3 Colours to Paint a Simple Winter Scene: Full Watercolor Tutorial

Hi everyone, this is Nia and today I'm going to be painting this simple hazy winter scene. I feel like I haven't painted sceneries for a while, so I'm trying to slowly get back into it. I'm not going to be sketching anything, so let's get straight to the colors. I'm only going to be using these three. Firstly, this is Burnt Umber by Holbein, Indigo by Schmincke, and Yellow Ochre by Holbein. Before I start the painting, I'm going to mask off the sides. I'm just using a regular masking tape. Now let's get straight to painting. I'm going to use my largest flat brush to lightly wet the surface until it's evenly damp. As you can see, I'm only doing this very lightly. There are no puddles of water and I try to evenly coat the surface until it seeps into the paper. I'm going to start with the sky. For the color, I'm just going to use a thin consistency of Yellow Ochre, and I'm using my soft brush here so the load can be quite heavy, which will make the color even lighter as it dries. I'm going to leave a small area at the top empty, and here I'm trying to paint halfway down the page while leaving a white circle on the right hand side for the sun. And because I'm painting on a damp surface, the paint will travel further than the area that I applied it to, so make sure to draw the sun much larger than what you intend it to be at this point. For the top, I'm going to use a light consistency of Indigo, and I'm going to slowly blend the colors together without it traveling too far down. Even when I was being very careful with the sun, you can see that the paint traveled too far. So in that case, I'm just going to take off the excess paint with tissue that I rolled up, and you can also do this with a dry brush. The surface should still be damp, but it is slowly drying. At this point, I'm going to increase a little bit more saturation around the sun by applying more Yellow Ochre. As I get around halfway down the page, I'm going to do the same thing as the top. So here I'm applying a very light consistency of the Indigo, and slowly blending it into the Yellow Ochre. I'm applying this one line at a time, adding in some Yellow Ochre into the Indigo, and as I get towards the bottom, I try to use less and less Indigo. Some areas of the bottom might also be drying up, but that's completely fine because I'm just going to follow it up using a dry brush texture, and I'm running my brush diagonally in that white area, using the same color in a very light consistency for a very subtle snow texture. Since the light Indigo under the Yellow Ochre was still freshly painted, the surface should still be a touch damp. So I'm going to make good use of that by painting the vegetation for the background. As for the color, I used a mix of Indigo and Burnt Umber in a very light consistency. I'm going to paint on the top silhouette of some trees in the background with different heights, and because the surface is still damp, you can see that the edges are ever so slightly blurring, creating a distant hazy effect. Since I painted from the top, I want to make sure that the bottom is more or less level, and after this I'm going to follow it up using a slightly thicker consistency of the same mix. So this is from Indigo and Burnt Umber to paint more trees for the background, but it's in front of the ones that we previously painted. I want the shapes or the edges to be a little bit more defined this time, so I am using a lighter brush load. Just like before, I'm focusing on the edges, making sure that the edges are uneven, and I like to also play with the height of the trees, but this time I'm going to paint them slightly lower so you can still see the trees at the back. While I'm painting on the trees, I'm not just mindlessly placing random shapes on, but I am thinking about, say, clumps of leaves within a tree, but I am looking or imagining the overall silhouette of the tree as well. I also left out some white negative shapes so the trees doesn't look too heavy and dense. The surface should more or less be dry by now, so I'm going to add a bit more depth to the trees that I just painted. I'm using the same colour mixture in the same light consistency, but because I am painting on top, it will look like it's slightly darker. And I'm using a dry brush here to make the edges more defined, but still very light so it still looks hazy. Because I am using a soft brush here, I can separate the tip of my brush while using a dry brush load, and this really helps to create those randomised textures. Next I'm going to switch to my synthetic brush, and again I'm still using a dry brush load and a light consistency of the same mix. This time I'm using the tip to paint some stems as well as branches hidden behind the trees that I previously painted. I feel like the sky is completely dry by now, so I'm going to again redefine the sun by using a really thin consistency of yellow ochre. And because I still want this to look hazy, I'm going to soften the edges both around the outside as well as the inside of the sun. Just like before, if the paint is running a bit further than you want it to, you can always take off the excess either by a clean dry brush or tissue. I also want to increase the saturation for the sky around the sun, so here I'm just layering a bit of yellow ochre. Just like before, I'm using a light consistency because it's much easier to blend with the rest of the background. Next I'm going to start to work on the foreground by adding some snow textures. I use a mix of indigo with a little bit of the indigo and burnt umber mixture. This will neutralize the blue, making it a bit more grayish. And I'm using a dry brush load, directing my brush according to how I see or imagine the subtle formation of the snow. Of course, because the snow itself is white, I want to make sure that I leave out quite a bit of white from the paper. As you can see, the foreground is a little bit more textured as I use a lot of dry brush load. When I was painting it, compared to the mid-ground where it's a little bit more blended, and to make sure that those areas are not too separated, I like to use a clean damp brush to soften the edges in between those areas, and I use a slightly lighter consistency to add even more subtle textures for the mid-ground as well. Once I'm quite happy with the snow texture, I'm going to start painting the foreground. Here I'm using a mix of yellow ochre and indigo to create a green, and I'm also going to add some burnt umber on the side to add a bit of warmth to the green as the vegetation absorbs some of the glow from the sun. I'm using a medium consistency and a dry brush load here, so the color is a bit more saturated compared to what I've been painting with, and with a light brush load I'm able to cover a bit more space as I put more pressure on the bristles, but at the same time I'm also able to create sharp dry brush textures with a tip. I personally like the combination of shorter, more dense looking grass, as well as longer ones which I paint by flicking the tip of my brush upwards. I like to also be mindful of the density as well as the space in between to create a light composition. I feel like I have a pretty good base here, so I'm going to add some darker valleys. I'm going to use the exact same mix, but I'm adding more pigment so you can see that the color is much darker on my palette, and this time I also switch to my synthetic brush so I can pick up a thicker consistency. I like to place the darker values at the bottom of the vegetation that I already painted, and then I use a clean damp brush to pull some of those darker values upwards, while at the same time I want to be mindful of the grass textures which I painted in front of the ones that I've painted, so I can avoid painting on those areas, giving the painting more depth. To add the density, I also like to flick up my brush to create some grass textures using the darker value, and for more interest to the painting, I like to play around with the tone of the green as well. So as you can see here, I've added more burnt umber in the ratio, so some areas of the darker value is a little bit more cold in temperature, whereas others are a bit more warm and brown. On top of variation with colors, I also like to add some variation with the textures. So as you can see, I'm not just flicking my brush upwards, sometimes I like to run it alongside horizontally, following the contour of the snow or the ground, and these shapes can either represent lumps of snow or even some rocks. For the stones or the rocks, I tend to use more of a grayish color in terms of shadow from the snow. I like to use more indigo in the mixture, so it's a bit more bluish gray. I'm also going to add larger shadows for the snow, using the same mixture as what I used for the snow in the background. I feel like I need to add a bit more depth to the composition, so I decided to add more vegetation behind the ones that I've already painted. This time, I'm painting straight with the darker value, and I'm painting in between the lighter vegetation that I initially painted. This way, the lighter vegetation will still look like it's in front. I quite like the variety of colors that's going on here, but I want to still increase the darker values, so here I'm using an even thicker consistency of the green mixture in a very dry brush load to paint on more loose grass. Next, I'm going to paint the dried tree, and in terms of the color, I used all three colors, but instead the dominant color is now burnt umber, and I also mixed in a bit of the green that I already had on my palette, which has yellow ochre and indigo to mute the brown slightly. I want the stem of the tree to be slightly thicker than the branches, which is why I went over it again, and I'm using a medium consistency here because I still want to build on the darker tones later on. Here I tried to paint some of the branches first just to see how it goes. Notice how I like to slightly shake my brush as I'm painting the branches, and I just find that by doing that, the branches or the lines look a little bit more natural. Since the light is coming from the right hand side, I decided to darken the left side of the stem using a thicker consistency of the same brown with added indigo to darken it further, and after this, I'm going to add on more branches. If it helps, you can also use a liner brush to make it easier to control the water flow. I just want to show you that you can also do this with a slightly larger brush if you use a dry brush load so the paint won't travel out of your bristles too fast. It's up to you how many trees you want to add here, but I want to keep the composition as minimal as possible so I'm only including two, and I'm just going to treat this one the same way as the previous one. Once I've painted the main stem and the branches, I'm going to go back in with a slightly thicker consistency and paint it on the left. Just like how I painted the stems, I like to shake or wiggle my brush around, and I'm also going to go over some of the mid part of the stem in a lighter consistency to create a little bit of texture. Now, I'm going to extend some of the branches. At this time, I mixed in yellow ochre with burnt umber so the brown is a bit warmer and a bit lighter, and for these branches, I'm going to extend them upwards and place most of them closer to the right hand side where the light is coming from just to depict a little bit of light illumination. Here, I'm adding some finer branches attached to the slightly thicker ones to make the overall look of the painting a bit more delicate. To paint this, make sure you're using a really dry brush load. The drier your brush, the more delicate the lines can be. On the left, I'm going to exaggerate the darker values again to give the tree branches as well as the stem more depth, and here I'm using a thick consistency of burnt umber and indigo. To give an illusion of life to this otherwise dead tree, I'm going to add some dried brown leaves. For the mixture, I used all three colors just like before, but this time I used yellow ochre as the dominant color with a little bit of burnt umber and indigo, and I'm also using a light consistency. I'm placing the dried leaves at the ends of some of the branches. I'm going to space them out since I only want hints of the leaves, and here I'm using a thicker consistency of the same mix with a bit more burnt umber and indigo in the mixture to add even smaller leaves as well as some short branches. Beside the trees, I'm just going to use the browns that's already on my palette. I just mix them up together until I get somewhat of a dark value, and I'm going to add more branches which are much shorter than the tree so it doesn't take away from the focal point. I'm also going to add some leaves to the smaller branches, and for the color, I used the previous yellow ochre mix with this dark brown which is from a mixture of indigo and burnt umber. As you can see, because the mixture now has a bit more indigo in the ratio, instead of brown, the color looks more like a muddy dark green. I'm also going to do the same thing for the right hand side, and I'm just using the colors that I've already pre-mixed on my palette, but feel free to adjust the color according to what you see fit. So those are basically all of the elements. All that's left to do here is to balance everything up. You can add a bit more texture like what I'm doing here. I'm just adding more of the grayish tone next to the dried grass. I just feel like these natural textures can help support the mood of the overall composition, and also to add a bit more interest to the focal point or the foreground. You can also add more leaves and tall grass if you want to. Feel free to also include any winter plants that you might have in mind. Now I'm going to go over smaller details to some of the larger branches by adding a slightly darker value. And after this, I'm going to add more background trees using a thin consistency of yellow ochre and indigo, just like the original mix, but this time I added more yellow ochre in the ratio, so the leaves or the trees look much warmer as it's interacting with the glow of the sun. I'm also going to redefine some of the background trees on the left side. In this case, I used a bit more indigo so it's not as warm as the trees under the sun. Lastly, I'm going to add more shadows on the snow. Here, I'm just using a thin consistency of indigo with a little bit of burnt umber to mute the color slightly, just like before. And I'm going to make some cast shadows of the trees since the light is coming from the back, and I'm going to make this diagonal going to the left side to add a bit more dynamic to the painting. To make the shadows a bit more consistent, I'm also going to add some shadows for the smaller branches as well as some of the grass. Once I'm done with the shadows, I'm just going to unmask the sides to reveal the painting, and that's basically it for this painting. This was personally such an enjoyable one. It was quite simple and it serves as good practice for color mixing by just using those three colors. Anyway, if you guys enjoyed this tutorial and would like to see more like this, please consider subscribing. Like usual, the list of tools as well as my social media links will be in my description box. If you guys are still here, thank you so much for watching till the end, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye!