added a tinier son in that intersection that I have of those two mountains. Right. So I really like that placement a lot more. So I went ahead and did that. You can always make corrections here. I'm taking my flat brush and we're going to start off by creating this beautiful gradient between the warm colors, right? So we're going to have like an intense orange, slightly brownish color at the bottom. And that goes on and gets lighter as we go up. So here I'm creating a mix of orange, red, white, and burnt sienna. So cadmium orange, primary red, burnt sienna, and white color. Now, white makes your paint a little bit more opaque. And I really like adding that white color in my paintings. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. And again, if you ever feel like your colors are not as intense as you want them to be, you can always go back and fix it. So using this particular shade, as I swatched earlier, we are going to go ahead and carefully apply that next to the sketch of the mountains that we have. Now, nothing's going to go wrong if you go inside the lines, but just slightly, be careful over here because we're going with a lighter consistency for our mountains. Now you'll see more on that as we start painting those. Now, once I have my orange laid in to my same puddle of mix of the colors that I have, I'm adding yellow and white together. Now, there is very little white in this mix. So it's a lot more intense, vibrant yellow shade. And I'm going to go ahead and load my brush and apply that and blend it with the orange color first before moving upwards. So this is something that you have to keep in mind that you want to try and blend the colors that are still wet and then work your way up. Next, I'm giving my brush a really nice rinse and I'm loading my brush with some white. And this time I'm creating a slightly lighter color as compared to the one before. This is a lighter yellow color. Again, you can see how I'm blending it in with the yellow first and making sure that I'm having this beautiful blend of those two colors. And then I work my way up. You can work your way in this left and right motion. With your brush, you're going to start moving upwards. Like I mentioned earlier, you want the intensity of your colors to get lighter as you move up. One way to do that is to rinse your brush completely, give it a double rinse, and then move upwards. Now if you feel like you're seeing any harsh lines, you can always go back with a damp brush and fix that. But before we go ahead and add any more corrections, let's go ahead and finish the background first. Here I've added more white into my mix. Again, it does have a little bit of yellow, but it does have a lot more white as compared to yellow. It's a very, very lighter shade of yellow. I'm going to start applying that and blending it in this left and right motion, ensuring that I fill up that entire section with this particular color. You can switch your brush and bring out the size 18 brush or a bigger brush for this blending process because we are covering a larger area, especially in the top half of my sky. So you can whip out your larger brush and make the process a little bit easier. All right, so now that I'm done applying all the colors in place, I'm using my flat brush and making sure that it's nice and damp before I go ahead and start blending everything into one another. Now again, as I mentioned earlier, this flat brush is going to make the process a lot easier for you. And you're going to be able to blend these colors a lot easier because, of course, your brush is bigger and we're going to be covering a larger surface. And we do not have to blend in primary colors here. We're just blending in colors on the same side of the color wheel. So it's a lot easier for you to do this process with a larger brush. I really like that gradient effect that we're able to create. So we're going to let this dry now, and once we're done with that, we will place our sun in. All right. So now that my sky has dried, we can see how the color has sort of intensified. Right? It's gotten deeper. So this is something that happens with the quash. The colors tend to dry darker, especially the lighter colors. All right, now, for the sun, not the moon. For the sun, I'm going to go ahead and mix the light color that we used earlier for the top part of the sky. So using this color, I'm going to carefully place a circle. So I'm using my size four round brush and ensuring that I'm carefully making a tiny, tiny circle in the area that I wanted the sun to be in. And once I place that light color, using my yellow color, I'm going to go ahead and outline it very, very carefully. Once I'm done with that, I'm going to dampen my brush and clean it and just add white in the center. So we're doing it in three steps. First you've got the pale yellow color, then the vibrant yellow color around it, and then the white in the middle. This kind of creates that glare around the sun. We don't want it to be flat, and that is why we're working with different shades. I'm cleaning my brush and I'm going to go ahead and add a bit of yellow around it. And then completely cleaning my brush and using a damp brush to kind of soften the edges and blend it with the background. Now this is something that takes a bit of practice. So if you're not sure with that, I would suggest that you do this on scrap paper and kind of just understand how we're working with this and how we're dampening the edges and blending with the background. You just need a wet brush and kind of just smoothen the edges out carefully and make sure that it blends into the background. I really like the sun here, so we're going to stop and move on to the mountains. Now for the mountains, I'll be using my size four round brush because it provides me a good enough area. And we can also use a flat brush. So we're using a combination of these two brushes. Now over here, I'm creating a mix with my Prussian blue, a bit of burnt sienna and black. And I really want a particular brown shade, but I don't want it to be really like just bland, pure burn sy and brown. So I'm going to be mixing a bunch of colors to create this great looking shade. So here I have the color that I need for the background. First mountain. I'm going to go ahead and use my flat brush here and just make sure that I'm covering the areas that are away from the sun. Why I said that is because that center portion where the sun is going to be, I want to add a little bit of like an orange color or a slightly more vibrant brown color so that you can clearly tell that the sun is creating that warmth color effect in your mountains. You can see how I switched to my round brush and I'm going to go ahead and apply that where the sun is trying to pass the light on. Then all the areas around it are going to be of the grayish color that we just made. And using my round brush, I'm just going to blend everything into one another. Now, another thing that you notice me do here is the consistency of the paint is very thin. You can see how it has that consistency that I talk about. It's light and that is why we're able to see a little bit of the paper through the paint. And we can use that to our benefit to create that uneven effect in our painting and ensure that our layer does not look very flat, all right. I really like the way the mountains look here. I'm going to let this dry before I move on to the next set of mountains. Make sure that it's completely dry before you move on to the next one. All right, Now that this has completely dried up, it's time for me to move on to the next one. Again, I'm creating my mix using my burnt CNN number with a little bit of black, a bit of blue and white. Here's the shade that I have, again. This beautiful grayish brownish color is the one that I'll be using this time. We're adding a little bit more pigment and a little less white because we want it to slightly get darker as compared to the previous layer that we had. You want to ensure that as the mountains go lower or as you get closer, you're creating a deeper shade just by a little amount, not by a drastic deeper play of colors. Okay, so once we're done understanding what the placement is going to be, I'm going to use a mix of burnt sienna and orange for the section that is in the middle. Here's a swatch of the color that I'll be using. And I'm just going to fill the center portion in covering up my entire sketch. Now, very lightly, using my round brush, I am going to fill up the entire section. And you can see how I move my brush in the circular manner. I'm ensuring that it is not flat, so I don't really want flat strokes. And to avoid doing that, you'll have to keep moving your brush in this random motion so that you don't get very flat layers. All right, once you're done with placing the colors, you can always load up your brush with some more paint and fill up the section. And just move the colors and place them however you like. You can always go back and forth. Add in some more paint, move the colors around until you're happy with your layer. I really like the way this section looks, this particular mountain looks. And once I'm done with that, I'm just going to kind of add in a little bit of unevenness to the mountain and we're going to let this dry now. Okay, so now that this section has completely dried up, it's time for us to move on to the next one. Now again, we will be repeating the process, this time intensifying the color slightly. So again, you're going to be adding black. You're going to be adding a tiny amount of blue, a bit of burnt sienna, and a tiniest amount of white. Not by a lot, just a tiny, tiny amount of white. So here's a swatch of the color that I have mixed. Again, you can see how it's slightly darker than the previous browns that we've added. Now again, load your brush with this particular shade. Carefully, go ahead and go across the sketch that you created. Bring in a little bit of unevenness to your section and cover your area using this color. Now again, you can do this entire process with just your own brush. You don't have to keep switching between the brushes. I just like switching between my brushes, and that's why I went ahead and did that here. Now again, bringing in the brown and placing it right in the center where the sun might be hitting the mountains just to bring in a little bit of warmth. And then covering up the entire section with the other color, the darker color. Now again, the consistency of the paint is lighter so that you're able to see a little bit of the background through. We need that because it has this beautiful, uneven effect and ensures that layer does not look very flat. I'm just using my flat brush because it had a little bit of the pigment from the darker color. Once I'm done adding that, I'm going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next one. All right. So now that all my three layers have Fred, it's time for me to add the fourth one. This one's going to be a lot darker, so I'm adding my black, blue brown together and I'm creating this dark mix with even tinier amount of white in my mixture. So I'll show you the swatch of the color, but otherwise it's just the same shade. Like it's a Sacco version of the same color. So switching off the swatch here, and I'm just going to go ahead and use my round brush and create these vertical strokes like we did in the previous class project. And we are going to go ahead and add this layer in. Now this is going to be really in the background. A lot of it will get covered with our tree and all those shrub details that we'll be adding. So you really don't have to work so hard to creating perfection. We just need a layer in the background so that whatever white spaces or empty spaces that we might have in the foreground, you still see a layer in the background. So that's exactly what we need. And I'm not going to bring this all the way till the bottom because major power of the bottom section has a lot of the trees and shrubs. Again, like I mentioned, that we need to create, again, perfection does not matter. We're just creating a section so that whatever empty spaces that we might have, you're still able to see a layer through it. Now I've gone ahead and probably made half an inch of this particular shade. Blending it out till the background again doesn't make much of a difference. I'm just filling up the space and ensuring that I have a layer to show through. Anyway, I really like the way this looks. I'm going to just let this dry now and then in the next lesson, we will be painting our pine tree and adding further details. 13. Project 3 Part 2 : Mountain View: All right, now that we're done with a major part of the background, we're going to start focusing on the foreground. Now, in the foreground, like I mentioned earlier, we have this beautiful tall singular pine tree. So I'm just going to sketch that out roughly. I'm still able to see a little bit of my sketch through the background and I'm just going to use that as a reference and create a bunch of these branches coming through. Now, if you're not very confident about your pine tree, then I would suggest that you sketch it out and understand the placement for each branch going left and right. Or you can just go with it freehand, right? So I'm just not creating a lot of sketch because I really like switching things up as I go. But it does give me a basic idea of how my tree is going to look or how tall it is going to be and what the extreme span of my tree is going to be. Now I'm going to create a mix of my sap, green, black, little bit of burnt sienna. I'm not really using black in my painting, but I'm creating a dark mix of color that goes with all the other shades that I've used in my painting. That's the color that I mix, and you can see how it's a deep shade, very, very dark color. But it's again, used, you know, with the shades that I've already used in my painting or will use. We've got green, brown and black mixed together. Here's a swatch, the color, it's a really, really deep shade, very close to black, but not entirely black color. Now we're going to start with the painting process for the tree. Now over here I'm using my size zero brush. Because again, as we have been using this for the past two class projects, you know how it gives me this beautiful fine strokes wherever necessary, but at the same time it does give me thicker strokes if I increase the pressure on my brush. Now over here first what I'm going to do is create the trunk of my pine tree and ensure that the tip of the tree is very fine. Again, I'm just lightly brushing my tip of the brush over it so that I'm creating these thin strokes. Now as I start creating these tabs towards the left and right side, you can see how this tiny, tiny taps and dragging of my brush to create these brush strokes. Now if you haven't practiced this, then go back to the exercise lesson and just have a look. I have explained how I am going to create these brush strokes. I have explained that in three different forms. You've got a normal version of the tree, you've got a closer version of it, and then you've got for the mode version of it. So I've covered that slightly, but over here like I mentioned, I will be creating these strokes not only towards the left side and the right side, you will be creating some taps and you know, little brush strokes in the middle as well, so that you're covering the center portion of your tree as well. I have seen this happen a lot of times. And honestly, I used to do the same thing when I was just starting out with, you know, painting or whenever I would see pine trees, I would just create these brush strokes towards the left and then towards the right, and my tree would just not look like how I would see in an image or where I would see in a painting, it would not look like that. And slowly with practice, I figured out, okay, something that was going wrong in my trees was that I was not creating these brush strokes in the middle. So my tree just ended up looking really empty. Again, this is something that really comes with practice, like I mentioned. So keep that in mind. Make sure that you're adding some taps in the middle so that your tree appears fuller. Now, this is a lengthy, long, repetitive process where we are going to be increasing the span of the branches as we start adding the next one. Now one thing that you will see me do is I'm not increasing it by a lot, but I'm just slightly increasing it as we go. Now, I will be increasing the speed of the video here because in the next little section I will be increasing it slightly. Because again, as I mentioned, it's a very repetitive, long process. So I'm just going to keep quiet. The basic idea is that you want to increase the span, add these different taps towards the left and right side. You've got these branches coming out, and you want to add some little tiny, tiny taps and curves around it so that you're making the pine tree appear in your painting. And the reason why I'm increasing this is because it's like a 13 or 14 minute long section of just me painting the tree. So I just wanted to trim that shot a little bit, but if you'd like to paint along with me, just decrease the speed by a little and you'll find me going in your normal pace. And again, you can always follow me along as you cook. Oh, oh. Oh. All right. So now that I've finished almost half of the tree, I'm going to go ahead and create a darker color which is a mix of green, brown, and black. This time has a little bit more green and black into the mix, so you can see how it's a very nice and deep shade. Obviously, don't create a very, very deep color so that it doesn't match with you or the strokes that you were adding before. You want it just to get slightly darker than the one that you were using. Now over here, we're going to go ahead and use this color and increase the span of our trees using this shade as we come down. Now, you can also create bigger strokes here because you've reached the bottom and you want to cover the space a little bit more. Over here you can see me create these larger strokes. Now one thing that I really like doing, especially when I have to create these control strokes, is hold my brush perpendicular to the paper as it gives me a little bit more control over the way my brushes move. Now this is something that, again, is a personal preference. If you don't like it that way, you feel free to do it. How you are able to create a particular stroke. So it doesn't matter how you get to the goal, it just matters that you reach the goal, right? You go ahead and create these shapes however you like. Over here you'll notice me create the brush drops while increasing the span of my tree. So we're going to be doing that exact step. You slightly increase it and again, adding some taps in the middle so that your tree appears fuller and just does not look like you have branches coming left and right and not in the middle. Always something to remember when you're painting trees, especially when you're trying to show like a trunk and you're trying to show branches around it. Make sure that the branches just don't move left and right, but you have these shorter strokes in the middle as well and these leaves in the middle as well, so that you're able to cover those branches and ensure that, okay, this is something that's moving towards the observer and that is why that section appears fuller. All right, now that I have reached the bottom of the Sam, you're going to go all the way to the bottom because again, we've got a bunch of plant elements that have to be added in that section. And we will leave that particular area empty because it doesn't make sense for us to add these brush strokes and then cover it up later. All right, so we're just going to make sure that we are slightly covering up up until leaving a little bit of space at the bottom. And then we can just stop right there and we will focus on the other details. Now the next step was not captured properly because there was a bit of a clitch in my phone and the camera did not focus on that step. So I had to remove that from the edit. But over here what I've done is I've used a mix of the same color that I was using, a bit more green in it. And I've added a few brush strokes at the top which looked like branches and some plant elements. And I've covered the entire section using my flat brush, using a round brush, my size zero brush, I'm just creating a bunch of caps so that I'm creating this texture and unevenness into that blend so that once it dries, you can see some sections that are slightly more darker than the other. Now, this will not entirely change the placements like you really don't have to worry so much about where you're placing them. You just place them randomly to create these unevenness in the structure. The top portion of this particular layer, as you can see, I've covered all the white spaces. The top portion has a bunch of these leaf elements and strokes that look. Like a little plants, you've got tiny branches and stems like that. Now I'm using a spoilt brush here just to add a bit of texture. You don't really have to do that. I am honestly just experimenting in this section and I'm creating a bunch of unevenness. But this was something that I didn't like, so I will go ahead and correct that. But I wanted to use it and put it in the video because we're always experimenting and changing things. This is a part of our painting journey, so we might not like something and we can always go ahead and change that. Once this will dry completely, you will see how there is that unevenness in your brush strokes. Make sure that your section has completely dried. And once this dries, we will go ahead and start adding a bit more details and the lighter shades of green in our painting. All right, so now I'm creating a mix of my green and black color. Now this one's a shade that is of this beautiful, deep green color. I've added a bit of yellow in it as well to bring in the warmth. So here I've swathed the shade out for you. And what I am going to do is use this color and add in some extra branches and details. As a continuation for the strokes that I've already added, Now I'm focusing more on the top section like of this entire black space that you have. I'll be focusing more on the top half of it because the bottom one has a separate set of details. I hope that is making a little sense over here. Ideally, what we're trying to do is just add in a bunch of details of different shades of green to show like the lighter and darker parts of this complete section of this complete bushy area which is filled with trees that are very compacted, they are like very close to one another. So you're really not able to see a lot of difference in what's placed where. All right. So that is why you add in a lot of lighter and darker details to show that separation over here, you can think of it as creating individual bushes where you've got a bunch of different branches and leaves and taps around it. So you want to create these individual shapes and as we add lighter colors over it, you can bring out the details more. I'm really just focusing on that. I'm trying to create branches slightly moving towards the left and then creating a bunch of taps around it. Again, focusing towards something that moves towards the right and adding a bunch of details on it. This way you have more control over what's going where. Once I'm done with the right most section, I can move onto the one on the left side and maybe add in some more branches on the left side and a few more details in that section. Now you will not be seeing a lot of difference in the color here, because again, this shade is darker, right in gas. This color is going to dry out to be a little bit lighter once it completely dries. So this difference will be shown a lot more once my paint has completely dried. Right now, you might be thinking that this color looks exactly similar to the one that you laid out earlier. What difference is it going to make? What are we really adding here? But you will see once it completely dries, how it makes a very slight difference, it is going to try out to be a little bit lighter and then you can always add lighter colors over it, right? So I'm going to go ahead and start creating these branches. Like I said in the previous stroke, that the base layer that I added, I had just randomly, you know, made these shapes in the background and filled in the color. But over here, we are going to take our time and just kind of define the shapes a little bit better. Wherever you felt, wherever they are, just just random shapes and looks like blobs and they don't have a particular shape. You're going to go ahead and just define it a little bit more. Add in a few branches. Again, this can look very different for you and your painting. This might appear to be a lot more different. The strokes are going to be different, The placements are going to be different. So you'll have to judge your own painting when you do this and then add these strokes. Again, as I've mentioned earlier, we are going to be focusing more only in the first half of the foreground because the bottom section is going to have a different set of greens and a different set of colors that we'll add in together. So we are majorly focused on the details that I'm adding around the tree, the pine tree, and the details that are in the top part of the foreground. Now again, this will look very different for you. Just don't stress out so much. There is nothing that we're not looking for perfection, right? I've mentioned this earlier as well. We're not looking for perfection. We're not trying to make it look like something. Your painting can look very different than mine and we're not really following or an image, right? So make sure that you're just having fun. This is a repetitive process, so you're really going to be working your wrist, working your hands, working your brush, drugs, and eventually you will get a hang of it and you're just going to enjoy the process. So I just tilted my painting here just to show you the difference in the color that it looks. Can you see how it's a little bit lighter and you can see that glistening. And The wet paint. All right, so now that this section has dried, you can see how it is slightly lighter, right? And this time I've added a bit more green and yellow to my mix and I'm going to be using this particular shade and I'm going to add in the lighter details. Like as I mentioned earlier that we will be working in different layers and we'll start adding lighter colors. And this was going to define the shape of the layer that I've added a little bit more. Now over here I'm going to go ahead with this light color. Again, if you've followed my previous classes, you know the concept that we focus more on that is 170% 50% rule. Where the base layer is, let's say 100% of the brush strokes that I add. And then the green, the deeper green that I just added in the previous layer is almost like 70% So you're not covering the entire area. You are leaving a little bit of the background color in. But let's say you're covering 70 to 80% of the area. Right now we're focusing more on 50% of the area. You can see how I'm making the shorter strokes. I'm not covering everything. I am leaving a little bit of space. So you're going to be seeing a little bit of the black, you're going to be seeing a little bit of the deeper green that we added. And then of course, this layer is going to be added on top. When we add more layers, again, you'll be seeing a little bit more details and finer details. You're going to go ahead and I am really just picking out different sections and I'm adding these brush troops in sections so that once the strides you're able to place where which shrub is or where which plant element is. Now, like I said, they're all together, they're very compact, so you're not going to be seeing a lot of difference in your structure and where the tree is going and things like that. But at the same time, because of these lighter strokes, you can bring about a little bit of differentiation between them. And again, it doesn't have to be perfect, but still you'll be able to see, okay, this one looks like a particular tree element and the one next to it is a separate tree, even though they are very compact and they are very together. That's the idea that we have in mind and we are going to proceed with this. My brush strokes are not perfect. You can see how I'm just tapping it around, creating a bunch of curves and dragging my brush with these taps that I create. Again, I think mentioned earlier that when I say taps, I don't mean dots, but I mean that pressing my brush against the paper and just dragging it around to create a few brush strokes. So I'm just going to go ahead and add that in the top half of my layer. As I have mentioned earlier, I'm going to be focusing on all those elements and picking out different sections and adding the lighter color in. I can already tell there is a difference. Now, one thing that you will notice here is that because this is a lighter color, once it dries, it will appear a little bit darker. This is a very funny thing about wash, and a lot of times my students do tend to get confused as to what color dries out, what shade, once you know it's completely dry. And I always like to say that the darker colors will dry out to be lighter a little bit, and the lighter colors will dry out to be darker. Now, this is something that you will need some time to get used to because again, this is not something that you, if you're not familiar with it, it takes some time to getting used to, you know, this little concept but you will eventually get a hang of it. It's not that difficult. So yeah, now that I've added all my brush strokes, I'm really liking the way the structure is coming out. I am really happy with this particular area that we've covered. So we're going to let this dry and in the next lesson we will continue this adventure. 14. Project 3 Part 3 : Mountain View: All right. So now that we are done with three layers, that is including your background layer for the elements, that is the plant elements. I have mixed a lighter shade, which is again, a mix of my green yellow, a bit of black and white paint. So I've just gone ahead and lightened the color by using a bit more yellow and a tiny amount of white in there as well. This one's a very, very nice and light shade. And now we are in that state where we're going to go ahead and add some final touches into this section. So this is going to be like the highlights of your section, that is your plant elements. Now again, as I would say that if you watched my classes before, you know how I like to explain this section where we're working in different percentages and the percentages represent the brush strokes that you're going to add. Right now, we're focusing more on, I would say about 40 to 45% So you're just going to be making that many strokes and filling up the sections accordingly So that we're able to see the dark color, we're able to see that deep green shade, a few of the colors from the previous strokes, and these are going to be the highlights that you add. You're going to go ahead and create these structures around the strokes that you've already made. It's not like you're laying them over the previous brush strokes, right? So you're not going to cover the entire section and you're just kind of going to go ahead and lay next to it just to add in some highlights in that particular area. So you can see how I'm just picking up the section and I'm creating these extremely tiny, tiny strokes just to show some highlights in that area. Okay, this section is going to be a little bit brighter than the sections around it, so that's how I pick it. Yeah, you're going to be filling up this entire sections with these brush strokes so that you can show the lighter parts of your elements, add highlights to your elements, and you can clearly see how this one's shining a lot more. Now again, as this would dry, this is going to be a little bit darker once it's completely dry. So don't really worry if the color looks like it's extremely light for you. It is going to dry down a little bit darker. So yeah, we're going to go ahead and cover this up again. This is a very repetitive process and can look very different for your painting. So just go ahead and add these strokes. Focus on what you're seeing in front of you. And do not focus on trying to create something that's an exact replica, right? We're not focusing on that. So just focus on your painting and how your brush strokes look and just add very, very fine strokes. We are not applying a lot of pressure on our brush and we're focusing on getting these extremely delicate brush strokes, right? And we're also working with a size zero brush, so you just need a little bit of pressure and we are good to go. So just be a little bit controlled about your brush rooms and you're going to be happy with the outcome. All right, so I really like the way this is turning out. I am done with this section, so I'm just going to let this dry and then we are going to move on to the next bit. Now over here I'm using a size of four or two spoilt brush and I'm going to mix my green with a little bit of my brown and a little bit of my white paint together. So I'm just creating this nice light green mix that is going to be the background and then we're going to add in highlights over it. So that's why I told you you just need to focus on the first half of that section, because in the next half, you'll be using a spoiled brush to create these textures. Now for these textures, I like to hold my brush perpendicular to the paper as it again, gives me a little bit more control over it. And I'm dragging my brush left and right, very lightly. All right? I mean to say lightly because you need your brush strokes to stand out as individual strokes. They're not placed in a way that they look like something that's more compact. To get that compact image out of the picture, you're going to be tapping very lightly. You're going to tap, you're going to drag, you're going to be just moving your brush here and there so you're able to create that effect in this bottom most section. So we want to show a lot of these plant elements close to one another. That's why we're not working on these individual details like we did for the previous one, but rather we're focusing on just creating an illusion of what these shapes look like using a spoiled brush. This is going to provide you with a lot of texture, a lot of just uneven brush strokes. I really like doing this. I also like adding that with a bunch of different shades so that we're able to play around with the colors that we're adding. In our section, right now, we're focusing on just the single color which is green. I'm going to focus and tap this in, in a way that I am covering up all of that space, all of that black space that we have. And what I mean by that is it's not like I'm making it all green. You can see I'm adding taps around that section and that just covers up that empty space that we had left behind. Without any brush strokes, you're just going to go ahead and just play around. You can create taps. You can try to make these some branches, not trees but like branches. And tap in some leaves around it and just work your way in these taps that you'd like to create. Next, I'm adding a bit of white and yellow into my mix. Let me just show you a swatch of this color. Just going to switch it out here for you. This is the shade. You can see how light that is, right as compared to the green that I just laid out. Now using my size zero brush, I'm going to go ahead and add in these details. And I'm using my size zero brush here because I want to show these details a lot more. Now. Currently, I felt like that color was too light. So we've added a bit of green into it, just to add in that greener color because they're shining out a lot more as yellow over here. I'm just going to start creating these tiny, tiny branches and having some taps around. It's very similar to the taps that you've probably used for your pine tree, but just the positioning is a little bit different here. We're just placing it differently instead of like a pine tree. So you can always use these brush strokes in different ways, even though they might appear to be similar. But as you use it differently, they will just have a different effect in your painting. So I'm just going to go ahead and add that in now. I'm just creating a mix of green and the brown color together because I wanted a little bit of a darker color. I didn't want that transition to be just very light. I went ahead and I'm adding a bit of the darker shade in there as well. It is a mix with the previous color, but this one has a little bit more brown in there and a tiny amount of green in there as well. Again, I'm going to go ahead and start tapping in these extra, you know, taps for these branches and probably show some leaves. And just kind of bring out a little bit more of a detailing section in that area because, you know, it is looking, it was looking a little bit flat, right? So when you add these details with your size zero brush or with a brush, with a brush that is not a spoiled brush so that you have more control over your section, you can go ahead and just, you know, bring out or enhance the area that you're working on, especially with plants and especially with foliage. When you work with foliage, you can always tap. And then if you want to enhance the details a little bit, you can use your normal brush. And just bring out a few more strokes outside just to showcay this leaf. Okay. This is the shape of the leaf, so that's how you work around with your brushes. Anyway, this is a very repetitive process. Again, it might look different for years, so do not focus on working on it exactly like mine. I was just here to explain the concept in which I'm working over here. You can see how I added that flat layer. I filled that in. I added a bunch of different brush strokes. And again, I'm just using my size zero brush to add in some extra details. Now, you could have done the same thing in the background as well, and we're all here to experiment, right? So we could have done the same thing in the background as well, but okay, we tried this in the area that is in front of us and we did learn something new that okay, you know, when you're working on a section like that, we've got a lot of compact foliage to work on together. You can use this particular method, and it's not just for this, you can use that in a lot of places. And we will be using this similar concept in a lot of different places in the upcoming class project. Now I'm switching back to my spoilt brush and with this color I'm just going to add in some more texture here and there. Just play around with it. Now that I've added details with my size zero brush, made it a lot more profound and a lot more particular shapes that you might recognize. This one just for some texture purposes, you can always go ahead and just grass like strokes that you would make and just play around with it. Tap in a few times and go back and forth with your dunbrush and add in the details. Now again, this is a very, like I said, you know, a repetition of the entire step where you keep going back and forth. See what you like, see the weights turning out, and then you add something that you want or like maybe change some certain things and maybe add in a different color. This is all about just the process of just going back and forth with the thing. Now I'm making a mix which is of a lighted green color. So I've got yellow, I've got green, and I've got white. Now to this, I'm going to go ahead and start adding some more highlights like we did in the previous layer. This one has a lot more lighter highlight, right? So I'm going to go ahead and just use this color and create these little taps as you can see, just to enhance that area. And show that, okay, this leaf is shining a little bit brighter or receiving a little bit more light than the leaves that are around it. And you can see how these taps are not like the previous ones, these are. More like just tapping a brush and dragging it instead of trying to create like a branch or an and tap it. In that type of brush, like a circular brush movement, This one's more like just pressing my brush and moving it slightly. The shape, again, is very random. There is no order in these shapes. I wouldn't give them a name because I'm really just tapping it however I want. I'm just trying to create these shapes where you have that image that, okay, this one is a little bit brighter and this one's receiving a little bit more light than the remaining area. And you've gone ahead and added your highlights. Okay. So now that we're done with this, the green section, honestly felt a little bit too, I would say green. I'm going to go ahead with this dark color and I'm trying to create a brown color because I just finished my brown on my palette. So I'm mixing my orange with a little bit of black. And I'm going to go ahead and just create a few branches to connect maybe the leaves that you've already laid out there. And we're not adding a lot of branches. Just a few strokes to just fill up that section and bring out a little bit of the darker details in. I'm not going to overdo this because it's very easy to overdo this, but in case you do, you can always go back and add in some extra greens and highlights around it. Now, once I'm done with that, I'm just going to add a few branches coming in from like the outside of my paper. And it's moving towards the left, right? It's coming in from the right side and that's moving towards the left. Just a few branch details. Probably something again, which is outside my frame and it's just peeking into the frame that I have currently. Just a few details. Wherever you'd like. Once you're done with that, we are going to stop and then we're going to analyze it and maybe see if we want to add any further details to this. Now, I'm just going to have a look and see. Okay, is there anything that I would like to change or is there anything that I would like to add or am I just happy with the way it looks? I wanted to go ahead and add in a few more details at the bottom which are of these little branches and little twigs, details of little branches and crass like details at the bottom. And I wanted to just change the shape of these branches that I added from the right side. Some few extra strokes in the middle of my pine tree. So this is really a step where you kind of take a step back from your painting and look at it and analyze if you'd like to add in some extra details or if there are a few strokes that you added that are to put together. So you want to kind of change that. And when they're put together, what I mean by that, it's maybe you've got too much of the light colors placed together, too much of the highlights placed together. So you want to kind of bring that separation in. So this is a step which is all about corrections and adding things that we want. So I'm just going to go ahead and add in a few extra strokes. Kind of like make my pine trees stand out. Maybe add in a few extra strokes where I felt I kind of neglected that while I was painting it. So you're going to go ahead and add in those details? All right, Now that I'm done with this and my painting is completely dried, I am going to paint the tape off, which is my favorite step of the entire process. Honestly, after I finished painting, this step brings me the most joy as I can really see my entire painting without, you know those paint marks on the sides. And it's just that entire white frame around it. It just makes your painting stand out so much more. Anyway, let's have a closer look at our painting. This one was a little bit more time consuming than the usual. I would definitely give you that, but I really like the way this looks. It just makes me feel a certain way about this. I really don't know. I feel so happy. It was a good exercise for our wrists, I would say. But I totally enjoyed the composition of this painting. It was so much fun, and I hope you enjoyed painting this one with me. I know it was a little bit hard maybe, but you stuck around and I'm so happy. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming on day four. So I will see you soon. 15. Project 4 Part 1 : Cloudy Day: Hello and welcome to your day four. This is the artwork that we're going to paint today. So you can download the final artwork from the Project and Resources section for your reference. And I've also mentioned all the colors that I'll be using. So gather them and let's begin. All right, so I have taped on my paper on all four sides here, taking the colors out on my palette, as I mentioned in the previous part. Now, over here, we are going to create the basic composition of our artwork. Now if you notice very carefully in the final image, is that we've got a bunch of trees from the bottom left and right. We've got two different tree sections to work with. At the top, we've got some more branches and leaves to work on, which are going to be slightly bigger because they are a lot more closer to the observer. And other than that, all the remaining white spaces that we have, it's going to be for the clouds. So that's the basic composition. I'm not sketching out everything very well because it's all going to get covered. And we're going to dive right into the painting process. Now over here I'm using my size 18 flat brush because we're going to be covering larger areas and we're not mixing a lot of different shades, we're just using different blues over here, I'm mixing my ultramarine blue with a little bit of water and white paint. And as you can see, when I add the de, the color becomes a lot more lighter, right? As compared to ultramarine blue as is that you would have seen mix initially. Now, over here, I'm going to create this beautiful blue mix. Now I'm not going for a really dark color. That's where we've added white to kind of tone it down and I'm going to start blending in this angular form now. Usually you must have seen and we have actually worked on going left to right, right, and we've only blended our colors according to that. Now over here, what I'm going to focus on is blending at an angle. Now you see how I'm bringing it only halfway and moving back into the previous areas that I was working with. And that is because I need to be using a lighter shades of blue in the white space that you're saying. So we're going to be working with kind of different shades of blue and blending them together. Now if you feel like your brush is getting dry, then you can always add a tiny amount of water to kind of loosen the consistency so that it makes the blending process a lot easier. So see how I am bringing all this color in, leaving that white space in the left section of my painting. And as I come towards that area, I am going to mix a little bit more white into my paint. Now, make sure that you're blending it all properly so that you have an even blend of color. Using this lighter shade, I'm going to apply apply it all in that area which is left on that white space that I had left. Again, you're going to be moving in this to and fro motion using your flat brush. And this is where your bigger flat brush plays a very important role because you'll easily be able to cover a larger surface with just a single brush and not have to keep going back and forth. Or load a lot of paint into your, like load your paint brush many times. Now, over here, if you notice very carefully, I feel like the color has lost that deep blue that I was going for. Right. It does look very bland and singular right now. So I'm going to go ahead and take some more blue and white like create that darker shade that I was working with. And I am going to use that color and bring it in, so can you see how I am bringing it in? Again, the paint right here is wet. So this way you'll be able to blend that in a lot easily. So you're moving in while the paint is still wet. And if it was dry then you can always just re wet the surface and move along. But over here, my main goal is to have a darker blue at the top and slightly towards the left. Have a lighter bruise. You can go back and forth and create this until you're happy with your blend. I like the blend here, so I'm stopping. All right, so now that my section has completely dried up, it's time for us to add the clouds. Now for the clouds, I will be using my filbard brush. Now if you don't have a filbard brush, you can also use a round brush for this section or a flat brush for this section. I wouldn't suggest a flat brush because you need that rounded edge for the shapes that I'm going to create. But in case you don't have it, then just use your normal round brush. Now over here I am mixing my white paint with a tiny amount of water to make it more workable. And you can see how the consistency of my paint is really thick. It's almost very paste like consistency. And that's the consistency you need when you're working with clouds. And I've just brushed it across to see if I am loading up a lot of paint. So you want to make sure that you're not loading a lot of paint here. Now the best part about working with a Filbert brush, for me personally, is how you can create these thinner strokes. If I apply the pressure along the shape of my brush, I can get these beautiful rounded edges. Now for adding the clouds, I am going to move very slowly. I want to determine the positioning of my clouds. Now when I am painting clouds, I personally do not like to dive into all the details that I might see in a cloud. And I like to just maybe observe the direction in which they're moving or just the overall feel and kind of like the shape of it. But I don't like to get into the details for the clouds, especially when the main focus of my painting are not clouds. Or if I'm not painting a fluffy cloud, I do not like to focus on that over here. We're just going to try and focus on spreading our clouds around our sky. Now basically that means that we're trying to distribute our clouds and work with different shapes. So you've got your thinner strokes, which if you're using a round brush, you'll be using it in a way that you're using only the tip of your brush to get that kind of brush stroke. But if you're using a filbert brush like me, then you're going to be using the tip of your filbert brush. And whenever you want bigger strokes of thicker strokes, you can just press down on your brush a little bit and you'll be able to create that kind of brush stroke. Now, I'm not going to focus more on the clouds that are going to be at the bottom because that section is going to get entirely covered with our foliage, plant elements. So we're going to focus more on the top part of it. Right over here, I am just lightly brushing the tip of my brush across and trying to create. So you saw how I created four or five different sections first. And then I am kind of increasing the sizes wherever necessary and that would be bigger sizes of the clouds are going to be at the top of the painting and the ones that you're seeing that are quite thinner and a little bit more squished are going to be at the bottom just to bring in that movement in your clouds where you look like, okay, these clouds, the ones at the top, appear bigger because they are kind of right above our viewpoint. And the ones that are smaller are slightly further away. So that's the kind of concept that we're going with right now. And once you create different sections and blocks of these colors, I mean your clouds, not colors of your clouds, you will be kind of joining them together. And what I mean by joining them is you will slightly extend the shape as you move. So you can see how I created the first block and now I'm just extending my brush strokes. And then once I extend them and kind of connect them, I can create another bigger block there. So this is the way in which I like to add clouds. So I start off very small with thinner brush rooks and smaller brush rooks, and then I see okay, where can I extend and move the clouds and add bigger ones. Now obviously because the main focus of our class is not clouds, so I'm not going to get into the heavier details and things that you should keep in mind when you are painting clouds. So this is not all about clouds, but this is all about adding some cloud essence into your painting. I hope that's making sense. We're not trying to create perfect clouds because that is not the main focus of our painting. Now along with your bigger blocks of clouds, if you just take your brush and rub it across your paper, right, what's going to happen is because especially if you're using cold press paper, you will be creating this beautiful texture on your paper. And that is going to, you know, come because of the cold press paper and of course, because your consistency is really thick, you're going to be getting that cloud de, textures, you know, the distributed clouds which are not fluffy, but you do see the clouds spread across the sky. To achieve that, those kind of clouds, you can just take your brush, load it up with some paint, and lightly gently brush it across your paper. And you'll be able to capture that kind of a sense. It's not really fluffy, it's not really dense, it's just floating across. So you're going to be working in sections and trying to connect all these shapes to one another. You can see how I am just moving at an angle. Now again, this is one thing that you'll notice as we reach the final outcome of these clouds that we've added, is that I am working slightly at an angle. I am not working straight, right? And that also goes without saying that it is moving across and along the blend that we created. So we're going to let this dry for now. And as it dries, the main focus is to make certain areas a little bit more opaque. Now remember in the technique lessons, I told you that white will dry down a little bit lighter than you expect. Wherever you want to make the white a little bit more opaque, you'll have to go with two layers now to show that fluffier or not fluffier but like denser side of my clouds. I'm just going to make these bigger blocks that I have, the shapes that are much more defined. I am going to just apply another layer of paint over it so that once it dries down, that appears a little bit more opaque. Now you can pick, your sections are definitely going to look a lot more different than mine. But also take time to analyze the shapes that you've created and see if you'd like to change certain things about the shape of the cloud. This is where you will maybe add in a few extra brush strokes or make certain sections a little bit more opaque. So you're going to take your time and add the second layer over to make these sections more opaque right now. And then look at it and see if you'd like to add in a few extra strokes. When I'm doing this step, I do tend to add in a few extra floating clouds here and there just to fill up the space. Or maybe make some floating clouds that I have, a little bit more opaque, a little bit more defined. This is the step you're going to be doing all of that. Go ahead, look at your painting and make these changes. And make your clouds a little bit more dense. All right. I'm going to stop right now and let this section completely dry. And once it dries, we'll add the plant details. I'll see you in the next lesson where we'll be doing that. 16. Project 4 Part 2 : Cloudy Day: All right, to add the details in my foreground. I'm using my size for round brush and I am going to go ahead and start making my first mix, which is going to be of the black paint. I'm going to load up black paint and a tiny amount of water to which I'll add green color. Now you remember how in the previous lesson we moved in percentages of the brush. We are going to be applying that same concept here as well. This is going to be the darkest color that I use for the background. Using the shade, I am going to go load up my brush with this particular color and add in these brush strokes. Now over here, we're trying to focus more on this section. Being like a cluster of trees together, you're really not seeing any separation between them, right? They are very, very close to one another. So you're going to be making these trees in this triangular shape, almost like these pine trees. And the shape is only going to be visible at the top. And as you bring it to the bottom, you are going to be connecting them and create that as one single layer. So you can see how I've done this. Here I have one single line and diagonally I've got a few brush strokes coming left and right to that particular line that I just know created. And then I'm just going to fill up that entire section again with this flat color. Just this black color or dark color. You're going to go ahead and just fill up that entire section. Now you can see how over here we're really not able to differentiate which tree is where, right? It just looks all as one. And that is exactly what we want for this layer. This is going to be our first base layer. And as we proceed, we'll add in some more details to it, so you can also tweak the shape around if you'd like. And once you're happy with your shape, I am mixing a little bit of my black, yellow green and a tiny amount of white in it. So you can see Hama making a very, very drastic change in the color. I'm slowly going to start moving. Now, over here is the time when you will look at the shape and create these little vertical strokes. And when I say vertical, they're not going to be all straight, they are going to be at an angle as well. I'm also doing this while the paint is slightly wet. It's not really wet, but it is slightly damp. And there might be sections where it might blend into one another and that's completely okay. We're just creating different shades of green and adding that in you can pick out different sections. And what I mean by sections is that may be a particular tree shape here and the tree shape next to it, just trying to differentiate the different trees that you might see, right? So that's the concept that we're going with so that it doesn't look all very flat. So you can see over here, you can tell that these are like a cluster of trees or like a bunch of trees together. And you are going to just create different shapes around it so that you know you can distinguish between them. That's the basic concept of what I'm trying to do here. Go ahead and create these shapes. Obviously, they might look different for you. I'm just here to tell you the concept behind these things so that you can use them in the painting that you are creating along with me. Once the section will dry, we'll go ahead and add in some lighter details and highlights to this so that it shines up a little bit more. We'll be working step by step over here, you can see how I've covered almost 70 to 80% of the previous layer. You can still tell that there's darker color beneath it, but I have used a lot of brush strokes over this section, right? So go ahead and fill that up, and once you're happy with it, you let this dry or while that's drying, you can mix up your other color as well. So over here I am going to move on and use my size zero round brush and I am going to add a tiny amount of yellow into my mixture along with green and a little bit more of the yellow shade so that it shines up. And you know, it's lighter than the previous color. And if it's not getting lighter, you can add in a tiny, tiny amount of white in there as well. And I'm using my size zero brush here because I want a lot more finer brush strokes. If you're able to achieve those finer brush strokes with your size two or size four brush itself, then feel free to use that. My basic idea is to have a little bit more finer strokes and I'm focusing on adding these brush strokes majorly focused towards the left side of these sections that I have picked out. Because I want to show that the light is coming out from the left side of my painting. And that's why these strokes, these lighter colors or the highlights for the section is concentrated more towards the left side of my areas. So you're going to go ahead pick out your sections and create these brush strokes. Now, they might look different for you. You can take some time and observe how I am doing it and how I am defining the different areas and picking out the different areas. Again, when I say left side, it doesn't mean that all of them have to be on the left side itself. You cannot create a few brush strokes towards the right. That is not what I mean. You can create a few, but majority of them will be focused on the left side of your area. All right, so go ahead and complete that in and again, it will look different for you, so don't be stressed. You're here to just learn the process. Right now that I'm done with the trees on the right side, I'm going to move on to creating the shapes for the ones on the left. Now over here I'm using my pencil and I'm going to create these branches and majorly the trunk or just understand the placement of these trees. One thing that you'll notice me do here is I'm giving the trees an angle. So it's not straight up, it's slightly moving towards the right side, right? And I am just going to go ahead and create the basic structure. It doesn't have to be perfect. I'm using my size four brush. I am going to make the dark green mix, which is very similar to the ones that we have used for the previous section. You're going to be seeing how similar. That's right, it's that exact same color. And you're going to be using this for creating the base structure over here. I'm using my size four brush and I am going to get it to a really nice and fine tip. Hold my brush almost like at an angle or perpendicular to the paper. And you're going to create the main structure. You've got your trunk in or the branches in and those tinier branches in. But you're not really working on all the shapes right here, because we have to add in a bunch of details and a bunch of leaves in that section over here, I'm switching to my size zero brush and I'm going to start creating these tabs as you can see, how they are a lot bigger than your normal taps or the thinner detailed taps, but we'll be varying in between them. So you're going to be adding some bigger details, some bigger dots, and then add in some tinier details for the branches. Now over here, there was something that did not strike me and that was that we could use a spoilt brush to work with the foliage and then add the details on later. Now this is something that happens when you're making a painting. As you paint, you have a realization that I could have achieved it differently. Okay, so it did not strike me. So I'm not using that, I'm just using my round brush for the details. But if you do have it and you'd like to give it a try, then go ahead and take your spoiled brush, load up the paint, and just start tapping in areas where you want to create that cluster of leaf effect. But if you don't want to and you want to just, you know, go along with me, you can, you can always do that. It is all about personal preference. Now, over here, I am switching between the different shapes, switching between the different brushes. Wherever I want bigger details. Over here, I wanted to add in some bigger taps. So I am just using my size four brush. And you can see how the brush strokes are a lot more thicker, right? And if I wanted thinner ones, I could have just, I can just use my size zero brush. So you will be going back and forth a lot in this section. The basic idea is to fill up majority of the section with these taps. Then we can always go back and add the details and the intricacies in slightly so that they don't look just like splotches but a little bit more detailed, especially at the tip of the tree. At the top of it, you can add tinier branches using your size zero brush and just play around with the shape of it. Add the branches moving in different directions and however you like, This is again going to look very different for everybody. It's not going to look the same. And that's exactly what we want. We don't want to have different replicas of the same thing. I need you to add your touch in it. So go ahead using your round brush size to round brush. Go ahead and add in details depending on however you like over here. We're just working on a single color right now so it can look a little bit flat. But we will add in all the details a little bit lighter, green shades to it later. Right now, just go ahead, play around with the shape and cover up this entire section using your different sets of brushes. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm actually really liking the way this is coming along. You can still see a little bit of the sky through the section, so it's not like that entire area is flat and black like the one on the right. And that's why there is that difference between the two structures, right? This also brings in the perception of distance, a little bit of that depth in a painting where you know that the right section is still further away and the left one is still slightly closer. And that is why we're seeing these bigger strokes and a little bit more detail in that area as compared to the right section. You're going to go ahead and just cover this up up until you are happy and satisfied with the way it looks. I'm just going to add in a few more brush strokes, but otherwise, I am really liking the way this looks. So I'm going to let this try and we'll continue this adventure in the next lesson of adding further details to it. 17. Project 4 Part 3 : Cloudy Day: All right, now that we're done with the base layer, I am mixing black and green together with a tiny amount of yellow. Here's the swatch of the color that I've mixed. So you can see how the yellow is very, very little. It's still a very deep shade of green. Now using my size zero brush, what I am going to do here is cover up, Let's say 80% of all the brush strokes that I have made. You still want to be showing the previous color, but you're going to be adding a layer over this. Now when you see it right now, you might feel like it's not making much of a difference or it just looks like the same shade. But once this is going to dry down, it is going to appear completely different. I mean, completely different in the sense that it is going to dry down a little bit lighter. Now, go ahead and create a bunch of strokes using this color. We have done this in the past. Don't stress out so much because there's no particular order in which we're doing this. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you want to cover let's say 80% of all the brush strokes that you have already laid down for yourself. Now I'm going to give you a closer look at my section so that you can really tell what I'm doing. Because it is still a very far off angle. Right? Let me bring you closer. All right, so here's a closer look at these brush strokes that I am creating. You can see how I'm creating these taps. I'm also dragging my brush, almost creating different sections of leaves and structures like that. And it's not entirely just tap, dragging my brush, there are a bunch of dots in there as well. Just play around with different shapes and cover up the section. Now, when you see a closer look at this, you can really tell that, okay, the color that I am applying is definitely a lot different than it was appearing right from the above angle, right? So it is completely different. It is a deeper shade of green, but it's definitely lighter than the previous brush stroke that we laid out. So go ahead and create the bunch of brush strokes, and once you're done with that, you will be letting this entire area completely dry off. Because you can see how these brush strokes and these color blocks that I'm creating are a bit thicker. So they might take a bit of time to dry. But once you're done with that, you will let it dry carefully and then move on to the next color. Now over here for the next color, I am going to be adding a bit more green into my mix. Now you can see how this color is completely lighter than the previous one that we just applied. So you want to make sure that you are creating a color that is lighter as you go up. Now again, over here, we're focusing more on trying to cover up, let's say 50% of our area. So we are going to keep that in mind before we start laying out these brush strokes. Again, very similar to the way in which you laid it out earlier. So you'll be dragging your brush in certain places and some of them will have these uneven shapes. Some dots and taps and things like that. So just a bunch of different brush strokes laid out together. Now let me give you a closer look at this as well. So here you can see how I'm laying out these brush strokes. Again, keeping in mind that you're not covering all of the greens that you just laid out. You are going to leave a little bit of that green color brush strokes as well, so that you're able to see all these three different shades in your sections. You're going to be able to see the deepest shade there. Now, this green. Right now, one thing that I am noticing is that once this green is going to dry down, it is going to get a bit darker than I would expect it to be. Let's see how this dries down. And then we will add in a few extra strokes if necessary. But then again, it all depends on how it dries down. So you can always give yourself the time, look at it, analyze it, and see if it needs lighter shades or a whole different layer over this. Again, wait for it to dry completely and then you can make that judgment. So go ahead and add these brush strokes and then we'll move on to the next bit. All right, so I'm really happy with the way this looks right now. I am going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next bit. So for the next bit, I want to show a few branches speaking in from the top left section. So I'm going to sketch my branches out first, carefully. Now, over here for this section, I am going to be a little bit more careful with the shape of my leaves. I am going to define the shape of the leaves because I want to show that this particular section that we're seeing is a lot closer to us. It's almost right above us, so we are seeing a lot more details. And we're not just seeing random brush strokes, so let's work on that. For this, I am going to, again, use my size zero brush itself. And I'm using this darker green mix that I've used earlier. Now this is a mix between that lighter shade that we added and the darker shade that we added. Using this, I'm carefully first going to outline the branch. Now over here, you just make sure that you have a bit more control over your brush strokes. Now to get that leaf effect. What I'm doing here is I'm creating the stapered brush stroke. What I mean by that is I'm going to start off with a thin stroke, tap my brush and then release it. And when you do that, especially when you have a brush that comes to a really fine tip, you will be able to create these leave shapes, right? So you'll be able to create that using a brush that comes to a really fine tip. If you are not very confident about that and you feel like, okay, I am not confident I'll create these good shapes or these leaf shapes properly, then what you can do is you can just outline a shape of a leaf and then fill that in. It'll also be doing a combination of that in here as well. Wherever I feel like the angle is a little bit difficult to achieve, I will create the shape of the leaf and then fill that section in so you can achieve this in different ways. Whatever works for you along with the leaves, the bigger leaves that we're seeing, I will be creating some smaller taps, just a few sub branches and smaller details. And just filling up that section so that it's not all looking the same. You're going to be adding a little bit of different shapes around it over here. I'm just going to go ahead and fill up the top left section using these brush strokes. Now you can add as many to as of these leaves that you want or if you want to show a completely different type of branches and leaves or structures coming out from the left if you feel like. Okay, no, I don't like this. I might do palm leaves, go ahead and do that. Full freedom to change things here and there I went with the structure because I really wanted to try this particular shape of the leaf and see how I can achieve it. You know, bring in a little bit more details into my section rather than it just being taps like I generally do. So this is something that I always go back and forth with. I like to experiment, I like to switch things up and that is very important. Otherwise, you're just creating monotonous paintings that require similar, you know, approach to it. Keep switching things up. Once you're done with the base layer, with your darker color, I am adding a bit of yellow into my me. Here's a swatch of the color that I am using. We're going to go ahead and start adding some lighter colors to this. Right now it looks a little bit flat, right? To lighten it, what I'm going to do is I am going to cover up some of these shapes with this lighter green color. And maybe go ahead and add in some more leaves around it, some taps around it. And I'm just going to cover top of some of the leaves, some of the leaves I'm going to cover entirely. And this is just something that is coming to me naturally, honestly. And I'm just creating some taps and adding in some extra details around it. Major D. What you want to basically show here is that you've got these lighter colors of these leaves in there as well, along with the darker ones. And just adding different variations of greens into your section. And like I mentioned, along with covering up the leaves that you had, you can add in some extra leaves, some taps, some branches with this lighter green in there as well. So you're kind of just covering up the section and adding extra details as you go. I really like the way this looks with my lighter green. As you can see, it is going to dry down to be a little bit darker. So keep that in mind. Now I'm going to bring you back to the normal view. I'm using a light green color. This is the one that had a lot more yellow in it that we've used earlier as well. Here's a swatch of the color. I've added a bit more yellow into that mix. And let's go ahead and just highlight some of the sections Again, like we did in the previous part, you are just going to add this light to green on some of your leaves. Again, focusing more on the top of the leaf. Or if the leaf is bending downwards, then the top section of that leaf that's facing downwards. I hope that's making sense because the light is coming from the left section. I want to bring out these light colors based on that. So we're focusing more on the top section of these leaves. So I'm going to go ahead and add in these extra details, making sure that I'm not overdoing the section. We just need to add a few taps here and there as we go. All right, so I really like the way this has turned out now. So let's let this dry right now. I'm just going to have a look and see where the things can be added. A few details that can be added. I felt like I could use a few more details in the branches that I've added at the top. So I've gone ahead and use a darker color to add in those details. I'm also using this lighter green color to go ahead and add in some highlights in my section. And remember how I told you this is something that you do as you go. So once my layer had completely dried, I felt like it could use a few strokes of even lighter green color over it, especially focusing more on the top part of my tree or the foliage that I have created. So we're not going all the way to the bottom, but we're almost going to from the top to like half of that area. I'm still using my size zero brush for this. Let me give you a closer look of what I'm doing here. I am tapping my brush strokes very lightly, very gently, and only in certain places. I'm making sure that I don't overdo this step because I do not want to add a lot of lighter shade in my area, specifically here, because this is still closer to us and maybe not receiving that same amount of light that the other areas are receiving. And that is why, you know, it tends to look a little bit darker. Keeping that concept in mind, I'm just going to add in a few brush strokes here and there. And right now, this is something that might look different to you. You might not need to add this. So feel free to not do this step over here. I am pretty much satisfied with the way this looks. A few more strokes, but I really like the way this looks. So this. And I'm going to let that dry right now. All right. Once your painting is completely dry, you are going to peel the tape off. Make sure that you are peeling away from the paper so that you don't dare your painting. This is something that's very important and I will never not emphasize enough on this because I have had that happen to me many times and it was not a good feeling and I would not want any of you to go through that. So make sure you're pulling away from the paper and if your tape is really sticky, you can just go ahead and, you know, apply a hair dryer over it for a few minutes and then peel it off. All right. Let's have a closer look at our painting now. This one was a lot simpler. I inc I hope it was, you know, fun and not that challenging for you to paint along with me. But I really like the way we've got this beautiful blend in the sky. We've got some clouds floating away, we've got a few foliage details, not too much. Just enough covering and providing that foreground effect into your painting. I really like this. I hope you enjoyed painting with me. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming on day five, so I'll see you soon. 18. Project 5 Part 1 : Moonlit Lake: Hello and welcome to your fifth class project. Here's what we're painting today. You can download the final image from the project and resources section. And I've also listed down all the colors that I'm using over here so you can gather the same shades. And let's begin. We're going to start off with the sketch first now. Don't worry if you don't have naples yellow in your palette. I will tell you how to mix that shade as we go. But I've taken out all the colors, as I mentioned. And we're going to start off with the sketch first. So for the sketch, I am going to use my scale and determine the horizon line. So if we've got sections to work above the horizon line and sections to work below the horizon line, right? So first we need to determine that where is the horizon line? So let's go ahead and somewhere at the half, like I would say, the sky area is still a lot more than the water pit. I am going to draw a line. Now, there is a very, very minute difference in the area. You would still say it's half of the paper, but it's slightly below the half of the working space that I have. Right above that, I'm lightly sketching out like a bunch of trees or just elements, foliage, elements in that section. And we've got a moon right in the center, and we're going to show all the reflection of the moon on the water. And right at the bottom for the foreground, we've got like a land space. So this is probably like a lake view, right, that we're approaching here. And you've got a bunch of different trees and branches and things like that to work with. We're not going to sketch it out fully because, you know, it's all going to get covered, so we're not working on that entirely, but we're just going to place certain branches and these elements to get a basic idea of our composition. So we're going to start off by working on with the sky, right? So you're just going to roughly sketch out all the details that you see. But again, a lot of it will get covered so you don't have to really work on the details. So just roughly place your composition in the lines and let's begin with the painting process. Now for the painting process, I'm going to use my sized and flat brush. And we basically want to create a shade that's really dark. And it's not just the Prussian blue dark, but it's like deep purplish grayish dark. Right? So I'm going to mix my primary red with my Prussian blue. And you can see it creates purple shade. And it creates this beautiful deep purple shade. But I don't need that purple color as it is. I want that grayness to be in the color that that intense dark sky that we generally see in the night. That's the shade that I'm approaching, which is not entirely black. For that, I'm mixing my blue, my red, my white paint and black paint. So you're going to be going back and forth with the shades until you're happy with the color. But we want to approach and mix a color which looks something similar to this. Let me just give you a swatch of the color. This is the shade that we are trying to approach. This is a nice deep blue shade. But then again, like as I mentioned, it's not just the normal Prussian blue, deep, it has that grayness. It has that intense color in it and it is going to dry down to be a little bit more darker than it looks right now. Now over here, I'm going in this left and right motion and I'm leaving a little bit of space in the middle. You can clearly see how I've left that space in the middle. And that's because around the area where the sun is going to be, I want to bring in a lighter color. Now to create this lighter color, I'm just going to add white into the same color mix that I'm using. As I add white, you can see how the color has become a little bit lighter. And I'm just going to use the shade and put it all in the middle with white space was. And then blend it in with the colors in the shade that is around it. Now you will go back and forth again, dampen your brush if it feels a little bit too rough. If you feel like you are blending out a lot of the lighter colors into the darker colors, then you can always load up the dark color and blend it in. It doesn't have to be the perfect circle around the sun. We don't need that, but we just need a lighter color around it. Now, I'm just going to let that dry, and once that dries, we'll move on to the next step. Obviously, you could perfect your blend here and there if you'd like. But I like the way the blend looks, so I just stopped right there. Now for the sun, I'm going to mix my naples yellow with white. Now, if you don't have naples yellow, you are going to mix titanium white with your yellow color. And you start off with the white color, which is the titanium white color. And you're going to add a little bit of yellow occur in it until you're happy with the tint. So we want just this very, very light yellow color, right? It's not very yellow and it's not just titanium white. It has that white tint in it. And I'm just going to make that, sorry. The sun, the moon. And I am going to Blend out the edges using my damp brush. So you're going to dampen your brush, move that harsh line around and blend it with the background so that creates this glowy effect. I'm also going in this horizontal movement with my brush so that it blends in with the background that we blend it. So you could see how in that the strokes were a lot more horizontal, and that's why I blended it in that horizontal manner so that it blends in with the background. I'm going to create another circle on the area that I already covered. And again, I'm going to clean my brush, make sure I have very little water on my brush. And then blend the edges around again. So this might take a little bit of practice. A little bit of back and forth until you're happy with the way in which you have blended the edges out. Now this happens to me as well. I keep going back and forth with my moon or the sun when I'm painting until I am happy with the way it looks. It needs to have that kind of glowy effect around it. That's exactly the thing that we're going for Anyway. While that's drying, let's go ahead and paint all the elements that is above the horizon line over here. I'm mixing maples yellow with a little bit of the black color. To this, I am going to be adding a tiny, tiny amount of burnt sienna in it. Okay? Now it's going to be a very tiny amount of burnt sienna. And I'm basically trying to approach like a deep brown color. And then I'm going to be adding lighter colors above it. Now, once you're happy with the shade that you've mixed, you are going to go ahead and start painting the background trees in that area. Here's a swatch of the color for your reference. Now using this shade, I am going to go ahead and start making these vertical strokes. Just to have that difference in the surface, in the way the strokes look, right. You don't want it to be just flat strokes. And that's why creating these vertical strokes and then filling up that area brings about a difference in height and brings a little bit of character to the elements that you have there. Now, again, I have not gone all the way till my horizon line with my blend. So I want to make sure that I'm not leaving any white spaces when I make these trees. So just be a little bit careful about that. Make sure that you are not leaving any white spaces in case you have not have not gone all the way with your color till the horizon line. So you want to make sure that you are covering up every white space that you have. You can always play around with the way your trees look at that distance. It can be a little bit higher, a little bit lower. This is completely your choice. Now to this color, we've added a bit of white. And I am going to go ahead and create some more of these vertical strokes at the top. And then I'm going to add some at the bottom as well. Now this is to show that the moon is shining and creating these lighter strokes and lighter colors to the elements that are above the horizon line. So now I'm working in two sections. One is the area that is right at the top, and I've also picked a section below that, somewhere, half. And I'm creating a bunch of these vertical strokes and varying the size as I go. So remember that when you vary the size, you can create that difference in the way the elements look and the way in which you're making each of them stand out. So you can see how I'm working in these two different layers for the trees. Now you can create and vary the size as you go. There is no obligation to create it exactly how I do it. Now once you're done with creating these strokes, I'm switching to my side to round brush. To this, I've added a bit of white. I'm adding a little bit of brown, a little bit of yellow, and a little bit of black. I'm just mixing the color again just to create a lighter version because I felt like I added too much of the white. So I'm just going back and deepening the shade so that it's not just too vibrant. And now using my smaller size brush, I'm going to create a few more strokes, This time ensuring that because it's the highlight, I am only making very little strokes. So you don't want to overdo this step. Be a little bit careful here and you're just going to make a few strokes just just like a hint of it. So that you're adding that touch of high light to it. Just to show that, yes, the moon is slowing and adding a bit of character to these trees and to the cluster and group of trees that are standing there together above the horizon line and receiving that beautiful light on it. Again, you can play around with the shape. You don't have to do it exactly as I am doing it. Go ahead, create these strokes. You're working in two sections. You can clearly see now that I'm adding these highlights, that there's differentiation between the two layers. You've got some trees that are further back. And then you've also got a section that is right above the lake and right above the horizon line and you can totally distinguish between the two. All right, so I'm really happy with the way the section looks, so I'm just going to let this try and in the next lesson we will be adding details to our leg. 19. Project 5 Part 2 : Moonlit Lake: All right, so before we go ahead with the lake part, I want to redo the moon a little bit. So I'm going to mix my naples yellow with white. Again, if you don't have naples yellow, you can just mix a lot of white to your yellow occur until you achieve this tint. And now using this shade, I'm going to go ahead and redo the moon. I'm just applying that circular shape first, cleaning my brass, making sure I double rinse it. And then here's a swatch of the color. By the way, this is the shade that we're using, double rinsing my brush, and with just a damp brush, I'm going to go ahead and, you know, revet the edges. Now over here I want to add that kind of glowy effect, especially in that horizontal motion as well. So that's why very lightly, with just my damp brush, I'm going to go ahead and revet the surface and blend it with the background. Now remember how I told you guash has the watercolor properties. So this means that you can ret the surface and blend everything in. It might look a little bit weird initially because this part of the paint is wet and you're trying to blend it with the background, you'll think it doesn't match, but give it time. Once it dries, it will all blend in. Well, once I'm done with blending it out, I'm just adding that circular shape again so that it retains that structure. And once I'm done with it, I can add it and make it a little bit more defined later. So we're just going to let this dry now. You can see how, you know, you can see how there's a difference in the color, right? A very drastic difference in the color. But that's okay. We'll focus on the lake bit first. Now, over here, using my size ten flat brush, I am going to start bringing in the darker color that is the same blue. So make sure that you are mixing the same blue and trying to get a color which is very similar to your sky. Now right under the moon, we want to show that there is a reflection. So I'm just putting my scale to understand the placement where the reflection of the moon is going to be on my lake. And I am just leaving that white space empty. And using my flat brush, I am bringing in the blue color. You can use the flat side of the brush. You can hold it perpendicular to the paper to get those thin strokes coming in as well. But you have to leave a little bit of space in there. Now, using that darker gray color that I used for the plants on top, I'm just adding that in right under. And just adding a darker mix of color in there as well, Very lightly. Now I'm rinsing my brush, making sure I have it really nice and clean for bringing in these thin strokes in. So you can see how I'm bringing these thin, thin, blue strokes inside. And I'm also covering up the area right where I sketch the ground to be. Make sure you're double rinsing your brush here. Again, taking up a little bit of yellow occur. If you don't double rinse your brush, you are going to be creating a muddy mix. So you have to make sure that you are double drinsing and ensuring that your brush is completely free of any blue pigment. Right over here I am mixing my not Prussian Naples yellow with white. And this is the color that I get. And you can obviously intensify the color a little bit here. But using this shade, I am going to carefully fit that in, in all those white spaces that I see. Now one thing that'll happen here is you might create a greenish mix in there. To avoid that, I'm not adding any more pigment. But I'm just going to clean my brush completely. And just with a damp brush, I'm going to try and blend them together. Now there, because we're mixing yellow, a shade of yellow and blue together, it is going to happen that you create a mix that does not go well, and it might look a little bit here and there and muddy. To avoid that, you will be using just your brush. You're not using anything else and you are very lightly blinding. Can you see how I am just, you know, brushing? This brush that I have, my flat brush across the paper, I'm not applying a lot of pressure on my brush so that I don't lift a lot of the yellow and move a lot of yellow into the blue. I'm just kind of, you know, getting that smooth finish in there very lightly. And then I'm just going to go ahead and add in the darker colors and lighter colors around it. Now over here, I'm just going to take my size zero brush. And using my thin brush, I'm going to define the shape a little bit more. Now, this is going to give me a lot more control over these brush strokes that I am going to make. And be very careful around the horizon line. I feel like I went a little bit above that, but I can fix it with the darker color. I'll bring that in and get it covered up. So be a little bit careful around those areas. You can switch between your round brushes and flat brushes to kind of go ahead and add these thinner strokes. Before we do that, I'm just going to go ahead and cover that space that I messed up, but I really like the blend for now. I'm just going to let this be because we've got a lot of details to add over this, right? And You can just move the colors a little bit here and there so that you get that even finish and even blend in between all these two colors. But I'm just going to let this dry because I like this. And then we'll move on to creating the moon again. You can see how once this has dried, it has dried down to be a little bit more darker. And we've also got a lot of plant elements to work with. Before we go ahead and do that, let's just define the moon a little bit. So I'm just going to go ahead and make that circle a little bit more profound. You can really tell the moon is then it has that beautiful glow around it. But again, I will just go ahead and smooth out the edges slightly because I feel like there could be a little bit more color around it, especially at the bottom. But you can just move the colors around and make sure that you are happy with the way it looks. So this is something that will happen again. It depends a lot on the way your artwork looks. Maybe you are happy with the way the moon looks. I just felt like it could use a little bit more color. So I went ahead and did that. Now what I'm going to do is create the reflection for the moon, right? For the reflection, I am going to mix my yellow occur or my naples yellow with white. And this is the color that I get. You can see how it's a little bit darker than the previous or the shade that we have used for the moon. Just very, very, slightly darker. Right. Using the shade, I am going to go ahead and start making these lines, which is right under the moon, to act as the reflection. Now for this, you need a very thin brush and a little bit of control over your brush strokes. Along with that, you can use the dry brush technique here to just slightly add some texture in there. The consistency of my paint is nice and thick so that in places when I just touch my brush across the paper, it's going to create a little bit of texture. Another thing you'll notice me do here is I am not making just lines that are long. I've got longer lines, I've got shorter lines, I've got a few dots. And we're going to work on this in layers, so you have this layer first. And then to add a little bit more shine to it, I'm going to use white. And then just a lot of a few more strokes of just pure titium white on top to just define it a little bit more. So you can be working, you'll have to work on this in layers, especially because we are going ahead with this lighter yellowish color. The blend in the background should have a little bit of yellow so you can see how it's very light in the background, right? It's a very light shade of yellow. It has a lot of blue mixed to it for that. This is where you add that character to it, add that shine to it. Using your oh, yellow color. Along with those lines, you can see how I am adding these, you know, dry brush strokes to bring that very uneven, broken texture that you really cannot achieve with your brush strokes if you were to do it as you need to do the dry brush technique for that. Because that texture really adds a lot of character into your reflections. I mean, that's how I see it. I really like the way that texture effect comes in. I'm also going back ahead with the moon and I'm adding this particular color as the moon, so that kind of just, you know, matches. You've got that beautiful yellowish shade of the moon. But at the same time you're having that kind of reflection on the water as well. So I just wanted to match that. So you're going to play around with the structure here. Another thing to keep in mind is see how it's not even that reflection is not even, you cannot really place that. Okay. It's like right under the moon. So there is that triangular effect? No, I mean it is in a triangular effect. You can you define where the moon is shining and creating that reflection, But at the same time I'm bringing that brokenness in it. Some strokes are shorter, some strokes are longer. And that's how you bring in that unevenness into your painting. It doesn't have to look defined as a shape, obviously it is defined as a shape. I am telling you that, okay, right under the moon, in the rectangular section, you've got the reflection. But at the same time, when I add these brush strokes, it's not really in that particular manner. There is a little bit of here and there. And they said unevenness and there's no pattern that you can define in it as well. You cannot say that, okay, it's long strokes, then short strokes, then long strokes, then short strokes. And this is how that unevenness comes in. So go ahead, add a bit of texture. Along with your brush strokes, you can also extend some of these textures that you add to the left and right sides of your lake as well. And I really like the way this is looking, so I'm going to add a bit more texture just here in there. Kind of move it around. And then I'm just going to go ahead and use my white paint here. Now, for this white color that I'm using, I'm adding a little bit of yellow in it. That is my naples yellow. Again, you can add a very, very tiny amount of yellow occur in there. Very, very tiny amount. So you can see how here's a source of the color. It's almost white, but it's not pure titanium white. And using this, I'm making a tiny circle for the moon just to add that extreme glow in there. And then right under the moon, I'm going to go ahead and add in a few highlights. Now, the number of brush strokes that you add here is going to be very little as compared to the one that you've done for this reflection already using that darker shade that you added before. Now over here, we're just trying to bring out the character a little bit more. Highlight these strokes a little bit more. Go ahead and use your thin brush here, because you want very defined brush strokes, you don't have a size to brush that gives you these defined strokes. Then you can go a little bit lower. You can use a size zero or even lower. You're just here to add a few highlights in there. Just a few strokes and it's not going to be only lines. You can add in some texture in there as well. Some dots just next to each other to bring out that glow. This gives this beautiful effect for your moon, creating this reflection on the lake, and it's just glowing and it's creating this sparkly effect on the water. Now again, it might look different for you, so just follow your painting and how it looks and add these highlights in there. Depending on how you like it. I really like the way this looks, so I'm done with the section and once this completely dries, it pretty much means that we are done with our background details and now focusing on the foreground and the trees that we have in front. Now I'm just going to go ahead and define my ground space. The basic idea here is I am going to have two shrubs or like tree structures at the bottom. And then we'll have some coming from the left and right. So I'm just going to sketch this out. It might not be that clear. And that's also because I'm not doing it that well. I'm just creating a basic structure for me to give myself an idea of what it's going to look like. You've got some left in the left side and in the right side in the middle where you've got the reflection, you're going to have only a few brush strokes coming in, right? Just a few amount. So I'm just going to go ahead and sketch these branches and then I'll show you how to work on them. Now, again, as I said, it's not clear because the paper is that dark. So I'm just going to tilt the sheet and show you what it looks like. You can pause here and take a screenshot for a better idea. Or just pause in here and you can see how the brush strokes look, right? So now that we have our brush strokes, let's start with painting them. Okay, so for painting them, I'm going to use my spoiled brush, my favorite spoiled brush, to create these kind of textures to that. I'm going to mix my black paint with a little bit of green and burn sienna. So as I've mentioned before, I'm not going to be using black directly in my painting, so we mix a really, really dark shade to get that kind of effect. So here's my spoilt brush, and you can see how the bristles are just all spread across. And that's exactly what we need to this. I've added a little bit of naples yellow and I'm just mixing the color until I'm really happy with the way it looks. I'm just kind of intensifying the shade here a little bit. Using the spoilt brush, you can see again the bristles all over the place. I'm going to go ahead and start adding the texture. Now you could sketch out the branches first and then go ahead and add the texture, or just go ahead and start tapping the texture based on the sketch that you have. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's the goal and that is why we're using a spoiled brush to create that foliage and that just filled out effect. And then we can define it more with our round brush, which is a brush. Now over here, once I'm done laying out the texture, I'm moving to my size to brush and I'm going to go ahead and start defining it a little bit more. Start creating these branches in there. Brush strokes around it just so that you can tell what the shape is going to be. So you just got these tiny branches coming out and some few details coming out. And then we're just going to be actually repeating this whole step for literally every structure that we have. Now, you can play around with this. You could make this a little bit taller, I felt like this one looks good enough. Or I might change my mind in the future. This is something that will just come to you as you start painting this structure. The basic idea is to fill up, you know, the top part of the ground that we have. And along with that we'll be doing some on the left and right side coming from the top as well. Go ahead and fill up the section, connect those textures that you just laid out with one another so that they look like they're all put together. You are going to go ahead and repeat this step on the right side as well. Again, add the texture, tap, tap, tap. Based on the sketch that you have, you can always play around change the structure as you go. This is my favorite step for adding foliage, honestly, where I'm just tapping and it creates that texture. And then I go ahead and add for the details using my size to brush and then just add those definitions to it. I'm going to go ahead, tap, tap, tap. And then I'm just going to connect them together using my size two brush, just to bring out a defined shape in them and create my structure. You're going to be doing that for both left and the right side. Again, make sure that you are playing around with the shape so that they don't look like they are all just put together and very orderly. That's not what we want, we want them to not have any order in there. I think I'm just going to stop here for this lesson. In the next lesson, we will continue this. We've got a lot more to do. We'll continue this in the next lesson. 20. Project 5 Part 3 : Moonlit Lake: All right, so continuing from where we left off, I'm going to go ahead and just add a lot more defined structures here. Just kind of connecting my apps that I laid out. So that they don't look like they're just random strokes resting in the air. But they have that connectivity to it. Now, how do you bring these connectivity to these? Right? That's like something that might be running in your head, like how do I connect them? So you're just going to connect them with these little random strokes. Landom branches, fine branches. And just whenever you have these steps around it, you're just going to kind of add a few leaf structures around it so that it looks like a defined stroke. It looks intentional, right? That's how you bring that connectivity in and it looks like, okay, yeah, it was meant to look like this. So that's the goal here, to make these brush strokes that give you the effect that you're looking for. Now let's focus on the branches that are coming from the right side. Now, another way in which you can create these kind of brush strokes is by making your branches first. Now over here, you want to go with this darker color. And that's why in the background we wanted that slightly lighter effect so that when we lay these branches in front, they don't look like they're just blending and straight with the background that we have. That's where we added a lot more of the burn Sana in the background. Now over here I'm going to create these branches. You can see how very lightly I am doing this, right very, very gently. I'm not making straight brush strokes. They're all just, there is constant tap and movement in my hands. Now, when I sat down to do it, after a really long time, I realized that this was a little bit difficult for me to pick on. And again, this is something that comes with a lot of practice. So when you paint a lot of these trees and branches and try to create leaves and foliage around it, you end up picking on this habit. And when I'm teaching these to my students one on one, I realize that, you know, this is something that's acquired. This is something that comes to you with practice. So if you're not able to create these structures, you know, just like mine or you know, you might think that, okay, mine does not look like the video that I'm following or whatever. Just know that this is something that comes with practice and it doesn't have to look like mine. Always remember that. But if you're trying to achieve something that looks like that, keep practicing this movement. When you paint a lot of these trees, you end up picking on it and you're able to create these kind of effects. And so something that becomes like a muscle memory for you, so you really don't have to try that hard. It will just come to you as you start painting. Okay, so over here, instead of doing the tap, I started creating these structures that I was doing for the bottom as well. Like just for the connectivity, it's just minus the taps. And once I'm done with the connectivity, I'm using my spoiled brush to add in some texture. You could either do it the method that we did below or you could do it like this. Again, we can always do a combination of these two together. Over here, I just wanted a little bit more defined, our structures a lot more than these taps. That's why I decided to go with just size to brush, to add it in a lot more defined structures and elements in there, especially on the right side. And then on the left side, I'll show you how I approach it, but on the right side, just go ahead and create a bunch of branches. Just let your imagination flow through here. You don't have to make it like mine, do it how you like it. I'm going to let this dry on the right side. We're going to start with the left section. Now, again, over here, what we'll do is I'm just going to make sure that I have a good, nice, workable consistency of the paint. And first I am going to just roughly sketch out or outline the branches that I had drawn. Now, if you cannot see it or if you had not drawn it, make sure you draw it this way, at least you understand. Okay, My branches are supposed to move, some are going downwards, some are slightly moving upwards or what the basic composition is and how you'd like for it to flow, right? And you can see how I'm just very roughly drawing or outlining this little section. Because after all of this I have to create a lot of taps and then eventually we are going to fill up this entire left more section. We are not seeing a lot of details with these leaves and these taps, so you don't have to really sketch it out that well. Now, going back with my spoiled brush, I am going to go ahead and start creating these taps. So this is the tap structure that you want. You just want to constantly tap, tap, tap. And you can see how that uneven, broken texture comes into play. And it looks beautiful. It looks like it was so effortless, it was so easy for you to just tap and add in a few details and your trees ready again? This is how we create these kind of structures when we're working with trees. So go ahead and tap it. You can follow the structure that we have or the branches that we have laid out, but don't try to, not just tap around those outlines, right? You want to fill up the section. So go ahead and fill it up. And then we can always work around it and add in a few extra taps or details as we go. So go ahead and tap and fill up the entire section. Once you're done with that, you are going to just do what we did before, that is add defined lines and connectivity in between all of these random strokes that you've added or the random foliage brush strokes that you have added. Now that I'm happy with the way this looks, switching back to my size to brush or no, this is size zero. I'm going to go ahead and start creating this petiful structure around it. I'm just going to go ahead and add in a little bit more details, connectivity, a few extra branches here and there. And just make this entire structure look a lot more put together. Again, we're just repeating the step that we've done before. Go ahead, this might look again, different for you as you go. Just keep in mind that you're trying to connect them. If you see any empty spaces, you can always go back and add in some extra taps like I'm doing here. Just to make your structure look a lot more filled together and put together. And you can always add in a lot more details using your size zero brush or even a thinner brush if you please. And, you know, make it however you want so your tree can look the way you want it to look. So go ahead and create that and then I'll catch you once we are done with this, because again, this is a very repetitive process. All right, so I really like the way this entire section looks. So now it's time for us to work on the last section, which is the ground part. Now for this, I am using the same mix that I've used earlier, but just to this I've added a bit of more green in there. And using my size zero brush, I'm going to start making these grass strokes. Now, you can do that with a spoiled brush as well. So I'm just making sure that I'm cleaning my brush and using my spoiled brush. I'm just going to start making these strokes that depict the grass shape. You can use a fan brush here as well, and you can see that there is a difference in the color between the one that we've used in the background and the one that we're laying out here. And that's exactly what we need. We need that difference in the color. We don't want it to be all the same shade. So that's why I've gone ahead and added a bit more green in there. Now, since this is just my first layer, I will be adding a lot more details to this. That's why I'm just roughly making this grass shape. You can always define it later. So again, as I've told you, you can do that definition later on. Now to my green, I've added a bit of black. And I'm just darkening the shade a little bit more. And again, using my spoil brush and this uneven brush row, you can see how I'm not going left to right. It's like in this vertical movement that I have in here. And using that, I've just gone ahead and laid out the black right below that greenish shade. Now with my size zero brush, I'm just going to go ahead and start defining the top part of that darker color that I've laid out with that green shade so that it just blends in. Okay. And I'm also adding some of these brush strokes at the bottom and making sure that I actually just fill up all those little white spaces that I see. So that's your main goal. Go ahead and fill all those white spaces in with your darker color and even your darker green shade that you had just mixed. Now you can see how I hold my brush very perpendicular to the paper for these brush strokes that I get these controlled structures. Now, while this is drying, let's go ahead and make a lighter color into that green that I just laid out, I'm going to add a bit of white. So here's a swatch of that color, so you can see how it's that grayish, greenish color, right? I would say it's a very, very gray but gray shade. But it has that green tint to it, and that's what we need. Now using this color, I'm going to go ahead and add in a few extra strokes on the top just to create those highlighted grass structures and highlighted sections of the ground. Now, you don't have to do a lot of these brush strokes, just a few. You don't have to cover up your entire section like we've done in the past or like work in different layers. We're just trying to stick to maybe two layers. Or maybe if you want, we can do another layer later. But I think I'll stick to two. Let me give you a closer look because I feel like you're not able to see these brush strokes that I'm making. Here's a closer look. You can see how that color just blends into the background that we already have. But once this dries, it is going to give you a very lighter effect in there. You can see that it's just kind of shining through. You can see these lighter strokes and you can see how I'm just creating these brush strokes, moving in different directions. You've got some moving towards the left, some moving towards the right, and these are just ground and grass structures that we see. All right. I really like the way this looks. So I'm just going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next step, which is analyzing and seeing. If I need to add any more details in there, I felt like I felt, you know, I needed to add a few more details at the bottom. So I'm going to go ahead and add those in just a few tiny strokes. You're also going to take a look at your foliage and all those three elements that you have in the background and see, okay, do I need to add something? Do I need to define something a little bit more? So this would be your chance to kind of add in those corrections. Right now, I wouldn't say corrections, These are like additions to what you already have in there, honestly. If you are not able to see this, just take a walk, come back after like 5 minutes to your painting and I'm sure you'll see something that you missed. When we look at a painting for too long, we end up just so lost in those details and we're not able to look at it from a fresh perspective, Just take a walk, come back, and I'm definitely sure you will have this urge to add something. Or if not good, you don't have to do it. This is just a step of analyzing that I do for my paintings. I'm happy with this. So we're going to let this dry, and once it's completely dry, we are going to peel the tape off and see our beautiful painting again. You know, this is my favorite step. I love peeling my tape off and seeing those beautiful white edges around my painting. It just makes a painting pop so much more and you're like, okay, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was looking. Not like it looked bad, but, you know, with those white edges you can really see the frame around it. Alright, let's have a closer look at our painting. I feel like this was one of my favorites from this class that we worked on, this class that we're doing. I love that glow of the moon, that reflection. We've got this beautiful foliage around it and I mean just I'm thinking how beautiful it would be to just sit here and observe something that looks like this. All right, this was it day five. Here's a sneak. Ecop's coming on day six, so see soon. 21. Project 6 Part 1 : Glowing Sunset: Hello and welcome to your sixth class project. Here's what we're painting today. You can download the final image from the Project and resources section for your reference. And I've also mentioned all the colors that I'm using for this particular class project. Here, gather your shades and let's begin. All right, so I have taken all the colors on my palette and I also have taped on my paper on all four sides. So I've got all my supplies ready. And let's begin with the basic composition. Now, like I've mentioned earlier, you can download the final image so that you have something for your reference, but you can also just follow me along and let's sketch what we have to approach today. Now, right at the bottom, I'm creating this uneven ground shape. Now this is going to be the element that's in the foreground a lot in the foreground. So we've got a lot of textures and plant elements to work with in this section, and we'll try and approach that in a very simple manner so that we're creating this beautiful texture here without having to do a lot of hard work right above that again, I am creating another uneven structure which almost resembles a hill. And we're going to be having a series of hills over here. So I've got two to work with. And you can see how I'm trying to make the shape very uneven. Right? It's not very even. And that's exactly what we want. We don't want it to be very flat, so just give it that up and down irregular shape when you sketch this out. Now this is going to be still somewhat in the front, so I would call that a section that we're painting as a middle ground. And for the background we have another series of mountains or hills in the background. Now again, these are going to be the ones that are really far away and that's where you can see. I bring in that effect in my sketch by just leaving a little bit of area between the two. This where you can clearly show a difference that, okay, these are really far away, so we're not seeing a very close up version of these. Now, you can make them however you want. Just remember that you're giving it a very little space in between the next one, the one after the other, you leave a little bit of area between them. And again, you can always just play around with the shapes and how they appear right above there. I've left a little space for a tiny, tiny sun and then you've got the sky. Now I'm just going to go ahead and play around with these mountain shapes and hill shapes just to feel okay, what can I add? What else to remove? Once I'm happy with the sketch, we can start with the painting process. You can tweak things here and there as you'd like in this particular section. I really like this so we can start with the painting process. All right, over here for painting the background, I'm going to use my size ten flat brush because we're going to be working in a bunch of different shades. Now the first color that I'm mixing is going to be my orange color. So I've picked up some orange on my palette and I'm adding a tiny amount of white in it. So I'm adding very little white so that I'm still preserving that vibrant orange shade. And I'm going to go ahead and just carefully apply it around the sun. Now I just can be slightly careful around here. And then I'm just going to take my orange color and brush it across the remaining area that's around it into my orange. I'm going to add a tiny amount of burned CNa in there so that I have this deeper shade. It kind of just intensifies the orange color a little bit more. And I'm going to apply that in again in this left and right motion. I go ahead and fill up that space. Now I'm switching to my size round brush, size four round brush, and I'm adding a tiny amount of yellow and white on my palette. And that's going to be the color for the sun. So I'm just going to cover up that, the drawing or the sketch of the sun cleansing my brush and just using a damp brush to mix it around. And I'm going to blend it with the orange that's already there, loading up some more of the yellow and blending it in so that I have this nice, vibrant yellow color, especially around the area where the sun is. And that transitions with that orange that's around it, and that will transition into the u, the other yellows and the blue shades. Now I'm going to go ahead and just go back and forth with the yellow here up until I have this beautiful glow, especially in that circular motion. Then I'm going to go back to my flat brush and add in the orange color. Now having that circular shape around the sun will help you create that nice glowy effect when you start creating the sun later on, once that layer has completely dried. Here's the yellow color. I'm just mixing it in. I'm just going to go ahead and start blending it with the orange that I laid out before. And then again, going in this left and right motion, making sure I'm blending everything with one another. Over here, you can either use the color as is or if you feel like you've added enough pigment on your paper, just cleanse your brush and use a damp brush to blend it in. I was happy with the blend between the orange and the yellow. So I just loaded my brush with a little bit of white. And I'm moving that yellow shade slightly upwards. Now, you can always just lift up a little bit of white on your brush and just directly start moving the colors around. But if not, you can always mix it with a bit of yellow and then move it upwards. Now I'm mixing my Prussian blue with a bit of black and white color. I'm creating this beautiful grayish blue color to that. I've also added a tiny amount of my primary red. Here's the color that I get this color. I'll add it right at the top. Now this is blending between two primary colors. It will mix and create a secondary color and sometimes a very muddy mix when it comes to these different shades that we've mixed together. To avoid that, make sure you're completely rinsing your brush. Double rinsing your brush with, I've just loaded some white and a tiny amount of water on my brush. I'm going to go back and start blending it in. Now remember that Prussian blue is a color that stains, So if you're not quick enough, you might have a little bit of issue with blending it in. It's not something that's not solvable, but it might give you a hard time. So just try and be slightly quick with the process, especially when you are playing with this blue shade right over here. I'm just going to go ahead and just blend everything into one another. I have a little bit of orange right there that I can see from the previous stroke. It has stained my paper slightly. So I'm just going to go back and add in some yellow on top. And just blend everything in, make sure that that orange is not that visible. This will require me to go a little bit back and forth with my blend right now. I'm just going to go ahead load up a little bit of that deep orange shade that I added at the bottom because I felt like it just became all yellow, yellow. So I went ahead and added that dark color and I'm blending it in with the yellow. All right, our blend is coming along. I really like the way this looks. I'm going to go ahead and add in a little bit of yellow right in that area around the sun. And blend it in. Now I'm just forgetting about that circular shape and moving on with just blending it as is. All right, so I really like the blend. Let's let it dry now. All right, Now that this section is completely dry, sky is completely dry, I'm going to go ahead and start adding the sun. For that, I am going to take my size for brush and with this yellow color, I'm going to go ahead and first create this circular shape. All right, again, I'm going to clean my brush. And I'm just going to try and blend that yellow into the background slightly with a damp brush. Nothing else? Just a damp brush. Now, I'm going to add a mix of yellow and white and just blend it with the background. Again, you're just using your damp brush here, Nothing else. Now, with my white paint, I'm going to go ahead and make sure that I'm adding a circle very carefully and you can see how there's that glowy effect around it. Now, to make that boy effect a little bit more prominent, I'm going to load up some yellow, add it around the white that we just laid out. And again, with a damp brush, just keep going back and forth with this up until you create that glow around it. Remember, you're not using anything else, you're just using your damp brush. Sometimes you might start moving the colors a little bit here and there. In that situation, you just make sure that you're constantly cleaning your brush and giving it that double rings so that you're not picking up a lot on the background color and you're creating that nice glow around the sun. All right? I really like the way this is coming along. You can see that glowy effect around the sun. And it might look different, especially when it's wet because the background is dry. So it might look like, okay, it looks completely different, but just give it time. Once it dries, it will layer down and it will get darker and blend in with the background. I really like the sun now, so we're going to let this dry, and then once that dries, we'll paint all the mountains. All right, Let us start painting the mountains. But before that, I'm just going to sketch out the structure a little bit better 'cause my sketch got covered with the paint and son squashes on opaque medium. Most of your sketches do end up getting covered up. So I'm just going to go ahead and sketch it out a little bit better this time. A little bit properly this time. And you can always go ahead and tweak the shapes here and there, because this is like a second chance that you have for changing things. A little bit over here, I've just sketched it out, just understanding the structure of these mountains that I'm trying to achieve. And once I'm happy with that, we're going to start off with the first one. Now again, it might look different for you. So I'm just going to explain the concept of what I'm trying to do here. Over here, I'm mixing my Prussian blue color with a little bit of burnt sienna. And this is the color that I get to which I'm adding a bit of black and white. So basically we're trying to create this brownish grayish color. Okay? And I've also added a bit of red in it. So this is the color that I have. So you can see how it's not just a black and white kind of gray. It has a mix of all the shades that we will be using in our painting, we have been using in our painting. With my first color, I'm going to go ahead and carefully just add that in the side in the area that's not closer to the sun. And just blend it in with the background. Now for the area that's closer to the sun because we do not want to create a very harsh color in that section, we are going to leave it white. Now what I mean by leave it white is we're just using water to just slightly move that gray color towards the sun. But in case you have covered that area with the layer from the sky, you can just leave it as is. But if you haven't, you can just add up a little bit of orange or yellow in that section and blend it with that gray that you just laid out. You're going to let that dry and then we'll move on to the next one. You can see how because of the sun, there's that glowy effect on the mountains, and that's why you're not seeing it as a flat layer of color. Now, this will not apply to the areas that are away from the sun. Whenever you reach an area that's away from the sun, you're just going to apply the color at the top and just load up a lot of water on your brush. And just move the color around so that you are creating this unevenness into your mountains. Now, we have to do something similar in our third class project. If you haven't attempted that, make sure that you do because it's really fun way to create that uneven textures on your clouds or not your clouds, your mountains. Now over here I'm going to go ahead and for the left or for the right one, rather with the mountains that I've added, you can see how it comes closer to the area that's around the sun. Again, I'm just adding a little bit of yellow and blending it in with the gray color that I added. This will take a little bit of going back and forth because you'll have to rinse your brush and then just using a damp brush move the colors around. Now once that dries, you'll move on to the next one. Now again, we are going to use this gray color in case you're going a little bit, you're moving on to the next one then you just increase the amount of black that you add in it. So I've just slightly added a little bit of black so you can see how this color is completely different. It's a little bit deeper. And then carefully you will bring it down. Once I have covered the top layer of my mountain, I'm going to go ahead and create this brown mix which is a mix of burn sienna and my orange color. And bring it in and cover the area here. Now this area is again, closer to the mountain, that's why it has this particular shade. Once I lay that color down, I'm just going to use my brush and a little bit of water and just move all the colors around. We're using that second type of blending, right? Or the third type of blending that I taught you. Actually, if you haven't watched that, make sure that you do. I am explaining how I use this sort of wet on wet technique for gas to create that unevenness in your structure. When I'm painting hills and mountains, I make sure, especially when I'm not working on a lot of details, this is how I like to create that uneven effect in it because otherwise gach makes it look very flat. To avoid that flat effect, I tend to use this method where I add the color and then just using a thinner consistency of the paint, I move it down and just blend it out and create that sort of effect. Again, over here, area around the sun has that brownish effect in it. And the area that's away from it, you have the darker color. Now again, we have that certain area which is closer to the sun. I'm going to go ahead and apply that orange color in that section. And then with the darker color, you go ahead and fill up the remaining of the space. This is what it ends up looking like. Once it's dry, it will obviously create a different kind of structure and color to it. It will get a little bit more intensified. These are going to be the mountains that are at a distance. When we move on to the ones closer, we'll add in a little bit more of the greener color in there. And we'll be approaching that in the next lesson. I'll see you there where we're adding more details to our mountains. 22. Project 6 Part 2 : Glowing Sunset: All right, now that we're done with most of the layers in the background, let's work with the layers that I would say is in the middle ground. Over here I am using my size fold brush and let's mix the colors that I'll be using over here. We're trying to have two or three different types of greens. One is going to be the green. That's the darkest green to which I'm mixing my sap green, my black with a little bit of burnt sienna. So you can see how deep this shade is, right? It's a deep green color. So this is going to be one shade of green that you'll be using. Let me swatch this out for you. Here's the color. It is very deep. Again, just it's a deeper greenish color. Next color that I'm mixing is going to be the same. A little bit of the previous mix to which I've added a bit of burn Siena, a bit of black, a bit of green, yellow, and a lot of yellow here. Here's a mix of the color that I have. Again, this is going to be a slightly medium green that I add when I start painting. I might go ahead and just create a third green in there just to bring in some highlights, making more of the color that I just mentioned. For the darker shade, I'm going to create this nice loose mix of the color once I'm happy with the consistency where the consistency is not very thick and it's not really thin as well. It has that I would say milky consistency. And I'm going to go ahead and just cover up the first layer, the one that I have just created right below the previous hill shapes or mountain shapes that you have, and cover entire section with this color. Now, the reason why I say that you want the consistency to be nice and loose is because that is going to give the paint a few extra minutes. You can go ahead and add in the lighter colors in the same layer using that third blending technique, if you remember very clearly in the technique lesson, and you're going to go ahead and add in the lighter color without doing it on a second layer and achieving it in the same layer itself. Into my green mix that I added, I'm adding a bit more yellow. And using my spoilt brush. I'm just going to pick up certain sections and add in these tabs. Now you can see clearly how these taps are very uneven, right? I'm just picking up different sections and leaving a little space between each stroke. And what I mean by that is if I'm going to have a look at it vertically, there's going to be a bit of space between these strokes so that you're still able to see the darker color through it. If you feel like you've added too much of the lighter shade or the lighter green, go ahead, load up some darker color and just fill that in between wherever those darker spaces were. Now, this doesn't have to be perfect. We're not working on the details, you know, very evidently and we're not going to create a lot of details. This is going to be somewhat blended in the background so we don't have to have that many details now. You cannot see that difference very clearly flat. So I'm just moving my paper here so that you're seeing how I'm creating that effect. And let's take a closer look at the section so you can see how we've got darker green and lighter green in this mix. Once that dries, it's going to create this beautiful effect of lights and darker shades. And basically you want to show all these different trees that are there. And some of it is receiving, especially the ones on the top are receiving more light, and the ones on the bottom are receiving lesser light on them. Now let's do the second one together, or the second section together. Now over here I am using the similar shades that I've used earlier. You can, again, always intensify it a little bit by adding a tiny extra amount of black into it. Here's a swatch of the color I have added a bit more black into just to give it that intense effect. And with my loose brush or with just, you know, loosely covering up this section using this color, make sure that you're covering the entire section with that color, with that loose, milky consistency. And basically, once you cover up the section, you always have the option to move it around. Now over here, I've added a bit of green into my mix so that the top portion has a tiny amount of this green color in it. Here's a swatch of the color. This just means that into my same mix, I've added a tiny amount of green more, just so that it's not just flat and black. It has that gradient effect even though if it's all like blending into one another. Once I have the base layer ready, I'm going to switch back to my spoiled brush load up, that yellow color mix that I had. This yellow color mix is, again, very similar to the ones that you've used earlier. You can always add in a tiny amount of yellow more into the section and then picking up different areas, I'm going to go ahead and tap in some lighter yellow color and just bring in that high light into it. Again, these strokes are very loose and you're just trying to show that the top area of these trees that are in this section are receiving a lot more light. And that's why they appear to be lighter green in color. And the bottom sections are obviously a lot more shadows are inside there. And we can't really see the light green color placed in there very properly. Again, if you feel like you added too much of the lighter color, you can always go back and add in the dark color in there to bring in some depth into your mix. Now over here, I felt like I added too much light. I'm adding a bit of dark and adding a bit of light over it. So it's a process that you keep going back and forth with, especially when you want to add darker over the light. In case you do that, you want to go ahead and add in a little bit of light over so that it blends in properly with the background. All right, so I'm really happy with the way this is looking. Very minimal effort, I would say, is required to create this, but once you're done with that, it has this beautiful effect around it. We're going to let this dry, and when I move my paper, you can clearly see how there's that difference in the color, right? You've got the lighter shades, you've got the darker shades. And this makes a lot more sense when you look at it from another angle. Because if you're looking at it too flat, you might not be able to tell the difference in the shades. All right, so now that this layer has dried up, let me give you a closer look at this. You can see how we're clearly able to see the lighter greens and the darker greens. Here's a closer look at it. You can tell the lighter green, the darker greens that are there. And it has a beautiful blend in there. This is it for this lesson. I will see in the next lesson where we start adding details to the foreground. 23. Project 6 Part 3 : Glowing Sunset: All right, let us work on the details that are in the foreground and we're going to first start that off by creating the background layer. Now for that I'm going to use my flat brush here. And to my green mix, I'm going to add a bit of brown in there. And I'll be adding a bit of white in there as well. We're trying to create this greenish, I would say olive greenish, but lighter shade of that. And you're achieving that by adding a bit of brown and white into that already existing green color that you had. Now if you don't have that shade, it's a mix of yellow sap, green brown, and a tiny amount of black. You're adding a bit of the brown and the white color in there to intensify it and make this particular shade. I'm going to cover the section entirely using this shade that I have. Again, working with a slightly lighter consistency so that the layer stays wet a little bit longer. And it allows me time to just add in some extra details in there as well. So you can see how when I have added this color and I'm just leaving it, you know, bland, it does look a little bit flat. To avoid that, I'm mixing that dark green mix that we used earlier and I've added a bit of brown into that color. Now using this shade, I am going to go ahead and add in some strokes like this to create that uneven texture and add in some character to the ground. Now, your ground does not look flat as it is, right? It does have that unevenness in to it. So you've got some areas that are above some area that is at the bottom because it's not concrete, it has that unevenness. You're going to go ahead and cover the outline a little bit with the darker shade and then create these uneven strokes. Now, it can be horizontal, uneven strokes, but we don't want it to be entirely very flat. And once you are done with adding the darker column, you can also create this grass like shape using your spoilt brush just to add in a bit of texture in there. So I'm mixing a bit of my brown and black, my burnt sienna, my black and white paint together. And I'm just going to go ahead and add in this uneven grass like structure. So I'm just moving my brush back and forth in different directions to create that grass like shape. So you're going to add smaller ones at the top and slightly bigger ones at the bottom, and I'll show you what it looks like. Once you're done with this section over here. I'm using my size zero spoiled brush and I'm going to go ahead and just add a different heights of the texture and you can see how I have picked up different areas. Right? So I have picked up different particular sections and I'm adding this structure or this kind of brush stroke in it. You're going to do the same. It might look different for you, so don't worry, just trust the process. Go ahead and create these uneven strokes. You're going to have very tiny, small ones, especially at that outline over there at the back. And you're going to have slightly medium ones in that middle layer. Let's just resume and even taller ones at the layer in the bottom. That's how you bring that variation into these brush strokes that you have. Now again, it does look very flat here because we haven't added a lot of highlights in our area. We will be doing that. But make sure that you are covering the bottom section properly so that you know there's that flow in between these brush strokes. So we're going to let this dry, and once that dries completely, here's what the final outcome looks like. All right, so now that this has completely dried up, it's time for us to add in like a second layer over this, right? So I'm going to just show you how you can enhance this and, you know, work in layers. So this is very similar to those brush strokes that we make for the plants in the background. And we work with like that 100% 70, 60% kind of rule. So here I am mixing the same shade that I've used earlier. And to this I've added a bit more of the white to kind of lighten the color so that it shows up in the background. On the background a little bit more. Let me give you a closer look and show you how I add these brush strokes. Now for the ones in the background over here, again, I am using my spoiled brush so that I can create a bunch of these strokes at the same time. If you don't have a brush that gives you these individual strokes but like spread apart, then you can just use your normal sized round brush to create this. Or you can also use a fan brush. But you'll have to be very controlled with these brush strokes that you make. Over here, you can see how the spoilt brush gives me these individual brush strokes. But. It does provide a bit more control. And it does not look very, I would say, put together. And these brushers are overlapping one another, right? It does give me these individual pretty strokes. And I can use this brush for this purpose, but in case you don't have one that does this job for you, then you can just use your normal round rush, a size zero round brush, and create this structure. Right now you're going to go ahead and pick different sections, right? So you're going to pick different areas, especially where you've added this darker color with the previous layer. And you're going to go ahead and add in a few brush strokes over it. That's exactly what I'm doing here. I'm going ahead and adding this brush stroke over the layer of the darker one that we had in the background. It might look different for you. Go ahead and follow your structure and how it works, but this is the concept that we're going with. We are following the ones that we have created as a background right now. We're just going to go ahead and add in lighter colors and then add in even lighter ones as we proceed ahead. Go ahead and complete this section first. All right, so I'm really happy with the way this layer looks. I'm just going to add in a few extra strokes. But once we're done with that, we're going to leave it to try. And then we'll add in a lighter color over this. Now, over here, while let's drying, let's a little bit more white into the same color mix that we've been using for the previous strokes. Adding more white is going to lighten the color. Now we're going to go ahead and add in a few extra control strokes here. Act as the highlights that we add so you can add them again in the areas where you've already added that second layer in this time being a little bit more controlled and adding as many individual strokes as you can. You can use your size zero brush here. I'm just using my spoilt brush again, because it gives me a bunch of these strokes together, makes the process a lot easier, I would say. And again, picking up different sections and adding these brush strokes, make sure that they are not all kind of like going, you know, bottom to top so that it looks very angular. You want to give it different directions. You want to make it all flowing. That's the idea that makes it appear a lot nicer than just being, you know, vertically standing up. Along with just these grass like shapes. I'm just creating the wildflower effect from the first class project, if you remember. But very roughly, I would say I'm not really working on a lot of details. I'm just roughly adding that in along with the ones in the front. I've added a few strokes in the background, and now I'm adding a bit more white into my mix, again, lightening the color a bit more. And I've added a tiny amount of orange in there as well. Here's a swatch of the color that I'm using here. And now I'm going to go ahead and add in a few more control strokes. Now this again, is going to be almost like highlighting that area a bit more. Along with just your grass shapes. As I mentioned, I'm creating that wildflower effect or that red defect from the first project and just adding details. I'm really just playing with the colors here, trying to add in a few lighter details into my painting as I go. And trying to complete this section with these lighter details. Again, they might look different for you as you go and that's completely okay. Just remember you're picking up different sections and adding the lighter color as you go. Now sometimes you might feel like, oh, I went ahead, I went overboard and I've added too much of the lighter color. Then you can just go back with that darker shade that you've used earlier as the base layer and add in a few strokes with that, just to null down the lighter colors that you've added, I'm really liking the way the slokes. I'm just going to give it a few extra details because I felt like there was too much of that lighter color with that deeper green shade that be used for the background. I'm going to go ahead and create a few extra details here and there. Just with that darker color that I just tone it down a little bit. It looks a lot light in the section, so I'm just adding a few extra details here and there and just toning it down slightly. All right. I'm not going to overdo this step. Just a few details are more than enough to tone that light color effect that we've added. They might not be needed for you because you've got yours might look different, but I felt like I needed it, so I went ahead and added that. And then on top, I went ahead with the lighter color just to cover those brush strokes a little bit. Now the last thing that I am going to do is just tap in a little bit of this lighter color, the lightest shade that we've used. Make sure that you are covering the remaining area where you don't want this color to be. So I'm just covering that up. Just loading my round brush with this and tapping it against another brush to just create a few splatters in this area. Don't overdo this, it's very fun. I agree, but try to not overdo this step. And once you're done with that, you will move on to adding the last detail into our painting that is deep birds. Now I felt like the sky loaded a little too empty to make a few extra details in there. I am mixing my Prussian blue color with a tiny amount of black in there. Not using black directly. Using a size zero brush, very fine tip brush. You can go lower. If you don't have a fine tip brush, you can go to size three by zero or four by zero. I'm going to add in five birds. Make sure that these birds that you're adding don't fly in the same direction. Basically, you can see how I thinking, where should I add the next one? And different directions to this and different wing shapes to this. Some flapping it across, some having their wings slightly down, some having it all the way up. Some side views and front views, you can just play around with that. You can also use a pen to draw this out if you'd like. Once you're happy with the way the birds look, you are going to peel your tape off. Make sure that you're peeling away from the paper so that you're not tearing your painting. This one was a really fun class project, I would say. We worked a lot with the colors. I honestly really enjoyed painting those details for the mountains specifically, especially the ones in the middle with that dark and light green mix that we created and those birds were like the finishing touch into our painting. Here's a closer look of our final artwork. By the way, love that glow that we were creating. A lot of practice with the wrist we had for this class project. A lot of movements that we learned. I hope you enjoyed painting the sixth class project with me and I will see you in the next class project. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming in there, so see. 24. Project 7 Part 1 : Morning Sky: Hello and welcome to the seventh class project. Here's what we're painting today. The final artwork is available for download from the Project and resources section. And I've mentioned all the shades that I'm using for this project here so you can get these shades. And let's begin with the sketching process here. I have taped out my paper, taken out all the supplies and colors as I've mentioned earlier. And we're going to start off with the sketch first. Now, for the sketch, as you see in the final image, we've got to determine the horizon line first. Somewhere about slightly below half of the paper. I am going to go ahead and make a line using my scale. Now this gives me the areas to work above the horizon line and the areas below. For the areas above, I've got these two forest or trees at a distance. So I'm just going to sketch that out randomly. All right? So I'm just going to sketch that out right at the bottom. Somewhere like in the first 1 " below the horizon line. I've got a bunch of trees to work on there as well. So I'm just roughly sketching out a patch that kind of places them there. Of course, I will change them as we start painting. And we've got these hills in the background as well and these trees in the background as well. You're going to sketch that out first. We've got a lot of grass and just plain land at the bottom. From the top, you've got these trees coming down that are going to be in the picture. Now, I'm not going to sketch everything out properly because you know it gets covered. You'll have to, anyway, cover up all the details and redraw it later. I'm not doing the detailing that well, but just to give you an idea that we'll have a bunch of trees coming out from the top that will be in the picture. You all these elements to work with. That is going to be the composition above the horizon line. You've got your trees, your hills and details. And I'm just erasing my sketch slightly so that the pencil marks are not very dark. We're going to start with the painting process now. I'm going to use my flat brush for this. And we're going to try and create a blend between a bunch of different colors for the sky. And we're not going to blend straight. The first color that I'm using is a mix of my cadmium yellow, my primary red and white paint. This is the shade that I get. You can obviously change the intensity and play around with the intensity by playing around with the yellow and the red that you add. If you add more yellow, you're going to get like a yellow, orange shade. And if you add more red, you're going to have a shade that's a lot deeper. So that's one shade. The next color that I'm mixing is a mix of my cadmum yellow and white. Here's a swatch of that shade that I'm going to be using for the sky. It's always good to like swatch out your colors and just mix them so that it gives you a basic idea of all the colors that you need to make and what the quantity is going to be next. I'm mixing my red with my white paint, adding a tiny amount of blue in there. I get this slightly pink color, which is slightly purple as well. Deep purple. Next, if I increase the intensity of my blue in there, I get a purple which is more towards the blue side. Here's a swatch of that color. Now, again, if I wanted to go a little bit more blue in that shade, I would increase the quantity of blue in that mix. All right, let's start painting now. I'm going to clean my brush, make sure that it's nice and clean. And I'm going to go ahead and using like my brush perpendicular to the paper, I'm going to start spreading the colors. So you can see how my brush strokes are not flat, but they are these thin strokes, right? So this is what happens when you use the paint perpendicular to the paper. It's not just me using it flat or like perpendicular to the paper to get thin strokes. I'm also going to be using it on its flat side as well. So that I do the blending process. You'll be constantly moving between the flatter side and the thinner side. I'm just going to go back and mix more of that orange color that we used earlier or that pistel orange color, and add that in again, using the thin side of my brush, I'm going to bring it in and make sure that everything is slightly blending into one another. Even though it's not perfectly blending in, it's just slightly blending into one another. And we can always go back with a damp brush to ensure that the blending process happens a lot more smoothly. Once I'm done with my orangey color, here's a swatch of the pink that I'm using. I'm going to go ahead and add that in. This time I'm using the flatter side. As you can see, I'm not making thin strokes. I'm using more of the flatter side and I'm blending it in again. You're just going to try and move your brush at an angle. You're not blending it straight, like we used to do or we have done in the past. This is at an angle. So make sure that you are blending it in that similar manner. Now, over here, I've added a bit of red and blue. This time increasing the quantity of blue. Because I felt like both those shades looked very similar. I went ahead and added more blue to get this bluish, purplish color, which is a mix of my Prussian blue, my red, and my white paint. I'm just going to blend that in with the pink. You can see how when my brush gets or starts to feel a little bit dry, you can just use water. Just dampen your brush slightly and you can go back and just smoothly start blending everything into one another. You can see how I am blending the sky at an angle. And as you change the angle, that's how you can change the blend as well. If you were going left or right, you would get that straight blend. If I'm going to blend it at an angle, I'm going to get that angular finish into the sky. Now I'm just going to go back and forth with my colors and ensure that everything blends into one another and I get this beautiful finish for the sky. Now, this might look different as you start painting and you'll have to go back and forth depending on the colors that you have working with you over here. What we're trying to achieve basically, is that gradient. But instead of having like a straightforward gradient, I would say there are these streaks. You can see some streaks of pink into the blue or like in between the blue, you can see some streaks of the pink in the orange or some orange into the pink. So everything is just blending into one another. But at the same time, they are not flat, like just straight blends over here, I'm adding a bit of yellow and then I'm moving it in again, working at an angle so that there's this movement and that gradient in the sky. And I'm blending all the colors into one another. Again, this is a process that you keep going back and forth with depending on how your blend looks. If it's all in any place you feel like your brush is getting dry. As I mentioned earlier, all you'll have to do is clean your brush and just dampen your brush and start moving it in. You can go back and forth. I felt like adding a bit of blue in between the pinks. So I'm going to go ahead and add a few strokes in there and then blend it into the previous colors. And just make sure that it's all merging into one another. And I'm not applying a lot of pressure in my blends, I'm just leaving it very light. Whenever you're blending these colors, all you have to do is just very lightly move your brush very gently, brush across and quash is just going to do its thing because your brush is damp or slightly wet. It's going to help the colors move and blend into one another. I really like the blends between the pink and the blue and the orange, but I just want to fix or add a little bit more of the yellow at the bottom and just blend that in. So I'm just going to go ahead and add that and ensure that I have this beautiful transition in between the yellow and the orange as well. Adding a bit of white into my mix and a tiny amount of yellow, very, very tiny amount of yellow. I'm going to add that at the bottom and then blend that right in very gently. You can see how the pressure I have on my brush is very light. I'm not, you know, applying a lot of pressure or vigorously trying to blend everything into one another. I'm very gentle with my brush robes and that's exactly how you want it to be, especially when you're blending with quash. All right, let's let this try and then we'll move on to the next step. All right, so now that my sky has completely dried up, it's time for us to add the details that are above the horizon line for which I'm using my size four round brush. And I'm going to create a mix of this bluish, dark blue gray color. And I'm mixing my Prussian blue and black together, to which I will add a tiny, tiny amount of white. So I'm going to mix the black and blue together and then add a bit of white and a tiny amount of green in there as well. So I'm just going to make sure that everything is nice and blended with one another so that I have an even shade to work with. Here's a swatch of the color. It's a beautiful shade, almost resembles the color indigo. And I'm going to go ahead and start making these tiny strokes resembling the trees that are there at a distance. You're just going to make these vertical strokes first and then fill up the entire section with just rounded strokes, however you want them to be. Make sure that you are bringing it all the way to the horizon line. Again, I'm making a bunch of these vertical strokes of different sizes placed together. Once I bring it down, I'm just going to cover and make the entire section flat again, Even on the right side and the left side. I'm going to repeat the same process. I'm going to make the bunch of strokes, rounded vertical strokes, and then bring it in and cover the entire section. Now, the reason why we didn't use a dark or a black color was because we've got these trees that we'll be working on that are in front of it. And if the colors kind of are too dark and they're very similar in nature, there might be a clash and you'll really not be able to tell a difference between the two colors. It's better that you kind of have a shade that is slightly lighter for the background. So when you have a darker color, it rests in the background. And the black color or the darker color comes and forward and you can really tell the difference between them. Now that I'm done with the trees near the horizon, it's time for us to work on the green, for the ground. Now to the same mix that I created earlier, I'm adding a bit of sap green. So it's got a mix of black, it's got a mix of white. You've got sap green and white in there. So I've just added a lot of green in there. And I'm going to start bringing the color down now. As I bring it down, I will add a tiny amount of black in there so that as it transitions to the bottom, you've got a darker shade of green to work with. As I come down, I'm going to increase the quantity of black. I've also added a bit of blue and sap green in there, so I get a deeper shade of green. Again, going in this left and right motion, I'm going to ensure that I cover the entire section carefully. You want to make sure that the consistency of your paint is not too thick, right? So you want to keep the consistency nice and loose. Again, as I bring it down, I'm adding a bit more black into the section. And then just blend it right in, Make sure that you are doing this a little bit quicker. Because if the paint dries, then you might have to work a little bit extra with the blending process. But if you're quick enough, you will not have to do that over here. I have just spread all the colors, the gradient of the colors into one another. I've got a slightly lighter green at the top and the darker green at the bottom. Now to the same mix, I'm going to create a darker green mix and I'm going to make a green shade that is a mix of sap, green, prussian blue and black using my round brush. I'm just going to go ahead and create these horizontal brush strokes, right? These brush strokes are going to be just randomly spread. I'm trying to show the difference in the, you've got some shadows in the ground. And I'm also creating these little vertical strokes to show the grass and the difference type of shapes that you might see on a plane land. I'm not trying to do a lot of work here. I'm trying to keep it very simple. I'm trying to keep it very loose and that's exactly what you want. You don't want to do a lot of detailing here. We're not trying to focus so much on that. I'm just very randomly picking up sections, leaving a lot of the green that we added earlier in there at the bottom, creating these little taps in the darker areas to show some grass that is growing in that. And that's creating a bit of depth in my ground again at the top, adding a bit of texture again, we're just trying to keep it very nice and loose and work with the textures here. All right, I really like this. I'm going to let this dry and in the next lesson we'll be adding some details to the ground together. 25. Project 7 Part 2 : Morning Sky: All right, so let us go ahead and add the trees at the distance. Now this is still on the ground. That is the green part that we just painted. So I'm just going to roughly sketch out where the bottom part of it is going to be. The color that I'm going to mix is this dark green shade. I'm going to mix my black color with my green shade. Make sure that the quantity of black that you add is a little bit more so that you get this deep green color to work with. Let me show you a swatch of the color. You can see how this color pretty much resembles black, but it's not really black. It's a deep green shade. Now, using my size zero brush and holding my brush perpendicular to the paper so that I have more control over my brush strokes, I am going to start creating a bunch of these strokes, just like how we have done in the past to show trees that you've got these branches and you've got some taps coming left and right. You will create something that's very similar to that. When you bring it all the way to the bottom. You are going to be a little bit more controlled in that section and make it look flat. Not entirely flat, but just slightly flat. I will be giving you a close oview of this to show the different variations of these brush strokes that I add. It's not going to be entirely of the same height. You want to play around with the different heights. And I keep adding these circular brush strokes and in between little taps and try to show some branches coming out. And then as I come to the bottom, I try and make it look flat again. Some little tiny taps together just to show these trees because they are still at a distance. You're not seeing extreme details in them. As they come down, they start looking flat because we just want to get a flatter surface and make them look a little bit fuller at the bottom. Then again, repeat the cycle now to add variations in your brush strokes. You want to make sure that you are using a smaller size of brush, so that you are leaving these tiny strokes in between. Then you also want to play around with the different shapes in there. It's not going to be all flat. You want to make some taller, some shorter. Play around with different brush strokes. Once I'm done adding the base of it right now, I kind of imagine that this being as the base structure. And then I can go ahead and add in some more details by making these tinier branches and branches and tinier details coming out from these trees. So it's not just thick brush strokes. Once I am done with the base, as I mentioned, I'm going to bring it somewhere, you know, vertically, more than half of the paper. And then start creating these tiny details for the branches. Now you can really make it however you like. It doesn't have to be entirely just like how I am making it. Add different variations as you please and complete this part. If you wish to not add this, feel free to do this as well. You don't have to create it in that similar manner. I'm going to go ahead and just create a bunch of branches coming out from the top so that it does look like there are some more details in my plant elements that are not just tinier taps, right? So I'm just going to release some of these tiny branches coming out from these brushes that I just laid out. Along with that, I'm just going to use a thicker consistency of paint and add some texture right below it so that it creates a shadow effect so it's not just flat and I'm adding a bit of texture on the remaining part of the ground as well. For this, you want to ensure that your brush is only holding a thicker consistency of paint. I've also made these tinier taps in the areas where you know the darker colors were. And along with these tinier taps, I'm adding some texture in there as well. So you're going to add some texture and add in some tinier taps to show these grass like shapes. It doesn't have to be perfect, so just tinier strokes and then again, a lot of texture in there. I'm adding some at the bottom because I felt like it looked a little bit empty in that area. So I'm adding some tinier strokes, and then again, and just brushing my brush across my paper to create that textured effect. So we're not just going to overdo the section, I'm adding very minimal details for the ground. So I'm just going to create these textures. And once I'm done with that, we're going to let this dry. Once it's dry, we are going to create this mix of color, which is my green paint mixed with a little bit of white in there, into that same puddle where I've mixed the green. So it might have a little bit of black in there as well. And I'm going to go ahead and add in just some tinier strokes for the plant elements. And then again, add in some texture with this lighter color. Now it does not really show up that much. And it doesn't have to because we're just trying to play a little with the texture. But still, if you feel like it is not showing up at all, then you can add a little bit of white into that again, and then use this color to add in some texture in those remaining green shapes that you have. You can create some grass shapes using this color as well, just to add in some tinier, smaller details in there. Once you're done with this, this step, you are going to take a piece of paper, cover up this area up until the tree that you just painted, and add a bit more of the white color in your mix. Here's a swatch of the color that I get. So it's a very light green shade. And what I am going to do with this color is go ahead and actually add a little bit of extra texture on the ground using this shade, because I felt like it could use a bit more texture with a lighter color. I've gone ahead and done that, concentrating this area more in those empty green spaces and not in the darker ones. So keep that in mind. You want to focus this lighter green in the areas where you've got the green from the previous layers and not the darker color. I'm just adding some textures, you can see how this makes that beautiful unevenness in the ground. And once you're done with that, I am making the consistency a little bit loose and then I'm going to tap it against another brush to create some splatters. It doesn't have to be a lot, it's very fine. And that's exactly how we want it. We don't want to overdo the step. You're just going to slightly add in some taps here and there and make sure that you are creating these beautiful splatters on your ground. Again, tapping it against another brush and using a slightly thicker consistency. So you don't want to make it very thin because otherwise you'll get bigger blobs. The thicker your consistency is, the thinner or more fine your brush strokes are going to be. I added more white into my mix. And just using this color, I'm adding a few more taps so that there are two different shades of taps and splatters in my ground. Once I'm done with that, I'm going to leave it and let it dry completely. In the next lesson, we'll be painting the trees that are emerging from the top. 26. Project 7 Part 3 : Morning Sky: All right, so that you're done with everything that was to do in the background, we are going to go ahead and focus on the trees that are emerging from the top using my pencil. First I'm going to sketch out the placement of these branches. Now you want to cover three fourth of the sky area using these branches and these leaves that you might see in there. I'm sketching out the main structure first just to understand where all the area of these main branches is going to be. Then I'm going to mix my black paint with a bit of brown paint. First, I'm loading up my burnt umber color to which I'm adding my black color. You've got burnt umber, you've got black. And I'm going to mix these two colors together. I might throw in there a little bit of green in there as well, but right now I'm just leaving it to black and my brown color. And here's a mix of that shade. You are going to use your size fold brush and very carefully sketch out what the basic structure of your element is going to be. Initially, I started off with trying to create these steps to fill out the leaves, but I got a better idea midway, which was to use the spoilt brush for the textures, which I think works amazing. I'm going to just sketch out the branches first. Carefully, just understand what the flow of your branch is going to be. Again, it can go in so many different directions, it doesn't have to go entirely like mine. You just want to assume like, imagine that you are standing under a tree and this is your frame. You're looking at this landscape and you've got this tree that is coming from above you, and it's entering your frame, it's going to be coming from top. And you're only seeing certain parts of your branches. Once you are happy with the shape of your branch that you just sketched out, you are going to start tapping your foliage or the leaves that you're seeing using your spoilt brush. Really what I'm doing is just creating a bunch of taps. If you are unsure where my taps are going to be, then you can sketch them out just to understand the placements and go with the flow. I like to just really go wherever I feel like it. It's just something that comes to me naturally. Again, this is something that comes to you with practice. And when you're doing a lot of these landscape images, it's a lot easier for me to say that you can put it anywhere. But I understand when you're somebody who paints a lot of landscapes or are new to this, you might find this intimidating. Just imagine that you are standing under a tree and looking at a landscape. You just want it to spread everywhere. And you wanted to kind of follow the structure of these branches that you just sketched out. Again, I only sketched out a few of them and I painted over only a few of them. If you'd like, you can add in some more so that it gives you a better base for all the details that you or wherever these steps are going to be, it gives you a better base to work with. Now for example, this right section that I'm working on, you can see how I'm kind of following the structure of that base that I just created. I'm following the way in which those branches were moving, and I also added a few extra taps just hanging around next to each other. And why I do that is why I add these taps just hanging next to one another, is because after we are done tapping, there are a lot of details that we need to add. We're going to try and connect them together. We're going to try and see how to make them very nice and flowy and how to make them look like. Yeah, they are coming from all 13 and they're not just random brush drugs floating in the air. It's okay if you tap in some that do not look connected to anything and they're just floating in the air. Because later we will use our size zero brush and kind of add in some extra details in there and make sure that it creates that beautiful connectivity. So right now, go ahead and tap. Tap away the branches and the leaves wherever you want them to be. All right, so now that we are done with all the taps or I am pretty much happy with all the taps, I'm switching to my size four brush. Now you can switch to a size four brush, or you can switch to a size zero brush. This is something that's a personal preference. And the basic idea here is to try and create these tinier taps emerging from the entire structure that you basically just created. Now, this is not something that's entirely new because we have done this in the past. We have done landscapes where we have created these similar kind of brush strokes. So this is not entirely new, I would say very similar to that moonlit lake structure that we had. The only difference that comes is that, that we was from the ground up. This is from the top. It's coming down. That's pretty much it. That's changing here. The brush strokes, the way in which I had these tinier details release a branch and then add in some tinier taps around it to show that these are leaves on my branches. That's pretty much the same. Basically, you are going to do this for the entire structure. Now this might look very different for you because your tree is going to look different, your taps are going to look different and that's completely okay. We are going to create this, what I've just taught you, the entire steps that I've just showed you, You're going to create that in your own way On your piece of paper or your paper that you're working on, the painting that you're working on. So just remember that you want to assume that you're standing under a tree or like imagine that you're standing under a tree and you're looking at these branches floating by. And you are going to go ahead and create these taps in there. All right, so I am going to go ahead and complete this entire section and you can see how this is beautiful connectivity that's coming in. Right? You've got some tinier taps connecting all these structures that we tapped in using our spoilt brush decree that leave base and it does look like a beautiful tree. I would not like to give it a name of what tree this is going to be because I honestly have no idea what this tree is going to be. But in my imagination, I was seeing these branches come by in this particular way, and that's how I wanted to proceed with this. If you'd like, you can add more details into your trees or approach it differently. Everyone has their own preferences and that is completely okay. You might not want to approach the tree and the structure that I just painted in my way and that's completely okay. You can add in some more details, some extra details in there. And change the shape of your leaves if you'd like, but this is something that I wanted to go with and you know, I went with it. So feel free to change things up, switch things around and make them however you like. You can also look at different reference images where maybe a tree is coming somewhere from the top, coming down and is in the frame. And you can paint them according to that. All right, I am really liking the way this looks. It does appear a lot fuller. What I am going to do is just add in some tiny tweaks here and there, and then take a look at this from a distance, because this really happens when you are looking at a painting for so long, you are so lost in the details that you might miss certain things that you might want to change over here. I felt like I could add in some more finer details. I felt like those finer details were missing. To do that, I'm switching to my size zero brush so that I have a little bit more control over my brush strokes. Using this brush, I'm just going to add in some tinier branches coming out, just connecting some structures wherever I feel like it's necessary. I'm not going to do this entire structure and add tinier details everywhere. So I'm just focusing on sections where I'd like them to be. Now again, this is very, it comes from within. This is something, when you look at your painting, it just calls to you, right? So don't kind of force yourself to like look at these details. This is something that will naturally come to you as you paint. So go ahead and just look at your painting and maybe see, okay, do I like this? Is there something that's missing because of this happens a lot often that you might pick on things that, you know, look different when you go take a walk around the house and you're like, okay, yeah, this is missing from my painting, so that's when you can tweak things here and there. So I felt like those finer details were missing. So I went ahead and did that. And you can do the same if you'd like. Anyway, I'm going to let this dry and then we are going to peel the tape off because we are pretty much done with our painting. So make sure that you are peeling away from the paper. Again, very important step, peeling away from the paper, ensuring that we are not tearing our painting because we worked so hard on it. Now I can see how when you peel the tape off, that frame comes in and you can really tell, okay, this is what it looks like. I am standing in this painting and this is the painting that I worked on. I really like how this painting has turned out. I love the sky, that color of grass, honestly. That's just something that we have not worked on in this particular class. And I also love the tree coming into play. I hope you enjoyed painting this with me. This is it for this project. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming on day eight. So see you soon. 27. Project 8 Part 1 : Full Moon Night: Hello and welcome to your eighth class project. Here's what we're painting today. You can download the final image from the project and resources section for your reference and gather the colors that I've mentioned. On the right side, you can use the sheets that I've mentioned or pick up something that's similar. All right, let's begin. So I've taped down my paper on all four sides and taken the colors out on my palette as I've mentioned earlier. And the first step that we are going to do here is create the basic composition. Now since over here the basic composition is very simple, and what I say simple is we don't have to draw the horizon line and things like that. We just need to understand what the placement of our moon is going to be. Using my pro circle, I am just going to sketch or make a circle just to place the moon somewhere in the middle of my paper. Now basically from all around the paper, I am going to have trees emerging from this. Now what is this viewpoint or what the composition is? It's almost like you're standing under a bunch of trees and you're looking straight up, okay? And you've got trees obviously coming from your left side, from your right side, somewhere from the top of your view and also from the bottom in there as well. So you're going to have trees coming from all around and we are trying to focus on keeping the moon in the center. So this is somewhat going to be the composition of the entire painting where you've got trees all around and the moon in the center and obviously a dark night sky to work on. Now, I'm not going to create all these details for the branches because they're going to get covered up. So we can always do that later. All right, so let's begin with the painting process. Now, for the painting process, I am first going to create the background. And you can either use your size ten brush or size 18 brush, because that will help you cover up a larger surface. Now over here we are trying to create a shade which is not just Prussian blue, but it's a mix of your Prussian blue color with black. So you're going to add in a tiny amount of black and you can see how it gives us that indico shade to that. I've added white to kind of lighten it, just very, very lightly. So here's a swatch off the color. Now this is going to be, let's say, the darkest color that we use. What we're trying to do here is we want to create a gradient where the area around the moon is going to be slightly lighter compared to the area that's away from where the moon is placed. The blending over here is going to be in this circular manner. Can you see how I'm going in this circular manner with my bigger brush? Now you want to keep the consistency nice and thin. And by thin I don't mean really light like water colors, but workable enough where you're able to create a blend. It's nice and opaque. But at the same time, you're able to move the colors and make sure that you are mixing a lot of the paint, because we are using a single color here. At least for now, before we go ahead and start blending everything into one another. And you want to make sure that you have sufficient paint with you on your palette to just cover up the entire surface using this singled shade, I've gone ahead and using my brush, I have covered up the entire surface and you can see how it's very uneven. Right? The mix is not very even, there's no gradient or even blends and we don't want that. I'm going to load up some more of the Prussian Blue and basically create the mix again. And I'm going to go ahead and cover up the entire area and make sure that it's nice and evenly spread. Now over here, I felt like there was too much of the black in there, so it started looking very bluish gray. So I've added a bit of Prussian blue in it to try to match the color that we laid out earlier. Now you can see how the color on the paper is very blue and the one that I've mixed out is a little bit darker. And I felt like that could be a better color to mix. Honestly, something that's a little bit deeper rather than it just being a lot more blue over here. I have used a slightly thicker, workable consistency. So you can see how my strokes are a lot more even and they have been spread very evenly and it's Nyyn opaque. And you can really see it as a flat layer. If you notice very carefully, I have left quite a bit of distance or surface area around the moon because I want to go ahead and create a lighter color and that gradient that I was talking about now for that I'm going to switch to my size ten brush, because again, I need a little bit more precision over here. I'm going to use my size ten brush, and I've just added a bit more white into the same mix so that the color is a bit lighter. Again, I am going to spread this in a circular motion. Now you want to do this while the paper is still wet, so that you have enough time to blend the colors into one another. You need to be able to blend the colors and move the colors and make sure that you're going in the circular motion because you want to create that glowy effect around the moon. Now this might take a couple of strokes because you will load up a bit of the darker blue. So you'll have to go back and forth with cleaning your brush and then making sure that you're getting rid of any of the darker colors. And then blending it again. Over here, I'm using my bigger brush and going in the circular motion to make sure that I have a nice and even glow around my moon. Now, I'm not going to overdo this. I really like the way this looks, so I'm going to let this dry completely. All right, now that my circle has completely dried, you can see how it did get a bit darker. And that's exactly how we wanted it to be. We wanted it to get a little bit darker and not be too vibrant over here. What I've done is just sketched out my moon again. So I've just used my pro circle and traced the shape of the moon. And now using my size four round brush, we are going to start painting the moon. Now for this, I'm going to add my white paint with a bit of the naples yellow color. Now if you don't have naples yellow, you can just use your yellow occur with a lot of white in there. Now you can see how because my white had a bit of blue, the mix looks very uneven and has gotten a bit muddy. So I'm just going to make sure that my brush is completely clean, does not have any blue color. And I'm mixing the same shade again. You can see how it's clearly very different from the previous color. Now, this is the mix that I have. You've got your white naples yellow and a tiny bit of the blue that was left over. But if you don't have that, you don't have to put that in. Now, with my round brush, I am going to carefully just make sure that I cover this one part of the moon with that shade. And then lift my brush again, clean it. And then make sure that I go back in there and carefully outline the shape that I've just traced out. You might re wet the previous layer because we're going with a very light color here. That might happen, it's completely okay. If it does, you can always just clean your brush, let it dry, and go for a second layer over it. Now I can see how there is this darker bits and some lighter bit. You can clearly tell here that, you know, some areas are a little bit more opaque than the others. And you want it to be like that because the moon is not flat, white, or has that yellow undertone to it. We don't want it to be flat. We want it to have a bit of this unevenness, a bit of this character. Now I'm going to go with this white color, just with the white color outline, the top portions, and just around that circular shape. And add in some white taps in there. Now I'm going to mix a bit of black into my white and yellow mix that I had. So you're trying to create a gray shade, basically using this gray shade. I'm just going to tap it in between different areas of the moon just to bring in the darker parts of the moon. Now again, this is not very visible, so we're going to let this try and let's do it in the next layer. All right. So now that this moon base layer has completely dried, what I'm going to do is again load up my brush with some yellow. That is the naples yellow with white mix. And I'm going to go ahead and redo this area so that the moon looks nice and opaque. Because right now you can slightly see a bit of the blue undertone from that single layer. It is going to dry and show a bit of the color in the background. And that's completely normal for especially lighter shade that you're adding on gas. Again, especially white right now, I'm going to go ahead and outline the color first. And then using a mix of my black and a little bit of naples yellow, we're trying to create this gray shade. And it does have white in it. But this darker color, I'm just going to create certain taps to show the darker parts of the moon. Now. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. You're just going to tap it in. And because you've just layered the lighter color over, you want it to slightly blend into one another. And by blend, I mean just roughly blend into one another. If it doesn't, you can just use your round brush, damp round brush, and just smudge out the edges so that it nicely blends into one another. Now this is something that you'll have to go back and forth with until you're happy with the way the moon looks. I like the way the moon looks right now. So I'm not going to overdo this. We're going to let this try, and in the next lesson we'll start adding the details for the trees. 28. Project 8 Part 2 : Full Moon Night: All right, so now that we're done with the background, it's time for us to work on our trees. Now, over here you can either sketch out the branches. Now let me just quickly show you the placements and how it's going to be. So you've got some coming from the left, slightly at an angle, moving upwards and towards the center of where the moon is going to be. So you want to think of it as like a circular way in which the trees are going to be seen. And because it's a square section of that circular area that we're imagining, you're only seeing parts of it. So you want to think of it like that, that you're, the moon is surrounded by all these trees. So I'm not going to sketch everything out perfectly. I'm going to create a mix of black green and a bit of brown in there. So this is the mix that I get. This is going to be the color that I'm going to work with for the trees. You can make a lot of this mix so that you have a sufficient amount of this color with you. So now what I'm going to do is basically go ahead and create a bunch of branches. Now again, you will have the creative freedom to do this however you like. It doesn't have to be exactly the way I've done it. If you don't want to do these trees, you can also show pine trees from, you know, all around. They will be moving in that same circular manner that I was telling you. That the moon is going to be surrounded by these trees. You'll have to keep that in mind. And your trees are not going to be just straight up, especially when they're coming from the left and right sides. You don't want it to be straight up or, you know, just kind of follow the side of your paper, but rather follow the composition. So with my size fold brush, I just sketched out or painted all the branches. And now using my spoilt brush, holding my brush perpendicular to the paper, I am going to go ahead and create a bunch of these steps that are going to show that these are the leaves on my trees. Now this is very similar to the previous class project that we've done. If you watch that, you know how we approached it. We're going to just create these tabs. And later using our size zero brush, we will add in some finer details to it and make it look nice and proportionate and not just crazy. We're going to go ahead and create these tabs now for your foliage, especially where you trying to show these trees at a distance. I feel like this method works best especially for silhouettes. I would say it works best because, you know, you are not putting in those individual strokes, but you're still able to capture what the idea is or like what the thought behind your trees are going to be. And there's not really a lot of thought involved. You're just tapping and enjoying the process and adding finer details later on to bring in that proportion in your trees. So you can see how I just created a bunch of these steps and now using my size zero brush, I will go ahead and kind of connect them. So let's have a closer look at this. So I'm going to go ahead and connect them and just bring out some finer branches and details around it. Now these are just small, tiny, delicate, dainty or taps that I create very light handedly. Okay? You want to be very gentle, were very light handedly. You want to place these brush strokes. They can go in different directions. We're not trying to determine the way in which the tree is flowing and things like that or trying to, you know, beat our head up for the details. That's not the focus. We're just trying to create some dainty details around these tabs that we created so that there is a proportion between the trees. You're clearly able to say, okay, this branch is moving this way. And this is not really something that I thought of while I was doing it. Now, since our brain has this way in which we can recognize patterns in our nature or like just the things that we observe, your brain will automatically pick out these patterns and pick where and how the branch is moving and where it's going. Since we also already sketched out or painted where the branches or the way in which the branch is moving, it was easier for us to determine the shape or direction in which it's going. Now the next color mix that I have has a bit more of brown and green in there other than the black color. So we're done with the left section. I'm going to sketch out what I want to do for the one in the middle. Now for the trees that are in the middle, I'm going to focus on just creating branches. A lot of branches. Because this tree is, let's say slightly at a distance, we are going to show them as it's moving upward, straight upwards. It's going to move straight upwards. That slight color difference that we brought in, once it dries, you can clearly tell the difference between, okay, this tree slightly at the background because it has that lighter color in it. The ones that are closer are going to have a deeper, darker shade in there. All right, now that we're done with that, you are going to start creating these trees and branches and trunks and things like that. Again, this is something that you can do however you want. It's all about adding finer details into your trees because this painting altogether has so many of these details of the branches and the leaves. And just we're going back and forth and basically going all around our entire painting with trying to create these kind of trees. And trying to imagine what it would be like being in the middle of this forest, Being surrounded by trees. Even if it's not a forest, maybe it's a park that we're in. We're surrounded by trees and we're looking up and somehow the moon is perfectly placed in the center. This is where we have a lot of imagination, we're able to think of this beautiful view and then portray it on paper. That I think it's like a beautiful superpower artists have that, especially like if you're a painter, you have the power to portray the things that you're seeing. And bring them on paper and change certain things as you go and make them look a little bit more polished instead of how they would look in the real life, right? Maybe the tree is not perfectly centered, but because it's a painting, we can put it right in the center and just work around it so that the trees and the elements that we've got around the moon just place it perfectly in the middle. And you've got all of us surrounding the tree. All right, So I've just gone ahead and created a bunch of these branches and details. And you can see how I create these beautiful, finer strokes. So I've got the main stem in, and then very delicately, I'm just going to release these branches kind of like it's a continuation of each other. So you don't want really long branches, especially the thinner ones, the sub branches or the finer details. You don't want very long details as you release your owner, slightly changed the direction and just continue that and add in some more branches around it. So you can just go ahead and add as many as you want. Basically focusing only in the center of this paper or the side that we're working with, right? You can see how as my color dryers or the paint dries, you can see how the brush strokes in the middle appear to be lighter as compared to the ones I've used on the left side. This is how you're able to play around with your color by just varying how much black, black you add into your color so you can clearly differentiate. Okay, this one's a little bit more darker and deeper. This one has that brown touch to it. It's a little bit lighter. Now, this creating these bunch of branches that I'm just doing right now takes a bit of patience. So in case you're not getting it to look perfect, don't worry, it will not look perfect. Initially. It's all about adding, being patient with it, and adding all these finer branches around it so that it ends up looking a bit more polished and a bit more pretty, I would say, and detailed, of course, because we're not working with leaves. So it's not easy for us to go ahead and just tap in and call it a day. This one requires a bit of your patience. And honestly, painting has taught me a lot of patience because I always just wanted to get done with it. So all these artworks have really taught me, okay? You have to be patient with things if you want it to look good. Anyway, now that we're done with the center portion, I'm just going to sketch out the branches on the right side, again, very roughly. You don't have to sketch it out. If you don't want it, you can just go ahead and free hand the whole thing. But I'd like to just catch out some of the branches just for a base idea before I go ahead and just paint with my brush. Because I know eventually I'm going to be doing what I want to do. But this way I just know, okay, this is how I'd like to proceed. Anyway, I'm going to move to my size zero brush here. This time I'm going to add a bit of brown into my mix. So a bit of brown and a bit of black in there as well, and a tiny amount of green. Again, we're going for that darker for this tree as well. You're going for that darker mix rather than going for just the lighter mix if you've used for the previous ones. Again, go ahead and just mix the color. Make sure that you have enough on your palette so that you can, you don't have to go ahead and mix your colors again. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and using my size zero brush, create the main branches first just to give myself an idea. Okay, This is how the structure looks. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect because most of it gets covered with your apps and details that you will add later on. But again, if you notice very carefully, you can see how the branches moves towards the moon. And they're at an angle, they're not straight. And that's exactly how we want it to be. You don't want it to look straight because then otherwise it just looks very flat. That viewpoint, that curve that you need, that surround feeling that you need around your moon, will not come right. So just make sure that you are working at an angle. Thinking of this as a circular painting and trying to create these branches accordingly. Okay, Now that I have my base structure ready, it's time for us to go ahead and tap, tap, tap again. This entire process is very repetitive, especially the only difference was between the first and the second type of brush strokes and the trees that we were adding. This one is very similar to the first one that we did. So you're just going to create a bunch of these taps and then connect that later on. So go ahead, let your creativity flow and tap your entire section, and then we'll have a closer look and adding finer details. Again, don't worry about the placements and how they're going to look, because you can always change and alter things when you're adding those finer details. One thing to keep in mind is when I say don't worry about where you place them, is you don't worry about it. But at the same time, just don't go ahead and create some strokes on the moon or just randomly place them anywhere you want to be concentrated in those that you've created. The bases, the branches that you've sketched out, you want to be just around that area, but you don't have to worry about the placement of it. You can always place them, the brush strokes that you've just laid out for the base. All right, go ahead and tap as many as you want and then we'll move on to the next step. All right, let's go ahead and add in the finer details. Now that we're done tapping in all the foliage for our tree, again, we'll be using our size zero brush here. Make sure that you dry your surface before you go ahead and start doing this. Because sometimes you might end up putting your hands, resting your hand on the wet surface and you might just lift off the paint. Don't do that. Let's make sure that it's dry before you go ahead and start adding these finer details over here. You're just going to look at these taps, try to connect them to one another, create these fine, delicate branches around them. And overall, when you do this entire step, it will look very put together. That will happen. But again, you'll have to be sure that, especially on the outer structure that you have these steps in, you want to make sure that you are creating these tinier branches and just tinier details around it so that it looks a little bit connected. You're going to be going ahead and doing this for your painting, it might look very different from mine. These steps will appear different, and that's why it's important to know how you approach it, especially in the outer structure. Start creating these tinier strokes as branches and taps around it so that the overall structure looks very well put together. All right, so I'm really happy with the way this is looking right now. We didn't have to do a lot of detailing, but at the same time there is that beautiful connectivity in between these shapes. So this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll go ahead and add in further details and complete the painting. 29. Project 8 Part 3 : Full Moon Night: All right, so now that we're done with almost half of our surface, we're going to go ahead and focus on the top half of it. Now again, we are going to sketch out the base first. This time we can see how the branches are coming downward at an angle, again moving towards my moon. But they're not just coming straight down from the top, they are coming at an angle. You cannot really see the sketch here because the pencil is too dark to be able to be shown or seen on this background color. But go ahead and just wait for me to sketch it out or like paint the base first so that you have a better idea of how I am or the way in which the branches are moving. Again, very repetitive process. We create the base tap in the leaves and then connect everything together to create the connectivity or make it look a little bit more put together. Again, make sure that you are making these branches at an angle because that's going to change the way the overall painting looks. Especially when we peel the tape off. So they will be coming at an angle. Just keep that in mind. All right, now that down with the base, we are going to go ahead and start tapping our leaves again. As I've mentioned earlier, the process is very depetitive. So you're just going to go ahead and carefully tap and make sure that you're covering this particular half or to quarter right quarter of your painting with your brush drugs. All right, so now that you're almost done creating the base taps, we are going to let this drive and then add in the dainty details for which I will nicely flip my sketchbook so that we have a better view of this particular area that I'm working on. Then. Now using my size zero brush, I am going to go ahead and start adding those tinier details. Now. Again, start creating these fine brush strokes of these taps and branches. And all of these details are actually going to as you make your tree look very put together. And don't get so lost in the details because we've got so much of, I mean, because we've worked on so many of these branches and these repetitive strokes, it might kind of like make you feel like there's so much happening and you might feel like, oh damn, this is like a bit crazy with, you know, all of these brush strokes looking the same. So we'll do a little thing in the end once we're done, is we'll take a walk, we'll come back to the painting 5 minutes later and then just look at it and see if there are any changes. With changes, I mean, just other details that you might have to add. Some more tinier taps and branches that you might have to add. Because you're working with so much of this repetition with brush strokes, sometimes we might not see the things that are important for us to notice while painting. This actually happens with all the painting process. Sometimes we miss a few details. It's always good to come back to your painting after like 5 minutes or just focus on something else so that you look at your painting with a fresh perspective. Anyway, I really like the way this section looks. Now we've just got one more section to complete before we go ahead and just add in any finer details. Now again, we are going to focus on the left quadrant, I would say the top left quadrant. Now over here, we've got these branches coming from the left, moving towards the right, I would say towards the center of the paper. And they're coming at an angle. Just remember the way in which they are placed. Now, if you're not able to see, which I know you're not able to see, the breast strokes which is very light. I mean, the pencil strokes are very light, so it's okay. Let me just draw the branches or the main branches for you and then you can just sketch out something similar on your painting and then follow me along. So I've just mixed the same color that I've been using all along. So again, make sure that you have a lot of the color on your palette so that you don't have to keep going back and forth and mixing more especially for the section that you're working and you don't want to get disturbed in between with trying to mix more colors. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and draw the branches in the way I want it to be. So it's coming from the left side or the left quadrant and it's kind of moving towards the mode. So you want to place the branches in that same manner. Now, this might look different for you because of the areas that you might have covered, things like that. And it's completely okay. You can just alter things here and there and move the branches in the way that you know your painting looks. You just kind of just like work around what you have. Anyway, now that I have my base structure going back to the taps again, make sure that you are just tapping, tapping, and creating, and making these brush strokes to make your tree look fuller and show that, okay, this tree has a lot of leaves. And these tinier brush strokes that would be, I wouldn't say it's impossible to achieve. Obviously, it would be a bit of a tedious task because you'd have to tap so many times and create this uneven detail, especially for the foliage part of it, and that's why we're there. Spoiled brush technique works really well. I'm just going to tap that in. I really like the way the tap looks. Now I feel like there is the beautiful connectivity between all the sections. Even if there isn't, we will try and make that connectivity come in. Now that all the taps are done, we're going to go ahead and add in the details. Now for these details, you want to just carefully add your brush strokes. As you know, I have flipped my sketch book. This is not the right bottom quadrant, this is still the top left quadrant. And still that section, I've just flipped my sketchbook upside down. Show you how I'm adding the details. So over here again, you are just going to go ahead and carefully add in tinier branches, maybe make some of them longer, moving towards the moon and things like that. Always you have the creative freedom to change things and work around based on how you want it to be. So over here, I just felt like a little bit of extension would be nice. So I went ahead and extended that branch slightly towards the moon, a little bit more towards the moon. And then again, I'm going to go ahead and add in some more details into the section of the tree. Some fine branches, some taps, bringing in the connectivity between all the foliage that we tapped, so that again, it doesn't look all so crazy. Okay. So I am really liking the way in which this entire section has turned out. Obviously we are adding some more tinier details as vehicle. But once we are done with this step, the thing that we're going to do is we're going to stop here and we are going to take a 510 minute, 15 minute, depends on how much break you'd like from the painting. Take a small break and come back to this. This is going to give you a fresher perspective and then we'll be able to pick out the sections where we might have missed adding a few extra branches. I'm done with this, I'm going to stop here and then take a walk and come back. All right, so now that I'm back from my little break, I just could pick out a few sections where I would like to add some more details. So I'm just going to go ahead and do that. I felt like, you know, certain sections could use a few extra branches, a few better connectivity between the foliage strokes that we just made. And just overall, you make it look a little bit more refined. Maybe I might have missed a few sections where I didn't go ahead and create those tinier branches and details. So you'll be able to pick this out when you have a different viewer. You're like you take a break and you come back and you'll be able to see, oh, the section I didn't do, I did not bring in any connectivity and I could have added that detail in. It's always better to come back to it, have a look, and then make those little changes that we'd like to make or add those little brush strokes that we might have missed and then we can go ahead and peel the tape off. I'm just going to go ahead and add the details wherever I felt were necessary. A bit more connectivity, a bit more refinement in my brush strokes. And if you're done with it, you are going to let the section completely dry and then we'll peel the tape off. All right. So now that my painting has dried completely, it's time for me to pail the tape off. And as you can see, peeling the tape off just gives you that beautiful white border. And then the painting just pops and you can really see all the hard work and de tearing that you have done on your tree and your entire painting that is, this almost looks like looking through the painting and you're right in the painting. I mean, at least that's how it makes me feel. Let's have a closer look so you can see how you've caught the moon in the center. There's a glue around it, which is a lot more visible, I would say, when you look at it in real life, than the camera, the way in which it's capturing it. It looks a lot more different in person and you've got these pureiful trees around it. I really enjoyed painting this, especially for how fun and easy it was and how repetitive the brush drugs were. All right. This was your eighth class project. Here's a sneak pick of nine. So I'll see you in the ninth one. 30. Project 9 Part 1 : Glowing Lake: Welcome to your ninth class project. Here's what we're painting today. It's a beautiful, warm sunset. Gather the colors that I've mentioned on the right hand side, very simple colors. We've just called six shades to work with. Gather them, and let's begin. All right, so I've taped down my paper on all four sides here and taken the colors out on my palette. As I've mentioned, the first thing that we are going to do is create the basic sketch for the composition. Now if you've downloaded the final image from the project and Resources section, this is going to give you a reference of what the composition looks like. So the first thing that we're going to do is create the horizon line. Somewhere around the half of the paper. We are going to make a line, divide our section right above the horizon line. I'm going to sketch out trees or like a hill at a distance. Let's, let's just go with trees at a distance. Okay? I'm going to sketch them out in a way that you've got trees first. Behind that, you've got like a hill in view. I'm bringing in that curve in the middle. Somewhere right above that is where I want the sun or the glow around the sun to be. Then I'm making the shape of the hill going up and then coming down again. There's a dip in the center. We'll also be showing the reflection of all the elements that are above the horizon line. Now, somewhere like I would say like 0.5 millimeters below, I'm going to start sketching another set of, it's like a hill, like a ground, right? It's a hill, like a tiny, tiny hill and it's got these bunch of trees on it that we'll paint later as we go. And then we are going to go ahead and create the reflection for it as well. So make sure that you're marking the reflection in a way so that it's easier for you to paint along. It has to match the shape that is on the top, especially for this little section. You've got this bit of land space, it's this uneven ground. I wouldn't call it a hill. I said a hill earlier, but I don't think I would call it a hill. It's just a ground, right? And you've got the reflection of the sun on the left side. I want to show just a part of like a pine tree in place. Just one part of it, right? I don't have a lot of details of the pine tree. We're not making the entire pine tree. Just a bit of details of the pine tree in the foreground. And we've also got some grass and some other elements at the bottom as well. Once you're done with the sketch, make sure that your sketch is not very dark. We want it to be light in case you sketch it out a bit dark, go ahead and just rub it off lightly so that you know the composition. But you know pencil strokes are not that visible. All right, once you're happy with the composition, we're going to start painting. So here I have my size ten flat brush loading up with some white and yellow. So I'm going to mix all the shades that I'll be using. I'll show you exactly what I'm going with. So I've got the yellow color to which I've added a bit of my white paint. And I've got these two different shades of yellow. As you can see, one is a bit darker and one is a bit lighter. On top, I'm mixing my yellow color with a bit of orange. It's just the same brush that I'm using, so you can tell it's a mix of my yellow, orange, and white. And at the bottom, I've also mixed with the same brush. I have mixed my burnt umber with orange, yellow, and white. So just a darker, deeper shade and for which I've used my brown color. So I'll be using these shades of colors, especially for the sky and then kind of work around depending on how I want the color to be. Now the blue shade that I've missed on my palette, I'm just going to quickly have that on my palette. And let me switch the colors out. Face first I have this lighter yellowish color, so it's a mix of my yellow and white. I want this color to be very light. Next, I've got this deeper yellow color. Make sure that you're cleaning your brush. We're watching the color because you are definitely going to show the previous color on your brush. Next, I have my orange color, and then I have my brown or a deeper orange color. These are going to be the warm colors that I use for the sky. I also need a bluish grayish color for which I'm mixing my brushian blue, my white paint and black paint together. Now I'm going to tone it down by adding a lot of white into the mix so that it's not that deep. I don't want the color to be extremely blue and deep. I want it to be slightly light so you can tone that down by just mixing your blue color in there. All right. So now that we have an idea and swatch of all the shades that I'll be using, I'm making sure that I double rinse my brush and with the first color that we have, which is the yellow and the. White color. I'm going to go ahead and just mark where I want the sun to be. Then around that, in this curved motion with my brush, I'm going to go ahead and blend it with that lighter yellow color. Now I'm going to start blending in this curved manner. But then I'm going to start making these flat brush strokes as well. We basically want to create this glow around our sun. And that is why I decided to go in that circular motion for the brushstrokes. Next, I'm just loading up some yellow paint, the yellow and white mix. And I'm applying it in the bottom part of my sky. Now on the sides, from the sides, I'm adding a bit of this orange color. And then blending it in as well. It's going to be concentrated more on the sides. We want to preserve the yellow which is around the sun. And I'm going to bring the orange in and then move it somewhere inwards on top. Once you have the orange in, I am going to lay out my brown. That is the deeper color in there as well. Right now, you can see how my blend is not perfected. It's very random. And I'm going to keep it like that because I want to place my colors first and I can always perfect this in, in the next layer or once this dries, I can perfect it then as well. Now, over here, I am just blending these two colors together. The reason I'm able to blend the brown and the blue together is because it does not have a lot of the concentration of the yellow and orange. But it has more of the brown color when it blends in. It doesn't create a green shade. It's still doable. It's still something that you can work with. Now, I'm just mixing a deeper or browner color because I felt like I was not able to see a lot of brown colors in there. So I'm going to go ahead add that in and then start blending it. I'm blending it with the blue first so you can see how there is this deep shade like mix that's happening in between the blue and the brown. And that's okay when you want to create that for the transition of the sky. Now with my clean brush, I'm going to go ahead with the orange color. At that, start blending it with the browns as well. And basically, now that we have laid out all our colors, we are just going to go ahead and make sure that all the colors are seamlessly blending into one another. There are, like in the past when we have painted this, we have gone color by color and made sure you blend. And there's another way to do it, that is what we're doing now. You lay out all the colors and then you can always go back and blend it because guash is something that you can reactivate with water. You always have the opportunity to go back and blend things and move the colors around. Over here, I'm going to go ahead and make sure that I perfect that circle around the sun and just create a blend that I am happy with. Now basically around the sun or where the glue of the sun is going to be, I'm creating these thin strokes with my flat brush, so that I show that glue around the sun. But at the same time, that white color or the lighter color blends and create these tiny strokes of, let's say, lighter colors and maybe a cloud, like a streak of cloud in the sky. Now I'm switching to my round brush here, because again, it gives me a lot more control over my brush strokes. And I'm going to go ahead and create the glue around the sun. I'm just creating the circular shape and then blending it out with the background so that it doesn't stand out so much. And then I'm creating these tiny horizontal strokes, you know, just laid out so that it's creating that texture in my sky. And it's not all looking very flat. So this is something that you'll have to keep going back and forth with until you are happy with the way your sky looks. Now over here I am adding this, but I still feel like there is something that could be done with the sky. And I'm just going to go ahead and add some yellow, some white. Playing around with the whole structure and seeing how I like it to look right. So once you're done with your round brush, you can also switch to your flat brush and do the blending process or continue adding these details. With your round brush itself, the main focus is to create that circular glow around the sun. All right, I am okay with this right now, so I'm just going to let this dry and see what I think about this. All right. So now that this has completely dried up, there are a few things that I see that I would like to change. What I'm going to do is just redo the sun part again and see how it goes. Now this might happen as you start painting. You might not like the blend that you've created or you feel like something's missing and it's completely okay. You can always add a second layer into painting. That's why we don't work with extremely thick consistencies in the background so that it gives us enough time to see how it looks when it's dried up. And then if there are any changes to be made, you can always add a slightly thinner, like the same consistency of a second layer over it so that you are just perfecting the blends. And since you have like a background color to work with, that is the blend that you have from the previous layer provides us a base and then you just have to add in the colors that you think are missing. So I'm just going to go ahead and apply the colors in a similar manner. I might add a deeper color in there for the browns because I felt like once a dried, the brown was not very visible. So I'm going to be adding a slightly deeper color for the browns. But then again, you are going to do it according to how you like. I wanted the deeper color for the browns. I went with a deeper shade for it. So you can see how this one is a little bit darker than the previous layer that we added. Again, this one has a little bit more of the orange undertone in it, right? So I've mixed my burnt umber white and orange. And this Tama has a very little amount of white in there. Once I have laid out the colors, that is, I've just left to lay out my blue color, the grayish blue color, and blended in. Once you lay everything down, you can see how your background actually becomes a little bit more vibrant. If you end up using a very thin consistency of paint for the background color, then you might create a layer that is a bit dull. This is something that might happen if you use a slightly thinner consistency. In case you like working with that consistency, you can always go ahead and add a second layer to bring out the vibrancy of your blends that you're creating. Over here, you can see how the second layer has made this blend that we have stand out a little bit more over here. I added a bit of orange on the sides. You've got your browns on the side. And I'm just basically repeating the same step again, trying to create that broken glow around the sun. And then it can be in a circular manner and it can also be in this horizontal strokes, from the thin part of my brush, you've got these horizontal strokes. You can see how I'm adding that very delicate strokes now. They might look very harsh when you lay them because the paint is still wet. Once it dries down, it does look very different. If you are a bit confused about that, you can always test it out on a sample paper and see how it dries down. Now, once I have all the colors in which was my yellow, orange, browns, blues, everything blended into one another, I'm just adding that white color in the middle. And then using yellow around the rim of my circle that I added. I've just blended that white into the background. Again, adding the circle for the sun in there. And then to blend it out, I'm just going to use a damp brush. They can always clean your brush. And just using your damp brush, you can add like a rim around it. And blend your sun with the background. All right? I really like the way this blend looks. So I'm going to let this try. And in the next part we'll be painting the lake. 31. Project 9 Part 2 : Glowing Lake: All right, not that we're done with the elements right above the horizon line, it's time for us to replicate the similar shades on our leak as well over here. Before we go ahead and do that, I'm just going to use my white and yellow mix to kind perfect the sun. Once I'm done adding the circular shape with my damp brush, I will just brush out the edge so that it smudges into the background and does not look like it's a whole different layer standing alone. So you just want the edges to kind of blend in. Now, right under the sun, I'm going to go ahead with the same color that I made the sun with and create these horizontal strokes Right next to that, I am just going to go ahead and add the lighter yellow color again, we want to just cover up that entire area with that shade. And once we have the yellows in from the sides, we'll have the orange color placed next to it. So again, we'll be doing these in two layers, just like how we did in the sky as well. We'll be working in two layers. So we're going to go ahead and add the orange from the sides and then blend it in with the light color. And you can see how I've left this center space, right? So I will go ahead and affect that as we go over here. I'm going to go ahead and start adding a bit of the yellow color right under the orange that we had. And then I'm creating a mix of yellow, orange, and a little bit of white. And I'm adding those colors in as well. So we're going to, again, as I've mentioned, replicate what's on top and get those similar shades at the bottom as well. Once I'm playing around with the yellow and oranges, it's time for us to add in that brown color. That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm adding in the brown color here, blending it in with the orange that we had mixed. And once I'm done with the brown shade, I will go ahead and clean my brush and double rinse it, and then load up my gray blue color. Add that in in this left and right motion and blend it with the brown color. Now, over here, if you notice the consistency is quite thin. It's not very opaque, I would say. As much as you know, gash generally looks, it's not that opaque. My blends is just kind of all over the place. It's almost like just placing my color in. So I've just locked all my shades and I'm blending it out. Again, rinsing my brush as I go. And now with the lighter color, I'm going to go ahead and fill up that space in the middle, creating these horizontal strokes to act as the reflection of the sun. That glow, sparkle that you see on the sun. I've gone ahead and added that, now I'm going to go ahead and add in some yellow. Fill up those remaining spaces that I might see. Maybe add in some little bit of yellow because it looked a bit more orange than yellow. Once I'm done with this, I'm going to let this dry and then we'll see how it looks in the next layer. All right, so now that this layer has dried up, I really like the way it looks, but it needs a bit more work. I've loaded my brush with some white and yellow mixture and creating these horizontal strokes to act as the reflection from the sun. I've just created those strokes. Very thin, tiny, short, and long strokes under the sun. And now we're going to go ahead and repeat the entire process like we've done in the past and even for the sky, I'm going to go ahead and add in some yellow around the whites that I just laid out. Blend it in. You can mix it. And blend it with those horizontal strokes that you just laid out. It's not like you cannot move that around, you can. And I've added a bit of the orange color or the deeper color around from the sides just to bring in that deeper color. And then you're not bringing it all the way to the center, you're just kind of stopping halfway. And then we are going to add in some orange again from the side. You're just playing around with the color. See how your sky looks, and try to work in the shades at the bottom as well. So we kind of bringing that same essence of the colors that you have on the top. And you're going to work in that similar manner. So you're going to place the colors in a similar manner as well. Especially over here where you're not showing a lot of movement on the water. So you don't have to really focus on the way in which the ocean is moving or the lake is moving or the water body in general is moving. So you're focusing more on just trying to replicate what's on top and bring it at the bottom. So that's exactly what I'm doing. So I'm just placing all the colors and you can see how in the second layer it really brings in the opacity of your color. Right now, you know that you're working with gas. You're not seeing the background, you're not seeing the paper layers are opaque. And that's exactly how you want it to be when you're working with quash. So I'm just going to blend all the colors with one another. You know, go back and forth, make sure That everything blends into one another, is that seamless transition between the orange, you've got browns, you've got this beautiful blue shade. So you're just going to keep going back and forth with it. Now, using my round brush, I'm going to go ahead and give myself a little bit more of definition. In the area right below the sun. Now you see how I'm holding my brush. I'm just using the tip of my brush to create these brush strokes. Just the tip. I'm not using a lot of pressure here. Just very lightly creating these horizontal strokes to show that unevenness in the reflection and just that sparkly effect. We'll add in a little bit more of the color once this layer dries completely. But before we go ahead and do that, I'm just adding a bit of a very rough circle and a few strokes around it. Right below where the sun is, now we're going to let this entirely dry. All right. Now that this has dried up, you can see how the color, the intensity of that white has kind of toned down. Right? And that is exactly how we wanted it to be. Now I'm creating a mix of my orange and my burnt umber. And this is going to be the color that I use for the background, so the hill that is in the background, I'll be using this shade now. Particularly this shade because it provides me with a little bit more of that warmth and the translucency that we need. And right in the middle where the sun was, I'm using just orange. And blending it with the browns. Now I'm just blending it with the browns and adding a bit more of that brown and orange mix around the sides. Now over where the sun is, I just want that very light color so that you can really see that the sun is kind of glaring through it. And it's creating that light color right where the area of the sun is as it sets down. So that's the kind of effect that we're looking for. So you're just going to go ahead and add in the brown colors, a little bit of yellow and the oranges, and blend them into one another. And to blend them, all you need is a damp brush. You don't really have to use anything else. All right, once that dries, we'll move on to the plants or the trees that are at the area right above the horizon line. For this, I'm going to create a mix of black and brown together, a lot more of the brown than the black color, so that you get this really deep shade of brown. So here's a swatch of the color. It's almost looking black, but we want a really deep shade of brown. Now over here, I'm going to go ahead and use the shade to start making these brush strokes. I'm going to go ahead and create these vertical brush strokes. As you can see, wearing them in different heights. You've got some tall ones, some short ones. Once you have the placement of it, you can just use a lot more pressure on your brush and basically fill out the entire space with this color. Again, vertical, vertical strokes add in all the vertical strokes that you want. And once you have the placement of these vertical strokes, just use a little bit of water, load up the paint, and fill up this entire section. Now if you notice very carefully, I came in from the sides and then like focusing more on the left side and the right side in the center, I would want it to have that lighter color in place. And that's why I'm ensuring that I'm going about this very carefully and make sure that you are placing the horizon line properly. Once you have your darker color on the left and the right side, you are going to just bring it halfway in the middle as well. Make sure that you're cleaning your brush and then using a mix of my orange and my brown color, I'm going to go ahead and create these vertical strokes and fill up and connect them with the previous color. So you're going to go ahead and connect them. And now you can see how there is unevenness between them, right? So I'm just going to go ahead and add some browns around it. And blend it with the orange again, there is that unevenness. So now I'm just going to go ahead and load up some orange. And go ahead and create it right next to the brown. So you'll have to keep going back and forth until you have like this beautiful blend between all these colors. I really like this. So I'm just going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next step. All right. So now that my Er has completely dried, I'm going to create this light mix of this brown color, which is a mix of a bit of burnt umber and orange color together. And I've also add a tiny amount of black in there. And you can see how the consistency of my paint is really thin. And that's exactly how I want it. I want it to be thin, right? I don't want it to be that dark. And then I'm going to go ahead and start creating these horizontal strokes and kind of replicating almost the shape of what's above the horizon line. We're not entirely going to cover the shapes that well because we don't need it to be that well. We're just going to roughly create these horizontal strokes to bring in some color and texture into the area. I have gone ahead and done this step with a bit of the orange color in there. And then again, blending it with the background to create a bit of a texture in there. It would almost act like the dry brush stroke. Make sure that you're using your round brush for this because this is going to give you a lot more control over your brush strokes right under the sun. Using my round brush, I'm going to create these horizontal strokes to show the reflection of the sun, a little bit more defined. You see that beautiful, sparkly water that you see. That's exactly how you achieve that. Now again, going back with this deeper color, cleansing my brush again, I'm going to keep going back and forth until I'm happy with this. I've not done the reflection on the right hand side because there we've got a bit of our plant elements or a little bit of the ground shape that we have to create. Now using my dry brush stroke, I'm going to add in a bit of texture. This can be very roughly, very lightly done. We're not following the exact shape of what's above the ground, but we're just trying to create some texture. Once we're done with that, I am going to go ahead and create that dark mix again. This time this mix that I create is going to have a little bit more of the black color. And it's again, a mix of my brown color and black color. But this will have a little bit more of the black shade in there because we want our area to stand, you know, in front of what's in the background, so it has to be slightly darker. Now using this color, I'm going to go ahead and try and create tinier trees. I'm just creating these bunch of taps and strokes, trying to vary them in between the sizes that I add with them. They're like vertical strokes itself. Like we've done in the past, but this time a little bit more prominent, trying to show the height difference in them a little bit better. Covering up until the sketch that I just drafted. Again, bringing that in slightly towards the bottom. You can see how they set slope in my structure. Next, I'm going to mix my brown and my orange color together for that lighter shade. And I'm going to be using this particular shade for my lighter color, right where the sun hits the end of it, because you want to show that the sun hits and creates this lighter colored effect here. We're going to go ahead and add in that lighter color in that area. I felt like it was still a little bit brown, so I added a bit of orange into my mix. And I'm just going to blend this out and make sure that it all merges into one another. So you can just use your damp brush or load up some color and make sure that, you know, everything is slightly blending into one another and creating this beautiful blend. Once that's done, we're going to let this dry and then we are going to go ahead and using my size zero brush and my white paint, I'm just going to go ahead and create this line that defines that separation between my ground and separation between my horizon lines, what's above the water and what's below. I felt like it was a little too white. So I've gone ahead with a bit of yellow and covered that in, so the line is a bit lighter. Now, using my size zero brush, I'm going to go ahead and create the reflection. Now over here again, we'll be using a slightly thinner consistency of paint. So that it's not very thick and it's almost like that glazed effect that you are creating where you're also seeing the background color but not laying this extremely opaque layer. And that's when you use this slightly thinner consistency over here. I'm going to go ahead and copy the shape of the A structure that's above the land so that the reflection matches what's above the water. Right? You want the reflection to be in the same manner. It's okay if it's not entirely the same structure, that's completely okay. We're not creating the exact replica, but we're still trying to get in that similar shade and shape in. Once you're done with that, using my brush, I'm creating these horizontal strokes to differentiate between the textures that we might have. And then you can also go ahead with this lighter color to show a difference between the ground. You can clearly tell what's above the water and what's the reflection of it. I'm also going to go ahead and add in some little textures around using my dry brush stroke. But I'm really happy with the way the background looks right now, so we're going to let this dry. In the next lesson, we'll add in all the details for our pine tree. 32. Project 9 Part 3 : Glowing Lake: All right, so now we're moving on to the most repetitive process of this entire painting that is creating the structure for the pine trees, right? Like I mentioned earlier in the composition, when we were sketching out the composition, we, we're only showing a part of the pine tree. Now I'm going to sketch out those individual stems, right, that are coming out. So I'm just going to go ahead and place them. You can see how there's a curve in my stroke. It's not straight lines, there's a slight bend in them. I'm creating them exactly like that. You can see how the size or the length of it increases as we move on to the next one, right? And for this I will be creating a mix of my black and brown. So again, this is going to be very similar to the previous mix that we used, which is this deep shade to this. I've also added a tiny amount of blue in there. Just very tiny amount of blue. But again, it's very similar to the previous shades. So I'm just going to go ahead and put out a little bit of burnt umber because I felt like that was over on my palette. And now let's create the mix. Make sure that you have enough of this mix with you before you start painting, because you will need a lot of this. The consistency of the paint is nice and milky. It's opaque. So when I lay the brush strokes down, it's not going to be translucent. So make sure that you are creating your mix that way. Now we are going to bring out the strokes one after the other. Now if you have followed the practicing your brushtroke lesson, you know I've taught how you're creating the structure. The first thing you do is you release the main stem From there, you release these tinier brush strokes around it. You have the base structure, almost like the tree, the structure of the tree that we've been working on this time. We're using our size zero brush for this. And it's almost like you're fanning out these structures from the main stem and it's not just left and right. You are adding variations in your brush strokes and you're also following along the structure that you have made or the structure in which it flows. If it curves upwards, your brushtropesill also slightly move upwards. So keep that in mind. Let me give you a closer view of this so that you get a better idea of how the brushstrokes are being placed. Here's a closer view. Here's a close up of my brush strokes. You can see how after the main stem is released, I'm just working in these tinier sections with these little curves and these tabs and I'm kind of releasing them, you know, like all around from the left and the right side and also some in the middle so that you're not entirely seeing the base structure. So remember that if you add a few strokes in the middle, it kind of covers up that main structure that you have. So you don't want to have something that looks like a main stem and then you've got brush strokes around it. You want to kind of make sure that you're very subtly covering it. So that's something to keep in mind. Along with these bigger strokes, you're also adding a few tinier ones, releasing them in the middle, kind of creating a fuller effect. Now, one thing to keep in mind over here is when you reach those stems that are closer to the sun, you want to use a bit of more brown into your mix. So that that color is a little bit lighter and you're creating a little bit of variations in this shade. You don't want it to be just this deep, dark mix, but you want to have a lighter color placed in there as well. So you can see how once the base stem is out, I'm releasing some tines stems around it and then tapping my brush to create variations of these pine needles in that area. Again, this process is very repetitive. This will pick you some time and there's nothing new that's happening. Just really follow what your heart says. Like I've mentioned, there is nothing new that's happening. We've practiced this brush stroke in each brush stroke that you're adding or each section that you're covering, it's just a repetition of the previous one. And you're just playing around with the size of it as you come down, you're going to slightly increase the size of your brush strokes and make them appear a little bit fuller. This process, again, as I've mentioned, is going to be very repetitive, so I'm just going to keep quiet and let you enjoy this process. And wherever there is any necessary tips to give you, I'll go ahead and do that. But right now our focus is to create these pine shapes, pine tree structure that is just a part of it and complete the entire section quickly. Want to come in here and show you how I add the variation in the color when you're transitioning from this darker color to the lighter color. Since we've reached this area, which is closer to the sun, I'm just going to clean my brush and then I can create a mix of my burnt amber and orange color together. And then just extend that from the same stem and add a few brush around the sun with that color and then load up the darker color. And proceed in a similar manner as you would do generally just. A tip of that structure, you're going to add that variation, but remaining everything remains the same, you're just going to proceed in that similar manner. You're releasing these branches and then adding your brushtrokes around it to make it look fuller. Again, if you want to brush up over these brush strokes, I would suggest you just go back to the practicing your brush stroke lesson from this class just to view how you create this structure. You can just practice this on a scrap paper, on a rough paper just so that your hands have that movement. Because this is really something that comes from, you know, a lot of practice. And you know, once your hand is used to these short movements, it's very easy for you to create these brush strokes where you're not thinking so much, but you're also enjoying the process and just letting your mind do its thing and it's like a muscle memory. So that will just come to you. This needs a little bit of practice. A little bit of understanding initially. But again, with practice, it will become something that's very natural to you. And you'll be just whipping your hand hand with your brush set, which is creating these tinier brush strokes effortlessly. Again, over here you can see how I've created that variation between the lighter to the darker color. And at the tip, I have the lighter shade, which is a mix of my brown and orange together. And when you look at it right now, it might not look like there's a lot of difference in the brush strokes, but once it dries, you can clearly tell, okay, this bit is lighter and this bit is a bit darker. That variation comes in once it's completely dry. Again, like I've mentioned earlier, this process is very repetitive. So I'm just going to keep quiet and let you enjoy the process. I have not increased the speed of other video, so it's almost like just sit back. Watch me complete the section. You can pause if you'd like, Put some music in the background, sip on some tea, and just enjoy the process. And let's paint together. Again, nothing new and different is happening. The brush dokes are very repetitive, so there's nothing much to explain but to just create these brush jokes. All right, so we've almost reached the end of our structure. If you not just very carefully you can see how there was a transition between the lengths of these branches and how the brush rook slightly increased in their size as well. Got a bit more fuller and a bit more detailed, I would say in the sense that you just a bit more of these pine needles are coming out in these different directions. I'm really liking the way in which the structure looks. Right now, I felt like, you know, a little bit of the right section looked a bit empty because we only focused on a part of the pine tree on the right side. I'm just going to create some grass shapes and just a few branches just to show that. Okay. There were some plant elements at the bottom. Now, over here, feel free to add whatever you'd like. I'm just creating a bunch of these grass shapes. Just broken brush strokes, right? And just a few branches. Just tiny, dainty looking ones. You're not adding a lot of thicker brustrops here, but just some tinier, small ones so that we're covering up that section and adding a bit more character at the bottom of that particular area. But overall, I'm really liking the way this looks as you know, and as I say always, that once you are done with your painting, take a walk and come back to it with a fresh vision, fresh mind. And you will see if you'd like to add anything else to it before you go ahead and pay the tape off. So that's exactly what I am going to do here as well. Once I'm done adding those tinier branches at the bottom, I'm going to stop and take a walk and then come back. All right, so now that I'm back with a fresh set of ice for this painting, I felt like there could be a few more details that I could add. Nothing very extraordinary here. Obviously, we are just going to go ahead and add in a few strokes to make certain branches look a little bit fuller. Because sometimes we might miss the details or we might not like the way in which they bend. So you can always go back and just add in a few extra details wherever necessary. Now, this might not be the case for you, so it's not like you have to do this step if you like the way yours look or if you'd like to not add any changes, then that's completely okay. You do not have to add in any changes. I felt like I could use some changes. So I'm just going to go ahead and add in some branches at the bottom. Make sure that there are some fillers in between those individual branches that we have as well. So that it doesn't look very empty, it doesn't look very structured. And like how our eyes can really recognize patterns, it shouldn't look like it's, there's a structure to this, there's a pattern to it. So you can add in some more brush strokes in the middle, make it appear a little bit fuller. A few more brush strokes whenever necessary. So this is something that's completely personal choice and the way we'd like to proceed with our painting, I felt like my bottom structure was a bit all over the place. So I've gone ahead and just added a few more structures to make it look a little bit more defined. I'm adding a few tweaks wherever I feel like it needs a few brush strokes. Again, completely your choice. If you'd want to add it. If you don't want to add it, you don't have to follow this step. I am honestly, really happy with the way this painting has turned out. And I'm just going to add in a few more tweaks, but we're going to let this dry and then paint the tape off. All right. Now that my painting has completely dried, I'm going to carefully peel the tape off, moving away from the paper so that I'm not tearing my painting. And you can see how, again, I say this every time, but once I peel the tape off, there's this beautiful white border to that, and that makes your painting pop a lot. You can see how all those brush strokes and colors are off from the tape. And you've got this beautiful bodle. You have your painting. The hard work that you've been doing for the past 40, 30, 40 minutes. Let's have a closer look at our painting. So I really like the warmth of this painting, the way I was able to capture the light of the sun, the reflection. You've got this beautiful part of a pine tree in our frame and you've got certain elements which are like, so dainty, but also so pretty when it's all together. So this is it for your ninth one. Here's a sneak peek of what's coming on day ten. So see you there. 33. Project 10 Part 1 : Dreamy Mountains: Welcome to your tenth and final class project. Here's what we're painting today. You can download the final image from the project and resources section. And I've also mentioned all the colors that I'll be using, gather the shades, and we're going to begin with the sketching process. All right. So I've taped down my paper on all four sides, and with my pencil, we are going to sketch out the basic composition first. Now if you've downloaded the final image, keep that with you for reference. Now, over here, right above the base of the paper which is the tape where my working spaces, I'm going to leave about an inch of space and make the ground first. So this is going to be my ground space, which we'll color in right above this ground, the line that I've made. We're going to have a bunch of pine trees of different sizes. And we'll vary that as we start painting them right behind it. My idea is to have a series of mountains that are visible to you and they're obviously of different sizes. Right? I'm sketching out two which are still very shorter. And this is actually not going to be the main mountain, this is going to be somewhat of the background that we're going to work with. We will color that in and then have trees in front of it. Right above that, I have created a series of mountain gradually coming down from the right side. Again, above that, playing around with the shape, I have created another structure which almost follows the same path, but gets narrower as we reach towards the bottom. Again from the top, we are going to be following a very similar path, Again starting from the top and it's coming down. And as it gradually comes down, it gets narrower and stops somewhere in the middle. Now to create the mountains that are visible on the left side, I am going to create one from somewhere, half of the sky space and then bring that up and then basically you can add them as you want to go and just play around with the shapes. This is what I wanted to work with where I have a little bit more of the sky space on the left side as compared to the right side. But you'll eventually end up with maybe six or seven series of mountains that you have in your painting. This is going to be the basic composition. We're going to start off with painting the whole composition. I've erased the sketch lines a little bit and with my size ten flat brush, we are going to start with the color for the sky. I am mixing my primary red with a little bit of yellow and white. It gives me this beautiful peach color. And I want the sky to be pastel, so that's why I'm adding a good amount of white in there to tone down the color. So this is a swatch of the color that I'll be using, and we are going to go ahead and add that on the top. Now if you want to make this a little bit more pinker as you go on the top, you can do that as well. Just to gradually increase the intensity of the color, I wanted to go ahead and create a lighter shade on the top. I have gone ahead and added more white in my mix and now I'm going to go ahead and color that area in again. We're blending it with the darker color. As we move up, we have to follow the left and right method, which is the to and fro blending method that we generally do. There's nothing new that's happening here. Once you've laid those two colors together, you can rinse your brush completely. Double rinse it. And using just your damp brush, you can blend everything together and ensure that you're getting a beautiful blend in the area where the sky is. I wanted it to be a little bit more pinker, so I went ahead and added a bit more red into my mix. And I'm adding that at the bottom, And then blending it left and right. Once you're happy with the blend for the sky, you're going to let everything dry and then we'll start painting the mountains. Now the process of painting the mountains is very similar to the ones that we have done before to my same orange mix or the color for the sky that we were using. I'm going to add a bit of black and blue in there, just a tiny, tiny amount of it, and it's going to give you this pretty pestel gray color. Using this shade, I will go ahead and start painting the mountain which is further back. That's going to be the first one, that tiny one that you sketched out. Once you lay the outline of your mountain, you're just going to clean your brush. And with the damp brush, bring the color down so that there's that fogged out effect and that uneven effect in your mountains and it does not look flat. And you'll be easily able to do this if you're using that wet on wet technique for the mountains that we've used before as well. So once you're happy with the way your mountain looks, it needs to have that unevenness in it, and that's exactly what you're looking for. Once you're happy with that, you're going to let that dry before moving on to the next one. All right. Now that my mountain has dried, you can see how the bottom part is a little bit more sheer as compared to the top. And that's how you work with the consistency to create that kind of effect. Now into my same puddle that I was using, I have mixed my black and blue colors together, to which I've added a tiny amount of red and orange and white in there as well. So we're basically just trying to mix the colors that we've used for the sky and the Prussian blue and black color along with white to create this gray. Now I wanted it to be a little bit lighter, felt like it got a bit darker. So I've added white to tone it down. So to create a lighter color, you will add white again with a slightly lighter milky consistency. I'm going to outline the shape of my mountain first. So that's very important. You need to outline the shape that you want to follow. So that's exactly what I'm doing here. In case you have covered your sketch, you can go ahead and redraw the shapes that you know you're working on, the right border and the right shape of it. Once you are done with it, just load your brush with a bit of water and start bringing it down again, creating that unevenness in your mountains. With just a lighter consistency, a thinner consistency of paint, you feel like it got a little too light and thin. You can just add up some more of the paint and blend it in together again. Once you're done with it, you're going to let this dry before you move on to the next mountain. All right, so now that this has dried, it's time for us to move on to the next one. I am going to add a tiny amount of black and blue in there to create a color that's a bit deeper than the previous one. Now I'm going to just swatch it out for you and also show you a really cool way in which you can repeat the same step for creating the mountains instead of laying out the outline first and then filling the colors in. Now one way in which you can do this, first thing that you can do is actually outline the structure. Or you can just use a wet brush and kind of spread water all over the surface. So you can see how I'm just using my brush here. It had a bit of the pigment from the previous brush load that I did. And I'm just outlining the entire structure. And then I'm creating these vertical strokes. And once I have that wet surface, the paint, it's just going to flow with wherever the water is. So it's almost like wet on wet technique for the watercolors. If you are familiar with that, you know exactly how to approach this, but in case you're not, you can follow the first method or use this method in which you kind of wet the surface, your working area, and then you just load up your paint. This makes the consistency really light and a lot easier for you to add this unevenness that we're looking for. So you can see how I'm tapping my color in certain areas. Certain areas appear to be a bit lighter as compared to the other areas. And that's exactly what we need. We don't want the surface to be really flat looking. We wanted to have a bit of variation where you've got some darker colors in case you feel like you either too much of the dark. Then just with your dry brush, you can load up the paint that's already there and then you can create that unevenness. Once I'm happy with the way this looks, I'm going to let this dry. I felt like certain areas needed a bit of lighter colors. So again, like I said, with your dry brush, you can just lift off the paint and it will create that unevenness. I like the way this looks. So we're going to let this dry. And in the next lesson, we will continue our adventure for painting the mountains. 34. Project 10 Part 2 : Dreamy Mountains: All right, let's move on to the next set of mountains, Silver. Here, I'm going to mix my Prussian blue with black and white. And kind of make sure that I'm deepening the color, right? So the more black you add in it, the more grayer it's going to appear. I felt like it looked a little too blue, so I ended up adding a bit of burnt CNI in there. But honestly, I did not like the way the blend looked. So I'm just going to create something different. So this time I'm mixing my black color with a tiny amount of blue, white. And to this I'm going to add a tiny amount of red. I like this gray color. You'll always have to experiment with the shades that you're mixing until you find something that goes with the colors that you've already used in the past for your previous brush strokes and layers. And something that still speaks that it's a deeper shade of the same kind of mix over here. Again, going with a mix of blue, black, red, and white, I am going to start creating these vertical strokes. You can see how my brushstrokes are not flat. I'm creating this variation to show that maybe these mountains have a bunch of trees on top. And I'm creating these vertical strokes again, over here I'm going with the method of outlining the section first with my brushstrokes and then loading up my brush with some water and creating that uneven shape. As you saw, I just lifted some water on my brush, did not clean it, but rather just loaded up water on there and then I'm just spreading the base out. So the idea is to make sure that you're blending those brush drugs that you initially laid along with that you'll add in some darker taps on your section, on your working area and lift off the color wherever you feel as necessary. You can just go back and forth with the whole thing. Now, up until here, our brushstrokes have been very simple. Where we've just added some vertical strokes and added a bit of texture on our mountains. But moving on, we will increase the amount of textures that we're adding in variations that we're adding over here. We were just creating just a single layer where we are adding some darkness at the top and then blending it out to create that unevenness once it dries. We will add a few more brush strokes here just to show that these are some trees in the background and you're seeing some darker and lighter tones because of the placements of trees, because they're close at us. Once you're done with that, you're going to let that dry and you can see how it looks once it dries. Now over here, I've increased the quantity of blue and black in the mix. Again, similar mix. I've just increased the color and made it darker again, starting off with these vertical strokes. And you can see how as I come closer to the bottom, I am increasing the size of my vertical brush strokes. So the ones in the background, you can see a little bit more just fine. It has a combination of some flat strokes and some vertical strokes to bring in that variation and unevenness in there. But over here, these ones appear to be a little bit more deeper. Again, loading up my brush with some water, blending it in just to create a base first. And then once we have the base color in, we can go back and add in some more vertical strokes in there to show the variations and the difference in the color. So again, you'll have some depth in the mountains, you'll see some lighter areas. You'll see some vertical strokes that will show that there are a bunch of other trees. Because you've not only got trees on the top, but you've got trees all over the mountains, right? So that's how you bring in that variation in your structure. My brush strokes remain very similar. I would say I'm just tapping them very randomly to create that unevenness in that picture. Again, like I've mentioned earlier, if you feel like you've added too much of the darkness, you can always clean your brush. And with just your dry brush, you can lift off the paint to create that variation. I like the way this looks now, so I'm going to let this dry completely. All right, so now we're moving on to the next layer. Again, I've kind of made this color darker by increasing the value of black and blue in there. It does have a tiny, tiny amount of white so that you're still only gradually increasing the value of the color, but it's not entirely deep and dark. So that's why you need to have a bit of white in there. Now we're going to start making these vertical brush strokes. Again, increasing them in their size. All right? So you can see how the vertical strokes that I'm making, the definition that I'm adding appears to be a little bit more bigger as compared to the ones that are on top right. And this we're able to add the variation in the viewpoint of your pine trees. So basically what we're trying to show with these vertical brush strokes is that you've got a bunch of pine trees on the mountains. And that's why they appear to be in these vertical strokes, because even though they are still closer to you, they're not very visible. With all its details to us. Now what I've done here is just gone ahead and basically what I'm trying to do is create the basic structure first. Quickly before I go ahead and start adding any detail, I'm quickly adding these vertical strokes and then just with a very light consistency of paint, I'm ensuring that I cover up the entire section, Just roughly covering everything up. Once I have that, I'm going to make some more of the deeper color, which is a mix of black and blue and a bit of white, ensuring that I have a very similar color mix to the ones that I've used earlier. And now we're going to perfect brush strokes. I'm going to start creating these vertical strokes, making them a little bit more prominent and structured. And along with these dark colors that I'm adding on top of the mountain, or the shape of the mountain that I have, I'm also adding some at the bottom to kind of add variations in our structure. Now this shows that the mountain is covered with trees. Trees are not only going to appear on the top section, they're also going to appear all over your structure, right? And since the base color that we used using a thin consistency of the paint, it's pretty obvious that it must have dried by now because gush dries a lot quicker than water colors. So it must have dried. In case your structure has dried, I would suggest that you load up your paint with some more of this paint, a very thin consistency of it. And cover up the section so that it gives you a little bit of working time. So that you can add in your vertical stros on there again. Once you have a wet surface to work with, you can go ahead and start creating these vertical strokes in different sections to show the variation of trees that you have in that area. Now you can see how I have a little bit of section in the middle that is lighter. So I've gone ahead and just used my brush, covered it up, and blended that in. Again, you can always go back and forth with your area. Again, I'm adding some more vertical strokes, just trying to add a bit of texture in my section because I did not like the way it looked. So you can always blend everything in and then go back to perfect your brush stroke. You have the option to, you know, work with it as you please. If you don't like something the way it looks, you can always go back and correct it and fix it. You have the option to kind of rectify your mistakes that you don't like. So now that I'm done adding all the darker colors in, I'm going to let this dry and then I will see how I look at it. All right. So I've also gone ahead and added some brushstrokes on the mountain as a second layer on top, just so that it would give me a little bit more prominent brush strokes. So I've gone ahead and done that. This was something that came to me very, just randomly, where I felt like, oh, I could add in some brushstrokes as a second layer instead of it being in one single layer. That is what I would usually think. So I wanted to just do it as two different layers, but I really like the way it turned out. Now we've got an even darker color, deeper color this time. Now when I tell you that you need to add a bit of white in your mix is because the final structure that we add in our painting is going to be the deepest one. So if you have a darker color in the background itself, the last brush stroke or the last layer that you're supposed to add in the area might not be visible. Now over here, I have switched to my size zero brush. And I'm trying to create a bunch of brush strokes which kind of resemble tinier pine trees, I would say. And that's mostly only at the top of the structure. So like I said, we have a bunch of pine trees on our mountains, and as they come down, as they come closer at the bottom, you'll be able to see them a lot more prominently. And that's why your brushstrokes will resemble these brushtrokes a little bit more properly. We're here again. They are very roughly placed, playing a lot with the sizing of it. Some adding some tall ones, some short ones. As I move towards the center, you can see how it gradually comes down. We're still following the structure of the slope that we had created initially. The top has the shape of the top part of our pine trees, I would say. But the bottom is kind of just blended right in. Now, the reason why I'm saying that you don't have to do it very perfectly at the bottom is because you're going to add a bunch of pine trees in front of this. So it makes no sense for you to really perfect this area very well. So I've gone ahead and just added some more strokes on top, kind of just making the tip of this particular area a little bit better. A few bold brush strokes with the structure and I'm adding a bit of depth, kind of bringing it down as well. Again, very random taps doesn't have to follow any structure. I'm just trying to create a bunch of scribbles in there so that once I lay the pine trees in front of it, it kind of makes up for this area. So you don't have to perfectly do this because you're going to add stuff in front of it. Once you are happy and done with this area, which is your last area, the flight section will just cover as a base layer. But once you're done with this, you're going to let this dry and then we'll move on to adding the pine trees and completing our painting. 35. Project 10 Part 3 : Dreamy Mountains: All right, so now that we are done with almost the background, it's time for us to start adding the pine trees for the area right above the ground for which I'm going to create a mix, which is my black paint, to which I'll add in a tiny amount of sap green and I will also add my Prussian blue. And since I'm making this mix on the previous puddle, it does have a tiny amount of white in there as well. So you are going to mix basically like a greenish dark color. So again, it's not just black directly. You'll trying to create a darker color which is a mix of a bunch of different shades. Now, over here as you can see, we've got an empty color, right? So initially I thought you could just paint the trees and add the color, I mean, add the trees in front. But I realized that without the background shade, it might look a little bit too awkward because you've got a lot of white space. I've gone ahead with my brush and just make sure that I've covered this section just roughly so that there is a background color for it to rest on. Go ahead and just cover this white space that you have. Think consistency of the same color mix that you're going to use. Make sure that is a thin consistency. Because you want this brush stroke that you're going to lay to rest on top and if it's too dark it might not show. You don't want it to be really flat and dark. Just roughly cover that in and let it dry. All right. So now that this section has dried up, it's time for us to start adding the pine trees now, again with the same mix, a little bit thicker mix. I'm going to go ahead and start painting the pine trees. Now you can add the pine trees, depending on how may you'd like them to be. I have shown how I've painted these pine trees in my getting to know your brushes and brushstrokes lesson. So go ahead and visit that in case you want to refresh on that. But if you've practiced these brushstrokes right when you were watching that lesson, then I don't think you'll have to go ahead and refresh your memory. But again, if you'd like to, please go ahead and rewatch it so that you're creating pretty, pretty pine trees here. Basic idea is to create variations in your heights. So you can see I've got this one vertical stroke that I will lay and I'm just releasing different brush strokes on the left and right direction and they are kind of pointing upwards at an angle along with my brush strokes being on the left and right side. I've added some random strokes in the middle so that my tree appears fuller. That is something that you'll have to keep in mind, because if you don't add your brush strokes in the middle as well, then your trees end up looking a bit funky and might not look the desired way that you want it to look. Once I have the structure of one single tree, I can lay trees next to it, they don't have to be the full trees. You can see how my brushtrokes are very randomly placed because I'm not trying to create the entire structure, but trying to fill up that section. So wherever you're seeing them a little bit more defined, I'm working on the brushtrokes a lot better there. And otherwise I'm just bringing it down and trying to cover up that area. Now, since they are all the same shade, once they dry, they will look, you know, a single shade when you lay them out. When the paint is half wet and half dry, they might appear to be of different colors, but don't worry. Once they dry, they will be all flat and similar shade, so you'll not be able to distinguish between your brush strokes that properly. So go ahead and add a bunch of these pine trees of different sizes laying next to each other. Now, over here, as you can see, when I start bringing it down, moving towards the left, the size of my pine trees are decreasing, right. And when you make them decrease, it kind of shows the variation that you are moving away from the observer. These trees are kind of moving away. That's where they are not perfectly placed and you're not seeing them very detailed along with the ones that I'm working on, which are on the left half section. They will slightly again increase in size so that it creates that curve effect in your view. You can add them however you want. This is the way in which I chose to add my pine trees. Again, adding a few brush strokes to fill in the background and then creating a bunch of pine trees on the left most section as well. You can see over here how they're just very randomly placed and they are a bit shorter, but they're still increasing in height as compared to the ones that I laid out next to it. This way you add the variation that these trees are still further away from the observer and that's where you're not seeing them in a lot of these details. They are very broken and uneven and you're not seeing them in detail, they appear to be further away. Once you're done with that, you're going to let this dry and we're done with the areas that are above the ground. Now for the ground, I'm going to mix my sap green color with yellow and brown color together. We're trying to create a brownish greenish mix. Now, I added a bit of black in there, but I felt like it got a little too black. This, we will add as the darker colors in my ground. Now, mixing a lighter shade, I am going to mix my sap green, my yellow shade, and my sap green color. And this can be the shade that we use for the entirety of my ground. Load up this color and go ahead and cover up all the remaining space that you have on your painting. The last bits of your painting, you can see how I'm just using this shade, a slightly thin consistency of paint, and covering this entire area with this color. Now, once you're done with laying it off that lighter color, you are going to go ahead with that darker green mix that we made earlier and add them, you know, in the areas that are further away. And just pick up sections and add them randomly. I'm using the thinner part of my flat brush so that I have a bit more control over these strokes. To get these tinier, thinner brush strokes. You can also use your flat brush or a round brush here, whatever you feel is necessary and useful for you to create your desired brush stroke. I've added a bit of white green and brown shade in there. And I'm just going to go ahead and add in some of these vertical strokes to kind of add variations in the ground. So the ground is not flat, right? And because of that, I'm creating these vertical strokes to create a bunch of unevenness in it. The idea why we added the darker colors is again to show the variation in the ground. You've got some areas that are a little bit more up that's casting a shadow and areas that are lighter which are going to be the slightly flatter surface. I've gone ahead and added that variation in going with the lighter color at the separation between the trees and the ground. Again, I'm adding this lighter shade on all the sections which had the darker color in. Once I had added the lighter colors, I felt like the dark was blending in. I've gone ahead and added a few vertical strokes with the dark color as well. To create the unevenness and the blend in the darker areas of the ground. They can be very randomly spread. It doesn't have to be perfect. Make sure that you are covering the base with this darker color. Once you peel the tape off, you have a really pretty dark border and a space to work with. Now the reason why I'm creating these vertical strokes is because I would like to lay some flowers on that area. That's why I've got those vertical strokes. Again, going with the lighter color, adding in some textures on the ground. Then you can see how as it slowly dries up, it's appearing a bit lighter. Now that I'm done with the background just randomly creating these brush strokes, I'm going to stop right here and let it completely dry. All right, now that my section has completely dried, I'm using the same darker mix. I've added a bit more of black and green and brown in there. And now you're going to create these tinier strokes in the areas which appear darker. Now this is these tiny grass shapes on which you will lay the flowers on. And those flowers are just really going to appear as tiny dots. So you don't have to perfect your brush strokes or just make them look a certain way. Just try to create these stems flowing in different directions, almost like grass. You can go top to bottom. To create the brush stroke, I am going top to bottom. You can also go bottom to top. That will give you a more grass like effect on your sections. I've just added a few of those vertical strokes now with my dry brush technique. I'm going to add in some texture on the ground with a darker color just to create that uneven textured effect. Once you are done with creating these vertical strokes in your area, you're going to clean your brush. And I'm going to mix my brown and yellow color together with a bit of white in there. So that my flowers are not just very vibrant. I don't want them to be vibrant. Here's a swatch of the color that I'm using, which is a mix of white, yellow, and burnt sienna. And now using this mix, I am going to go ahead and splatter some paint in my ground. First, tap it against another brush or your fingers and you're going to create these beautiful splatters in your area. This is going to give it that beautiful whimsical effect. Once you're done with the splatters, you're going to let this dry and then we will add in some flowers, just perfecting some areas. All right, so now that this section has dried, I'm going to go ahead and add a tiny amount of white in there. And using my size four brush, because this is going to give me a little bit perfect brush strokes. I'm going to go ahead and tap in some dots on all the stems that I created. Now you can be a little bit bigger when you're at the bottom and a little bit more smaller when you're in the areas that are a bit further away. Even if it's the same ground to bring in that variation in your brushstrokes, the flowers that you make at the bottom are going to appear a bit bigger. So be very, very delicate and fine with your brush strokes. You don't want to create huge or big flowers. These flowers are really further away, so you just want to create certain dots and complete the area. All right, now that I'm pretty much done with my painting, I'm going to take one final look and just see wherever I want to add in a few more strokes. So over here I felt like the trees could be a little bit better. So I'm going to go ahead and perfect those brush strokes. Now when I'm painting, I do tend to kind of rush through the process sometimes, but this is how you feel in certain days. You just want to get it over with. Some days you are enjoying the process, some days you are a little bit distracted, So you miss a certain steps. But that's completely okay until you finish the painting, so I'm done. I'm happy with the way this looks, so I'm going to peel the tape off. All right? Make sure that your painting has completely dried before you start peeling the tape off. And make sure that you are peeling away from the paper so that you don't end up tearing your painting. All right. Now that are tape has come off. I honestly, really like the way this painting looks. It's always my favorite thing to see my paintings without the tape because the tape has a bunch of paint on it. So it really just takes away from the final look. But once the pape comes off, you have your beautiful painting in front of you. Let's have a closer look at this one. I love everything about this composition. I love that we were able to create this beautiful, different hues of grays. We've got the pine trees, the crown, the delicate flowers, that pastel sky. Honestly love everything about this painting and I hope you enjoyed painting the last and final class project with me. This is it for the tenth class project. I will see you in the next lesson for the final outrow. 36. Final Thoughts : This, is that you guys, Thank you so much for joining me in this class. I hope you had fun in this ten day paint thing. Challenge, learn something new and are so excited to flaunt your artworks to your friends and family. If you've painted along with me, make sure that you are applading your projects under the project and resources section of this class. If you like this class, make sure that you leave a little review down for me because it helps this class reach a wider audience. Of course, I always love hearing your thoughts about the hard work and thought that I've put into this class. It really motivates me to keep going and creating more classes for you and challenges for you that you can join. If you're not following me on Instagram, make sure that you are the handlers at the simple aesthetic and you can always reach out to me here or on Instagram regarding any questions that you have about the class or about art in general or about quash or watercolors. Anything that you might have or just want to connect with me, you can always reach out to me here or on Instagram. I think this is it from my side. I'm not going to take any more of your time. I just hope you enjoyed painting along with me, learn something new, and are just happy with this class, okay? All right. This is it for me. I shall see you in the next class soon. Bye bye.