Transcripts
1. River in Summer | Watercolor Masterclass: Hello Skillshare. I'm Susie on blade. I'm a water colorist based in Arizona. Today I'm going to teach you how to use a limited color palette with greens and purples to create this scene here. This is just outside my backyard, the verde river. We're going to take this complicated photograph and try to simplify it to a painting that anyone can actually can pull it off as a painting. We're going to be breaking down reflections, grass, foliage, and a simplified tree. So go ahead and get your paint brushes and we'll get started.
2. Art Supplies: Hello.
3. Sketch: Now I forgot to press record, but you basically just put in a few lines here. And then you put your diagonal lines here for your trees. This is about two-thirds the way in with the trees start. And here's one sloping tree. This one kind of just does its own thing. And I'm just putting in the basic trunks of the trees. I'm not gonna worry about all the branches just yet. We'll do that later as a last detail. There we go. There's the basic trees here. I think I might add one over here. Just to kind of offset this Heaviside over in this part of the painting. All right, so for the river itself is roughly this. Hi. I'm just going to go ahead and indicate where. I think that river line is going to be right about there. And then there's some more grass that pops up here that's in sunlight. I'm just gonna put some line here. So each AND gate where that is everything above this river line. We're just gonna do a wash of color. We're not going to worry too much about if there's any trees back there because it's gonna be covered mostly in foliage anyway. Okay, next section, we're going to be doing all the colors. So if you haven't already go ahead and mix your colors, and we are going to use purple, because if you look at lots of green, oftentimes the shadows will be purple, which is the opposite of green, is a complimentary color. So go ahead and use any color purple you have, and you don't want to have it to be too dark. I have this purple very much water down. This is a permanent mauve that I'm using. Go ahead and mix up your own with the crimson and ultra marine or any other red and blue mixture. You can also use a magenta if you like, but make sure to make it a little bit more purple by adding some blue. And then the green I used was a permanent green hue. And also I'm using a turquoise mixed with some of this burnt umber to tone down the torque laziness and make it more green.
4. Trees - Layer 1: For this next part, we're doing a wash. So I didn't have this in the supply list area, but I'm going to go ahead and use this wonderful flat. It's a one-inch flat and it's perfect for getting lots of water on all at once. Go ahead and dip your brush into the water. And we're going to go ahead and do everything above this line. I'm just going around this one trunk just because it's so big. And I'm not worrying about these trunks at all. I going to figure that they're going to be in shadow. There we go. Now that all that is wet, you look at the reference which I have in the project description right next to it. All of the bright spots are kind of here. You're just gonna go ahead and let the water do the work. There's some bright spots here and here as well. And a little bit more here. And get a little bit of that purple. Okay, wish around a little bit. Go ahead and use your brush to pick some of this pigment up if there's little too much. I'll say if you have napkin that would work as well. I'm just going to have keep moving it around until you're happy with it. If you pull off your water like that and just take off all the excess, you can actually scoop up this extra water. Pools on the sides. Now we're just worrying about this first wash. At the moment. We're going to go ahead and let this dry and pick up maybe a little bit more water on the sides here. So it looks more even. And once that's dry, we'll go ahead and go onto the next part. Make the leaves darker. We can also put the first layer of greens down here where the grass is located. Let's go ahead and do that now. Whoop too much. Now some of this green is just a little too turquoise. So I'm gonna go ahead and mix up some more believable green. See what I did there? I'm going to use that. There we go. That looks better. And don't forget to use that purple. Complimentary color of green is per ball. This is more for indicating where the shadows are gonna go. And there will be some. You can see that it's pooling at the bottom. You have a napkin that's where you want to wipe up the excess. Or you can use your brush like I am. But because I was silly, had forgot to use an alkyne from the start. Okay. Once again, this is a first wash of your greens and purples. We're going to be adding more layers on top of this. We're going to be going light to dark. Okay, go ahead and let this dry, and then we'll do the next layer after this. Now we're going to move on to doing the river and all the reflections. This is a step-by-step process that I'm hoping will be easy for you guys to follow. The very first thing we're gonna do is put in the blue, which is the sky being reflected. And then we're gonna go ahead and do some shadows on the sides. And hopefully you'll be able to follow along and see what I mean, because reflections are one of the hardest nut to crack. And I'm hoping that this method will help you figure out how to make it look convincing.
5. River - Layer 1: Get your brush wet again. Let's go ahead and just do this middle section in between these two trees. And we can expand on the other sections after when you see what I mean. All right, remember the very first thing we're gonna do is add in the blue. So get your number eight brush. And this can be a mop brush, it can be a flat or around, doesn't really matter. Just one that can hold a lot of water. We're going to put the blue right here. So this is a watered-down ultramarine. You don't want it to be too, too much pigmentation. You don't have too much of that. Just enough to SCC. Just enough. And we're going to go ahead and just put all around there. And then we're gonna take a few more drops, but over here. And it's okay if actually one thing you wanna do is bend it, the water, do the work, pull it down towards this grass line. And if you want to be more blue when it gets closer to the camera or the viewer's eye. And go ahead and do that. Because that's also something true. Because when you look directly upwards or the further away from the sun, the bluer the sky's gonna get closer to the sun or closer to the horizon. Most times, the less blue. The blue is just atmospheric perspective sort of thing. Okay. And while the paint's still wet, hopefully it's still a little wet. I'm going to go ahead and do this sunspot over here. And there is some sun. So that was yellow ocher I just used here and here. Go on the edges of it with a burnt umber. And I'm just gonna go ahead and cover this whole area with the burnt umber just so it stays wet because right now it's starting to dry. Okay. Do you remember that brownish green are the one with the turquoise and the number. Here we go. Remember we're only going to put this where there is a distinct number. This is just the first pass, so we can do more later. And there's a little bit here and here. There is also a little bit of a reflection of this right here of some of that green. So go ahead and just add a touch of that. Here. These are reflections. I'm, I'm hoping that this comes across as a blurry reflection. And then we'll go on with some more details later. Okay. So now that we have this section complete, go ahead and get your brush wet again. You always want to have a little bit of a tilt. There we go. Let's do this part over here. Same idea. Go ahead and get some of that blue. And then there's not as much sun on this section here. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do some of this umber. And mostly this green I have. Here we go. Go ahead and use a napkin on the sides just to clean up this excess. Then right around here, there's a little bit more of that green. Okay, remember this is the first wash of this river we're gonna go into with a second layer to add more shadows. But for right now this is all you're doing with the river. So go ahead and do the same thing with these small sections here. It is brighter, there's more sunlight, so we're going to see more of just a little bit of this blue and maybe some more of the yellow ocher and just a smidge of that green. Go ahead and get your little sections wet. As little too much green. I'm just gonna go ahead and go in because this, these trees over here are going to be all in shadow. And once again, go in with the blue here or there, or anywhere. And I'm thinking that maybe there's some trees going down that way. And last but not least, a little bit of this green reflection. I put a little too much. This permanent green is very, very Burnet, is. If you use too much of it, is very easily going to overtake your composition. So be very sparing with it.
6. Trees - Layer 2: I guess I'm just moving upwards over here just to connect all the greens and the trees. Let's go ahead and just do a dry brush technique so it's more scattered. Using a little bit more of that moth purple, especially towards the edges I think would be good spot to separate the background grass from the river. So I just used a whole bunch of MOF to put in some shadows. I just went in again with the turquoise mixed width of that burnt umber. And I'm just gonna go little touches here and there underneath some of these highlights. I think that looks pretty good. There's some sections that are larger. You a little bit more here and they're kinda want it to be spaced out of it. Okay, So that is that section. And let's see, over here, I want it to be a little bit brighter where there's more light is touching those leaves and lighting it up. I'm just going to go ahead and do some work. Let's go ahead and get some more of this yellow. Turn out to mix too much green into your cadmium yellow, because once it's in there, the blue, it's cost stuck in the yellow and it's just there forever. I mixed up a very yellowish kind of green. I'm going to dot it around and see how over here, I'm going to zoom in a little bit. See however here I added some of this yellow, greenish yellow to do, to do, we'll get at this. The pigment underneath, it's still wet. So when it touches, it spreads. So I'm trying to use a wet on wet technique. And moving over. Don't be afraid of using a dry brush technique to cover more area. Because if you do nothing but Dots, people will notice that it's nothing by dots, but if you switch it up every once and awhile, uh, helps sell your point. And I'm going to use some more of that purple because it makes for a nice shadow. And then I'm going in again, where are the places are wet currently with a little bit more permanent green to add more vibrance. And I think I'm gonna go ahead and down here with some of that purple. Going in with a smaller brush. This is a pointed number four round. I'm going and where the shadows are going on with the green from the green, feel like there wasn't quite enough there. And I'm going to do the same thing that I've been doing over here. Over here. There's going to be more shadow on this side. I wanted all of the light to come in like this. There's that green I mixed up with some of the stroke y's added more cadmium to it. And I'm going to have purple on top, even more purple on the bottom. Now we have a line between the river and the background. A little bit more of this from the green a little bit here. And I'm going to mix up, use this mixed up turquoise over here because I want it to be more in shadow. It's going to cover that whole area in shadow. And see it's still wet in this section here. Just kinda tapping my brush. To add some more shadow in there. Have a little bit of this permanent green right here. And then I'm gonna go in with this brush number 4 pointed round to do the shadows again. And go ahead and mix up this color here with some of the purple just to make sure that it's not one solid green. Look how nicely this color down here blended, that looks good.
7. River - Layer 2: So now that we have that second layer in the background foliage, we're going to go ahead and move on towards the river and all those beautiful reflections. So right now it's kind of like a very soft reflection. I would like to make it look a little bit more realistic. And we're going to move forward with that. And then we're also going to the grass in the foreground after we're done with the river. Just go ahead and dip your brush directly into, directly into your turquoise mixed with a little bit of burnt umber to, so it's not as too crazy. And we're gonna go in to that. So what we're gonna do is we're just going to go ahead and drag our brush really light across the across it. You're going to have to reload your brush every once in a while. Actually, I think a bigger brush will do. This is the number 8 I have. I think this will be better. Yep. Just a little bit better. Don't forget to mix it up every once in a while. If you use only one color to do your reflections, it doesn't look as good in the long run. Here's that turquoise again, where I watered it down. We're not watered it down. Mixed it with the burnt umber, and do a whole bunch of this killer. So as per ball up here and more, I'll go ahead and close that off. The sides. Have some purple right here. Feeding downward on that edge. And just using water right here at the water's edge. And I'm going to do the same thing I did in the corner. And that's bringing the purple down. And then on the edge itself have some just plain burnt umber kind of hint at maybe there's some ground there. There we go. And there's more shadows here of this turquoise color, but I'm going to mix it more with the brown so it transitions better. I'm going with the number 4 pointed round this time around. So I'm going to add a little bit more control. I'm not going to worry about the reflection so much on this side because there's so many trees that are gonna be poking through. Another reflections are mainly done. Let's go ahead and do more of the foliage. So lots of green leaves kind of coming down.
8. Foreground Foliage: So this one down here, this is the turquoise and mixed with the burnt umber. And I also put more cadmium yellow into it. That way It's little bit brighter. I'm loading my brush up and it's going to be dots everywhere. And then when you want to load your brush again, noise, add more texture to it by adding a few of these darker dots as well with the turquoise mixed with burnt umber. Get some really nice darks in there. Don't be afraid to cross this line because the tree is in front of it. Right around here is where all the focus is going to be. So the lightest lights, darkest darks. All happening around this two-thirds line. Now what I just did there was I used the darkest dark, which is turquoise and the burnt umber, and also use this middle green over here. And then on top of all of it, when the paint is still wet, I use some of just the pure permanent green permanent green light. Up on the top. Darks go underneath. Lights go on top. And help sell the painting. Don't forget your purples. Complimentary color to green is purple. You'll see a lot of it if you actually paid close attention to nature. Here we go. I think that's enough. Trees. They're going a few more darks over here. Just because usually you want some more darker darks to be on the edge as well, just so that you keep your eyes towards the middle. You don't want the viewers eyes to be leaving the page. Okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and go straight for this purple and make this tree purple. Because that looks nice. There'll be afraid to use a lot of purple here because this is all in shadow. Free to mix your burnt umber with this purple as well. Because you want it to be multiple colors. See Nazi even standing out more because he got these beautiful purple trees. And what you usually see more around magic hour, but that could be magic hour in this painting, you never know a vendor to go in with a really thin brush at this point. Right now I'm just adding a whole bunch of branches to make it look like it's really true branch. Kind of just going all over the place with the random squiggle marks. All ready for the tree trunks to dry. We can go ahead and move on to the grass. Definitely take a good look at your reference. Now there are several ways we can go about it. We can try to draw every single strand or we can imply the grasses there by doing another wash of some kind. I'm thinking maybe we can do a mixture of both. So we're doing a nice fuzzy wash right here. And then maybe going in with the few twigs and here and there, just to imply that it's grass. And let's give it a try.
9. Grass: While we're waiting for the tree trunks to dry, we can go ahead and move on to the grass. Definitely take a good look at your reference. Now there are several ways we can go about it. We can try to draw every single strand or we can imply the grasses there by doing another wash of some kind. I'm thinking maybe we can do a mixture of both. So we're doing a nice fuzzy wash right here. And then maybe going in with a few twigs and here and there just to imply that it's grass. And to track, you're going to want to take your painting from horizontal to a 45 degree angle. That way the wash they're doing right here, goes down softly. Go ahead and get your large brush. One inch flat. And we're gonna go like this. Okay. Go ahead and mop up a whole bunch of this green. Now that it's there and nice and wet. Go ahead and flip your brush around. This brush right here is a four number four round pointed round. You're just going to be flicking it in all kinds of directions. This is really tall grass, so let's keep flicking it. Okay, Now that we have that done, you're going to want to sop up the edges here because the water's been going down. Squeeze off your excess from your larger brush and into the water and you can soak it up this way like a sponge. And we're just going to do this and repeat. So go ahead and grab some of this darker green. We're going to be a little bit more spearing on where we put it. So definitely here, definitely here. And let's go big blob here. Nice big glob over here. And go in with your purple as well. Because we want it to be nice and mixing. Okay. Go back with your number for around, like get around. You basically would just want to get rid of this clean edge. And you want to flick it until there's no indication of exactly of that edge existing.
10. Thoughts and Thanks: Thank you so much Skillshare for joining me today and painting the verde river and all these beautiful trees. I am excited to see what you guys come up with with your own paintings if you decide to use a slightly different color palette than when I had. Did you use that beautiful purple that I have? It's a permanent mob. Did you use that one? We're different purple. Did you decide to do a different kind of tree? Go ahead, share your paintings in the project section, I would love to see what you came up with. And if you have any questions at all, go ahead and make a comment. I'll reply to it as soon as I can. Thanks again for joining me and I hope to see you on the next Skillshare video.
Suzy Paint N Simple, Watercolorist
