How to Paint AUTUMN BRIDGE with Acrylics - Paint and Sip at Home - Autumn Step by Step Tutorial

hi there i'm michelle the painter from berkshire paint and sip and this is paint and sip at home [Music] all right so today we're going to be painting autumn bridge and i'm going to be sipping on a little cabernet if you enjoy this video today i do encourage you to like and subscribe to my channel and also check out my patreon page where you're going to find some additional painting perks so let's get painting and let's get sipping all right so for the materials today i'm going to be using a stretched and prime 16 by 20 inch canvas if you're painting along with me you can certainly switch up the size but that's what i'm going to be using i'm going to be using acrylic paint today my colors are titanium white cobalt blue burnt umber which i'll call brown mars black fluorescent orange deep yellow and green oxide and of course you can switch up those colors but that's what i'm going to be using for my tools today i have a standard number two pencil and i have three brushes i have a half inch wide flat bristle brush i have a number eight round brush and i have a number three round brush and i'll refer to these as small medium and large as we go through the painting process and if you're painting along with me you're probably gonna want a cup of water for washing your brushes as well as a paper towel for drying your brushes and i do have a couple of additional resources for you that can be found down in the description below the video one of them is a link where you can purchase the same paint kit that i'm using from the big canvas to the same paint and brushes and all that good stuff so that's there for you there's also a link where you can download a free image of the final painting so you can print that and use it as visual reference as you go through the painting process and there's also written step-by-step instructions down there for you as well and that's all we're going to need today all right so what we're going to do for the first step is we're going to draw an outline and we're going to sketch our landscape so we're going to be using our pencil i'm going to give you a couple of markers we're just going to kind of connect the dots and what we're really trying to do is separate our land from our water from our sky so what i'm going to do is i'm going to make myself on the left hand bottom corner of my canvas i'm going to come up about an inch and a half make myself a little bit of a mark and then what i'm going to do is i'm going to come almost halfway into my canvas about a third of the way up and i'm going to come over a little bit to the left i'm going to make myself a little bit of a marker in through there then i'm going to come just a little bit below that and go all the way over to the right hand side make myself another mark in through here and then i'm going to make a fourth mark down in the co right hand corner of my canvas something like that so what i'm going to do first is i'm going to draw the left hand side of my waterway i'm going to have this really kind of scooping in a um in a curved line coming down towards the bottom here so here we go i'm going to just kind of connect this something like that and then what i'm going to do is i'm also going to connect this marker to this bottom right hand corner it's going to be the right side of my waterway so what i'm going to do is i'm going to scoop it in this way and then i'm going to go that way so here we go i'm going to just kind of scoop this in a little bit this way and then i'm just going to give it a little bit of a curve a curve or a turn in through there and then i'm going to go ahead and get it to meet this line and through here that marker into there and it doesn't have to be super perfect we're going to be doing all kinds of stuff on top of it so you can just kind of sketch it on in there and then i'm going to connect this mark to this mark i'm going to give myself a little bit of a hill or you know a little bit of a bump in through there and then i'm just going to kind of get this to go straight over here and that's all i'm going to be doing for my sketch so when you've got that done you can put your pencil down grab your large paintbrush oops i almost just drank my water and get ready for the next step all right so what we're going to do for this step is we're going to be painting our sky i'm going to be using my large bristle brush and the colors that i'm using are white blue and brown and how i'm going to do this is i'm going to make it really really light in the center where my brook or my water is going to be and my whole sky is going to be super duper light but on the bottom right and the bottom left i'm going to be using more blue and brown in my paint combination and the reason why i'm doing that is it's going to start to have our forest that's off in the distance this is going to give us almost like a really nice background for it so i'm starting with mostly white with just a teeny tiny bit of blue and i'm going to start with a left to right kind of brush stroke it really almost doesn't matter what type of brush stroke you're using in this early stage of the sky because it's really light so you're not really going to be able to to detect much of the brush stroke but um when you get down towards the bottom left and right i'll probably be using more of a circular brush stroke so you'll see how i'm going to do that in a minute but right now i'm just using white getting my really light area to come down towards my where my water is going to be and now you'll once i get this nice and smooth you'll see i'm going to start to use brown and blue on my brush so i've got brown and blue i did not wash my brush so i still have that white on there as well and i'm going to start putting this into place down near the where my water is going to start and i've got it pretty dark to start here and then what i'm going to do is i'm going to just get it to almost fade into the lightness over by the um the tip of the waterway if you if your brush is a little bit too overloaded just wipe it on your paper towel and what i'm going to do is i'm going to pick up a little bit more white and i'm going to get this i'm going to start to use that circular brush stroke and i'm going to get this to go up into the sky i want it to be higher on the left hand side so it's going to almost give the illusion of um the soft out of focus tippy tops of the trees that are way off in the distance so i'm really almost running out of paint as i do this and it's getting lighter and lighter as it goes up into the wet white of the sky that i have and then i'm just going to kind of tap it down here make sure it's as textured as i want or as soft as i want and then i'm going to do the same thing over on the right hand side i'm noticing i have a space here though that it looks like it's unpainted so i just want to make sure that i've got paint on the whole canvas so don't miss any spots like i just almost did um and then i'm going to go over to the right hand side of the canvas again i'm not washing my brush i'm just going to load it with some brown and blue and i'm going to start over here in the bottom right hand corner get a real nice almost deep dark kind of color going on where it's hitting the land i'm going to stop this really dark color right about here and that's when i'll start to blend it upwards and get it to go lighter and lighter as it goes up and this is going to be a much larger area than it is over on the left hand side so you can really have fun with it maybe you know if you've got the right amount of paint on your brush you might almost just be able to run out of paint without reloading your brush and again i'm doing more of a circular motion i think i am going to put a little bit of white on my brush um just so i have a nice a nice transition into that sky i don't want it to be a super line and i want it to have high spots and low spots i want it to be kind of uneven so i just add a little bit more white paint to my brush so i can get this to really have some some interesting life at the top of it and then i do need to paint this in here but i want to make sure that it's nice and and nice and light so it doesn't have to be as white or as light as the sky but definitely a little bit lighter um than this right hand side and i'm just going to kind of keep going until i've got as much of this out of focus kind of tree tops as i want and then we're going to use this same brush for the next step but you'll want to wash it and dry it yeah that's looking pretty good all right so wash and dry this same brush in preparation for the next step all right so we're going to do for the next step is we're doing the first layer of our land over here so think of this as just off in the distance some grass that's got maybe some morning light on it or something i'm going to be using my large bristle brush i'm going to be using yellow white green and brown and i'm going to have it really really light over in through here and then i'm going to have it a little bit darker as it comes down and through here and pretty light over here as well so i'm going to start with a little bit of yellow and white on my brush i'm going to be using a dotting type technique just so i can have um some nice texture to it i'm picking up a little bit of green right now i don't just want it to be yellow so i just picked up a little bit of green so it's really nice and vibrant up at the top of this grassy little meadow or field or whatever you wanted to resemble and as i come down i i just picked up green and yellow on my brush at the same time i'll probably put a little bit of white over here on the left hand side maybe a little white and green and then as i get down towards um the bottom part of my grassy area i'm going to be using green and brown i want it to be nice and dark down here what happens in the middle of here is not super important because a lot of it's going to be hidden with your bridge but we do want to have a good transition not knowing exactly where you're going to put your bridge you do want to have some kind of nice transition from the light color to the dark color so just make sure that you overlap those colors a little bit so they look like they belong together and then it's okay if you bump into your water because we're gonna be covering that in a minute too so i've got some green and brown on my brush right now and i'm not overloading it i you don't need a ton of paint um because again most of this is gonna be hidden by your bridge and we are gonna do a second layer on the little pieces that are gonna be poking their head out so right now we're just looking to put kind of a primer coat on there and something that's not going to take too too long to dry so i am not using a ton of paint on my brush right now and then we're going to use this same brush for the next step so once you've got your beautiful grassy field or grassy meadow on here you can wash and dry this big brush and get ready for the next step all right so we're going to do for the next step is we're painting the first layer of our water i'm going to be using my large bristle brush and i'm going to be using white blue brown and black and how i'm going to do this is i'm going to be using just a little left to right brush stroke i'm going to maintain left to right our brains are going to want us to go like this because we're going around a corner so if you can maintain left to right with your brush it's going to make it look a little bit more natural i'm going to have it the lightest over here on the left hand side and then maybe as it comes around this corner will be nice and light and then as it goes down into this corner over here it's going to be super duper dark if something goes wrong don't worry about it because we have another layer and another step that we'll do on top of our water later so sometimes when you're doing this you you might pick up too much paint and then over blend it and it might all turn into one color and if that happens it's okay just roll with it just get your coat of paint on there and we can modify it later so i'm going to start with a little bit of white paint on my brush and i'm just going to kind of paint up in this little crevice area or the part that goes farthest away a nice light color and i'm going to just keep going over here to the left i'm going to bump into my land a little bit i'm picking up a touch of brown right now oops maybe in a little bit of green by accident and i'm just kind of getting a little bit of color over here on the left hand side picking back up some more white because again i really want this to be nice and light over here as it's coming into the wall into our focal point or you know of this lighter area down here or the the main area down here i should say and i'm just going to kind of get all the way over here on the left and then as soon as i start maybe getting to about this point i'm gonna start picking up just a tiny bit of blue brown and white and less is more you really don't need a ton of paint on your brush when you're doing this um the less paint you have the more you're going to be able to control it so don't worry if you know you're going about and you're like oh it's not you know i i'm not able to control it because i put too much paint or or whatever the case may be don't worry about it you know again we're going to be continuing to modify this as we go through the process so i but i'm trying not to use a ton of paint this way i can kind of keep control of my situation as i'm as i'm going through the process and i will be doing really dark down there in the bottom right hand corner but first i just kind of want to get a nice representation of my my water over here on the left hand side and now as i go down into that bottom right i'm picking up brown and black i didn't wash my brush i just picked up both of those colors and i want to make sure that i hit my land and if i run into some wet green paint along my travels on the side of my waterway that's okay and then i'm just going to go left to right and if you want you can use the big side of your brush and just give it a couple of smooth strokes going left to right and then we are going to be switching brushes to our let's see what do we want to use for the next let's switch brushes to our small brush for the next step so once you've got your water on here you can put your big brush away take out your small brush and get ready for the next step all right so what we're going to do for the next step is we're using our small brush we're going to be making the tree trunks and branches i suppose of the trees that are back here in this out of focus forest so i'm going to be using my small brush the colors that i'm using are black brown and white and you don't have to labor over this and and be really concerned if every branch is perfect or if every tree trunk is perfectly placed because again a lot of it's going to be hidden we're just really looking to give the illusion that there's trees off in the distance so as i do this i'm going to be doing them in this entire area on both sides the left and the right i'm going to start with all three colors white brown and black on my brush at the same time and i'm going to go fast i'm just going to kind of almost let my brush i do this as if i'm making maybe grass i like to go fast because that makes it so i don't think about it too hard some of your tree trunks can be sideways some of them can be standing up some of them can be dark some of them can be light this is the this is the beautiful part about this is we're really just trying to give the illusion or the impression that there's some trees off in the distance and if you make one too big or too dark don't worry we've got another layer that's going to cover it up and we can always strategically place things in front of it if we need to so i think that's pretty good i know that my bridge is going to cover a lot of this area i'm going to go on to the um the left hand side here again brown black and white are on my brush and as i do this i have a good amount of paint on my brush and because i go fast um again i i don't press hard but because i go fast it really gives it more of a natural kind of bend or assortment of the of the trees so really feel free to just kind of go carefree you can see i'm just kind of doing this with my with my brush i do want to reload it quite often so i it has enough paint on it and if you go too dark just bring in some white and that will help to to make it less bold and then we're going to switch brushes to our large brush so after you get your in the distance trees all nice and perfectly placed here you can put this small brush away in your water cup take out your large brush and get ready for the next step all right so what we're going to do for the next step is we're putting tree tops on these off in the distance trees i'm going to be using my large bristle brush and the colors that i'm using are brown orange yellow and white and i really want this to look muted and off in the distance as if these are autumn kind of trees maybe with a little yellow and a little orange in them but really muted and unsaturated um which will make them look like they're in the distance so how i'm going to do this is i have my big bristle brush and i'm going to take a little bit of brown a little bit of orange and a touch of yellow and some white and i don't want to mix this perfect what i'm doing is mixing it not all the way so that way i have varying shades of this really unsaturated color you can see that i've got maybe little swirls in through there and then when i go to add this paint to the canvas i don't need a lot on my brush so i can just wipe my brush off on my paper towel and start dotting away so i'm going to just use the tip of my brush and if you run into some wet blue paint back there just let it happen it's all right that's gonna make it look even more in the distance and if you want more yellow or more brightness just add a touch of white or a touch of yellow you want to be able to have multiple tones of this color that you have back there i think i want mine just a little bit more yellow so i'm adding just a smudge of yellow to my combination here it was almost a little too pinky for me so i added just a touch mark yeah there we go touch more yellow to it and you can make modifications on the fly you can have little darker spots and lighter spots i just never have a lot of paint on my brush so i'm always picking up new paint but wiping it off on my paper towel this way it maintains the um the illusion that these are really off in the distance i'm going to pick up just a little bit more white and maybe a little bit more brown just to again get it nice and muted and you can keep adjusting it until it gets into that color profile that you really want i have uneven tree tops that way it's gonna again add to the natural look of it i'm adding more white to my brush just to get these little pops of lightness and i know that it'll dry a little bit darker uh just based upon what it's on top of the colors that it's on top of but i am adding a touch more of the muted brown right now just to make sure it stays off in the distance and i think this side's looking pretty good and again we're going to have stuff on top of it so don't worry about it you know looking super realized and exactly every piece of leaf in its perfect place because if you need to do any modifications to it later you'll have that opportunity to do so i'm going to do the same thing over on this side so again very little paint on my brush this one's going to be a little bit maybe lower maybe not as grand as that side again these are going to be hidden behind all of my other trees so i don't really need to do a whole heck of a lot here i just added a touch more brown i do want them to have different tones in them so if it's all one note or one color you might want to consider adding a little bit of white to add some pops of different tones maybe you want areas a little bit lighter or darker than others but that's going to help to again make it look a little bit more real even though it's way far off in the distance and we're looking for it to be out of focus if you can still detect that there's some light spots and dark spots that's going to make it look even more natural so i'm going to just bring a couple of these up and through here make sure that i have this as far up as i want it to be and then we're gonna be let's see what are we gonna do for the next step we're gonna actually be using our let's use our uh let's use our small brush for the next step so once you've got these out of focus trees back here you can put your large brush away in your water cup take out your small brush and get ready for the next step alright so what we're going to do for the next step is we're doing the first step on our bridge so i'm going to use my small brush and i'm going to be using black paint uh you may want to use a pencil to outline if if you want but i'm going to give you a couple of markers and give you a couple of of tricks on how to do a nice slender line with black paints but if you feel more comfortable using your pencil you're more than welcome to do so so a couple of tips when using a small pointy brush and trying to get a small skinny line i'm going to be using just black paint and what i'm going to do is actually i'm actually going to drop a couple of drops of water into it and make it all thin it out make it almost like an ink consistency so that way when i go to draw my line because it's nice and moist it will carry through and it will keep my bristles wet longer and i can have a more fluid stroke and then before i go to paint what i do when i pick up the paint is i twist my brush on the side of my palette so i so i make my brush pointy when i do that so i turn it on the side of my palette in the paint so it gets nice and pointy and then when i go to paint the line i don't push hard and if i run out of paint i'm okay with that because i can always reload my brush so don't be concerned if oh my god i ran out of paint you know it's not going to be the end of the world you can just go pick up more so i'm going to give you a couple of markers and then we're just going to connect those dots so my first marker is going to be about halfway up or down my canvas maybe a little bit higher than that but somewhere in this vicinity i'm going to make a mark and then i'm going to come down maybe about an inch and a half and make myself another mark then i'm going to come over onto the right hand side of my canvas i'm going to come down from my land line about an inch make myself another mark there come down about another inch inch and a half make another mark in through there i'm going to make another mark that's going to be about halfway in my land at the shore so somewhere around here is where i'm going to make this mark and then my last mark is going to be uh over on the right hand bottom of my canvas it's going to be about an inch inch and a half in from the bottom right hand corner so somewhere about here so you should have one two three four five six marks at this point now i just got to connect the dots so what i'm gonna do is i'm going to connect this one this bottom one on the left hand side to this one here i want this to come up in an arcing motion but i don't need it to come as high as here so this is going to be kind of a slow arc and when it comes down i want to clear this area in through here so i'm going to bring it up and then when i after i feel safe that i've cleared that that's when i start arcing it down in through here so this will be kind of the main uh structure part of the bridge so i am going to just kind of give myself a little bit of an eyeball as to where i want that to go and here we go i'm just going to kind of go for it i'm going to bring it up a little bit and you're going to see my line is not going to be perfect i'm going to reload my brush now i went up a little bit and now this is where i'm going to start to arc it back down past keeping my eye on the prize which is that my dot over here i want it to be a pretty believable arc and again if you wanted to utilize your pencil you're more than welcome to do so and that looks pretty believable to me and again if it's a little wobbly don't worry about it you can certainly sit here and tweak it as much as you need to and then what i'm going to do is i'm going to make my second line which is going to be from about the center part of here and it's going to meet this mark right here so what this is in essence this is going to be our underneath underneath brace and then this next line is in essence going to give the the form of the bridge so this doesn't have to be a perfect arc i actually have my bridge arcing and then you know slowly just kind of cascading down into that side so if it's not perfect don't worry about it i'm going to start about halfway in this area here keeping my eye on the prize which is this marker right here and again i want it to be something that makes sense so maybe i do something like that and you can see i obviously had a little bit of a ran out of paint which is totally okay so i'm going to do this and just make i'll make it a little bit thicker so i can see it you know i think i want i can change this i'm going to make this into a little bit of a bump this way which you can do that too because we're going to be coloring this area in i like it better with the bump that way there we go that's the beautiful thing about painting you get to you get to make modifications as you go yeah i like that like they're walking up and then it kind of levels off that's the way i like it all right so the next line that i'm gonna make is from this dot to this dot and it's in essence just carrying this same profile to here so if you want you can start on either side you can start on the right or on the left whatever works for you so i'm just going to kind of carry the same profile line and but i'm just about an inch and a half away from it i have a very steady hand so you're going to probably see or hear me resting my hand on my canvas that is my trick to keeping my hand kind of steady so you it you know if you have similar issues as i do you can certainly do the same and again this does not have to be a perfect line and you can keep modifying it as much as you want to and then the next line that we're going to make is from about this center point in through here and it's going to meet our bottom mark that we put in through there so we're in essence separating the underside of the bridge from the side of the bridge so i'm going to do this somewhere in through here and then this line is going to be on arc it doesn't have to be a perfect arc this is going to be you know just representational of the under side of the um of the bridge and then we're going gonna use this let's see what i'm gonna do next we are going to be using let's switch brushes to our medium brush for the next step all right so we're gonna do for the next step is we're painting the s the side and the underneath of the bridge i'm going to be using black brown white and maybe a little yellow i'm going to use on this side underneath here is just going to be black paint i'm using my medium brush you don't need any fancy brush stroke for this particular step you're just painting it in just you want to make sure that you hit your water at the bottom and just paint it on and no fancy brush stroke this is where you could clean up that line if you needed to but you'll be able to clean it up more when we paint the um side of the of the bridge and i'm using a good amount of paint on my brush so that way i can get some nice clean edges if i want to and then i'm not going to wash my brush i'm just going to pick up some brown yellow and white so i can get this section of the bridge a little bit lighter this is going to be the exterior part of the bridge you can have it as light or as dark as you want i'm just imagining mine to be some kind of i don't know cement or something and it's in the shadows so you're not really seeing a whole heck of a lot of it so i'm not really concerned about giving it any detail because there's going to be a big huge tree in front of it i just want it to be a different color than uh than the ins than the underneath side of my bridge so you can certainly have decorations on yours if you wanted to i guess you could make it like a bricks or something if you want yours to be different than mine feel free to do so i'm just getting this little tiny sliver in through here and because we're using a bigger brush you can get these cleaner lines and you can really have this as solid of a color as you want or as gradated as a color whatever works for you again you're not going to see a whole heck of a lot of it when we get the trees in place so now that you've got that step accomplished we're going to be switching brushes to the small brush so you can put the medium brush away in your water cup take out your small brush and get ready for the next step all right so we're going to do for the next step is we're making the decorative elements of the bridge so i'm going to use my small brush and i'm using black and brown i'm going to be making decorations or whatever you want your your bridge can have regular just posts throughout the rails you can have squirrel swirly lines as if it's maybe wrought iron you could really do whatever kind of decorations that you want i'm just going to do a simple kind of box x type design and how i'm going to do this is i'm going to start with brown and black on my brush i'm going to make a bunch of vertical lines the trickiest thing about this is keeping them vertical because again you're working on something that is tipping and our brain will want us to tip those lines so if you want them kind of equally spaced what i recommend doing this is my easiest kind of cheat way to do this is i start in the center and i'm going to do a vertical line and then i just cut each section in half so i went center then half then half half half half half half so that gives me kind of an equal equally spaced without pulling out a ruler because i don't like to pull out rulers very often so again i'm going to do the same thing here so i'm going to go half half and i'm really consciously trying to keep these vertical my brain really wants to go sideways when i do these things but i'm making a real effort to keep it nice and vertical and then all i'm going to do is i'm going to put an x in the middle of them so maybe this one is off the side i do them all one all the right to left right top to bottom left corners and then i'll come back and do the other it just makes me go faster this is just my the way my my mathematical brain likes to do things and again you can picture your bridge to be whatever you want this is a imaginary bridge that you know you might find in a storybook somewhere or in a in a beautiful park near where you live you could make it into whatever type of of bridge that you would like it to be this is a nice autumn scenery so maybe yours is i don't know somewhere near you or somewhere else i don't know somewhere imagine imagination like mine is and i just again keeping brown and black on my brush at all times making this other side of my x and then we are going to be switching nope yep yeah let's use the same brush for the next step so once you've got all of your decorations on the sides of your bridge you can wash and dry this small brush almost there we go and get ready for the next step all right so we're going to do for the next step is we're finishing our bridge so this is in essence going to be putting the highlights on the bridge i'm using my small brush the colors the dominant colors i'm using are white and yellow but i'll probably use some brown too and if i run into any kind of trouble i'll bring back the black so i'm going to start with just yellow and white on my brush and really i i'm just going to give the top of my rail a nice highlight it doesn't have to be exactly the same intensity throughout the entire way because maybe there's a tree branch that is casting a shadow on it or maybe there's a cloud going by but i don't see any clouds going by so you can certainly put as much of a highlight on here as you want i'm just kind of riding the top of the rail it just also helps to clean up any any edges that you might have i'm going to put a little bit maybe some brown and a little bit of white at the top of this what would be the the part that they walk on the bottom the bottom part of it so just maybe a little bit of highlight in through there i'm really just looking to give it a little bit of dimension and if you wanted to work on any of your your decorations you could certainly put little pops of highlights in through there peeking through the the slats of it if you wanted to but that's entirely up to you whatever is visually calling your brush to do and i'm going to put a little one there and maybe i'll just put a little a little accent of a highlight in through here just so i have some some kind of dimension as if maybe there's a little buckle part a little part of the bridge that just buckles out into here and again i know i'm going to have a big huge tree so i'm really not terribly concerned if i make this perfect i do see some areas in here that i want to just make sure that i've got fully painted and then we are going to be switching to the medium brush for the next step so once you've got your bridge all nice and complete you can put your small brush away take out your medium brush and get ready for the next step all right so what we're going to do for the next step is we are placing our trees our big front trees into their final resting place i'm going to use my medium brush i'm going to be using just black paint so this think of this is just your base coat for them i've got one over here it's going to be overlapping my bridge a little bit and it's going to have smaller branches up top and then i've got a big huge tree in through here that's pretty darn wide at the bottom i'm going to be just using black paint i'm going to have my tree a little bit wider at the bottom you can cover up as many or as much of your water area as you need to i think i'm actually going to cover up this whole corner here and then i like to have my trees pretty natural looking with a lot of movement to them you can certainly have your trees standing up straight like a telephone pole whatever works for you is totally fine by me maybe yours are reminiscent of the trees that you have that near your house whatever is you know coming out of you is great i'm going to have one that's just going to kind of lean over into my water way i am going to put some skinnier branches coming off the edges i've got some coming in through here so for me when i'm doing these these tree branches and tree trunks i keep in my head what happens naturally so naturally a tree is going to be its widest down at the base and then all of the branches that come off of that they're they're the thickest when they're touching the trunk and then they get thinner and the farther away that they go from the trunk so as i am doing these branches when i go towards the end of the branch i lift off on the pressure of my brush so that way i end up with a skinnier line you can have your branches wiggly you can have them crossing over one another it's really i mean there are no two trees alike in this world so you just have fun with making yours as filled with character as you want again as i go towards the the little tips of the branches i really am not pressing hard and i do know i'm going to have a whole bunch of leaves on here too so i'm not terribly concerned if every single tip to the branch is perfect so don't feel the need to make everything you know extra perfect because we're gonna hide a whole bunch of it anyways but the more branches you have on there the more it's gonna look like a a realistic tree so once i've got my main branches on there i just start to have fun and make sure that i've got as many other little ones as i want and i'm going to go over to this humungo one over here so i think i'm going to have let's see this one's going to come pretty far into my bridge i'm just going to have a little sliver of that part and then it's going to be pretty darn wide at the bottom i'm almost going to make the bottom of this look like the little cypress tree in in the starry night uh painting where it's got these like little spikes on the side of it but you can make yours whatever way you want but that's the that's what i have in my head right now and then i'm gonna make it really huge coming up in front of that bridge and it's going to split maybe somewhere in through here and then maybe you can see i'm i'm just having fun with this i've got a lot of smaller branches just kind of coming off the side as if maybe whatever water that water this is maybe this tree is wicked old and has all kinds of branches that have been broken off and the storms and you know just imagine it to be whatever you want this is your tree it doesn't have to be anyone that you ever have seen in nature it can be one that you create out of your head it can be one that is mystical it can be a big oak tree because you have lots of oak trees by your house so really just have fun with it and have it you know represent whatever you want it to represent mine's gonna mine is a little imaginary it you know has a bit of imagination to it but yours can certainly be again representational of whatever you want yours to be i think i want this branch to be a bit bigger and through here and then i'm going to put this big huge one coming i want this to have a lot of color up in the top left or the top right hand corner of my canvas which is why i've got this tree pretty darn big i've got a couple of broken branches that are coming off in through here and branches can cross over one another so don't feel like they have to occupy their own space they can really look broken they can have you know bent edges to them they can have you know pieces shooting off that's like what where did that one come from you know so just really have fun with this and make it whatever you want it to be and again once i've got the main branches in there then i just start creating all of these little tiny ones coming off maybe i've got one in through there maybe i've got a couple more that are gonna come up in through here and just again have fun with it make it as as energetic and as filled with branches as you want it to be and then let's see what are we going to do for the next step we are going to be using let's switch to our big brush for the next step so once you've got all of your beautiful branches on here you can put your medium brush away in your water cup take out your large brush and get ready for the next step all right so we're gonna do for the next step is we're finishing our land and water so i'm gonna use my big brush and what i'm in essence gonna do is make sure i have enough information around the uh the edges of the water and make sure that i have enough of a shadow underneath my bridge you can interpret it as a shadow or a reflection whatever works in your head is totally fine so how i'm to do this is i am going to use my large brush i'm going to be using black blue brown and probably some yellow and white around these edges and through here so i'm going to start with doing my water and then i'll just work my way into the land so i'm going to start with a bit of black on my brush and i don't need a lot and i'm going to put my my reflection or shadow underneath my bridge in through here so you don't again you don't need a lot of paint i'm almost dry brushing it right now you can probably hear that i wanted to have a nice soft look to it but i don't want that black to overpower my painting which is why i'm just kind of letting it almost run out of paint but while i have that black still on my brush i'm going to put a little shadow or reflection underneath the edge of this water in through here and then i'm also going to do the same on this side but this time i'm not washing my brush i picked up a little bit of brown because this side doesn't necessarily have to be as dark as that side but i do want there to be some transition from the edge of the land to the water so i don't want it to just be the background and then the water so i do definitely want to have some sort of i don't say just darkness but some kind of transition in through there then what i'm going to do is i think i want it a little bit darker down here too so i just actually ran into a little bit of wet black from my tree but that's all right just so it all kind of fades into the darkness down here i'm going to put a little bit of my brown and yellow so i can dot in almost little foliage or grass at the bottom of that land area over here again i'm just looking to give it a good transition from the water into the land we don't have a big piece of land like we did here which is fine it's meant to look like it's more off in the distance anyways but i want there to be some sort of believable transition through there i'm going to add just a tiny bit of white paint to my brush just so i can get almost these little pieces of i don't know maybe there's little bushes or something along the edge of there and again i just want it to be out of focus it doesn't have to be anything special maybe i've got something enter here let me just wipe my brush a minute here get a touch of white on it and then this is where you could if you needed to add more lightness or darkness to your water so if you ended up with some real dark water because you you you were blending it on that first go-around now is the time where you can bring in some lighter that's going to be a great spot for some leaf where you can bring in some lighter brighter maybe some white spots you bring in over here so now is the time where you would tweak that water way to have as much lightness or darkness as you want it to be i'm going to add a bit of foliage or dimensional elements on the edge of this land in through here so a little white yellow and brown and just adding a bit of information up at the top here i think i might have picked up a little bit of orange too which totally works for me and then you just give it i just wanted to have a little bit of sunshine and almost look like it's poking over that water a little bit this just helps again to add a bit more information i'm going to put some green and brown on my brush right now just to make sure that this is transitioning over in through here and again you can have this as with as much information or as delicate and soft maybe this is freshly mowed it's a freshly mowed meadow and you want yours to be nice and smooth that totally works for me i like my mother nature my natural elements to have a lot of texture to them so i just keep adding these these bits of dots to say oh maybe that's a a brighter spot or a darker spot and this helps to add all of that information maybe there's little flowers or something by the edge of your water you imagine it to be whatever way you want this just helps to give it that textural element and to make sure that you've got a nice transition that looks alive and looks like it's something that would actually happen on the side of a brook or a stream or something and then oh let's see what are we going to do we're going to use this brush for the next step but you'll want to wash it and dry it so when you get all of these little elements on your water and your land complete that looks good you can wash and dry that large brush and get ready for the next step all right so we're going to do for the next step is we're doing the first layer on the leaves on these two big huge trees so i'm going to use my large brush and i'm going to be using brown and orange so i want this first layer to be really what i like to refer to as the shadows in the leaves so i want to have this a nice deep dark color you can pick up both colors at the same time you can pick up just brown you can pick up just orange you feel free to utilize those colors the as as much as you want um but definitely brown is going to be a great color to use on this step and as i'm doing this i'm just using a dotting type technique i'm not you don't need to put leaves everywhere and you don't just need to put them at the tip of every branch they can certainly cross over your the the trunk or the branches and if you want somewhere you don't have a branch just add them there's there's no there's no saying you can't put a new newly placed leaf where you didn't have a branch it's totally up to you so you build these leaves as much as you want to again this is a fall tree so you don't have to have leaves everywhere you can certainly have imagined these leaves to have already fallen off if you want to so don't feel the need to fill up this tree a hundred percent again you can add them wherever you want i'm utilizing both the brown and the and the orange and i'm kind of rotating what i pick up and these sections of colors you'll be able to make them bigger on the next step as well so don't feel like you have to make this first layer as big as as you need that whole area to be because when we go to add our second layer of leaves we're going to be adding the highlights which could make these areas grow bigger so don't feel the need to you know make this holy cow humungo on this go-around so i think that's good for that tree i'm going to go ahead and move over to the next tree i really want this one to be full up at the top so i'm going to put a ton up at the top and then as i come down into this vicinity i don't even think i'm going to have any in through there so you can certainly feel free to make yours however you want i do it sometimes i'll smash my brush at other times i'm just using the little the little tip of it so again you can find whatever works with with your particular brush but that's what i am doing with mine and if you run into wet black paint it's all right just just dot it in there because that's gonna add a great additional shadowy type area and you can see i'm putting areas throughout my branches i'm putting them at the end of the little branches or in front of a bridge so feel free one of the biggest things that i do try and steer people away from doing is little cotton balls or these just these little tiny um circular type formations so be carefree just dot dot away leave little peekaboo spots where you can see your branches throughout it i'm making again this is going to be really wide and full up at the top but you can certainly have yours as naked as you want or as filled as you want and then we are going to be switching to our medium brush after this step so once you've got your first layer of your leaves on your tree you can put this brush away in your water cup take out your medium brush and get ready for the next step all right so what we're going to do for the next step is we are adding the bark slash highlights to our tree trunk and any branches that kind of are showing their pretty little faces right now so the colors the colors that i'm going to use are brown orange yellow and white and if i need to i'll use black also i'm going to use my medium brush and how i'm going to do this is i'm going to start with just brown and i'm going to in essence kind of wet the spots that i'm going to want to add uh some color to and the best way for me to demonstrate that is probably over in this area and through here so i'm going to put brown on my medium brush i want there to look like there's separation between some of these broken branches that are coming off so what i'm going to do is i'm going to put in essence brown paint predominantly on the left side of a particular section so let's take this one for instance i know i'm going to want to highlight on that left hand side or it to be visible on the left hand side so i'm putting brown paint in through here let's say i want this branch to look like it's in front of this one i'm going to put brown paint on the left hand side of that and maybe these two end up kind of merging together at some point and that one's going to look like it's behind so the brown paint in essence is going to give me a road map of what what branches are what how i'm going to separate these branches so i've got another one say in through here and maybe i want this one to look like it's in front of the one that it's next to so i'm going to give it a little bit of a highlight on that left hand side or using that brown to set the stage as to that particular branch is or trunk piece is in front of this particular trunk piece and you can utilize that brown just again to give yourself a little bit of a road map so i know this big one is going to have most of its light hand side on the left but maybe it just disappears into this little crevice shadowy area and then i'm just once i've once i've decided what branches are going to be visible like i want this one to be in front of this one so i'm going to take my brown and i'm going to tell the viewer that this section right here is in front of that one and then once i've got that that bit of brown that is helping to tell the the story of what branches are in front of what then i can start adding orange yellow and white i've got all of those colors on my brush right now i didn't want i didn't wash my brush i still have the brown on there and now i can add to that wet brown paint and even if the brown has already dried on you it's okay just work those other colors into it and i'm just wiggling my brush and the more bumps and light spots and dark spots it has the more natural it's going to look i think i want this one to look like it's in front too so i just added a bit of a highlight there and i want to keep the the shadowy areas or the dark areas i want to keep them dark but if you run into problem and yours ends up being too light you can always bring back some of the black the um the white is obviously going to make things look brighter so if you want just a hue of something and you know you want just it to look a little bit more brown or a little bit more rusty or orangey use less white if you want it to really pop out and have a highlight definitely use more white so if i want this to really be visible in front of that bridge i add much more white to it but in my head i'm thinking just keep the left side light and that's going to help to make it really three-dimensional and tell a story of where the light is coming from and i've got the light coming from the left so i just added some more white and yellow and i'm just going to kind of keep alternating these colors i do know that they're going to dry much darker than they are when they're wet because they're on top of a black surface so whatever color it is when it's wet just know it's definitely going to get darker as it dries even if you were to just use the brown paint and nothing else the brown would almost disappear as it dries because of that black underneath it so just know that if you if you've got something perfect and then it disappears as it dries it's just because it's on top of the black surface and you can just keep you you know manipulating these colors until you feel like you've got them exactly as you want i'm going to in a minute switch to my other tree because this one is almost the way that i want it i've got a couple more little tweaks here to do but again the messier it is the more it's going to look like bark i just put a little bit more black on my brush because this one a little bit too light on me so i'm just reversing i'm going from the black and working into the light and that's looking pretty good to me so i'm going to just come on over on this side and this side doesn't have much because it's a much smaller tree so i'm going to start with a little bit of brown on my brush like i did on that one and just start my highlights on what will now be the right side or the side that is closest to my light source which is over here and this side you could almost just sit here and streak the colors in because if your branches are as narrow as mine nobody's going to really notice if you have the the highlight on the correct side or not and i went right into my sky but that's all right oops maybe i should be using a smaller brush on this side i am going way outside of the lines and again if you want it to be more visible use more white paint this will help to tell it what branches are in front of other branches so you can certainly you know put as much intensity on these as you want you might not even need to do much of anything on this side so have fun keep you know adding your highlights and your your bark and then we are going to be switching back to the big brush so once you've got all of your bark on here you can put this medium brush away in your water cup take out your large brush and get ready for the next step alright so we're going to do for the next step is we are finishing the leaves on our trees so i'm going to use my big brush the colors that i'm going to be using are brown orange yellow and white and i want to create lighter leaves than or what are then what are on there but you don't necessarily want to go white you could have some little pops of white here and there but if you want to make them look a little bit more realistic what you'll want to do is just go lighter than what you already have so how i'm going to do that is i'm going to take these colors and kind of pre-mix myself a lighter shade so i went i'm taking a little bit of orange yellow a touch of brown so it neutralizes it a little bit and a little bit of white and just making myself a lighter shade and you can have this as vibrant as orange as yellow as light as you want it's totally up to you i will probably throughout this process utilize these other colors as well but initially i'm just starting with a lighter shade and again you don't need a ton of paint so i'm just kind of wiping it off on my on my palette and i'm going to be doing my my dotting technique so as i'm doing this i know that i do not want to cover up all of that shadowy area that i originally put on there so i'm concentrating on dotting more towards the top uh of the particular sections or the top of a little cluster that i want and as i go through this process i am going a little bit slower than i did the first time and i do put some on the outside or past that dark area so you can see as i'm going through this process that they're looking more three-dimensional and once i've got this second pass or the second go around then i'll probably come in with one even lighter shade just know that the lightness is concentrated in that center so if you come towards this farther edge maybe you pick up a little bit more of the original orange on your brush and then that way these will be a little bit darker than those ones so that again adds to the dimensional aspect of it and gives it more perspective so you can really play with the realistic side of it by just messing with the intensity of the colors so i'm still going to move over to this tree and through here i'm going to use my lighter colors on this left hand side of this tree and then as i go towards the right hand side maybe i'll go a little bit darker and again i'm going in front of branches i'm not using a ton of paint so that way it looks like they're nice and light and fluffy except for right then when i just had a big glob on my brush but you can make them go in you know behind the tree behind a particular branch or in front of it whatever is working for you visually it's totally fine and i'm gonna just make sure i've got some big ones up in through here this is looking i like this color it's like a nice peachy kind of autumn type color and again i might go a little bit more intense over on this right hand side with a little bit more orange so it's almost getting a touch darker over in through that right hand side maybe a touch more brown touch more orange just to get it a little bit darker over here and i'm going outside of my original footprint of those leaves maybe maybe these will drip down a little bit further and now i'm going to go just to smudge even lighter oops i got a little blue on my brush that's not going to look good in my tree so i'm taking just a tiny bit of white in addition to this and i made it a little bit lighter and this is going to maybe even a little lighter than that maybe maybe a little white and yellow just to get it even more add another another layer of brightness onto it and again this is up to you how intense you want yours to be or how bright or soft totally up to you and you can keep obviously fiddling until you've got this as vibrant as you want i'm gonna i'm gonna play for just a minute or two more here we and we do have one tiny little step left that we you need to do on every painting and it's gonna be with your small brush but i'm i'm gonna keep fiddling here for just another minute or two and you can just watch how this develops it's awesome and if you feel like you've gone too light you can certainly bring back some of the darker tones so that's again it's it's a visual preference on your part if you're going about this and you're like oh i really you know it's turning too light on me or there's not enough orange i want it to be more more autumn esque with the the more intense oranges and yellows adam you know this is this is your your painting you you you should get it the way that it is pleasing to your eye that's that's the beautiful part about painting it's it's the artists choice what the what these paintings look like so i'm really digging this so we have that tiny little step to go so you're going to want to put away your large brush take out your tiny brush and get ready for the next step alright so we are on to the final step this is the final step of any painting which is to sign it so i'm going to use my small brush i usually sign mine in the bottom left or the bottom right and i think i'm gonna sign this one in the bottom left i'm gonna be using black paint but you could certainly use whatever color you want i do my initials but you could do your first name or the date or a symbol whatever works for you is totally fine by me and that is going to conclude this painting i hope you enjoy the process i hope you painted yourself a very pretty bridge and i look forward to painting and sipping with you again sometime [Music] you

Channel: Michelle the Painter

Views: 25,721

Keywords: how to paint, paint and sip, acrylic, painting, tutorial, lesson, beginner, simple, easy, artist, painter, Michelle the Painter, michellethepainter, sip and paint, class, step by step, tips, learn to, how to, paint, sky, landscape, realistic, beautiful, best, yellow, over, autumn, fall, top, orange, morning, mist, leaves, falling, forest, maple, water, river, brook, green, black, silhouette, leaning, bright, vibrant, colors, ripple, bridge, park, wrought, iron, wood, pretty, stream, two, meadow, field, fog, walking, wooden, across, enchanted

Id: LmS1ajsjXIs

Length: 70min 4sec (4204 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020