Simple One Point Perspective in Loose Watercolour

1. Introduction: Perspective is always good to keep in mind when you even when you're painting loosely, but you don't have to get too hung up on it. Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm a watercolor artist from Melbourne, Australia. Now, I mostly paint wildlife for my day to day painting, but every now and then, I like to paint a city scape or a landscape. But even when I do do something different like that, I still like to paint loosely. I really don't like having to pay attention to detail. But even when you're painting loosely, I think it is important to keep some of the rules of perspective in mind while you're painting to make sure you get an effective painting. But having said that, I'm a lazy painter, and I like to paint quickly, and I like to just get on and do it. And I don't want to spend hours doing really complicated technical drawings, getting two point perspective, three point perspective, getting everything measured and right. And I don't think you have to. So today's exercise is about keeping a few things in mind while you're painting to get a really good painting, but not having to stress about getting it all really accurate. So I want to show you what you can get away with to produce a nice little painting. So the way that I've set this up is lots of individual lessons, each lesson, although it's short is a whole painting from start to finish, and I've put at the beginning of each lesson a photo of what we're going to be painting during that lesson so that you can decide whether you want to do it or not. Now, it's all one point perspective, so it's about as easy as it gets, and I'll mention a few words about that right at the start. And I have set this to intermediate, not because it's difficult. It isn't difficult at all. But because I want you to be loose and free with this, the painting is quite fast. And I know that fast painting, although it's what I'm hoping that you'll do, can cause consternation for some people. So if you're a beginner, maybe have a little look at some of the lessons first and decide whether you want to do it. I reckon you probably could. But as I say, I know that painting fast can be challenging, particularly when you're starting out. We'll go through there's no reference photos or anything like that, but we'll go through the materials, and then we'll go through a series of little paintings producing little thumbnails. And hopefully by the end of it, you've got a better handle on just simple one point perspective. 2. Materials: Materials for today, there's no reference photo for this. This is just all out of your head. I'm painting on 300 gram archers coal press paper and a lot of these have got old paintings on the back, so I'm just using up scraps really for this. Some of I am painting on a board and some of them I will tape down, not all just some regular masking, regular pencil and erasor. Then for the paints, you can use anything you want for this. It really doesn't matter. These ones that have got a bit of color in them. I've used. I've got some Winsor Newton yellow Oka and Burnt Sienna, also Windsor Newton, French ultra, some Daniel Smith, Lavender, Indigo, and Van **** brown. For all of these molotone ones, those are all in Daniel Smith Indigo. It doesn't really matter what you use, pick the paints that you like. In terms of brushes. Now, this one matters. This is just a flat brush synthetic, and this is good because it gets all these shapes in. So to try and use a flat brush for this, you'll find it easier. I've got this round one and the details of these are on the materials list. I think I only use this for one stroke, so don't stress if you don't have anything you could use for the bit that I use that for. You could even use the flatbrush. I do have a little synthetic. This one, is just a little rigger, and that's good for getting the foliage in when we do the little landscape painting. Other than that, you need a palette a jar of water, some tissues, and I think we're good to go. 3. A Quick Word on Perspective Before we Start: Okay. Before we start painting, I want to do a couple little words about perspective. Now, there are 1 million really good explanatory videos online about perspective, that can be a little bit dry and you have to really pay attention. I mostly pay attention to perspective, but I don't get too hung up on it. I try and get the best of both worlds of thinking about perspective but not getting too hung up on it. If I show you what I mean, if I was to draw, if we go back to that primary school one that we all do where we put in the horizon line, we pick a point on that horizon line where everything vanishes too, the vanishing point we've just picked and we draw a road. I come out to the corners of my rectangle and this is a road, if I want to draw a fence along this road, I can pick the height of the fence arbitrarily here and go back to my vanishing point. I'm going to have a couple of fence posts that I know the top and the bottom of these fence posts have to touch the top and the bottom of these lines. But if I really want to do it properly and work out the spacing of these fence posts going back. I have to do all this nonsense where I find a midpoint and find an intersecting line and put them in properly to get the spacing right. Now, I don't want to do that. I have no interest in doing that in my painting. I want to be thinking about these lines, but I certainly don't want to have to measure distances to get back because intuitively, I know that if I'm drawing a fence that's disappearing down towards the horizon, those fence posts are going to get closer together. I don't have to be too worried about that. That's what I mean when I say I loosely pay attention to perspective, but I don't get to hung up. If I were to apply that to say some buildings. If I've got my horizon line, I've got a vanishing point, I'm going to make it easy and just bring those diagonals out to the corner of my rectangle. I'm going to give myself some nice verticals to suggest I've got some buildings here. In this case, I'm going to put some windows on these buildings. I'm going to again arbitrarily pick a height that I want those windows at. Coming back to my vanishing point. Then I'm going to put in some windows. I know now that my windows have to fall in this between these lines that I've drawn. They're going to be bigger at the side here getting smaller as I come down. I know that my roof line here has to follow this diagonal. I have to have that right. Both sides, here is my roof line, the way I've got some stuff. But what I haven't paid attention to here, although I am using those lines to get my windows in. What I haven't paid attention to is the same idea here. I haven't decided that all these windows need to be the same distance apart and I'm measuring and moving back. I'm just roughly putting them in and a bit of a shadow say on this side. That's what I'm thinking about when I'm doing perspective. I'm paying attention to my vanishing point, but I'm not measuring all the distance to getting that all right. I can be a little bit loose with that. That might be not clear at all to you, but I'm hoping that as we move through and do these little thumbnail paintings it will become a bit sharper in your mind and you'll see how you can use the horizon line and the vanishing point a really simple one point perspective to get in lots of nice little scenes out and see how changing it changes your painting. We'll start doing some litt thumbnails. 4. Central Horizon Line and Vanishing Point: We're going to keep it super simple to start with. I'm going to do a rectangle. I'm going to put a horizon line. I'm just going to put it straight through the middle. I'm also going to pick right in the middle vanishing point right there. Now I'm going to draw a series of diagonals out from that vanishing point. I'm going to take them through the corner of my rectangle. Not for any particular reason, just I'm going to keep things consistent and that's a simple place to start. So roughly out. Now, that's all I'm going to draw. What I'm thinking about here is if you did my Venice lesson, this will look a little bit familiar. We're going to do a row of buildings, some sky and some water. I'm going to just use the one brush, I'm going to use this flat brush here and we're going to just get going. Milky I've got in my well here. French tra. I might need to squeeze out some bit of French ultra in here. I want to really milky wash. I'm painting flat at the moment. I just come straight onto the d page. And just popping the sky. Not fussing, just following that triangle, keeping it nice and rough. Then I'm going to do the same thing down the bottom for the water. That's all I'm going to do for those. Now. Because I'm keeping this really simple, I'm going to assume that I've got a row of buildings on each side and that they're all butted up against each other. This line here is going to be my roof line on either side. Then I'm going to have some verticals from my building and they're going to come in and touch the water. Now I'm not going to wait for this to dry because I don't mind if the shapes bleed into each other. What I'm going to do is make sure though I've got a little bit less water on my brush than I've got on the page. I'm going to start with some yellow ca. I've got a milky to creamy mix of yellow aca. My paint has dried up in my well here. I actually have to get quite a lot of water into it to actually get it up. It's probably better if you squeeze fresh. Because of that, I'm just going to drive that heel with my brush a bit, so I don't have so much water in my brush. Now going onto the page, I want to follow this is my roof line. I'm going to put a mark here and then I'm going to paint straight down. Go again, a mark on that diagonal, then I'm going to turn my wrist straight down. I'm going to go to the other side, do the same thing. Maybe one more here. Then I'm going to switch colors. I might pick up maybe some red. I've got some pyrole reading here. The same consistency paint on the diagonal, then turning my wrist and bringing that straight down. I don't care if I get some broken strikes in there. I'm not really worried about that. Then I might I've got a bit of a mix. I've got bc and some bandit brown here. It really doesn't matter what colors you use. You use whatever you like. Another one, bit tricky in the small spaces here. That's all I'm going to do for my buildings initially. Now, I don't mind all of this bleeding. Not fussed about that at all. What I am going to start to do is think about this is my roof line on either side. I want to put in a couple of darks to show that that's where my roofs are. Now, I could wait until this is fully dry, but because I like things mixing and bleeding a bit, I am going to put the first layer in with some really thick. I've got some van ****. Brown in here. Really toothpaste consistency. Again, if I think I've got too much water on there, I can just paint my tissue first. I'm going to follow this diagonal. I'm just going to touch in a couple of places. I don't want to paint a really solid line. I just want to give the idea. I'll take another bit for the other side. I'm just roughly popping on the roof line. I will put a few more things up in there, but just to get my eye in. Now I'm going to come out actually and let that dry, and then I'll come back in with a second layer. Okay. It's been 5 minutes. I'm dry now. So now I'm going to put in my first second third floor of these buildings. To do that, I'm going to guess if this is my foremost building, but maybe I've got a first floor here, maybe the second floors there. What I need to do to get these floors in is make sure that the line I draw from here comes back to intersect this vanishing point. Do the same on the other side. Maybe I've got a floor there and a floor there. I'm going to take my small synthetic. I'm going to pick up a little bit of I think indigo. I want it really not much I want these lines fine. I want to get some paint my tissue to make sure I don't paint a great big watch of paint like that on my page. I just want to. There's my point. Just roughly come out. I've got the other one here. That's all I'm going to do. I'm going to do the same on the other side. Here's my first floor. I've got to come into this point. Now if you can't eyeball this, you can put it in with a pencil. But because I don't need to be too tidy, it doesn't really matter. Haven't got any paint there. Actually I need a bit more water, a bit too gluey. Then this one. I'm just going to strengthen that button. Now I've got my first floor, second floor, third floor. Now I'm going to do is put in some windows. Here this is like the idea with the fence that I'm not going to worry about the spacing of these windows going back other than to keep in the back of my head, that as I come back towards this vanishing point, the windows are going to be closer together. Obviously, they're going to be smaller because I've got to fit them in between these lines. To put these windows in, I'm just going to do a bit of a suggestion. I'm going to stick with this small synthetic, pick up a bit of indigo, or I could pick up a bit of van dye, doesn't really matter. I'm going to just put my hand flash and I'm just using the shape of the brush to just put a couple of windows in keeping it pretty loose. Of course, if you were doing this for a real painting, you might want to spend a little bit more time looking at the shape of windows on these types of buildings. That's not what this is about. Remembering now that I'm getting a bit closer together as I come down towards the vanishing point. Do the same thing on the other side. You can also put your brush up, vary the strokes and come up on the tip and do it. It doesn't have to be or flat. It just is good to vary the way you hold your brush to get. You don't end up just too much the same same. Okay? Getting closer together and smaller as I get to the back here. Now I'm going to pop a little bit of nonsense on the roof line. Let it dry, we'll pop in a shadow. Sticking with the mix of indigo and van ****. Paint my brush so it's nice and dry. I'm just going to come along and on this roof line, I'm just going to paint some nonsense. Little flicks to suggest that there's a business happening on the roof. On the other side, you probably won't be able to see this underneath my hand. See if I can move my The strokes really towards the back here should be getting smaller. I didn't pay much attention to that. I am going to pop. I'm going to pop this side in shadow. This side, I'm going to leave in light. I'm going to pop just a couple of little down pimes, while I've got this on my brush. Just a couple of verticals. Just to help my eye show where these buildings divide. Now, the important thing here, you want to try and keep them reasonably vertical. I don't want to paint the whole line in. Just keep it loose. Broken lines are your friend here. You don't have to get it all perfectly in. I got to come out of that again and let that dry. It's been about 10 minutes. I'm fully dry. I'm just going to pop in a shadow here. Now, I need to remember, I'm going to it really simple. I'm going to put this whole side in shadow, but it's also going to come into the water. But the shadow when it comes into the water still needs to follow. Up to that vanishing point. It needs to be skinnier up the back there, wider at the front. I'm also going to pop in a couple of horizontals just to suggest some chimneys and that kind of thing making a shadow, and that still has to follow my perspective. You'll see what I mean when I do it. All I'm going to do, I'm going to take up, I think, maybe a little bit of indigo, and a little bit of my French ultra, which is in the water. That's to French ultra. I'm just trying to get a bit of a dark. Maybe I'll take it from my top well here. I need to make up enough that I don't have to stop and make more paint halfway through. That's really bad when you're doing a shadow, that will freak you out. I've got my puddle of paint. I'm going to come straight on and paint through these buildings. This is why I needed it dry. I doesn't matter if those washes underneath move a little bit, but I don't want it to move heaps. Now, painting the shadow out, coming from the middle and painting out to here. Now, I'm also going to pop a few horizontals. I'm going to come, but I have to drag my hand back this way. That one didn't quite hang on. I might just I did what I just told you not to do. What I wanted, what I was going for is really these shapes that should be reverse. The smaller shapes should be up here really and the bigger shapes down here. I can't do anything about that now. I've got that on. I'm going to let that dry, but that gives you the idea of what happens when you have the central horizon line, central vanishing point buildings in towards the center. The next one I'm going to make you do is a series of little thumbnails where we think first we'll move the vanishing point, so you can see what happens with that. Come out of that, let that dry. 5. Moving the Vanishing Point Along the Same Horizon Line: Okay. Next, I want to have a look at what happens when we change the position of the vanishing point. So two rectangles. Same painting. Central horizon line. One, I'm going to do a vanishing point just off center here. This one, I'm going to come hard up really close to the edge. Now, just for consistency, I'm going to draw my lines from my vanishing point out of my picture up to the corners of the rectangle down to the corner of the rectangle. There's no reason that these have to go here. They can go anywhere, I don't want to change too many things on you at once. Same here. Really nice and rough. I'm going to do the same sky and water with my French ultra. My water and my paint are a bit mucky, so this will be a not quite as bright a day. I hope I'm instilling you in that it's okay to be messy and a little bit rough. Now, we're going to do the buildings, same way as last time. I'm going to start with some yellow a car on that diagonal and then straight down. Change colors. Okay. Now I'm going to do the restating well, putting my roof line, so the really tooth pasty van ****. Now here, obviously, I'm going to be really steep because I've got a really sharp perspective line there. Now, I haven't got much pigment on there. I reckon I can do the plows before it's fully dry here. I've not got much water in my page this time. We'll find out. Painting my brush. Picking my floor and coming back to my vanishing line, vanishing point. Again, if you would rather you can draw it in first with a ruler so that you don't have to wing it. Here again, very sharp. M the broken lines of your friend here. Okay. So now I'm going to pop in my windows. Okay. And then I'm going to pop in my nonsense along the roof line. Varying my strikes and just scribbling. Then on whichever side, I'm going to put in shade. I might leave the sides in the light put the shadow on this one like I did last time. I'm going to pop a couple of down pipes on the one here. I go room on this one, I might not bother too in there. Then I'm going to come out. I'm just going to restate, that's blight. I going to come out of that and let that dry and then we'll pop a shadow on. Maybe 10 minutes and I'm fully dry now. I'll pop just quickly pop the shadow on. Same deal. I'm going to use a bit of French ultra and a little bit of indigo. Milky to creamy wash. See how dark it is. That's probably all right. Maybe do this side. This has settled into dry now, another maybe 10 minutes and before I compare it with the first painting, I can sit here. M windows have disappeared a little bit when I put my shadow on. Sometimes what you need to do after you put on that wash is just come and restate. If you need to. You might not need to, but I just want a a bit more in there. This side, maybe doesn't always disappear and it depends how dry it was and how hard you pushed. The other thing that I can do, I can, if I want, just give myself a little bit of a line back just to redefine where these buildings hit the water. Where is it? To help your eye. Really what I want to show you then is the difference between here we had our horizon line in the middle, vanishing point in the middle. Both horizon lines in the middle, one slightly to the left for the vanishing point, one right hard to the right for the vanishing point. You can see how easily you can change the way you're looking down that canal just by shifting that one point. Now there are two other little thumbnails that I want to do around this painting before we move on to a different subject and in the different subject, we'll move the horizon lines. But two quick things that I want to do before we do that. 6. Dealing With Different Building Heights and Spacing: Two more, two more little exercises, I want to do with this particular painting before we move on and give you a change of scenery. What happens if I've got my central horizon line, I've got my row of buildings. But I don't want my buildings to be right next to each other. What happens if I want a building here and a building here? My roof line is going to follow this perspective line. But this face of the building, I'll be able to see that because these aren't directly next to each other. Here I have to have a horizontal s there. Which also means if I'm looking at say my first floor is here, my second floor, third floor, that's my perspective lines going back. Here's my first floor on this one. Here I've got to be horizontal. My first floor, here I've got to be horizontal. Those two are following that same line, but here I've got to keep that straight. Here straight. That's what I'm looking at there if I've got a space between those buildings. The other thing, what happens if I've got a building here, but I want one in the front that's shorter. How do I deal with that? This building easy. There's my roof line. I've not got one next to it, so I've got a horizontal going back. This one, I'm going to draw myself another perspective line bit lower. Here, there's my roof line. And then I've got to come horizontal here. This is the face of the building. Here my front windows and then here my side. That's a couple of things that you can now incorporate into the painting that we just did. That's what we're going to do. We're going to do another one now that's got a little bit of space in the buildings and a little bit of difference in the height of the buildings. Now, I'm sitting here trying to decide whether I want to make it up as I'm going along or whether I want to draw it in. Let's see how we go. My rectangle. I think it might be simpler. Deciding whether I want to do I might do my sky after I've done my buildings. I'll give myself a couple of buildings here on this side. I know that there's my roof line, and it's coming back, I can see this side of the building. This one I might join up. I'll just keep it couple with space, this one is joining to that one. On this side, I'm going to draw one that's maybe slightly shorter. There's my roof line, it's going to come back. And then I might keep those, keep it a bit simpler for myself. I've got a little bit of variation in my buildings. I'm going to take my flat brush again. I think I'm just going to do the water first. I've got my French ultra. Then I'm going to take my yellow aca. Now here, I have to think a little bit more now because I've got the different angles. I've following my diagonal there and that can come straight down. Following diagonal, and that can come straight down, but this one I have to be careful that that goes straight across. Come onto the other side. I do my short building here. My taller one there. Now this building, I'm going to keep it the same color so that that's the side of the building. I'm going to switch colors. So it's easier to see for these other buildings that are next to. Didn't have enough water in there. I might do a brown one just in here. That one I'm going to make to make that one follow that same diagonal. It's this building shorter, which means this red building, I need to come and put a horizontal in there. Slightly filier getting that shorter building next to the taller building. But now I can do the same thing with my roof line. Actually, what I'm going to do, I'm going to do my sky first before that dries. I didn't do the sky first because I knew that the shapes. That's a bit tricky. I can I don't mind if I touch to the building, but it just makes it easier. It doesn't really matter. There aren't that many rules. You can do it either way. You can do the sky first and then put the buildings or you can put the buildings first and then do the sky. Don't like to be too prescriptive. Now, I'm going to do my rooflines. Here there, that way, it comes across. I've got a little bit of variation in my buildings now. I'm going to take my indigo. Now I want to do my floors, but here I have to be careful. Paint my brush. Paint my brush. I keep saying paint my brush, paint my brush on my tissue is what I'm going for. If I come out here, I have to remember that my line that's coming out here on when I get to there has to be horizontal. Same here. Coming through, this one, but that line, Coming through that line follows all the way through. But here, it has to be horizontal. Following going to come that way because my wrist doesn't quite bend that way, horizontal, but here following out. I'd give This buildings really tall, so I could probably get an extra floor in there. Then old windows, Here, I've got to make sure that my the top of those windows, they're horizontal. Getting smaller as I'm going back. This one, remembering that the not in an angle straight across. Then I'm going to do my of nonsense again. And here bringing stuff horizontal. I'm going to point a few there as well. Then I'm going to be I'm going to handle the shadows a little bit differently. I'm going to put some shadows on the faces of those buildings, but here I'm going to leave a bit of light there, and then here I'm going to put some shadows. I'm imagining that the sun is coming this way. So I'm going to work out what's going to be and what's going to be in shade, but I need to let that dry before I do that. In about 10 minutes. I'm dry. I could rub out these pencil lines, but I'm just not going to worry about it. I'm going to do my mix of Indigo and French ultra and just test it. Now, I'm going to come straight down on the front of these buildings. I might, look, you know, what? Let's leave a little bit more light. I'm going to mix it up a bit. Leave some light there. Now, this is the side of the building, so I'm going to leave a little bit more light there and put shadow on the front, that red building, leave some of it in the light. I go a bit heavy there. Then I'm going to bring that shadow into the water. Unfortunately with the shadows, you have to work pretty quickly because if you damage if you hesitate, you'll get streakiness in the wash. Then on this side, Actually, what I would say. Sometimes if I've got a painting like this and I know I want to put the shadows on, and I don't really know exactly where I want to put them, I would take a photo of the painting, printed out, and then paint the shadows on the printed out copy because although it won't paint the same, at least gives you a feel for where you want to put stuff. Now on this side, the sun is coming through and hitting the face of those buildings, so I need to put this didn't get enough paint in shadow. Okay. And that's where I'm going to stop with that one. One more to show you, and then we'll move on to a more modern city scene. 7. One More Italian Building Scene: Okay. One more before we complete. We change it up a bit. What happens if I want to do a building in the back that I'm looking straight at? So again, you're going to be doing these in your sleep. My diagonals. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw a rectangle. That intercepts those perspective lines here. I'm going to keep my horizon line there in the middle. But I'm going to imagine that this is a building in a court, I guess, and then I've got these buildings on the side. I'm not even going to bother with the sky for this one, and I think I'll make this pavement. I'm going to I'm sick of the same colors. I'm just going to back that pencil a minute for a little bit because that's going to really make it a bit tricky. I'm going to use a little bit of lavender for this building in the back, I think, just because I like it. So milky wash lavender. I'm going to put Yellow wa and Becana for my buildings on the side here. I've kept the buildings all touching each other here. I'm not having big and little or spaced apart. Then I'm going to put I'm going to mix it up a bit with my ground here. I'm just going to follow. Put a bit of nonsense in. I want to get to hung up here. I pop some stuff in. Now of line. Same thing, just loose. On this building in the back here. That's all I'm going to pop. I'm going to switch to my little brush. Pick up some indigo, and again, do my floors, same as the last time. My vanishing point is in there. I just rubbed it out a bit, but that's okay. Can still see it. Just as pencil under paint is can be really hard to get rid of. Okay. Now, a bit of nonsense up here. Now, while it's still wet, I'm going to just put in. Now some little square windows, maybe there's a door or an arch or something here. I can make it up as I go along. No rules. Bit of dark underneath, messy lines. I keep picking up this great lump of paint. I need that to come down a bit. Little windows that get bigger as they come towards the front. On the other side. Maybe I've got maybe there are some more, you know, I haven't really painted many doors in. Maybe I've got some bigger darks in there. Maybe I want one more. I just need little nonsense marks in here. Now, maybe I'll put and then a few of my down pipes. I'm going to just define a bit where that hits come out and let that dry for a second, then I'm still going to put a shadow on this one, same idea as before. Shadow I'm not really dry, but you've done this 50 times, you've got the idea and I can be a bit messy with the shadow as well. Sometimes it can be nice when you're doing that thing to you don't know what the shadows are going to be like you're not staying there in front of the place, so you can make it up a bit. That gives you that nice release of light on that building. So shadows can be fun. That's where I'm going to stop with this little Italian old building type number. We're going to move to a more modern scene. Have a coffee, take a breath, and we'll keep going. 8. Simple Modern City with Central Horizon Line and Vanishing Point: Okay. Slight more modern city scene with this one. I'm going to keep the base painting the same. I give myself a rectangle. I'm going to keep the same mid horizon line mid vanishing point. Taking my building line out, I'm going to come and intersect not the corner. I'm going to come and bring it in slightly so you can see what that does. On this side, same thing. Down the bottom, I'm going to come straight out to the corner. Now, what I want to do in this one, I want to put a pedestrian crossing in the front. To do that, I'm going to give myself, I don't have to put 1 million in, but I just want to give myself a few perspective lines. Coming from my vanishing point, just intercepting this front horizontal. So that I'm going to be able to see the direction that my brush goes. I'm going to pop a couple of buildings in that have got space between them, so meaning that I've got a roof line here, but then they're coming back into meet the next building. Maybe one on the other side, so I'm just arbitrarily just winging it, making it up. I've got two where I can see the side of the building there, which may stay when I paint, may not because we're going to paint this very quickly, roughly, quite abstract. I don't want much fussing in this one. Now, the only other thing I'm going to do because I am going to be painting quickly and a little bit abstract, what will happen is I'll start to put brush marks in and then I'll forget to turn my hand to follow my perspective lines. I'm just going to roughly put in just a couple more to remind me that when I'm painting these buildings, I need to follow these lines. Actually get that one in. This building I might leave as the side of it there. Well wing that one. I'm going to paint with one color. I'm using indigo and one brush. Might use a little brush at the end, but I'm going to do most of it with this. No painting a sky, not worrying about that. I'm going to pick up a milky wash of indigo. I'm going to start on this building. I'm going to just drag my brush. Now here is where I've got to remember, to turn my wrist to follow those perspective lines. Keep it nice and messy, then I'm going to just straight down there. This building on the side here, I'm just going to pull my brush through like that. Really loose, really messy. Pick up some more paint, do the same thing on this one over here. Leaving some light and turning my wrist to follow those perspective lines and then drag a brush stroke through here. My brush is very dry, so I'm getting these gaps in the pigment, which is what I want. Here, I'm going to just follow that through with big strokes. Then I'm going to drag just a couple of a bit more precise lines to follow my perspective lines just to sort out what's happening there. Now, coming back in here, I just want nonsense. I've got my brush on the side. I'm making sure I'm following my perspective line, but I'm not really thinking anything other than making some brush marks. While this is still wet, I'm going to put a few more nonsense marks around the place. And figure out where my road is. I'm just moving from side to side, putting in more strokes. I might come here. I want you the messier the better. I want this to be no thought attached. I'm just putting in stuff. That will I've come out of the page, so it looks a little bit off there, but when I cut there, I have actually followed my perspective lines. Now, that's all settling in, I'm going to think about this pedestrian crossing. What I want to do, I want to pick up some milky paint, and I'm just going to paint back. Or forward, depending on what you fancy, think, they might be too wide. Maybe I'm going to go a few between, it doesn't matter if your pedestrian crossing isn't completely accurately spaced. Then I'm going to fill in this road. Then when I come down to here, leave that gap and then paint. Across the front there. There's my rough pedestrian crossing. Then I'm going to pick up my little brush to ab is my little brush. While this is all drying, I'm going to take really tooth pasty paint and just drop in some nonsense into this wet edge. Flicky like we did on the roof line for the Italian buildings, some stuff. That doesn't have to mean anything. I just want some things going on in here. Okay. So that's my base painting. Now what we're going to do is we're going to go through and do one where we move the horizon line up, one where we move the horizon line down, so you can see the difference that makes. 9. Changing the Horizon Line: Now, we're going to do two more. This one, we're going to vary the horizon line. Now, I don't normally tape down, but because I'm painting these two side by side, and I keep getting caught when I was filming that first one. I get thrown trying to take the angle out of the picture because I'm trying to come into my pencil edge. So I'm putting the tape on so I can just keep painting and follow the right direction. I'll tell you what I'm painting what it is that I actually mean there I didn't articulate that very well. Same drawing, but now I'm going to pop. Then I can't turn my page when I've taped it down like that. This first one, I'm going to pop the horizon line low. I'm going to keep the vanishing point in the center, keep it easy. This one, I'm going to come slightly higher. Keeping the vanishing point in the middle. Coming out my diagonals to the corners or just shy of. Okay. Now what I'm going to do is my pedestrian crossing. To make it simple, I'm going to come straight down to the center, then just intersect those, and I'll make up my mind whether I'm want more lines when I'm actually painting it. Couple of buildings. That one come off. Then the last thing I'm going to put in, and I do think this is important. I'm going to pop in the perspective lines just so that I make sure because I'm painting quickly, that I follow, I don't forget about these window lines where they have to be with respect to my perspective lines. And don't forget this one. So we're good to go. Stick in with Indigo, really annoying me that I can't move my page now. Really fast, really no thought. I'm going to start here. There's no reason that you don't have to start on this building. It's just that's what I did the first time. So putting my windows in and following that perspective line roughly. This building here. Because I've got that tape there, I can just paint straight over and I don't have to stress too much about that. For some reason, my brain couldn't hack trying to keep within the lines. I'm just trying to make it a bit easier for myself. Where's I think that's probably line there. I'm just probably going to edit quickly through this because this is just the same as the other one. You don't need to watch me ad nauseum doing this. Now I'm varying my strokes here. I need to start to see I'm all the same tone. I need to now get different amounts of paint on my brush and get a bit of variation in my tone because that's all a bit. Changing the angle of my brush as I'm coming back there. Now I'm going to come down and think about my pedestrian crossing. I be heavier than I want to be really. See if I can lighten up a little bit. Painting my lines in. Then switching to my smaller brush and putting a little bit more nonsense. To past you paint. While this is still wet and just throwing in some bits and pieces. I have very technical terms. A few bit more variation. Then I'm going to switch over to this one with our high horizon line. And then I'm going to pop in my pedestrian crossing. I can probably put two in here. Let's say. That one wasn't painted well enough. I good put one up there. An and then put a big one in the front here. Was. Then switching my brush and while it's all wet, just chucking in a bit more, nonsense with really toothpaste paint. With city scenes like this, you can also or the tram lines, power lines, that thing, you can put random lines in without getting into too much strife. Oh. Now, if I tend to use these as this is my planning stage, if I was going to do a bigger picture, a proper painting. This is a good place to start to try and figure out what kind of shapes you want. If I pull off the tape he now. With this, what I'm hoping you can see is now the difference between here's my mid horizon line. Here I brought it down low and here I brought it up high to where your eye level is, to where you're looking down the street. Also this is a particularly rough exercise, really abstract, really mucking around with just different different marks with your bruh. But that you can see that by utilizing the perspective, and just a couple of things, just enough that having a pedestrian crossing in there really tells you what it is. You can convey the subject without too much effort. We're going to change now and do something a bit more landscaping. 10. A Quick Landscape with One Point Perspective: Okay. We're going to do now even simpler than the last ones we've been doing. Just a vital landscape. I'm going to keep it in just in go, just for simplicity, because I don't want you worrying about color, I just want you thinking about the perspective and tone. There's my horizon line. Maybe I'm going to come here for my vanishing point. Going to do a river. We've got a waterway coming down here. I'm going to just for for guiding my eye. I'm going to draw a couple of lines out from my perspective point, my vanishing point, just to give me an idea where I'm going. Now, I'm not going to do anything much up here. I might put some mountains in. Let's try. Maybe I'll use my medium brush. I go this one. I'm going to take up some milky a indigo and just put a little bit of a mountain in the back. Then I'm going to pick up my big flat brush and really thick paint now, really thick indigo, and I'm just going to move it so that I'm touching that wet edge of the bottom of the mountain. What I want to do here is I want to leave some lights, leave some gaps. Wash my brush. Then I'm going to just my wet brush. I'm going to drag that through following those perspective lines that I put in other side as well. Now, because it's a river, I'm going to just muss up my edges a bit. I'm just pulling that in, so I'm not completely straight. Switch to my small synthetic. I'm just now that's a big lump pain, thick paint, possibly not that thick, I'm just going to touch that just to a few places along what I'm taking to be the edge of my waterway. Now what I'm going to do. Two things. I'm going to put in a suggestion of reads, I guess, along the water. Keeping in mind that I want to follow my perspective lines in terms that the reads are higher here. They'll be smaller towards the back. I'm going to paint them in the ground and into the water. Now, if this is really wet, wait until it dries off a bit. I'm going to start down here I haven't got paint, so it's going to be a bit drier so that my lines will be nice and fine. Here's my shore line and these are. These ones are on the actual reads, these are the reflections down here. Now as I move back, I need those to get closer together and smaller. This is like the nonsense that we were doing on the roof line. Here I'm just doing it as vegetation on the edge of the water. I'm going to do a little bit on this side. Then I want to give myself, I'm going to put a bit of a fence in I reckon. I'm going to take my fin brush and I'm going to follow those perspective lines. Well, those two. I'm going to make this offense. I need a bit of water I need a maybe mi here creamier consistency here than milk because I actually need them to set. Now again, getting closer together and as we go up. I'll put another line through. Then I'm going to decide these reflections, I put the sun's coming straight on that they're underneath but I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to just drag a few lines out from those fence posts to just suggest a bit of a shadow there. Now some of these tops of these, I'm going to just pop an extra strop on just to tidy up the shape a little bit. But I don't want to get too fussy. I'm going to strengthen sure is a little bit faint here. I'm going to pop a few more. I'm just wanting to walk around a few more darks. Need a little bit of strength in there. Then I'm going to what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to do a couple of big trees. What I'll suggest now. My perspective line from my vanishing point will come out here. I'm going to do two trees here that would be following this perspective line. I'm going to take that I need to make sure this is relatively dry before you do this. I'm ta I forget what this is called. I remember out a rig. Not quite sure what happened there. I've got this rigger brush, and that's what I'm going to use to put in a couple of trees because I want it to be really messy. I'm going to pop my brush in my really thick paint. I'm imagining my perspective line coming out here, so I'm going to start about there. Because I don't want control, I just want some stuff. Then that will come. Maybe bring that down. I'll have to have some actual solid branches in there. Then I'm going to do another one about here. If I follow the perspective line there, slightly smaller tree. That was a bit much. That was a bit thick. Then I need to probably with this brush now, put a few branches in so you can anchor that. I've got lots of spaces in there. Just need to anchor that a little bit. A few actual branches. And that's going to be doing a bit of a shadow that way for both of them. That's where I'm going to come out of that. To just show you how simple it is to get a little bit of an idea of the landscape. We'll do one more and then I'm going to let you practice by yourself. 11. Inside Scene: Last one, we're going to do inside a room. I've taped down just to make it easy for myself because I want to paint straight out of the painting. Is my rectangle. I'm going to give myself for mid to high, Hrizon line, central vanishing point. I come out to the corners. Then I'm going to do a back wall. This is I'm looking down the room, and this is the back wall of that room. Okay. Now I'm going to do a couple of windows in here. I'm going to guestimate the size. I want them about that. But the bottom of the top have to follow my perspective line. Top coming out. That's my first window. I'm going to give it vertical as well. Now the next window, I could do all my cross points and measuring to make it the same size as this one. I don't want to do that. I'm just going to eyeball. I know that it needs to be slightly bigger than slightly wider than that first one. That's following my vanishing point. There's my vertical. I'm also going to now put some panes of glass in following that vanishing line vanishing point rather. Maybe I'll keep that mid one. There are my windows, I can rub out that little bit in the middle. Then on this side, maybe I'll have another window. Perspective line that way. Maybe I'll give this 13 panes, one, two, three. Then down here, maybe I've got a bookcase or a fireplace. I don't know something going on down there. Put something on that surface. I'm going to rub out, keep my vanishing point there so you can see it. Maybe in here somewhere there's a door. Maybe more bookcases or something going on there. We'll deal with that when we get to actually painting. We're going to stick with indigo just because one day, I'll do a lesson for you on color, but the indigo is just it's nice. I can get good contrast. You can see what it is that I'm doing. I imagine that there's sun coming through the windows straight on so that these windows are going to put light on the floor. I'm going to paint these light areas first. I'm going to take a milky wash of indigo and painting like we did the sky. Coming down across. I've had my heater on in here, so it's really warm. I've got to be careful that my washes don't. This will dry quickly. If I get too much water in here, it will push up and bloom into that one. I'm just going to keep a little line of separation while I get this in just to keep life a bit easier. Just making sure that my angle there is right. I know I drew that fireplace or whatever it is there, but I'm going to come straight through it for now. I can see my pencil lines underneath. Then I'm going to just pop slightly thicker paint, my window paints in. Now, I'll do this back one while we're at it. Again, I'm going to leave just a little bit of a gap so that I got a big wag of paint on there. That's not what I meant to do. It doesn't really matter. I can't get it off. Going slightly darker on this back wall. Now, while that's wet, I'm going to take my smaller brush. I'm just going to start to the nonsense that we did for the roof line, the reads, that stuff. I'm just going to start to walk a little bit of that just to make use of that wet and wet. Follow Here I'm horizontal, following my perspective line here, throw a few bits of something in. Not overthinking it. You know, I was saying there was something in there. I've got to put that door in, but I'll do the door with the bigger brush. Just some stuff. Doesn't have to mean anything. Then I want to come out of that that here you can see. This is what I was talking about. I don't really mind it, but this wash has bled into this one, and the water is pushing out and giving me a bloom there. Doesn't really matter. But I want to come out of that and let that dry before we come onto this, which will be darker, stronger and that's where our focus is, these windows and the light that's been left on the floor. I'm going to give that maybe 10 minutes to dry and then we'll come back in. Creamy mix of paint now. My big brush. Big puddle. Come onto here. I going to paint just so I can see whether I've got the right intensity. I haven't got enough water to see how dry my strokes are, so I need to get a bit more water into my mix. More of a puddle. Coming up. Do making sure I don't cut that window off too much. And that's the back wall. And down in between those two windows. Preferably straight. That wasn't really very straight, but that's okay. We'll live with that. Then I'm going to come the. The verticals, and then the Now, they're a bit messy, but that's okay. Messy is fine. But now we want to put the shadow on the floor while this is all still wet. So that wall casting a shadow there. Here's my bit. And then my floor. This is like the pedestrian crossing we're doing. Now I have to figure out my center line for each of these. Then the tricky bit. Now, you could draw this in first if you want to. M vanishing point is there, my perspective line is coming out 20, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, 45, then that is the rest of the floor. Now, I'm going to just because I've made that I wasn't straight on my wall here. It is important to try and get your vertical sraight. So I'm just ussing up that line a bit and I'll change. Maybe I'll put the door there because I didn't do straight. It's funny can't talk and paint at the same time. I've got something happening bit of a do that probably isn't dark enough, so maybe I'm just going to drop a bit of paint in there. Again, varying strokes and just putting in some things. I'm just going to tidy up while that's still wet. I'm just going to pop some really strong pigment in there. What I'm going to do, I'm going to maybe suggest I'm going to paint my brush there so I've got some dry strokes and just move some nonsense around because I need a little bit of something happening, but I don't want to go overboard. Because there could be anything along this wall, maybe there's a picture or something happening up there, and then I need to get some stronger stuff happening down here. I'll wet that. It doesn't matter what I put down here as long as if I'm putting in these lines that they follow that vanishing point. I'm just going to strengthen up there. Now, if you want, you can go through and put in lights and all of little details. I don't want to do that. I just want to give the idea that I've got a room with some stuff in it. I'm just going to take my smaller brush now. Walk around a few little lights. You can grab yourself a picture of a room and have a look and you can put in ceiling roses and nice and all of that thing. You can go to town putting in your dining table, all of that. But I'm not going to do that. I just want to get you to have the idea. As it dries off, it might be that you have to restate some of the lines to show what's happening. But that's really where I'm going to that. Hopefully just getting the idea that you can use the same principles that we did for the buildings outside, you can use for an inside room. 12. A Final Word: Okay. So I'm hoping that like me, you've now got a studio space, a painting space that's filled with all these little thumbnail paintings. And I'm also I'll be curious to see whether for me, the ones that I like the best or all the tests that I did without the pressure of filming. I'll be interested to see for you, whether the ones that you like the best or those that come once you've settled into it and have got a bit of a feel for it. If you've done any that you really love or even if you don't like them, feel free to take a photo and upload them to the skill share site for me to have a look at, always happy to give feedback. Thanks for joining me.