The Art of Winter: Paint 7 Stunning Landscape Postcards in Gouache

1. Welcome To The Class: Winter transforms the world into a canvas of soft whites and silvery blues, where the snow blankets the ground and pine trees can tall, dust and frost. The crisp and serene beauty of the season creates a scene that feels almost magical. Hi, I'm Pile, also known as the simply aesthetic on social media. I'm an artist, an art educator, and a pro Skillshare teacher based in India. For over four years, I've been painting and capturing different landscapes using gouache, a medium that I'm deeply passionate about. Today, I'd like to welcome you all to my 20th Skillshare class where we're going to dive into the beauty of the winter season and paint seven beautiful postcard paintings together. Before we begin with the class projects, we'll discuss the art materials that we need to the class and then do a deep dive into some important quash techniques. We'll also learn how to paint different types of trees, add intricate details, and build a skill needed to bring those elements to life. We're going to explore a bonus squash technique that will change your Bach scheme and take it to the next level. Then using all that knowledge, we'll create these stunning winter postcards, scattering snowy landscapes and breathtaking winter sunsets. This class is designed for beginners and intermediate artists, as I'll be explaining everything in real time, providing you with in depth guidance and support so that you can follow along easily and skill confident every step of the way. By the end of this class, you'll have seven gorgeous paintings with you that you're going to be so proud of. So what are you waiting for? Join me in this class, and let's explore the winter season through Guash. 2. Class Overview: All right. I'm so excited you decided to join me in this class. Before we move ahead, let me give you a quick overview about your projects and everything that you can expect inside the course. The medium of choice for today's class is Guash. Guauch is an opaque medium with the layering capabilities of acrylics, and it can be easily reactivated using water just like watercolors. It's a medium right in between both of these. Guash has a beautiful matte finish once it's dry because of which it's very popular amongst artists because you can easily digitize your work. When you're painting with gauche, one thing to keep in mind is that darker colors will dry lighter and the lighter colors will sometimes dry darker, but it's all about practice and getting to know your medium. Overall gauche is a very versatile medium because you can always go back and fix your mistakes by just re wetting the surface. When you want thinner consistency in gauche, you add water, but for lighter colors and to tone down the vibrancy of the paint, you tend to add white. You can create so many different variations of colors by just adding white. My last tip to you would be to always make sure that you're using freshly squeezed paint because gouache is opaque and that way it retains that opaqueness that it's very popular for. All right, let us talk about our projects now. Alright, so here are your seven class projects. Starting today, every alternate day, I'll upload a class project so that you have ample time to finish one before the next one goes live, and you can take everything at your own pace. Before we begin with anything else in the class, we'll talk about the art materials we need. So we'll cover paper, paints, brushes, everything, and then dive into learning the guash techniques. Now, this will give you a really good idea about the different techniques that we're going to be using for the class projects. So we'll cover consistency, blending, layering. And the bonus wet on wet technique that is going to take your guash game to the next level. I'm really excited to actually teach you this technique because when I discovered it, I was blown away with the potential of Guash altogether for my projects. After we're done with the techniques, we'll talk about some tree details. So we'll learn pine trees. We'll learn how to add snow on our pine trees. We'll also practice the Birch tree that we will use for one of our class projects and also learn a lot more of how to paint branches, how to add finer details into our paintings and add more intricate details and bring our entire element to life with our brush strokes. And using all our knowledge that we have gathered so far, we will work on painting these seven beautiful projects. I'm really excited to take you on this journey with me. I have always been inspired by nature and try to create classes based on the seasons as we progress, and this is one of those courses where we are going to dive into the winter season together and explore the beauty of it one painting at a time. Anyway, this was my brief. I shall see you in the next lesson. 3. Materials You'll Need: All right, so let us talk about all the art materials that I'll be using for today's class, starting off with the paints. So as you know, we're going to be using gouache paints for this class. So let's discuss the brands that I'll be using. Over here, I have my entire collection of gouache paints from the brand Winthred Newton. So if you've been following my classes for a while, you know, I always tend to use these paints, and that is mostly because it has this rich, creamy, nice and opaque consistency that I absolutely love. So I'll be using most of the shades from this brand. And along with that, I have this tube of titanium white from the brand Brustro. These two are the only brands that I'll be using for today's class. You can use any tubes of uh paints that you have with you. It can be tubes, tubs, or even jelly cups, the ones from HimeyO Mia himi if that's what it's called. But anyways, this is the brand that I'll be using for today's class. Now let's talk about the other art materials. Alright, let's talk about the paper next. Over here, I have this watercolor paper from the brand Bao hung. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. So this is a 300 GSM, 100% cotton paper. Now for gouache, you can use any watercolor paper that you have with you. It's very versatile, so you don't really need a very specific paper to work with it. But I would suggest you go for something that is above 250 GSM, at least. So my paper comes in this cute postcard size, and it has this wonderful light texture. It isn't heavily textured and it isn't particularly smooth as well. It has a very, very light texture on there. You can choose any size of the paper that you want, but just make sure that since we're painting in this landscape mode, you want to make sure that the length of your paper is more than the height of your paper, right? So that is just some tip to keep in mind. Again, you don't have to worry about the size. You can pick any size that you want. But this is the paper that I will be using for this class. Again, ensuring that you can use any size of paper that you want for this class. All right. Now that we've covered our paper and paints, it's time for us to talk about what we'll stick the paper on. So over here, I have this little cardboard cut out that I'll be using to tape my paper on. You can use any surface, make sure that you can easily move it around and you're not sticking it on the table as such. So just make sure that you have something that is handy. Next, let's talk about the brushes. Now for the brushes, you will see me whip out a lot of flat brushes and round brushes in particular. These are the brushes that I'll be using. For the flat brushes, make sure that you have one that is slightly larger, so you can pick like a size 14 or a size ten and a filbert brush as well. So this will come into your flat and filbert brush section. So I have size 14, I have size nine, which actually looks bigger than the 14, but these are the sizes that I will be using. And you just want to make sure that one is bigger and one is slightly smaller than the other. And for the round brushes, I am going to be using a few detailing brushes and a few round brushes. So for the round brushes, I have size ten and size four. I'll be using this for all, like, the medium details that I have to add in my painting, and the size four will also use that for the finer details. But these two are the round brushes that I most often tend to pick out. Next, I have my detailing brush. Both of them are size zero. One comes to a really nice fine tip. The other one has been through a lot, so the bristles are really spread apart. But we're going to be using that to add texture and a lot of other details in our paintings. And I'll show you how you do that in the next few lessons, but make sure that you have a few detailing brushes or any brush that comes to really fine tip. Because that will help us add all the finer details. Here's another example of our spoiled brush. You can see how the bristles are spread apart, and there was no way to fix this. So I will be using this to kind of add a lot of details into our painting. Alright, so make sure that you have any spoiled brush with you. If you don't, then that's completely fine as well. You just have to work a little bit more on adding the details. But if you have a spoiled brush, you are going to be golden with the textures. Alright, so we have covered the main things, paper, paints and brushes. Next, let's talk about the other stationary. We have pencil and eraser. That is very important for the basic sketch. Next, I have a masking tape, and I'll be using the masking tape to tape it on this cardboard cutout that I have, and I'll show you how I tape my paper in the upcoming lessons. All right, so that's for the tape. Next, I have two jars of water. I always emphasize that you need to have two jars of water because one will be for rinsing the paint, and the other one is to pick up fresh water or give your brush a double rinse to ensure that you don't have any pigment on your brushes. Next, we have a mixing palette. I'm using my ceramic mixing palette because I love the feel of it. Feel free to use any mixing palette that you have lying around in your house. Lastly, I have this piece of cloth that I'll be using to wipe my brushes. As you can see, it has been through a lot and needs a bit of cleaning. But moving on, you can use tissues or clot to wipe your brushes on there. Make sure that you have it with you because you do tend to rinse your brushes a lot and wipe down your brushes. Anyway, these are all the art supplies that we need, gather them, and let's dive into the technique lesson next. 4. Techniques 1 : Consistency & Blending: Alright, let us talk about the different gauche techniques in this lesson that will help us achieve these beautiful winter landscape paintings. Now, whenever you're painting with gauche, few techniques are very important to get familiarized with. The first that we're going to talk about in this lesson is consistency. Now, what is consistency? It is the ratio of water and paint in your mix. So we're going to be using a variety of different consistencies for our painting, especially when it comes to painting with quash, it's important to understand what consistency works best for the blends. Alright, so here I have my gastube. As you can see, when I brush the tube, it has this really thick, creamy paste like consistency. With my dry flat brush, I'm just going to mix whatever binder was in there and create an even mix. You can see how thick and butter like it looks. Let me swatch it out for you. If I load up my brush with this paint and apply, you know, a brushtrope, you can see how thick and how textured the paint looks. Now, it's not that this consistency doesn't work. It's just that we use this consistency for adding dry brush textures. Now I'm adding a little bit of water in my brush, just a tiny amount, and you can see it has loosened up a bit, and this consistency works really well for your foreground layers because it is a lot more opaque, right? So you add that in a lot of your foreground elements that you paint. Next, let us see what it looks a little bit watered down. So over here, I've added a tiny amount of water again. You can see how it's a lot more easier to mix, and it looks a lot more loose on my palate. Again, loading this up and applying a layer. This time, you can see how it's still nice and pigmented, but it has lost a little bit of its opaqueness. Again, as I increase the quantity of water in my mix, the lighter and the more shear the color is going to be. So the more water you add, the more transparent your gouache is going to become. And that is where it starts behaving like watercolors. Now, it's not that you cannot use the shear part of the gouache consistency, you can, but it all depends on the type of painting that you're doing. We have just written it down directly from the tube. It has really nice and thick consistency, which we use for a lot of dry brush textures. So I've added some texture on the tree trunks here. Again, I have some more textures on the tree trunks and even to act as the shadow of my tree, I've added that in So the first consistency is what we use a lot for the textures in uh paintings. Now the next second and the third consistency that I showed you is the one that we use for the blends. So the backgrounds tend to be in a little bit of a lighter consistency. And for this blurred out effect in the next technique lesson that I'm going to teach you, we use the fourth consistency where it's a little bit more watered down. I'll teach you more on that, so don't worry. So again, for the blends, we're using the second and third consistency where you want it to be nice and blendable and not too thick, but also not extremely watered down. Now, we saw that when we add water into the paint, it, you know, decreases the opaqueness of our paints. So what do we do when we want to add lighter colors or we want to make lighter colors of a painting. Usually in watercolors, we tend to add water, and then we get a lighter shade. But with gouache, we use white. So that is very important to note that you want to make sure that you're using white to create lighter colors. So I'm going to go ahead and all in some white on my palette. The first shade that I'm going to make is with this viridiant color that I have on my palette. You can use any shade. To this, I'm adding a tiny amount of white, and you can see how the color has lightened a bit, and you can also say that the color looks a lot more opaque. So here, I'm swatching it out for you and you can see how the shade is lighter as compared to its original color. Now I'm adding a little bit more white into the mix and swatching it out for you. So the idea here is that you want to maintain the consistency. So you can see how as I add white, the paint might get thicker. The trick here is to add a tiny amount of water to make it nice and blendable to maintain the consistency in case the paint is becoming thick and create these lighter colors. Again, you want to make sure that you're maintaining the consistency of your paint when you're adding more white into the mix and swatching it out, you can create various different tonal values of the same color by just adding a lot more white into the mix. The more white you add, the lighter your color is going to be. Of course, the color shade changes a lot. It is not entirely light as the swatch before or the color as is. The color will have a lot of white, but this is a way in which we add or create lighter colors of our mixes. So here we have the swatch car. I've written it down. The more white you add into the mix, the lighter your color is going to be, and you still want to make sure that you are maintaining the consistency by adding tiny amounts of water as you go. Over here, you can see how I've used very limited color palettes, especially for this project. I'll be using very, very limited color palettes, but I was still able to create a lot of variety of different shades because I played around with the amount of white that I was adding. Even here, I am using the same color mix, but again, changing the amount of white that I'll add into my mix, and that will help me create various different shades and blends, especially when you're painting snow. So the snow is not entirely just white, right? You've got some shadows in the mix as well. So you want to make sure that you are blending colors and creating lighter shades of the same color mix that you're using. Anyway, this is all we had to talk about the consistency. Try it out for yourself. Next, we're going to talk about blending. So over here, I'm going to show you two different types of blending. So one blending is going to be just creating a gradient with a single color. So again, that will help you understand how we create lighter shades of the same color. So over here, we're doing the second type of blending, which is blending between two or three colors, right? So in our class projects, we'll be using these two types of blending. So we want to make sure that we have a hands on practice for that. So over here, I have taken three colors out Prussian blue. I've got orange. Next, I have yellow, and, of course, I have white on my palette from the foe. So we're going to be creating two different blends, starting off with the blues. So over here, I have my Prussian blue. I'm going to create three different colors, let's say, three or four different colors. So each time I create a different puddle of my color mix, I'm going to add more white into it. So you can see how clearly there are three different shades of blue on my palette right here. One is the paint as is. So I've just added a bit of water into my mix to make it nice and blendable. And the rest to have white in there. I'm just going to go ahead in this swift left and right or to and fro motion. And as I've covered a bit of a section with the darker blue, I'm going for the medium blue. Again, you want to make sure that you're going in the swift left and right motion, and you want to also make sure that you're being as quick as possible. Not that it would make that much of a difference because squash is easily reactivable if that's even a word, but you can always reactivate the paint and do it. But to create that seamless blend between the colors, I would suggest you kind of work a little bit quick, especially for the background, and that will ensure that there is that seamless blend between the three or four colors that you're creating. Again, like I mentioned earlier, the idea for this type of blend is to create a gradient in which you're going from dark to light you can also go light to dark, that is completely your choice. Over here, I added a bit more white for the fourth color. That's why I said we're going to be using three or four different colors. Again, going in that swift to and fro motion and blending the colors as I go. Here I laid out those four colors right next to each other as you can see, now, once you lay down the color, I would suggest you clean your brush, give it a double rinse, maybe load up the darker color at the top in case you feel like, you know, it got lost along the blending process. You can always go back and add more. If not, you can just go ahead with a damp brush and constantly go in this to and fro motion. And what that ensures is that you are going to again, create that seamless blend between the colors where you just move left and right, and then that ends up, you know, blending the colors as you go. Anyway, over here we have this beautiful gradient, so I'm going to let this dry and then we'll have a closer look to how the colors have dried out. All right, so here's what our dried up blend looks like. If you notice very carefully, the colors have lightened a bit, right? So that is something when it comes to painting with gouache that you have to keep in mind that your colors will dry out to be lighter. So always keep that into account. It is something that comes naturally, especially when you practice a lot with gouache, you will notice that you get used to the fact that it does lighten a little bit. But yeah, just keep that in mind. Before we move on to the next blend, let me show you one very important thing, and I've also emphasized this before. Always make sure that you're keeping two jars of water. I always have two jars of water, and I would really suggest that you have it with you as well. Alright, so let us move on to the next blend. Over here, I have my yellow paint, yellow and white mixed together. So I'm going to lay that down at the bottom. Over here, I want to show you what the blends between two or three or more colors looks like. To my same yellow mix, I've added a bit of orange and white just to create a lighter shade and not that deep color as the orange is on its own. So here, again, going in this to and fro motion, making sure that I blend it with the yellow as I go. So again, make sure that you are moving quick. If you feel like your brush is drying as it will usually, then you just dampen your brush, add a tiny amount of water. And that will ensure that you have this nice and damp brush to work with. Over here, I'm stopping with the orange and I've made my blue mix. You can create as dark or as light as you want. I'm going for a medium blue, and I'm adding that at the top and then bringing it down in this to and fro motion. Now, even over here, I'm going to bring it down slowly, but then stop halfway and then use just white to make the blends in my color. So you want to make sure that you're creating sort of like a gradient, even in the blues, because we have a gradient with the yellow and orange because they are, you know, closer to each other on the color wheel. But with blue, we can't really create that gradient, mixing it with orange. So that's when we add white into the mixture. So whenever you blend complimentary colors, you want to ensure that you leave a little bit of space so that you can lighten the blue and the orange together and have them blend in with one another. Now, that will ensure that you don't create a muddy color while blending them together. Now that it is wrong, for me, personally, I don't like that muddiness in the sky. So I opt for just blending them with white. You can even see here there was a harsh line between the orange and the blue. So it isn't like you cannot rectify it. You can. You can always add in a bit of white into that border and then blend it with the orange slowly and then with the blue again. So this will take a little bit of a practice, especially when you want to have seamless blends. I would really suggest that you try different color combinations, especially with complimentary colors. If not, you can also try this blend with just colors next to each other, so then you could go like yellow to orange to like a deeper orange and then maybe go into purple. You can just kind of try and blend different colors together and give yourself a good practice. Now, this is something that we'll use a lot in our craft projects. So make sure that you are playing around with different colors, getting a hands on experience on the blend so that when we move on to our class projects, you are super confident about your blends. Anyway, so we're going to let this dry again. I feel like there's a little bit of yellow missing. Let me just quickly add that in. All right. I think I'm okay with this. We're going to let this dry and have a closer look. All right, so these two sections have dried. I've also written that the left one is using a single color, the right one is using two or more colors. Again, you will find a picture of these under the resources part of this class in case you want to have a closer look at that and just have that with you for reference. All right, these were the two techniques we covered. We covered consistency and blending in this technique lesson one. So as you know, adding white into the color will give you lighter shades. Adding water will take away the opaqueness, and then we've got the two beautiful blends. This is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll talk about the next two techniques. 5. Techniques 2 : Layering & Wet on Wet: Alright, the next technique that we're going to talk about in this lesson is layering. Now, layering is the process of adding one layer over the other, as the name suggests, right? So whenever you're painting with quash, you generally tend to start with especially for landscapes, actually with the sky, then you have the middle layer, and then you have, like, your foreground layer. So you're always working in different layers. Even here, I have the sky, then you've got the middle layer, and then you've got the layer in front. So that is the concept that we're always following for our landscape paintings, right? So that is something that we keep in mind. Over here, I'll show you how we achieve that soft effect. That is going to be the next part of this lesson. But again, let's talk about how we layer with quash so that we don't end up reactivating the background layer. Now, over here, one thing to always keep in mind is that the consistency plays a very important role. If you have a thicker layer in the bottom, you are going to reactivate that because you will add, let's say, a thick layer over on top, and then that ends up reactivating the paints at the bottom. Again, like I said, gouache is a paint that gets reactivated with water. So you want to always ensure that you're working in a way that your background layers don't reactivate. So for here I'm creating a block with a thick consistency of paint. I wouldn't say this is as thick as the tube as is the paint from the tube as is. This one has a tiny amount of water in there, but it's still pretty thick. This is not the preferred consistency that I would like to work with, especially for my background layers. I would be okay to work with this by foreground layers, but not so much for the background layers. Next block that I'm creating is using the same paint, but I've added a little bit more of the water in the paint. So over here, it's nice and blendable. It's not as thick. And you'll see it as I apply it itself, that this isn't as thick as the previous section. So again, I'm creating another block. I'm going to show you the examples on both and how your brush strokes will have an effect if your background layer is thick and if your background layer is of a consistency, that would still retain its opaqueness and not get reactivated as you add a layer on top. So make sure that you have two blocks and then let it dry completely. Alright, these two sections have dried completely. So next, I'm going to take a thinner brush. You can take any round brush, or I'm taking a round brush over here. And I'm going to go ahead and make sure that it's quite nice and dry and have a bit of white on your palette because I want to show this example with white. So I'm just going to take my brush, mix it in with, you know, maybe green if you want to, or you can just use white as is. Now, the idea is on that thicker layer, if I create a brushstroke, you can still see a little bit of the background through. Now, this will happen with white. White generally tends to dry down a little bit. Less vibrant, I would say. Over here, we did mix a little bit of the green in there or the viridian color in there. But otherwise, even gauche or the titanium white gauche tends to dry down a little bit lighter. Maybe you'll have to layer at two times. But over here when I create this brush doke, it reactivates the background layer, and there's a lot more of the viridian color peeking through. I'm just playing around with different shapes here just to see what shape reactivates it. I noticed that dragging my brush tends to reactivate the paint. You can see how once it dries, it will appear a lot more different then it will show a lot more of the green from the background. Now on this section, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to create the same brushstrokes that I created in the previous block. But over here you see how the paint is a lot more opaque as compared to the previous block. When your previous layer, like the block layer here is not thick. When you layer over, it tends to retain its layer and not get reactivated with water. When you're working with white, there are chances that you will have the color peeking through, but in most cases, it will not, especially if your background layer is a little bit lighter. The point of this whole exercise basically is that you want to make sure that your background layer is of a thinner consistency as compared to the layers that you add over it. If your white is not drying down to be nice and opaque, you might have to layer it again. Once it dries, to get that nice and opaque feel. But otherwise, this is the basic concept. Let me write that down for you and I'll show you what all of this means. All right, so I've written everything down in bullet points. You can download this again from the resources section and have a closer look at it. But now we're moving on to the bonus technique that is the wet on wet technique. Now, these are the two projects in which I'll be using the wet on wet technique, especially for the background blowed out effect. In this project, I have got the pine trees in the background that I'll be using to show with this technique. Right? You can see how there's a blowed out effect. And over here, entirety of my background is done on wet on wet technique. And once it dries, it creates that soft blended effect, and then I've got these harsh lines or the layer in front, which is the main point of that class project. So anyway, let me show you how the wet on wet technique works. Now, this is very similar to your watercolor wet on wet technique where you first go ahead with your flat brush or a round brush or whatever, a larger size brush, and you want to ensure that your surface is wet. So wet on wet technique, as the name suggests, is the process of adding your wet paint onto the wet surface. So you prep the surface with water over here. Please don't mind that section. I actually absorbed all the water. And this actually means that the sizing of my paper has gone bad, and it's not going to hold water as it should. So this is an old block of paper that I was using, which ended up getting spoilt. So I decided to use that for any exercises and practice that I was doing. But the concept will remain the same, right? So we are going to just prepar paper, add in water. And you can see, as I create these brush strokes, Again, there isn't a lot of water on my paint mix. If I add a lot more water into my paint mix, the paint will spread out more. Again, very similar to watercolors. Over here, I have, let's say, the third consistency that I showed you earlier. So that's the consistency that I have. So you can see how it kind of blends with the background. It's creating this nice soft effect as well. It's that soft nice blended effect, and at the same time, I have a lot more control over these brush strokes. Especially when we're going to be doing the project on top, as you can see the gray and yellow one where we want to show there's a tree. I mean, there's a lot of trees, and then you've got the little soft sunny glow in the middle and you've got the shadow play happening. All of that is happening on wet on wet technique, but at the same time, my brush strokes are a lot more controlled. I can really tell where the paint is going. I can guide it. But overall, I will be able to create that blended effect. So I'm just sapping my paints around, trying to create like a structure, maybe an idea of a forest that I have, and everything in my forest is in the background. And you can do this with any color. The idea is to learn the control over the paints that you have, right? So do practice this a little because you are going to be using this in a final class project. The green one that you see on the left or behind the artwork that is on top, it's still a very little bit of this technique that is used. But the one in front, we're using that to create the entire background. So do give this technique a try. Play around with different consistencies, I would say. Try doing it with a thicker consistency and see what happens when you lay that on like a wet surface and then go with a medium thicker consistency. Then go for a very, very thin consistency and see how the paints react. That is very important to know how your different paints react to the wet surface. And overall, you will have a bit more confidence in your brush strokes when you do it for the final class project. Again, my sizing of the paper was a little bit spoiled towards the left side, so it appeared a little bit different as I expected it to. But overall, again, like I said, the concept remains the same. And even with the wet on wet technique, you can create a variety of different brushstrokes. You can show trees, you can show branches. You can show, you know, the foliage on your trees in the background. You can create all those brush strokes. Again, I would say, like, the control of the paint and the water is what is the most important part of this technique. So give it a try and see how your paints and different consistencies react. Now, while this is drying, I'm going to go ahead and take up some black paint. And the idea is, I want to show you how that layering works. So once your section has completely dried and you are sure that there is no water left on your paint on your paper, sorry, not on the paint on the paper, you can go ahead and layer anything that you wanted on top. I'm here creating a pine tree quickly with my grayish color on my palette. You can create any shapes. And as you can see, because this is a layer on top of the background layer, this one retains a shape. It's nice and sharp. And, again, you can create any sort of shapes that you want here. It isn't that you just have to create a pine tree. Anything that you add on top will be the focus point of your artwork. So like I mentioned, whenever you're creating a landscape painting, when you want the background to be soft and blowed out, or you want to show some elements at a distance, you can add brushstrokes on the wet sort of paint or the wet section itself, whenever you're working on the wet blends as well. When you do that, you create that nice soft blowed out effect so that the foreground element is in focus and it stands out a lot more. Like in this project, if in Europe, got those pine trees in a distance that shows those elements exist, but they are not the main focus point of your artwork. All right, so this is going to really change your guash game. Do give it a practice, and this is it. For the second technique lesson, we learned layering where we understood that we want to make sure that you let each layer dry completely before you move on to the next one and make sure that your background layer is thinner than the other one. And for the wet and wet, we learn how to create blowed out effects. This is it for this lesson, and in the next lesson, we are going to learn about the tree elements. 6. Exercise : Pine Trees & Snow Details: All right, let us talk about the pine trees and how to add snow details in this lesson. Now, for our class projects, we are going to be painting a lot of pine trees, right? So as you can see, we've got a variety of different examples of pine trees, especially these first three that I lay out for you is the first option that I'm going to show you. And these two, I'll show you a different type of pine tree because the shape of it is slightly different than the ones in these. So let me show you how you create these type of tapered pine trees where the branches are kind of moving downwards. All right, so let me show you a little bit of a skeleton version of the tree. So let's say you have a trunk for your pine tree. Is a quick sketch, right? And then you have these branches of your pine trees moving downwards. You can see how they have this downward motion. So this is going to be your skeleton of the tree, which means you've just got the trunk and the branches. I'm just drawing it out for you. So this is the shape of your tree. As you can see, each branch that comes down and is laid right below the other, the size of the branches increase, and it kind of moves more outwards. So this is going to be the structure of this first pine tree that you will be painting a lot in this class project. Alright. Again, you can play around with the shape of this. You can play around with the number of branches that you add because in nature, you'll find these pine trees in so many different ways, so many different styles, I would say types styles types. But overall, this is the one that you're going for. I'm going to mix s brown, black, and green together just to create this really deep brown, olive color. It isn't entirely olive. It's just, like, a really deep, greenish brownish shade. Alright, so starting off with the bottom, and then I'm going to apply more pressure at the bottom. And as I release it upwards, I'm decreasing the pressure that I apply on my brush. For your reference, over here, I'm using a size four round brush. This is something that I have become very familiarized with, but if you're not confident with such a thick brush, make sure that you size it down, maybe go for a size too. And kind of mimicking the skeleton of my pine tree, I'm making these brush strokes. Now, they aren't really well thought, I would say, I'm not really thinking about the shape so much or obsessing about the shape of my pine tree. I'm just keeping this one very, very simple thing in my head, and that is the structure. That is the skeleton drawing of my pine tree. As you can see, you've got these leaves kind of tapering outwards and increasing in size, and they're very randomly placed. And that is exactly what I need to keep in mind. And once I'm done with the overall structure, just to add in some finer details for the pine needles, I'm going to go ahead with a size zero brush, and I'm adding a few little strokes at the bottom of my structure so that it looks a little bit well defined. Now, again, if you can achieve that with your size too, you can go ahead and do that as well. I just prefer to size down for this particular section. Let me give you a closer view of what your branches actually look like so that when you're creating that overall shape, it's easier for you to imagine it. Let's say this is my branch. For the leaves, I'm going to go ahead and create this very light outwards motion from the center of my branch. Either it can move upwards or it can move downwards. Again, let's say this one's moving towards the left the branch. So my structure, again, is very, very coinciding with the branch itself. It's not going in the opposite direction. It is going and moving and flowing with the branch itself. So that is something that you have to keep in mind when you're painting the leaves or adding the pine needles. Again, this is a very swift motion, very light handedly you do it. And as you release your brush stroke, you kind of decrease the pressure on it. If you've painted pine trees in the past, I'm sure you are a pro at it, but this will be a really good practice for you. Moving on to the next type of pine tree. So in this pine tree, the base structure remains the same. That is your trunk remains the same, very similar to the one above. But over here, the branches are moving upwards instead of flowing downwards and tapering downwards. So over here, again, very similar to the one on top. You've got your branches coming out from the main trunk. This time, you want to make sure that you are slightly moving upwards and increasing the size of your branches as they go down. Again, even in the one above and the one below, one thing that I forgot to mention is to always make sure that you are covering the center portion of your trunk. So you don't want to just go left and right with your brush strokes. You want to have some in the middle as well. So let me show you examples of where we'll use this type of tree. So you can see over here, I've got the pine tree with the base trunk, and then you have the branches moving upwards. Very similar to that, we have that in this as well. You've got branches moving upwards, but this one is a little bit more like a far off effect or a far off visual of the pine tree. So I'm going to show you both of them. Alright, so I'm going to create my mix of color with my brown, black, and a bit of green. So you can use any colors. You can just use black as well. I don't like to use black directly into my painting, so I end up creating a really deeper shade of, let's say, a brown or black mixed together or brown green and black mixed together. So here, again, I've created the main trunk. But this time very carefully, I'm creating these little shorter brush strokes right next to each other and moving my brush strokes upwards. And along with that, I'm making sure I'm also covering the center portion of my tree so that the trunk doesn't look really empty from the middle. I really you want to ensure that you've got, you know, branches on the left and the right side. But of course, you're going to have a three dimensional branch flow, right? It's not going to be just towards the left or towards the right. So you always want to ensure that you're filling up the center part of the trunk as well. Again, over here, for example, that we have, you can see how the brush strokes move upwards. Now, it's very similar to the brush stroke I showed you above on the practice section or the close up view that I showed you above. So you have this center portion, and then you're releasing the short strokes right next to it, moving upwards or downwards, right? But you're still following the flow of the base. That is your main branch that you're releasing. So it's all just a combination of your tiny, tiny brush strokes together to just create the fuller version of the tree. Again, this is something that will require a bit of practice. So do like whip out all the brushes that you have, practice creating thicker and thinner strokes so that you have a bit more control over your entire brush strokes and the way you can combine them to create this tree. And for the bottom, I've added a few branches just to show that there is something a branch that came out and it's broken or it's going to emerge out later. Just to create a bit more definition into my tree. Again, you can see how I've made the center portion of my tree fuller so that you cannot really entirely see the trunk. Next type of pine tree that I'm going to show you very similar to the same structure, just that the viewpoint is a little bit further away. So for this one, again, the structure remains the same. I'm going to go ahead and release a few branches left and right, as you can see that I've done here. Right? So just a bunch of branches, again, increasing the size as I go down. And adding a variety of different branch sizes. And next, I'm going to use my spoiled brush. So remember in my materials lesson, I told you that if you have a spoiled brush, you're going to be golden because you can create these wonderful textures with it. So this time, I'm trying to show that there is a lot of foliage or the details of the pine needles on my tree. Or you could just say, if not entirely this being a pine tree with those pine needles. It's still a tree, follows a similar structure, and this time for the foliage, I have created a lot of tabs. If you don't have a brush that looks like this, you might have to a little bit sway around and create a few extra taps to get this similar structure, or you can also use a fan brush for this one, but I am using my spoiled brush. I'm sure you have a brush lying around somewhere in the corner that is not entirely intact in its shape, so you can use that for this one. You can see how I've created the flow of the foliage and then just to define the shape of my tree a little bit more, I've gone ahead and added a few more strokes around. Another thing that you'll notice very carefully here is I'm not thinking so much about the shape. Right? I'm just having a very light hand with my brush strokes and obviously a bit of practice helps you to achieve the structure and the shape that you want to do. So here you can see I've created that upward motion, and I'm creating these tiny strokes along the shape of my base that is the branch, and that will give me this fuller effect. So do practice this a couple more times to have a hands on experience of creating these brush strokes. You know, again, practicing this lesson or doing this exercise lesson ensures that you feel a bit more confident. Over here, I've showed you those taps that it's kind of like a close up version of the second pine tree that I just drew. You have the main structure, and then you tap tap tap, make sure that you're holding your brush perpendicular to the paper just to have more control over the way the foliage moves. Another thing to keep in mind is you see how I'm covering the center portion of the branch. You always want to ensure that you're doing that so that you don't have a lot of empty space in the middle and you don't want to focus only on the sides. All right, so this is about this type of pine tree. The next type of pine tree that I am going to show you is the important one that we need for this class, and that is the one with snow. So you have the structure, the main base of your pine tree, the trunk. This is very similar to the first one that we did. Only thing that changes is you have a lot of snow on it. So these blobs, these irregular shapes that you see me create in the left and right, and also the center portion of my tree are the snow that have fallen on the tree. And because it's this nice conical downward motion of the tree, it has retained a lot of the snow on the branches and on the tree itself. And right below the snow, you've got these pine needles peeking through. So this is just a very, very rough, quick sketch of the pine tree with snow on it. Obviously, you can define it a lot better, especially when you're doing your class projects. So I'm just quickly drawing it out just to show you what the, you know, sketch of this tree looks like, and we're going to achieve this on our own with our paints. The first thing that you're going to do is load up your round brush. I'm using my size for arm brush here again, and I'm creating that deep dark mix of brown and black together for this one. And I have this nice workable consistency, I would like to call it, it's not too thick, but it's not too thin as well. Along using that paint, I have created my base structure and very similar to the pine tree that I showed you above, you're going to go ahead and create your structure of the pine tree. Again, if you feel like your paint is too dry, make sure that you load up a little bit of water and work with the consistency of the paint. Then again, releasing these brush strokes to the left and right, you can see how it has that downward motion. Again, like I mentioned earlier, ensure that you're not just going left and right, but you're also creating a few brush strokes in the middle. These middle ones are going to be a bit more shorter because you want to give that illusion that it's facing towards you. All right. So go ahead and create a pine tree. Again, this is going to be a good practice of what we learned in the first pine tree shape. And once you are done with the base of the tree, for this one, I'm actually going to bring it all the way down. So let me just quickly show you you've got the base, and you are adding the brush strokes below the branch that you just created. A few brush strokes on the top, but mostly focused at the bottom of your branch. So you can see how I've done this one. So I'm just going to give you a close overview of the snow when I add in on that as well. So we're going to let this dry completely before we add the snow. Alright, so my tree here has dried completely, and I am going to go ahead and load up some white paint. So you're just going to add your white paint with a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of grain there. If you don't want to do if you don't want to do that, you can just go ahead and use your white paint as. Again, like I told you, the white will dry down to be a little bit less opaque so you might have to layer. So for this one, I'm just going with my white paint, and I'm going to add that on top portions of my structure. So see how I have that little bit of the pine tree shape peeking through. So you want to make sure that you do leave a little bit of space. So think about it in a way that when snow falls on the tree, the top portions of your branches, each branch will retain the snow on it, and then obviously, whatever structures below the snow is going to be visible to you. Right? So that's the concept that we're going with here. So I'm adding all on the top portions of my structure and leaving a little bit of space at the bottom. Again, notice very carefully how I've not just added these brush strokes left and right, but I've also added some kind of moving downwards in the middle so that it creates that illusion that it has fallen in the center portion as well, and it's not just empty but an overall full pine tree. Even on the branches that I created on the side, you can see how added the snow. And it's not just a blob. It has that little downward stroke, very similar to the pine tree brush stroke that you were creating. All right. Now that we're done with this, we are going to let this dry again completely before we go ahead and add a second layer just to highlight this a little bit more. All right, now that my structure has dried up completely, I'm going to go ahead and load up some more white on a smaller size brush this time ensuring that I don't have any mix of a different color in there. So make sure that you double rinse your brush. And certain sections. I'm just going to pick out certain branches and create these strokes just to highlight and make my snow look a little bit denser in those areas. Now, over here, I'm not really giving it a lot of thought. I'm just going to go ahead and pick out the areas that I want and add the snow on it. But when you observe from a reference image or if you are trying to paint from a landscape right in front of you, you might have to see where the light is coming from. This time, I'm just assuming the light is coming from the top, so all the top areas of the snow have a little bit more of that highlighted effect in there. Anyway, I'm happy with the way the highlights look. But one thing that you'll notice is that a lot of my branches below have been covered. So we're going to let this try completely and define our tree in the next step. Alright, so my snow has completely dried. Again, make sure that your snow has dried. So if you see these class projects on the side, there is that visual that you've got these pine trees in the back. So I just want to quickly show you the pine trees in the back. So these are very small pine trees that you're creating, so it doesn't really matter what the shape of the pine tree looks like. You just want to make sure that it has that conical downward motion to it. So you'll quickly create a center portion and then just tap left and right on it. And while that is drying, I'm just going to clean my brush and load up some white with these tiny very light handedly, I'm going to create the structure of the snow on there. Again, this is going to be a tree that is at a distance. You want to show that it's a pine tree and you'll be adding that a lot in our class project. So make sure that you practice this tinier version as well. Anyway, moving on to this one, I'm going to define my tree here. And how I do that is you want to show those branches peeking through from all the snow that has fallen on it, right? So right now, it does look like a blob. You can't really see the definition of my tree. So load up your brush with some paint. And right below each structure, you want to pick out sections and create those short strokes that we have practiced all this time. Or just tiny, tiny, tiny strokes just to define the tree, just to bring out those little branches that are peaking through, even though there is snow fallen on it. And then this step, basically what it does here is, it gives that definition to the tree where like I mentioned, the snow when the snow falls, it falls on the top and you've got these branches peaking through, your pine needles peaking through. So it adds to that definition. Now, if you look very carefully, the tree looks a lot more natural, a lot more like a tree with snow on it and not just a blob in the back with black and some blobs with white on top of it. Okay. So again, make out those sections, define it a little bit more along with the left and right brushstrokes of my pine tree. I've added some in the middle as well just to add in a bit of that three dimensional effect on the tree. Again, do practice this because this is going to give you a lot of practice for your pine trees. There are going to be so many pine trees that we are going to do in this class entirely with all our class projects. So this will be a really, really good practice for you to gain more confidence. And the more number of times that you do it, the more confident you're going to be about adding these snow filled pine trees in our painting. Anyway, once you're happy with the overall look, you're going to let that dry and here are the trees that we have practiced for this class. The entire trees that we have done, one is the tree moving upwards, one with the branches moving downwards, and then you've got the tree with the snow on it. Again, do give it a try because this is going to be really important for us. Along with the overall structure. I've also mentioned what each branch and those structures look like with snow on it or just as is. So again, this is all about your brush, your hand movements. So the more swift you are with it, the more light you are with it, the more real like or life like your structure is going to look. So do give it a try, practice this, and this is it for this exercise lesson. I'll see you in the next one where we're going to paint birch trees and other tree details. 7. Exercise : Birch Trees & Other Tree Details : All right. So the next type of trees that I want to talk about are these birch trees that we'll be adding in our class project right here. And along with that, I also want to show you a few tree details that will help you add more details into your trees. So the one here is very similar to your pine tree detailing, but I'll still show you an example of it. So we have a lot of branches and a lot of tree details that are not entirely fixated on a particular type of tree that we'll be adding. But before we move on to those, let's talk about our birch trees. Now for the birch trees, the main structure is that you have a trunk, which is not really white. You've got a fairly thin trunk. And from the trunks, you have these branches moving upwards. So there are going to be a lot of details to our branches, but they all emerge from the trunk, and along with that detail, you've got a lot of texture on the trunk itself. You've got these white and these brown extras that you have on your birch trees. So we are going to learn how you can achieve that when you're painting with quash. Now, this is not entirely like an example or an exact replica of our birch trees, but we're still trying to capture the essence as much as we can. So you'll notice the branches have that upward motion, so that is something that we have to keep in mind. So over here, I'm mixing my brown paint and my black paint together, and using my brush with my roden brush, I'm adding pressure on my brush and moving it upwards, trying to maintain like similar thickness for my trunk. Obviously, you can have a slightly irregular shape, but try to maintain the thickness. Now, from my birch tree from the center, I'm going to release these main branches, I would like to call them, right? So I'm going to release a few main branches right next to each other, moving left and right, but they are moving upwards, so that is something that you want to keep in mind. And it's not just a single branch. I'm adding a few details in there as well. And one thing to keep in mind for these branches are you're trying to create a Y, right? Obviously, they're moving upwards, but you have this Y shape, especially right now. Let me give you a close up view, like a thicker branch and just a section of the birch tree. So you've got the trunk and from the center or somewhere on the side of the tree, you're going to have the branches coming out. Again, you see how this is like a Y. Again, there's a Y, and then obviously you have, like a series of branches or thinner branches coming out. So over here, you can see how I'm very light with the pressure that I have on my brush, very, very light pressure. So this is something that you should practice before we go ahead with our class projects. Now that the base has dry, let me show you how we add the texture on tree. So for this, I'm using my spoiled brush and my white paint. Now, I want a bit of that grayish tone, so I've mixed it with the brown, a tiny, tiny bit so that it's not entirely white. And now with a thick consistency, this is where the consistency one, the thick consistency comes into play because that helps us create that texture that we need, that rough dry brush texture that, you know, you can use on your trees. So over here I'm just brushing my brush, the bristles of my brush on the structure and creating that textured effect. If you feel like your paint is really thin, then you can load up some paint and wipe it on the cloth to get rid of any excess paint that you might have. All right. Let me give you a view of the similar thing on the tree that is on the left, as well. So again, I'm loading my paint. I think I load it up too much, so I'm just wiping it on my cloth and then slightly brushing it across the shape that I want to create the texture that we need for the tree. So this is something that you'll have to work with because the pressure that you apply on your brush plays a very important role. Along with that, even the consistency of the paint plays an important role. So these are a few tips to keep in mind when you're working with this. Again, very lightly, make sure you're not applying too much pressure because if you apply too much pressure, you might reactivate the base paint as well. So very, very lightly, you want to go ahead and create that texture and then let it dry completely before we go ahead and add in any highlights and further details to this. All right. So my section has dried here completely. So now what I'm going to do is with my brown paint, I just want to bring in the branches to the center of my tree, just to not show that the branches are just emerging out of the left or the right corner of the tree. But otherwise, they are emerging from the center or it is a part of the tree. So you want to kind of bring in those branches inwards, not entirely. Don't let all your branches come from the center, but still kind of bring them inwards so that they seem to be connected with the tree itself. And if you think you are too much white, you can go ahead and add in a few brown strokes just to bring in some brown textures in there. Once you're done with that, just with my brush, I've loaded some wine, and I'm adding a bit more texture on the tree just to define or give a variation of colors in it. So it's not just gray. There is a bit of that white color in there as well. And you can also blend out those branches slightly by adding a bit of that frosty white layer over it. Alright. Now that while now that this is drying or while that is drying, said two things and you know, thought of two things and blotted out both the words together. Anyway, while that is drying, you are going to create these finer branches for which I'm using my spoiled brush. Now, because my bristles are spread apart, when I load up my brush with some paint and create these branches, it tends to give me two or more of the similar brush stroke, which makes my branches appear fuller. Again, if you don't have a spoiled brush, all you have to do is create multiple of these branches of these finer branches. But otherwise, it's the same process. Over here, I'm just going to go ahead and add in some more branches again. Very lightly, play around with the shape, make sure that you are getting each branch to be connected with one another. Now, that is something to keep in mind. But again, you can always play around with the shape of the branches, flow them however you think or give them the direction that you want to give them. This is the creative freedom you have here, or if you're trying to observe a tree in reality and then bring that to life, then you can observe how those branches flow. And create your brush strokes accordingly. I want these branches to move upwards and just slightly move downwards in some situations, so I'm just going to bring those variations. But again, this is something that will require a bit of practice because there is variations in the brush strokes in the amount of pressure that you're applying on your brushes. So keep that in mind. Anyway, this is it for the birch tree. You can see how we were easily able to capture the essence of my tree that we needed. Next, we're going to talk about our normal trees. I would like to call them normal trees because I really don't know the type of tree that they are. So let's just say a normal tree, which has a lot of branches, a lot of trunks, tree trunks, and a lot of, like, those main branches and sub branches coming out. Now, these can be in a lot of different shapes in a lot of different structures. What if you're seeing, you're trying to create the tree based on that. And you're going to have a lot of texture on your trunk. So it's not just one smooth structure, right? You have a lot of textures. You have a lot of details. I feel like the tree trunk has so many details that if you sat down to observe it, you know, it'll take you forever to try and figure out how to capture those details into your paintings. So, I mean, I feel that way about all the trees because there are so many details that you can add with trees. But then again, as an artist, you have the creative freedom to add the details you want and not add the details that you don't want. So keeping that in mind, moving on with the structure. I've just created some trunks and some finer branches that I want to add. Now, I'm going to go ahead with my size four brush, loading it up with some black and brown paint just to create that deep brown color. And for example, let's say it's similar to the tree that I have on the painting on the left. So starting off with a lot of pressure on my brush, right? So a lot of thick strokes, I'm going to go ahead and apply a lot of pressure, as I move, I decrease the amount of pressure that I'm adding. Now, this helps me create that seamless movement in my brush stroke so that I don't have to constantly break my flow and create multiple different stop points for my brush. But rather with one singular smooth flow of my brush stroke, I'm able to create variations in the pressure and the sizing of the brush stroke. I hope that is making sense. But if you're more confident with breaking down your brush strokes, feel free to do that. It's all about what works for you, right? So over here, create the shape that you want. The idea is to practice the amount of pressure that you're applying on your brushes. So once you're done with, let's say, the main branches. So this gives me the idea of, let's say, the main structure of my tree. Now what I add on top is all going to be finer branch details. While that section is drying, let me just quickly show you a close up view of my branch. So let's say this is the structure that I want. So I start off with a more thicker pressured brush stroke. And then as I release it, I add very, very little pressure on my brush, and this way, I'm able to create variations in my branches while maintaining the same size for my brush. So if you're someone who do not like changing your brush multiple times, I would suggest that you practice this motion that is applying and releasing pressure while maintaining a single stroke, and at the same time, observe your trees, see all the details, and then try and create structure similar to that. While this section is drying, let me quickly show you this other tree detail that we'll be painting. So this one has, like, a main branch and a lot of, like, leaf details around it. So for the base, I have starting off with the main branch. Then it's potting weights, it's splitting into multiple different branches and has multiple different branches coming out from the same structure. Again, creative freedom, feel free to make it how you want it. There isn't much to do here. Once you're done with the base structure, I'm going with my spoiled size zero brush, and with the green color, I'm going to go ahead and create these multiple tinier strokes coming from each branch. So you're going to pick a section and you're going to have leaves on the left and right side. Again, pick a section, leaves on the left and right side. Now, they're not very you can see how they don't go left and right straight like 90 degree to the branch itself. They have a downward flow, right? So you want to always maintain that downward flow, especially for creating leaves like these. So you're picking those sections and creating very, very small strokes. Releasing your brush of the pressure as you end each brush stroke. Again, it's all about your hand movements. It's all about creating that practice and getting used to your brushes and the way they perform. Once you're done with the darker color, I went and added a bit of white, and I'm creating a few brush strokes with this lighter shade of green as well. Again, that adds in a few more details into my painting, a few different variations of the colors of the leaves that you'll see. All right. Now that you're done with this, this is an example of where we'll be using it, by the way. So you can go ahead and play around with the shapes, create different sections, create different parts of this tree, and try to add the details in. If you feel like you added too much of the branch with the greens, you can always go ahead and add in a few details for the branch with the brown on top and then cover it up with a bit of green on there as well. Anyway, here's a section. I'm happy with the way that looks moving on to the tree that we sketched out on top. Now, over here, I want to release a few finer branches on there. So what I'm going to do is go ahead with my spoiled brush and start creating different separations for the branches. What I mean is you don't want a whole continuous section of the branch. You want to start breaking it in wits and points. So you have one structure, maybe that splits into two and that splits into four, and then that splits into eight, you're going to create that sort of flow in your tree. So whenever you notice trees, they're not entirely like straight lines, right? They have a lot of different flows on there, a lot of different directions in which the branches move. And the more finer branches that it has, the more fuller the tree appears because that will have a lot of leaves on top of it. That is the concept that we're going with. So I've added a few finer branch details. I'm not overdone this section, but you get the idea. The more you add, the more fuller your tree is going to look. Now the next thing that we're going to focus on is the texture for the tree. Now, that is something really important that we'll be applying on my trees for this class project. So over here, I'm creating a thick consistency of paint, which is the brown and white mixed together. And using my spoiled cs, she can see I'm just lightly dragging it very similar to the birch trees and moving along the direction of the trunk that I have or the shape of the branch that I have. And this way, it helps me add a bit of texture into my tree, and it doesn't look all that flat. Right? So when it's just as it's brown, it looks a bit flat. But when you create this texture, it adds a bit of definition into your tree. Now, this is one shade that I use. You can also lighten it, slightly lighten it and add in a bit more texture on there just for adding variations. Anyway, these are the other two types of trees and branch details that we have covered that we are going to be using very efficiently in our class projects. So make sure that you give this a try. Again, it's all about getting to know your brushes, getting to know your paints and how they perform, and getting a good swift motion for your hands, and it's like a warm up exercise so that when you start with your class projects, you feel a little bit more confident about each brushstroke that you create while enjoying the entire process. So always keep that in mind. Anyway, here we're done with the exercise lesson. I will see you in the first class project. 8. Project 1 Part 1 : Golden Forest: Come to your first class project. Here's what we're painting today. Let us talk about all the colors that I'm using for this one. So I have primary yellow. Next, I have cadmium orange, Russian blue, olive green, burnt umber, ivory black, and titanium white. So let's talk about the base first. So I have my paper taped down at the back of my cardboard sheet, an extra piece of paper for swatching out the colors and all the colors on my palette. On the left top, you can see the reference image that I'm using. It will be available under the project and resources section in case you want to download it and have a look at it on your own. So the first thing that I'm going to do is at the very bottom of the paper, create this irregular shape, as we can see on the left side as well. That is going to have a lot of trees on top, which will be my foreground. Behind that, I have another irregular shape, irregular land with a lot of, like, blurred out lighter pine trees in the background of that pine tree forest in the background. That's going to be my middle ground. And then, obviously, for the background, I have my sky. So I'm just going to go ahead observe the reference image and roughly sketch out a few trees that I see. Again, roughly and very lightly. Make sure that you're not making very thick or very dark pencil strokes because you want to erase it and paint over it. So do it very, very lightly. So here I have a very, very basic sketch because I just want to understand the placement of a few things, and obviously I can change things or at least the shape and size of my tree as I go. So this is going to be my basic sketch. Let's start with the painting process. So, like we learned, we are going to start off with the background. Here I have my size for round brush, and I'm going to create a few shades. So first, I have my primary yellow mixed with white. So again, a lighter shade of that yellow. So here's a swatch of the yellow that I'm using. The next color that I want to make is an orange color. So I have my primary yellow mixed with cadmium orange and my white paint. So a lighter version of the oranges not entirely that deep orange. So here's a swatch of the mix of color that I want. Again, you can go for similar shades. You don't have to have the exact shade. Next, I have the red paint as well, which I forgot to mention. This is primary red. So I have the primary red on here as well. Just added a bit of that color in just to create that deeper tone of orange. And I have mixed it with orange and white, of course. But the next color that I have is my primary red, mixed with Prussian blue to create that purple color. So because I didn't want a blue in there and I wanted a purple, I went with this mix. If you have a purple shade, which is very close to the one that I've mixed, feel free to use that as well. So these are the four colors that I'll be using for the background, and we want to blend all these four colors together. So for this, I will be using my flat brush as it provides me with a little bit more of that blending ease, right? So first, I'm going ahead with the yellow color. Again, I'm laying it out with my round brush, but then again, blending is easier with your flat brushes. So I have laid out the yellow very close to the sum that I sketched out. And after that, I am going again, I did tell you that I would pick out my flat brush. So I have my flat brush and I'm going to go ahead and load up some orange, lay it in this circular form next to the yellow that I just laid out, and you can either load up yellow and blend it with the orange or just clean your brush, rinse it and just with your damp brush, blend the orange into the yellow. Over here, I am just focusing more on laying out the color and slightly blending it into one another before I go ahead with that final blend for which I might be using my damp brush itself in case I don't want to add any colors. So over here, I am laying the colors out in this circular motion just to create that effect that the blend of the colors is coming from the center of the sun and because of that light that is dispersing in the sky, the blend is, you know, it forms in that formation. So that's the idea that I'm going with, right? So I have laid out that deeper orange color next to it. Also, I have laid out and added a bit more pink into the mix just to create another shade into that blend before it blends into the purple. So for this, as you can see, I've added a bit of pink, I mean, that red and white, which made the pink and blending it next to the orange that I just laid out. And here's a swatch of the pink that I've made. Five colors we're blending, which might seem like a lot, but it isn't actually because they're all just a mix of one another, except for the purple, of course. Just to make that transition from the orange to the purple, a bit seamless, we added a bit of pink in there. Alright, now that we are done with the orange and pink part, I'm going to rinse my brush, make sure that my brush is nice and clean, and add in the purple on the side. So on both the left and right side of my sheet, I'm going to go ahead and add in the purple. Now, another thing that you will notice right here is that the blend looks all over the place. And that is because I'm focusing more on laying out the colors. That is quickly laying out the colors before I go ahead and start blending. Again, I fell short of the purple, so I've mixed a little bit more of the same shade. One suggestion is to try and have more of the same color mixed out on your palette so that it's easy when you start blending them because sometimes we might end up making a shade a bit too dark or a bit too light. So it's good to have enough. Make sure that you're rinsing your brush completely. And just with your damp brush, that is in your clean a jar of water, you double rinse it, and just with fresh damp clean brush, you can start the blending process, right? So I'm starting off with the yellow first. So right in the center, I'm adding the yellow, and you can see how I move my brush in this circular motion just to create that blendy effect in that circular blendy effect. Right? Or did I just say blendy? A blending is not even a word, but it's just, you know, it's just an emotion. You're blending it in that circular motion. Anyway, after the yellow, I've added a bit of orange in there, again, blending it with the yellow, trying to create that seamless blend. So this is very similar to the blending exercise that we did in the techniques lesson where we blended yellow and orange with the blue. But this time, we're blending it with a lot of different colours in between. The idea being you're using a damp brush or some fresh paint on your brush to make that blend even and seamless. Again, wherever you feel like your brush is trying, you can just add a tiny amount of water in your brush. Make sure that it's really, really insignificant amount of water because if it's a lot of water, then you end up moving the paints, you know, like a little bit more than you expect them to move. So just dampen your brush and get back into the blending. And now, if you notice very carefully, there is that seamless blend coming through, right? You can see how seamlessly that yellow blends into the orange. That is blending into the deeper orange and pink on the side, and that is exactly what we're going for. This might take a bit of time a bit. Maybe you might not get it even in the first try, but I'm actually confident that you're going to do it. So I know you will, but in case you don't, it's completely okay. You learn something and then you can try again. So the idea, again, is that you have that seamless blend of colors in your sky. So keep going back and forth with the blends. If you've added too much of the purple, bring in the orange. I mean, the pink, blended in. If you think you added too much of the orange and less of the yellow, again, add in some yellow and blend it together. So this is something that is going to take a bit of time, so enjoy the process of blending all these colors with one another seamlessly. And have that perfect blend of colors that you require and are happy with. I felt like it could still use a bit of yellow in the center. So I've gone ahead and added that yellow in there with my round brush, and then after cleaning my brush, I'm going to go ahead and blend it with the background. And the reason I did this is because I have that white in the center, so I want to create that glow effect a lot more. Anyway, once that is sort of dry, slightly dry, you're going to go ahead and load up some white paint with your round brush and just add that in the center, and that is going to be the sun. So there's a lot of fog in the sky. There is this pretty color in there, but that hazy effect creates this beautiful blend of colors for you. All right, we're going to let this dry and move on to the next step. Alright, now that this section has completely dried up, it's time for us to add in those far off pine trees for which we're going to create this grayish color. So I'm going to mix my brown that is burnt umber with a tiny amount of black and white in there, and I've added a bit of blue. But then this mix, I'm just going to discard because it's too blue. So to the same mix, I've added a bit of black, a bit of brown and white, and I'm also going to add in a tiny amount of red in there so that this color is gray, but at the same time, it's using those similar shades that we have used in the background, so it creates that harmony in the colors. So here's a swatch of the shade that I'll be using for those background pine trees. So for this, I'm not really going for the exact details. I'm also going to use my size four brush. You can reduce the size and go for a size too as well. So over here, the idea is to go ahead and start creating these really, really fine uneven strokes. So you can see I'm creating these vertical lines next to one another. And creating different variations in those shapes. Now, the idea is you don't want it to all look even, right? The sizes of the trees and the wild is not all even. And because there is so much of variations in the sizes, the beauty of the landscape comes out more. So I'm just going to go ahead and start creating these uneven strokes. Your brush strokes don't have to exactly look like mine. Envision that you are looking into this landscape and you've got a forest in the background somewhere, and there are so many trees laid out next to one another, and the heights of all these trees are different. So that is the only vision that I have right now, and I'm going to go ahead and start creating this. Again, though that this painting is done using a reference image, we don't have to exactly replicate that image. You can get inspired from this and then add in your own touch that we will be doing. We'll be changing a lot of different aspects of this painting, changing the positions of the trees, or adding a few details on our own. So even though this is heavily inspired from a reference image, you can add your own touch to this. All right. So here, I'm just going to go ahead and using the single color, just add in different variations going left and right. You know, adding those different variations in the sizes. Feel free to do this however you want. But again, ensure that the height of these trees are not really, really small. You still want to give them like, I would say, half an inch of height depending on the size of your paper, of course. So here, I've just given them a bit of height because I will be adding a few more trees in front of it. I still want to be able to see these trees while I add a layer in front of it. Anyway. So now that I'm done with this, I'm happy with the way this looks. I'm just going to blend everything together, fill up any empty spaces that I might see. And once I'm done with this, I am going to let this layer completely dry before we add anything on top. A while this is drying, I'll see you in the next lesson where we are going to add further details into our artwork. 9. Project 1 Part 2 : Golden Forest: Alright, so now that the background layer has dried completely, it's time for us to add another layer in front of it. So for this, I will be using a deeper purple color. So I actually had to practice this because it's almost sounds like a tongue twister. So over here, I have my black color into the same mix that I used earlier. I've added a bit of white in there, and I'm going to add in a bit of brown and a bit of black again just to deepen the color a bit. And then I'm going to add a bit of blue and a bit of red color. So this is going to give me this purple shade, but also it is a bit gray. So it's a grayish purple color. Alright, here's a swatch of the shade. Now let's start making the pine trees. Now, what is the idea? How are we going to create these pine trees? Now, if you have done the exercise lesson, you remember those tiny pine trees I showed you how to create. This is exactly that. You're just going to start varying the size of the pine trees. So you have the center trunk and you'll add in a few brush robes left and right and in the middle so that you also cover the central portion of the trunk. Keeping that in mind, go ahead and add a lot of variations for these trees. You're going to start from the left, go all the way to the right, and add all these different variations for the pine trees. Now you will see some of them are very close to one another, so the entire structure is not visible and some of them have a lot more of the structure visible. Again, they're really fine, they're really dense. This forest is really dense. At a distance, that's how it appears, you're going to go ahead and add the bind trees accordingly. Now this process is very repetitive. I'm just going to speed up the next bit. If you want, you can reduce the speed and paint along. I'm just going to shut up so that I don't sound like a robot in the next bit. I'm going to increase the speed and finish this entire thing. All right, so we're almost done with the entire section. You can see how I've added a lot of variations in the size of my tree, and it looks really nice and dense here. So going ahead and finishing up with my last tree, as you can see, some of them, I don't even bother to make that central line, and I just add a few brushstrokes. Again, it's all about practice and it's all about giving the dilution of that forest in the background. So we're going to let this dry and then add snow on top of it. All right. So now that this section has dried, it's time for us to make the shade for the snow. Now, into the same purple, the grayish purple that I use, I'm going to add white to lighten up the color, and this will actually just harmonize the shades that I'm using so that I don't end up using a really, really harsh white for the snow. Instead, I have a color that really goes with all the other shades that I'm using in my painting. Now again, very similar to what we have done in the exercise lesson. You pick out the areas and just add tiny tiny dots left right and in the center of the tree to give the illusion of your snow falling on the tree. And for the areas where you're not seeing the entirety of the tree, you can go ahead and just add in a few finer strokes. Let me give you a closer look at this. You can see I've added left, right, some in the middle. And as you can see, I'm not really defining the entire structure or doing it really perfectly. I'm just adding these brush strokes to give the illusion that there is snow or the forest in the background is covered in snow. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to look like pine trees with snow on it. Again, make sure that you are just paying attention into the way the trees look. And adding your brush robes accordingly so that it all goes together. Anyway, I am going to increase the speed again. I'm just going to double the speed so you can reduce the speed and watch it if you want to just paint along with me from the settings part under this video that you might find. I'm just going to keep quiet again because if you reduce the speed and I am still talking, I might sound like a robot, so I'm just going to keep quiet now and let you enjoy the process of adding snow on your trees. Alright, so here we are at the final part or the final few snow covered pine tree, especially the ones in the background. And as you can see, I really like the way this looks. The snow is not really harsh in your face. And as we add the snow on the trees in front of it, it will look a lot better, and it'll make a lot more sense then. But otherwise, you're just going to let this dry now and then go ahead and start working on the snow that is in the middle ground. So keeping the same color in mind, that is, you remember the grayish purple white that we used. I'm going to add that on the top. And I'm just going to cover this. One thing that I should have mentioned is to make sure that you don't have a lot of the pigments of the sky coming into your snow part. Even the wash is very blendable and you can layer over, it sometimes still peeks through. For the darker parts of my snow, I'm just using the darker, grayish purple tone that we used earlier. And I'm just going to lay that at the bottom and make sure that this will act as the darker parts of my snow covered land. And on the top, I have the white, and then using my flat brush, I will just blend everything together. Like I mentioned in the beginning parts of this class, I would have mentioned how the snow is not entirely white. So we really need to work on the different kind of grays that we use or the darker and the lighter parts of the snow in order to bring out the effect of snow and to add in the different variations of the colors in there. So over here, I've used two different types of grays, both have that purple undertone in there. One is darker and one is slightly lighter than the other. All right. I really like the way this blend looks, so I'm going to let this dry. Alright, now that this section has dried up completely, it's time for us to add in the pine trees in the middle ground. So I have mixed cream, black and brown together, very similar to the color shade we mixed in the exercise lesson. So over here, I can either actually sketch out the positioning of the tree or just do it free hand. So I am going for a really, really medium sized tree, I would say, because we're going to add bigger trees in front of it. So make sure that you're not making really large trees, especially for this particular section. So I've created the trunk and I'm adding the brush strokes just like how we practiced in our pine tree lesson. Similar concept. Again, like I told you, you can vary the sizes, but the way in which you achieve them will remain the same. So over here, I want to make another pine tree right next to it while adding variations in the height of it. So I'm just going to go ahead and add in a few more inches to the tree and make it appear taller. This will also give it the illusion that this tree is in front of it or at a distance in front of it. So this appears to be closer to the observer. Again, very similar concepts. You're just going to go ahead and create another pine tree right next to the one you painted earlier. I'm going to add another one right here. I've left a bit of distance between the two, and I'm going to create this here. Now, there are times that you might be a little bit unsure about the positioning of the tree. In those cases, I would suggest you take a pencil and just sketch out maybe the position of the tree. So that you know exactly where you want to add it. Right, on this part of my painting, I just want to show a portion of the pine tree peeking through. So let's assume half of the tree is outside the paper and half of it is inside. I've only painted half of the pine tree. I'm also adding a few little details, few tinier tree structures in there, and we're going to let this dry completely before we go ahead and start adding snow details on them. Alright, now that this section has dried completely, it's time for us to start adding the snow. Now, the color of my snow is a bit of white mixed into the color of the snow before. So, in case you don't have it, you'll just create the same mix of my black, brown, prussian blue, and primary red with a lot more white this time. And you're going to go ahead and start tapping in the snow. Now, this is very similar to the exercise lesson that we did, and this is exactly why we did the exercise lesson so that we have a hands on experience of creating these trees and it's not something that is entirely new to us. Alright, so we're going to go ahead and cover tree, ensuring that we have left and right strokes, but also some strokes in the middle, so that our tree appears to be fuller and not just empty from the middle while having your brush strokes on the left hand side of the trunk. So that is something that you have to keep in mind when you're painting pine trees. And we've already done this in the past, so I'm sure you've got this and you know exactly what to do. The size of my pine tree here is smaller, so the details are going to be lighter and smaller, as well. Lighter in the sense, you don't have to really define every structure perfectly, right? So you're just going to lightly add in the snow details and then you're going to let this dry. In case you've covered a lot of the background of the pine tree, you can always go ahead and add in more details to this later on, which is just to define the structure a little bit. To act as the shadow of my tree, I've just used a bit of the darker purple color. I've added the shade and then using a damp brush, I'm just going to blend it into the background as well just to create a bit of a light texture in there. It's not really a deep dark texture, but a very light blended texture on it. Anyway, we are going to let this dry completely, and in the next lesson, we are going to paint our foreground trees and add more details to it. 10. Project 1 Part 3 : Golden Forest: Alright. Now that we're done with all the details in the background and the middle ground, it's time for us to work on the trees in the foreground. I'll be using the same dark color that I've used for the trees in the middle ground. Maybe you can increase the amount of black or the brown that you're adding in there, and you're going to start painting your pine trees. Now, we have learned how to create these pine trees in the exercise lesson. So we're using the exact idea. That is the first type of pine tree that we learned with the branches moving downwards. I've also created vertical lines to understand the positioning of my pine trees so you can pause and, you know, draw them out as well. But the basic idea is to kind of place the pine trees in a way that they lie in the center of the pine trees that are in the middle ground so that you're not entirely covering the entire structure. Alright. Moving on to the pine trees. So you're going to create your vertical line and have these brush tropes going left and right. And if you notice very carefully, I've also got these brush strokes in the middle as well. Again, I'm repeating myself here, but that is how you kind of have this imprint into your brain that whenever you're painting pine trees, you want to make sure that you add enough new strokes in the middle, which is going to give your pine trees a very nice and fuller look. Right, always start with the central trunk. This gives you the idea of the height of the pine tree. You can always increase it if you want. But otherwise, it gives you the idea for the height, and then you can go ahead and add in your branches and all those little details and increase the size of these branches as you go. So all these branches are moving downwards. They increase in size as we go. All right. That is the main thing that we have to keep in mind. Again, this process is very repetitive, so I'm just going to go ahead and speed up the next bit. If you want, you can reduce the speed and paint along with me just so that it's easier for you. But again, like I've mentioned earlier, the process is repetitive. You're just adding different heights of these pine trees and covering our foreground. A All right, so I'm just going to add a tinier or smaller size of pine tree in the middle ground so that it blends in because I felt like this section looked a little bit empty. So I'm just adding that in there as well. But as you can see, we've got variations of these trees. Some of them have finer details, especially the ones on the right hand sections left most, the shorter ones, and some of them have fuller and different sort of variations, basically. Next with my spoiled brush, I'm just going to start adding these little twigs at the bottom. So very, very finely, I'm just going to go ahead and add a bit more texture into the ground because it's not just filled with pine trees. There are a little bit more of these grass shapes that you might find in there. So I'm just adding a bit more variation. So very lightly, go ahead and add them wherever you feel like it, feel free to, you know, play around with where you want to place them. Anyway, while this dries, let's go ahead and create the mix for the snow and start adding that in. Alright. Now that this section has dried completely, it's time for us to add this snow. This time, I've added a bit more white into the same mix. So as you can see, this one is a lot more brighter than the snow colors that I have used for all the other pine trees in the background. So I'm going to go ahead and start adding these in so again, very similar. Here's a swatch of the snow by the way. Forgot to show that you. You can see how it is lighter than the ones that we've used in the past. So again, very similar to what we have learned in the exercise lesson. You're going to pick your sections and create these blobs left, right, and some in the center just to give it that fuller effect. Also, keeping in mind that you want to leave a bit of that space in the bottom so that the tree peeks through. Now, the way in which you actually add the snow, again, there can be a lot of different variations. Sometimes with heavy snowfall, the amount of snow that the tree retains is a lot more. And sometimes with lighter snow falls, just a little bit of snow appears. So for this one, we want to go with the illusion that there is there has been a heavy snowfall, right? So the trees have thicker blobs of snow that it has retained. And that's why the brushstroke that I'm adding for this one is a lot more thicker. There's a lot more bits for the snow. Right? It's the concept remains the same. The way in which you add it remains the same. The only thing that change the amount of snow that I'm adding. This time, my brush strokes appear to be a lot more rounder in structure, and a lot more snow on the tree, basically. Again, you're going to do this for all the trees that we have laid out in the foreground. So for the next bit, I will be increasing the speed slightly. So that, you know, we're just repeating the step. If you want to slow it down, you can slow it down and paint along with me. Otherwise, you know the concept, follow it along for all the remaining bits of the trees that you have painted in your foreground. Alright, so now that we're done with the snow part, it's time for us to just go ahead and finish the ground that is in the foreground as well. So I've just loaded my brush with some white and created that gray stone that we've used in the past. And for the bottom, I'm going to be using that slight purply color that we've used as well. So it's that gray purple shade that we were using, which is a mix of my red, my blue, and a tiny bit of white and black in there. So I'm just going to go ahead and blend it with the white that I just laid out in front. So this way, we're able to create a depth in the snow and it's not just plain Again, we have spoken about this. The snow is not entirely just white. It has a lot of shadows. It has those bright highlights, and that's exactly how you should be capturing snow with variations of the way the sky looks. So the sky color plays a very important role in how the shadows and the highlights of your snow are going to look like. Anyway, I really like the way this looks while this is dry, let us talk about how we'll add highlights into our pine trees in the foreground. So as you can see, the color dries out to be a little bit duller. I told you that titanium white will dull down when it dries, right? So to kind of add that highlight on top, the way in which you make it more opaque and that pop of color. You want to add in another layer of white. This time, I haven't mixed that white with anything else. It's just pure white. And I'll just show you a swatch of the color quickly. So here's what it is. It barely shows because it is entirely white. So I'm going to go ahead and pick the top half, I would say, of all or most of the snow bits that I've just added. And I'm going to go ahead and add that in just to bring out the opaqueness of the snow in that section. And also to bring out the way in which this section stands out in the foreground because you want to show that this is the main highlight of your painting. Obviously, you've got that beautiful glow in the background. You've got the middle ground, but this is your highlight. So repeat this process for rest of the trees. I I Alright, I really like the way the structure looks. I'm just going to redo the foreground part again, which is the ground in the front, and I'm just going to layer over just so that this one looks a little bit more vibrant and opaque as compared to the ones in the background. Obviously, the ones in the background are opaque, too, but what I mean is that it should stand out a little bit more than the layer in the background. So I'm just going to redo the bit. I have added purple in the bottom half of it, and I've added white on top, and I'm just going to use my flat brush and kind of blend these two colors together. And once you're happy with it, you're going to let it dry. There's nothing much to do here. We've almost reached the end of the painting, so now it's just time to kind of re evaluate things and see if there are any finer details that I want to add or if there are any changes, or you can't really make that many changes, but you can just add in to the details that you've already created. Overall, this looks spectacular for now, but the only thing that I think that I want to add are these details. Of the branches right at the bottom of the snow that I've added. So I feel like we've covered a lot of those branches that we created with the snow. So just to make it stand out a little bit more and to bring out the shape of my tree a little bit more, I'm just going to go ahead and add in some tinier strokes at the bottom, very similar to what we have learned in the exercise lesson. In case you are feeling doubtful, you can just rewatch the exercise lesson to understand exactly what the concept is. Over here, I'm just picking out each of the blocks that I've created off the snow and right below it, I'm creating these lines just to show that these are the branches peeking through from the section and you can see how immediately the shape of my tree stands out a lot more. It adds a bit of definition into that section or that tree entirely. So these are just tiny little things that you can do just to make your trees stand out more, to add in a few extra details in there. You could actually leave it as is without adding this, but adding just a simple, few simple brush strokes changes your entire look of the tree, right? So here, go ahead and add in those tinier details and complete your tree. Alright, I'm really happy with the way the entire structure of my foreground trees look. I love how adding this tinier detail just made it stand out a lot more. So we're going to let this dry and then see our final result. Right. So I'm going to peel this paper from the cardboard sheet that I have in the background. You can see how I rolled my tape and stuck my paper on it so that I can use the entire surface for my painting. So let's have a closer look at this. I absolutely love this class project, especially for that soft glow it has. Love the blends in the sky that we were able to create, the pine trees in the foreground and the middle ground. Everything just really flows in with one another. I hope you enjoyed painting the first class project with me. Here's a sneak week of your second class project, so I'll see you in that lesson. 11. Project 2 Part 1 : Winter Pastels: Here's your second class project. I'm really excited about this one. So let's talk about the colors that I'll be using. So I have Prussian blue, primary red, raw umber, burnt umber, ivory black, and titanium white. So I have my paper, my swatch paper, and the colors ready with me. And on the left, you can see the reference image that I'm painting from. So let's start with this sketch first. So for this sketch, I'm going to start off with the ground, right? So you can see how there's a clear division between the sky and the ground portion. So I'm roughly going to sketch it out as well just to place my horizon line. Again, you can see how it's very uneven, so I'm not making a straight line. I'm making that uneven ground shape. In the background, we've got these trees that have this little soft blowed out effect. So I'm going to teach you how to do that soft edges around your forest in the background. And in the foreground, you've got these two beautiful trees. I'm also creating a section where I know where the partition or the placement of those trees are going to be. Then again, roughly sketching out the tree as well. So on the left, you have a normal looking tree, as I say, a normal looking tree. It has got these beautiful branches and thick, sturdy branches as well. And on the right hand side of our section, we've got this birch tree, which is so soft, so delicate. I love how it looks these two sections, and it has these fine branches, as you can see. So we'll capture the beauty of those fine branches and the textures of the birch tree together. So you're going to be very roughly sketching out your section. You don't really need to get into the details and the integrity of things. Just roughly sketch out the placement of your elements. We also have the moon in the middle, which is a very soft glow for the so once you're done with the sketch, we are going to go ahead and start painting. Now, let us talk about the shades. So using my flat brush, I'm going to make a bunch of shades. So first, I need this pastel purple color. So this one has a lot of white because I want really light shades for the background. I'm not going with deep vibrant colors, but rather very pastel looking shades. So first, I have the purple, which was a mix of primary red and Prussian blue. Next, I'm making a slightly pinker shade. It's still like a lilac color, but it has a lot more of the white in there. So it's a very, very light shade of colours. You can see how it's very different from each other, right? One is purple, one is slighty towards the pink side. Next, I'm taking my raw umber and mixing it with white to create the soft yellow or a soft brown pastel color. You can also use your yellow ocher and not your burnt umber for this one, and create this shade. To your yellow ocher, you'll have to add a bit of red and black to get the mix. But overall, you're just looking for a pastel shade. Alright, now that I have the colors with me, I can start painting the background. So I'm starting off with this deeper purple color at the bottom right above the horizon. Make sure that you're trying to maybe not go right into the sketch that we made, which is below the Horizon line. Try to avoid that as much as you can. So once you have the purple, I'm transitioning into that pastel pink that I was talking about. Again, going in the swift left and right motion, keeping in mind that you want to work probably as quickly as you can so that you can blend the colors together. If not, focus more on placing the colors, and then you can always use a damp brush to blend it. Before you blend in your yellow, make sure that your blue and pastel pink colors have blended together. And then you can go ahead and add that pastel orange not orange pastel yellow that we made, right? So I'm really happy with the way the blend is coming around over here. I was able to manage and blend these two colors seamlessly with one another. And once I'm happy with that, I'm rinsing my brush, making sure I'm double rinsing my brush, and then loading up the yellow on there. So I'm mixing a bit of white, again, a bit of yellow just to get a deeper color, which is not really a deeper color, but more of the color mix of the shade so that I don't run out of the paint. All right, so I'm going to go ahead again with this left and right motion and blend everything together. So you can see how as the paint is also drying, the color is getting a bit lighter as compared to what it looked like when we first laid it down. Alright, so over here, I'm going back and forth. Actually, the whole process is just to blend these three colors together. So this might take a little bit of time because you lay the colors. Sometimes it might look streaky or patchy if you're not, you know, blending quickly enough or if you don't have enough water on your brush. So even if your consistency of the paint is really thick, then you end up getting these streaks. So you want to make sure that the consistency is just right. It's not too watery, but not too thick as well. And I'm really happy with the blends, I'm going to let this dry, and then we shall add further details to it. Right. So now that this section has dried completely, I'm going to go ahead and add the moon on there. For that, I'll be using my round brush. I'm loading it up with a little bit of white, and you can see the shade that I have. It's pretty much plain white. Maybe it'll have a little bit of that yellow color in there just so that it blends in a bit. But as I swatch it, you can't really see the color, and that is because it's mostly white or very, very light shade. So carefully with my round brush, I'm going to go ahead and create a circle. If you're not very confident about your circle, you can always sketch it out first and then go ahead and add this on there. Very carefully making the circle while the paint is still wet, I'm going to rinse my brush, double rinse, tap off the excess water. And with my damp brush, I'm going to go ahead and soften the edges. Now, the goal for softening the edges is to kind of create that glow around the moon, right? So that's the goal for us. We don't want a very harsh moon resting on the surface. So we're going to let this dry, and then we'll add another layer over this. Alright, so now that my moon has dried, you can see there's a soft glow around it. And just to highlight the center part of the moon again, I'm going ahead with the second layer because the first layer tends to dry down a little bit less vibrant as you would expect it to be, especially with white. So the second layer really brings in that pop of color. Alright, I really like the way the moon looks. Right now, you can see there's a soft glow like the one that we created, and then you've got these the second layer that is going to bring out the vibrancy of your moon. Anyway, I really like the way this looks. We're going to let this dry. And while I was trying, let's create the next mix for the trees in the background. So I'm mixing my burnt umber with a tiny amount of black and raw umber. So we're just going for a really light brownish shade over here. So make sure that you have enough of this paint because that's going to be in the background. So here's a swatch of the color. And now using my round brush, I am going to go ahead and create these vertical strokes. Now this is very similar to the one that we did in the previous class project, where we created these vertical strokes of different sizes next right next to each other. That kind of depicted those trees in the background. If you're not comfortable with the size four brush, you can also go for a size zero brush or a smaller size brush. I went ahead and picked up my spoiled brush because that would help me achieve a little bit more texture for the background. And because these are not entirely pine trees in the background and there are like these different trees, so they have a lot more branch details and that softer blowed out effect that we want to create. So that so to achieve that, actually, you will need your spoiled brush just to create a bit more texture with it. But if you don't have that one, you can just tone it down and bring it to a size two instead of a size four. So the goal here is to go ahead in this vertical motion and create a variation in different sizes and make sure that you're also filling the bottom part of the structure and the strokes that you're creating. So you want to bring it all the way down till your horizon line. Vertical strokes. You can also create these slide diagonal strokes to show that there are different variations in the branches that, you know, one can see at this distance. And it's not just vertical. You can give it slight different angles to your brush strokes just to make this structure look a lot more interesting. Again, it's all about trying to capture something that you see in your own way. It doesn't have to look exactly the way it looks in your reference image or the landscape that you're seeing. You can change a few things here and there and try to capture the viewpoint of whatever you are seeing. And all the magic lies in your brush strokes. So the more interesting your brush strokes look, the more interesting your painting is going to be. Anyway, I really like the way this looks right now. I've also thinned down the consistency of my paint, as you can see, and I'm adding it right above the brush strokes that I made. Now, the question lies, why am I doing that? Why am I creating these brush strokes with a really, really thin, transparent consistency of paint? Now, you remember how I told you having a lot of water in your paint is not wrong, but knowing where to apply that is what is important. Over here, when I apply it with the spilt brush, it creates that blowed out effect for the background. And this is one way to do it. And this plays a very important role, especially in smaller sections where you don't have to add a lot of details. So for this one, just going ahead with a damp brush or a thinner consistency really helps bring out the softness in the background. So I really like the way this looks. So while this dries, we are going to go ahead and create a darker mix of color. So again, this is going to be a mix of my black and brown together. This time, it has a little bit more, I would say black in there. As compared to the brown, and it's just a little bit more deeper shade of color that we need. Alright. Now, with this color, what I'm going to do is just create maybe trunks, just to define those trees in the background. So you can see how I'm not creating a lot of these brushstrokes. I'm leaving a few empty spaces in between. And the goal for leaving these empty spaces in between again is to try and create a bit more interesting depth into the trees that we're seeing at this distance. So you're going to be doing this for all the trees that we have just laid out above the horizon line. As you can see, these darker colors really bring out that interesting detail in there without making it look just flat. And I really like the way this looks, you can add in the details as you go and progress in your painting, and then let this dry. And in the next lesson, we're going to be painting the foreground and the trees. 12. Project 2 Part 2 : Winter Pastels: All right, now that this section has completely dried, it's time for us to paint the snow in the area right below the horizon line. For this, I'm making a mix of a purple shade. So my primary red, Prussian blue and white mix. Now, you remember how I told you in the previous class project that the snow is not entirely white. You need to capture the colors that the snow has from the sky because it mostly kind of absorbs that light or color that you see. So for this, we have to go with the color that is closest to the ground or the horizon, and that is the purple shade. So I'm going for this purple color using my flat brush. I am going to go ahead, load it up, and apply it in that entire area. Again, if you notice the consistency of my paint is nice and blendable I would say, it's not entirely thick and not entirely thin as well. So this is your moment to kind of go above those sections that maybe went below the horizon line very carefully. And if you think that sections you missed, which were supposed to be in the area above the horizon line, then you can cover those sections with the snow as well. So I'm bringing this all the way down till the section where we sketched out where the tree is going to be, right? So I'm bringing it all the way till that area. And over here, you can see I've left out that little space because I want to add the tree and then add snow again on it. So over here, if you notice very carefully, the snow looks a little bit flat because we've got that single color spread across the entire section. Now, when the snow falls, obviously, it does not create a very flat surface, especially in these uneven grounds that we're trying to capture over here. So to bring out that unevenness, we'll go for a darker tone of color. For this, what I'll do is I will mix my red paint, which is my primary red color. So I'll mix primary red with my Prussian blue. And we're basically trying to create the same shade, but just in a deeper value, right? So I've added white, blue, and my red together, and I've created this purple shade, which is, again, very close to the same color, but just a deeper value. And with my size four round brush, I'm creating these horizontal, uneven strokes. And when I say horizontal, they're not entirely just horizontal strokes. They are uneven, and this way it adds a bit of character. And along with the brush strokes that I just laid out, I'm also blending it with the background. So something to keep in mind over here is that you want to ensure that your background layer is wet so that when you lay this layer of color, it blends in with the background easily, and it just does not look like a dry brush texture that you're adding. So you want to ensure that you're doing this entire process while the paint is still wet. If you ever feel like you added too much of the darker tonal value, then you can add the lighter shade and blend it with the darker color. Anyway, I really like the way this looks, so we are going to let this dry completely before moving on to the next step. Alright, so now that this section has completely dried, it's time for us to add some texture on the ground. So for that, I'm using my spoiled brush just because it will give me a few more brush strokes than the single strokes. And using the same brown color, I'm going to lightly make these small strokes just to show different grass or twig like elements in the background and not just the trees. So you're going to make these really, really small strokes, and I'm going to bring it from the top and drag it to the bottom. Now, you can do it in both ways. You can go from bottom up, which is you drag your brush upwards and bring it top to bottom in which you will drag your brush from the point A above the section that you want to make and you bring it till the ground. I hope that's making sense. Here's a closer look. Maybe I'll give you a better idea of what I'm actually trying to achieve here. So I can make these brush strokes and you can see how this adds a little bit more character into your ground and not just let it be blank and just plain and just have those trees in front that we're going to create next. So go ahead and add these. Wherever you feel like it, there is, again, no particular positioning of these sections. I'm trying to focus a little bit of these grass elements around the trees that I will lay in front of but then again, there is no exact particular location that I'm going for. Once you're done with the brush strokes, using my damp brush, I'm just going to roughly blend it into the background, which is the snow covered land. Now, this isn't exactly like blending it all the way. You're just kind of smoothening the edge of your brush strokes, and all you need to do that is your damp brush. Once you're done with that, I'm taking my pencil and I'm going to sketch out the shape of my tree again. As, you know, gouache is an opaque medium. So when you layer and paint the background, you end up covering up your pencil sketch, right? And that is why I also emphasize in making very, very light sketches for your paintings because in case you have a very, very deep sort of sketch, you can't undo it. You can't erase it in case you don't like the positioning of things. So make sure that you're very lightly making your sketches. So over here, again, you can look at the reference image to understand the placement of the tree and sketch out your trees accordingly. I already made the sketch, so I'm not really emphasizing more on the positioning because I know exactly where that needs to go. But in case you want to have a closer look, you can pause the video and sketch it along with me, or you can also download the reference image just to see and understand the positioning of your element. That is the tree elements. So on the left, I've got a very intricate detailed tree, and on the right, I have two birch trees. And along with that, in the bottom, I've got a lot of these grass details that I'm roughly sketching out if you don't do that. That's completely fine as well, because you can always add the details as you go. And at the bottom, you can see if we have this white space that is going to be covered with snow again. So my focus is to paint the tree first and then add the snow right below it, so that in case there is some sections of the tree that I don't like, I can always just layer a little bit of snow above it. Anyway. So I'm just sketching out the branch details here. And once you're kind of happy with your sketch and the way it looks, you can start painting it. For painting the tree here, I will be using my size four round brush. Feel free to maybe use size two, if you prefer that more. So I'm going to mix my burnt umber along with my black paint. So I'm just going to make sure that I carefully mix these two colors together. And here's a swatch of the shade. Now, the idea is to have a nice deep shade of brown. And if you use the same color that you've used for the background trees, then you might this layer will not stand out more. So you want to make sure that the color is a little bit deeper than the ones you've used for the background. Once you're happy with your color mix, you can start painting a tree. Now, the reason why we sketched out the tree here is because this will ensure that you know exactly the placements of your branches. In case you want to go free hand, feel free to do that, as well. There is no right and wrong in this painting. Right? So go ahead and create your branches, follow the sketch along. I am going to focus and let you, take your time with it. I'm not going to speed up the process just because I want you to enjoy this and see how the brush strokes are placed and not get rushed into the process. Even though this is a repetition of the process where you know exactly what needs to be done, but I still just want to give you guys the real time view of how I make each brush stroke. So you can see how I start off with the main trunk. And then I add branches next to it and along with it, and you can also see the positioning and the flow of these branches that I release. So some of them move kind of like angular and upwards. Some of them are more separated from the main trunk. They move more towards the left. So straight up go upward like this one. While leaving a little bit of space between the main trunk. So there are so many different variations in which you can add your branches. Again, like I mentioned, there is no right and wrong in the way you make your tree structure, right? We've learned a few specifications of the trees that we are going to achieve, especially with the pine trees or the birch trees where you have a certain detail that you need to bring out. And of course, all the trees have a lot of different details. But in positions where you don't want to add a lot of details, you can always just make the tree according to how you want them to look. Okay. So go ahead, add in your trees and just enjoy the process. Each brush stroke is going to be so therapeutic. That's exactly how I feel every time I'm painting trees because it's not just about creating your branches or creating a structure that looks good. It's just about placing those brush strokes. You can see how I just go up. I play around with the pressure that I apply on my brushes, and that plays such an important role while you create these brush strokes. Another thing if you notice here is I am painting above a layer in the background, but at the same time, I'm not reactivating that base layer, right? You can see how this layer is nice and opaque, but it's not reactivating the base layer, which is very important. And this is exactly what I was trying to explain in the layering lesson. When if your background has a slightly thinner consistency as compared to the layer that you will add over it, you will not reactivate the base layer, and that is the trick to create beautiful artworks with pooch where you're not reactivating the base layer and you're able to layer multiple different layers one over the other. So here you are. You've learned how to layer You know, correctly with quash. Anyway, I've created those two birch trees on the side. You can see they're not exactly in line with the snow structure that we have at the bottom. There is a little bit of space between them. So make sure that you are leaving a tiny bit of space, and leaving the tiny bit of space basically just creates the illusion of depth into your painting where you know the birch trees are still further away from the observer as compared to the tree that is on the left. Alright. Once the tree structure is done, and drying almost, the next thing that we are going to focus on is adding the snow. Before we go ahead and do that, I'm quickly going to go ahead and add a few more branch details for the tree on the left. Now, on the right, I have created the main branches that I want the finer branches to emerge from for the birch tree. But for the one on the left, I just felt like I could add in a few more branch details before we move on to the next step. So over here, I'm going to go ahead and just create a few more branches coming out from the main branches that we just laid out. Again, the positioning doesn't matter, create it according to the way you want. And, you know, the flow that you want to give to your trees. Now, one thing that you notice here is the branches are kind of overlapping, right? So you can't really define which tree is in the front or which regions in the back. Now, in situations like this, adding a second brushstroke over the trees that you want in the front or even adding texture to your tree really helps define the positioning of each branch carefully. But right now just focus on creating your branches and your flow, and we'll take care of the texture in the next lesson. I'm really happy with the way this looks, so I'm going to let this dry and focus on the snow now. For the snow, I'm going to use my flat brush, and the same color that I've used, that purple color that we used mixed with white for the lighter shade is what I'm using. Over here, I've added some titanium white, and I'm going to use that at the top of my section, making sure that I create that unevenness in the ground. It's not just a straight line. And I'm covering any white spaces that I have left from the previous layers. So make sure that you're covering every white space that you find. For the bottom part of the snow, I'm using that deeper purple color, which are not entirely deeper but a shade towards a deeper side as compared to the lighter color for the snow that I'm using. And I'm going to apply that and blend it in. Now, using a flat brush here makes a lot of difference because it helps you blend those two colors together, or at least it's my preferred brush, especially when it comes to blend something. You can see I've loaded my darker color here and I'm adding it in positions where I want to create a bit of depth and it's not just plain white, and I'm just blending it with the background layer, that is a lighter shade. Now, along with the snow, I'm using my round brush, and I'm loading up a little bit of the lighter color and adding it right below the birch trees and just covering up the end of the tree so that it looks like it's blended in with the background and not just lying there standing without being blended in. For this, you can use maybe a darker shade of the purple color or even the lighter color. This also creates a bit of texture on your ground. You know, it's very similar to the one we did in the previous class project as well, where we created a bit of texture using our round brush and a thicker consistency of our paint. Yes, you'll have to use a slightly thicker consistency so that you're able to create that textured look for that section. And once you're happy with the way the texture looks, you are going to let this entire layer dry. I'm really happy with the way this whole thing is coming along, and this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we will be adding more finer details and textures into our tree. 13. Project 2 Part 3 : Winter Pastels: Right now it's time for us to add in all the finer details into the painting to make it pop more. So let's go. We are going to go ahead with our white paint. I've added a bit of the brown paint in there. So here's a swatch of the color. So first thing that we're going to do is add the texture for the birch tree. Now, you remember how we use that white brown shade, and we went ahead with a very thick consistency of paint that would help us achieve that texture defect. That is exactly what we are going to do here. So I've loaded my brush with the paint, and very carefully I'm adding this texture. Now, over here, I'm focusing more on covering almost the entire bit of the tree, especially at the top. And at the bottom, I'm leaving a few brown spaces in there. Now, don't worry if you didn't leave those few brown spaces because you can always go back and add in brown on top to create a little bit of texture and go back and forth between the two colors. So very carefully, I've added some texture, leaving a little bit of the brown space. Now, over here, the color is going to dry down to be a little bit deeper. So to make the color a little bit more stand out, I'm going with a layer of white on it again and creating similar textures on the tree. Now, like I mentioned, the white is going to dry down to be a little bit duller, especially if you mix a certain undertone for it, like the brown that we used here. It will dry down a little bit darker. So to make it stand out more, you'll have to layer it again. So you can see how I'm adding texture on the tree using a thick consistency of paint. All right, so now that I'm done with the texture bit, I'm switching back to my size four brush here, loading up the brown, and I'm bringing the branches towards the middle of the tree so that they don't look like they are standing and hanging around from the side. So this is something that we have already done and covered in the exercise lesson. If you want an in depth explanation of how we achieve that, feel free to revisit that lesson and go through it again. Obviously, uh, you know, sometimes we might forget a few tips and tricks that we have already learned. It happens to me all the time, and sometimes I need to revisit the lesson and understand why we made the choices that we did. And that is exactly why we have those lessons so that we are more aware of all the choices that we're making for a particular painting. All right. Now that I've done and added those few branch details, I'm going to start focusing on adding a little bit more of those sub branches to the branches that I sketched out in the previous lesson. Now, this is all about going back and forth, understanding the placement of the branch, and just going with the flow, really. There's nothing much to really think before you do here. You're just enjoying the process. Now to add the finer details into my tree, I'm going to switch back to my size zero brush, which is a little bit spoiled, has his bristles spread apart, and I'm mixing my raw sienna no, raw umber, not raw sienna, raw umber in there, just to create a lighter version of the color. Now, creating this lighter version of the color will given that illusion that this shade the details in your branches basically are really fine. And that's why you create it using a lighter shade of color. So you can easily see how the shade is so light. It kind of blends in with the darker color, and those branches are thicker. They're more stiffer. They're more they have a lot more. You'll need a lot more strength to actually break those branches. But for this one, it's really fine. It's very delicate. And that's why you're using a lighter shade of color. Now, over here, the process is very repetitive where you keep going back and forth and adding finer details into your branches. Now there is a chance that you will have the branches overlap, so don't worry. You can always define it later. But right now just focus on enjoying the process. If you feel like your tree needs a little bit more texture, go ahead and add the texture using this particular color just so that the texture appears to be a little bit more delicate than the texture that we've already added with the deeper brown and the white on the birch tree. I'm going to give you a closer look right now just so that you can see how I create these delicate structures and how the spilt brush plays a very important role. You can see because it just loads up my paint in a way that the bristles have two or three pointy edges for me to create my brush strokes. This way, it creates an illusion of two or three more branches coming in from the single brush stroke and it saves me a lot of time. So if you don't have this, don't worry. If you don't have a spoiled brush, you can always use your single brush and add in finer details. It will just take you a little extra effort. So just go in there, hang in there and enjoy the process. In the next bit, I will be increasing the speed, just giving you a heads up in case you want to slow it down, feel free to slow it down and paint along with me. And the only reason I'm doing this is because I've covered a lot of the section where I'm creating these finer details. And for the next bit, you're just repeating the process and covering up your entire birch tree with the tree on the right, that is the birch tree. I will be adding finer details to the tree on the left, as well, just to bring out those delicate details in the trees before we move on to creating any other textures and elements in our painting. So the process here is very repetitive. Just enjoy every brushstroke that you make, and I'll see you in a minute. My Alright, I'm really happy with the way this looks. I love those delicate tree details that we added. Now the next thing that we are going to focus on is creating texture on the tree for which I am adding white into the same brown mix that I was using, a tiny amount of black and brown in there as well just to create a lighter shade with which I can add the texture. Now, this is very similar to the exercise lesson that we did. We're following the same process here. So in case you're forgetting, feel free to revisit that lesson again. Using a thick consistency of paint, in case you're loading up a lot of paint, make sure that you brush it on your cloth to get rid of these excess paint. And using a very dry brush, you're going to go ahead and add texture. Now, over here, I'm focusing more on the left side of each trunk or each section of the tree that I'm taking. So I'm focusing more on the left side of it. So you can see how carefully I add the texture on my tree. Again, remember how I told you where you have a situation where the trees are kind of overlapping, then adding the texture or a second layer over it would really bring out the positioning of the tree. So this is exactly what we're doing. Over here, I want to show that the tree that is on the right hand side, the one that's bigger, is a tree that is closer and the one that is slightly in front, even though they're kind of positioned on an equal level. So keeping that in mind, you're going to add the texture. So you can see I've added a lot more texture on the tree that is on the right hand side. And a lot more texture on all the branches. Even the ones that go all the way up, you're adding texture and doing so will again, create the illusion that that tree is in front. I really like the way the textures have come out. Now the next thing that I am going to focus on is creating any extra details that I want. Now, in the reference image, you've got a lot of this grass or little, you know, twig like details is what I call them. For this, I'm using my raw sienna. Again, I keep saying raw sienna. It's raw umber. I've added a bit of white in there. As well, you can use your yellow ocher color for this and using my spilt brush or a very, very thin brush, basically a size zero brush, you are going to create this structure. So go ahead and wash your brush towards the left, towards the right, at different heights of, you know, this element where you're just releasing the brush, you know, from the bottom to the top. So you go ahead and do that. To this, I've also added a bit of my burnt umber just to deepen the shade, and I'm going to go ahead and create similar details. So like I mentioned, you can either go from top to bottom or go from bottom to top. That is, again, personal preference, when you go from top to bottom, the top section is thicker, and as you release it, the brush stroke gets thinner. When you go from bottom to top, you want to show that the bottom portion is thicker, and as you release it, the brush stroke gets thinner. So in a situation like this, adding a variation in that brush stroke really helps bring out depth into your painting. That is exactly what I'm trying to say. If you're not comfortable with your spoiled brush here, you can always switch to your normal brush and have a little bit more control over the way the brush strokes go. Again, personal preference, feel free to add the details as you want. There is no particular ordo that I'm following. I'm just going to go ahead and add in details at the bottom, because, again, that snow part looked a little bit flat, right? So just to bring out the details a little bit more, you can go ahead and do this step. I'm really liking the way this whole thing is turning out. You've got not just the tree in the front, but also these smaller elements that kind of, you know, make all your details kind of blend into one another, right? Your painting is a composition of all these finer brush strokes and all the details that you add, right? So go ahead, look at your picture, analyze it, see where you can add those finer details and, you know, do the whole thing accordingly. Once you're done with the positioning of your grass shapes, then go ahead and use a dam brush to kind of blend it into the background, very similar to what we did for the middle ground brush shapes as well. So you just go ahead with your damp brush and blend it in just so that the shape doesn't look like it's just resting, you know, in one position and it doesn't know where it belongs. So blending in or kind of looks like smoothening out the edges really help bring out a lot of details into your painting. Now, once you're done with this section, take a step back, really, take a step back. Look at your picture and see, are there any finer details that I can add to it? Now, there is obviously a chance that you might overdo this step, but in case you feel like there is a certain area where you know, you could add a few more of these delicate branches or a little bit more texture on your birch tree. Maybe your white dried down to be a little bit duller than you expected. So this is a moment where you really analyze your picture and take the steps to add in those finer details before you say, Hey, I'm done with my painting. I have done everything that I was asked to do and I'm happy with it. Basically, you're trying to find the happiness and satisfaction into your painting before you peel the tape or peel it off from the cardboard or whatever surface you've taped it on. I felt like I needed to add in a few delicate branches, so I went ahead and did that, and I feel like I can say that I'm happy with the picture. Once your painting completely dries, make sure you peel it carefully. And here I'm just taking it off from the cardboard that I was, you know, resting it on. And now let's have a closer look at our painting that we worked so hard on. So let me just focus right here. Yeah. So here is our artwork. I really like the way the trees look. They are so delicate. At the same time, they are so strong and big. I love the blend in the sky. I love those trees at the horizon, to be very honest. I love that soft blowed out effect that we were able to create and those wonderful textures that we added into our painting. Absolutely, love it. I hope you enjoyed painting this particular artwork with me. This is it for day two. Here's a sneak peek of Day three or the third class project, so I'll see you soon. 14. Project 3 Part 1 : Whispers of Snow: Welcome to your third class project. Here's what we're painting today. Let us talk about all the colors that we're using. So I have ivory black, viridian, Russian blue. Next, I have burnt umber and titanium white. So I've pape down my paper on my cardboard sheet take mentioned colors out on my palette, and here's a reference image that we're going to use for this particular painting. So you can also download this from the reference and resource as part of this class. So over here, we are going to divide our sheet in three different sections. So right here is going to be my Horizon line. Now for the area above the horizon line, you can see that there is a hill that is kind of like blended and blurred out, and it has a lot of texture for the trees which we'll have to achieve. So that's going to be above the horizon line. For the area below the horizon line, you have two different sections, one above which has the smaller pine trees, which is basically those pine trees at a distance. And in the foreground, you've got these tall pine trees again. These are closer to the observer, so they are a lot more detailed. So we are basically just going to roughly sketch everything out, looking at the reference image and understanding the placement of each pine tree. Now, this does not have to be the exact replication of it. This is just for our reference to get inspired from and understand the composition of the landscape that we are going to achieve. Once you're done with placing those vertical lines for the pine trees, you can quickly go ahead and add in a few more details for the branches. Again, it does not have to be exact because it will get covered up when we paint as gouache, you know, is an opaque layer. So just roughly sketching out the branches also gives you an idea about the width or the span of your tree. Once you're happy with your sketch, we are going to dive into the painting process. Alright, so we're going to start off with the sky here, for which I'm taking my size 18 flat brush, and I'm mixing a bit of black, Prussian blue and white in there. So right now, I feel like the color is a lot more towards the blue side, and I am not looking to go for that color. So I'm adding a bit more black into that and a lot more white. So this is the shade that I'll be using. So you want the color to not be very deep. We want it to be lighter so that as you progress downwards, we can add in more depth into our painting. So here's a swatch of the color. I am going to go ahead and add in a tiny more black. And correct the shade that I want. So using this color and a larger size flat brush because we're just going to create a gradient. We don't need to add a lot of different shades. So using a bigger size flat brush will ensure that you're able to cover a larger area. Now the next shade that I'm blending in is just white. So I've just loaded up some white, and again, going in the swift left and right motion, I'm going to ensure that I cover the entire section of the sky. Now, the sky portion in this painting is very little, so there's not a lot of blending to be done. Just ensure that you have these two colors, kind of creating that mas gradient. And once you're done with that, you're going to let it completely dry before moving on to the next step. All right, now that this section has completely dried, it's time for us to move on to the hill. Now for the hill, I'll be using my round Brush to create se layer. And the same gray that I was using, I'm just going to add in a bit of black, viridiant and blue in there. So the basic idea is that we're going for a grayer shade for the base, which is not too deep. But not too light as well, because we want it to have the same mood that we're creating for the sky. So over here, I'm just going creating different mixes to find a color that will really go with it. And I wanted to show you this entire process because whenever you're painting, it happens that you don't end up creating the right shade in the first try itself, and that happens to everyone, even to me. So you can see how I've created different shades, but I'm still not happy with the color that I want. And I realized that I didn't have brown on my palette so I added that in, and I'm loading it up with a bit of brown, the same makes I'm loading up a little bit of brown in there. So let me show you these two shades that I've created. This one is going to be the color that I'll use for creating the texture of those trees on my hill, and this is the color that will be the base. Here's a swatch of it. You can see how they're all different grays, the undervalue changes. So this one has a bit more brown in there. And now using your flat brush or your round brush, you can create the base layer. Over here, I'm using my flat brush, and I'm going with these vertical lines and just blending everything in. So if you don't want to create those vertical lines right now, you don't have to. You can just focus on creating the base layer, and then you can add the texture using your brush later on. But if you want to create that uneven shape to your hill, you can go ahead and create those vertical lines from now itself. So over here, if you notice, I'm just loading up my down brush, and I'm really focusing so much on creating a very flat layer, right? So you can see, I'm not focusing on creating an opaque layer, and even blended layer. I like how there is that unevenness. Some sections are a bit thinner and a bit more translucent as compared to the other areas of the scene hill. And that's exactly what we're looking for. We don't want it to be entirely just flat. So to achieve that, you can just add in a bit of water on your brush and then spread it across kind of using that wet on wet, but it's not entirely wet on wet, right? So once you lay that down, using my size zero spoiled brush, and while the paint is still wet, I'm going to go ahead and start adding the texture. So here, I'm creating that deeper color. Again, I'm creating more of that shade so that I have enough paint and I don't run out of it as I, you know, add those txtures. So using my spoiled brush, basically, the idea is to create multiple different brush strokes while having single strokes. So because you're using a spoiled brush and bristles are spread apart, it ends up creating multiple different strokes while you're creating single strokes, and you are going to pick out different sections and have these vertical lines. So you can vary them in height. You can vary them slightly in the angles at which you apply them. And the only reason I'm mentioning that you pick out different sections and then go ahead and add these lines is because you will end up with that unevenness of the layer of the trees or the textures for the trees that we're adding. If you end up creating them in just one straight line, then it might look a bit too symmetrical. So to avoid that effect, you can just go ahead and pick different areas, create those vertical lines, move on to the next completely different sections of your hill so that overall, when you finish this entire section, you have different variations of these vertical strokes. You'll watch me create various different heights for them. I'm also playing around with the color, so I don't have only this deeper color that I'm laying the vertical strokes with. I'm also lightening it up a little bit with maybe just water or maybe with a tiny, tiny amount of white in there just so that I can bring that variation in the color as well. So overall, when you finish this entire section, your layer will not look entirely flat. Let me also quickly give you a closer look at the brushstrokes that I'm creating so that you can see the variations in the color and the way the textures play around when you have a slightly translucent layer and the deeper layers. You can see how I pick different areas, work with those two different colors. One is slightly lighter. So basically, it's a thinner thin down consistency of the same shape. And obviously, you have the deeper one as well, and I'm picking different area than laying the texture on there. Now, there isn't an exact way in which you're supposed to do this. Feel free to add the texture as you want and play around with this area as much as you want, because only a certain portion of this is going to be visible as we have the whole picture or the whole composition of the painting done. Now, I'm going to speed up the next bit because, again, this process is very repetitive. There isn't an exact way in which you're supposed to do this. So feel free to do it how you want, and I'll see you in a minute. Alright, so you can see how I've added and played around with the two different colors, which is the lighter one and the darker one. I am really happy with the way this looks so far. There is something that I could add to this, and that is adding those darker tools for the trays. Now, this will again depend on the way you've laid it down in case you have too much of the light, then you can create these vertical strokes with the darker color and play around with the texture. Now I will be adding some darker colors, and I'll show you how it looks. Alright, so I just played around with the textures and added a little bit of the darker colors and added a bit of character into my hill so that there are two different hills, as you can see, and that deeper color brought in that transition. Once you're happy with the trees, we're moving on to adding the snow for the middle layer. So I'm adding titanium white and mixing along a little bit of the gray shade that we used earlier. So we're not going entirely for a white shade, but rather a gray tone. Once you have that shade that we need, which is a light gray color, you are going to load it up on your flat brush. Apply it everywhere in the middle layer that we have. Again, you can see how I pick it up and create that uneven sort of ground shape. There is an unevenness to it. It's not entirely straight line. So you're going to carefully load up your paint and cover the entire section using your flat brush. Make sure that you don't leave in any streaks. And by streaks, I mean don't leave any section unblended. In case you're adding any darker tones at the bottom part, make sure that you blend it as well. I won't be adding that much of a darker tone for this exact section because we've got a lot of trees going to be in front of this area. I have gone ahead and added a little bit of white at the top, but that is it. I'm blending it with the background, and then we're going to let deslo completely dry before we move on to the next step. Alright, now that this layer has completely dried, it's time for us to add the pine trees on the area above the horizon line. So for that, I'm going to be using my smaller size brush, adding a bit of black into the same deeper gray that we used for adding the textures on the hill. So make sure that you blend in the colors properly. And here's a swat of the deeper gray that we're using. So to build more depth into your painting, you'll constantly add little little black or whatever darker shade that you're creating and you'll increase the intensity and the total value of the color to bring in that depth into your painting. Using my smaller size brush, I'm going to start creating these little pine tree structures. They don't have to be entirely perfect, again, because we're just going to focus on the shape of this tree more than the exact details because these trees are at a distance and they don't need to be entirely perfect. This is very similar to the one that we have covered in the exercise lesson, so keep that in mind, and I will be sparing up the video in the next bit because this entire process is repetitive. So make sure that you vary the sizes and add as many pine trees as you want. O Alright, I'm really happy with the way this has turned out. This is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll be painting the foreground trees and adding more details into our painting. 15. Project 3 Part 2 : Whispers of Snow: Alright, so now that this base layer has dried, it's time for us to add in snow for which I've created this gray shade by adding white into the same color that we use for the base layer. And using a size two or a size zero brush, even, you can go ahead and create these brushrokes to create the illusion of snow on the pine trees. Now, this is very similar to the exercise lesson that we covered where we learned how to create smaller pine trees and add in your snow details. So make sure that you're following the same concept. Where you're not just going left and right in the placement of your snow, but you're also creating brush rooks in the middle so that you have that full three dimensional or the whole conical covering of your snow and not just based on the left and right side of the tree. Now, one thing that you will also notice is that I add more details or I add more brushrokes to the pine trees that are slightly taller. So this way, what happens is that it creates an illusion that the taller pine trees are slightly in front, due to which we're seeing more brush strokes or the more snow details on them as compared to the pine trees that are slightly in the back and that are shorter. Let me give you a closer look at the viewpoint of how I apply these brushstrokes. You can see how, let's say, the ones in the back are smaller pine trees, so very, very rough details. I'm not really focusing entirely on the shape of the tree, as you can see halfway done. This one's taller, so I'm focusing a little bit more on the brush strokes, trying to ensure that I have that flat out effect of your pine tree. Again, these ones are shorter, so very little details, not really focusing so much on them. Again, these are in the background and you have a lot of tree elements in front. So most of them do tend to get covered up. So we're not really fretting so much about the details that we add. Again, these are shorter, less details for the snow has been added. The ones that are taller end up having a lot more details. So just something some little little tips to keep in mind when you're working on adding snow for your pine trees. So I'm just going to go ahead and complete the first lay of snow for all the trees that I've created above the horizon line following the tips that I've mentioned earlier. And once you're done with that, we shall move on to highlighting a few trees. I am really happy with the overall look for now. Now the next step is to highlight a few trees for which I've added a bit more white into the same color mix again, making the color lighter by adding white in there. Here's a spotchf cache. You can see how it's still gray but a bit lighter. Now, we're going to pick out certain trees, especially the ones that are taller. Again, like I mentioned, that those trees are slightly closer to the observer. So adding a second layer of this particular shade will ensure that that appears to be highlighted and brings in that illusion of depth, even though we created all the spine trees in the same layer above the horizon line. Now we can pick the trees depending on the ones that are taller for you. It doesn't really matter which ones you highlight, ensure that you are not highlighting all the tall ones and just only a few of them. Once you're happy with that, we'll focus on painting the trees in the foreground. So now we're going to focus on the cheese here, for which I've added a bit more black into the same gray mix that we've been using so far. I've also added a bit of viridian, brown and blue in there. Again, this is all entirely a mix of those different shades that we've used in our painting so far, so it's not just black that we're using. Right? Now, I'm using my size four round brush here. Again, my size four round brush comes to a really nice fine tip. Make sure that you are using a brush that comes to a fine tip because it gives you a lot more control over your brush does. Now, the idea here is to add in your pine trees of different sizes. We all know, and we have all done this so far. That is the process of adding the pine trees. So the process here is the same. Everything that we've covered so far in the exercise lesson are going to be applied for creating the pine trees. So you're going with the base layer first before we go ahead and add in the snow on this section. Now, you can see how I'm bringing the trees only to the baseline that we've created, right? Because I want that section to have another layer of snow later on. So I'm not bringing my brush strokes all the way to the bottom of the shed. One thing to keep in mind is that you want to add variations in your trees. So always make sure that you even though the height difference between the two trees are not significantly large, but you want to make sure that there is that height difference, so that there is that variation in the sizes. Along with my pine trees, I'm also playing around with different shapes. I'm adding a few shrubs that are empty. There are no just the skeleton part of the shrub, which means just those little branches in there and it's not just pine trees in the picture. So play around with it, add different variations. Again, I'm not entirely following the reference image as is, so you have liberty to add in the pine trees however you want. As you know, I'll explain the pine tree structure again. So you start off with your center line, which is your trunk. With these fine brush strokes moving left, right, and a kind of angloar downward stroke for the branches that are in the middle. So your pine trees don't have branches only left and right, right? A lot of times, even when I started painting pine trees, I was making this mistake that I was covering my brush strokes only on the left and right of the trunk and not having that fuller brush stroke effect in the middle. And that would make my pine trees look a little bit funny. So with years of practice, I just covered that I should actually add in a few brush troops in the middle as well so that the center line that is the trunk gets covered. And obviously, when you're adding snow and other details to it, it tends to get covered. But when you're just creating a pine tree, as is, if you don't add those center brush drops, your trees kind of look weird and funny. So just another tip to keep in mind that you want to create brush drops in the middle, as well. That will give your pine tree that fuller effect. So go ahead, create your pine trees however you want. I am not increasing the speed here. Because I want you all to observe how every step is done in real time. I might not talk so much in this section because again, this is a very repetitive process. I'm playing around with different heights. I might even change the brush strokes a little bit and bring in variations for the trees. Again, it's all personal choice. Do them however you want and complete this entire step. If I think of another trip in between, I shall speak. But overall, the process is going to be repetiative. So just enjoy it as we progress. Or I'm bringing out a taller pine tree so you can see how I bring out my brush to a really, really fine tip by twisting my brush as I lift the paint. This ensures that I have a fine tip for these brush strokes that I create, and it will give me a lot more control over each brush stroke that I make. Again, you also want to make sure that you're not loading up a lot of paint on your brush because that will create this kind of bubbled effect and you might end up putting down a lot more paint than necessary, right? So that is something to keep in mind when you're painting and trying to create redefined strokes. Again, you can notice how I create brush strokes towards the left, adding those tinier strokes for the branches, and then I'm adding a few brush strokes in the middle as well, and that gives my tree that fuller effect that I was talking about. So similar process. You're going to cover this entire tree, and I'll also be adding actually, like, a half tree on the side just to show that this is a continuation of a scene. And we are just looking at a small section of this particular landscape. Oh, this another thing that actually really brings out the beauty of a landscape painting is to not have all the elements placed, like a full structure of the elements placed in your painting. If you add in variations like maybe half a branch peeking through from the left corner or the right corner, half a tree visible from the right side of your painting, that gives that beautiful effect. You know, you're looking at a particular part of that scene and not just the entire scene itself, right? So the scene could be endless, could be all around you, and you're just looking at a tiny, tiny part of the scene. So you can see how I'm just creating this branch. And adding a few details in there just to bring the illusion that this is a pine tree that is a lot more larger. It's a bit closer. But, you know, if I were to move my camera, if I was capturing a picture like this, if I would move my camera a little bit towards the right, I might be able to capture the whole pine tree itself. But right now, we just have a small portion of the pine tree peeking through. So just another tip to make your landscape paintings interesting by leaving a little bit of the structures, you know, from the left or the right side of your painting. Now, this doesn't entirely have to be on the right side itself. You could have done that on the left, and when you started from the left as well. Pick a side and add in a small section, that is going to elevate the whole composition of your painting. At least in my opinion, that's how I do it, and I really like the way this looks. It could differ. Different artists might differ to this and have a different opinion, but this is what I personally like and end up doing a lot whenever I'm painting my landscape art works. Anyway, I really like the overall structure of the pine trees that we've added in the foreground. You're going to let this dry completely. And then this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we will be adding snow on the tree and a lot more snow in the painting. 16. Project 3 Part 3 : Whispers : All right. Now that the section has completely dried, it's time for us to add snow on it. So I'm adding a bit more white into the same gray mix that I was using for the snow. Again, you can see it's a shade lighter than the ones that we've used earlier. And that is to show that these structures are closer to the observer, so the color of the snow is slightly going to be lighter. And using a size four, size two or a size zero brush, whatever brush comes to a fine zip for you, use that brush and start adding snow. Again, very similar process to the exercise lesson. We're just applying what we've learned there. Into our paintings. That is literally it. We're applying the same concept of creating our snow, keeping a few things in mind, and that is to not cover the entire brush stroke. Or the base layer with snow itself and leaving a few of those branches peeking through. Now, in case you do end up covering a lot with snow that is completely fine, we do go over the section and add in some finer details to bring out, you know, the details for your branches, basically. And that's completely okay in case you cover a lot of area. But try as much as you can to not cover the entire tree with your snow itself so that you're still able to see that there is snow on the tree and not just branches in snow. Right, so just keep that in mind and go ahead and cover this entire section because this process is very repetitive. I will be speeding up the process here or the video here, just a small section of it, and then I'll slow it down and come to the real time version of it. But again, this is very repetitive, so I will be speeding it up in case you're not comfortable with that. These please feel free to lower the video speed so that you can see it in a much slow down osire or like a dual time or normal speed. Basically, you'll see it at a normal speed. So make sure you do that in case you're not comfortable with the fast speed. But if you've got it covered and you know exactly what needs to be done, feel free to watch it at that fast pace, cover up your paintings, and then we will come back to the next step together. H All right, so you can see how I've covered the entirety of my section with this gray color. I really like the way the overall composition is turning out to be. You can see we've got so much snow. The basic idea for this artwork is to create a scene that has that snowfall in there as a window painting. While this layer is completely drying, let's go ahead and paint the ground portion of this artwork. I am loading it up with a little bit of white and a tiny amount of that gray color that we're using. The idea is to cover up this entire section with the lighter color, which is the slightly whiter shade at the top, then you'll have the slight gray color at the bottom. Now, the camera is not entirely picking up those shades properly because again, there's so much gray and white that is being used. But just know that I've used a lighter shade of white or lighter shade of gray at the top, and the deeper shade at the bottom. And using a flat brush, I have just proceeded to blend them together. That is it that I'm doing very similar to the middle ground section that we did as well. And once you are happy with the way it looks, you're going to let this try and then we'll focus on highlighting the snow paths. Alright, so now that this layer has dried, it's time first to highlight the snow on my trees. So I'm using a lighter shade of gray. Now, this one's very, very close to white. It might have a very tiny amount of that gray undertone that we're looking for. And using a size zero brush here, I'm highlighting my snow details that I've added. So you can see how carefully I'm just adding a layer of this brushtroke and we're not covering the entire brush stroke. With this lighter shade, we still want to have that slightly gray snow layer that we've added and we're just focusing on highlighting certain branches with this lighter color. So go ahead and create a second layer for all the snow details that you've just added. Here's a close up view of the brush stroke that I'm applying, so you can see how I pick out certain branches and add in very light brush strokes. I'm not entirely covering up the entire section with this light color. We still need that gray color to be in there, but I'm still picking up certain branches to highlight the snow details on there. Now I'm not speeding up the process here because sometimes it might get confusing as to where you would lay your brush strokes, especially as a beginner, where, you know, you want to make sure that you know exactly why you make the choices that you do. So you want to take your time and observe that. And that is why I'm not speeding up the process here. So over here, again, like I've mentioned earlier, I'm just picking out certain areas and adding the light colors, and that is it. We're not thinking all, you know, every brushstroke that we make. We're not really thinking so much into it and just going ahead and adding the highlights in certain areas wherever we feel like it. Literally, right now, we're not focusing so much on the light and shadow part of it, so you don't have to really, you know, analyze every brushstroke that you make. Now, once you're done with the snow details, I'm also going to go ahead and add in a few more lighter brush strokes to show for the plant elements, just to add in more delicate branches in there. And to make that section look a bit more fallow. And the reason why I'm doing this is because a section looks a little bit empty and we're seeing too much of that middle ground space. And to avoid seeing too much of that middle ground space, I have added a few more brushstrokes. Alright. Now that I'm happy with the way this looks, the next step is to add in those finer details for the branches, just to show that you're able to save a you know, different branch sections of your tree, and it doesn't look like you've got only the black or the darker detail or the base layer detail on the left and right side of your tree. And there's nothing in the middle because all of that area is covered in snow. So to avoid that, you take up your smaller size brush, load it up with the darker color which we use for the base, and you'll pick out certain sections and add in the short short strokes to show that these are the details for the branches again. In case you want an in depth explanation of how we make these brush strokes, please feel free to refer to the exercise lesson. And in case you have preferred exercise lesson and actually practice along with me, then this is going to be a piece of cake for you because you know exactly why we've done it. Also, if you've painted the first class project, I'm sure you have a clearer idea of how to achieve these brush strokes and how to add the details. You don't have to really focus on all the branch details. You just pick certain sections and then add that in. Now this is something that really comes very intuitively. I would say, especially as you go and practice a lot. This is something that will come to you as you will not think so much. But as a beginner, I understand it can feel a little bit confusing. So in those cases, you ruffle lesson and, you know, practice that one. So that when you're doing these in your artworks, you feel a little bit confident about your brushstrokes that you make. Once you're happy and done with this entire section of that is adding the details for your pine trees, we will add and do the most fun part of this painting, in my opinion. I was really happy when I decided to add the snow in my painting, basically. Just went ahead of myself and told you what we're going to do. But that is adding the snow. I'm sure it was obvious because you obviously saw the final artwork. That is the next thing that we're going to do, and I'm really excited for it. But before we go on and do that, make sure that you are quickly finishing up the process of adding the branch details on your pine trees. We Alright, I'm really happy with the overall composition for my base layer. That is, I'm going to count all of this as the base layer because we're going to add snow on top of it. So let it dry completely. And now that this section has dried completely, I'm loading up my brush with a lot of white. I'm not going to focus on adding any other color in it. I'm going to let titanium white be titanium white for this moment. In case you want a little bit more of the color, make sure you squeeze up some more paint because we are going for a consistency of paint that is slightly thicker. Now, the thicker your consistency is going to be the more opaque. Obviously, your titanium white is going to look. You want to ensure that you have a nice thick consistency, creamy consistency of paint, and then you're going to tap it against another brush. So you can see you'll have the white paint splatter everywhere. So don't be afraid to make a mess at your desk over here. Because you can easily wipe this down with just water and a piece of cloth. So don't worry. It's a bit of a messy process here, but it's so much fun. I love love doing this, especially when you're adding snow or when you have to show stars, or just a bit more of those finer splatters everywhere. This has to be my favorite step. Anytime I have to add this, I'm so happy. But yeah, go ahead and enjoy this process, platter as many finer details for the snow that you want. So this is the snow that is further away. So these are all like the smaller smaller tiny, tiny dots to show the snow that are bigger and slightly closer to the observer's viewpoint, you will load up the same paint and create different blobs. I'm saying blobs because we're not focusing on creating circles, okay? So make sure that you have variation in your brush stroke, and you're not just letting it be a circle entirely. So just go ahead and add in these bigger snow details everywhere in your artwork. Again, play around with the shape, play around waist, the size. Don't let all the snow details that you add be the same size. So when you're looking at the snow fall, the snow that is, you know, kind of closer to your viewpoint are going to appear bigger in size, than the one that are slightly away will obviously appear slightly smaller. And then the ones far off in the background are going to appear the finest. And that's why we created the splatters first, and then we're focusing on adding these blobs of different sizes. So keep that in mind when you're adding this particular detail in your painting. Alright, so I feel like I've added a good amount of snow, but before I say that I'm completely done, I'm going to let this dry and then have a final look at my artwork. Alright, I feel like my artwork could use a little bit more of those medium sized lots just to make my snowfall look a little bit more intense. So I'm going to go ahead and create a few more brushstrokes. But in case you're happy with the way your artwork looks, please feel free to entirely skip a step and move on to, you know, peeling your paper from this cardboard sheet that you've taped it down on. I just personally feel like I could use a little bit more. I'm going to go ahead and add that in quickly. Can see how adding this medium size plus stroke again, has created that intense snowfall effect. Another thing, another tip to keep in mind is you don't want all your blobs to be in the center of your artwork, make some slightly peeking through from the left and right side or the edges of your paper, basically, just so that it captures only a particular part of the scene that you are seeing. Very similar to the pine tree section that I was talking about, the same concept. Make sure that you're not making circles only and just some half circles as well. Once the section completely dries, your layer completely dries, it's time for us to peel and look at our final artwork. I'm going to peel my artwork. Make sure that I remove the tapes, and here is my painting. Let's have a closer look at it. So here's the artwork. Absolutely logcat snowfall scene that we just created, the hill in the background, the pine trees in the foreground, obviously, the gorgeous gorgeous blobs of snow that we just created. Absolutely stunning piece of work. This is it for Project three. I'll see you in Project four. 17. Project 4 Part 1 : Frosted Susnet: Welcome to your fourth class project. Here's what we're painting today. Let us talk about the colors. So for the shades, I have cadmium yellow, primary red, olive green, burnt umber, Prussian blue, ivory black, and titanium white. So I've taken all the mentioned colors on my palette. I've taped on my paper. I've also got my swatch card ready for me, and we're going to start off with the basic sketch. Now, as you can see in the reference image, we've got this beautiful sunset in the sky. And in the foreground, we've got those pine trees which are at an elevation. And for the middle ground, we've got a view of this beautiful set of pine trees in the background and the snow on the ground. So for that first, I'm going to sketch out sight of the horizon line that I'm seeing. Now, the horizon line is not a straight line here because you are looking at it at a viewpoint where there is a three dimensional field to it. So the pine trees extend and come closer to the observer, especially towards the right side or the right half of my sketch. So I'm going to roughly sketch a similar placement of the elements of the pine trees in the background. So it's very minute. I would say in size, it's very fine. We're just going to achieve that by, you know, making simple brush strokes. And for the foreground, we've got this slant ground. So we are probably at a slope, looking at this beautiful sunset. And right behind the slope, we've got a series of pine trees. Now, these pine trees are very similar to the second type of pine trees I showed you where we achieve the textures for the finer details of the pine needles by kind of tapping our spoiled brush to create that texture. Along with those pine trees, we've also got a few empty trees on the side with no leaves on them. So I'm going to quickly sketch that out as well. So take a moment here, observe the reference image and place your elements and your sketch accordingly. Now, it doesn't have to be a perfect sketch and make sure that you're drawing everything lightly. Alright, now that this sketch is done, let's start with the painting process. I am going to be using my flat brush to ensure that I get that seamless blend between all the colors. So let's make the shades that we need. Starting off with my primary red, I am adding a little bit of my cadmium yellow in there and a bit of white. So we want to get this really pastel peachy color for the orange part in my sky. So make sure that you go back and forth with the white and the pigments of this orange and yellow until you receive a color that looks closer to the shade. Next color that I'm mixing is my cadmium yellow and white. And I've also add a tiny amount of this orange shade in there as well. And here's a swatch of the color. Now, before you move on to creating the next shade, make sure that you are double rinsing your brush because we're going to be working with blue. And if you have any yellow pigment in there, your mix is going to have green. So make sure that you're double rinsing. To my blue, I've added white, and you can see how this is a very lighter version of that russian blue color. And you can achieve these beautiful pastel shades by just adding white in there, and that will total tone the color of the actual shades down. All right. Making sure that I double rinse here again before I start loading up my brush with some orange color. Another thing to keep in mind is that you want to make sure that you have enough of these color mixes that you're making. Otherwise, you'll run out of the particular shade in between your blending process and your paints might dry quickly on the artwork, that would make the blending process a little bit harder for you. Make sure that you have enough paint on your palette. We're going to start off with this orange color and I'm going to go ahead and apply particular shade right above the pine trees or the hilly region that we have created as our sketch above the horizon line. And I'm only applying a very thin area of my sky with this orange color. And then I'm moving on to the yellow shade. Now, we're going to make sure that we blend these two colors together by going in this to and fro motion left to right, ensuring that the yellow and the orange create that seamless blend between each other. And once you're done with laying the yellow and orange together and are happy with the blend, we can move on to the blue. Now, before we move ahead with the blue, you want to ensure that you are double rinsing your brush because if you don't, then you will end up creating a green mix. Now, over here, I'm going with this light blue at the top, and as I come down, I'm going to decrease the intensity by adding a little bit more of the white color in there. So as we bring the color down, this will blend into the white that we will use to blend the yellow and the blue together. Now, like I showed you in the blending lesson, to create a blend between your complimentary colors, you use white in there just so that you don't end up creating a muddy mix while blending them together. You can see how I've left and a white band, and in that white band, I'm using the yellow I mean, not the yellow color, the white color, and I'm blending it with the yellow and into the blue. So you'll have to go back and forth a little bit here just to see if you've added too much of the white into the and you want to intensify it slightly, especially at the top, you can add a bit more blue, and you're going to slowly bring it down and blend it with the white. And the same thing applies for the yellow as well. So you'll have to go back and forth until you create a seamless blend between the orange, yellow, white, and the blue. So take your time with it, blend these colors together until you're happy with it. I really like the blend here. It's also seamless. Before we move on to the next step, you want to ensure that this layer completely dries. Right now that this layer has completely dried, it's time for us to work on the snow in the middle ground, for which I'm loading up some white paint, and I've added the same blue mixture that we've used for the sky and a tiny, tiny amount of black in there. It's like, very minute, right? And you have this mix of color. I'm going to quickly swatch it for you so you can see how this is the shade for the snow. And using my flat brush, I am going to spread it across in the area, which is the land in the middle ground. Right? So take up your flat brush here, load it up with some paint, and you're going to carefully apply it in this area. I'm also making sure that I leave that space for that curve as the forest moves in into a denser form towards the right. So over here as I lay the color down, you can see it looks a little bit flat. Now, what is it lacking here for the depth? The thing that it lacks is a deeper tone of color. So once you apply this lighter color, I would suggest that you maybe switch to a round brush here and you can add a bit of white into the same mix just to create a lighter shade. And then similarly, you'll do that with a darker color as well. So the area on the top of this section of where you're laying the paint will be the lighter part. And I've added a little bit of the blue color in the same mix, and you can see how this is a slightly darker color as compared to the snow that we just laid out. And I'm quickly applying that at the bottom, and I'm doing this while the paint is still wet so that it can all seamlessly blend into one another. Now, what this does is just creates a little bit of a texture and depth into your metal ground. And again, before we move on to the next step, you want to make sure that it completely dries. Right now that the snow area has dried, it's time for us to move on to the details in the middle ground. So for which I'm switching to my round brush, and I've added a bit of black into the same Prussian blue and white mix. Now, we want to create a gray shade here. So I'm mixing Prussian blue, black, white, and you can see how this one is a very cool gray. Now, to warm it up a little bit, I've added a little amount of my primary red in there. So you can see how this color is like a warmer gray. It does have that purple undertone in it because we've used our blue and red together. And once you're happy with the color, you can go ahead with your round brush and start creating these vertical strokes. Now, the idea here is to cover the entire white space that you're seeing between the sky and the snow area with this particular shade. Now, at the top, I am adding the deeper color and into the same mix, I've added a tiny amount of white just so that there is a variation between two colors when I lay it down. The vertical strokes are with the deeper color. As I bring it down, I've added a bit of that lighter shade and I'm blending it together. You're going to use this method and complete the entire section. Right now, when you look at it, it will look a little bit flat because you've not added any other details to this, and we're just working on switching between the two colors and creating a base layer. But once you're done with that, we will add in a few more pine trees and a bit more texture into this area. You can see how I'm not making a flat brushstroke. I'm making these vertical brushstrokes, which give the illusion that you've got trees in the background, they're very fine, but you're still seeing that unevenness in that area because of the different heights of your tree. So keep that in mind when you're creating this particular brushstroke in this area. And now that I've added the darker tones at the top, I can switch to the slightly lighter color and blend it across and cover up this entire space. Alright, I'm really happy with the way the entire structure looks. Make sure that you're covering all white spaces in between and ensuring that you have a nice plan between those two colors. And once you're happy with the way the base structure looks, you are going to let this layer completely dry. Alright, now that this section has completely dried, I'm switching to a very fine brush, which is my size zero brush. And the idea here is to start creating those really fine pine trees in the bottom section of your structure that you just created. So I'm mixing my brush in blue, black, just to create a very intense color. And I've also added red in there. So it's very similar to the color that we just used, but this time it has a lot less white in it, so you can see how the color is a bit intense as compared to the background layer. Using this particular shade, you're going to go ahead and start creating smaller size pine tree. Now, the trick here to get a really fine tip on your brushes is to load up your paint and ensure that you twist it on the palette itself a couple of times to get rid of any extra paint that you might have. Now the way in which my brush strokes will move here is I'll start off with really fine vertical brush strokes in the center of my painting, and as I progress towards the right side, I will increase the size of the pine trees that I add. What this does, it creates the illusion that the section is coming closer or slightly closer to the observer and it's not just in a straight line. Over here, the process is very repetitive. You're going to add a bunch of pine trees. While focusing on increasing the size of your pine trees. Now what I'm saying is you don't have to create one like a really small one and the next one really large. You have to make sure that you're gradually increasing the size of your pine tree. That is something that you'll have to keep in mind. To add in a little bit more texture in my painting, I'm also adding very, very fine brush strokes in the middle of my painting as well just to show that there are trees. These similar trees that we're seeing on the right side progress towards the center and move towards the left as well. But since they are still further away from the observer, he's not able to see a lot more details in the painting. Go ahead and add, in these pine trees. I'm not going to increase the speed here because I want you to observe how I add these pine trees and where I place them. Again, I'm not really thinking so much. The only idea that I have in mind is, I have to create these pine trees and increase the size of it as we progress. So keep that in mind and go ahead and create a bunch of pine trees until you reach the very right side of your painting. I'm really happy with the way this whole thing is progressing, as you can see, the details in the pine trees are standing out so much, and we can really tell that, you know, this area is closer to us because we're seeing a lot more details in this particular section. So make sure that you complete and reach all the way towards the end. And this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll be adding finer details and painting a lot more details in the middle ground. 18. Project 4 Part 2 : Frosted Susnet: All right, now that I'm down with the section on the right, let's fill the section on the left, as well, for which I'll be using my same size zero round brush, and I'll add a bit more water into my mix, and you can see how I have this beautiful workable consistency. So it's not too thick, but at the same time, it's not too thin. I do get nice opaque brush strokes with this consistency. All right. I'm going to create these tiny, tiny vertical strokes, and as you can see, it creates that illusion that these trees are in the background. I'm quickly going to add these brush strokes and complete this portion as well. Along with the vertical strokes, as you can see, I can create these variations in the sizes of the brush strokes that I create. So it's not just vertical strokes of the same size. You want to make sure that you add a few taller ones and a few shorter ones and that way, add in a little bit more of an interesting depth into your painting. As you can see, the leftmost section has a little bit more of those taller pine trees as compared to the ones in the center. Alright, now that we are done with this, now the next thing that we're going to do is create some more texture and details in our painting. So over here, I'm going to add in a few more pine trees, especially on the right hand side. So a little bit more further, I've left a bit more space between each pine tree structure that I add. And this way, you know, some trees are forward, some trees are slightly in the middle. And then obviously, you have the back layer along with it. You're going to add these pine trees on the right hand side to add in more depth into the section. Now, most of the area here is going to get covered with the trees that we will add in front. But still, we're going to do our best to create a little bit more of that texture and depth in the middle ground as well. Along with the pine trees, I'm also creating these short vertical strokes. For some interesting plant details and a little bit more of a variation in the different elements that we're seeing. So it's not just pine trees, but also this could be probably a little fence that you're seeing or a little shrub that you're seeing. You're not really sure what you're seeing at this distance, but you're still seeing different elements right there. Go ahead and add that in. Along with this. I'm also going to teach you how you can create wonderful textures on the ground. So what you can do for that is switch to your spoiled brush or a brush that has its bristles spread apart. And you're going to load up paint on that brush, and you can just create these vertical strokes, or you can just kind of brush your, paintbrush that you have across the layer or the section that you want to add texture. So over here, I'm just creating vertical strokes or even strokes at different angles to add in a little bit of texture. And you can see as I brush my paintbrush across this area, it creates the texture on the snow. You're not really entirely sure of what we're seeing in that area, but this adds a nice little depth into your painting and a few extra textures and details in there. Along with the texture that I just added very roughly, I'm also adding a few more pine trees in this section so that the left area of my painting doesn't look empty. Now, as I've mentioned, this area does get blocked out later on when we add the trees in front of it, but we're still going to do our best to add in a few details so that whatever empty space you have between each tree, you don't see just a blank layer behind it. You have a little bit more of that interesting details in there. So go ahead and complete these details. You can place the trees however you want. There is no particular positioning that we're going to follow for sure. So play around with it. You want to change the composition slightly, feel free to do that. If you want to add in a few more trees wherever you feel like it, you can do that, as well. So don't just focus on creating the painting exactly like mine. If you want to go back and observe the reference image, you can do that as well. See where the details are being put, see where the different textures are appearing in your middle ground, and add your details accordingly. Once you're happy with all the details that you've added in this area, you're going to let this section completely dry before we move on to adding trees in the foreground. Alright, now that I'm done with details in the middle ground, I'm going to create the next shade, which I'll be using for the trees on the left hand side. So I'm going to add in my black paint. I'm switching to a larger size brush here, which is my size four brush compared to my size zero brush that I was just using. So into my blue and black, I've added a tiny amount of red and a little bit of the white paint as well. So you want a deeper purple color for this. And, of course, we're adding black to kind of tone down the color. So it's not just purple, but it has that gray tone in there. So I've added my black. I'm also adding a tiny amount of brown in there as well. So after I mix all these shades together, let me just swatch the color out for you. You can see how it has that purple tone in it, but at the same time, it is gray as well. So it's a deeper gray that we're using. So here's a swatch of the color. Let's go ahead and start adding trees. So for this, you can use your finer brush, which is your size zero brush. Or if you want, you can also switch to a size two, whatever you prefer the most. So we're going to go ahead and start adding trees on the left hand side of my painting. Now they're not exactly in line with the slope that we've just created. I am going to, you know, give variations in the positioning, so they're not also all going to be in the same line. You're going to place some slightly in the front and a few slightly in the back. But even though we're doing that variation, these trees are closer to one another. So you can see how I'm creating the main trunk, and then I'm releasing a few branches, keeping in mind that I don't want to add in a lot of those delicate branches, and I'm focusing more on just creating the outer structure of my tree. You can add as many trees as you want. Try to keep them in an odd number, maybe create five or seven, whatever you feel like it. And I've mentioned earlier, you want to focus on creating the outer structure of the tree. And once you're happy with the outer structure of the tree, you can add in a few finer details. Along with the trees all focused in the fuller structure in the painting on the left side, you want to add in a few branches peaking and from the outside of the painting as well. So just to show that there are trees, there are more trees that we can view, but this is just a section of the scene that we're painting. I'm switching to my spoiled brush to create the delicate structures to my same paint that I was using the same color that I was using. I've added a tiny amount of white in there just to make the color appear a bit lighter and a little bit more delicate. Now, over here, the branches are going to overlap with one another, and it is completely okay. We're not going to focus more on the section because we've got a lot more trees that will come in front of it. So this is just a section will somewhere stay in the middle, as well. So go ahead and create as many delicate details for the branches as you'd like. Again, not going to confide you in just creating the trees a certain way. Feel free to add the character that you want for your trees. All trees are going to turn out to be beautiful in the end, and you don't have to fret a lot on the details. Alright, I'm really happy with the way this section looks. Just to blend it out with the background itself, you can add a bit more texture towards the trunk in the bottom. But overall, I'm happy with the way this looks, so I'm going to let this dry. And the next thing that we're going to do is create the positioning of the trunks for the trees that we want in the foreground. So I'm going to have different variations in the height, as you can see, I'm creating these vertical lines. I might add maybe five or seven of these trees and ensuring that you want to have different heights so that not all your trees have the same shape. Or rather the same height structure to it. So I'm going to go ahead and create the vertical lines along with which I will have a few more plant elements at the bottom. Now to create the trunk, I'm going to be using my size for round brush, and I'm going to go ahead and start with more pressure at the bottom. And then as I go up, I release the pressure. Now, you remember when we were painting pine trees in the exercise lesson, we created the trees with the branches moving upwards, right? So this is exactly that tree. But do you remember we practiced the second type of that tree where we were able to capture the branch details using our spoiled brush to create that texture defect. This is the type of tree that we'll be painting in this one. So you want to create the base structure first, so you have the main trunk and the branches being released on the left and right side. And for the center branches, we will add in just a few taps in the middle to make our tree appear fuller. So go ahead and add in those trees and add in those branches. So I will be increasing the speed slightly in the next part because this process is very repetitive and you're going to complete this for all the trees that you have just guessed out, obviously varying the different heights that we have created. Alright. Now that we're done with the base structure, I'm also going to create a few details in the bottom just to add in extra plant elements in there. So I'm creating just vertical strokes and few brush strokes which kind of resemble your branch details, but with really, really closer, smaller brush strokes. Now, you can create these branches or the viewpoint of these shrubs at the bottom, however you want, and you can position them wherever you want. The only thing that I'm focusing more on is that I don't want them to be really large. I want them to be shorter in height. So go ahead and add them wherever you feel like it. There is no exact positioning that I'm focusing on. And you can see how my brush strokes are. They are vertical, but they're also placed at different angles and closer together. Once you're done with this and you're happy with it, the next thing that we're going to do is switch to our spoiled brush, and the color that we want for the details for the tree that we're going to add is a mix of my olive green, my black, and a tiny, tiny amount of brown in there. So let me just swatch this out for you. This is the color. It's a very, very deep green color. So using my spoiled brush, what we're going to do is add texture and make our pine trees appear fuller. Now, like I've taught you earlier, this pine tree has its branches moving up. And since we're seeing this pine tree at a distance, we're not really going to focus a lot on all the details of the leaves that you're seeing or the pine needle details that you're seeing. You're just going to tap in and create that texture. So try and hold your brush probably at an angle, or you can also hold it directly perpendicular to the paper itself. And you're going to tap on these branches that you've created. Keeping in mind that you make the branch appear fuller. You don't really see a lot of the shape of the branch that you've created and tap some in the middle as well. So the next bit, I'm going to increase the speed because the process is repetitive. You're going to go ahead and cover your entire structures for all the pine trees that you've just created. Keeping in mind that you want to tap, make the tree appear fuller, at the same time preserving the shape of the branch and following along with the shape of the branch. So go ahead and enjoy this process. Take it slow, take it at your own pace, and complete your painting. Alright, I'm really happy with the way this entire structure has come along. Now, if you notice very carefully, there is a bit of empty space, and there are a lot of details that we can actually add to the trees. But for now, I'm going to focus more on completing the textures for the tree over here, and I'm going to complete it on my own. So this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we are going to go ahead and add in a lot more finer details into our painting. 19. Project 4 Part 3 : Frosted Susnet: Alright, so as you can see, I've completed this entire section. I went ahead and added a bit more texture on the right hand two trees that you see. So I've bought in the textures all the way till the bottom. Now using a lighter shade of green, which is into the same mix. I've added a bit more green, I'm going to go ahead and tap in some extra texture and try and make my tree appear fuller, especially at the top of my painting. Very carefully, you can see, along with tabs, I'm kind of creating very, very short brush strokes here. And this way, it builds on to the character of my tray. Now, since this is an overhead view you might not entirely see how these brush strokes are made, but I'll quickly give you a closer look at this so that it makes more sense as to how I'm laying these brush strokes. So as you can see, tapping in these extra textures make my tree appear fuller and a lot more detail. And since this color is slightly lighter, it also adds a bit of depth into your tree and does not make it look flat where you're just using a single color for the leaves. So go ahead and tap in wherever necessary. Now, this might be different for you. So focus more on what your tree looks like or what your structure looks like and add in this detail accordingly. And once you're happy with the whole structure, we can move on to adding the next detail. So go ahead and analyze your artwork and add in the details as you go. All right. I'm really happy with the way the structure looks so far, so I'm going to let this dry. And the next thing that I am going to do is focus on adding a bit of texture for the trunks. So for that, I'm mixing my brown, black, and a little bit of white together to create a lighter shade which I can use as the texture for the trunk. So make sure that the consistency of your paint is nice and thick. If you don't have a thick consistency, you load up your brush with the paint, ensure that you tap off the extra paint on the cloth so that you're only left with very little paint on the brush. And when you brush it across your structures that you want to add the texture to, it will create this broken dry brush effect. So that is the structure that we're going for. So I'm just highlighting the center part of my tree and creating this structure. When you apply the paint, it might appear lighter than needed. But in case that happens, just let it dry. I will dry down to be a bit darker. Now, as you can see, since I highlighted the tree, the leaves that we just painted ended up being in the back. So to kind of merge them together, I'm going back with the green shade and adding in the texture just to make my tree appear fuller again and not let the texture get in the way of making your tree appear fuller. So go ahead and add in a few extra tabs. Now, for a lighter shade of green that I'm using here, I've added the sap green or the olive green. Into the mix with black and a bit of white. Using this color, I'm going to go ahead and create a few more details at the bottom where the shrubs lie. So you can just release some grass like structures or maybe just have in a few little shorter brush taps, where you can create a little bit of texture in the bottom, just to show that there are lighter colors being used, and it's not just all flat using maybe two or three different colors. So go ahead and highlight these areas of the shrubs in the bottom using this lighter shade of green. Now, again, this might be slightly different for you, ensure that you are also seeing what your structure looks like before you go ahead and add in these details. And once you're happy with the way the entire structure looks, you're going to let this dry completely, and then we're going to paint the snow. Alright, now that this area has dried, I'm just loading my brush with a little bit of white and the same gray tone that we were using in the background. So going ahead with this color, I'm going to add in the lighter shade at the top. And for the area right below that, I will be adding a bit more depth by increasing the intensity or the tormal value of the color. So you can see how we have the lighter shade at the top, and I'm just quickly ensuring that I cover up this entire space with a single color. Then using the darker color, I'm going to go ahead and create these slopy shorter brush strokes. Now, the idea is to flow along with the slope that you have so that you create that unevenness in the snow that you're seeing. So it's not all just flat. There is a bit of depth in the snow and you can achieve that with the darker color. So I'm switching back to my round brush here just to have a bit more control over the shorter brush strokes that I apply. I've added a bit more white at the top because I want that area to be a lot more vibrant. And once I lay the lighter colors, I'll focus on the darker colors. So again, placing that in wherever necessary. Now, again, it doesn't have to be entirely like mine. Just try and focus more on the bottom part of your land where you can add in the texture. And once you're happy with the way you place the colors, one thing that you can do is switch to maybe a flat brush to kind of ensure that they blend into one another. If you want a more uneven blend between these colors, I would suggest you use your round brush itself to ensure that, you know, the edges are kind of blended in. I feel like I've added too much of the darker color for the texture or for the depth of my snow. So using a lighter color, I'm just kind of adding that in and blending it together. Now, this is, again, a very personal choice that I'm making, analyzing and taking a decision to correct things as I go. But again, if you're happy with the way how you've added the snow texture for yourself, feel free to keep it as it is. Once I've blended everything together, I'm going to add in a bit more of the lighter color for the top part of the ground and a little bit more of the darker color for the texture. So I'm really happy with the way this entire section has turned out so far. So I'm going to let this dry and then we'll add in a few finer details. Alright, now that everything has dried, you're going to take a moment to analyze if there are certain things that you want to add, maybe add in a few extra details or correct something that you don't like. I felt like the trees on the left hand side needed a bit of texture. So using a bit more white into the same mix, I have added a light texture using the dry brush method. And the next thing that I want to do is create a bit of the lighter colors for the texture on the land as well. So using my white shade, I'm adding a bit more texture on the ground in here, especially at the top part of that slope that we're seeing. And along with the darker texture that we have, adding a lighter texture also plays a very important role. So very roughly, using the dry brush method, I'm quickly adding in a bit more texture and character into the slope. Now the next thing that I want to focus on and would like to add details to is the tray. So I'm mixing my black and brown here together. So you can see how I have this gorgeous olive green, deeper olive green color. And using my size zero brush here, especially for the top parts of my trees, I'm going to go ahead with these finer taps just to bring out a little bit more detail on the tree and just to make those taps of the texture that I created to give it a bit more shape and continuation between them. So I'm very lightly just creating a few brush strokes. There aren't really proper brush strokes, just little tabs and trying to bring a continuation between all the structures that we just were able to capture using our spoiled brush. So go ahead and look at the nitty gritties of the details, wherever you feel like you want to add something, feel free to do. So if you're happy with how your painting looks and you don't have to do this, you can completely skip this part and move on to peeling your paper from the cardboard that you taped it on. I'm just going to go ahead and add in a few details wherever I felt it could use those. And once you're done with it, and once I'm happy with it, I shall peel my paper. Alright, I'm really happy with the overall structure now. So let me just peel it off, so as you can see, be careful with this step. You might tear your paper if you're not going slow and steady with this. And once you have it off, you have your final image right in front of you that you worked so hard on creating. Let's have a closer look now. So as you can see, we've got this gorgeous blend in the sky. We were able to capture a lot of details in the middle ground, which did end up getting covered up by a greater space, but that's alright. It still shows that there are a lot of details in the middle ground, and, of course, you've got all the finer details in the foreground. I hope you enjoyed painting this artwork and enjoyed the blending process and the techniques for the trees in this one. This is it for Project four. Here's a sneak peek of Project five, so I'll see you soon. 20. Project 5 Part 1 : Silent Pines: Welcome to your fifth class project. Here's what we're painting today. For the colors, I'll be using viridian, olive green, ivory black, and titanium white. Start with the sketch first. I've taped my paper, taking the colors out, and using a pencil, we are going to outline every element that we see. Now, over here, if you notice very carefully, we've got the blurred out pine forest in the background. And in the foreground, we've got a lot of different variations and sizes for the pine tree. So what I'm going to do is first place the pine trees that are in the foreground or that are a lot more clearer to the viewpoint. And I'm roughly sketching out also the placement of the pine trees that are in the background. So there are a lot of different variations in the sizes like I've mentioned, you've got one kind of on the right hand side of the reference image that is really large, has a lot more details. Then you've got some in the back, and then obviously, you've got the foggy scene in the extreme background, which we will actually achieve using a really fun technique. So go ahead and plan out the positions. Obviously, things will slightly change because when you layer over with quash, you might lose your sketch. So just lightly understand the placements of your elements, and obviously, you can change things and add up more as we start layering our artwork. Along with the pine trees in the foreground, we've also got detail of a branch peeking through from top. So make sure that you are adding that, as well. The details in your sketch don't have to be exact and even the placements of the trees don't have to be exact, make sure that you're keeping that in mind that you're not trying to recreate this reference image bit by bit, but you're just getting inspired and understanding the composition. I'll also be changing the color palette for the class slightly because I feel like the colors in the reference image are a lot more duller than I want them to be, we'll play around with the shades and make it a lot more greener. All right. Now that I'm happy with the sketch, let's start with the painting process. For the painting of the background, we'll be using the wet on wet technique. So let me just make the shades first. For this guy, I want a gray shade. So I'm mixing my white and black together. And I'm also making another shade on the side, which is a little bit lighter. So I'm going to work around with these two different shades. Maybe I'll make certain sections darker and then certain areas lighter. So there are two different grays that I'm using. Next, I'm mixing my olive green, along with a bit of black and a tiny amount of viridian there as well. And it does have white, so you can see how the shade looks right here. Let me swatch this color out for you. So you want a color which is closer to the shade. Again, if you don't want to create this exact color palette, you can play around with your own set of greens as well. Alright. So now the first step to do here is to prep your paper. For which I'm going to go ahead and just layer over the entire surface with water. Nothing else, just plain clean water. Make sure that your water does not have a lot of pigment or any other shade under there. You want it to be nice and transparent. So you want to layer up the entire section with this color. And once you've covered your paper with water, you can dive into performing your tricks with the wet on wet technique. For placing my colors, I'll start off with the lighter shade on top. I'm just roughly adding the lighter color using my flat brush itself at the top. You can see I'm not really focusing on that left and right motion. I'm just creating shorter strokes and I want that unevenness in the sky because it's a foggy scene. We don't want it to be nice and flat. Along with that, I'll be adding this slightly darker gray shade where you can see how I'm blending it. I'm not really going on that left and right motion, but I'm letting the water that we've already laid out do its magic and kind of make sure that the colors sort of blend into one another. Now, using a lighter shade of green first, into the same color mix that I created for the green, I've added a bit more white, so you can see the swatch of the color. And I'm going to go ahead and start creating these pine trees that are blurred out in the background. Now you can see how I'm using that workable consistency that I use for gouache generally. It could be slightly thin down, but it's not really entirely watery and the colors end up being a little bit translucent. That's it. It's not really runny. And you can see how when I lay the paint, the water just blends in, and it's going to create that soft effect in the background. Now, you can see how I'm creating these vertical brushstrokes of different sizes. And once I'm actually happy with the placement of it, I've covered majority of that region, I'm going to switch to the darker color and to add in a little bit more, kind of, I would say, defined shapes to it. Once you're happy with the lighter color, I'm going to take the darker color, and I'm going to start creating the pine trees that I usually would. I'm not really focusing a lot on the details, so you can see how I just start from the top and I create the brush strokes left and right, and some in the center. And this creates the soft effect for the pine trees, the foggy pine trees that you know are pine trees, but you're not seeing a lot of details for. So the water here and the wooden Wortechnique here will do the magic. The trick is to ensure that your paper remains wet. So if you reach a point where you feel like your paper is drying, you can sprit a little bit using a spray bottle or wait for the layer to completely dry before you go ahead and add another layer of water and repeat the process. If you add in water, while the paper is like semi dry, that would create a cauliflower effect and that does not look good at the end of the day. So make sure that your section or your structure is completely wet before you go ahead and add in extra details or add in your brush strobes. All right, so I'm just going to go ahead and add in a few pine trees. The sketch here plays an important role because you'll know exactly where to place this, so I'm focusing more on the left and right corners of my painting. And once you're done with this, you are going to let your painting completely dry. So what this ensures is that all of these soft effects that you have in your artwork will happen in a single layer, which is your wet on wet layer. And once you let it completely dry, you're layering over it. So all the details for the background trees that you want to add, this is your moment to add it. Once you're done, you're going to let your painting completely dry first. All right. Now that my section has dried up completely, you can see how it has that soft effect. The brush strokes have sort of blended into one another, and now I'm going to switch to my size zero round brush here, and I'm adding a bit more of the olive green and black color in there to create a shade that is deeper than the previous layer. So you want to start building on your colors by adding a bit more intensity to it. So also added a little bit of radiant in there, so the color has gotten a bit more deeper. And now using this color, you're going to go ahead and start adding more pine trees. Now, these pine trees are very similar to the second type of pine trees that we learned, where you have the base structure, which is your trunk, and then all the details in your pine trees are kind of moving upwards. So keep that in mind when you're creating your brush strokes. You can also go for the pine trees with its details moving towards the bottom, which is the branches flaring out towards the bottom. To change things a little bit, to spice it up, maybe learn a lot of different elements instead of keeping it the same, I went ahead with the pine tree with its branches moving upwards. Again, personal choice. The reason here being that I wanted to make it a little bit more interesting than it just moving downwards. And over here, you're going to focus on creating a bunch of different pine trees. Now these pine trees, I would say, are in the middle tonal value of the greens. So you've got a certain set of greens in the background, and now you'll have a certain set of green for this particular tree. Then I will deepen the intensity of the colors when I go ahead and add in another set of trees in front of it. This way you have that depth into your painting where you're intensifying the colors as it comes closer to the observer. As I mentioned earlier, we are going with the process of creating a series of pine trees because this is a pine forest that we're looking at, right? Over here, the process will become very repetitive. Play around with the shape of your tree. You can make some thicker, some thinner. Obviously, you're going to have different variations in the height of your pine tree as well. So make sure that you're adding that particular detail in there as well. Again, I'm not increasing the speed over here for this particular video. I'm just going to let it be as it so that you can enjoy the process of creating these shapes, different shapes for your pine trees. And when there is a bit we is extremely repetitive, I might increase the speed, but I will let you know beforehand so that you can be prepared for it. Right. So I'm really liking the way these two trees look. Now, I will show you another way in which you can add in a darker tree. Now, preferably, you would want to do this once you've created the middle layer for your pine trees, and then you have the darker trees in front. But I'm just going to quickly show that to you here as well. So I've just added a bit more black My viridian and olive grain into the mix, and you can see how this is a darker shade of color and using a bigger size brush because this tree is going to appear a lot taller as compared to the other trees. So you want a little bit more details in there. So this one is very similar to the watch that I just showed you. Using this color, we're going to start painting the tree. So you're going to start off by understanding the height first by creating your trunk. So I'm starting off with the top part and then bringing it down. And as I bring it down, I press more. That is to intensify or to thicken the trunk. And from the top, I'm going to start bringing or releasing these branches moving upwards. So this is very similar to the one we've practiced before, where you want to show that this is a close up view of your tree. This type of tree, you've got your branches moving upwards. And obviously, you've got a lot of finer details of your tree following that along. Now, if you notice very carefully, I am not really creating a stroke moving upwards, but rather I'm creating a combination of shorter brush strokes together to create that illusion of the branch moving upwards. I also moved to a size zero just to test it out, but I didn't like how this ball brush created a lot more texture than I wanted to. I felt like with a size four, I was getting a bit more control on my brush stroke, so I went ahead and did that. You can choose any brush that you want. Maybe you feel like the size four is too big for you and you want to size down, feel free to do that, as well. The concept here being, again, you want to create pine trees with its branches moving upwards. So you can see how I start off with a base shape, and then I start creating a series of these shorter strokes left and right, assuming that there's a center line which I'm supposed to follow. And this way, I can create multiple different brush strokes. Really, there isn't a particular structure that I'm following. You can see, not all the branches look the same. They all look different, but again, the shape of the pine tree is preserved. And what I mean by that is it starts off with a smaller tip. As I bring the branches down, the size of it increases, so it gets flared out a lot more. You can see how I'm adding these details. Again, if you want to create a different style of pine trees, feel free to do that as well. This was my preferred choice, so I went ahead with this particular shape. Now, another thing to keep in mind is that we will be layering this up. This particular layer that you're adding is not the final layer. We will add in a few lighter layers and we also show a little bit of the frosty effect on our pine tree. So I'll teach you how to do that as well. So don't focus so much on the details. Obviously, you are supposed to make your pine tree look fuller. So do focus on that. But other than that, there'll be a lot more finer details that we'll be adding to this later on. So once I'm done with this tree, I'm just going to show you how you can go back to those trees in the background. Now, like I mentioned, you would want to create the bigger trees after you're done creating the trees in the background. So to move back to that, I've added a bit more white into the paint mix, and I'm creating these trees. Now, this process is very repetitive. So in the next few section or the next few minutes, I will be increasing the speed. And when I get it back to the normal speed, I will speak and let you know how the details are that I've added. Over here, the process is very repetitive, so enjoy it. All right, I'm really happy with the way this section has turned out so far, along with all the trees in front. I'm also adding a few trees peaking through the right side of my painting in there. As you know, I really like doing that just to make my artwork a little bit more interesting. But once you're done adding all your pine tree details or replacing all your pine trees, you're going to let this dry. And in the next lesson, we'll add another pine tree in front and add in the frosty tips on there. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 21. Project 5 Part 2 : Silent Pines: Alright. Now that this section has completely dried, it's time for us to add the frosted tip for which I will be adding a lot more white into the same colour mix that we've used so far. So I'm mixing my white, black. I've mixed a tiny amount of olive green and viridian in there. So this will be the colour mix that we're using. Let me quickly swatch it out for you. Make sure that you're mixing all the colours in together so that you have an even blend of the shade that you're trying to achieve. Alright. As you can see, this is the shade that I'm using. It is a green gray shade. And I'm going to use my size zero brush here just so that it gives me a little bit more control over my brush strokes. And since the overhead view does not give us a proper, you know, description of how the brush strokes are, let me give you a closer look. So right above the base layer, just like how we learned in the process of adding snow, very similar to that, we are going to go ahead and create the structure. It's almost like adding another layer of the same pine tree details that you added. But this time, the brush strokes are a lot shorter and smaller so that you're still able to see the base layer. So you don't want to entirely cover your base layer and you want to ensure that you have the details peaking through, but at the same time, you're creating shorter strokes following along the shape of your pine tree to bring out the effect of frost on the pine needles. So you can see how carefully I load up my brush. I make sure that I don't load up so much of the paint, and I'm following the shape of my tree with very, very short strokes. I'm not making long strokes. All my brush strokes, especially for painting trees are a combination of shorter strokes moving in different directions. And you can see how I'm flaring it slightly downwards, but also following the shape of my tree. Along with these the trees on the left side, I'll be doing the same process for all my trees, leaving the taller one in the middle. So again, moving on, starting from the top, I'm going to go ahead and start adding the details, following along the shape of my tree to bring out the frosted tips. Now for the next bit, the process is repetitive, so I will be increasing the speed. If you're not comfortable with that or you'd like to see a little bit more details on how I've done it, please feel free to slow down the video slightly so that you can watch it in real time and follow along. So once I'm done covering up this entire section, I shall get back to you with the next steps. All right. Now that I'm done adding the frosted tips on the trees in the middle ground here, I'm going to go ahead and create another tree just like the one on the left. So for this one, we will need a darker shade of color, which matches that, right? So I'm going to go ahead and using my size for brush, create the color. So I'm mixing my olive green, viridian, black. Together, this time, it has a lot more black because you want to go for a deeper shade of the green. So making sure that I mix these colors together properly before I go ahead and swatch it for you. I've also added a bit of that gray color that we were using earlier. Into the mix, but not by a lot, very, very slightly. This color is still towards the deeper side of the green shade. Now I'm going to go ahead and load up my brush with the color. Again, you can use whatever size of brush you're comfortable with, be it size four or size zero or size two. Now I'm going to go ahead and just kind of add in a few details on the left tree as well because I felt like that tree could use a bit more of the darker details. I felt like the color was a bit lighter than I wanted it to. So I'm just roughly adding a few more details using this darker color, focusing more on the outer tips of my branches and only a few in the center there as well. If you're happy with the way your tree color is, then you don't have to do this step. I just felt like mine was a little lighter than I expected it to, so I'm just adding a few more of the darker details. Once you're done with that, we're going to start creating the tallest tree in our painting. So starting off from the top, I'm bringing a line down, slightly increasing the pressure as I bring it down. And then, again, following the same step that we've done so far that is releasing the branches upwards and adding in those finer details, I am going to go ahead and complete the tree. Now, the structure of the tree is kind of very similar to all the trees that we've done so far. The only thing that changes is the height, the thickness of the tree. Also maybe obviously because as you create the brush rooks, the branches will appear different. So don't fret so much, you know how to achieve them. So just use what we've learned so far for creating this tree. I thought I'd mentioned it again that you want to ensure that you are making the center portion of your tree appear fuller because you won't just have branches on the left and right of your tree, but you'll have branches in the middle as well, which are probably pointed towards you, right? So for that exact reason, you want to make the center portion appear fuller. Now, this process is repetitive, but I'm not increasing the speed here because I want you to take a moment to observe how the tree is, you know, created, what each brush strokes are so that you can take it nice and slow and add this tree into your painting. So just enjoy the process, see how it's done. And taken all the way in which you can add different brushstrokes to create your pine trees. All right, so as you can see, I've bought the branch details all the way down to the bottom because as I mentioned earlier, we're only seeing a particular part of the scene. We're not seeing the whole picture, so we don't know what the bottom of the tree looks like, so we're not going to bring that in. Now, I'm happy with the tree, but I feel like I've added too much of the left branches, and my right branches are very shorter as compared to the left branches. So the proportion is a little bit off. So to fix that, I'm going to move to my size zero brush and add in a few more branch details and kind of elongate that structure so that it looks nice and even. It doesn't look a little bit disproportionate. Alright, I'm happy with the way this looks now, so I'm going to let this dry. And while that's drying is dried already, the next thing that I'm going to focus on is creating the tree, peaking from the top. So the first thing that I'm going to do is create the base structure for the branch. Now, you remember how we learned this in the exercise two lesson where we learned how to add other branch details and other leaf details into our painting. So this is exactly me using the same method to create those trees or the branches actually piking up from the top. So you're going to first create the structure for the branch, and then you're going to start releasing the leaves. So make sure that you have a base structure so that you know where and how to follow the shape along and once you're done with that, you're going to switch to a spoiled brush because that is going to give you multiple different brush strokes at once, and you can cover the entire section together. So, into the same green, I've added a bit of white in there that we've used the darker green. I've added white to lighten it. And then using my spoiled brush, I'm going to release these brush strokes towards the left and right hand side of each branch. What that's going to do is it's going to make the branch appear fuller and full of these leaf details. So go ahead and load up your brush and complete this entire structure. Again, you have to follow the same structure for all the branches. So you can see how I load up my paint on my brush, and then I start releasing these details, moving left and right. So here's actually closer look at how the brush strokes move, and this ensures that your plant elements or your branches look fuller. Now, you can go for the type of leaves you want to add. Again, I'm giving you the creative liberty here to pick the type of leaves you want. I wanted these sort of leaves, the longer leaves. I went ahead with this structure, but again, feel free to play around with this as much as you want. Go ahead and complete this, and once you're done with this layer, we'll go ahead and add in some darker details or even lighter details as we progress. All right. Now that I'm done creating these brush strokes with this medium shade of green that I've just used to add in a bit more depth into this area, I'm going to go ahead with a darker shade or a deeper shade of the same green. So you can see how on the right hand side on my palette, I have a deeper green, so I'll be using that to create the brush strokes. Now one thing to keep in mind is when you want to create these brush strokes, you don't want to extend it all the way towards the outside of your previous layer. Make sure that a little bit of that area is peeking through so that you've got that soft delicate edges on the sides and you've got this deeper section or fuller section or a denser section in the middle. In the next lesson, we'll go ahead and add in a few finer details into this to just make it look a little bit more fuller and delicate. All right. So you're going to go ahead and quickly add in these brush strokes. Again, depends on where you've laid it out on your painting. It doesn't have to look exactly like mine. All right, I'm really happy with the way the entire structure looks. So this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll be adding all the finer details. 22. Project 5 Part 3 : Silent Pines: Alright, now that we are done with adding the tree on the top, the next thing that we have to focus on is adding the frosted tips on the trees in the front as well. So I'm going to add in a bit more white into the same colors we've used so far. So here's a swatch of the shade. This one is obviously lighter than the colors that we've used in the past. And using my size zero brush, I will be adding in those frosted tips. Now this is very similar to the same step that we've done in the past. You start off with the top and you start releasing the shorter brush rookes making sure that you're still able to see the background color. So you don't want to cover those shades entirely. Now, because this tree is bigger, even the one on the left is big, this would mean that you want to add a lot more of these short strokes to make the frosted tips into your pine trees. So you want to ensure that you're using a combination of different brush strokes, but you want some to follow along the shape, some to make it go downward, some to go make it upwards. And now that would make more sense if you were able to see and if you actually observe how the brush strokes are laid out, again, like I told you earlier, all my brush strokes for the trees are literally just a combination of shorter strokes, and the only thing that I change is the direction in which it goes. Now, this is something that really comes with a lot of practice. Of observation of the trees. Looking at your reference images as well plays a very important role because you can really understand what the structure looks like and how you can imitate those structures by the brush strokes that you know and you learn in this class, right? So, especially for the ones in the middle, you can see how I've got the brush strokes moving slightly upward at different angles. And this way, the tree looks three dimensional and not just left and right. Let me give you a closer view for the next tree. So using my size zero brush, I will start off from the top and then slowly bring it down, and you can see how my brush strokes follows along the shape of the tree and it's all just a combination of shorter strokes, and it's going to make the frosted tips and my tree appear fuller. If you want to take a moment, then I would suggest you pause, you observe how the brush strokes look for the previous tree and how I'm making the brush strokes in this particular tree. And this is something that you will definitely learn by just observing and taking your time with. So I have explained the things that I needed to explain and tried to simplify it as much as I can. Now, again, this is a structure which comes with a lot of practice. So don't fret if you don't get these brush strokes right in your first try because even for me, it has taken me years of practice to get my hands used to this movement. Initially, my hands used to actually hurt because you're going so much with this to and fro motion. It's almost like your hands are vibrating, especially when you're creating these brush rooks for the tree. So this is something that will come to you with practice and observing a lot of different ways in which artists paint their trees. Every artist finds their way around, you know, different structures and how you can paint those structures. This is different for everyone. You might not find this technique comfortable. Maybe you want to go with a different technique. Maybe you want to actually have your own technique and the own way in which you have, your hand movements to create these brush strokes. Everything is good because at the end of the day, it's your painting, and this is a process that is going to take your time and practice. So just take it slow and enjoy the process as much as you go. I haven't increased the speed here because I wanted you to take your time with this, observe how the brushstrokes are placed and how I've added the frosted tips. All right. I'm really happy with the way this looks. I'm going to let this dry and by then we'll focus on the next step, which is the process of adding your darker details into the painting. Now, what does that mean? You've already added the base layer, you've added the lighter layer. Now there are certain areas in which you must have covered the base layer and you've added too much of the frosted tips. Now, to get rid of that and to bring out the details into your tree a little bit more, we'll go with the darker shade of freno. This is very similar. The base colors are similar to your base layer. But to this, I've added a bit more of the black, and very carefully using your size zero brush, your size zero down brush, you can go ahead and add in a few extra strokes, especially in the bottom part of your branches. So this will bring out a lot more details to make your tree look fuller. This might be a little bit difficult to catch up right here. So I'm going to give you a closer look at the structure. So here's a closer look at the structure. And if you notice very carefully, you can see how I'm focusing my brush strokes more towards the bottom part of my branches, right? And a few more on the top. There isn't anything wrong in adding a few more branch details at the top. Again, the main point of creating these brush strokes with a darker color is to bring out more details into your painting and for it to not look just flat with, let's say, you know, your medium layer or your lighter layer, so a little bit of depth is also necessary into your painting. So you can achieve that by, you know, adding your brush strokes with a darker color. I'm going to go ahead and repeat this process for the trees in front on the other side as well. So I'm going to go ahead and just create these shorter brush strokes just to make my tree look fuller, add in a little bit more depth into my structure. So this is again a combination of the shorter strokes, and you can see how I'm focusing more on the bottom of each branches just to bring out a little bit more of that flared out effects, a little bit more of those branch details in there. So along with adding the shorter strokes on these particular trees that are in the front, I will also add a few in the background. So I will pick them. I will pick any few that I want. And when I say any few, I will pick the taller ones. And the reason behind that is that you still want to show that those trees are slightly in front. They're not entirely in front. They are in front of the background trees, basically. So this way, you can add in a lot more depth. You can pick anyone that you want. Maybe you want to pick a tree on the left hand side. Feel free to do that. You want to pick a tree in the middle. Feel free to do that. So just pick the tree that you want and add in your brushstrokes with the darker color. Now, another reason for me to pick the one on the right hand side is because I felt like I added too much of the frosted tips for it, and a lot more of the background got covered, which is the background layer got covered. So just to bring out those details again, I picked that particular tree. So just two more things or two more tips to keep in mind. Anyway, now that I'm happy with structures of the pine tree, the next thing that I'm going to do is just highlight the branches a little bit more at the top. So using this deeper green shade, I'm going to go ahead and redraw the branches, maybe add in a little bit more of the branch details wherever necessary. And just to bring out a little bit more depth into the structure that we just painted. Once I'm done with the branches, I loaded up that medium shade of green that I've used, and I'm going to go ahead and create a few more brush strokes. Again, I don't want the branches to just lie on top of the leaves. So just to make everything blend into one another, I'm adding a few strokes with the medium green, and then using my lighter green shade by just adding a little bit more white into it. I've created a lighter shade of green. I'm going to go ahead and add in a few brush strokes. Now, these don't have to be so many. These just have to be a few strokes using this color because that's going to create a highlight into your structure on top. So focus on the areas that you want to highlight a little bit. It doesn't have to be perfect. One thing that you'll have to focus on that you want to cover a few of the branches that you just created so that the branches don't look like they kind of rest on top. So this is the only finer detail I wanted to add into my painting. Feel free to analyze anything that you want to add or change into your artwork, maybe a few extra branch details that you want to add, add in a few extra leaves. Now, this is something that is completely on your personal choice. And once you're done with it, we're going to peel the painting and have a closer look. Here's a closer look at your artwork. In this one, we specifically learned to paint so many pine trees and add variations in them. We also covered the important veteran wet technique for that blurred out foggy effect for the background, and we actually mixed so many different shades of green. It's crazy how much you could do with just a few shades on your palette. I hope you enjoyed painting your fifth class project with me. He was a sneakbek of your sixth one, so I'll see you in there. 23. Project 6 Part 1 : Moonlit Snow: Here's your six class project. Let us talk about all the colors we'll be using. So I have Prussian blue, primary red, cadmium orange, burnt umber, ivory black, and titanium white. All right, so I've taken the colors out on my palette, taped down my paper, and you have the reference image on the left. You can also download it through the project and resources section of this class, and let us start with creating our basic sketch here. So as you can see in this sketch, we have got a beautiful moonscape in the background. And by moonscape, I mean, you've got that blend in the sky. The moon has risen. It's a beautiful winter moon. And in the foreground and the bottom part of your painting, you've got these frosted pine trees, right? So you can see how all the leaves and the branches of your pine tree has a lot of snow on it. So we're going to start off by creating those two different sections for the land first. I'm also placing the moon carefully. What I mean by two different sections is I have that one uneven horizon line. I've created rough lines at the bottom just to understand the placement of my trees. In the background, right above the horizon line, I've got a series of pine trees in there as well, for which you'll be varying the sizes of it, right. So you'll be adding a lot of different sizes of your pine trees which are going to be covered with snow. And then kind of in the middle ground, you've got a few taller pine trees. And in the foreground, you've got, you could say, a couple of pine trees, maybe six or seven that you can add. Again, varying the different heights of it is going to add that depth into your painting. So I'm roughly understanding the placement of where these trees are going to go and the shape of my pine tree is going to be the ones flared downwards. I'm not sketching that detail out carefully. All right, so now that you're happy with your sketch, you've understood the composition, you can start with the painting process. So the first thing that I'm going to start off with is the sky. I also have my swatch card on the left, as you can see, and using a flat brush, we're going to go ahead and make the color blends that we need. Alright, so the first color that I need for this artwork is an orange shade. So I'm going to take my cadmium orange. I'm going to add a bit of white in there and then mix these two colors together to create this nice pastel orange color. Now, I wanted to tone down the vibrancy of the cadmium orange which comes as this time, I wanted a lighter shade so added white in there. So here's a swatch of that color. This is the shade that we'll be using. All right. Now the next color that we're going to make is the blue. So I'm going to mix my Brushian blue going to rinse my brush before I load up some red. So once I've rinsed my brush, I'm adding a bit of red in there. Just to create that purple shade, it needs to have that red undertone in it. I'm mixing my blue and my red together. I've also added white in there. Here's a swatch of the color. Now the next shade that I want to make is a deeper tone of the same blend, which is my blue. It should have a little bit of red in there and a tiny amount of white, but a lot more of the color pigments, which is your blue and red. Here's a swatch of that color as well. We'll be using these three shades as the base colors for the blend in the sky. So using my flat brush, I'm going to go ahead and quickly apply that in the top portion of my paper. So basically the idea is to go from this deeper shade to that lighter blue color, which will then transition into white, which is going to be the section where we blend these two colors together. That is the orange and the blue, and then that will transition into the orange. So as you can see, I've laid the deeper color, and then in this swift left and right motion, I've added that lighter color below it and ensuring that it kind of blends in together well. Before we move on to the next color. I'm also adding a tiny amount of white into the mix again just to create a lighter shade of the same color, and I'm adding that in and blending it in with the background again. Once you're happy with the blend between these two or three different colors, which is your lighter shades of the same purple colors, you're going to go ahead and rinse your brush, make sure that you're double rinsing your brush at this point, and wiping your brush to get rid of any extra blues, and then you can load up some orange on there and apply it at the bottom carefully going above the horizon line that you've created. You're going to go ahead and blend that in and then with a little bit of white in I'm going to go ahead and blend it with the orange. Now, again, the idea is to create a lighter shade, a transition shade between the two colors. And now that you can see these two shades of lie very close to one another. So to apply that muddy mix, I'm going to apply some white paint in the area. And blend it together. Now, the white is basically going to make the transition very seamless, and you will not create any muddy mixes or colors that you don't want for the blends in your sky. So the white shade, your titanium white shade plays a very important role in this section to avoid the creation of your muddy mixes. So sometimes you might have to load up a little bit more white, work a little bit extra to create that seamless blend. So go ahead and blend these three colors together until you're happy with the way your sky looks. Alright. Now that my blend for the sky has dried, as you can see, I love how there's a seamless transition between the colors here, and I like that so much about this blend. Now, we're going to move on to the next step, which is adding a pine trees in the background. So I'm going to load up a little bit of white to which I'll add some burnt umber and black in there and a tiny amount of white again until I come with this deeper brown shade. Now, you don't want it to be extremely dark. That's why we added a tiny amount of white in there. Just to give it that slight gray tone as well. So here's a swatch of that color. It is still quite deep, but it's going to be a lot less deeper than the layers that will add in front for the trees. So using this particular color, you're going to go ahead and start creating these pine trees. Now you can switch to a size two brush, a size zero brush if you're feeling more comfortable with it. But basically, you need a brush that comes to a really fine. So we've done this in the past. We know exactly how you're going to create the variations in your pine trees. Make sure that you have them at different heights because that will add a lot more definition and depth into your painting and a lot more character in there where you don't have all the trees looking like they are the same size. So go ahead and create these pine trees on the entire section for the area above the horizon line. You want to leave a certain section, feel free to do that as well. I've just left a little bit of space. I've created another tree, you know, at a distance, but I will be filling up that entire section with trees again. I will be increasing the speed here slightly because this entire process is very repetitive, so make sure you take your time and enjoy the process as you proceed. All right, now that I'm done with laying the base layer for the tree, the next thing that we have to do is add the snow. Into the same mix, the same brown mix that I was using. I've added black and a bit of white in there to create this gray tone. And using a size zero brush here, I'm going to go ahead and start adding the snow on my tree. Now, the idea to have a slightly grayer tone for the snow is to give the illusion that these trees are at a distance. So you're not seeing it really vibrant. Go ahead and add in your snow as you can see how I make sure that I understand the placements of the tree. So the ones that are taller will have the snow on all over, like the whole structure of the tree. The ones that are in the back will probably be visible only at the top of the tree. And a few branches, but especially the ones in the front which are taller, you'll have to make the snow effect on the entirety of the tree. So very short brush strokes, very, very light brush strokes, you're going to go ahead and add it on your tree all over. Again, the process is very repetitive. We've also done this in a few class projects before. So I'm sure you've actually got everything covered and you know how to approach this. So go ahead and enjoy the process, and I'll see you in a bit. Once you're done adding the snow in the background layer, I want to create a few more trees in the same layer, which are closer to the observer, so they appear taller. For that, I'll be using a darker mix or a deeper mix of my dark brown, which is a mix of my burnt umber and black. Very carefully using my size zero brush, I'm going to go ahead and make the pine tree. This time, the structure of the pine tree that I'm following is the one which has its branches moving upwards. Now, you can either make this type of tree or add in your own version of the pine tree, it does not matter. Make sure that you're enjoying the process and trusting the process as you go because gouache can sometimes feel like it'll put you through stages in your painting where you will not like what's going on. Trust the process and enjoy as you proceed. Go ahead and create maybe two or three more pine trees which are taller and they appear to be closer to the observer, and again, play around with the shape and play around with the sizing of it and add in that variation in your painting. I have gone ahead and added two pine trees here because you're going to have a lot more pine trees in the foreground as we proceed ahead. Once you're happy with it, you let it dry and in the next lesson, we'll be adding further details into our painting. 24. Project 6 Part 2 : Moonlit Snow: Alright, now that the base layer for this tree has dried, it's time for us to go ahead and add snow on there as well. So again, using the same gray mix, I've added a bit more white in there just so that I can lighten the color slightly. And using this particular shade, I'm going to go ahead and add in the details for the snow. Now, again, we know exactly how this is done. We've done this a couple of times in the past in the previous class projects. So go ahead and add in the snow however you feel like it. Now, whenever you're painting something of a winter scene, and you're painting a series of these winter scenes, lot of times you are capturing these landscapes which have a lot of pine trees in there, right? So maybe after two or three projects or two or three paintings, you start getting used to the structures and the composition. And this actually is a time where practice plays a very important role, right? So because you're painting similar compositions, even though maybe the color is different, the composition is a bit different, but the overall idea, the overall subject remains the same, right? So that's the moment in which you actually get a lot of practice out of it. Alright, I've added I've yapped a lot and I've added the snow. Now the next thing that we are going to do is add the moon for which I'm using just titanium wild and you are going to place the moon somewhere on the right hand side of paper. So it's not entirely on the right hand side, it's from the center slightly towards the right. So I'm going to go ahead and create the circular shape first before I go ahead and add in any details or the texture that you see in the moon. Before I go ahead and add that, you're going to create the circular shape. And then using a smaller size brush, I'm going to go ahead and tap the grayer color on there. You want to ensure that you're doing this while the paint is still dry. So that the deeper color and the base color kind of blend into one another, and then you have the soft effect in your moon. Otherwise, it looked like the texture is just resting on the base layer. So ensure that you do this while the paint is still wet. In case you're doing this after the paint has dried, all you need is a bit of water to make sure that you kind of blend in the harsh edges. I really like the way the moon looks. I've just added some simple taps to create that texture, and the next thing that we're going to do is paint the base for the fkgrowd. So you remember how I told you, whenever you're painting snow, you kind of want to capture similar colors that you see in your sky as well. So for the sky, I've got a lot of, like, blues in there, like this purple color, right? So that'll exactly be the color that I use for the snow as well. Just different variations of it, some lighter areas and some deeper areas, but you're kind of going to use the same shade. So I've created this color. I've added a bit more of the black undertone to it. So I've added a tiny bit of black in. And then I'm blending it in, I've added a bit more white into the same color to create a lighter shade and then I'm blending that in again. I'm going to switch to my Filbert brush here just to have a smaller size brush. You can also use a smaller flat brush for this purpose here. It doesn't have to be a filbert brush. I'm just going to use a smaller size brush to make the blending process a little bit more seamless and to be able to add a few more textures in case I feel like adding it somewhere. So at the top, I'm using an even lighter shade, as you can see, and then with the deeper shade, I'm just going to blend these two colors together. So you'll be going through a lot of this back and forth moment between you know, your lighter shade or darker shade and ensuring that you kind of blend these colors together. So once you've added maybe the darker colors, you can add in some lighter shades and then blend that in and vice versa, right? So make sure that you are adding variations and depth into your painting. You remember how we sketched out a second rough, uneven layer. And that was to show that that section is maybe a little bit elevated due to which it has a little bit of that lighter shine for the snow in there. So you can add that as well. At the top right below the horizon line since that a is elevated and it's still further away, it is going to receive a lot more of that lighter snow color in there, and then the ones at the bottom will receive a little bit of that depth in there. As you can see, I'm also bringing the lighter color slightly downwards to create that unevenness on the ground. I like the blend for now, so I'm just going to let this dry completely. And once the section has dried, it's time for us to sketch out the positioning of the tree. Now, as we know, wash is an opaque medium, right? So once you layer a couple of layers over it, you will lose your sketch. And that's why I mentioned that you should always sketch lightly so that you don't end up with harsh lines that you can't undo. Over here, I'm going to place four trees on the left hand side from the center, as you can see, and each time I move towards the center of my painting, I'm decreasing the height of it. On the right hand side, maybe I'll create three. Maybe I'll create two. That depends on my mood. But I think three will look great. And on the left hand side, I've actually created five. So once you have your placements and the positioning of your trees, it's time for us to start painting the trees. For this, I'll be using a mix of my brown and black and white color together. So I'm using black brown and white in there just so that I have a deeper color, but at the same time, it still has that gray undertone in it. So here's a swatch of the color that I'll be using. And using my size four brush here for this purpose, I'm going to go ahead and create the vertical line first. And since this tree is the tree that is closest to the observer, this is going to be appearing taller. That's why I reaches all the way to the upper portion of my painting. Now, using your round brush here, you're going to go ahead and add in details, and the details is going to be for the tree that you want to achieve. Now, I've taught you maybe two or three different types of pine trees, right, and a lot of different elements for the other trees, but maybe two or three different types of pine trees. But if you notice very carefully, every time you make a certain painting, the shape of your pine tree changes. The way the branches flow might change, might differ. And that is because there are so many different variations in which you can create your pine trees. Your pine trees don't have to look only like three types that I've showed you, right? So over here in the reference image, you can see how the pine trees are not flaring out that much. So that's why even though I'm using the same concept and the same method for creating the pine trees, my pine trees are not flaring out that much. This is something that I'm keeping in mind. So you can follow this structure or you can follow the things that you've learned so far. You can also observe the reference image and, you know, figure out how the pine trees look there to create your brush troops similarly. Feel free to add the pine trees. However you want, there is no particular way in which we are adding this here. We have understood the positioning of the pine trees. So as you move towards the center of your painting, you're just going to decrease the height of it and obviously the size of your pine trees. But other than that, the entire process remains the same. I'm not increasing the step here because I want you to take a moment, observe how the shape looks and how I'm kind of transitioning into the different sizes and what my brush strokes look like. So not increasing the speed, but I am going to keep quiet and I'm going to let you enjoy this entire process of painting the pine trees. H Once I'm done with my five pine trees that I sketched out, the next thing that you have to do is blend the trunks to the background. So I'm using just a damp brush here. I haven't loaded my brush with any paint. I'm just using my damp brush for blending it first. And then to add in a bit of shadow into my painting, I'm using that deeper shade of the color that we used for the snow, just a deeper shade of that. And using the dry brush technique, I'm adding a bit of texture in there. And then I'm also using my damp brush to kind of blend it in with the background. So as you can see, this has created that beautiful shadow effect in my painting. So these trees cast a shadow on the snow, and we were able to capture that with very few simple steps, a damp brush, some deeper tone of the same snow color that you've used, and obviously your the color for the trunk. Basically, you blend that in with snow as well. The next color that I'm making is for the trees on the right hand side of my painting. So this time, I'm going for a slightly deeper shade of the brown color. So as you can see, it's very similar to the color mix for the left one. But this time it has a little bit more of the black and brown pigment in there. So here's a swatch of that color just to give you a clearer idea of what the shade looks like and what the shade difference between them looks like. So over here again, we're going to repeat the same process, similar to the left hand side. You create the vertical line first, and then you start releasing your brushes left and right to create your branches for the pine tree. So the next step is very repetitive. I'm slightly increasing the speed over here just so that you can complete the entire section since it's all very repetitive and you've already kind of figured out how to create the shape of your pine tree, right? So I'm going to increase the speed, but you can take your time. If you want to reduce the speed, feel free to do that as well. For the next maybe 1 minute, the speed will be two X. You can reduce it slightly and watch it in real time if you prefer. All right. Now that I'm done placing the pine tree, the next step is to blend it into the snow as well and also create a little bit of that shadow effect like we did on the left hand side. So this is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we'll be adding snow details on our pine trees. 25. Project 6 Part 3 : Moonlit Snow: Alright, now it's time for us to add in some more shadows for the area below the tree. So I'm going to go ahead and use my filbert brush and that darker blue color that we used for the snow. And I'm kind of using the dry brush technique here to create the texture under there. So as you can see, I'm just brushing it across roughly to create that shadow effect. Now that I've laid down the texture, I'm going to go ahead and slightly blend it with the background for which I've just cleaned my brush, and using a damp brush, I'm going to go with this left and right motion to ensure that I've kind of blended the lower parts especially of my textures with the background. Along with that, I'm also creating a few grass shapes right under the tree, somewhere wherever necessary. I'm really just going with the flow here. I'm not thinking so much so I've just added very, very light texture using my filbert brush itself also because it comes to a really flared out brush later on. So I could use that. You can use your finer brush here as well. Once you're done with blending the textures with the background and also adding your finer details for the grass shapes under a tree, it's time for us to add the snow on our tree. For which I'll be using the same gray tone. But this time I've added a lot more white in there. So here's a swatch of the color. It did get cut off from the video, unfortunately, but as you can see, the mix does have that gray tone, and this is just a lighter lighter version of that. So load your round brush with that color, and you're going to start adding the snow details. Now, the snow details are very similar to the ones we have done in the past. We're going to start from the top and create these brush strokes, kind of leaving certain spaces in between so that you're still able to see the background layer, and you're going to complete the entire tree. Now, if you notice very carefully, I kind of hold my brush sort of perpendicular to the paper so that I have a lot more control over my brush strokes, and only a small portion or the tip of my brush touches the paper and not the whole brush. This way, you have a little bit more control over your brush strokes and you don't end up applying a lot of pressure on your brushes, which ensures that only the tip touches your paper and you're able to create these gorgeous brush strokes, you know, for the snow on the tree. Now, go ahead and complete the same process for all your trees. So starting off from the top, creating shorter brush strokes. As you can see, a lot of my oceans or my brush strokes are done in a way that you're still able to see the background layer. So make sure that you are leaving certain areas and picking smaller sections and working with your brush strokes accordingly. So now for the next bit, I will be increasing the speed slightly because this is a very repetitive process, and you're going to be applying the same concept or the same step for all the trees that you are seeing next to you. If it feels a little too fast paced for you, make sure that you are reducing the speed and watching it in real time so that you can follow along easily wherever you feel like there's too much happening, right? So you have full liberty to slow it down and watch it at your own pace. Right now, because again, it's a very repetitive process, I will be slightly increasing the speed, and I shall see you in a minute. Now that I'm done with the base layer for the snow, I'm going to go ahead and add in a little bit more texture for the shadow, I felt like I kind of got blended in with the background a lot more than I wanted it to. And I want that really dry brush texture in there. So I'm going to go ahead with a smaller size brush this time for a little bit more controlled brush stroke so I have more liberty of picking up smaller sections because I'm using a smaller brush. I'm going to go ahead and add in the texture. Again, this is the dry brush technique that I taught you, where you are using a slightly thicker consistency of paint, and that way you're able to create textures on your painting. Once you're happy with the way the texture look, if there are certain areas where you feel like you would like to blend it with the background, then just use your damp brush and make sure that you're not using a lot of water in there and you blend it in. I wanted to add a tiny amount of lighter shade on there as well just to show that this section is kind of elevated and it's creating that lighter colors in there. So I'm just using a thick consistency of white paint, and I'm adding that as the texture. I'm also using my damp brush to kind of blend it in, not entirely just very, very roughly. So as you can see, I'm using a filbert brush here with a damp brush and very, very little amount of water on there. I'm just slightly ensuring that these colors kind of blend in, and they don't have those harsh edges. And I might redo this again just to create a little bit more texture, but right now, the next thing that I'm going to focus on is adding the highlights to the snow. To the same gray mix, I'm adding a lot more white here as you can see this watch of the color almost looks white. Using this particular shade, I am going to go ahead and repeat the process of adding snow on there. Now, what this does is it highlights your areas. So you've got certain sections in your painting where the snow is that receives a lot more light, is a little bit more opaque. And that's why you're seeing, you know, highlights or not highlights, but like a brighter version of the snow that's on there. So go ahead and create a few brushtrokes. Make sure that you're not covering either the dark layer or that base layer or even the gray layer completely, but you're just adding a few brushrokes over it to highlight your sections. The process here is very repetitive, but I'm going to let you take your time with it. So make sure that you're taking it slow, understanding your brush strokes, understanding the placements, looking and observing how I apply it because a lot more of the process of learning a particular subject lies in, you know, observing the brush strokes. Sometimes it doesn't really have to make sense. But the minute you see how it's done, you kind of make sense of it on your own, right? I mean, that's just how it works for me. And I know a lot of you also face the same thing where if I were to explain something, you know, it will make sense, but it won't make sense as much as it does when you watch it happen in front of you. Maybe it's just me who believes in observing more than listening. But I would suggest if you don't follow that, you should observe a little bit more and see how the brush strokes are made. Anyway, enjoy this process of adding highlights. We're not going to overdo this step. So just make sure that you're just adding a few highlights wherever necessary and complete this entire section before we move on to the next step. I really like the way this looks, so I'm going to let this dry, and there are a few finer details that I would like to add in my painting. So the first thing that I am going to do is I'm going to bring out a few more branch details. So this is very similar to the process in which I've taught you how you create your pine trees with snow on there. So you have the base layer. You have the first layer for the snow, you have the highlights for the snow. And there are definitely areas where you might have covered too much of the base layer with the snow layer. So that's when you whip out your darker color again and you add in your brush strokes rubber necessary so that you show the details in the branches. So I've picked out the areas where there were very little branch details, and I'm carefully adding tiny, tiny brush strokes to bring my branches speaking through the snow that has fallen on them. So this is a time where you look at your artwork, observe it and see where these details are necessary for you because obviously your brushtrokes are going to be different. The positioning of your snow is going to be different. So you know the trick, but you have to apply it based on how your brustrokes and your structure of the tree looks. So take your moment here, complete this entire section, and once you're happy with it, we shall move on to the next step. I'm really happy with the way this looks right now, but there are a few things that I would like to add. So the first thing that I want to add is texture for the trunk. So I've just used a gray color and using the dry brush technique, I'm making this vertical line as a texture for the trunk. Once I'm done with the texture for the trunk, I'm going to go ahead with a damp brush and kind of just blend it in so that it's not too textured. I would also like to add a little bit of this lighter color for the trunk as well and kind of show that these lighter tones or maybe some lighter tones for the snow kind of blends in with the ground. Adding a few few strokes, and again, these are a lot textured, but just a few tiny details that I wanted to add before we say that we're done with the painting. I'm also using a dam brush to kind of blend it into the background so that it doesn't just look awkward standing there. Alright, once you're done with it, you're going to peel the paper from the cardboard sheet or wherever you've taped it on. Let's have a closer look at the artwork we just created. So here's your final result. This one is a lot more simple in terms of its composition. You just have the blend and you've got the pine trees, but still the colors that we view, the way in which you add the snow details for the ground and even your pine trees were unique in their own way. We learned how we could add shadows and textures under the tree as well. So I hope you enjoyed painting your sixth class project with me. Here is a sneak peek of your seventh class project, so I shall see you in there soon. 26. Project 7 Part 1 : Frosted Trail: Here's your last and final class project. Let us talk about all the colors that we need. So I have Prussian blue, primary red, naples yellow. Next I have dike brown, ivory black, and titanium white. Let us start with the basic sketch first. So you can see on the left, you have the reference image that I'm using. You can also download this and keep it with you as a reference. And you can see in the reference image that we've got two different things to work on. One is your background, which is blurred out. So we'll have to achieve all of that on our wet and wet techie. And in the foreground, you've got these branches with snow on top. So for the background, I need to understand the placement of my elements. So I've sketched out the ground roughly. And on the left hand side, you can see, I've got the trees, you can see the trunks, you can see the snow that's there on your branches. And on the right hand side, similarly, you've got trees as well, and it's all gray, like a bluish gray color in there. You've got those trees in there as well. And in the center portion and the ground portion, you can see the sun shining through. So you need to understand the placement of the area where the sun is going to shine through. And then also on the ground, it creates the trail or a path with the sun shining or peeking through from the branches. And then you've got the gray on the sides, right. So that is going to be all the elements and all the colors that we have to place accordingly in the background. And for the foreground, we've got these branches, which I'm very roughly sketching out. Now before we move on to painting this, make sure you kind of erase your sketch slightly so that you don't have a lot of harsh lines. Or just make sure that you're sketching very lightly. I think we've got the placements of all the elements right. We can sketch out the branches later again. So let us start with the painting process. First thing that we need to do is create the shape that we need in good quantity for the background especially, and then we can move on. So I have my round brush and my flat brush, which I'll be using simultaneously wherever necessary. So first, just create the colors. So I'm going to take some black paint, a little bit of black, and I'm adding white in there. So you can see how it's just a gray shade to which I'm going to add the undertone. So I have added a bit of blue in there, and I misplaced and didn't add red on my palette, so I'm quickly going to add in some red in there. And then load up some red and add it into the mix. Right now, it looks like a very dull version of this gray color. So to brighten it up slightly and give it that blue undertone, I have added some more Bussian blue in my mix. So you'll have to go back and forth until you're happy with this shade that you've created. So here's the color that I'll be using as the deeper shade in my painting. Now I'm going to rinse my brush and make sure that I double rinse my brush. And the next shade that I'm mixing is my naples yellow with white. If you don't have this particular shade, you can use the yellow color that you have. Just make sure that you're adding a lot of white in there because we want a very, very light version of the yellow shade. So it has to be very light, so keep that in mind. The next shade that I'm going to mix, again, make sure that you're double rinsing your brush here. I'm mixing the same color again. So the same shades, same set of colors, which is my black, blue, red and white. And this time I'm going for a color which is lighter than the previous shade that we mixed. So make sure that you're adding a little bit more of the white pigment into your mix and here's a swatch of the color that we'll be using. Now I'm going to further lighten this color, into the same mix, I've added a little bit more white pigment. And once you blend all the colors together, here's a swatch of the shade that we'll be using. You can see how they're all variations of the same color mix. The only thing that changes is the amount of white that I've added into my mix and that creates your lighter colors. Now I'm going to switch to my flat brush and load up some clear water, clean water on my brush and apply it on my surface. Now, the goal is to achieve this entire layer for the background using the wet on wet technique for which you want to ensure that your background stays wet for longer periods of time. So make sure that you're adding water evenly on your surface. Make sure that you don't have any puddles or any sort of sections which accumulates a lot more water than the other surface. Make sure that you spread it evenly. For this, your flat brush is going to help you out to make sure that everything is nice and even. Once you are done with your water layer and you're happy that your water has spread evenly, you're going to start painting. For this, I'll be using my round brush. I'm going to start off with the lighter colors and then move to the darker colors and add more depth into my painting. I'm going to start off with the yellow color first, which is a mix of my naples yellow and white, and I'm going to place it in areas where we had the sun shining through. That is the center portion of my painting and the sun falls on the ground and creates that lighter tone. I've added that on the ground section as well. Now, around the sun because there is light, the branches or the snow that's around it is going to appear lighter. So that's why I'm starting off with the lighter bluish gray color, and I'm carefully going around the sun for that section, right? So you can see I'm carefully just creating little tabs. We're just going with little tabs right now. Once I'm happy with the placement of the lighter colors, as you can see around the sun, now I can switch to a deeper color. Now, I'm going to do the same tabs. You can see how I'm creating different tabs and just swirling my brush around. It doesn't have to be perfect, or if you're not following an exact sort of brush stroke here. We're just trying to place the colors in their designated spots. Once I'm done with the middle color, I'm adding the deeper colors towards the side of my painting. This creates that variation that in the center portion, the sun was peaking through, so we had the lighter colors. And then as we progress towards the sides, you've got the darker tones of the colors, which is the same shade, right? The only thing that changes is the amount of white that we've added in there. Alright, so for this section, I focus more on the top. Once I'm happy with it, I'm starting off with the middle color and applying it on the ground as well. So as you can see, I'm covering up the lighter colors around the sun. And with the deeper color, I'm adding a lot more like these slanty sloopy strokes. They're very uneven, as you can see, they're not flat strokes, right? That's why your round brush plays an important role here because it gives you those thick and thin variations. Now for this section around the trail, you're going to have not just middle tone or the lighter tone, you're going to have some deeper tones. I've added that in there as well. Once I'm happy with the placements of the colors, we can progress into adding more depth into our painting. For which I'm loading up the darker color. And I'm adding it more towards the extreme left and the extreme right hand side of my painting. I will add some towards the bottom portion and move it towards the middle with these shorter strokes. Now, another thing to keep in mind here is that you've got bigger strokes towards the sides and towards the middle, I'm making shorter strokes just to add in that variation of the trail as well, that depth in there, that the center portion is still further away, and the ones on the left and right side are still closer to the observer. Once I'm happy with the placement of the darker colors, I can again move on to my middle tones and my lighter colors depending on where I feel that I could add more color. Because this is wet and wet, your paints are going to disperse and sometimes you will add a deeper tone and then it gets lighter as the paint spreads, so you can always load up and add another layer over. So over here, I've added all the details for the different grays in my background. Now the next thing that I'm going to work for is the trunk and the branches for these trees and just to define it a little bit more. So I'm going with a mix of brushian blue, black, and a little bit more of the brown color in there. So this is the colour that we'll be using for the trunk. So it's just a deeper, deeper shade of brown in there. So here's a swatch of the color that I'll be using. And I'm also using a finer brush here, which is my size ford brush gives me a little bit more control over the brush strokes that I make. Another thing that you'll notice here is I'm still working on a wet surface. So my paper is still wet, and I'm sure this entire process felt very fast. That is because you want to ensure that you're working on the surface while it's still wet so that all the brush strokes that you're making kind of disperse and it creates that soft glowy effect, and you don't have any sharp lines. In case you end up with parts of your paper getting dried quickly, I would suggest that you let the entire paper dry completely, and then you layer lightly over with water again, and then you can add in these details. So over here, I've added some branches just like how we sketched out, you've got branches on the left and branches on the right. And along with these finer branches, you've got the main trunk coming down as well. And once you're happy with it, I am loading up some more of the gray color, the middle tone of the gray or the deeper tone of the gray, and I'm tapping in there so that it doesn't look like the trunk is resting on top of your background layer. And this just creates that blend that you've got the branches on top and the gray tone on top of your trunks that you have sketched out now. Another thing that you will notice here is there are certain areas that have ended up being lighter than you expect. So over here, I'm adding a little bit more of the deeper color, especially in the areas right below the trunk because that is going to cast a shadow, right? So I'm adding in the shadow there. I'm also creating an uneven ground for the trail that I see, adding in some more shadows on the left side as well. Another thing that I personally feel is that the center portion looks a little bit too empty. So we can add in some more details in the center as well, and you can do that by creating smaller tabs like I have done here. So I have started off with the middle tone, and I'm moving towards the center of the sun, the area where the sun is, and then I've transitioned into the lighter blue color that we were using. If you feel like too much of your yellow has gotten covered, obviously, you can go back and add in some more yellow color in the middle and in the trail, as well. Again, this is just the moment for you to look at it, analyze, and wear and add in the brushstrokes wherever you feel like is necessary. Now, this will be different for your painting, obviously, depending on the brush strokes that you're making. And once you're happy with it, you're just going to let this dry completely, and then you can move on to the next step. I quickly added the brush strokes wherever necessary, and I'm happy with the way the background looks. I'm going to let this dry. And in the next lesson, we'll be painting the elements of our foreground, which is the branches. 27. Project 7 Part 2 : Frosted Trail: Alright. Now that the background has completely dried, you can see how there's that soft globe. Everything is blended in. It's all done in a single layer, and now it's time for us to bring out the element in focus, which is the branches that we see with the snow on top of it. So we're going to use our pencil here to quickly sketch out the branches first. In case you don't want to do the step, you can obviously go ahead and freestyle this whole thing. But if you're someone who likes a little bit more control over the placement of your brush strokes, you can go ahead, take your pencil and sketch out the branches. Now, you can look at the reference image to understand how the branches are flowing or just keep the basic idea in your head that you've got the branches coming from the right hand side, and it slowly comes downwards and moves towards the left hand side of your painting. That's just the basic idea. Again, you can add so many different variations of the sizes of the branches that you see, and that's exactly what we'll do ahead as well, we'll play around with the different sizes of the branches. Now, for the color of the branch, I'm going to mix my ndiki brown with black here. And if you don't have ndiki brown, you can just use your burnt umber with black. We're just going for a really, really deep mix of brown here. And we're not using black directly because we don't want it to be black, but rather a deep shade of brown. Now, using my size for brush, I'm going to start releasing these branches. So wherever I want the branch to be thicker, I will apply more pressure on the brush, and wherever I want the branches to be thinner, I will slowly decrease the pressure on my brush, and that will ensure that my branches come to a really fine tip. You can see how I flow with my brush strokes. I start with more pressure, and as I bring it downwards, I release the pressure, and that helps me create these really fine lines for my branches. Now, obviously there is, I would say a slight limitation of how fine your brush strokes can get, especially with a size four brush. So if you are not getting really fine branches, feel free to switch to a size two, a size zero. Once I actually have the placement of my main branches, I shall move to a size zero brush, which will help me achieve even finer details in these branches. But right now I'm focusing more on the main branches and releasing, you know, sub branches from the main branch. So you can see how you've got one structure. One main branch, and then that partitions into two, and then those two branches again, part into two or four more. So that's how the transition of your branches are going to be. So over here, the process is very repetitive. Feel free to add in as many branches as you want. And once you're happy with the main structure, like I said, you can switch to a smaller size brush because this is going to ensure that you get even finer details in your branches. And as you can see here, because the size of my brush is smaller, I can achieve these thin strokes, which can be a continuation of the branches that I have laid earlier. So I'm just going to go ahead and continue my branches with this finer brush and add in all the finer details. So feel free to, you know, flow them however you want. There isn't an exact structure that I'm following. I'm just going with the flow, keeping in mind that one branch will part into two, and then that's how I'm going to create variations in my branches. Alright, I'm really happy with the way the branches look, so I'm going to let this completely dry first. Alright, now that my layer has completely dried, it's time for us to move on to the next step, which is adding the snow on my branches. So into the same blue gray mix that we were using for the background, I'm going to add a lot more white in there. Now, you might find this mix somewhere on your palette. In case you don't, you can mix these colors again, which is your Prussian blue, black, red, and lots and lots of white this time, just to create a lighter version of the same color. So make sure that you have this blend of shades. Blend of colors to have this beautiful bluish gray color. Again, more towards the lighter part of that particular color mix. Let me quickly swatch it out for you. So here's a swatch of the color that I'm using. You can see how it matches the shades that we've used previously. But again, it's a lighter version of the same color. So don't forget to add more white into your mix this time. Now, to add the snow, you can either use a size two round brush or a size four round brush. The only trick here is that you want to load up the right amount of paint on your brush, and you're going to carefully lay it over the branches that you've just painted or just laid out below. So make sure that you're not covering all the branches, but rather laying this layer over the branches that you've just made. You can see how you can still see the branches below this snow layer, right? The snow is resting on top of the branches, and it's not entirely covering the branch. So carefully go ahead and place the snow everywhere. Make sure that you're also adding variation in the thickness of the snow that you're laying. So the thicker branch will have a lot more snow on it. The thinner and the finer branches will have a lot less snow on there. And then you can skip a few branches that are straight up moving downwards because they are not going to be holding a lot of snow on there because the branch placement is moving a lot downwards, right? The one facing the extreme bottom part of your paint. So the one that's more moving towards the left hand side will have the snow and you can skip the ones moving downwards. Again, analyze this based on the branches that you have sketched out. I'm just going to go ahead and lay the snow wherever I feel like it, especially on the branches that are moving towards the left hand side. And once you're done with that, you will let this layer completely dry before we go ahead and add in further details. Keeping in mind that you're not covering your branches entirely. It's okay because sometimes you might end up covering the finer branches, and that's completely fine. We can always go back and add in the deeper color below it, but try to avoid it as much as possible. All right, I'm really liking the way this has turned out for now. So I'm going to let this layer dry completely first before we add in the finer details. All right. Now that the base layer has dried, it's time for us to add in lighter tones over it. So into the same mix of color that I've used, and also one thing if you notice is the color has dried down to be duller and a little bit deeper than what we expected. So to bring out the lighter colors, I've added more white into the same mix, and I'm going to go ahead and lay this on the top half of the stroke that I've just made. So what this does is lightens up and makes the section a little bit more opaque and a little bit more brighter as compared to what it looks like right now because it's slightly blending in with the background. So we want to try and bring out the opacity of the snow, make it stand out a little bit more and not let it blend completely into the background. So to do this, you'll add a little bit more white into the same paint mix and apply this in all the regions where you have laid out your snow on it, right? So you're going to go ahead and cover it entirely, make sure you're not missing any sections. Instead, if you feel like you missed out certain branches where you should have added snow, feel free to go ahead and add a snow using this color on there. All right, I really like the way this is coming out. And once you're happy with the way you've laid it out, make sure that you let it dry completely. All right. Now that this layer has dried completely, the next thing that I'm going to focus on is bring out the branches wherever it's gotten hidden by the snow. So using my size zero brush, I'm going to mix my black and brown together basically to create the same shade for the branches, and I'm going to carefully outline the branches wherever I sort of added more snow over it. This time, I ensuring that I'm not going over the snow layer, but I'm slightly just focusing more on the section below. And just kind of bringing out the thickness of the branches and to ensure that it looks like you've got something below the snow that's there, right? And it's not just snow, but you've got a little bit of the branch peeking through. So again, this is something that you will have to analyze in your artwork and the way your brush strokes look. And carefully, just go ahead and add in this deeper color wherever necessary. Now, as you can see here, bringing out this deeper part of your branch and adding in those details has made this layer stand out a lot more. So you can clearly differentiate between the branches and where the snow lays over it, right? But there is something that is still missing. So we're going to finish it off in this lesson, and in the next lesson, we'll add further details into our snow. O. 28. Project 7 Part 3 : Frosted Trail: Alright, now that all my layers have dried completely, it's time for us to bring out the vibrancy for the snow. Into my yellow mix, I'm adding a lot of white in there. So you can see I've just added a tiny, tiny amount of yellow, which was in the background of my palette as well. So I'm just re wetting that surface. In case you don't have it, just add the tiniest amount of yellow in there and a lot more of white. So it's a very, very, very light shade of the color. Now, very carefully, I am going to go ahead and start applying this on the top portion of my snow layer. So again, for this, you can use a size zero brush or your spoiled brush as well. I'm starting off with my size zero brush here. So very carefully, I'm going to start with creating these tiny, tiny strokes on the top portion of my snow. Now, the snow is not resting in the flat brush strokes that we created earlier, but rather it's kind of moving out and standing out in a lot of directions. And that's why this fine brush stroke movement helps me add a little bit of texture and detail into my snow. Now, very carefully, as you can see, I'm making these tiny, tiny brush strokes and focusing more on the top part of the snow. Be very careful with the amount of paint that you load up because sometimes if you end up loading up a lot of white, so then you'll create flops which you don't want. So make sure that you very carefully load up tiny amounts of paints and create these tiny brush strokes all over. Now, this process might take you some time because it's very repetitive. We're really just going back and forth with loading up your brush with this lighter color and adding these tiny brush strokes in all the areas where you have laid out the snow. So this is very time consuming, but it's something that you'll enjoy a lot because these repetitive pushrals really are so therapeutic overall because you don't have to really think so much. You know exactly what you have to do, and then it kind of becomes like a mindless act. I don't know if it works the same way for you, but for me, it does, especially when I'm making trees or I've got these leaf details to add when I'm just tapping my brush, and then it becomes a very mindless thing. That also comes with a lot of practice because when you practice a lot, you are so used to the brush movements, so used to the structure because you overall have an idea of how your structure looks. So then your brain just kind of acts that way and you don't have to think so much. So this is something that happens with me. Let me know if that happens with you as well, so you can post the discussion down below, and let's actually talk about this because I would really like to know if your brain kind of functions in a similar manner. Anyway, right now, I'm just going to go ahead and add these tiny brush strokes all over. And once I'm done with this, I'm going to let it dry, and then we'll see how it looks and if it needs another layer over, just to make it a little bit more brighter and maybe if we need to add a little bit more texture into the snow. So go ahead and complete this and I'll see you in a bit. H. Alright, I like the way this looks for now, so I'm going to let this dry and then let's have a look at it. Alright, now that this section has dried, I feel like, again, it got a little bit duller than I expected it to. So this time I'm just loading up my spoiled brush, which is flared out in different directions, and that's going to give me multiple different brush strokes. And I'm just loading up that brush with white colour. Plain titanium white, nothing else in there. And I'm going to go ahead and repeat the process. As you can see, I'm adding smaller brush strokes all over. In case you don't want to go all the way towards the end, you can focus more on the branches which kind of lie over the area where the sun is shining through. Now, this is going to be the section, which is a little bit more brighter because it has that sun or rays of the sun falling on it. And that is why it's going to be a little bit more opaque, a little bit more brighter as compared to the areas on the right hand side. So go ahead and add in a little bit more of this texture with the spoiled brush on top. Again, you're just creating these tinier, smaller brush strokes like we did previously. And once you're done with this, you're going to let it dry. Again, focus in the area where the sun rays are falling on your branches, and you don't have to go all the way towards the extreme right hand side. In case there are certain branches that you missed, this is your time to go ahead and add in tiny, tiny brush strokes over it. It doesn't have to be really thick. But it can be really, really fine just to show that those dips are frosted and they have a very, very tiny amount of snow or frost on there. Once you're happy with the way it looks, you're going to let it dry. And then let's have a look at what the next step is going to be. Alright, now the next step is to add in a bit more texture, a bit more snow details in the branches that we're seeing that are exposed. So they're not just going to be flat, right? They're going to have a little bit more of the texture, a little bit more of these finer snow details. So you can use your dry brush method here to add in the texture for these branches, especially on the right hand side. And the ones on the left hand side, you can also create these tiny, tiny tabs to show that there are little blobs of snow in different regions, and it's not just flat snow that is resting on top of the branch. That's how you can add different variations into the snow details that you're adding. I'm also going for these tinier brush strokes right below wherever I felt like there was too much of snow and very little details for the branches. I'm just going to go ahead and create those details as well. So basically, now is the time for you to analyze wherever you can add in finer details into your paintings. Now, if this is something that you're happy with and you're happy with the way your painting looks, you totally don't have to do this. You can stop right where you add a little bit of texture on your branches. And other than that, you're done. But if you want to add certain details where you feel like maybe too much of the snow is resting on your branches and you want to bring out the details for the branches a little bit more, bring out the flow in your branches a little bit. Now is your time to go ahead and add in those details. Now, this will be different for everyone, because, again, there are going to be different brush strokes that you'll be making. But the idea will remain the same where you want. To have that flow in your branches, you want to have snow on your branches and a lot of texture in there. So go ahead, analyze and take your decisions accordingly. I'm actually going back and forth with my detailing, so I added snow details. Then I moved on to adding a little bit of detail and depth into the branches. And once I was done with that, I'm going to go ahead and add in some more details for the snow. So again, this is something that you will have to analyze for your artwork and take the decisions accordingly. So another thing that I've done here is right in the bottom portion where the snow is resting on the branches. I've added smaller tabs just so that it creates that interesting unevenness in there. And it's not flat that you've got your branches and the snow is just resting flat on there. You know, because the surface is very three dimensional, you've got the snow moving and covering the sides as well. So when you have these little taps, it creates that interesting structure into your painting. Once I was done with that, I've again gone back to adding some more branch details. So again, like I said, this is something that you'll have to analyze and add the details depending on your artwork until you're fully fulfilled and happy with the way your structure looks. Alright. Now that my snow layer has dried completely, I am not going to add any more details to the snow. But one thing that I am going to do here is add in a few finer branches from the main branches and the sub brranches that we've had. And these branches are not going to have any snow or frost on there because these are very delicate and very fine. So wherever necessary, especially towards the end of the branch details that you have from beginning or when you started, you know, with the snow details and the painting. So from there, you can just release a few finer branches, wherever necessary. Again, it doesn't have to be exactly at a particular spot. If you think that there is a branch that could use a few extra delicate branches, go ahead and add that in. But in case you don't want to add this, feel free to skip this step entirely. Alright, I'm really happy with the way the entire structure has come out. Let us let this dry completely, and then we'll have a closer look at it. Alright. Now that my painting has dried, I'm going to carefully peel it off from the surface that I've taped it on. Make sure that I get rid of the tape in the background as well. And let's have a closer look at this creation that we just made. So here's a closer look at your artwork. As you can see, you've got various different shades of blue gray in the background, and they're all blurred out. And in the foreground, you've got these branches with snow on top. Where we were able to play around with the light to bring out a little bit more depth into the snow in the foreground. And then, again, the background, honestly, is my favorite part of this artwork because we were able to achieve all of that using the wet on wet technique. I hope you enjoyed painting this. This is it for this lesson. In the next lesson, we shall hear my final. 29. Final Thoughts: And this is what you guys. We reached the end of this class. I hope you enjoyed painting these seven Winter postcards with me. I tried to make it as unique, simple, but at the same time, fun as I could. I wanted you all to learn different color mixes, different compositions, and the bonus squash technique that you're going to be able to use in a lot of different landscape paintings. If you enjoy the s course, don't forget to leave a review under the class, and if you've painted along with me, do share your projects with me under the class as well. I would love to see all your wonderful artworks. If you are sharing your artworks on Instagram, do tag me at the Simply aesthetic. I'll make sure to share them with my followers and give it a review there as well. If there are any questions regarding quash or this class or just art in general, make sure you reach out to me under this class in the discussion section or on Instagram and I'll be there to answer it for you. This is it from me now. I'll see you in the next course soon. Bye bye.