Painting 5 Landscapes: Watercolor Techniques for the Foreground, Painting Sky and Water in Landscape

1. Welcome to the Class: Welcome to the magical world of watercolor landscapes. If you ever wondered how to capture the beauty of a sunrise sky or the drama of a stormy landscape, this class is for you. Hi. My name is Alexandrna and I'm a watercolor artist. In this class, we will paint five breath taking landscapes. I will show you how to paint different types of scenery from the yellow field before the rain to the peaceful lake at Sunrise. Before creating this class, I asked my students, what is the most difficult about painting landscapes for them. Based on the answers, I decided to add a special lesson about creating textures for the foreground. I will show you art materials and main color mixes. I'm using full landscapes. We'll keep things simple yet stunning by using a limited color palette with just a few essential hues that you can find even in a small watercolor set. This class is suitable for the beginners and to make sure that you will get your dream landscape. I added some simple lessons with exercises for painting sky. As a project, you will paint one of five landscapes from the or landscape by your own reference. And remember, your feedback is invaluable. So don't forget to share your thoughts in review. Let's create something beautiful together. Hope to see you in the class. 2. Art Materials: Hello, and welcome to the class with landscapes. Let me show you the basic art materials I will use for these paintings. Most important is watercolor paper. I'm using paper by arches, 300 of 140 pounds grain thin texture or co breast and 100%. You can use other paper, but it's really important that you use paper with the same characteristics. Now, let's talk about brushes. I will use two main brushes, number eight by peanux quill, or mob brush, and number six by silver brush. So why these two brushes? The big one helps to absorb a lot of water and cover big surface, and the round one will allow you to work on details. Most importantly, round brush should have a very sharp and pointy end. And about this brush number eight, it has very special holder, which called French holder, and it helps to absorb and hold a lot of water on the brush. Point sketches, I will use mechanic pencil by pencil 0.3 millimeters. But you can also use an ordinary pencil. It's totally fine. Particular colors and color mixes, I will show you before each class project, each landscape. But it will be also good to have white watercolor or an Brilliant watercolor for painting the foreground. Now, let's talk about some additional art materials I will use for painting landscapes. You will need ceramic or plastic palettes. I'm using two palettes. It's very convenient for me. You will also need nedable eraser. It's not like ordinary eraser and it doesn't damage the paper. You will also need ordinary eraser to remove the very hard lines paper towel to clean and dry your brush or remove some color from the paper. And some ordinary tables sold for creating textures on the foreground. Now, let's move to the simple exercises before we start painting the landscapes. 3. Exercise 1 Painting Sky: I'm so happy to see you in this class, and let's start painting the landscapes, and we will start by practicing painting the sky because it's a very big part of painting landscapes. So we will learn in this lesson how to paint gradient sky and stormy sky with clouds. Fixated the piece of paper with masking tape. If you don't have a glute pad, I suggest you do the same when you move to painting landscapes. When painting the sky, we always start by covering the surface of the paper with clean water. If you see that your brush has some leftovers of the previous color, you have to clean it with water and dry it out on the paper towel. Main colors that we will use for painting this sunrise clear sky. It's cobbled blue and Alizarin crimson. Basically, you need some blue color yellow color and red color for painting the sky. I will start by covering the surface with cobbled blue from the top. Then I will add a mix of cobalt blue and zarine crimson. The paper is wet so the color is easily blend with each other without any rough edges and rough spots. And now I will add some yellow color to the palette to create this very nice warm shade by mixing yellow and alizarin crimson. The most important thing when you paint the sky is wet paper. So make sure that your paper has enough water. And also cotton paper dries slower than the cellulose paper. So that's why I recommend to use cotton paper. And we can add some color at the top and just blend the colors with each other. The second exercise is about painting stormy sky and I will use two colors cobald blue and paints gray, and right now a mix in paints gray with cobald blue on the palette. And we will start by covering the surface with clean water as always. Then I will apply the mix of cobalt blue and paints gray where cobalt blue is like 80% of the mix. You see that I have two puddles of cobalt blue and pins gray and the differences that one has more water in it. I cover the whole surface with even and light color. If you see that there is a puddle on your paper like too much water, you can just dry and clean your brush and remove excess of the water from the paper. Also with this technique, you can create the highlights of the clouds. Now, I will load my brush with a dark mix of paints gray and cobbled blue. If you see that there is too much water on your brush, you can just dab it on the paper towel. I will apply the dark mix to the paper, and I will keep some light areas between these dark areas. Basically, it's like the clouds and the clear sky that we can see through them. And gradually we will building up the color, introducing more and more intense blue and paints gray color into the surface. The main thing is to keep your paper wet. You see that when I apply color to the wet surface, the color doesn't travel a lot on the paper. If you find yourself struggling with controlling your color in wet wet technique, probably it means that your paper is too and it has too much water. You have to wait until it will get a little bit more. D. You see that my brush strokes are quite chaotic, but they still have some direction, and normally the brush strokes of the dark sky from the top are moving towards the center of the sky where the light area is. And the brush strokes at the bottom are more horizontal and. Yeah. Now, you know how to pay a gradient sky and the stormy sky, let's move to the next lesson and learn how to pay sunset sky. 4. Exercise 2 Sunset Sky: Welcome to the second exercise where I will show you how to paint a sunset sky. I will use same color mixes I used before, cobbled blue and paints gray and also alizarin crimson and cadmium yellow deep. And we will start by covering the surface with clean water. For this painting, I will use also my brush number eight by Panx For mixing orange color, I will use alizarin crimson and cadmium yellow deep. You can use just orange if you have it. I will prepare two mixes on the pallette, the pure orange one and dark one for the clouds. And I will start by introducing orange color to the bottom part of the paper. And we following the same steps as we did with painting sky before. First, we will cover the whole surface of the paper with some light color. Then we will add some dark areas representing clouds on top of it while the surface is still wet. In this painting, I will also create a gradient from the blue color on the top and orange color at the bottom. The colors are nicely blending on the wet surface just like I showed you in the previous exercise. Now, I will clean my brush in a clean water, and I will dab it to dry it out on the paper towel. If you don't clean your brush properly, the color will appear green because the colors will just mix on the brush yellow and blue one. And now let's paint the sun. I'm just removing some color from the wet surface with paper towel. And I will just make these edges of the sun smooth, just dragging the color around with almost dry brush. Now I can move to paint in the dark clouds. When you're painting with wet on wet technique, you might struggle with amount of water and damp paper. Because sometimes you have to wait until the paper will get a bit dry than it is in the beginning. So if you see that color travels a lot on the paper, it means that your paper is too wet. And you see that I'm making the strokes and the color basically stays in the same area. Allowing me to have the gaps of the light between these strokes. It doesn't get all muddy and all. Gradually, I will build up the color by adding more and more dark shades into these clouds. Now I will use mix, but with a little bit more cobbled blue than it was before. We are done painting the Sunset sky, and now let's move to the next lesson where we will learn how to create details for the for. 5. Exercise 3 Foreground details: In this lesson, I will show you four simple techniques to create textures for the foreground. I will start by covering two top squares with green color. Before creating this class with landscapes, I asked my students on skill share, what are the main difficulties when they paint landscapes. The most common answers were color mixing and details for the foreground. And that's something I can agree on because details really make the landscape alive. But of course, we're not going to paint each and every grass flower and a bug. Our main task is to learn how to create this feeling of rich field and diverse landscape with just simple watercolor techniques. And I will show you some simple techniques that I know and I use in my landscapes. Our first technique is splatters of water. First, we need to cover the surface with color and let it dry a little bit, so the paper will not be so wet and not fully dried. Meanwhile, I will cover the second square with color, and the second technique will be s and creating texture with ordinary table salt. I see that my first square is still too wet. You see the shining surface. It means that there is too much water, and I have to wait a bit more before I will make splatters. So I will apply some salt into the second square and we'll let it dry. Let's move to the first square. For making splatters, I need to put my fingers down into the glass with clean water. Then I need to make a few abrupt movements with my fingers. And we've got a nice texture. The main thing is to not overdo it. Otherwise, you will have a puddle of water on your paper. The salt is getting dry very slowly, so I will remove it in the end of this exercise. Meanwhile, I will cover the two squares with color, the left one with the light green color and the right one with dark green color. And I will let them both get fully dry. Now, I will show you the third technique for painting grass on the field. For this technique, you will need dark color and a big brush. First, I will tap my brush on the paper towel, removing excess water from the bristles. Then I will press the brush to the palette, and I will twist it around. Until the hair of the brush, the bristles will get separated. I'm twisting the brush until the bristles will get all messy. Now we can paint the grass. Barely touching the surface of the paper with brush, I create these very light strokes that remind the shape of the grass, and I'm just making it in different directions. Of course, you have to try it out on the scrap paper and practice, but it's a very nice technique to create this diverse foreground. For the first technique, I need white watercolor zinc white. I will just place this water color on my palette. Now we will create splatters of white color, so we need to cover other squares with just some paper paper. I will add a little bit of water to the white water color on the palette, and I will use a round brush number six. First, I can create a small dots that can represent the white flowers on the field. Okay. Then I will load my brush with the white color and we create splatters. All you need to do is to heat the brush against the finger of your opposite hand. These splatters are very small and th, and if you find yourself making the big and more watery splatters, it means that you have too much water on your brush. I can also switch to the smaller bruh number zero or number one and create some brush strokes representing grass. But to be honest, I find it quite challenging because it's really hard to control the amount of water and color on the brush, so the lines will look very nice. And now I can come back to the salty square and remove the salt with my fingers. You can already see the nice texture I got with the salt, and to be honest, this is my favorite technique to diversify the foreground. Now, I will remove the masking tape so you could see all the techniques that I showed you in this lesson. We will use all these techniques in our landscapes, and I hope that it will help you to create your perfect landscape. I will see you in the next lesson where we will start painting landscapes. 6. 1 Color Mixes: Let's start with the materials. I will use two brushes squadra number eight Perla and Pax number eight paid. It's a mob brush and it's very convenient to use for painting sky and landscapes. For drawing a sketch, I'm using mechanical pencil, 0.3 millimeters. You can also use ordinary pencil. It's totally fine. Here is the watercolor paper I will use for all landscapes. It's paper by arches, 300 GSM or 140 pounds, 100% quantum press. This texture allows us to create very nice watercolor effects. You can use other paper, make sure it has the same characteristics. I already prepared colored sketch for this landscape. It helps me to understand color mixes and colors that I will need, and I will need three colors yellow, dark blue and dark gray. I'm using Aurelien as yellow shadow violet, as dark blue. You can use indigo if you don't have shadow violet and pins gray. Pines gray is very useful color in practically any landscape. Now let's see the color mixes that I will need. Mix of yellow and shadow violet creates a very natural green color that I will use for paint in the field. M. Okay. Different amounts of each color creates different shades. So for this yellow greenish color, I'm using 80% of yellow and 20% of shadow violet. And also the other way around, I'm using 20% of yellow and 80% of shadow violet to create this very darkish green color, almost gray that I will use for these dark parts. I'm also preparing some mixes of pure colors mixed with water on my palette. So here I have shadow violet that I will use for painting the sky. And also paints gray color that I will use for painting the sky and the field. That's basically all the mixes that you need. Now let's move to drawing a sketch. 7. 1 Sketch: Let's start by drawing a sketch, and we always start by drawing the horizontal line, normally the horizontal line will be lower or upper than the middle of the paper. I'm just drawing some. Straight line, it's not totally straight. You don't need a ruler for it. Just draw it as you feel. You can use a ruler if you are not feeling confident, but it's okay if the line is quite wavy. For the landscape, we don't need some complex sketch, just a simple one with understanding where the field goes, where the background is, and that's it. I will see you in the next lesson where we will start painting with watercolor. 8. 1 Painting the Sky: In this lesson, we will paint sky, and we will start by covering the surface of the sky of the paper with clean water using mop brush. I suggest you to have a paper towel next to you to clean and dry your brush easily. I will start by adding shadow violet color to the whole wet surface. Once I cover the whole surface with one color, I'm adding more color to create intense clouds. And I continue introducing more color, creating darker shades. The most important thing is to not let your paper gets dry. We're working in wet on wet technique using the wet surface. Sky will get to the horizontal line, so it will create a very nice contrast between the yellow field and dark blue sky. When painting this stormy dramatic gray sky, it's really important to keep the light areas between the dark ones. And to do that, you have to have your paper not too wet. So you have to practice on the scrap paper to understand and when you can apply the color because if you see that the color travels a lot and blending with other colors or it just covering these light areas, and you cannot control it. It means that you have to damp paper, and you have to wait a little bit until the paper will get more dry. Yeah. Yeah. Once we painted the sky, we'll let the paper dry and then we'll come back to paint in the field, and I will see you in the next lesson. 9. 1 Painting the Field: In this lesson, we will paint the field, and let's start by putting our yellow color on the pallet mixing it with water. Let's start by covering the surface of the field with a yellow color. I didn't cover the surface of the paper with water because I need the color to be very intense. I already prepared on my palette mix of shadow violet and line, and I will create even bigger paddle. Because when you're painting with wet technique, it's very important that you have enough color on your palette. And I'm just adding this color at the bottom of the light area of the field. Now, I will add some darker shade of shadow violet and line to the bottom of the light areas. And I always get this question, how do you manage to make 80 20% of mix? So it's just approximate amount. You just mix colors until you get the shade that you need. D. D. I painted the foreground quite dark and now I will add some table salt to the wet surface, it will help us to create a very nice texture. While the area with the salt is getting dry, we will move to paint in the road. When you paint and add salt for an interesting texture, remember that you have to wait until the paper gets fully dry before you remove the salt. No. No. I need to increase the contrast between the field and the road, so I will add some very intense dark color to the road. Using the mix of shadow violet paints gray and a little bit of yellow. I don't use pure black color because it won't look natural. But at the same time, I need to create this area as dark as possible. In some places, I can add even almost pure pines gray. Yeah. Now, the first layer of the field is, and we will leave it and I will see you in the next lesson. Okay. 10. 1 Painting background: In this lesson, we will paint some trees on the background using paints gray. But first, let's separate the right and the left parts of the field with the mix of shadow violet and yellow that we already have on the palette. You can let it dry and then let's paint the trees using very dark color. Yeah. This dark background in landscapes helps us to increase the contrast between foreground and background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the paper is fully dried and we can remove the salt using fingers. We are almost done painting this landscape. I will see you in the next lesson where we will paint details. 11. 1 Final Details: In this lesson, we will add some final details to the landscape, and for this, I will use small brush number two by Da vinci. First, I will take some pure Aurelian color from the palette and we paint flowers on the foreground. No. Then let's add some dark areas using Bains gray. Yeah. Go. Good. Go. I'm using mix of reeling and paints gray or reeling and shadow violet that I have on my palette to create some areas at the bottom of the light I want to add some light areas representing the yellow flowers on the foreground, and I'm using pure yellow color and very small dots or brush strokes holding my brush almost vertically. Now, I want to add some splatters of yellow color on the background. But first, let's cover the surface of the field and sky with paper towel. And our landscape is done. I hope that you like this painting, and let's move to the next landscape. I will see you in the next lesson. 12. 2 Materials and Color Mixes: Now, let's paint another landscape with a lake on the sunrise. I've already prepared a color mixes and color sketch, and I will show you color mixes in this video and other materials you will need. Let's start with the brushes. I will use two brushes, number eight by panox mop brush, and round brush number six by silver brush. You can use other brushes that you normally use for painting. Also, I might need a smaller brush, and I always have it next to me, some round brush number zero or number one. Here is the watercolor paper I will use for all landscapes. It's paper by arches, 300 GSM or 140 pounds, 100% quaton called press. You can use other paper just make sure it has the same characteristics. Now let's talk colors. I will need five colors. Paints gray, by van go, cobbled blue, bamjea, green by white knights, Alizarin crimson by Daniel Smith, and A Lin by White knights. Here are some color mixes that we will need for painting. First, the color for the sky. It's a mix of a lizard and crimson cobbled blue and a little bit of yellow. Next one is mix of green and reeling. It creates very nice warm green shade that we will use for the foreground. We will use mix of green and paints gray for creating darker shades of the field. We will use mixes of green and cobbled blue to create this cold green shade for painting trees on the background. Prepare your color mixes on the palette, and I will see you in the next lesson. 13. 2 Sketch: Let's draw a sketch. I'm using glute patch, so I don't need to fixate the paper. If you are using separate sheet, you need to fixate it on a drawing board with a masking tape. As always, we start with the drawing horizontal line, and horizon in this image will be upper than the middle of the paper. You can use siting method to measure the proportions of each object in the reference image. I'm roughly sketching all the objects I want to paint like forest on the background, bushes, on the foreground and the shape of the grass around the lake. When you're sketching the boat, make sure that there is enough space under the boat for the reflection on the water. A Okay. When our sketch is done, I'm using needle eraser to remove these hard pencil lines from the paper. Prepare your sketch and move to the next lesson. 14. 2 First Layer: Let's start painting this landscape with watercolor, and we'll begin by painting sky. Let's cover it with the clean water first. I start introducing colors with the cobalt blue on the right side of the paper. I'm moving color on the sheet so the colors will blend. And now I will add some Alizarin crimson and mix of alizarin crimson and. I also have this mix of cobbled blue and alizarin crimson, and I also add to the surface. Just make sure that the colors are not too because the sky and water are the lightest parts of the image. Oh. And we will do the same with the water. First, let's cover it with clean water, and then we will move from the pinkish color at the upper part to the bluish color at the bottom. Now, I want to paint some waves or reflections on the water using mix of cobbled blue and a little bit of green because we see the reflection of the grass in the water. I have a separate exercise on painting water reflections in my other class with the sail boat. I add some dark color with more green in the mix under the grass and bushes above the river. Now I will use mix of green and cobbled blue for painting background. We see the difference in the color of the forest on the background. On the left side, it's more cold and on the right side, it will be warmer. So I leave it for now, painting only the left side, and I'm moving to paint in the field. For the field, I'm mixing green and a little bit of rein. Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob. Now, let's paint this dark tree on the foreground, using mix of green and Paints gray. Okay. I'm using the same color to paint the background on the right side. And while the surface is still wet, you can also add some small brush strokes on the field to make it more diverse. Now, using these two mixes of green that we have on the palette, let's paint bushes on the foreground. The first layer is almost. Let's move to the next lesson d p the rest of the field. 15. 2 Foreground: In this lesson, we will paint the foreground and the grass above the lake. I'm using the same mix that I have on the palette, but I will add a little bit of cobbled blue into the mix just to make the colors a little bit different from the ones I used before. No. Now, I will add some darker shade at the bottom of this area that I already painted with the light green color. I will use of green and paints gray. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, let me clean my brush and load it with the clean water. I will apply this clean water dragging the color down to the surface of the water. I will add some dark green color again closer to the field surface than to the water. So you see that the green part with the field and the grass is darker than the reflection in the water. So we just have to create this very smooth and blurry edge between the water surface and the grass itself. Using the very tip of my brush, I'm creating the brush strokes that represent the separate grass. I will do it like on the surface of the water and on the surface of the field above. When we are painting the reflection of some object in the water, we are mirroring them the same way as we see them in real life. Basically, you have to repeat the same shape and the opposite direction of the strokes. Now, let's paint the right side of the grass. This part will be lighter and in terms of color. So I'm mixing green with yellow. Now, I will add some darker shade to this green area. In general, when you are painting the field, it looks like it's all green. But in fact, it has different shades, it's more blue, it's more yellow. So we have to use different shades of green when we're painting some green stuff. It will in the end. To paint the reflection under the grass, I will do the same as before I will clean my brush and apply some clean water, dragging the color down. The reflection is quite so I need to reapply the dark color paints gray and green to the wet surface. With the very tip of the brush, I will paint the reflection of the grass in the water, just like we did before and repeat in the same shape and direction, but mirroring it. I will also pain ripples on the water creating horizontal brush strokes. Since I already have this dark green shade on the palette, and on my brush, I decided to paint this tree on the background with green color. Don't cover the whole tree with the dark color, just some areas and smog them with water, creating again diversity in this object. Using some clean water, I can just drag the color into different directions, creating this blurry shadow under this tree. Now, I'm looking at the landscape, and I ask myself where it looks boring and I add some more shades, strokes and details to that area. You can use on dry technique using almost dry brush with a little bit of color on it and just creating these textures on the foreground. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Don't forget that it's all about your artistic vision. If you want to add some textures, some strokes, feel free to do it because when we are painting the landscape, we're just playing with different textures, creating different objects that reminds us that this landscape and this grass is alive. And in real life, no object looks boring and simple, it all complex with different imperfections. Try to make the imperfections as you feel it. I will see you in the next lesson where we will paint the boat and the reflection under it. 16. 2 Painting the Boat: In this lesson, we will paint the boat and the reflection under it, and let's prepare our color mixes first. The boat is the darkest part of this landscape, so we will need paints gray for our color mixes to make it dark. And we will need two color mixes mostly. It's paints gray plus cobbled blue and paints gray plus alizarin crimson. Also, I will mix some color for the wooden part here. I will mix alizarin crimson and yellow. Let's start by painting the upper part of the boat with the mix of cobbled blue and paints gray. Well, to be honest, when I'm painting on different tutorials, it's a struggle for me to see some small details in a big video, and I'm trying to make a close up shots from time to time, but at the same time, I'm trying to get you to see my palette and the color mixing process. And I'm always happy to hear and see your feedback, your class projects, your paintings, so please share your feelings after this class, how you feel, what would you improve or if everything was good. As you can see, there is a white line in the middle of the boat, so I draw it when I prepared a sketch to avoid painting over it. And right now, I'm covering the part of the boat below this white line. The color should be pretty thick. So use not a lot of water and more color in this mixes. In the middle of the boat, I use more light color, just pure cobbled blue, and I'm blending it with dark color that I used on both edges of the boat, mix of pins gray and cobbled blue. Above this white line in the middle of the boat, it has a grayish area. To prepare this gray color, I mix in cobbled blue Azar and crimson and paints gray. Adding more water than for the mixes before to make it light a bit than the inside part of the boat. Of course, you can ask why shouldn't you use paints gray as a gray part of this boat. But normally in painting, we are mixing colors, trying to create unique shades because in the end your painting will look more interesting and picturesque with different shades, not with the pure colors. Now, let's paint the reflection under the boat with mix of cobbled blue and paints gray, and the reflection under the boat will be darker than the boat itself. That's why we're using more pins gray in this mix. The color under the boat will be the dark ones, so I add more paints gray right under the boat in the reflection on the water. All objects in the reflection will be repeated and mirrored and the same with the color. So when I'm painting this wooden part that hold in the boat, I will also paint the same color in the reflection in the water. As you remember, I mixed alizarin crimson and yellow to create this shade for the wooden part. But also I added some paints gray in this mix to make it more natural. Because if you will mix just alizarin crimson with yellow, it will appear very orange and to make it more neutralized, I added some paints gray and maybe cobbled blue, just some dark color from the palette. I want to add this small thing on the top of the boat with a pure cobbled blue color. Now let's move to paint in the inside of the boat. The last part we have to paint in this landscape. I'm using mix of Alizarin crimson and paints gray, and I'm going from the right side to the left side from almost pure and light Alizarin crimson to the darker shade and area on the left side. F, Now, I can add some final details, darken some colors if I feel like I have to. But basically, our painting is done, and it's up to you if you want to add some small details right now. I hope that you like this landscape, and I hope that you will share the final painting with me and other students in the class project. And I will see you in the next lesson where we will paint another landscape. 17. 3 Color Mixes: Okay. Welcome to another class project where we will paint this gray sky and the river. For this painting, I will use two brushes number six by silver brush and number eight by Pax. You already seen these brushes in my previous lessons. We also might need some smaller brush number one or zero for painting details in the foreground. Here are the main colors yellow ocher, cobbled blue, burnt sienna, green, and paints gray. Now, let me show you the main mixes we will need for this painting. In the top row, I placed the swatches of the colors from yellow ocher to burn seen to cobbled blue, green and paints gray. The first mix I will use for painting this gray reflection of the sky in the water, it's mix of cobbled blue and burned that will create this nice gray shade. Okay. Next mix is Burn Ciena and Paints gray. It will create a dark brown shade that I will use for painting some shadows in the field. And some very light and warm green shade that I mixed from yellow ocher and green. I will use it for painting some green areas in the field and some bushes or grass. Some colors will mix right on the palette, and we will use different shades in the middle of painting. Prepare your color mixes and I will see you in the next lesson where we will draw a sketch. Okay. No. 18. 3 Sketch: Let's draw this simple sketch of the landscape, and we will start with the horizon line. As you can remember the horizon line should be higher or lower than the middle of the paper. I think how to understand where the middle, you can just measure it with your pencil. So right here is the middle and somewhere here, I think we will make the horizon line. Here we have some forest. And we have some land on the horizon line. And then again, we have some forest and some houses. Here will be some green part like a tree or a bush. Oh. I'd like to keep here more space for just water. So I will move it here maybe not so And of course we will have here some grass. And here as well. And I think that's it. Now, we understand the measurements of different parts of the landscape, and I will just remove the pencil lines with the need ble eraser. And I will see you in the next part, we will paint with water column. 19. 3 First Layer: In this lesson, we will start painting with watercolor. I already prepared colored sketch. It helps me to understand color values, which areas will be brighter and which areas will be darker. I suggest you do the same if you feel like you are scared of a white paper that happens to a lot of artists. Let's start by covering the surface of the paper in area of the sky with clean water with brush number eight, or other more brush that you have I painted green field before with this brush and some of the color left on the belly of the brush. So I'm trying to clean it before I will move forward in painting gray sky. And for the sky, I'm mix in cobbled blue and paints gray, and I cover it with even color. Now, let's paint some darker clouds on this bluish sky. Using the same technique I showed you in the exercise in the beginning of this class. P. If you want to leave some highlights and light areas, you can use dry and clean brush to remove the color from the paper. We are done with the sky and now let's move to painting water. And we will start with a very light color next to the horizon line, almost just clean water with a bit of color mix of cobblig blue and paints gray on my brush. And moving down, I add more color. No. At the bottom of the paper, the water will be more gray and dark, so I will use of burned and cobbled blue. I'm building up the color, adding more and more of this shade, and cotton paper normally absorbs some of the color. So when the paper will get dry, it won't look dark. The water a bit on the left side, so I will add some more color on the Okay. Now let's leave it dry and I will see in the next lesson where we'll paint the banks of this river. 20. 3 Painting Right Side: Let's move to paint in the right bank of the river, and I will use yellow ocher burn Ciena and green. Of course, I will add some other colors that I have like paints gray and cobbled blue. But now I will mix yellow ocher with burn Ciena and green with yellow ocher creating different shades of green. I mixed all my colors, and I will start by covering this part with the clean water. As I can see on the reference, the upper part of this field will be more burnt Ciena and more dark and closer to the bottom, it will be more green. While the surface is still wet, I will add the dark areas at the bottom of these banks. Let's continue building up the color with mix of burned Sienna and paints gray. And with the tip of my brush number six, I will create some brush strokes representing the grass. I painted dark areas at the bottom of this grass part, and now with the clean water, I will just drag the color down to the surface of the water. It should create a very blurry and nice effect. And as in previous lessons, we will add some dark color to make it like a water reflection reflection of the grass in this lake with the mix of green and paints gray. And now I will repeat the same brush strokes, representing the grass in the water reflection. We will paint the grass on the field later when the surface will get dry. As you can see, I'm leaving some space between the brush strokes in the water reflection and the bank of the river because this thing and bright brush strokes representing the grass, I can make only on the dry surface. So when I dragged the dark color with clean water, I didn't apply a lot of water. I just applied it next to the dark area. Now, I will add some more details on the surface of the field. Well, I know it's not the field, but I hope you understand what I mean because I'm not sure if I should refer it as a banks of river or something else. So you can just watch the video and understand where I'm painting. So I will add some random brush strokes. Somewhere it will be just dark areas. Somewhere I will try to paint the shape of the grass. And as I told you, the cotton paper absorbed some of the color. So I'm trying to make this for than it appears to be right now. Right now, I renew the color mix of green and paints gray on my palette to make this mix as dark as possible for painting background. The background on the right side is almost. Now I will add some pure burniena on the field, and we will move to the next lesson. 21. 3 Painting Left Side: Welcome to the second part of painting first layer. Let's move to the left side of the painting, and we will start by covering the surface with yellow ocher. I will start introducing the burned Ciena color, closer to the horizon line just as we did on the right side. It will be very bright and almost pure color in the upper part, and to the bottom of the page, it will be more green. I will also add some green shade into the wet surface to make the color more diverse. Of course, I will add some green color at the bottom of the painted area. Don't be afraid of creating this messy color of green and burnt sienna and yellow ocher in the down part of the paper. My intention is to make it as dark as possible. And then in second maybe third layer, I will add some white or maybe light yellow flowers and grass and details that will look nice in the contrast of this dark area. But now our main task is to create as diverse as possible first layer in terms of colors and dark and light areas. As you can see, the left side appears to be more brown than green. The right side was green and this one will be more brown. By brown, I mean mix of burn pins gray, and maybe a little bit of green, all these shades, but mainly burna and paints gray. I started to paint some grass growing almost out of the water, but it's very difficult to not get carried away by different details because right now, I have to remember to paint the reflection of this dark area, and I will do the same. I will clean the brush and with a little bit of clean water, I will drag the color down to the surface of the water. And I will add darker color once more. Then we will paint the reflection of the grass. I decided to darken this area in the corner, and I will add some more green color. Like it's a bush or area with leaves. M. Hey. And I'm doing the same with the grass reflection. I repeat the same shape and direction of the grass in the reflection in the water. But I have to darken this area. I will do it later. Right now, I will paint some single grass growing out of the water with a very careful touch of the very tip of the brush. Hey. While I'll have this dark color on my brush and on my palette, I will add some more dark dark details into the foreground. Okay. Now, I will move to paint in the background, and I will start with the roofs of the houses with a mix of burned and yellow cher. Now, I'll make pens gray yellow ocher and a little bit of coald blue creating this warm gray shade. And I will paint the rest of the houses, leaving this front and the side walls with a little bit of shade. Okay. Now I can mix the color for the background on the left side, and it remains the same mix of green and paints gray. Let's repeat the same that we did on the right side with the otic strokes. I'm creating a curve line of the trees surrounding the houses. Even though the background is very dark and it has purpose of dividing the skyline and the field. It still has different shades of green, and I'm using different shades, as you can see on my palette. The trees behind the houses than the roofs and the houses itself. So the wide building would pop up. And while I have this color on my brush, I can add some more details to the foreground. We'll work more on the final details and the for in the next lesson, and I'll see you there. 22. 3 Final Details: In this lesson, we will work on the final details for this landscape, and we will start by darkening the left side, the foreground here in the corner. Then we will add some light spots. I'm using mix of Bernciana and Panes gray. I'm done with the dark spots, and I will let it dry and we'll switch to the light watercolors, brilliant and white watercolor. I will use a silver brush number two, and you can also switch to the smaller brush that you have with the pointy end. And first, I will put the color on the palette. If you don't have an brilliant color, you can add just a little bit of yellow och into the white watercolor or even use pure white watercolor instead. I will just start painting separate grass with a light and thin brush strokes. If you see that some brush stroke fills off, you can just remove it with a paper towel. Now, I want to darken a foreground on the left side a little bit, so I'm adding paints gray into the mix that I have on the palette to the green shade, and I will paint some grass on the left side. Now, let's leave it dry and it's a good time for having a cup of tea, and I always have tea next to me when I'm painting. It's quite dangerous sometimes, but I love it. I came back to the painting, and I mix again, John brilliant with water just having this very thick color on my brush. I will start making the same brush strokes as I did before on the right side. The brush strokes should be in different direction to look like the grass because it doesn't grow similar, so all the brush strokes will be not straight lines, but some curve lines and different in terms of thickness of the line. I will also add some small dots. It might be flowers or some bugs or something like that, and it just makes the landscape looks more interesting. You can also use splatters as I showed in the exercise in the beginning of the class, but just don't forget to cover the other part of the paper with paper towel. Okay. And I hope that you understand now why I told you that we need to create a darker layer for the foreground because in contrast of this dark layer, we can paint this light grass and it will look nice. And now we can also add some more dark spots on the background or like foreground background because now it's the time to look at your painting and analyze where it looks boring or where you want to add more diversity and to add some more brush strokes details and maybe diverse the color value. When I'm painting the final details, I'm using the colors that are left on the palette. I can also add some colors that I used before, and now I'm adding some niena to the color mixes that I have on the palette. H. You can also add some dark grass next to the light ones to enhance this contrast. On that, we can finish our painting and move to another landscape. Just before we move to the next lesson. Let's put our initials or artist's name on the right corner of the painting. 23. 4 Sketch: Let's paint our fourth landscape. As always, you can find the reference photo in the attachment to this class. I already prepared the colored sketch of the painting, and let me show you the colors I'll need. I will use five colors yellow er burned, bald blue paint gray and alizarin crimson. We already used these colors in the previous landscapes. 24. 4 Painting the Sky: In this lesson, we are moving to the painting part and I already have my colors on the palette. Now let's mix all the colors that we will need for painting the sky. I mix in cobbled blue and paints gray in one puddle, and in another puddle, I will just place pure paints gray for painting sky. Let's start by covering the whole surface of the sky with the clean water. It has some gray shade in my case because I just mix gray colors and it left on the brush. Now, I will introduce the paints gray into the paper, and we will start building up the color as always working in wet on wet technique and creating more and more intense color, adding more and more color to the paper. The color of the sky will be more blue to the horizon line. And in this landscape, it's so don't be afraid to use colors. I'm using mix of cobbled blue and paints gray, and I avoid painting the houses, so I go around the roofs and buildings of the houses. So in this landscape, sky has basically three colors and moving from up to the bottom. We see the light area of the white clouds in the very upper part of the paper. Then in the middle, we have dark gray shade, and that's why I'm painting with pure pines gray color. And closer to the horizon line, it has also pretty dark but more bluish color. So that's why I'm using mix of cobalt blue and pines gray. Sky already looks pretty good to me. But I think that there is a lack of intensity in the color next to the horizon line. So I will build up color in that area. Hey. Our sky is, and I think it looks stormy. Let's move to the next on where we will pin the field. Hey. 25. 4 Painting the Field: In this lesson, we will paint the field. And for that, I will mix yellow ocher and burn Sienna. I will also add some pins gray on the palette, mixing it with burniana to create this very brown shade. In a separate paddle, I will prepare a mix of yellow ocher and just a little bit of pins. I will start by covering the surface with yellow ocher. I'm painting around the animals, avoiding covering them with the color because we will keep them white. And I'll start introducing some dark shades into the surface. I'm creating some random areas with the otic brush strokes just to diversify our foreground. We can also paint some dark shadows under the animals right away and move to the further part of the field with a color. Here, I will also avoid painting the animals. If you have skin liquid and you find it more convenient in this case, you can cover these areas where animals will be with a skin liquid. I'm moving closer to the horizon line, and I'm almost done with the first layer, and I think that I will just make particular direction of the brush strokes to make it seem like the field and to highlight the perspective of this. I'm lifting some color from the wet surface, and before I do that, I clean and dry my brush on the paper towel. As we remember, the secret of an eye catching painting is in contrasts. I have to enhance the contrasts between the further part of the field and the part that's closer to us. So the part that's closer to us, the foreground is lighter, so I have to make the further part than it is right now. So I add some darker shade right on the edge of the further part. Now, I will take the pure paints gray color and will paint the dark areas on the animals representing the shadows. Then I just dry and clean my brush and have some water on the belly of the brush and I drag the color to the surface of the light. But you can actually leave it white as I did on the sketch. I think it looks better, and I will try to do it with the horse. I'll switch to the round brush number two. Since I have dark color on my brush, I will start working on the background and foreground and I decided to paint some dry and strange bush or a tree that actually, I think suits very good this landscape. I will also paint some darker lines brush strokes on the background, representing the trees and the bushes and some just little spots and lines on the field. We are done with the field, and let's move to the next lesson and work on some final details, improving our foreground and painting the house. 26. 4 Final Details: One, two, three. Let's paint the final details for our fourth landscape. Now I'm mixing the color for the roof of the house. I'm mixing laser and crimson and mix of yellow ocher and burn chien. Basically, the colors that I have on my ballet plus red color. You can use other color. Maybe you have Ruby or mine or some other red color. You can use it as well for the roof. I used my brush number six because it has a very pointy end and it's convenient for me. But you can use other smaller brush if it's not really convenient for you. And we cover the surface of the roof basically in one color. I have some light mix of paints gray and Bernina, and I add a little bit more water into this mix, and I will use it for painting the side wall of the house. I will switch to the brush number eight, mop brush or heel brush, and I will just twist it on the palette like I showed you in the exercise in the beginning of the class. So my brush will be very messy, but it will help me to create these strokes for the foreground that will exactly like grass. Now, I will switch to the brush number two to increase the shadows on the animals and to add more contrast grass and maybe bushes on the foreground. Maybe it will be just and dots. D. D. Our painting is done. Let's put our signature in the right corner and move to the landscape. Okay. 27. 5 Color Mixes: Let's paint our last landscape and we'll start with the color mixes. I will need four colors Alizarin crimson, sub green, cobalt blue, and shadow violet. You can use paints gray if you don't have shadow violet or maybe even indigo. Our first mix is cobbled blue and Alizarin crimson. We will use this purple color for painting sky. Next one for the sky is shadow violet and Alizarin crimson. For painting the field, I will use a warm green color, a mix in sub green and alizarin crimson. For the shadows on the field, I need dark green color, a mix in subgreen and shadow violet. Prepare your color mixes on the palette, and let's move to the next lesson where we will draw a sketch. 28. 5 Sketch: I already prepared colored sketch for this landscape. Don't pay attention that I mentioned paints gray because it's actually shadow violet. I just misspelled it, but you can use paints gray for sure in this landscape. We will start by placing our horizon line lower than the middle of the paper, and this landscape, it doesn't have reference because it's basically out of my head. Instead of the reference photo, you can download my final painting in the attachments to this class. Like in many other landscapes, we will split the field in two parts by the road in almost the middle of the paper, and I will also paint the background, and in the background, there will be some houses. Dark trees on the background will help us to separate the sky and the field and to enhance this contrast between the sky and the field. Our simple sketch is done and we can move to the watercolor part in the next lesson. Okay. 29. 5 Painting The Sky: Let's start by covering the surface of the paper with clean water using mob brush quill brush number eight. I will start by introducing the cobbled blue color and covering the surface of the paper with this color evenly. Try to avoid painting the houses because we need to keep them white. I'll start introducing the color by mixing cobalt blue and a lizard crimson. And I start from the edges. A. I will renew my color mix on the palette, but I will add more alizarin crimson. Let's add some shadow violet into the mix and darken the colors. Our sky is done, and we can move to the next lesson where we will be in the field. I keep the light areas in the middle and darken the corners and the edges. I see that paper got almost dry and we don't need these sharp edges. So I'll use a paper towel to remove some color from the paper. Dry paper means that I have to stop painting, and I done everything I could with the sky and we can move to the next lesson and paint the field. 30. 5 Painting the Field: I'm mixing on my pellet subreen and Azaren crimson and sub green and shadow violet. I'll start by covering the surface of the field with light green color. The field around the road will be, so I'll use mix of shadow violet and subgreen. For the road, I mix in alizarin creams and b green, but I add a bit more zarin creams than in the previous color mix. And, we are using a lot of water and a little bit of color. While the surface is still wet, I will add some more reddish spots in the middle of the road. And also, as I told you earlier, the grass around the road will be. So I will add intense color mixes of shadow violet and sub green. And you see that colors almost don't blend with the layer that is already on the paper, it means that paper is already almost dry. I will add some more intense and back color to the foreground. Because later we will create a nice texture with this foreground, and on top of these layers that we're painting right now, we will add some white spots like flowers and grass, and it will look very nice on the contrasting dark background. I will add some Alizarin crimson on the palette, and then I will apply this color as a small dots on the wet surface and not wet surface of the foreground. Now, let's add some interesting texture as I showed you in the exercise. I'm creating splatters of water with just my fingers, and then I will add some salt. Now, I will leave the paper dry and the salt as well, and I will see you in the next lesson where we will create the final details and paint the houses. Okay. 31. 5 Final Details: When you use salt in water color, it's really important to wait until the paper will get fully dry. Some artists using hair dryers to make this process faster, but I like just to make a cup of tea and wait. I will prepare some dark color mixes using sub green and cobbled blue and sub cobbled blue and alizarin creams and create different siades for the foreground. I removed the salt and now you can see the texture that I got some details to the foreground. I will use mix of shadow violet and sub green and the brush number six, and I will just paint some dark grass around the road. Highlighting this contrast between the light road and dark field. Let's also apply some darker color on the road. I have some yellow ocher on my palette, so I will add it to the existing mix. If you have it, you can use this color if you don't have the mix that you created before and a very light consistency of the mix. You today. Now, our task is to make the foreground as diverse as possible. I'm using mix of subgreen and shadow violet to create different shades of green. And I apply just a simple brush strokes the shape of the grass, the direction of some bushes and just spots. I can also use dry brush and just create these textures on the paper. I will switch to my quill brush number eight, and with the mix of sub green and shadow violet, I'm just twisting my brush on the palette, creating this messy brush just like in the exercise that I showed you in the beginning of the class. I will create some very light strokes, barely touching the paper with the brush. Now, let's paint the background, and I'm renewing my mix of sub green and shadow violet, making it and intense. Even though we know that background should be very dark, I'm changing different shades of green, creating a very thick mixture of sub green and cobbled blue or sub green and shadow violet just using different proportions of each color, so the mix will look different. While I have this color on my brush, let's add some small dot strokes lines on the foreground. Normally, when you're painting the whole picture, you don't work on one subject object. You just link all the objects in your painting with the color that you have on your brush. Even if it will be just a small stroke, but this is a small art that will help your painting very Okay. When you paint in the background, you can also add not just silhouettes of the trees, but also some shapes that reminds of the city or of the village silhouettes of electricity poles or just buildings or something like that. Now, I will mix the color for the roof. You can actually use burnciena if you have it or mix alizarin crimson with sub green like we did before. When you have a lot of water on your brush, it's hard to control the very small details when you're painting it with brush number six. So I dab my brush on the paper to before I apply the color. Now, I will use some very light mix of the colors that are left on my palette, and I will add a little bit of bald blue to create this very light and neutral gray shade to paint the side wall of the house. Let's add some darker color behind the houses and under the houses like shadows to highlight them even more. And some little windows with a shadow violet mix with water. Let's also add some dark line under the roof as a shadow under the object. Now, I will add some small dots, brush strokes, and just small lines that will make this area look like the field with grass. Now I will take some zinc white color, and I will use it just from the tube and a smaller brush like number zero or number one will do just fine. And I will take this color, and we will make our foreground even more diverse. Okay. I'm creating a very random dots and shapes, very small ones that look like small white flowers in the field. And you see how nice these white little spots look on the dark background. So that's why we needed a pretty dark and intense first layer of the foreground. You can also use a yellow color if you want to add some yellow flowers on the field and maybe some splatters with a white color. Our final landscape is done, and I hope that you like the result and the painting process. I will see you in the next lesson for the follow up. 32. Final Word: Congrats on finishing the class. Now, you painted five landscapes and you learned how to paint any scenery that you like. At the end of the class, you can share your painting on Instagram and tag my account, Art Card Goff and I will share your painting to my stories. I hope that you like this class. Please submit a class project and leave a review, and I hope to see you in my future classes.