Watercolor Landscapes for Beginners

1. Introduction: Whether you're a beginner, just getting started on your journey with watercolor. And you're looking to learn how to paint landscapes in nature scenes. Or perhaps you're a little bit more advanced with watercolor, but you're looking to improve your techniques and your overall method or process for this kind of painting. This course is for you. My name is Erica, and I'm an artist working with a variety of traditional drawing and painting mediums. Some of my favorite being watercolor, pen and ink, and graphite. And I really enjoy pushing myself and improving my skills with a wide range of subtracts, ranging from landscapes to still-life to animals. And more. My days revolve around selling artwork locally, mentoring artists online. And I'm also constantly creating helpful resources and content aimed towards beginner and intermediate artists. I share via my membership site, my blog, my YouTube channel, and my different social media sites. I have over 15 years of experience working in creative and artistic fields. After graduating from art school, I moved on to working as graphic designer, then as art director in an advertising agency. And from there, I moved on to working as head art teacher in the school environment for over seven years. During those last couple of years of me and my last regular full-time teaching position, I started my own art business on the side, I started selling my art work locally, participating in local art events. And I was also starting to teach artists of all different ages and different mediums from my own home studio after awhile and seeing how I was starting to replace that income that I was earning from my last regular job, I decided to quit and put all of my time, energy and attention into growing my business. This is when I started taking what I was doing locally to the online space in order to be able to help more people. Nowadays, I'm the happiest. I've ever been running my own art business and continuing to grow as an artist as I help others on their own paths. And I am so happy that I get to help people from all over the world. In this course, I'm gonna be taking you through my full process for three different watercolor landscapes. I'm gonna be sharing everything with you, starting with how I create my preliminary pencil sketch, freehand from imagination to how I set myself up for success by preparing my first color mixtures that I'm gonna be using during the painting process to how I combine wet-on-wet with wet on dry techniques to create a believable sensation of open space and depth and a sense of balance in this kind of seen. Alongside this, we are going to be practicing painting trees, painting skies, painting water, rocks, and all of these elements which are really common in this kind of painting. The reason why I wanted to make sure to bring in three different landscapes into one single course instead of only sharing one process with you, which is going to lead you to only being able to paint one single landscape is because by going through this process three times and applying these main ideas that I'm gonna be sharing with you into three different situations. You're gonna be able to find common threads in this process so that you can better understand these fundamental things that are going to help improve and enhance any type of watercolor landscape or nature scene. And you can take these tools and this practice into any kind of watercolor and nature scene that you may wish to work on in the future and arrive at much better results by going through this process with me three times, you're not only going to be able to practice specific techniques and how to paint specific elements present in nature scenes. But you're also going to start thinking about the macro level, general strategy. Meaning what to paint first, what to paint next, what to paint last? This sequence and what areas are going to be painting when, which is absolutely key when painting with watercolor, when we're painting with watercolor, going in with a strategy is key for success. This is especially the case when we're tackling a full composition that is made up of many different layers. So even though these landscapes are different, you're going to find commonalities in terms of when I paint, what, how I tackle those different layers, how, when and why I use wet on wet techniques that require bringing in more water for soft diffused out effects. How, when and why I bring in wet on dry techniques for sharper, more defined edges and detail. Before jumping into the first-class, I do want to let you know that if you're just getting started with watercolor, I would recommend checking out my watercolor 101 course here on Skillshare, which is going to teach you a whole bunch of must know information that you should definitely know about in order to be able to move your skulls forward faster. Also, if you're just getting started with watercolor, I would recommend going through all of the classes in the sequence that I have prepared for you. But of course, if you're more advanced and you just want to work on one of these three landscapes. You can also do that. I have prepared these classes for each of the landscapes so that they can also be a stand-alone little course in and of itself. Alright, so with this introduction out of the way, let's go ahead and jump into our next class. We are going to be talking about the projects that we're gonna be working on together in this course. See you there. 2. Course Project and Must Know Information: Hey there and welcome to this class where I'm going to be explaining all about the project that we're gonna be working on together in this course. By the end of this course, you're going to have completed three different watercolor landscapes. In all of the following videos, you're going to see me work in half of my watercolor sheets. So I cut my watercolor sheets into two halves. It's totally up to you if you want to create smaller paintings like I am, and practice your painting in just half of your watercolor sheets. Or if you'd like to use your full sheet, I'll be making my outline sketches available for all three landscapes in two different sizes. This is just in case you'd like to skip over the free hand sketching phase and transfer my outline sketch onto your sheet of watercolor paper, whichever size you choose to work. And of course, if you're looking to improve your drawing skills, I would recommend practicing creating your preliminary sketch along with me in those pencil sketching classes, I take you step-by-step through my sketching process. And they also provide key pieces of information that you can take with you, which are going to help you create more effective preliminary outline sketches for future watercolor paintings. If you're interested in learning how to use tracing paper to transfer your outline sketch onto your sheet of watercolor paper. My watercolor one-to-one course does include a class on that, where I take you step-by-step through my process, you're gonna be able to find that course along with my other ones here on Skillshare, along with my outline sketches, you're also going to be able to find your downloadable supply checklist and photos of my three finished paintings, which you're free to use as reference as you're working. I've created all of these nature scenes from imagination. So I'm not going to be adding any specific reference photos. You're gonna be able to find all of these downloadable in the projects and resources tab. You'll notice that before getting started with the process for each of these landscapes, I've included a supplies video. This is because for each landscape, I used slightly different supplies, different paper, different brushes, different colors. However, I want to encourage you to use the supplies you have. There is no need to use the exact same colors that I'm going to be using to arrive at great results. Nor is there any need to use the exact same paintbrush sizes I'm gonna be using for great results. It is important to know though, that if you use higher-quality watercolor paper, your wet on wet effects are likely going to turn out much better. You're going to have smoother transitions between colors and overall better effects when it comes to using those techniques that require more water. And I would also recommend having on hand at least one or two larger flat or round brushes, a couple of medium-sized round brushes, and one smaller round that you can use for smaller shapes and details. I would consider a larger brush to be maybe a one-inch flat brush if you like using flat brushes or if you prefer rounds, it could be a size six or eight mop brush, or perhaps a round in size 16 or 18 or 20 larger brushes are going to be essential to paint those initial large washes quickly and easily. When it comes to medium-sized brushes, I would say somewhere 8-14 or even a 16 depending on the brand and where the paintbrush is from would do great. And finally, when it comes to your smallest round brush, I would say something like a size three or two or one would be great. As long as you use brushes that are within those ranges, you're gonna be fine. Just remember to switch between them when we're working on those first large washes, you want to use larger brushes. When we're working on the medium-sized shapes, you want to use medium-sized brushes. When we're working on smaller shapes and details and enhancing textures, perhaps bring in a smaller brush. I will let you know when I'll be changing between my brushes throughout the process. But always remember that the tool that you have in your hand has to be helpful for whatever it is that you're trying to do in that given point in time throughout the process, you have to think of that tool is going to be helpful for you for what you're trying to do. And if you have to switch to another brush, go ahead and switch before getting started with the next thing. Or if you have to make sure to have two brushes on hand so that you can switch quickly between them. Have those two paint brushes ready beside you before getting started with whatever it is that you're gonna be doing. Alright, so that's all I'm gonna say about supplies for now. I'll be explaining more about the particular items that you're gonna be seeing me use or each landscape later on. Finally, I do want to remind you that in the projects and resources tab, you can very easily post your work, ask questions, share your thoughts. It would make me so happy to see your work there and provide feedback and answer any questions that you might have. Once you've grabbed your downloadable, go ahead and join me for the next class in which I'm gonna be sharing all about the supplies for landscape number one. 3. House and Path Supplies: Hey friend and welcome to this short class where I'm gonna be explaining about the supplies that I'm going to make sure to have on hand as I'm moving forward with landscape number one, in terms of my paper, I'm gonna be using a sheet of watercolor paper from prim rosier. This is cold press paper and it's 140 pounds in thickness or in weight. And I'm not going to be using the full sheet. I actually am going to be using a little bit more than half of a sheet, the sheet of watercolor paper that you're going to be seeing me work in is going to have 8 " in width and 6 " in height. So eight by 6 ". In terms of my paint, I'm gonna be using seven different colors. Six of them are from my Daniel Smith watercolors set. And one of them is a brown that I brought in because I don't have that brown in my Daniel Smith's set. And this is the raw umber. You can see that half pan right there on the bottom right on screen. This is a little half pan that I brought in from my watercolor set. And again, the only reason why I brought that one in is because I ran out of my brown that I had available in my Daniel Smith's set and I need to replace that. If you've ever wondered, if you can combine different brands of watercolor paint in one same painting. You definitely can. I do it all the time. I would say though, that if you're planning on combining paint from two different brands, the results are going to be much better if the paint is the same quality or approximately the same quality. Because if you combine paint that is very low-quality with paint that is higher-quality, you might have trouble mixing your paint throughout the process and the outcome is probably not gonna be as great as it could be if the paint was similar quality, I use the total of seven different colors to create this painting. And these colors are cobalt blue, deep Scarlett, undersea green, hansa yellow, light, yellow, ocher, neutral tint and raw umber. As always, I do want to remind you guys, there is no need to use the exact same colors that I'm gonna be using. As long as you use colors that are relatively similar to mine, you're gonna be perfectly fine. And I'm going to be swatching out all of these colors for you on paper so that you can see what they look like and you can do any replacing that's necessary with what you have available. Alright, moving on from there, I'm gonna be using five different watercolor paint brushes for this process. I'm gonna be using a one-inch flat brush. And this brush is from Royal and Len Nichols watercolors and line set. And I'm gonna be using for different round brushes. Two of them are from Winsor and Newton Cotman line watercolor brushes from there, 111 series. And these round brushes are sizes 14.6. I also have another brush, and that is from another set from a brand called Magritte. But I got via Amazon some time ago. That brush is the light blue brush that appears on screen. This is approximately a size eight round brush. The reason why I say approximately is because it's from a Chinese set and the sizes of these brushes are quite different. So it's comparable to a size eight round brush in American or UK sizes. And finally, the smallest brush that I'm going to be using is a size three round. And this is from Princeton, Aqua, Elite, watercolor brushes series. Aside from these basic watercolor supplies, I also have my container with clean water, which I'm going to change a few times throughout this process. I'll let you know when I do. I also have my absorbent blue Scott shop towel. It's super important to have some sort of absorbent towel on hand when you're painting with watercolor in order to stay on top of water control and go in to do lifting for clouds or textures or anything like that that you might have to do. I also have at least a couple of scrap pieces of watercolor paper on hand to test out colors and translucency is before going into my painting, I have a roll of regular three-fourths, so an inch masking tape, which is what I'm currently using to take my watercolor paper down onto my black cutting mat, which is what I'm using as a backing board here. The only thing I'm making sure to do to run my pieces of masking tape over my clothes three to four times before taping down my watercolor sheep. In order to soften that adhesive and make it a lot less likely that I'll damage my paper at the end when I remove that masking tape. And finally, I also have a couple of sketching supplies on hand so that I can create my preliminary freehand outline sketch. But for getting started with the painting process, I'm going to be using a 2D drawing pencil from Faber Castile to create my outline sketch. I usually like going for an HB drawing pencil. The only reason why I'm using a to-be is because the graphite is slightly softer, so the triangle appear a little bit darker for you so that you can see it a little bit better through video. I also usually have a couple of erasers on hand for that preliminary sketching process. Some sort of soft graphite eraser and also a kneaded eraser. So the soft graphite eraser I used to do any erasing and correcting, fixing of mistakes that happen when I am creating that freehand sketch. And then the kneaded eraser I use at the end of the sketching process, soften to lighten my sketch even more before getting started with the painting so that I don't see my pencil work through the paint. And also to pick up any excess graphite that might be floating around on my watercolor sheet that might dirty up or muddy up my vibrant paint. That is gonna do it, uh, for this short class on supplies for landscape number one. Once you're ready with all of your supplies, go ahead and join me for the next class where we're gonna be working on our preliminary pencil sketch together. See you there. 4. House and Path Sketch: Hello again and welcome to this class. Or we're gonna be creating our preliminary pencil sketch together in order to move on to the painting process for landscape number one, this part of the process is not really necessary if you're going to be transferring my outline sketch onto your sheet of watercolor paper using tracing paper or whatever transferring method you prefer. Which, by the way, in my watercolor one-on-one course, I do include a full class in which I teach you step-by-step how to use tracing paper as a transform method to get your outline sketches onto your watercolor paper. So if you'd like to learn more about that, I would highly recommend checking out that class in that course. However, if you're interested in practicing your free hand sketching, you want to know the essential information to bring in in order to create a successful preliminary outline sketch for watercolor painting. Or you simply want to be able to create your own outlays, sketches in order to move on to painting with watercolor and maybe not have to depend too much on outlays, sketches provided by others. I would highly recommend giving this class ago. Okay, so without much further ado, let's go ahead and jump straight into the first part of this process, which is the preliminary pencil sketching process or my outline sketch for this piece, I didn't actually use any one specific reference photo. What I did was I went into Google. I did a quick search for nature scenes in general. And I took inspiration from a bunch of different photos that I thought were great. I then created three different quick thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook, bringing in different ideas from different photos that I saw, different elements that I felt would look nice in combination, also, exploring different arrangements of these elements in space. And once I came up with a thumbnail that I thought would look great. And that will lead to a nice-looking visual composition for a piece, for a painting. I went with that one and that is essentially what I am transferring freehand onto my watercolor sheet. So as you're seeing me create this drawing, I am observing my sketch that I created on my sketch book whenever I am drawing any type of scene, the very first thing that I draw is the horizon line. The horizon line is the line that divides the ground from the sky or the ocean from the sky in c escapes the horizon line is essentially our eye level as the viewer of the scene from our current vantage point. After that, I start drawing all of the larger shapes and making out all the layers. There are gonna be included in this scene, in the background, in the middle ground and in the foreground, thinking of this layering is important whenever you are drawing or painting any kind of scene or landscape. Because these layers in the background and the middle ground and the foreground are what are going to provide the scene depth. I am focusing on largest general shapes. I'm not really trying to add in any smaller details or trying to do any shading with my pencil or anything like that. I'm just adding in the shapes that I need any sections that I might need to visualize in order to later be able to paint in my trees and plants and things like that. That is what I'm trying to add into my sketch at this point. As you can see, I'm trying to keep my lines very irregular because this is a nature scene aside from the house, which is obviously man-made and it's more geometric and its structure, everything else is natural, the organic elements. And it's important that the edges throughout these organic elements incorporate a lot of irregularity, a lot of imperfection, because otherwise it's not going to look very believable. As you can see, I'm making sure to draw nice and light. And this is because three main reasons. Number one, I don't want to scratch or damaged my watercolor paper as I am drawing because I'm not going to be able to remove those scratches later. Number two, I want to be able to erase my mistakes and refine my drawing as I go. Because drawing and sketching is a refinement process. And number three, I don't want to be able to see my pencil work through my paint at the end. Remember that watercolor is transparent and if your pencil lines are very, very dark, you're probably going to be able to see them through the paint. Alright, so I'm gonna go back and show you exactly how I drew the little house. And then I'm going to be offering some tips on drawing believable trees. So going back and doing a little playback here, so get started with the verticals that I visualize for the corners of the structure of the house. So those three verticals are essentially going to tell me where the front plane of the house is and where the side plane of the house. So we're able to see from this perspective, is. Once my three verticals are in for my corners, I then add in the little roof. Now remember, I have to visualize this structure as being a combination of simple geometric forms. And houses are compound structures, meaning they are made up of two or more simple geometric forms. In this case, for this house, I am visualizing the bottom or the base structure of the house as being a rectangular prism. And then the roof on top is a triangular prism that is sitting on top of the rectangular prism. Why am I saying all this? This is important. If you want to progress your drawing skills, you have to visualize what you're trying to draw as being one simple 3D form or a combination of simple 3D forms, you have to acknowledge that whatever you are drawing has volume, has different planes or sides to it. And you have to understand that this structure, at least to a certain degree, to be able to draw it in a believable way with a believable sense of 3D form. And also in believable perspective, the shape that I created right there on the roof is a parallelogram. So the two horizontal lines, the top and the bottom lines are parallel and the slanted lines, or diagonal lines on the left and the right are parallel. Remember that parallel lines are lines that could run off into the distance into infinity and they would never cross. This is one of the sides or planes that we're able to see of that triangular prism that is sitting on top of the rectangular prism based structure. Because this house is sitting out in nature in grass and has plants all around it. I wanted to make sure to have an irregular edge at the bottom so that as I was painting later, I could make it look like there was grass lightly covering up that bottom edge of that house where the bottom edge of the wall meets the ground. I didn't want that line to be clean and sharp. I wanted to make sure to have it look like there was grass and plants covering up that section, that lower portion of the wall. After getting that in with believable perspective and all that, I then added in that little doorway, moving onto a central tips to know about in regards to drawing trees. Trees need to have a lot of irregularity and imperfection to them. Because as opposed to the man-made structure which we were just drawing right now, which was the house. These are organic natural elements. No two trees are exactly the same and they have a lot of imperfection of throughout. So we want to stay away from the look of perfect horizontal or vertical lines or any sort of smooth line in general, even if it's a diagonal or slanted line, try to incorporate irregularity throughout the lines that you create. I like working from the bottom and making my way upwards. So I start in the bottom base of that tree trunk where it is widest, then I make my way up from there. The large base tree trunk usually gets a little bit or slightly narrow as it makes its way up. And then of course, every single branch coming out of that base tree trunk also gets more and more narrow or thinner and thinner as it makes its way out away from the tree trunk. I'm always making my way out and thinking of that tapering look that tapering effect for both a tree trunk as well as the branches. Now, when it comes to the specific shapes that I create, the branches, I just go by intuition and by what's happening on paper, I have nothing planned out. I just make sure that in my mind, I have that idea of keeping everything very asymmetrical. I'm trying to stay away from symmetry. Meaning I don't want the left side of my tree to be the same as the right side of my tree. If I were to cut it in half, I want the haves to be different from each other. I want everything to be asymmetrical, so I'm very loose about how I draw my branches. I just see what's happening on paper and I make decisions as I go adding more branches and this side or the other side at different heights, coming out from different places in that main tree trunk and also in the smaller branches. So that I can have a lot of irregularity and asymmetry and not a planned out controlled pattern. Look organized look, that's not something that I am going for. The same thing goes for the shape created by the leaves of the tree. I tried to stay away from what I call a lollipop looking tree. Sometimes I still struggle with that too. The day when it comes to the leaves, I tried to make sure that the shape, the overall shape that I visualized for the leaves is very asymmetrical and there's a lot of irregularity all throughout. Usually trees that are out in nature like this. They don't have a perfect circular shape to them or add structure to them. Sometimes when we go to man-made, planned out gardens and things like that, we do see trees that are cut in very specific ways, styled in specific ways. But when trees are out in nature like this, there has to be a lot of irregularity throughout those leaves. Now, usually when it comes to planning our visual compositions, I would try to stay away from pairs. So these are two trees. Usually I would try to add an elements in odd numbers and not even numbers. However, because I have the house on the left, there is a lot of asymmetry present in the composition as a whole. And I also tried to make sure that the trees were different. I wanted to make sure that the tree trunk in the tree on the right is more, it's thinner, it's more narrow. The tree on the left and the overall shapes and positionings of the branches is very different from one and the other. This is so that I don't create a stamp look to my trees. So that's something that I'd definitely recommend. Make sure that there are differences between your trees. You can even incorporate more differences such as making one of your trees shorter than the other, and things like that. Generally speaking, we want to make sure that there is a lot of asymmetry present in the composition as a whole. I think I achieved a good balance in this little composition that I created from imagination. Having these two larger trees that are closer to us as the viewer of this scene on the right side of the piece. And then having the little house with other plants sections behind it on the left. Aside from this, I also have a good number of overlapping elements in the foreground and the middle ground and the background so that I can make sure that at the end, there will be a lot of depth and believable sensation of open space in this painting. Alright, so I am pretty much done with my preliminary outline sketch. As you can see, I haven't shaded anything in with my pencil. And I only added in the largest general shapes that I absolutely need in order to paint in the trees, the shrubs, the plants, the house, all of these necessary areas that I have to understand the locations of the sizes of and all this so that I can move on to painting them. And that is it for this class. Take your time creating your preliminary outline sketch. And when you're ready, go ahead and join me in the next class where I'm gonna be taking you through how I create my first color mixtures and the first part of this painting process. See you there. 5. House and Path Painting Process A: Hello and welcome to this class where I'm gonna be taking you through the first part of this painting process. Before jumping into the painting, I will be showing how I create my first color mixtures in order to set myself up for success for the process coming up next by planning for the colors that you're gonna be bringing into the painting process and knowing how you're gonna be creating the different colour mixtures that you need along the way, you're going to have a much smoother painting process and it's lot more likely that you're going to arrive at great results after repairing those color mixtures that are gonna help us get started. I'll be walking you through those initial large washes of color. In these initial washes, we're gonna be using plenty of wet on wet, which will lead to nice blurred out, soft, diffuse edges and transitions. To create my color mixture is you're going to see me use a paintbrush that I don't actually use throughout the painting process. I would recommend just going with the paintbrush that you feel most comfortable with when you're creating your color mixtures. I like using a medium-sized paintbrush that allows me to take some water from my container and also comfortably swivel my paintbrush bristles in that little well of paint on my color mixing palette to bring some paint into my color mixtures. If I use a paintbrush that is too small or too large, I'm not going to be able to comfortably do those things or effectively bring out enough water from my container if I need to. I'm going for a nice, juicy color mixtures here with a good level of pigmentation or paint in them, but also some waterflow in them. So if you've checked out my watercolor one-on-one course, I talk all about the different consistencies for our color mixtures that we use when we're painting with watercolor that T like consistency, the coffee like consistency, the milk consistency, and the butter consistency. So what I am going for here is somewhere between the coffee and milk like consistency. Okay, so let me talk about what I'm doing here. I started by creating my two color mixtures that I would be using for my sky. So starting with the color mixture on the far right, that blue purple looking color mixture is a mix of cobalt blue plus a bit of deep scarlet blue plus red equals purple. I wanted to make sure that it was more of a bluish purple than a reddish purple, so that it could integrate nicely with the blue in the sky. The blue next to that is just plain cobalt blue with some water in it. Right now, I am getting started with creating my green color mixtures. So I want a darker green and a lighter green. The darker green that I'm creating right now is just plain undersea green with some water in it. And the lighter green is going to be undersea green plus hansa yellow light. And these are the greens that I'm gonna be using for the grass and also for the leaves in my trees and all those little plant areas that I'm going to be painting. We want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success and knowing how we're going to be developing different values throughout the different sections of our painting. And this is why I want to make sure that right off the bat, I know how I'm going to be creating my darker greens, my medium greens, and my lighter greens by having my darker green, which is my undersea cream, and bringing in the hansa yellow light. I know that I'm gonna be able to create a wide range of greens, from very dark greens to medium greens to lighter greens. By shifting and changing the ratios of these two colors in my color mixtures, I can create very, very dark greens, very, very light greens, and whole range of mid tones in-between. If we're going for more of a believable look in a painting. Value is number one. If you go in with a flat color all throughout one area, that is not going to look very realistic. Because in real life we see a wide range of values all throughout the different sections of whatever it is that we're seeing due to the structure of the particular object or subtract that we're drawing or painting the elements around that object or subtract that have specific colors and values to them and could be impeding that light from hitting certain sections of that main object due to the light situation that the object or the subject is in, all of these things have a huge impact on the colors and the values that we see throughout a subject. And we never see anything with just one single color or flat value all throughout. So we have to set ourselves up for success and know how we're going to be developing that illusion of light and shadow and dimension throughout whatever it is that we're drawing or painting. And this is why it's so key that we plan for the specific colors that we're gonna be using for a piece and also the colors that we're going to be bringing into our different colour mixtures to create lighter and darker versions of our different colors. And finally, over here in this top section of my mixing area, I am creating my neutrals, my browns that I'm gonna be using for. Little path for the tree trunks, for the little house, for the little fence around the house. The lightest neutral here on the far right is plain yellow ocher with some water in it. The medium brown in the middle is a mix of yellow ocher plus raw umber. And finally, I'm going to be creating a darkest brown by mixing together raw umber and neutral tint. To once again, I am preparing lighter versions and darker versions of these colors that I'm going to be needing in these brown sections throughout my painting. And with this, I know that I'm gonna be able to create lighter areas, mid tone areas and darker shadow areas to give all of these things a believable sensation of light and shadow and dimension. I am taking my time with this process and making sure that I have enough of all of these different colors. Because in that very first part of this painting process, we're going to be going in quick, wet on wet. And we're gonna be adding color all throughout the piece. We're gonna be painting a beginning wash all throughout these different sections and we don't want to run out of our different colors. Alright, so I'm almost done here with creating my first color mixtures that I'm gonna be needing for that first wash all throughout the piece. Darkest brown right here is, as I said, a mixture of raw umber and neutral tint. I'm going to be swatching out these colors that I am missing for you on my scrap piece of watercolor paper. And this way you can see all of these colors that I'm starting out with, swapped out for you so that you can see what they look like. I always like taking my time to plan and prepare the different colors that I'm gonna be needing for any of my pieces before getting started. Because I know that by picking my colors mindfully thinking of how I'm going to be repeating colors in my mixtures, how I'm going to be creating different versions of my colors and also keeping my colors limited. This is going to lead not only to more well-integrated results, more harmonious results at the end, but it's also going to help me stay away from undesired colours and Medina. So that can happen throughout the process if I'm randomly just bringing in colors along the way. Alright, so with our initial color mixtures ready for us on our color mixing palette, it is time to get started with the first part of this painting process. We're gonna be creating that initial wash all throughout this piece, wet on wet. So what you're seeing me getting started with right now is I am doing pre wedding using my large 1 " flat brush and clean water that I am bringing out a bit at a time from my container. I'm bringing out a little bit of water at a time. And what I'm going for here is a nice uniform sheen all throughout my watercolor sheet. I am doing this carefully. I am just gliding. My paintbrush bristles gently over my watercolor paper. I don't want to affect the sizing of my paper by going into rough. And as you can see, I first went in with horizontal strokes and then I'm going in with vertical strokes and I'm going to go over everything, at least I would say four to five times. It totally depends on the environment that you're working in. If you are working in a cold environment, a warm environment, a humid environment, a dry environment. If you have a fan on a heating system, on an air conditioning unit, on anything like that, is going to affect how quickly or how slowly your paint or your paper starts drying on you. And I mean throughout the entire painting process. But also in this part, you might find that you'll need to take a little bit longer because perhaps the working environment that you are currently n is just not being super helpful. Take your time with this prereading process, makes sure that no section of your watercolor sheet is trying way too quickly because if so, it means you probably need to spend more time doing that pre wedding. Now, the reason why we're going in and doing this pre wedding is because this water that we are preparing, our paper width is going to help us do a couple of different things. First of all, it's going to create a nice soft transitions between the different colors that we laid down on paper. These nice organic gradients that are particular to this medium that look amazing and can really help us create a lot of depth in a piece. When we combine softer edges and blurred out effects with sharper edges that we're going to be painting later on top of this initial wash, that water content that we're preparing, the paper width is going to help us do that. But also by doing this pre wedding, we are giving ourselves more working time. We are expanding the working time that we have when we are developing all of those initial hues and values in this first wash, all throughout. What I mean by this is you have to remember that when you're working on paper that is dry, that dry paper is very thirsty. It absorbs that paint and starts drying right away. When you place paint on paper. This makes it so that you're left with sharp defined edges around the shapes that you paint n, which is not very helpful when you're painting large shapes, large areas, or trying to create large washes. This is why I leave wet on dry techniques for later stages in my painting process when I'm painting in smaller shapes, looking for more defined details and so on and so forth. But by preparing our paper with a layer of water, we are expanding that working time. We don't have to feel so much like we are racing against the clock because our paint is starting to dry too quickly. So these are just a couple of different reasons why prereading our paper is so, so helpful, especially in the beginning stages of the painting process. If you notice any puddles anywhere, you're probably going in with a little bit too much water. But don't worry, this is why we have our absorbent towel with us. And you can also go in with a clean and only slightly damp bristles of your paintbrush. Run your paintbrush bristles over that section that has an excess of water in it a lot the bristles of your paintbrush on your absorbent towel to remove that excess water and just smooth that area out with your paintbrush bristles again. Once my paper had a nice even sheen all throughout, it was time to get started with the painting process. I changed on over to my size four round brush. I dipped it into my water because it was completely dry and we should prepare those paintbrush bristles by swiveling or paintbrush inner container of water before going into the paint with it. Once it was nice and moist, I loaded up my paintbrush bristles with a good amount of cobalt blue. I dropped in some cobalt blue all throughout the sky section in a very irregular way. And after having some of that cobalt blue and my sky, I dropped in some of my blue purple here and there as well in a very irregular way so that I could have a nice variety of hues all throughout my sky. I wanted some sections to be blue and other sections to have that blue purple. And then now you can also see how I left some sections in my sky that kinda look like clouds because I didn't paint them. Those happened organically as I was just moving my paintbrush around my sky in different ways. And I just left them because it's always nice to incorporate that type of effect and create that illusion of at least a couple of clouds. Don't worry If a little bit of that blue slash purple starts bleeding downwards. This is going to happen because the entire page is wet. Don't worry about that. Hazard creating this entire wash. I want to really encourage you to embrace the effects that happen as you're dropping in your color. Don't try to go in and fiddle with that paint too much after it's been placed on paper because that is going to flatten everything out. And it's also going to lead to more of an overworked look. If you do it too much. After I painted in my sky, it was time to paint in the grass. I removed all of that blue and blue purple from my paintbrush bristles. And still using my size 14 round brush, I first one and then dropped in my lighter green all throughout the grass section. In the middle ground and the foreground, we tried to stay away from dropping in any green directly into the little house and also on the little path or road. If a little bit of green bled into these areas or shapes, I didn't worry about it too much once they had a good amount of that lighter green all throughout, I went in and dropped in some darker green in darker shadows sections where I imagined plants to be or plants creating shadows. So at this point my entire paper is still pretty wet, pretty workable. No section has arrived at that awkward semi dry state at which I shouldn't be doing much else. And I still have a couple of things that I want to do in this initial wash before my paper starts to dry. One of these things is painting in the far away tree line in the distance right along the horizon line. So to do this, I created a blue green by mixing together my undersea green with my cobalt blue. Once they had a good blue-green on my mixing palette, I switched on over to my size eight round brush and I'm dropping in some of this blue-green right along that tree line that I had sketched out previously. So why did I create a blue-green to paint in these trees in the far away distance. So the reason I did this is because of aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective. Aerial perspective tells us that the farther away things are from us, the bluer or cooler in color temperature, they are going to be the hazier or blurrier that you're going to be. So this is why I wanted to paint in this treeline in the faraway distance while this paper was still wet so that, that water content could help me create that blurred out effect. If I had started painting in this tree line and the faraway distance on dry paper, the edges around the shapes of my trees would be very sharp and defined. And I wanted to go for the blurred outlook in order for these trees to look like they are far away from us. And I add it to that believable sensation of depth by creating a blue-green, by cooling down that chlorine. Right here, you're seeing me drop in some of my darker green and some sections that I want to darken a little bit more and those grass areas. And then I'm going to be moving on to painting in the path using at least a couple of my neutrals that I prepared for myself. So I always go in with the lightest color that I prepared for the area on hand and then I darken certain sections within that larger shape. So still using my size eight round brush, you're going to see me drop in some of my yellow ocher first along that path. And then with that yellow ocher and I'm going to drop in some of my medium brown, my yellow ocher plus the raw umber. And after I'm done here, it's going to be timed to allow everything to dry completely and you can feel free to help yourself with a hairdryer if you want to speed up that drying process, but definitely definitely makes sure that everything is completely dry before moving forward onto the next part of this painting process. Alright, so just before moving on, I want to review aerial or atmospheric perspective because this is a key piece of information to understand in regards to perspective and creating a believable sensation of open space and depth in any kind of drawing or painting of scenes, landscapes, and anything like that that you have to know about. Atmospheric or aerial perspective has to do with how we see things in real life. In real life, if you're standing in a wide open space, you're going to notice that the way that you see things closer to you is different from how you see things that are farther away from you. Not only do things get smaller and smaller as they recede away from you, of course, huge things like mountains and things like that are always going to be super large compared to anything else. Say houses, buildings, trees, cars, people, anything like that is going to look smaller and smaller the farther away these things are from you. That is a key piece to incorporate into any kind of scene in order to portray realism, right? But aside from that, aerial or atmospheric perspective, tells us that the farther away something is from us, the cooler in color temperature, it's going to be the lighter in value. It's going to be the hazier or blurrier or less defined or less detailed. It's going to be when compared to things that are closer to you. So again, this has to do with how we see things in real life, in the real-world. And this is why it's so important that we take these pieces of information and incorporate them into our drawings or paintings if we're looking for any level of realism. So in this scene, e.g. I. Made sure to bring in my knowledge of atmospheric perspective by cooling down the green that I would be using to paint in those trees in the farther away distance in the background. And I also made sure to use the techniques that would allow me to create a more blurred out hazier look that I'm going to be painting the trees closer to us, wet, on dry so that the edges and the details and everything are sharper and Morgan fine creating that distinction between what is closer to us and what is farther away. And this is going to lead to a more believable sensation of open space and depth. And put that we're all done with the first phase of this painting process for landscape. Number one, once you're finished with this part and your paint has dried, go ahead and join me in the next class. See you there. 6. House and Path Painting Process B: Hello again, friends and welcome to part two of this process for landscape number one. Now that we have painted in those larger general washes with soft blurred out, diffused out of facts. We're gonna get started with painting in the medium-sized shapes of elements. We're now going to be using techniques that require a less amount of water and we're going to be painting on dry paper. I don't want to give you one tip. If for some reason you're no longer able to see important shapes or marks or lines that you have created for yourself in your preliminary sketching process. After those initial layers of paint have been painted and have dried, I would recommend sketching those in, again with a pencil. As long as the paint is completely dry, you can certainly go in and sketch in those shapes and lines again if you need to. Alright, without much further ado, let's go ahead and jump in. I switched over to my size six round brush, which I haven't used so far. So I made sure to pre moisten those bristles by schooling my paintbrush in my container of water. And I'm going to get started with painting in the house. I'm gonna be using my neutrals to paint in the house. And as you can see, these little puddles that I had created on my mixing palette are pretty dry. So I need to make more of these colors and I need to reactivate the paint by bringing out some water into them. So that's what I'm working on right here. And once I'm ready, I am going to get started with painting in the house. Once again, I always get started with the lightest color of the bunch, which in this case is the plain yellow ocher with a bit of water in it. I'm going to go in with this lightest color. And then while this initial layer of yellow ocher of lightest color is wet, I'm gonna go ahead and drop in some of the medium brown to darken certain sections within that. As I'm developing all of these different Brown values throughout the different planes of this house. I am bringing to mind what I know to be true about light behavior. Especially because in this case, I created this composition from imagination and I'm not looking at a reference photo. So if I'm going for mid to higher levels of realism with this piece, I really have to think about how light works. How shadow is created when a certain section of a structure or plants in certain cases are blocking that light and are impeding that light from hitting certain sections. All of these things are very important to bring to mind. And so I am giving thought to what plains of this structure are facing towards the light. What plains of the structure are facing away from the light, and how the different parts of the structure in itself are creating shadows on other sections of the structure. So e.g. the little roof, the way that it comes out a little bit, those sections that are coming out are blocking that light from hitting the upper part of the plane right underneath them, the light cannot reach those sections of those planes. So I want them to look darker. I want to create a little shadow effect by bringing in the medium brown or the darkest brown. It depends on the color that I've already used underneath. So this left plane of the house I imagined to be opposite to the light source. So I use the medium brown to paint in that entire plane initially. And then I went in to drop in some of the darkest brown in those shadow areas under the ledge of the roof. Then this front plane of the house that is actually facing towards the light. I went in initially with my lightest color, the yellow ocher, and I'm using the medium brown to create that shadow effect. And the parallelogram, that's the plane of that triangular prism that we're able to see. Well, I made that light in itself because it's the closest plane for this entire structure, at least in terms of the planes that we are able to see from this vantage point that is closest to the light. And it doesn't really have any other structures covering up any sections. But even in the roof, I wanted to make sure to create a variety of values. So the planes that are facing towards the light, I want to make lighter. So I'm making sure to use the lightest colors, so the yellow ocher and perhaps the medium brown, but then the plane that is facing away from the light. Well, I can go in first with a medium brown and then darken certain sections with the darkest brown. Within that larger medium brown shape. You can see how throughout all of the planes making up this little house, I have a variety of values. I have lighter sections and I have darker sections that look believable because I brought to mind the structure of the house itself. And also how light works, light behavior also, as you can see, I left irregularity along the bottom edge of the planes of the house so that I can create that illusion of plants in front of the house. Alright, so after doing that work in the house, it was time to allow everything to dry before attempting to paint in the little doorway and other little details that I'm going to be adding into the house later on. In the meantime, I'm gonna be doing some work wet on dry for little plant sections and trees. All throughout this piece, I removed all of that last brown for my paintbrush bristles. And I'm still going in with my size six round brush for these little elements that I'm going to be painting on dry paper now. So before getting started, what I did was I made sure to reactivate and make more of my different green color mixtures on my mixing palette. I wanted to make sure to have some lighter green. So my undersea green plus my Hansa Yellow Light is right there at the top. I have some darker green, which is plain undersea green with some water in it. And I also created a little puddle of blue green. So undersea green plus some cobalt blue. I wanted to have some of that blue green on hand to use it, especially for plants sections and trees in the middle ground. What I'm doing right here using my size six round brush is I am painting in the trees behind the house. And as you can see, because I am painting in these tree shapes on dry paper, I am left with sharp defined edges around the shapes that I'm painting. Even though I'm going for sharp defined edges around these shapes, I am still bringing to mind a few of the things that I've been making sure to do so far. So e.g. I'm making sure to create a lot of irregularity in terms of the shape itself, like throughout its edges. But also a regularity in terms of, I want to create a wide variety of green values inside of that shape using my different greens and also making use of the mediums translucency. So what I mean is I want to make sure that certain sections of that shape, our lighter and more translucent and other sections are darker and more saturated. For those trees and plants sections behind the house and the middle ground, I mostly used my plane undersea green with water in it, as well as my blue-green that I created by mixing my undersea green with a little bit of cobalt blue. Again, I started with the lightest of the two, which is the plane undersea green. And then I dropped in my blue-green, which in this case is the darkest color of the two. Again, it's all about developing a wide range of green values, from lighter greens to midtone greens to darker greens. This is what's going to bring a level of realism into this element or this layer. And what's going to give it a sense of dimension of light and shadow. You can even see how I've left a little teeny tiny sections of that paper on painted with this new layer of paint. And what you can see the previous layer shining through uncovered. And this creates a nice illusion of highlights in certain sections. After having painted in those trees and plants in the middle ground, I'm gonna go ahead and get started with painting in the leaves in this tree closest to us in the foreground. So for this, I switched on over to my size eight round brush because this tree is much larger than the smaller trees that I was painting in the middle ground. And as always, I get started with the lightest screen that I'm gonna be using inside of this shape, which is my lighter green that I created by mixing together my undersea green with my Hansa Yellow Light. So with aerial perspective again, these elements that are closest to us in the foreground are going to appear warmer and temperature. So this is why I wanted to use more of this lightest green that has so much of that yellow in it, which is obviously warmer because it has so much yellow in it. Much more than the trees and the plants in the middle ground, which are elements that are farther away from us. So initially I went in and created a very irregular shape with that lighter green, the yellow green. And once I had some amount of that very abstract irregular shape for the leaves painted in. I started using my darker green that I would be using for this tree here, which is the undersea green. I brought to mind once again how light works and the irregular structure of the leaf portion of the tree itself, the roundness of it. Of course, there's a lot of irregularity throughout that roundness. But if you bring to mind a spherical form, imagine how light would affect that sphere. How the light would hit the top part and less of the bottom part. And because of all of the groupings of leaves or regular groupings of leaves that are covering each other up. Well, of course you have some darker values throughout. But All-in-all, generally speaking, if you imagine the portion of the leaves to be a sphere, then imagine what sections of that sphere would have the majority of the darkest values to them? If the light source is located above it, if the light source is the sun. And I placed the majority of that darker green that I would be using in this section. In areas where I would imagine shadows sections to be, you can see how I used the undersea green and a slightly more saturated state. So less water and more paint in the underneath portion of the leaves where I would imagine less light would reach. And I loved more of that lighter, more yellow, green, more translucent green in the upper section of the leaf portion where the light would be hitting more. This doesn't mean that I didn't use any undersea green in the middle or even upper portions of that leaf area, because there is a lot of irregularity and different groupings of leaves create shadows on each other. Means that the majority of the saturated darkest green I used or I tried to drop in, in the most shadowy sections. And because I worked quickly and I made sure to drop in that darker green wall, that initial lighter green was still wet. You can see how I was left with nice soft transitions between my different green value. Something that's also key when painting leaves is making sure that you're leaving little windows or sections unpainted where you're able to see through the groupings of leaves and into the background what allows me to create all of this irregularity throughout the leaves and the different plant sections that I'm going to be painting next is really allowing the paintbrush to do its own thing and letting go with my arm and my wrist. I'm not trying to control my arm and my wrist. I'm really playing and shifting and changing the way that I am using my paintbrush in terms of the angle that I am using it at. So sometimes it's more of a 30 to 35 degree angle from the surface of my table. Other times it's more of a 42, 45-degree angle, shifting and changing the angle but also exerting sometimes more, sometimes less pressure on those bristles so that less or more amount of those bristles are coming into contact with my papers. Sometimes it's just the tip of my paintbrush and other times it's the entire belly of my paintbrush that is coming into contact with the paper. And all of this varying of how I am using my paintbrush allows me to create all these irregular abstract shapes and all of these areas. Let go play around with it. Don't try to control it. And all of that is going to help you a ton when painting natural organic elements. So same thing for the little plant section below the tree there. I first went in with my lightest green, my undersea green plus hansa yellow light. Then while that initial layer of paint was still wet, I dropped in some of my darkest green that I would be using in this shape, which is the undersea green with some water in it. I then allow that to dry completely and it was time to paint in the little doorway in the house, which of course at this point was completely dry. And I painted that in with my darkest brown. So my raw umber plus my neutral tint for this, I switched over to my size six round brush because it's a very, very small shape and I wanted to have more control. You're gonna notice that I paint in that little rectangular shape. And then what I do, I actually go back in and lift up a little bit of paint to add a little bit more dimension into that area. A little bit of a light effect. Because when we go in with too much saturated color, especially when it's this dark, you can end up creating a negative hole in your painting. It all comes back to that idea of wanting every single area of your piece to have a variety of values in it, right? If I go in with this dark brown in a super saturated state all throughout that little, little rectangular shape that is going to lead to a very stark, flat, heavy looking shape. So I painted that shape in. I remove that color for my paintbrush bristles. I went back in with a cleanest slightly damp paintbrush and just lifted a little bit of that brown backup to make sure that there is at least somewhat of a slight variety of values in that doorway. And after painting in that little doorway, I went into jargon, certain darkest shadows sections again right below the roof ledge, where that roof is creating a shadow on the upper portions of those side planes of the house structure or the walls of the house. And it was then time to move on to painting in the tree trunk and the branches. In this tree closest to us in the foreground. So for the tree trunk and the branches, I'm going to be using my medium brown, which is my yellow ocher plus my raw umber. And then I'm going to go in with my darkest brown just to darken certain shadows sections within that larger shape. This is still me going in with my size six round brush. And again, initially I'm going in with a lighter color of the two. And after I've painted in this shape, I'm going in with my darkest brown as I am painting in the tree trunk and the branches, I am being very careful. Again, having that tapered look in mind. Especially when I'm painting in the smaller branches, I am trying to do it with just one single stroke because I know that if I go in with multiple brushstrokes, I'm going to start widening, making those small branches that I want to be very thin. I'm going to start making them thicker and thicker if I go in with multiple brushstrokes, so as much as possible, I want to go in with one single brushstroke for the smaller branches. Horse with the smaller branches you want to be touching just the tip of your paintbrush to your paper for that very thin, tapered look. Now, the consistency of your paint has to be helpful and in order for you to be able to paint one consistent, quote unquote, line for those branches because your paint mixture is way too dry, then probably you're not gonna be able to load up your paintbrush bristles enough to be able to paint one consistent flowing line. You're going to start doing dry brushing and that paint is just not going to flow down at the same time, if your color mixture is way too watery, you're probably going to find that you go in, you try to paint that branch, and you're not really going to be able to see it. So you may want to instinctively go in and paint it again. And all of a sudden you create a very thick branch or a very blurred out of fat because your paper is damp from that previous stroke that you did. So make sure that the consistency your paint is helpful when you're going to be adding in those branches. And if there's any doubt, That's why I always recommend having scrap pieces of paper on hand so that you can test out whatever it is that you need to test out. Practice whatever you need to practice before actually doing that on your painting. Practice painting thin tapered lines on your scrap piece of watercolor paper and then go ahead and do it in your painting. I would go in with a coffee or milk like consistency for those branches. Okay. So after having painted in the tree trunk and the branches in this tree closest to us, it is now time to get started with painting in the leaf portion of the second tree that is behind this one. For this, I switched on over to my size eight round brush. Now, as I mentioned before, it is very important that we communicate what is closer to us as the viewer of the scene and what is farther away. One of the ways that I personally decided to do this in this process is approaching these two trees separately, allowing the previous tree, especially the leaf portion of the previous tree to dry completely before painting the second tree in. Why? Because if I didn't wait, then all those greens from the previous trees leaves would be bleeding into the second trees leaves. And I could risk creating one single blob that kind of encapsulates the leaves for both trees. And there wouldn't be that distinction between what's tree is which. So this is why I decided to approach them separately. And I made sure that the previous tree, especially the leaf portion of the previous tree, was completely dry before starting to paint in the leaf portion of the secondary. Now another thing that I want you to notice is how I'm making sure to, just in general, generally speaking, the leaves and the second tree behind this tree closest to us are slightly lighter than the leaves of the tree closer to us. The colors and the techniques that I use are the same for the leaf portions of both trees. In the second tree, I also went in with my lighter green that I created by mixing together my undersea green and my Hansa Yellow Light. And then I dropped in my darker green, which was just the plain undersea green with some water in it. However, I use these colors in a slightly more water downstate. Meaning if I use more of a T to milk like consistency to paint the leaves of the tree in the foreground closest to us, that I made sure that the consistency of my colors that I used to paint in those leaves in the second tree were more between the T and a coffee like consistency pretty watered down. Because remember, one of the things that aerial perspective tells us is that thing's closest to us are gonna be darker in value than things behind them. Hopefully you can see how over all I used less of that plane undersea green in that second tree, you can also shift and change the ratios of your yellow and green and your color mixtures and make sure that the mixtures that you use for your tree that is farther away have a little bit more yellow in them than green in them. Okay, So after having painted in the leaves of the second tree, I went right in and started painting the tree trunk and the branches using my size six round brush. And I brought to mind all of those differences that I planned out since my sketching process, I wanted to make sure that the shape for both tree trunk as well as the branches for my two trees were very different. So I wanted to make sure that the tree trunk and the second tree was more narrow and that the overall shape was different from the first tree right here. I'm just finishing up by deepening and darkening some shadows, sections in the tree trunks and branches in both trees. And with that, we're all done with this second phase for this landscape. Whenever you're ready, go ahead and join me in the next class, where we're going to be finishing up this painting with the smaller shapes and details and enhancing textures. See you there. 7. House and Path Painting Process C: Hey there and welcome to part three of painting process for this initial landscape in this course. In this part of the process, we're focusing on adding more contrast, deepening and darkening areas in order to communicate a more believable sensation of depth, especially because watercolor tends to dry lighter than how it looks when it's wet. So we're gonna be deepening and darkening certain sections. And simultaneously to this, we're gonna be adding final details and bringing in techniques that are going to help us enhance textures. Let's jump right in. It was time to allow those trees to dry completely. And I am now going to do some work in the grass sections. So I want to add in a few more plants here and they're more of that layering that is going to provide interests in depth into the scene piece. I'm going to deepen some values and certain sections in order to provide more depth, more of a light and shadow effect. And alongside this, I'm also going to do some value development in the little path. So I switched on back to my size eight round brush. I thought it was more of an appropriate size for this size of shapes or spaces we're gonna be working in. And what you're seeing me do right now is I am suddenly starting to darken a certain section right here, right behind this grass portion in the foreground. Where I want to create a little bit of a shadow effect because I want to raise this grass section in the foreground where the two trees are. I want to raise it. I want to make it look like it's slightly above this bottom section in the middle ground where the path is curving towards behind the trees. And by me darkening that section behind this grasp portion in the foreground, I am creating that distinction between what is what and I am raising this section up just by me suddenly darkening that area with a bit of a darker green mid tone. And again, I started with the lightest green, which was my Hansa Yellow Light plus undersea green. And while that was still wet, I dropped in a little bit of a darker green that I created by adding in a little bit more of that undersea green into my lightest screen. So on my palette you saw right there how I created a mid tone between my lightest green and my plane undersea green by mixing both together. After working in that area, I am now adding in some plants and just an illusion of trees farther away in the middle ground. I didn't want to go as dark as the greens that I used behind the house. I wanted to create a little bit of a light effect in this tree line that I added in the middle ground. So I made sure to go in nice and translucent, nice and water down with my color so that the trees behind the house and this new tree line didn't start merging together, just making sure that the value slash color in the layers, the different layers that I create throughout this scene are different from each other. And even though I didn't use my blue-green in this farther away tree line that I just added in, I still made that value lighter than the trees that I painted behind the house, which is one of the key things that aerial perspective tells us. Remember that you can use just one of those things that aerial perspective tells us, or a combo of all of those Major three things that it tells us. Remember its level of detail or blurriness to sharpness, its value, meaning lightness to darkness, and its color temperature. So how warm or how cool the hue that you're using is, especially in relation to the other hues around it. And remember, the closer something is to you, usually the darker in value, the higher the detail and sharpness and the warmer in color temperature. And you can decide if you want to use just 12 or a combo of all of these three things to create a believable sensation of open space and depth in your scenes. And this goes for both drawings and paintings. Alright, So just a moment ago you saw me work on the path a little bit more. I simply developed a little bit more of darker midtones and darkest darks. And I allow the previous lighter values and highlight areas to be left alone on painted with this second layer of paint. So I only focused on deepening and darkening certain shadows sections on the path that I wanted to push a little bit more while leaving the previous layer completely shining through and lighter value areas, I visualize where I wanted to deepen and darken certain shadow sections. I went in first with my medium brown and then with my darkest brown. And I made sure to just see all of these shadow shapes as abstract, irregular shapes. Staying away from heaviness, staying away from lines and anything like that that might retract from the level of realism that I'm trying to create. After working on that, I switched it over to my size six round brush and I am working on smaller plants sections right now trying to develop a little bit more texture. At this point, we are officially in what I would refer to as the final stage of this painting process. I am now focusing more on smaller shapes that lead to visual textures, smaller details that I might want to add in and that kind of thing. So I always go from general largest washes that I make my way towards the medium-sized shapes, still focusing overall on value. And then I leave the smaller details and textures that I want to push a little bit more, that kind of thing until the end, which is where we're at right now. After having added in a little bit of a subtle grass texture in front of the house and also along one of the edges of the path by using a mixture of scribbling and balancing, which by the way, in my watercolor one-on-one course, I include a class on basic brushstrokes and practice drills for beginners where I explain in-depth all about bouncing and scribbling. And I provide exercises for beginners, which are going to help you improve your brush control and are going to help you achieve all of these details and textures in fuller pieces much more successfully. What I'm doing right now is essentially the balancing technique. All this is, is I'm going in and using a kind of up and down stamping motion with just the tip of my paintbrush here. And this helps me create a little bit of a leaf texture, a leaf effect. You can see me rotating my paintbrush in my hand and all sorts of different positions. Instead of just sticking to one same angle or position, I'm rotating my hand in my rest and all sorts of different ways. I'm trying my best not to go overboard because less is more when we're painting with watercolor. But I really feel that adding a little bit more detail and texture into these trees, especially in the foreground, is going to again help create that distinction between what is closest to us and what is farther away, which adds to the depth. After having finished with that bouncing, it is now time to switch to my smallest paintbrush that I chose for this process, which is my size three round brush from Princeton. And I'm gonna be using this brush to do my flicking motion to create a little bit of a grass texture. Again, I'm doing my best not to go overboard with these final details and textures. So I'm just going to be adding a few blades of grass here and there, especially in the foreground. I will say though, that we have to remember if we're gonna be adding in blades of grass into sections that are closer to us as the viewer of the scene, they probably should be a little bit longer, at least. Then blades of grass that we add into sections at the scene that are farther away. This also has to do with perspective, as I'm doing these upwards flicking motions to create these tapered blades of grass. You can see how I am doing my best to have them slightly curved towards one direction or towards the other so that I don't have completely stiff upwards vertical lines that I create because that is going to lead to stiffness and flatness and it's not going to look very realistic. And I'm also making sure to group them or clump them together in different ways so that everything looks more natural. I'm also making sure that there is a lot of irregularity present when it comes to how I am distributing these blades of grass, are these groupings of grass throughout the entire grass portion. Irregularity in terms of everything, how they are curving towards this way and that way, how they are clustering together, their lengths, where they are located in space, etc. Alright, so here I'm finally going to be adding in the little fence around the house. And I'm still using my size three round brush for this. I am using my darkest brown. So this is my raw umber plus a little bit of neutral tint. And I am adding some water into this mixture on my palette so that I can water it down a little bit. Got it to a coffee like consistency because I don't want to go in super, super saturated. I want to go in with just the tip of my paintbrush. And even with the fence, I want to create a lot of irregularity throughout it. So I first got started with the two horizontals for that fence was the horizontals are in. I then create the little posts or the verticals, bringing those two horizontals together. Hopefully you can see how I did my best to have some irregularity and imperfection throughout the quote unquote, lines that I use to create the fence. I didn't want to have perfectly horizontal straight lines or vertical straight lines. I wanted some irregularity throughout because if I have perfect lines there, that's probably going to look very stiff, very unnatural. And also because these are lines essentially that we're creating to portray that fence, lines can be very, very distracting, especially when you add them in with a very dark color like this dark brown that we're using. So make sure that the consistency of your brown is not so dry that it looks incredibly, incredibly dark has you're laying it down. And also makes sure to incorporate that irregularity and that imperfection. Have that line weight variation throughout the lines that you're creating. So have certain sections of those lines be lighter or more translucent or thinner, and other sections of those lines to be darker and thicker. And that is going to help those lines become more natural and less distracting. After having finished with that fence, I use my size three round brush to also add in a little bit of a texture effect in the roof of the house. And I did that with my medium brown. I made sure that again, I incorporated that line weight variation in those lines that I added in for those details on the roof of the house and that those lines that I created weren't too stark looking or too distracting. And finally I switched on over to my size six round brush again. And I'm adding some final blades of grass, making sure that I am taking breaks along the way and that I'm not going overboard with adding way too much grass. It's super easy to do. You also want to make sure that the green that you go in width is not super dark and saturated, especially if you're going to be adding in those blades of grass on a background that is very light because that contrast is going to make those lines that you use for your blades of grass very stark and very distracting. So always consider the value that you already have underneath and then makes sure that the color that you're using and the consistency of that color are not going to be super contrasting on that background color. And with that, we're all done with this first landscape. I do want to encourage you, if you did not end up with results that you like, Give this one another go. Because now that you have gone through the process once you're a lot more likely to do these techniques and the overall method much more successfully. I've been working with watercolor or since 2,015.2, the day, I still find that I have to work on the same piece two to three times before actually liking my final outcome, especially when working with a new type of subtract or a subject that I haven't practiced recently. This is completely normal and it's also why I oftentimes like using just half of my watercolor sheet so that I can practice the same piece more than once using one same sheet. So those are just some things to have in mind as you move forward in your journey with watercolor, watercolor is not an easy medium by any means. It's not very forgiving. But I promise you that with consistent practice, you're gonna become more confident. You're going to have more fun throughout the process and you're going to more consistently arrive at results that you'll love. So now that we have completed landscape number one, let's move on to the second. See you in the next class. 8. Hills and Flowers Supplies: Hello again before jumping into the preliminary sketching process and later onto the painting process for landscape number two, I'll again be sharing about the art supplies that I make sure to have on hand. So in terms of my paper, I'm going to be using a sheet of watercolor paper from prim rosier. This is cold press watercolor paper. It's 140 pounds in thickness or in weight. I actually cut one of these sheets into two halves. The little watercolor sheet that you're gonna be seeing me work on is 8 " in width and 6 " in height. Now, it's totally up to you if you want to do the same thing that I did and use only half of one of your watercolor sheets or if you want to use the full sheet. So the paint that I'm gonna be using is all from Daniel Smith. I'm gonna be using seven different colors and these colors are yellow, ocher, burnt sienna, Hansa, Yellow Light, deep Scarlett, cobalt blue, undersea green, and neutral tint. You by no means have to use these exact same colors that I'm going to be using. I want to encourage you to use whatever you have that's most similar to what I am using. And as always, I'm going to be swatching out my colors before getting started with the painting process so that you can see what they look like on paper and choose whatever you have that's most similar to what I'm gonna be using. I'm gonna be using for different brushes. I'm going to be using a one-inch flat brush from Royal and lagging Nichols watercolor Zen line set. I'm gonna be using a size six mop brush from Princeton Neptune line. And I'm gonna be using two different round brushes from Princeton, Aqua Elite line in sizes 10.3. Aside from these supplies, I also have my container with clean water, which I make sure to change along the painting process. And I would highly recommend you do as well. Whenever you see your water are starting to become murky, make sure that you go ahead and change it. And you can also go ahead and use two or even three containers with water. If you don't want to be getting up as much to change your water, that's something you can definitely do. Use two containers and then one of your containers essentially you use to just rinse out your paintbrush so the majority of that paint stays and that more dirty container. And then the other container you use to take water whenever it is that you need water for specific techniques or whatever you need to bring out some water to change the consistency of your color mixtures on your palette. You can take it from that second container or the one with a cleaner water. I personally don't mind having to get up to change my water because I don't like sitting for too long, but this is totally up to you. Whatever you decide to do, just make sure that you keep an eye on how dirty that water is becoming because that can definitely muddy up or dirty up your vibrant colors in your painting if you're not careful. Alright, aside from that, I also have a scrap piece of watercolor paper on hand so that I can test out colors and translucency is, I will be bringing in a separate watercolor mixing palette. And this is just so that you can have a better understanding of the consistency of my color mixtures that I'm creating and using throughout this painting process. And so that I can keep my color mixtures separated and more organized than what this particular palette that I am sharing right now on screen allows because this other palette that I'm gonna be using has separate wells. I have a roll of regular three-fourths of an inch masking tape. And this is what I use to tape down my watercolor sheet onto my black cutting mat, which is what I'm currently using as a backing board. And all I made sure to do when I use regular masking tape to tape down my watercolor paper is I made sure to run my pieces of masking tape over my clothes three to four times, soften that adhesive and make it less likely that all damaged my paper at the end when I remove it, I also make sure to have one of my blue Scott absorbent towels on hand, which is absolutely essential in order to stay on top of water control and do any lifting that might need to do along the way. I love these blue Scott absorbent towels. I can reuse them many times before having to throw them away. And finally, I also have a few sketching supplies on hand. I'm in a bit, you're going to see me create my outline sketch using my HB pencil. I also have a soft graphite eraser on hand to correct mistakes along the way as I'm creating my sketch. And my kneaded eraser, which is that blue chewed up bubblegum looking thing right there on screen, which I used to gently tap over my sketch to whiten any pencil work or get rid of any excess graphite before getting started with the painting process. So that is it in terms of my art supplies. Whenever you have everything ready with you, go ahead and join me for the next class. 9. Hills and Flowers Pencil Sketch: Hello and welcome back to class. In this one, I'll be taking you through my preliminary pencil sketching process for landscape number two, once again, I'm gonna be sharing Muslim information and tips. They're going to help you create successful preliminary sketches for any watercolor landscape that you may wish to work on in the future. Let's get started. So I am going to go ahead and prepare my HB drawing pencil. This is what I like using to create my preliminary outline sketches before getting started with a watercolor painting process because an HB pencil holds graphite at its core that is not too hard and not too soft. And this allows me to create a relatively clean and light preliminary sketch that is not going to be super visible through my translucent paint. But even within this, I like making sure that I am drawing lightly so that I can erase mistakes easily so that I don't scratch or damaged my watercolor paper. And also because I don't want to be able to see my pencil work through my paint at the end. So as with every single sketching process of mine, I always get started from general largest shapes and I make my way towards smaller shapes and details. So what this landscape piece, I don't have a completely horizontal horizon line, which is what I always add in first when I am sketching landscapes or scenes, I like making sure that I establish the horizon line, which is our eye level as the viewer of the scene. But in this case, I wanted to create a very hilly landscape or nature scene. And I wanted to have lots of diagonals, more like a cliff in this case that this house is going to be on, this path is going to be on the hill. I first added in those large hills or the slight diagonals, of course, with lots of irregularity along those edges. Because in a nature scene, there should be irregularity everywhere. If we just use straight lines or symmetry or things look a little bit too organized. Things are equally distanced apart and things like that. It's not going to look very believable. So whenever you are sketching or even painting a nature scene or a landscape, always have that irregularity and imperfection in mind. Except of course, when it comes to adding in something that is man-made or more geometrically, which in this case we have a little house. And when it comes to the little house, of course, the house is made up of more geometric forms. I like visualizing a rectangular prism as the base of the house and a triangular prism sitting on top of that base rectangular prism. So this is a compound structure, a compound form, which simply means that it's a combination of two or more simple geometric forms. Understanding whatever it is that you're drawing as having mass, having volume, and it's being made up of different planes is important in order for you to be able to address it effectively and dry it. Ineffective perspective. I'm going to stop the video here and do a bit of a rewind so that I can take you through the steps for drawing the house. And then I'll go back to explaining how I'm drawing this tree in the foreground here. Alright, so the first thing that I did was I drew the three vertical lines that would be the corners of the house. We're able to see from this perspective, from this vantage point. This means that where we're sending from viewing this house were able to see two of its planes. It's front plane where the door is and also the larger side plane or the longer side plane, I did add in a irregular line along the bottom. And this is because this is going to help me create more of an illusion of plants overlapping that section of the wall. Later on, once I have that in, I added in the roof. And the roof, as I said, is a triangular prism that is sitting on top of that base rectangular prism. In order to get that in, in the simplest way possible, I first took care of that peak triangle that would be on top of the door in the front plane of the house. And then I simply replicated this angled or slanted line on the right of that triangle at the back end of the house. And I wanted to make sure that these two lines were parallel. Parallel lines are lines that would never cross. So if I were to extend these lines into infinity, they would never ever cross. And then I simply added in the horizontals, the top and the bottom horizontal of that triangular prism. After doing that, I erase any unnecessary lines that I don't need anymore with my soft graphite eraser. And you're going to see me add in the little door, the little rectangle shape. Alright, so after adding in the house, I do add in an irregular shape behind the house that are going to be trees. And finally, it was time to add in this closest tree to us in the foreground. So when it comes to drawing the trees, I always have irregularity and imperfection and asymmetry in mind. I start from the bottom and make my way towards the top. I don't have any specific tree shape mind when I am drawing trees, I just let go my hand and my wrist and simply start adding in those shapes in a very irregular way. And then based on what I'm seeing happening on paper on the shapes that I'm creating. I then make sure that the next shapes that I continue creating our very different from those shapes. And they are not placed in an organized way that is going to lead to symmetry or stiffness or anything like that. It also makes sure when I am drawing trees and tree trunks and branches, they have at least a slightly tapered look to them. Usually the bottom of the trunk or the base of the tree trunk is wider and it gets slightly more narrow. And then of course, the branches themselves, as they make their way out from that base or main tree trunk, they also get more and more narrow. I make my way out and make sure that the branches get thinner and thinner. And finally, I go ahead and add in the leaf portion of the tree. And I also make sure to have a lot of irregularity in mind so that I don't accidentally create a lollipop looking tree, which can certainly happen very easily. I want to create a symmetry and irregularity and imperfection. This tree in the foreground is going to help us create a lot of depth in this piece. When it comes to drawing or painting scenes or landscapes, we always have to think about that layering that is going on. So what elements do we have in the background? What elements do we have in the middle ground? What elements do we have in the foreground? Because it's that layering of different elements, as well as the techniques that we bring in throughout the painting process. Whether we tackle them wet on wet or wet on dry, that is going to lead to a believable sensation of open space and depth. And not only this, but if you don't give thought to this layering of different elements, a scene or a landscape might end up looking a little bit flat and boring. And that is gonna do it, uh, for this class. Take as long as you need to with your preliminary outline sketch because this is the foundation for everything that is coming up next. And when you're ready, I'll be waiting for you in the next class. See you there. 10. Hills and Flowers Painting Process A: Hey there and welcome to this class where I'm gonna be taking you through the first part of painting process for landscape number two. Once again, in this initial part of the process, we are taking care of the first loose, large washes of color using techniques that require plenty of water. You can see these initial washes of color, these soft, diffused out, blurred effects as the foundation for our painting that we're gonna be building smaller shapes and sharper details on the width. My preliminary outline sketch, ready to go, it is time to get started with creating my color mixtures. Now, these colors for this paint that you're going to be seeing me create right now is by no means all of the watercolor paint that I'm gonna be using throughout this painting process. This is just what I have to create in order to get started. But I'm going to explain what's in all of these color mixtures because along the way, as you run out of your different colour mixtures, you're going to know exactly what colors you need to reach for to make more of your color mixtures. Also, watercolor painting is a very fluid process and which were constantly shifting and changing the water to paint ratios in our color mixtures depending on what we're doing. If we need to use our color in a thicker, more saturated state, or if we need to use our color in a more translucent water downstate. That's something that we're constantly shifting and changing along the way. But alongside this, also, the ratios of the colors themselves in our color mixtures, also shifting change. So along the way, if you need a slightly darker color or a slightly lighter color that you know exactly what color you need to bring into lightened or too dark in that color mixture. Okay. So having said that, the first two colors that I prepared for myself are the two colors that I'm gonna be using in my sky. So in that first little circular well on the top left, that is plain cobalt blue with some water in it. The right of that, in that more rectangular Well, I have a mix of cobalt blue and deep scarlet, so you can see how it looks like a blue violet. I want to bring in a little bit of a hue variation in the sky. So I wanted to create a blue violet there so that I could drop it into the blue sky here and there. And make the sky look a little bit more interesting with at least two slightly different colors in it. Below that I'm starting to prepare my greens. This is a nature scene and landscapes. So it is important that we know how we're going to be creating our different greens. We cannot just use one same green because that is going to look very flat and not very realistic. Right here you're going to see me create at least three different greens and also a blue-green so that I can use it for the farther away elements. And that has to do with aerial perspective. I want to make sure that I have at least three different greens, a darker green, a medium green, and a lighter green. So in that second circular well, that darkest green is plain, undersea green with some water in it to the right of that in the rectangular Well, I have a blue green that I created by mixing together undersea green and a little bit of cobalt blue. And then below that in that third circular, well, I have my medium green and that is undersea green plus hansa yellow light to the right of that in that third rectangular, well, I have my lightest screen, and that light is green. I created by mixing together undersea green plus more hansa yellow light than the previous mixture. So both the medium green and the lighter screen, or a combo of undersea green and hansa yellow light. It's just that the ratios are slightly different. The lightest screen has way more of that hansa yellow light in it to make it look even lighter. So below that, I'm getting started with the colors that I'm gonna be using in the house, in the little path and the little Woods sections, the posts and the tree trunk and the branches in the circular well, I have my reddish brown, which is simply burnt sienna plus some water in it. Then in that rectangular well to the right of the burnt sienna, yellow ocher plus some water. And then in the two wells at the bottom below those, I'm creating a darker version for each. In this last circular. Well, I'm creating a mixture of burnt sienna plus a little bit of neutral tint. And then in the last rectangular, Well, I am creating a mixture of yellow ocher plus a little bit of neutral tint. As I am preparing all of these colors, especially the greens and the browns, I am really setting myself up for success by making sure that I have my colors that are going to allow me to develop dimension throughout my piece. What do I mean by this? I know that I am going to be able to create lighter green areas, mid tone green areas and darkest green areas, and lighter brown areas and mid-tone brown areas and darkest brown areas. So this all has to do with value with creating areas that look lighter, areas that look like medium tones and areas that look darker. This is essential so that we can create a believable sensation of light and shadow in her piece. We know that when it comes to working with watercolor, we can certainly create a wide range of values using just one same color. By simply adding more paint or more water into that mixture to get it darker and more saturated or lighter and more translucent. However, when we're going for mid to higher levels of realism, it is essential to start mixing colors together, because just using one same color is not going to look very realistic. It's still going to end up looking pretty flat and unnatural. Not only are, in the majority of cases, colors straight out of the pen or tube. Very unnatural in and of themselves. But also in real life, the things around us are never just one flat color. There is a variety of hue and tone throughout them. So you're gonna set yourself up for success by knowing how it is that you're going to be developing different values all throughout the different areas in your piece. Not only making use of the mediums, translucency and adding in more or less water depending on whether you want your color to be more or less translucent. But also when making sure that you know what color you need to reach for if you want to darken that color even further, or lightened that color even further. Okay, so right here what I am doing is I'm swatching out all of these different colour mixtures that I prepared for myself on the scrap piece of watercolor paper so that you can see what they look like on paper. So starting out with a blue, purple and the blue, those are the two colors that I'm gonna be using in the sky. Then I have my darkest green, my blue-green, my lightest green, and my medium green, blue-green. I'm going to be using to paint in the mountain in the faraway distance. And also to paint in some trees that are farther away behind the house. And then my darkest screen, my medium green and my lightest green I'm gonna be using for the grass areas and also to paint in the leaves of the tree in the foreground closest to us as the viewer of this scene. And then as I said, I have the neutrals, the browns that I'm going to be adding to paint the house, to paint the path, and also to paint a little posts and the tree trunk and the branches. I also want to point out before getting started with the painting process that these color mixtures that I have on my palate are nice and juicy. They have plenty of pigment in them or paint in them, and also quite a bit of water in them as well. So they are somewhere between a coffee to milk like consistency on my palette. If you haven't learned about before, different consistencies that we use when painting with watercolor. Makes sure to check out my watercolor one, a one course, because that is very, very important to understand. We want to be able to load up our paintbrush bristles well throughout this painting process to be able to paint large areas relatively quickly. And if we don't have enough paint on our palette or if it's too dry, we're not gonna be able to load up our paintbrush bristles well, so make sure that the consistency of your color mixtures is going to be helpful for you so that you can load up your paintbrush bristles well. And also before getting started with each next phase of this painting process, I would recommend checking to see if you have enough of your different colour mixtures that you're gonna be using for that next phase. Because if you don't have enough, I would recommend making more before getting started because if you are painting a new section and you run out of that color mixture along the way, what happens is that as you're making more of that color mixture, your paper or your paint is going to start to dry on you. And then you're probably going to be left with sharp defined edges or texture that you're not looking for. Just as a recap, a makes sure that you have nice juicy color mixtures on your palette. And then B makes sure that along the way, as you continue using up your colors in your palette, that you are making more as needed before getting started with the next part of the painting process so that you don't run out along the way and those sections don't start drawing on you. Alright, so with my sketch ready and my color mixtures ready as well, it is time to get started with the painting process. So I get started with doing my pre wedding. In this entire middle to upper portion of the piece, I am using my 1 " flat brush for this and taking a little bit of water at a time from my container. I'm gonna be tackling the initial larger wet on wet washes. And I'm going to be creating in two separate parts. First, the middle to upper part and then the middle to lower part. So the entire section where the middle ground and the foreground are, where the house is, where the path is, and all of this closest little hilly area closest to us that I'm going to tackle separately later after I finish up with this upper section. As you can see right now, I'm doing pre wedding in the entire sky area, the mountain and the faraway distance. And I've even pre wedded those trees behind the house because I also want them to look blurred out. So the only things that I'm not pre wedding or the house itself and the entire middle ground and foreground sections of this hill closest to us. I've even pre wedded that entire middle to upper portion of the tree in the foreground. And the reason why I did that is because both the tree trunk and the leaves are going to be a darker color than the colors that I'm going to be Placing right now in the background behind them. So the color development that I do in the sky right now and fat mountain in the far away distance, it's not really going to affect the colors of the tree that I'm going to be painting later in front of them. I continued taking a little bit of water at a time from my container and I make sure to run the bristles of my paint brush gently over this entire area, at least three to four times. Sometimes I do horizontal brushstrokes and other times it's more vertical brushstrokes. I work around the house shape carefully so that I don't get water in the house accidentally. Really take your time with this prereading process. This is essential so that no sections start drying on you way too soon. You want to arrive at a nice even sheen all throughout this area before starting to drop in your color. Doing this tree wedding helps us in a couple of different ways. Number one, this water content that we've deposited or prepared our paper width is really going to help us create those smooth, soft transitions between our different colors and these blurred out effects and these elements farthest away from us at the same time, What's cool is that by doing pre wedding, you are extending, expanding your working time. Because what you have to understand is that when you're working with watercolor, when you start painting on dry paper, that paper starts absorbing that paint immediately and it starts drying immediately because it's so thirsty, it's soaks up that paint, absorbs that paint immediately and starts drying on you. When you're trying to paint a pretty large area, a large space or even a large shape that can really work against you. And you can feel like you're having to work or race against the clock. And by doing pre wedding, you've prepared that paper with a good amount of water content so that it's not as thirsty anymore and it doesn't dry as quickly. And this expands your working time so that you can continue adding more color if you want to deepen and darken certain areas. Or if you want to do some lifting, maybe you've placed excess paint on paper, you wanna do some lifting before that paint starts to dry. You can do all of those things and take your time a little bit more. And as I said, that is especially helpful in the beginning of the painting process when you're tackling goes larger washes, those larger areas, those larger shapes. Alright, so after arriving at that nice even sheen all throughout this middle to upper portion of my drawing, I switched on over to my size six mop brush. And what I'm doing right now as I'm starting to develop some color in the sky. So I started with the cobalt blue and I've just loaded up my paintbrush once. I didn't want to just bring in more and more color into the sky because I wanted the bottom section of the sky closest to the house and also to the faraway mountain. To be very, very light and translucent. You can see how there's very, very little pigment in there. So I loaded up my paintbrush and the majority of that pigment was placed at the top. And I made my way down. And as I made my way down, there was a very small amount of pigment in my paintbrush. I didn't load it up again. I've just pulled a little bit of that blue downwards and that's how I created a natural kind of organic looking gradient in which the majority of the blue saturation state at the top. And then as I make my way down, there's just a very small amount of pigment there. Was they had some blue on my paper. I started dropping in my blue purple here and there in a very irregular way. And because everything was nice and wet, the blue purple really dissipated outward and merge beautifully with the cobalt blue. I made sure that the majority of that blue purple pigment was also placed somewhere along the top two middle portion of the sky. And a very small amount of pigment reached the bottom section, where the sky meets the mountains and the hills. As I place my color in the sky, I continue checking how much color I am placing on my paper. Whenever I feel I've placed enough, I remove that color for my paintbrush bristles by swiveling my paintbrush in my container of water. And I go back into the cleanest slightly damp paintbrush and simply pull that same color down so that just a small amount of color. Reaches that top edge of the hill and the mountain. Those two clouds that ended up there in the sky, they happened organically naturally. As I was jumping around this guy dropping in my color. When I am painting a sky using this technique, I simply lift up my pen brush from my paper a few times along the way. And those clouds end up happening just organically without really planning them. And I leave them that whiteness, that brightness of that paper shines through the paint and really creates that illusion of clouds. Because I took time to do my pre wedding. This entire section is still wet and workable. So I am able to do what I wanted to do initially, which was paint in that mountain in the faraway distance, which I wanted to paint wet on wet so that I could have a nice diffused out edge and really create that illusion of that mountain being farther away. And I'm also painting in these trees behind the house. So aerial perspective tells us that things that are farther away are going to look blurrier and cooler and color temperature and also lighter in value. And so by me going in and painting the mountain in the far away distance and also these trees behind the house on wet paper, that wetness, dampness is going to help me create those nice diffused out edges and that lighter value. So the faraway mountain I painted in with my blue-green. So that's my undersea green with my cobalt blue that I used to paint the mountain on the left. And then these trees behind the house, I am painting in with my undersea green and I dropped in a tiny bit of that blue-green as well. As you can see, I was left with nice soft edges and nice light ish value. This is going to help me create a nice believable illusion of open space and depth. Because the elements closest to us, I'm going to be painting with sharper defined edges. I'm going to be adding more detail into them. And I'm also going to make them darker. And so these darker, more sharp defined and detailed elements in the middle ground and the foreground are going to look like they are closer to us than these elements of the farther away distance, which are lighter and blurred out. Aerial perspective is something that I always, always bring into my landscapes and my scenes. It's something that is incredibly important to learn about if you're into painting or even drawing this kind of subject. Because aerial perspective goes hand-in-hand with how we see things in real life. If you're looking to develop a believable sense of open space and depth in your artwork. It's really something that you should learn about. Okay, so after working on that middle to upper portion of this painting, it was time to allow everything to dry completely. If you'd like to speed up that drying process, feel free to help yourself with a hairdryer, but make sure that everything is completely dry. Before moving on to the next prereading process for the middle to lower portion of the piece before getting started with my prereading process just a couple of minutes ago, you saw me, make sure that I had enough of my lightest green, my medium green, and my darker green on my color mixing palette. Remember how I told you that you should be checking that you have enough of your different colour mixtures whenever you're going to get started with a new area. Well, that's exactly what I did right there. Why? Because I don't want to do my pre wedding and then have to prepare my color mixtures. And then all of a sudden, I have areas that have already dried on me. It's better that you prepare your color mixtures and then do your pre wedding. I once again use my one-inch flat brush to do that pre wedding. I really took my time with that process until I arrived at that nice even sheen, I did not pretty wet the house. The house is the only thing that has not been painted or pre wedded in any way. And this is because I want to have more control when I'm painting that very geometric ie, more perfect shapes. So I just left that completely dry. I did pretty wet the path and everything else below that edge of this hilly area, this grass area closest to us in the middle ground and the foreground. Once I had arrived at that nice even sheen, I changed on over to my size six mop brush. And I always get started with the lightest color of the bunch that I'm gonna be using for this section on hand, which in this case was of course the lightest screen. So that was my undersea green plus hence a yellow light color mixture that was heavy on the hansa yellow light. I dropped in some of this lightest green and a very irregular way jumping around this entire area, trying to avoid the path. If a little bit of that green gotten to that path, it's perfectly fine. You can even go ahead and do some lifting with your cleanest slightly damp paintbrush. Use your paintbrush as a little absorbent sponge. If you see too much green getting into that path, simply remove that color from your paintbrush bristles and use your paintbrush as a little absorbent sponge. It's going to pick up that green. I do go in and do some lifting with the bristles of my paintbrush or a couple of times to lighten some sections backup. Because I know that by incorporating that brightness of the paper in some areas throughout this grassy section, that is going to help me develop that sensation of light and dimension all throughout this area. That irregularity that's going to make everything look more realistic once they had some of that lighter green in, I dropped in the medium green and certain sections here and there, and I am now getting started with the darkest green. My objective is to create a nice variety of green values all throughout this grass area in the middle ground and the foreground. I'm just playing around with my different greens and dropping them in, in a very irregular way. And my main objective as I'm doing this is just making sure that I'm developing a nice range of greens. I want to make sure that some areas look very light and translucent that have a lot of that whiteness of that paper is shining through other areas which looked like mid tone greens and then other areas that look like darker greens. This is going to help me develop that believable dimension and sensation of light and shadow and irregularity throughout this ground area. By this point in the process, everything is still very wet and workable. Once again, because I took my time doing that pre wedding process in this middle to lower section of the piece before getting started with my grass. And it was time to get started with painting in the path has the path is a much smaller shape when you compare it to the grass areas that I've been painting, I decided to change to my size ten round brush. And once again, I got started with the lightest color that I'd be using for this section, which was the yellow ocher. After painting in the yellow ocher, I then dropped in some of my burnt sienna in certain sections that I was looking to darken, mostly in this section of the path closest to us as the viewer of the scene. And I was really trying to have that section of the path that is farthest away, closest to the house, just lighter, just with a yellow ocher in it. And I was looking to darken those sections closest to us. So the burnt sienna, which I would consider to be a medium reddish brown, I dropped in mostly in the middle to lower portion of the path closest to us. And once the burnt sienna was in, which was a medium brown, I dropped in some of my darker version of my burnt sienna, which had a little bit of neutral tint added in. But this darker brown, I really only placed in some shadows sections that I was looking to deepen and dark and further, especially in this closest section, the path to us, just like with the grass areas, I was really focusing on developing a range of brown's all throughout the path. I wanted to have certain sections at the end that look lighter. Other sections that looked like a medium brown and other sections that looked a little bit darker. So excited to get started with painting in the lavender before this entire bottom portion and the grass start drying on me. Everything is still pretty wet and workable because I took time to do that pre wedding before getting started. So as you can see, I am dropping in this purple, which by the way, I switched over to the smallest paintbrush so that I am using for this process, which is my size three round brush. And I'm using my blue, purple color mixture, my cobalt plus deep Scarlet mixture that I used in the sky. If you have to somehow change the ratios of your blue and your red and your purple color mixture to get it closer to a lavender, purple. Then go ahead and do that. Because maybe the purple that you use in your sky is more of a reddish purple. And for the lavender, I would recommend that it's more like a bluish purple. All that means is that you have to add in a little bit more of your cobalt blue into your color mixture. As you can see, I am dropping in little teeny tiny blooms of purple on this green while it's still wet. And I am barely touching the tip of my paintbrush to my paper. And as I am doing this, this blue purple drips down into that wetness. And this creates a nice soft diffused out, blurred effect because that paint is expanding into that wetness. Always remember that watercolor is going to expand and bleed out into paper that is wet. And as I am dropping in those teeny tiny purple blooms, I am very gently moving my paint brush upwards. To create that illusion of the length of these lavender flowers. Because lavender is kinda like a tall vertical flower and it's made up of teeny tiny purple flowers. So I'm creating these teeny tiny Blooms by touching the tip of my paintbrush and also simultaneously moving my paint brush upwards as I do that, if you're doing this and that paint is not creating little teeny tiny blooms in which that blue purple is merging into that wetness. This is probably because your paper has already started to dry. So there are a couple of things that I can provide as tips if you're having that issue. The first is make sure that you're doing your pre wedding effectively, that you're really taking your time with that prereading process. Making sure that you are running your paintbrush bristles gently over everything at least three to four times. I would also suggest that if you have a fan on a heating system, on an air conditioning unit on, you can try turning them off or moving away from them, especially when you're painting in these larger washes. Also have in mind that if you're working environment is super warm or super cold, or super human or super dry. That is also going to have a huge impact on how quickly or how slowly your paper starts to dry on you. Another thing that could be the issue is that maybe you did your pre wedding effectively, but then you took way too long painting in the grass and the path that now things have started to dry on you. So if that's the case, I would recommend working a little bit more quickly, loading up your paintbrush well with that nice juicy color and not spending too long in any single area and not fiddling too much with the paint after you've placed it on paper, lay it down and leave it be as much as possible. I'm making sure to bring a lot of irregularity in when I am painting in these flowers. Irregularity in terms of their placement on the paper. Some flowers are grouping together more than others. Irregularity in terms of their length. Irregularity in terms of how they are bending or curving towards one side or the other side. And I'm also making sure to bring in believable perspective. So perspective tells us that things that are closer to us are going to be bigger than things that are farther away. So as you can see, the lavender flowers that I am adding that are farther away from us are very, very teeny tiny when compared to the longer flowers that I'm adding, the sections closest to us. I am also doing my best not to overdo it. I don't want to add too many, and I am mostly adding them into the lower section of the painting. And as I make my way towards the middle ground, I am adding fewer and fewer and they're becoming tinier and tinier. Remember that less is more when painting with watercolor, you don't want to overdo it with the lavender. We're also going to be adding more later, wet on dry, so that we can again have that distinction between lavender flowers that are closer to us, which we're going to see sharper and more defined and lavender flowers that are blurrier, that are farther away. And that is really going to help enhance that believable sensation of open space and depth. And with that, we're all done with part one of this painting process. Allow these washes to dry completely. And once everything has dried, Let's go ahead and get started with part number two. See you in the next class. 11. Hills and Flowers Painting Process B: Hello again, friends and welcome to this class where I'm gonna be taking you through part two of this landscape painting process. Now that we have created our first large washes of color, we're gonna be moving on to painting medium-sized shapes. And for this, we're gonna be using wet on dry techniques, meaning we're going to be painting on dry paper, which is going to help us arrive at cleaner, more defined edges. Remember that it's all about going from general. Larger shapes are areas towards smaller shapes and details. Let's go ahead and jump straight in. Alright, so I allowed everything to dry completely because I'm gonna be painting in the house. I didn't want to start painting in the house if that green below it was still wet because those browns that I would be using in the house with start bleeding down into that green after everything was dry, I made sure that I had enough of my brown color mixtures prepared on my palette before getting started with painting the house. So I made sure that I had enough of my yellow ocher, my darker version of my yellow ocher, which is yellow ocher, plus a little bit of neutral tint. I also wanted to make sure to have my burnt sienna and my darker version of my burnt sienna, which has a little bit of neutral tint in it as well. Once I was ready, I got started with painting in the house. And for this, I use my size ten round brush. And as always, I get started with the lightest color of the pair or group that I'm going to be using for each area. So for the bottom sections or the bottom walls of the house, I use initially the yellow ocher. I painted in that yellow ocher, I made sure to run the bristles on my paintbrush over everything a couple of times to make sure that that yellow ocher stayed wet before I dropped in the darker version of my yellow ocher, which had that little bit of neutral tense in it. And as you can see, I'm dropping in this darker version in sections of shadow right below the roof. Or I imagine that roof to be creating a shadow. It's preventing that light from hitting those sections of wall right beneath it. That's what I'm dropping in the darker version. And because I dropped it in while that yellow ocher was still wet, I was left with the nice diffused out effect. Then I started painting in the roof. Now because I'm painting in the House on dry paper. It's trying pretty quickly. And if the bottom sections of the house, the initial walls that you painted in aren't dry. Just know that if you paint in the roof while those wall sections are still wet, that reddish brown that you use in the roof can start bleeding into the walls if you don't want that to happen, just makes sure that you will allow those initial walls to dry completely and then paint in the roof. The roof I am painting in with my burnt sienna. That's my lighter color right here. I'm doing a tiny bit of clean up along the edges, using the cleanest slightly damp bristles on my paintbrush to do some absorbing. And I'm also going in with my absorbent towel. I accidentally got a little bit of burnt sienna on the wall. You're gonna notice that I very quickly draw in something that looks like a line visually to paint in that little section of the roof that is visible, that is opposite to us. Then once that burnt sienna is painted in, still wet, I drop in a little bit of the darker version of my burnt sienna, which is the burnt sienna plus the neutral tense. And I drop it on the into the shadows sections that I'm looking to darken a little bit more. Even with the walls of the house and the roof of the house, I am looking to develop a range of values within these planes of the house because I know that this is what's going to help me arrive at more of a believable look and a light and shadow effect. You can probably see how I even left little teeny tiny highlight shapes. And those just happen naturally and organically as I was moving my paintbrush little sections where that whiteness in that brightness of the paper is shining through and painted. Right here. I'm even going in with a clean, slightly damp paintbrush and doing a little bit of lifting of that excess color that I've placed at the top of the roof. I wanted to lighten that little section at the top of the roof backups, so I just lifted some excess color before it started to dry. This is a great way to add dimension back into a section that you have perhaps flattened a little bit too much with just a flat wash or maybe too much saturated color. Always remember that you have your absorbent towel on hand and you also have your paintbrush. You can do small corrections with. I then painted in the little doorway, make sure that the yellow ocher around the doorway is already dry. If you don't want this dark brown to start bleeding into the yellow ocher. But I went in very carefully with my darkest brown, which is my burnt sienna, plus my neutral tint. And I painted in that little rectangular shaped very carefully using just the tip of my size, three round brush, even when it came to that small, dark shape for the doorway, I wanted to create a little. Variety of values within that shape. I didn't want to go in with my dark brown in a super saturated dark state and create a negative flat hole in my painting. That's definitely something I don't want to do. So I painted in that little rectangle and then I remove that color from my paintbrush bristles. I remove that excess water by touching the tip of my paintbrush on my absorbent towel. And I went back in to do a tiny bit of lifting in some sections so that I can create that variety of values, even within that very small shape. After painting in the door, I switched on over to my size ten round brush. Once again, I started painting in the trees behind the house. I am using my darkest green, so this is just plain undersea green with some water in it. Notice how it is not incredibly saturated. It does have a coffee like consistency on my palette, which means that it is not incredibly saturated. Even though this green is pretty dark that I am using, It's not going to be super, super stark looking and contrasting because it has some water in it. After that initial shape has been painted in with my undersea green, I added more undersea green into my color mixture on my palette to get it darker and more saturated to create a little shadow shapes in the lower section of this larger, lighter shade. Once they had placed a little bit more of this saturated, darker green in that lower portion. I remove the color from my paintbrush bristles, and I soften that edge a little bit, that I add a little bit more of my undersea green and other shadows sections that I'm looking to dark and more. And this is again to create a variety of values within this tree shape, I probably should have made this shape for the trees a little bit shorter or smaller because I do almost entirely cover up that blurred out tree, a fact that I had created initially with that first wash that we did. So if you want to have more of that upper edge of that blurred out shape that we did initially behind these trees. Visible than just make this shape shorter or smaller, that will create that illusion of you having even more trees behind this tree shape that we're painting in right now. Alright, so it is finally the time that so many of us have been waiting for. It is a time for us to be brave. Because we're gonna be painting in this large tree in the foreground nearest to us as the viewer of this scene. So I removed all of that previous darker green for my paintbrush bristles and I'm still going to be using my size ten round brush for this. So just like with everything that I've been doing so far, when I'm going to be using a variety of different colors in one same shape or area. I always get started with the lightest color of the bunch first. So in this case it's my lightest green for the leaves of this tree, I'm going to be using the lightest screen, the medium green and the darkest green, meaning my two different green color mixtures that have both the yellow and the green in them just at slightly different ratios. One of them has more yellow so that it's lighter and the other has more green to it. It's more of a medium green. And I'm also going to be bringing in my plane undersea green, which is very deep and dark in itself. So as you can see, I am focusing on creating a very overall abstract, irregular shape. I am making sure that the edges have a lot of irregularity throughout them. I'm also making sure that I'm leaving little windows, empty windows where the background is showing through unpainted that is very important. And I'm also making sure that I am developing a wide range of green values all throughout this leaf area of the tree. Hopefully you can tell how I am really shifting and changing the way that I am using my paintbrush. I am pressing it down to different degrees. Sometimes it's just the tip of my paintbrush that is coming into contact with the paper, especially along the outer edges, for those outermost leaves to create that irregularity along the edges. Other times, I'm pressing down the entire belly of the paintbrush. Also aside from that, I'm also shifting and changing the angle at which I'm using my paintbrush. Sometimes it's almost almost parallel to my paper, to my desk that I am working on. Other times it's more of a 25 to 30 degree angle. And other times when I'm touching this, the tip of my paintbrush to my paper. And I want to create little abstract irregular shapes along the edges. It's more like a 40 to 45 degree angle from my table. So I'm changing the pressure that I'm exerting on the bristles of my paintbrush. I'm shifting the angle at which I'm using my paintbrush. And finally, I'm also shifting the rotation. How I am rotating my wrist on top of my paper. All of these things enabled me to create a lot of irregularity and abstract green shapes. If I were to only use my paintbrush in one same way, it will look a little bit to pattern me a little bit too stiff and probably not very natural. Now because I am working relatively quickly. I am getting these diffused out, soft edges along at least some or most of my different green values. I am creating soft gradients because I'm working quickly. That new kind of paint that I'm dropping in merges with the previous color that is still wet. Other green shapes are not diffusing out as much and this is because I am placing them on paper that is almost completely dry. I like having that combination of having some shadow shapes be sharpened, defined, and other areas where those greens are creating soft gradients into each other, that's perfectly fine. You don't have to go in and feel like you have to soften all those harder, sharper edges or anything like that. And I would recommend if you are going in to do any softening, are moving around of paint that you've already placed on your paper. Just make sure that you're doing it minimally and gently because you can really run the risk of flattening everything out and making everything look very overworked. A lot of working with watercolor is yes, visualizing the effects that you want and creating a strategy for yourself that is going to make it a lot more likely that you will arrive at the results that you're after. However, it's also about learning to embrace the organic effects that this type of paint allows. An embracing that and learning how to work with that when we force ourselves or just try to control things way too much. That's when our paintings end up looking lifeless and flat and overworked and they lack that glow. That watercolor allows what makes it different from other types of painting mediums. It's essential that the entire leaf portion of the tree overall has a variety of green values. You want areas that are lighter. You want areas that look like mid tones. You want areas that look darker. Bring to mind the structure tree. It is being affected by the sun. And also throughout the leaf portion of the tree, there are these groupings of leaves that are creating shadows on each other. If we have one same flat green all throughout the leaf area, it's probably going to look like a flat formless blob and we don't want that. If you find painting trees that difficult, I would recommend working on individual isolated studies of trees, just paint trees. I'm focused on really understanding trees and painting them in isolation outside of painting them in a full piece because that way you're gonna be better prepared and less overwhelmed when it comes to adding your trees into a full scene or a full painting. And help yourself with reference photos. Observe what trees look like in real life and how the light coming from the sun affects them and creates these shadows among the leaves. All of that is going to really help inform your work. We are all done with part two of this painting process. I am so excited to move on to the last part of this landscape in which we're gonna be focusing more on final details and enhancing textures. Whenever you're ready, see you in the next class. 12. Hills and Flowers Painting Process C: Welcome to the third and final part of this painting process for landscape number two. In this last part of the process, we're focusing on smaller details at enhancing textures. Let's go ahead and jump straight in. Alright, So it was time to allow the leaf portion of the tree to dry completely. And I then painted in the little wooden posts here along this path leading to the house. I use my size three round brush and my darkest brown, which is my burnt sienna plus neutral tint, I made sure to initially go in with a relatively translucent almost T to coffee like consistency of this dark brown. Then I added in a little bit more of my burnt sienna and neutral tint into my mixture to get it slightly more saturated, a little bit of a thicker consistency. And then I went in and paint that little sections in on top of that lighter brown shape, creating a little bit of a variety of values, even in these posts. And I especially darkened sections of the post nearest to us as the viewer of the scene and left the little smaller post farther away, just with that initial layer of light are more translucent brown. And this is again to enhance that depth and that perspective because things closest to us are going to be larger and darker, things farther away are going to be smaller and also lighter. Once I finish with the posts, it was time to add in the lavender that I'm going to be painting in on dry paper or so. As I mentioned before, when I was painting in the first study, lavender is wet on wet. I really wanted to paint in some of these flowers wet on wet so that I could have a nice diffused out soft edge to them. And then I would be painting in more lavender flowers, wet on dry, on dry paper. So that this way I could have some of these flowers look like they are farther away, more blurred out. And other flowers just look like they are closer because they are darker and they are more defined. They are sharper around the edges. So using my size three round brush, I'm using the exact same technique that I was using before. Only this time, these shapes that I'm creating look much different because I'm painting on dry paper and that paint is not expanding out into that wetness. So you can see how these shapes look darker and the edges are much more defined. And this again in combination with the blurred out lavender behind them, this also helps enhance that sensation of believable open space and depth. I made sure not to go overboard with the amount of flowers that I painted in once again, because that is very, very easy to do. And also have in mind that the lavender closest to us in the lowest portion of the painting, they should be a little bit taller, just a little bit taller than the lavender that gets farther and farther back into the middle ground. I barely added in any lavender, wet on dry in the middle ground. I mostly added it into the lower part of the painting, which are of course the flowers that would be closest to us as the viewer of the scene. After painting in those few lavender is on dry paper. I am now adding in a little bit of an effect of grass. So I'm adding in some blades of grass. I removed all of that purple from my paintbrush bristles. And I am still using my size three round brush, which has the smallest brush that I chose for this painting process. And I am doing upwards flicking motions using my medium green and my darkest green, but I'm making sure to use these colors in a pretty translucent water downstate because I don't want to start adding in lines that are too dark and too distracting. I want to keep these blades of grass relatively subtle. And I, again, I don't want to go overboard with the amount of blades of grass that I create. And also as you can see, I'm adding the majority of these blades of grass into the foreground sections closest to us in the bottom part of this painting. As I get farther and farther away, I add in fewer and fewer, more sparse blades of grass and they are also smaller as they recede into the background. Something else that you can do to enhance that illusion of depth is perhaps think of painting in the blades of grass that are farther away, even lighter and even more translucent than blades of grass that you add in, in the bottom-most section of the painting, which are closer to us. You want a lot of irregularity when you paint in those blades of grass, makes sure they are grouping together in different ways that you're not creating any patterns and also try to create those tapered lines curving off slightly towards different directions instead of creating perfectly upright, stiff looking tapered lines. Okay, so after finishing up with those blades of grass, what I'm gonna be working on next is I'm going to be darkening certain sections. In the grass and also along the path. This is going to help add irregularity dimension and more of a believable look into these areas. I'm not looking to darken the beautiful lighter values and lighter mid tones. I'm just looking to push some shadow section, some shadow shapes along these areas. And this is really going to help bring everything together. So using my size ten round brush, I first darken a little plant shape right below the house. I made sure that that little shadow shape that I created with my undersea green was very abstract. And I also made sure that it wasn't so dark on that value, green value underneath it that there would be too much contrast created and that shadow shape would be super stark looking at very distracting. Once I painted in that shadow shape, I remove that color from my paintbrush bristles and I soften that lower edge to soften that shape a little bit more. I remove that green for my paintbrush bristles, and I'm now doing the exact same thing along the path here. I'm not looking to darken the lighter brown areas. I'm only looking to darken some shadow areas along the path. And so using my size ten round brush and my burnt sienna and also my burnt sienna close neutral tint color mixture. I went in and created some shadow shapes. First I got started with a lighter color of the two, which was my burnt sienna. It was relatively translucent like a coffee light consistency. And then with my burnt sienna in there, I dropped in some of my darkest brown in some areas that I wanted to push even further as I was painting in those brown shapes along the path. I did remove that color from my paintbrush, bristles a couple of times to run my cleanest slightly damp paintbrush bristles over a few edges to soften some edges here and there in these new shadow shapes, then it was time to allow that to dry. And I'm finally painting in the tree trunk and the branches in this tree closest to us, now that the entire leaf portion of the tree is completely dry and I'm not going to have any bleeding happening. This is when I do that. So first I go in with my burnt sienna and you can see how that initial layer is pretty light and translucent on paper. This means that my color mixture has a good amount of water in it, which really allows me to create those lightest values in the tree trunk that I need. You're gonna notice how I run my paintbrush bristles over this entire tree trunk shape a few times to make sure that this shape remains wet when I start dropping in my darker brown, which is my burnt sienna plus neutral tint color mixture right here gonna see me create more of my darkest brown because I am running out. So I am making more of this burnt sienna plus neutral tint color mixture. And then I'm going to continue darkening some shadow shapes in the tree trunk. And what I do is I just spring in my knowledge of the structure of trees and I visualize where would make sense for me to darken. So, where would shadow shapes be created in this tree structure? Where are parts of the structure impeding that light from hitting certain sections beneath them or around them. Right here you can see how I left plenty of that initial lighter brown shining through and covered with this new darker brown. And right here you can see me use the cleanest slightly damp bristles on my paintbrush to go in and do some lifting, especially in that middle section of the tree trunk so that I can really round out that irregular, cylindrical structure. It adds dimension into the tree trunk and makes it look more realistic. So again, help yourself with your absorbent towel and the bristles of your paintbrush. If you'd need to do a little bit of lifting, if you need to add dimension back into an area that you have perhaps dark and too much or flattened out way too much. You always have those tools. Alright, so it was time to allow that tree trunk to drive. And I am now using my size three round brush back to the smallest paintbrush that I picked for this painting process. And I am adding in the branches, which of course our way thinner, way more narrow. And I want those ends of the branches to look kind of paper. So I'm really doing my best to use just the tip of my paintbrush so that I can get in these very, very thin branches and just not make them too thick. I am skipping over certain sections so that I can create that illusion of some leaves covering up those branches in certain sections. If you're afraid that you won't be able to create these very thin tapered lines. I would recommend practicing on a scrap piece of paper before going in and adding the branches into your tree in your painting. And the reason I say this is because I ruined multiple paintings when I was in the beginning of my own watercolor painting journey. By adding branches in that were way too thick or a feathery, even because I have to go in with multiple strokes when I was painting in those branches. So two things, I would recommend making sure that the consistency of your color mixture on your palate makes sense. You want it to have a good amount of color in it, but also a good amount of water so that you can load up your paintbrush bristles effectively before going in and attempting to paint that line for that branch. Because if you're not able to load up your paintbrush bristles properly because that color mixture is way too dry or you simply don't have enough on your palette that you can load up your paintbrush bristles. Well, most likely than not, you're gonna be creating a dry brushing effects as you're trying to paint in that line from start to finish. Or you're simply not going to be able to complete that line or that section of that branch as you want it. And you're going to have to go in with multiple brushstrokes, which then leads to a feathery look. And you also want to make sure that you have enough control over your paintbrush that you are able to create a thin line from start to finish. And at the very end of that branch, if you want it to look tapered, you have to lift up that pampered from your paper. So both are things that you can definitely practice before adding in those branches in your painting. And most likely than not, it's going to help them look a lot better when you add them in. I added in the illusion of tree trunks and branches in those trees behind the house. And I tried to make sure that those tree trunks and branches were even more thin than the branches that I added into the tree closest to us. And then after doing that, I moved on to deepening and darkening certain shadow shapes right below the roof of the house. And I continued using my darkest brown, which is my burnt sienna plus neutral tint color mixture and this very small size three round brush. And we are finally in the very last part of this painting process, I wanted to add in a little bit more detail into this tree closest to us. And so what I am doing right here using my size ten round brush is I am basically doing the bouncing technique. All I am doing is just touching the tip of my paintbrush to my paper and all sorts of different angles and directions. I'm rotating my wrists around to make sure that there is a lot of irregularity as I am creating these little teeny, tiny leaf shapes that I am creating with the tip of my paintbrush. I'm using my plane undersea green for this, but I'm not going in with a very dry color mixture. It does have some amount of water in it. I would recommend noticing just acknowledging the green value that you've developed underneath. Because if you only have very, very light greens all throughout your leaf portion of the tree and you go in with a very dark saturated green color mixture when you're painting in these leaves, that is going to create a lot of contrast and it's gonna be very distracting. I can go in with my undersea green, which is my darkest screen because I have plenty of darker midtones and very dark greens already developed all throughout my leaf portion, which doesn't create that much contrast. So if you have a very dark shape on top of a very light background, that is going to be very, very contrasting and possibly very distracting is going to call a lot of attention to those leaf shapes that you're adding in right now. So all this to say if you don't have as much of that dark green already developed throughout that first larger general leaf shape, then I would recommend going in with your medium green, perhaps instead of your darkest green. Remember that high levels of contrast are going to lead to a heavier visual weight. So when you create contrast, you want it to be done mindfully and intentionally because those areas are going to call the viewer's attention more than the areas with less contrast. Okay, So going back to this bouncing technique that I'm using to add in these little leaves. Again, it's all about having irregularity in mind as I'm doing this, making sure that I am creating little clusters of these shapes. Sometimes they are for, sometimes they are three, sometimes they are too. I am making sure that they are angled in different ways and also that I'm not adding way too many of these a little bit goes a long way in creating that illusion of leaves. After doing this, I'm just going to finish up this painting by adding in a few more blades of grass here and there. I did want to add any few blades of grass until the very end after this major largest tree trunk for this tree closest to us was completely dry because I wanted to do a little bit of overlapping of blades of grass on top of the tree trunk at the bottom there, again, I'm making sure not to go overboard with the blades of grass and that they are not super, super dark over that lighter green value behind them. So that these lines are not super distracting. I want the grass to be relatively subtle and I don't want to go overboard with the amount, so I am taking breaks along the way and just asking myself if more grass is truly necessary. Okay, my friend, and with that, we're all done with this second landscape. I really hope that you enjoyed the process for this one and that you're getting the hang of this general strategy that I've been sharing so far. Where we're working from General towards specifics. And getting started with techniques that require more water in the beginning and using less water as we move forward. I hope that you've also gained a better understanding of how to combine wet on wet techniques which lead to blurrier softer effects with wet on dry techniques, which lead to sharper, more defined edges and details when we're working with watercolor, it's through this combination of techniques that were able to arrive at higher levels of realism and greater depth and interests in a visual composition. I'm excited to get started with landscape number three. Whenever you're ready, see you in the next class. 13. Winding River Supplies: Hey everyone, welcome to this class where I'm gonna be explaining about all of the watercolor painting supplies that I'm going to be using. And I would recommend that you have on hand either this or something similar in order to work on landscape number three together, I'm gonna be using paper from arches. This is going to be cold press 140 pounds in thickness or in weight. And I'm actually going to be using just half of one of these nine by 12 inch sheets. It's totally up to you if you want to work in my same size or if you want to use the entire sheet, I'm gonna be working on a sheet of paper that is going to be 9 " in width and 6 " in height. So approximately half letter size. In terms of my paint, I'm gonna be using my watercolor paint set from Daniel Smith. I use a total of seven different colors. And these colors are cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, deep scarlet, hansa yellow light, burnt sienna, undersea green, and neutral tint. I want to take a quick second to remind you that you by no means have to use these exact same colors that I'm going to be using. I'm going to be swatching out all of my color mixtures on paper before getting started. You can see what they look like on paper and you can use whatever you have that's most similar and you're gonna be perfectly fine. Alright, so moving on to my paint brushes, I'm going to be bringing in four different paint brushes. One of them is a large 1 " flat brush. The other larger brush that I'm using is a size six mop brush. And I'm also going to be bringing in to round brushes in sizes 10.3. In terms of my other supplies, I always have a container or two with clean water beside me. I have one or two blue Scott absorbent towels as well. Super, super important so that I can stay on top of water control for this piece. I would also recommend having one or two regular kitchen paper towels on hand because we're gonna be using the lifting technique to create the illusion of clouds. Regular kitchen paper towels tend to crumble more, and I find them more helpful than these absorbent towels when it comes to that cloud painting technique, I would recommend having regular kitchen paper towels on hand for that. Aside from that, it's very important that you have a color mixing palette on hand. You're going to see me work on this mixing palette that I have on the lower left here. So whatever color palette you have is perfect. Just make sure that you have somewhere to create your color mixtures. And I have a roll of regular masking tape. This one is three-fourths of an inch and it's what I'm going to use to tape down my watercolor sheet onto my black cutting mat so that I can have those nice clean white borders at the end around my landscape when I remove that masking tape, when finally I also have a few sketching supplies on hand. And this is for the first part of my process which I'm going to be starting with, which is my preliminary pencil sketch. I'm gonna be using a B grade a drawing pencil. Usually I use an HB, but I want to make sure that you guys were able to see what I'm doing. So I'm going slightly softer with my pencil grid here. And using a B instead of an HB, I also have a soft graphite eraser and a kneaded eraser, and that is it for my supplies. And that is gonna do it for this very short class. Once you have all of your supplies together and you're ready to get started, go ahead and join me in the next class. 14. Winding River Sketch: Hello again, friend and welcome to this class where I'm gonna be taking you through my preliminary sketching process for landscape number three, and I'll be continuing to share must know tips and information that are gonna help you create successful outline sketches for future watercolor paintings. So using my B pencil grade and with my two erasers on hand, I'm gonna get started with just quickly sketching in the main general areas. There is no need to go in and add tons of detail or shading or anything like that. We're just creating the pencil lines and dividing this area up into larger shapes. I would suggest leaving things at a bare minimum and just adding the lines and shapes that you feel you need in order to get started with the painting process. Also remember to sketch lightly, as lightly as you can so that you don't scratch or damage your paper so that your pencil work is not visible through the transparent paint at the end. And also so that you can erase mistakes as you go and are able to refine those shapes and lines that you create if needed. There are some things that I'm not going to be adding into my sketch, like e.g. the blades of grass, the plant trips in general are just very general, irregular shapes that I am adding in, but all of those will change when I'm actually painting them. When you're painting trees and leaves and plants and things like that, it's important to let a little bit loose as you're painting them and allow your rest, your arm and the paint to do their own thing. It is impossible for me to plan exactly the very, very specific shape to very minute detail for every plant that I add in. As I said, you're just using these shapes that you lay down with pencil to visualize. But a lot of things happen as you're painting that you didn't plan for. And especially when it comes to organic, natural scenes, we need to embrace this looseness and this imperfection so that things look more natural. I'm not creating these shapes to fill them in perfectly like you would a coloring book page. It's not about that. It's about laying down shapes and lines in order to visualize general shape, the location, the angles, et cetera, that you need in order to get started with the painting process. So I'm just adding in what I feel I need in order to visualize what I'm going to be painting later on in terms of the element's location, in terms of their size, their general shape, et cetera. Okay, so when it comes to landscapes and scenes, I always like establishing the horizon line first. So that's that first horizontal line that you saw me add in along the top third and you can see how I left it kind of irregular. It's not a perfect horizontal line. And this is because this is a nature scene. And there's going to be plenty of irregularity and imperfection all throughout. So why not get started with creating a little bit of irregularity in those lines and shapes that I'm adding in. And for those of you who don't know what the horizon line is, the horizon line is the line that divides the ground from the sky or the ocean from the sky in c escapes. And what it is is it's basically your eye level as the viewer of the scene. This is very important to acknowledge in order to get perspective and depth right in your scene. Okay, so once my horizon line has been added in, I got started with adding in another major shape in this piece, which is going to be the river. And you can see how the river has a lot of curves to it. Also, I made sure that he was very, very small and very narrow in that section, farthest away from us and that it got wider and wider as it got closer and closer to us. This is key in order to transmit a believable sensation of perspective and depth. Things farther away are smaller and things closer are gonna be larger. After adding that major shape in, I started adding in the tree line and the faraway distance. And you can see how I also sketch that in with a lot of irregularity all throughout. When you're sketching in plants and trees and anything that's natural and organic in nature, you want to make sure that you're staying away from organized patterns and perfect shapes. You want to keep things very irregular and very imperfect and asymmetrical after adding in a little bit of a plant line there. I am now sketching in this tree in the foreground. And you're gonna notice that I work from the bottom widest section in that trunk and I make my way up and away from that base tree trunk as I am drawing in the branches, these medium-sized branches and smallest branches gets smaller and smaller or thinner and thinner as they make their way out from that tree. And you can also see how I made sure that that tree is not symmetrical. Meaning if I were to divide this tree into left and right halves, those halves would not be the same. Symmetry is when you're able to fold an element or a shape, or an object or whatever it is in half. And the left half is exactly the same as the right half. We're looking for asymmetry. We don't want those have to be the same. Symmetry is almost never present in nature. It's more a man-made object kind of thing when it came to sketching in the leaves of the tree. I also wanted to make sure to create asymmetry and tons of irregularity. I have to make a mindful effort of staying away from a lollipop shaped tree. You don't want to create a perfect circle or a perfect oval or anything like that in the leaves. And finally, it was time to move on to the smallest shapes that I'm gonna be adding in here, which are the rocks and for the rocks because these are natural elements as well. You're going to see that I have irregularity in terms of everything, in terms of their size, how they're clustering together, how they're overlapping on top of each other. You can see how I'm sketching them in with angles, seeing them as blocky shapes, sometimes adding in just lines that are not really connecting, making sure I'm creating different types of shapes. And I'm just seeing the composition as a whole, making sure that I'm not going overboard with the amount of rocks that I add in. And again, staying away from any sort of organization or pattern or anything like that when you're sketching in your rocks, you also want to make sure that you have that perspective in mind. Usually, you want to make sure that the rocks that are farther away gets smaller and smaller. However, because rocks can come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, you could have a very large boulder of sorts farther away from you in the middle ground and background that is actually larger than a smaller raphe you have closer to you and that does happen, That does make sense, however, in a general way, you do want to make sure that at least some of these rocks that you're adding in closer to you as the viewer of the scene are larger and some of the rocks farther away in the middle ground are smaller. This is going to make that perspective look more believable. I liked the idea of adding in some rocks along the sides or edges of the river and also inside of the river itself. And finally, you're going to see me add in one more little plant shape or line in the middle ground. So that I can remember as I am painting, that I want to create a little bit of a shrub or plant in that area just for a little bit of interests in depth. Finally, I'm going in with my kneaded eraser and you can see how I'm tapping over my sketch to lighten it up. And also to get rid of any excess graphite that might be floating around on my watercolor paper. Because if I have any excess graphite floating around, I can run the risk of smudging that with my paintbrush and journeying up my colors. Alright, so just adding in a few minor details here and there, adding a couple more rocks right here, I'm adding just a couple of lines to visualize the edge of that river there, because I might want to add a little bit of a brown color in that area during the painting process too. Just transmit a little sensation of wet soil in that area to bring a little bit of tapping here and these shapes that I just added in. And with that, we're all done with our preliminary pencil sketch. We're now moving on to the next part of this process, which is going to be preparing our first color mixtures so that we can get started with our painting. So once your preliminary outline sketch has been created, go ahead and join me in the next class. See you there. 15. Winding River Painting Process A: Hey there and welcome to this class where we're going to start painting landscape number three. Just like what we did with our first two landscapes, we're gonna be working with techniques that require more water in the beginning and wet on wet fx to paint in those initial layers and larger general areas. Then we're going to be moving on to medium-sized shapes and later on to smaller details and textures. But first, let's make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success. That we're starting out with good color mixtures that we understand, the colors that we're gonna be using throughout our painting. Okay, so I'm gonna be using my size ten round brush to create my initial color mixtures because it's just what's most comfortable for me in terms of getting that paint from my paint pans over onto my mixing palette. It's a good size paintbrush that I can swivel my paintbrush in there and bring out a little bit of paint at a time. It's very important to pre moistened those bristles of your paintbrush and get them ready to take on paint before actually using your paintbrush in your paint, taking a little bit of water at a time from my Container is truly my paintbrush in that paint and bring out a little bit of paint at a time into these walls on my color mixing palette, make sure that you're completely rinsing out your paintbrush, bristles in-between your colors so that you don't contaminate them. I'm going for nice juicy color mixtures somewhere between a coffee to milk like consistency is what I am going for. I want a good amount of pigment in these mixtures, but also water. So there should be some noticeable movement created by that water in your puddles. This is important because since we're going to be painting a landscape and we have large areas that we're going to be painting in. We wanna be able to load up our paintbrush bristles well and go in quickly and not have to reload or paintbrush again and again when we're painting these large areas, these large washes. So you wanna make sure that your color mixtures are a nice and juicy approximately 50 per cent paint 50% water in those mixtures. And you also want to make sure that you're setting yourself up for success and creating a good amount of your different colour mixtures, especially for those initial large areas We're gonna be painting in. Alright, so with all that said, let me go ahead and explain about the specific color mixtures that I'm creating for myself on my palette. First, I got started with preparing the colors that I would be using in my sky. The blue and the blue purple going from left to right. The very first puddle that I created for myself is plain cobalt blue with some water in it. Next to that, I prepared my blue purple, which is a mixture of cobalt blue plus deep scarlet blue plus red equals purple. If you add more red into your mixture, it's going to look more like a red purple. If you add more blue into your mixture is going to look more like a blue purple. And I wanted to go for a blue purple. What I'm working on right now is I am creating my three different greens that I'm gonna be using for my leaves and for my grass areas. So what I'm gonna be doing is I'm going to be preparing a light green color mixture, a medium green color mixture, and a darker green color mixture. My lighter green color mixture is going to be a mixture of my undersea green, which is the base green color that I chose for myself. And hence a yellow light, which is the yellow that I chose. Then the medium green is going to be playing undersea green with some water in it. And finally, the darkest green is going to be a mixture of undersea green plus a little bit of neutral tint. So in other words, you choose your base screen. And to create a lighter version of that base screen, you add yellow. To create a darker version of your base cream, you add a little bit of gray or black. Now, how much yellow you have to add to it and how much gray or black you have to add to your green is going to depend on the darkness or lightness of your base screen. My undersea green is pretty deep, dark and rich, and so I had to add plenty of my yellow to lighten it. Whereas when it came to adding in the bit of neutral tens, I added a very, very small amount because it was already super dark. What's important here is that you choose your base screen and then you create three greens for yourself, a lighter green and medium green and a dark screen. That's what's most important because this is what's going to enable you to quickly develop light green areas, mid tone green areas, and darkest green areas as you're painting. Which is important because value really is what creates dimension and light and shadow in a piece and brings a sense of realism. If you only use one same green or you don't prepare yourself or know what you're gonna do in order to create these different green values, then most likely than not, your piece is going to appear pretty flat. So remember this is all to set ourselves up for success in order to be able to paint quickly and thinking of how you're going to be developing your variety of values and hues in the different areas throughout your piece is essential for any level of realism that you're trying to create. So, yes, understanding how to mix color and getting comfortable with it is key. Alright, so over here up top and these rectangular wells on my mixing palette, I'm preparing to other color mixtures for myself. The first one on the top-left is cobalt blue plus a little bit of neutral tint. And then right here to the right of that mixture, I am preparing a gray for myself by mixing together ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. The combination of blue and brown is awesome for creating grays. And what's cool is that if you add a little bit more brown to it, it's going to be a warmer gray that leans more towards the brown. If you add more of that blue into your mixture, it's going to look more like a cooler gray that leans more towards the blue. And if you have a 5050 amount of each, It's going to look like a middle of the range gray. So it's very versatile and very, very helpful. The dark blue is going to be used in the water and this gray is going to be used in the rocks. Okay, so before jumping in, I'm going to swatch out all of these color mixtures for you so that you can see what they look like on paper. And you can replace any of the colors that you need to replace with whatever you have on hand, that's most similar. So these first two colors are the colors that I'm using in my sky plane, cobalt blue and cobalt blue plus deep scarlet to create that purple, I'm going to rinse out all of that color for my paintbrush bristles, and then I'm going to swatch out the next color. Then I'm going to be swatching out the three greens that I created for the grass areas and the leaves. So this is my lightest green, which is my mixture of undersea green and hansa yellow light. This right here is plain undersea green. And then finally I'm going to be swatching out my undersea green plus that bit of neutral tint. When I swatch it out, I noticed that there is not a good enough difference between my medium green and my darkest green. So I'm going to add in a little bit more of that neutral tint into my darkest green. Because as I said, I want to set myself up for success and be able to drop in a darker screen very quickly. And in order for me to do that, I have to make sure that there is a difference between my color mixtures. Alright, and finally, I am going to swatch out the two last colors that I created. So my darkest blue, which I created for my water, which is a mixture of cobalt blue plus a bit of neutral tint. And finally, I'm going to swatch out my gray color mixture, which is a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. Alright, so here is my color palette that I'm gonna be using for this piece. I think it's a great combination of colors. I really don't need to bring in anything else. Don't over-complicate it. Keep your number of colors limited and look for ways to repeat your colors throughout the different areas in your pieces. And also when you're color mixtures, that is always going to lead to a more harmonious, well-integrated result. So I know exactly which colors and combinations of colors I'm gonna be using for each area. Hello, I'm gonna be lightening and darkening my colors. I know exactly which colors I need to reach for whenever I run out of a color mixture or whatever, I need to alter the ratios of my colors in my color mixture to get them darker, to get them lighter, to get them more blue, to get them more brown, etc. Of course, this paint that I have created for myself on my mixing palette is by no means all of the paint that I'm gonna be using throughout the painting process. When we're painting with watercolor, we're constantly creating more paint. We're adding water to our color mixtures. We're adding paint to our color mixtures and also shifting the ratios of our different colors in our color mixtures depending on what it is that we're doing. Okay, so we are officially ready to get started with the painting process. I'm going to take a quick second to change my water and I would recommend you do the same as well. This is going to be important because we're gonna be doing pre wedding using clean water before dropping in our color. I'm preparing my kitchen paper towel right here by crumpling it up in my hands a few times. You have to have it on hand and ready to go so that we can do our lifting technique for those clouds. With that ready to go, I'm going to get started with my prereading process in the sky section. I'm using my one-inch flat brush for this. And I am taking a little bit of water at a time from my container and smoothing and gliding those paintbrush bristles gently over my paper, pre wetting the entire upper third of my piece, I am going over the leaf portion in this tree in the foreground that goes above the horizon line and also the treeline in the faraway distance. All of that, I am pre wedding with water. I am going over everything at least three to four times, making sure that I arrive at a nice even sheen all throughout this area. I don't want any puddles and if I see any puddles, I remove that excess water with my clean and only slightly damp paintbrush bristles. You can use those paintbrush bristles as little absorbent sponge go in and smooth everything out. Really take your time with the prereading process. Just do a gently don't start scrubbing or anything like that because that can start affecting the sizing of your paper. Oftentimes beginners don't arrive at the results that thereafter and it is because they are rushing the prereading process. So take your time with it. If any section of this rectangle at the top that your pre wedding starts trying way too quickly. It probably means that you haven't pre wedded enough. You're not going to be able to arrive at those nice soft gradients and beautiful blurred out effects that watercolor allows if your paper isn't effectively pre wedded. So after I have evenly prevented everything and I had a nice even glistening look all throughout this area. I first got started with the lightest color that I would be using in my sky section, which is a plain cobalt blue. I dropped in the cobalt blue in a very irregular way, starting at the top and making my way down. They definitely want some color in the sky, but I want it pretty light and pale whenever I see I'm going in with way too much color or the color is way too saturated. I remove that color from my paintbrush bristles and I go back in with a clean and slightly down paint brush to soften that color out and even do a little bit of lifting of excess color of my paper. After placing my cobalt blue, I dropped in a little bit of my purple here and there, just so that I can develop a subtle variation in hue in my sky. I did the same thing with my purple. I wanted a nice subtle effect. So I dropped in just a bit at a time, and I went back in after dropping in my purple to soften that color and work on transitions just very gently and very minimally, right here I'm dropping in a little bit more of that cobalt blue along the top section of the sky to brighten up that blue a little bit more. Notice how I left that leaf portion of the tree closest to us, as well as the treeline in the faraway distance, pretty free of color. That color is very light in there. There's a very small amount of pigment in these areas. And this is because I don't want this purple and this blue to affect those greens that I'm gonna be painting in these sections later on. You can even see how I left some of that white paper shining through in some areas, which by itself already starts to create that subtle illusion of white clouds. Everything is still pretty wet and workable in this upper third portion in the sky because I took time to do that prereading process. If I hadn't done that pre wedding using clean water and had just started painting on dry paper. That dry paper would have soaked up that paint immediately because it was so thirsty and I wouldn't have all of this time to continue working in this area by doing your pre wedding. And not only are you ensuring nice diffused out soft effects, but you're also buying yourself more time. Once I was happy with the color that I had in my sky before that paint dries. I did a little bit of lifting of extra clouds using my crumpled kitchen paper towel. I made sure to not go overboard with the amount of clouds that I pulled up. I also made sure that there was a ton of irregularity in those clouds. Again, I tried to stay away from the look of patterns or organized shapes. All you need to do is gently blot down your crumpled up kitchen paper towel into certain sections here and there. And that is going to lift up some of that color off your paper. You can explore, modifying the shape of that crumpled up paper in your hand so that you can have a lot of irregularity and your Clouds, okay, So after having painted in the sky, I allow everything to dry completely. And you can feel free to help yourself with a hairdryer if you want to speed up that drying process. After everything was completely dry, it was time to move on to the next phase of this painting process, which is going to be to paint in the grass area and also the treeline in the far away distance. So as you can see, I'm also doing pre wedding using clean water for this entire area. And for this, I decided to use my large mop brush. I knew that having that pointy end would allow me to go in between these rock shapes. I don't want to pre wet the rock shapes because I'm going to be using a very light grays in the rocks. And I also want to make sure that a lot of my rocks have white highlights at the end. So I am keeping those rock shapes protected by not providing them with water. Because if I pre wet them with water, then that green that I laid down or that I drop in right next to those rock shapes is going to bleed into the rock shapes. And I want to keep them protected. And how do I do this by leaving them dry. If you're more comfortable using a smaller brush to go in-between the rock shapes. Go ahead and do that. You can always have two brushes in your hand as you're doing your pre wedding so that you can change between them as needed, just like with the sky. I really took my time with this prereading process. I went over. Everything at least three to four times to make sure that I arrived at a nice even sheen all throughout the grass, all throughout the tree line and the faraway distance and all throughout these little sections around and in-between the rocks. Really take your time with the prereading process. Don't rush it and make sure that you arrive at a nice even sheen all throughout. Take as long as you need. And remember that how quickly or how slowly your paper starts to dry on you is going to be directly impacted by the environment that you are working in. If you're working in a cold environment or a warm environment, or a dry environment or a humid environment. Or you have an air conditioning unit on or a fan on or a heating system on. All of that is going to have a huge impact on how quickly your paper and your paint and your water starts to dry on you. So depending on your circumstances that you're working in, maybe you have to get less, maybe you have to pre wet more. Like if you want nice blurred out, diffuse out, soft effects, you have to make sure that you're dropping in your paint on wet paper. The wetter your paper is, when you drop in that color, the more movement you're going to see the dryer the paper becomes, the less that paint moves and expands. I'm finishing up with my pre wedding here using my larger size six mop brush. You can see how I go back to the beginning over and over and over again. Because obviously wherever it is that you started doing your pre wedding, that section that you started with is going to dry quickly as you make your way towards the other side. So wherever I get started, I make my way towards the other side. I advance a little bit towards the other side and then go back to where I started, then advance a little bit more and go back to where I started and so on and so forth so that I can make sure that that place where I started stays wet. And then once I finish, then I go over everything right here. I'm jumping around the entire area with my mop brush, which this mop brush from Princeton holds a lot of water and its bristles, so it's pretty great for pre wedding and for painting large areas. This is from their Neptune line, but at this point I'm just jumping around the entire grass and background, tree line shape and working in these more complex narrow spaces in-between the rock shapes and just going back and forth, making sure that everything is evenly pre wedded. Alright, so I'm pretty happy with even glistening all throughout this area. So the sky is dry, the river shape is dry and the rock shapes are dry, and it's time to get started with painting in our grains. So as always, I get started with the lightest color of the group that I've selected for this entire area, which is of course the lightest screen. My undersea green with the hansa yellow light is what I am dropping in right now. You can see how I'm jumping around this entire area, dropping in a little bit of color at a time. And you can see how I'm even leaving sections in which that whiteness and the brightness of the paper is shining through completely unpainted. So we're not painting the wall of a house here. We're not going for an even finish here. We're really going for irregularity. We want certain sections in which that paint looks lighter and more translucent or paler. And other sections where that color looks a little bit more saturated, where that paper is covered up a little bit more with that pigment. When we're working with watercolor, we want to incorporate that lightness and brightness under that paint from that paper as part of the piece. This is what's going to make this piece look glowy and light at the end. And it has dimension to it because it's the whiteness of the paper that not only stands in place for our highlights when we're painting with watercolor, but incorporating that whiteness in lighter value areas where you're using your paint in a more translucent way, is also going to make this piece look a lot more glowy and lighter. And that's what we want after having dropped in my lightest green, you can see harm now dropping in my medium green in certain areas here and there, especially along the river and in some of the plants sections like the one under the tree in the foreground, and the little plant shape in the middle ground as well, and also below the trees, in the tree line and the faraway distance. So I'm thinking of where darker green values and shadow shapes would be all throughout this area. In these cases in which I created this composition from imagination. And I'm not using any particular reference photo to show me where shadow shapes are and where different values, our throat, all of these different elements. I really have to bring in my knowledge of the structure of what it is that I am painting and also. Knowledge of how light and shadow work. And at this point I'm starting to drop in my darkest green and the darkest green, I'm really only using and darker shadowy sections and the plants and grass. I'm also starting to use the darkest green to create a little bit of an illusion of shadow under the rocks where the rock structure is keeping that light coming from the sun from hitting that section of grass under or next to the rocks. And I'm all done with this grass section in the middle ground and the foreground. I'm pretty happy with the sense of light and shadow that I've created by developing a wide range of values throughout all of these grassy areas. And it is now time to start painting in the greens for the trees and the tree line in the faraway distance. You're going to notice that I don't fully add very much paint at all into this area on the left where we're going to be painting in the tree in the foreground, because the shape is much smaller and I want to create a little bit of an irregular upper edge. In this tree line shape changed on over to my smaller size, ten round brush. And even for these trees and the faraway distance, I want to make sure that I develop a wide range of values, from very light, translucent green areas to mid tone areas to darker areas. This said aerial perspective, otherwise known as atmospheric perspective, tells us that elements farther away from us as the viewer of the scene, should be lighter in value than the elements that are closer to you, meaning the elements that are closer to you should appear at least slightly darker than the elements that are farther away. Elements that are farther away off into the distance. They get hazier, they get cooler and temperature and they get lighter in value. This said, remember that watercolor is always going to dry a little bit lighter than how it looks when it's wet. And I'm going to be developing greater detail and layering and elements in the middle ground and foreground, creating darker values in elements that are closer to us later on in the painting process. So this is all to say, make sure that you develop a wide range of values and translucency in the tree line right above the horizon line. But don't get super, super dark. Because if you do go in super dark and saturated, well, number one, it's not going to look very realistic at the end. And number two, you're going to create so much visual weights in that tree line in the far away distance that those trees are going to compete with the elements in the foreground where we want the viewer's attention to goto. Alright, so before these greens that I have been working on, start drawing on me. I add a little bit more of my burnt sienna into my ultramarine and burnt sienna color mixture to get it a little bit more towards the dark brown side. And I drop a little bit of this dark brown along certain sections of the edges of the river. And because that green is still wet, you can see how that brown bled a little bit into those greens, creating a nice diffused out soft effect. That's about all I'm gonna be doing with that brown there. Alright, and that is it for this first part of this painting process for landscape number three, I am going to allow everything to dry completely and then it is going to be time to move on to the next phase. Take as long as you need to with this one, and I'll see you in the next class. 16. Winding River Painting Process B: Hey there and welcome to part two of this painting process for landscape. Number three, we're going to be painting in the river and then we're getting started with smaller shapes and elements. So let's jump right in. After working on all of these greens, I allowed everything to dry completely once again. And you can help yourself with your hairdryer if you want to speed up that drying process. But it is very important that everything is completely dry. Before moving onto the next part, we're going to be painting the river now. So what I'm doing right now before getting started is I'm making sure I have the color mixtures that I need and that I have enough of them ready for me on my mixing palette. Before getting started with, once again, the prereading process in this river shape. So the three colors that I'm going to be using for the river are my cobalt blue. I'm also going to be using my purple, which is cobalt blue, plus a tiny bit of deep scarlet. And I'm also going to be using my darker blue that I created by mixing together cobalt blue and a little bit of neutral tint. I'm gonna be using all three colors in the river, whatever color you need to make more of or reactivate by adding in a little bit of water. Go ahead and do that, make sure that you have nice juicy color mixtures ready to go so that you can get started with painting in the river. I have to paint brushes on hand. And these paint brushes are my size ten round brush and my size six mop brush is in my left hand, ready to go for me in case I need it during the pre-writing process. But I am getting started with pre wedding using my size ten round brush, especially in those areas that are farther away in this river shape because they are very narrow and the size ten round brushes more appropriate for that size of shape. I'm making my way forward. And as you can see, once again, I advanced a little bit and go back to where I started. Then I advanced a little bit more and I go back to where I started again and again. So that that section that I started with doesn't dry on me. Once they get to this wider section of this river shape, I switch on over to my size six mop brush, which is more appropriate for this larger area. I can definitely pretty wet this larger area much faster with my mop brush than I can with my size ten round. However, having the size ten round on hand is very helpful because I have some rock shapes in that river that I want to work around and keep dry. So I switch on over to my size ten brown brush whenever I feel that it would be helpful for me to have a smaller brush because it allows more control. I am doing my best to keep these rock shapes protected because I don't want them to get completely covered with blues. And I want to make sure that they are nice and shiny and that they have majority graze throughout them later on, as well as little highlight shapes. And for this, I need to make sure that I keep those rock shapes protected so I make sure to keep dry. If I were using masking fluid, I could have masked out those rocks. But for this one, I really wanted to keep it as simple as possible and completely beginner friendly. So we're just working around them. I'm giving everything one last pass, especially using my smaller size ten round brush. Going into these narrow areas in-between the rock shapes once again, to make sure that nothing dried on me way too quickly. I'm bringing out a little bit of water at a time from my container whenever I feel I need to. The paper has been prepared with a good layer of water on it. No section is starting to dry on me way too quickly. Even that narrow section in the faraway distance is still pretty wet and I have arrived at a nice even sheen all throughout. So we're about ready to get started with dropping in our first color, which is going to be the plane cobalt blue for my placement of color in the river. I switched on over to my mop brush. Once again, I feel it's going to allow me to drop in a good amount of color and to work quickly. But I still have my size ten round brush in my hand just in case I need it. So again, I'm starting with the lightest color of the bunch, which is the cobalt blue. I'm gonna make my way towards the darker color with this area. I want to remind you once again, we're not painting the wall of the house. We want to incorporate that whiteness in that brightness of the paper under the paint. And we are using the mediums translucency to create lightness, to create glow, to create the mention, jump around, keep everything very irregular. You can leave sections of that white paper shining through. And I would actually recommend that because that is going to create an illusion of a shine and reflection of light on the water. Right here you can see me use my size ten round brush to do a little bit of lifting of excess color and water. I've placed in the river shape, drop in just a little bit of color at a time. And if at any point in time you feel you've dropped in way too much color or to saturate it a color mixture. Remove that color from your paintbrush, bristles, go back in with just water in your paint brush and soften that color out a little bit by either lifting up some of that color, using your bristles of your paintbrush as a little absorbent sponge or pull and extend that color that you've already placed on paper to cover a larger area. And that's going to soften the color out after dropping in some amount of that initial lightest blue, I am now dropping in some of my blue purple. You can see how I am mostly dropping in this blue purple along some of the edges of the river where I want to create a little bit of a shadow effect. Finally, I'm going in with my darkest blue and my darkest blue I'm really keeping only for darkest shadows sections along some of the edges of the river and also below and around some of these rocks. Everything is still very wet and workable because I took time to do that pre wedding before getting started. This is really the only reason why I can continue adding more color, doing gentle softening, and helping that color expand out a little bit more, et cetera. If my paper had already started arriving at that awkward semi dry state, I really shouldn't be doing any work at all. I should allow that to dry completely and then do whatever work needs to be done later on after everything has completely dried, continuing to work in a section when it's already starting to dry is one of the worst things that we can do when painting with this medium. And it's a sure-fire way of arriving at splotch genus undesired textures and an overworked look. So always keep an eye out for when your paper is starting to dry. Right here. I'm finishing up with this initial wash all throughout the river shape by adding in a little bit of the first blue that I started with, which is a lighter plane, cobalt blue, just brightening up certain sections that had a very small amount of paint in them. And I dropped in a little bit more purple as well. I then allows everything to dry completely once again before moving onto the next part of this process, which is going to be the first layer of gray in the rocks. So what I'm doing right here is I am making sure that my gray color mixtures. So my mixture with the ultramarine blue and the burnt sienna is around 50% blue, 50% brown. So it actually looks like a gray and not so much like the dark blue or dark brown. I would highly recommend testing out your color mixture on a scrap piece of watercolor paper to ensure that it looks like a gray before getting started. And also, you want to make sure that initially you're going in with a very, very light watered down pale gray for this initial layer in the rocks. Once my light water down Gray was ready, I loaded up a little bit of this gray using my size ten round brush. And you can see how I'm going in very loosely, very lightly. And what I am doing essentially is I'm going into every single rock. I am visualizing where I've got my highlight shape to be. And I am painting in the light gray around that highlight shape. There is no need to go in carefully. Be super precise about where you create your highlight shape. Notice how quickly I am moving around. And it's just a matter of visualizing where those top planes of the rock are that are catching the majority of the light. And where the side planes or the under planes of the rocks are where the light wouldn't be hitting. We're gonna be tackling, painting the rocks in three layers. So we want to highlight, we want very light gray values, which is what we just created. Then we're going to allow this initial layer of light gray to dry completely and we're gonna go back into the rocks later on after everything has dried with a bit of a darker gray and we're gonna be darkening certain shadows sections in the rocks to develop more values in the rocks. So gray mid tones and darkest darks. And this is going to create more of a believable sensation of 3D ness. But at this point I'm done. I have my highlight shapes for my rocks and I have my lightest gray already created. Let's allow that to dry and we're gonna go back in later to develop our darker grays. Okay, So it is finally time to start painting in our tree in the foreground. The first thing that I'm going to paint are the leaves. So as you can see, I am running out of my different greens in my color mixing palettes. So I'm making sure that I have enough of my different greens. So my lighter green, my medium green, and my darkest green, same three green color mixtures that I had before. I want them to be nice and juicy. I want a good amount of both paint and water in them, approximately 50%, 50% water. And I want to make sure that I have a good amount in those wells so that I can effectively load up the bristles on my paintbrush and go in and paint nice and quick right here and swatching out these greens once again. Just to make sure that there is enough of a difference between the three before getting started. Right here, I'm adding a little bit more of this neutral tint once again into the darkest screen to make sure that there is enough of a difference between my medium green and my darkest green. Alright, so I removed all of that darkest green for my paintbrush bristles. And I am going in, you guess that with the lightest color of the bunch, my lightest green that has the yellow in it. I'm using my size ten round brush for this. I'm going to place that lightest green at the top, or I imagined this tree shaped to be catching most of the light. And then I'm going to use the medium green in the middle section and the darkest green mostly along the bottom. This doesn't mean that I only use those screens in those very specific areas. There has to be some amount of lighter green all throughout, some amount of medium green all throughout, and some amount of darkest green all throughout. Because when it comes to painting trees, there are all of these groupings of leaves that overlap on top of each other and create shadows on each other. However, in the general sense, I do make my way from lightest at the top than medium in the middle section, adding in a little bit of medium at the top as well as I am doing so. And then after finishing up with those two, I go ahead and get started with the darkest green. And when I'm adding in a little bit of that darkest green at the bottom. I also add in that darker screen here and there in the upper sections of the tree, I'm careful not to add in way too much of that darkest green though, because if I do, I run the risk of making my entire leaf portion very dark. And I want to make sure that I have plenty of lighter greens in there to really transmit that sensation of light. Remember that at the end, what is most important is that you have a variety of green values all throughout the leaf portion. If you're wanting to communicate a believable sensation of light and shadow and dimension. And not only are you looking to create a variety of values by using color mixtures that you've prepared for yourself, which are a lighter green of medium green and a darker green. But again, I want to remind you that translucency is the beauty of this medium. So you're looking to play with that translucency as well. You can see in my tree how certain sections look very light and translucent. And other sections look a little bit darker and more saturated in terms of the brushstroke technique that I am using. I am using a combination of scribbling and bouncing, especially when it's this kind of tree. And I also use this scribbling and balancing technique for the plants. I talk all about basic brushstrokes and scribbling and bouncing in my watercolor one-on-one course here on Skillshare, I would highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. It's all about holding your paintbrush effectively from higher up, relaxing your hand and your arm. And really shifting and changing the way that you're using your paintbrush in terms of that angle of that paintbrush in relation to your paper. So sometimes it's going to be more of a 90 degree upright angle. Other times is going to be a 45-degree angle. Other times it's going to be a 30 degree angle. Another thing that I'm constantly changing is how much of those bristles of my paintbrush is coming into contact with my paper. Sometimes I'm pressing down those bristles more so that the entire belly of that paintbrush is creating that larger shape for me other times is just the tip of my paintbrush creating smaller shapes. And I'm also rotating my risks in different ways from time-to-time. All of this shifting and changing in terms of how I'm holding my paintbrush, how I'm pressing it down, et cetera, allows me to create those very irregular shapes for my different values in this leaf area by practicing those brushstroke drills that I share about in that one tutorial, you're going to get much more comfortable shifting and changing the way that you're using your paintbrush. This is so important so that you're able to paint different textures. As you can see, I ended up with sections in which those greens are merging into each other, gradually creating soft gradients between them. And other sections where the transitions are sharper and more defined. I'm going to allow this to try and later on, I'm going to come back in to add more details using the bouncing technique. Alright, so now that the entire graph section is completely dry and you can see how this stride a lot lighter than how it looked when it was wet. I'm going to go in and darken certain sections, especially those plant shapes that I had sketched in, in the middle ground and also in the foreground right beneath this tree that is closest to us, I want to make those pop. So using my size ten round brush, I am going in with a very similar technique to the one that I was just using for the leaves in the tree. So this is a mixture of scribbling and bouncing. Starting in with my lightest green first and then I drop in a little bit of my medium green. And finally, in the deepest shadow areas that I want to darken further, I drop in my darkest green, just like when you were working on the leaves of the tree, you want to work relatively quickly so that you get a few of those blurred out soft gradients between your different greens for that to happen, that previous layer of green has to still be wet when you drop in the next screen. Notice that irregularity that I created both and the upper edge of these plant shapes and also in the lower edge of these plant shapes. Having that irregular lower edge is very helpful because it's going to make it look like there are grasses and other plants in front of this shrub creating that irregular edge. It makes it look more natural if you create a very smooth or even a horizontal line or edge along the bottom of these plant shapes. It's not going to look very realistic. Alright, so it is time to go in with our second gray layer in the rocks. So I'm making sure to have enough of my gray color mixture on my palette. So that is my ultramarine blue plus burnt sienna color mixture. And I tested it out on my scrap piece of watercolor paper to make sure that it looks quite close to the gray hue that I was using before. Only this time, I'm going to use this gray in a less watered down state so that it's darker and more saturated. So as I mentioned before, when we were painting the first layer, with that first layer, we were trying to create the highlights and the lightest gray values. Now that those are in, we're gonna be pushing the darker mid-tone areas. And you can see how I'm going in with my size ten round brush super loosely, relatively quickly, just like I was doing before. Only this time I'm painting in smaller abstract shadow shapes. I am visualizing where those planes of those rocks would be facing away from the light or where the rocks are creating shadows on each other because of that overlapping. And that is where I am painting in these darker gray shadow shapes. And this creates a larger variety of gray values because we now have highlights. We have light gray values and we have darker mid-tone gray values. Every time we extend or increase or expand that range of values, things look more and more realistic. I want to encourage you to embrace those abstract, irregular shapes for your different values. They don't have to be perfect and you don't have to go in and smooth and soften those edges. You can leave them, abstract them loose. And in this greater contexts that we're painting, the viewer is going to know that these are rocks. We don't have to overly describe things for the viewer. Right here. I am going in with a clean and slightly damp paintbrush and I'm just very, very softly doing a tiny bit of gentle scrubbing along some of the edges of those darker gray shapes. But I am doing it very minimally and I am not going into every single rock to attempt to soften everything out. So still using my size ten round brush, I am going in to do a little bit of quick painting of some rocks in the faraway distance that I hadn't painted in. I make sure to go in with my water down gray so that the gray shapes that I painted in weren't too stark in too distracting. I want to keep those rocks and the far away distance light in value. And I am not going to be adding in any more detail or darker values into those rocks that are farthest away. With that, we're done with this part of the painting process. Whenever you're ready, go ahead and join me for part three. See you there. 17. Winding River Painting Process C: Hello again and welcome to part three of our painting process for our third landscape. In this part of the process, we are focusing mostly on smaller details, enhancing textures more, and adding more interests into the piece. Let's go ahead and jump straight in. Once I was done with painting in those rocks and was time to finally go ahead and add in some blades of grass, especially in these sections closest to us. So for this, I'm finally bringing out my smallest brush that I picked for this process, which is my size three round brush, pretty moisten those bristles because it was completely dry. I hadn't used this brush so far. And what I am doing using my lightest green and my medium green is I am doing some upwards flicking motions to add in these blades of grass in the foreground. So when you're adding in your blades of grass, It's very important that you have perspective in mind. It's important that you have perspective in mind always when you're creating landscapes and scenes of any kind. But when you're adding in your blades of grass, you can really enhance that sensation of believable open space and depth and perspective by making those blades of grass closest to us as the viewer of the scene, slightly taller or longer than the blades of grass that you start painting in sections in the middle ground. And I'm not going to be adding in any blades of grass at all in the sections farthest away in the middle ground. And beyond that, I'm just going to be focusing primarily in this section is closest to us. So two tips that are going to help you with your flicking and making these blades of grass look more believable. You want to make sure that you're moving your wrist upwards quickly so that you can create that tapered look. Want that end of the blade of grass to be thinner and more narrow and the base of the blade of grass to be thicker and darker. That upwards quick flicking motion is going to allow you to create that tapered look. One more thing is that you want to make sure that you're not creating stiff, perfectly vertical lines. If you incorporate slight curves when you're doing those flicking motions, sometimes that curve is a little bit more towards the left or going towards the right. You're blades of grass are going to look a lot more natural. And one final thing is that when you are painting in these blades of grass, you have to take into account the green value that you've already created underneath in that first green wash that you created. Because if you paint in a very dark blade of grass on top of a very light translucent green. That mark that you create for your blade of grass is going to turn out very stark and very distracting and we don't want to create stark looking lines or marks. Remember that if you paint a very dark line, shape or mark on top of a very light background that is going to be very contrasting and it's going to create a lot of visual weight that is going to call the viewer's attention. We want to keep things subtle. It's preferable to go in with your lightest screen to create your blades of grass, or to make sure that you're going in with a medium green that is pretty watered down and translucent. But keep your blades of grass subtle. And one last thing is you don't need to go overboard with the amount of blades of grass that you add in. When it comes to painting with watercolor a little bit goes a long way. And again, we don't want to overly describe anything. Alright, so it is finally time to paint in that tree trunk and the branches for this main tree closest to us. So what I'm doing right here on my mixing palette is I am creating a darker brown and a lighter brown for myself. Both of these are mixtures of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. I just played with the ratios of these colors in my color mixtures. So that one looks like a lighter brown and another looks like a darker brown. So start with the burnt sienna and then add in a little bit of ultramarine at a time to darken it more and more. Your mixture that has a less amount of ultramarine blue in it is going to look like a lighter brown. And the color mixture that has more ultramarine blue in it is going to look like a darker brown. You just don't want to add too much ultramarine that it starts turning gray. Okay, So once I had my two browns ready to go using my size ten round brush, I'm going to start painting in the tree trunk. I'm going to make my way upwards from the bottom and I'm going to work quickly so that I'm not left with a sharp defined edges around the shapes that I'm painting in. Because remember, now that we're painting on dry paper, things are going to dry pretty quickly. So I want to keep things moving. If I run out of paint along the way, I quickly reload my paintbrush bristles and I go back and quickly where I left off so that I'm not left without sharp defined edge as I make my way up towards those branches, It's just the tip of my paintbrush coming into contact with my paper. And I'm making my way up and out. That helps me create that tapered look. Once that lightest brown has been painted in, I drop in a little bit of my darker brown in certain shadows sections, especially in the lower part of that base of that tree trunk, and in some sections of those branches right below the leaves. As you can see, because I dropped in my darker brown wall that initial lighter brown was still wet. The darker brown merged and create a soft gradients into that lighter brown. I switch on over to my size three round brush, my smallest brush. And I'm painting in the branches that we're able to see through some of these leaves. I'm using the darker brown for this, but you can see on my palette that it has plenty of water in it and I'm just taking a very small amount. Again, this is me trying to keep things subtle and not trying to create any stark, distracting lines or marks anywhere. I would rather go in lighter and then have to go in and darken certain sections of those branches. Then go in way too dark with too dark or saturated color. I want these branches to be very thin and tapered out as I make my way towards the end. So just like what the blades of grass, I wanted to do one single stroke and I want to do a flicking motion so that that end is very, very thin, very narrow, darkening certain sections of my branches here and there. And that is it. I'm all done with painting in the trunk and the branches. So we are officially in the very last phase of this painting process. All I am looking to do at this point is dark in certain sections and perhaps add a little bit more detail in the elements closest to us as the viewer of the scene. By us adding a little bit more contrast, increasing the range of values. Adding a little bit more detail perhaps in these sections closest to us and these closest elements, we're going to enhance that sense of open space and depth that I've been talking about. This is what aerial perspective tells us and how we see things in real life. Things closer to us are going to be more detailed and darker in value than the things that are farther away. And so by taking these ideas that aerial perspective tells us, we're able to bring in a lot more realism and depth into our pieces. Okay, so what I'm doing right here, using my size ten round brush is I am using these color mixtures that I had previously created for the water area specialty, the purple and the darker blue. So the purple is my mixture of cobalt blue and then a tiny bit of my deep Scarlett and my darker blue is my cobalt blue plus neutral tint. And what I did was I just darken some shadow shapes along the edges of the river beneath and around some of those rocks, deepening and darkening darkest shadows sections and increasing that range of values. Notice how abstract and irregular my darkest shadow shapes are. I'm not creating blocky, heavy shapes and I'm really not creating any type of outline around my river. There are no lines and outlines and realism because I am painting on dry paper, I am left with sharp defined edges around these shadow shapes. You can certainly go in and soften those edges here and they're using a clean and slightly damp paintbrush if you want to. But I didn't do that much at all. After doing that, I darken certain little shadow shapes in the rocks and this time because I'm really just going in to darken little teeny tiny darker shadow shapes. I went in with my size three round brush. I was only looking to push and carve out those darker sections in those rocks. Once again, increasing the range of values and giving those rocks more of a sense of three-dimensional form. Mostly I am darkening these sections in the rocks closest to us. I have not adding in any more detail in the rocks that are farther away. Now, I have highlights, I have very light translucent grades. I have mid tone grays, and I have very, very dark grays in my rocks. So pretty wide range of values in them. Okay, a couple of final things here. I really wanted to darken that shadow right below the trees, above the horizon line. I feel that things lightened a little bit too much as they were drying. So all I'm doing right here is in a very loose way, I am creating some elongated abstract shadow shapes above and below the horizon line. And I am going in with my lighter green and my medium green. I'm not going in with the darkest green because I don't want to create too many super dark values in these areas very far away from us. I painted in a few of these shapes. And then I remove that pain from my paintbrush bristles and I'm going in to soften the edges out a little bit so that I don't have any Stark and distracting lines or marks or anything, especially in that section that is so far away from us. This is me going in with a clean and slightly damp paintbrush and softening some of those edges. Right here, I am darkening some shadow shapes in the shrubs, in the middle ground and right here in the shrub, right beneath this tree closest to us, using my medium green and my darkest green. And after doing this, I'm finally going to be adding in a little bit more of that leaf detail and texture in this tree closest to us. For this, I'm going to be using my medium green and the balancing technique using my size ten round brush. You're gonna notice how I am shifting and changing the angle that I am using my paintbrush at. I am rotating my hand and my arm to create a lot of variety in terms of the angle that I am creating these shapes in. An all I'm doing is touching the tip of my paintbrush to my paper to create a little bit of a leaf shape with bouncing, all you're doing is pressing down your paintbrush onto your paper and allowing that shape of that paint brush to create a little shape for you, depending on the size of shape that you want. You touched just the tip or you bring down the entire belly of your paintbrush down onto your paper. Because I want very small leaf shapes. I'm just touching the tip of that paintbrush to my paper. You can see how this bouncing allowed me to create a little bit more detail in this tree closest to us, it's important not to go overboard with that detail a little bit goes a long way. Alright, my friend. And with that, we're all done with this last watercolor landscape. If you made it through to this point in the course, congratulations, that is not easy to do. I truly do hope that you are able to give these three landscapes ago for yourself, or at least a couple of them. And that you learned a lot in these classes. And if your landscapes didn't turn out the way you wanted them to in that first try, I highly recommend giving the same landscape a second. Go, bringing to mind everything that you've learned in the first try. Even for me, I oftentimes have to work on the same piece two or three times before liking my final outcome. And this is completely normal. Alright, that is gonna do it, uh, for this class. I'll see you in the final video. 18. Thank you: Alright, my friend, if you made it through to this point, congratulations. And really kudos to you for putting in the time, effort and energy into growing your watercolor paintings skills through consistent practice and learning, you're gonna be able to develop your skills to a higher level in no time. Thank you so much for joining me in this course. I really hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned a lot. Don't forget to post your work in the Projects tab here on Skillshare. It's very easy to do and I'd be so happy to see your work if you have any questions that you might need help with, also leave them there and I'd be happy to answer them. Don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare because I have lots of new courses coming down the pipeline for you. Finally, if you're interested in checking the free, helpful art content that I share every single week. Make sure to join me over on YouTube, check out my website at Erica lancaster.com, and you can also follow me on Instagram. Thank you so much. I wish you tons of progress and enjoyment moving forward in your journey with watercolor and talk to you soon. Bye.