Start Painting_ Watercolour Basics PART 3 - Wet on Wet

Hello, welcome to ArtTutorialsOnline.com. My name is Paul Priestley and today is the third in my watercolour series for beginners. Now, we're going to be basing the idea around this, my drawing here, which I did on holiday by the way, and we're going to be using wet-on-wet techniques and I'm going to show you a brilliant way of painting branches. It's spectacular. You're going to love it. It's going to look so good. Let's make a start. Okay, you can see that I've stretched the paper and I've drawn out the image using a soft pencil because I don't want to press on hard. Don't use a hard pencil because you'll create channels in the paper and the water will run along it. I've got a bit of scrap paper there to test my colours on. I'm using a couple of brushes, large and small, and I'm also using a hake. The hake is going to be used to dampen the paper. You see I'm just dampening the paper. Don't get it too wet, just dampen it down nice and wet. There we go. Now, add in the sky. You can see I'm just blocking the sky in very, very loosely and very, very light, you see, and just let the colours run because we're using a wet-on-wet technique. Add in a little bit of Hooker's Green to the sky colour, the Cobalt Blue. I'm just blocking in the background here now. Now, the paper's getting a little dry so I'm just going to dampen again with the hake. You can see you just soften down the edges. There we go, because we want the colours to run into each other, you see, because we're working on the wet-on-wet technique. So I'm basically just blocking in the background area at the moment, as you can see. Now, once this has been done, I'm going to just start suggesting the stones here, you see, and I'm going to put the shadows just on the left-hand side of each of the stones. Now, you'll notice the colour is darker. I'm making the colours slightly darker, but always remember colours will dry lighter. You'll also notice the colour's spreading now. Can you see that? You see the colours are spreading, so I'm going to get a very loose feel to the picture because this is my underpainting. Now, blocking in the tree, you can see sometimes I'm going right up to the wet sky and it runs, you see, it bleeds into the sky. Other times I get that sharp edge. Where it bleeds, I'm going to get some really interesting leaf shapes later on. So be quite free with this, as you can see here. Just finish off the tree by just blocking in a few darker tones using a bit of stronger colour, a little bit more of the hooker's green and just a touch of the Payne's grey. Yeah, can you see that spreading there? That's going to look great when it's finished. Where it's dry, you see I get the sharp edges, so I'm just dragging out very loosely, drawing out the branches. I'm going to show you later on how to do a brilliant way of drawing branches. It's absolutely spectacular. Yes, you'll really love it. It's wonderful. Yes, so you can see how it's all bleeding together now. We've got all these very soft, subtle effects, but I'm going to try and create edges now. So the second layer of the painting, now the first layer is dry. Everything is now dry. You'll notice now I'm just dragging the paint along and I'm creating an edge, but I'm putting the paint on quite wet so that I can use this wet-on-wet technique. You see I can block it in and then just put a few darker tones in. You see how that's good? And those will spread and just suggest a few little darker areas here. Look, you see how I'm blocking this area in. Yep, that's looking good. There we go. So just blocking it in nice and loosely. You've got to work loosely and please don't fiddle. Don't go backwards and start fiddling with things. Just drop a few colours in as you can see here. You see how it's working? That's looking great now. So we just blend these colours down. I'm just going around the shapes. You see I'm just beginning to suggest the background hills and in a moment we'll start blocking in, as you can see here, these lumps of rock. These very simple rock shapes that I've drawn. There we go. And I'm now using marks. You see I'm doing my brush strokes vertically or diagonally. So I'm suggesting shapes with the marks that I make on the paper. You see these, because this is middle ground, it's slightly darker. I'm doing exactly the same as I did before. Just putting a few little drops of darker colour in and just let it naturally spread. It'll only spread within that dark tone. It won't move any further. There, we do the same thing. The front, you see, just blocking in. You notice now the front is so much darker because the front is, we want to try and create the depth in the picture. So we're using basically three tones. Stronger tones in the foreground, lighter tones in the background. Now you always remember that watercolour dries lighter so you can afford to put it on slightly darker but don't get too dark in the background. So we're just finishing off these rocks now. I've added a little bit of cadmium yellow to my green mix just to lighten the cover a little bit and to make it slightly greenish tone and you can see we're just blocking in those nice shapes there just to suggest the rocks. It's only a very simple, simple idea but we're just blocking in the rocks. Now when we start putting the trees into the background you notice now it's a slightly darker tone but lots and lots of water. This is going to dry lighter. Now watch, get ready for the way we're going to do these branches because this is going to look spectacular. You notice I'm using a big brush but I can still get a fine point but that's not good enough because if you notice, watch what we do now. We use the other end of the brush and look we can just drag out these little blobs of paint and we get these fantastic elements. Look at that, the way the branches move. Now when you do this make sure you wiggle the brush. Don't just move it straight. The more you wiggle it the more interesting it will look. Now when we start blocking in the tree notice I'm doing this very, very loosely. Don't try and do it too neatly. The quicker you do it the better it's going to look. You see how the tree is now beginning to stand out. We're getting some of the undertones to show through and I'm just blocking in these areas but what I've decided to do is to just put a bit more water on my brush. No more paint, just water and blend that in and soften the edges. Can you see how some areas it runs together, sometimes it leaves sharp edges. The contrast between light sharp edges and soft edges will make the painting look so much more interesting. You can see the paint is beginning to take shape. Just blocking in the other areas here around these rocks just to make them look a little bit more three-dimensional as you can see. Now just to finish off our trees in the background we're just adding a little mix of ultramarine and alizarin crimson. It's quite a light tone again and I'm just beginning to suggest shapes and rocks and put a little bit more detail in. You see how the line, I'm suggesting line now. We're getting a little bit more texture and pattern to our design rather than just the shapes that we were using before. Again letting the colours bleed, putting little drops on and so on. Now I'm going to start working on the tree itself and you'll notice now I'm using a very dark tone. This is basically Payne's grey with just a hint of the blue and crimson with it. I'm putting it on very dark, you see making it nice and linear. You see leaving gaps, it all gives a little bit of texture to the work. Notice now how strong that contrast is between this and the background. Notice how things are beginning to stand out. You can use a smaller brush now and begin to start suggesting more detail, more texture, more pattern. You see how it's working here, there we go. Down here get some nice shapes into that area. Now once I've done that again I'm using a drop of water on my brush just going around some of the edges to soften them down so we get the contrast of sharp and soft edges which always makes your tree look that little bit more special. Now look at this very very dark tone of the blue, the Payne's grey and blue and then lots lots of paint and then using that edge look how we can drag it out, mix these wonderful branches you see. The branches look absolutely fantastic and the paint will run into the paint that I've just put in to create those edges. You see what a marvellous effect it creates. So again we're putting lots of water in with the paint here but the paint is quite thick, it's very dark. So put a few more blobs on, a few more little branches will come out in a second you'll see there and they look marvellous. A bit more detail here, look there we go, a little bit more branches. I'm literally just dragging out the paint that's already there, the blobs of paint, putting the detail foreground. Now you notice the detail here, just suggesting the grasses, that's all I'm doing. I'm going to use water. Now when you paint water you must paint it horizontally. Look at those horizontal marks, leave lots of white space so you get contrast between lights and darks. Lots and lots of contrast you see here but notice because the lines are going horizontally it looks like water and it gives a different pattern to your painting which is going to look good. So we're coming to a conclusion now, you can see how this has worked. Lots and lots of contrast, make sure you get the contrast between foreground and background. Start very, very light, don't make it too dark at the beginning, don't fiddle with the picture, just keep working as you can see there. Put the detail on right at the end and remember if you're doing branches, turn your brush over and get those wonderful, wonderful effects by using the other end of your brush. You've got to use a big blob of paint though, don't forget. Thank you for watching artututorialsonline.com, I hope you've enjoyed my video. If you have enjoyed the video then perhaps you could subscribe to my channel and if you really enjoyed the video then perhaps you could share it with your friends and get them to subscribe as well, that would be wonderful. Thank you very much.