The "GHOST WASH" Watercolour Technique

I'm going to show you the ghost wash technique today a fantastic technique and I'm going to use these lebens and handmade brushes and I'll talk a little bit more about these as the video goes on and I'll also show you how you can get some money off on their website so stick around for that. Now I'm working from a reference photo and that's available over on Patreon so if you want to see the reference then go check that out. Now I'm going to bring in some water over the whole sheet and then build up a wash using this soft goat hair brush quite a large brush so I can cover most of the paper quite quickly with this and but building up a wash over the whole sheet pretty much outlining all of the elements and all of the shapes in the scene all within one wash it's all soft and blended together so I've got some blue ultramarine cobalt some of the greys in the palette and some little bits of burnt sienna as well and so bringing in a very light wash for the sky it's a misty woodland scene so I want everything to be very soft fairly light especially up in the sky no hard cloud shapes or anything like that so bringing that wash all the way down pretty much to the horizon now while that's still wet I'm going to pick up a little bit more ultramarine and lay that in and so suggesting some distant trees and because I'm laying that into the wet that's already on the paper it's going to be very soft it's going to sink right back into the paper and really recede off into the distance so that's all I really need to do at this stage for that distance very simply done now let's go swap to a pointier slightly smaller brush and I can get in a little bit more detail with this one so I've got some raw sienna and a little bit of viridian it's a nice autumnal field color so suggesting some grass a bit more raw sienna into that vary the mixture as I go and I can allow that all to run together so the sky and that distant tree wash all running down into this field let's get a little bit of burnt sienna and some viridian let's mix it up a tiny little bit darker now and there's a little track that comes out and goes around the corner with little puddles and I can suggest that I'm drawing with the brush and basically just leaving behind the white of the paper getting a little bit darker as I come closer down into the foreground there's not as much water on the paper down there either so I'm getting some little hard edges forming now and this track curves around the bend so simply as that I've outlined the shape of the path going around the corner let's get a little bit more burnt sienna some ultramarine there's lots of little bushes and grass and little shrubs and things over here on the left and over on the right hand side and so joining it all in with this first wash let's go back to the slightly larger brush and I can lay that paint in a bit quicker so more ultramarine burnt sienna varying that mixture so working very loosely looking at the overall shape of the reference I'm not copying it exactly just want to build up a feeling and a sense of light and atmosphere and get that misty effect let's go back to that smaller brush let's give him a little bit more blue mix that in with everything in the palette and it's dried off a tiny little bit now up in the sky and in that distance and I can lay some slightly darker shapes over the top and start working on that tree line so there's some trees at the end of the field over there in the distance and I'm just laying back into the slightly wet paper now so it's going to be very soft still and still maintain that misty effect so painting this all as one big shape but lots of little marks with these brushes and they're really good for painting trees very soft hair and so I can very quickly build up the shape of this tree line at the end of the field now a lot of this on the left is going to be covered up with some darker trees so I can lay that in very quickly taking a little bit more care in the middle here because a lot of that's going to be seen in the finished painting so take a bit more care over that so bringing these shapes down have a slightly larger tree going over to the right hand side now again quite a lot of this on the right will be slightly covered up so I don't have to take too much care over that but definitely taking care over this little bit in the middle there joining that down into the field and already I'm starting to build up a scene it's got a nice misty feel to it and our trees on the right are going to be largely covered up so I don't have to worry too much about that but just get some paint there so it's there behind while I'm waiting for that to dry let's have a quick talk about these brushes I'm using today and these are all handmade by a guy called Tracy Levenson in Seattle Washington in the US now this is a goat and synthetic brush with a bamboo handle and it forms a really really lovely tip it's a very nice soft brush good for detail and larger washes this is a medium sized goat hair brush and again it's very soft forms a really nice tip and fantastic for skies but look at the craftsmanship in the handles each one is individually made takes them a couple of weeks to make and so there's so much craft and so much love and effort goes into making these brushes they're amazing this is a tiny little detail brush it's Siberian Elk and again forms a perfect tip and excellent for tiny little details small lines tiny little marks and but like I said each brush is individually made and takes him a couple of weeks to make so there's a huge amount of effort goes into making these and they're beautiful beautiful brushes and I feel really privileged to have them and but if you ever look in the description of this video there's a link and also there's a coupon code which is Chris so very simple nice easy to remember if you head over to his website you can get 20% off all brushes and make sure you do it by the end of the month though because that coupon does expire so get in there quick and get yourself 20% off okay I've dried that wash completely and hopefully you can see why I call it the ghost wash is everything's pretty much in place but it's got a very misty ghostly feel to it and then once I lay some darks over the top that's really going to bring everything together bring the foreground closer push the distance back and then maintain that misty feel so let's bring in some water with the mist bottle now using that same pointy soft brush can mix up a little bit of darker paint with some ultramarine and burnt sienna and I can get anywhere from a very cool blue gray to pretty much a black with this mixture so it's very good for laying these dark shapes over the top I find it better than using something like Payne's gray you have far more control of your darks this way by mixing them yourself so let's lay in lots of little shapes with this brush and where I put the water on with the mist bottle some of it's softening and I'm also getting little bits of dry brush happening as well and so getting lots of variation in the texture I want some soft areas I want some little hard areas and there's quite a gnarly looking tree over here on the right hand side and I can suggest that with lots of marks with this brush and now not trying to copy the tree exactly it would take me hours there's thousands of little branches and twigs and all kinds of things there but I can suggest that with the brush allow the brush to make little broken marks working relatively quickly and using the texture of the paper and also the paint on the brush to suggest lots of little things going on there just by using dry brush and also little soft areas as well and let's close that area off down towards the bottom there again lots of little shrubs and bushes and things in there and it's a whole jumble of stuff and I always think if you see a jumble in your reference or if you're working on location and you see a jumble then essentially just paint a jumble paint the jumble that you see rather than what you think you see so if you you'll see trees and rather than painting individual trees paint it all as one big jumbly shape if that makes sense now all right let's drop a little bit of dark in coming down towards the bottom of these trees and join all these shapes together now there are hundreds again of little tree shoots and all kinds of things coming up there but I don't need to worry about any of that I can allow the brush to do all this work for me so let's vary that mixture again a little bit more blue a bit more burnt sienna now a little spray with the mist bottle as well I want to maintain that misty feel so I'm going to go over any of this with too hard an edge so I'm coming down towards that path now so I've got to make sure I don't cover up where I've left that little white area going around the corner I want that eventually to look like a like there's a lot of water sitting there little puddles and things like that so take care not to cover that over let's drop a little bit of just around the edge of that track and then continue that out all is one shape and still joined in as well to the shapes on the right so I've got connections between everything let's drag some darker paint over the grass there as well now again another little spray with the bottle and start working on this left hand side now again there's loads of trees and bushes and grass and shrubs and all sorts of stuff there and it's a big jumble so that's what I see so that's what I'm going to paint and so making sure I've got little connections everywhere joining left and right in a tiny little way doesn't have to be a hard line connecting it all lots of little lost and found areas I say that quite a lot but it's really quite important I to connect all your darks together so let's get really quite dark now on this left hand side and using the brush dragging up quite quickly getting little bits of dry brush happening little sprays with the mist bottle as I go as well so I get soft areas forming it's a very light touch with the brush and just flicking up and these kind of trees almost paint themselves working like this so really building up the scene now and it's these few slightly harder edges in the foreground that really make that distance look more misty and really push it back as well so getting a real strong sense of perspective an aerial perspective let's join all these darks together bring it all the way down and I've still got the first wash slightly shining through there and make some slightly darker paint on this right hand side again while it's still wet and so I've built up lots of little connections let's get a little bit darker around the edge of this path there so really taking shape now not too much left to do so it's just these little areas that create the depth and the illusion of detail so I can get away with slightly harder edges down in the foreground and then getting progressively softer and mistier as I go away into the distance so let's take a step back and see if there's anything else that needs to be done let's grab a little bit more blue more burnt sienna again really strong and dark can slightly darken a couple of these tree trunks not too much still want to keep that misty feel very wintry sort of autumnal feel to this one in many ways my favorite scenes to paint are these kind of wintry autumnal it's all very nice painting in the summer especially getting out and painting on location but something about the mistiness of autumn that's fantastic for painting I think okay I've dried everything off and now a couple of finishing touches just down in this path it's a little bit too white at the moment so if I put a little bit of water in with a mist bottle and pick up some of this blue gray that's just sitting down there in the palette I can cover over a couple of little areas making sure I still leave some white behind but knocking it back ever so slightly in places to create the impression of a little muddy path I think that's probably enough and but now while this is dry let's bring in a couple of tiny little hard edges soften little areas with my finger as well I don't want it to be too hard an edge just a couple of little marks to make the area look more three-dimensional and the same down here on the left a couple of little dark areas just a few little bits and be careful not to overdo it as always exercising a little bit of restraint and thinking less is more it's very easy to get caught up and overwork and I think that'll do I think we'll leave it as is okay that's the painting finished that's the ghost wash technique as I like to call it so bringing in a wash over the whole sheet of paper outlining pretty much everything there apart from the hard edges in the foreground you leave that till the end but bringing over a very wet wash for pretty much everything drying that off and then bringing it all together with those few dark areas just to add that sense of perspective and I think it really works especially for this kind of misty autumnal or wintry scene now anyway give it a go let me know how you get on and go over onto Patreon if you want to get the reference for this it's over there and it's in a collection called reference photos funnily enough but go and check that out but anyway thanks for watching everybody as always and see you next time