Snowy Landscapes in Watercolor: From Simple to Complex!

1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome to painting snowy landscapes in watercolor from simple to complex. If you've ever gazed at a snow covered scene and wondered how to capture its tranquil beauty on paper, you're in the right place. Whether you're picking up a brush for the first time or looking to refine your skills, this class is designed to guide you through the enchanting world of snowy landscapes. We'll start with a simple snow scene, focusing on basic techniques and compositions that are perfect for beginners. Then we'll progress to a more complex landscape incorporating intricate details and advanced methods to bring depth and realism to your work. I'll walk you through each step in real time, from initial sketches to final touches, ensuring you gain confidence and enjoy the process. So gather your watercolor supplies, find a cozy spot, and let's embark on this creative journey together. 2. Materials Required: Alright, so I want to talk a bit about materials for this class before we get started. So in terms of paper, I'm using a textured kind of cold press or medium textured watercolor paper, and this is 100% cotton. Leads to the best results, the best layering results. And you can use cellulose paper, but just be, keep in mind that it does lift off the previous wash if you're not careful. And I do recommend textured paper because washers just tend to blend more evenly compared to hot press paper, which is completely flat, and there's no bumps or anything on the surface. So yeah, really important. And here we've got some brushes. So I'll talk about these pointy brushes first here. So they're basically just round brushes, okay? And they don't hold much paint, but they have a really sharp tip, and they feel quite firm as well. This is great for detailing. So if you look on the houses here that I was painting, you know, some of these support beams, some of these little bits of fencing and stuff like that, it's quite easy to get in with these pointed brushes. Whereas if you're using something like a mop brush, you're going to have some trouble because the mop brush is a very essential brush which you need as well. But yeah, it's not the best at getting in small little sharper details, though it does have a point. You can get it in. But yeah, I recommend using these smaller round brushes for detailing and this larger mop brush for areas like the sky, large parts of snow, mountains, things like that, really saves you from going backwards and forwards, getting mixed up with your color, and the painting just looks more cohesive. I've also got this brush here. This is a rigor brush, and it has a reservoir on it. You don't need one with a reservoir. But yeah, basically, this is just for getting in tiny little details. So same thing like these little support beams, what have you. Not 100% necessary. If you've got a really small round brush, that will do the trick as well. This is a filbert brush. So basically, it's kind of blunted off brush. I think they've I don't know, applied some abrasive to the top. And basically, you can wet the paper after everything is dried and kind of rub off bits of paint, lift off with the tissue. That's the only reason you'd use this brush. I mean, you can use also a round brush for that, but it does ruin the round brush after sometimes. So that's why I use that. In terms of paints, I've got some white gouache here, okay? This is an essential little finishing touch paint that I use to kind of bring back some areas of the white. So you see here on the edges of the house, just sort of bring back a little bit there. Okay? It's not 100% necessary, but it does help you fix up a few mistakes and bring out some highlights where you need. In terms of paints, I'll start over here. My palette is organized from warm colors, so kind of yellow to orange, red, all the way to kind of cooler colors, the blues, and then I've got some earthen colors, and then the really darkest colors. So green, purple, and neutral tint. But yeah, starting from the left, I've got Indian yellow. It's like a golden yellow color. I've got yellow ochre, which is what you're going to be using in this class. A couple of oranges. So there's a cacton orange and a pyl orange. I've got a py red here as well. Probably not going to be using these that much. I've got a Hanze yellow, serlem blue. That's really necessary for this class or just a light blue. So basically, that's, you know, you're going to need that for the sky, the mountains, that kind of thing. These ones you won't need. They're basically lavender and till. But yeah, if you don't have cerulm blue, you can just use ultramarine blue and dilute that down. That's going to work. Perfectly as well. It's just a darker blue, but it doesn't have that granulating effect. Over here, I've got some burnt sienna and some burnt umber. So that's like these kind of brownish colors. They're going to help. Sometimes for the trees, got a color here called undersea green, but any kind of dark green is going to work. And you can mix up your greens as well. You don't need to have a pre mixed greens, just for convenience. So purples here, again. So these are convenient purple colors just allowing me to darken other colors. And I've got some neutral tint, which is basically a premix gray. These ones aren't really required because you can mix a lot of them together. As long as you've got yourself a yellow, a red, you know, a dark blue, maybe some earthen colors, you can pretty much paint almost anything in watercolors, especially for this course. That's all you're going to need. I also have a hair dryer, and I use this in between washers to speed up the process, so that's something you might want to look at adding on as well. 3. Iceland Scene: Okay, so let's go ahead and get started with this scene. And this is a simple scene because there's really not too much in here besides the house. So we really have to make sure we get that one incorrectly. It's right in the center of the scene. So essentially, I'm going to be leaving a little bit of room down the bottom part of the page, okay. So probably about yeah, about a quarter or so down the page. I'm going to start, you know, drawing this line. Okay, this is just a very basic line here, and this is where the ice finishes off and it becomes it becomes water in the background. We've got also this little hut or something here, which I'm going to draw in like that. The rooftop of it needs to be really emphasized. Then you've got the bottom of it here in the snow. All right. Don't be afraid to go a little bit darker with that because we really need to make sure that this is in, and there we go. This goes down and disappears off to the right, something like that. Now, in the center of the scene, this is where we have this building, and I'll get in the side of the front part here first. You might have to actually zoom into the reference photo to have a look exactly at what is going on. You've basically got this rectangular shape here running into the ice and then there's this roof here. Okay, we're going to connect that up that. And down the side like this, there. Then we've got the other part of the building here behind. I'm enlarging this a little bit as well, compared to the reference photo. So it's going to be a little bit larger. So there let's have a look like this. And this, it's kind of like the roof of the building. Okay, then this goes down around about like here. And that's pretty much it. There's a chimney of some sort there. Okay, blue chimney. And there are some little features on the building. So you've got some rectangular white framed windows. We can just pencil in some indications, and here's another thing, as well. The bottom part of this building has separation, and there are two additional windows down the bottom. On the side here, it looks like there is a door on that side of the building. And maybe like a little window there. It's not a big deal, but that's about all you need in there. Now, there are these little things sticking out of the snow, I guess, like fence posts or something like that, just running across the scene. These are also going to be kind of important because they're just going to I guess, add a little bit of detail because there's so little detail in here besides the snow. And I will actually color the snow in a bit bluish near the front. So let's go in, and I'm just putting in this area of water at the back, okay? Roughly here. All right. That's all going to be blue. And behind that, you know, we've got all these mountainous areas. There are some rocky portions that are exposed haven't been covered in snow, so a little bit of something like that. And then we're going to now put in the mountains. So the kind of bit of the mountains that touch the sky, connect with the sky. Okay? Then I'm going to maybe make one that comes up like this. Here, I got a point that. Okay, I'm following this reference very loosely, because it doesn't quite matter all the little peaks and troughs exactly as long as I have some kind of indication of those mountains there in the background. And here, you know, there's actually a bit of a bit that pops forward, and there's some of the rocks and things showing through as well. So little bits and pieces here. We can indicate all that stuff later. So let's go ahead and get started. So first thing I want to do is, well, basically, I just want to start putting in the sky because I think we work pretty much from top to bottom. And I will pick up a mop brush for this and just get some cerulan blue. Now, normally, I'll start up the top and I'll make the top really dark or darker than the rest of the scene, and then I'll lighten it off, but I'm going to do the opposite here. So I'm gonna actually flip the page over, and we're going to make the top of this area where it touches the mountain darker, okay? Just like this. This is cerulean blue. Oops, I've gone too far. Doesn't matter. This is a little bit of cerulian blue. And just turning the page over like this so I can bring this wash downwards. It's going to be easier this way. So we can use gravity to our advantage. So, look, just cutting around all these mountains, the tops of these mountains, these white snow covered mountains. Now I'm going to just start adding more water as I move down the page. So I'm just adding in water here. Okay, connect this up. Okay? And I'm sort of leaning the page downwards as well. Let's add some more water. Okay, I'm going to need a lot more water than this. Almost just load the brush completely with water and then carry this down. I want it to be really, really light up the top. Okay. More water like that. Clean the brush off completely, and then go back and drop in some more water, like this. And that is it. That is it. Okay? So we should now have a nice kind of flat wash. Just feather that off a bit down there. Okay. Leave that to just stay put for a bit. And we're going to flip the page back over there we have it. We've got that sort of effect now where we have, I guess, a bit of darker section up the top and you know, the mountains. And I'm going to just drop in a little bit of, like, darker blue here as well. This just the same cerulean blue, because basically everything is still wet, and we have the opportunity to kind of add a bit of inconsistency with these atmospheric sort of conditions, it's never quite 100%. So I think this is just going to make it look a bit more a little bit more interesting. Okay, so we've got those mountains, everything like that. They're in the background sorted. So the next thing I want to do is, I think I'm just going to start putting in the details of this little Building here. I forgot to actually drawing those little indications of windows. And the side of the building is going to have a, I guess, a reddish brown color. I've got some burnt sienna. I reckon that'll do. I might just stick with the burnt sienna. And probably a smaller brush is gonna work better. A small round brush. Burnt Sienna. This is going to be like the warm part of our scene. Okay, they're pretty much the only warm part of the scene. So let's go in, and I'm going to cut completely around the rooftops and stop shy of the snow. Alright, and this is going to form a nice, dark, sort of sharp line where it hits the snow. All right. So just like this. And look, I mean, if it's not perfect, that is absolutely fine as well. Just make sure you keep it sort of sharp at the base. Alright. Me that brown. Okay, this sort of goes up into the side of that one. And then we're gonna go up here. Okay, these windows. Yeah, the base of this building has a bluish, a cooler color to it. It's kind of like maybe a bit of a bit of teal or something. So I'll drop in a bit of this. The base. Okay. Some of this might mix upwards. I'm not fuss. It's just a something like that. Okay. Great. And for the top of the chimney as well, I will drop in a bit of cooler colour. Yeah. Mm. Good. Same thing goes for this other one here, just color in the bottom of it. Like that and leave the roof. It really doesn't take much work at all. Just a few little brushstrokes should be able to indicate what's going on. Okay, I've kind of make that one a bit too high, that roof, but it doesn't matter. I can cut around it in a second with the water. So, let's work a bit on these mountains here in the back. And I think what I will do so let's work on this water now. And for that, I'm going to use a large round brush. I'm going to pick up some cerulean blue with a bit of ultramarine blue mixed together. This is going to have to be darker than the sky. Okay. Maybe a bit more ultramarine. Let's have a look. Something like this. It's just gonna have to be darker than the sky. And I'm going to cut around these bits of snow and what have you in the foreground. You can see it forms pretty sharp sort of edge there. Cut around there. And here we have a little bit of snow sort of sticking up, I guess there. Let's just go right next to it and drive of the brush a little bit and cut around like that. Now, if you get a bit of mixing, it's no big deal. Continue on as usual. Okay? Let's go on this side, and here is that area. We just cut around the snow again like this. Move that onto the right. Okay. There we go. So we've pretty much got the hardest out the way now. And to bring it all together, I'm going to start adding a bit of detail onto these mountains in the background. And I'm going to have to exaggerate this a little bit because it's the mountains actually have a slightly bluish tinge to them, darker tinge. So I'm using a little bit of water and a little bit of cerulean blue here. It's going to need to be kind of around the top the value of that sky up the top there. And here you can see you've got a bit of this like, part of the mountain that comes down, there is, you know, bits of sharper blue color in there like that that we can imply, mix that with the sky a little bit. That's fine. I guess the idea here is to just add a bit of dimensionality to these mountains because at the moment, they look all completely white, and they're not actually completely completely white. Okay? So just a little bit of something in there, and I hope that will also help the um, make the buildings here in the center stand out a little, as well. Okay, here, let's put a bit there and there kind of generally following the bit of the pattern there in the background of the reference photo. Again, not making a huge deal of this. But, around the kind of rooftop of the building, I'm really exaggerating it a touch so that the rooftop can hopefully pop out more. And I'm going to just dry brush this kind of color along some other parts like here. Okay, simplify that. Dry brush it a little. The Great. And I do have a little pilbit brush, a small sort of scumbling kind of brush, and I'll pick up some purple, maybe mixed in with some blue, kind of like a cooler color. And you can see here at the base, there are these kind of little parts that are sharper and darker, like these rocks that stick out, I guess. So the tiny little indication of that, I think would be great. Here, just like a dry brush to help indicate some of that stuff there. It's just a bit of purple mixed in with blue, maybe a bit of darker value black as well in there near to the water, you can see there's maybe some parts that sort of touch here and there. So, I'm just going to just add in some of this stuff. Chris. And there Right. Fantastic. So it's starting to resemble something, yeah. Let's have a look up in the mountains. There are some little striations on the mountains, tiny little ones that I can maybe indicate up in here, for example, using the same kind of dry brush technique here. You can see just tiny little, that might be a bit too much, but you can just see them in areas of the mountains. So, you know, just indicate some of this stuff. Like that. Okay, real basic. My aim is not to make this detailed at all. Okay, fantastic. Now, time for the little touches here at the bottom of the scene. And I did mention before, I wanted to add in a bit of blue to the bottom of the scene. And the reason why is because this paper is completely white, and it's going to look like there's no border if I don't add something here. But I will maybe dull it down. Let's add in a bit of I've added a bit of brown to this blue, so it's kind of a grayish value. Bring that up like that. Okay. So who's to say that, you know, there's not a bit of undulation here or something like that. Okay? Like that. And this is going to help form a bit of a border on my scene, right? Otherwise, it's just it's gonna look funny once I remove the tape. I found this out the hard way some time ago. So as long as you leave most of it white, you're going to be fine. But just a little bit sea here, just tiny little bits of detail of, you know, snow or what have you, darker bits. That's seriously makes a big difference. Okay. And we also have now a few little bits and pieces. Like, you know, here, I don't know what that is, but, you know, bits of, I guess, rock and things that aren't covered as well. Can you see just little kind of things here so I can just indicate some of this stuff. It may not even be there, but just just something. And of course, you've got now these little fence posts or what have you. So, you know, there's one here, for example, one here. You know, I'm picking up really dark paint for this. Okay. And underneath the rooftops, as well, I do like to just outline a touch of that black to just bring that roof top out a bit more. And I've forgotten one thing completely forgotten that there is part of the roof part of the building there that I didn't paint in this section. I'll just quickly do that. It always happens. But this area here should be like that same brownie kind of color like that. Okay, that looks better, and I have to wait for that to dry a little bit before I go into it and outline the edges. But that's the there you go. You'd be around here. There's something the windows as well. You know, you got these four little darker spots in the window. So again, you might not want to do too much here, just indication of what's what's there. So like that, you know, I'll probably bring back the guash later again, but, um or not. It doesn't really matter. Um, okay, bit of that black underneath here now and carry that over here as well. Good. Maybe a bit underneath there, underneath the chimney. Um, great. Any little marks near the buildings are going to help to bring them out of this whole scene. So tiny little things like that. They do make a difference. And, you know, these kind of posts or whatever, there's a bunch that look to be maybe buried in the snow. There's one there, you know, there so just indications of stuff, really. You continue I'll continue them on maybe, like, around here as well, right? Even though they're not really there. Okay, let's have a look. What else do we have? These little darker sections in the back are good. That's fine. I don't think I need to really do anything, but little more touch ups. Look around here. Great. And I think I'll call that one finished. 4. Swiss Alps - Drawing: With the drawing we first we're going to start putting in this ridge here where the three houses are. So we know it starts around about here and midsection of the page, very lightly just draw a line running down, and it finishes about here down the base of the scene. Okay? So now, these three houses, they're actually photographed quite well. I don't need to space them, I mean, any kind of change the spacing of them. But here's the first roof here. And down like that. That's a triangular sort of structure. There are a lot of interesting details in here, but I'm going to just try to simplify this as much as I can. It actually comes down more like this. Then then we've got the side here. And then we've got the bottom part of the house here. I seem to be made of wood wooden kind of cabin. There's something behind here looks like it could be a sled or who knows. But that's your general house with that first one. There's also some, you know, these little holes or something down here. And actually, down the base of this mountain, I didn't realize there's actually, like another house down the bottom there. So I just put that in, and I don't think I'll actually deal with it later, but, you know, just a little something. And we've got the second house here. But let me just put in this one first, because this is gonna make it a lot easier to, there's actually another kind of elevated bit of land here. And the house starts about here. Okay, that triangular bit of the rooftop. That there we go. Kind of hides behind there. And the second house is roughly about here, make it go up a little bit higher so that it sticks out there that. And it comes down like this. Okay. And the side of it, as well here. Roughly Good. So we got the three houses. I mean, there's actually some more details on here. There's like this part of the house, and that runs down, there's like a little bit of darker part of it there. All kinds of smaller details which we can actually indicate afterwards. But I thought, Yeah, why not just do a little bit more drawing in there. And, you know, there's actually another, I don't know, like a shack or something next to it there as well, which I'll put in. A lot of this is just snow. There are some they almost look like hay bells, but they don't they're probably not hay beells. I don't know what they are, but there's some objects there. Well, we've got some shrubs and things growing up here, which I'll just quickly draw in. There's a chimney here, which I'd forgotten to put in. Something else here, it could be the start of another house behind the chimney of another house. And here in the background there are these, like, trees here that these pointy looking trees, pine trees, and they actually form a really nice backdrop and help the snow on the houses come out look more ight. Okay, so just put them in. I think on the right hand side, you can't see them as much, but I'm gonna try to emphasize that. So let's have a look at the houses. That should be okay. That should be good for the houses. Now, let's start putting in these mountains, and I'm going to put in, like, the general outline of the um, of these mountains. Okay. Do you want to leave? Make sure I leave enough sky up the top as well? Okay, so for the sky, we're just going to start putting in some of the details here of the mountains where they sort of hit the top of the scene. Okay, and kind of join on with the sky. Of course, I'm not so fussed on the exact details, but this mountaintop here, it's kind of got a really interesting pointed shape, so I'll try to get that one in more accurately. Come down. There we go. This goes all the way kind of like around here. And then behind there is, like, another section of it that runs to the right there, like some smaller ridges there, something coming up there. Here in the midground, there is a mountain that forms a peak like this. It's almost like a valley in the center. It's it quite interesting Valley, maybe here in the center. And this mountaintop is casting a huge shadow to the left. Okay. And then you've got all these kind of trees and other ridges, and this also forms a bit of a shadow here to the left. So yeah, just a little bit of this to help me to help guide me in my painting ladder, so I don't have to draw that stuff in. Okay, that should be good for the drawing. 5. Swiss Alps - Light: So let's go ahead and work on these mountains here in the back. And this area I know is really quite bluish, so I'm going to leave really light wash or cerulean blue here. It's about 10%, five, 10% paint. And let's go across. I also leave a little bit of white, okay, on some of these areas because there's actually, as you can see, little bits of white running around. Even on this mountain running in front, there's a lot of white there, which I'm going to leave, and then I will get in this kind of darker section to the left and a bit of ultramarine blue in here as well. I'm also leaving in trying to leave in a ton of that white there. But having some little ridges and areas on the right where there is just that white, it's going to be better, I think. This also becomes quite dark here on this area of the mountain in front. Get that in. Some of this stuff, it's likely I'm going to have to darken even further. But Okay. There there's also a little bit of darkness in here behind that ridge. Okay. And that Yep. It's all pretty dark, actually, here. Kind of just creating a large shadow shape for this blue here as well. You can see the shadow of this mountain there. It casts that shadow to the left. So I'm going to get that in. Let's try to get that nicely in. Maybe some darker blue would be better in here. So more ultramarine. I'm just, you know, trying to adjust it. Sometimes you put the painting and it's not dark enough, so don't feel afraid to readjust change it up, especially while the paint is still wet it's just going to look better. If you have to put too many layers over it, it's gonna lose that freshness. So here we go. Going to go down here, using the tip of the brush again to cut around some bits and pieces. Here's the rooftop of this building. It's really important to cut around. And the rooftop is actually got a grayish grayish sort of color to it, cool grayish color, but it's not as blue as the background stuff. So here we go. Again, this mountain here has some blue on it, and it just has some white also inside, which I'm going to leave out, like there, perhaps. And it forms a shadow to the left. Same with this part, the mountain to the left. A lot of this stuff is, you know, you're really just indicating you're not putting in too much detail. Just trying to look for an efficient way to paint all of this in one go. Oh, I've gone over the top of that building. Doesn't matter. I can just, uh, kind of wing it, get that out of the way. Now, here it's kind of just white, so I don't want to go too far in there, but further down, actually it becomes a lot darker. There's greens and things in there, which I will drop in in just a moment. I just want to cut around some of these first. Alright. There's a little row of trees here, and I'm putting in a bit of green, just a bit of darker green, maybe with some purple to get in I guess, the impression of these trees. So I just have a quick look at these mountains first. I actually looking quite okay. But yeah, again, looking at ways that I can potentially alter bits and pieces. All right. A lot of this stuff, these lighter marks are going to be difficult to get in afterwards. So you just got to try your best to put them in while you have the opportunity too. Green here for these trees. I'm just going to stick them into that blue and let the paint move around, shift around. Okay. And we can also add much darker paint in there. So I'm just mixing green with a bit of neutral tint to really maximize this darkness behind for these trees, to really bring out the rooftops. Let me just cut around this one a bit better. There we go. Maybe have some trees that are, you know, growing down here, a bit of rock and stuff there as well. Now, that roof is, you know, pretty light, but these two are going to be darker. I'll have to get that in afterwards. But for the time being, I reckon bit of brown and black paint up here this ridge is also, as you can see, has got a whole bunch of darker pigments running through up the top. Um, so if I can try to get some of this stuff in a bit of wet and wet work in there, that would be good. But it's not gonna be possible, I think, for all of it, some parts. Yeah, some bits for now. The rest of it I'll work on a bit later. Okay, you just dry brushing, moving that brush across the page there to get in indications of those. We're going to have to wait for this stuff to dry to get in the rest of it. Yeah, I like to if possible, maximize the efficiency of all this and just get it, get some of it in already in this wash, if possible. And that way, we've also got some wet and wet marks. So that it just changes it around, looks more interesting. Like, for example, this, you know, this bit here should have some sort of, you know, trees and things in here that if I do it. Only one go hopefully will look better and more efficient. Yep, bring that down. It's really just brown and a bit of neutral tint for this. There some greens, as well. I'd be afraid to leave out some white that could be snow in the background. Okay, here, it's just so dark, so we're gonna pick up neutral tint, drop that in here. Maybe some ultramarine blue with that neutral tint to make it quite dark around the back of this house. Here, you can see all these, you know, areas of trees and stuff in the distance. So I'm using the side of the brush to indicate that, as well as I can. You know, this is already dried here on the right, so you got a bit more leeway here for the dry brush. There is a stuff on the left side hadn't completely dried yet, so it's difficult to do this. Yep. Something like that. W we use a medium sized brown brush for this stuff a bit more blue ultramarine. Yep. Carrying this down the page. Here, Any bits that I want to further bring out, I can just drop in paint like that. This layering of paint while everything is still wet is really what I think makes watercolor so amazing because you can't really do this in other mediums. It takes various different layers to get something that will resemble this sort of effect where you can just do it in a few brush strokes here. Uh, I think these are just bits of moss and things growing here. So, something like that, let's get in a bit of let's get in a bit more green here for this kind of, like, moss here growing. I'm just going to indicate some little bits here, here, you know, like that. I think what would also be helpful is maybe making this a little bit grayish down the base. But I'll let this dry a little bit, I need to still work on this stuff here to the right. So that same bluish gray paint I have. I'm gonna mix that Altogether. Let's just get this out the way. Gonna cut around this house here. Yep. There's a little house down the bottom of that hill here. Maybe just cut around it, see what we can do with it later. You can barely even see it anyway. Maybe we go. All right. We're almost there the bottom of this hill Mountain. Okay. You know, I'd be tempted to go into the rooftops of these buildings, but I don't want to do that just yet. The reason why is because all this stuff in the background hasn't dried off yet, and it's going to create a mess and potentially ruin what we have. So we need to let this background area dry first. And as you can see, I'm just kind of putting in some indications of those trees in some parts again that have dried off, and I feel I've lost I've lost a bit of detail and stuff back there. So, yep, here, maybe. Good. All right. Yeah, so going back to here, I want to get in a bit of a grayish blue color. And this helps to just mix a bit of neutral tint in with maybe some ultramarine blue or some cerulean blue, let's see how this looks. Looks like a kind of a gray down color because there are these sort of tire tracks and things here in the front. Okay. But if we leave it completely white, I think it's just going to be difficult to establish the border of this scene. So we need something there, and in fact, extra darkness in some parts for the sake of this painting will make it more believable. In the photograph, it's not really required because there's so much depth to it already. But, yeah, we need some of this stuff here for the front of the scene for this ridge, I think, bits and pieces. But as you can see, I've left a lot of it white anyhow. That's no big deal. Okay? But just a bit down the base here, potentially, Okay. And some of this, you know, I might amend afterwards, but, yeah, it's gonna help to establish the border of all of this. Otherwise, we're just not gonna know. So good. That's kind of done. 6. Swiss Alps - Shadows: And with the buildings, I'm going to pick up some brown. This is a bit of a bit of burnt sienna, but also, if you've got some yellow ochre, that's going to actually be really good for some of this stuff here. This is like a yellow ochre kind of color. So let's drop that in here. Good. Ly, this stuff in the background doesn't run too far into the building, but just something like this, there is a bit of yellowish value here. Uh, yep, it's really light. Just keep it light. As much as you can. And this roof type here is different color as well. But before I do that, I still have this yellowish color. I'm gonna pick up some burnt sienna, mix it with some of that yellow 'cause it's not like, as bright on this one, and just drop it in here for this building there. Yeah, we can get some of this stuff in for that building. But This building, there's not really much to imply there, but maybe some again, some of this darker brown at the base. For the bottom of the shack hidden behind this ridge. And, of course, there's, like, some other thing here that we put in before the maybe, like, a hidden building in front. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but there's something there. And again, going into the left side of the building, I'm going to start adding in more darkness because this is actually a that part of the building that's in complete darkness. We some black maybe add that in as well. It's kind of quite dark in here. But it's more like brown as well. Trying to get in some brown so it's not completely dark. Here we go. Just some brown. Some burnt sienna in there. And of course, the right hand side is going to be a little bit, like, brighter because it's facing the sun. Light source coming in from the right. So it makes sense, so there will be a bit more light on the right side of that building and this chimney as well. I need to put something in for the chimney. I think I'll make that come out more later as well. It's a bit of highlight. See how we go. See how we go. Now let's start with this one. I'm going to put in a bit of darkness here with a base of the building. Yep. Again, that's just to indicate the light source from the right hand side, casting a shadow. There are these kind of interesting shapes which I thought were maybe bas of hay or something, but probably not. Objects there. And it's important that you're using warm colors for all this because there's not really much warmth in this scene. Okay? To this building now, let's continue on and using this same kind of mix of darker brown, whatever it is, I'm generally drop that in here to the left side of it. This buildings a little more important because it's closer to us, so any errors and things like that are going to be more visible. But as long as it is darker than the right hand side, that's all you need to do. That's all you need to, you know, be aware of. So drop that in. There are some, like, slightly lighter bits on there as well, which I've left in good you know, even under here, you can see there's something running through there and a thing on the right underneath. There's also some darker bits here and bits and pieces, you know, not not to overdo it, but, you know, start to detail here in areas. Good. Unfortunately, some of that has moved to the right, but that's okay. A bit more detail here and underneath the rooftop, you can see there's a bit of, you know, bit of shadow there. That's one thing to just keep in mind that you kind of outline bits and pieces of the rooftop to make it come out more. Picking up some darker value to do this. Behind as well, there is this I don't know what it is, this snowplow maybe, like, a machine here. And I'm just going to try to indicate it. Like, whatever it is back there, it doesn't matter. Okay. This part there's also a darker part of this building. We indicate that. Some details on the building, some structural details. In fact, if you look at the look at it, there's all these, like, bits of wood running through these little areas, so we can just sort of indicate that. You can even see it on this part here. So some horizontal lines maybe little horizontal lines to give it more of wooden kind of look. A Okay, so here comes the kind of fun part. I really like doing the shadows for all this stuff. So the base of this building, both of these buildings here, you've got a really strong cool shadow that runs towards the back. Okay. And we're gonna need to put that in. So I'm going to use ultramarine blue. What else do I have here? It's really just ultramarine blue. I don't think I'm going to use any other color for this. And let's get this right now. I want to change change the angle of this shadow, maybe, maybe make it more longer like this, try that. And, uh, connect that up to the building like this. Yeah. And note that this shadow kind of creates the border of this creates the border of this ridge in the front. So I'm just cutting around it like that. Okay. And, um, yeah, I've made that shadow a lot longer than it should be, but hopefully that works out. I'll I'll make a little shadow for this object there behind as well. Just for the sake of it, you know, there's some other bits and pieces here, like these poles that might have a shadow also running towards that left hand side. Um, yeah, it's just to follow that same consistent pattern. And same for this one, I think we'll just do the same kind of deal here, like, a bit of darkness behind and just terminating the shadow about there. These little bells or whatever they are. Okay, good. Do you think there should be something here, just a bit of snow or whatever to bring out this building more? Okay, uh, try to get in this house here. Something that's all the way in the distance that's not even really visible, but, you know, maybe we'll add to some perspective. It doesn't look like much really at the moment, though, but you can make it look like there's a shadow running like that, like, you know, just a really far away house. It may not look like much once we're done. Now, here's a good time to start putting in the color of these like, roofs. And again, I'm going to need a kind of grayish blue color, really light, grayish blue color. It's going to be darker, though than this stuff here in the front. So you really have to yeah, you really have to compare it to everything else on the page, and I think, is it the right value? Is it the right color? It's kind of around the same value as there's snow here at the front. So quickly do this. I don't want to mix risk anything mixing too much. Some of that might flow down. I'm not sure. So that's a good kind of color. Now, here, this part of the building is a little bit lighter. We can just leave it like that, as well. That's no big deal. The same one here, this building is going to need to be a bit darker. The rooftop. Like that. And we will color it pretty much all the way in. This one here in the back, I don't think we need to do too much for it, but there is a little shadow that's on the edge of it there, maybe cast by the building in the center. So just put something like that, and maybe strengthen that shadow a bit for that building. I Do you think that there should be some kinds of, yeah, marks here in the front as well. Yeah, that's better. You can see where these little footprints are. You can drop in a few little bits and pieces like this with the footprints that there could be ski, maybe sleds or something like that. There's the marks here on the ground. Good. Okay, so now this stuff in the background, I want to put in a bit of a little bit of detail, a little bit more detail for it. So let's go in with some darker paint. Just got some neutral tint. And we're going to put in some dry brushstrokes. That's too much. A lot of paint and very little water dry off the brush, and check this out. We can get in some really dark marks here for areas of the mountain, out in the back, some sharp kind of contrast and just by dragging the brush over the page. And yeah, look, I mean, some of them, you want to maybe indicate more with some individual brush strokes for trees, like running through the back, maybe with a bit more detail. And some of them you might just want to drag over without excess, uh rush strokes. Um, yeah. But you can see it really helps to create this illusion that there are trees and things, you know, out there in the back. All this stations of the mountain back there, kind of helps to bring out the, the houses and stuff as well. I should dry off a bit nicer on it's yeah, once it's uh once it's done, look a bit flatter at the moment. It just looks like there's so much going on in there. Brush strokes here. Let's go some of this stuff here. And, oh, this top of that mountain, this is gonna be interesting. We need some of these, like, interesting little illustrations on the mountains. Can you see that? That's fascinating little illustrations. We think the trick here is really not to overthink it? Because if you do, it's gonna start looking too put together, too stuck on. And the idea is that these mountains are kind of like a backdrop, so we don't want there to be too much distraction or stuff going on back there. So, yep. Yep, there we go. And getting there. We're getting there here, we can see some here as well down the back, little streons the mountaintops, all the way in the back, there's some details as well. Oops. Back here. I would just try to change up some of this a little bit. It feels a bit more lighter in parts. This sometimes you get edges that just feel a bit too much so you can soften them. Okay. Let's go into the houses, and I'm going to pick up some dark value neutral tint. And with this little round brush, I am going to put in some darker details that should stick through to the end. Okay. Really soft touch here, but it's really outlining, you know, details of the house. Underneath as well, you notice there's actually some, like, darkness that I had lost before, so I can bring some of that back. Some of these pools and things as well. You know, maybe there's another one here. It's just a lot of this stuff we kind of it's indication it's dark behind, actually, this building. I can try to darken off and add in a bit of these marks for the wood. As well, This is important because it makes it look like there's, you know, some little details and bits and pieces here. Brings out the houses properly. That's the base of the house here. You can see it's like, got a darker section there, which I'm trying to put in. Okay? Let's do the same here. It's gonna be darker underneath the roof down the side here, maybe some little bit of that. You know, that section. There's this part of it here as well. That's a bit darker under here, there's going to be darkness under there as well. Okay. Underneath the rooftop here. Not too dark. And again, let's start putting on maybe some like this these marks to indicate the wood details. Let's have a look at this one. Should put a shadow for the chimney with a bit of blue ultramarine blue. Yeah, running backwards like that, maybe. Yep. And good. Underneath the house, there's gonna be maybe bits of details here. This one here, also some details or darkness underneath the roof there. So marks. 7. Swiss Alps - Final Touches: Okay. And in the background, I'm going to grab some blue, bit of cerulean blue. And let's paint this all in one color from the top to the bottom. So there we go cerulean to cut around all these mountaintops. I just want to flatwh for all this. That Don't be afraid to leave a bit of white in areas as well. These mountains here in the back should be a little bit darker, which I will amend in a second. As long as I get that sky in, that looks good. It's a nice flat wash. So yeah, this area here should put in maybe another layer of ultramarine to darken out of touch, yeah, it should actually be darker. So just amend it slightly. G. And you can also do the same for other parts. Uh, I don't want to overdo it, but like, another layer of blue in some areas could really help to bring out extra sense of shadow in this whole scene. Oops, I don't want that to go too far up, if possible. Okay. I'm going to add in some final little marks and things here in the foreground near to this bridge, help to bring it out a bit more. I'm gonna put in just the edges of some of these mountainous areas back here to make it look a bit better. Stick out more from the sky. I've also got a little bit of white guash, which I can squeeze out to add in final highlights a small round brush, and let's pick up some of this squash. Now, I can probably put some in for the top of this area there. A little edge of that little edge of this rooftop. Where else can we put it maybe here, like, the edge here, perhaps. Uh. Some of these, like, pools and things, I can just bring them out or, like, invent some here out in the back like that, which they actually are. There are some smaller ones just running down this hill that might be connecting this house to the electricity grid, but This kind of system here on the left side it's like a left side of the house. The gutter is okay, We do we have maybe here? This part of the house. Lost a bit of light on it, so I can bring it back like this. Even on this part there. I mean, it looked like snow sitting on the rooftops. Yep. A little edge there. As well as, yeah, like I said, you can bring back some little bits of white and bits in places if you think you've overdone it. Triggers, just to be careful with how much squash you use so that it doesn't look who's stuck on You can make it look like the snow, as you can see, creeps up onto the side of the building like that. Which I like light on top of these three sort of cylindrical objects. I do notice there are still a few of these, like, poles here that just run behind almost like they're just sort of inventing some of this one here as well. But like I guess they like electricity poles. You might have, one that just a bit of a line or something that just runs through here, connects onto that house. Sort of thing. Anything that I can do to try to connect up this scene, I think, is going to help Yeah. That kind of also looks a bit like snow gathered on top of the building. Like some lighter snow that's like catching the light. Bit more up here on the top of these mountains. Some of this is going to be helpful. Again, just to bring back some little qualities of light in here that I might have lost out before bringing back a little bit of this stuff. Use it sparingly to kind of complement the wash that's already there. No. Okay. So. And we have finished. 8. Conclusion: Congratulations on completing painting snowy landscapes in watercolor from simple to complex. Take a moment to appreciate how far you've come from your first brushstrokes to the intricate details of your final piece. Throughout this course, you've learned to capture the serene beauty of snow covered scenes using watercolor techniques. You've learned to understand the importance of light, shadow, and composition in creating depth, as well as develop your unique artistic style while embracing both simplicity and complexity. Remember, each artist's journey is unique and each painting is a step forward. Keep practicing, experimenting, and most importantly, enjoy the process. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your creative adventure. I hope this class has inspired you to continue exploring the captivating world of watercolor.