Watercolor for Beginners: Techniques To Paint Loose Landscapes

1. About The Class: If I were to ask you, what are you struggling with the most in watercolor painting, what would it be? Well, one of the most common answers I get from my students is trying to paint more loosely and more relaxed. I remember when I was just starting out with watercolor, I also felt stop painting tightly rendered and overwork paintings. I wanted my paintings to look effortless, fresh, and painterly like how famous artists like Alvaro Castagnet and Joseph Zi do it, but seriously, I always end up frustrated seeing my paintings tight, stiff, and too detailed. But you know what, while some people may naturally have a looser style than others, after years of studying, practicing, and observing great masters in watercolor, I realized that loose painting style is a skill that can actually be learned and developed. Hello, I'm Bianca Rayala, I'm a watercolor artist, educator and Skillshare's top teacher. I work with brands like Etchr Studio, Silver Brush Limited, Schmincke, Arkon Mounts, and All About Art International. I truly believe that painting is for everyone. Over the years, I've taught thousands of students across the world. My purpose is to inspire people to discover and pursue their creative fashion. In this class, I will help you bring the beauty of nature to life with expressiveness, freedom in style, you will learn powerful and effective strategies to loosen up your painting style and create captivating masterpieces using watercolor in wide variety of techniques. For your final project, you will paint seven nature-inspired landscapes in the fresh news and painterly style. Each class projects can be painted in just 15 minutes in a very simple and bite-size approach. To achieve that, I'll explain what does it mean to paint loose and what it takes to achieve it. I will share strategies and effective practices that I do, such as right way to look at your subject, how to hold your brush, how much paint to load your brush, how to make a stroke with confidence and even more. I will teach you how to improve your unique brushwork to paint strokes with energy, dynamic, and expressiveness without overworking your painting. Then we will look at how colors affect the overall mood of your painting and how it contributes to keeping your work fresh and loose. You will learn to mix muted vintage color palettes using few selection of colors. Lastly, I will teach you step-by-step how to paint seven landscapes from the first wash to the finishing touches such as adding splatters and scratches for interesting effects. These exercises will help you put all strategies and concepts you've learned into practice and provide you with different ways to apply them. By the end of the class, you will be equipped with all the necessary tips and techniques to achieve a loose painterly watercolor painting, you will be more confident and expressive in your brushwork, and of course, you will have your own collection of seven vintage landscape paintings inspired by nature. To further help you in class, I will be sharing free resources like a custom color recipe to creating muted or vintage color palettes that I made specifically for this class. I also included a tutorial on how to deckle edge your paper to achieve a vintage look masterpiece. Plus, I've collected some reference photos which you can use as reference or inspiration for your future paintings. I'll be sharing as well a complete list of my recommended supplies, online stores, and discount links. All this you can find and download for free in the project and resource section of the class. If you are interested in joining my giveaways and you want to know when my next class launches, you'll be the first to know, if you follow me on Skillshare. Just click that Follow button on top, and you can also follow me on Instagram @biancarayara to see more updates and watch more short clip tutorials. If you're a beginner in watercolor, who's eager to learn how to paint loose and get rid of overwork paintings and experience. Watercolor is who wants to improve your brushwork and take your paintings to the next level, or someone who simply wants to take a creative break and escape from the daily routines of life, this class is perfect for you. I'm sure you're just as excited as I am. So let's get started creating loose watercolor landscapes. 2. Class Project: This class is designed to help you succeed in your desire to loosen up your painting style. To achieve that, the first part of the class will be all about concepts, and practical tips to effectively loosen up your painting style. We will also dive deep into improving your brushwork, which is a major element to keeping your strokes fresh, and not overworked. I will also teach you how to simplify color mixing and how to make the most out of a limited color palette. The second part of the class is the application of all the concepts that we will cover. I believe that practice is the key to success so I have prepared not just one, but seven landscape painting exercises for you to practice and learn from. If there's any help you need or questions about the process that came in your mind, you know that I'm always so happy to share my knowledge, and help you succeed as well. You can write to me in the discussion section under this video, and I'd love to see what you've painted and how this class helped you make time for yourself. Under this class, you'll see the student project gallery, it's under the projects and resources tab. This is where you can share your class project. Simply take a photo of your work and upload it there. Here Here how to share your work, you'll see a green button on the right that says Create Project. Tap that button, then you'll have the option to upload a cover photo, add a title, and write a little description. You can include both texts and images in the box provided. I'd love to see your progress too, so please feel free to share some photos like your warm-up exercises, color palettes studies, final artworks and your working area as well. Once your project is uploaded, it should appear in the student project gallery, and I can leave a feedback on your work. You can also view projects of other students there, and I definitely encourage you to like and comment on other students work as well. This way we build a healthy community of artists encouraging and empowering each other. Plus they get to discover you too. I'll see you in the next video, and let's take a look at the materials needed for the class. 3. Understanding Your Materials: In this lesson, I'll show you the materials that we'll be using in this course and explain how each one works. You can download the PDF list of materials in the resource section of the class, where I listed down the color names of the paints in my palette, brush types, and also some list of art sources that you can consider. The materials that we'll be using here are quite similar with the ones we used in my previous classes. I will still be using Baohong artist-grade cold-press watercolor paper. It is made of 100 percent cotton in 300 GSM. This paper is sold either in large sheets or in blocks, which consist of several sheets of paper bound together on all four sides. The paper size that I use is six by nine inches. In the next video, I'll share how to decal the edge to get the vintage loop. Personally, I prefer buying big sheets rather than watercolor blocks, so I can cut the sheets in smaller sizes depending on the paper format that I will use. I know there are other paper brands in the market, but on my own experience, it really makes a huge difference when you paint landscapes using Baohong 100 percent cotton artist-grade watercolor paper. The way it absorbs water and retains the vibrancy of paint is really nice. It is also easy to lift color and take different techniques as well. For the brushes, I will just use these two brushes. Both are from silver brush. This is Silver Atelier synthetic and squirrel hair quill brush, Size 40, while this purple one is silver silk 88 ultra round brush Size 6. Let's take a look at this quill brush. It is made of mixed squirrel hair and synthetic fiber. This brush is very thirsty and is a full belly for absorbing a maximum amount of liquid, limiting reload time. The fibers are also quite flexible and a key secret to paint fast is to use a bigger brush. This way you cover large areas in few strokes, thus making you paint faster. Since this brush also carries a good amount of water in it, you can make multiple strokes without having to reload your brush. Also, when you make a stroke, the layer doesn't immediately dry out. In effect, you can paint mostly everything in one layer without having hard edge in between transitions. I use this brush to paint mainly the entire washes. Since it is a thirsty brush, it's important to control the water content in your color mix to achieve the right consistency and appropriate tones. For example, if you want to create a creamy color mix, you may need a tissue or a towel to remove the excess water from the hair by simply dabbing the base of the hair on the towel. For painting details and textures, I use this ultra-round brush. It has a needle sharp tip and has a good snap, making it easier to control. It is perfect for painting tiny details and the lines like grass leaves and wires. Since it is also purely synthetic, it is nice for creating dry strokes for impressions of trees by simply rubbing the brush on the paper and the natural rough texture of the paper will help you get this very natural impression of trees. I also use this brush to paint landscape elements with rough textures like wood fence, barns, and alike. For the paints, the colors that I use are Schmincke Horadam Aquarell. I won't be using all the colors in my palette to create the vintage theme, but let me enumerate the colors to guide you. Naples yellow, transparent yellow, cadmium orange, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, perylene dark red, perylene violet, quinacridone magenta, cobalt blue, cobalt turquoise, deep sea violet, cobalt violet, paynes gray, olive green, indigo, deep sea blue, prussian blue, ice blue. You can also use titanium white as an alternative. Other colors here are new gamboge, shell pink, and sepia. In the resource section, I provided a downloadable copy of the color mix recipe to creating a muted or vintage color palette for your guide. Other materials that we will be using are two glasses of water and old towel. This is a regular spray bottle in case we want to soften edges and create a flowing effect. It's a regular spray bottle which you can get from local stores. I also have here a mechanical pencil and eraser for basic sketch, and a waterproof folder or board to hold your paper sheets when painting. Lastly, a cutter and old cardboard for creating decal edges paper. Once your materials are ready, let's move on to the main lesson, how to listen up your painting style. 4. Loosen Up Your Painting Style: When we say we want to loosen up our painting style, we often mean that we want to stop overdoing our paintings. It is a common struggle for most artists because naturally, we always tend to overthink, overwork, and over-complicate things. Let's admit it, it's tempting to focus too much over a particular area and put so much details in it, thinking that this will make the overall painting look good. If we observe the works of great artists like Alvaro Castagnet and Joseph Zbukvic, their paintings have common denominator. Simplification, they simplify the picture, simplify the strokes, give emphasis on the important element or the focal point then the end result is a fresh, loose painting. Let's take a look at one of the paintings of Joseph Zbukvic from his book. For sure there's a lot of details and movement going on in the actual place where he did this painting, but can you see the simplicity of the sky in the field? How limited the colors to use, observe how he simplified the strokes of the trees by playing with fluid and organic brush works. We can also notice how he gave tight brushstrokes on the focal point, which is the barn and paint the details as big connected shapes. What can we learn from this? To loosen up our painting style, the first step is to change the way you see your subject. When we looked at our subject, whether it's a photo reference or an actual scenery. When we paint on location, it's natural for us to take note of every detail but doing this will only lead us to overworking our work. We need to teach our mind to see the pictures, shapes, and not objects. We don't need to paint everything that we see, we have to decide on our focal point given laser-focused on it and let everything around it to turn to small connected shapes that build the entire picture. I have a way to do this, is to squint when you look at your reference, squinting allows you to simplify the picture because you are looking through the dark filter of your lashes. When you squint, you only see large value masses, the focal point usually is the one that becomes dominant in the photo while all other details simply fades. For example, if we look at this reference photo, despite all the noise and details going on in the background, when you squint, we can easily determine that this tree on the right is the focal point. Since this is the only object that remains strong and dominant while all others appear like one blurry shape. Now that we have identified, which is the most important part that we want to capture in their subject, we can focus our attention on making this well captured in our painting and paint other details much loosely. Number two, stand up to paint. I do stand up when painting and even great artists do. What's the rationale behind it? Standing allows your arm and shoulder to move as you paint and it keeps your arm's length from your paper, thus preventing you from the habit of focusing too much on one part. If you've taken my other classes, you will often hear me say, take a step back and look at your work from a distance. This encourages looking at the painting as a whole and not lose the essence of the scene. Number three, paint with a large brush and hold your brush further back. When you were new to watercolors, someone might have taught you to hold the brush, like holding a pen, well, it's true in some cases, if you want to paint tight or precise brushstrokes but, to loosen up your painting style, the secret is to hold the brush a little further back. This way you have less control and we'll keep you from painting small shapes and details. Try it for yourself, you can feel the flow and fluidity of watercolor even more when you hold the brush further back. Now the size of the brush also matters, a large brush makes you focus on painting large shapes rather than creating precise stroke, you create shapes, that serves as an impression of the objects so practice using the same big brush from the start to almost end of the painting and then shift to a smaller brush just to paint small details and tight strokes for the focal point. Another benefit of using a large brush, is since it can cover large areas in few strokes, you can learn to paint fast. That's the reason why I decided to finish each class project within 15 minutes. When you paint fast, you avoid overthinking, overdoing, and over complicating things. Start fast and loose and then go slower towards the end of the process of adding precise details. Number four, limit your color palette but to use plenty of rich paint. Using few colors and learning to mix and match them not only promotes color harmony but also keeps your painting simple fresh and neat. Remember, less is more. You can download my vintage color palette recipe in the resource section of this class. When it comes to the amount of paint will load our brush, here's the tip, don't be afraid to use lots of juicy paint. Watercolor fades out one tone lower when it dries on paper. If you use pale t like consistency or painting will look flat and dull. Load your brush with paint and let it freely flow on your paper, don't be afraid of watercolor flow or rons, experiment with splash and splatters and you'll discover when they are best used to create interesting effects on your painting. Number five, practice your brushwork. Brushwork is the way painters use their brush, it is like your signature, it's what sets your painting apart from others. We may follow the same step-by-step procedure of painting but it is your brushwork that makes your painting unique and yours. As your brushworks reveal your own painting style, it also reflects if you are in fear or hesitation. To loosen up your painting style, you must practice your brushwork to reflect energy, confidence, and dynamic. Practice using your brush in varying angle, pressure or direction depending on the effect you want to achieve. There are strokes that requires speed or quick repetitive strokes to suggest movement or emotion in your work and sometimes you may dab or rub your brush off your paper, vary the level of pressure when pressing the brush or maybe flick your brush to create interesting effects. The key here is to paint, paint, paint, keep on practicing so you get as comfortable as possible with your brush. The more comfortable you get, the more confident and expressive you will be and when they say confident, we don't mean fast yet mindless stroke. It involves planning ahead how you would approach a painting, which brushwork is appropriate in each fragment, and learn to trust your heart. Do not over-analyze to the point that you'll get paralyzed. Last but not the least, paint for yourself. Painting loosely is a state of mind, it all starts with how you think and feel about yourself and loading yourself of the pressure to create something perfect takes away the fear to start and experiment. Paint because you love painting and because it gives you joy in life. I find it helpful to create a relaxing atmosphere before I paint, I pull myself away from any distractions, play my favorite music, and dance and sing to the music as I paint. It helps me escape to a place where I can be free and creative. When you're happy and inspired and feeling positive while you paint, it will show up in your painting. It's about 90 and intuition will freely flow from your heart. Always remember, art is not just about having the right set of skills, it is you. To recap, to loosen up your painting style. Number one, change the way you see your subject, paint shapes not object, squint to identify your focal point. Number two, stand up to paint, always take a step back to see the big picture. Number three, paint with large brush and hold your brush further back. Number four limit your color palette but use plenty of rich paint. Number five, practice your brushwork. Number six, paint for yourself. In the next video, I'll share with you some of my brushworks, which you can try to get to know your brush. 5. Improving Your Brushwork: My painting process is very simple. It's like a three wash approach. First wash for painting light values, second wash for mid values, third wash for painting dark values, details, and accents. Our brushwork changes depending on where we are in the painting process. Since the first wash is for painting all the light values like sky and land, I paint these elements with continiuity, considering them as one big shape using a big brush. The brushwork I use here is what I call big bold wash using quick horizontal stroke. This is how I do it. I load my big brush with lots of juicy fresh paints, then I make a horizontal stroke from left to right, then right to left. I do it in a quick motion so I can achieve a seamless transition and prevent hide lines. Sometimes it's also helpful to tilt the paper a little bit to help the paint flow down on its own. I also use the same brushwork for painting vast lands or the base wash of the metal. The second wash in my three-wash approach is for painting the middle values like painting the background crease, mountains, and house structures. I paint these middle values when the first wash is still moist so I can create a soft blend between layers. I load my paint with creamy color mix so it will have a darker tone over the background, and so I can create depth. One of the brushworks I often use in this step is the rubbing stroke for painting trees. I do this by pressing the brush towards the paper and moving it in random direction, creating the general shape of the tree. Another one is what I call a brush splay stroke. To paint the metal or the grassland or a big chunk of threes, I play with my brush to create the wash by varying the side or the angle of the brush and the pressure I put into it. This way I create different kinds of marks and initiate energy and movement on the picture. The key here is to avoid creating the same mark with every stroke so your painting won't look boring or repetitive. The third and final wash is for painting the dark values, adding details and enhancing the overall painting. Let's start with the swift gliding stroke using dry brush. This is perfect for painting rough textures like tree trunks, wood fences and the like. I load my brush with thick paint and less water in it, then I do a swift gliding stroke. You'll see that tiny and painted patches in the stroke. You can do it horizontally or vertically depending on what it is for. Another one is the repetitive upward stroke. I use this for painting grass blades. It may look very simple, but the common mistake when painting grass is having stiff and natural looking grass blades. I encourage you to practice it often to develop muscle memory and to create more fluid and natural-looking strokes to imitate the movement of the grass. One of my favorite brush works that I use not only for impression of flowers, but also to adding texture is flattering. I load my small brush with creamy and flowy mix of paint, then I gently tap my brush to get those beautiful random splatters. The size of your brush and the amount of water in your paint affects the size of splatters that you can create. If it is something new to you, try testing your splatters on a piece of paper first before applying it on your actual painting. Last but not the least is the scratching. I use this technique to lift off paint on certain areas to give highlight or to simply create an impression of bright lines. Instead of using masking fluid to preserve a spot on your painting, which may look too tight and refined, I scratch the paint using my fingernail for a looser effect. Now, timing is important to achieve a perfect scratch. The level of moisture in your paper should be just fine, not too wet and not too dry. If it's too wet, the paint will just flow back to the scratch area. When the paint is too dry, you won't be able to get a clear lifted paint as well. That's all of the brush works we'll be using to paint all seven landscapes in the class project. When you're ready, let's prepare our paints and learn about simplified color mixing. 6. Simplified Color Mixing: As I've mentioned in our previous lessons, the key to a loose and fresh watercolor painting is keeping it simple. When we say simplify your painting, it doesn't pertain only to simplified interpretation and strokes, but also to simplify the use of colors. When we use a limited color palette in our painting, we create color harmony. By combining few colors, we make our painting pleasing to the eyes. You can have a nice subject, good pencil sketch, correct values, but without color harmony, the painting will still look wrong. Another benefit of using a limited color palette is you simplified color mixing and you get better understanding of how your colors work together. You don't need to get all the colors a watercolor brand has to offer. With just the right set of cool and warm primaries and Earth tone, and maybe one base green color, you can create beautiful paintings. Lastly, sticking to a limited color palette gives your work a sense of identity. Your color choice and mixtures has the power to set your painting apart. Just like your brushwork that is unique to you, your color decisions form part of your identity as an artist. Let me share a simple guide to mix and match limited colors to create a vintage color palette. For the color of the sky, I mainly play with colors like cobalt violet hue and cobalt blue for cool tones, new Gamboge and shell pink for the warm tones. Try mixing each set and vary the ratio and proportion of the colors to discover different shades. For example, I put more cobalt blue than cobalt violet if I want to portray daylight. But if I want to paint sunset, I go for more cobalt violet than cobalt blue in my mix. For the color of the meadow and the greeneries, you can be creative in playing with colors as you paint them. The base colors that I use for this, are burnt sienna, new Gamboge, olive green, and indigo. To get a lighter and muted tone for the field, I mix burnt sienna and new Gamboge. Then from this mix, you can slightly introduce olive green to get a green shade. For the foreground or dark greens, I mix olive green and indigo. You can also try mixing burnt sienna, olive green, and indigo for a muted green color. To keep the impressions of the flowers look fresh and vibrant, I always use clean and pure color of paints. My favorite colors to pick four flowers are quinacridone magenta, Naples yellow, and ice blue. I love these colors because Naples and ice blue are opaque. They really make a good highlight and accent. For quinacridone magenta, even though it is a transparent color, if you splatter a creamy and saturated mix of this color, you get a nice vibrant effect. Sometimes if I want to use it for accents and highlights, I mix it with white or with ice blue to make it opaque. Now, for the color for the wood, you need to have different tones to show dimension. I use burnt sienna and cobalt violet as my base. Violet defuses the brightness of burnt sienna. The more violet you add, the darker the tone will get. If I want to make the wood even darker, I can add Perylene violet and sepia to my mix for more depth. That's it. If you don't have the exact same colors that I have, that's definitely okay. You can make use of the colors in your palette which you are comfortable using. All you need to have is one shade of violet and blue for cool tones, a yellow and peach for warm shades of the sky, burnt sienna and sepia for your neutral color, one green color, indigo or indanthrone blue or create darker shades of green, and your choice of red, yellow, or pink for your flowers. Once you've selected your colors, stick your limited palette and explore different new shades as you mix and match them. That way you can practice color harmony and simplify your painting. I'm sure you're more than ready to start our daily painting exercise. I'll see you in the next video to prepare our deckle-edged papers. 7. How To Deckle Edge Your Paper: [MUSIC] To pull off that vintage look on that artworks, let me share with you a quick and easy tutorial to deckle your paper. This is a nine-by-six-inch paper. Using a cardboard as my guide and a cutter, I will create a crease on the side of the paper. Use the cutter lightly to avoid trimming the paper entirely. I do the same thing for all four sides of the paper. After scoring all four sides, I bend each side and gently tear the paper along the fold line. There you have it. This is how your deckled edge paper will look like. 8. Day 1 Quiet Meadow: Welcome to Day 1. Our subject is pretty simple with a very few elements in it. The focus of our first painting exercise is to warm you up on painting big bold washes. I encourage you to stand up as you paint and hold your brush further back as you paint large, loose washes. To give you an overview, I will be painting on dry paper and I will not use masking tape to secure my paper on the board. Since we will paint the entire paper during our first watch, warping will not be a concern. However, if you are not so comfortable painting without the sides of the paper security tape on your board, feel free to tape the borders of your paper. Also, if your paper is not 100% cotton, I highly encourage you to tape all four sides of your paper for proper support and to prevent the paper from warping. Let's start our painting prompt with a simple sunset landscape. This is a pencil sketch. I draw the horizon line here in the upper mid part of the paper, then draw the outline of the distant mountains. Next, I draw a single wood fence here in the lower right side of the papers, since this will serve as our focal point. I also draw horizontal lines for the wires of the fence. I'll add a few grass strokes here and there, but I won't be drawing the details of the middle. Watercolor will do it for us later. Now let's start to paint using a big mop brush, I start mixing cobalt violet and cobalt blue to get this nice cool sunset color. I want you to take a look at my brushwork. I may look fast to paint, but this is just the big bold wash that I shared in the previous lesson. Slide your brush from left to right and back to create a nice soft wash. Next, I clean my brush and we'll get some color of new gamboge and a bit of shell pink. Notice that I mix this warm color in my leftover purple paint to tone down the warm color. I start with a single horizontal stroke here in the mountain part then add some water in my brush to get a softer wash as I paint towards the horizon line. Here we have an unpainted strip in between yellow and purple. To blend the two colors, I add some water in my brush again and connect the two colors. Using water to blend the purple and yellow help us avoid muddy mix. I also tilted my paper a little bit so the purple will flow down and mix with the yellow on its own. I want to create depth in the sky by adjusting the tone on the mid part of the sky using the same color mixed with a little bit more of cobalt violet. I add a few more strokes here in the mid-part of the sky. Our sky is done. Look how simple and quick it was. Painting the sky doesn't have to be complicated. Since it is not our focal point, we don't need to put much detail into it. As much as possible, hold yourself from overthinking, overdoing, and going back to the sky fragment and paint more layers over it. Let's move on to painting the lens fragments. I get olive green and mix a bit of new gamboge and burnt sienna to tone down the color. Using the same quick bold stroke I slide my brush horizontally. As I paint the area, I add some burnt sienna little by little to create a variation of tone with my green. Next, I load my brush with water and get a mix of olive green and indigo for a darker shade. Since we're painting the middle ground, I will change my brushwork, the brush place strokes. [MUSIC] Here I am starting to do up and down and even zigzag strokes, see how much pressure I place in my brush as I rub it to my paper. As I approach the edge of the paper, I also transition my values to darker tones to create depth. I simply add more indigo to my green mix to get this rich, dark green color. Now that they completely painted the land fragment, I use my small round brush to splatter some water to the foreground for texture. Here we can slowly see some magic happening as the paints react on the water droplets. Don't worry about watercolor runs if you see any. Remember, we are aiming to paint loose and relaxed. I also try splattering some dark green paint in the foreground using the same dark green mix made of indigo and olive green. Just make it few, it may be fun, but avoid overdoing it. Now I'll be mixing burnt sienna to this dark green mix made of olive green and indigo. I get a really juicy color to paint the distant mountain. Using my small brush, I glide my brush diagonally to create the slope of the mountain. I add a bit of green to my mix to have a play of colors and paint the lower part of the mountain. I want you to pay attention to my brushwork. How swift the stroke is to portray the shape, not the object itself. Since the background sky is still moist at the same time, you'll see that soft blend of color on the edge of the mountain. Now using new gamboge and burnt sienna I create a thick mix of this color to paint the other mountain behind. I lay the brush flat on the paper to create a side ward stroke with heavy pressure on the brush. I try to paint the shape using brush marks. After this, I clean my brush and get some green mixed with burnt sienna to darken the mountain in front, this makes the mountain pop out more. [MUSIC] Here I try to live a slight color from the mountain behind by simply sliding my brush gently over the layer. This little steps give the mountain a feel of texture without putting too much stroke or details. Now I paint the foot of the mountain with some brush marks to connect them on thin and the land. The key here is to make the paint mixture thick enough that it will layer above the background color. If the mix is too wet, it will create blooms. Note also that I simply dab my brush to lay colors down. I don't paint the entire horizon line, but just suggestive lines. Next, I took some dark green mix, still from olive green and indigo, make them mix really creamy to paint the grass blades. The paint fine and organic strokes, I hold my brush further back off the handle and position it at almost 90 degrees. I do quick upward strokes and try to imagine the natural movement of grass to avoid repetitive and stiff lines. I paint mostly here in the lower right section underneath the spot where I will place the wood fence. I also paint some grass blades using burnt sienna for variation and vary the length and angle of my stroke. Here, I make highlights by scratching the paper using my fingernail to create an impression of grass to this scratch effectively, the paint should be not too wet and not too dry. Scratch using your fingernail in a swift downward stroke. I add a few dark green strokes to fill in the gaps but as I do this, I try to step back to see the entire picture. Now let's mix sepia, burnt sienna, and Payne's gray for the color of the wood fence. The mix should be really opaque and dry, so it makes an imitation of the texture of the wood. As I lay the stroke, you'll see how dry my brush is. I tried to make the fence look 3D by painting the right side part with a lighter tone. [MUSIC] Then I scratch some horizontal lines for details. I also darken the left side a little bit. Now, I paint the wires using the same brush, holding my brush at 90 degrees angle and placing very light pressure to create thin strokes. It's okay for the line to be a bit shaky. The wire should not be painted with very heavy pain so it won't overpower the wood fence. If you feel the pain got a bit thick, just dab your finger on it to flatten the color. Then I paint the wire over with icy blue color or you may use titanium white for highlights. [MUSIC] As a final touch, let's splatter, some pure color of yellow around the grass field area. You can use your finger or another brush to tap the brush and make splatters. Be mindful of where your brush is facing so you won't splatter on the sky fragment. I also splatter some colors like white. Lastly, I'll add a few dots of pink here and there as final accents. Our painting is complete. I can't wait to see what you have painted today and head over to the project and resources section and please do share your work by uploading your first-class project there. In the next lesson, let's practice some loose brushwork to paint impression of pine trees and calm lake. 9. Day 2 Calm Lake: [MUSIC] I'm so glad to have you here with me again. Today, let's paint another landscape focusing on the specific brush works for painting impression of pine trees and the calm lake. Our goal here is to capture the essence of the important elements in your subject without being too detailed. Let's begin. The pencil sketch is simple. We start by drawing the horizon line at the lower third part of the paper and light strokes of the mountain. I drew an impression of small island here on the left, and we're done. Let's mix color for the sky. I still use cobalt violet for my base sky color. Using my big brush, I do big horizontal strokes, just like how we painted the sky in the previous exercise. As I paint the mid part of the sky, I desaturate the paint by adding water to my brush. Here you'll see that I stopped painting purple halfway, and we'll change the color. With a light mix of new gamboge in my brush, I continue the flat wash from where I ended down till I reach the horizon. Next I get cobalt blue and add a bit of deep sea violet to strengthen the tone, and painted the upper part of the sky. It's important to make the upper part of the sky darker in tone so you can create a sense of perspective, and your painting won't look flat. We're done with the sky fragment. Easy and simple. Now let's paint the lake next. An important tip is, when painting water, always remember that the color of the water should be a reflection of the color of the sky and the objects around it. If we've painted the sky with purple, the color of the water should have an influence of purple as well. Another thing is, if you notice, I didn't clean my palette before starting with another painting, well, that's the advantage of using a limited color palette for all your artworks. You avoid getting muddy mixtures even you're mixing on the same used palette, because the colors you use belongs to one family. Let's continue our painting. Here, I'm getting some juicy paint of cobalt violet, my mop brush, and then load my brush with some water, and mix it with a leftover yellow that I have. I paint the water fragment with quick and light horizontal strokes from left to right from the horizon line going down. Here you can see that the sky and lake fragments won't have almost equal values in similar color. Next, let's move on to painting the middle ground, starting with a mountain at the background. Using cobalt violet and burnt sienna, I create a purplish brown shade to paint the mounting. The mix has to be thicker than the mix we use in the sky, so the tonal value will be darker. As I paint, the background is quite wet. That's why I got a smooth yet controlled edges. Observe how I lay my brush on the paper, and how I vary the angle to make a stroke. Sometimes I use the side of my brush, and sometimes I press it on the paper. Next using burnt sienna, some new gamboge, and cobalt violet, I paint a slightly darker yet warmer shade of brown for this mountain on the left. I press the brush downwards to paint the slope, and keep my stroke simple. I change my brush to our round brush. I get olive green and mix it with my leftover brown paint, and add a bit of new gamboge to paint the big chunk of trees here in the left. Remember that, we will paint shapes, not objects. Here, instead of painting each tree one-by-one, we play with colors by varying the ratio of colors in the mix, and paint the general shape of the tree fragment. You can also see here that, I make some spots darker while others warmer. I also paint vertical strokes to portray the differing heights of trees. I let the paint flow down and mix together naturally, instead of blending them with my brush. I continue painting shapes with playful and expressive brush strokes to complete the entire fragment. Since the right side side of the paper is turning dry already, you can note this hard edges as I paint trees. That's totally fine, and actually nice, because it gives us a sense of lost and found edges within the painting. Now I start to create more illusion of trees by painting the tip of the fine trees using dabbing strokes. Here your paint has to be thick and creamy enough to layer above the green blob of color. Try not to paint each tree in detail. Just paint the tip of the trees, vary the height and maybe the angle by painting others in slanted position, and then dab a thick layer of paint on top of the big green shape to create depth, and hints of the body. Now I'll paint the island on the left with brunch, and now with gliding strokes. I want to create a separation between land and water, and this suggestive horizontal stroke is a good way. I also get my mop brush again to enhance the lake. Using cobalt violet and a bit of olive green, I want to create a rich greenish purple mix to paint the water. With a quick horizontal stroke, I create dry brush strokes here at the bottom part of the lake to portray glare on water. I try not to repeatedly go over one area to preserve the glare I created using the dry brush strokes. As a final step, let's deepen the tone here in the frontier most part of the lake for prospective and dimension. I still use cobalt violet for this portion, and I keep my strokes light and swift to show energy and dynamic. Let's finish it off by adding a bit of perylene violet to my cobalt violet, and make last few horizontal strokes. Step back, and see your work from a distance. Decide to stop even before you think your painting is complete to avoid overworking it. Our next subject is one of my favorite. Let's paint a serine barn in a flowery meadow in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 10. Day 3 Barn in a Field: [MUSIC] For our third exercise, we will be painting a serene barn in a flowery meadow. Here, we'll see how contrasting textures, hard and soft edges, and various interesting effects can create a dynamic and energy to your painting. Let's start with a brief pencil sketch. I draw the horizon line in the mid part of the paper and then I draw a bit of zigzag strokes for the outline of the chunk of trees at the background. Then here in the right-side part of the paper, I draw a triangular roof of the barn. [MUSIC] I draw the outline of grass below the barn and some tree trunks around it for my guide. I won't be drawing the trees on detail as we will be designing it through brush works. Let's mix colors. Since we want to paint a glowing sunset, we need a clean mix of new Gamboge with a bit of shell pink. I add water in my brush, and look how watery and juicy my mix is. Now that my brush is loaded with paint, I make horizontal strokes from the horizon going halfway. Before I transition to another color, I soften the edge even more with a watery brush. Doing this gives me more time to prepare my purple color without the yellow layer getting dry and turning to a hard edge. Next, I take a good amount of cobalt violet and paint the top portion of the sky with few strokes and then slowly and gently blend it with yellow with just a few stroke. Over-blending with too much strokes can cause muddy mix. [MUSIC] I darken the top portion a bit more by applying a darker tone of cobalt violet. I tilt my paper from time to time to let the purple shade mix with yellow on its own. Now you can see a very nice and soft transition of colors. No hard edge and no muddy mix. Let's leave it this way and go paint the base wash of the meadow. Using new Gamboge and burnt sienna, I paint the reflected light on the meadow. I want you to look at how I hold my brush and execute the stroke. My brush is positioned upward and I do little dabbing strokes. Positioning the brush this way allows me to create jagged texture, which is a nice effect for the field. I also drop saturated color of burnt sienna in some areas so there's a play of tones. I continue the same stroke towards the other side of the paper. Next, without cleaning my brush, I take cobalt violet and olive green to slowly transition the tone to a purplish shade since it is sunset. As I paint this fragment, I vary the ratio between olive green and cobalt violet. Some parts I have more cobalt violet in my mix while others have more olive green. But I see to it that I keep the right balance between the two so my color mix will match with the atmosphere and setting of the day. As I nearly approach the foreground, I need to introduce more visible textures in the meadow, so I will be changing my brushwork to repetitive up-and-down strokes. I also begin to alter the position of how I hold my brush so my strokes won't look boring. Here in the foreground, my tone should be even darker and deeper. I now use olive green and indigo with cobalt violet and burnt sienna to get a muted dark green color. I make sure the foreground has the darkest tone here in the initial wash so I can lead the eyes of the viewers towards the horizon. [MUSIC] Here I'm just adding some more dark spots of color to create depth. Just a tip, the tonal value has to be darker as it gets further away from the horizon line. [MUSIC] Now I take my round brush and paint impressions of grass while the layer is still wet. I do it with some upward strokes. [MUSIC] I also splatter some clean water using my brush to create tiny bloom effect. I intend to do it while wet so the painting will look atmospheric and soft. Now I get Perylene violet, splatter around the meadow, and position my brush in the opposite direction so I won't splatter paints on the sky. [MUSIC] Here I'm just adding more colors in the field to make it more colorful and charming. I use quinacridone pink mixed with ice blue to make the color opaque. I also use Naples yellow for the splatter effect. Since watercolor tends to fade a little bit when it dries, we may need to add a few more dark layers to compensate it. Here I take a dark green color mix and paint some grass strokes in the foreground. [MUSIC] I add another splatter of ice blue so I have that pop of light in the dark field. Let the paint bloom on the wet surface and create its own magic. We'll let this dry for now and we can paint the barn and the elements around it. Now using cobalt violet and burnt sienna and a bit of olive green, I rub my round brush on the paper to paint the distant greenery. [MUSIC] Don't be afraid to rub your brush flat as it won't get damaged. Next, I get Perylene violet and indigo and burnt sienna to get a deep dark brown color for the barn. [MUSIC] In my initial stroke, I noticed that my paper is still moist and if I continue to paint it, I won't get a hard, crisp edge for the roof. Since the barn is our focal point, it has to be defined. I need to dry the area completely first using a heat gun and continue painting it when it's dry. Using the same color mix, I paint the side of the barn facing front. Notice how I paint the area. I use the entire belly of the brush to create thick strokes until I fill in the entire area. [MUSIC] Notice also that I made the bottom part jagged to show an impression that the barn is partly covered by the grass. [MUSIC] I paint the other side of the room with a lighter tone and I also left a broken diagonal line unpainted to distinguish the sides of the roof. [MUSIC] Now we can see clearly how contrasting textures, which I mean soft wash on the meadow and hard edges on the barn work together to create an enhancing painting. [MUSIC] I don't want the barn to look like a sticker posted over the painting, so we need to connect it to the meadow. Using my finger, I gently drag the paint of the barn down so it builds connection to the meadow and have a jagged edge. Now the fun part, let's paint the trees using expressive rubbing strokes. I get dark green using my leftover green paint. The paint has to be so thick with less water in it. I start with a pine tree here on the left. I do wiggling strokes using the tip of my brush and portray this triangle shape of the tree. [MUSIC] Next, I change the shade by adding a bit of yellow, which is new Gamboge to my color mix, and rub my brush in the area to paint a full and bushy tree. I think about the general shape of the tree and try to portray it using this quick rubbing dry strokes. I dab bits of dark paints to make the tree dimensional, but I try not to put too much details inside. [MUSIC] Now let's paint the tree on the right. I still use my rubbing stroke, but this time I want to make a shape different from the other trees on the left. Instead of using just one single color mix, try to vary the ratio of colors for color play. I also scratch some parts of the paper to show impression of trunks. Remember to do this when your paint is not so wet anymore. [MUSIC] Let's finish the painting by enhancing the meadow. I'll add some more splatters since the initial wash faded already. I splatter some pink mixed with ice blue and also Naples yellow in the lowest part of the meadow since this is the foreground. [MUSIC] We are done with our third painting. I'd love to know how is it for you so far. You may share your works and write in the caption, your thoughts or maybe your experience as you upload your class project so I can journey with you. See you on our next lesson. 11. Day 4 Sunset Forest: Our fourth painting exercise, we will go even more expressive in our brushwork to portray light and forest trees. We'll practice eliminating the details by painting the foreground as one big shape. The pencil sketch will just be a slope for the background mountains. Then let's draw a small circle here in the right side to represent the sun. I lighten the sketch so it won't be seen under the painting. Let's start painting. Using my mop brush I get new gamboge with shell pink to paint the warm light around the sun. Again, I'm painting on dry paper. Notice that I painted a circle bigger than the sketch. The reason is that I will soften the inner edge with a clean, damp brush later on. Next, I also soften the outer edge of my initial round stroke. I paint the area around it with saturated mix of new gamboge and shell pink. I want you to notice how intense the color I place in the horizon. I also do quick horizontal strokes to paint the other portions of the sky. For the upper part of the sky I diffuse the tone by painting it over with a watery brush. [MUSIC] Here I have completed painting the entire sky fragment. But before proceeding to the other fragments, I will soften this edge at the bottom so it won't immediately dry and leave a hard edge. I get a little bit of cobalt violet and mix it to my yellow mix to diffuse the yellow tone. I will paint the lower part of the paper with a muted wash to set up the light in our base layer. Using perylene violet and cobalt violet, I will paint the mountain at the background and then I mix the paints well to get a nice creamy mix. As I paint them mountain silhouette, the sky fragment has to be moist so you can achieve that soft yet controlled edge. The tonal value has to be darker and creamier than the yellow background, so it will appear as the middle ground. Notice that I play with tones within the mountain, some parts appear thicker and darker than the others. Don't worry if the paint will just bleed down, it is a unique effect of watercolor that we want to embrace. Now, I'll clean my brush and load it with a green color to paint the forest trees. It's nice to paint this fragment while the paper is still moist so we get a soft blend of colors in the forest, contrasting the hard strong edge on the source of light, which is our focal point. I mix green to my leftover purple mix, I add a bit of cobalt violet, and do repetitive downward strokes. Here I want to portray the mountains trees and will paint them as one big shape. I slowly transition to a slightly darker tone by adding indigo to my mix. I continue doing the up and down strokes for this portion. Next I take my round brush and we'll get a very saturated and thick mix of green using olive green, indigo and, a bit of new gamboge to paint the large pine trees in the background. I start painting this large peeking tree on the left, we'll paint just a portion of the tree and I want you here to work on with your brushwork. Focus on portraying the general impression of the tree through playing with the angle of your brush. Experiment on making strokes using the full belly of the brush and also in some areas just using the tip of it. The secret here is to be comfortable in handling your brush so you can be confident in your strokes. I painted until the bottom part, but I'll be adding dark tones to make it fuller. I mix olive green, indigo, and brown chana for this deep dark green mix. When you add dark tones, don't paint over everything just dab dark strokes on selected spots only. I'm loading my brush with some more green but I'm mixing a bit of cobalt violet to slightly change the value from the other tree. Here I use the tip of my brush to paint the upper part of the tree. Observe the dabbing strokes that I do to create thicker strokes. As I go lower, I put more pressure in my dabbing and wiggling strokes to get even thicker marks. Now this time I won't paint till the edge of the paper. Using spray bottle I spray water at the bottom part and let the paint bleed down. I move on to painting the next tree. I made it smaller than the other. I repeat the dabbing and wiggling strokes, to create the triangular shape. I sprayed some water at the lower edge to lead the paint down on the paper as well. Since this portion got wet because of this sprayer, I dab few greens to add color. I also dab some brown chana down here, so this spot won't be too boring with just the same green shade. It serves like a highlight. I paint another tree here and made it smaller, so I won't cover the sun fragment. I repeat the process of painting the trees and spraying water so the paint flows down. It's like creating an effect that the paints dissolves to give extra focus on the light. Here as we paint the tree closer to the sun, use new gamboge mix with brown chana. This way we create an impression of light hitting the portion of the tree. This is one of the things I love about this ultra round brush. It has a very nice nap and so easy to control that painting fine details like this feels like drawing with a pen. The pointed tip also allows me to create a tiny brush mark, so I don't have to change brushes from time to time. Now as you go farther away from the light, we will transition the color back to green. In this lower area, it's just me rubbing strokes to fill in a larger area. I continue painting a few more trees here in the right side and making my strokes looser and bigger. I feel that the sky area here in the right looks a bit empty so I'll add one more tall tree here. I still start with an orange color and then transition to green as I reach the middle and bottom part. I also add a little tree here in the middle, since the gap is quite big and looks empty. I'll add little marks to make the forest look fuller and I'll also dab a few dark strokes here at the bottom. As a finishing step, I'll splatter some new gamboge using my round brush here in the bottom part as accents and also to break the solid fill of green color. Our painting is complete. Hope you were able to follow along. If you have questions, feel free to leave me a message in the Discussions tab under this video. In the next lesson, we'll practice painting wood fences focusing on creating rough textures using different brush strokes. [MUSIC] 12. Day 5 Wood Farm Fence: We're down to the last few exercises, and I'm sure by this time, you can see progress and difference in how you approach your painting process and how you hold and play with your brush. Now for today's painting exercise, we'll practice how to bring out the rough texture of wood fences and how to blend multiple colors in the sky in one go. Let's start our sketch by identifying the horizon line. From here, I assign a point here on the rightmost side of the line that will serve as my vanishing point. In order for a wooden fence to look realistic, it has to be drawn following the horic perspective. I drew two diagonal lines that are all intersecting to the vanishing point. This serves as my guide in drawing the height of each fence. I drew the wood here starting on the left, and then the next one slightly shorter, following my diagonal line as a guide. [MUSIC] As I add more wood, the distance between each wood has to go shorter as well. [MUSIC] This is our final sketch. Let's start painting the sky. We're painting on a dry paper. I begin with mixing the warm color using new gamboge and shell. My mix has more new gamboge in it. Then with a full horizontal stroke, I paint the horizon line. I reload my brush with paint, adding a few more shell pink in it. I can think of doing the big bold wash and just vary the amount of new gamboge or shell pink in each wash. Next, I add a bit of quinacridone magenta to introduce a hint of shell pink in my mix. I did a few short and light strokes to see how it looks in the sky. Since it looks too pale, I get perylene violet and add it to my yellow mix. Here I get a nice purplish orange color for the sunset. [MUSIC] Next I get cobalt violet and add it to my current mix to get this very nice deep purple color on the upper part of the sky. [MUSIC] To add more depth, I add a bit of deep sea violet to my mix. I also did few quick yet short strokes of the same color to portray strips of cloud in the sky. Next, I left off a small portion of paint to show light. Then I used my clean damp brush to remove the remaining paint and lift off the color completely. That's the benefit of painting fast and with a big brush. We can paint the full sky with different colors without having hard edges. I get my mop brush again, mix perylene violet, new gamboge and shell pink to paint smaller strips of cloud in the sky. This is best done while the sky fragment is still moist so the stroke is soft and controlled. I tried to lift off the color once more in the sun area because the paint keeps on bleeding. Now as we paint the field, the color of the field is influenced by the color of the sky. We don't just paint the field with green. I will paint the reflected light on the field using a similar color I used on the sky. I mix perylene violet, new gamboge, and shell pink together to get this color and paint this portion of the field right below the horizon. Next, I get cobalt violet to paint the field and then gradually introduce green to my mix. Here we have a green color mixed with a bit of cobalt violet. Little by little, add indigo and cobalt violet to get a darker tone which I'll use to paint the foreground. As I paint this area, I make the strokes in varying directions because I want to create texture and movement of grass. [MUSIC] Now that we have completed painting the field, it feels like it lacks depth since the bottom portion is not dark enough. Here I'll mix olive green, indigo, and burnt sienna for a darker tone and layer it over, fill with playful strokes, imitating the movement of grass. [MUSIC] Using a round brush and mixing cobalt violet and burnt sienna, I'll splatter some paint in the foreground. [MUSIC] If you feel there are not enough paint coming out, it means that you need to add a bit of water in your brush. Next, let's paint the trees in the background. I'm preparing dark bluish violet color using perylene violet, cobalt violet, burnt sienna, and indigo. [MUSIC] Once I got this nice deep purple color, I load my brush well and do robbing strokes here in the left. Since my sky fragment is still moist, the effect is soft and light. I want it to appear a little darker than the background to show impression of silhouette, so I make a thicker mix using the same colors but lesser water. I rub the brush on top once more, and here we achieve this tree silhouette. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] I did horizontal strokes, then drag the paint down using my finger to connect the tree to the field. This is similar to what we did to connect the barn to the field in our previous exercise. Now using shell pink in the left over violet mix, I paint broken strokes on the horizon line. Avoid painting straight stroke so it won't be distracting to the eyes. [MUSIC] We're now good with the sky and middle ground, let's proceed next to enhancing the foreground by adding grass and then paint wood fences. I mix green, burnt sienna, and indigo and use it to paint the grass here. [MUSIC] In the first two fences, my stroke are bigger and bolder. But as I go closer to the vanishing point, my strokes get smaller and lighter. [MUSIC] I also leave some burnt sienna marks as highlights on the grass on the first few grasses. [MUSIC] Next, I splatter yellow paint here in the right side area for extra effect, and I also do some light dry brush stroke to connect the grass on the ground. Don't feel intimidated if I move too fast when painting these elements as it is part of the brushwork. As you practice, you will also develop the rhythm of moving your brush quickly to create markings and strokes. That is what brushwork is actually all about. Now let's paint the wood fence. To bring out the solid texture of the wood, the tone has to be really solid and opaque. We also have to do a change in tone in each side of the wood to show dimension. Let's start with the horizontal part of the fence. I mix perylene violet, indigo, and a bit of new gamboge and also cobalt violet. Here I paint each portion carefully. I took a tissue and rub it over the pain to lighten the stroke. Since this is near the vanishing point, the tone has to be lighter and not so strong. I avoided painting over the grass. [MUSIC] I do swift stroke to have that patch stroke. [MUSIC] As I move farther away, you can see more clearly the rough texture created using dry brush stroke. I also fix the outline on some part. Next, I get yellow ocher and paint on the top part of the wood so I can show the dimension. Doing this gives an impression that the lighted part of the upper side part of the wood is lighted by the sun. Next let's paint the vertical woods. I still use the same dark, purplish brown color. But notice that I left a tiny part unpainted on the side. I will use a different shade for that to show dimension. Here I've painted with lighter shade, and you can quickly see the sides of the wood. I'll use nipples yellow and a bit of shell pink to add a bit of highlight on some points. This will help make the fence pop out from the background. I also put tiny dots of cadmium orange to just enhance the highlight. But notice that as I apply this, I just do suggestive strokes and not paint the entire line. [MUSIC] Let's finish off by adding few more dry rubbing strokes here on the tree just to complete the scene, and also some splatters in the field so it won't look too smooth and plain. This is our final painting. I hope you had fun doing this exercise. Don't forget to share your work in the project section and let me know how was your experience. In the next lesson, we'll paint an autumn dried forest landscape and practice scratching techniques. 13. Day 6 Autumn Forest: Welcome to Day 6. Our painting prompt today is quite unique from our previous exercises because it's an autumn live landscape. We'll learn to portray the tree trunks through scratching and how to layer colors without making it look like a blob. Let's first draw the horizon line here below the midline. Next, the important part in our sketch here is the angle of the road. As you dry it, make a stroke as natural as possible so it won't look too stiff. The line should also not intersect with the corner of the paper. Lastly, draw some lines that will represent the position of the trees. Let's start painting. I get new gamboge with my mop brush and paint from the horizon going up. As they go off, I add water to my brush to make my stroke more fluid. Then I get cobalt violet and paint from top going down. I do quick strokes and wet the paper with enough paint. To make the purple color a bit stronger, I add a few deep sea violet into it. Next, I blend yellow and violet together by loading my brush with much water and do few horizontal stroke. I saw a puddle of yellow paint in my paper. I need to get rid of it or else it will create a watercolor bloom. I simply wash it off using my mop brush, so it will spread to the paper evenly. Next, I get brunch and now with lots of water and start painting area below the horizon. I did this so there won't be a hard yellow edge from the initial wash. After that, I get cobalt violet to paint the base wash off the road. I darken the part closest to us a bit more. Then using olive green, I paint both sides of the road. Here you can see that we treat the entire photo as one big shape. This is why we painted the first wash with the same tonal value. We will paint the elements of the landscape later on once we have finished setting up the initial mood or wash of the scene. I also splattered some paints here in the road for texture. I use purple for the road and green for the sides. Next, I take my round brush to paint the grass blades. I still use my green mix with indigo. It's okay if you don't get a detailed stroke since the initial wash is still moist. This step is just the second one, which is setting up the mid values. I vary the tone of green here. My stroke is very fast and repetitive, but they vary in height and not stiff. I'm getting cadmium orange, create a creamy mix of it with new gamboge and dab the tip of my brush on the paper. It's like creating impressions of orange plants behind. Next, I add some dark green paint in-between and also here in front. I maintain the same upward and downward strokes, but making it tiny as I get closer to the horizon line. I add some some more orangy splatters here in the road to unite all colors together. Using the same orange mix, I will paint trees in the background using the belly of my brush. I alternate colors when transitioning it to green then back to orange. Basically, I'm altering the ratio of colors in the mix to create color play. You will not paint each tree one-by-one, but just create an impression of the overall shape of the trees collectively. I darken the tone here in the base part. I use dark green color and still use the belly of the brush while holding it sideways. Here I'm adding a few colors and strokes in the middle part that quite look empty. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] I also add some more defined grass blade strokes since the paper is getting dry already. Using [inaudible] I need to connect this grass to the ground by painting some suggestive horizontal dots of paint. Next, since the paint has already been absorbed by the paper, it's a good time to do the scratching. Using my fingernail, I scratch vertical lines for the tree trunk. You'll know the timing is right when you achieve a nice clean scratch. If you see the paint flowing back to the scratch area, that means your paper is still so wet. You have to wait a little bit more for it to get moist. Here I scratch a number of lines over the trees. We can start painting them. Still using my round brush, I get a mix of brownish green color and paint the sides of the scratch just to create more contrast. I don't paint a straight brown line from end-to-end. Again, suggestive strokes are sufficient to create contrast. I get new gamboge and olive green, make the mixer thick and creamy so it will appear opaque. I spread the bristles of my brush and start rubbing it to the paper. I make darker shade and continued on painting trees using this stroke. The key here is to use a color thicker and darker than the color you have in the middle ground. This being the main tree in the right, I use yellow ocher and paint the tip of the tree. I do it the same way I paint our previous pine trees. I dab the tip of the brush and partly lay the belly to create thicker strokes. [MUSIC] I paint the lower part of the tree greenish and then I will add dots of yellow ocher as highlights. I partially cover the scratch trunk with paint so it would look more natural. Next, since the right side part look a bit empty as compared to the trees on the left, I'll add some leaves here in the upper right corner to complete the composition. I'll finish the painting with less few splatters, dots of paint in the road and ground, and then we are done. Our lesson will be our last exercise for the class. I'm so glad to have you this far. Let's combine all brushworks together and paint a very interesting plot in the next video. 14. Day 7 Old Tree: I'm so blessed to have you this far. This is our last and final painting prompt and I hope it has been a wonderful and insightful experience for you. For the last exercise we'll paint this landscape summarizing all techniques and brushwork we've taken throughout the course. Let's start the pencil sketch. I draw a slope here in the lower right for the hill and then the horizon line from the left. Next I draw an outline of the bushes, then the big tree trunk here in the rightmost side. [MUSIC] I make it big enough since it is our focal point. [MUSIC] I try to imitate the natural movement of the branches by doing shaky strokes. [MUSIC] I'm good with my sketch and we can start painting. I start with the sky fragment. I take new gamboge and shelby, I fully load my mop brush and do the horizontal washes starting from the horizon line. Next I blend perylene violet to my mix to get a purplish tone. [MUSIC] I continue painting the sky fragment, creating a play of color between my yellows and pink. [MUSIC] The secret here is to keep your stroke as brief and limited as possible so you get a fresh and nice layer of paint. The more you return on a painted layer and cover it with another color, the muddy or overworked it will look. I'll take the cobalt violet paint and paint it on the upper part of the sky. Notice that I don't paint right next to yellow because that will just cause a muddy mix. We need water to blend these two colors neatly. [MUSIC] As it gets closer to yellow, I load my brush with more water diluting the purple paint in my brush. I also deepen the purple tone here on the top part. [MUSIC] Using quick yet light strokes, I paint impression of clouds and make them thin and fluid strokes. You can paint this purple clouds while the sky fragment is still wet. If the paper is dry already you'll create hard, annoying edges or you'll create the watercolor blooms brought by a wet brush. [MUSIC] I think I'm good with the sky and will stop before I overdo it. Here I clean my brush and try to lift off paint using my damp brush. I'm lifting color to create glow of light in the sky. Next let's paint the ocean using the same purple mix. Remember how we painted the calm leg in Exercise 2 using dry brush stroke? We are basically doing the same thing here. [MUSIC] I want to retain the patches of unpainted paper to show glare of light on water. Now, let's paint the hill using new gamboge and olive green. [MUSIC] Paint the hill with brushstrokes directed to following the slope of the hill, notice that I started with a downward diagonal strokes and then transition to horizontal strokes to show the dimension of the hill. Remember to make the part closest to us through the darkest tone for depth. [MUSIC] Now I take my round brush and get cobalt violet and perylene violet. [MUSIC] I paint some more on the water fragment to deepen the tone. Next let's paint the brush behind the tree. Using the leftover paints in my palette, I'll try to create a muted green color. I take olive green, perylene violet, and indigo. [MUSIC] I make a creamy mix of paint, I rub my brush from right to the mid part of the paper and paint the general shape of the bush. [MUSIC] I mix a bit of new gamboge to my existing mix to paint the crowns of the bush with a lighter tone. [MUSIC] Here I'm trying to lift the color with my round brush since I covered the portion of the tree trunk. Next I splatter some paints in the foreground so it won't look too plain. I use my leftover green paints for this. [MUSIC] I get cobalt violet and paint the lighted portion of the tree. [MUSIC] This is the left side part of the trunk and branches. [MUSIC] Then using brunch and then cobalt violet and a bit of indigo, I paint the trunk with this dark brown color. I need to make the mix very thick so it will pop out from the background. [MUSIC] Since I can't make the fine strokes because the paper is still wet, I use my heat gun to dry the paper first. I continue painting the portion of the trunk. [MUSIC] To paint these branches and twigs, I use the tip of my brush and paint it with very minimal pressure. [MUSIC] If you find it hard to control the pressure on your brush, I recommend using a smaller brush or a liner brush. [MUSIC] I make my strokes wiggly and shaky to create a natural impression. [MUSIC] Sometimes I also tap the paint with my finger to fade the color out. [MUSIC] As we paint the twigs, the tone has to be very light as well. But as we paint the trunk and branches, both can have a bit of darker tone. [MUSIC] I take Payne's gray and mix it with my brown to get a deep dark brown color. I need this dark tone to make the tree look more alive. We need to create high contrast between the lighted portion of the tree and the dark portion of the tree in shadow so it will appear dimensional. Here I'm just enhancing the overall shape of the trunk making some parts thicker and proportionate. [MUSIC] Then I get ice blue and cobalt violet and paint it on the lighted portions of the trunk as highlight. [MUSIC] I dab this opaque paint on some areas of the lighted portion only. [MUSIC] Careful not to overdo it so it won't look awkward. It's best to be placed as dots on the trunk portion and also in some twigs and branches. [MUSIC] Make sure to pause from time to time, take a step back, and look at your work from a distance to see if you're putting too much details already and it's better off to stop. [MUSIC] I believe our painting is done, I'll stop from here and let it completely dry. Wow, can you imagine you are done with the seven painting exercises. Congratulations. It has been a jam-packed lesson. We've covered a lot of things from practical strategies, brushworks, color mixing with the limited color palette to a variety of ways to apply them in different painting subjects. I hope you continue practicing so you successfully loosen up your painting style. It's normal to sometimes feel unhappy about your work but don't let that stop you from practicing. Your practice is never in vain. I'll see you in the final video for some tips to keep you growing. [MUSIC]. 15. Continue The Journey: [MUSIC] First of all, thank you so much for joining me the entire week to create this landscape paintings and congratulations on your amazing works. I can't wait to see your painting, so don't forget to take a photo of your work and upload them in the projects and resources section. I also encourage you to share your work on Instagram and please follow and tag me at Biancarayala and Skillshare at Skillshare. That way I can like, comment and share your work on my Instagram stories. If you enjoyed my class, please leave a review even if it's short and sweet, I really get encouraged reading through your kind reviews, what you liked about my class, how it inspired you and helped you in your journey. Your review also helps my class get more attraction here on Skillshare. I really appreciate your support. You can leave your review once you have finished watching the entire class under the video, you'll see the review tab. Click the Leave review green button, then you can simply click your rating from the options. Lastly, I have a few other classes that they'd like to recommend. If you'd like to take your skills to the next few steps while continuing the daily habit of painting few minutes a day, I have two different classes available. First is Watercolor Travel: Develop Your Style in 14 Days of Landscape Painting. This is one of my most popular classes out there. If you haven't already watched it. It is a super fun class where you'll go through 14 days of self-discovery practice and watercolor exploration as we paint diverse landscapes from 14 amazing destinations around the world. When you are done, you can continue the series and join Part 2 of the class, which is watercolor travel, build a habit in 14 days of landscape painting. Next up, if you want to go slow and discover a fun way to relax and play with watercolor, you can try Free-Flow Watercolors: 7 Days of Relaxing Landscape Painting. It is a beginner friendly class where you learn to enjoy creating without fear that go off the need to control the outcome and discover fun new relationships between water and pigment, as we experiment, observe, and play. One more class to recommend is Watercolor Landscapes: Painting with Modern Watercolor Techniques. This is another favorite. You'll learned modern watercolor techniques, gain hands-on understanding of the fundamentals of watercolor and learn to paint landscapes in a way that captures the mood and atmosphere. Well, that's a wrap for today. Don't forget to click the follow button up on top to follow me on Skillshare and be the first to know about my next classes and international giveaways, exclusive for my Skillshare students and followers. Thank you so much for joining me. See you in my other classes.