Painting Expressive Cityscapes in Watercolor: Light, Reflections & Atmosphere

1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone. My name is Will Elliston. And today, we'll be painting an atmospheric city scene. Cityscapes might seem daunting or complex at first, but don't worry because I'll guide you through a very enjoyable and relaxed approach that might just make it easier than you think. Even if you don't want to paint the project yourself, you'll learn a lot through watching and the information I share. We'll focus on loose expressive brushw to suggest detail without getting bogged down in perfection. Use simple techniques like wet on wet blending, soft washes, and lifting to create reflections, light, and movement without needing to paint every single tiny detail. So whether you're an experienced artist or you think this class is a bit too ambitious for you, it's all about having fun and capturing the energy of a city in a way that feels effortless and natural. I've been a professional artist for many years, exploring lots of different subjects from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and countryside scenes. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor. When I started, I had no idea where to begin or how to improve. I didn't know what supplies I needed, how to create the effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now I've taken part in many worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough to win awards from well respected organizations such as the International Watercolor Society, the Masters of Watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Watercolor can be overwhelming for those starting out, which is why my goal is to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in a step by step manner. Today, I'll be guiding you through a complete painting, demonstrating a variety of techniques and explaining how I use all my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have some experience, you'll be able to follow along at your own pace and improve your watercolor skills. If this class is too challenging or too easy for you, I have a variety of classes available at different skill levels. I like to start off with a free expressive approach with no fear of making mistakes as we create exciting textures for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and make it stand out. I strive to simplify complex subjects into easier shapes that encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress out of painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with my watercolor mixing charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in the discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and respond to everything you post. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the Follow button at the top. This means you'll be the first to know when I launch a new class or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston to see my latest works. So let's get started with learning exciting watercolor techniques and how we can use them to create your own expressive atmospheric city scenes. Let's get started. 2. Your Project: First of all, thank you very much as always, for choosing this class. Today, we'll be painting a very expressive city scene that allows us to enjoy the expressive nature of watercolor without worrying about all the minuscule little details. What I love about city scenes is that they don't have to be perfect to be powerful. In fact, the best urban paintings are the ones that feel loose and full of atmosphere. We'll embrace the magic of watercolor, letting the paint flow, blend and create beautiful unexpected effects. This project is designed to be approachable and fun with techniques that can help you suggest detail instead of painstakingly painting every single thing. To help create reflections with easy flowing brushworks or how to imply figures or paint buildings without overcomplicating things. Even if you've never painted a city scene before, you'll be surprised at how quickly things come together when you focus on shapes, light, and movement instead of tiny details. In the resource section, I've added a high resolution image of my finished painting to help guide you. You're welcome to follow my painting exactly or experiment with your own composition. As we're going to be focusing on the painting aspect of watercolor, I've provided templates you can use to help transfer or trace the sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for learning how to paint. It's important to have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction you take this class, it would be great to see your results and the paintings you create through it. I love giving my students feedback, so please take a photo afterwards and share it in the student project gallery under the Project and resource tab. I'm always intrigued to see how many students have different approaches and how they progress with each class. I'd love to hear about your process and what you learned along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend that you take a look at each other's work in the student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your fellow students. So don't forget to like and comment on each other's work. 3. Materials & Supplies: Before we get started with the painting, let's go over all the materials and supplies you'll need to paint along. Having the right materials can greatly impact the outcome of your artwork. So I'll go over all the supplies I use for this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and will make it easier for you to follow along. Let's start with the paints themselves. And like most of the materials we'll be using today, it's a lot to do with preference. I have 12 stable colours in my palette that I fill up from tubes. They are cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium red, Alizarin crimson, Opramarne blue, cobalt blue, serlean blue, lavender, purple, viridian, black, and at the end of the painting, I often use white gouache for tiny highlights. I don't use any particular brand, these colors you can get from any brand, although I personally use Daniel Smith, Windsor and Newton or Holbein paints. So let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is a synthetic round brush like this Escoda Purl brush or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile because not only can you use them for detailed work with their fine tip, but as they can hold a lot of water, they are good for washers as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details. But for really small details, highlights or anything that needs more precision, I use a synthetic size zero brush. All brands have them, and they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for adding texture or creating dynamic lines in your paintings. You can even fan them out like this to achieve fur or feather textures as well. And that's it for brushes. Onto paper. The better quality of your paper, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper cuinkles easily and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to rework mistakes. It's harder to create appealing effects and apply useful techniques like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton base paper, not only allows you to rework mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment reacts much better on it, the chances of mistakes are a lot lower and you'll be more likely to create better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available in my local art shop. A water spray is absolutely essential. By using this, it gives you more time to paint the areas you want before it dries. It also allows you to reactivate the paint if you want to add a smooth line or remove some paint. I also have an old rag or t shirt which I use to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint before dipping it in the water will make the water last a lot longer. It's always useful to have a tissue at hand whilst painting to lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's important to have them a similar consistency to what they're like in the tubes. This way, it's easier to pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the dampness of the paper. And lastly, masking tape. And this, of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on painting to the edge, we'll allow you to create a very crisp, clean border. And that's everything that you need to paint along. I, of course, encourage you to explore and experiment with any medium or technique or colors you want to use to make this painting truly yours. Now, let's get on and start the project. 4. How to Sketch It Out: So the first thing we're going to do with the sketch is add a horizontal line straight through the middle, just so that we can keep everything parallel to that horizontal and another one vertical so that we know what a true vertical is. And in the middle where it crosses, that's going to be our vanishing point. So we can do a few more diagonal lines coming from that central point, and we can use that to help define the perspective of the painting. And now I'm going to start adding the basic shapes of the cars, which are just circles for the time being. And we're going to use those lines, those diagonal lines as guides for the perspective of the buildings and of the figures. You can see these figures are just spheres at the moment, just stretched out circles, just keeping everything simple to begin with. Whenever I draw a vertical line, I try and match the sides of the paper and that vertical line in the center, make sure everything is perfectly straight because otherwise, if the verticals off, then it can feel a bit disorientating. And you can see how when I'm drawing this car, roughly, that I'm following that line to the center, the horizontal vanishing point in the middle. It's quite a simple perspective this drawing. Even though there's lots of elements going on, the perspectives quite simple because it's dead center. So whenever you want to draw the line of the building. If it's not horizontal or vertical, it's aiming straight towards that central point. That means that the cars directly in front and the center are basically we're seeing it from the rear view. There's no perspective per se on them. And then as the cars go out and as the buildings go out, there's a bit more perspective to them because it's further away from that vanishing point. And whenever I'm adding a shape, I try and match that vanishing point. I have in my mind's eye that point in the center, and everything is kind of focusing in on that point there. And this drawing stage, the sketch is the most foundational part, really. You need to make sure that the sketch, even if you use the trace, the tracing template is accurate because it's the skeleton in which the whole of the painting is made from. So if that's wrong, it'll make the painting much harder. Oh 5. Applying Masking Fluid: So now I've taken all the time I needed to get the drawing as refined as possible because that's going to help me much more with the painting. If everything's loose with the drawing, then there's no way I can make sense of it once the chaos of watercolor gets involved. So I made sure everything was pretty much correct. Just the outlines of things. And now I'm going to start applying masking fluid. Now, you don't necessarily need to use masking fluid. You can use white paint or gouache at the end of any color to bring back the lights. Also, you could cut off a bit of masking tape if you don't have masking fluid. But I just use a toothpick just to get in some of these difficult areas that are quite fine. I don't use a brush. I use a toothpick or something. And I won't go over the whole of the masking fluid in this video. I'll just jump to the painting after I've applied all of it so you can see. 6. Light Tones: As a general rule of watercolor, we paint from light to dark. Of course, we can always break the rules once we've mastered the fundamentals and we know how to fully manipulate the medium. But to keep things simple, painting from light to dark is a good step and strategy to have. So I'm starting off light looking and thinking in my composition, where do I need to paint an underlayer? And actually, if you want to go a step further before the underlayer, we've got to think about where we might want to keep the white of the paper. Of course, we've used masking fluid to pick a few highlights out and that will maintain the white of the paper. But actually, I think I'm going to keep the sky itself, the white of the paper. I'm not going to paint any blue in this. So that'll have a nice contrast with the deep darks we'll add at the very end. So I've just mixed a yellow ochre to begin with, a yellow ochre. But I've dirtied it up a bit with a bit of burnt sienna or even a bit of neutral tint, because the pure pigment here that I'm using is a bit too vibrant, so I have to tone it down a bit. And I've pre wetted the sky area, even though you can't see it because it's pure water. Where the left building touches the sky, I've just made the paper quite damp and I'm allowing the water to soak in a bit. Of course, on this right hand side, there's a hard edge where this brown building meets the sky, but I'm going to have a kind of wet on wet edge on the other side. So I'm mixing that burnt sienna with a bit of yellow ochre. And I'm starting to just dab and you can see where I've wet the paper and it's just flowing out by itself. With this underlayer stage, it's the easiest part really because we're not really adding details. We're just adding expressive color. And I'm making sure I'm not painting into these cars and taxis and figures at the moment. I'm just blocking out the buildings. And I'm not using a small brush either. I'm using a Chinese calligraphy brush, but you can use a mop brush. It doesn't really matter as long as it holds enough pigment and you can get nice broad brush strokes rather than having to use a small brush, which means you're topping up the brush all the time and creating sharp lines rather than big broad lines. The street is going to be quite wet, so I got to be aware of the reflection that I'm painting. The reflections will be more distorted, so it allows us more freedom, and we don't have to be so strict on ourselves. But basically, the reflection is we're mimicking the top. But we can be very abstract with reflection, and really, we're going to have fun expressing watercolor later on with the reflection. We're not going to be so direct with the details. So now that I've let the water soak into the sky a bit, I can apply a bit of pigment there, and you can see that it just has a bit of a soft edge there. It's very subtle, and that's all it needs because I don't want a big contrast between the buildings and the sky in the background in the distance. I don't want it to be too jarring. You can't paint every single detail because there'll be nothing to focus on and it'll be too overwhelming. 7. Adding Blues: Because when we look at a cityscape, there's lots of details. There's so many windows. I'm not counting out every single brick and window. I'm just trying to get the general shape. As long as you have the main elements correct, color, light, and atmosphere, then everything comes together, and atmosphere is, of course, quite a general perm. And what do I mean by atmosphere? Really, I'm talking about whether they're soft edges or hard edges, whether it's a low key painting or a high key painting, all of the things that I'll talk about later in the class. But at the moment, you can see we're just doing an underlayer and it's all pretty much the same color. It's like a burnt orange color. And I've specifically chosen this burnt orange color because we'll have strong blues later in the painting. And these strong blues, when contrasted against this orange, they'll compliment each other because they are complimentary colors. Burnt Sienna is, of course, an orange, a burnt orange. I'm already applying some blues right now just lightly. And in between blue is purple and green. So sometimes I'm mixing a bluish green or a purplish green. When it comes to thinking about what color I want to add, I'm trying to think of it in context to the rest of the painting. For example, I'm not going to add a bright pink at this stage because there's nothing that yet connects the pink to the painting. And when I'm adding this purple and green, I'm influencing blue into it because blue will be a dominant color later on. So I'm allowing it to be connected in that way. So I've dried it off completely, and now I can start doing some other under layers like some of the blue underlayers. I'm using just serlean blue at the moment, and I've got my Vidian green. I'm going to use this blue to paint the windscreen, the back windscreen of this taxi. Notice how I've changed to a smaller brush here because I'm not doing big broad strokes now. I'm painting smaller shapes. So you change your brush or your brush size depending on the size of the shape you're painting on your canvas. I need to make sure these lines are very specific because this is going to be a bright yellow taxi, hopefully. And if I overlap the windscreen on that car, where it's meant to be yellow because of the translucent nature of watercolor, the vibrancy of the yellow will be lost. Likewise, later on, when I paint it with the yellow, I'll have to be careful not to go over onto the blue of the windscreen. These cars in the distance, however, can be a bit more broad because I don't think I'm going to paint them yellow. I'm not sure what color I'm going to paint them yet. They'll probably be a darker, muddier color. It's just that main car on the left that's going to be the highlight, really. A 8. Painting With Spontaneity: So this is one of those paintings that's actually quite difficult to paint step by step. You can, of course, try and these early stages, at least with the underlayer, where you can follow along bit by bit, you can follow step by step. But eventually, as we transition into the more expressive side of the painting, the looser style, then it becomes less predictable, and we have to rely on spontaneity, which, of course, is impossible to follow step by step because what might happen in my painting will be different to what happens in yours. Because we allow ourselves to be spontaneous with watercolor and by forcing water to do what we want rather than allowing the watercolor to do what it wants, we kind of lose the magic of that medium of what makes this medium so special. So you could technically paint exactly step by step. You could scrub out your spontaneity and make it match mine, but the magic will be lost if you do that. So it's your choice which way you want to use this class. Of course, by being more spontaneous, it is more risky. It's also more scary because you don't know how it might go. And there's always an ugly stage of a watercolor painting where you don't know whether it'll come together at the end or wherever it won't maybe it will. But it's definitely the right direction if you want to learn how to embrace the looser style, the more expressive style of watercolor and your painting will be much more unique if you follow that spontaneity. That's why I think it's more valuable to have this footage slightly sped up so that you can better see how I'm trying to manipulate the pigment rather than you actually having to pause every second and follow every single action I take to complete accuracy. So whilst going through these stages, I'll try and explain what colors I'm using and what exactly I'm trying to achieve. But it become when we get into the more expressive stages, I'll talk more about the fundamental concepts that will allow you to paint in this kind of loose, spontaneous way, spontaneous way yourself. So whilst I was talking there, I continued with the serlean blue. I changed back to my larger brush, and I mixed this cadmium yellow with a bit of red to make it slightly orange. And I was very careful when adding this yellow because I don't want it to completely merge with the blue. So I made sure the edges were were a bit damp, not completely wet, not completely dry either. I don't necessarily want there to be hard edges, but I don't want them to run into each other. I took a bit of precaution to make sure that the yellow didn't mix with the blue, otherwise, of course, it would make a green, which I'm not really looking for. Taking back this Cerlean blue and applying a lot of it in the top left. Bit of purple as well. I'm making sure not to go over the people quite yet, the figures. Notice how I started off with the pure Cerlean blue. And then to the left, I influenced a bit of purple, and to the right, I integrated a bit of green. So I'm trying to make the wash a bit more interesting than just a pure single colour. Mixing red. Actually, that's a pure cadmium red, and I'm applying it onto that wet yellow. I didn't do it straightaway because it was too wet before when I applied that yellow, and it would have just spilled out and made the whole thing red. But waiting a bit, waiting for the paper to dry a bit, it maintains the edge a bit. An wet on wet edge. 9. Large Shapes First: Mixing a bit of lavender. This lavender is Holbein, but I know Daniel Smith also do a similar lavender. It's a bit like a gouache because it's opaic. It's not very translucent, when you paint over the top, it really blocks out whatever's underneath it. And even though things are getting a bit more complex now, I'm still keeping to the same strategy. When filling out these shapes, I'm either painting completely vertical, completely horizontal or following that line to the horizon line in the dead center, that diagonal line that reaches that vanishing point in the middle. And even at this stage, when you look at the actual shapes and the marks, they're nothing in particular. You can't necessarily see buildings there, but we're kind of implying it bit by bit. I've added those little rectangles in perspective. Maybe they're billboards or something or awnings or signs on the top of shops and I'm painting them to the edge. I'm not actually painting over them. Now, starting on this right hand side of the ground, I'm using again, lines that point towards the direction of the middle and all these lines just draw the focus into the middle. They help the viewer or help guide the viewer. Then here's a pure vertical line that mirrors the top. So it's quite random where I'm adding these lines, but as long as they're either pointing towards that vanishing point or they're purely vertical or purely horizontal, it should make sense. I'm even painting reflections of buildings I haven't yet painted up above, and I have to be wary because there's a gap in between the buildings in the middle where the white of the sky comes through. I need to make sure in the reflection I maintain that white strip of light in the middle. Now, you can use a mop brush. The reason I've decided to use this is purely because I like to experiment with different tools, and I encourage you to try out different brushes, different colors, different techniques all the time. I'm still doing that, and this is one of the first times I've used this kind of brush. And I'm finding in the process of painting it, painting with it, its advantages and its disadvantages. I like the fact that it holds a very fine point, so I can fill out a lot of area whilst also maintaining a nice, fine point. And by tilting it, the hairs are quite bouncy, so I can put a bit of pressure and create a nice little sweeping hard edge. As we're painting over this second layer of the building, you can see we did that kind of brown underlayer to begin with, and now we're painting on top of that. And I'm not necessarily thinking in terms of three D. I'm looking at my references, and I'm trying to simplify it into a shape. Basically, it might be an abstract shape, but this blue washer that I just painted, is one single shape. 10. Colour Harmony: The eye is very good at detecting colors. When you go outside or look around your house and you seek out something that's green, you'll automatically pick out everything that's green. And then if you shift red, you'll only see what's red or likewise have blue or purple. And you can do this when you paint. If you're looking at this painting now, if you just focus on the blue colors, you can actually see that they're independent shapes. So you just match those shapes and then as they come together, they create the illusion of depth without even thinking about that. Particularly with these buildings in the background, I don't want them to be too dark because things that recede into the distance have air pollution. So there's particles in the air that make them softer and not as dark because the contrast is less. The atmosphere in the air makes that contrast less, and that's how we create that atmosphere that atmospheric perspective. So as we move closer to the foreground, we're going to make it a bit darker. That's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to get this burnt sienna, a bit of red. Then I'm going to add a bit of blue into this to neutralize it a bit. This brown is a bit too potent. With everything blue around, it looks a bit out of place. It's adding a touch of blue brings it into unity a bit better, unifies it, connects it well. Even though you can't necessarily see the blue in it when it's mixed with that brown, it's more like a gray. There's a nice transition of blue at the top. Then it kind of goes to a bit of a grayish purple and then brown in the middle. And then as we go down to the bottom, it gets a bit darker. Keeping those verticals nice and clean. Then painting in some suggestions of windows using that same grayish kind of color. A few fine lines there, which could be interpreted as windows as well. Making a bit of a redder color, adding a bit of that camium red into the mix. O. I can't really explain what I'm doing now. I'm feeling it and purposely trying not to overthink it, trying to imagine in my mind's eye what makes sense rather than rationally thinking about windows or bricks, thinking about shapes and how they work together, thinking about the temperature of the paint I want to use, and then the tone of it, whether I want it to be lighter or darker than what's around it. 11. Simplifying Complexity: So whilst I'm painting in these nondescript details, let's talk a bit about simplifying complex details or complex scenes and how to imply details instead of having to paint every single little thing you see because, of course, when painting a busy cityscape, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail, the countless windows, bricks, street signs, cars, people, lights, whatever. They all try to compete for attention. But as artists, we don't need to capture every single element to be able to create a convincing and engaging painting. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We use simplification as a way to improve the painting, and it's one of the most powerful tools we have by implying details rather than rendering them precisely, we can create a sense of realism without losing the energy and spontaneity that makes watercolor such an exciting medium. Because a painting rather than a photo should capture the essence of a scene rather than a full realistic representation of it. When we focus too much on individual details, we lose the overall mood, the overall depth, and the movement really of the painting. And watercolor in particular is well suited for suggestion because it has the natural ability to create soft edges, blended washes and unexpected textures that mimic the complexity of the real world. And also, whilst we're painting, it might feel necessary to paint in all the details. But actually, when we look at paintings, our eyes naturally fill in all the missing information. If we just suggest enough of a subject, the viewer's brain will complete the picture without us needing to paint every single brick or window. This approach allows for a more expressive engaging composition and prevents the artwork from feeling stiff or overworked. So like I always say, and it can't be repeated enough, is focusing on big shapes first. Instead of jumping straight into fine details, we needed to start by identifying the major shapes within the composition. And for this city scene, it was blocking in those building masses to begin with, laying out the street or working out the major light and dark areas. And now that we've done that, now we're about a third of the way into the painting, we're working and trying to figure out the tonal arrangement, the value or the contrast to find the forms. Rather than outlining every brick or architectural feature, we're focusing on how light and shadow defines the scene. The distant buildings, we don't need to show windows drawn individually. It can just be suggested by a shift in tone or a few broken lines. And that's what we've done there. We've added a few lines to imply the architectural features. And at the end of the painting, we won't necessarily it won't be pointed out, it won't stick out. We'll just accept it as a building. And the reflections on the wet pavement can be achieved with loose gestural brushstrokes rather than rigid detailed lines because puddles and reflections are quite abstract anyway. 12. Building Up The Reflections: Let's continue with adding the reflections. So I'm adding a few vertical lines here of yellow ochre and a bit of camium yellow, adding a bit of burnt sienna in there as well. And then we can start doing all the start working from the top down from where the car meets the road and how it connects to the bottom using this same kind of bluish color, but a bit toned down. It's not a vibrant blue. And I'm adding a few ripples, a few fine lines. But even though they're fine, they're not necessarily detailed. I'm trying to be quite selective with where I'm adding detail or areas of interest. I don't want it to be too cluttered, and that is a great way to keep a painting from feeling cluttered, to choose where to place the most detail and where to let the brush stay loose and expressive. Our eyes are naturally drawn to contrast or sharpness. So adding a few well placed windows or street signs or figures in the focal area can imply that similar details exist elsewhere without actually having to point them out or paint them out individually. It's a little trick of composition. If you create the focus and attention where the detail is, then the peripheral vision of the viewer kind of adds in those details itself. The nice thing about cityscapes is that a lot of the modern architecture is almost quite abstract anyway. They don't have traditional windows. A lot of the time you can't differentiate the windows from the walls or just the shapes of the buildings are quite abstract anyway. So we can get away with messing around with that. And one of the things that got me quite confused when I was learning how to paint is so if I'm not painting details, then what should I put there? How do I imply that detail? Well, watercolor has a beautiful way of creating textures and shapes naturally. So if you have faith in the medium and you allow the pigment to blend and flow unpredictably, it can suggest brickwork or stone textures or reflections without actually needing to paint the detail manually. And there's a whole range of techniques that I'm showing you in this class and other classes from dry brush from dragging the brush across this rough paper, that can create the illusion of aged walls or texture. And then towards the end of the painting, we'll lift paint, and we can selectively apply that to different areas and the way light might catch on the buildings or the reflections or windows. And broken lines can suggest railings or the lamp posts or the separation between the road and the pavement. So we have to put a lot of faith in watercolor to do some of the work for us. And that, in turn, helps us create a painting that's more spontaneous, more lively, and once you're comfortable with it, more enjoyable as well, because you're just going with the flow, you're having fun. You're not stressing about it. You can also see how I've incorporated negative space or the unpainted area or at least the lightly painted areas. And they can be just as important as the filled in areas. By leaving some areas undefined, we create a sense of atmosphere and depth. I'll use this technique for the figures as well. 13. Finding Balance: Like in most things with painting, it's all about balance. And the essence of finding the right balance is understanding what to include to enhance the narrative and the emotional impact of your artwork and what to exclude to avoid that clutter and confusion. And the best way to figure it all out is to ask yourself some questions when you're observing your artwork and the subject of your painting. You can ask yourself, Where do I want the viewer's eye to go to first? Identify or select what you want as a focal point as that central interest, and then ask, is it a vibrant splash of color? Is it a dramatic contrast or perhaps a specific subject like this yellow taxi, I think is my focal point because it has that splash of color of the yellow that I'll paint in later. That's what I'm intending. Then it has that contrast between the light of the yellow and the dark of the background. And also, it's quite a specific subject. It's if this is going to be a New York kind of scene, which I think it is looking at my reference, they all seem to be New York taxes. So that's quite iconic specific subject. This area should be the area with most detail and clarity to draw attention immediately. That's what I'm going to focus on and put extra care around this edge. Everywhere else is a bit wishy washy, but when I'm painting out this taxi, that's where I'm going to spend most of my concentration for details at least. Then you've got to ask yourself what elements are essential to the composition. You got to determine which components in your scene are necessary to convey the scene accurately, and does the inclusion of a certain building or certain figures or objects support the story or the mood you're trying to create? And if not, then remove those elements or components or at least simplify them. You don't need to paint everything you see. If you only paint what adds to the story, paintings are stories, really, visual stories. And if you had to put this painting into a simple story, it's a wet daytime in the afternoon, I'd say, the reflections, the interplay of reflections. So I'm only going to focus on the things that focus on that kind of narrative. Then you would ask, where can I allow the watercolor to create texture and depth naturally using the elements that make watercolor so unique and special? Because watercolor has this unique ability to blend and move on paper and create those interesting textures and gradients that you can only achieve in watercolor. And we can use this to our advantage in areas like the background or less significant areas where detail can be suggested rather than fully rendered. A, you might want to ask yourself, can the direction of brush strokes add to the composition? The time I imagine or I see my brush strokes as arrows almost that force the movement and lead the eye and contribute to the overall dynamism of the scene. We can use varied brush strokes to reinforce the feeling or the structural elements. You can have dry brush smoke or very wet soft movements as well. 14. Begin With The End In Mind: Okay. Lot of these questions, of course, come from the mindset before you actually start painting, you have to begin with the end in mind, and that's one of the most powerful mindsets to have because unlike other mediums where layers can be built up and reworked forever, watercolor is very delicate and very unforgiving. It's a fluid process that requires a lot of foresight and planning. And every decision we make from the very first wash to the very final details should be planned out or at least informed by the clear vision we have of where we want the painting to go. And this approach allows us to work with more confidence. And the stronger our vision is, the more deliberate our choices will be, and we might avoid common pitfalls like overworking or muddying our colors. Because it can happen quite easily. Once we lay down a wash, it's obviously very difficult to take it back. And this means that every stroke or color choice should be quite intentional. So by starting with a mental image of what we want the finished painting to be like, of course, we can't actually it's impossible to think of it so defined in our mind's eye, but we can have the general feeling, the idea of it like a roadmap for ourselves. Where we want to preserve certain highlights or manage color harmony and some areas where we can allow the natural spontaneity of watercolor to come through. Because we don't want to get lost in unnecessary details or hesitate over color choices. So when we begin with the end in mind, we establish a clear direction from the start, and hopefully it allows the painting process to unfold smoothly and purposefully. Now I'm painting this focal point of the yellow or orange taxi. With that vibrant orange yellow. It's not a natural ability to be able to visualize the final painting. It's quite an abstract thing to do. I struggle with it still nowadays, and it's something you always got to work on. When I first started painting, it was extremely difficult. But you can break it down in order to help you out and figure out how you want it to look. You can ask yourself, where do I want the lightest and darkest values? Because watercolor relies on the preservation of the white of the paper for highlights, and we don't ever add white paint until the very end, really. Most of the light of the painting is coming from the white of the paper itself. So we've got to think about the values and where we want those to be. And, of course, sketching before you do the painting, even in little sketchbooks. I'm not even talking about the outline sketch of the painting itself, just a tonal sketch about the size of the palm of your hand is very good for helping you visualize how you want the painting to be then what mood or atmosphere do you want to convey? With this city scene, it's quite energetic and vibrant and quite sharp. But maybe you would want to do a misty one, a softy one. We, it's a foggy rainy day, and it's raining at the time. So knowing this from the start helps determine what techniques or color choices you plan to use. Then you can plan your composition. 15. Colour Strategy: We've also got to think about a color strategy before we begin. Unlike other mediums, where we can just endlessly adjust the colors because watercolor is transparent, each layer affects the one beneath it. So this makes intentional color choices essential for achieving that harmony, depth, and a strong focal point. And also helps prevent muddiness and generally enhances the mood. So when it comes to color, we can break it down even further and think about three key aspects to consider limiting your palette, understanding warm versus cool tones and deciding on your layering approach. So a limited palette means selecting just a few key colors to work with rather than using every single paint or tube or shade available. And this restriction actually helps create a natural color harmony and ensures that all elements of the painting feel unified. So why is a limited palette effective? Basically, it forces us to mix colors rather than rely on pre mixed ones, and it leads to a more natural way of creating transitions and subtler variations in tone. And it prevents typical color chaos. When I was first painting or starting out, I was overwhelmed and everything became quite chaotic and uncontrolled because I was applying too many different colors, and it was overwhelming and the painting looked very disjointed. Nothing really matched because I was using a certain set of colors to paint one area and a different section to paint another area. So a limited palette reduces that chance of muddy colors which happen when too many pigments are unintentionally mixed together. So how can we choose limited palette? Usually, we pick one warm color and one cool version of each primary color. And that's basically what I have in my palette. I have a warm red, a cool red, a warm blue, cool blue, a warm yellow, and a cool yellow. And this allows for a wide range of mixing, but it doesn't really add unnecessary complexity. I have a lot of earth tones as well. The bottom four are my earthy tones, and they're quite good for painting city scenes, urban scenes, as well as natural landscapes. They ground the composition because they're quite neutral tones. And you've got to think about the overall mood. Do you want it to be vibrant and high energy like this painting, or maybe you're inclined to softer and muted colors or cool calming colors. And your palette should reflect this intention. When we commit to a limited palette, we train our eyes to see color relationships in a more clear way. And we then also develop a greater understanding of how hues interact with watercolor. A, uh 16. Warm Vs Cool Tones: Okay. When it comes to planning warm versus cool tones, we can use this to create depth and atmosphere because the interplay between warm and cool tones is very fundamental in achieving that contrast and mood in the painting. To start off very simply, we know what warm colors are. They're reds, yellows oranges and they tend to feel closer more vibrant and that makes them excellent for focal points actually because they are naturally more vibrant and have a feeling of closeness and tangibility to them. Yet, cool colors tend to recede into the background and create depth and distance. And if your painting was mainly warm colors, then you could use a cool color just to make an area stand out, and that will be the focal point. But a lot of the time, like in this painting, warm colors like the yellow of that taxi and the red of those people, those figures are great for focal points. So how does this temperature affect the composition? We've just touched on foreground versus background and using warmer tones in the foreground and cooler tones in the background. And that helps create the atmospheric depth, making distant objects feel further away. That's why I've added that red on the right hand side as well. Then you have light versus shadow. Warm highlights and cool shadows add a sense of realism because shadows are often not just darker, but they have cooler undertones to contrast the warmth of the light source. And usually the sun being yellow or at sunset, orange and even red, that definitely makes the shadows much cooler. But if we're talking about artificial light, and we had a cool light like some LAD lights are, in fact, cooler or Christmas lights. Some of them are kind of a bluish white, then actually their shadows would be warm. So there's always exceptions. Then mood and emotion. A painting dominated by cool tones can feel calm, serene, or quite moody. A lot of this blue that we're using in this painting is quite moody, maybe because of the rain. It wouldn't make much sense really to paint a rainy scene with lots of warm colors because the blue obviously is associated with the wetness and the rain, whereas warm tones create energy, excitement, and vibrancy. So how can we balance these warm and cool tones? Well, first of all, we need to avoid making everything too warm or too cold. The contrast between the two is what makes the painting quite dynamic. So that's why we've got a bit of both going on. But we still have to identify a dominant temperature, whether it's warm or cool. I'm going for cool and this as my dominant painting, my dominant temperature. And then we're using the opposite warm tones quite sparingly for contrast. You can see with that blue, we've also got some greens that are cool. We've got some purples, and we don't have actually that many reds in there. So when planned correctly, warm and cool tones don't just create visual contrast. They enhance the storytelling and the depth. 17. Tonal Strategy: So whilst I was just talking about warm and cool tones, we began painting on top our darkest tones on top of this taxi, where we have the strongest area of contrast because, again, that contrast creates the focal point. Whilst color strategy plays, of course, a very important role in creating harmony mood, of course, color is one of the main things we think about when it comes to painting. But actually, tonal strategy is arguably even more important because tonal values, the lightness or darkness of different areas in a painting, are what give a painting structure, depth and clarity. A well planned tonal strategy ensures that the composition remains visually engaging and it's really what makes it readable. The colors is like the gravy. It adds an extra level of excitement, but it's the tones that make everything very readable. Even if the colors were removed entirely, the painting should be understandable. A good idea is actually to do a lot of paintings just with, black and white or neutral tint. That's what I did when I studied. I forgot about color for a bit and I just focused on getting the tonal relationships right. It's the tonal values that define form, create depth and establish contrast. And without a clear range of tones, the painting can appear flat, unstructured or confusing to the viewer. So some questions you can ask yourself, again, is where the vocal point is. That's where we want to have the highest contrast. That's why I've painted such dark blacks next to this bright orange or yellow taxi. And after that, where should the viewer's eye move through the painting? We can use these tonal lines on the reflections or the light highlights on the buildings to give that sense of movement that draws the painting forward as if there's a sense of movement on the road. And the viewers gaze naturally is led further into the painting. And warm and cool tones can convey depth. By having tonal values organized, we can separate the foreground, middle ground, and background to enhance that illusion of space. So we've got high contrast here in the foreground with the taxi, a little bit less contrast in the middle ground, and then in the distance, we've just got faint buildings, really. If all areas had similar midton values, the painting would feel monotonous. And if everything was all dark with no highlights, again, it would all feel quite monotonous. So having a strong balance of light, mid and dark tones, those three different levels of tones can help keep the composition quite dynamic. A, uh 18. Relationship of Tones: A good way to think of these tonal relationships and to plan them is to identify them before we actually begin, like anything, especially with watercolor. So before we start painting, whilst you're watching this, it helps. We can analyze the subject, even if you want to paint from your own photograph or even if you go out playing air and paint in real life. We've got to analyze subjects in terms of values rather than colors. And the best way to do this is by squinting your eyes because it reduces the colour distractions and allows you to see the overall value structure more clearly. And I spend so much time squinting my eyes. I naturally do it now. So I look quite odd when I'm painting because my eyes are just squinting all the time. Also, what you can do, you can convert a reference photo into black and white. If you have the final image, I have final painting in the projects and resource section, you can use your mobile or computer to change that to black and white to see how the tonal relationships are working in that, and you can even try painting it in black and white if you're too overwhelmed with the color aspect. There's no harm in trying in sepia or black and white, Pain's gray, any monotone color. This is where thumbnail sketches can be useful as well, because it minimizes everything and you can use a pencil which is obviously gray scale to plan the light, mid and dark areas of your painting. It's a good idea to think of these values in a kind of hierarchy. So light values, basically, the paper left untouched or lightly washed, like the sky is just the white of the paper. We use those for highlights or a glow a feeling of glow. And that's what this achieves here, that brightness of the sky coming down. And then we have mid tones or mid values, which actually take up most of the painting. The majority of the painting are mid tones because they're not too dark and they're not too light. And it's where the mid values lie that actually help create the form and the structure of things. And then the dark values are the very deepest tones that we use underneath the cars where the light can't get to and they used to create high contrast and the grounding elements, the areas of impact. We have to use them quite sparingly. Depending on the subject, of course. If we're painting a nighttime scene, then maybe there'll be more dark values than mid values. So it really depends on the subject and the message you want to convey. But just having these concepts in mind can help you plan your painting no matter what the subject is. You can just test your painting's tonal strength by stepping back, squinting, and trying to see, does the focal point still stand out? Or when you look at your subject, you can check the balance of the dark mid or light values and ask, is there a variety which is emphasized? Is it more of a mid dark or light value painting? A, 19. Common Tonal Mistakes: Yeah. Let's talk about some of the main mistakes when it comes to tonal work or a strategy when it comes to figuring out the use of values in a painting. One of the most common things that people face and I certainly faced is a lack of strong darks. Of course, it's quite overwhelming to just use thick dark pigment on a painting, especially in watercolor when it's associated with quite a airy, sketchy style rather than a bold, dark usage. Many paintings suffer from being too light or having weak shadows. It also it's quite difficult with watercolor because when a pigment is wet, it looks a lot darker than when it's dried. So you could mix what looks like a deep dark black, a full black, but when it actually dries, it looks more like gray. But it's important to have the deep dark rich values because it adds drama, and it helps define the form and the contrast. When it came to mixing those darks underneath the taxi, it was very thick on my brush, even right now. When I'm going over this building, you can see that it's thick because it's grabbing the turf of the paper. And you can imagine if the pigment is all sludgy and pasty, then when you brush it's like dry brush marks because there's less water on there, obviously. So but that's what it has to be like if you want to achieve these dark darks. If you dilute it too much and it runs freely off the brush, then it probably means there's not enough pigment, and when it dries and the water evaporates, you're going to be left with a bit of a light dark, not a full rich dark. Related to that, one of the other errors or pitfalls is too many similar midtones. If everything is a midtone, then the painting can feel quite dull and monotonous. So, of course, the majority of the painting is a midton, but we need to make sure that as well as the dark darks, we need some highlights as well. And while strong contrast is important, we don't want to make the painting feel heavy or unbalanced. We don't want to overwork the dark areas because I said there's a lack of strong darks, doesn't mean we should then overwork the dark areas. Of course, everyone is different, and I've gone through different stages of mistakes. When I first started, I wasn't dark enough, and then I went through a stage of painting overly dark and overemphasizing the darks. Another tricky element of tones is when it comes to shadows because when we think of shadows, we usually just think of it being one flat tone. But actually, shadows should have subtle shifts within them. And we can use wet on wet technique to create soft transitions and gradations that make shadows feel a bit more realistic. A, 20. Combining Colour & Tone: Now that we've talked about tonal strategy and color strategy, we've got to think about how they get combined together. If the tonal structure is strong, then almost any color palette will work actually. And that's quite a relief because like I said, the color is just the gravy that improves the dish rather than the main meal. Even the most vibrant color schemes need a good range of tonal values to keep them readable. But then once we have the tonal strategy organized in our minds, then we can start thinking about what temperature rather than color necessarily to integrate into these tones, rather than being overwhelmed with the idea of color, we've got to think about the tones and then the temperature of those tones, warm lights against cold shadows. I'm just adding a few horizontal lines to the reflection on the road here to make it feel a bit more grounded because there was a bit too many vertical lines and not enough to ground it. Now I'm going back to the right hand side buildings and just re wetting that pigment and bringing it down to the pedestrians, the figures on the ground. Trying to make some kind of sense to the figures because, again, I don't want to paint the figures in a detailed way. I want to do as minimal as possible while still making them understandable as figures. Usually, people or figures tend to be the focal point. But actually, they're a secondary focal point in here. They're not actually meant to be the most attention seeking element of the painting. And if I focus too much on them, if I add too much detail, they'll compete for attention, and it wouldn't look so appealing or captivating. So I'm trying to add life and that human element to the scene and also scale by adding human figures in there. We then get a sense of the scale of the scene. But I don't want to draw too much attention away from the key elements like the taxi and the reflections. Just enough to establish a narrative and context. Creating a sense of people going about their day caught mid step in the bustling city. Some of them have got their stance with open legs, some of them are crossed over, some of them are standing still, loose gestural kind of treatment that blends them naturally into the scene. I don't want them to feel too static or isolated. And I don't want them to look all the same, either. So I'm going to slightly vary the colors that they're wearing and the tones that they have. 21. Painting The Figures: And when it comes to painting these figures, I'm certainly not going to focus on the facial features or every clothing fold or the body shape in detail. I'm just trying to use broad loose brush strokes to imply the figures. Mainly silhouettes. I'm painting silhouettes, but trying to make them a bit more dynamic than a flat silhouette. I'm not trying to give them individual detail. Just a few well placed brush strokes to find the legs, the torsos, the heads. Suggesting bit of movement without excessive detail. As always, we're trying to avoid excessive detail except for the main focal point. Also a bit of movement. And we do that by slightly blurring some of the edges or creating a bit of distortion that adds to the movement of the scene. And the contrast between the crisper edges on some of the more static objects like the billboards or the cars and the loose edges on the moving elements. And it creates a kind of impression of activity of they've got something to do. And I'm using a bit of wet on wet. So I have to wet some of the edges to create that effect, obviously, and some wet on dry to get some of the sharper lines, and a bit of dry brush, I think a bit later when it comes into refining them a bit more. And then we got to think about the tonal contrast as well, because some figures are painted darker than the background and some of them are painted lighter that helps them stand out without overwhelming the composition. And that the one chap on the left next to the taxi is the one closest to the focal point. That's why I'm putting a bit more detail on him and why the contrast is stronger on him because it's closer to the focal point. And it doesn't compete. It kind of draws the viewer into that section a bit more. Some of the figures are closer to the foreground while others. The ones that are receding into the background, I put less and less detail in to create a natural sense of perspective and depth. I'm just trying to think of my gestural and abstract way of painting, which can be deceivingly difficult to do, especially when you're trying to paint a human that we all know so well. It's a matter of less is often more. And restraint can lead to something that's more compelling in the end, even if it feels a bit off whilst we're painting it. When it's all finished at the end, it should be a bit better. 22. Scraping Lines: Now I completely dried the painting with a hair dryer, and I've got a little scratcher tool here. You can use a tofpick or you can use a palette knife, which I think I'm going to use, and I'm just going to use my spray gun, my Mr., just to evenly wet it out. I need to wait a few seconds because it needs to rewet the pigment evenly, and you can see I can scrape away these lines in a confident manner. I'm standing up to do this to make sure that I can apply broad strokes. And this, of course, will only work where the pigment is dark. I don't want to do too many. I spray, I wait a few seconds for it to fully absorb. There are only fine lines and could use a brush, but I think there's something fun about scraping away to reveal those lines. You can see how the procedure has taken place. We started off with big shapes, and now we're working on the smallest shapes with the finest lines and details. But we still have a bit to go because there is a bit of refinement left to have. There's a few corrections I want to do before we can call this painting finished. The taxi is, of course, the main focal point, the thing that grabs the attention. But actually, the reflections, I think, is what makes the painting most special. That's what I want to try and work on a bit. Even though it's not necessarily the focal point, I want to apply very thick warm paint underneath. I'm using this rectangular brush, not a round brush. To make sure that it's nice and even because I want these to be quite horizontal. I realized that was a mistake because I'm adding a reflection to something that doesn't exist, so I had to rub it out of my tissue. That was too dark. The reflection was too dark from the building above. I added pure water on there and scrubbed away to make it a bit lighter. Uh, I want to maintain a lot of those dark darks underneath the car. So a few arbitrary strokes that aren't trying to convey realism, they're just trying to add to the feeling. They're nothing in particular. It's not like I'm painting a building or a window or anything in particular. Just for example, now, orange and blue go so well together, I feel like I need a nice little play of those colors interplay of those colors. I'm adding lavender, which is basically blue with a bit of white and using a broad strokes just to apply that in there. A 23. Layering Approach: With watercolor being such a layer based medium, of course, in oil and acrylic, you can also layer paint, but it's kind of a fundamental an integral part of the watercolor medium layering, you have to think about your approach to layering because there are different ways to go about it. You can gradually build them up little by little, or you can make bold direct applications of paint. So when you gradually layer paint or in some ways, it's a glazing technique. It's a gradual layering of thin, transparent washes, and we build up color intensity over time, and it's a bit more controlled that way. And why would we want to use that kind of layering? Maybe we want to create a softer, more luminous effect, which might be perfect for light filled scenes rather than dark scenes, because if we were going to gradually layer up a very dark scene, it would take a long time. We may as well go bold. But it also allows for subtle transitions. And by that social transitions, I mean, with tone and color, and it's ideal for delicate atmospheric effects like mist or cloud or water reflections. I've actually done a lot of gradual buildup on the reflections on the street, actually. And it provides a bit more control over the color intensity, and it lets us slowly adjust values rather than committing to anything too quickly. This is also relevant to other subjects like my portraits, where you might want to create gentle skin tones or delicate reflections or things like that. It also enhances the depth because these are transparent layers, they can give the illusion of distance. So each layer must be completely dry before adding the next unless you want to blend them together. Of course, wet on wet painting, you don't have to wait for it to dry completely, but technically, wet on wet painting is actually the same layer. If you want to layer them, they have to be completely dry and you'll start with light, diluted washes and then gradually deepen the tones. But you don't want to paint too many layers going over the top and painting five layers actually makes the vibrancy a lot more dull. Then there's the other option of the bold, direct approach. M 24. Direct Painting Approach: Notice how I've completely rubbed off the masking fluid and exposed the white of the paper, and I'm going to use those white highlights to maintain the vibrancy. You can see where the traffic lights are and the little back lights of the taxi there, and the other blue car. I'm just going to but also, like I said at the beginning, if you didn't use masking fluid or you haven't started painting yet and you don't want to use masking fluid, you can do what I'm doing now using pure white squash just to paint in those whites, then you can dry, and it works pretty much the same as if you didn't use masking fluid. Then once it dries, I'll go back with a vibrant orange or something. Anyway, let's continue with what we were talking about before with applying color. The other approach to applying paint is bold direct color application. Instead of layering, we can apply colors boldly in one go. That's more of the wet on wet technique, taking advantage of the fluidity of watercolor. And why would we want to use bold applications. But probably because it creates more spontaneous fresh brushstrokes that capture more energy and movement. It enhances vibrancy as fewer layers allow colors to remain pure and strong. And it forces us to trust our instincts and embrace that unpredictability of watercolor, and that's where the magic really comes through. And that's why as a student, it can be really tough to persevere with the bold, unpredictable nature of watercolor because it takes a while to trust it, and you have to get through a lot of awful paintings before you create anything worthwhile. I have hundreds and hundreds of terrible paintings, and that I just had to work through. I painted them and threw them away and then painted more and threw them away. And it took it seemed like it was going to be endless, and I wasn't even sure whether I'd improve at all, but little by little, I could I was starting to trust myself a little bit more, and once that fear goes away, even if the results aren't good, as long as the fear goes away, that's when it can start being a bit more authentic and fresh and exciting. Because there's something more than just detail and accuracy. Getting that emotion through it goes more than principles and it's beyond technique. It's something that I can't necessarily explain because it's a feeling. But of course, once you get all your prerequisites done, which I've talked about in this class, then you're allowing yourself to express what you want to. You're opening the path for your soul to come through in your paintings. And when painting expressive high energy subjects like these cityscapes or maybe floral compositions or even wildlife, that have a lot of movement in them. That's when these bold applications can be great and, of course, wet on wet and allowing the colors to mix naturally on the page rather than controlling them too much adds to that loose and pretonistic feel rather than the high realism approach. A. 25. Adding Highlights: There's different ways to create perspective. In a countryside scene, you're going to be using a lot of atmospheric perspective because there's not many man made structures with clean straight lines found in nature. But when it comes to a city scene like this where most of it is man made, we rely on other ways. And the basics of understanding perspective is, first of all, we got to like I said, at the beginning, know where the horizon line is, and that represents the eye level and helps anchor the scene. And that's basically halfway or just above halfway across the paper. Then we've got the vanishing point is the spot where parallel lines converge. So that's where all these diagonal lines face, and that's dead bang in the center of the paper as well. And the converging lines guide the eye into the distance. And you can see that on the roads, the buildings, particularly with the reflections. Then we can use scale and overlap. Closer objects appear larger and more detailed while distant objects become smaller and less defined. You can see the cars are obviously smaller, the people are a bit smaller and so forth. Now we're coming towards the end of the painting. Let's quickly go over all the little strategies we used. We focused on capturing the energy and atmosphere of this city through strategic use of reflections, color contrast, and expressive brushwork. And the wet pavement and street provided a perfect opportunity to explore reflections, softening edges to create depth and realism. We also balanced warm tones like the yellow taxi against cool blues and greens, purples to enhance the visual interest and direct the viewer's eye. Also, to avoid overwhelming detail in such a complex scene, we simplified shapes using loose gestural strokes to suggest movement and atmosphere rather than rigid precision. And perspective played a key role with the converging lines and the diminishing detail to create depth and diminishing contrast. And high contrast in the foreground. While we were selectively choosing where we want detail and abstraction to help maintain clarity and a sense of spontaneity. And hopefully by combining all these techniques, we've brought to life the scene and making it feel dynamic, immersive, and hopefully rich in storytelling. When you look in closely, you can see there's not actually much detail in individual parts, but when you look back at it, you can see as a whole, it makes sense. 26. Final Thoughts: Welcome back and congratulations on completing this class. I hope you found it easier or at least more fun than you might have expected. Painting cityscapes doesn't have to be overcomplicated. It's all about creating a mood and letting the paint do the work. We explored techniques like loose wet on wet washes, simple laying for depth, and easy ways to suggest figures and movement, all while keeping it light and stress free. I hope this class has shown you that painting city scenes can be fun and expressive. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and personal style. I encourage you to continue exploring, experimenting, and pushing your boundaries to create your own unique watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the end of this class, I hope you feel more confident and comfortable with your watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes to improving your skills, so keep on painting and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for watercolor painting is so inspiring and I'm honored to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd love to give it. So please share your painting in the student projects gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston, as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves seeing my students work, so tag them as well at Skill Share. After putting so much effort into it, why not share your creation? If you have any questions or comments about today's class or want any specific advice related to watercolor, please reach out to me in the discussion section. You can also let me know about any subject, wildlife or scene you'd like me to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best experience for my students. Lastly, please click the Follow button Utop so you can follow me on skill share. This means that you'll be the first to know when I launch a new class or post giveaways. I can't wait to see what you create, and I look forward to painting with you in my next class until then Happy painting.