Painting REALISTIC Foliage for a BEAUTIFUL Landscape!

So to get started with this painting, the first thing that I did was block in the sky with just kind of a simple blue-gray mixture and just use a flat brush just to, and also a round brush just to blend that together. The next thing is I went straight to the tree branches. I kind of had a sketch and I didn't want to lose that. So I took a liner brush, sketched out those tree branches, and then went right in to blocking in the rest of the trees. So I've switched to a smaller angular brush and just started to scrub in the idea of some green foliage. And as I go lower, I add some darker tones to add some shadows to the bottom of these trees, the bottom of this forest over to the left is going to be pretty dark down low. So the process of this initial layer is super simple. I never over-complicate it. And I'm just using some various brushes just to scrub in these tones. And you'll see that I just kind of continue on with the rest of this blocking in stage, just in a similar way, scrubbing in the major color for each given area. And so as I finished this up, I realized that I really didn't need to go further with the acrylic portion. So that was the acrylics right there. And I've now switched to oil paints. And I'm starting up top and just working my way down. So starting with the foliage, I'm taking a small round brush and just speckling on, spotting on those leaves high up in the sky. Once I have those leaves on, I'll use another liner brush and just draw on those same tree branches, a little more prominent and permanent this time. And this starts to add depth to the trees, gives that three dimensionality look to it. And then back to the leaves again, adding some and finishing with some more shadows, some darker colors. So now that I've got sort of the idea of these trees in place, I wanna really bring it home, bring out the realism, add depth to it. And so I'm spotting on some highlights within those shadows. So that almost makes it appear that we can see through the trees to the light shining through from behind. And adding some variety with a fan brush and just spotting on some idea of some different types of leaves. And then once again, finishing with that sky color again and that small round brush, and I'm just spotting on and breaking up the tops of those leaves, the tops of those trees, just so we can see through to that sky a little bit easier. And finally, adding a couple more branches over the top of everything I've done, starting with the shadows and just adding some highlights over the top of that. And so that really just adds another layer to those trees and the foliage and really brings out the realism. And finally, just adding a few more of those leaves and finishing touches. So now I'm getting into the horizon and what I'm doing here is just using the color of that blue horizon, those blue mountains in the background, and I'm reshaping and breaking up that tree line so we can see through to those mountains. It just adds more realism to that distant tree line and just gives more accurate shapes of actual trees back there. It doesn't just look like a flat object. And then I'll mix a lighter color. So this is just basically using that same gray mixture but adding some white and green and I'll add some green foliage to those trees. So this just starts to add a little bit of depth and gives more realism. So once I'm done with that, I just add a few more details, some shadows, kind of finish up the trees on the left, some tree branches, a couple more highlights maybe, just some random textures with that small brush to give more realism. And begin to work my way forward, starting with some bare trees on the right and just kind of using the same process with those trees way off to the right, kind of starting with those shadows and then just speckling on some highlights over the top, some green foliage. Now I'm beginning to move to the grass, the foreground, and what I've done is basically just mix a more vibrant color with this oil paint, somewhat match that color and just scrubbing it on over the top of some subtle shading down lower, but not much. And you can see I've switched to a fan brush and I've mixed a lighter color than what's already on there in that initial layer, so these are highlights and I'm speckling on the highlights of what appears to be grass. And I'll maybe brush it a little bit, just any way I can manipulate this old ragged fan brush. And once I've got a lot of those highlights in place, I'll switch to a darker color than that initial layer and start scrubbing on, spotting on some shadows in and around those highlights that I just added. So I've gone over the fence a little bit and I wanna clean that up, so I'm using just this little eraser. I'll have a link in the description below of what that actually is or I'll talk about it. But I just dip it in mineral spirits and wipe that paint away so I can still see my fence. And then I switch to that small round brush again and I'm starting to fine tune my grass work, starting to add some specific, more deliberate shadows, some deliberate highlights and actual blades of grass. And so I'll just work a little bit with this round brush in a similar way. Okay, so now you can start to see I'm getting a little more refined with this approach and I'm adding some highlights. I've switched to an even smaller, this is just a small liner brush and you can see me just starting to spot on or brush on some highlights, some actual blades of grass. And I remain pretty low in the foreground so that I don't have too much detail far off. I wanna keep that detail close to the viewer so it gives that realistic feel of a landscape. And you can see I'm just adding some highlights, just random places and I'm moving fairly quick. And then you can see I switch back to some shadows. So this will be, and I've talked about this in the past, a process of just going back and forth, highlights, shadows, highlights, shadows. And I'm gonna work at this foreground until it starts to give just a more realistic feel, which will also help the composition a little more with some increased contrast. Once I finish that, I kind of go back and forth with the fan brush again. I'm adding some of those fence posts and the road back there. And now I'm ready to move to the fence posts in the foreground. And I start with the darkest color. So this is just a really dark, rich color, some black, some magenta and red. And I'm just going on the bottom side mostly of these boards and I'm adding the shadows in. So once those shadows are in place, I switch to more of a mid-tone. So this is more of a brownish color, not really a highlight left yet, but lighter than those shadows. And I add those mid-tones into the boards, kind of remaining above the shadows. I switched down low to the part of the foreground that's closest to the viewer. And I'm just gonna kind of scrub in this fence now with some more grass detail. So same technique as before, just using a small liner brush and just spotting on and brushing on some very thin lines to give the appearance of realistic grass. Once that's kind of finished, feels good, then I switch right to the highlights for the fence and I'm adding the highlights now with the same liner brush just to finish off this realistic fence. Lots of various textures are good when painting wood boards like this, just a lot of random textures. And then finally, I add what appears to be some mold, some fungus on the fence, just to give a little bit of something for the viewer to focus on, just some sharp details. It really adds to the realism, so brings that fence out and makes it pop, so to speak. And once that fungus is in place, I kind of just sporadically work on some things throughout the painting, kind of go back to the fence, focus on that foreground, and that's pretty much it. And here is the finished result. I'm really happy with how this painting came out and I hope you guys enjoyed walking through this with me. Remember, if you had questions, please be sure to leave them in the comments below or send me an email. I'm always happy and here to try and help. And of course, if you like this video, hit that like button, subscribe, all that fun stuff, and check out my free print giveaway. I give away a free print to a lucky newsletter subscriber every week. Again, guys, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time. ♪♪♪