How to Paint MOUNTAINS in 5 Easy Steps

Hi everyone, Sam here. Welcome to my studio. In this video I'm going to show you how to paint this mountain landscape in five easy stages. So whether you're a complete beginner or a more advanced artist, I hope you get some tips from this video which will be helpful. Check out the link below for the written notes that accompany this video. Feel free to use any of the photos, feel free to copy them, copy the painting process, it's all good. Let's get started. So the five stages that we'll be covering in this video to create this painting include composition, blocking in the painting, building up the detail, refining the painting and the final details. Now before we begin I'm just going to quickly go over the colours I'll be using. I'm using Langridge handmade oils and the colours I'm using are titanium white, cadmium yellow, cadmium yellow deep, yellow oxide, burnt sienna, burnt umber, cadmium red light, quinacridone magenta, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cobalt teal and phthalo green. So today we're going to be working on a small canvas panel and small paintings are really good especially if you're a beginner. They're easier to paint, they're much less daunting and they're also easier to sell. But before we get into the painting let's just briefly talk about the composition. So before I begin the painting I always start by getting out my sketchbook and doing some thumbnail sketches, rough little sketches and then a final sketch and I'll use that final sketch to refer to for my painting. Now I know sketching sort of sounds a bit boring, you just really want to get into your painting but I would thoroughly recommend you start sketching first. It will save you hours of time of failed paintings due to bad compositions which has happened to me so many times back in the day when I used to get straight into a painting and then halfway through it didn't work. Next I'm going to talk about the design process of this composition and just give you a few pointers and just show you how this painting came together. So this is one of the reference photos I used of some mountains in Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. This view actually forms a naturally good composition so I didn't actually need to change too much. So when you're designing a landscape painting it's a good idea to establish your focal point. You should never place your focal point in the middle of your painting as it gives a displeasing static that results in a painting that lacks interest. Once you've decided on a focal point you then want some forms and elements that subtly lead the eye towards your focal point. In this painting I've made Mount Talbot the focal point. The stream leads towards Mount Talbot. I also painted in some clouds which leads the eye across to Mount Crosscut, the bigger mountain on the right, which then leads the eye down back to the foreground. I've also added in some props such as the log in the foreground which points towards the direction of the mountain. So now to begin the painting and this starts with a process called blocking in and this is where I'll roughly paint out the entire scene in one sitting which will serve as a base to work from. After that I'll let it dry and then I can start building up the detail. So at this stage I'm not worried about detail whatsoever so I'm not using fine brushes or anything like that. I'm using larger brushes like this flat bristle brush here. See that? These are great for blocking in paintings. You can achieve loose more impressionistic brush strokes to start with which adds life and vibrancy to the painting and then once it's dry we can start building up the detail on top of that. So I'm painting on a 20 by 30 centimeter canvas panel and I've previously prepared it with a dark tone of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. This will mean that when I start painting on it the colors will leap off the canvas. I prefer painting on a dark surface like this or a layer of burnt umber or burnt sienna as this is much better than white. I feel that a white surface can have a bit of a distorting effect on the colors so with titanium white mixed with quinacridone magenta and liquin I sketch out the scene. Liquin is a good medium to use because it improves the flow and it also speeds up the drying. Using a flat bristle brush I start painting the sky and the colors I'm using for this are cobalt blue, cobalt teal, a little ultramarine blue and titanium white. Next I start blocking in the highlights of the cloud using titanium white. I'm not too worried that I'm just using white at this stage because I know that the cloud shadow colors that I'm going to mix will mix in with the white and that I'll be able to return to it later on in the painting. So I use the sky to gauge the tonality of the rest of the painting and as I'm painting the clouds it begs the question how do I make my clouds and the distant mountains look further away in the painting while simultaneously making the mountains in the mid-ground and the objects in the foreground look closer to the viewer? Well this all comes down to getting our tonal values right so what is this? The primary elements of the tonal scale is dark, light and mid-tones. So if we take our reference photo and switch it to black and white and then just imagine a scale where there's dark at one end and light at the other then the photo shows lots of mid-tone greys and lots of dark and light tones. If we look at Mount Talbot here, the mountain in the distance, the shadow is lighter and that's because as things recede into the distance our darks are not quite dark and our lights are not quite light. But then as we start coming forward into the mid-ground of the painting looking at Mount Crosscut on the right the shadows are starting to get darker. Then in the next tier of mountains the shadows are getting even darker still until we get to the foreground where the shadows in the grasses for example are almost completely black. Now let's take a look at the snow on top of Mount Talbot. It's not quite white especially when you compare it to the snow on the top of Mount Crosscut which is tonally lighter and this is because it's closer to the viewer. So how can we apply this to the painting? Well let's start with a neutral grey which we can use in the cloud shadows. I mix this using ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta and lots of titanium white. I edge the mixture on the blue side of it. Now using the same three colours and a little less titanium white I can start painting the shadows in Mount Talbot, the distant mountain. I can use these three colours, ultramarine blue, burnt umber and quinacridone magenta for the shadows in the mid-ground mountain but using less titanium white which will darken the tone even more. So if you're unsure which colours to use when painting the shadows and landscapes start with these three colours and work from there. You can paint the majority of landscapes with these colours. Using these three colours as a base to work from throughout the painting will also create harmony in your painting as there's common colours throughout. So I already painted the snow on top of Mount Crosscut and I've kept it tonally a little darker by using my shadow mix ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta but only a small amount. I want to keep it tonally a little darker so I can add some highlights at the end. Now for the light on the mountain faces I mix burnt umber and ultramarine blue with a lot of titanium white and for the mountains that are coming forward in the painting I start also adding burnt sienna to the mix as well. Here I'm painting the shadows in the next tier of mountains and again I'm using ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta but less titanium white to make an even darker tone than the mountains behind. So as our tonal scale becomes wider as we come forward in the painting so does our saturation of colour. The colours in the distant mountains for example will be leached of colour and so not particularly intense but then as we come forward in the painting the saturation of the colour increases until we have rich vibrant colour in the foreground. If we were to use this colour in the background it wouldn't work because it would just come forward in the painting so we need to desaturate our colours. Think of it like the volume on a stereo with zero being totally leached colour all the way up to 10 with full vibrant saturated colour. So with this in mind as we mix our distant greens we need to make it look like it's been leached of colour and we can do this by using yellow oxide which is a more subdued lower chroma yellow and mixing this with ultramarine blue, titanium white and some burnt umber which will help make it a more earthy green. Then we can increase the intensity of our greens as we come forward in the painting by adding some more saturated colour into the mix. This could include phthalo green and cadmium yellow deep. I paint the reflections of the water of the mountains using the same colour I used to paint the mountains. As I work on the foreground now I can use my most saturated greens and I mix this with ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow deep, phthalo green and titanium white. I can also add burnt sienna or quinacridone magenta if it becomes too intense but it also helps earth the greens. I mix my shadows using burnt umber, ultramarine blue and a little phthalo green. I can also add quinacridone magenta as well. So now that the blocking in stage is complete I allow my painting to dry and once dry I can then begin the next phase of the painting which is building up the detail. So now that the painting is dry I can start building up the detail and reworking some of those areas. I made some slight alterations to the position of Mount Talbot in the painting and the mountain on the left in the mid ground. Now I'm using the same colours in the clouds and in the mountains as I used in the blocking in phase but I'm just readjusting the tones to make sure that it works. I paint the shadow of the snow using ultramarine blue, cobalt blue and titanium white and I desaturate the mix by adding burnt umber to it. As I work the paint I reinforce the shadows in the mountains and define the shapes and also the shadows in the foreground. I start adding lighter tone to the highlighted face of Mount Crosscut in the mid ground. I want to preserve my lightest tones to the end of the painting. I paint some reflected light in the shadows of the mountain again using those three same colours ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta but I make it tonally a little lighter by adding a little more titanium white and a tiny bit more quinacridone magenta just to make it look a little violet. Now working on the foreground I start establishing the shapes of the grass and the shrubs and other plants. I'm using my most saturated greens here which I've mixed using ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow deep, phthalo green and titanium white. Also mix in some places with a little burnt sienna or quinacridone magenta just to make it look more of an earthy green and more organic. I've also re-established my shadows as well to make them look more like solid forms. It's here in the foreground that I'm going to apply the most detail. So now I'm getting to the stage in the painting where I'm refining it, refining the overall shapes of the clouds and the mountains and this will really make it start to come alive. Here I'm using titanium white mixed with a little yellow oxide. I allow the shadows of the clouds to mix in with the highlights a little as I don't want it to come too far forward so I still want it tonally a little darker. I'm using a dagger brush to achieve those wispy broken edges of the cloud. So here I'm applying my last layer of snow to the top of the mountain and I'm using a much lighter tone than the previous layer as you can see. This makes it look much more three-dimensional. I also add a little bit of yellow oxide into the snow just so it's not completely white and using a round brush I'm making much more delicate marks here to indicate areas of snow. Here I'm re-establishing some reflected light in Mount Crosscut, the mountain in the mid-ground and I'm using smaller brushes and I'm also adding lighter tone on top of the previous layers. This helps to make the mountains look more three-dimensional. Overall I'm refining the shapes of the mountains and I'm applying lighter colour to the distant foliage and trees, keeping in mind that I still need to keep my green desaturated. So now I'm adding more of the final details which is going to add interest to the painting, for example this scree just at the side of Mount Crosscut here. I start painting in the silty sand to define the shapes of the riverbank and I'm using a combination of ultramarine blue, burnt umber and a lot of titanium white. Now I'm adding the highlights of the foliage and grass in the foreground and I'm using a lighter green to make it look more three-dimensional. Also I'm constantly re-defining the shadows in the foreground which is adding much more drama to the painting. Here I start painting in stones and props such as this log which subtly leads the eye towards the mountain. Now with any landscape painting you want to save your lightest tones until the very end and this is what will make your painting really come alive. So I paint the highlights in the grass and in the foliage which looks like it's reflecting strong sunlight or has the illusion of strong sunlight shining through the leaves. I mix this using titanium white and a little cadmium yellow. I refine the reflections in the water and I add more highlights to the stones and the log in the foreground. And now to complete the painting I add sparkles to the water which I apply using a round brush with pure titanium white straight from the tube. Now I apologise for the last part of this video but the light in the studio distorted the colours of my painting a bit. So to recap what have we learned today? Well before we begin a painting it's always a good idea to sit down with your sketchbook first and design some compositions. Then as we start blocking in our painting we don't want to worry about detail and we want to try and block in the painting in one sitting. We need to think about the tonality of our painting so objects in the distance our darks aren't quite dark and our lights aren't quite light but as we come forward in the painting our darks get darker and our lights get lighter. Use the same colours in the shadows for landscapes and then darken the tone by adding less titanium white as you come forward in the painting. If you're unsure which colours to use then ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta is a good place to start. You can then lighten the tone by adding titanium white. Also if your painting contains common colours it's much more likely to be more harmonious and you can build up other colours on top of the shadow mix that you have created. And finally save your lightest tones until the end of the painting as this will make your painting really come alive. Thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video hit that like and subscribe button also don't forget the link to the written notes that accompany this video. If you've got any questions about painting please feel free to leave them in the comment section below and I'll answer them as best I can. Until then I shall see you in the next video.