How to Paint Watercolour | Painting reflections

now the purpose of this studio demonstration in watercolor is to paint a bright and breezy picture of a marine east coast scene it's based on this small sketch of some boats at mersey island if you're interested in the materials i use please go to my website it's on the screen now and there's a short video which goes through all of my materials and equipment i've already drawn this out it's um a few working fishing boats and sailing boats at mersey on the river black water um i've drawn it out on a piece of arch 140 pound rough paper the size of the paper is a half sheet 15 inches by 22 inches approximately i never wet the paper or very very rarely wet the paper to start with that seems adding um difficulty to a an already difficult problem the most important thing is the paint consistency the amount of water you have with the amount of paint and to add to the problem of an unknown amount of water delivered to the paper is going to further dilute the paint and as watercolor always dries lighter and less intense in color that seems to me to make things difficult so this is um windsor blue and cadmium red let's start here with these old this old sort of wharf here keep changing the color i think that's the most important thing so quite arbitrarily if you detect any hint of a slightly more exciting color then put it in i'm standing to paint so i feel that you get a little bit more energy into the mark that's a little bit of cobalt just put a bit of ultramarine with it rinse your brush give it a bit of a shake to get some of the excess water out you don't want to keep adding more and more water otherwise what happens a little bit of cadmium lemon is that you the paint gets more and more dilute if you want a nice clean fresh look then the important thing is to have good strong paint a bit of burnt sienna now it's much more interesting to paint like this then some virgin i keep just adding to the existing color some virgin and burnt sienna we can keep the paint roughly the same paint consistency and i've got that nice wet edge at the bottom so that'll gives me plenty of time the board is about 30 degrees to the horizontal let's make that green slightly stronger with some raw sienna and some viridian so this is slightly stiffer and that'll take up some of the excess moisture a little green on there and then i know the rim of this boat in the foreground it is going to be quite light so if i have the dark on the top there that'll send that out nicely and a little bit of alizarin crimson now perhaps some winds are blue a little bit more exciting color some quite thick paint make that dark on the bottom there that dark is where the sort of blad wrap purpley colored seaweed tends to congregate and also of course that dark will nicely set up the light rim on that boat let's just make that edge a little bit tidier stronger sharper now the top edge of this mass is dry so let's start by putting in the or carry on i should say and put in the grass and weeds that are on the top of this again change the color that was a bit of origin and raw sienna a bit more raw sienna with this back to a bit of reading keep going don't don't keep stopping to admire it and that marshy grass sort of hangs over the this sort of wooden warf area if you rinse your brush just take some of the paint or the water out of the brush so that you not building up lots of lots of water in it now the sun is coming over from the bit of ultramarine burnt sienna the sun is coming over from the left-hand side so each of these little uprights will cast a shadow still a bit wet but that doesn't matter that'll merge down there let's have another one there and with a slightly smaller brush and some stiffer paint put a bit of burnt umber a bit more burnt sienna with that um because dark areas tend to sort of be warmer in my experience just put in the suggestion of these planks don't make sort of continuous lines because there'll be some shadows of the the grass as it hangs over the wolf and that's always a useful one there which sort of sets up the light on that a bit of dry brush to give a sense of the texture and the composition of the grass so these shadows are fairly solid the grass shadows are sort of dappled if i take a dry brush just try it on that that's sort of bled into that a bit so let's just lift that off because it'd be nice to have a light edge notice you don't want a dark line down here because that's that's where the light is catching it these are the these are the shadow areas now in all of this my aim is very much to paint the picture as i want it to look at the end so i'll consider that done now let's set ourselves uh let's get straight on with the [Music] with this boat um it's got a white sort of rim there and slightly darker that was a bit of cerulean um let's have some cerulean and burnt sienna just give me a little bit of a dark gray there rinse the brush dried a bit just take some of that excess moisture so that we can have a soft edge to indicate that the roundness of the um [Music] of the boat then a dark it's quite dark blue so winds are blue i'll mix it up with this dark here windsor blue and a little bit of alizarin a bit of ultramarine this can be real rich so it's down here when you paint a shape don't start in the middle do the hard bit first the the drawing part in other words the outside edges then you can quickly do the rest of it now i've slightly lightened this a little bit more so it's a bit more marked with a lighter blue essentially which is cobalt and um and or cerulean i'll just take some of that excess moisture off so that i can then go straight in with a little bit of red for the anti-fouling which will merge on the water line now that's quite stiff paint was straight out of the tube and that'll um suck in the excess moisture at the bottom there if you go back let me show you if you go back this ultramarine with a little bit of burnt umber that's even put a bit of windsor blue so it's really thick this is thick paint as this is still wet you can go back with paint with less water on the brush but don't go back make it really rich rinse the brush and then just let that um merge with that and then just to be a little bit sort of uh dangerous i'll put a bit of thick raw sienna just these and a little bit of burnts you know running down the edge there we're always getting perhaps even on this here as well just to make it a little bit more of a working boat with the rest with different rust marks on it and perhaps even a bit of a bit of green and to give it a little bit more sort of life then while that's drying let's go straight on with the rim of this boat here put it on nice and boldly if you can now this is going to be i'm going to keep this boat light but that part there will be in shadow as it turns away from the light coming in from the left hand side um let's have a shadow across there and again it'll make it more interesting if we have so the odd sort of stain running down the side of the boat um a bit of shadow there as well and then really stiff burnt sienna and perhaps even a bit of light red just to get the even stiffer here mainly because this is water and it turns away it's quite wet and while we're at it we might as well just do this little red boy and this will stand out here now it won't have a highlight on it because it'll be but i'm going to put a highlight on just to help show that it's round remember what you're doing is trying to explain what's going on and if you have to distort reality for that reason then it gives you perhaps even a little bit more the truth a bit of green at the bottom of that where it hits the water [Music] let's just soften that a bit there [Music] now just before this goes too dry let me just with a knife scratch that off there to give her an indication of the rope always useful to get that light against a bit of dark and we can just add a tiny bit of the rope where it might be a bit dark here and carry on there and of course that sort of thing gives depth to the picture because suddenly we've got the rope in front of the boat in front of that boat then it'll be in front of the distant shore and in front of the sky incidentally i haven't done the sky first there's no need to do the sky first i think it's important to get a feel of how the paper is going to take the paint um it's quite damp here today it's been raining all night so there's quite a lot of moisture in the atmosphere so i wanted to start with a small area just to see how the paper will take the paint off the brush and that gives me a lot better idea before how to mix the paint and how fast to work before i commit myself to a large area obviously i'll need to do the sky before the uh before i do the masts but i don't need to do the sky here first um so i in a sense start with areas where if i get it slightly wrong it doesn't matter i've just stopped a few minutes ago to clean my pallet so let's uh um do this uh they're always try and get this um there's a wheelhouse on this this boat here [Music] ultramarine and burnt umber will give me a good dark bits and pieces i don't want to do too many detail in the sky otherwise we're going to paint paint paint around it and we could just put this little bits and pieces here and and um cobalt light red any blue with any orangey red will give me a gray so paint the stern of this boat which is laid up on top of the marsh and cobalt and then the darker blue ultramarine for the you get further underneath it across there get that nice heart shaped um a little bit of burnt umber you know changing my rules some raw umber to get the the light side of a block that these this is standing on it's on the corner of the picture so we don't really need to emphasize it so let's get rid of any of the sharp edges that might catch the viewer's eye a little bit of a gunner here and then a shadow there's something masked something unseen you will see a for the cabin top here try and touch the paper once make the mark as carefully and as briskly as you can and then leave it the hardest thing and people find with that is doing at once there is a great tendency to go back and sort of tickle it to death and tidy it up um and then that that knocks out all of the life um just one that's that's this hasn't quite dried yet and i i'm just just emphasize that i've lost the red there it's still wet so i can go back let's just put a bit of red there a bit more red [Music] and take that that's all nicely sort of bleeding don't worry about that that's when the whole thing is finished these sort of accidents which hopefully being clever enough and restrained enough i should say to leave will actually probably look the best part and the most exciting part of the the picture um i think we can just put in a light wash now just make start work on this dinghy in the foreground so a little bit but again just even an area like this it's useful to change the color paint with the belly of the brush press the brush into the paper if we get a bit of dry brush along there that'll help indicate sort of the uh a bit of sparkle on it and then we can i've just put a tiny bit of cobalt violet in that and let's have it here as well and then go back and add a bit of raw umber sorry raw sienna there's another seat a little more here losing a bit of dry brush didn't want to do that now several people have commented about my dirty water then why don't i change it i very very rarely change the water in the middle of a picture i just keep going and frankly although it looks dirty it's not as dirty as you think i'll shake that brush and just put a few splashes there you see that that will just wipe off so um don't keep worrying about water and i just have the one cup of water if you've got numerous cups of water it's hard enough knowing what paint to put your brush into without having to worry about what pot of water to put your brush into the other thing i would just comment on is this is all nice fresh paint i don't want to be scrubbing around and trying to get a nice um wash i want to be able to get nice clean fresh paint straight away a little bit of coat now i'm going to do the sky i think it's time to do the sky i feel as if i've got um a feeling for the paper now and the way the uh is taking the paint um this is a bit of raw sienna and cobalt violet i want a nice sort of lively sky so a little bit of cobalt as i'm right-handed i tend to start in the top left-hand corner and work gradually down i want to sense that let's put a little bit of light red with that just to warm it up a bit don't feel that you've got to cover every square inch of the paper a little bit of dry brush gives a little bit of life but i don't don't leave holes in the sky or in the in the clouds um i don't leave a hole in a shape like that um any more than i would leave a hole in the side of a boat [Music] any unpainted paper is really between the clouds um to keep the paint sort of separated let's put a tiny bit of um it's a little bit of cerulean that's far too much and let's take some cerulean and alizarin crimson just to give it a little bit of dark underneath some of these clouds here back to a tiny bit of light red we can make these forms slightly smaller force out the shape of that white cabin top have a little bit of the [Music] cerulean and alizarin crimson fairly stiff this mixture in other words hasn't got much water with it um and then a tiny bit more light red we can come down paint around these shapes here this post if you can paint around it then paint rounded the fewer times you touch the paper the better to get that nice clean fresh look to the paint it it doesn't want to look as if it's being sort of mucked about and you know and pushed about um there's a little bit of undiluted cobalt there i'll just take that up it's a bit dangerous doing that make sure you haven't got any moisture on the brush comes about by sort of painting quickly and once you've done that it might be a good idea to go straight on and do the do the water um now water lays flat so let's keep the strokes fairly horizontal and if we press the brush and move it across we can get a bit of brush into it add a little bit of region to it's far too much raw umber this is a sort of an estuary really so it's a very muddy river so a lot of sediment and that will give you a sort of a green leaving the reflection of that that white boat there and [Music] [Music] in and then there's this actually just comes into mud so start again ultramarine a little bit of alizarin crimson that was a bit of cobalt um a little bit of raw umber put a bit more raw sienna with it now sort of wet mud so it's very difficult to see where the mud stops and the water begins um and then it becomes a little bit more sandy [Music] now we'll cover that area wouldn't have any sparkle in that to distinguish it from the from the water i just draw your attention to a couple of changes i made this is a sketch based on a um one i did on plein air when i was actually waiting for some students to finish packing up um the two major changes i've made are this pose on the sketch i've got the post almost in the middle of this gap i don't want that so you will see that i've actually pulled it over to the left the other change i've made is this sailing yacht again it's a case of you unconsciously tidy up everything i've put it in the middle of that gap this time i've moved it so it's behind the post it looks a little bit untidy like that but it gives life to the picture but it also helps contribute to giving depth to the picture because i've got the post in front of the boat in front of the shore in front of the sky and when you have things in front of one another then you get recession in fact let's let's do the uh the distance i've had a bit of a clear up um [Music] so this is cobalt ultramarine and light red make have it don't just paint with um non-descript colors have a color identity this is quite sort of bluey um not a reasonably strong in order to set up the white sails on these boats um this distance of the cane will sort of reappear there and there and here and there let's uh again that can help force up these various bits and pieces on the decks of that boat and then we'll um just vary that top a bit then a bit of viridian and raw umber to the marshes a little bit of identity put a bit of raw sienna with it now the top edge of course that'll merge with the distance and um the bottom edge gives you the water line and of course it's also setting up these two yachts um let's just put in the hull of this one very briskly and that one there as well now the reflections the golden rule of reflections is that light objects reflect darker and dark objects reflect lighter so this reflection here do the reflection of the um the boy in a minute um that is that reflection is going to be darker than the uh the hull i won't worry too much about getting all of the different shades in there the other thing about reflections is sort of paint them fairly crisply um i know it's you're using it to paint water but in fact um you don't want too much in the way of sort of merging you want them to be fairly crisp now this this is fairly dark area and therefore we've got a it's a tonal problem as most problems are in painting if it's not drawing its tone and if it's not drawing in tone it's about getting a variety of edges concentrate on that sort of thing so what i'm it's about pitching the the tone that's i haven't got it right it's about pitching the tone so it's just got it right so it's lighter than this but darker than that because if it's dark we can put a little bit more let's put some cobalt with it if it goes wrong i might have to re make the hull a bit darker but it's getting that tonal difference that gives the gives a feeling that this is proper water now while while that's drying we can then add one or two little bits and pieces on the deck here that's a little bit of let's put a bit of bright red there um burnt umber ultramarine get the shadowed side of these blocks here this boat is on just bear in mind where the where the light is coming from i didn't do a rim there because it was still wet just quickly put that in and then one let's just put in one or two of these spirals i forgot to just add a tiny bit of shadow can it connect that to the to this marsh area while we've got that dark green out i'll just add a little bit more dark in various places for the underneath of this marsh it's just a case of making a bit more texture burnt sienna that's a little bit of windsor blue and to give me a dark just down the side of these there should be one there as well don't overdo it that dark is a this is as much about forcing the light of that up and put some pieces on here yellowy cabin top put a cobalt it's all fishing bits and pieces on these decks but i take them as little bits of color rather than don't don't paint what they are um otherwise you're you're just being photographic just just remember you're making a you're making a watercolor and it's important to retain the characteristic of the the medium getting into a problem here so stop let's uh just do this post now this post will be all sort all sorts of colors you will see some people put a nice bold stroke um but i like to vary it a bit so it's quite dark there and let's have a little bit of root so that was mainly cobalt violet a bit of raw sienna let's put a bit of cerulean with a bit of greens and then quite light again and these posts are actually what i color i painted actually is there's much to do with what's behind it now they want all of the weed and whatnot at the bottom that hangs down there's usually a bit of weed risen on the tide like that and then we can just add a little bit of sort of reflection oh i just tidy up these and reflections a little bit of red on the bottom here um and uh just a dull a little bit of cream with that as well with this reflection of that boy and um that's a bit of payne's gray just for this for the rim of this boat there's a couple of posts there um a bit of red can dry brush that a fairly non-descript color for these the reflection here which gets lost on the mud could be a bit darker because that's fairly light remember the rule um light objects reflect darker dark objects reflect lighter i think it would just sort of give a bit of an indication of some of those marks on the boat um and with the sun the way it is people forget that you know the uh they call shadows on the water surface of the water people tend to concentrate on the on the reflections and then lose the lose the shadow on on the water um see if we can set about this cobalt and light red a bit of raw umber as well um get the dark in here it's not dark enough so make it stronger add some burnt umber a bit more cobalt and stiffer mixture so darker colors and less water and now when it's in shade avoid any having any sparkle because it's the absence of the light i'll just change that color to raw sienna cobalt violet i forgot to squeeze some more of that out that was a mistake because i want nice fresh paint so a little bit of rim under there shadow there shadow across the seat and shadow across this seat here and and then stronger blue here it's just a real old boat and of course that casts a shadow on the mud here tiny bit of drawing in that mark out the edges of the seats this one's over here um and stiff paint along here on the edge and perhaps just on this edge here quite almost paint the consistency of toothpaste then it will absorb the excess moisture that's already on the paper um in some stiffer paint let's have a rope sort of coming up here across there um we might be able to scratch that little bit of light there sort of comes down here um nice and let's add some some weed and stuff hanging off that tiny bit of shadow mist sort of underneath here okay it's just a funny color there um and just one or two sort of odd ropes well this this can have a dark edge there and there'll be ropes hanging down here it's quite a big heavy mast here just mind the perspective if you do these rope bladders just mind the perspective you know think of it as a roof it's going to vanishing i'm going to be going down to that vanishing point and another mast here just watch that you you don't get them all the same height and all the same distance see i've got all of those exactly a meter centimeter apart so let's put another one in there shorter one that was so easy done just that unconscious um tidying up of the picture a bit of raw umber for this mark here for this sort of um mast on this on top of this now i've just had um bruce stop to clean the pallet up final few strokes obviously we need to do the masts um and the rigging always a bit of a nerve wracking um time making marks dark marks in the on the sky um let's uh try and be fairly positive about it i don't want them to look as if they've been made by somebody who's worried they can spoil the picture even though they might be now we'll do some of the rigging and it's really just a matter of putting in enough rigging to explain what's going on you know how the boat sort of works so little blocks of bits and pieces and try and put a little bit of dark in bottom where just to explain how it sort of joins on how it all works together um how the rigging is fastened to the to the boat or to the hull i should say [Music] and now this master this boat put your hand on the paper press your brush and just go straight up keep going you can always come back and just make it a little bit more solid but try and avoid um [Music] again the cross trees don't forget that don't do them horizontally like a crucifix straight on it's perspective again um then [Music] let's have necessarily just sort of rehearse the stroke and i don't want it to look as if it's been done by somebody who's about to have a nervous breakdown there's some of this these are quite important marks there's bits of rope hanging from here it'll be a bit of weed the weed tends to sort of just float on the surface not just wrapped itself around the little circles hangs down off that phrygian that's been raw umber this is all this sort of what i call makes the picture slightly untidy and therefore more realistic there's a bit of rope there i think i'd probably ought to make this master a little bit darker just now i don't really go in for much over painting but this is this is the stage where you think yourself what else could i add to it i don't build in to my painting process over painting because i know i'm going to make mistakes and i'm going to have to over paint and this is um if i build in a process of over painting i'm still going to make mistakes and therefore i can very quickly get into painting four or five times i want to just get this a little bit darker as this area is the focal point i feel it's where there's the most going on and that will nicely contrast i've got the um with the reflection slightly lighter nice sharp edge there some light dark light some bright color a little bit of detail um and um it now emphasizes it [Music] just suggestion of a bit more of the reflections another root there a little bit more life to the water again remember perspective so any any marks can be bigger in the foreground than they can further into the distance you nearly got to the stage where somebody says well are you going to add a d are you going to add the c goals and the answer is no they won't contribute anything really a bit of weed hanging down there on that on that rope again it brings the rope forward and pushes the um pushes the reflection and hence the water further back into the picture just a tiny bit of a shadow perhaps on the top of that last there that sail there and then soften it um it's really a case of putting a little shadow when it's against the light sky and then softening it a bit of bright cadmium cadmium red and light red a little bit just a bit red there to help with that bring out the the barrel of that boat and do the same here and in many ways it starts to get the watercolor always starts to get a little bit opaque but in fact little solid areas show the lively fresh parts of the rest of the picture just um that mast it's a working boat need to make it look nice and solid okay well um i hope you've enjoyed watching me paint that and uh you've learnt um a few things don't forget i can't show you how to make paint only you know the sort of pictures you want to paint but what i can do hopefully is show you how i do it and then you can take the bits that you think will help your vision and disregard the rest thanks for watching

Channel: Andrew Pitt

Views: 237,690

Keywords: watercolour, watercolor, tutorial, artist, guidance, painting, brushes, drawing

Id: 4pugW0UAppU

Length: 56min 41sec (3401 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021