Super Easy Acrylic Painting: Fun Mountain Landscape for Beginners

1. Welcome: To a new acrylic landscape painting class. Today, you will be exploring how to make this wonderful mountain landscape. You understand key concepts such as composition, brush handling, and, of course, color harmony. Hi, my name is George, and I've been a professional artist for over ten years. In the last six years, I've developed a very interesting way of teaching. By teaching both online and in person classes with adults and children, I've learned the importance of having an engaging project. Learning about painting doesn't have to be difficult or cumbersome. It can be a joyous, wonderful experience. And with the proper guidance and encouragement, you will be amazed at your own creation. If you have never painted before, then this is the class for you. It takes you from zero to hero in no time. A while learning the most important concepts in painting. So let's jump into it. 2. Materials needed: We welcome to another beautiful course. Today we will be painting a landscape, a beautiful mountain landscape. It will have something like this, some mountains here, and another tree line going this way, and then some trees just going up, a beautiful blue sky. For this painting, you will need, of course, some brushes, a big flat brush, a medium flat brush, and a small flat brush. You will need some water, a water container, a mixing plate. A canvas. You don't need to have a round canvas. You can do this composition on a square or a rectangular canvas. No problem. Just think of a circle just as a square without corners. Just extend the composition, and it will be super easy to fit on a square or a rectangular canvas. For the paints, you will need acrylic paint. This is titanium white from Amsterdam acrylic paints. This is carmine red. This is Azo yellow medium. If you have some other yellow, that's fine. This is just a lemon yellow with some red in it. You will need some burnt umber, also known as brown. You will also need some brilliant blue. 3. Wet colors are Fun: First step, you'll add some blue to the mixing plate. A touch of yellow. Too much yellow. That's fine. You'll also need some white. Let's add some white over here. And with a big flat brush or a sponge, you can also use a sponge. They are very nice to cover everything very fast. But I'll be using a brush just because it's easier and it leaves more paint. Just a touch of water to make the paint more easily mixable. So blue. Never go inside one color or the other. Just add color and find another space where you can mix these colors together. You will be making a beautiful light blue with a touch of yellow, just to make it more different. To have this different type of hue, a bit more turquoise, a touch of yellow is enough to make this wonderful color. You don't need to mix it that well. Let's add some waters just so it flows much faster. And we're going to imagine just some mountains just going down like this on a diagonal, you don't need to focus too much on the outline of the mountains. What you have to do is to cover everything very fast. If your paint is a bit more transparent, some cheap paints are a lot more transparent than Amsterdam paints. You shouldn't add too much water to them. So in this first step, you will just have to cover on a diagonal the whole entire top side of the canvas. Notice how beautiful this baby blue turquoise is. Let's add more color. Don't be afraid to put a lot of color. You can always take it off like this. And add it to the plate. It's better to have more color than to have less color mixed. For instance, now I really need to mix more color. Even though this is a bit more yellow, we can add some blue to it and mix it in to the color that's already on the canvas to fill in all of the top side of the canvas. You might think this is unfixable mistake, but it's not. We take some napkins. I forgot to mention in the materials the napkins. We take some napkins. You erase some of that color. Keep the napkin for later and mix the color a bit more attentively. So let's not rush to mix this color. Let's make it perfectly nice and beautiful. It was too yellow. It had too much yellow. Notice how it's a bit more light. It doesn't matter. Just add a touch of water if the color is not running, if it's too pasty. This will add more variety. You don't want a flat color on this. You want more of a broken color. Notice how I'm leaving some of that space at the bottom, just to create this effect, I'm moving color around from here to here, I can actually add some more blue to accentuate that idea that this color is broken. It's very easy to do. You're just layering some color on top of each other and then focus a bit on the marks that are just like this. You need to gently brush over them so you don't have any ridges and any textures because the sky is usually very soft and pale and it doesn't have a lot of textures because it's in the background. The background shouldn't have a lot of textures because textures make things seem more close to the viewer. Now adding a bit more blue just to create some ideas of clouds or shadows in the sky. Just going with some more colors around. You can also go the other way and add some white to this newly found blue and add some of this white around just going with motions like this and creating sort of like a ridge, just blending the colors together on the canvas, makes a very soft transition People are afraid of wet colors, but if they are in the same family, if they are analogous colors like blue and lighter blue, darker blue, or a color that is close to blue, such as green or purple, they blend together quite well, so you don't really need to have any problems with these colors. And that's all for this beautiful step. 4. Diagonal mountains: Painting is not dry, but that's fine because you're going to work on this area. You're going to paint on this area over here. But for that, you will need to clean up the brush just at the bottom of the water container, just swirl it around so that it doesn't have a lot of paint in it, and then squeeze the water out. For this step, you will need some red, just a tiny bit of red to make a darker blue. I know what you might be thinking. Blue and red make purple. Depending on the quantity, they don't always make purple. Sometimes they make darker blue. Like, for instance, in this case, even though it is moving towards a purple, it's just a darker blue. Let's add a touch of yellow. Actually, let's add some brown. We don't want it to be so vibrant. So brown will just cut some of that vibrancy out. Yeah. Nice. I stuck it to the wall. So let's add some brown. It will make it even darker. And now let's add a touch of this white. Might be thinking, Why white? Well, we've changed the hue to make this darker blue to have it less noticeable that it's from the tube. Notice how much more different it is. That's exactly what we wanted to achieve. Now we're going to focus on the mountains. These mountains need to be different because if you make them like pyramids, this is what kids do. They make all their mountains like pyramids, just like this. Those are not mountains. You need variety. So notice how if I change this to be like that, and this one, they look more like mountains. Don't be afraid to go inside of the color of the sky. And this will go the opposite direction like this so that it creates some more dynamic composition. It creates more interesting things in the composition. For the bottom of the Canvas, right over here, you can just fill in, take some water. Doesn't really matter if it's a bit transparent. Just take some water, go over the areas that have a lot of paint and cover everything that's at the bottom over here. They might seem like clouds because they are very round. But as soon as you start to add more mountains, they will seem like real interesting mountains. Notice how you need to really focus on making some different marks all the time. If you make them like steps, that's not very good. Notice how this is just going in one direction. There is a bit of canvas open here, so that's the perfect opportunity to go with a mountain the opposite direction. And you can complicate it by just adding with the corner of the brush some beautiful different marks. Now going further, let's add some water. In case you don't have a lot of paint, you can just recreate it by taking some blue, some brown. You don't need the red anymore because we've added brown. Brown is basically just a dark orange. That's exactly what it is, actually, a dark orange. It's an orange that has black in it. So notice how it's a bit different. It needs a bit more blue, but that's fine. If you add some water, you can just add it, and it will not seem as if it's too different. And it creates more color variety. So let's focus on this edge. Creating small ridges and some interesting shapes. You can also go and add slowly just a ridge, just a edge that goes another direction. You can also calm things down. And like, for instance, here, it's too flat. Let's add some mountain over here. And then over here, maybe we want to calm it a bit down and here as well. Let's go ahead and move on to the left side of the canvas continuing with the edge. Make big mountains, not tall, but big as if it's a mountain that has a similar shape, a continuous shape. And then you can add a smaller one next to it. So that it creates more diversity. Diversity of shape and color is exactly what makes a painting look amazing. Let's add some water and add more paint to the bottom, creating a more coherent color. Let's take some more of this color and continue with the mountains. So small, big. Now, big, small, continuing to create just making some more edges. Notice how beautiful they look. Let's fill in this color and take some more. I accidentally took some yellow, but that's fine. Go inside. Don't worry if you take some of the sky color, it's perfectly natural. Okay, now let's focus on making all of the canvas disappear where the mountains are. I believe that this line is not steep enough. So let's take some water and make it more steep. So it goes this way, a bit more pronounced. Doesn't need to be line. It can be squiggly and rugged because you're going to add the ground in the next step. Let's focus again on the ridge making this barely touching the canvas and getting rid of those white dots of the canvas and also of the textures that have been created onto the canvas. Okay, now I'm noticing, let's edit a bit of the shape. Now I'm noticing that this is way too straight. Notice that nothing is going up. Like, for instance, here, there is a big valley here. There is another one. So we cannot create a valley, but we can create a taller mountain, like here. Notice the difference. It seems more interesting and it's not a pyramid. It created this interesting feeling. Created this interesting mountain. We can also go and make this one taller and more interesting. Now, you can see how it's like a calligraphic thing, like a line that goes and creates interesting abstract shapes. Let's cover this white spot and then clean up the brush on the lower side over here so that you don't have a lot of water in it. And that's all for this step. 5. Shadow and light on the mountains: Now let's add some more brown and a bit of blue to make some shadows onto the mountains. You might seem overwhelmed by the idea of shadows. What are those? It's such a weird term. It's such an interesting term. It's undefined. If we say shadows, it's very difficult to understand what we are doing. So let's simplify that idea and just make small patterns, especially onto the left hand side of the mountains, going to the left of the tall mountains and adding a direction. Notice how they are continuing this way. Not all of them, just continuing on some. So we're establishing the fact that the light comes from the right because the shadows are onto the left. So let's add some of this shadow. And now going lower, we're going to continue a bit lower with the shadows and then change direction for them to go to the other side. This will create a bit of a bit more dynamic composition. It goes this way this time. And it's less visible. It's more blended because the color underneath is still wet. It allows you to blend some of this color going to the left. And if you want, and if you see the color and the shadow lets you go with a more bald shadow, you can also do that. So play in between the softer shadows and the darker shadows. And also, don't repeat the same thing over and over again. Break it a bit, make it more fuzzy. Make it more interesting. Let's add some more over here. And you can also blend some of this shadow so it doesn't seem so perfect. Okay. Now, we're going to add some white to this color and some blue creating some lighter highlights. We're going to add some highlights. And of course, again, if you think about the highlights, if the shadows are on the left and the light comes from the right, where do we put the highlights? Very simply to the right, exactly where the light comes from. And now going on the opposite direction as the shadows and touching some of the mountains, even if we pick up some of the color, that's good because we want this color. That's why we put some water over the color. You can also make smaller lines by going with the brush in this direction and continue with the opposite direction of the shadows. And going onto the right side of the mountains, notice how this is too boring. So let's add some texture underneath it and drag a bit of a line. Let's take some more color because it blended too much. And so we make a big movement, a big light, and then break it down with some more small. So it's the idea of big medium small. Big. Let's take some more paint. Big, medium, small. And let's clean up the brush at the bottom. And if you see something that it's taking your attention too much, you can just blend it a bit. That's the beauty of the fact that these colors are still wet. Let's recreate that lighter color just to add some highlights that are more visible on just a few of the mountains. And then some textures, textured lines. Subtlety is quite good in this idea because these mountains are very, very far. We need them to be a bit more subtle. Now, let's clean up the brush and finish the step by doing this. Cleaning up the brush, squeezing the water out of the brush. It's not perfectly clean, but that's fine. 6. Beautiful grays: Step, you don't need really a clean big brush just so it doesn't have a lot of blue in it. And you're going to want to find an area that is relatively clean, like, for instance, over here, take some white, even though it has some blue in it, that's fine. And some red. Not a lot of red. The touch to create a sandy color. Now, add some brown to it, some more yellow to make it more colorful. So it's basically a gray brown, light color. It needs to be a bit more dark. So it needs some red and some yellow into it, as well as some brown to cut it out a bit more. Just a sandy, beautiful color that has some of the colors. Notice how wonderful it is. Now let's take some water and add it to the bottom of the canvas, filling in very fast the bottom of the canvas. After this step, you will need to wait for the canvas to dry because we're going to paint over the blue areas and over the sky as well with some trees and beautiful things, bushes and other stuff. This is a very simple just filling in the color. It doesn't matter the transition here because behind this interesting grayish color, Let's add some more brown to it, so we change the hue a bit and some yellow. Even though it's very dark, that's fine. We're gonna mix it over here and continue with some water. Notice how even though it's not necessary to really make a beautiful edge, we can think of them and get this practice, and it will actually help us. So it will actually make your painting a bit better. If you just try to imagine this as a cliff and do the same thing as you did with the mountains, but not as exaggerated. Notice how this is so similar and so boring. Let's add a little bit more texture to it. Now, let's focus on the bottom part. You can go with some more vertical things. It doesn't matter if it's the same color everywhere or not. You don't need to focus too much on that because this is the first layer of the ground. All you need to do is cover the whole canvas so you don't see the white of the canvas anymore. Don't go very transparent. Try to keep it as opaque as possible, so you don't have to go with many layers. Depending on the color you are using, this will be easier or harder. If it's cheaper paint, it will have a lot more water in it or whatever they put in this acrylic. Color. Okay, covering the rest of the canvas, trying to at least make some sort of smoother texture. So it's not always like this, but it can have some of that graininess, as well. Cleaning up the brush at the bottom where we have left some of the this exposed. And over here, it needs more color just because we don't want fuzzy edges. So if you have fuzzy edges, you can take a bit of color or water and just go over them and create a harder edge. An edge that is more crisp wherever you see fuzziness. Fuzziness happens from doing this and not letting the brush just go and apply color. Perfect. And once you've done that, you can now let the painting dry, take 20, 30 minutes to let it dry completely. If you have a hair dryer, you can use the hair dryer to dry it in 5 minutes. So for the next step, you'll need to let everything dry so we can paint with different colors on top of this canvas. 7. How to paint trees: Hello. The painting is completely dry right now. And let's take the medium brush this time and create some brown colors, some brown color, adding some brown over here, adding some red to it to make it more vibrant. Remember, brown is just an orange color that has some black in it. So it's a dark orange. Now, we're going to start to make the big tree over here, just starting from here. Trees are not very straight. They have some jagged edges. If you have a hard time creating a nice edge to your tree, add a bit of water and make the paint a bit more runny. But this means you're probably going to have to paint a few layers to have it more opaque. Notice how this brush is a bit bigger than you need. Try to add some variety to the direction and not make it very smooth. Trees tend to have a bigger bottom, a bigger trunk at the start and then become a lot more narrow as you go up. You can also change to the small flat brush. This will enable you to make nicer and beautiful edges, as well as thinner lines. Notice how thin you can go by adding this brush on the side. By using the brush on the side, let's recreate that color since we don't have enough. Let's add some red to it, mix it in, add a tiny bit of water just so we make it run your Embrace the shakiness. Embrace the textures that are created on the edge. Be careful not to go too much outside of the shape. And also try not to go. Like, for instance, if you make a branch over here, it overlaps the mountains. So let's make it a bit higher and try to make it a bit thinner, as well. And continuing, you can vary the line by making it a bit straight and then curve it softly inching your way upwards until you have you can also use the pinky finger to stabilize your lines a bit more. Let's go outside of the canvas with this one. Maybe we are going to change direction and then going this way with another line and this one continuing it don't go overboard with making too many of them. Just try to make it seem as if it's decently branched out three. Try as you go up, try to also overlap some of the branches, kind of like this, overlapping them. Can also go from this side on this direction. Branches tend to have a curve. They tend to first go with a curve like this and then branch out to another direction. So they don't go just out of the tree. Remember, as you divide the tree more and more, the lines should be softer and a lot more thin. Continue the lines over on the left side and maybe make another branch just over here. Let the tree dictate where branches should go a bit more. Don't try to copy everything as it is in the course, because you will be learning more about how to make beautiful trees if you try to let the paint decide and the branches decide where they should go. And you will find out that it's more abstract this way and more organic. Okay, I think that's enough for the first three. We're gonna continue with some bluer shades. We're going to add some blue and some white to this color in order to make it seem as if it's reflecting light. 8. Different type of trees: I said that we're going to do some other colors like the blue, but let's create another tree over here. Let's go a bit faster this time going higher. As we go, we start with a straight line giving it a bit of a rugged edge, making it thinner as we go up, taking some more color and continuing the line. Notice how it's too straight over here. So I'm going to add a curve on the left, curve on the right, and some jaggedness let's continue it. Going thinner as we approach the end of the canvas. And then continuing this on this side, notice how it branches over here. Let's make this one a very tall, skinny little tree. We can continue from here with some branches, and from here, we can divide this one as well. And let's add another branch at the top. Skinnier. And divide continue by dividing. And I think that's just about enough branches for this tree. Maybe add another one here. And I know they look unfinished, but they're going to look finished once we add the blue reflections. Now, let's add two more trees over on this side. This one is going to go to the left, just going with a small curved line to the left. And then adding that jaggedness and branching it out. Let's recreate the color by adding some red and a touch of brown. And going over the stem, the tree to make it thicker at the bottom. Now branch it out. In order to break this curve a bit, we can do a line that goes a bit more straight and another one that balances out the tree going this way, this way as well, don't focus too much on the extending and making a lot of branches. Leave them a bit unfinished and a bit less than you need because you're going to need to add some reflected light. And let's finish by making the last tree, just going a bit faster, just a tiny bit, letting the brush dictate the edge. You can go a bit slower to have more control if you feel uncomfortable with this speed. So you can branch it out this way, maybe go with one this way, and then over here, continuing the middle and going outside. Notice how it's going a bit this way just because it balances out the second tree. This bump over here has another branch, and let's divide this one, as well. And that's all for the brown of the trees. In the next step, you're going to add the blue to reflect some of the sky color into the trees. 9. Color harmony: Okay, now for the reflected light, you need a bit of water and some brown into the not a lot of brown. Take some blue and a touch of white. Kind of creating a grayer version of the sky. Just add some more brown and water. And we're going to start on the actual branches, just so it's its way to light. It needs more blue, so it's darker and some brown. Now let's go over the branches. Now, not everywhere. Don't go everywhere with this color on the branches. Maybe some areas are more reflective than others. Now, this has the benefit of just integrating those branches and the tree much more into the sky and making it more harmonious. Harmonious is just a fancy word of a fancy concept that means just adding discolor to discolor and building an intermediary color in the objects that are disharmonious, basically that have a different color. Painters love to make fancy words and fancy concepts to seem more exquisite. Just adding more branches, the thinner they are, the more reflective because they tend to get more light, more of that reflected sky onto them. Notice how this area seems a lot more integrated with the sky. The brown doesn't seem so foreign anymore. And this side doesn't. So let's add some of this color to the branches. And over here, dividing it up, this one as well, continuing. You can also add new branches as well. And let's continue on this tree. The color is a bit transparent due to the water, and that's on purpose, just so it shows the brown underneath as well. And you can even make it a bit more light, a bit more transparent by adding some water. These branches are very thin, so that's why they have a lot more water in them and the irony of just making thicker lines when I spoke about thin lines. You can also adjust the ness the thickness of the branches. If they are too thin, you can add this a bit more thickness. Like for instance, here, it was too thin. Can also go where the mountains are. Notice how much more contrast it creates if it's over here. You can mitigate that by adding more blue and brown to make a darker shade of this color. Notice how now it's a bit more integrated, but it's also making the tree a lot more invisible where the mountains are. That's just because the mountain shade is almost the same as the thing that you are painting with. Moving on to the left side and creating some more branches just going up, dividing this one, and over here, and let's go back, add more white and continue some of these branches more. I'm keeping my pinky on the canvas or on the side of the canvas to just create more precision. Notice how these are like forks. We need to change that up and divide them a bit more and make them a bit more curved and continue with them maybe overlap some of them. I picked some of the white, but that's fine. We can go over it and make this branch a bit longer. And this one divided up and continuing it. Perfect. Now, some of the areas that you don't like, you can cover them some of the branches and the areas that are kind of unnatural. You can cover them up with the foliage. Okay, let's clean up the brush. And in the next step, we're going to focus on the background to make some trees and bushes in the background. 10. Mountain trees: This next step, you're going to want to create a darker green, just adding some blue, some yellow, and some brown, a bit more brown and a bit more yellow. Touch more brown. I know this is how color mixing goes. You slowly inch towards the color that you desire. Let's use the bigger brush. Let's just use the middle brush. I have to clean it. Anyway, so putting the water, getting rid of it on the side of the cup and taking some of this color. Now, these trees in the background will cut the mountains a bit. They are like triangles but broken. So start by making just the top of it, and then go to the left to the right, to the left to the right. And then try to vary the texture just a bit, creating more, and they spray out more like this as you go to the bottom. Okay, and connect them down, take more paint, go further away, make the top and start fanning out, leave some spaces. Don't make them flat. Notice how they have some little holes in them. Let's make one over on this side, creating this and and making it, it's a very fast. Just go left, right, and then add some smaller dents. Just a few touch ups, and it's done. Some pine trees. Let's make some smaller ones right next to this one. A bit more interesting shape. Maybe this one is crooked. Okay. And going and making some right behind these trees just to give the impression like these are in the background. Even though you're getting over the trees, don't worry. You're going to change the color of the tree, the branches, anyway, the trees. And speaking of background, let's make some more over here, smaller one. Just in the background, maybe it's crooked again. Okay, with this color, let's add a bit more blue to it and a bit more thickness, just so we can add a beautiful tree, let's say, over here. We can decide to make it about this tall and start doing the same, but this one is going to go lower and into the actual ground. It's the same kind of tree just going left, right. Don't make it very robotic. Don't try to vary the edges. Like, notice how this one seems all the same. Let's accentuate this one. So it changed a little bit, and this one this way. Okay? And let's add another beautiful bush just behind this tree over on this side. I know it's in front, but we can squeegee out some of that color off. Okay? And that's all for this step. In the next step, we're going to add some highlights to these beautiful trees and as well some shadows for the trees in the foreground. 11. Worm shadows in reflections: Let's add with a small brush some blue to the screen and some red. You might be saying, What are we doing with this purple? It's good that you asked. We are going to add some shadows onto the branches. Oh, it needs more red. Needs to be a bit more red. We're going to add some shadows onto the left side. Remember, the shadow on the mountains was on the left, so we should repeat that onto the left side of the trees as well as adding some calligraphic shadows just going to the left of the trees, bigger as they are closer to the trees and smaller as you go becoming almost sort of like a line. Let's continue on this tree, as well. You can also add it to the right a bit. Maybe there is a bit of a shadow just continuing on the right. Now going to words, this tree, adding the shadow and behind it. And continuing it, now going on these trees over here, and over onto the side. We can continue this shadow a bit more. And now onto the small bushes, small little trees, adding the same shadow and going with some cast shadow onto the ground. This one, as well. The shadow should be concentrated a bit more at the bottom than it is on the top. Notice how it fades out and it doesn't exist at the top anymore. It's just a few dots. Okay. And now cleaning up the brush just to add a wash of red. Just adding some water to some red on this corner of the round plate. And then going and adding a wash over the tree trunk, going a bit into the shadow. This will create a reflection, a beautiful red reflection of these trees. And over here, you can continue on to the branch as well. You can also make some beautiful branches with this color. Okay. And now let's add some yellow to this color and some more red, a bit more yellow and water. It's a bit of an unclean color, so we're going to need to clean it up with some paper towel, the brush, and find another spot where we can mix some beautiful orange. Let's say here, still has some of that brown, but I feel like it's gonna look a little bit better this time. H the brush is not thoroughly cleaned. This orange is good enough. Let's continue upwards, adding some orange. This orange serves as a contrasting color over the trees over the mountains in the background, and it will make the trees more interesting. It's continuing into the red. Don't worry if it has too much water. We're going to clean the brush and go over the brush marks to extend them. Clean it up, and then you can extend it so it becomes a bit more transparent as you go up, and it doesn't have a lot of vibrancy. Just extend it a bit, just so you have it more transparent. Okay. Let's clean up the brush thoroughly this time. For the next step. 12. Glowing ground: And for the next step, you're going to need the medium brush. You're going to need to add some white to a mixing plate so we can make some ground color, some ground highlights, a bit of white, the medium brush, even though it's a bit. It has a bit of brown in it. We need that brown. We're actually going to add some brown to this yellow, and then white brown white, and a touch of blue, maybe a touch of red as well, and some more yellow. And we can start to add some interesting textures just going down here and there to add some of the slighter color, especially around the shadows. You can also go with lines like this. Maybe there are bigger patches, but do give a bit of a raised up texture like making small little soldiers just going to the left and the right. As you go further, you can add some more small textures onto the distant edge. Let's go over here and create some interesting. You can go over the shadows just covering some of the areas that you don't like, and then going lower, you can go a bit more broad. Just squeege it squeege all the color out. And then going on this side, I've picked up some of the shadow color, but that's fine, cleaning up the brush. Now let's change it, add more yellow to it, and some more white. And you can start to see how much more light this color is. Let's create some more soldiers and then some lines. Small little caligraphic and dabs and dabs like this, rotate the brush to create some interesting shapes, and then you can brush it off a bit, make some more textures on top and add some more, brush it off, and then add some more tall puppies, some tall grass, and then brush it off. You can also erase it with your finger if you went over the tree. Okay. Doesn't need to be a lot. Now let's take some brown to make a darker color over this, just to have some darks as well that will mix very nicely into the ground color, making it more different. And you can go over and add some of this dark color here and there to vary the colors. Notice how on this side, it's a bit too dark. So let's recreate that yellow white color. Just a tiny bit to give some impressionistic feeling of a homogeneous color. Okay. And cleaning up a bit of this area just to make it more interesting, can go with your finger over it and over on the bottom, creating some more lines. And over here, and over on this side as well some textures, softening some of them, adding more texture on top, softening texture on top, and then softening some of these and over here, some more textures as we go to the shadow. And that's all for the ground. Let's add some more texture over here. That's all for the ground. And in the next step, we're going to focus on the three highlights and shadows. 13. Foliage: The step, you'll need a small brush to be very clean. And this area should be a bit more dry than I have it, but that's fine. It can be a bit more attentive. Let's add some white and some blue. To create the highlights onto the trees. That's why we are painting the background first and then the highlights so we can accentuate the edge a bit more. Notice that this paint has some water in it, and as it just goes a bit more transparent, just focus on the right edge. This highlight should be on the right edge. And as it goes more transparent, you're going to be able to build some depth into this beautiful tree. Let's make it here as well. And over on this side, notice how much impact it has. I'm actually going to clean a bit brush, take some water, and make it more thin for this tree. It's watery goodness. It's going to dry transparently. It's maybe too much water, so let's take it off. And continuing with this transparency, you can go into the other three, just combining the colors together a bit, taking some more color and continuing on this side. This being a smaller and thinner tree, it has a lot more, a little bit more thinner lines and highlights. Now going on this Tree and creating some highlight onto the right side of it, as well. Notice how much more contrast it has than anything in the painting. That's because the more contrast something has, the more it becomes the center of interest. So you can keep this forever in your mind. If it has a lot of contrast, it's going to be interesting for the viewer. Okay. Now, cleaning up the brush and making some very nice shadowy color with some red, some blue. And a touch of brown. I've specifically taken brown from the pile and not the purple, just so it's a lot more easier for you to mix. Just mix some of this color. These will be the shadows for the foliage of the trees. Now, trying to not go as thick as I did, but I'm just going to move that paint. Small little patches that have little holes in them. Try to spin the brush as you go and build these patches wherever you have colors and branches that you don't like. Don't go overboard. You don't want to fill them in completely. Because you need space for the birds to fly and also for the highlights and the middle tones. This is just the first of the three or four colors that you're going to apply. You can start with a bigger dab and then branch it out creating some interesting textures with the corner of the brush. And over here because it's just a stump over on this side, this branch is awkward. You can go outside of the canvas a bit and maybe at the ends also, look, this is just a straight line. It needs a bit more on this side, just so it's more branched out. Let's go a bit lower with this one. Okay. And on these ones, just a few of these shadows just going up. Notice how it's a bit more different and they go up with the branches. Remember not to go very thick on the amount of shadows that you put. These are just the shadows of the foliage. As you go up, it becomes more sparse. Well, you have less of these foliage, less of this beautiful leaf texture. Covering up some of the things that are a bit more awkward. And let's add a bit more over here. I picked up some blue. And over on this side, and maybe over here. And let's take some water, just a tiny bit of water and go over on this edge over here and create some foliage as you go, some shadow for the foliage. And over on this side, same rotating the brush, making small little abstract shapes, focusing on a big area like this and then adding some more interesting edges to it and smaller dabs of paint. This is very straight over here, so it needs a bit more interesting areas. This is very empty, so it needs some. And also, this area over here is a bit too empty. Okay, and there you go with the shadow for the trees. In the next step, you're just going to do some highlights and mid tones for the foliage, and the course will be over. 14. Tree highlights: For this step, you're going to need to have a clean, beautiful brush. Let's mix it over here with some blue, this yellow, and this blue. Mix them together to achieve this wonderful green light color. And like the mountains and the trees, the highlights will be on the right side. Even though this might seem quite light, don't worry. We can add a bit more green afterwards as middle tones. This in itself is a middle tone because we're going to have to make a lighter version of this to have even lighter highlights. Focusing, you can also go inside the shadow parts. You don't have to stick only to the right side. You can have some leaves that are hitting the light or the hit. The light hits them on to the middle of the shape. Okay, continuing on to the left side of the tree. You can also make some individual tree foliage with just this color. It will make it seem much more interesting this way. Not a lot of them, just one over here, maybe one over here and make them a bit smaller because they need to be more transparent. That's why they are lighter because they definitely have a little bit less foliage, less leaves. Okay? And finishing up on this area over here. Once you've done that, you can go ahead and add some to this side on this middle tree, you can start to see how it's like turning on the lights on a Christmas tree, the green lights on a Christmas tree and adding some more paint to continue to bring forward this color. Okay. And adding the last part over on this side, maybe adding some more yellow and a touch of blue. And let's see, the color is close enough. With the corner of the brush, as you did for the shadows, with the corner of the brush, you can make different kinds of textures if you rotate the brush like that. And let's finish up this last trees over on the left side, continuing to add some to the left and top side of the foliage, the shadows that have been created. And over here, just a few dabs of paint. Remember to rotate the brush so you create different kinds of textures. Can already see how beautiful it started to look. You can also add a bit of swirly motions, swirly whirly motions to create a bit more interesting looks. Don't press too hard. It's just a swirling motion that creates some lighter three branches, and it makes them a bit more connected. Okay. And let's add some of this color onto the grass just to clean up the brush and also integrate some of this color onto the right side of the trees of the ground next to the trees because it will make it seem as if they are harmoniously connected, the foliage and the ground, like you did with the branches, this color will make them seem and look like they are one painting and just a few dabs here. 15. Glowing touches Thank you: Okay. And for this last step, you're going to need to add some more yellow to the green. This is just some blue and some yellow mixed in together with a touch of brown and add a bit of white to it. Not a lot of white, and some more yellow to bring that yellowness to the forefront. Okay. Once you've mixed this thoroughly, you can go ahead and just on the edges, just add a few dabs, then connect them with some swirls. Maybe it needs to be a bit more yellow. And just a few dabs. Notice how this is a lot more textured. That's just because you want these trees to become these highlights and these leaves to become the center of attention. Okay. Not a lot of highlights, just a few here and there. Just add the texture. Remember to spin the brush because I didn't and I made the same mark five times over here. You should always go a bit outside of the shapes. You're also using the Yellow as a thicker paint just because yellow has the tendency to be a lot more transparent. So if you don't use thick enough paint, it will show the blue behind the foliage. Let's add some more colors over here, and these two need a bit of love, as well. Okay, rotating the brush because I made the same mark six times. Okay, taking some more color and going in the middle over here, these trees should have a bit less of this yellowish color since they are smaller and also they are not the center of interest, but they need a bit, as well. So let's add it. Okay. And the last ones, just a few dabs over here, swirling, just like this and one or two dabs, maybe five or ten over on this side. Now, let's do the same with this color and add it to the ground. Can also use some water to make it a bit more transparent. And let's add it to the ground. You can also add it as a calligraphic, just dab onto the shadow close to the shadow. And in front of the trees, you can create this patch of light just going with some lines and then some dots, some lines again. And maybe some longer lines around here and some dots to just break the monotony. Okay. And now cleaning up the brush, taking just a bit of water, you can soften some of these highlights, making them a bit more together. Just go in the middle of the shape and add a few dabs of water. You can notice how it creates a lot more nuances. And also some highlights on the other untouched sides of the trees. Okay, this one needs a bit more outside and onto the left and this one, as well. Perfect. Now, cleaning the brush. And we're going to need to make a darker shade of green, just taking some blue, some yellow, and some brown, some water. Water is your friend here to add some shadows back into the watery goodness you've just laid down just to make these shapes a bit more complex and to add some shadows and some colors into them back again. So you're creating a lot more contrast by going forward and backwards with the light and the dark. This being watery, it will dry a bit transparent. So you can create in the middle of the shapes just a few dabs, just a few complex shadows. Maybe there is a little bit of a hole or a leaf that has just a shadow side that sticks on and shows through the highlights. Okay. And with this color, we can go and add some more onto the ground, as well, just as line and dabs. And you can also run your finger if they are too intense and foreign. Okay, let's go over the shadows a bit, just to soften those shadows at the edge. They are a bit more interesting. And since we have this color, we can also go onto the shadow parts of these small little trees. We can add a bit of white to this color just to make a little bit of a highlight just in a few spots. Okay, onto the right side, cleaning the brush, taking some water out of it, and then we can add this water just to give the idea of a highlight onto the right side of the small little trees. Perfect. And there you go. The course is over. In this course, you've learned how to make a beautiful gradient for the background sky. You've also learned how to play around with the edge of the mountains to make them more different playing with small shapes, big shapes, contours, making softer, nicer shadows onto the left side. You've decided that the light is on the right, so you've put the highlights on the right side of the mountains. You've also learned how to apply a very gray and matte, beautiful background for the ground. And then you've learned how to do these calligraphic, this interesting design for the branches by going with the small brush. Instead of using a liner brush, you use the flat brush. This was so that you get more comfortable with the brushes and you learn how to use them in different ways. So you understand brush handling. You've also learned how to make these beautiful trees just as cigraphic shapes. You've learned to go from small and then playing with big, medium, small once again, the same idea. Big, medium, small. So you always find these ideas, big then medium, then small or big, medium, small. So you find these ideas of shapes. You've also learned about shadow and light, how these shadows are a lot more red and the light is a lot more white. Shadows should always be opposites on the color wheel. If the shadows are cool, then the lights should be warm. If the shadows are warm, the highlights should be cold. In this instance, they are kind of blue so that the shadows are dark brown, reddish colors. You've also learned about color harmonies, how to integrate these trees to be a lot more interesting and connected to the background by adding the blue. So you've learned that a simple way to think about color harmony is just to think of the color that you want to harmonize to what object. In this instance, the sky to the trees. The trees were brown. So we added the sky color into the brown and made some branches, as well as some nice shapes on the branches. It's the same way with the ground. We've integrated these colors into the foliage. Well, the foliage colors into the ground so that they are more connected. So this feels harmonious. And you've also learned about how to create these interesting abstract shapes onto the ground by alternating between dots, lines, dots and lines. And, of course, you had a fun time just putting it all together in order to create this wonderful landscape. Thank you for watching and being part of this community. If you are gracious enough, you can leave a review. This will really help others know that this course is for them as well. See you in the next one.