How To Do Watercolor Loose Forest Background

While having a clear out recently, I came across some onetime photos that I'd taken in Ireland and Cornwall, over twenty years ago. The one on top below shows a path through trees in a forest. I remembered that I'd taken all the photos with the intention of using them equally painting reference but had never actually got round to doing information technology. So I decided that today would exist the the twenty-four hour period to brand a first.

I'one thousand ever interested in how different artists return the complexities of foliage in their paintings and forest trees and woodland can be a peachy subject field for trying out some experimental techniques.

Equally always, in watercolor, we want to work from the lightest values outset and then add progressively darker values. This is because once a dark value has been put downward on the paper in that location's no going back, nosotros're stuck with it. This often ways thinking near how to practise the background earlier annihilation else. This is particularly truthful when considering how to pigment a forest in watercolor, as the lightest tonal values tend to to be the ones that are furthest away from the observer.

Materials List

Ultramarine Blue: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Pthalo Blue: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Cerulean Bluish: Winsor & Newto n | Daniel Smith
New Gamboge: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Cadmium Yellow: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Burnt Umber : Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Alizarin Ruddy: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith
Paynes Gray: Winsor & Newton | Daniel Smith

Brushes

Winsor & Newton Series 150 Bamboo Round #vi Purchase From Amazon
Rigger Castor (For thin tree branches etc) Bu y from Amazon
Constructed Squirrel Flat Brush Buy From Amazon
1″ Hake Brush Purchase from Amazon

Paper

Arches Watercolor Paper Block, Cold Printing, ix″ ten 12″, 140 pound Buy from Amazon

Miscellaneous

Winsor & Newton Art Masking Fluid Buy From Amazon
Regal Sovereign Colour Shaper Buy From Amazon
Misting spray canteen Buy from Amazon
Easy release painters masking tape Buy from Amazon

Here's a picture of the painting finished now permit's go through the process.

Vivid Forest Watercolor Scene - Finished Painting

When trying to create the illusion of depth, it helps to brand the groundwork more blurry and indistinct than the balance of the painting. So my general plan is to beginning with a background that has variation in information technology but is too quite lite and out of focus with lots of soft edges.

Offset by mixing upwards some greens and a warm neutral for the foreground. I used Prussian Blue, New Gamboge, Ultramarine and Cadmium Yellowish to become a broad range of greens from pale yellow dark-green to a dark bluish green.

For the earthy foreground color, I used a mixture of twoscore% Ultramarine and 60% Burnt Umber.

Steps 1 – three

let'southward create a background that'south blurry and indistinct, full of soft edges and undefined shapes but with a lot of color variation, make sure that your newspaper is thoroughly wet before starting. Take a natural haired brush similar the bamboo brush I've used here and start to place random patches of green assuasive them to menstruum and mix together on the newspaper. Don't try to fill every white space with colour it's fine to have patches of white here and there. They volition add to the variation and give your painting interesting areas of contrast.

Roughly indicate where the ground will be by making some brush strokes with the Ultramarine/Burnt Umber Mix.

Motion picture 3: Allow'due south really get things moving by using a fine mist spray bottle to add more h2o, Information technology'due south helpful to take some paper towels handy to mop up the water as it runs off your painting.

Steps 4 – v

In watercolor painting, it's important besides always be thinking ahead to the later on stages and so at present that the painting has stale (Annotation how much lighter information technology has get in Pic 4 compared to Pic 3) Preserve whatever highlights you lot feel you may need with masking fluid now as you may not be able to avoid painting over them in later stages.

I'm using a rubber tipped color shaper to utilize the masking fluid. See related Web log Mail, Tips For Using Masking Fluid for more details on this.

Steps 6 – 8

At present for some leafage. In forest and woodland scenes such every bit this one at that place's no point trying to paint every single leafage. In reality we tend to perceive the broader shapes as a mass of color and tone rather than lots of tiny individual leaves. So lets approach it that way. I've taken a tip from Japanese watercolorist Kanta Harusaki and I'g using some wrinkled plastic wrap every bit a random pattern making device to create a mass of foliage.

You can also add some additional specks of color by flicking on paint with an old toothbrush.

Steps nine – fourteen

Pics 9 & 10: Start painting the foreground with a bamboo brush. Get-go with greens and then add more and more of the Burnt Umber/Ultramarine mix as you work your way down the newspaper. Brand sure that yous put plenty of variation into the colour as this will assistance give information technology a more than natural appearance. Leave plenty of white highlights, this will create the impression of patterns of shadows and light as the dominicus shines through canopy of tree foliage.

Pics 11 & 12: Using a apartment castor with the Burnt Umber/Ultramarine mixture, start painting in the largest tree trunks. Pulling the brush from the low foreground in an upwards direction. To requite the copse roundness, lift out a highlight from the centre of the trunk with a damp brush, use a tissue or paper towel to wipe excess paint off the brush and lift out some more than paint until you are happy with how it looks.

To avoid having the tree cut off abruptly with a hard edge at the base of the trunk. Soften the base of the tree with a brush loaded with clean water to blur and blend information technology with the foreground. You lot can achieve a similar effect by smudging the base of the tree with your finger.

Pics 13 & 14: For the thinner trees and branches, switch to a Rigger brush and beginning to particular these.

Vivid Forest Watercolor Scene Step 9 -14

Steps 15 – 17

Pics 15 & sixteen: Take the plastic wrap and scrunch it upward into a ball and dab in some more leaves around the tops of the smaller tees that you have just painted. Exit gaps here and there and start to detail areas of thin branches spreading out from the principal branches.

Pic 17: I decided that I would like there to be a afar colina in the groundwork. Strictly speaking I should have put this in earlier with my other groundwork elements but the transparency of watercolor allows me to just virtually get away with putting one in at present as long every bit I'yard careful and don't allow information technology to interfere with my foreground. Sometimes ideas but occur to you and you just have to go with it and improvise.

To create the effect of of a distant hill, I made sure that the painting was completely dry and offset painted a strip of clean h2o then with my hake brush I painted in a ring of pale greenish and immune information technology to lengthened out, knowing that it wouldn't spread beyond the confines of that wet ring of water.

Vivid Forest Watercolor Scene Step 15 -16

Steps eighteen – nineteen

Information technology'south fourth dimension to put in the final touches, which as always, are the darkest tones. If your Burnt Umber/Ultramarine mix is a flake too lite, darken information technology with some Paynes Grey rather than using a pure black. Take a rigger and lay it on it'due south edge and drag information technology slightly upwardly to create some rough edged shadows. Add together these shadows at the base of trees and mainly in the shut foreground to help bring a sense of depth to your painting.

Vivid Forest Watercolor Scene Step 18 -19

I promise you had fun with this one. Don't forget to remove the masking fluid at the terminate equally it will start to bond with your paper if left on for too long. Gentle rubbing with a small eraser should loosen it enough in social club to peel it abroad revealing the highlights underneath. All that'south left then is to remove the masking record for the terminal reveal of your painting with dainty well-baked white borders.