Easy Winter Watercolor Painting for Beginners

All right, I'm excited to dive into this very easy winter landscape scene. And we're going to keep it even more simple by limiting our color palette. So today I'm going to be working with some burnt orange, sap green, which is pretty much the standard green. If you are working with kind of a beginner palette, you're likely going to have your sap green in there. And then we have our Windsor blue. All right, besides me, I have two cups of water. You don't have to use anything fancy. This is just some kind of like a vintage creamer cup. You can use little solo cups. I have a rag to dab off my round watercolor brush on, and I have some bath tissue handy. And I've taped down my canvas, my paper, in order to make it a little bit easier. I won't have like the paper edges curling up on me. And I just found that it's one less thing to think about. You can use an artist tape. You can use a masking tape. You can use a washi tape. You can even use the tape that you get at your local hardware store. OK, let's start by taking our blue color. And normally I would create a sky. But one thing that I think about when I think of kind of winter is just how icy and cold it is. Actually, right now, as I'm looking outside, the sky is very light. It's gray. We just have kind of a consistent cloud cover. And so I'm actually not going to create the sky like I normally would. I'm just going to kind of create a sort of desaturated color. So I'm taking our ultramarine blue with a little bit of our burnt orange, just a little bit, because I still want it to read very blue. But we're just desaturating it. We're getting a little bit moodier. And we'll be doing a lot of that in here. And then we'll kind of pull the green in just to add a little bit more interest. But this could really be you could really create this painting with just the two colors, the blue and the orange. All right. So right here I have this sketch that I've created. And we've got this horizon line. And I've got kind of some sections marked off for trees. Like I said earlier, we're not going to work on the sky per se. We're going to keep that a little bit more vague. If you want help with sky and clouds, I have a lot of other tutorials for that. And I'll link that right here. Feel free to add that on and kind of make this painting your own. But for this particular painting, I thought it'd be interesting to kind of work with some of that aerial perspective, but not have the sky in here. And I'm going to actually clean my brush off real good. So I'm putting in some of my clean water as well. I'm picking some of that water up and I'm going to start at the horizon line. The horizon line is either a little bit above or a little bit below the center of our page. So I'm starting a little bit below and I'm kind of going up. I'm not going to go up the entire way, but most of the way. If your water's a little dirty, that's not a big deal. Don't worry about it. Now I'm going to grab some of that blue. Dab my brush off because I don't want to be too wet as I transfer it. And just kind of go along our horizon line. And move that up. I'm even going to kind of go a little bit here. I'm just grabbing light layers, sweeping it kind of back and forth. Almost the opposite of what we sometimes do with our skies. I'm going to grab just a little bit of this burnt orange. There's a little bit of blue mixed in it, so it's not like a solid orange. And I'm going to kind of place it in here. Keeping it more concentrated toward the horizon line. Just kind of going back and forth. I'm just kind of kissing the paper with my paintbrush. I'm just kind of like barely hitting it once in a while. To keep it light, I'm not trying to disperse a ton of product on here. Going in with a little bit more. This is a little more concentrated on the orange. Just tiny, tiny touches. And then while that dries, I'm cleaning my brush off. It might be a little dirty, that's okay. I'm going to dab it off so it's not too, too wet. I'm going to pull this down just a touch. We're going to leave some areas blank because we want the snow in here. But I'm going to create a shadow area. Start that here by this tree. I'm going to go in with a little bit more blue. Because this section is already a little bit wet, it's not soaking wet. It's just kind of got this nice sheen. Let me show you. See, we've got that nice sheen that allows the paint to kind of travel around in that area that's wet, but it doesn't create any weird puddles or blooms. By keeping it just damp in that way, that gives me a little bit more control. So I need to desaturate this blue just a little bit more. Making it a little more gray. I'm going to tap this in here and clean my brush off real good. While my brush is wet, I'm just going to run this along this area a little bit just to soften those edges. If it gets a little bit too much, I can help to just kind of soften it. Now, you don't need to do these shadows yet, but since it was already on the brush, I figured why not? OK, now we're going to do a little hint of some trees. I'm just going to take our ultramarine blue. We're going to take the sap green. I'm going to mix that till we have kind of a cool tone green. So I'm mixing that together, kind of getting my blue pretty dirty. So we've got this nice green. Now I'm going to, off to the side a little bit, add in some of our burnt orange. A raw sienna also works, or a burnt sienna also works really well for this. And see, we've got this super desaturated color. That's what we're going for. We're going to add a little bit of water to our brush, and we're going to dab it off on the paper towel so it's not soaking wet. And we're going to start with some of these trees in the background. Now, if you really want them to be soft and in the background, which we'll kind of add some more in here later, you want to work when this area is still wet. Mine is not because we were talking and visiting, but something that is an option. Now I'm going at kind of a slightly downward angle and moving out, and I'm just tapping my brush as I go. I'm still keeping this area nice and concentrated. I'm just kind of going back and forth. I might mix stuff. We've got like kind of a short branch in here. I want that to come down. I do like to have kind of a long leader on them. I didn't used to like that, but it's kind of my thing lately. I'm going to go into a little bit of that cooler tone. I'm just going to tap that in here along that center. It'll give it a little bit more interest, a little more depth. Back in with our warmer. All right, I'm going to repeat that same thing over here. A little watered down and just up top, you kind of start horizontal, and then you start moving it down a little bit. Now, if you want to give it the look of snow, which is totally optional, I'm going to clean my brush off really well. It's still damp, and I'm going to dab it off on the paper towel, and I'm just going to lay next to the branch and pull up, dab it off on paper towel, and I'm going to just repeat and see how suddenly those branches have snow on them. So rinse it off, dab it off. We're going to keep going. Now, the tricky part with doing this is that now all of your trees need to have snow on them because it wouldn't quite make sense if just a couple of the trees had some snow. So we're going to work quickly. This wasn't really part of my initial plan, but how can you not? And it's soft, it's got some shadows on it without too much work on your part. He's so simple, so beautiful. All right, let's get this side real quick before she dries. I did kind of spring that on you. Sorry. So if she did dry, that's OK. You're just going to take a little bit of water. Might be wise to let it sit there for just a second. And you're just going to kind of rub it gently and then push down with your brush and pull, push down with your brush and pull. All right, down here, we're still wet, so it should be OK. All right, so I'm going to place my brush, push it down. And pull, and that will cause me to pick up pigment instead of placing it down. So placing our brush down and we're pulling. I'm just kind of filling in that whole section. And then we're just going to kind of repeat that the whole way down. And we'll go back in and add a little more definition if you feel like you've lost your tree. Don't worry about it. We'll get there. All right, let's add a little bit more layering to this guy. A little more height. And then we'll pull off for some more snow. I'm going to dab in just a little bit here, kind of in the center. It helps to kind of ground the tree just a bit. It'll still, it'll start to like separate a little bit, but that's not a big deal. We'll kind of keep adding that in. Every little bit helps a lot. The main part with watercolor is that it's a lot of layers and a lot of back and forth game. So like we laid down shadows, but we'll probably be placing them down again. And I'm going to pull from this a little bit more. Picking up with a clean, damp brush by just placing and dragging. I'm going to pick up all that color. The eraser of watercolor. All right. I love the way the blue separating on that. I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I love it. All right, I'm going to bring this one down a little bit as well, even though we've got a tree that's going to be here. I think having these two mirror each other, they're just a little too close to being the same. So I'm going to kind of avoid this section where we have our tree kind of sketched out. And we can always go back and fill that in. Cleaning my brush off, wiping it off, and we're going to pull that snow. I'm going to tap in just a little bit more of the bluer section. Just so we get some of the same separation. All right, now let's work on this main tree, and then we'll kind of fill in some of this behind the scenes area. I'm going to try and keep this pretty thick. And I want it to be darker than this area because it's a little bit more in the foreground, and that deeper color will help to pull it visually forward. I'm going to pull this down, trying to make the trunk fairly straight. So don't do that stem that I just did, because I'm going to be getting rid of some of it in order to make our snow. So it was kind of, I didn't really need to do that, but just kind of did it out of habit. Grabbing some more of our pigment. And if yours is starting to dry, just work in sections. So do the top half of the tree, and then kind of move on to the lower section. So I'm making this lower section a little more wet so that it won't dry too fast, hopefully. So when I'm overlapping where our shadow is, that will become helpful later. All right, now I'm going to rinse my brush off quickly, get it nice and clean, dab it off. And then we're going to start kind of at the top here where it's drying faster. And you just get little sections of kind of the snow. So if it's starting to dry again, just a little rub back and forth does wonders. Cleaning my brush off, wiping it off, pulling. Pulling it, want to leave a big puddle behind. Laying that water down in this area that kind of dried. I'll move on to this section while that area soaks. Dabbing my brush off again, and just wiggling and pulling. And then we'll go back in. So I'm going to mix a little bit more of that pigment. I'm just going to kind of add, it's a little too blue. So dab it off if it's a little too thick rather than getting too much water. And if you have too much water, dab it off on that paper towel. That paper towel or rag is your secret weapon. And for this layer, I'm making smaller, more pointed strokes. So adding that little bit more detail now that we've got some of this area established. But I'm not covering exactly over where we painted before. I'm allowing some of that earlier paint to show through. I don't know if you can hear my boys. They're playing with toys. But anyway, having that first layer. So we're not totally covering over the section that we painted earlier. Having that first layer kind of softly poking through will give us a lot of depth and a lot of interest. And it really helps this one appear kind of in the foreground. I really like how this blue is kind of peeking through. So in order to create some of that over here, I'm going to take that same green, but I'm going to add a little bit more of our Windsor blue. Or I'm sorry, our ultramarine blue. And I'm going to just kind of tap it in some areas that are already wet. This will kind of allow it to spread and separate just a touch. At least that's the hope. Ultramarine is a granular color, which means that which for our purposes today, it just means that it will separate out. And so that's why there are sections here that are way more blue. So if you want to kind of mimic that, you can just take a little bit of that blue and kind of tap it in where there's still some areas that are wet, and it will kind of it'll separate out for you. I'm going to add a little bit of snow right here. I'm just adding little areas where maybe some of the pine needles are or the some of the evergreens kind of poking through just makes it a little more realistic. All right, now this area got covered a little too much, so I'm just going to do the same thing that we did before. I'm just pushing down and pulling. If I need to, I can place a little bit of water there. Now, our previous pine tree was there, so it might just be too stained, but it might come up. OK, we can only know if we try. No, for sure. All right, I'm pretty happy with that. Now we're going to take a step back, just kind of leaning back. I like how everything's reading where there's obviously this more focal tree. Then we've got these trees in the background. Now we're going to create kind of some soft hints of the forest, if you will, behind them in order to get a little bit more interest in here. All right, so first things first, I'm going to deepen this shadow just a little bit. We really want to keep these highlights for our snow, but I like this kind of glow that we have coming up over here. So I'm going to make some of our blue with our burnt orange again. Really water it down. So we're just going to get the pigment on our brush. We're going to dip it in the water, tap it off on the towel so that there's not a ton of pigment on our brush and just place that underneath. That'll kind of help to ground everything. And by having little skipped areas like this, it gives it a little bit more depth, a little bit more realism. Take a touch of that blue. I think I'm just going to tap that in here, actually. This is just straight blue, very watered down, but just tapping that in here to add a little bit more to it. And then I'm going to do the same thing, but kind of the opposite with on this side, but instead we're going to tap a little bit of our orange in there. And I think I'm going to add a little here. So let's, my brush is clean with just a little bit of water on here, and I'm just going to wet this area and a little bit of our burnt orange. Just a tiny little bit. We're really just grabbing those tiny little bits. See how watery that is? Now my brush isn't wet. My brush isn't wet, and if you're worried about that, dab it real quick on your paper towel, because you just want to add just this hint of a glow, almost like there's light coming from this side. And having that differentiation kind of adds some interest. So again, just kind of that little touch. We might bring some of the branches down to overlap this a little bit more, but I like where this is going right now. Okay, again, we're going to take that blue-gray color right here, just tuck it underneath here. This shadow doesn't need to be quite as dark, because it's a little farther away. And then rinsing the brush off really well, taking a little bit of that orange, just roll water down again, just kind of hitting this edge of the shadow. So we're keeping it consistent. The orange section is to the right, and so we're going to keep that consistent here. I'm going to wipe my brush off on the towel so it's just damp and able to pick some of this up. Take a little bit of blue over here, a little more of a hint of shadow for the sky. All right, now we're going to work on this back section. You'll need to clean your brush off real good. If you need to switch out your water, now's a good time to do that, because we're not kind of in any rush. To get things done on time. All right, once your brush is fairly clean, we're going to add some of that clean water. We're going to take it by the horizon line, and we're going to just go back and forth very, very gently. We're not trying to reactivate any paint here. All right, so see that shimmer? It's very light. This is kind of what we're trying to be. This is our sweet spot. If we scrub this, it'll pick up some of that pigment, so we don't want to do any scrubbing. So I'm going to stay here, and while this is wet, I'm going to go into our same green color. I'm not going to mix anything new. It's already on my palette nicely, but I might add a little bit more. I'm going to go into kind of the bluer tone, and that will help to let it fall in the background. I'm just going to pull it down a little bit. That's a little bit dark, and I'm just going to... It's okay if it is a little bit more in focus back here. And then down here, I'm going to dip more into the blue. Add a little bit more of our blue to our green, and that'll just get a cooler color. And see, this is still wet, so it's all good. Dapping my brush off. See, it was just a little too much, and I'm going to kind of do a hint of a line farther back. Do some more. And these are more kind of our blue-green, and I'm going to kind of let it come down a little bit, and then get up a little higher until it kind of looks like it meets with this guy. And we're not going in with a lot of detail here. Letting kind of that orange kind of poke through, and then just watering it down a little bit because this dried a little bit too fast, and I'm just going to kind of blend this out. And I'm going to go through with mostly blue at this point. There's some of the green and some of the burnt orange. But I just kind of kept adding to it, and I'm going to pull this here like the horizon line, really emphasizing that a little bit. I'm going to pull it forward. I kind of wanted to try it now while this is still wet. I'm going to give more of a hint of some of these trunks. And just kind of, you're just working with layers, different layers of wet on wet in order to get it built up to where it kind of reads the way you want it to. This is one of those things where you kind of have to trust the process. It can be a little bit unnerving at first, but in the end, you usually end up with something really beautiful. Okay, cleaning my brush off, wiping it off. See this bloom here that we've got? I'm going to pull this along the side. So again, a clean, damp brush, just like we did with the snow. That will help to pick up some of the excess water that created that bloom. All right, and I think it's getting a little bit dark, so I'm actually going to pull the bath tissue. This is not necessary, but it just seems to be getting a little too dark, a little too fast. So I'm going to dab up in here. We still have a little bit of kind of a ghost hint of some of the trees that we had in there, but by lifting some of this up, it kind of draws you back there, almost like there's something to see. So I'm going to add just the edges of these back in. And I think that's a little bit more interesting. Okay, let's step back and take a look. Okay, I added just a touch of the horizon line back here just to kind of ground this area so it doesn't look like it just kind of goes off. And I'm going to add a little shadow of the scene kind of behind them. Because even though it frames it in, I don't want it to be too book-end-y. So I just took some watered-down blue-green and just kind of wiggled it kind of in the general shape of a pine tree. And I'm even going to do kind of the same thing here. We're going to repeat on this side, maybe a little more. And I'm leaving, see how I'm leaving some of this negative space? That'll actually help. I should have done that a little bit more here, which we can kind of add a little more back in. And then I'm going to add just a touch of this orange in here that should mix and kind of get more of that brown-green-y tone. I might add a little bit more pigment in here just because this section is so dark. And then this looks kind of like if you squint, I feel like this little spot stands out a lot. So I'm just going to lighten that. I can get rid of it completely or just lighten it. But that seemed to help quite a bit. And then just kind of get a little bit more in here. So again, very soft layer, not a ton of pigment, certainly not a lot of water on here, just allowing us to add some of these details back in. Not as much detail as this one, because we want this one to be the focal point and then kind of guide your eye here and then back. And then I'm going to take a little bit more pigment. I'm just going to kind of focus on the stems here. I'm just kind of bringing that down. All right, taking a pause. So we're kind of leaning back in our chairs. We're squinting, just trying to figure out if there needs to be a little more layering anywhere. And I think I'm ready to call this one good. So I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial. I hope you found it relaxing, that you found it helpful as you're continuing on your watercolor journey. If you enjoyed this tutorial, I have many, many other landscape tutorials, including some where we're exploring how to create mist, where we're doing just very simple, moody landscapes. We've also done sunsets and stuff like that, that I think that you would really enjoy. Otherwise, I hope that you are having a wonderful, wonderful day. And until next time, happy painting. All right. Time for the best part. Alfine.