#WATERCOLOR SCENERY PAINTING HOW TO#
#WATERCOLOR SCENERY PAINTING PLUS#

Likewise, with cars, houses or animals, try to see them as individual blocks of colour this will make the final painting more impressionistic. If there are any flowers, paint them as ‘shapes’ – don’t add in every petal. Add washes where necessary to take away the crude nature of the masking, add blues to fences and shadows, greens to grass and fine-tune any detail.Ĩ FINISH by adding in details. Take a break here and study your painting – think of it like a game of chess, you need to gauge the progress and figure out your next move. When you have an area of bold colour on your painting, keep some tissue handy to blot out certain areas – this will add some variety to the density of the paint and can give you a great grass or foliage effect.ħ RUB OFF your masking fluid you should find some fairly crude grass, foliage and flower shapes underneath. Remember, shadows are made up of blues and all manner of reflected colours, not just blacks and greys.Ħ LET COLOURS BLEED into each other in a controlled way and be patient. Paint the dark shadows on the trees, let them dry and add body colour later – this helps you get on with your painting while other areas may still be wet. Avoid the urge to finish an area.ĥ WITH THE BASIC COLOURS down, try dropping in other colours such as Viridian, Indigo or Perylene Maroon to create darker areas and interest in the borders.

Start adding in some of the darker areas and remember to keep the brushwork quite loose. Choosing a slightly bigger brush than feels comfortable stops you overworking and being too precious with the detail.

A gentle touch and more dilute paint will help you achieve this.Ĥ USING A SIZE 10 BRUSH, start adding the bushes, trees and other foliage. Look for the unexpected colours – a landscape needn’t just be blue and green! Think of field formations like a patchwork: paint them bit by bit, and keep things lighter in the distance. When that is dry, apply some bolder washes of colour to create depth. Look at the cloud formations and don’t be afraid to leave the paper blank to depict the clouds.ģ ONCE THE FIRST WASH is dry, apply more masking fluid, this time reserving some of the grass shapes in the foreground. Begin with lighter washes of colours including French Ultramarine, Green Gold and Yellow Ochre. Masking fluid can destroy your brushes so use a colour shaper – a sort of rubber brush – instead.Ģ USE A SIZE 20 wash brush to block in some of the larger washes. Look for any lighter areas in the subject that may need to be reserved on the paper.

PAPER Daler-Rowney “The Langton” 300gsm cold-pressed (NOT) watercolour paper, 51x41cmġ A GENERAL LANDSCAPE can be enhanced by the lightness of touch that comes with minimal sketching and more planning during the paint stage.

#WATERCOLOR SCENERY PAINTING PLUS#

BRUSHES Pro-Arte Prolene Plus Series 007, sizes 0, 2, 7, 10 and 14 Royal Sovereign taper point colour shaper, size 2.

GOUACHE Permanent White Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache.

WATERCOLOURS Perylene Maroon, Winsor Violet (Dioxazine), Antwerp Blue, Winsor Blue (Yellow Shade), Viridian, Winsor Green, Green Gold, Quinacridone Gold, Permanent Sap Green, Cadmium Yellow, Naples Yellow, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Payne’s Gray, Indigo and Neutral Tint, all Winsor & Newton.

For landscapes, opt for as white a paper as possible to ensure the sky and clouds look bright – some papers can be a little creamy. Using a good cold-pressed (or ‘NOT’) watercolour paper with a fine grain will show off your paint and keep the strokes and colours prominent. Sometimes cropping in can remove a lot of unnecessary background details, while boosting colours and being very loose in the way you apply the paint can enrich the subject and add interest.

In doing this, it is important to study the photograph carefully and make decisions about how you might improve it. I was commissioned to paint the landscape in this demonstration and it was not the most dynamic of views but my job as an illustrator was to turn the client’s photograph into a painting that would be of interest to all viewers. Whereas portraits and still lifes can cause a certain amount of anxiety as you try to remain true to your subject, a landscape has an air of unpredictability. Landscapes can be one of the most relaxing subjects to paint.

#WATERCOLOR SCENERY PAINTING HOW TO#

Link copied to clipboard Artist Matt Jeanes shows you how to use a range of unexpected colours to add interest to a landscape view

Watercolor scenery painting