Winter Snowman Landscape - Easy Christmas Painting

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, my name is Alicia and I'm an artist here in San Jose, California. Get into your holiday spirit because in the next few weeks, I will be teaching you how to paint quick and easy holiday ventral paintings that will give you all the cozy vibes today, Let's paint this easy and adorable little snowman scene with a cozy twilight snowing landscape. We will go over the materials, basic watercolor techniques, layering and washes, as well as some standard brushwork. So let's dive right in and begin. 2. Exercise 1 - Techniques: So before we start, I just wanted to go over some basics with you. I'm not going to overwhelm you with a lot of techniques and brushwork, but I'm just going to cover the techniques that we will use in today's class so that you can get a more practical approach for this. So the two most common watercolor techniques, or wet on wet and wet on dry. For the wet on wet paint is applied to wet paper. You can layer different colors on top of existing wet paint, which will create this blurred out expansion effect, where you will notice the colors bleeding into one another. The second technique is wet on dry paint is applied onto dry paper. It is as simple as that. So let's look at the effects that these gave us, right? So now the wet on wet gives us soft edges. It's more blurred out. This is great if you want more delicate, softer paintings, great use for backgrounds or far-away objects. You can also blend easily while getting an effective gradient and also creates a misty effect. It is also unpredictable and hence, not so much in your control. The very opposite of the wet on wet is the wet on dry, which gives us sharper edges. So you can definitely have more control where you can get well-defined shapes. The wet on dry also allows you to lay your paint as much as you want. We will go through layering in the next step. 3. Exercise 2 - Layering: So here I'm going to show you how you can layer your paint in watercolors. I'm going to show you three different kind of washes here, each one with a little more pigment to show you the effects of layering. If you want well-defined shapes and it comes to layering, you will have to work on this wet on dry. So I'm drying out my paper with a blow dryer to speed up the process before I begin to layer my shapes. Okay, once you're painting has dried, layer your shapes little by little getting darker each time. But also wait for your painting to dry in-between each layer that you add. So as you can see, the lighter your initial wash is, the easier it is to build up on layering. So keep that in mind when you are painting with watercolors, you always have to work light to dark. Unlike acrylics, where you can get away with working from dark to light, I think watercolors as a medium does require you to be more patient. 4. Exercise 3 - Wash: Let's go over some basic washes here. So for the first one we have a flat wash where your pigment is even all around. And then to get a gradient, I'm starting from a light wash with less pigment and will slowly increase my pigment intake as I move downwards. You can also, you can also start dark and then gradually lighten up. Your wash as well. Too toned is where you combine two colors and merge them together by blending. And to blend them, you will lightly brush your colors in between. 5. Exercise 4 - Brushwork: In this lesson, I wanted to go over some basic brushwork that can be applied to any watercolor painting. So I'm going to start with a nice big round brush. Again. All of these brushes are linked below. If you are interested in them. I literally love this brush. You will see me using this brush for Mozi, the entire painting almost 95% of the time I'm gonna be using this one brush. It is super versatile because you can get extremely tiny lines with this as well as big ones. Holding your brush is straight up. Using its tip can give you thin strokes. You can also use the side of the brush. And then obviously using its belly can give you larger strokes. This next brush is a long, thin brush, which can give you extremely fine details. I usually pull this brush out at the very end when I'm wrapping up just to add last-minute final details to make an impression and to add a few, just a few marks here and there. Okay, So this last brush that I'm gonna be using is the old brush. I like to use this to get some really cool dry brush effect. You can also make this brush yourself by taking any old round, small round brush that you have that you do not really care much of the state on any surface to make the bristles span out. But like I said, I use this brush to get some dry brush effect mainly on my trees. What this means is that you want less water and more pigment for this brush technique. Using this can give you very natural brushstrokes and somewhat, it's somewhat unpredictable and adds to that loose painting style effect. You can also get a dry brush effect with your regular round brush. So usually in a good watercolor painting, you should have all these techniques we went over to add interest and make it impactful. So as you move on to today's lesson, you will see me using all these techniques we went over and I will show you how you can turn a simple landscape and make it interesting by adding a variation of brush marks and details. 6. Materials & Sketch: Alright, so this is all that I use for today's painting. I use arches, which I cut down into a six by eight. You need a bowl of water and a paper towel, a washi tape to tape the edges. Paper, a pencil and eraser. And then these are the brushes. Mainly I used the brushes from Zen art, like a flat brush and to round brushes. I will try and link them below if I find the links to this. And then one rough bristle brush, right? And for my tape, I use my all trusted our teaser palette. It comes in 36 colors and it works really nicely along with white acrylic paint. Okay, so I've got my six by eight inch paper here, and I'm just going to be using a washi tape to tape down my sides so that we can be left with a clean border at the end. Next up is roughly drawing out our landscape and snowman. I'm getting a tree here in the left corner. You don't have to put in all the details just enough to help you paint. Now comes the cute little snowman. So let's get him three circle like shapes to begin. It doesn't have to be perfect circles because we want a more natural approach. This is where you can be created and add your own touch and spice to your snowman. I wanted a standard scarf and a hat on this little guy. So that's what I'm sketching out, but you can add as much or as little as you want. 7. Painting - Sky & Background: All right, so let's get this painting started and let's first tackle the sky. I'm going for a evening sunset look here. And I'm just getting out a combination of orange and yellow to add at the bottom of the horizon. I'm just using a flat brush to paint the entire sky here. Here I'm taking in a little pink to add right above this. As you add in any new color right above it, you can blend the colors in-between slightly. For the very top, I'm adding in a combination of blue and purple for that cozy Twilight feel. Adding a bit more color for that extra pop. We'll come back to this guy later on if needed. But for now, let's allow the layers to dry. Now, the bottom half is covered with snow, but because white reflects off color, we still need to add dimension to the snow or it'll just look flat. So the best way to do this is to reflect some of that color from the sky onto the snow here. It should definitely not be as vibrant as the sky, but enough to add a little tinge of color. So you heard I'm taking in turquoise from the artist's palette. And I am adding in very light tint of that as one layer in the middle here. I'm adding in some light orange and just getting that right above towards the right. To make your colors look fresh, makes sure to rinse your brush off completely in-between colors. So whenever you add a new color, make sure to rinse it off before you add one. Otherwise, it'll just end up looking brown. At the bottom here I'm getting a little bit of that purple, again, super light and adding a few strokes of that below. The goal here is to, not to cover up the entire snow completely. You still want after the original white showing through, but you're just adding in a little light pop of color to give it some depth and dimension. I'm switching my brush to a round brush now for some more control. And I'm just building on the snow part a bit more. Some getting in some more orange and adding in some extra color to the center there right across. At the bottom, I'm adding in some purple and turquoise just to give an impression of a bush of some sort. We will make that look a little bit more grassy at the end. Going back to the sky now and just smoothing out the color a bit more. I'm adding in more color to the left corner here. And I'm just blending that out. 8. Painting - Tree: Let's give the background arrest for now and start painting the tree. Super easy. We're just going to go over it with two colors, brown and black. I'm starting out with brown first, and I'm just going to go over the lines to add some more interests. Leave some white specks open as you paint to break up the shapes. And just to add a more natural feel to the tree. Feel free to switch your brush to a much more thinner brush for some more controlled, thinner details to the branches. You will see me doing that in just a few seconds. So your goal here is to get a variety of brush thickness. So you want some branches to be thicker and some to be thinner. So holding your brush vertically upwards and go really slow if that is easier and just take your time and enjoy this process. Okay. Hi. So here I am getting in some black and adding that to mainly the right portion of the tree and branches for a more three-dimensional look, giving the tree a bit of a shadow underneath it. So I'm going in with purple and I'm moving my brush across to the left side, making sure to still leave some of that snow white part open. 9. Painting - Snowman: Now it's time to add our painting to this adorable little snowman. So I'm taking in Oxford blue. You can take in any book that you like. And I'm working my way towards the left edge of the circle and blending it inwards. So I'm leaving the middle right section on touched and white. You would just want to repeat the same process on the other two snowballs above. I'm getting in some more depth by adding in talk wise to the edges, only just a tiny bit and then blending that out. Okay, let's paint the hat now. So I'm using plain black and a thin or fine detail brush. Just like we did to the tree, you would want to leave some white gaps open for a natural highlight. And just to add more interest. Painting his two big hands now with the same brush and black. I'm adding a smudge of that black at the edge of the snowball and just blending that out. So just a very tiny little line and then just blending it out to give it a more three-dimensional look. I'm getting in some red to the hat in-between there. For the scarf, I'm adding it a combo of red and black, but you do whatever you feel comfortable doing. Be consistent and mindful of leaving little white specks open as you paint along. Getting last-minute details to the snowman with his nose and eyes and smile and some buttons. Just like everything else, our snowman also requires a bit of shadow underneath. So I'm adding in some blue and purple. And I'm just dragging that color towards the left side. 10. Final Details & Class Project!: Okay. We are coming down to last-minute final details, so I'm just getting some warmth to the right corner here by adding in some orange. Going over the white corner with some black. To give it a more grassland compression. I'm taking in a final detail brush that we've been using all along and simply flicking off my brush swiftly in an upward motion for that grass like feel. Adding in some yellow to this guy in the center there to make it stand out more. Lastly, we cannot have a mental landscape without snow now can be. So let's add some snow falling to the background. Going in with acrylic whites and a rough bristle brush. I'm just getting a watered down version of the white and dipping the brush in it and just kinda flicking the bristles off to get these like snow like effect all over. I like adding some intentional bigger snow pieces as well. So I'm just going in with a fine round brush and just adding little specks of it in a few places, just all over wherever you feel like it. I'm just adding a few dots. All right, Let's take off this tape to reveal our final painting. Hope you guys enjoyed and this completes easy and quick holiday winter painting for today. Share your projects. I would love to see them and to not forget to leave this class. It will ask me any questions in the discussions tab below. Follow this class up with a winter tree painting. I have LinkedIn below. I invite you to explore the different classes I had created for you. Classes and watercolors, as well as acrylics are available if you want to learn more. So do consider following me, is that you do not miss out on future painting classes from me. Thank you so much for your support over at my website and also my Etsy shop, you can find original art prints and much more. The links are below. As always, follow me on Instagram to keep up with latest updates given and all that fun stuff. Hope you guys are having a great start to your holidays, and I will see you in my next class.