Painting Mist In Watercolors

1. Introduction: - Hi , I'm Jean Lauersen and welcome to my studio. In this course, I'm going to show you how to paint this mountain scene with beautiful missed flowing down the mountain many years ago, I was shown an interesting technique to paint mister in watercolors. And today I'm going to share that with you. And at the end of this course, you're going to be able to paint your very own atmospheric seeing whether it's mist coming down the mountain mist coming through the trees or mist coming through the forest floor. I live in beautiful Marin County, and we have this mountain called Mountain, and in the winter time, the mist comes flowing down the mountain and obscures part of the mountain. And from a distance you get these beautiful blue and gray colors that just scream out to be painted in watercolor. This may look difficult to do, but actually it isn't. I'm going to show you in a few simple steps how you can paint your very own atmospheric water color. So join me and let's start painting 2. Materials: So I just want to go over with you The materials that were going to be using for this painting, and that's not much. I have to round head brushes. One is size 18 and one is a size 30. You can use a flat brush or so, but for this painting, I'm going to use a round brush. Um, the colors. We're going to use our burnt Sienna, Payne's gray and French Ultra Marine. And that's it we're going to create. Missed with those colors. I'm using a sheet of hot pressed paper. I do most of my paintings on hot pressed paper, and that's what I prefer. The colors seem to come out a little more vibrant, and I like that. I do also work on cold pressed paper, and I use when I do. I use thesis on ders Waterford cold pressed paper, which is a lovely paper. Now I do something differently than a lot of artists. I use the bridges trade to squeeze my paints out on, and the reason for that is I've always found when I was using a palette that I would squeeze the paint out onto the pallet and wouldn't use up all the paints and they would dry out even when there's a little with pence. And that is a for me, a terrible waste of the expensive watercolor paints. So now are just squeeze art a little black, little more than a pea size for this painting off the three colors. And when I'm Finn and I always put up a sheet of cling wrap down on the bottom of the tray so that when I'm when I'm finished painting, all I have to do is lift it off and throw. Thies is three old paint away and then my trays clean for the next painting. So that's don't forget. You also need to containers of water one foot for cleaning your brushes and one for mixing your colors. And you're also going to need a spray bottle, a large spray bottle like this and a smaller spray bottle that sprays a misty spray you're going to need. There's going to be essential when we create the mist, and that's all we need. So let's start painting 3. Let's Paint: I just want to show you quickly. Hard to mix the sky color so you take a little bit of French Ultra Marine and mix it with some burnt sienna until you get a grayish color, you have to add lots of water and try tested on your piece of watercolor paper. That's basically the consistency that you want. So it's burnt sienna and French ultra Marine until you get a gray, watery mixture like this for the sky, I'm going to do wait on Dr Going to mix the nice grey sky and go down to about there. Clean off your brush. No. And then I'm going to show you how to mix the color for the mountain. You take lots of French Ultra Marine and you and dull it down with some Payne's gray, I would say about 2/3 French Ultra Marine and 1/3 Payne's gray and and then tested on your paper again. And you basically one that sort of consistency of paint for this great day and we're gonna paint the mountain into the sky and that you want to be quite dark because we're going to be adding a lot of water when we create the mist. Now you have to work fairly quickly. That has to be pretty wit and put on your brushes. Take your spray bottle and start in the sky area gently but adding water down and you can see properly. I just want to show you do. Don't overdo it. You can always add more water later. It's a little but not not quite wide enough and you don't want straight lines. So sort of one thing, Mr. Go all over. Ah, create some interesting patents. Now, that's, um, kind of like that. What I'm gonna do is just let that dry, and you can always take a dry brush if some of its coming back if some of the paint is coming back into the misty area. And as I said, you don't want to do straight lines. So you take a fairly dry brush and just and keep your brush and clean your brush all the time. Otherwise you'll be putting paint back into the, um, missed. But I kind of like that now because it looks like some mountain showing through the mist, and we'll just let that dry and, um, you condone what you can do with this is you can add some trees when it's dry. You could actually add them when this is a little bit dry than it is now, or add them when it's dry. I would add them when it's dry, or you can leave the painting like it is. It's It's a little bit two on Interesting like that are usually add some trees, um, just to give it some interest. Or you can add some texture with, um, another color. A. Davies. Sometimes I throw a mixture called Davies gray and just spatter it in four for interest. Using your own colors, you can use graze. Make a nice deep grey with French ultra marine and burnt sienna. You can just use your imagination, you know. But remember when there's mist, the colors are very gray and blue in nature. Try on a on a small piece of paper first, because it's quite a tricky thing to do this. This mist and I like this way of doing it there several different ways of doing missed, but I was shown this many years ago, and I really like this way of doing it. I think it looks the most interesting and the most like mist. We'll wait for this to dry and put him at maybe add some trees and put a mat around it and see what it looks the finished product looks like. 4. Adding Trees: now that the paintings dry, I've decided I want to add some trees to give it a little bit more interest. So I'm going to show you how to do that when you take my squared bottle and squirts the areas where I'm going to add the trees and probably around here and music with my number 18 brush and quite a thick mixture off Payne's gray. Not too much water because we've already put water on the paper and you hold your brush sideways like this and just and in the trees. See, my brush is still a little too wit make a little bit more. Well, that looks nice because it looks like the trees are melting into the mist and we just add some down here. It's that and maybe a few appear. See, that's looks kind of nice. It looks like everything is just melting into the mist. And I think I'm going Teoh. Just leave it at that. That looks pretty nice now. Well, I think that the sky is perhaps a little too gray, and it needs a little bit of blue in the sky. So again I would take a very, very po lots of water. I tried on my on my piece of paper that store too much on add some more water. Look, just a attach literally, and I want to add it into the sky. And maybe I'll I missed that, too. And uh huh, Don't We don't want to miss up trees because they looked rather nice and yeah, see, So there's These are things you can do after the fact. If you're not happy with something, we'll let that dry and you'll see when we but a nice white matt on it, how it makes the painting come alive. So he has your finished painting with a nice, crisp white matt around it, and you can see how it just finishes off things. Notice officer. How the dark trees have dried considerably lighter. Remember that water colors dry at least 20% lighter, and you need to remember this when you're painting and and paint darker than you think you actually need. Now, don't forget to sign your painting. I hope you're going to post your results in the Project gallery, looking forward to seeing what you do have fun and happy painting