Watercolor Landscape - A Guide to Develop Your Own Style

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Many of us always wonder how so many artists develop their own style. Many years of painting, hard work, and practice is the only answer. Usually taking years to happen. But can we fast forward that process? My answer is yes, with some guidance. Hey, guys, I am Dhritikana Nath, the artists instructor, a mother and a business owner of VibrantParcels where we make handmade sketchbooks, brush roll, pouches, etc. In case you don't know me and are joining me for the first time, I go by the name watercolor.llustration.letter on Instagram. Most of my artwork is displayed over there. I'm a strong believer that no one can teach us our style. It's a voice from within. But what can be surely do is experimenting and trying different style of painting. It starts from the basic choosing the colors, which makes your painting look aesthetic as well as vibrant. Then we will deep dive into six styles. The four are majorly on hybrid, and two of them are just basic techniques; wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. You exactly know how to move from one style of painting, supposedly from single heavy washes as you are observing me doing it right now to multiple layers for completing your painting. There is a quick use of ink and white wash so that it gives you a feel of illustration. I always love to paint nature. That's one of the reasons I have chosen landscape as my topic. All the six paintings are unique in itself, had they are organized in an increasing order of difficulty level. I would request each one of you to attempt each of these paintings in a similar way. We are going to keep everything very simple, real-time so that all of you can follow and paint along with me. Lastly, if you are waiting to figure out your own voice and watercolor painting, grab your art supplies, and join me know. [MUSIC] 2. Project Overview: Hi guys. Let's just understand how you have to attempt your projects, how you have to go about the class. The projects are about six of them there. Though, you can attempt any of them, but I would request you all to go step-by-step. This is the first project. We are going to paint lighthouse northern lights. It is going to be a simple project where we are doing more of wet on wet. Once we are done with the wet-on-wet, we would move on to the next project where we are combining [inaudible] wet on dry, with wet on wet. That's how we go about it. here you will see more of the sky area which is wet on wet, more of the watery area that is wet on wet and then there is some of these mountains. This is majorly do not wet on dry method. Yes, that's how we go about in the second painting. The third painting and the fourth painting are quite similar. I would say there is more of a combination of wet on wet and wet on dry. Though, I would request you to take it like this. We will attempt the wooden pathway. In the wooden pathway, most of the parts are done wet on wet. One part, which is your mountains, is done in layers and this is the first layer which is really light. Then you see a darker layer, then you see the darkest layer. So here we start understanding how to go about adding layers for wet-on-dry method. As well as there are some details that you have added for the wooden pathway. Once we are done with this, we would come to a bit more complex one. Here there's the sky area. I had a real difficulty while painting the sky where I had to apply two or three layers of water. One was drying and then again, I added the layer of water. Then I painted the sky a bit more and once again, my sky was dry. I again, added one more layer and then painted the outward part. That was the challenge which I faced for the sky area. Rest I think everything is absolutely fine. We will work with the white parts of the mountains and we will add layers onto it. The first would be a lighter value and the last would be the darkest value that you'll also think you would be in a position to see that we have two layers in it. The same goes for your snow area. We have applied one layer and then we have gone ahead with a layer of lighter value, though this is snow, lighter value colors, have only being used. Then there's a small hat on the left, or you can say a small bond, whichever you're more comfortable with, we would be drawing it and as for perspective, you will observe the mountains in the background, which is smaller in size compared to the bond, the snow which is the more bigger in size. This really helps to set the perspective well, as well as here I have explained that we are not going to draw the horizon line exactly just in the middle of the paper. We are going to follow the rule of thoughts and how you do it, etc, is well-explained later on also in the projects. Once we are done with this, then is our second last project and here, you are going to learn more about how you paint these beautiful mountains with so much texture. Now, the textures are being done in a very simple and easy way. It is majorly adding layers. You go with the lightest value, then one more darker value, one more darker value. This way you can go in many layers possible. The sky is somewhere closer to the wet on wet method. I would be using two colors for this majorly the horizon blue as well as your [inaudible] blue, or else you can even go ahead with the blue. So anything is perfectly fine for the sky area. Adding a few birds would really make the painting look more complete and it just adds more life to the painting. I would say this is the sunrise and Julian Alps Slovenia. This is one of my favorite paintings still date. Here we learn a lot. The sky is done in a wet on dry technique. The mountains are done wet on dry. As well as everything that you also have over here is done in a wet on dry method. We are completely moving from a wet on wet method, that is our first painting, to a complete wet on dry method in our next, or in the last painting. That's the transition that you observe from your first painting to your last painting. Along with it, you even get to understand what is your style. If you are more comfortable with a wet-on-wet method, you carry on with the wet-on-wet method but if you are becoming more comfortable with a wet-on-dry method, go ahead and try out more pictures, photos, references from various websites to paint your own. I think as an artist, it's very important to know exactly which is the method that you'd like to follow or is it a combination that you would like to follow? Now why I say this? It would help you to build your own style. It would help you to build your own voice so that it would help you to become one of the standard part artists compared to the other artists who are already there. I think I have told a lot about how we are moving on to the projects and what is the way we would move from a wet on wet to wet on dry method. You can attempt any project, but most of the projects are done in an increasing level of difficulty so I would request you to go in that way and proceed in that way. This can be on phase taken as a postcard size painting so I cannot tell you the size of this which I have used. [NOISE] This one is close to about a bit more than six inches and this would be even longer. I think it is close to your 15 and then it would be around 7.5. It is around 22.5 centimeter over this side and about 15.5 centimeter on this side. You can choose any size of paper, whichever you think is good for you. There is no hard in first rule of going ahead and using the same size of paper. Let's move on to the next lesson where we will discuss about the materials. 3. Materials Required: Let's walk through all the materials that we need for completing the painting. The first is a paper. I'm using Arches 300 GSM cold pressed paper. You can go for Fabriano or any other paper that is available with you. Try to get cold-pressed so that you have less tooth, whereas do not go for completely plain [LAUGHTER] that is hot pressed surface. We need a bit of tooth for this purpose. I will show you exactly how it looks. This is the texture of the paper and all the paintings are done on it. [NOISE] These are the paintings that are being done on the same paper. Once we are sorted with the paper, we have to tape it down on something. I'm taking an acrylic sheet. You can go for any other board that is available with you. Along with it, you will need a tape to tape down your paper, an eraser, then a pen. Keep a pen handy for yourself. We would need it for doing some final sketches. Then there is a scale that you need, Size 6 Escoda brush. Though the tip looks a bit like this, but then you add water onto it and then use it, this would get absolutely straight. You can do it like this and see it for yourself. It's a beautiful brush that I've been using for many years now, and it is Escoda Optimo brush. [LAUGHTER] I think even the writing is already gone. It's a Size 6 brush. Then Size 8 silver black velvet brush. Again, the writing is going away now. This is Size 2 Perla Escoda brush, Size 6 or you can keep Size 4 Perla Escoda brush. If you have Size 6, then do not keep this one. You can go ahead with only one of them and keep a Size 4 round brush along with it and half an inch wash brush for yourself. We will need a pencil to sketch. This is really important for our paintings. Tissue. You have to lift off any paints. You will see how I have made some of the mistakes and the tissue has come really handy in those cases. Two jars of water as you observe me using it regularly for my paintings. One jar for washing all the brushes, another jar for fresh supply. Then I have a huge box where I keep all my tubes. Some of my other stuff too. I use it very often for my paintings. Now, there are a lot of cubes over here, you don't need all of them. I have even golden color over here. You don't need each one of them, but you have to have an idea of what to use for your final paintings. All these six projects will have about various different kinds of colors. Some of them are done with limited palette and some of them are done with many colors. I would list each one of them down before we start with every project. That's all I have from all the supplies that you need. We will move on to the next lesson where you will know a lot more about how you can approach the subject and how the color theory can come to your help. 4. Color Theory: In our color theory we are not only going to discuss our traditional color mixing way but we will add whites, we will add our blacks to make different shades for our neutral saltwater darker values. This might look really boring to you but believe me this is the base when you are thinking about colors. It's a very small way how you read this color wheel card. Select the color on the outside wheel. If you are selecting a color supposedly red, and then align it with the color on the inside of the wheel and I want any other sheet supposedly I want to add blue to it. See, the mixture appears on the window. How my red and blue will give the color is appearing over here. How red, violet and yellow will give the color is around yellow ocher, violet plus red would give you the color which is some amount of purple. Adding some white to your red orange will give you a pitch beach of a color. To your orange when you add some black, you will get a dark ocher, yellow kind of a color, a doty mix. These are the colors that you usually get and this is how you read. Now, let me tell you how I exactly see it. As for the basic there are only three colors, which are known as a primary colors. That is, your blue over here, then your red over here, and your yellow over here. You cannot have these color or you cannot mix these colors, this needs to be the base swipe all the other colors. When you mix more amount of yellow with your blue, you get this yellow green. Then you add more amount of blue to your yellow, you'll get this green. If you have more amount of blue compared to your yellow, you'll get this blue-green color. This is very close to the turquoise color that I have been using for a lot of my paintings. You'll get a beautiful blue violet when you mix more of blue and very tiny amount of your red. If you mix some amount of your blue and 50 percent of your red, then you get the violet and over here you get the red violet. Now, this is basically your warm shade and this is basically your cool shades. You can really understand red violet is a warm shade, red is a warm shade, red orange is a warm shade orange yellow, yellow. These most often is the warm colors that you can have and these are basically your cool colors that you should have. Now, let's try to just replicate what we have seen. I have a sennelier palette, and this is the orange sennelier that we have, this is the rouge vermilion. I can go with ultramarine deep, then your lemon yellow and your vermilion to create the other colors. Let's just add it as our base. Let's go ahead and first add our yellow. Now, this is the yellow that I have. Now let's just add some amount of our red which is basically kind of vermilion that is being called in this particular shades of the red that I can have. Now you can go ahead with any colors of your choice from the yellow, red, and the blue family. I would take some amount of my blue, it is major in my ultramarine. Then I would create these dots. If I add this blue with only some amount of a drop of yellow, I will get this beautiful green. More amount of blue, less amount of yellow and I get this dark, neutral green over here. I really love this color. This looks really cool and nice. You can use it for your forest, you can use it for any other purpose. Let me mix some more amount of my yellow into this to get this green. Now, this is the light green that you can have. If you add some more amount of yellow into your green, you will have this warm green kind of a shade. I usually use this shade a lot for another one lights and for many other paintings. Now let's go ahead with some of our blue. Again, I will first take some blue on my brush and then add very small amount of red into it to get more of this neutral violet kind of a shade. Once I have this, let's just add some more amount of our red into this. I think this is just a lot of red that I have added so yeah. Now I have this red violet kind of a color but this is again more on the red side and this looks more cooler compared to other shades that we usually observe. Let's add some more amount of red into it and you'll get a beautiful shade like this one very close to the red family that you have already added. Once this part is completely done, we will go ahead and add some red again into water and a bit of our illuminate, you just add some more amount of water to get this shade of orange. You can see there is a beautiful shade of orange which we have created. Go ahead and add some more yellow into it. Let's apply this warm orange on our paper. I can see this, add some more yellow to it. A nice peach shade that are always like, adding some are yellow to it. You see this so warm, so beautiful. This is how you mix on your palette and then apply it on your paper. I have another way in which I go and add my colors like I would go ahead and add some amount of my yellow and then have some amount of palette on the base. Just how you can create and check your colors. Let's do it once more. We will take some yellow again, then we'll add some blue, applying it on the paper. Now, if you are really advanced as an artist, I think this works best for you. In case you are starting out with your watercolor journey, I would ask you to go ahead with this particular exercise and then go ahead and try these out. Let's try it once more how we can apply our blue. This time on the top, red we will apply from the bottom. This is mixed up some amount of blue with red. Again, you see how the colors are. If you go more towards the blue, you will see this shade whereas if you go more on the red side, you will see neutral and more reddish shades. Let's repeat this again. I'm taking some blue. Let these colors match into each other. That's one thing you can always see that how these colors match, that's exactly how you will get the beauty of the colors. That's exactly how you get to see how they work and flow into each other. That's a really important exercise as a watercolor artist, I must say that they should flow into each other. The more blue I add while I go towards the yellow part, the lighter it would be. Let's see. You see how the colors are moving into each other. See this one you get such beautiful tones over here. If I give you a closer look, you can see how beautifully the shades are appearing over here. The middle part of these tones are really interesting. Again, the middle part of this, you can also have the middle part of this. Again, this one. I guess that's what is the most important part. If you are mixing on the paper, you have to be a bit more experienced with watercolors and how you get it. I would like to tell you a bit more about adding some white into your colors. Now, this is a very interesting exercise. Many of you might not be using your white very often but there are times where we need to meet some colors and adding white can give you the beauty of the color that we actually need. Now there are two kind of whites that are available in the market. One is your opaque white, that is also called as titanium white, and the other one is your transparent white, also called as the Chinese white. These are two kind of colors I prefer using titanium white or else I can even use white gouache. Now both of these gives me a beautiful shade. I will tell you exactly how I use it. I would pull up some of my white color that is already there. This is basically my titanium white I add to my orange shade over here and then try getting our shade. Once I've got the shade, I will add some more amount of white to get another shade. Let's add some more amount of white to get one more. Now, this is highly used when you are working with skies. You just need a bit experimentation with the colors that you are using. I think that will really help you to ace your game all together every time you do not need to own up different kind of colors or different types of tubes you do not need to buy. Just make your own shade and then paint it. You see how the colors are changing. This is more on the orange side, then it become more like peach and from peach it becomes absolutely dull orange color. Do you want to repeat this exercise? Let's repeat it even with some amount of yellow now, or let's just try to make a green and then from green we will get to the other shades that you really want. Adding a lot of blue into it to get this shade of green, very neutral and nice shade. I would add some amount of my white into it and get this color. This looks so pretty good adding some white. There are a few more things that I want to tell you is, if you add any white to your pigment that is already there, it is called a stint. When you are working with one single shade and creating different values of that color, which means basically making it more lighter with water, those are the values that you get within a color. Another name for a color is hue. If you add some black into your color, we will get various shades. We will also experiment with that, do not worry. In the meanwhile, I was just talking to you about these few things which came to my mind, adding more and more white to it. This is such a beautiful color that you see over here. It's absolutely transparent. You can practically see the color, how it is changing, and how beautiful it is. We will create some more shades of this. So many of us do not like to create shades with white. I'm not sure exactly why. I just make sure that they are transparent enough. They are nice. Every time, do not need to go ahead and buy your colors, experiment with whatever you have. Let's add some black to our red shade. I am taking some red shade on my palette. Now, what I best have for closer to the black color on my palette is Payne's gray. Let me go ahead with that. I always love to use the same color that is available. Now, I have added a bit of my Payne's gray into it. Let's add some more Payne's gray, and let's create the neutral colors, which we love to use. Now, this red is a really, really warm shade. We can even make cooler tones in it. You can add some amount of your black into it and then see that it becomes more on the cool side. You see how my shades have changed completely, going from my red to changing it more like a red crimson. This is really important to understand. We have played with the whites, we are playing with a black now. Many might say that, "Okay. Why are you playing with a black?" But it's a very, very interesting color, and you must use it for your neutral tones. I use it very often, and I really get beautiful colors from there. Let's see some of our color definitions as we have already walked through the warm shades, the cool shades, as well as how we can use white to our advantage. There are a few color definitions that you must know. As I've told you, what are the primary colors? It is red, yellow, blue. They cannot be mixed with any other colors; secondary colors, that is orange, green, and violet. Now, this is the violet color that I was talking about. This is the orange color that we have, and this is the green color that you have created, there are many shades that you've created. Aggressive colors. Now, aggressive colors are majorly your red, oranges, and yellow. They are from the warm side and receding colors are, you can even say cooler tones are green, blues, and violets. This is the basic of your color theory, and you must know this. This might be an old traditional theory, but believe me, this is the base for all my paintings. When I choose my colors, I usually go with either the same warm shade or else, I will go with the opposite color. Like if I choose yellow with it, I would love to choose my violet with it, and I would love to choose some amount of my orange with it. That's how I go about choosing my colors. If I'm choosing light green, then I might go ahead and choose some amount of the darker red violet kind of shade with it, or else, if I have to paint my grounds, I would majorly use all the greens that I have over here. In case I want to paint my sky, I have already told you that these are the shades I go ahead with, or else, I might go with these shades altogether. That is my blue to red if I mix all these colors, I would take. If I have to create contrast, then I would like to go ahead with the yellow and the blue that I really like to create the contrast with for the sky area or even for the water area. I can even go close to opposite on it, and I might choose a color like this. This one and this one over here. These are the colors that I might choose for my painting of the sky area that looks very beautiful, as well as for my grounds. I like to add some amount of my darker tones. That is adding some of our blues, or you can say red-violet kind of tones with our greens over here. That's how I go about my painting, and that's how I choose my colors. I again, use a lot of whites for my water or for my skies, and this is how I get it. I would go ahead and take some amount of white into my already existing red-orange color on the palette, and then mix it to get a shade like this one. This is a very beautiful and pretty shade. In case you are using it for the sky, it will not react to give you those dirty blacks or dirty neutral colors which we want to avoid for a sky area. Again, another important aspect of watercolor painting is always, always check your colors on the paper before you apply it on the final painting. This is really important as a concept to follow, or else, you might get dirty sheets at the end of the painting. There are a possibility that some of the colors might mix with each other and give some amount of textures, or you might say they usually break, and they give some kind of granulation, which we usually want to avoid. You can also work with granulating colors. They have some minerals into which so they granulate. I try to avoid it. If I am working for a beginner or if I am working as an intermediate-level artist, those are the two things that I like to avoid. If you are an advanced-level artist, then you are really pro with all of it. You just know what to apply. Go ahead and try it. Let's move on to our next lesson now. 5. Techniques: Hey guys, this is one of the templates which is going to help anyone who is a beginner, intermediate, or an advanced level artist to understand these three beautiful techniques which is wet on wet, wet on dry, and a hybrid between wet on wet and wet on dry. If you are an advanced and intermediate artist, you can just watch and enjoy. In case you are starting out with your journey, I would really love you to take a printout of this and try working through it in this class at a spare time and you can follow along with me. First, go ahead and apply some water on the paper. Once you have applied an even layer of water, we will start applying some colors. I have taken horizon blue or aqua green for this painting. So go ahead and start applying the horizon blue compose with anything that you have, it's just not a requirement that you need to have this particular column. It's a simple flat wash that you are trying to do. Now, again, if you are not very well versed with flat wash, that's absolutely fine. Just try and apply some paint on top of the water that you have already applied on the paper. Every paper is different and you might not get an even wash. That's absolutely okay. It is just a practice exercise which I want you guys to take before the final experiment or before the final paintings we'll do. Once we are done with the first one, that is a wet on wet, we will move on to wet on dry. I would first like to tell you how a wet on wet is different than wet on dry. If your paper is wet and you are applying some paint, it's wet on wet. If your paper is not wet and you were just applying some wet paints on top of a dry paper, it's wet on dry. That's the absolute layman terms of explaining wet on wet and wet on dry. These two methods are the basis for all the hybrid paintings that we're going to do. Where we will be using a lot of these techniques but in our own way. In few of the areas we would be working wet on wet and few of the selected areas, we would be working on wet on dry. On wet on dry, we will even work in layers. We will start with absolute wet on wet and once we are done with wet on wet completely, we will move on to an absolute wet on dry, so there is a full transition and you will understand from the first painting to the last painting, that is the sixth painting. In-between, there will be four different styles of painting where there is a movement from wet on wet, wet on dry. We are using 70 percent of the paper where we are applying wet on wet and 30 percent is wet on dry. Then the next one, where it has 50/50 ratio, we're using both of these techniques. Then the next where there is about 70/30 you're using. Then last one where you move on to an absolute 100 percent wet on dry. The second last one that we have is more about 10 percent usage of your wet on wet and rest of everything is wet on dry. Overall, when you have this kind of a hybrid model, it would help you to develop your own style and understand what is the way you want to move forward in your painting style. When we keep working with wet on wet, let's just see how you can do variegated washes. Variegated washes is nothing but just applying two different colors and blending it together. Now you can do variegated washes either in wet on wet or you can do variegated washes in wet on dry. We will experiment with both of them. Like I have told you, flat wash, it was majorly about applying one flat color on top of your paper. You might get an absolute flat wash, you might not get. I'm not here to ask you to get to the finest stuff. Just has something which is closer to the one that we are trying to achieve. From the top, I apply the horizon blue and from the bottom I'm going ahead and applying my aqua green. Now this aqua green is from the [inaudible] you can go ahead with any other green or blue that is available on your palate. It can be also that yellow, green, blue that you have, anything that is available that's is fine. You can go ahead with two different blue colors to experiment with it. You have to get an absolute simple and clean blend within these. Though again, as I said, we are not going to go ahead and see that we have got the perfect blend, we have got that perfect requirement. It's just an exercise where you get to understand these two techniques in a better way. Here we're not going to apply any water before we apply the paints, we start with the paints and blend the colors only with the paints. From the top, we go ahead and start applying our horizon blue or compost blue, whatever you want to use. From the bottom, we will go ahead with aqua green and blend it with the color that you have applied from the top. Again, the whole intent will remain just to blend and get our two separate colors giving one single variegated wash. While you do wet on wet and wet on dry, you will observe one single common thing. When you directly apply your pigments on the paper, it would give you a more vibrant painting. Whereas if you were going with wet on wet, you will get one or two shade lighter compared to the colors that you are choosing. That's one of the important observations and that's one of the important note depending on what you select for your painting. Now, how you go about your style? If you're going with a wet-on-wet style, you need to know that it would be lighter in value. Whereas if you are going ahead with wet on dry style, you have to note that you might get some darker values. If you are using a very dark pigment, quarrels, you might have to apply a lot of water before you apply for any small area or you are working with something lighter value, then you need to apply a lot of water into your pigments as you keep on applying it on the paper. This is basically a wet-on-wet technique, but we will go ahead and mix some uneven lines to give the ripple formation. It is very important for one of our paintings. That's one of the reason I have added it, as well as it would help you to understand how you can blend a wet on wet with wet on dry. The first layer of your painting is wet on dry, where you are practically applying a single layer of color on top of your paper and your paper is not wet. Once the paper has become wet enough, we will go ahead and apply some of our darker values into it, which is majorly your wet on wet concept. We are going from wet on dry to wet on wet concept and that's the beauty and that's the hybrid model which I always say. You can move along, you can see what works best for you. Do these techniques and all of these we know, but to differentiate it in order to develop a style. It's important to understand how you move between these. If you are going wet on wet, then you might not want to work with wet on dry or else if you're going wet on dry, you might not like to work with wet on wet. All of these all together might have a different impact on your style. That's one of the reasons of differentiating it one after another. As I always say, it's important to differentiate and understand how you are getting to your own style. This as I've told you, is already available as a PDF. You can download it and you can use it for your techniques spot, or else you can even draw it with your hands and use it as, I would leave that decision up to you. The last part of the painting or the last part of this wet on wet and wet on dry is more hybrid in terms of we will go from wet on wet to wet on dry. I am applying one wet layer that is majorly one layer of [inaudible] water on top of the paper. Once I have applied this layer, then I would go ahead and start applying my blue. Now the blue, you can either do a flat wash or else you can even do a variegated wash. I would leave that decision up to you how you want to go about it. I would like to make it a bit more complex and start with my darkest value, that is, your aqua green, mix some white spaces or leave some white spaces in between and keep applying these smaller lines and it would look like ripples. Though I did apply some water, still this gives a very beautiful and nice outlook. Once we are done with this part, go ahead and apply some horizon blue on top of this part. These two colors were merging to each other and you will practically not even know about it is a wet on wet technique that we are doing. Once that part is done, I would allow this paper to dry for a while and then only go ahead with my other values. Though I'm still playing on the paper which is wet, once this paper is completely dry, we have to play with our wet on dry method. That is a very, very interesting part which I'm going to tell you. We are going to do another hybrid over here, where we apply only water and then went ahead with our sky and our waters [inaudible] rather than doing one first and going ahead with the next later on. Go ahead and take some darker value of our aqua green and then apply small-small lines for our water. We have already applied one layer of water. Then we went ahead with our wet-on-wet technique. Once this paper is dry, we are going ahead with this layer of wet on dry completely. You see how the model has changed from a wet on dry to wet on wet in the earlier one that we tried and here it is wet on wet to wet on dry. You can practically move between these two different kinds of styles and create so many different ways of painting and adopt any one type of the painting as your style. This is a guidance altogether, the whole of this. I would say the exercises that we're going to do as I'm a firm believer that you need to work to your exercises to understand what you really like and what you really want to experiment with as your [inaudible] Yes, I think we are good to go. You are all ready now to start with your lesson about painting with watercolors. If you are even a beginner, go ahead, give this class a try as it's going to help you in your long run as well as you can come back to all of these projects in your future to create your own style. It can provide you guidance for any of your future projects altogether. I'll meet you in the next lesson. 6. Project 1 Light House: Let's talk about the colors that you need for completing the painting. It is bright yellow green, Prussian blue, Paynes gray, yellow, and burnt Sienna. This is going to be our first project and I would like to tell you one thing that we are going to paint one of the most, I would say wanted topics of every year. It's about painting night sky and then lights. I hope all of you are equally excited the way I am. Along with it, we have to first understand how to draw our horizon line. Now, there is a very simple rule which I follow and it is the rule of thoughts. I never placed my horizon line in the middle. I always try to place it either a bit towards the top or a bit towards the bottom area. Now, placing your horizon line just in the middle might give you a very different look into your painting. But yes, there are specific paintings where we even do those things. But putting this rule together would really help you to ease through any of your landscape projects pretty easily. I'm making a very crooked line, Why? Because it is a mountain. Mountain look, which we want to give. Of course, they are not actually mountains, they're close to being hills. You can say small little hills. Then there's a lighthouse by the ocean. There a lot of places where you have this line mountains as plus your water area of a close by. I have seen talent where I get this a look as well as I have gone to marshes, so where I have even seen these things. Yeah, I must say there are various areas. There are various places on this earth which has this combination. This was specifically from my mind that I wanted to paint something that has all of this in it. That's where the whole of the idea generated and I could figure out a photo on Pinterest and from Pinterest and from my idea, we could figure out this Northern Lights painting. Yeah, you might see many photographs on Pinterest, but I usually don't exactly copy those ideas. I like to put something of my own before I go ahead and paint them, as they are mostly copyrighted and we don't want to get into the issue of copyrights. That's always a problem. Okay, let's make a small lighthouse. This lighthouse is pretty small compared to what you would like to see usually on a sea side. We're absorbing it from a distance. That's the reason of the same. Once you are done with the lighthouse, just add a small window. Even on the bottom side add your windows wherever possible. Once done, we are going to mask this out. Now, why are we going to mask this out? As we do not want our colors from the sky to get into it. We would be working with more brown and burnt sienna shades as well as there is a possibility that because we will have the yellow of the sky, then your burnt sienna, it might give us some muddy look, or as even from the view from the sky will make it look more like a Van **** brown rather than the burnt sienna which we want. Yes, going forward, I must say that this is the only reason I would like to mask this area. You can either use a masking fluid or you can use a masking tape like I am doing to tape down this area. Very simple process. Once you are done with that, go ahead and just add some water on the entire art of the paper or on the entire area of the paper that you are using, then go with the lightest value. This is the bright yellow green. I love to play with water, that's one of the reasons I wanted to show you the shift that I have made going from wet-on-wet to wet on dry. This was one of the perfect class where I did feel that it can really help you guys to achieve or who are wanting to achieve something in wet-on-dry and now struggling because they have always worked mostly wet on wet. Yes, those are the reasons or those are the major factors behind me teaching this particular class and actually telling you how to walk through wet on dry even if you have paper which is less than 300gsm. Because on wet-on-dry, you can really work on even lesser gsm paper, which is a 100 percent cotton. That's absolutely fine to work around with those. Yes, all of this put together, I think it is going to be a great opportunity for you all. Now, let's just understand the how I'm applying this blue. My bluest Prussian blue, I love to add this color. The yellow, that is a bright yellow green. It is from Sennelier. Then I'm adding some Payne's gray. Now this Payne's gray is from Mijello Mission Gold. That's one of the reasons that it doesn't move much and I don't want even a lot of movement for this one, so let it be as it is. It is easier to paint the sky that way. Now the sky will take a lot of time, guys. I can tell you that because I have gone through it to get that perfect length, to get that perfect color. It just takes a lot out of you. That's one of the reasons I would like you guys to be patient over here and as well as try to just have a good paper if you are working wet-on-wet. I have been stressing on this for quite some time to all my other classes that I've taken. I stress upon the fact that we should use good paper, rough grain or cold press doesn't matter. You should have a 100 percent cotton paper. That's what matters the most. I like to go with less grain paper. That's the one which I'm using right now. As well as this paper, I have cut out the sides as I wanted something more which looks like a postcard and which I can send over to my friends on their birthdays or on their special occasions. I'll just take as a travel wire. I think those are the things which you can look forward to in case you are going ahead and seeing something like Northern Lights. This class is going to really, really help you. I'm using more of bigger brushes, in this case, Size 8, silver black velvet brush. I'm using it to blend my colors. You can use anything else to even work this out. Now it's not a very difficult way to work it out. I must say, it's going to be really easy and fun exercise for all of us. Why you are going ahead and doing this painting? I would love to tell you one important aspect of watercolors and one important aspect that I follow with Northern Lights, I add lots of water. Along with lots of water, there's less of pigments. I love to play with water when it is about painting Northern Lights. There are so many of you who have asked me how do I get that beautiful blend of the sky. The more and more water I apply, the better blend I get and those smoother other effects. How to smoothen up more and more, I must say, add water, and then only add your colors. The better you think about adding the colors. Just think that, okay, how can I do it in a better way? Add water then add color, add water, add colors. I can say that's the best way because none of the papers can stay wet for 30 minutes. It's something that is very, very difficult to achieve. Yes, if you are ready to put some amount of water here and there, and then again blend it. Those are the things that I do to achieve this beautiful blend. Many of you might even think that I am going a bit overboard with it, but believe me, once you get the final output, you will seriously understand that there is nothing like overboard. You will see how this water floats on my page and how all of this painting comes together. Seriously, the smoother or the softer edges which are always have, there is nothing called a soft edge. But the softer colors, and the beautiful outcome that you can get with wet-on-wet technique. I can say those effects you usually can't see when you are working wet-on-dry. But there are other things that you can always achieved through wet-on-dry technique, like painting mountains or painting any other cityscape, painting any other urban sketching. Those are the areas where you can work more wet-on-dry. I think there is always this transition that is important for an artist to understand both of these together. If you are working well with wet on wet, it's always good to even try something in wet on dry because that wet on dry would really give you an outcome of how you can achieve even difficult aspects that you might have always tried to avoid. Just think in a different direction and think how you can achieve those things which you have never tried. It's more about challenging yourself. It's more about how to achieve different effects, different textures, different blending. All of this put together in watercolor. Each and every day is always a challenge in watercolor, it's never going to be very simple. It's not going to be very easy. Believe me, the whole of the painting of the sky took about 15 minutes of time at least. It is difficult to keep the paper wet for such a long period of time. When I applied water, I did apply it two times so that it becomes easier for me to paint when I am adding my colors. In few of the areas wherever I think there is more of blue and less of bright yellow green that I've added earlier, I would go ahead and add it again. There are things that I do on iterative or repetitive basis. That's absolutely fine. There will be a few things which you will miss out and there will be a few things which you will not. Always go with the flow. There is something that I've learned about watercolor is going with the flow. Every time you will get something or the other, which is different only if you go with the flow only if you partner with this medium. Let watercolors guide you, than you guiding watercolors. I'm cleaning the edges. Cleaning of edges is always very important process. If you do not do this, there will be backgrounds. Now, what do you mean by background? Water will flow into your paper again. Because of that, you might get some cauliflower effect, which we really don't want. In this painting we want very smooth and beautiful blend. That's what is required. Let's go ahead and just have a look at it once it is dry and just keep painting along with me. Hold on. This is going to be another level experience. Believe me. You will find something that is really amazing through this painting. You can seriously create wonders. You will understand how easily and how beautifully something can work for you. I'm adding some more of my Prussian blue along with a bit of Payne's gray. If you see it is a bit darker in combination when you have a look at it. Yes. Now you can have a closer look. I did show you how my paper is looking now and still it is wet, you see. That's the beauty of using Arches paper. I guess I have figured that this is one of the most beautiful papers that I've worked till now. I don't have any complaints from it. There has been so many times where I have loved working this paper more and more. Every time I paint on it, more every time I do understand that this is something that is really amazing and I don't know the quality of delivery is so good that you can keep it wet for such long period of time that you get so much of the time for your paintings and how you can go well with the wet on wet technique. But for the wet on dry, you always do not need this paper. I can tell you that because I would be teaching you each and everything about painting with wet on wet as well as on wet on dry. Wet on dry, if you have even 185 GSM Arches paper that's good enough. We will need quick drying and this takes quite a lot of time to dry. If you are going out and painting in the open area or somewhere you are doing urban sketching. I would say wet on dry is a very good method to go ahead with as it would be very quick to walk around, as well as turning your photos or turning what you see into your painting would be a real quick and easy process that way. Once we are done, we would just have a final look at it and then go ahead and start painting our hills. I will show you exactly how I make my mistakes. Why as I am trying to just stop with some color to have an effect? Yes, I did not like it so I'm blending it. This is how you will do your mistakes. Why I show always the mistakes that I do on my painting, because it can really give you an understanding that all the paintings which we do are never perfect. There is lot of to and fro that goes behind each of the paintings. Most of the paintings are done twice, at least, before we go ahead and put it up for you guys. Yes, it's not that the instructors are perfect or that you get the perfect outcome in the first go. There is a lot of to and fro and there is lot of paintings that are there. There is lot of practice which happens. All of it put together it takes a lot of while you see the perfect picture. Yes, there is a lot and lots of work that goes behind each and every class and each and every painting that you'll solve in a class. Before I teach something to you guys, I do make sure that it is being understood thoroughly. This is a very sensitive and important topic for watercolor artist. But even for people who are really advanced in their journey, I must say that there are a few aspects which we do understand as and when we keep painting. Now, why I say this? Because from my personal experience, I have understood this, that you can't understand everything in one go. There is a lot of work that goes behind all of it. Yes, put together, let's just see how we can make this thing work. There will be a few aspects which you might not like in a painting. I might not like this guy fully, but once all of the painting is done, it should be appealing to the eyes of the spectator. That's the most important while watching your painting and how it is coming together. I'm using my Size 2 brush to add this dark Payne's gray color. I love to add Payne's gray. I do not like to add Ivory black most of the time. It is how I work around with, but you can take neutral tint or else so you can even go ahead with Ivory black, whatever is available on your palette. Something that I have understood over the years is you do not need to have the same colors that your instructor has in their palette. You can have a few here and there, and you might love to purchase one or two, seeing what they have painted, but always try to use whatever is available. I am now using my blending brush to blend the colors. You can go ahead with Size 8 brush or else you can also use any smaller size brush to blend your colors so that it looks a very real image in water as there will be soft image of your lighthouse as well as of this hill in the water area. We need to achieve that. How we achieve it is the most amazing part. Going ahead and adding some more blending techniques. Now blending is always very soft for me as it is wet on wet and I would love to keep it that way. Whenever I am going ahead and adding any darker values, I will make sure that I blend it again with my blending brush to make it look more realistic, to make it look more appealing. Using my size six color brush to make these small lines as you also doing it now? These are, I would say, the details that I love to add for all my paintings. It makes it look more original and more real. Though, we are not here to create realistic paintings. I always say this for any kind of watercolor artwork, we are just trying to portray what you see or what you observe. It is in your own language, it is in your own words. How you get these words, how you learn these words is that I'm here for. But it would be your own voice, it would be your own words. It might take a while for you, but believe me, as you practice more and more watercolors, you will understand it better. I did apply some amount of my clean water onto the surface and then I'm adding this burnt sienna. Now, this burnt sienna is from my Dan Daniel Smith brand. Though you can use any other brand of your choice, but I really loved this brand for creating this burnt sienna light color. It gives this golden glow fit in it. I've tried so many burnt siennas, but this one I really like along with the Winsor & Newton burnt sienna, which has a beautiful red underneath color. Those are aspects small, small things that I really like about these brands, and I would like you to also try them. If you are thinking about to buying burnt sienna, try this color, you will fall in love with it. I'm going ahead and adding some stars. Stars are for the sky. Now, for this guy, I do not want to get overboard or do not want to go overboard with more and more stars, just taking my thin brush to add the stars with some bike wash. For bigger stars, you can take a more runny watery mix onto your brush and then apply it. You will get those bigger and thicker stars that you need. I love to clear out my piece of it. While I work here, you might see me always cleaning up, but that's how I am and I love to do it very often. Removing the part that we applied for masking this section of our tower as well as you can say Light House. Yes, that's it. Then applying some amount of our burnt sienna for it. Once you keep applying the burnt sienna, you can change the color of it. Why I say this, do not apply flat colors, flat colors do not show the view and tier that usually a building goes through. I have many more urban sketches which are done and everywhere I have mixed a lot of colors. You can find all of that on my social media handle and you can see how I mix my colors. I'm adding some amount of my paints grade that I did use for this painting. I love to use the colors that's already available on my palette. You do not need to always pick up a color. Yes, use that and be very particular about using that particular color. Color and pigments do not make a painting, believe me, guys, it doesn't make a painting. It is all your thought process. It's called the painting and voice that you have which makes this painting come to life. Really, that's what I have understood through all these years of painting, and I do understand that you can really understand this medium once you start falling in love with this medium. The more you love this medium, the more it is going to give you back. I didn't make some of my Payne's Grey into the burnt sienna that I already had available on my palette, and it looks more like a Van **** brown, or else even see yellow lighter version of sepia. And then you can see how the whole soft look of this tower is coming together. Every time I teach urban sketching, I have this thing in mind that may need to have the soft effect. More precise or detailed effects I like to add only either with my pen or with my liner brush. I do not like to add Connie burnt sienna or with the colors. I do not try to add the [inaudible] thicker paints and make it look more original or make it looked like urban sketching. That's one part which I follow a lot. This soft loop, that's one of the reasons I added the smaller part of any building that you can add for this painting. Once you are done with it, just add some amount of your quinacridone gold. Quinacridone gold is of very amazing color. It has got that yellow tint on it. Again, this color is from Daniel Smith. You cannot try out this color. The smaller tubes always go ahead and try out. Then if you like the color or if you fall in love with the color, then only purchase the bigger ones. That's for some details on the Light House. If you see, I have added a darker value first. Once I've added this taco value, I would go ahead with some burnt sienna and then blend it. The blending is going to be a very simple process. Just add to let your college flow to everything wet on wet. Then use your tennis brush that assigns to scatter brush, which I'm using to just clear out this space. Once you have your outer space, again, non pick up some doctor value and then add one small window, which we did even during our drawing session. I'm adding it back into my painting and then I'm losing my paint to make some more details. The whole of the painting has already dried up. Then only I am taking the step to add these small, small details with the help of my gelly roll pen. It's a very simple ordinary pen that you'll get in the market. Now it is water-soluble, that's one of the reasons I'm using it later on. You can use more specific go job ends, so whatever is available to you, there is no best way I can say you can understand how to create these small details. Just don't make a whole line everywhere. That's all I can see it break and add it in few of the areas. That's what I have understood from my experience. We do not need to detail everything possible in a painting, only a few details here and there can practically help you understand that this painting has come to life already. Once we have added this pen on creating the details, so I would go and even added a bit on the top carrier. Then just remove the deep at an angle. Whole of the painting IS auditor. Have a final look at it and I am pretty sure you would be super proud of yourself. I'll have to write what I did in this session today. Adding the name as Light House and Northern lights. That's all. Meet you in the next lesson. 7. Project 2 Evening Light: It's going to be one of the most interesting paintings as we are going to have more of contrasting colors in this. It is naples yellow, permanent yellow deep, white gouache, phthalo blue or ultramarine, indigo or payne's gray, prussian blue you can keep as optional. You can use any other blue that is available with you. I have always gone with whatever is available on the palette. This is our second painting, and many of you might think that this looks smaller. You might need lesser time to paint this one. Of course, that's the truth. But this is a bit difficult compared to the one that we already did as we would be painting the ripples on the water and I know it's not a very, very easy task to paint water. I have already two classes, painting water and then painting ocean. You can always go ahead and check out the class on Skillshare. It is by the name of watercolor ocean waves 1 and or watercolor ocean waves 2.0. These are the two classes that I have about watercolor ocean waves and about waterscape itself. I have watercolor waterscape. You can always go ahead and check that out. Overall I have three classes and all of these are pretty detailed. You can have beautiful projects once you take this class and you will understand a lot. Okay, while I was drawing, I think that you have already followed me. It's a very simple process. We would be drawing a horizon line. It is a bit lower than half of the paper which you have already taken. I have cut the size of around like, you can take our A5 size or a bit bigger. I would like to take it a bit bigger than A5 size that I am using, but you can go ahead, feel free to use any size. It's just that the size looks good for demonstration and I was so happy to have the final outcome on the size of a paper. It's as per my choice that I've selected the paper size and everything, but you can go ahead with whatever is available as well as what you think works best for you. Going ahead and adding a few mountains. Once I have added the mountains, I would just wet the paper. You see how much time I usually spend while I do this wetting part altogether okay? Then we would go ahead with something like naples yellow or else you can also use some amount of your chrome orange or else gamboge orange, whatever is available with you. There is no particular name that I would go ahead with. You can use winsor orange or any orange, you can even mix red and yellow to get this kind of an orange. Mix it with some amount of peach or else, mix it with some amount of your naples yellow light and you will get a color that is the one you saw on the paper. Then take some amount of your ultramarine though I'm not very happy with the ultramarine that I've got, so I am adding some amount of my indigo to wet the top part of the sky as this one I want in the yellow and blue combination, which has been my favorite irritate. I have taken so many classes where there is a quick demonstration of how you can get this yellow as well as this blue without getting the greens. That's the beauty of painting it with naples yellow or else painting it with peach. I think that's great, every time we are learning something new, but it's not bad to sometimes repeat what we have already learned. Whosoever is joining new in this class, I think this is one of the best subjects that you can explore. It's one of my own favorite subjects, some waters. Painting waters is not only therapeutic, it's meditative I must say. You see how slowly I am adding the brush marks and it is loaded with pigment so you can see that, how I am slowly and easily blending it. Everything in watercolor is about keeping patients and not rushing through the process. This is known as one of the toughest mediums, but I feel this is one of the most beautiful medium that I have come across till date. I know many of you wash and end up acrylics. There is always a room to come back and there is no mistakes that you make in those paintings. But seriously, when you are making mistakes and you get those random effects in your watercolors. I think that is beyond love that you can think about getting from a particular medium. Adding and mixing some amount of my orange into this orange. Another option of orange is permanent yellow deep. It is something closer to yellow and orange mix and it gives a beautiful color when you apply it on the paper. But do make sure that you're leaving some gap between this ultramarine as well as your yellow that you have applied so that you can get this beautiful blend of not having any green on your painting. Once you have applied the color, this is what I must tell you how I make my mistakes and because I'm using Arches paper 300 GSM, even if I make mistakes, I can apply some amount of water and then just get away with it. You don't need to do this. Just see how I am making my mistake and still, I get away with it by applying some amount of my water and then using a tissue to lift it up. Applying some orange again. Now this orange is either permanent yellow deep or else the orange that I was talking about, winsor orange, or any other orange that is available. Once you have applied it, make a mix of your ultramarine, as well as your indigo, and then you can apply it on the paper. On the wet surface, you have to take a real thick mix or you can say more pigmented color of indigo, and then apply it on the paper. Once you apply this pigmented color and make smaller strokes, you would understand that these ripples are already formed. It's something that I have always loved to create and this only happens when you have a wet surface. You should not have a lot of water on it, nor you should have really less amount of water on it. Overall, it should be a combination of having the optimum amount of water to create the ripples. In few of the places, I love joining these ripples, and few of the places I like to keep it simple. Just a small line and that would give the impression of getting the perfect ripple which we need for this painting. Overall, you can see that I am joining in few places and I am keeping it shorter in few places with no joints I must say. If you are not satisfied with any indigo which you have already painted, I would ask you to just add some water and lift out the colors. Lifting out is one of the aspects in watercolors which is my own favorite. Lifting out gives us so much more possibility in watercolors. There is so much more that we can do. There are so many mistakes that we can make and still be fine with it. That's one thing which I have understood from this medium that if you are working with any kind of good paper, then you can practically do a lot of things in watercolor. Whereas if you are not working with that great paper, then it might be difficult to an extent. So I have been always pretty much telling you to use a 100 percent cotton, 300 GSM paper. That's because of the reason that I want you guys to understand that all of the papers can't take heavy washes. All the papers are not great for lifting exercises, so everything put together, it takes a while to understand which paper you should use, how you should walk around with it, as well as what is most suitable for you for art particular style. As I say, in the process, you will get a voice of your own. You will understand watercolors in a better way. You will understand how you want to work with this medium and how easily you can paint with this medium. So you will be really comfortable with this medium and that's what is required. Once I have added the repulse, you will understand that while I go towards the top, there is only smaller ripples that I add and fewer compared to the ones that we have done already. Once that is done, we have to add the mountains. Now, mountains, I'm going absolutely wet-on-dry. Here is the introduction of your wet-on-dry and slowly, steadily you will understand more about this technique. We will work with the more white of the mountains. Now that is not exactly white, I must say. It has some amount of yellow which we have already applied. That yellow would reflect as it is snow and there will be ridges, there will be rocks, there will be everything that's there for a mountain. Those are all things we need to show. That's what is most important. Overall, I must say that this is one of the paintings where I was super happy. As there is so much to learn, we are moving from the wet-on-wet medium to wet-on-dry. There is water, there is ripples, there is mountains, as well as there is a beautiful night sky which has a small amp moon. It's a moonlight that you will see. You practically do everything that a landscape requires, sky, land, and water. That's what a landscape is made up of. Yes, you put together everything in a painting and I think that should make you super proud of yourself. You are attempting something that is not very easy. Yet you are moving from wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry. There are many people who love to use wet-on-dry and may not have less knowledge about wet-on-wet. This class is practically suitable for everyone. If you are not just who loves to work with wet-on-dry, you can always go ahead and try out this wet-on-wet. Every single person or every single artist who has a particular style might be moving between different types of techniques. That's what is most important. Techniques is what you should learn. Later on, I think each one of you can build on to your own style. Now, finding your style, of course, might be a bit difficult initially, but believe me, as you progress in your journey, you will understand what is your style and how you can change your style. There will be lot of changes that would come in your style and slowly, steadily, you will get to understand more about this medium and this medium will become more and more rewarding for you in your own particular way. Yes, I guess that's what I wanted to tell you and let's continue painting our mountains. You see how slow I go with my painting, I go with more watery mix initially and then as we progress, I would add more darker values in it. One aspect of watercolors, when you are doing wet-on-dry is go with less amount of pigments because there's always a chance to come back to darker pigments later on. That's the golden rule which I have always followed throughout most of my paintings till date. I'm using my size 2 scatter brush to paint this. I am now making a small border while I come towards the bottom. I think one of this looks better and slowly, steadily, you can see the whole perspective is coming together, the whole painting is building up. Most of the things we are done with. There is only five, six minutes of this painting, which is left and practically you will be super amazed to see that you are done with the sky, you are done with the water and the only thing that is left is your mountains. Even in a busy day where you are juggling between your job and this might be your side hustle, I would say that taking out about 15 minutes to half an hour is not really difficult. It is for your own passion, it is for your own self. It helps to meditate, it helps to motivate you. It helps to keep you going. It's like a stress buster for all of us who are artists typing. For me it's been really empowering. Every day I think about a new subject to paint and every day I think how short or how less amount of time I get gift to particular painting and still be in a position to create something beautiful. Now, that's the idea. As we progress in our journey initially, you might take a lot of time to create a painting, but slowly, steadily as you progress in your watercolor journey, you will understand that you can take lesser amount of time to create something more beautiful. You don't always need to actually invest a lot of time into your paintings or a lot of time into your watercolors. There are a lot of other things that you can think about while you do, but it all comes with practice. It all comes with experience. I have years of experience and that's part of the reasons I can suggest you this. Believe me guys. If you love this medium, that medium is going to love you back like anything and you will get so much more in terms of satisfaction. Why I say satisfaction? Initially, you might not be happy with many of your attempts, but slowly, steadily as you progress on this journey and with such amount of guidance, you can really create magic. You can really be one of the most amazing painters as you will be in a position to showcase your talent, showcase what you have to anyone and everyone. Once this part is done, I did blend my colors a bit because I wanted to show the reflection of these mountains into the water area. Every time I do not paint the mountains exactly the way it is as there is ripples in the water and we will not be doing that. Just a bit of I must see some amount of darker value into the water body can really help and just blending exercises, good to go. Once this part is done, I would allow my paper to dry off and just make a small moon, as I did tell you all you earlier. Now, moon can be round moon can be C-shaped, moon can be of any shape of your choice. I am making it really small and simple. You can make it bigger, you can make it smaller. I would leave that decision up to you. But for this painting, I think our major focus is not the moon, it's majorly the landscape that we create and it's majorly the mountains and moving from your wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry technique is what I understand. So blending a bit more here and there. Once this part is dry, I will just add small lines with the help of my size 6 scatter brush. Now, this is called an optimal brush and I have been asked a lot of times, what is the brush? How you have this beautiful tip? Guess I have two of these brushes one is size 6 and one is size 12. I have been using the size 6 brush for over two years now, I guess. I am most satisfied, I must say with this brush. Once you have added these smaller lines, peel off your tape and then have a look at your painting. I'm pretty sure about it. You would be super happy and super amazed. You can even use these as your holiday cards or as your postcards. You want to send it over to your friends. You want to gift it to anyone. Everything can be done with the help of these small paintings that you can make and then gifted. There are times when there are backgrounds or there are lines like these which happened on a painting, I usually wet that area and then lift it up for the help of my tissue. There is so much of lifting that we did in this painting. I have not done so much in any other painting till date but every time it's an experience. It's not that we do not come across these mistakes or we don't make mistakes. All of us do make our own mistakes and there will be a way by which you can always get through it and get a beautiful final outcome. Once you see that there is a step in the water that we can fairly observe near the mountains, I feel that the whole of the painting has come together. There is step, there is ripples, there is water, there is sky, and beautiful moon. We just need to write a bit about the moonlight, which we have a witnessed and mounted it. All of these paintings are done in February and March because that's when I was shooting the class. You can date it as per the present date. I will meet you in the next lesson. 8. Project 3 Wooden Pathway: Colors are brilliant pink, lavender, bright violet, indigo or Payne's gray; you can keep for the mountains. Prussian blue is optional, you can keep it. Crimson, burnt sienna, and quinacridone yellow. These are the colors which we will need and we can mix some amount of our indigo into the burnt sienna to get the darker values of the brown along with it people, like Charlie Robin. Let's take out our postcard and this time, it's majorly painting on your postcards. This can be used as holiday season postcard, or else you can even use it for doing your daily exercise, painting anything that you want. I'm taping down my paper and we would be doing a wooded pathway. It is a combination of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. You must have all the more of wet-on-wet first painting. We are moving from wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry where we will be exploring wet-on-dry in more details as we progress. Before we go ahead with that one, let's understand how to tape down our papers. Yeah, it's a very important first step for any painting, so just tape down your paper well so that there are no gaps and water can't get in at any point in time. Once you have taped down your paper, you need to understand where exactly you would be placing your horizon line. Placing your horizon line is an important concept in watercolors. I have been stressing on it for quite some time and I would like to always say that never place your horizon line in the middle of the paper. Always try to place at either a bit below the middle or above than the middle, that's how the rule of one-thirds usually work. Now, what do you mean by one third? Usually you divide your paper into three halves, either it be horizontally, either it'd be vertically and accordingly, you usually place your horizon line. You can even place your objects as per that. These are a few rules of perspective that I love to follow while I paint. I have already placed my horizon line, it's a bit towards the top area. Then I made the middle line. Once I have painted or I have added this middle line with my graphite pencil, I would go ahead and start joining it from the bottom area. It's a very easy and simple process. Always try to have the same size on left as well as on the right. I usually do it with the help of my pencil. Pencil is always a great idea to check that all the lines that you are making can go straight. Use your pencil to just see how much you have left on the right and on the left. I have been using my pencil to actually do all of these process for quite some time and it has some practically turned out so well. Though I do encourage anybody not to use your scale for painting any of these. But if you are not very comfortable with using your scale or you want to move from using your scale to your pencil for getting an idea about how much you should use in terms of the space and how much you should leave, how much you should be using for your painting area, I think pencil can really help to mark ball of that. We'll get erasing at any point in time where you feel you are not comfortable, so erasers are always for that. Just free to use it at any point in time. I'm adding some lines now for the fencing of this wooden pathway on the water. This is the only time where you can see that we are going a bit in terms of the perspective from the more bottom area, which is larger than size, to more smaller as you go towards the horizon line. That's how a perspective looks. Whatever is closer to your eyes is bigger in size whereas when you go towards the horizon or whatever it goes out of your site, which is far away, is smaller. It's basic rule of thumb and I think if you keep this point in mind, you can even nail any of your other paintings. Once this area is done, you have to start with your painting. Before I go ahead and paint, I have this simple rule of masking this wooden pathway. Now, masking this wooden pathway is really important as I do not want any of the water to get into this pathway and hence, I'm using my masking tape to practically mask this area. I have used it even in my northern lights to mask my small area of the tower or the lighthouse which shouldn't paint. Similarly in the same way, I would be masking this wooden pathway even. Again, a basic step and it is a simple step, as I always say. Try using each and every resource that is available with you that would really leave you with a lot of help when you are painting. Every time you don't need to use your masking fluid, try to use your masking tape. It is a great way to explore watercolors. Masking tape can really help you to work around with anything of your choice. Now let's paint the sky. I am so happy with this enchanted and beautiful sky that came up. It is the brilliant things that we would be using and the lavender color. Now this brilliant pink again is from Mijello Mission Gold, you can have this color. There is an adult coral color from one of your White Nights corals. You can even use a bit of white with your pink to get the shape and then we would be using the lavender color. Both of them are a bit opaque in nature, so yes, you would need a bit of pink or a bit of purple to blend it well. I think the pink is good for the brilliant pink that I have, so I am blending it with the lavender for the sky, going wet-on-dry right now if you all saw. As I wanted darker values for my sky, hence I'm going ahead with this shade. I guess the blending is becoming better and better as we are using a flat brush. Now, flat brushes are always great when you have to do blending, but there might be some marks or lines, so keep blending it till you are happy with the final outcome. Now let's add some more darker value of our purple. You can use a bright palette, you can use purple, whatever is available with you for the top area. Once you are done with the top area we will move towards the bottom and just add some water to blend it well with the bottom area, or else even use a bit of brilliant pink to blend it. If you see, the blending looks way more well now and it is so much better. There is no space that I can practically see. Adding some more pink towards the bottom area. Once I have added this brilliant pink, I would go more towards the bottom and add some amount of my lavender and purple. As I have told you, use your water to the greatest possible way. Watercolors is more to work with water rather than working with pigments, and that's been the rule for quite some time. If you get the simple rule of working with water, you can practically nail any of your paintings. Going ahead and adding some more lavender. Once you have added this lavender, just add some more of your bright violet and make it more and more brilliant and vibe into the bottom area with this beautiful purple that I have. You can use any other purple that is available on your palate and get this color. These are a few basic colors, it's just that you might have to prepare this brilliant pink and the lavender by adding some amount of your titanium white. Now titanium white is a bit opaque in nature compared to your Chinese white. Chinese white is not opaque in nature, it's more transparent. I think that's the only gap which I see. Adding some more of my bright violet towards the top. You need to make sure that your paper is wet while you add this layer. We are not going ahead and adding this layer while our paper has dried off. I will get those dark bad bad patches and I really don't want that. Whenever you are working with your colors, do make sure that it is still wet. I am using Arches paper, so it gives me a lot of time to work around and get the best blend. But in case you are using any other paper, you will still get a lot of time to work around if you are working wet-on-wet. In case you are working wet-on-dry, you have to work more quickly as wet-on-dry gives you less amount of time to work on the paper and it's important to move around at that point in time very quickly. I'm using quinacridone gold and burnt sienna for making this spot with. Quinacridone gold is a very beautiful yellow-brown mixed color and I have been using this very often whenever I have to paint in a pathway. It gives me so much of beauty while I add this color. You can see how brilliantly the yellow is spreading and then blending it with my burnt sienna. Both of these color are from Daniel Smith brand, but that's not what you have to follow obvious. It's just for your reference that I am adding the brand colors which I am using. The rest, whatever is available with you, you should be good to go with that. That's one aspect of watercolors which you can follow. Whatever is available on your palette, go with it. If you are final that you want to pursue with these watercolors as a carrier or as one of the most important I would say hobbies in your particular day-to-day routine, then only invest on everything that is your colors, your brushes, paper. I would say paper, yes. Certainly, you might have two because we want 300 GSM, a 100 percent cotton paper for doing any of your painting, but the rest for all the others you can wait and still will invest. Do not rush while you invest. That's very, very important. One thing that you might have seen when I added the lavender into my pathway, it gave me a bit of muddy color which I slowly removed by adding some burnt sienna. That's how you have to deal with your colors. Sometimes don't add a lot of colors, or else it would be difficult for you to just leave it and move along. In some of my CPO, this is towards the bottom area, blending it as it is wet on wet. I have told you we are trying to use both wet on wet and wet on dry for this particular big thing, and slowly we will move to more of wet on dry techniques only. That's something which takes some time for anyone to develop. Wet on wet I think is more easier. It's just that the control of water is a bit difficult, but the rest, I guess most of the areas you can walk around and you will get a decent outcome. If your paper is 100 percent cotton and then you are following a few steps which are important. Adding some carmine, that is a bit of red, I really like as my sky is pink and the red would really look nice on the South. I guess so I'm good to go and I am not adding any more colors, any further colors, would practically ruin my wooden pathway. If some amount of darker values you want to add towards the bottom, you are good to go. But don't overwork. Overworking in something that you should always avoid. Let your paper dry off, and then let's start adding our mountains here. I'm so happy when I add and paint the mountains in all wet on dry technique. This is something that I have learned overtime and I must say that it takes a while to understand this technique. It doesn't come overnight and you have to actually make an effort towards learning each one of them. I think learning is a constant progress for us all, and we need to keep learning each and everything. Once I discovered the new world wet on dry, I really wanted to just show you all how beautifully our painting can turn up if you aren't using a wet-on-dry as a technique. I am first adding some light blue color towards the line, like towards the area, just above the horizon line. This is practically the light indigo color, with a lot of water, I'm using it. I'm using my size. It's for the brush to add this. Once this cell dries off, we would add some amount of snow. How do we add some amount of snow? We will make a few brushstrokes to show that snow. I guess we will allow the wooden pathway also to just become dry before we work on that. Then blending with the help of our blending brush, size 8, silver black velvet brush I have kept. Once the wooden pathway is dry, we would go with our SCADA size 6 brush to add some lines. Now while we add these lines, we have to make sure that we even blend a bit with our blending brush. That's something that I have learned that blending that really help you to get that wet on wet look which you really need for any kind of a wooden pathway. Few of the areas need to bleed and when few of these areas bleed, it gives a very, very different outcome. Practically, you will fall in love with it. Keep adding more and more darker drum values of CPM while you go to watch the bottom area. I'm slowly joining a few parts and some of the parts I'm even leaving. If you observe I'm using the tip of my brush. Now, if you do not have any kind of brush which has that beautiful tip, go ahead and use a thinner brush. That would really help you to walk around all of these things pretty easily. Blended either with the size 8 brush or else even with the size too brush as I'm doing, make it bleed in few of the areas as I was very sure I want these bleeds. Yes. Something that I'm really proud of is how to add these bleeds and these bleeds really shows the wear and tear which happens on any kind of a wooden pathway if you are using it for a longer period of time. Blend it, blend it, blend it wherever it doesn't necessary, and practically, when you observe the wooden pathway now you can really see how the whole of the painting is coming together. I think the wooden blanks look now more original and it gives me a sense of satisfaction. Once I am adding this water to blend a few of the areas, now this blending can only happen if your paint is still there on the paper and it has not dried off. That's one of the reasons I always say to use paper as that is 300 GSM. I have been stressing more and more on it. At every point in time, use 300 GSM paper, a 100 percent cotton, at least minimum that I always tell you to 70 GSM. I think that's the bare minimum, which we should always go ahead and use even as a beginner, we are always dissatisfied that why our painting is not turning out exactly how we observe, but the only major reason which I have also a painting not turning out exactly the way we want is the paper. I think you can still be with some of the other aspects like not having the best from the brushes or not having the best of your colors, you can scroll the hard all of that. But if you do not have a good paper, the outcome might not be similar. That's the only thing which I wanted to stress on. I have been stressing on this for long. I think that most of my classes I have stressed a lot about the paper. Since I do more of heavy washes and heavy washes really, really needs good paper. But as we move from wet-on-wet, to wet on dry and you can go ahead with a lesser GSM paper, but still, quarter that I have suggested as to 17 GSM, but it should be at least 100 percent cotton. That's what I would prefer you using. Adding some of the CPR and few of the areas, and as we move to towards the horizon line, you can also from these fences becoming shorter or smaller in size, adding more and more of these with the help of size 2 is called a brush. I'm using the tip of the brush to add it. I have to even add on some more lines to show the wooden pathway. Going slow is very important in watercolors. Every time you can't fight with watercolor, you have to practically partner with this medium. This medium is something the more and more you partner with it. I'm going ahead and adding some more lines. But I have not added any music for this particular painting, and even not for all the previous and future paintings, as I want you to select your own music and paint along. Some of you do like music while you paint along, and many of you might not even like it. There are times when I am painting, I practically don't switch on any kind of music. I just like to concentrate and work, as this is my main career and I'm a full-time artist. I try to concentrate a lot while I paint. It is individual choice, hence I do not see the utility at any point in time to add music and then even force you guys to just listen to it. You can use any of your music of your choice and paint along with me. While I am towards the top area or near the horizon, I would go ahead and just finish off with a darker value. Rest, while I come towards the bottom, I would use the tip of my brush and few of the areas and make it a bit more bolder. I think now the area of my mountain is already dried up, and going with some darker bold values. We'll add a lot more intent and it would add a lot more depth to our painting. Now, depth is something which I have not told a lot or not stressed about a lot. But every time we paint, adding depth, adding values to your painting is very important. I added a lighter value just to show the outer, or you can say to just show the part where your mountain should exist. Once that area is dried up, we need to actually portray the snow, that is there on top of our mountains. How do we show it? We would go ahead with some darker values and add it. While I am towards the bottom area, I would change the value a bit. Now you can even keep the same value, but changing the values would really give you the depth that I have been talking about. Everywhere you will not use the same value, that is the darker indigo which I am using. Now, you can go ahead and use some lighter values towards the bottom area, and some darker values towards the top area. We will use some darker value even towards the bottom area, but after a while. You can see now how the whole of this painting is turning up slowly, and using my water, wherever I think it is necessary, and then adding my paints. It's easy to go along this way. I must say, according to me, this is something that I really like doing when it is a wet on dry method. I try to move from wet on wet, to wet on dry, as I am oriented towards wet on wet method. I feel it is really easy for beginners to play around with the colors, understand your colors, but while you are maturing more in your water-color journey, you must explore wet on dry and wet on dry has its own magic, as you can observe me adding so much more depth. Now, I always blend the bottom area of our mountains. Now that's important, because there will be some reflection on to the water area. Since it is quite far away from us, so we can't see the exact full reflection and the water also has a bit of movement in it. It's not absolutely stagnant. Just a bit of it can really show the reflection of the mountains into the water. Rest, I guess, I am good. We will use our white pen to add some more highlights onto the water as well as onto our wooden pathway. Blending a bit with my blending brush. This is my size eight silver black velvet brush that I use absolutely damp. Now damp, I must say that you can wash your brush and then take all the extra water that's there on the brush on the tissue, and then start using it. On the paper, that's absolutely the damp brush, which I have been telling you. Adding some of my flora or you can say some of the trees towards the bottom area of the horizon line, and then using the best, I must say, flat brush to add these small, small lines to show a bit of movement into the water. It's the night sky and I am splattering some stars for this beautiful night sky. You can either depict the night sky or leave it. I would again, leave that up to you. Either you want to add bigger stars or you want to leave it there. That's a decision now which you have to take. But do not get overboard because the whole of the painting has come together so well, we do not want to get overboard with our sky, or even with our stars. Only a few elements can always complete your painting. Do not add a lot of elements anywhere onto your painting. Adding elements always confuses people. We are focusing only on our wooden pathway and the mountains. Adding some of my white gouache to show the line. You can also use your pen. As I have told you, if you have a Gelly Roll pen, it's good to go. Use it to your advantage, and then just add some lines exactly the way I am doing right now on the paper. It's a simple way. I feel these highlights add so much more value, and so much more beauty, so much more depth. All of this put together, it makes a painting look so magnificent. That's it, I guess last two, three minutes says something that I always say, step back, relax, and then only work on your painting. Do not try to work a lot right now. It's just a few details that we are working on and that's it. You will have to use the tip of your brush or your pen to do these small, small details. I'm using my black pen. Yes, in few of the areas where I think it is necessary, black pen comes really handy. This is a very simple Gelly Roll pen. Now, it is not waterproof hence I use it at the last. You can use any other pen that is available with you. I am going ahead with a very, very simple locally available Gelly Roll pen. It works well on water-color paper, so why not go ahead and give it a try. Whatever is available. As I have told you earlier also that I have a white Uni-ball Gelly Roll pen, which I would be using, if I am not using white gouache, wherever it is necessary. Yes, I am practically so happy, to see everything come together now. I don't think there is much need any further to touch upon or to work upon. Just let your paper dry off, well before you remove the tape. Then only do remove your tape. Always remove your tape at an angle. Do not go ahead and remove it very fast or quickly. Adding some more white for our mountain area, to add just a few highlights looks good. These are just a few dots here and there. Let's have a final look now. I think it's very important to be satisfied, happy with your painting. How it has turned out is not the idea, always trying to learn something new is the idea, enjoying the process is the idea. Whenever I discuss water-colors with you, I am always so overjoyed. One of the reasons is that I love painting, I love doing this. So I am so happy, I never think about how this painting is going to turn out. I just go with the flow. Going with the flow would really, really help you to understand this medium well. Adding the date and then have a final look. Now, now is the time. 9. Project 4 Sunset by the Winter Cabin: The colors for today's painting is naples yellow, permanent yellow deep, bright violet, indigo or payne's gray, prussian blue, which is optional, crimson, burnt sienna or red brown, white gouache, and this is it that we need from the color's perspective. Hey guys, we are onto our fourth painting and it's a bit more challenging compared to other three or four paintings which we did. We are first going to mark our horizon line and then go ahead and meet the winter cabin. I will make a middle line and then I would just use my pencil to mark the left as well as on the right side to take the distance which should be equal, and then go ahead and make the lines on the left, which is the slanting line, as well as a straight line. We will go with another line on top of this slanting line. Once that is done, then make sure that you are adding the doors as well as the window to this winter cabin. As well as when you extend on the right, you have to make sure that all the lines can rest to one single point which is majorly your vanishing point. Now, this is as per the rule of perspective, a bit of drawing is always an advantage when you are working with watercolors. I have learned it over time, and I think all of you can also learn. There is no problem and benefit towards starting out with watercolors. You can go wet on wet, but as you progress in your journey, knowing more of drawing and then thinking would really help you to grow in this journey and to get a better outcome each and every time when you paint. Learning is unending and it doesn't stop anywhere. That's one of the reasons I always say that keep learning new tips, tricks, techniques key for learning how to add perspective to your painting, how to make the painting more effective. I have added the windows as well as the door. Once I have added all of these lines and made all the details, I would extend on the right and make my lines that would converge to one single point, as I have told you earlier. Once this is done, we will make sure that we have a very beautiful sky. For the sky, I would be using really warm shades. Most of my shades are florescent and newton this time. Now, florescent and Newton professional grade colors is a bit expensive, so if you have something else, go ahead and use those colors though I have already told you all the colors that I've used. But again, the main idea is to learn and enjoy the process rather than thinking about what are the colors, what are the paints, what is the pencil, any of your instructors are using. Knowing everything is good, but going with the flow, understanding the process and enjoying journey is most important aspect in watercolors. You enjoy this medium. I can tell you it's one of the most rewarding medium set you can think about. I'm adding some mountains above my horizon line. Do stop anywhere you think it is so important, just most of the painting is real-time except applying some water or just some of the other spots small axial and dead. Its real-time video you can paint along with me, stop wherever it is necessary. I am not adding music on purpose, so you can use some music of your choice and paint along with me. Applying the first scale of water for the sky. Once I have added the water on the sky, I would go ahead with the naples yellow. That's one of my go-to colors when I am working with the sky area and getting sunrise, sunset, or any kind of warm sky. This is something that I really look forward to. Once I have added this color, I would go ahead and just add some amount of winsor orange or cadmium orange or permanent yellow deep, or whatever orange shade that is available with you. It is wet on wet, so you must see that you are not adding a lot of colors and you're using a thinner brush when you want to add some lighter strokes as it is wet on wet technique and the paint will move around the paper altogether if you are going ahead and adding all the colors. That's the meeting which you should keep in mind, going ahead and adding some orange. Once I am done with this naples yellow. Using my size four [inaudible] brush, I'm adding some lines. The paper looks a bit dry already, though it's still in a working condition and I would keep on adding this color. Let's add smaller lines. I'm trying to make the clouds. This is one of my favorite clouds from the whole series of the winter painting that we did as well as some mountains along with it. You can learn how to paint these warm skies in my other classes too. Most of the classes that I have do has some vibrant and beautiful skies, so I'm looking forward to value even there. I have two clouds classes where you can learn a lot about painting the clouds. This class is not dedicated to painting the clouds in part, yes, there's a lot that I did input from my end while we paint these clouds and try to make this class more cohesive and inclusive. Adding some more pink in few of the areas so wherever I think it is necessary. This is the carmine than using. You can use any other pink that is available with you. There is no requirement of using the same carmine or the same thing that you see or observe from the papers, something which is closer to what you observe is good to go. Once you have added this pink color, go ahead and just add some amount of your purple on the top area. I will be adding some darker value of purple and this is measured with a bright purple. If you observe, I did allow my paper to dry off as my paper was more and more dry when I was adding the carmine. Wherever you think that your paper is getting dried off, just allow it to dry completely and then add a very light wash of water exactly the way I am doing. Touching it only on a few areas and not trying to blend the colors that you have already applied. Adding some darker purple values on top of the top area. While we go towards the bottom, I'm not going to touch a lot, while we are towards the top area, I would allow more of my bright purple or you can say more of my [inaudible] to add on the required, I would say, expressive clouds that I really wanted for this particular painting. Adding some more lighter wash off water and then allowing it to dry off. When I exactly say let the paper dry off, it's only after you have applied all the colors that is required. Do not allow your paper to dry off before you have added all the required colors. I would be adding some more carmine as I feel the red that I've added or the pink that I've added to the sky is not enough, and some more of the carmine can really do a lot for the sky area. One important aspect that I want to tell you through this painting is that I did see the painting drying off pretty quickly. Why? I don't know, but yes, the area of the sky was drying off and I had to practically wet it two to three times to get the exact result. Always work wet on wet if you are a firm believer of having the soft skies, but if you want to add some hard edges, of course I would bet from you to add it and see for yourself. But for me I wanted to work with wet on wet for my sky and rest of the areas I actually made it more of wet on dry. It's something that is very close to you. You have to understand what you want to add to your sky, whether it being any values or I should say any dry or wet on wet, whatever works best for you, you should go ahead and do that. I think the sky looks really beautiful now, you can see so many colors popping up whether it be your orange, yellow then your purple red, pink, everything looks so perfect. It gives me the feel of an evening sunset. I know you might have taken some time to get through the whole of the process, but believe me, there was a challenge even while I was painting the sky area. I don't know for what reason the paper was drying up and I had to practically make it more wet as we went along. But nevertheless, I guess finally when I see the outcome, it is amazing. I'm applying some water even on the water body that we have to paint now. Water body is exactly the reflection of the sky. It doesn't have any color of its own. I have been hydrating this for quite sometime. In case you are new, you will get to understand that water doesn't have any color, except a few water bodies where there is some red algae or there is any other kind of existence of life underneath the art. At that point in time, you might feel that the sea or vertical large water body has some any color rested, will reflect the same color that you see in the sky. Adding some yellow, then some of your Carmine or any red that is available with you. Every time that I add Carmine I feel so happy. This is a very beautiful color and always available instead of 12 or smaller sets two, and that's the best part about this particular color. So it's readily available, it's easy access as well as you can use it. I'm using my thinnest brush right now to add a few more strokes. Once I have added these strokes you will get to understand that how the whole of this painting is coming together. Painting water, ocean, or any water body is never easy. So I have already existing two classes which is watercolor ocean waves part one, and the next one is watercolor ocean waves 2.0. It's basically done in two different parts. While the first part is more detailed about painting only watercolor ocean waves, whereas the second part is more detailed about going ahead and working with more of many triples, waves, etc and it's more with the Carmine version of the watercolor ocean waves whereas the first one is more with gushing and roaring the surf. You will get a flavor of both of it and I think you will be in a position to improve your water bodies, etc, how to paint all of them in a better way. Once this part is done just add these small lines. Now I do add these lines once the whole of the water body is already dried up. Now, we are moving from wet-on-wet, to wet on dry because I being on beginner, I started working with wet-on-wet way well so it was difficult for me to actually move from wet on wet to wet on dry. There are always elements that I add into my painting which is more of wet on wet. But with time I have understood that we can actually integrate both of these watercolor techniques, and once we get a final outcome it is better than only going ahead with one single technique. So adding some blue now and once I've added the blue, I would add it for painting my mountains. Painting the mountains is the best part of the snow clouded mountains. I will use the white of the paper which you will absorb and this white of the paper can actually help you to show the snow and the beautiful clouded mountains that you have. Only in a few areas you would be adding this blue, and once you have added the blue you will get to understand how easy it is to practically show or paint mountains. You're not giving any other background color to these moments and that's the best part, you don't need to go over in layers. It is less of work and a better outcome. Painting the mountains is one of the favorite parts from this particular painting because you need very less effort. It's just few touches of brushes here and there and then the whole painting comes to life. That's exactly what I said, that you should be using few strokes, and still you should be in a position to get the best outcome. Once I have added these small strokes I will move a bit more towards the left-hand, keep adding more and more darker values as you absorb me now. Overall I would say that this is one of the paintings where you have a lot to learn because we are working with wet on wet, we are working with wet on dry, everything put together it is something that is a very beautiful choice that anyone can have. You can learn so many more techniques, you use the brush in so many different ways. This is psi stewards called a brush which I am using, it is a mix of a bit of purple and blue. You can use any other color of your choice, you can even use purple. But I like mixing a bit of blue with a purple it gives me a better outcome. I feel when you put that on paper it's just amazing. I would leave one or two dots here and there, you can even use a very thin liner brush like this as you observe me, and this is another darker value compared to what we have used earlier. Going over a few places and adding one or two lines here and there. Once this is done, an important aspect is to actually add a bit of reflection into the water. Now how do you add a bit of reflection and make it more softer? Is something that you would love to learn. That's one of the most amazing, I think ways of showing the reflection. Now this is pretty far off and you cannot actually see the complete reflection in the water. That's for sure you cannot see and there is lot of movements. That's one of the reasons we have actually added this small lines and strokes while you see the area of the water body. Now once this is done, you can add some small lump line like this. And how do you add this small line? Take a darker mix, add the line and then blend it with your blending brush, that's if you need to do. And you can see that there is a bit of reflection of the mountains into the water area. Once this part is done apply some water on the ground. Now ground is again only the snow that you have to absorb. Now when it is only snow, you just need to make a few strokes. It is again wet on wet. We will work wet on wet as well as wet-on-dry for this part. Go ahead and add some purple, I have not mixed any blue this time but I would be mixing a bit of blue here and there. Now you can take indigo or else you can take Prussian blue. You can use any blue that is available on your palate, you are good to go with it. Go with a bit of darker value, whatever you have even in non-tone blue is a very good option if you want to try it out. It's an amazing and beautiful color. I have been recently using it for many of my clouds painting and I think the outcome that I get is something that I am falling in love with every time. Using my size four escorter brush to add some strokes. You see how beautifully all these strokes is added? Small lines, that's it. We are not going to add a lot of lines here and there. Some water and adding a bit of stroke. Once that part is done then we would go ahead and add some more darker values. Now again the darker values are again small lines, a few dots here and there. Everything put together, you will observe that it will come to something that is up to your liking and you will fall in love with it completely. Actually snow is one of the most beautiful, I would say seasons that I can see the winters and the full fun is so much, it's so cozy, you can have that hot cup of water or hot cup of tea, hot cup of coffee, every time you can feel the winters, the cold and freezing, everything put together. I think that it's something that I am falling in love with and I will keep falling in love with it every season. Going with a bit of darker value and then adding some more lines. Guys just absorb the stroke and just add it. You don't need to think about it much. They're very simple and easy strokes. No complexity over here and once this is done, I would ask you to take a permanent brown. This is from Art Philosophy. You can also use red brown if you don't have this permanent brown. Now red-brown is from Magellan mission goal, you can add a bit of Carmine into your burnt sienna and then also use it. So these are the options that you have, but the same color that I'm using. In case you don't have any of this, go with burnt sienna or any brown that is available on your palette. Every time, whenever I am painting, I love to give you options to think what you can work with. I would add this for the house. Once you have added it for the house, just wash your brush and then add a bit of lighter value if you are washing your brush. Or else go ahead and add some more darker value in few of the ideas and then blend it with a clean brush. I love to mix my colors. Some of the areas I would add the darker value and some of the areas I would add the lighter value. I like to add some CPR with the darker brown color or with the permanent brown that you observe. Now I always like to blend the different set of colors. I say that because I don't want to make a flat wash, I love to do a variegated wash. Now, if you are not aware of what is variegated wash and what is flat wash, I have taken a class already where you can learn about these washes too, so go ahead and checkout the watercolor, waterscape class, it has this particular part where I have to a bit about variegated washes but nevertheless let's just see variegated washes majorly where you do two or three colors blending together making it a wash, whereas a flat wash is only working with one single color and having an equal distribution of the pigments throughout the total lab paper, or throughout the total area wherever you are adding that color. That's the difference between a variegated wash whereas what you can do for this particular painting I would say, never go with a flat wash. A flat wash would look absolutely immature as an artist to work with. Yes, when you are starting out that is a good idea but when you are maturing as an artist and when we are on an advanced level like this I would ask you to just blend your colors with two or three different shades. Now one can be darker value of one single color also or else you can have a mixture of two colors like I am having right now. Adding some more darker values here and then. Once I have added the value I would go ahead and just use the darker value and then blend it with some of my yellow ocher or else you can also use Naples yellow. Naples yellow is a beautiful color, I have been using this color for my skies. I have been using these colors for my winter cabins, bonds, anything that I paint I think this is my go-to color and it is opaque in nature a bit so be very evade how you use the transparency of this color. Transparency is a very important aspect in watercolors. If your watercolors is not transparent enough you might not get the best outcome. I'm using just a tip of the brush to add the colors in some places and then add these long lines to show that the bonds is made up of wood and wood panels are there so it makes it look more original and it makes it look more pretty I would say. Go ahead and add these lines here and there. Once you have added these lines, it's important to just see that they are not becoming close. That's very important. Adding some more darker values in few of the other areas where it is necessary to show and once this is done we would go ahead and add some lighter value for the window and for the door. You will observe how I do it. I might even use just a brush and the water which is already dirty to do that. But every time I don't use a lot of pigments and that's the best part about watercolors, you don't need to use a lot of colors. It's just the buying of that initial part of artist great colors which is expensive and frankly each and every watercolor might last you six, seven months or a year depending upon your usage. Most of these colors for me I buy in cubes and these cubes last me pretty long, about a year or two sometimes but I do try to use it once or sometime or else what happens is the binder comes out separately from the pigment which we do not want. Adding some brushstroke. Yeah, that's what I was saying, that I am not going to use a lot of color over here just a similar brushstroke and you can see that this is majorly my door. Once this part is done go ahead and just outline the roof a bit and then I would even outline the left side of the line because there is one more line that we need to add over there. Making some more lines for the roof area, once we have added these lines I would go ahead and just add a bit of blue with my blending brush. You see how I'm using only a few brushstroke for adding on top of the roof area. You don't need to actually go ahead and use or everything that is there. One thing that I've understood with watercolors is a few brushstroke is really enough to depict that you are painting a bond or you're painting something of your choice, whatever you are doing, yes, so me few brushstroke is good enough to show it. Adding some more lines and some more structures which are basically showing those dry plants that you usually often see in the window season as they are dried off and once the spring is there the bloom start coming out. All of that we need to just show here and there a bit. Once that part is done I think most of your painting is complete. It's more about the detailing now that you are doing. This is the time to step back, relax and think that you have practically done a fantastic job at completing the painting. You only need to just refine it a bit here and there. That's it. Once this painting is completely done then you can remove the tape at an angle and have a final look. That's my own favorite part, to remove the tape, see how the wall of this painting has turned out, see those beautiful white edges on the sides and once that is done it's like something that I have practically loved through the entire part of the painting. Yes, we should not focus a lot on the final outcome. I do say that we should not, but you cannot always ignore the fact that we are going to see how the whole painting turns up and don't lose your whole any point in time, all of these paintings are not very simple. It would take a bit of practice. We are also practicing, you might see me practicing each and every day and it takes a while to understand everything. It takes a while to understand even perspective to understand how to paint snow, it just doesn't come like that. Yes, hold on, be very sure that you can nail it and one thing that I have realized over my watercolor journeys you have to think in your mind that you can do it. Just seeing a photo or seeing a painting, oh it has become very tough, we will not be in a position to nail it and all. Practically doesn't work then your mind is already having an idea that you will not be in a position to nail this painting and when you just know even be difficult I will give my best try, that's what is important. Frankly, I have seen myself nailing paintings, which are really tough but still because I have that particular thing in my mind that I would be in a position to nail it, I could do it. Frankly and it's not that we were never beginners, every one of us might have been a beginner at some point in time and that's what is most important to think positively, to move on having that mindset to reach where you want. You have to improve on these lessons, etc., so yes, keep painting, keep practicing, go with the mindset, go with an approach, have a small plan and try to practice regularly. That's one important aspect in watercolors. Please try to paint even a bit regularly. I have even smaller classes of 10 minutes, 15 minutes, go ahead, take them, go with the right paintings, go with the smaller paintings. Just try it and I think you would be in a position to nail it. A 10 minute exercise is something that you can always look forward to. Adding some white gouache in few of the areas with my brush. Now these are the details that I was telling you about. You have to do this at the end, wherever you think that now it isn't necessary every time we are not going to do it. You can even need this if you want to. But I would say go ahead and try it out. It's an A5 size paper that I am using, you can go with even bigger size paper if you want. I would leave that decision up to you how you work it around, so yes, that's all. Once you are done with this part just draw a small line. I'm using my Gelly Roll pen and I have also used a black pen where I did add a bit of detail here and there with it. What I want to since this part is something that you can avoid or you might carry on with. You can add these lines or you might not even add these lines. It is not a necessity, so you need to know what is the necessity and what is not a necessity. Now, if something is not a necessary you might even avoid it, it's just a bit quantities, it's more sharpness that you add to the painting. Something that might look or please your spectators. Overall it's not that this is going to make or break your painting. Now earlier whatever we did was important to us but here it's not the most important aspect so go with the flow to add whatever you think you want to add it. Rather than just going a bit more blindly behind this. It is over. The painting looks perfect, you don't need to work upon a lot and do not overwork then it would practically spoil your painting. Just know that here you need to stop and there is nothing else that you need to add to the painting to make it look more beautiful. 10. Project 5 Himalayan Range: Let us discuss the colors for this painting. It is horizon blue, phthalo Blue, Indigo, or you can keep Payne's Grey. Keep prussian blue as optional for yourself. This is going to be the fifth painting from our series. It's one of the paintings which I really like because there's so much to learn from this painting. We are truly moving to wet-on-dry technique and we are going to paint mountains because that's one of the subject that can be easily done in wet-on-dry technique, though it took me a while to understand how to do it. But once I am in a position to get an understanding of it, I can see this is one of the most beautiful ways to paint mountains. Going ahead and adding a few mountains. This is basically the Himalayan Range from India. You can take any photograph which you observe and then you can try to paint it and I think that's it. You need to just understand that one of the areas of this would be in darker values for the mountains and one of the areas would be lighter values as there will be shadows, ridges. We will work like that. I have taken on new horizon color from my mijello mission gold family and adding some amount of my [inaudible] phthalo blue. Now phthalo blue is again, a favorite color for anyone who has come across that. I think it's one of the most beautiful colors that you have ever worked with. It's beautiful. What I would like to say is it adds the brightness to the sky, it adds that beauty to the sky which you really need. Yes, I did that. Once we have added these two colors, go ahead and blend it with you horizon blue, a bit more. Guys, these are just a name to always understand how various different brands have got its different names, so do not go by the names to just go by what you see or whatever you have. If you mix a bit of any opaque white or into the turquoise that you have, you will get a color which is similar to this one. I am putting my border bit as I want the colors to flow automatically towards the bottom. The Mijello mission Gold is a particular brand which doesn't flow a lot, and I do understand that fact that it will not flow just the way winsenia or any other brand flows, so we have to make an effort if we want the colors more towards the bottom area. That's what I understand. Let's go ahead and keep adding the colors. Once we are satisfied with the blend that we have created for the sky, we will start painting the mountains. Now, while you paint the mountains, you have to keep in mind that you are not touching the areas of the sky. Your paints will go into the sky, that's something that we seriously do not want when you start painting your mountains. Also there is another way what you can do is allow your sky to dry out completely, and once your sky is dried out you can start painting your mountains. Now this you can do when you are flipping in-between your paintings. That's something that I would like you to do. You want to paint one and then take a quick break and then come back to the next. That's how we do it or else you want a quick coffee break, you can allow your painting to dry off and then come back to it once you think that you are ready now and you had your coffee or you had your break. This is how I keep returning to my paintings. I have a very small kid of 15 months and she is often not wanting to play or keeps me occupied, so there are times where I go to my studio, I work, and then again go back to her during the smaller breaks so that I can spend a lot of time with her as well as she's not more than the process or else it would be very difficult for me to keep working along with the kid. There are many of us who have these kind of responsibilities, and I think even for mothers or for working people, this is a great way or this is a good outcome that you can expect when you start painting. Once this part is done, I would just add a very light values so to view of the areas off my mountains, as I did tell you earlier. I keep blending the colors with some more water as we proceed in the process, you will see more of loose brush marks on this and I'm not going to add a lot of wet-on-wet technique, as we are plotting to learn wet-on-dry. Let's have a closer look at how we are planning to paint that in a better way. Every time I stop my painting, I'll have to show exactly how I would want my painting to progress. That's something which I have learned to work, my journey that you can give a way to your painting. I have done only going with the flow though, it's good to go with the flow, but you should have a rough idea in your mind, how you want to add colors to your painting. Some of the areas you might want to highlight, which is in the foreground, and some of the areas you might highlight less which are in the background. Overall you're painting should convey the wise and overall, the painting should say it is about you. If these paintings were basically done during the winter season though, it is spring right now, but overall, I was so happy to see those beautiful mountains, those snow-capped mountains storeys , everything put together. What I wanted to convey was beauty, and love for nature. That's one aspect of my watercolor paintings. I am truly inspired by nature and there is so much that I want to share from nature with you all. Most of my paintings is truly inspired from nature, and I love painting nature in my own way. Each and every detail that I add today is inspired with the thought that we have many ways to paint with watercolors, and I think that's what we all need to understand that you will not be getting everything together in only one single technique. You can practically follow a lot of techniques to get the best out of your watercolors, your ways of painting. Once you have added the colors to your right side, I would ask you to add the colors towards the top of the area as well as add a darker value. I basically have three colors over here. One is my indigo, and other is a bit of French ultramarine, as well as you can see, a yellow blue as well as Horizon Blue. Horizon Blue was majorly being used for the sky, and rest of the colors I'm using for the mountain area. I would leave some loose strokes as you observe me. This is size 4S Coda brush which I have been using as well as size 2S Coda brush. Now you can go ahead with any other size of your choice depending on the size of your paper. Now that's one aspect of watercolors, which I have always told you that depending on the paper size, you should choose your colors, you should choose how you want to paint. Everything should depend on your paper size. Because if you have a very small paper, you can go with very limited palette paint something and come out of it. Whereas if you have a very big paper, you might not be willing to go ahead with only a very limited palette, or else a single color. Those are the aspects you should look into while you paint. I think that's the only thing that I wanted to say that whatever is available with you, the batch size, etc, good to go, do not try to invest in brushes right away. If you think that this is something which you want to proceed with, this is something which you want to learn then only invest on your brush, or else your colors are slowly add on. There are a lot of brushes which I own, but many of them I hardly use. There are times where I do need those brushes, but practically speaking, you don't need a lot of brushes. There are a few go-to brushes which I have, and you have been often noticing it back. I use mostly Silver Black Velvet Coda brush. Those are the ones in which I have been using for quite sometime. I'm pretty happy with the final outcome that I get. You have to choose your own brushes, a few brush that you see. You don't need to on that, okay guys? In the meanwhile, I have been painting a lot on the colors that we have already applied. I think this is the second layer that we are adding. Practically on Arches paper 300 GSM, this is quite difficult, I would say, as the paper is wet for a longer period of time. But when you are using Arches 185 GSM, I think you will get quicker results, as well as this painting will also turn out well on non lesser GSM paper. You can give this a try and then see how it works for you. I always encourage each one of you to try your own papers before you actually commit a mistake in your final painting. Always whenever you are painting something from your classes or whenever you are taking any class from instructors where you personally feel that you want to try any paper or else you want to try something that is really your love, all of that you can do with the help of your watercolors. You have a new watercolor set, you want to try to use it in any of your classes that you are taking. You have a paper, either it be Arches, either it be Fabriano, or either it be any others tried in any of the class see if the lifting, etc. happens. Do not try to use it in any of your final paintings, okay guys? If this is your final painting, please do not use a paper which has not been tested. Always test your paper with masking fluid. Test your paper how it works with your masking tape. Those are the aspects that I feel is very necessary for your watercolor journey. These are something that you cannot avoid in long run. You might be willing to wait for using all of it, but still we all can't avoid it altogether, I must say. While I keep adding small, small strokes, I will be talking a lot about other aspects in watercolor, and I hope that you get an understanding of watercolors in a better way. Most of my classes is designed in a way that we do learn as well as talk in the process. I feel the more experience that I share with you guys, it is easier for you as a medium to understand. This medium has been really tough on me during the initial days, and I do not want you guys to experience the same or leave it because of sheer frustration from it. This medium is something that can give you a lot of frustration and this medium is something which can give you a lot of love as well as enjoyment. I would want you guys always to be on the greener side and feel the enjoyment and love that this medium is all about. Keep adding a few of the areas with darker values and keep adding a few of the areas with lighter values. I use a very small brush size 2 or size 4 of his quantum. That's the size which I usually love where I add these small strokes and they are a bit rounder use a polar brush. You can go ahead with whatever is available as I've told you earlier. Now let's have a closer look at it and paint on the mountains. One thing that I always surely try to do whenever I'm painting mountains with wet-on-dry technique is called the three levels that we have added. This is practically the third layer that we're going to add. It should be visible to the eyes of the spectator. If you see we are going with the various stages of watercolor. The first is the lightest layer that we have added, the second is one shade darker, and the third one is the darkest layer that we go ahead with. All of this you can practically observe on the paper. I would love to give a class about florals on the same. Florals turn out even better with this wet-on-dry medium. If you can practically use both the techniques like wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry, it's a different feeling altogether. While I say this thing, I must even tell you that all of this comes with experience. Do not try to tell yourself that, I can't get it, this is not happening, the painting is not turning out exactly the way we wanted, and all of it. The painting will turn out, it's just a bit more compassion and love you want to show yourself because you are trying it for the first time. I practically failed at this painting when I tried it for the first time. I just knew what are the mistakes that I was doing in the first one, which I literally changed in my second attempt and that's how I got this painting correct. That's one aspect of watercolors, which I want to tell you is, not to bombard yourself, not to feel sad, not to feel frustrated. It's a medium which has very less opportunities in terms of going back. If you are making any mistake, there is a possibility that you might have to work around with that or else you might have to discard it at some point or the other if it doesn't turn out exactly the way you want. But I would always encourage you to complete a painting before you discard anything. We don't know what happens until you have completed the painting. There are so many aspects of watercolor which usually changes a painting once you progress. Though I have told you that this particular painting I had to discard as my first layer was too deep in that painting and because of so much deep in that first painting, I could not proceed with the second and the third layer. They became really, really dark, which I did not want for this explanation or for this wet-on-dry method. If we are committing any mistake, there are possibilities that we are doing it for a reason or there is something that has happened, then we can get the final outcome as we want. These are small things that you can keep in mind while you paint. That said, I wanted to convey, and let's keep painting. Whenever I think that my final layer needs a bit more blending, I would go ahead and blend it. Practically, you can add as many layers as you want. If you are going with lightest value, then you are going with one more layer of a bit darker value like this. You can practically add as many layers as you want. It's all up to you how much you want to add to your painting. Now, depth is something that I have not talked about much. I would say that the depth of a painting is when you can understand each and every aspect of a particular painting well. That is going to practically give you wings in a way that you will be happy with your final outcome as well as you will understand the medium very easily as well as quickly. These are small aspects to one watercolor, but it can really do a big change in your journey as well as it can be a game changer, guys. I always say this, that I have learned a lot of things over time, but I want you guys to learn it as quickly as possible and it can practically help you in your own journey. Going ahead and adding some more small dots towards the right side of the mountain. Once I have added it, I would go ahead and start adding some more smaller dots and some more small additions to my mountains. Once this mountain looks better, I would allow you guys to just breathe and breathe because you have all practically done a tremendous job. You have three layers, so it is not easy guys. You have done a great work over here. Just painting along with me can be a bit boring sometimes, but you have gone into it, you have understood it, and you are nailing it. Be happy about those small aspects and be happy that you are the one who is actually doing all of this and can practically get the best from this outcome. Once this part is done, I would ask you guys to just step back and relax a bit more as we are left out with the final few aspects of watercolor. I'm not sure that you would like to keep working, working and working and that would lead to more of overwork maybe in the later on. Step back at this point in time. Also, if you're painting, let it dry a bit, and then start adding another layer if you want. In wet-on-dry, you can go ahead and add as many layers as you want until you feel that your painting has not exactly turned out the way you want. This thing that I observed in my watercolors, I wanted to really share with you all. I'm using my deepest value or the darkest value I must say and it is practically my indigo. Now, if you want to learn more about values, I have a class where I'm teaching everything about monochrome. It is a seven-day class, you can go ahead and take it, we very small projects on each of these days and you can practically near your paintings with the help of that. Going on, adding some more loose brushstrokes, not loose brushstrokes because we are not trying to define anything over here. It's just that one or two small lines, dots here and there and that's all we are painting to get a final outcome. Every time I add these small dots, I think that, I will not be painting anymore on top of it but it's an addiction, I must say wet-on-dry. The more you paint along with it, you will understand how this wet-on-dry can create so much magic which you might be still not in a position to understand until you start creating with it. When I started creating, I did feel a lot as I have told you earlier but once I started getting the outcome, oh my God, it's a different world altogether, it's like some other creative process. It was like a progress to me, it was a new process to me. It was something that I had to unlearn and relearn a lot. That's what I wanted to share with you guys, that every process comes up with its own challenges. But practically once you start working on that process, they are surely progress that you make and progresses. What is most important in your journey? Just all I think you can walk around, that's not a problem. Making someone loose strokes here and there to show the ridges, then to show the rocks of the mountains. You can even show some pines if you are willing to do that, it's up to you what you want to showcase, you want to paint any photograph, you can also do that but I would ask you to take this as a practice exercise and then move on to your own painting or to your own photograph and try to recreate that whatever you want to do with it. Some loose, lighter strokes wherever I feel it is necessary and I'm using my size to escort our brush. It's the polar series, as you-all know, it gives me those small round dots, which I need, though if I look back, I have been using a lot of silver black velvet. But I think both of these brush sets have different brushstrokes and for this particular painting, I needed more of a round or oval shapes on. It is easier to [inaudible] brush. That's one of the reasons I chose this one. Going ahead and making some more strokes, guys, it's pretty iterative over here. I do not want to sound iterative. It's the same process that you do each and every time you are painting mountains but there's a shift that we did from going wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry. It's the only change that we are doing but it's a lot of change that you expect in your watercolor journey. Why I say this? Because wet-on-wet gives you less opportunities to change, whereas wet-on-dry is even more tough. I feel as you have applied one layer, you cannot go back and again lift it up and then again apply the second is. Most of these things we do not do and wet-on-dry. Hence, there's even less opportunity in wet-on-dry compared to wet-on-wet. I guess that's all I wanted to convey. Let's just finish off the last 3, 4 minutes of the painting. You can name the painting if you want to, you can now keep it as a sketchbook exercise up. Another aspect of watercolors, which I really like is to paint on sketchbooks, so yeah guys, I have been keeping sketchbooks and I can show you how pretty it is to keep sketchbooks and how beautifully you can paint on them. You can track your progress, all of that is possible if you have a sketchbook with yourself. I keep sketchbooks from my initial days. Now when I go back and check my paintings on the initial time and how I paint now there's a huge difference which I observed. It's always good to keep these track and to understand how you're maturing in this journey, how you are changing, how your work is changing, how everything is coming together for you. I guess that's all and now I would leave it up to you. You can meditate, I would come back whenever it is necessary. I have not added any sound effects over here, as I wanted you guys to work it around, only with the sound effect that you want so you can switch on any music that you want and paint along with me. It's a beautiful painting which has turned out. I'm super happy and super amazed to paint this one. I'm so glad that it happened and how it happened. The whole painting is coming together within 13 minutes and that's what I say is beauty of watercolors. You can take out as much less time as you want and still get a great outcome out of it. I saw the favorite part of my painting and it is painting my birds. I would go ahead and make some smaller birds. Now, whenever I paint birds, I make it in a way that it is irregular. We do not get the same shape and sizes. Some of them will flop their wings on the top, some of them will flap their wings towards the bottom. Some of them will be straight, so all of it put together, you have to understand how you want to paint birds. If you want a specific lesson on painting birds, I do even have a class on that, so go ahead and check it out. If you were not very good with painting birds and how you want to add them into your sketchbook exercises or into your watercolor paintings, I think that's a thing that is very helpful and it gives a different life to your painting. Since birds are living animals and they are adding so much of flavor to your painting, that the whole painting looks so much more better and beautiful, I must say. Let's just write that, it is Himalayas and did the painting, I think that's what is most important now. Once you have written Himalayas and dated the painting, then you can now have a final look at it and see how it has turned out after so much of work that is being done and so many layers that you have added overall. 11. Project 6 Travel to Slovenia: The colors are Naples Yellow or you can keep yellow, orange, bright violet, indigo, Payne's gray, Prussian blue, which is always optional, then yellow ocher, burnt sienna, and white gouache. You can also keep any other color like burnt umber, etc. if you would like to use it for this painting. Let's start with the last project for today. I know that you all have been really patient and working along with me. This is the 6th project and this is majorly wet on dry that we would be working around with. If any of you has been struggling with this technique, this work, then I guess this is the painting for you. Just go ahead and add these smaller lines as I continue adding it. As I draw, I would tell you a bit more about watercolors; about how I struggle with watercolors, what are the positives of wet on dry, as well as what are the negatives of wet on dry. You can just follow along and draw these lines. It would take a while. In the meanwhile, I will just guide you a bit more about how to go about painting the sky, you're hills as well as this small love tower that I want to paint now. Back to where we were. Now, this painting where you are majorly working with wet on dry, your paper doesn't have any water on it. You would be applying the wet pigments on top of it. That's how you will get your final result. One thing that I want to be sure about this part is that whenever you are applying wet on dry, it is maximum one-shade lighter compared to two shade lighter if you are doing wet on wet as you have not applied any water and the colors will be really vibrant. If you are until now struggling with the vibrancy of the paint; so you're not happy with the outcome, how the other people paint in a better way, their paintings are more vibrant, I must say that this technique will help you to come over or to come to a point where you will start appreciating the colors, where you will start loving all the colors that you paint with, and they would appear almost similar to what you have added on the paper. That's the first thing which I did identify when I started working around with my wet-on-dry technique. The second thing that I must say is you will be working in layers. There is a lot of opportunity to come back. Now, when you are working in layers, there're 2, 3 things which happen. First is that you have to go with lighter value and then with darker value, and depending on the amount of water that you add in your pigment which you apply on the paper, you can decide the number of layers which would like to add. This is something that you will understand and you will only practice, then only get a hang of it in a better way. But I must say, if you are struggling with watercolors, this is one of the ways where you can actually avoid any difficulty in overcoming your wet on wet effects where you can't control your water, where you are struggling how do I control these pigments, they are flowing all over, I don't understand, I'm unable to partner with the medium somehow it's not working as I want. All of this will be taken care of in this particular method. Yes, I guess that way, this is one of my own favorites, and in this case, the way I would like to concentrate and I would like to go ahead and walk around with for my watercolors. Then next, let's understand how it is more helpful compared to your wet on wet. In wet on wet, what usually happens is there is a chance of your paints moving into any subject. Or you want to keep a particular subject way more lighter compared to what you would like to see. In those lighter areas, sometimes what happens is when you are painting the sky, it might get into the other parts of the painting too. As you can't control the movement of water. It flows all around. This is the way to go where you just know that you are applying paints on these parts, there is no way that your water is flowing here and there, and it would not enter anywhere. That aspect of working with wet on dry is great. You have so much more control, as well as the style in which I must say you can paint is easy to find. In wet on wet, it's always difficult. It takes a while to understand how your paint should be applied, etc. Whereas, if you are working wet on wet completely, it is really easy that way. I myself feels so amazed when I was working with the wet on dry. I had so much more control over the painting. One thing that I must say is, sometimes it takes one or two attempts to get where you really want to go. That will always remain. If you can be patient in that aspect, I guess rest of all things will fall in place. I had a mix of my peach color with my orange and then I'm applying it on the sky. I want to have a mix of my purple and orange color for the sky area. I would be using the lavender shade too from Mijello Mission Gold. It's a beautiful shade guys, you must try it out. In case any one of you is willing to invest on good colors, I guess Mijello Mission Gold is one of the brands which is my favorite. Try a few colors. I think horizon blue is something that I would like you guys to try out, as well as lavender is one of the colors that you can always go ahead and try out. You have to be really, really sure about how the lifting technique works on these colors. There are a few staining colors which I have seen with Mijello Mission Gold whereas, if you are working with Winsor & Newton, the staining doesn't happen. Overall, you have to be sure of what colors you choose and how it appears on the paper. Can you lift it out and the colors should be good enough for you, the vibrancy, etc. I think that's one of the good criterias which is made by Mijello Mission Gold. I guess you would get the vibrancy as you want, and that really helped anyone to decide on the shades. That's not only the one thing; the opacity of the color, the light-fastness, as well as the other aspects like can you lift it out or not. All of it put together, you have to understand what colors you must use. I did apply some amount of my lavender, and then I'm going a head with our darker value of my purple. This is bright violet or purple or any other shape that is available with you. Wash your brush and then go ahead with your clean brush and blend your orange with lavender that you have for the sky. It should be an absolute smooth blend where you don't get to understand how the sky is blending the colors on their own. That aspect of watercolor is very important, but you see how vibrant the sky has turned out as we have only applied them, your pigments on top of your paper. Your pigments, I must say this, going ahead with wet on dry technique, that's what I meant. Once you are happy with the blending of the sky go ahead and let it dry. We would just allow to work on the ground. Now, I do not want the colors to move around. That's one of the reasons I'm working for the ground area right now. This is the burnt ocher. You can also take any other yellow ocher that is available with you. I think it's just the way you work around that's most important. We will be basically discussing about all of that rather than going ahead discussing about the pigments, the colors that you must use. Which one is good, which one is bad? Of course, I have always told you that your student grade pigments will turn out 2-3 shade lighter because they have more amount of binder in it, whereas there are less amount of fillers and binders when you are working around with your artist great paints. That's the only thing which I would request you guys to follow, and use any artist grade pigments only. Once you have added this, go ahead and add some more burnt sienna towards the top area. The blending should be absolutely smooth enough. You would see I am using some amount of water wherever I feel it is necessary. Once I did apply the burnt ocher, I just blended it with some amount of water. Here I am adding some amount of my darker brown, it can be a brown sepia or any other dark brown that is available with you. Overall, the process might look a bit slow to many of you and that's really true. We are focusing on each and every area and then we paint it. It takes a while, but you can now move around. You don't need to wait for one layer to dry or for a particular place and then only touch upon the other areas. That's one thing which I have learned with wet-on-dry. That you touch on a few areas, but you can continue working on the other areas and there is no problem that way. I'm adding some amount of my burnt sienna again to blend it a bit on the lower side. I would go ahead and lift out a few colors wherever I think it is necessary. Once I have lifted it out, it would be in a better position to give you a view that it's a small hill. I must say, it is a small area. You can even use a hut. You can use any other object or tower or a particular building. Now, this gives a flavor to your landscape. Now, if you are working with the rule of thoughts, that's one of the golden rule, you have to divide your paper into three equal halves and then have an object like this. Now, this object can clearly define your landscape in a better away. It is from perspective that I have learned it. Of course it took me a while, so I did not want you guys to wait for all the time and then come back and understand this. I just thought to help you out and understand how to do it pretty quickly using any blue. Now, I'm not particular about the blue that you use. You can use cobalt blue, you can use ultramarine, you can use Windsor or Taylor blue, whatever is available with you. Use that blue and try to paint a bit over here. This painting, initially I just thought that I would leave it over here as I was not sure how it is going to turn out. There are times in many paintings I don't like it or this is not exactly how I wanted it to work. But going and working till the end is very important always. If you just want to see how your final painting has turned out, you should keep working over it. Now there are times we lose hope and we just leave it there, but there are times where you should pick up yourself and say that you are doing it for the process, you want to see how this whole journey works, how the wrongdoings or what are the mistakes that you are doing. If you can correct that in the next one, then it would be great. Practically, your original painting works best for you. That also happens. There are a lot of cases where I have seen a lot of things happening. This whole painting is done on your time basis so that you guys can follow along with me and paint along with me. I always keep the videos real-time. That helps everyone to get a hang of it and paint along with the same pace and finish off the painting together. That's the best thing which I love about watercolors. If we are working together, let's work together, let's keep it real time. Let me tell you how much time I needed to paint this. It's not that when we see your final painting we can always understand everything about it. There is a lot that goes behind each and every painting and there is a thought process which goes around it. While I was painting, and I told you, that I was really not happy with it. If you see right, it is not going anywhere. You can understand it. It's really not going anywhere. Over time when we started filling up the other areas which are still white, then you can get a hang of that. This painting is turning out something which is pretty nice or good that you would like to paint. There is a contrast of colors that I'd like to add. The blue for the mountains and the yellow tones or the audit tones for the other areas. This really helps me to create the beauty which I wanted with the colors that I was applying. Contrast really helps to show each and every subject that you are painting in a better way. If you were blending the colors together or you are taking the same colors, like the greens and we are using some blue for the mountains, overall, it's not a bad idea to do that either. But in the long run, it's just that you are not defining each and every subject or each and every area differently. This way, you can really define every small detail that you wanted to show for the painting. Once this part is dry we would go ahead and add some more layers on it, like the one we are doing now for our ground area. Ground area is simple. We will be adding one more layer. Some of the areas I would blend, some of the areas I would leave it just like that so that you can see how the ridges, how the smaller rocks etc, everything, how it works out. Everything put together, you will be happy to have an outcome which goes hand-in-hand with the painting that you like to do. I have increased the speed of it to 1.5 since there was a lot of to ensure that we were doing and you might be getting bored, I'm not. Keeping it a bit more interesting and trying to give you all the insights. There is no change that is going to happen. It's just that the size or you can say the timing that you see now is a bit lower than what you would have seen earlier. A few minutes here and there. But in case you want to adjust the speed of the video, go ahead and adjust the speed of the video from the bottom-left corner or from the top right corner if you are seeing it on a smaller screen. All these things can always be done. You can adjust the speed, etc. But more than that, I am going ahead and adding some more smaller lines with the help of my dark brown. That's what I was always telling you. I was seriously not happy with the final outcome or I was really not sure of where the painting was going, how it is going to turn out in the end, but somewhere or the other, I do not want to lose the hope. I just knew within myself that this is going to work out exactly the way I want. Let's move on. Let's keep painting it. I moved on to the mountain area so that I gain a bit more confidence now. As I was really not happy with how the other areas and the other parts were turning out exactly. Small areas. Working on it gives you a lot more confidence and you can pick yourself up at any point in time and start painting the final goal. In the final goal of a particular painting is to learn something, is to understand how you should work around with this beautiful medium watercolors. How you can apply different techniques. One thing over my journey that I have understood is, you can only learn techniques, you can only learn how to add the colors or what not to do in watercolors, what are the mistakes that you have been doing which you can avoid? The rest is most about practice. It's more about finding your own style. That can only happen when you have a guidance, which I was always saying about the techniques, etc. You practice on your own exactly how you want to work around with the colors, how you want to work around with the painting, what other subjects you want to try and give yourself an opportunity to understand each and every subject, to try out different stuff. That's something which I have understood. I was initially working with only landscapes. But now I like to work around with florals. Every year I like to include something new to my journey, whether it be a different medium that I want to work around with acrylics or wash, or else I add some different subjects. It keeps your journey really interesting. You can practically nil many more subjects that you would have thought. Though it's always good to stick to only one single thing and achieve what you really want in that medium, for that subject or for those subjects. But frankly speaking, I love to try out everything like urban sketching, painting of flowers painting landscape, painting nature, anything that has to do with nature I love each and every part of it. Even urban sketching more now, as I can relate to it, I can relate to these old buildings, I can relate to these doors, I can relate to the windows, I can relate to each and every aspect of these small things which we see putting everything together, I guess. I'm a lover of nature and whatever I see I like to paint. You can also follow along if you are somewhere closer to what I see if you really think the way I do. Let's add some more loose lines on the left side of the mountain. Once this spot is done, we will go ahead and add some darker values as the next layer for the mountains, which is closer to us. Now, either you can call them mountains or else you can even call them hills. They're snow-capped. They may not be very high or something. I would leave that decision up to you. What you really want to paint and how you want to paint, what you name it. It's all your imagination. It's all your love for your painting. There is no one who can actually tell you how to paint, what to paint and how to go about the process. The process is also yours. It's only the enjoyment that you get out of the process and how you can practically turn your basic passion for art into something that you really love to do. All I can say is that if you give 100 percent to this medium, it will reward you back. This is another way in which you can get your rewards as it is really simple, easy way to paint along. You can go over in layers as you all saw me do it. You can also do it in the similar way. Some of the places you will have in darker values and some of the places you will have lighter values. Do make sure that you're not overworking on any painting which I have realized. Try to create contrast. Contrast will actually help you to define your objects in a better way. Now I would go ahead and add some foliage. I think the top area of the mountains is completely done. I'm pretty happy by adding only two layers. This decision I have made for myself that will not had any further layers. Right [inaudible] and their details, that's absolutely fine. We can even do it later on. But overall, this looks pretty complete. If you look at the top part of the mountains. Once you are done with that, go ahead and add some more foliage to a few areas like I do. This is adding some more darker value of indigo into it and then adding it. It is loose, simple, interesting, and I really like doing all of this, as this gives the painting so much more definition. It adds so much more depth that there are bushes, trees in the background, which usually people ignore or might not like to add or forget to add. It really creates that look for your painting where you are making everything possible to make it look more original, to make it look more closer to the nature that you observe. As always, I have not gone ahead and added any kind of music in the background, as I wanted you guys to just follow along and paint along with me. You can put on your own music. You can just follow my brushstrokes and you can get exactly the colors that you want. I'm adding some more darker values of brown for my grounds. You can even ignore the part if you are happy with the final outcomes. Since my left lower part was a bit darker, so I just thought to add some more darker value even for my bottom part of the ground. These are loose stroke. Again, we are not going to go ahead and add it everywhere. It's only few places that we are going to highlight. This majorly works as a definition and it helps me to define the area in a better way. As I did tell you, add some more here and there. Once you have added the lines and you are happy with it, go ahead and start painting you're painting. I would leave it over here as I do not want to touch all the areas. One or two drops or one or two small lines, one or two small round shape that I want to add a rest. Everything should look similar easy. I think the whole of the painting was simple. It's just that I have done the painting in parts. First attempting the sky, then attempting your grounds going on to your mountains. Overall, we are going very step-by-step in this painting process. Step-by-step actually gives you a lot more opportunity, but it also takes away a lot from you. You have to wait and you have to know how you want to paint each and every aspect. You should be completely sure in your head how you want to add it. For me, sometimes I have even gone ahead painted my sky, and just added some amount of trees for the background. That's it. I have finished the painting over there. Those kind of paintings I have also done and still I could manage a good outcome. That's all happens in wet on wet technique. It really doesn't happen in wet on dry technique. This is where I must say that you have to find your own style. You have to really work hard to get how you exactly want to walk around with this medium. Do you really want to walk around with only wet on wet or you even want to give wet on dry a try? I feel that it's all a good try at least you should try it as a wet on dry medium. It's really pretty when you see the final outcome and you would be really, really happy with it. Believe me, I have worked with this medium intensively and I know that most of you will be in a position to nail it and find your own style which really doesn't happen in wet on wet. Many of the places you just end up working exactly the way your instructor is working, or you just understand the medium a bit more and then apply some colors, paint the same things. But here you have so much to work around with. You can work with lesser GSM paper, which means even on just 185 GSM should work for you. Working with the better paper is not a concern at all. You can go ahead with any shape, size, etc. When I think about this part, I can't say that this is one of the most interesting aspects that I have seen. Going ahead and adding some naples yellow. Now, naples yellow is one of my favorite colors that I walk around with. For my sky, you can see buildings, everything, naples yellow is something that I really like to walk around with. It can help you. It can guide you. It is a medium of colors which do not blend and give you a green if you add some blue on top of it. Overall, I can say one of the amazing and beautiful colors that I have come across too date. Even if the building is a really small part of the painting, you can add as much texture to it. You can add as much of details to it. I have understood this with my own experience of doing urban sketching or off doing buildings, that buildings is one of the life for a painting. Along with human beings if you can, of course, go ahead and add, but everything is a process. Human beings of course is a difficult subject to paint initially, it might be really difficult for you, so while you are moving from your easier parts to difficult parts, I must say that somewhere the other buildings come in between this human anatomy and when you're working with only landscapes. Putting it together, I must say that whenever you start with your buildings try to keep it a bit, I would say, color shift. Color shift is very important in this case, some of the areas should be white and some of the area should be dark. If you are keeping everything as one single color, it would turn out the way we want. That's the rule that wherever you are applying the colors, you have to apply it in a way that some of the areas are highlighted and some of the areas stays the same height. I'm so much eager to give you a class on urban sketching. There is so much that I have learned over time for myself and I would love to actually tell you everything about it, but I guess it's taking a while to get on top of it and give you all I usually see in it at what all you can paint from it. Super soon there will be a small class on it for sure as that is on my mind for some time and I really want to add a bit on it, tell you about perspective, tell you how to paint buildings, tell you how you can add human beings. Everything that is possible for a painting, I would love to tell you all of it. I have taken a lot of time to understand as I was learning on my own. Whereas when you are here, I really want you guys to simplify everything and just paint your heart. That's all I must say. Using a scale to draw the lines, and I'm using my Gelly Roll pen to add these lines. You can use any black pen that is available with you. It's always good to use your favorite castle permanent ink Gelly Roll pen or any other kind of pen like lamina, etc. I am going ahead with whatever is available with me. I always see this that do not try to have the best of the supplies that really is not required. Slowly, steadily as you progress in your journey, you would really want to know what you would like to own rather than owning everything and then figuring, this is all that is not required. Over time again, one thing that I've realized is few things you might not use at all and give a few things that you will add on as your style. Keeps on changing with watercolors. Watercolors is a medium which gives you a lot more opportunities. Slowly, steadily there are a lot of things that add on to your portfolio if you are building of one or even changing your style, getting a voice off your own, understanding the medium, working with some opaque colors like we are adding some gouache into this medium. We are blending it here and there is some highlights. All of these put together, I must say it will take some time. It will help you to get a hang of it. It will change. You will understand how your whole nature of watercolors painting, sky, etc, is changing. Every time you paint, every time you do something, you will be more and more happy about it. You will understand how it works, how you can blend your colors, how in a better way you can give an outcome. I think it's so satisfying. Once you are a bit advanced in this journey, you are more experienced. It's not about creating masterpieces. It's more about understanding the medium. It's more about shifting. It's more about knowing your voice. It's more about how you paint across. Overall, it's a very empowering and powerful medium I must say. Empowering in a way it can help you build your own career as an artist. Everything put together. I am so excited and happy to share all my knowledge with you guys and thank you for giving me an opportunity to share it. We will now move on to the next part. That is all about how you can straighten up your paper in the next goal. Just add the, what is the description. Then finally look at your painting. Do remove your tip at an angle once your paper is dry. 12. Tips & Conclusion: Many of us have seen, once we complete a painting, they are not straight enough. You'll see that it is wavy. Whereas there are a few paintings, when I complete it, I see they are completely straight. How do I do it? Now, that's the best way. I would say if you see this painting, it has a single line, it's not wobbly at all. If you place it on the paper, you can see it's absolutely straight. There are hardly any ridges or anything else that you also wonder painting. How do I do it? It's a very easy way to do it. You see how the painting is, it goes away from the sheet. I take an acrylic sheet, and then I go ahead with a very flat, big brush like this, apply some water. Oh, my God, it has some things on it. I have to take it off. Okay, fine, let's apply it. It's always good to have a clean brush, but if you don't have it, that's not a problem. It's all for your practice. But if you are planning to send it to someone, do make sure that you have a clean backside of your painting. I always say that you have to be really professional when you are sending it over to anyone as a gift or as a painting or as a token of love. Let's be absolutely professional about it. You see how it is now, it is all wet. I will go ahead and place it on the correct sheet. Now you can just use your pen or use your hand and finger to move through and then just press it a bit along the edges. Our hands are always not clean, so I would prefer using any of cover gloves before I go about just flatty pressing it. Here is one of the books that I refer. I am placing it on top of this. It's by David Webb, Painting with Watercolors, an Indispensable Guide. Once this is done, leave it overnight. Once you leave it overnight, it will become absolutely flat like this one. There's no wobble, so when you place it, you can see it. This is one of the tips that I really wanted to give you. Along with it, I would like to tell you that, please do leave us a review if you like, anything about this class. Do submit a project in the project gallery. I eagerly wait for each of your projects. I really like to give my feedback in case there is anything where you can improve upon. I would like to even tell you about that. If you like anything about this class, then do leave us a positive review that would really help me to reach out to many more students who would like to take a class like this, or who have a similar interest. If you are on social media, do tag me, and give a photo or just share your photos on Instagram. I go by the name, watercolor.illustration.letter. You can tag me. It's always good to tag me. I can have a look at it and get back to you on that, and I would really love to share that on my stories wherever you paint, as I'm pretty proud of all the students that follow me and take my classes. I usually come up with a unique class every month. See you very soon in the next class. Spring has already arrived, so, you know what we will be painting next.