Watercolor Landscape Painting : How To Paint Using A Reference Photo

1. Introduction: Hello everyone. My name is Alicia and I'm an artist here in San Jose, California. In today's class, I will show you how to paint a loose watercolor landscape using a reference photo, we will go over the materials, basic watercolor techniques, layering and washes, as well as some standard brushwork. We will then paint this watercolor painting step-by-step. So let's begin. 2. Materials: These are all the materials that I have used. You'll need a bowl for water, pencil for the sketch phase, a washi tape to tape down your edges. And then I've used three brushes. They all have been linked in the description by the way. Also, this is our teaser paper that I've used. I cut mine to a six by eight inch. I also use acrylic white paint and then our teeth palate, which just comes in like 26 colors. Again, everything is linked in the projects and resources tab below. 3. Exercise 1 - Techniques: So before we start, I just wanted to go over some basics with you. I'm not going to overwhelm you with a lot of techniques and brushwork, but I'm just going to cover the techniques that we will use in today's class so that you can get a more practical approach for this. The two most common watercolor techniques are wet on wet and wet on dry. For the wet on wet paint is applied to wet paper. You can layer different colors on top of existing wet paint, which will create this blurred out expansion effect, where you will notice the colors bleeding into one another. The second technique is wet on dry, where paint is applied onto dry paper. It is asked simple as that. Let's look at the effects that these gave us. Right now the wet on wet gives us soft edges. It's more blurred out. This is great if you want more delicate, softer paintings, great use for backgrounds or far-away objects. You can also blend easily while getting an effective gradient and also creates a misty effect. It is also unpredictable and hence, not so much in your control. The very opposite of the wet on wet is the wet on dry, which gives us sharper edges. So you can definitely have more control where you can get well-defined shapes. The wet-on-dry also allows you to lay your paint as much as you want. We will go through layering in the next step. 4. Exercise 2 - Layering: Here I'm going to show you how you can layer your paint in watercolors. I'm going to show you three different kinds of washes here, each one with a little more pigment to show you the effects of leering. If you want to well defined shapes when it comes to layering, you will have to work on this wet on dry. I'm drying out my paper with a blow dryer to speed up the process before I begin to lay on my shapes. Once you are painting has dried, layer your shapes little by little, getting darker each time, but also wait for your paint to dry in-between each layer that you add. As you can see, the lighter your initial wash is, the easier it is to build up on layering. So keep that in mind when you are painting with watercolors, you always have to work light to dark. Unlike acrylics, where you can get away with walking from dark to light, I think watercolors as a medium require you to be more patient. 5. Exercise 3 - Wash: Let's go over some basic washes here. So for the first one we have a flat wash where your pigment is even all around. Then to get a gradient, I'm starting from a light wash with less pigment and will slowly increase my pigment intake as I move downwards. You can also, you can also start dark and then gradually lighten up your washer as well. Toned is where you combine two colors and merge them together by blending. And to blend them lightly. Brush your colors in between. 6. Exercise 4 - Brushwork: In this lesson, I wanted to go over some basic brushwork that can be applied to any watercolor painting. I'm going to start with in nice big round brush. Again, all of these brushes are linked below if you are interested in them. I literally love this brush. You will see me using this brush for most CD entire painting almost 95% of the time I'm gonna be using this one brush. It is super versatile because you can get extremely tiny lines with this as well as big ones. Holding a brush is straight up and using its tip can give you thin strokes. You can also use the side of the brush. And then obviously using its belly can give you larger strokes. This next brush is a long thin brush, which can give you extremely fine details. I usually pull this brush out at the very end when I'm wrapping up just to add last minute final details to make an impression and to add a few, just a few marks here and there. This last brush that I'm gonna be using is the old brush. I like to use this to get some really cool dry brush effect. You can also make this brush yourself by taking any old around small round brush that you have that you do not really care much of and twist it on any surface to make the bristles span out. But like I said, I use this brush to get some dry brush effect mainly on my trees. What this means is that you want less water and more pigment for this brush technique. Using this can give you very natural brushstrokes and somewhat, it's somewhat unpredictable and adds to that loose painting style effect. You can also get a dry brush effect with your regular round brush. So usually in a good watercolor painting, you should have all these techniques we went over to add interest and make it impactful. As you move on to today's lesson, you will see me using all these techniques we went over and I will show you how you can turn a simple landscape and make it interesting by adding a variation of brush marks and details. 7. Sketching Landscape: Alright, first step like always as taping down our paper and I'm using a washi tape to tape down the edges. And I'm working with a six by eight inch Artesia paper here. All right, so once you're done with this step, we will move on to the sketch phase. All right, so let's roughly sketch out this landscape to make the painting process easier. Try and simplify your sketch and only draw things that will help you in identifying shapes and color. So starting off with the mountains here, feel free to modify a few things as you please based on the shape that you're working with. I mean, the the painting, the paper size that you're working with. Here, I'm getting down the bridge that I see far back. I'm just separating out the marshy land with the water. This will also help me to identify the different obvious colors. Just a reminder, the reference pic is in the project and resources tab below. So if you want to pull it up on the side as you paint, feel free to do that. And you can also right-click and save the image to print it out. This picture was taken by me when I was traveling to Europe. And I just loved the composition and the warmed that we get from this landscape. So I thought this would be a perfect reference pic for today's class. I did want to draw out this little house that we see towards the right. Use the reference as a guide to help you draw that out. Once you're done with the sketch phase, we will move on to painting. 8. Painting - Base layers: Like always, let's begin with the sky. I'm using deep ocean blue from the artist's palette. But any light blue will work using a round brush and get a light pigmented version of the blue and dab your brush and places you see the blue color in the reference picture. So keep it very light and use the tip and the belly of the brush to spread it around. It is very important to leave some white spaces are gaps open to act as clouds. So taking a bit of indigo blue now I'm getting it in places. I see some grayish clouds to add the fluffiness of the clouds and to give it a three-dimensional look, again, do not cover up the whitespaces you've already left. Leave that as is. To make any edges software just go over that edge with your brush and pull out that color. I did not want to add too much to this guy, so I'm just leaving it as is, and we'll move on to the mountains. I'm starting with a simple flat wash to the mountains forests by using sunburst yellow. Just cover the entire area up, but also leaving some white spaces open. I'm adding some yellow ocher and burnt umber, which is a brown to add to sum up the shadow areas for sealing the mountains. Keeping this wash is still fairly light, just to leave some more room to build up on colors later, get into a habit and constantly leaving some white spaces randomly open. I do this pretty spontaneously as I paint. Not only adds interest, but it's a great focal point and also add some impressions of tiny objects. It also breaks up in differentiates the shapes, which again adds to the overall interests of a painting. While the painting is still wet, I'm taking a darker brown color, sepia brown, I believe. And I'm building on the shadow a bit. I decided to leave the mountains as is for now. We will come back to it later once it dries, but this is a good initial base. Let's move on now to the base layers of the land. Taking the most dominant color that I see, which is the sunburst to yellow. I'm laying a flat wash to that. Mixing in a little bit of yellow ocher to get this muddy brown color for this section to the right. Adding some yellow ocher and burnt sienna and adding God to the shadow areas. These are just initial base layers. We will be building up on these colors a bit more. Mixing some yellow ocher and sand bursts yellow again for the rock and the front and to the right side. I wanted to fill up some of those green beds we see in the reference. So going in with spring green and sandbars, yellow and a bit of olive green to cover up those areas of light greens that we see in the reference, All in all, keeping mindful of leaving some white gaps open. Also be sure to hold your brush from the back of the handle to create more loose and effortless brush marks rather than more controlled. I see some of the green sort of flying and bushes and trees around the house and in the back of the house too. I'm just kinda loosely adding in those marks right now. Before we move any further with details, let's finish up the base layer of the water sections. So I'm taking the same color we used for the sky, in my case, it's called deep ocean blue. And adding a very light wash forest. 9. Painting - Mountains & House: Now let's go back to the mountains and bold up on those layers. My latest underneath have dried up. So I'm working on this wet on dry. Going back in with sand bursts yellow to bring out that beautiful sunlight that's falling onto the mountains towards the central left. Also getting some of that color along with some greens to the trees behind the house. Simply dabbing the tip of the brush to get impressions of trees here. Create now, moving on to the shadows of the mountains and bringing out those layers a bit more. So I'm using a dark gray and brown for this and adding that to the right side. Keeping in mind not to cover up all the existing layers and also leaving the white gaps open. Also getting some impressions of faraway trees at the bottom here. Just a very light pressure to your brush will do the trick. You don't have to really be pressing down on anything. As you can see, I'm just very lightly just touching the brush to my paper and that's all you need. The blurred effect that you get with the wet-on-wet works really well with far away objects to give it more distance and perspective. Because far-away objects often aren't clear anyway. So this technique does help and that there are some dark shadows at the top of the mountain as well. So I'm adding that layer too. 10. Painting - Middle ground: Now in these last few layers, you will really see the painting come more to life because now it's time to keep building on the Layers little by little and adding some details which will define the landscape more. Let's work on the middle ground here, and I'm bringing out some of those colors a bit more. Going back in with sunburst, yellow, and brightening up those lighter sections. Similarly adding some darker values to the areas where I noticed them. The reference pic, so towards the left and then the other rocky bits as well. Going over the middle section with the yellow ocher again. And then I will also go over the sections of the green as well. I'm basically adding an additional layer of color and bringing out those colors a bit more. Just add that pop because you have to keep in mind that watercolors do try litres, so it does require a few layers depending on how light your initial base color was. Now Raleigh going dark and pulling out those darker layers more by adding black and brown. In watercolors, I often pull out the volley dark, darks at the very end. You always want to work light to dark in general, but in acrylics, it doesn't matter because you can't lay or light colors on darks, but not in watercolors. Using the very tip of the brush and dragging out some of those star colors onto the water. So tiny little specks will give that impression of debris or marshy soil. Using the splatter technique here. With some dark brown to add some random specks of color are far more interested in the foreground and just giving a tiny impressions of objects. So tapping on my brush, we'll add some of that splatter. Be sure to do it carefully. You don't want it all over. So you can also put your hand in places where you don't want it. 11. Painting - Fine Details : Pulling out my detailed thin brush now for some additional marks and just to add movement and interest. While the paint is still wet. I love mark making and using my fingernails to do this can add a variety of just marks and, and movement. They can also add a very personal and intentional artists touch as well. You'll basically etching into the paper which I, you know, I love leaving. Adding somebody light dry brush techniques here, which basically means that my brush does not have much water, so it leaves a dry, rough texture, which is nice to have for some variety. These techniques work well with foregrounds because you would see more texture up close anyway in real life. And then I love adding more of the wet-on-wet techniques to the background for that blurred effect because it's far away and so you get the right perspective. Let's go ahead and give details to the bridge. Now, I'm taking black and using the same thin detailing brush. I'm simply making those watercolor lines that we see in the reference and that's it. Detailing the house a tiny bit with black adding a very light yellow wash to only some parts of the house on the side. 12. Final Touches & Class Project: All right. Let's go ahead and take off this tape now, before we add our final last minute details. Here, I'm taking in plain acrylic white. You can also use gouache if you have that. Just adding a few highlights to the overall painting, a few little specs and dots will make it stand out and will provide interest to the lands IP. This completes our simple and loose watercolor landscape for today. Hope you enjoyed and learned some fun, easy techniques from today's class. And I cannot wait to see what you guys come up with. Share your projects. I would love to see them and do not forget to leave this class if review. If you've enjoyed this class, makes sure to follow me so that you do not miss out on future painting classes from me. Also, if you love this painting, follow this class up with one of my most popular watercolor landscape classes that has well over 2 thousand students now, I have linked it in the projects and resources tab below. So check that out to shop my arts do visit my website where I sell my original landscapes and follows, as well as prints and all sizes and much more to keep up with latest news and to follow me on Instagram where you can stay up to date with my new launches. Thank you once again and happy painting.