Winter Magic - A Class for every Art Lover !!

1. Introduction: Winter is a magical season where we get whisked away to Wonderland filled with ice, snow, sledges, soft sunlight of the morning, and of course, snowmelt. If you are someone who absolutely adores winter and wants to make it even more special, I have got the perfect thing for you a fun painting glass. Hi, guys. I am Rigor on ath an artist instructor, mother, skill share teacher, and brand donor of vibe and parcels where we manufacture handmade sketchbook, Artist Great Paints, and much more. If you are new to watercolors and haven't heard about me, you can follow me on Instagram by the name watercolor dot Illustration dot letter, and I give out videos every week, even on YouTube, by the same name. In this class, we dive into seven different painting projects that take anywhere 15-14 minutes each. We kick things off by going over all the essentials, the type of paper to use, watercolor techniques, and the paints I love. Don't worry. I will also share some budget friendly option alongside pricier choices. Next up, we will cover the basic of sketching, think horizon line, and vanishing points. Plus, we will explore fundamental watercolor concepts like values and color mixing. After that, it's time to roll up our sleeves and get creative with individual projects. Most of the projects use a limited color palette which allows us to worry less about color choices. This way, we can concentrate more on grasping the step by step approach to learning, ultimately enhancing our understanding of watercolors. Each project is designed to be completed real time so that you exactly know how long it takes to finish. Hey, feel free to work alongside me. I'm here to encourage you every step of the way, and let's make this winter unforgettable throughout. 2. Materials Required: First, let's have a look at everything we need for our painting, two jars of water, which is one for fresh supply and one for washing your brushes. The next is about the brushes. What are the most important brushes? The first is the one which has got a very nice and thin tip. This is from the brand is called our optimal brush. You can have any brush that's available with you. This is a blending brush as well as I use it for applying my colors. The third one is a broad brush. Now this is three by four, approximately a bit lesser than 1 ". That is 0.75 inch and I use it for applying the water on both sides of the paper. These brushes are good to have, and this is the 00 silver ruby satin brush. This is the Vince size four brush Casaneo. This is again, the Vince size three brush. You can have this brush or you may also avoid the brush if you want to go ahead with this painting. I would leave that decision absolutely up to you. The pencil is very important along with an eraser. The pencil and eraser will help you to draw the house or any of the other paintings where there is some amount of sketching in board. I will use the tissue. You can either use your tissue or you can go ahead with any of your cotton cloth, et cetera that you can use, and it is pretty much environment friendly. Now, these are kitchen tissues that can be used. I will go ahead with arches, 300 GSM, 100% cotton paper. This is 20 by 20 centimeter paper. Most of the papers that I have used is around 18 into 18 centimeter, except the last size, which is a bit longer and that is going to come up in the bonus lesson. The board. Now, the board is very important. Either you can go for a board like this, I can help you to measure also what is the inch, What is how much the square one, if you want to measure with this and then cut it out, it can be seven into seven inch, this way or this way, whatever you want to place your paper on. As well as it is good if you are cutting your paper on top of it or else you want to apply water and then again place it. These mats go very well further. If you don't have a mat, this kind of acrylic boat can also help. I have this acrylic board available with me for long, and I have been using it for pretty long time now. Colors is something that I must tell you. Colors is all about various brands that I have. You will see Senalia, you will see Migello Mission Gold, you are going to see then Prima, you are also going to see Daniel Smith, the many others. That I have Windca Newton, you will see, all of these are pretty much mixed. Whatever colors I wanted, I have bought those colors white knight. All of these brands are good. A bit cheaper one is white knights. They are absolutely professional grade and gives you great results. If you are someone who wants to have good colors in the initial days only, I will suggest you buying pike knights or Cenlo. That's all we have from all the materials perspective, let's go ahead and understand a bit about the sketching, all we need for completing these projects. 3. Sketching Basics : I would like you guys to know a few basics of sketching before you go ahead with the final painting. Why is it very important to know some basics? Because that can really help you to ace through your watercolor journey pretty quickly? This I have learned over my own experience, as I was never good with my sketching basics. Slowly, I have started learning it, and over the years, I can tell you that it has helped me a lot to age through this medium altogether. Going ahead with the first basic, that is your horizon line. Your horizon line basically separates your sky, water, or the sky and land area. Now, this is how I look at it. You should always know where you want to place your horizon line. The next would be your vanishing point. Also, some people call this as invisible point. Now, why do we call it as vanishing point? Because all the lines will move to one single point beyond your horizon line. Till the length, you can see the particular area or till the length you can see your grounds, that is your horizon. And beyond that, these lines do meet to one single point, and that is my vanishing point or as I say Audio, the invisible point. This is a very, very important concept, and believe me, we have multiple vanishing points, whether you are doing a landscape or you are doing an architectural building. I will be telling you a bit about the architectural building. Supposedly, you have a building, and there are two different vanishing points which you need to allocate. More of architectural buildings when you come to, there can be multiple vanishing points rather than only having one single vanishing point. And you have to allocate your buildings, windows, doors, et cetera, accordingly. Let me draw it for you, and then you can see how you can go ahead with it. You can see here two vanishing point. One vanishing point is on the horizon line and another vanishing point is just above the horizon line. Now, the second vanishing point is for the left side and the first vanishing point is for the right side of the building. Though sometimes the multiple vanishing point may work or may not work, it all depends upon the composition that you are attempting. Let's go ahead with the next video where we are learning about the values. 4. Value Study: We are going to start out by understanding the values in watercolor. Now, what do we mean by value or value means that we are starting with the lightest value and then moving to the darkest value. This can be used for any photograph which you want to paint. Just convert your photograph into black and white, identify the major shapes that you have in that particular image, assign a value to each shape 1-5, just the way exactly we are starting over here, paint the shapes and values and add the minimum details that's needed to practically show how this complete photo is going to turn out. Now, this not only simplifies the whole photograph for painting, but it also gives you more opportunity to work or break down the composition easily. Avoid painting every detail that we have in a painting. That's something which is not needed. And you can actually connect with the shapes and sizes to unify the painting and make it very unique of your own choice. Choosing light and shadows is very important in this case, because the better is your lighter values, then the better would be the contrasting features of that particular painting. The contrasting things will help you to elevate your style of painting as well as it will also show the maturity that you have as an artist. Let's go ahead and continue the process. What I usually do is I pour in a lot of water for my first wash and it's usually majorly water, what I go ahead with for my first wash. You will see it's very, very light. Then I go ahead with a bit more darker color and go with the second layer. That is going with one step darker for my layer two. Then for my layer three, I would go really dark. I will have about 50% of paints and 50% of water, whereas my fourth would be about 60, 70% of paints and waste water. Now, the last one would be 90% of paints and less of water. I just feel that my third layer went a little bit darker than I was expecting, and hence I made it a bit more lighter. This is all to just assign the scale in which we want to paint. That is 125. You can also have one, two, ten. I would leave that decision up to you what you want to really go ahead with for this painting or for any of your paintings, but it's always good to simplify and keep it to 125. As well, I am someone who really appreciates the loose and free flowing watercolors because of which we have done this value study most importantly today. Okay, I will see you now in the next lesson. We are going to start with our first project. 5. Project 1 Walking Down the Road: Hi, guys. Let's have a look at all the colors which we need for completing the painting. Today, I'm going to do an h2h painting, which means that we are going to start from the top and go till the bottom. We are not going to tape down any part of the paper or not even leave any part of the paper in white, except the snow parts which are usually denoted in white as I want to use the white of the paper. Usually take white watercolor paper, but there are many of the other watercolor paper entoned colors that are also available. Though I am not a person who is in love with those kind of papers. You can choose your paper a bit intelligently as we are going to go ahead and use the white for hours. No. I have added water on the backside of the paper, and now I'm adding water on the top part of the paper. The top part has majorly the sky area, and I have chosen the top part way larger than my bottom area. The sky is the major part where I'm concentrating the whole focus in this painting, though it is a winter painting, but still the sky plays a key role in it. I'm going ahead and adding water. As I tell you, I usually do cross patches so that there is no way that we are leaving any of the parts in white. I will go ahead and even wet the bottom part well because I can see that my bottom part is not sticking to the acrylic board which I have taken. These kind of small things do happen, and this is a pretty old paper of arches, though I see that it has not lost any kind of sizing. This might be around at least three to 4-years-old. But, yeah, it was kept in a closed space, and I usually use silica gel to store my papers so that no humidity can get in. That way, you can really keep your paper safe for a longer period of time. Going with the lightest value of this painting, and that is majorly your opera, Opera is one of my favorite colors, as you have seen already, and I have used that color in many of my paintings. Going with the royal blue, this is from the brand sanelia and I'm adding it towards the bottom area first and then going with the top area. I would go ahead and use generous amount of royal blue, even on the top parts. There is a lot of space that can be used, and the blend should be absolutely natural. That way, I can ensure that the colors are moving into each other. That way, I can ensure that all the colors move into each other. In a very easy and simple way. As well as the blend is absolutely natural. No way I am trying to get any hardages. Softness is the key for this painting, though you can have hardages, but since all of these paintings are edge to edge, that's one of the reasons keeping in soft would be way more better for all of our paintings. I will continue adding more of royal blue. And any of the other colors, you can see that if you mix some amount of royal blue and opera, you will get a purple like shade. Though having a purple is always great by your side. So if you don't have purple, you can make some amount of pink and blue to get that purple. Going with my paints gray, paints gray is one of my favorite. If you don't have this paints gray, you can also go ahead with indigo. The indigo that's there with me is basically from the brand QOR and it moves a lot because of which I try to avoid using indigo for all these kind of paintings. When I'm using more of Layer two or any of my layer three, then I would like to use the indigo which I have with me as of now. You would observe that I will keep moving my board here and there so that the colors move into each other, and I have to do way less job compared to the water that's doing all the job for me. I just like to add the colors and then just move my board so that all the colors can move into each other very easily. Whole of the painting is done in easy and simple way. So do not be stressed for this painting. I can tell you you are going to nail this painting for sure. There is hardly anything which is difficult in this painting. It's only some of the parts where I'm going to tell you how you have to move around. Easy going painting, you can have painting sessions with your nephews, nieces, even with your children during the holiday season to enjoy this painting. Anyone can do it, and each one of you is going to love it completely. You can also make holiday cards out of it and gift it to your near and dear one. Watercolor is a lot about enjoyment. You continue to enjoy with watercolors, it's going to reward you so much. I am trying to take off all the extra paints that I have on the paper, and then I have my tissue always, always handy by my side to take off all the extra colours from my table, though I have to go ahead and again rinse the table completely, which is absolutely okay. These are part and parcels which do come up when we are working in watercolors. I always get smitten by the ultramarine, and this ultramarine is from the Rembrandt. It is one of my favorite ultramarines for now, and I love to introduce it in many of the places wherever I think it can be included. So I've introduced a bit of it towards the top right hand corner, and then, again, I would go ahead and work on my skies wherever necessary. Know that the whole painting is coming together very quickly. That's one of the reasons you may not want to work upon each and every area in a lot detail. And secondly, there is less to be done. Less is always more. Know this. And this particular provo serves very well for at least watercolor paintings. I think less is more for watercolor paintings helps you to determine that you are not going to overwork on any of the areas. Overwork kills a painting and for watercolors, I can say for sure overwork is going to kill your painting completely. Adding some of my paints gray again towards the bottom area. If you don't have this color, just mix some amount of Prussian blue with black to get a similar shade. Of course, black is not a shade that I usually use in any of my paintings. And if I don't have a neutral tint available by my side, then only I would like to use any of the black colors that's there in my palette or available with me in tube. All I can say is usually this particular palette, which I have been using for many years now, doesn't have any kind of black, but, yes, there are many of you who are in love with the color black and you might like to use it. So I'm pretty open if you are someone like that, who can make some amount of blue and then get a shade that looks similar to this one. Great. I guess I'm very happy with how it has turned out, and do we need to work more on it or less on it? Is something that time is going to tell us. Last 10 minutes of the painting. Yeah, we're almost done with a lot of it for now. I'm introducing some lines, as you can see, there were a few lines that we did draw initially, and those were the lines which is going to define basically the road that's going into the horizon line. Of course, the vanishing point is not on top of the horizon line. It is somewhere towards the backside or what you can see is these all lines will join to one single point somewhere in the sky area. So these kind of things you do keep in mind when you are working with watercolors. These are the basics. Vanishing point is one of the basics of drawing, and I have taught this in many of my other classes. If you are new to watercolors or drawing, I would say these are some of the basic concepts that you can go ahead and check out. I love to go ahead with very diluted light washes, as you can see on my right. This is a very light, dirty purple kind of color and just extended towards the bottom part of this road that we will be painting. Of course, it's a road. You will see how I come up with it. I usually like to use the whites of the paper, as I always say, use the whites of the paper for drawing the snow or use it in your painting wherever you think it can be used. This is something that I've learned, use whatever resources are available with you, whether it be even your paper. You can either take a Sepia or else mix some amount of blue into your burn Sena and get a darker value as you see over here. Use a size three, size two, whatever brush is available with you. No need to have any fancy brushes. These are easy paintings which we are going to do. Though the first one is way more easier, I would say I've kept it that way. As we progress, of course, the difficulty level is not going to increase to a huge extent, but yes, maybe the last two or three paintings, you might find that there is a good amount of drawing, sketching, and then you will figure out the painting, how we go ahead and apply the colors, which is watercolor. H2h painting has got a lot of positives. You don't need to worry about where the colors are flowing. You don't need to think about how I'm getting that great edge or not and how my movement of colors is, like, is it going out of the tape or did I did I not get that clear edge, which I've been looking out for all of these tensions are not there. And in watercolor, all I've understood is that you have to go very free mind. Or I can say that your mind should be absolutely clear when you are working with it. You don't need to think much and just go with the flow, enjoy the flow, and fall in love with this medium. Loving this medium, of course, can help you a lot in getting great outcomes for yourself. I'm now going ahead, adding some dots, adding some lines, and wherever it is necessary, just go from the edge and then take it to the middle part. That way, you know, what you usually do for your surface, keep some space for your own self pure painting. I think I'm not happy with how the middle part is looking, and there are times where I just do decide that this part is not looking great. I might have to go ahead and paint over it. Sometimes, adding the roads, et cetera, is not easy going with the floor. We do change a lot of things. So the road was not decided when I started out with this painting, but as I progressed, I just felt that the road is a necessary thing is this painting. And hence, I went ahead and added the road. Though after adding lots and lots of lines, et cetera, I was truly not satisfied with how the final outcome was. Few of the areas I will pick up the colors and blend it, as you can see with the help of my blending brush. This is any more brush that's available with you is good to go for this painting. I'm not looking forward to any one single brush. You can go ahead with whatever brushes are available with you and create this painting, the colors. Anything all I'm always interested in is 100% cotton paper. Go ahead with arches, fabriano or any kind of 100% cotton like Bahng, et cetera, which are mold. Rather than it being handmade. Though if you don't have a choice, yes, it's good to go ahead with handmade 100% cotton 440 GSM paper. In those cases, I usually prefer 440 GSM over 300 GS. I will add few more dots with the darker value. This can be your darkest of the value that can be neutral tint or any kind of darkest blue, paints gray, et cetera, to create this smaller dot, which basically shows the different values that you have in any faraway trees, et cetera, which you observe. I will be adding some roads now. You can go ahead with any blue of your choice. For me, the blue can be ultramarine mixed with some of the darkest of the neutral tins, et cetera, or just go ahead with Pains gray. You can also go with indigo if that's available with you. I have also added a sideway pathway kind of line, which mostly shows the sideway road. I again, wanted to just add it, so I added it. It's perfectly fine. You want to show it. You can show it. If you don't want to show it, that's also absolutely okay. Finally, I'm done with the roads part. I want to add some gold on the sides. This is my personal choice to add the gold. If you want to gift these kind of small token of small cards, or you can say paintings to your new and dear ones. That's also good to go ahead with. Just keep in mind that whenever you are adding the gold, your paper should be absolutely dry. If anyone is wondering, what is this gold from? This is from my own company, vibrant parcels. If you are looking for any set like this, you can reach out to me. 6. Project 2 Majestic Mountains: Let us understand all the colors which we need for completing the painting. Going to first at these two small mountains. You can see about one third of the paper is my sky and almost two thirds of the paper is my whole of this mountain area, though, of course, mountains are done in separate way. Or you can say that is my land, and the sky is basically the area where I'm going to experiment a bit with my colors. Though these colors are simple, and I think you will easily get it anywhere in your palan. If you don't have it, I will give you simple solutions of how you can make it for yourself. So just pick up your brush. It's an easy painting. Pick up your pencil, start sketching along with me. These are just the two simple mountains which we are going to draw, and then I will tell you in a step wise manner how you can go ahead and start adding your colors in a very easy and simple manner. The bottom part of my painting, I'm going to add some of my dry trees. That's one of the reasons I'm trying to add these few lines to have idea that where I want to go ahead and add some trees, there will be a few pine trees and a few dry trees. That's all in terms of the sketching. You should be happy that it is simple, easy, and very quick. In terms of adding the colors, also, it would be quick. So just go ahead. And either you can take a color like the peach, which you see on my palette, or else you can also create the color by mixing some amount of your opera into the naples yellow that you already have. Now, this kind of a color, you also get it in one of the brands called as white Knights. So I have given you input about how you can create the color, as well as how you can already have the color on the palette. But I guess creating colors is not bad. Go ahead, mix your colors, have the outcome, experiment with it, see if it is closer to the one that I'm applying over here. If it is not closer to the one that I'm applying over here, go ahead and again try to make some of your colors and see if you can come up with this. If in case you are someone who is not or who is just starting out with watercolors, then of course, you can go ahead with the exact colors. But I feel that color theory is a very, very important part of watercolors. Even if you are a big no, please go ahead with color theory and understand how you can create your own colors in case you do not have any guide, go ahead and check out my class hundred and one watercolor techniques. There, I have added a portion, which is all about color theory. I'm going ahead and adding some paints gray towards the top part of the sky, as you can see over here. I have taken my brush that is from the brand fire or aquaton you can see, and I'm using that particular brush to apply all my colors. Let's go ahead and continue to add colors into the sky. For a seamless wash, you have to always go ahead and move your board a bit so that the colors can move on its own. You can see that my paper has started to dry off because when I recorded the class, it was long back. It was not the winter season. Of course that's the reason it was drying up, but I got a chance to release it now, but I'm really happy that I can still show you how easily you can do few paintings. And these are not very small paintings, at least 18 to 19 centimeter papers, which you can take for actually going ahead and working on all your square size paintings. That's a real good size to start out with. If you are someone who is thinking about, can we go big can we really paint or all those questions? Stop working on a simple A six or five size paper or if five size, I will not say still bad. You can start by using a square paper if you're trying to migrate from a small, like A six size paper to a bigger paper, and then move on to A four and A three sizes. It took me a few years to also start painting on a really big paper, but I can now say that I enjoy more working on bigger paper, as it gives me a lot more opportunities to experiment compared to what I was doing earlier. I think it's time to apply some colors. As you see over here, I'm starting from the bottom and going towards the top, adding these colors in a very simple and easy manner. You just apply some water and see how your colors are moving, believe me, I have done this earlier also if there has been some kind of a mistake or even not a mistake. Just on my own, I have added these colors to make the blend seamless. Now, why I say that blend is not seamless or I'm not getting the exact look and feel of the colors like the way I as I have seen that getting the perfect mix, getting the perfect colors is kind of a myth. To be frank, you have to experiment with it. You have to allow your water to start dancing on your people. You have to allow your colors to go ahead and blend on its own, let them work for you. All of these doesn't come on its own. It takes us some time to understand how we are going ahead and applying the colors so that all this magic can happen. Right now you can see I am picking up some opera and applying it on the lower part of the sky. Along with it, I have also added some of my paints gray. If you're someone who doesn't have pains gray, you can also go ahead with indigo, but make sure the yellow that you are mixing for this kind of a color that we have added towards the bottom part of the sky. It doesn't react with the indigo to give any green. I'm done with this part, and it's time for cleaning. You can see, I love to clean my place a bit, at least before I start out with my second part. So just going ahead and cleaning this part of my table a bit. Now let's start out with our lower part of the mountains. Why I say lower part because the top part is still wet and I don't want to touch it as is. I'm going ahead with the same color mix that you have seen for my sky on the right side. You can see that now I have shifted to a bigger brush. It helps me to apply my colors very quickly. I'm not going to complicate this painting at all. It is a very, very simple painting, and anyone can do it. Now I need to shift out to a smaller brush, and this brush is basically my size ford brush from the brand, the Vince. I have been using this brush for a few years. Now, I guess I got it somewhere in 2023, and it's been great while I continue to use this brush over many, many, many paintings of mine. Going ahead and adding a bit of darker value, as you see, I'm approaching the colors from the left side or from the right corner side, that allows me some time to to gain my confidence and then go ahead with the larger strokes or the smaller strokes of the mountains. Small dots and strokes is all you need for completing this painting. I will go ahead and mix my colors towards the bottom area and add a few drops of this practically darker value of paints gray and add these dots, as you see, these dots are not going to complicate your painting at all. Of course, it's going to ease out your painting to a greater extent. And that's what I guess is important. Understand that slowly you build upon a painting. On the first go, you never apply your darker colours. Always go ahead with simpler shades, simple colors or lighter value colors and then build upon any portion of the painting that you need to add on your colours or add on more variations or work with your values. That's most important. Values is something that I always say is very, very, very important in any painting. If you understand how you can work with your values, you can nail any of your paintings. I'm done with the bottom part of the painting, and I should allow it to dry off before I go ahead and touch the top part, though I don't think that I did allow a lot of time. But still, it is almost right from the top side, and I'm good to just start applying smaller lines and smaller dots here and there for my this particular area of the mountains. As you can see, that mountain area is something that I have always always focused on in case we are doing any snow related paintings. Either it has been Northern lights or it has been mountains. But both of these kind of paintings or these paintings give me a lot of joy. Without them, I don't think a winter season is complete. Of course, you will have more paintings or you will like more different kind of paintings. And there are various paintings, which I have also done in the past for the winter season, but this practically remains one of my favorites. Okay, going ahead with my dry brush technique and applying some of the colors in few of the areas, as you can see over here. I believe on this idea that if you can keep some of the areas in white, it can really work as snow, and I try to use the white of the paper for these kind of experimentation. Why I say that use the white of your paper, it gives you with a lot of opportunity to not add any colors or avoid dirty mixes, which you can get if you are adding some kind of white on top of your paper always or I avoid adding the whites as much as possible. Opaque, non opaque, any kind of white colour is something that I try to avoid in all my paintings. Okay, adding some more dry brush technique towards the bottom part of this mountain, and then we will go ahead and start adding some of our trees. Trees is a very, very important component of this painting, and hence, adding the trees will also bring a lot more joy. You can see that I'm just trying to add in a simple way these trees. And these are practically the pine trees, of course, you may have a different way of painting, but you can see that the top part is easy, and then I start extending in the bottom part. Only the top part is what we are going to detail. The bottom part, go ahead and add colors exactly the way I'm adding over here. No thinking much about any portions how it should be or what it should be. Now I've realized that, of course, this one looks really small, and hence I need to just go ahead and broaden it a bit. These are over once I start applying the colors on my painting, I get to understand and then I get to do these changes. Every time I am not fixated on any particular way, I should paint my pine trees on any particular way, I should add my subjects. I just continue to add and see how the painting is turning out. Yes, there are a lot of times I have failed but I'm here to help you out with stepwise process of how I create any paintings, but important part always realizes that even an artist can fail. Whatever they think of, it's not always that they are absolutely correct in analyzing or in creating all these paintings on their own. And hence, it is important for us to always go ahead and just work in the process of creating the painting and see what works best for you. I always start in a particular way, and then once I continue to add the colors or once I continue to add these kind of lines to my paintings, I create my own. It takes some time, of course, but you will love the process of this creativity. I'm starting out with the dry longer trees. Yes, for this, I have picked up my zero, zero size brush. You can go ahead with any thin brush that gives you more confidence. If you are going ahead with very, very, I would say a brush, which has got a nice tip, but still you're not confident about it or you are not sure about it, that is really going to harm your painting. Go ahead with the brushes that you are more comfortable with for this part of the paintings as you are creating smaller lines. I like to break it up towards the top area, though during the drier season, you will not see that there is a a lot and lot of branches moving here and there, and that's one of the reasons I've kept it in a way that they are just approaching towards the top. Anyways, the leaves are not there. And hence just keeping somewhat lines smaller, picker, always mix up your lines. This is nature and nature is random, so you really don't know how they're going to appear in front of you or how they are going to come up. If you are adding them, some of the places would be more uh I mean, there will be more trees, some of the places will have less. That's all I have seen in my experience. I hope you also experience the same and understand to create nature in a beautiful manner. Over here, we are going to repeat the process of these dry trees and just starting the um, I mean, all of these pine trees. So, follow me how I'm doing it, and that's it. You have to go ahead with your darker value colours to do this. Some more fine details for the sky area, and then for the borders, once this paper is dried out completely, I will go ahead and add a golden border. Now, this golden water color is from vibrant parcels, and this is a particular sheet that is my favorite. I have a calligraphy set, which is a must for all calligraphers, or even if you are someone who is creating paintings, it has silver, golden, and various other colors that can serve as your holiday greeting card thing that you always sent out to your friends, et cetera. So, of course, have a look at it if you get a chance on my page of vibrant parcels in Instagram. Okay, continue to add some more of these lines towards the bottom area and let them dry off, as I always say. I can see a few dots on the top of my sky. So either I have to add a longer line and create my trees or else if I'm not adding some longer line, maybe I have to add birds. I don't know what I would be going to add or leave it as it's something that is ongoing, and I only do once I understand where I'm reaching with this painting. I think I will just leave it as is and add this golden shade, as you can see, Oh, my God, this is real hot, and I am so so happy once I'm adding it, it doesn't come off at all if you even put your fingers on top of it once your paper is dried off. So yes, this is a great color to always, always have for yourself, even if you are a watercolor artist, it is heifer to have a few nice colors for yourself that can always, always uplift your painting. Let's go ahead and move on to the next painting now. 7. Project 3 Journey through the Night: Go ahead and first have a look at all the colors which we need for this painting. I am going ahead and adding a line. This is basically my horizon line. It's going to separate the bottom part of the painting from the top part. Bottom is basically your grounds, and the top part is your sky. I have two beautiful colors with me that I would be using for creating this night sky. This is my teal green, as well as another color that is cobalt green. Though you can also use any of the other shades if you have with yourself, but these two are good enough to start out with this painting. Another good part of this painting is that it has very less, I would say, it has very less in terms of work that you need to do for your sketching. Some of you don't like sketching and are just exploring watercolors for fun. And this is a painting that you should always, always go ahead with. This is also one of my favorite paintings, and I hope you also fall in love with a painting like this. Okay, another thing that I must tell you, although nights guys will not have a lot of stars or may have stars, may not have stars. Don't be really obsessed with the stars. First, apply water on both sides of the paper and then try to add this kind of a moon where you will get all the light. It's a soft moon. I have applied water on both sides very well. And hence, all I can say is now I'm going ahead and applying my colors. I've mixed some amount of my cobalt green into the mix of my te green. Of course, the painting came out so well. I don't know why the video is moving a bit. But if you can avoid that part, most of the areas when I'm applying the colors is absolutely stable and you do not need to worry. Sometimes what happens is you have painted something and you try to paint again, but it doesn't come out exactly the way you have painted the first time. That's the reason I did not want to change this video at all and wanted to bring it to you guys. I hope I hope you can understand my feelings completely and look through it and paint this along with me. I am super, super excited. Believe me or not, this is my favorite painting from this series, the night sky part, at least, how beautifully you can actually paint a nightsky without even having lots and lots of colors by your side, have three, two, four colors. And another color that we must have is paints gray to add the darker values. That's it. We are going to work with them and come out with the best things for this holiday season or the winter season part. Yes, it was supposed to be holiday season earlier, but now it's Windows that is only. If you are also painting along with me, even in sometime later of this year and want to present to you and your and dear ones, I would always always ask you guys to create this painting, give the painting or make it a holiday card for yourself, whatever you want to go ahead with. This is the perfect choice of the painting you must go ahead with. Colors are not moving a lot. I don't know why. I have used Migo Mission gold, cobardGreen or I don't know. I sometimes feel that some of the colors don't move a lot, even if you have added the waters, and the water is also drying up very quickly compared to what it should have been. It's okay. Don't think much. Go ahead with the flow, as I say, you just need a seamless blend, and if you are getting that, that's absolutely. Good to go ahead with. And now, some of the places have snow and it's freezing. Choose that perfect cozy corner of yours and go ahead with this painting. Believe me, this is going to add so much love, and I have practically loved creating the painting so much that I can't tell you. I've also added some of the water in the bottom part, leaving a very fine line in between the top of this area that is basically the sky and the bottom part. You will not see it over here, but you will see once I start creating my bottom or part or start adding the colors to my bottom part, you can see the top part is not moving into bottom part at all, and that's how I differentiate. I start adding some darker values towards the horizon line. Though the horizon line is not visible very well, but yes, around the horizon line, start adding these smaller, smaller dots, smaller, smaller lines, and you can see the colors are moving at I am in love with it. These small dots are becoming blooms and they really, really make my day. Without pine trees, I feel that none of the window paintings can be complete, yes, to a great extent, but dry trees, pine trees, then adding some footmarks on the snow. This is basic. And I'm going to do that. Even in this painting, it brings me lots of joy. And hopefully you also enjoy painting this along with me. I always say that the enjoyment really comes when all of us are painting together when all of us are exploring our side of creativity. Great. Let's just add some more of our bar green, as you can see over here, and then blend it from the bottom. Adding some of the turquoise. Or some people also have turquoise in case you don't have te green, turquoise can also work. Now, all these are experimental and you might have to go ahead and experiment with your colors that is there in your palette. If you don't have this color, you can also create blue shades like Prussian blue or indigo, and then go ahead with any of your other blue shades, like one of the lighter values that you can take in this combination would be ultramarine. Anyways, the whole of the painting is dark. It's not very, very, I would say light colors that I have added. Now I'm going ahead and adding some water in the middle part of this area where I want to make a pathway, and there actually, the humans have moved. You can see some of their footmarks. That's the idea. That's the reason also to go ahead and apply the water so that those areas don't have a lot of colors and it becomes easily see I mean, these footmarks can be easily seen. Okay, adding some darker values and keeping my corners absolutely boring, as I always do. Corner should be boring. If your corners are not boring, then how do I go ahead and concentrate in the middle part of the painting, which is basically the heart of this painting? Once I have blended the colors of the snow, I will go ahead and start applying small dots. Now, this particular brush of mine is also very old and it has got a very nice tip. The tip is still doing very good. That's one of the reasons I just go ahead with this brush in most of my paintings. I have taken all the extra colour on the right side towel, which you can see. This is a cotton towel that I keep by myself. Earlier, I was always using papers, and I just feel it's a small way to be cautious about your environment. I use the screen towel nowadays for many of my paintings. It's not that I've completely stopped using paper altogether or tissues, but some of the places where I can avoid, I just try to avoid as much as possible. Some smaller lines, as you can see, these are basically the reflection of the dry trees that we are going to add in this painting. The paper is wet. That's one of the reasons I'm adding these lines right now. This kind of things I do when the paper is not having a lot of water, which means that there are no puddles. There is hardly any sheen to on the paper. You have to wait for five to 6 minutes or 7 minutes before you do the process. But every paper is different and you might have to look at how your paper reacts to water and how much time it does allow you work on various parts of the painting. Some splattering, as that is my favorite always, as you see, slattering is something that I have fallen in love with, always, always, always. And yes, now going ahead and adding some flattering for this part. Okay. So lines over here, as you see, for the pine trees, the paper is wet and I cannot touch the surface. If you cannot touch the surface, just wait for a while. Or else you can be careful just the way I am not to touch any part of this painting and apply the lines or dots in a way. That they appear soft. My background needs to be absolutely soft, as I always say, but it's tough to do this way. So either you can go ahead and do this initially, I'm using my paint scray to work this out. As of now, you can see how these lines are turning out. And yes, I'm pretty happy with how this painting is altogether. I am super excited, super happy, and hope you are also falling in love with a painting like this. Something that I always, always love to create. It's not in green. Green sometimes really look a bit of or artificial, but yes, these are the colors that you can always use for your water, for your snow, for any kind of future paintings, too. Let the paper dry off and then start adding your dry trees as you see over here, a simple line from the bottom and take it to the top. Once you have reached the top part or the end of your paper, then you have to just go ahead and start branching out this particular tree. Though there will not be a lot of branches that I'm looking forward to, I am just adding a few branches or dry branches, as you always see in any kind of dry tree painting. A few of them is good to go, use the darkest value that you have, but I can see that my background has turned out a bit more darker, though it should not interfere much with this painting, and I guess we can still continue to add the branches towards the top area. The lower part, I would like to avoid not have lots and lots of them. As I will not be in a position to see them to a greater extent. That's the reason we should focus on the top part. You can see that I start branching out towards the end. So I take a straight kind of a line which is originating from the middle part. That is basically the middle line which we have created and then branch it out towards the end with another line. And that's how I continue to create more and more branches over here. I see that, yes, the tree looks nice and complete. I might have to go ahead and add a few more or just leave it that I will decide as I progress. Sometimes having less is good. So yeah, you continue to decide or you continue to paint and decide. I think this really looks nice as a dry tree for me, I will move on to the next one. There are a few more, and this would be more of an iterative process. Believe me, there is nothing much that we can do in terms of creativity. I would say the one that you have already created, you have to focus on it and continue to add more and more trees in your background area or you can say on top of the snow area that you have marked. There you just need to keep one thing in mind. Some of these trees would be smaller, some of these trees would be taller, and the reflection is already seen. How I have created this reflection is something that I must tell you. All the lines will move to one single point on the horizon line, and that is known as the vanishing point. Now, this vanishing point understanding is very important for anyone who is working with watercolors. That is the basic of any kind of, I would say, sketching, et cetera, and it can lead you to very, very good paintings even in your future if you are working with any kind of architecture paintings, et cetera. M Now I'm going to create the smallest tree because the top part or you can say that the middle part of this tree is broken. Few of the trees, you will also get broken. Yes, it's not that every time everything would be standing tall, and this is one of the ways of representing that. Going ahead with another one, as you see over here, from the top, I will start adding the darker values too. In the middle, I will keep it a bit light. As the light of the moon is not very, very I would say it doesn't have so much of glaze or it doesn't bleed through any of your trees, but still keeping it a bit lighter, I think will be a good choice at this moment. We'll see if you want to add more darker colors as we go in the process or as we progress. I will add few more lines as my small and small branches. Over here, I'm branching this out more. I have got more confidence. The branches that I created last time were very different than the ones that I'm creating over here. Always, always gain your confidence from not the main tree that you are creating, but from the trees on the sides. Yes, this is one of my main trees that you see over here, I have to add some more of my darker values as I progress because the tree has become very, very, I mean, thin compared to the bottom area. And yes, that's the reason we have to add some more of our values. Or you can see I have to add some more strokes with my brushes. Great. I guess now it's time to go ahead and add one or two dry grass kind of lines for this bottom area. I'm not going to extend it a lot of you here and there, and that's it. Once this part is done, let your paper dry off and start adding the golden color. That's the highlight of this painting. I can't tell you. They are like this adding of golden colour makes this painting look so unconventional and so beautiful. I am so much in love with all of it. Okay, great. I guess I'm adding one more tree. Trees are never enough for me, believe me, I love creating trees to the maximum possible extent, and I continue to create them as I progress in watercolors. I first started creating trees. So when I started out with W watercolors only usually, we don't start out with trees at the first go. We just start experimenting and then we progress through the trees, but I just started out with that. Now going ahead and adding my golden color, as you see over here, once done, just see that the whole of the painting has come together. I'm trying to go ahead and had some amount of cobaldwin. I don't know why, but I guess just for the seamless blend that I always always target. Okay, guys, meet you again in the next lesson. 8. Project 4 Gentle Radiance of the Dawn: This painting is going to be very interesting as we are going to use a sort technique for the whole of the painting. I will go ahead and mark an area which is a bit below the half of the paper, and then we even mark an area which actually separates my water from the land. Now, the land has to be in snow and hence only the water area I would be painting as well as the sky. There will be less of the paints that I would be applying in the snow area. If you see I go ahead with my scale initially to mark the horizon line, though I know that many of you might not be wanting to use a scale, but it's absolutely fine when you are starting out with watercolors, you can use as much help as needed. I have applied water on the back side of the paper as well as on the top part of the paper where I'm going to apply my sky. I'm going ahead with a color which looks more like naples yellow, but the only naples yellow did not have any peach in it. This is mixed with a bit of peach color, you can say, and it is more opaque in nature, though I'm not sure that it will do the job or not, but I was just going ahead and experimenting with my color palette. Believe me, just your artistry colors are most important. Like, now I'm mixing some amount of the coral color that I have, which is quin atrodon coral from the brand Daniel Smith, then mixing with the yellow kind of sheet that we had and extending it towards the top area. Always, always remember that you do not need to go ahead and paint very quickly. Slowly, you can add and continue to add more and more details, as I always Everything can wait and everything can take your time. As I know, taking time is good. Go with the lighter values initially and then go ahead with the darker values. Never rush in the process of painting with watercolors. Watercolors is a medium that's going to reward you when you are going with the flow and just allowing your own, I would say, creativity to flow on its own, rather than just relying on any photograph or any painting that you have seen. Take the inspiration from the photographs or paintings which you might see other people doing it. Just use your own colour, sheets, et cetera, and use your own values, choose something very different from what they have used. And here you go. You have something absolutely stunning for yourself. I'm going ahead and mixing some amount of brown into the paints gray which I have and then extending it from the horizon line towards the top area. Once an extension of this burn Siena, as well as Pains gray is done, we will go ahead and use some of the table salt. You will see that table salt is very common in each of our houses, and I will use it for just applying it on top of this place, which is still wet. And then this beautiful outcome will happen. We have to wait for that outcome so till then we are going to work on the bottom part of the painting. Most of my paintings in this particular series is from top to down and edge to edge, which means that you do not need to tape down your paper. All you need is a board and start with your painting. Since my middle round cannot be done as the top part is wet, I need to go ahead with some of my snow area. I will just wet the paper first and then start applying some amount of blue on top of it. The blues are very beautiful, which I'm going to apply. This is somewhat like one of my favorite. That is royal blue. You can go ahead with royal blue and ultramarine Oel also use some amount of any other shades like sereium blue or other blues that are available with you. I am not concerned with the fact that you are using any particular different kind of blue. The only thing that you should keep in mind is the paper should be wet enough so that your colors move on its own, we need to do less work, and it is just the water that helps you dance or helps your colors dance on top of the paper. I'm also going to add the same colors that you usually see in the sky and that gets reflected onto the snow area. I like to use it that way, but you can also go ahead and only use blue. Though most of the areas, wherever there is white snow, there is some reflection of the sky that is on top of it and hence all of these shades will add a new flavor to your painting, and it is going to really act as a way to showcase how beautifully you have mastered the skill set of watercolors. I will go ahead with the darkest value of ultramarine and just start dropping these smaller dots and lines over here and there, not marking all the areas, keeping it towards the sights or towards the borders, as I always like to keep the borders not so interesting and going with the darker values just makes it a bit boring as the idea of working with watercolors over here is to understand the salt effect where you see that wherever we have applied the salt, the colors will move from that particular space to a different place altogether, and you will get an effect which looks like white. Along with some colors, that makes it very interesting for anyone who is also exploring this medium for the first time. You all can see that my sky has some white dots, which I really don't like. That's one of the reasons I'm going ahead with the colors that I Audi applied for my sky and just trying to blend it. The sky is still wet. It's not absolutely dry. That's one of the reasons I can do it with another layer of colors. If you have seen that the sky has completely dried up and nothing can be done, leave it as. And it's not important that you will also have this kind of white drops here and there. That's because mostly of the salt, I guess, or maybe when I was applying the colors, it had, like, one time, my brush had water in it because of which I got that color. Blending is the key, as I always say, and if I can't blend well, of course, this painting is not going to come together. That's one of the reasons I have to continue blending it with a bigger brush. Bigger flat brush are always good for any kind of blending that gives you an edge towards getting a good blend, as well as it helps you to understand that always working with a flat brush, which is of bigger size can make it easier for you to work through this watercolor medium. Watercolor is a fast paced medium, but along with it, you have to also keep in mind that there is less way to get back to this medium that is all I can say is there are less chances of mistake as this mistake had to be also fixed, and it took me a lot of effort to get this fixed. And just try to not get any mistakes, but we all are humans and humans to make some mistakes. That's one of the reasons. If you have a mistake like this, you can go over it, though it can make your painting a bit more darker, which you may want to avoid, but that's okay. In few times, we don't have much choice. I'm going with the same color of the sky. That is a mirror kind of a reflection which you get over here, and then when it is touching the snow, I will make it more in the blue shade. H. Whatever you do above water, if the water is almost still, there has to be some kind of reflection, and here I'm going to create that reflection. I would be using some darker values, though the reflection, I'm not going to add the salt effect as there is little bit movement which I want to create. And if we add too many elements, in any place, you know, the whole of the effect goes for toss. And that's one of the reasons, whatever it be when your paper is wet at this place, go ahead and apply the darker values. Once I've applied the darker values, I will just use a flat brush to draw some lines. This is basically to pick up the colors from that particular space, wash your brush, then again, just take off all the extra colors on your tissue or the water on your tissue. Go ahead with some more lines. As you see over here, continue this process till you are satisfied. Not a lot of them we need, but yes, a few for sure we will need in this painting. Once this is done, we will just close the edges in few of the places as you see over here. This is basically my paints gray. I'm dropping in some dots and lines here and there, even on the lightest value of the snow that you see over here. This is to basically show the drier parts, or you can also add one or two lines which will showcase that there are dry plants. I'm also going to add it. So be around. This is going to be a very interesting painting. There is less work to be done, though it takes a bit more time as there are three components that we are attempting the sky, the snow, and the water. The lifting out technique did not work the first time, and I think that's one of the reasons for, again, attempting it. Let's go with the second attempt. I think now it would be better. I do have a moist brush with me, and the paper is still wet. Wet in a way, I would say that it's not wet, not dry somewhere in between, that is going to really help us to pick up the colors very quickly. I will try to use two to three times the same brush stroke at one place so that the lifting out becomes easier. A few dry plants. I'm going to add just here and there to make it look like snowy and these plants don't have any kind of leaves on it. It's time to repeat the same process with the white gouache. Now, why use a gouache? This is a very not transparent medium, which means that it's an opaque medium. And hence, it's easy to draw with this color. You will see that it goes above the color that you have applied in watercolors, and you can see this white very well when you apply it on the dark spots. Yes, all the spots, if you have kept in white, it becomes difficult for you to also see it. But yes, of course, we will drop in a here and there so that it is not even yet it exists. We are going to repeat this process of dry plants on the other sides with the black, as well as with the whites. Now, this is not exactly black. It is paints gray and mixed with the colours that were available on the palette, so it looks more like black. I usually don't have any black in my palette, and I am being very true to you that I never use black. I prepare my own gray black shades and then use it. Sometimes, yes, I do use a neutral tint, but that, too, is not exactly black. It has various shades also coming up in it in few of the paints you will get on neutral tint, which has two shades. So be very aware when you are actually buying any kind of shade. Whether it is granulating or not is something that you should always always check or it is having a dual tone or not. Sometimes the dual tone may not be very likely and a good outcome for any watercolor paintings. Though it's a great outcome if you are going ahead with any of your calligraphy, et cetera. M Time to draw some loose branches of the tree. I'm not extending it everywhere and not I'm drawing it everywhere in just a few of the places. Some places are still wet. That's one of the reasons you will see that the colors are moving a lot because of which I have to use my flat brush to pick up the colours in various places. I would be repeating this exercise time and again, so just continue to follow me and just paint along with me. There is less to explain at this stage, hence just going with the flow is important to complete the painting. Once the painting is done, let it try apply some gold colour on the borders, and you can see a beautiful painting that has come up for you, and it marks the winter season. It's easy going painting. I hope you have liked it. We are going ahead with the next painting now. 9. Project 5 Illumination Spilling from the Barn: Hello, guys. Let's talk about the colors first to understand what all we need, and then we are going to start with our sketching. The sketching part is not difficult. It's just that we are going to make a house. I'm going to place this house on the left side. I never place my subject in the middle of the painting. The top part is basically one you can say part one, and then the bottom part is divided into two parts. So the total house size is three equal parts. The left side will be one part, and the right side, again, would be one part. That's how we go about it. I usually see this hole with the help of a pencil mark with the help of my nails, a bit of area and see the left side is equivalent to the right side. We are going to do two slanting lines, one on the left, another one on the right. It is a bit extended than the point which I have made. So, yes, it's going to be a left and right. This one seems to be a bit smaller. I don't know why. This one seems to be smaller. We can always erase and again get back to it as we have done on the left side. I will go ahead and make another line at this stage. The whole of the video is real time so that you exactly get to know how much time I have taken for the sketching, as well as for the final painting. I'm very sure of this fact always to keep my paintings real time that really helps you to understand the flow of the process, how we start, and how we end. There are a lot of confusions, even as an artist, as a very, very experienced artist myself, how to go about or how to approach a painting. All I always go ahead with is my wit and confidence. If you have confidence, you can nail any painting and never try to overdo watercolors. Stop at a particular time where you think it's enough. We are not going to work any further. That's the trick that has helped me to actually nail many of my paintings in watercolor. Again, every day is not a great day for watercolors. Hence, take it with a pinch of salt. If there are happy accidents, be happy. If there are not so good accidents, just accept it and move on. We are going to go ahead and make a small window on the top side of the house, as well as we are going to make some doors and windows on the left side. You can see that I am making two lines. Now, these two lines are basically going to meet at one single point, and that particular single point is called as the vanishing point. As I have explained earlier, in the videos where we were practicing. If you are not aware of vanishing point, I would say it's a very, very important concept. And just to go through it or just to have a basic understanding, go through my video of sketching. It helps you to understand this particular painting in a much, much better way. We adding some dry trees even on the bottom part of this painting, as well as there is a main tree which is going to come up. The whole of the painting is supposed to be based on these two important subject, that is the tree and this house. It's a evening time or you can say it is a dark time where there are a lot of lights that are there in the house. Lights in the winters are common, and when that whole reflection of the light falls on the snow, it makes it even more interesting. I am someone who looks out for these kind of small details in any painting, and these small details really make or break your painting. The tree that I have drawn is also somewhere trying to cover up a bit of my house that I have added. Along with it, I would be adding two of these windows that will also show a lot of light. Light is something that I've always loved to add in my paintings, and this is one opportunity that I did not want to get away with. So yes, you will be seeing lights, reflections of the lights on the snow and much more. This painting actually has lots and lots of learnings that we have done earlier in the last four paintings. That's one of the reasons that this painting is bit more not so complex, of course, but, yes, it has more steps in it compared to the other paintings. No. I will start branching out my tree and add the darker details in few of the areas where I think I would be adding the darkest value of my colors. Why it is so important? If you already have a dark value over there, you exactly know in your mind that you're going to apply a dark value there, and the areas which are in light, you could be adding the lighter values. This way, you can define your painting pretty easily and quickly compared to leaving it for the last moment. Why doing a detailed sketch is important. Ifever you get a chance to do a detailed sketch, I will always ask you to go for it. Detail sketch helps you to understand not only the colors, et cetera easily, but it also helps you to move very quickly during the painting stages. And when you are starting out with watercolors or you are starting out with any new medium like watercolors, acrylics, et cetera, this is a great add on for your skill set. It will help you to hone your skills in a much, much better way and easier way. I have spent a lot of time on the sketching part, as you can see over here. It will take about ten to 12 minutes for the sketching and then only we can go ahead with our final painting. The whole of this painting is real time, which gives you a lot of opportunity to just go along and sketch with me as well as paint along with me. The best way to go about a painting is just to first understand how the flow is. So you can watch this video at a two X speed, understand the colors, how I am sketching, et cetera, and then just rewatch it once more at one X speed and follow along with me. This is a wooden house, and that's one of the reasons you will see that I am adding some of the darkest values for those wooden areas. Further some more lines you have seen that I have added to showcase those wooden area towards the front side or where there exactly is the window, et cetera. We are going to draw a small, um, I would say door on the left side of this house. You will see how I do it. I continue to add some more lines. You can also do it or do it later on, but I would say it's good to have a detailed sketch. As I mentioned earlier, hence, going with this sketch will always always add on to your painting. For or final sketch, I like to darken out a few areas with my pencil, as you observe me doing it over here. I continue to do this process in many of my paintings, and this particular painting, I do it on purpose so that I know exactly where all my darker values are going to reside. After my first wash, usually, what happens is all these sketches go waybard lighter as there is a lot of water and sometimes the graphite does dissolve and I do not get the exact lines where I've marked. That's another reason for which I do try to go over these sketches once more and make it a bit more darker. A small apology that I might ask you at this moment is my particular phone ran out of space because of which I could not record the sky area. Though I will explain you the sky area is in any of the darker values like an indigo, or you can go ahead with pains gray. Once you have added this, go ahead with burn Sienna and your Pains gray or indigo to create the bushes of the background, as we have done even audio in one of our last paintings. The sky is an absolute flat wash, as you see over here and even this bottom part, you can see that I've applied some burn sienna, and now I'm going over in the bottom part with some indigo to create the darker values. This is how you are going to progress on the left, as well as on the right. There is less to explain at this moment, only the fact that I would go ahead and apply more of burn Siena in few of the places. So continue to watch it and don it from there. There is nothing much to explain. It's just a bit of blending till your paper is dry. Secondly, you can drew this process only when your paper is wet. You cannot do this process once your paper is dry. That is something you should keep in mind. You can see that the top area is the blue area, and when my blue area was still wet, I did apply all these colors. It became blue. And because of that bloom, I can see the background bushes. Even after applying water on the backside of the painting, I need to apply some water. On this no area. Now, this no area will have a beautiful outcome once I start adding the yellow. Now, the yellow that I'm adding is, I guess, somewhere aoline. Now, if you don't have this aleine, whatever yellow is available with you, go ahead with it. I will also apply some of my ultramarine or blue, but it should not turn green. That's something you must always see that the yellow color doesn't turn green. Take a very, very light wash of your blue for not allowing the yellow color become green. You can see that the wash of blue is very, very light, and the colors are moving from the Olean to the bottom area. You can also take naples yellow if you don't have this particular color by your side. So these are the other options that always can be exercised. I tried to add some orange, but I was really not happy while I was adding it. Now again, I have blended it with the yellow on the right side, again, applying it on the people. Some more of the darker values of blue, applying it from the left and on the right, I always like to apply the darker values later. Ifever I want to go ahead with it, that gives me more confidence. Applying it later makes more sense. Or else going back to the painting becomes very tough after you have applied the darker values in the initial stages itself. So purple for the thatched roof so that I can see the thatched roof well, and then I will go ahead with my browns, yellows, et cetera, for the house. But before we work on the house, I am really not happy with how the background bushes have turned out. There are some dry patches, and I might like to blend it a bit with my brush, which has some water on it, and it might create some clear blends compared to what appears over here. Though imperfections are always good, but sometimes there is, uh a thing that I want to make it more perfect, though you can leave it at this stage it is, or you can also go ahead and repeat the process as I am doing. If your paper was wet enough, you will get a clear blending, as well as there will be no hardages I of course, paper is not wet enough, though I have been using Arches paper for almost entirely creating all my paintings, but there are times where even I have to give up on any particular painting as the paper was getting dry very quickly. So sometimes it's okay to leave it at that stage, again, go with another layer of water and then start with your painting. I did pre wet the area where I want to add the light, and now I have just taken some colour on my brush going ahead with the yellow areas where I want to paint my light. This light is getting reflected on the snow as you can see over here. The colours will flow on its own and on the sides, I'm going to add some burn sienna. Burn Siena is going to play a lot of trick. The colours will move around, not that only a particular area will stay in yellow, but the whole painting will bloom and give the darker, lighter values, whatever we want for this part of my house. Values play a very specific role in any painting. If you are someone who is new to watercolors, you may not be willing to mix up the colours as much as I do right now as I have years of experience and mixing up the colors like Bern Sienna paints gray really elevates my style of painting. But if you are new, you can go ahead with your burn Siena and then add some darker value of blue on the palette to get the darker value of this burned Siena, which can be CPR or any of the darkest value that you get by mixing the blue and then add it on the house. But painting on your paper directly, which is mixing your colors directly on the paper gives you a lot more shades and values compared to if you are mixing right now on the palette. That's something which I have realized with my experience into watercolors. If you are mixing the colors on the palette, it gives a lot more interesting colors, as well as the blues can also be seen. Then the word Siena can also be seen. The yellow is also merging into the browns. So overall, it's a very interesting outcome, whereas if you are mixing on the palette, these all colors may not be seen together on the paper. We will continue to paint. As you see over here, I take a blending brush of mine and start blending the areas where I think it's necessary. I don't want the yellow to get faded away with the brown. That's one of the reasons I am also picking up the colors from the windows wherever I think that the darker value has taken over. Go ahead with the area that has the door and start even adding the darkest value over there. There is less to explain at this stage. Continue to paint and continue to mix your colors on the palette. It's going to reward you in every way possible. If you are tired at this moment, do not stop. I'm telling you because we can take a break once our house is done and we can focus on the tree later on. That way, you can always divide your work rather than doing the work together. I am a person who loves to take breaks, smaller break, water break, or any of the other kinds of break which you can think about. These breaks help me to get a better perspective not only of the painting, but also helps me to understand how and the way I want to progress in this painting, it helps me to rethink about my decision to work on this painting or even think about how I can actually add value to it by introducing some different kind of gradient washes or different kind of textures into it. All of this I can understand and then again, get back to it. It's a good idea to take a break, so never think about not taking a break. Yes, exactly where you need to take a break is something that you need to learn. Once you are done with the grounds and the skies, as well as the bushes, you can take a break and then come back to this house. Once you're done with the house, you can again take a small break and get back to the whole of the tree once this part is completely dry. I'm just trying to add some lines over here, as you can see, and trying to paint the door. In the darker values, rest of the areas are kept lighter. The paper is still wet. Adding some of the lines will make them a bit blur, and it would create an interest for all the people who are watching this final painting by you. For the darkest of the value, I will create a CPR like color. We will mix some amount of burn senna into the blue that we have and then start adding some lines as you see over here. Once these lines are done, we will move on to the tree as I did tell you earlier. Now, these lines or smaller dots are basically here to give you an understanding that there is a separation of the land from the snow area. These smaller dots is basically a detailing part that you may like to add or you may not like to add. But for me, I always go ahead with them. Some of the places I add and some of the places I live, even for my windows, I do the same effect. Some of the places I add and some of the places are thinner or some of the places there is no line, some of the places, yes, there is more darker line, more broader line. That way, there is a lot of I would say interests that I create in each of these space. Even in some smaller parts, I try to keep that interest. Larger parts, of course, everyone will be more interested in doing it. As it is always easier to work through the larger area with a larger brush, if you are someone who is, I mean, who wants to work on a larger painting, please go ahead with an AFO sized paper or else some bigger square size paper where you can paint this. It will turn out really well. Continuing with some more detailing, as you see, I use the tip of my brush. There is no extra color on the top or on the tip, and I continue to add some lines as you see here. Adding some blues to show the right side of the roof, which is there in which is basically snow laden. So that's what I'm trying to create. I'm not sure how good I am at this stage. There is at least some close to ten, 12 minutes more left in this painting, and we would really like to add more interest and love, as well as lots and lots of, um, I would say areas that are more difficult for any new or any beginner to start out with because if you're starting out as a beginner, we are not really sure of the colors, then various kinds of other things that we use in a painting, but here you already know here you have done already four paintings. And this is basically going a bit above what you have done. Believe me, the next bonus lesson that I'm going to give is going to be easy, but there we are trying to create light. And when you create light, I will teach you how you can make your painting look or glow, absolutely. So those are things we are also going to learn in our bonus lesson. Well, then let's continue to branch out a few of the areas in the background bushes. I'm not going to add a lot of lines, only a few here and there. Time for my trees, I will start with the lightest value, which is my brown or burn siena and then move on to the darker value. You can do this with the help of CPA or else mix your blue with the burn siena as I have done in various places in this painting. You can see that we are not using a lot of colours over here. It's mostly the yellow, burn siena and blue that usually is going to decide the whole fate of this painting. Believe me, you do not need a lot of paints for doing all the paintings. Most of the paintings in the series is limited palette that gives you a lot more opportunity to mix on the paper rather than doing on the palette and create various values that many people wouldn't have even thought about creating if they would be sticking to only the colors. Initially, when I also started out with watercolors, I wanted to have all the colors by my side, and I was someone who was blindly purchasing various different kind of sets for doing or completing paintings. I have Michelo Mission Gold, full set, then I have Shimanke two or three different varieties of full set, then I have SneliasFull set. I have PWC's full set. I have Winsor Newton, professional grade full set. I have whole bean full set, but believe me, over the years, I have realized this is not what you need. What you actually need is only a few shades to create an expressive paintings. These are just to have a good idea that you have invested a lot, or maybe you have invested a good amount in your hobby or something that you really like as a side hustle or even as your main profession. So you should be actually dedicating good amount of time for your passion altogether. And that's what it did to me as I was purchasing so many sheets. I wanted to try out a lot of colors, and it really helped me to ease through my paintings. But the real change in my paintings came when I started experimenting with the colors and how the color mixing happens on the palette and on the paper. If initially I went ahead with color mixing on the Palette. The next I went ahead with color mixing on the paper. And that's how you gradually move together and you gradually go up in the way of painting with watercolors. I see some of the bottom area is still wet, and what I usually do is go with the same colors that I did use for my area of this tree into the painting part and just create a few shadows here and there. If your paper is not wet, don't try to add a lot of lines. This is something we don't want. We are leaving the corners as is not so interesting. After all, I always say leave your corners as is. Don't try to add a lot and lot of um I would say lines or et cetera into it, continue to paint the area which you have thought is important in your painting. I continue to branch out my tree over here, and once the branching out of the tree is done, we will go ahead and focus on the other part of the painting that is still left. The bottom left side, we initially thought we would be adding a few bushes, which we will be doing even in future. So we are going to focus on it. Then just meditate. Just try to branch out as much as possible. Every branching out really helps me to gain some more patience, to be more patient with watercolors and to enjoy this medium altogether. You cannot have a final outcome without enjoying this medium. This medium is something that's going to reward you once you start partnering with it. I will go ahead and wet one of the part of my house so that I can add some colors over there as it appears a bit out or compared to the house it looks really, really like. That's why I wanted to add a bit of a darker value touch here and there. I have added a darker value on the corners and tried to blend the color with the background using a blending brush. Once that is done, you will go ahead and start adding our dry branches or dry plants, as you see. Some of them, not that I'm going to occupy the whole of the space with that, but yes, start from the bottom and take it to the top that would help you to actually gain a lot more confidence with your brush strokes. Always always try your brush strokes on a rough paper rather than just going with the flow and starting out on the paper directly. This also helps you to understand where your strokes are going. Are you comfortable with the brush or not? And if you are experienced with watercolor, go with the best brush that you think can create best of the branches. I usually pick up this brush which is from Escoda, and you have seen me using it very often in many of my older paintings, too. It really helps me to have that confidence to go about creating branches in any place that I want because of the nice tip that it still has. I think I have bought it some four to five years ago and still it is doing well. That's another thing which I must tell you if you are someone who is into watercolors and want to do watercolors well, then go for good brushes. It might cost you higher in the initial purchase, but as you progress with watercolors, you will understand that's going to pay off in long run. So more detailing. And once the detailing is done, we will just allow the paper to dry off completely. Now, the paper drying off is very important as we want to add the detail of the gold on the borders. Golden border is something that I have always always loved in any holiday card, holiday painting, or creating various different kinds of paintings of my choice. So yes, this is another one that I like. I will continue to add some more of these dry plants on the right side too. As you can see, there is some darker value over there also which is existing and I'm going to add it to make it look like, yes, the snow is there and there's some mud also along with it. Now, these branches are coming out from there. Dry leaves, dry rushes, dry. Everything is dry, right, during the winter season. Even our skin is so dry. Anyway, I guess I'm happy with how it has turned out, one or two dots here and there, as you always see, I love to add, just to make it look more organic, as I say. Some of the areas which I did not create well, and I want to just go ahead and make it a bit more perfect. I use my flatbush to remove any extra colors or just sweeten it a bit more that's all I do in this part or in this particular space. Once this is done, we are going to move on to our bonus lesson. I'm very, very excited to teach you the bonus lesson. That is your light. The light which falls from any particular lantern in the evening, that is one, and another one is the soft light of the morning dawn time. So that is also something which I really, really love always. Continue to add some gold on the sides and make it look more even, nice. And then let's have a fine look at this painting. Oh 10. Bonus Lesson 1: Let's have a look at all our colors for this particular painting. We are back on a bonus lesson, and this lesson is all about light and shadows. Now, why I have included this lesson, we have already done quite a number of paintings in this winter magic class. I wanted you guys to understand a bit more about the light concept and how usually the shadows move. We have learned about an invisible point, and how all of these shadows actually move according to that invisible point is something we should learn and we are going to learn in this particular project. Let's go ahead and make a rough outline. And once you have made this outline, go over it with another two outline as you see over here. Then we are going to do absolutely rough sketch of the trees that we are going to make in this painting. Painting is really easy. It's all about painting trees then having the glow of the sun, as well as the shadows of these trees onto the snow area. I could have done this a bit more lighter and value, I would say, but then I feel the whole intent of this painting came out only when we started exploring it in a bit more darker value of blue compared to audio one which I was initially thinking. So all the paintings when I do, I usually try out one small painting or maybe a same size painting and then go ahead with the second painting as I am doing it over here. Once our rough sketch is done, we will go and load our brush with a lot of water, apply that water on the back side of my paper, as well as on the front side of the paper. I will shift through a round brush and load my brush with yellow, and once I have loaded my brush with yellow, I will start with these round movements on the paper. I will try to add the yellow only towards the top part of the paper. Once this is done, let's start adding some naples yellow from the top and try to take it evenly onto the paper. We really don't want to go ahead and have a bad blending because of which, I always love to keep adding some water to on it. You will see how we keep this blend absolutely seamless, and I just touch the water. And then again, go back onto the paper. You see that how I keep blending the colors. Take a lot of colors, mixers. I don't know why I do that, but, yes, I do it. I took some orange. I took some yellow as well as I did take some amount of my coral color. Though you can go ahead with only orange, you can see that this is somewhat like a bright orange. You can go with Cadbm orange or any of the orange that's available with you. It's time to take some neutral tint and start adding from the left side and take it towards the bottom part. You can see that the neutral tint, which I'm adding is blending very slowly with the coral color that I'm adding now. And then, again, I would be adding this neutral. Since this neutral tint is very dark, we have to keep adding some amount of the water into it so that it becomes lighter in values and it doesn't show off within the shades that you see over here. No. The neutral tint that was more like a black color is now becoming brown as we have mixed good amount of shades into it, which is majorly your coral, then your orange, as well as some amount of red. I will go ahead with my bunsena and the shade of neutral tint to give this sheade of the color that you see over here. One thing that I must say is that the blend is not very important in this painting, though the blending part is always very, very important aspect, but still you can I think do great even without having the perfect blend as there are going to be lots and lots of trees in the front. And because of the trees that are there in the foregrounds, your background will get covered up to a great extent. You may just go with a normal blend and that should work for you. I will go ahead and add some colors even on the left side. As you see over here, that is the same shades which we have added on. It's only a bit of a blend with the coral and with the browns, as well as with the neutral tint. Once this part is done, we will go ahead with some clear water and just blend it with the background as I am doing right now. I'm pretty happy with my background, and now let's go ahead and apply some colors for the foreground snow. The foreground snow is quite dark that I have actually added into this painting, though you may also go ahead with lighter colors, but since it is I wanted to show that there is a good amount of shadows of these trees that are falling on the snow and hence those particular shadows, I did apply some amount of blue as well as this yellow and the coral that we have added into the painting. I have just taken the yellow in my biggest brush, that is the size 0.75 flat brush and added it just below the place where there is the sun. I'm trying to extend it a bit on the right, as well as on the left. Once that is done, we are going to apply the coral as well as the ultramarine. Ultramarine is one of my favorite shades or colors that I usually go ahead with whenever I am doing any watercolor painting that has no in it. I don't know, but this is one of my favorites. It will remain my favorites, I think, for maybe a few more years till I figure out the other color which I like to add into my painting. Going ahead with some more coral color in the background, you may hear some birds chirping. I don't know, but, yes, there are a lot more birds in Bangalk compared to other places that I have been. And yes, therefore, you can hear the birds. It's good to be close to nature, I guess, and going with some more of the coral and the yellow, as you see, I keep the corners absolutely boring as always. So corners would be more of the blue and the coral color. We will do add all the colors one after another. I go from the lightest value to the darkest value. That way, what happens is, I can have more control over this painting rather than going with the darkest value and then coming back to the lighter value. That way, my control is way more lesser compared to what I have over here. You will see that the painting looks more patchy at this moment, but as we move, you will see that the painting will become more and more I mean, it will start shaping up. Continue to blend your exactly in the similar way we have done on the left. I will apply the same way for the right. I did drop some amount of my blue shade onto this yellow area, and I have to go ahead and either lift it or blend it with the background as we have done even before in many of our other paintings. If you have watched my glasses, you know, that I too actually comemt lot of mistakes, but I then tend to cover up either by doing these kind of smaller tricks or painting bits or sometimes adding some branches, trees, et cetera. No. This process of adding the shadows is quite time taking, I would say, I have seen that in the past, and I am seeing it even now because of the simple fact that not only takes time, the blending has to be absolutely seamless. The colors have to move into each other, and there are some splatters that I also use to show the snow. Overall, it is time taking, as well as in the first wow, you may not get the perfect blend. I have done it in the past. I have failed a lot of times, and then I have come up with easier method like this, going from lighter value to darker value, then blending it with clear brush with only water, then splattering. These are step by step processes that I have also done in the past, and I'm continuously doing to improve the process of painting or improve my process of actually having a seamless soft shadow that I want in a painting like this one. I'm going with some blue and then starting from the left, absolutely, blending it towards the middle part. You will see the glow of the yellow that is there for my background has to remain the same. I don't want to touch that glow or I don't want the glow to decrease by any chance, because of which I might have to go ahead and then again, go with the colors of blue, et cetera, if the blending has become very, um light, I would say at this moment, as there is less of blue which can be seen because of the blending, et cetera. I have to continuously still add some more colors still blend. This is a process which is more of a trial and error till you get the best of the outcome. You may have to even pick up some colors in few places where you think it is not necessary. Frankly, there is no best way to go about or I can't guide you through the best way that you can take to nail it. In the first go itself, it takes a while. It takes one or two attempts. It's okay. We all are learning. We all do it that way. As a teacher, if I can't suggest you something that's absolutely seamless, then I watercolor is quite unpredictable. And even if you can only suggest the best way or the best approach, but you really can't have a formula driven approach that will give you an outcome which looks exactly the similar is all I have learned through my painting. You can see that I picked up some of the colors, and I'm again adding some lighter values from the right and taking it inwards. These are the things that I continue to do every time I don't get the best blend, as I did tell you even earlier and I want to repeat it that do not do not beat yourself up for having the best outcome. It takes time and it will take time. No one can actually tell you how much time, how much work, how much labor you have to do to get it there. Start enjoying the process, start enjoying the journey. If you enjoy the journey, the final outcome will be one of the best that you have ever expected. I continue to add some more blue lines with one of my thinner brushes. You can go ahead with this kind of a size of a brush that is size your brush, or you may also leave it as is that you get initially. The lines are originating almost from one single point and then moving to all directions. This is all I told you about the invisible point when we were learning in the sketching part. Now, why the sketching part became important and this is there is simple sketch, but everything has an importance, and everything that I'm teaching over here can be used even in your future paintings. The rule remains same for everyone and for every painting. The rule can never change. These are basics. And if you can have your basics right, all I can tell you is any subject that you want to attempt will be the best of your ability and the best of your outcome that you can ever think of. Finally, I guess I have a good blend. It's time to add some more of the orange in few of the places where I think it is necessary and it has become really blue at this moment. Again, blend it in few of the places where it is necessary. It's a trial and error. Believe me, I'm trying it every bit to have that perfect clo perfect blend and everyone that you see is painting snow perfectly. Yes, has gone through a lot of trial and errors. We have to, um, always take that as a very, very important aspect or as a very, very important point and then only work through the whole of the painting. In the first row, you may have lots and lots of changes that you would like to do. And slowly steadily, you will just avoid doing those kind of changes. Like right now, once I've applied the blue on the left side, the lines were not great. And hence I did blend the color again. I'm doing the same even on the right side, I will go ahead and again apply the color as you see over here. Yes, so many times I go ahead and keep applying the colors, again, pick it up and again, apply the colors. I don't know why it is like this, but it's been like this, and this is only the best way that I know to work through these soft shadows. Soft shadows are to create, believe me. It's one of the difficult things that I have done to date. And when something is so difficult, you can't expect it to be done in one go. I to start with our splatter, we will go ahead and just pick up some clear water on our brush and then start splattering on the paper. Once we are done with these splatters, we will go ahead and again, splatter, even some colors of blue, as we see over here on the right and on the left side. These platters remain constant, which means that if you don't have these platters, you will not have the kind of snow like effect that we usually want in a painting. The colors have turned out lighter than what we have applied initially, and hence now going ahead. With my background. These colors are again, more lighter in value, and I would like to keep the background hell more lighter compared to what we have done for our foregrounds. In some of the places, of course, we need to add some darker value. That's it, what we are going to add and rest of the places, we will keep ***. Some blue blue is my favorite, as I did tell you already. I would love to go ahead with some of the blue for sure in few of the places and continue to go very slow at this stage. You are mostly done with the whole of the painting that is setting up your background. And your foregrounds of the snow. It's only the particular trees that are left right now. We are adding some amount of our coral and creating a color that looks more purplish going over in the lightest of the value of the evening sun, then going with some yellow, and then picking it up, again, picking it up from the bottom, not applying any of the darker values at this stage, working with some of the lightest color, adding some of my burn Sienna at this stage, going with the top area with some CCR. There are multiple shades that I have used in this painting. You can go ahead with any shade that's available with you. You really do not need to go ahead with the same shades that you see on my palette as I always say. And mostly, I do suggest a few options like I suggest for the coral, you can go ahead with the orange. I told you that you can use cadmium orange rather than mixing so many colors for the background. And hence, even whatever is closest to you or the closest color that is available with you, use that shade. Never think about the shades. Don't get into the process of only buying sheets. Believe me, I have been there, I have done it. And that's why I say never get confused with the watercolor sheets that you are using. Slowly, Stagi you will see that nowadays, I only use about 17 to 18 colors in my palette, though that is also higher. I would say, as I become more and more mature with watercolor, as I go ahead and with my colors, maybe I will even get down to somewhere around 15 or 14. That's it. We don't need more than that. And I've seen in my own experience that we don't need it. It's good to have a lot of colors because then you can experiment to understand what colors you need, what colors you don't need, which colors you would love to use, which colors you would want to uh, actually make it available for yourself on the palette. So those are the things, of course, you can always think about, but rest, you may not even think about the other shades, et cetera that you have to include or what you need to buy. It's always good to go ahead with whatever is available. Painting the trees is pretty much an iterative process. What I usually do, I will tell you step by step. I will make the main first, and then I will branch it out slowly, as you have seen in my first particular tree that I did make. I'm not going to branch it out into lots and lots of numbers. I will branch it out to two, three, four, maximum, and then leave as I'm going to paint lots and lots of trees for this particular painting. If I'm branching out lot, maybe I will go with lesser number of trees. If I'm branching out lesser, I will go with more number of trees. That's how I usually do it, and that's usually my approach. But you may or may not have this kind of approach. You may love to have some other approaches. Every artist has a different way of playing with their colors, playing with the kind of subject that they want to add because you are practically actually seeing this subject from my eyes. When you start seeing your subject from your eyes, it might actually turn up very different all I understand from every painting that you are doing with me is you are trying to understand the whole process of painting and how step by I go ahead creating various textures, et cetera, in my painting, how I create my shadows, how I create my light. All of these are very, very interesting concepts that you must learn in any process of watercolor. And s you can play with your own subjects, you can play with your own inspiration and get to an outcome that you think works best for you. Another trick that I would tell you was near the sun, everything will be lighter in value and far away from the sun as you go, everything would be darker and value. If this simple trick you can keep in mind, I think you can nail all your paintings. Painting trees is more of an iterative process, as I've told you earlier, the process remains same. I don't need to explain much over here. Wherever I think it is necessary, I would go ahead and tell you. Right now, I'm using my size four brush to add all the thicker tree trunks. And then as we progress, I might have to go ahead and switch to a thinner brush. So this is the only thing which I am doing. Going away from the sun and hence I am using my CPR color. You can see that I've switched my brushes. That's the only important difference or that's the only important thing that I need to tell you. Rest, everything remains same. When you add any of the branches, either it from the bottom or from the top, just don't make lots and lots of branches in it. A few of them here and there, as you progress towards the top, they will become more and more thinner. That's it. I guess this is it. What I want to tell you, keep it more original, keep it more normal, as is. And then let's have a look at the final outcome, how it turns out. One thing that I must tell you is throughout this whole of the painting, you must keep in mind that you cannot draw these trees until and unless your snow has dried off completely. Do not try to overpower at any point in time. Give it the time it needs for making it go lighter or making it go absolutely drier. Yeah, once the paper is dry, then only start with your trees. Do not shorten that tine up. I like to keep the trees or you can say the branches, et cetera. Once my paper is absolutely dry, yes, there will be some water on the back side of the paper, it would not be an absolute dry one. But still, the colors will not move into each other. That is the stage which I really want for you guys. And the colors should not move onto your hands. Some of the people also use a glove. I too have bought a glove very recently. I'm yet to use it. I will review it and let you know, is it a game changer or is it a real one which can help me to not smudge any of the places, but till then try to have a dry surface before going over it on any of the top places with any of your darker values. Right side of this part is already done. I will go ahead and move to the left side. I will go ahead, branch it out more and more. As you see, I love to branch out my trees, and that's why I keep branching them out wherever I think it is necessary and whenever it is necessary, that is something you must keep in mind when you are branching out your trees. Continue to do this process, continue to add some more lines as you just see over here. Painting trees have been very meditative for me. There is less to be done, and you can just continue to follow as you go just go over the lines that you have already added. In the initial part, you can go with some darker lines, too, because this is a very, very dark line or value that we are using at this stage. You can see, yes, there is some amount of smudging. I also do this. So yeah, we all tend to make our mistakes, but till the time, we can actually get away with it. It is good because watercolor is less forgiving compared to any of the other medians. Once we are done, it's time to add our golden border on this now. When you are adding your golden border, your paper needs to be really dry. So make sure your paper is dry and then have a fun look at this painting. I would say this is one of your favorite paintings if you are in love with light and shadows. 11. Bonus Lesson 2: Let's have a look at all the colors and the size of the paper which we are going to use for this bonus lesson. Hello, guys. This is the last bonus lesson in the winter magic class, and I'm going ahead with the sketching first. Once I'm done with the sketching, we will go with the painting part. You will see that I'm going with very light sketch with the help of my scale. You can also go ahead with your scale. There is no problem. The size of the paper absolutely has changed. I have already mentioned the size of the paper in the initial part where we have discussed about the color so that it is easier for you to understand what is the size you can take. It's a bit smaller than E four size is all you can expect and then started. We are going with lantern lines as of now, and I would be drawing a lantern. Now, a lantern last two particular painting that we are doing in this winter magic class is all about painting lights. And when it is about painting lights, one was in nature, how you paint the light when there is a sun. And the next one is when there is of course, we have also built up a human as humans, we have built up a lot of the monuments and then roads, buildings, et cetera, how light falls on it, and how it glows on the snow, as well as the whole of the painting has a lot of perspective in it, which we did study in the initial section of our sketching. So all of it put together, I have added in this particular painting. Super excited for actually discussing this particular painting with you guys. Just go with simple sketching as I'm doing over here, and then we will go ahead with the soft approach. Soft approach means more of wet on wet approach for the entire painting. There would be less of wet on dry and more of wet on wet. We will first make a straight line and then add a slanting line as we go below, there would be a circle, too. As you see over here, once I have added the circle, I will go ahead and erase it. Why do we erase sometimes Because we just don't know the scale and the style in which we have to paint whether it has come down or whether it has gone up. So all of it we do keep in our minds, and that's the reason we have a pencil and eraser. Most of my paintings that I do is particularly final or I have seen with some artists, they do a very rough sketch and then again, come back to it with a final sketch, which takes a lot more time. Though that is not my style, I usually go ahead with a final sketch in the first go itself. If I need to balance or add any checks and balances later on, this is how I do it with it. Maybe if absolutely the sketch has gone wrong, then only I will go ahead another final sketch after removing the colors from the entire paper or you can see the graphite marks from the entire paper. Colors means, of course, it has to be the graphite marks, right? Great. Okay, let's continue with this sketching. There is about 8 minutes that we would need for this sketching. It's not a very easy sketch, just a horizon line or something like that. Yes, there is lantern, and we have to also draw the lantern. There's a bit of perspective because there's a bridge on the left side, as well as there are a lot of trees that we are going to add on the right hand side, but mostly in snow and even in snow, I have added various kind of shades like a golden and silver and white. So all of it put together has come out really well. You can see I have made a basic lantern first, and then I'm now extending it on the right, as well as on the left. Now, this lantern is easy to make and is easy to go ahead with. There is not much of complexity which I have added, or I do not need to also show you a lot in terms of the sketching, how to actually finalize the sketch or how to initially sketch and then finalize simple, easy, good to go ahead with. If you are someone who is in love with painting any buildings or you are someone who loves urban sketching, I think this is one of the paintings that you can always always look forward to and have in your urban sketching, book as together as the sketchbook which you own. No. I'm broadening up the bottom part of this particular lantern, and then I will just also push it down as you see over here. Slowly, steadily, I'm building up on this lantern. I'm not in a hurry to build up on it at the initial go itself. Slow and steady always Bins the race is what I feel. You should not ever hurry up any of your paintings. Just try to go slow, try to add as much as I would say, lines or particular darkness that you want to use with your graphite marks for your final painting that can come out absolutely amazing. We are about to end the sketch almost. This is the major part of the sketch that is drawing the lantern, as you all know. Rest, there will be some background trees, either you can make it now or you can also do it once you are done with your first layer of colors. This would be mostly wet on wet as you have already in last or in the previous paintings. There will be more classes where you can do more of wet on wet. I feel that is one of the areas which is not being touched much. And I really think that if we can consider doing in a way that helps you all to learn how to make soft paintings rather than having a lot of hard edges. This basically is a road which is connected to the bridge like structure, and there will be a man, which I'm going to add in the middle. You will see that it's a very, very small person in the distance, as you all know a bit about perspective and the vanishing point, whosoever appears in towards the horizon line or towards the place like this, you will see the structure to be really small. I'm trying to make a very no frill kind of a human being, which means that I am not going to add a lot of detail. There will be a body and legs. So it would be basically your torso and legs, some bit of a hand path that you would see, and that's it. We are anyways going to paint it in a dark blue gray shade or a neutrt shade, as I usually don't have any black in my painting. Though I'm not saying that you cannot use, please go ahead. Try using black in your paintings. I know many of you love black and white paintings, and that's something I also like, but yeah, I try to avoid black in my paintings as whenever you introduce black, what happens is that your painting might turn very dark. And that's the reason when you are a big no or starting out with watercolor, it might be very difficult to go with a black part. Time to just go ahead with some of the yellow, and this is the yellow that I'm going to add for this particular wall. Now, this wall is where the illumination of the light is falling, as well as on the bottom part. This is how I am imagining. Of course, you know, when there is a lamp, the reflection will appear on the wall that's there, as well as on the ground where the complete light is falling. A particular work of a light is to eliminate the area where you actually switch it on. And that's what I'm also going to depict over here. Once you have added the yellow, it's time to add the blue. You can go ahead with Prussian blue or else you can go ahead with any of the blue of your choice, but on the darker side, it can be also an indigo indontrine blue. These are the blues where you have a lot of option. You can also go ahead with ultramarine, but you might have to mix it with a color like I say don trine or Prussian blue to make it darker as we progress. You can also try to have lighter values initially and then go ahead with the darker value as I always do the same. I'm not going to mix the colors, though the paper is still wet, as I've applied water on both sides of the paper on the back side, as well as on the front side. I have taken some amount of coral color. This is quinacridone coral from the brand Daniel Smith. Though you can go ahead with any of the colors that's available with you. There is no hard and fast rule of going ahead with the shades that exactly matches to the one which I have or I'm using. Only one thing always keep in mind, an artist's great paint can help you to have a color or a look and feel as you see over here in my particular classes. Whenever I'm painting, you can see those kind of shades and colors like I am doing or I am using. Or else what happens is your color becomes really dull as all the student ray paints are made out of binder and pillow, whereas an artist's gray paint is made out of binder and pigment. So here or there are three components for student red that is binder, pillow, and pigment, whereas the binder pigment is a great combination to have better paintings or a better painting outcome. Since you guys are putting in so much of effort, it's always good to go ahead with an artist's great paint. Ifever you want to invest during the Christmas season or give yourself something or even on your birthday, I would say, this is one of the great things to always, always go ahead and gift yourself. I've mixed a bit of the coral and the blue, and you can see the colours that I'm applying now is with the help of my size four brush from the brand DaVinci. Time to add the trees for the background. I'm using the tip of my brush, and I have this neutral tint from the brand, Windsor and Newton. I really love this colour to a great extent. I have been using it for many of my paintings, but lately, I have been observing that even you can go ahead with other neutral tints of Snelia, et cetera, but senala does move a lot more than the nutrtent which you get from Windsa Newton. And if you want colors to even move less, you can go ahead with Michello Mission gold. Micello Mission Gold is a paint where I have seen that the colors don't move at all in the whole of the painting. It is a perfect combination when you are using water and pigment, the ratio goes so well that the blending is also perfect, as well as they don't move so much that they occupy the entire area. I will switch to my thinner brush and make a few more branches. You can do it now or else you can also go ahead and do it later on. I would leave that decision up to you, but this painting looks very bright and vibrant, which gives me lots and lots of, I would say hope and the beauty that it needs to have a great outcome. Always the outcomes are not very good, and it's just the initial feeling. There are so many paintings which initially I did not like, and once I completed it, they were one of the best or the masterpieces which I created. So you really can't say that this is the best of your work or this is not the great work that you have done. It all depends as you progress with your painting. You can see that I am occupying various parts with the help of my blue for the background. Now, this is basically leaving the area that I have for my building part on the right, Leaving that area, I will go ahead with either dontrine or you can go ahead with the color, which is Prussian blue. I would leave that decision up to you. You can also make some ultramarine like me, which I always always do or some T blue. These are the colors which are my go to shades for most of my paintings, you will see these colors coming up. Tal blue, I usually don't use nowadays if I'm using yellow because it creates the green which I don't want for my paintings. As you can see that my paper is still wet for the top part, and I will go ahead with some tree like structures. These are pine trees that I want to add on the left. I'm using the same blue and neutral tint mix, which I did prepare initially and going ahead with these marks with the help of my Escoda brush. Now, this escota brush is also known as Escoda optimo and it's like a pretty old brush around five to six years back. I did purchase it when I was just starting out with watercolors. All I want to say is, if you are going ahead with good brushes, they do last you long hence you do not need to always or continuously go ahead and purchase more and more brushes. Oh I will again go ahead and draw the dry trees with the help of the tip of my brush and add some more fuel lines as the other parts of the trees have really gone very, very blur after I have added the blue on the top side of this painting, as you would see because I had to get these effects, and that was not possible without adding some more blue. Blue that I added initially was way more lighter than what I really want. And hence, I had to go ahead with some more of this beautiful shade of blue that I don't know how it gets created with the help of so many colors, the mixes, et cetera, which I have. You can also use a mix of your iridium blue and Prussian blue to get a shade that looks similar to the one what you usually see on my paper. Growing trees and branches are always meditative and it takes a lot of time. Hence, do try to enjoy this process or else it might be very difficult for you to continue with the background. As the whole of the painting takes quite a bit of time. It's not going to be very easy. You start and you finish something like that. And hence, as it takes time, you need to also enjoy the process. I will go ahead and just paint the man who is sunning over there on the bridge. And then we will also add some more of these lines on the left, and on the right, I don't know why this whole of the pot on the left has started granulating, but granulating is always good. I do enjoy when my colors do granulate. So overall, for me, I think this is a great thing that has happened, but if you do not like granulation, never use ultramarine. Ultramarine has a granulating effect. Hence, you might get an outcome that has good amount of granulation in adding some lines for this bridge area. And once we are done with it, we will go ahead and add some more of the lines in the bottom area just to make it a bit more darker and there should be a good implication of the colors, and there should be highlights in few places. There should be lighter values in some places. So overall, this painting has to turn out in a way that appears really, really, I would say eye catching to anyone who observes it. My paper is still wet, and hence I can go ahead with the tree part again. Now, you can only work on the trees in case your paper is wet or else you will not get the exact, I would say, exactly the lines or the tree effect that you really need. My colors are still moving to quite an extent, but that's okay. We can overall go ahead with some more of our dots here and there. I'm going ahead with some of the dots even on the top part of these dry branches of the trees. I would leave that decision up to you you really want to add or you don't want to add. Now it's time to paint our building. This is my favorite part. I go ahead with a really dark brown or CPR color at this moment, and then when I go below, I will blend it with my burn Siena, as well as ultramarine. You will see how we go ahead with our colors at various places and how the blend happens. I usually like to blend two or three colors when I'm painting any buildings as all the buildings have wear and tear, and you may not always find the same color in all the places where when it was painted like earlier, whatsoever, even if be made of stones, there will be a wear and tear on the stones because of the heat, then the wind, then you have rains, all the weather condition put together. I cannot be same at all the places. You have to keep that thing in mind when you are painting any kind of buildings. Right now, I'm just trying to add the window. You might not be in a position to see it currently, but you can see it very well once I have added the colors on it. We will be highlighting a few areas and some of the areas we will not be highlighting. We are just going to go ahead with simple lighter and darker values to make some of the areas darker and some of the areas lighter rather than highlighting all the places where we would like to every time. So this is how it is. The more option you have, you would like to always keep exploring it as much as possible. So this is a kind of a yellow colour. This is more like a gamboge yellow gamboge kind of a shade. But you can go ahead with any color that's there on your palette. As I always say, you do not need the same shades, same colors which I have. You can also go ahead with yellow ochre. I would say that at this moment, I have less role to play as we are just playing with the shades and the colors. You have already added some amount of your paint screen, which is blue in shade or you have gone ahead with some blue and neutral tint together to get a colour that looks really dark towards the bottom, mixing it with some burnt sienna, as you see over here. So this is all I do mixing on the paper. Now, what's the difference between mixing on the paper and mixing on the palette? When you mix on the palette, you get a single shade, and then you apply that shade on the paper. Whereas if you are mixing on the paper, what happens is you get multiple shades, and those multiple shades can really actually show the wear and tear of your buildings. It basically imitates and it shows any kind of wear and tear that usually happens in any kind of building that is there for longer periods of time. Usually all these buildings are from your early 60s or 70s. The towns are from 80s, and then you can see that I mean, to say 16, 17, 18th century kind of places or maybe 19th century. And those usually are made out of stones or pretty bigger stones or maybe some walls, et cetera. So whatever is being constructed, it has got a lot of wear and tear is all I want to say. And that wear and tear, I can show very easily when I'm mixing the colors on the paper. Now I will start adding Gernsiena from the top, though the yellow is not wet anymore. It has already dried up, but let's blend it with the help of some water and the darker value, which is already there on the palette. Now it's time to work on the lifting technique. What do I exactly mean by lifting technique? I have this flat brush from the brand, silver velvet, and I go ahead by lifting off the colors from a few of the areas where I think it is necessary. The paper is still wet, but it doesn't have a lot of water. So this is the correct time to practically lift off your colors. If you have a lot of water, then the colors will move into each other, still or into the places where you have removed the sheade as your paper is made out of cotton and the colors to move on top of a cotton paper very well. Hence water control becomes a very, very important aspect in this kind of place. I will go ahead and add some more of my darker value, as you see over here and blend it with the burnt sienna. Just to make it look beautiful, pretty, nice. And whatever you say that this actually stands out, it highlights a few places, whereas highlighting all the places. I'm lifting out technique is something that I always always love to use, and many of my paintings I have used even recently for other paintings, too. Hence, all I can say is these are something that I am completely in love with. As I did tell you, just lifting at one time might not be enough. We are also adding colors, and hence the water is also getting added, so you might have to lift it once more, or the process might take two to three times before you get the final outcome. Once lifting out technique is done, we will go ahead and apply some clean water on the bottom part of this road area and then go ahead with some more of our darker values, as you can see, I am using some of my ultramarine and some of my coral to get a shade that looks a bit more purplish, of course, adding it. It's not highly purple, but it's somewhere in between, I would say, the blue, more of blue and really less of purple. I continue to add this shade. Always mix and match your colors. Do not go with any shade that I say. Just try to use mix the colors, see if the color is turning out or you need to add some more of your coral into it or pinks into it. Coral can be easily replaced by carmine or any of the other shade that you have available in pink with you and mix a bit of red into it to get a shade that looks similar to the one that I'm using. So every shade that we use also has an implication. It's not that all the shades are good or all the shades look good on paper. I am again using some amount of darker values towards the bottom area. You can use any color of your choice for the same. The paper has again dried off and I would be using my flat brush to add some clear water towards the top area, we have to also add some more of these darker values and going ahead with the purple that we have already prepared and adding the colors on this bridge area. Once the bridge area is done, we have to go back to the area where our building is and then add some of the darker and lighter values to show that this is the brown or this is where we have to add some more of our darker values to highlight some of the areas. I'm not saying each and every area I'm going to highlight, but yes, some of the areas do need a highlight at this moment. It's with the soft edge. So your colors do move a bit rather than staying absolutely in hard edge. And this particular thing I really love for all my paintings. I love to paint soft, and the soft effect comes out so well in any painting that you do. Let's get to the last part now. This is basically all about detailing and then painting this particular lantern. I'm starting with a brown shade and then taking it towards the bottom part, as you can see for this building, I will continue to add some of the other details wherever it is necessary, just the way I'm adding from the bottom these lines, taking it towards the top. I will also add some amount of blue mix it so that it looks darker in value in few of the places where the brown doesn't work well. I usually add a bit of ultramarine into it to make it darker. I usually don't have any black in my palette, as I've already told, and hence, I use these shades of blue, et cetera, to make it darker. I pick up the colors from wherever it is necessary with the help of my flat brush. You know that I love lifting the colors. This is what I'm doing even over here. Let's go ahead and continue to add some more lines, as you see over here with the help of my thinnest tip brush. Now, this just has a thin tip. It doesn't have a very thin bottom. So always know that there's a difference. I think I'm almost done with all the other detailing. It's time to start with our best part that is painting this lantern. I will go ahead with some of my burn siena, take some time, and then start out with this. I don't want you to hurry into it. It will take the time that it is needed. As you see that there's almost 10 minutes which I have kept only for pinking this part. I start with my brown, then I will go ahead with some amount of the other deeper values of brown, which can be mixing it with some amount of blue or it can be even with some amount of white, dark brown that is CPR. So I would leave that decision up to you how you want to pick up your colors, choose it, and then start adding onto it. Some of the areas where I don't want the colors and I have just added it, I will go ahead and pick it up with the help of my clean um, I would say flat brush that you see over here. I will use the top of this particular part of the lantern and then add the lines. Once I've added these lines, I have to also color this part. It's just that I'm taking it very slow. I do not want to commit any mistake. This is the last part that we have to paint hence, getting into any mistakes at this moment, of course, will not be a very good idea. Going slow is always a good way to just have your energies conserved and not to try to see that. Okay, I have to just end it. Okay, let's go fast, fast fast, but, you know, fast will never help in any watercolor painting of yours. All I can say is, if you have the patience, you can nail any watercolor composition of your choice. Let's go with some more of these lines in a few of the areas. The area that is white, I would leave it as is. I do not want to touch everything. I will just go with some clean water to touch upon a few of it. Rest of the areas, of course, I will use my burn Siena, and then we have to also make these handles that is actually holding this particular lamp. All of that needs to be done. So be around. There will be some music. You can listen to it, just concentrate and keep painting. I hope you are enjoying this bonus lesson, too. If you have liked anything about this painting, please go ahead and leave me a feedback as it is not only a great source of motivation for all my future classes, but also I get to know what I can improve upon or whatever you have liked in the class. A constructive feedback is something that I always always look forward to. Mm. The illumination of this lamp will fall even on the handle, and hence I'm making it lighter. As I go a bit more towards the right, I will make it darker and darker. This is how I usually work through the light. I don't know, like, there can be different approaches, but this is my particular approach. I have painted lights now for many years. I paint lights, sun, et cetera, and there have been many paintings which I have come up with, but this remains one of my favorites, and I hope that you also find a lot of peace, enjoyment and laugh when you are doing this painting. You know, all the creations or the whole of the part of creativity is based on the fact that you enjoy your time. If you enjoy your journey, I can tell you you are going to nail your paintings. Even if it be not nailing your paintings, we do learn something, and that learning makes a lot of difference in everything that we do. And hence, I guess, I always, always say this to everyone who is into watercolors, to try to get like, you do not need to al always get into each and every painting. Just try to work through the basics and you are done. We are not perfect, and hence everything cannot be perfect. You can also go ahead with some splatters if your paper is wet enough. If not, then just leave those platters. I would leave that decision up to you. This creates the way the snow is, so all of it put together, it looks nice. So I can tell you what I usually do for my paintings. I have added some water or a clear layer of water in the area where I think that I need to add some more of my darker values. I'm almost done. Then we need to add the golden on the borders. You know, that adding the golden makes this painting completely stand out, so we need to use that for the entire part of the borders. You can go ahead with something which is like silver or copper or any of the other colors. I love the golden. That's why I added the golden, but these all colours also look great in any painting. Mm. I wanted to experiment. Hence, I went ahead with some of my golden splatter. You can do this or you may not also do this. I would leave that decision up to you. You can see how I'm adding these golden splatters on top of the bottom area and the top area. This looks very nice and very pretty as far as I feel, and then I will go ahead with white splatter. You can also go ahead with silver exactly the way I'm using splattered. These are handmade paints from my own brand, vibrant parcels. They look great, amazing. It doesn't come out, and that's one of a great quality that we have. When we manufacture these paints, these are all handmade and hence you do not have any kind of chemicals in it. It is usually the binder that is made out of gum Arabic and the pink pens.