Step-by-Step: Watercolor sunset in the field | Maria Smirnova | Skillshare
Drawer
Search

Playback Speed


  • 0.5x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 2x

Step-by-Step: Watercolor sunset in the field

teacher avatar Maria Smirnova, Watercolor artist

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      What is this class about?

      0:55

    • 2.

      Materials overview

      1:59

    • 3.

      Basic techniques

      3:50

    • 4.

      Colors

      2:18

    • 5.

      Step 1 : Wet on wet

      14:03

    • 6.

      Step 2: Wet on dry

      10:23

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

2,054

Students

85

Projects

About This Class

One of my favorite things in painting is capturing the light.

IIn this class I’m going to show you how to create a simple but spectacular picture of a sunset in the field with watercolors.
The class may be interesting both for beginners and advanced artists who never stop improving their technique. Strong drawing skills are not required ;)

You will discover:

  • How to combine Wet-on-Dry and Wet-on-Wet watercolor techniques
  • How to make a light effect
  • How to work efficiently with a limited color palette

Join the class and enjoy watercolors!

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Maria Smirnova

Watercolor artist

Top Teacher

Hello!

I'm Maria, a watercolor artist and instructor, currently based in Paris.

An electrical engineer in the past, I've changed my whole life chasing my dreams.

I draw and paint since I remember myself and the last several years were about practicing watercolor. I totally fell in love with this amazing material and it has become a big part of my life by now.

Almost every painting I've made is about light. It is all about something instant, flash slipping away.

I'm glad to share with you some techniques and tricks I use in my work!

See full profile

Level: Beginner

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. What is this class about?: Hi, My name is Maria watercolor artist, and I'm super fashion about watercolor and its magical qualities. One of my favorite things in painting is capturing delight. So in this class I'll be glad to share my view the process of simple but spectacular picture creation. I'll explain to you what materials to use, how to work efficiently with limited car ballot else's show you the difference between wet and dry and wedding wear, watercolor basic techniques and how to combine them and finally, step by step. You will learn hot to make this lovely light of fact in your babies. So in the M, you'll see that the technique is not as hard as it may seem on you'll be able to paint your own watercolor sounds it in the field. I invited to join me in this creative process. See you in the class. 2. Materials overview: All right, here we go. I'll start with a shorter view of materials I'm going to use for this work. First of all, we need the paper. I'll paint on this. People in available called Press Paper. 300 grams per square meadow density and it's radios £130. I have a watercolor block. It is a pile of shit bone together on all sides by blue. If you use separated shakes, you should stick it on drawing board with masking tape being attached. The paper one war. Oh, when it tries, I use masking tape to, but only to get a nice wide frame along the edge. Next, we'll need brush. I'm going to apply for brush. 1st 1 is a big, fat natural go brush. I use it to read the paper next to the squeal around rush for beak, collar fills and background paining, and they're also descended a round brush, medium and small size for the dales. Off course, we need whether car pains on about it. Today. I'm going to use to pains only if you have fans watercolor. You can use it. There is no big difference for our work. Generally, I use different watercolor brands, but I'm not going to leave that to date, so there is no demand to use any particular brand. You can take whatever you're comfortable toe work with. It doesn't really matter for our painting. We need some scrap paper to test color vans, paper towel or piece of T shoot on finally water, which stays behind this scene today. Let's see now how to apply these materials. 3. Basic techniques: If you ever try to paint with watercolors, you probably already now that there are two men, take things for this material. First, what is called wet on dry and the second is wagon wet. Let's check. What is the difference between them the most? Simple enough this way to apply whether color is using wet brush on dry paper. If you like me have a textured paper and not did not water and color on your brush, you can even get this kind of dry facts. Moreover, when we work on dry paper, we can precisely draw some details, delicate lines and clear forms. And every time it could be seen very clearly where the white paper rounds and the water Carsten begins. Now let's see how the second method works. I take a bigger brush on may be this one, which I'm going to work with will be later. I put some clear water on aid. What did the technique implies wet paper toe work on? So I put water to this part of my paper where I'm going to paint. Next. I'm trying to repeat the same manipulation, but on the Web I take the same color and made the same brush movements. And as you can see, the result is different. Now our watercolors buggers blurry. Now I'm painting these tiny details and lines. Apparently, I can't make it with the same precision. The result in this case is absolutely different, depending on how much water and color you have on your brush, the outcome can be right whether what way doesn't mean necessarily clear water on the paper . We just needed to be wet enough, but it further can be a color layer, which is not dry yet. Let's had something else to tora blue thread, for example. First, I'll try to take noted much weather with my brush. Don't forget, we already have some liquid here on If it seems you're taking it too much, you can always use your napkin to leave excessive water in it. Don't be afraid. Used to the have color on your brush, my red waves will go blurry. Of course, to control this effect, it's extremely important to control your paper drying. To understand if it's still wet, you seem to need to look at it at an angle on if the surface is shiny, used to can work on it. I can also Sprinkle a little clear water. Whether you're scholar to draw boundaries on, we have this interesting effects. Finally, let's take a look one more time at the difference between these two methods. We know now that if we need vague shapes and reginal Carter transitions reapply wet on wet , engaged off clear edge and precise details needed. It's time for wet and dry, and this difference I'm going to use from a future painting. 4. Colors: So let's test the colors I'll use for my painting. I take synthetic brush. Some of my pains are fresh and self, just from tube so they can be easily taken on fresh. Here's s a yellow light. I also used an apple yellow red vein and cadmium red light. We're going to pay the sounds it, so we need bright colors. I take some in the trend blue for shadows on some burns number to make them less blue. So here's out ballot. If you don't have some cars, it's not a problem. You can use what you have, but it will be better if you try to meet them before you start painting. Check if you like blended colors and you can easily replace your colors. For example, you can take orange instead of apple yellow, or you can makes yellow and red as well. You can variety shade, the banding on color proportions. Let's see what I get if I blend blue collar with some brown, the color is dark and grey exactly what I need for shadows. If you want to bring different mood into your pain, T you can use another combination of colors. Just make sure that you have at least one dark paid 5. Step 1 : Wet on wet: I'm starting my work by wedding The paper with clean water. I'm applying white like brush to do it fast After getting my paper wet. I have some time to work on aid with wedding Web technique especially. It is important for 100% cotton paper that needs a lot of water there. I put some water to the surface on wait a little bit. I'll use this post to blend my colors with the small, brash Al Meets Doug plan. I mix in blue and brown and ed in the bit of breath, and here is a result I'm going to use it for in shadows. I leave the brush like that right in veins until I need it that I am taking the ground brush and preparing, like done for my lightest part of the sky, apple, yellow, orange and red. I need to wash these brush before else thought relied yellow because I need a clean brush from them. I'm taking the paper condition. It is red and the surface is still shiny. If it looks that there are dry parts, you should add some water. When everything is ready, we can start. I've decided that the song on my painting will be here. I'm going to start working with this area, leaving little white space around this zone even a bit more than needed. I might in light yellow on, then make any more intense down a little by little Our meeting my orange makes I'm painting now where my field is going to be just to have some color for the base. You see that to make some self radiation I put the orange, mixing it with some yellow which have already put here. I've covered the bigger area with yellow exactly for this purpose. In around the song I'm doing a circle emotion with my brush. The further I go from it, the more horizontal these movements become just a little bit of blue for the sky. You may use brighter or more intensive colors. I prefer to have these twilight movie And why not some more yellow to these parts? You might ask me why? Because especially for cotton paper, when your weather car pains get dry becomes failed, so it makes sense to make it brighter. In the beginning, I can make my field darker. It is important to keep in mind that if your brush more wet than the paper, it will give the water and color to your paper round wise versa, depending on quality off your paper. This protest of car mixing can be different for me now. It is quite hard, as I'm using 75% sort of less paper, - more red now for my horse zone on a bit of called shade to the top. It brings the fitting that we have some clouds or something. No, it's time to create the field. I'll start from the sunny area. I want to paint some plants or grass on background, and I have to do it. While pains are not dry for out of focus effects, I just need to make sure that my papers went and I'm drawing several bykowicz. You can draw a tight on this on maybe the feather from the sun, the more orange plans we have. If you're watercourse spurs too much, it means that you have too much water on your brush. Just use your paper towel to take out extra water. Remember, we don't need more water on the paper. It is already wet. I could painting my field you may use smallest indebted brush for that. It fits better. We can make thinner lines and again the further from the sun, the doctor plants we have. Some of them are in the shadow. If it is hard for you to imagine the shape of this plant, you you always can find some pictures on the Internet and use them as the reference it's at this stage of the most important thing is to make it while our papers wet and I also make the based on off my film. This part needs to be painted on wet paper, too. While in progress, you can change the color and even very bride and in dancer spots. We need to check our papers for us all the time. I'm checking in. The surface is still shining. Why did these? You can get banding and wet on wet technique. Okay, I'm ed ing feud weeks painting the grass with this attacked When our background goes blurry , they seem further After that, I can take a brush with darker colors on pains. A couple off blue spots here I can see that my papers already dry, So I stopped working in this area at its on grass at the very bottom of my painting. A little branch here Once we have deep shadows in our remaining we've got a line. In fact, we wanted to create But don't put too many dark elements. We just need them. We just need a few of them. But of course, somewhere they should be really dark. You can apply their gray black as you wish. I prefer to blend down with other colors. These small dark dots create the impression that we have a shadow deep in the grass. On these details bring more depth to the painting. I'm meeting some here song, colorful details. Well, as you may see, all this barred isn't a shadow leaks behinds. Now I see that everything is becoming dry. My paper, Reason red in certain areas Onley in this part where I recently worked. So it means I need to stop painting to a wide effects we don't need. What I'm still able to do is to add several random drops of color with light or dark pains . So I take some color. And now I'm trying to add yo to my shadows. So we're here. It brings a bit of cows to this part. Okay, I'm just hearing my brush with the finger. Maybe if you can work out how to do that, you also can apply pencil, for instance. Just try it first on your dress paper to get these lied drops banding on water quantity on your brush. Drop size may be right, so finally have puts better. And I feel like it looks more interesting now. Our next step is what on dry detailing. 6. Step 2: Wet on dry: now my goal is to feel the filled with details. I'm going to work. Went on Dr. My first layer is completely dry now. Paper is warm by touch, absolutely flat. And as you may know, colors are more fail Now this is normal. As I said before, whether car paints lose its own once they're dry. Okay, Now I begin it in details and I'm going to use the same car skin about this time. I want to paint weeks with sharp age. The concept is the same too. Everything that is close to the sun will be light and warm, and the objects in distance will be darker and colder even maybe, with some job blue color. Okay, I start with first piece next to the sun. You always can try to draw them on your drive paper first if needed. Practice makes perfect. I also use paper towel all the time to control whether on my brush 1st 1 will be here. The further from the light it gets, the more read it becomes back that now it's time for tiny brunch Here. Try to keep some distance between parts off your plants near the sound you may use clean. Yo, as I'm doing, I wash my brush and I've taken clean color. I recommend you to use your ballot all the time and scrap paper to testi colors you down the bottom part of this tweet is more brown that its top here. I keep ending tiny drinks too. Something red here. And you see, I'm just touching my paper with a brush. Nothing special. This little movement. Give me the object I need. I'm all citing some darkness here. And little by little, the foreground appears adding one red thing here. Next. I want to see the lights of grass here. Try not to pay in these new objects, right on your background details. So it means trying not to repeat down. It should be different. Weeks added something dark here. I guess these brunch I draw like this. - Look , I don't make them long, solid line? No, because it's too massive. I necessarily keep some space in it. So I have an impression that the line is very thin. - I like this part to be blood, so I don't touch it too much. The center of the composition in this part. So I make it more detail on the Syria. I just leave it like that. I could, with only couple dark details in this shadow that that's it. I give painting dots, spots, short lines sometimes. Ah, they begin be on my painting. I started them here from my masking tape. Almost invisible. Better here and there. I keep working with the yellow. Now I had this little brunch to connect two parts and I have the right title is detailed. Perhaps Ah, wanting in this part on Dhere? Why not? Now the film looks more than a make. I would say I was trying to make the age of my field wavy. Oh, not regular. Well, I guess I can finish on this stage. So, um here finally is our results. Thank you for watching this video. Now it's your turn to create your own Salt it in the field that hesitate to share your paintings in project have below the video. I'll come in every work. I hope you learn new things with this lesson and enjoyed it. Thank you. And see you next time. Bye bye