Paint a Springtime Orchard in Gouache: Mastering Techniques for Beginners | Malcolm Dewey | Skillshare

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Paint a Springtime Orchard in Gouache: Mastering Techniques for Beginners

teacher avatar Malcolm Dewey, Artist and Author

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      What you can Expect

      1:01

    • 2.

      Welcome and Introduction

      1:25

    • 3.

      Materials

      7:22

    • 4.

      Paint Consistency Tips

      9:03

    • 5.

      Notes on High Key Paintings

      5:42

    • 6.

      Gouache Painting Part 1

      6:46

    • 7.

      Gouache Painting Part 2

      7:11

    • 8.

      Gouache Painting Part 3

      10:21

    • 9.

      Painting Assessment

      2:04

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About This Class

Gouache with Impressionist Techniques

Designed for beginner artists with a working knowledge of gouache, elevate your basic skills by learning how to paint a vibrant springtime orchard scene.

You will discover how to effectively use the medium's characteristics to capture the essence of a blossoming orchard.

Through a step-by-step demonstration, you will explore techniques for:

  1. Achieving the ideal consistency of gouache,
  2. Using transparency and opacity,
  3. Managing it's quick drying properties,
  4. and creating clean color notes.

Embracing a loose, impressionistic style, this class will teach you about bold color choices, expressive brushwork, and a direct, quick approach.

Class Output: Upon completion of the class, you will:

  1. Have an understanding of gouache painting techniques and its application in capturing springtime landscapes.
  2. Know how to achieve an ideal consistency of gouache paints and utilizing its transparency and opacity to create vibrant scenes.
  3. Gain confidence in managing quick drying paint and achieving clean color notes in your paintings.
  4. Be able to infuse your paintings with bold colors, expressive brushwork, and captivating atmosphere.

Enroll now and begin your springtime orchasrd painting.

Best wishes

Malcolm Dewey

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Malcolm Dewey

Artist and Author

Teacher

Professional artist and author. I work in oils painting in a contemporary impressionist style. Mostly landscapes and figure studies. I have a number of painting courses both online and workshops for beginners through to intermediate artists. 

My publications include books on outdoor painting, how to paint loose and content marketing tips for creative people.

My goal is to help people start painting and encourage them with excellent lessons that they can use for years to come.

See full profile

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Transcripts

1. What you can Expect: Have you started painting in Guash but are struggling to take your skills further? In this course I'm going to help you take your knowledge of guache and build on that learning new skills to create a beautiful springtime orchard scene. You're going to learn about transparency and opacity. Getting the perfect consistency, layering the paint and getting clean color notes. How to master a beautiful subject like this. If you wanted to paint a beautiful springtime scene, much like the impressionist would have painted, then try this course. I'm Malcolm Dewey, a professional artist, and I paint landscapes in an impressionist style. I'm going to show you how you can do just that with guash paint. So enroll in the course and let's get painting. 2. Welcome and Introduction: Thank you for joining me on this course. You're going to learn a whole lot of new skills and a process for creating a beautiful springtime orchard scene. Much like the impressionists painted. You may have seen paintings by Mone Pizarro van Go all creating these lovely impressionist and loose paintings of orchards. Now it's not the simplest subject, but I'm going to help you see it and simplify it in a way that's going to make it much easier for you to create this type of painting. Learning how to apply paint in layers to get clean color notes, using transparency and opacity of the guache medium. And getting the correct consistency, seeing how the brush strokes are applied and how to work through this subject in a logical process. A process that you'll be able to apply to any subject. Let's get started with the painting demonstration. I'm going to work through it step by step, And then you can download the reference and try the painting for yourself. I'm looking forward to seeing your work as well. So let's begin with the first lesson. 3. Materials: Okay, before we start painting, let's have a look at the materials Now, You may be familiar with your gas materials already, but I've got a few extra colors and types of paint involved in this as well. Maybe there's a few tips for you to discover in this video. Let's have a look. All right, let's have a look at the range of colors and materials that I like to use. It works for me and that's the important thing. You'll find your system, what colors work for you, what brands, et cetera. Now first of all, let's have a look at brands. And mostly I'll be using Windsor and Newton designers Guash. There's also Carn dash which I don't use very often, but sometimes if Windsor and Newton doesn't have the stock, I need things like titanium white for instance. I may use Carn dash for that. The important thing though with guash is get the best that you can afford in whatever brand is available in your region. But bad quality guash will give you terrible results. There's really no in between. Okay. The colors I'm going to be using, I'll show you that range in the list of materials, but mostly warms and cools of the primaries yellows, I would have lemon yellow as a cool primary yellow as a warm with blues. Ultramarine is my warm blue and I like sky blue, turquoise blue or cerulean blue. They fairly interchangeable. Burn sienna is important for a convenience color, but with guash you don't want to try to mix. Burniena have burn Siena for your earth tone. Yellow ochre, also important for reds. I've got flame red and Alizarin, Crimson. Elysrine being the cool red. Add in orange. You can really, you can mix your orange. But pre mixed orange is such a good color, you may as well add that if you can. Now, as I said, obviously titanium white, extremely important. You'll use a lot of that with quash that gives it its opaque nature, Basically transforming water color into an opaque medium. Now speaking of water color, I may also add water colors to my colors. If I don't have a Guache color, you may say, how is that possible? But Guache is just a bit more concentrated form of water color after all. The big difference is Guache has a bit more density and pigment perhaps. But it's the white paint. The white paint really transforms Guache into something different. And I find that I can use water color in tubes like this and get similar results. I may just need a little more white or a little more water color, but it all work. All right, so let's put the paints aside, containers, this is also a popular thing with gach painters. What can keep the paint dry for longest? This is a watercolor palette that I also use for guache. On occasion, it doesn't have quite the ceiling ability as something like this, which I has the rubber seal ring around it which helps to keep your gas moist for a couple more days. The problem with guache, of course, is keeping it wet. And I live in a very dry region, so tends to dry extremely quickly. 34 days perhaps. And then it's dry and I may have to reconstitute it. And it's never quite the same simple principle. You put guash paint out, try to use it all up. There's no point letting it stay in these containers for weeks on end. It will just dry up. Now this palette, I said, is basically a water color palette. And you may notice that I use it fairly similar to perhaps what a water color rust would use. I've got warm color mixing areas, I've got cool mixing areas, and I've got ones that I leave open. And I just mix things around like that. And very much like I would use water color. So let's move that out the way. So I said this is very similar palette, but it's got a lid with a rubber ring to just seal and keep it moist for a bit longer. I will also mix color on a palette like this. You can squeeze out your color onto a palette like this, and it will work fine. I like to mix color like this and give me some more working room as well. This is a paper tear off palette. I can use it for acrylics or oils or as I'm using here for gas. So of course, I must mention keep plenty of clean water. Normally, I would have several jars of water because it gets dirty quite quickly and you don't want to contaminate your paint. All right. Now what do I paint with? Basically synthetic flats. Short flats and rounds. The brushes are quite inexpensive. I'm not using Sable, as I said, all synthetics and that works very well for me. A large, a medium, and similar for rounds as well. You can add in a rigger brush for finer details. Usually paint in a spiral bound travel pad like this. This is Fabriano watercolor and I use cold press paper and I find that's the best option. I've got a bit of tooth to it as well. Very nice paper and as you can see, a little bit of texture which handles the guash very nicely as a matter of managing your colors and consistency. Have lots of tissue paper to dry off your brush, and that just makes sure that you don't get too much water into your paint and you lose your consistency. Have one of these color wheels, always useful to help you with your color mixes. It also has the value scales which are increasingly important as you develop your painting practice. Pencil, two B or a six pencil to help you with your composition. And that's it. With these materials and the basic painting materials and surfaces, you can start your Guache painting. 4. Paint Consistency Tips: Okay, now I want to just have a look at what is the ideal consistency for a painting like this. A lot of gas painters have their favored ways of getting the right texture, the right vibrancy. One of the important areas, of course, is just how much water do you add your paint? Do you have it runny? Do you have it as thick as possible? The thing with gas though, is it's not really very forgiving. Too thin, it's a mess and too thick. It's like trying to paint with Patty. It really is very difficult to work with. You got to try and get an ideal consistency. Okay, let's play around with the paint a bit and see what we can find out. Now let's have a look at paint consistency. Quash has various abilities to add layers to your painting. Consistency can vary through the painting process. What I would do is add water and get the paint to a creamy consistency. Mustn't be stiff. It mustn't be sticky, but it must be creamy, almost like a aporable, creamy consistency. Once I turn this over, it would pour out, but it's not watery either. Okay. It's just got that thickness of cream. Okay? If I put it down, it's got that good coverage and then it will get that sort of scumbled effect if it's too watery. It's more like so very thin. But that could still work in your first layers. When I say to watery, it could just be for subsequent layers. When I start off the painting, it's fairly thin but it's not dripping off my brush, it's just picking up nicely. So those would be early layers. And I would let them dry, don't let it puddle on the paper as well. It's smoothed out and that dries fairly quickly. And then subsequent layers, when that's dried, it will be the creamier consistency. And that would make layers on top of the thin initial layers. All right, so similar to oils and acrylics where you would block in with your thinner layers like this and then come in with your thicker layer of creamy color. And go over that, you can see this has already pretty much dried. So let's take some of this orange. And I could go over that, no white paint involved. But once you go over that dry paint, that's it. Leave it alone. If you go back and forth, you're going to reactivate the blue. And that's going to happen. Be careful when you put on layers. It's a one shot approach and then you've got to leave it alone. As I said, I like to mix on the tear off palette. I could add my white paint like that. I would rather mix in the white over here than do it on the palette there where things get messy quite quickly. We got the white in, I can put that layer on. I may wipe the brush if it's got a bit of contamination. Make that lighter next layer and start adding highlights. Best to let things dry though, before you do that. Otherwise, subsequent layers sink in very quickly, one stroke. Good idea to change brushes from warms to cools. Let's get some lovely lemon yellow, get some white. Get your highlights strong, opaque color with all that white that's not quite dry yet. I'll give that are a bit longer to just dry and then we'll go over it. This has pretty much dried, so I can put those layers on color. White in gas is very cold, titanium white. When I put white in that color, generally, I'll go back to the color, put a little bit more back in. I don't have a dramatic color change, or I should say a dramatic color temperature shift. Too much white gets really cold. That's quite cold. Compared to that, that's got a bit more yellow in it Turn some of that yellow, I can warm that up. Basically to recap, we work from thin to thick. We try to add layers, wet over dry to watch out for getting too much color contamination. Let's get a bit of blue into the yellow. Okay, so that's dried enough, takes that color without too much trouble picking up a bit because that was still wet. Know what you're painting on for instance, that's wet. I'm going to leave that alone and I'll paint somewhere else on the painting. Go where the paint will work nicely and not get contaminated. Once that's dry, I can go back to that painting. Even on a small surface like this, I can work different areas quite confidently. Can you mix color on the paper? Yes, you could do that. If you wanted to turn that into violet, you can do that. If that's what you want then you can work wet into it on the paper, right? Clean color notes is something very important. With gas or at least with my way of painting, I like to have the colors strong. Even if I'm painting a gray, I want that gray to be either warm or cool. Not a dead color, a clean color, light blue. It's just that, nothing else, white and blue. And get nice and clean color If you are picking up, let's say some of this violet, now that blue is no longer a light blue, it's now heading into a violet. Just be careful of what's on your brush. Make sure you've cleaned your brush. Well, what, How do I start off a painting? You'll see that in the demonstration of course. But as I explained, I'll start blocking in fairly thin, getting that composition. Perhaps you've already drawn it out. That's up to you. That's the way you're going to work. A little drawing is never a bad thing. And then starting off fairly thin, a little bit of water on the brush, I'll just put the corner into the water. Get that thin enough so it's still manageable, it's not running around. And then for the lights, make sure the brush is cleaned off nicely and paint that in. Once it's all dry, I can go back in and paint the thicker layers. Right. Let's also have a look at the water color I was talking about. That's that's a little bit of lemon yellow water color and some white. The water color just on its own, you can see thin and transparent like that. Still a bit of blue coming through there. Then get your gach color coming through. Now as I said, it's not going to be as strongly pigmented as the guache, but you can use it in a pinch. Especially softer colors, atmospheric colors. 5. Notes on High Key Paintings: Okay, before we start with the painting, I want to show you a few issues with the reference. Have a look at a few inspirational paintings as well. But also draw your attention to some of the problems that you may encounter with a reference like this. Things like high key color and little tips like that that are going to help you approach a scene like this a little better. I think it'll be useful. So let's have a quick look at those issues. Now, here's the reference. And it's a very attractive scene, isn't it? But there are a few issues that I just want to bring to your attention. First of all, is the part of the painting right up from middle point, let's say from about upwards. Now, there's very little value contrast, this is all pretty much the same value, all of this area quite light. Perhaps the darkest value here is the red tree there, but it's not significant. We're working with a scene that has a lot of high key color. You need to make these colors stand out from each other with color temperature variation and also good, clean color notes. Here we've got these, let's say reddish to pinks next to it. We've got the blossoms which are like so and some a little darker over here. We got the house and the trees building around there. Also, quite a lot of lights up behind it there. We've got that thing going on over here. We've got the light greens as well. Of course the grass and the sunlight is quite green. All of these values are very similar. Big strength of the scene is coming in the foreground, the dark green and then the lights as contrast over there. Now the other complication is this tree on the left. There's all sorts of branches hanging over the very few leaves, just a lot of twigs, et cetera. I'm going to try and get some of the strength of the tree trunks to anchor things. Then all of this area, all the foliage, branches, twigs, et cetera, we're going to have to try to simplify. We've got a few lights and there are some darks as well in there and some cool darks here or there. Somehow distinguish all of that using the tree trunks and a few strategically placed branches while making the whole right hand mid to right hand side really stand out. With a lot of vibrant strong lights and nice and clean, no muddied up colors, nothing like that. Of course, the lights on the grass, they're going to really have to pop as well. Getting a little lighter and cooler year compared to what we'd have in the foreground really strong. The whole effect should be a lot of clean zinging color, really standing out. Let's have a look at a bit of inspiration. What's the opposite of high key color? Of course it's low key. And a lot of the paintings you see that I'm, I'm basically teaching how to use dark and light, dark shapes to give strength to a scene. And we've got some of that in the foreground shadow, little bit of that on the tree on the left, and more shadows leading in actually very little of the darks this time. Now we've got to use the high key colors to make this painting light and bright. It stands out. Let's have a look at a bit of inspiration and see how other impressionists we're doing this type of subject. Here's one by Mona and you can see the tree trunks giving structure. But for the rest, very much similar values with a lot of light color. These blossoms pinks, whites, there's lavender colors as well. And then the shadow and light and the grass, very similar to what we're dealing with right here is one by Vang using the tree trunks outlined in a very dark color, almost a black, to give strength. While all the lights are of a similar value, right? A lot of light, high key lights held together with a few strong dark shapes. And here's a beautiful painting by Pizarro Camel Pizarro, also a lot of high key color, very similar light values with a few dark shapes of the tree shadow. Of course, using figures to hold the painting together and have sort of a center of interest on the right hand side, lots of broken color, dabs of color. Look at the lights of the sort of white blossoms. And we're going to have to use some of those ideas in our painting as well. 6. Gouache Painting Part 1: Okay, now we start the fun part and we're going to get into the painting. Step one is do the blocking in. I've already shown you the painting consistency issues and how I like to start the painting with quite thin paint. Another important part of this starting phase or the blocking in stage is to use transparent paint. I don't like to bring in the white paint right away. In fact, this is how I paint with oils or acrylics as well. Keep the white paint in reserve. The second layer, getting the big shapes. Get them in nice and loose work quite vigorously. Quickly, big strokes with the brush and just get some energy going. Cover the white paper and get something happening. And then we will have the whole page covered. And at the end of stage one, we'll have made a great start. Let's have a look. Okay, my coal price paper is ready to go. I'm starting off with a round brush and some ultramarine blue. I'm just going to loosen that up with a little bit of water and start roughing in the big shapes or ready the composition more or less where I'm going to place the focal tree. Also a shadow pattern, the foreground shadow pattern is very important. It's going to anchor the scene and it's also going to link up with the shadows further on into the painting and help take the eye in. Because there's so many light areas, light value areas in this reference, I need these darks to attract the eye and lead the eye into the painting. Now there are a couple of trees, the larger one, the foreground, the second one, and then of course a few trees on the right. I'm going to start with the suggestion of the big tree and build it up in layers from the back. Coming forward, I'm starting with this light green but lemon yellow. Touch a blue, just a bit of water loosen it up and that's all we need. The shadow in the foreground also, keeping that transparent simple, all these shadow patterns, I'm just laying them out more or less where I want them to go and then moving into transparent darks. The darks are at this stage quite loose, but the darks are so important. Don't leave them out. Those background shapes, I've taken a bit of yellow ochre with the blue. Bring in touch of red for where the roof is of the building and the building itself. Although there's a lot of light on the roof and the building. Once again, I don't start off with the white paint as yet. Just get color down. This is very similar to a water color approach, hasn't it? Get the colors down thin and loose to begin with? And isn't that a beautiful touch of Alizarin Crimson? Now, just a little bit of to separate that building in the background a desaturated yellow. Just a bit warmer in the back. Now with the sky, I'm going to put in the white paint to basically get that sky in place. Since the sky is pretty much a small area of the painting, I'm going to have that fairly well established right from the start to build up a lot more layers for the foreground colors and the foliage and trees. There's a little bit of warmth in the sky, closer to the roof line of the building. I've put in a touch of that yellow and white to convey that. Now back into the colors, pure colors, lemon yellow, below that, turquoise, blue, some ultramarine. And we're getting a nice variation to the shadow in the foreground. The shadows are not flat, they're not lifeless. Although they are dark, they have a lot going on in there. It's little color, temperature shifts for the most part. Not too much of a value contrast because it is a dark and it will remain that way. Tree trunks and branches burn sienna at this stage, just transparent burn sienna, a little bit of green. To get the shadow in touch of yellow, the sunlight is obviously left to right, and we've got to carry that idea on throughout the painting. Wherever their lights are hitting, they're coming from left to right, the branches, there's some overhanging in the foreground. I'm going to just suggest those all very loosely placed at this stage. The tree on the right, done quite softly, it's got to recede. It can't be as strong or as hard edged as the foreground tree. This one over here has the strongest edge there. It is pretty much blocked in and ready to go into the middle stage. 7. Gouache Painting Part 2: Onto stage two of the painting. We've got the blocking in and the page is covered. And now we've got to carry on develop the middle section of the painting. Now as this first layer dries pretty quickly, I can get right into it and start adding those second layers, the more opaque paint, Bringing in some white paint as well, and also strong color, getting the strong reds in as well. Building up the layers of the big tree with smaller shapes. Now this middle section is not the pretty stage of a painting, but you must persist and it will all come together. Now getting into that second layer, I spoke about the burn Siena adding an immediate touch of warmth to the tree trunks. And we can also start adding in a bit of white paint, touch of red. And I'm creating this coral pink or coral red color for the roof. A lot of that's going to be covered up, but get the background colors established before we move into the middle and foreground areas. In especially the foreground where there's going to be quite a lot of extra layers added to build the painting up. Now it's a bit of a yellow ochre, white and some yellow, medium yellow, making a very strong, opaque, bright light color for the house to show through the background. That's of course, the good part about opaque color, strong coverage. And you can cover up what you don't want to show, cover up mistakes and fix things up. All those advantages of opaque over water color. For instance, that shadow under the roof, very important. And I'm going to use some of those cool blues, blue violets and bring them into the tree as well. That's the thing with painting tree trunks. You don't want them to be just one solid color, solid, dark, something like a burnt umber. I never use burnt umber. I always try to create a colorful, a shadow side to tree trunks and of course some vibrant lights on the sun side. Sun coming from left to right, quite thin. For these background shapes, these trees are like they haven't got all their leaves yet. I have to suggest trees that are still a bit spin. But without having to paint all those little twigs, I'd do a flat light color. Similar value to the sky but the sky itself, the blue sky, I'm making that quite light. But you'll notice how gas dries slightly darker. This light blue is going to be quite a bit darker as it dries. And I'll probably have to come back in and might have to just warm up some of that. These leaves and trees closer to the sky, they will be picking up some of those sky blues. And so you can soften that edge up just a little blue green here, just a touch warmer, a bit of that ochre coming into the lights. Now there are some suggested tree trunks back there. There's also a few little branches that can be suggested in a very soft value. By the soft value, I just mean the value of the branches are similar to the background color. Bringing in blues into the bone. Senos creates the cool side of the tree. Now the orange, I'm going to bring some warmth into the sun side of the tree. As I develop that layer, I can bring in some white and create a bit more of an opaque light color. Now I've got to build up the tree. The foreground tree has many things going on. Looks like hundreds of branches. Of course, I can't paint all of that. I can only build up layers of light and dark and warm and cool color, working with different kinds of greens, darker, cooler, bluish greens, and then more yellow color greens for suggesting light. There are a few little highlights on the trees of white blossoms. We can try to suggest a few of those, but most of that will come later on just feeling things out by dropping in some of white colors and just see how that will work out. Now back to creating the darks or re, establishing some of those darks because it is the shadows that make the lights stand out. To spend a good amount of time getting those shadow areas established. Also the second tree. If you struggle to see these shapes, remember close your eyes halfway. Just get that squint going and you'll notice mass shapes come together. Details disappear and you can see the bigger mass shapes. 8. Gouache Painting Part 3: Onto the final stage of the painting. The part that we can really look forward to bringing in the bright lights. As those middle sections have dried down, they're gone a little bit dull because that's how gas works. Now I get in the really strong lights and bring this painting to life. It's a fun stage. Let's get into it. Now we start getting that color that brings in the theme of this springtime scene. The light colors, the bright colors. This foreground tree is of course, quite complex because there is no real definite specific shape to it. It's made up of all these tiny details. Of course, I cannot capture everything. I'll go for the color notes that make an impact. The grass itself, the lights. We need to get some layers and textures there as well. Get in the sky holes in the foreground. Get some clean color notes as well. Some good strong color notes, a little more white, especially for the grass shapes in middle to background. Bit more yellow in the foreground. It's got to be warmer and brighter in the foreground but cooler in the distance. Cutting in here or there technique also called carving in. That's where you use the background shapes to help define the positive shape. Very important technique I use a lot, even in the foreground year, using it to just clean up the edges of the shadow. Getting some really strong lights in. Now want to getting this beautiful tree. This tree with all the off white blossoms and it's going to now create a beautiful contrasting shape of lights, contrast within it of shades of white but not pure white. Straight out the tube white. Mix something into it. On the palette little bit of yellow and so on. The lights of the red tree in the center. Of course, those are pink colors. Alizarin white, a touch of yellow. Just putting a line on that roof to define that building a little better. The pink shapes. And then I'll move into the reds to depict the center and the shadow parts of that tree. The white tree and the red tree are starting to support the scene. Look at that beautiful, strong color, coming in a cool red, cool red contrasting with the warm colors around it. This, to me, really creates the springtime scene a warmer strokes of color, just to give a little more texture and life to those background trees, but still keeping them pushed back because there is very little value contrast back there. A high key colors, a few strong lights, Yet this balances out with the tree on the right, really pushing the lights now to give that bright light effect. Of course, this is a constant technique with gach. As you find colors have down a little too much, you need to push that color a little more, create a little more light, a little more texture. Improve the vibrancy here, the dark shapes of the tree branches, creating more support for the light shapes. All the contrast between dark and light. Just a bit of definition to the tree branches. Using some blue to create cool color. A few more lines to suggest overhanging branches, the highlights. This is also a stage of the painting that you do almost instinctively here. There's way too many little shapes. I'm consolidating with a few bigger shapes to give the red tree some weight. The tree on the left of the big tree, I also feel has too little shapes that I need to just consolidate a bit. Let's get a little more texture in the foreground, just a bit. Too much of the white paper showing through as well. A little more dark near the base of the tree for that deep shadow there. Using brush strokes to break up color. Now some highlights on the edge of the tree. Just accent I should say, just highlights the accents. Referring to darker shapes, sometimes there are just too many here. Pulling this back a little, this constant back and forth is a theme of most impressionist paintings. You try something and it's a bit too, you got to pull back by creating some bigger shapes to get rid of too many small shapes. These strong lights, I really do like them. You have to be careful, you don't do too many. You just got to get it right. Get the painting to just sing clean color. Color notes are critical with gas. If you find you're mixing in color from below or you've picked up something on the palette and it's not giving you that bright, strong color you're looking for. It's because the color notes not clean with quash. Mixing colors is very important to get it right, to get it as sharp as it should be. A bit of scumbling in the fore ground here, just letting a few textures show in the brush stroke. All right, There is one thing I do want to add though. Even though I've signed the painting, I feel a figure is necessary, A figure just to create a little bit of scale interest on a focal point, a little fun element as well, keeping it very simple. Just a dark shape with a light on the face and the arm, a shadow to tie the figure down to the landscape and then will be done. Overall, I think the impression of a springtime orchard has been obtained. Always fun to work with Guash and now you can try the painting for yourself. 9. Painting Assessment: Okay, the painting is complete and here it is. I must say, I really enjoyed the painting and I was a little bit concerned about it to begin with because it's not a painting with those big, strong light, dark contrasts. There's a lot of light colors. And that means a painting in a fairly high key, as I explained earlier on, it's not going to be that easy to work with a high key painting. But I think looking at it, I'm pleased there are some strong darks in the foreground. The foreground shadow really does anchor the whole painting. Those lights stand out so well. The creamy light colors, the reds, pinks, and of course the greens set it all off. That is the painting, a beautiful spring scene in an Impressionist style and it's a wooden. I hope you are going to try this painting out for yourself now. Don't forget, you can download the reference and do the painting and send it in. I look forward to having a look and giving my comments on it. Now please remember if you've enjoyed this course and you've learned something valuable from it, and don't forget, add your review. It really does help the course to get discovered and help other artists as well. Now why not also add your painting to your Instagram account and just tag me in there at Malcolm Dewey Fine Art. I look forward to commenting on your work as well. If you want to find out more about my painting courses, just visit Malcolm Dewey Fine Art.com Well, that is it. I look forward to meeting you in the next lesson. Coming soon. Until next time. Happy painting and chairs for now.