How to Paint a Winter Scenery with Watercolors for Beginners | Art Journal Thursday Ep. 27

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Art Journal Thursday, where we get creative every single Thursday here on this channel. And today, I will show you how to paint a simple winter scenery with watercolors step by step. It's really easy, so it's perfect if you're a beginner. The first thing we want to create is the sky. For this step, load up your brush with some water and slightly wetten the first half of the paper. And then, load up your brush with blue watercolor and then start distributing the paint from top to the center of the paper. We want the top area to be darker and the further you go downwards, the lighter it should get. Remember that watercolors dry lighter, so use a little bit more paint than you think you need. Here, I'm using a flat brush because it's great for applying a flat wash and make it into a gradient effect from dark to light. And now, we can move on to the bottom part of the painting. Here, we are going to create a few snowy hills. Load up your brush with the same color and then start applying it, starting from the bottom, moving upwards. We want to create a small hill with the top lighter than the lower part, as this part will get less light. On the reference picture I'm using, there were also some hills in the center of the painting. That's why I slightly outlined these hills using a little bit of water and paint. We just want to have a light layer of paint. And now, we can go back and build up the intensity a little bit more, starting from the lower part of the painting again. To separate the hill of snow in the front of the painting, we want to apply a darker shade of blue right behind the hill and lightly blend it out, moving the paint upwards. So, you basically want to create a gradient effect from dark to light for the first hill and then, right behind it, you want to start with a darker shade again and create a gradient effect the same way. I also went ahead and created more shadows using the same blue color. I added a few lines on the left and in the center because here we will add a fence later. But you can do that later as well. Now, let everything completely dry and then, we can slightly intensify the blue shade starting from the top part again. Here, we just need to apply the paint the same way as we did in the beginning. Start with a darker shade of blue and make it lighter and lighter while moving downwards to the center. I also decided to separate the hills a little bit more but it's not really necessary. I just wanted to see how it will look. And now, we can finally add some objects to our painting. First, I created a small hill in the center of the painting using a thin brush and black watercolor paint. Behind this hill, we are going to paint some trees and some houses. But you can also just paint trees with or without leaves, however you like. For this painting, I just followed my reference photo because I really liked how simple but at the same time, calm and beautiful it looks. And now, it's time to add the fence I was talking about earlier. Just paint two lines like that using black watercolor again and then, add multiple vertical lines one by one. You can also add a few small bushes and branches next to the fence if you want. And since the sun is coming from the right side, we need to add a few more shadows next to the fence on the left side using blue watercolor paint again. If I noticed that the lines look too harsh in my opinion, I simply used a clean, wet brush and slightly blended out the lines. Since there were also some areas that were still too white in my opinion, I went over these areas using a tiny amount of blue paint and lots of water just to make it slightly blue. Once you're happy with the painting so far, remove the tape around it. As you can see, I used a rather cheap washi tape that doesn't hold that well but since I discovered this amazing trick, it's not a problem to remove the paint that got underneath the tape. All you need is a magic eraser that you need to dip into water and then, just cover the area of the painting you want to protect and leave out the area you want to remove. And then, simply erase the excess paint. Super simple. I will link the video where I talk about this technique in the info card and also in the description box down below so you can check it out. And now, if you want, you can also use a white ink pen and add a few lines and dots to create some snow on the roof, trees or wherever you want. I think painting snow is really challenging because you basically work with a small range of colors and need to really think about highlights and shadows but it's also really fun and relaxing. And this is the final result. I really hope you liked this video and found it helpful. If you did, make sure to give this video a thumbs up. It will mean a lot to me. If you need more inspiration on what to paint, you can check out my playlist right here and if you're new here, don't forget to subscribe and to click on the bell button to get notified when I upload a new video on Thursdays and on Saturdays. Thank you so much for watching, guys. Have a wonderful day and I will see you soon. Bye.