Transcription
A member over on Patreon asked me a question recently about this painting and how I get those soft effects in these trees. And I use a technique which is about dropping paint onto the paper and allowing it to run together.
Now, I've got my board perfectly flat on my desk. It's quite important really, so you don't want the paint to run around too much. And before I paint the trees, I'm going to bring in a very simple background. I'm going to miss out all of the river and everything just in the interest of this demo. So, I can really concentrate on those trees. But, I need to get something in place before I put those in.
So, let's bring in a very simple sky. Some cobalt blue and some of the grays in the palette. I can lay this in very quickly. Can bring it down across the land as well, so it all joins together. And then touch a little bit of cobalt. And then touch a little bit of raw sienna in. Now, let's get some water in the brush, soften everything. And I'll leave behind a little bit of white paper just behind the trees. I'm going to try and get the feeling that it's slightly backlit.
Little bit more raw sienna mixed in with some blue and then bring some land in. Can treat everything very simply cuz I want the trees really to be the star of the show for this one. Little bit of burnt sienna in there as well now. I'm using a synthetic mop for this. Let's grab some of those grays in the corner of the palette and drop some of those in. Little bit darker down in the foreground.
Now, let's swap to a smaller sable brush and drop in little bit distance. So, some ultramarine. Little bit of burnt sienna. Again, I can treat this very simply as well. It's just a little bit of a backdrop to give the trees a bit of context. I probably could have just painted the trees on their own, but I think it's nice to create a little bit of a scene in any demonstration really.
So, a bit more burnt sienna and cobalt blue this time. So, I'm just going to build up a very simple distant tree line. And cut around these tree trunks. Tiny little bit in the middle there. That might be covered over in the next stage, but it's good to get it in there now. So, a very simple line of trees at the edge of a field. And that's softening enough nicely. So, I'm the paper is still slightly damp, so that's all going to naturally soften, which is what I want.
And now before everything dries out, I can bring in a little bit of an underpainting for the trees. So, back to the synthetic rigger uh synthetic mop, I should say. And get some raw sienna. And laying this in to slightly damp paint as well that's already on the paper and that should create a nice soft backdrop for when I lay the paint over the top. So, some burnt sienna mixed in with some of the palette grays as well. Get a nice amount of variation in these colors, but keeping them fairly muted. Bit of cobalt blue. Bit more raw sienna. So, building this up as a very soft wash, just creating that general outline of the tree. Now, a lot of this is going to be covered up in the next stage, but it's nice to get it in now just so it's there and it creates a sense of depth to the tree when I put the harder edges on.
Okay, it's completely dry. So, let's get into the main technique I'm demonstrating now. And I'm going to pick up some raw sienna and mix in a lot of water in it. More water than pigment. And tiny little bit of spray with the mist bottle. And let's just paint the outline of the tree trunks. So, bringing that in very wet. You could just lay this in with pure water if you wanted. I like to add a little bit of pigment just so I can see where I'm going. And then grab a small brush and drop in a few branches. So, you can barely see the paint really, but it's there and it's enough so you can see where you're going to go with the next step.
So, now pick up a little bit of cobalt blue, mix that in with some of that burnt sienna and raw sienna that's sitting there on the palette. If I roll that in and fill that brush with paint and then drop it, Now, I'm just picking up pigment and dropping it in and then I can now tilt the board and it's going to follow the line of where I've laid in that very wet paint. You can see it picks up some of those little lines, some of those little channels I put in for the branches. Give it a tiny little mist, trying to encourage it to move around. Little bit of ultramarine in there as well. I can drop it in above. And where it hits that wet paint, it starts mixing together on the paper. Little bit of light red as well. Can drop that into the other tree. And now lift the board and tilt it. And let gravity do some of the work. And I can tease some of that paint out with the small brush, create lots of little branches. And the paint just fills up those little channels and moves around. And creates a very soft blended together wash. And that's really by allowing watercolor to do its own thing and mix on the paper. And I think some of the magic happens when you allow it to do that.
So, I've got some ultramarine and light red, quite dark now. Can lay that in at the base of the trees. And again, lift the board up. Can tilt it from side to side as well. And really get some movement in there. And again, tease some of that paint out. And create the shapes for the more branches. Now, if you saw my video last week where I did the drop wash technique, it's very similar to that, but it's a far more controlled method. And I like to call it the controlled drop method. I mean, it doesn't really matter what you call it. It's generally just mixing on paper. It's a very nice technique to play around with. You get a lot of variation in a wash by allowing the paint to mix together.
Now, let's drag some of that out and I can start creating some shadows across the land as well. Let's drop a little bit of texture into that field as well. And I'm just allowing some of the paint in the tree trunks to dry a tiny little bit. If you get too much water build up, it can become a little bit of a mess. So, really controlling the water and understanding how wet it is is also quite key to not creating a big jumbly mess on the paper.
Let's pick up some of that blue, drop in a little bit of cobalt violet in there as well. Now, let's squeeze some of that in towards the top. And now use a small brush to manipulate some of that paint and move it around. I think you have to be quite patient when doing this. You don't want to rush too much. If everything looks like it's getting a bit too wet, then give it a couple of minutes and allow it to dry ever so slightly, but don't allow it to completely dry if that makes sense. So, just keep looking and get a feel for how much water's on the paper at any one time.
So, back into that red and blue mixture, drop some of that in at the base of these trees again. And while it's all still slightly wet, I can always lay back in over the top. See if I can get some of that to run down now, create some shadows. So, let's drag some of that paint out. Now, I'm connecting these trees down into the land. And while I'm doing that, that paint is mixing the whole time up in those tree trunks. So, you get some really interesting little areas of texture and a feeling of light coming in.
Let's mix up some dark. And now I can start introducing some foliage over the top. And I'm connecting all of these little branches together. I need to make sure I don't paint over my first wash too much now. So, I need some of that to still shine through and then hopefully give that tree a three-dimensional feel, give it a sense of depth. Let's drop a little bit of Indian yellow in there as well for some variation. If you wanted to use this technique for winter trees, then you could just skip this step and just do the first stages and leave the bare branches. But, I want a more springtime feel to this tree. So, I'm working my way around, but make sure I don't cover up or disturb too much of the paint that I've got in the those tree trunks. I'm making sure I definitely want to preserve that little bit of light on that right-hand tree. Really like the way that's worked out.
Let's drop some dark in there as well while it's still wet for some strong shadow areas. And let's pick up some cobalt violet. Can use that pretty much neat and drop some of that in to this left-hand tree trunk, a bit more in the shadow. Cobalt violet, very nice. Pretty much ready-mixed shadow color. And let's get some of that in across the land as well. Mixes really nicely with raw sienna, so let's drop some of that in across the land as well. Get some nice warmth in this shadow. Let's try and build up a very strong sense of light by having quite a strong dark shadow across the foreground.
Let's get a little bit of Payne's gray as well. Can mix that into everything and make the trees really quite dark at the base. And a suggestion of a few little dark areas across that field. Back to the small brush and let's tease out a few little strong dark branches. And it's the finishing touches now, really. It's these few hard edges I think they're going to pull everything together. And some of those darks in across the land as well. A few little hard edges just to pull everything together.
Let's bring that one closer to the camera. Hopefully, you can see now it's dry some of the effects that you can get by dropping the paint in and allowing it to mix on the paper. It's really quite a simple technique, but I think you can get some really nice effects by playing around. Anyway, I hope you like that one. If you did, let me know down in the comments. If you've got any questions as well, check me out over on Patreon as well and you can ask me questions over there. You can request things like this as well. So, if you've got any techniques that you want to see a video for, then join me over there and send me a message and if I can, I'll make a video for you. That's this one done. So, I hope you all have a great week and I'll see you next time.