How to Paint a Landscape - The Process

Hello my name is Paul Priestley, welcome to my YouTube channel Paul Priestley Art. Now today we're going to be doing something slightly different to what I normally do. I'm going to show you how I've created a painting from start to finish, from the initial drawings right through to the final idea. And I'm going to show you the process of doing it, not the techniques, the painting techniques, but the process, stage by stage what happens. So let's make a start, come on! Okay I'm going to be using Cobra water mixable oil paint, it is not water soluble oil paint, the oil does not dissolve in the water. If you want more details I've got a link in the description below which explains everything. I'm going to be using lots of greens, so you can see I've got two greens there, but I'm also mixing things like ivory black and lemon yellow together, you know the cobalt blue and yellows together, all of those sort of things, lots of different greens. Now you also need a mixing medium, the mixing medium contains oil suspended in water in an emulsion. I'm using these three brushes, two long flats, large and a small one and a round. Now we'll just move those to one side because I'm also using something else, look at these brushes. Now I've attacked these brushes with a pair of scissors you can see here, because they're old brushes, making different shapes with them. This brush here is rock hard, all the bristles are spread but it's great for doing stippling. I'm also going to be using a bit of sponge to apply paint with and also this, very technical, this piece of corrugated cardboard, brilliant piece this. Now let's make a start. My idea came from walking through the woods in Somerset, England, saw this scene, took a photograph, made a little sketch, decided I needed to put something in the foreground, so drew the little branch and a bird. But I had a photograph at home of this little robin, so I decided to put him in there as well. So we start, nice big canvas, there's my drawing, squared up the drawing, squared up the canvas and then painted directly onto that. I didn't draw it out in pencil first. And what I'm doing is using warm earth colours to block in the main tones. Now once the first layer is painted with very thin, watery paint, you'll let it dry for a day. Then I'm working on top of the next layer. This layer has slightly more medium with the water, so you're adding more oil each time. You can see there I'm blending the sky in, beginning to apply the background. Basically now I want to establish the dark tones. Because in oil painting as opposed to watercolour, you work from dark to light. So we're painting everything very dark to start with. You see here, all these areas here painted very, very dark. The dark greens and such like. No detail. Don't worry about detail yet. Just block in, get everything blocked in and the tones established. You see I'm beginning to develop the trees here. Using purples, believe it or not. Don't paint your trees brown. Whatever you do, don't paint them brown. Make them a nice colour. It's that purple colour here. So I'm blocking in these areas, adding little bits of texture here and there. As you can see, blocking in that foreground section. Working on the rocks. Lots of different greens and greys in there. Now this layer is complete. It needs to be left for a couple of days, two, three days to dry. So the surface is dry so you can work on the next layer. The next layer we're adding more medium because you work fat on thin. The paint gets thicker as you go along. Don't paint thick paint first and then add thin on top. It doesn't work like that. Now you can see I'm going to work on the background here. I've lightened the path so that the background is beginning to move backwards. And there's a little bit more contrast now between the path and the darker areas around the trees. I'm also putting in some lighter greens in that dense dark vegetation as though I could see through the trees. You see the idea. I'm also adding more and more shapes to the leaves, blocking in leaves. So it's adding more and more texture, more and more depth to the picture. Working on the rocks as you can see there. Adding highlights and a little bit more textures to the pathway below as well. I hope you notice that the vegetation around the trees is built up in layers. And that's what we're doing now. We're building small amounts of detail on top of each other. Adding the branches as you can see here. Layers of branches. Once we've reached this stage now, we've virtually completed the third layer. This is going to need four to five days to dry. And the next layer then we'll add a little bit more medium again. Now with a bit of visual trickery here, I'm showing you how I use my piece of card to create these grassed areas in the foreground. It gives nice texture. The sponge here will create the moss on the rocks. You see the idea. Just by putting, pressing on in the paint. Now my bird I'm beginning to think is looking a little bit too big now. I don't like the bird like that. So I think I might make that a bit smaller in a moment. As the branch develops, it's looking too big. So it's a mistake. So there we are. We're going to shrink it. Look at that. Yes. Now you'll notice the greens. The greens I'm blocking in now are quite different greens from the ones I've used before. This is using my ivory black and lemon yellow. Makes this nice dull green. This flat green. On which I'm now going to add a few more details. You see I'm now using my little special paintbrushes. The ones which I chop bits out. Because it gives shape and pattern to the leaves. You see how I'm beginning to develop this area over here. Now the more of this detail I add. Don't add too much. You know, don't go overboard. A little bit of sponge in the background here. And now I'm going to work on my bird. Because we're getting close to the end of the painting now. Just a few more touches. Just to finish off my little bird. Just to make him look nice. Because I like robins. My son's called Robin. So I've got to do a good job with this. Okay. I think we're just about finished there. And we'll leave that there. I hope you've enjoyed the painting. Hello. Thank you for watching Paul Priestley Art. I hope you've enjoyed the video. And this slightly different format. If you have, please let me know. And I'll do some more videos like this. Don't forget to subscribe if you like the video. Make sure you click the little bell as well. And if you're interested in supporting the making of these videos. Then please check out my Patreon channel. That would be wonderful. Thanks again for watching. And I'll see you in the next video. Goodbye.