Winter Marathon - Celebrate the Season With Watercolors

1. Introduction: Winter days are usually lazy days where I love to wrap around a cozy corner and sip my cup of coffee. But how about painting five beautiful paintings, sipping that cup of coffee, which is after your taste? I a an artist instructor, mother skillshare, teacher, and grand owner of Pirin parcels, where we manufacture handmade sketchbook artist W paints, brush roll, and Mucho. You can also find me on Youtube bargaining watercolor illustration letter. I give up videos every week. Today's class is all about painting five beautiful magical winter scapes. Now each of these winter scapes are exclusive of each to you can start with any painting of your choice, though I always like to add it in an increasing order of difficulty. Each of these lesson has an initial part where I have walked you through the entire process of how we would be approaching the painting, as well as what are the colors that are required to complete that painting. Before we start out with any painting, it's important to always know what are your basic materials, like the kind of paper brushes, as well as water tissues, et cetera. Whatsoever I will be using for all these painting, water is the key. You have to go ahead and partner with this beautiful medium. Water in water colors, winters, should not wait any further. Let's start out with our first painting. 2. The Flow Stepwise Approach: This class is going to be pretty simple, easy and interesting flow of colors. We are mostly going to deal up with the basics, like all the materials required. Then each of the lessons is going to come up with an initial part where there are a set of colors which I'm going to use for my painting. Then we walk through the entire techniques part where I continue to discuss about the basic techniques of water colors and how I'm going to use it in my T use are your time with English voice over so you can just fall along and paint with me. Do not, do not forget to just stop at any place wherever it is required or go ahead and reduce or increase the speed as for your need. Let's move on to our lesson now. 3. Materials All you need: Before we start out with any of these five beautiful paintings, it's important to note what are the materials that I usually prefer when I walk along with watercolors. For all these painting, water is the key. You have to go ahead and partner with this beautiful medium. Water, water colors, the exact materials are, one is your arches. 300 GSM, 100% cotton paper. And this is 7.97 0.9 inch. But I did cut out this paper from interior sheets. Each of the sites, like this particular site, is 18 centimeter, and this particular site is around 15 centimeter. That's the size which I'm going to use for doing all my paintings. We can see that's the size for all the paintings. Let's discuss about brushes, brushes. I'm going to discuss a few of them which you need for mainly completing the painting, though you might see a few more, but those are really not required for the entire painting. One is a wash brush that you will really need. One is a blending brush, or you can say the Casaneo brush. It has been one of my favorite still date. Another one is my Escoda Optim brush. I'm not sure if you can really see anything over here as it is not very clear. It's a very old brush of mine and that's one of the reasons you can't see it. It has got a very nice tip. Then I have a silver ruby satin monogram liner brush. This is a very beautiful and nice brush. I have been using it for many of my recent paintings and it's really amazing to go ahead with it. Okay. The Vinci Casino Route brush size three. These are the brushes. I will have two jars of water as always. One for washing my brushes and another for my clear water that I really need for my paintings. This is the ceramic palette that I'm going to use now. This ceramic palette in particular has got a lot of wells in it. You can go ahead with any palette of your choice. But in ceramic palette, your paint doesn't stay for a longer period of time. Now, usually paints come in various nature shapes sizes. Either it can be cubes like this or you can store it in belts like this. They also come in various half pans, full pants, et cetera. For me, I always prefer full pants. Now there is a reason for it. Now what happens is if I have to dip my brush in it, you can see that my brush goes completely inside it, and the top part of the brush remains the same way. Whereas if you have half pans, your brush will always go over here. And what happens in the process is that you might end up spoiling the. That's one of the reasons I always prefer going for full pants rather than half pans. I will keep a scale, a pencil and eraser, very handy, because a few of these paintings do require some amount of sketching. And all you can have a tape handy by your site. Now this is a washi tape. Why I need it though. All these paintings are done on an acrylic board like this. As you see, this is the acrylic board where I would be using all the sheets. Like one of the sheet will stick to it and I will apply water on the back side of this as well as on the front side of this. That's why I'm going to use it. But for particular painting, I'm going to mask out these areas using my take. You will see as we progress through all the PTs, okay? Now, I guess this is it that I wanted to explain. Every painting comes up with its own set of colors. I will tell you what are the colors that I'm going to use. Let's pocket for now and go ahead with our next lesson. 4. The Loner Colors & Techniques: The first painting is also known as the Lunar. You can go ahead and create this beautiful painting with minimal amount of drawing, then we are going to work around with limited part. Let me walk you through the basics of all the colors that we are going to use followed by the techniques that we are going to go ahead and walk around with for this painting. Says, you all know that this is a limited palette painting that we are doing. I really wanted to keep it simple, guys. We'll go ahead with very few shapes. The first shape that is from the lightest value is my nickels yellow. Nickels yellow is a shade which I would be using for these areas. You can see it very well for some of the more illuminated spaces, or the spaces which look more vibrant. I would go ahead with Indian yellow. Many of you already know that I have been using Indian yellow for quite some time and it's one of my favorite coat of colors, selling your orange. Now this is mainly for this wall space where we need a bit of orange. If you have red and yellow, you can also create your orange. I usually mix a bit of my maple yellow into the orange to get a bit lighter value compared to what I have. The darkest value that I'm going to use is Neutritent. You can also keep burn Siena in case you are not very, very confident about the colors or the shades, etcetera. For the brown, you can also use some amount of brown for the toppy. Let us understand a few basic techniques for our water colors. One is when you apply your brush to your color, then you directly apply on the paper. This is a wet on dry method where we have wet paints, we are touching it to the dry surface of the paper, and therefore, there is a wet on dry method that we're doing. Let's go ahead and apply some water on the surface. I have applied some water. There is no particular way that I'm thinking about applying water. I would go ahead with rush smaller brush and then start applying some colors. Now the colors will move because we have water already on the surface. This is our wet on wet method. Then comes one of the most interesting techniques, that is you apply some water on paper. This is more about controlled approach of water colors. This is really important for our sky. You will see that I have optimum amount of water on paper. There are no no places where my water is moving. To a great extent, I would go ahead and start with my blue to create simple clouds. Let's go ahead and create some simple clouds where water will not allow the colors to move a lot. You see, my colors are not moving to a great extent. This is more of a controlled approach that you are going to work around with. I love to work with this kind of intensity in terms of water that you have on paper as well as it allows me to really work well. You have already applied some color. We are going ahead and applying one more layer on top of it. I did go ahead with some lightest value. Now if I really want to work around with more darker values, I can cover up the space that I've already applied. With watercolor, I can create a gradient. Then I can again, go over it with my darkest or lightest value to create more shades or even the clouds that you are planning to see. Okay, let's understand this in a bit better way. I'm going ahead with some more darkest value over here. And then creating my clouds. You can see how the clouds are getting formed. As you go towards the bottom, they would become smaller and smaller. And that's okay. We are working through the same process. This is very imaginary. And I don't have anything in my mind while I'm creating this part of my sky. It's just to help you understand how we create our watercolor skies and how you can do your watercolor studies. Okay. If I go ahead and paint a small land formation over here, you can get it that more like a complete painting. Go ahead and apply someone brown. You see how easily I have gone ahead and created a very simple painting using a very few colors. And we don't need to really think much. Now, I will just show you another simple technique. Now, when the colors flow a lot and you really want them more controlled, you can go ahead with a brush like this and just pick up the colors from a few areas wherever it is moted, like the one you see right now, or else even add the darkest value. The similar way I'm showing it over here, you can go ahead with some of your darkest value and now approach the painting when your paper is almost dry and it's more on the damp side. You can play around very well that way. Okay, I guess this looks great. Now let's understand another flattering technique, which is very important when we are working with watercolors. Going ahead and applying a light wash. This particular part, he would be working around the similar way it did allow the space to become a bit more dry then when it is semi wet condition, you can see the shining. I'm going ahead and splattering some water. You see how I get these textures. They are so nice and beautiful and you can use it for any of your future paintings to, it is easy to create an interesting one. That's it that we are going to learn for our first painting. We will go ahead and start with this painting here. 5. The Loner Painting: We only know the colors. Then the major techniques that we are going to use for this part of the painting, which is the lower, the sunrise, the snow, et cetera. Everything is very beautiful. Let's jump on to our listen now. This is one of my favorite paintings from the Marathon series as it has so much of simplicity in it and there is so much less that we need to do in a winter painting, but still it is one of the complete and most beautiful paintings that is there in this whole series. I'm going ahead with the three centimeter mark and you can see I have aldy marked it on my paper. I would go till about the middle part, which is around 1.5 centimeter, and start adding the head as well as the bottom part of the human being. I am not a person who adds figures to a lot of my paintings, hence, I'm a bit careful whenever I am adding any kind of figure, it has to match up with the perspective. This man is going away from us. He is appearing at a pretty far off of a place because of which the size is smaller to what it would have been if we are observing from more closer place. Hence, I guess you can also make this in a very quick and easy manner. The whole painting will come together very quickly. That's the best part about this painting, though. It has human being, it has sunrise as well as the bottom area. You can see that there is snow, et cetera. The painting takes really less amount of time if you see, okay, once you are done with the sketching part, which is majorly just adding the legs. And one of the legs, of course, would be a bit longer compared to the other one as the person is moving towards the horizon line. Hence, there are step by step the person is moving. We will of course paint those steps too. But first you need to just understand the concept, how it goes I together with the theme, as well as how it works for you. For me, you already know that there is a rule of thuds that I've taught in my previous class where you did watch the seven days of in seven different kind of landscape and it was all about the soft washes. We are going to apply a similar kind of concept even in this painting, it's going to be very easy. We will apply some water on the back side of the paper Once we are done with the sketching and we will stick it to the acrylic board. I will apply water even on the top area as well as on the bottom area. Place a small tape underneath so that the gravity doesn't work and you can see the water flowing from the top towards the bottom area. One important aspect, while you do watercolors, have your tissue by your side. If you have your tissue, I can say that that's one of your best friends, so that you can avoid any kind of cauliflower effect or backgrounds. Those are the things you have to take care of. There are many paintings that I did fail before I had this particular successful painting. Yes, having said all of it that watercolors is easy, you can go about it, but a previous, a bit of knowledge about watercolors is always always an add on whenever you are taking my classes. This is not a very, very basic class. As I would say, having a bit of knowledge is great. But each of the section is coming up with an initial understanding of what we have to practice and how we go about that particular painting. If you have day one or you have project one, you are getting a practice session along with it, which makes it really easy to float. I'm going ahead with now my yellow color. You can see that some amount of white space I have left. You can go ahead with size three or a size four brush while you add the colors towards the top part of the painting. The yellow is, of course, Indian yellow. It's one of my most lovely colors that I have always used. Mixing it with some amount of my orange and then adding it towards the bottom. As well as this orange I need to even add towards the top. You guys can always nail, I think sunrise, sunset painting. We have done quite a lot of them in all my previous classes. But why this particular painting is special because not only that, we have this sunrise, but also we have some of the darker clocks that I'm going to add as you progress through your watercolor journey or any of the other mediums. Some of the mediums, of course, give you opportunity to go back. We. Whether it be acrylics, you can go light over dark. But watercolor gives or has a less space in terms of moving back to lighter values. One of the reasons we always apply lighter value compared to the darker value first, is we love to have the darkest value later on so that it's very easy to navigate to the lighter value. You exactly know where you want to place your darker value once you have placed already or darker value and then you try the lighter value. Sometimes it's possible that the darker value get mixed with the lighter value. It just moves all around and you are unable to control it. That's why going with a conservative approach is always better for watercolors. I'm adding some amount of my senalar orange in various places. You can see that I have mixed a bit of Naples yellow also into it While I am adding this and some of the areas, of course are more darker, do remember that we do not want the colors to go beyond the horizon line. That's one of the reasons whenever I, my darkest value, I would like to keep it till that particular place going with some amount of my neutral tint. You already know about the colors and the shades that I'm using in this painting. All I need to tell you is control of water. You have to wait for one or 2 minutes, or 3 minutes once you have applied the water, so that the paper is not so much wet, that the hole of the puddles are moving here, and they're taking the colors everywhere, which we really don't want. There is a difference between having a puddle and having a moist paper. Or you can say an even coat of wash on the paper. I would love to have that even coat of wash on the paper compared to the puddles of water, which actually makes your colors move a lot. Okay, the darkest value is a neutral tint. I'm going ahead with it. I've mixed it with a bit of orange and I'm applying it in few of these pieces. Wherever I want to add the darkest value of the cloud. You will understand that I haven't tried to add the horizon line in the middle of the painting. One important aspect of any kind of a sketching, Of course, sketching is practically the base or the framework of the whole of the painting. Having said that, it's not always a possibility to have a bad sketch, or it's not always a possibility to have a good sketch. But to an extent, if you can have a framework ready for yourself, I think the final painting will, of course, be in your favor itself. So that's the only thing which I would ask you to keep in mind while you do watercolors. As always, have a basic framework by your side. I'm not saying that you have to draw the steps of the man who is walking, but you need to, of course, take care of the man and the human figure that we want to add. I did apply the darker value on top of this man, because after we apply or one wash or two washes, you will see that automatically the graphite marks will go lighter in value. I always use a drafting pencil, which is anyways, quite light on paper, using my Escoda optimal brush to add the darkest values. Now for making the trees, now these trees are basically far away from the place where you are watching it. It is near the horizon line and that's one of the reasons why you make sure that they are absolutely small. We do not want any dark values or we do not want lots and lots of trees which are ranging really high. That's what I want to avoid in this painting. I know that you guys already have some amount of knowledge and if you don't have, I would highly recommend you to follow last two of my classes, meditate with watercolors, a 14 day watercolor challenge. The next one, which is all about painting mist and fog over seven different landscapes, I think that can really set the tone for this or the whole of marathon series. We already have done two marathon series, but they were a lot more lesser in terms of the difficulty level. I would say having said that, it's not that this particular painting is difficult, but yes, there are more elements into it. And we have also progressed in our watercolor journey. Hence, there is two or three important aspects that I would ask you to also follow for watercolors. Okay, going with my darkest value now for the trees and I'm using this needle shaped pointed brush, which is majuly my escoda optimo brush, I have been using these brush for. A lot, many years. And I know this is, has been one of my favorite as well as comfort brushes over these years. Though you get these kind of brushes now very often in other brands like the Vince, et cetera. So you might have to just check what's available in your country. And then if you want to even purchase something like this, please go ahead. It can last really, really long. You can see that past three years, or four years that I've been teaching almost on skill share, this brush has been pretty much constant through all the paintings. Okay. Just blending the bottom parts so that the colors don't move towards the bottom area. I did allow my paper to dry completely before I'm going ahead with the bottom area. The color, of course, has to be the neutral tint. Neutral tint is one of my favorite shades. Believe me, for winters though, I would love to paint all my winter season with this neutral shade. Having said that, that's never a possibility. Yes, going ahead with other shades too. But most of this is limited palette. You can see we are using maximum two to three shades in these paintings, and that is only defining the whole of the winter season, winter season, fall season. You can see that the colors are pretty less compared to what we usually use during the summer than beach trees, et cetera, where we literally create so many colors on our own. Just mixing a bit of blue for the darker greens and all of it. Yes, not getting into a lot. I would say just go with the flow and add the darkest value. And few of the areas near the horizon line, I have added some darker value, but I'm not very happy with it removing some bits and parts of it, as well as adding the darkest value towards the bottom. I would even splatter my water on top of it. Do not worry, there is a lot coming up. Splattering is pretty common in most of my winter landscapes. I do this technique in other landscapes too, because that really gives me the texture that I need. Water is more handy compared to adding any other thing, whether it be a salt, whether it be other chemicals, et cetera, that you want to really add to the watercolor painting. I guess this comes really, really handy that way. Okay, darkest value looks so nice and I'm so happy with how the whole blend has come up me. This is one of my favorite paintings, as I've told you earlier also. And it would remain as one of my favorite painting though there is a lonely man there. A warm sunset. Sunrise. Of course it's a sunset, but you can also make a sunset. It's poetic and you can actually name it as you want. For me, it's a sunrise. I see the brightest side of the day. And this really helps me to brighten up my mood to a great extent. I start with the darkest value from the site and take it towards the middle. Now the main reason of this is that the cauliflower effect usually comes on the site. Once your paper is dried off, it's important to really prevent that part. And you have to also take away all the water from the site so that there are no backruns. Backgrounds do happen. I'm not, I mean, surprised if many of you come back to me and say, okay, background did happen. Yeah, it really happens. And there's cauliflower effect also. Whether you say background cauliflower effect, the water that's there on your board will come back into your paper because your paper is still wet and there is a lot more water on the board which can se, pen to your paper giving a very different kind of a texture that you would of course see. Even when we splatter water that particular place, the colors move and we just get some white small areas exactly what you watch over here. These things do create a lot more textures, but what exactly you want in terms of even texture is something that you need to know for your painting. Okay, I mean these marks of the shoes that the person left on the snow. The most important thing that you should observe while you paint these shoe mark is that when it is closer to us that you can say when the whole of these shoe marks are towards the bottom of the painting. They would be bigger, and when they go away from the painting or towards the horizon line, they could become more and more smaller. That's all. If you are happy, satisfied, there are no backgrounds, everything is fine, let the paper dry off, and then just go with the final painting of the human body in the middle and rest. I think the whole painting will come together and you would already fall in love with it. There is nothing much that you have to do. To be frank, as I always say, the more simple you keep a painting, the better is. You're always the outcome, okay? Adding a few trees towards the right as well as even on the left. I want to define the whole of this place a bit more compared to what usually it is in terms of the trees or in terms of the bushes that you want to add in the far away place, just exactly the way you have added the trees on the right. You have to also go ahead and add it on the left part of the painting and that is near the horizon line. We will just add a few lines, straight lines and just criss cross it towards the bottom. Just blend it with another blending brush. That's it and that's the max we are going to practically define, it is far away and we do not want to just go into a lot of details over there at this stage. Now, when I actually observed the painting that is just below the horizon line, you can see that, of course, there are lots and lots of backgrounds though. I did clean up the space. But yes, these kind of things can happen and you might have to go ahead with one more round of your watercolor. It's absolutely okay. These kind of things to keep happening and never ever think about the fact that, oh my God, the whole painting is ruined. Now, are these backgrounds, the cauliflower effect, this, the whole of the water colors has gone for a toss. I might have to go ahead and again, I don't know, you do not need to do that. You can just go over the space with some darker values and then just get it done. That's it. You will see how I am also taking it forward and just adding the colors on top of the values that I've already added. Dome. My paper is still not completely dry. I would suggest you to only do it once your paper is completely dry. This whole process can be a bit more tedious and more time taking. I guess you are fine with the sides. If you haven't got the cauliflower effect, no back runs, just leave it, let it, and then add the human being towards the middle part exactly the way I am doing in case you want to go ahead with another layer. Because your bottom part is lighter, of course, you can go ahead with this process once your paper is completely dry. Finally, I need to now clear out the spaces because this is a major important step because we don't want at this stage. Again, we get some more backgrounds. I need to splatter some water. You can see that paper is not very wet. It is semi moist, a situation which means that if I splatter water, it will give me the same textures that I did get last time, going ahead with the deeper values for the marks of. Shoes on the snow, then we will just add or splatter the water. There's very less that is left right now. You have to let your paper dry off and then have the layer of the colors go into the human being that we are planning to add. That's one of the most important steps, I think in Pole of the painting that brings the painting together. This particular step would have been absolutely avoided. If I wouldn't have got the back Drs, maybe the whole of the painting would have ended within the 21 minutes period. Except the drying time that it takes, I do not like to use a dryer, and that's always been the case. I would leave all of it to dry off on it soon and then only get back to the next layer, then the bottom part of the horizon line. And once that part is done, we will just allow the paper to dry off. As I did tell you earlier, we want the concrete painting to be very organic and that's one of the reasons I have given so much amount of time when we are going in layers or when we are working through various aspects of this painting, whether it be the sky, whether it be the snow, everything takes time. And water colors, I would say is we work quicker compared to any of the other mediums because it dries off very quickly. It is a lot, much less messy compared to other mediums that I've seen. Even washes more messy. You have to clean up your brushes, you have to clean up the water char, everything takes so much amount of time. That way, I'm more happier with my watercolors and it's such a beautiful medium where you can have so many combinations. And the final painting would really make it the best that you can ever, ever think of. Okay, the paper is completely dry and it's time to go ahead with the human being. I will start very simple. Go with a bit of the lighter value, which is my neutral tint as I did tell you earlier. You can also go ahead with black. I'm not against black, but I usually don't like to use black in any of my paintings. I usually use paints gray. Now the paints gray that I had, there is some bit of blue into it and I do not want the colors to react and give me a green anywhere in this painting. That's one of the reasons I did not use that particular color rest. Otherwise, I guess the whole of the painting, I'm pretty happy with how the colors are moving, how this whole human being is coming together. Everything is so amazing. The whole process, I think I just enjoy the process more. That's one of the reasons I feel that whole of the watercolor painting is so beautiful. The final outcome is so beautiful. I'm enjoying every step and every bit of any painting that I do. I think that's the most important aspect. Whenever you are working with any medium, just fall in love with that medium. If you are in love with that medium, automatically, I think you will nail your paintings in it. This part is just somewhat detailing and we are going ahead with some of our lighter darker values here to add more detail to the human being that we did paint earlier. This particular human being, of course, needs to be darker than the background of the sky or the bottom area that hug 40 painted. Let's have a final look at the painting once it is completely dried off and just go ahead and make round corners. I think the round corners look better. That's one of the reasons I always love to get those round corners for all these kind of paintings, which are more wet on wet, and hence having a final look at it. I am finally done with this painting. There are a few key takeaways from every painting that we are doing today. So we'll list that down and you can have it at your disposal. Okay, Final look. 6. The Christmas Decor Colors & techniques: Here goes our second painting. This painting is all about creating a beautiful Christmas decoration with a candy. It's a must in all my classes, whether it be a lantern or whether it be a simple candy. This is the quickest and the easiest painting. Along with the beautiful negative background that you are going to do, I will teach you everything about creating this negative painting background, as well as walk you through all the colors that I have used in this painting. Started out with a very rough sketch of my tangle and it is a simple red angle that is illuminated. I would go ahead with my acrodon corn for painting this part. The speed of the video is to x, though you can follow along or adjust the speed as you wish. This is more to do with how I work around with the negative values. But first, let's just understand a bit about try and wet on wet when we work with it together. Wet on wet is a very simple technique that you will see how I work around in the next, when I create the negative painting. But first, let's work around it on. This is the easiest. When you touch your bed, brush with the dry paper, it is wet on dry. I'm going ahead with a gradient wash where I have a particular area which is more lighter in value and the other area that is more darker in value, while I go towards the right, I would add more darker value, That is my pink and some of my purple. This pink and purple basically creates the depth in the painting which you really need for this part of your cattle. The light is on the left, as you see, the darker value is on the right. I usually keep a lighter and darker value for all my paintings. That really helps me to understand how exactly I should go ahead and work around with my values. Values is a very important concept. You can create various values with one single painting too. If you are someone who is absolutely new to values, I would request you to go ahead and check out one of my classes that is a power painting. And monochrome as well as you can work around, meditate with watercolors, it has a painting that is starting monochrome. And there we have discussed values in much more detail in case you are someone who really wants to learn wet on wet. I guess again, the classes Tate with watercolors as well as there was the last class that I have released in which you learn about painting. Seven days of painting, mist, it's a high on wet, on wet kind of a class. By the way, right now I'm working around with my darkest value of pilet though it can't be seen very, very clearly, But you can understand now that it is more of a violet color. I did allow the piece to dry off, and now I had started applying my water in and around it. I'm not going to go completely into it. Next is my neutral tint. This is one of the most beautiful colors that I've worked around with till date. And I am completely in love with this color. I have not applied the color genuinely in and around my candle because there are chances that you get into the subject. Now, what are we doing right now when we are painting in and around the subject, that is the candle flame? Then it is known as negative painting. Now this negative painting is something that many of us might not have done earlier and this is more of wet on wet that you observe me doing. But many to use just going around the subject in a particular line or way with a Ton Frye method. On Frye method is way more easier. You can just leave out the space status for the flame and not apply any water in it. You will automatically get the flame in a particular shape and size status required. It would practically show off the illuminated part of the candle in a better way rather than going ahead and painting inside it. Now, this particular piece is amazing for this painting, but when we go ahead with the next painting, there is some amount of work that we need to do. Even inside the flame. Though I want to teach you both ways how you go without touching the flame and only use water. Whereas the other way is to also touch inside the flame and create various color shades, et cetera. That is a bit advanced and we are going to do it as we progress and go ahead with our painting. Okay. I apply two major colors. That is my burn Siena. The second one is my Neutritent. As you have seen, I'm going ahead and using simple water to clear out a few spaces, as well as allowing me to apply some amount of the darkest value. Though this is really, really tricky. I just want you guys to try it, but don't get too much into it. If you get an absolute painting the way you see over here, that's absolutely fine. You see how I've left the pace off my particular area of the flame and just left it like that. This is more advanced where you are applying clean water, just taking off any extra paints that gets into the flame, and creating a wet on wet effect. I have told you that this is advanced, so you may try this out for your satisfaction. Go ahead. Right. But do not get into it. Much as I've told you even earlier, don't get stuck at any point in time. Watercolors is not being stuck at any place. Going ahead with the flow and just enjoying the painting in total. Okay? Using my flat brush just to remove a few areas where I think the color has gone and you can also use a bit of white quash, but it becomes really tricky at this stage. That's one of the reasons I have not used it. And I like to use the white space of my angle flake. To be frank, you can even mask out the area, has dots or whatever it is and then create it. I would leave that decision up to you. It is a bit tricky as always and advance too, so it's quite an option that you can exercise and try it for yourself. Okay, let the fling area dry off. Once it dries off, we will go ahead and just paint the stick or the small thread that really illuminates the hole of the candle and provides the light. I think that's one of the most amazing parts and I would love to do that. Continuing with my cleaning up of the space, it will continue. It takes a while. You have to do it in multiple times to clean it up and eat it exactly the way you want, or really get the exact illumination wet on wet space that you have wanted. Always, It's a task, it's not very easy. It will come with time. Do not worry. Try it once, twice, or thrice, if possible, or else leave it. Come back to it. Maybe after all the five paintings, I'm pretty sure about it. You will nail it at that point. Okay, going ahead and creating the black piece. Now, this is one of the most dangerous parts, to be frank, because the whole part is white and we do not want to spoil it. Just understand that this particular part needs to be absolutely dry when you make this black part of the candle, which practically candle thread that illuminates the whole of the candle part and apply a bit of yellow on the tip of it. You can see it, usually when a candle is lit, go with the flow, Enjoy the process, enjoy the painting, and just pave the way for the next one. Let it dry, and let us discuss all the colors which we need for completing this painting. Now the Ps are yellow, as you can see. It has to be lemon yellow or Indian yellow. Whatever yellow is available with you, some burden, dark brown you can create mixing some blue in your brown that you have orals. You can also use When Brown CPR the colors like this. For the lighter values of green, I would go ahead with yellow green. Then I would sap green or dark green, whatever is available for the color of the cattle. It's red, but I usually mix some amount of micincrodone coral and red into it to create this along with it I have three ball spot decoration which is purple, pink. Then this is more of red. Here I have more of brown and yellow that I have added overall. Yes, there are a lot of colors that we required for this painting, but I'm pretty sure about it. Once you get a hang of how I am using the colors, you would be easily able to faker out the painting in total. 7. The Christmas Decor Painting: I am super excited and super pumped up to teach you this beautiful lesson about creating Christmas decorations. So let's jump on to our lesson now. Our winter marathon cannot be completed without a Christmas candle. And I just thought that this is one of the easiest paintings, though it might look really tough because of the wet on wet technique, et cetera, but you have to really give it very, very less amount of time amongst all the other paintings that you have done today. So let's just start out with marking our candle. And I am just marking two lines. I usually place my subject either on the left or on the right or on the top part, not exactly in the middle. That's something which I have been following for a while, though. When I started out, I did have some different experimentation or the ways I would like to change it to a great extent. But having progressed in my journey of watercolors as well as sketching, I do understand that if I place my subject either on the left or on the right, it has much better impact on the spectator compared to what you usually see in other cases. Okay. Going ahead and marking our line for the top part of the flame. And once we are done with the top part of the flame, I would go ahead and make some smaller circles towards the bottom. These are basically the decorating small, small balls which are really shiny. We will create the shine with the help of just water. Yeah, I know that it is not so easy to work with watercolors and we'd like to preserve a lot of white spaces that you usually see. I will be using any simple stuff that is available in and around. Like right now I have used a, my masking gave interior site to make two circles. Then I have used one of the small coins and made another smaller circle masking out the area of this hole of the candle as well as these circles. It is important because we do not want the colors to move into these. And we are going ahead with the backgrounds first. Then we will go ahead with the middle part or the main subject that you have chosen. Go ahead and apply the masking fluid in these areas. You have to dip your brush in the soap and then apply it over the entire area. Let your paper dry off completely and then go ahead with the water. Water would be applied on the back side of the paper as well as on the front side of the paper. Back side of the paper really helps your paper to be in place all it would also help your paper to stay wet for a longer period of time. Another basic water colors is starting out with the lightest value. Lightest value would be some amount of yellow and orange in and around the flame where my candle is lighted. Then we will start out with more dark value, starts your burn sienna, as well as CPR, or when I came round. Now I would leave that decision up to you. If you want to mix your ultramarine with the burn Sienna, that is also a good option to go ahead with the darkest value which you want. Now these are the options that I would always like you guys to explore and always to go ahead and add less of these colors or have less of these individual colors, and go with mixing of the shades to get the final darker values. Having said that, I know many of you might be just starting out on your water color journey. And it's always good to exactly know the names of the color that I'm using. And hence, you can go ahead with the indique, brown or CPA, as I did tell you in and around the flame. Just try to add the lightest value as we have done earlier. And now I'm trying to blend the brown with the lighter shade of the yellow that has been aly added. To be frank, this is a of your gradient wash as well as blending gradient wash as I do say that we are going from the lighter to the darker values and blending comes in between or else all the colors that you see will not move into each other and they will look very weird when it actually dries out completely. I'm going ahead with my olive or sap green in and around this bottom part of the candle. Now, bottom part of the candle needs to be in the greener shade because I have these pine tree leaves over there. I want to keep it really soft. And subtle. That's one of the reasons I have just added it this way. The darkest value that I'm going to add into this part would be my darker value of green. Lastly, you will see that the browns will mix up with these greens to create beautiful value, which you will see that has automatically blended with each other. And frankly, we do not need to do much because water will do its own job. They will move into each other, the colors will get mixed, but not like puddles moving here and there. It's optimum amount of water that we needed. Only thing that we need to add right now is the darkest value of the green. Having said that, once your paper is completely dry, either you can leave it at this stage like I have done, or once your paper is dried enough, you can go ahead and apply a bit of your clean water in and around these balls and then get the texture of the ferns in a better way. I will show it to you as well. As that's discussed in the techniques part, you can follow the same just going ahead with some splatters of water. Once this part is done, I will just add some more amount of brown as I see that the water has done so much amount of work. That my colors are moving a lot and they are flowing. I'm not getting the darkest value that I really want for this painting. So those kind of things we need to really take care of when you are working with watercolors. Last thing that you need to do for this painting is to prevent your backgruns back runs can only be avoided when you clean up the spaces on the corners. Which majorly means that in and around this sheet, you need to keep cleaning up orals. The water that's in and around it will move into this paper and it will create some qualflower effect. Though it looks code, it's not that it doesn't look code or you have some problem with it. But cleaning is always a good idea. Just the way I am doing right now. You have to keep a tissue very handy for this particular process. Okay, time, go ahead and add some more yellow. I am just so obsessed with the blending part. Let's blend, blend, blend. And it's really important to blend. Having said that, we need to go ahead and add some greens. You have to wait two or 3 minutes before doing this process. The paper needs to be in a semi dry condition. If we go ahead and add it when the water is too much on the paper or when there is puddle like effect, the colors will move a lot and then you will we don't get any particular arrangement or we do not see much of an arrangement in terms of the greener values of the ferns or the leaves that we want to show. That's something which you need to keep in mind as the background should not move into the four grounds or the second layer that we are adding right now should not get blended with the background. The layer one, layer two is right now done on the same wet surface that we did add in the first go. You will observe there are only few drops of paints here and there and that's it, We are not going to touch it anymore. Just some parts on the top area where I want to add some more grounds. That's it. And then let your paper dry off. You can do the same process of simple addition of some ferns to give a bit of, I would say, lines, et cetera. It could look better when there are pins, But this particular arrangement is absolutely good. You may not go ahead and touch it anymore, you can leave it at this stage to winter, days are usually cold and during those days where you have the festive season, it's great to light up candle and just feel the warmth of the small candles that you see here and there. I really love this whole process and I usually have a red candle for the winter days. Then go ahead and keep adding some of the darker values towards the corner. As you see me doing it, I'm using my paints gray to do the process. You can go ahead with even black. I do not have any black on my palette. As I always say, paints gray is the best case option that I had, letting my paper dry off and then remove the masking fluid. Your paper needs to be absolutely dry before you go ahead and remove the masking fluid. Or else it would be very tough for you to remove any kind of masking fluid from the paper. And paper might also tear. I have fast forwarded the entire process of removing the masking fluid, but you have to really go slow in this whole thing. Okay, go ahead and start applying the Quinacrodon Coral color. This is one of my favorite colors. You can also go ahead with red. Mix up some amount of compose operan it aspolas add a bit of purple here and there. Or brown veriple, it is needed to add shadows. Okay. I guess I would continue to add the colors a bit slowly. You can see that my process of painting is quite slow. It's not like a really fast forward process. You can always, always follow along as it is real time and you can paint with me once your structure is ready. The structure is the basic framework and it is pretty simple most of the time. In each of the paintings that we have done till now, only the basics of a lantern, the human figure. We have simple, simple subjects that have been chosen for each of these paintings. But still, I do understand that many of you are not very well versed with the wet on wet technique. And for that, I would always suggest you to go ahead and check out my old 02 classes. One is all about mist and fog, where you can practically master these landscapes. Another one would be meditate with watercolors, 14 day watercolor exercise that can really help you to ace through each of your paintings very quickly. Okay, continue with the brown and then add some yellow towards the top area just to make it a bit more orange in shade. Make it lighter. Once we have added the yellow towards the top area, I would blend it more with the bottom color that is majorly my quin actodon coral or the red that I've added. I would leave it more lighter As that particular place is being illuminated with the help of the top area which I did lighted up. That's one of the reasons whenever you are painting the top area, it is just under the light. Under the light, it will be a bit more lighter in value and it would be a bit more transparent compared to what you usually observe the other parts of the scandal. That's all you can keep in mind and just continue working with it. This is not at all difficult as I did tell you earlier. Also, most of our backgrounds are set, Our foregrounds are very simple. There is nothing much that you need to do over here. Just go ahead and keep adding some more of your reds in your bits and parts of the painting, wherever it is needed. Do remember this basic aspect of watercolors. Whenever you are working with watercolors, less is more. Less really helps you to actually ace through each of your paintings. If you add less in your foregrounds, as well as you do not add a lot of detailed background, you can focus the whole of the painting only on this particular candle, which needs to be the focus area as it is the winter season and there is Christmas lights celebration. And we want to show all of it through this painting, starting with my decoration ball. I would say that the left side, you will see some light because of which in that particular area, we need to work more with water and less with colors. In watercolors, mostly you work more with water and less with color. And that's why the name is watercolors. Water comes first, and colors come second. Keep this in mind. Always, always. And I can tell you that you will nail all of your paintings and continue working if you actually practice regularly. I can tell you that you will love to work with watercolors as well as not only you will fall in love with water, watercolors, you would just feel so amazed. Surprised with beauty, that this. Holds for each one of you. And this medium is frankly going to help you learn, learn, re, learn, whatever you can think about. It gives us so much in terms of opportunities. I have seen, how much I have grown with this medium and how this medium has literally supported me. But what one thing that I've done, that I've tried to partner with this medium, there have been many failures in the process, and I have never been actually taken aback with all the failures that I had. I was always up for more new challenges, and that's how this medium has literally given me more and more rewards, rather than it being more of a challenge. The more I learn, the more I work with this medium, the better outcome I get from it. I am to add some loose lines which look more like stem. I'm using the tip of my brush. You can go ahead with any of your other brushes, size one, size zero, to paint these. I'm going ahead with my optimal brush size six. It has got a very nice tip on the top, which I have been using for many long years. And you have seen me using these in many of my other classes too? Yes. I'm going back to the same rush. This is my comfort brush and it has always been one of that. Adding two or more lines, 23 lines here and there. That's all. I'm not going to get overboard with adding more and more lines or adding more details into the background. That's what I'm not going to do because I want to keep this painting really simple. Even for the four rounds, you will not see me. Go ahead and add a lot of details because the whole of the painting needs to be really simple. In winters, you do not see that there is a lot of complexity except the one mountain painting that we are going to do, where there is a good amount of work that we have done, even in the Lego two other, all the other paintings that we have done, It's just a lot of work that we have done for the backgrounds. Maybe adding more colors, lines here and there, et cetera. Once that background is done, we are set with our foe grounds. There is only one single subject that we might have done for our foe grounds. And that's it, that's how the beauty of the winter season is. Let's continue and add more and more colors towards the bottom, as well as some color towards the top area. I'm going ahead with my paint spray for the bottom area again, or you can also go ahead with a mix of your brown and paint scray. If there is any blue also in your brush, it is usually some kind of black, dirty blacks that we get. And I will work with that for this illuminating part of the top of the kettle. Okay, great. I think this whole painting is coming together very well. Let's have a look from another angle. And I'm using some orange to create another decorating ball that we have towards the right, I am adding some of my darkest value. And as we progress, I'm blending it with more and more water. Water is going to help us, and it is our best friend, as I always say, blending the colors. Maybe I will add a bit of red while I go towards the right side of this decorating ball. Let's continue with the last decorating ball, and I'm just adding a bit more red here and there. In the second last ball that we did add, the last one, I would like to do it in most of the colors that I've used for my are warm in shade as the background is not so warm. And it is with the darker values, even the greens that we have used are darker towards the background of the candle because then our candle can stand out. Having said that, we want to give that warm, beautiful feeling of the Christmas season through this painting, and hence, I need to add some pk, a bit of purple, a touch of it here and there. And that's all we will be done with this painting. And once this painting is done, there is somewhat detailed touches that you need to add to the top part of the illuminated candle. I will show you as we progress In the bottom part, you can see there is some backgrouns. Those backgrounds are actually nice as I do tell you that every time whenever you have back runs, they are not bad this time they really act well. You will see once the painting is done completely. Now it's time to add the last few details to our part of the painting. Once it is done, I would go ahead and add a bit more detail in the other places where I have thought I would do and let the paper dry off. That's the first thing that you should always think about before you take off your paper from this acrylic board. Let it dry off completely before you just start shaping the sites of this paper. I always love to cut out the sites because this gives a very nice and rich look and feel to the painting. I hope you are enjoying this marathon with me and we will go ahead with our next painting where there is a lot more to learn about winters. I've been enjoying the winter season and every year I usually come up with a class. You have a Winter holiday greetings card and other classes too, that you can go ahead and watch from my last few classes that I have given, there are over 45 classes that you have at your disposal. So please go ahead, check it out. They all have something new and they are all done in a particular way which can help you to progress with your watercolor painting. I do even teach quash for anyone who's interested in Kash can also learn Kash. Okay. Ad in the final details, have a look. 8. Through the Window Colors & Techniques: Day three is all about creating what you see through your window. It's all covered with snow, and you have tried trees. So I could not stop myself from this simple, yet interesting landscape out of my window, which we are going to paint with very few sheets. Let's go ahead and check them out. There is lots of techniques as you have already learned a lot of them in the first two paintings. Let us understand all the colors which we have. One is ultra, meaning for short, then is some burns enough or brown oxide color. Whichever you have available with yourself, you can use that, use some ultra meaning blue for some of the parts of the trees as well as you can go ahead with any of the other darker value like nutritent to create the darker value of brown is something that I need to tell you. This painting is all the techniques that we have learned earlier will be used in this painting. No need to go ahead and any new techniques. It's mostly wet on wet and wet on dry that we're going to use only. There will be a specific use of masking tape. Keep a masking tape handy. That's it. Now let's go ahead and start out. 9. Through the Window Painting: Finally, we are on our third painting. This third painting is simple, interesting, but do not go by the length of the video as the video might look a bit more overwhelming once you start, you are going to get into it and end it like a pro. Let's go ahead. This is one of the easiest painting from the current series, but it took some good amount of time. Do not get over with the length of the painting that you see over here, but tab on how you progress. Each and everything is very easy in this painting. Just that there are a little more steps as we progress. We would be actually drawing a window. You can go ahead follow the steps. As you see I am taking right over here. And then we are going to actually individually paint parts of it. First we will be painting the scene outside the window, and then we will get back to the window and paint it. That's the reason for all the, so much of time that we have taken in this project. Okay, go ahead and start adding lines on both sides of the paper. As you observe me, I'm actually leaving some margin on all the sides. Towards the bottom, I would be leaving a bigger margin so that everything doesn't look more symmetric. But symmetry is something that you have to take care of as it is a window which is made by us. Hence, it would be way more symmetric than the other. Randomness which you see in nature framework of a painting is something that I always love to take care of. Hence, I am going ahead with this particular part of the sketching. It's all done by scale. Many of you might not be having the idea of using a scale, or you may not like using a scale. Please go ahead, go freehand Absolutely. With your drawing. In case you feel there is a need for scale, then only use the scale Now, because I know that so many of you do have this constraint or are new to water colors or even to the sketching. Hence, I do give out only simple, simple ideas that can be used for doing any kind of sketching or painting. I am doing the same, even over here. That's what you guys do need to keep in your mind when you do any part of your sketching or painting. Okay, Don't go with the flow. I would say at this moment, right now, it's important to at least lay a background for your future painting. Background is all about having a basic place. And what's the basics? The basics are our building blocks. Building blocks is basic of sketching. Sketching is something that I've always stressed on as we have progressed with our watercolors or painting. Though this whole of the series have literally some amount of limited sketching and most of them are done with the help of scale or different kind of hacks that I have also used initially during my watercolor painting journey. Yes, you are going to use all of it even for your painting journey. Let's continue and let's add more panels to the window. Now there has to be some more panels. Right outside is a beautiful winter day. In that winter day, you can literally have a look through your window and see that the trees don't have any leaves. They are standing there. It's mostly gloomy, though. There are other paintings which are more warm and this one is a bit gloomy. Be with me and let's keep enjoying this marathon. There is nothing much that you need to keep in your mind when you are working through this particular sketching. Because there is nothing like a lot of perspective or sketch or vanishing point, then your horizon line, et cetera, how it becomes more linear and how the two point perspective works, or three point perspective works. All of those complexities are not there in any of the paintings. What you need to keep in mind is that we are not going to place our subject. The subject is majorly the outside, gloomy weather. Just concentrating on either just in the middle of the paper. That's something I never do either. I place it towards the top side or towards the bottom side. You can see that this window is also shifted a bit towards the top. That's it. You need to keep in your mind and then continue with the process of painting in Kolkata. I usually don't get such strong winters, and that's one of the reasons I have this urge to practically look through as well as enjoy these snowy landscapes. I usually satisfy myself with these paintings and feel that the winters are very close. Though this time I really want to visit a few of the places which are there, like Jelling or Kong Kong. So these are the places that I really want to visit and see how the winter is with the snow capped mountain and snow in and around. But that's going to happen really late. Maybe late of January or February. But it's what my soul really, really wants right now. We can always paint that out on our paper and feel the season. So let's go ahead and enjoy the season with our watercolors. Watercolors has been one of the most rewarding mediums for me, and all I can say is that it would be very rewarding for you. This painting is not about a lot of water, so you can just relax, not think much, have any board by your side. We are going to go ahead and just, um, some tape put in and around these places as it is more structural. Yes, Putting the tape would be great. Many of you might think I get everything at the first, believe me. No. Even while I was sketching this, I was struggling with one more sketch before this. And I did it on the back side of the same paper. What a color paper can handle, paints on both sides. And that's one of the reasons I love to experiment and not waste any of my. If you are someone who is also in love with using both sides of the paper, then go ahead and use a sketchbook. Sketchbooks are one of the best ways in which you can not only help yourself paint both sides as well as save some good amount of watercolor paper. You can always finalize the drawing or painting on a final paper later on. If you would like something that you have painted on your sketchbook, that's how I always go about it. I have an entire sketchbook series. I have been using sketchbooks for last I don't know how many years, maybe four to five years. And there are a lot of sketchbooks that in these many years. I continue to paint and I continue to explore on my sketch books. There are a few rough ones and there are a few more prettier cells. Yes, I do. Just go ahead and paint my heart out on my sketch books. That's the way I keep myself. I would say that's a safe place for me. It's something that I have loved to do. I love to experiment on those sheets, let my fears go away, and not think much about how the whole painting is turning up. It really doesn't matter at that stage. Yes. You should also figure out those areas. What's your save? So because the individual sheets can go around, whereas a sketch book will not allow you to do that. Having said that, these paintings can also be used on holiday cards or you can give them to your near and dear ones. Something that anyone and everyone can do. This is the best way to celebrate the season. After all, it's one of the most beautiful season. We always watch out for every year. We paid for this time. Towards the end of the year, celebrate, I guess this is a great time to even celebrate with your water colors, what you have not been doing. Just pick your brushes, pates, et cetera, and start paint. Okay. Adding some trees outside the window. As I've told you, that's the same. Few of the trees would be more nearer and few of the trees would be far away. The far away trees would be lighter in values and the nearer one trees would be darker in values. That's how we are going to progress in our painting. It's time to apply my tape. And you can see how I have applied my tape. I have practically covered each and every part of my window. You can now start applying water on the entire space and we will be working a lot with the colors like ultramarine, then your brown oxide, or you can also go ahead with Burn Siena. There are these options that you can exercise in terms of the brown that you're going to use. I would be making the darker value of brown with the help of my ultramarine. That's one of my favorite colors whenever I work with season of winter. Yes, this is one of the colors that I love to use for my snow, for my sky. So go ahead and start using it a bit of purple here and there is good. You can also go ahead with pink and mix it with your ultramarine to get a light shade of purple, which you apply on the snow you can observe while I add the water as well as the paints, it's with my huge Mapra's, absolutely fine. You are looking out of the window and you want lighter shades? It is at a distance, yes. All using your brush is absolutely good. Go ahead with some brown oxide orals. You can also go ahead with burn Siena, then apply some amount of your tra maine. As I did tell you older, adding some ultramarine to make the darker values and show that there is some pushes foliage in the background and it is at a distance. Now, this is pretty optional. I would say that you can keep it, you may not keep it, it's up to you. I love to just show a bit of a horizon line and so that it gives more perspective and it gives more understanding about the land that I'm looking in, about the place that I'm looking into it. It's more scenic. That's how I like to balance out my landscapes, but this decision is up to you. Absolutely. As I say, it's foggy, it's not so good visibility, and hence you can just have lighter trees in the background and let it go. That's also a great way to look into it. Okay, you can see that I have got some darker values with the help of the mix that we have created ultramarine and ultramarine and brown oxide. Whatever is available with you, do not be interested into the colors that I have. What I'm using, of course you have a list of it. But just go with the flow. Use all the colors that's available on your palette. Do not think much. Half the ultramarine. It's one of the best colors that you can use as well as it's granulating. So you can see a lot of effects coming in from one single color, starting with my trees. Now the ones that are at a distance, I'm using my brown. Now, this brown is frankly my P sena. Let your paper dry off first, completely, and then only you can do this particular exercise. Go ahead and start making more and more branches. You have already added those branches. Just go over it With the help of your brush and paint the smaller, smaller branches that you've seen, you can go ahead with something like a very, very thin brush For doing this exercise. I would leave that decision up to you how you want to do it on your own. Then going to add more and more trees, even in the foe grounds as well as in the backgrounds. I really like to go with the lighter values for the backgrounds as I've told you. And brown is a good color or bercienas a good color for that, you can mix ultramarine in your bncena, as I've told you earlier. To get a darker shade of brown. If you have an K brown or CPO, which you're more comfortable with, please go ahead and use it in the foe ground trees. The whole of the painting, as I've told you, is very simple. I think this is one of the very simple paintings that we can do in any win, I think, occasion or any winter themed classes. It's just that it takes a while. Firstly, for the sketch, it takes about ten to 12 minutes. Then once the sketch is done, we have to move on quickly to our painting. Painting is also done in parts rather than what we have done earlier, just painting the background. Grounds and Vietnam, those kind of things. Of course we haven't been in a position too. That's one of the reasons you will also take some good amount of time to finish it off. Okay, continue branching out your trees at each and every place. I'm mixing some amount of tra marine into my burn Siena, or you can say any of the other brown shades that you have. And then start applying it for the four ground one along with it. You can keep in mind that this mixing can even happen on the paper, but you might get patches of blue and brown which is one of the reasons I just thought to avoided at this stage. You can of course, try it out if you are interested. Do mix your colors on the paper directly. Which means that you are painting inside the tree, not outside it. Of course, you are not mixing it anywhere else. It has two weak colors that you're going ahead and mixing. You can apply a light thin wash of water on top of the tree area where you want to add the colors, just add some ultramarine and burn Siena. They will mix into each other and you can of course, use your brush to do the rest of the mixing. This is a good way to try out new combinations and see how it works for you. Really want to stick to how I have worked out? I have told you exactly the way what I did follow for my painting. Painting trees has been really meditative process for me. It takes a while and I really love to enjoy that time, pour my a heart and soul into it. Keep adding the branches and just branching it out. 1.2 is enough. We are not going to branch out a lot, as it is not the green summer as well as the spring season that we want to show over here, new leaves are coming out. There are more branches. It's more to do with the winters. And winters are dry, They are not so nice, I would say, some of you might feel that way. And then the trees are also pretty dry when you see them. Always, always keep this in mind, we have to go with the nature, how it exactly looks. Do not get overboard with the fact that you have to add more branches or you have to add more trees. It's absolutely fine add two or three branches and let it go. We will keep painting more trees, more branches. As you progress in any of the other watercolor paintings too, do not add lots and lots of it, or else the whole painting will lose its charm. It's the winter delight, you can say, and I want to keep it in the similar way. Okay, some shadows are really important or the place exactly where the trees are originated. We should just add some amount of darker values in and around it and leave it pull. I guess I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out one or two here. And there is better. More is of course better, but what length you can go and keep adding trees or something that you need to always watch out for. It also depends on the size of the paper that you have chosen. My size of the paper is almost five. I love to add more and more trees. Five is a great size to go ahead with always for your paintings, rather than going with smaller paper. Smaller paper might not give you the exact experimenting. I would say tying that you want for any of your paintings, it leaves us with less space to experiment. Though, sized paper is always great, but sized paper takes more amount of time. Effort colors everything. I mean, it's just something that takes a lot of time. For me, I usually don't suggest when you are just practicing, I just pick up my size sketchbook and practice on a regular basis of if you are someone who wants to practice on a bigger size, please go ahead and do the same. Going with the middle part where I have this brown burn Siena I am adding for the window panes. Once I have painted the window panes, I would go ahead and add some ultramarine into it. You will see how they bleed into each other. That's one of the ways I did even suggest for your P. Now, once you have applied the colors, these are going to bleed. That bed looks so beautiful and amazing. Keep adding the colors into the window panes area once you have done. Just observe how the colors just make those beautiful shades from where it moves from darker to lighter, they go and blend into each other. We do not need to do much. Watercolors have to do their own job. Let water work for you rather than you working with watercolors. I always say that partner with this medium because this medium is really a medium which is going to reward you more when you allow it to work for you. Rather than you always picking up your brushes and continue working with it. Like wash, wash, you need to work a lot more. Whether it be blending, whether it be adding any foliage, adding trees, et cetera. Everything needs to be done from your end and there's a lot of way to come back to the whites, et cetera. Having said that, I feel that wash takes some bit more amount of time as well as it is forgiving. Hence, you have a lot of space to make mistakes, whereas in watercolors there's less space to make mistakes. I think it is different for every medium, and you frankly need to fall in love with this medium, or any of the other mediums to stick by it for a longer period of time. For me, watercolors have been one of the lovely mediums that I've followed, and I still love to work a lot with this medium. Continue working with it, and let's go ahead and even remove the tape from the other sides once this part is completely dried off. Once I have started removing the masking game, you can very well see that I did keep my white Synta. I do not want the colors to move a lot here and there. It's also good if you just want to go ahead and paint inside without masking these areas. But masking really helps you to have a free flow, not think, go as you want, it would just help you to preserve these areas. Now one is masking floor that you can use for your candle like we used earlier. This is one of the paintings where not going ahead and masking it with a masking fluid, because these are more symmetric squares, et cetera, and hence masking out becomes more easier for me. I'm going ahead with my just simple masking tape for masking it out. You can also cut shapes and sizes from your masking tape if you are someone who likes to only go ahead with masking tape. I have done it previously for a lot of my paintings and I still do. I love to do that as it helps to keep some of the spaces absolutely intact and not any much about how we keep progressing with water. Okay, great, let's just add some more brown. Now this brown is very simple. Go ahead, add the browns, and then we are going to mix more darker values. First is always go ahead and add the lighter values. Then we are going to work with the darkest values. It's time now to add darkest value towards the bottom. Weaver go slowly towards the sides and towards the top. Once I've added the darker and lighter values, I would start adding some ultramarine, darker and lighter value of the same color or shape that we are using. Ultramarine is to add more depth and darkness to some of the areas so that the middle portion, which is majorly my scenic beauty that I'm watching outside the window, stands out. That's it. I keep in my mind while I paint any of the sides, ultramarine does even have a granuating effect which gives some texture to the wooden panel that you observe. Yes, it's a good color that you can go ahead and use in your wooden panel or wooden paintings. You can see automatically, it getting darker, lighter, grandating, FX textures, et cetera. And it's soon. The color into a bit of this area and I'm going ahead with my tissue to just take off or lift off that extra color. It's always important to keep your tissue handy. Adding the colors is the most important thing. Having said that, it's important for you to work with a tissue that any place where you might have, go ahead and add more color or you want to lift it out, those things can be done pretty easily. Okay, cool. I guess it's time to keep adding more shades here and there. I would like to even add a bit more foliage to the background. It's a very light shade that I'm using. You may not even feel the difference much. You can even lead the step, to be frank, it's just that I wanted to add somewhat darker shade. I'm using this particular darker value of crowd for adding the foliage part. Once your paper is dry, go ahead with one more layer towards the bottom area. I'm going ahead with brown. And then I would blend it with the darker value. Majorly, your blue, you can see how I am using my blue in a pretty not so thoughtful way. I would say yes, just go with the flow added anywhere you want it needs to. Just wherever you add it, you would see the darker value coming up. I'm using my flat brush for doing this process. As you can see, most of the places where I have worked for the wooden panel is the flat brush from the Vinci. I have used it in the past too, and this works really well when you have to work on any kind of a wooden texture. Okay, continue with this and I will again meet you soon when I do need to actually tell you a lot more or I can say that at this point it's very less than I have to teach you just to go with the floor and paint along with me. That's it you need to do. As I say, I keep my paintings to your time so that you can follow along and paint with me, continue thing along with me. And once you are done, do not forget to upload the projects. I would love to see all of them. I am always very excited about your projects. Keep adding more of these darker values. You can see some of the portion of the windows standing out. Once we have added the darkest value towards the sites though, we did not do a flat wash. And this was more of a varicated wash shock situation where we did mix two to three shades and we caught the color of the window panes. Having said that, it's important to add depth into the painting, which means that we have to add areas which are more in the shadows or are darker in values and some of the areas which are lighter in values. We are just going to add that in our painting right now. Once you have added that, you would be in a position to see how much difference it really makes to the painting compared to what you already had till now. Okay, I guess I would like to blend the colors first and then we'll go ahead with the exact shadows that I have been talking about till now. The shadows part is not something that I do expect from each one of you to know, or maybe it just comes with a bit more experience. Just try to get along and just try to paint along with me. Having said that, I know it will not come automatically. Believe me, I was there at your stage a few years back and it takes a while for each one of us to get hold of water colors and really partner with this medium. I always say, do partner with this medium, do partner with this medium. And it has been pretty iterating in all of my classes. Having said that, I know if you can partner with this autiform medium, it's going to reward you like anything. Continue with some of the darker values. As I did tell you we are going to add once this part is done, I think there is nothing much that you have to go ahead with. Your background is done in terms of what you are having a look at outside the window. And or the priests that are really in the foregrounds are darker in values and in the background are lighter in values. We are done with all of it. There is less in terms of work that we are left out with. Okay, continue. We'll paint. Paint and paint. We'll add a very thin line towards the side of the right as well as the left. We'll also add it. This is majorly to show the darker values of the shadows on the window panes. Frankly, I don't have much to explain at this stage as you already are doing. Well, I'm pretty proud of how you guys are painting. The whole of this part continue slowly. This is the final detailing part. That would be my only suggestion to each one of you. Do not fast forward this process and do not lose your patience. This painting is really simple, just needs, I would say, some amount of patience. If you have the patience, you are going to nail this painting. You have done more tougher paintings when we started out with our marathon, though, They might look way more simpler, but they are more tougher when it comes to the kind of paintings that you are doing. Yes, keep this in mind when you go ahead and paint this particular window. There is not much that I have to go ahead and tell you about in terms of even detailing. Just go with a small thin brush. I have a very thin tip on the top of the and hence I am using that. That's it I think would be another suggestion from what I do experience or what you should be working around with at this stage. Somewhat broken lines in few of the areas of my window. Now, you can also have a pretty illuminated window if case you are adding some yellows in this window pane and there's a light or a candle that's placed near this windowpane, then you can, of course, make it a bit more yellow in texture color, et cetera. Those are the things that can be added at any point in time. You don't need to just think about it and then go ahead and add it. Okay, great. Less to work around with. You should be happy and proud of yourself. You have already needed a painting. There is a lot in terms of perspective in this particular painting, though the painting has very less to explain, but the trees that are there in the background and far away from us are lighter value, closer to us are darker. And value itself is one of the major rules of perspective. The horizon line we did talk about, that's another major rule of perspective, and I'd love to do that for this particular painting. There is less in terms of the window that you have to explore. That's it, and let's just go ahead and wait to finish this painting, dry it off completely, and then have a final look at it. I think you would be very, very happy when you are thoroughly done with each and every part of it, finally, see you in the next lesson. 10. Christmas Lantern Colors & Techniques: I have always painted lanterns throughout any Christmas class that I have given. Now, there is another Christmas class about painting holiday cards which is also available on can go ahead and check it out. I think you will always fall in love with any holiday paintings that you do. This again is a Christmas lantern. We are going to do basic backgrounds and how to create snow with using splattering of water. We are going to use almost a similar techniques that we have already learned in case there is anything extra in and around how to create the illumination of the light, which I'm going to teach you very soon. Let's discuss a bit about our techniques. I have this square people, I'm dividing it into equal parts. I have one more line here, I have one more line here. Then I have these as my focus points. Now, most of the subjects that you have is usually placed somewhere here, here. Or they are placed here. Even if it be horizon line where you are just making a landscape, we place it somewhere here or somewhere on the top. It is usually not at the middle and the subject is usually never placed in the middle of the square paper. These are the basic points where we have to, let's understand a bit more when we see this on the real scenario. If I divide my paper, you will see that my focus point is here. Which means I have added my lantern just in the rule of thirds basis where I have my focus point. I usually go by this even for my other paintings I can show you that. You see that whenever I am dividing my paper into three equal halves, I have placed my horizon line on the top, basically divide. I have placed my human being somewhere point. That's how the whole painting gets more balanced. In total, I guess you are great. Let's go ahead with the lesson now. Understand all the colors which we need now. The first color is co and a bit of neutrotent that you can add into it. Along with it we will keep something after Don, Coral or red, whatever is available. Yellow you can mix or neutro tent to get the other shapes of brown for this particular part of your Christmas lantern. 11. Christmas Lantern Painting: Our fourth painting is very interesting. I am truly in love with my fourth painting. As you already know now, this painting has got a good amount of sketching in it as well are going to create some beautiful backgrounds, branches of trees, et cetera, coming together as a full composition. Every composition has a few roots in this painting, I'm going to teach you those rules offered. A Christmas lantern can never be missed out when you are working through your winter holiday cards or even you are doing a winter marathon. What do you say? For me, it's a must. This particular painting is going to help you understand how to create backgrounds with beautiful, spluttering effect that looks more like snow, as well as how the glowing effect of candle works through this gloomy and heavy nights. So let's go ahead and start out. I would start out by sketching a single line, and then I would make an equal amount of distance. I will actually draw an equal amount of distance on the left as well as on the right. And then I will start adding another line towards the bottom. Now both of these line, of course, will be connected and we are going to draw a lantern. Nothing much that you should be worried about. Only that the main line that you have drawn, 789 and whatever centimeters you're going to take, just divided it into two equal halves. Once you divide it into two equal halves, the lower half is going to work through your lantern part. And the upper half will not only have the top area of the lantern, but also the holder which is basically hung on a tree branch. Of course, it has to be a tree branch or else you can't practically hang any kind of a lantern. You can also hang it on a fence, et cetera. But I did choose a tree branch for this particular anything. The bottom area of the Christmas lantern needs to be a bit more sperfle, but you cannot see the whole of the spare when you are going ahead and drawing it. I practically use a lot of scale while sketching because many of you are big N. I don't want you guys to get confused with free freehand drawing is as great to do if you are good with your freehand drawing free and use it. Just that many of you are intermediate in terms of sketching or big nurse and sketching. And I don't want you to get bogged down with the sketching part. To a great extent, whole of the sketching painting, everything is done real time, so you can follow along and paint along with me. There are no real measurements per se, it's just a simple identification of how we go about it. The final painting, of course, might differ a bit from the whole sketching, because sometimes what happens is we go a bit aboard or we are not completely in lined with the framework that we did add to our draw. I mean, add to a paper basically as a drawing, all of it put together. Let's continue and let's add more and more lines to show that there is a beautiful lantern. I have placed a red candle inside it for showing it that it is the Christmas season. Who can get away with this? And drawing the lantern is a must. I had a holiday Christmas holiday card about 22.5 years back. You can go ahead and check that out too. That's a beautiful class. It has four holiday cards in it. Just winter holiday cards, you will find it absolutely amazing when you painted on any of your cards and send over to your near and dear ones. This is something that many of you do follow as a tradition to send hand painted holiday cards or even give this kind of paintings or give it as a gift to your near and dear ones as they're highly valued. I would say something that you have drawn, you have taken so much amount of effort, you've invested so much amount of time. That is something seriously amazing. As well as it actually shows the kind of emotion that you do communicate with your near and dear ones. Okay, I think I've just become so emotional about this holiday season altogether. Let's continue with our sketching. When I do sketch, it might be a bit boring to many of you. In fact, it is pretty boring to me also. But I know that this is the basics which we have to follow in case we are working with watercolors. Or any other medium. Slowly, as I have progressed in my watercolor journey, I have realized that sketching really helps to build our foundation in a bit of way. If you have a good foundation, you can automatically build upon it. Even watercolors, et cetera, will look absolutely stunning. Because the effects or the techniques of watercolor are not going to change much. Only thing that you are working on in this particular painting or any of the future paintings, is how to create those effects. Along with the sketch that you have added to your paper. If you can gel both of them, I can tell you you are going to nail any or all your paintings. Okay. Now, back side of the lantern also needs to be sketched to a great extent, and on the left side, there is an opening that you usually have. If you have to place any kind of a light or you have to place any kind of a candle inside, this kind of side is always there. I'm right now drawing it. Once this part is done, I have to also add some more basic lines as you observe me adding it right now, a few of the parts for the lantern I do shade a bit because after our first layer, which is majorly adding your background, what happens is with water, the graphite marks go away. And I really don't want that. When I'm going to add colors to my lantern, it would become difficult for me. And secondly, the lantern, the outside of it is pretty dark. So it is a black lantern, but because of the illumination of the candle, it will become a bit brown in shade. Let's continue with that and keep adding the beauty to this sketching for now. It is a bit tedious, but still all I can say is the sketching might take some time, but the painting is going to take you really, really less amount of time. The background is all you need to do and rest. Everything will come in place pretty quickly. I usually divide any structure that I have to paint into basic shapes and sizes. You would see a lot of rectangles, then a lot of lines. When I go ahead and add any of my curved lines even into the slander, that's what I see is most important, breaking your subject into shapes and sizes that you are more familiar with or that you can easily adjust to, if you can frankly see the basic shapes and sizes through any of your subject, whether it be a lad done, whether it be a candle, whether it be human being, Anything that you are doing. I mean, even some kind of different kind of doors, windows, more distant houses, houses which are closer temples. Anything that you want to add? I think everything can come in line if you exactly know how you can go about with simple lines and simple shapes and sizes. Shapes and sizes is all you have to do when you are breaking up your subject. If you have done that, going to nail your painting. Okay, let's go ahead and draw a few branches. Branches is one of my favorite. As you all know, I have been drawing branches for many, many years now. Every time I draw some or the other branch, I feel, oh, I did not actually paint it this way. I should have done it earlier. It would have come out more better. It would have looked much better in my other painting. The more you practice, the more you get better at anything that you do. You should take it for granted. Keep practicing. Get it in the routine of doing watercolor sketching. Watercolor painting, I can tell you each and every sketch that you do, each and every paints that you apply on paper is going to help you. Either you have taken it as a side hustle or either you are doing to just release your stress. You are taking it up as some other, in particular, hobby that you want to follow. Whatever you are looking forward to with watercolors, you are going to just nail each and everything. I'm going ahead with the indigo or the paints. Gray color. I have applied water on both sides of the paper and now it's time to just add some colors. I'm going ahead with my zero size casino, The Vinci brush. This is one of my favorite brushes. It has got such an amazing tip as well as it can hold a lot of water and paints that allows me to work through this painting very quickly. Okay, You can see these are random brush strokes right now that I'm applying. And then just Lighter and darker in few of the places. What I'm trying to do is going in and around this Christmas lantern and adding some colors. I am pretty much not thinking about where where to add even. I am adding one or two dots here on there. Make sure that you are not going inside the lantern. That's all I guess is important. Work with water. Yes, we are adding even water droplets. That's something which I usually don't do in most of my paintings. But this was my happy space and I did anything and everything possible for the background study. One important rule that I have followed in many of my paintings is keeping the corners very dull and boring. Yeah, I do not like to add a lot of grounds, backgrounds, et cetera, for my corners. I like to leave it as such. That really helps my spectator to focus on the most important aspect of water colors, which is majorly concentrating either on the lantern or on any subject that you are doing. You will even see that I have not placed the lantern in the middle of the painting. I'd like to place it either on the bottom part, mostly on the right top part, als on the right bottom part, urals on the left top part. As per the rule of thirds, which you guys card, know that it is important for our focus point J, this lantern to practically lie somewhere not in the middle of the building. Yeah, it should basically lie on the focus points which are majorly, once you intersect about two lines from the top, two lines from the left to right, you will get four intersecting points. That's where you should go ahead and get your all the subjects, et cetera, focused on rather than doing it in the middle of the painting. I really don't like it though I have done it for a few of my audio paintings, but as I'm maturing more and more in water colors, I nowadays don't like to do that at all. Okay, splattering some water, splattering some paints. Lots and lots of happiness over here. I think I have myself got a bit overwhelmed with the situation right now and carried away with how this painting looks. It's okay to do that as you are happy and you are in a good space, you want to experiment. This is something that I have realized, the paintings where I've experimented more. They have come out really well. I keep on just clearing out the edges on the right as well as on the left. That's very important so that there is no cauliflower effect. I have told it even earlier in many of my wet on wet classes. You can try out my wet on wet classes which is a 14 day challenge. As well as there is one mode that I have given pretty recently. It's all about painting list and fog, it's a master class. There are about seven paintings. You can do it on seven days or even go ahead with only few of them. That choice, I would leave it up to you, but once you complete the class, you can frankly, actually need any kind of foggy paintings that you want to do. Okay, adding some in few of the areas. I do not like to keep my paintings pretty flat. This is something that I have realized, even for my background. I'd like to add lots and lots of color. Color variation I would say that is changing the values to a great extent is something that I have followed. And again, splatter of clean water on the top side. I will be doing it even for my bottom area. You can do it on other parts. To having said that, it's important to add the yellow as well as the orange shade. I have taken pineapples yellow and mixed it with some amount of seneliar orange. To get a shade like this, I'm adding it in and around the candle on my lantern. I will just add a few drops of this particular paint on the background too. That's absolutely fine. You can always do it. It helps to mood intact and let this glow of candle prevail. I would say that's something which I have learned over time and over the years. You can use the same color that you are using in your subject, even for your backgrounds. That helps you to actually create background which looks very, very pleasing to the eyes of the person who is watching it, adding three small circles. One thing that you have to understand, let this paper dry off completely, and then only get back to the painting of the lantern. Drying time, of course, is not included within the spat that you see over here, or else this would have taken eternity to complete. This is a 300 GSM, 100% cotton arches paper, and it really takes a lot of time. It's winter season though, in this part of the country, I would not say that I experienced winters to a great extent. Having said that, I do experience some colder mornings and colder evenings. That's it, rest. Everything is pretty much tropical that we have over here. You can use black. You can also go ahead with any of your darker values of brown. I would leave that decision up to you. I am painting with my paints gray. I have mixed it with a bit of brown to get some of the shades that you see over here. I like to mix my shapes on the paper. And touching the colors over here really helps me to create values and shades that you cannot see. When you directly mix it on the palette and bring it to the paper. I would like to continue with my lantern. It's a slow process at this stage. I would really want you guys to keep your patients to a great extent, have some browns and have some good amount of beautiful blacks. Or you can say mix the colors over here and create the values over here. That's something which we do learn with experience. Initially, when I started off, I always wanted to create the colors on the palette and then get back to my painting. Whereas as I have progressed, I love to mix it on the paper rather than mixing it on the palette different colors. I'm not saying that I don't mix any color at all. We did mix the orange and the yellow. You see that the backgrounds have gone, as well as your illumination part has also gone light. Now, this is majorly going to happen to you when you are working with wet on wet technique. If you are working a lot with your wet on wet, once the paper dries off, the colors will be one or two shade lighter than what you have usually observed. That particular time has arrived when you have to start blending even smaller spaces on this lantern. And it starts with the left side. As you can see, I have body applied the dark colors and now I'm trying to blend it with my lighter value of brown. The interior part is more illuminated as there is a candle which is placed inside. Whereas the outer part, I have tried to make it more darker. Let's go ahead and apply the similar rule as we work towards the middle part. I am working with our size three casino, the Vince Brush. As you always see that there are minute materials that we have to cover at this stage. It's one of the reasons for moving to our simple and easy thin brush. But if you have something like an optimal brush, you can also consider, continue and continue. Keep blending your colors. Keep adding the darker and the lighter values. Try to blend your colors on the paper itself rather than doing it on the palette. And then bringing it to paper, it will really show the majority of any color artist, the whole of the painting comes together. Once you have painted this lantern, I guess you actually know now exactly what's my feeling. We are coming to the last leg of this painting where it is majorly going through smaller, smaller details of the lantern, making this whole painting come to life. Once the lantern is done, we will work around the tree branches. The tree branches are pretty simple and easy. You can go absolutely random. In making that, I always tell you that nature is absolutely random. When nature is random, you have all the rights to create that randomness. Hence, go ahead with anywhere you want to add your branches or small, small parts if you want. Only thing that you should keep in mind is the season is dry, therefore there will not be. Only have those try branches and the whole of this lantern is actually hung by that try branch of the tree. You can now see that I've switched to my optimal brush as it has a better tip and I have to add more thinner lines. I am going ahead with the holder portion of my lantern right now towards the top. Everything I did draw initially, that's one of the reasons we have spent about eight to 9 minutes, which is about one third of the whole of the process time in our sketching. It is actually way higher. Usually, I spend about five to 7 minutes out of a 30 minute painting. But as I did tell you, that the sketching is a basic foundation, and once your foundation is correct, of course, your final painting is going to be super amazing. Going to the bottom part of the candle area. This is majorly the space on top of which this candle is kept. I am not going to differentiate a lot, just adding it pretty simply, then adding some of the darker even on the left. Once this part is done, we have to start out with the candle. Candle is of course, red. Red is the season, and hence, I could not actually think about creating the candle with any other color than red. As I did tell you even earlier, a few lines interior and the exterior part, just to show a bit more detail. That's it. Once this part is done, we will go ahead and add everything else that is needed in this painting. Wherever you have a lot of darker value, let the background do its job. We are not going to touch those areas in and around the illuminated area where you want your branches to be seen. Just go ahead and start adding the thinner asphalaus, thicker branches over there. I am adding in a pretty random way. I don't have anything much in mind while I create this. Only one thing going ahead with a thinner brush might help you to practically see that how this whole framework turns up for me. I like to go ahead with my optimum brush, and this is from Escota. As you already know, you can go ahead with even size three, size two size one brush. Whichever you are more comfortable, go with your comfort brush. This is something that I have not iterated much. Yes, I always, always say all of us over these years have been painting and there is one single comfort brush that we always get back to. For me, it is practically this beautiful optimothinizeip brush which I have been working with. And it looks absolutely super amusing going ahead and adding some balloons, branches here and there. Once these branches are done, we will just let this painting dry off, along with this bottom candle part, which we have to paint, of course, and rest. Everything just looks so picture perfect. I think this whole painting gives me that particular pipe of the Christmas night where it is super chilly and you have hole of the area covered with snow. There is a candle that you have put on, on a dry tree branch that's there in your porch or in your backyard, wherever you can say. I usually start imagining things, whether it be that chilly night, whether it be that snow. Because we do not get to experience all of it. As I did tell you earlier, over here in the eastern part of the country, I mean, where I am living practically in Kolkata, you don't get to see so much of snow, et cetera. We have to really go to higher hills stations to experience all of it, and usually it doesn't happen. We leave our houses during this time of the year, and hence, imagining is always a great power. What do you guys say? It helps me to live the moment. It allows me to bring that warmth and happiness, even give back that happiness when you are already living that part on your own, through your imagination, through your paintings, through each and everything that you are doing. I guess you can also give it back or convey it back to all the spectators or the people who are watching your painting. Finally, the red, it is a mix of a bit of brown and red. I have applied a bit of coral initially, and then I'm just mixing a bit of brown and adding the darker value towards the left part. Yellow part is important for the candle. I am adding it towards the top and blending it while I go in the bottom. The bottom part, I'm adding a bit of brown and making it darker. Once this is done, I guess most of our work is complete and I'm not going to retouch anymore. Something that I have learned over time is not to go ahead and keep touching each and every part of a painting. If you keep touching a lot in your painting, what happens is that the whole glue, love, et cetera, that you have created through that painting looks so much more overworked. We are not going to overwork any part of it. And I am now just trying to add that glass case, which we usually see once it is done, it doesn't look transparent for sure. Earlier it was looking so transparent and it was like the whole candle can be seen. Now that should not be also the case while you create, but it's fine if you are unable to do the step, leave it and let everything dry off and then see your painting. I'm pretty sure about it. You are going to tap your back and say you have done a great job today. Finally, I'm going to size the corners a bit. I want it more oval or semicircle, kind of a situation. Of course, it cannot be semicircle, I just want it a bit more curved on the sides. I'm using this cutter for the same reason. 12. Snowy Mountains Colors and Techniques: Finally, we are going to go ahead and paint this beautiful mountain. All of you can relate to it, I'm pretty sure about it. Winter is incomplete without doing a mountain painting. Let's go ahead and start out with our mountains. The sketching is very simple. Easy. We are just going to go ahead and lend our colors. We need one lending brush and you need another brush for adding the details. I am not going to teach in terms of techniques, anything over here, but we are going to go ahead and all the colors for this one. Again, I have really less to explain over here because I have created this nine boxes that you have already learned. And you can see most of the subject that I have lies on the top part, except the pathway, which is mostly my foreground. And I am going to individually work on each one of them. Everything, to be frank, is important except the sky because it is in the background and I'm not going to detail it much. Rest. You need to keep two brushes really handy. One is your blending brush and another, your brush where you will apply your colors. Colors that I'm going to use for this painting. One is ultra meeting, the second is some amount of talor blue. Or you can also go ahead with bright blue, eralium blue. Any blue that's available with you, some amount of indigo or dontrin blue, brown. Burn N for some of the parts that you just need to have any neutral tint or any of the darker shades of brown, that is CP, et cetera, to create the darkest value that we have added to the painting. 13. Snowy Mountains: We are ready to dive into our last painting. I am going to go with the flow, so let's join in and understand the flow. This is our final painting, where we are going to draw a beautiful mountain, a small pathway that is cutting through the snow, something that is completely spontaneous. This particular painting was not supposed to be like this, but it just happened that I started painting it. And there were different steps that I followed to arrive at the final outcome. And I really loved how the final outcome was. Hopefully, you will also like it, and let's start out with our sketching. The sketching is also pretty basic. You do not need a lot of skills while you sketch this one. Just draw a few lines as I'm suggesting, and some polls that we really need. This is a small pathway that you also, which I am adding right now, towards the bottom area, there will be some parts which are absolutely snow clad and there would be few of the areas which are darker internal values. We are not going to work a lot with various different colors, but yes, some different shades of blue and brown. That's all I'm going to take. You can walk around with Siena, I guess, and you can work around with ultramarine. These are two of the most used colors in this painting. While I draw the sky, I would be using more of my yellow blue and mix it with bit of ultramarine to get the fine colors. I would say do not get stuck with the colors to be frank, because we are just going to add some darker values and blend it with a blending brush. Keep two brushes pretty handy, One for adding the colors and the second one for just blending it. It's a good idea to do this on an, A five size paper and not smaller than that for sure as it has a lot of components, whether it be trees, whether it be mountains, whether it be pathways. I don't want that. If you squeeze it in a smaller paper like six, it might not turn out exactly the way you want it. Okay, let's continue with our sketching now, I do keep my eraser, K a pencil pretty handy. Any of the areas where I'm not very confident about, I do use scale. Do I am a true believer? The better you can sketch, the better would be your final outcome. Having said that, it's important to understand that you can't sketch each and everything that you can think about. And hence, as a beer, it is always good to take help from whatever resources that is available with you. I'm adding a few ridges into my mountains. These are basically the places where you might find darker and lighter values. Everything is usually never covered with snow. Some of the areas which are more towards the peak a with brown, some of the areas that are more to do with the places which can hold the snow, they would be in your white sheet. Hence, we will be working around with the white sheet. Even with the blue, we are not going to work around with white and white. I am not a true believer that we should work with a lot of white wash, or you can say white, opaque color. And hence, I like to explore it with more of the blue shades that we have. Apply water on both sides of the paper thoroughly. This really helps your paper to be bounded with your eclestic sheet, as well as it gives you more opportunity in terms of the time to work around with wet on wet, I'm going ahead with the top part of the sky and this is majorly a mix of my yellow, blue and ultra many. I do my initial wash. I try to always cover a larger area, which means that go ahead with your larger brush and slowly as you progress, you can always change your brushes and add more depth and values into your sky or into your mountains, whatever area you want to plate. You can right now see in my mix of color that I have on the palette. And I have shifted to a smaller brush. I have loaded my brush with the same colors, more of my low blue and less of ultramarine. Next. Art is to add smaller strokes to this card. Everywhere. I'm not going to add the colors in a similar way. Some of the areas would be way more darker and some of the areas would be more lighter. Clean up the area of the mountain as we want it to be absolutely white, most of the parts. And then we will add the other colors of blue and brown as we progress with this painting. You, my shade of blue has changed and it has tilted towards a bit more of Taylor Blue. Now, this combination, you can always alter, as I say that as I would say, it would bring in more of depth as well as maturity to your painting. Okay, continue with some more of the clouds as you add and then you can go ahead and start adding the colors to your mountains. I do not want to add lots and lots. That's something which I try to avoid having said that the first layer was really light. So we can always go over with one more or two more shade darker as you progress with your other layers. Though, this layer or various layers that I'm doing is on weight weight process itself. I'm not going ahead with one layer drying off and then moving on to the second layer. It's just one layer that I've applied. And then over it I am going ahead with the wet paints, the wet paper for adding the various intensity of colors and values, et cetera. Okay, continue and add more and more darker towards the top area as you observe me also doing it fine. I guess I am really happy with how it has worked out, but as I see that there are a lot more darker values towards the top area of the mountain. It is wet, wet, and hence, the colors will move. We don't want a lot of movement in the colors. Hence, cleaning up some of the areas is very important. That's what I would do. For the same process. I keep my tissue pretty handy so that I can pick up the colors and take it off on my tissue again and again. Going ahead with my lighter value for the snow. As you observe me, I have started from the bottom and going towards the top. The colors are more of the blight to as well as some amount of ultramarine into it, wetting the top area, which is majorly my mountain. And then I am adding some more darker values in the pathway. The snow, as I did tell you, would be more in the blues which you are observing. Blue is one of my favorite colors for painting mountains and the winter season. I have already fallen in love with this color. There are various shades of blue that I am using always in the winter scapes. If you have taken my other classes on winter scape, you get to realize that I use a lot of blues for all my winters. There is a holiday card that I have given about two years back. You can always go ahead and check that out. That also has lots of usage of blue. Some amount of my neutral tint for the darkest of the values. And adding the neutral tint even on the top part of the mountain area. The value which I for the neutral tint is very light as you can observe, as well as the area is already wet, and hence my colors are moving on its own. Adding some burn Siena now towards the bottom area and mixing it with some of my neutral tint. Or else you can also go ahead with blue and X to burn sienna with the indigo or blue color, this darker value. Now since this particular space has some amount of ultramarine, you will see that there is some values which are breaking up. Or that is majorly known as granulation. Now, granulation is a process which you will see in few of the major, I would say pigments. That happens for all the granulation happens, but in some of the pigments, yes, granulation happens. And it's usually very common when it is ultramarine. I majorly use the French Ultra Marine from the brand Winsor and Newton, Professional grade, usually, I have seen that granulates. I really love that effect. And that's one of the reasons I have been using ultramarine for many of my paintings where I can see good amount of granulation. First I've added the colors, and now I'm going ahead and just blending it again. I have added some of the darker values, dipping my brush and blending it. This is the common process which we will continue to work around with for the other parts of u, the top area of the mountains. I've placed my palette on the left side so that you can really see how I work around with my values and colors. It's not always possible to practically place the palette here and there. And that's why I always like to mention what colors I'm picking up, what values I'm choosing, or how I am blending my colors, mixing my colors. Those things I do keep saying very often. Having said that, yes, there are a lot of things that still remains and you can always go ahead and understand it better as you progress through your watercolor journey by Frank. In this particular painting, I have less to explain. As I've told you, the more work you would be doing would be one brush where you would be adding the colors and the second brush would be all about adding your blending technique. The blending technique is maturely done with the bigger brush. I'd love to have some good amount of water in it or have it really damp so that the colors can spread a bit. It looks more like a wet as well as dry a technique. It is basically a blend of both and really gives such a beautiful outcome that I am thoroughly in love with it. Okay, continue with this part of the painting and we are working on the left side of the part of the mountain. Once this part is done, we will also go ahead with the top part of the mountain, as well as there will be some trees and some beautiful posts, some wires, et cetera, which we will keep adding. Now, every painting does always shape up as we progress. It will not shape up with one single layer as well as it doesn't just progress with one kind of watercolor. Like either it be on wet on wet or either it be on wet on dry. We have to always use a mix of your wet on wet and wet on dry. Now, all of you know what is wet on wet and wet on dry. But what we do not understand is what exactly or how exactly we should use both of these techniques to achieve the final outcome that we are really looking forward to. I'm huge Princeton brush, It is size six. It is just like my mop brush And I use it for my blending. It's very damp as well as I usually use it as a wash brush too, for adding the colors towards the top area or any of the places to cover most of the areas very quickly. In watercolors, what I have understood is time is the key. Most of the painting happens within the first 20 to 25 minutes and that 20 to 25 minutes is absolutely crucial. And rest, I think whatever time is left is usually the detailing part where we exactly know we have to go ahead with only a few details. But this part which is shaping up of our painting is something that happens quick, yet there is a lot of work that needs to be done in it though. I do talk about being really fast with watercolors. One thing that you should always keep in mind when you work with watercolors is being fearless. Yes. Working fast as well as being fearless. Something that is very important in watercolors. If you really fear watercolors, you cannot be partner with this medium. Something that I have realized over these years of painting is partnership with the medium is very important. The quicker you partner with this medium, the better would be your final outcome. You should not fear if there are some dots that I should apply. If there is some lines that I should apply. Should my brush sub be smaller? Should my brush shoe be bigger? Which brush I should use? The confusion is always in the head. You just should let your heart out and you should let the watercolors take over, rather than just thinking a lot. You can always pause this video too and just paint along with me. Because everything that you paint is real time going along with me with the painting. And you do not need to follow all the steps. It's just that I am trying to build up a mountain like structure. Some of the areas are darker in values, some of the areas are lighter in values. You can only keep that much in mind and just shape up the whole of this area in a similar way. I don't think that there's a need of always painting in blue or always painting in one particular color. You can always go ahead with mixing up your colors like neutral tint, blue brown. These are majorly my go to colors for winter scape and this particular water scape, I'm going ahead with this shades some of the detailing that is important and I would go ahead with that. For my top part of the mountain, there are some lines that I will add smaller dots. And here and there, once I have painted this part of the dots, et cetera, I would continue my final, final painting. Final, final painting is something that has to do with more of the foregrounds. There is less of the background that's involved in it. We will work on the road, we will work a bit on the ice. The trees yet trees are still in the background though I have not tried to paint with a lot of water these trees. But yes, you can also try with some good amount of water for painting these trees. Adding some more ridges in some of the areas and then blending it. I am blending it with the same brush that I've used for painting or adding the colors. Adding more and more dots and lines in few of the places. Now we are almost in the process of ending this particular part. Or you can say we have majorly covered the bigger areas for our mountain area. It's on the, I would say details that are only left. We have to be very careful at this stage how we continue to add these smaller dots and not get over with the process of adding these dots and some of the spaces. If I don't like, I just go ahead and blend it. This is something that I have learned over time. Blending is always a good exercise and blending really helps to keep things more simple and yet very interesting. I have always found painting mountains very difficult. And it really doesn't come naturally to me. Though. I have given various classes where we have painted mountains exactly the way you observe in a photograph, et cetera. Yet, painting mountains has been pretty difficult for me and I have been very conservative with the approach of whole of the painting. I don't do it very often or I am not someone who is very good at it. You can say that I'm somewhere in between a big nor and intermediate artist when it comes to painting mountains. Whereas you can say that, of course, I'm very, very advanced when it is a landscape or any kind of other painting. Yet if you can follow along with me and paint a few steps exactly the way I am doing, I'm pretty sure about it. You will nail this painting altogether. Since this is not my comfort zone, I wanted myself to step out of the comfort zone. And similarly, I would ask you all to step out of your comfort zone if it is about watercolors. Watercolors is not an absolute comfort when you started out, but as you progress, you can see that it is a easy and very comfortable medium. But all the outcomes that you get with this medium will not be excellent, and it will take you a while to get a hang off it. If you are patient enough, you're going to nail everything that you do. I'm pretty much done with my mountains at this stage. And I'm going ahead with some of my lines and dark light of values towards the bottom as well as I will go ahead with my other areas of the snow. That's all we are going to paint. And once those areas are done, we will go ahead with the top part of our place where there is more of trees, et cetera, that you add heavy space that I paint, even wet on dry. You will see, I love to actually add more colors, mix the colors on the paper. Only now, this is something that I have learned over the years. It doesn't come naturally to me, and I still experiment a lot. The more you give yourself a chance to experiment, I think the better outcome you get in watercolors, the more you can start mixing your colors on the paper. I think finally, that outcome will come very, very easily. Okay? Blend the colors. Blend the colors as you progress. Blend it with the help of my flat brush. And then add a few dots here and there. As you see this part, I will go ahead and start adding a few trees for my background too. That is also coming up the trees, of course, I have been saying a lot, but even on my trees you will see that there are two major colors. One is Burn, Siena and Neutrotentt that is going to rule my trees. Rather than going ahead with blue, I'm not going to actually take a lot of blue for my trees, for surely you can see the neutritentI'm. Just dropping a line and adding some of the lines on the left as well as some of the lines on the right. I'm not thinking much while adding these lines. Drops of paints here and there, and that's it, making your brush dance. That's all many of the artists have been saying for the trees. But all I understand for my trees in particular is you have to go ahead and just make them more broader towards the bottom. While at the top you can really make them way more smaller. If you follow this basic technique, I think you are going to nail all the rest of your pas. Okay, continue with some more trees. Continue with some more lines. As you see, I have to alter the sizes of the trees, which I'm going to do, it is nature. And you will not find all the trees in similar shape and size. Hence, it's important to keep on altering the color, not only the color and values, but also the size of the trees that you add to your painting. The paints towards the top is majorly the neutral tint and while I towards the bottom is basically the brown or the burn Siena that I keep panning. Now this neutritentt will blend up with this burn Siena. Make sure that your paints are not concentrated in a particular space, which means that your neutritentt is not only towards the top and you have only the burn siena towards the bottom. You have to actually apply the colors in a way that they blend into each other and yet look very organic. Making some smaller lines for the trees. As you progress towards the right hand side, we will go ahead with smaller and bigger lines for a few of the smaller poles as well as a few of the areas which shows that. Okay, this particular place, you can go towards the right or go towards the left. You can put these kind of signs as it usually happens on any kind of hill station, et cetera, inspiration from whatever you see. If you have ever visited a new place, see around, watch around. If you have seen any hill station, go ahead, check it out. What inspires you, bring that to life with your watercolor paintings? That's what I have been doing till date and I'm really in love with how I work through these particular shapes, sizes, et cetera, of the trees, roads, anything that I see, I keep just adding it to my painting. You know, I get inspired through photographs. But none of the photographs that I see is exactly how I paint. Because I always feel that the painter themselves or an artist can get inspired from a photo and change it according to their own style and vision of that particular painting. Taking an inspiration is something that I take and then converted completely. So if I actually show you exactly how the photograph of this painting is, it has no match to what we have painted. Finally, that's mostly how my paintings turn out. Nowadays, there have been times where earlier I was just exactly painting what I used to see in a photograph, and over the years it has changed to a huge extent. I will not deny that. I do still take a lot of inspiration from the photograph stand paint quite similar to it, but changed the background or change the pho grounds and change a lot of stuff in that particular photo. And you practically cannot recognize that it has been inspired from one single photo. It is usually an amalgamation of many things that goes on in my mind. I mean it can be even any other artists mind, like over here I'm adding some of the shadows of these rocks, et cetera, that we have painted on the roads. And that usually doesn't happen always with every artist, or we usually don't do it pretty often. And hence, I do change a lot of things in my painting the way I want it, that is absolutely normal and you will also get a hang of it as you progress with your watercolor journey. It is absolutely not natural or it doesn't come very, very soon as you start out with your journey. But yes, don't try hard. That's something I have realized I initially wanted to try very, very hard, and over the years I have realized that there is no point trying so hard. It's okay. It will take some time, but it will get to you, just that. Keep painting. Keep yourself alive through your watercolors. Um, understand you're sometimes stuck in a total watercolor journey. That's also absolutely okay. I have been there, I have seen that. And as we continue to paint, you see that there is a lot of change which has happened. And finally, the final paintings are very, very amazing. Do not stop. That's all it will be, my advice, continue. Do not get demotivated. Just work around. I'm pretty sure about it. You are going to get a very dutiful final outcome. Okay. Continue with some more lines as you observe over here. And then even add more lines with a cross. Exactly the way I do. Now it's time to splatter some snow. But before we go ahead and splatter some snow, make sure that you're using color, which is either gosh, or you can also go ahead with an opaque white color. For me, I am right now splattering with the help of my brush. And once the splatter is done, I will add some drops or some loose lines here and there on the mountain as well as towards the bottom area. Finally, let the paper dry off and have a fun look at it. I hope you have enjoyed all these lessons. I'm waiting for your projects in the project so that I can have a look at all the beautiful ones. 14. Conclusion: I hope you have enjoyed all the five beautiful paintings of Winter along with me. In case you have loved anything about this class, please go ahead and leave me a feedback. It's a great source of motivation as well as it helps me to understand what you like about this particular class. As always, do upload your projects in the project so that I can go ahead and have a look at each one of them and give you my valuable feedback. Usually there are a few tips, a tricks that I give out in my feedback. So it's always a great thing to go ahead and upload your projects. I am eagerly waiting for each one of them. Finally, a very happy Christmas and New Year to each one of you who is watching the class. I hope you enjoy this season completely and I will meet you again. Next month we are going to paint a bunch of, again, beautiful paintings, a goodbye and happy painting to each one of you during this holiday season.