STEP by STEP Painting a Realistic Landscape

Hey guys, I just finished this mountain landscape painting and I thought it'd be fun to take you through this kind of step-by-step, just show you how I really put it together. So this is a longer, more real-time version of this painting, so enjoy. So I've just used some pencil to sketch the idea for my landscape today. I'll have the reference pop up as well. This is a lake that I hiked to the other weekend and snapped a photo of. So I'm just kind of using that reference loosely, but I'll have that show up so you can kind of see where I'm getting my idea from. And I'm gonna be just going right over the top of this now. This is a 16 by 20 inch stretch canvas and I'm gonna go right over the top of this pencil with acrylic paint. So I'm using, and I've already started mixing a blue color. So I've got titanium white, cad yellow, quinacridone magenta, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and cadmium orange. And I'll have all of the information on the materials I'm using, the brushes, that I'm using in the description below. So if you want that information, just check right below the video. So I've just got some white, touch of yellow, and some blue. Added a little bit of umber in there as well just to sort of mute that down. That's looking pretty good. So I'm gonna start out, just gonna loosely paint in this canvas right now and this landscape. So I'm not looking for details, I'm just looking at covering the canvas, get all the white out of there. So I've got a reflection in the water down here and right away, I'm gonna be taking this color and getting that in the reflection as well. And as I block this in, it doesn't need to be fully saturated like the finished painting will be. I would just need the idea. All right, a little more blue. Okay, it looks pretty good. I'm gonna wash my brush in the water over here and pick up some white. Probably just go ahead and add it right to that blue. It's not really gonna matter. A little bit of yellow, a little bit of magenta. So we're gonna have some warmer, pinker clouds in the sky here. I wanna bring out a lot of saturation, a lot of color into this landscape. I'm gonna start light though, always start light. There's really no need to go heavy into the color right now. So I'm gonna kind of be patient on that. All right, I'm gonna take a little white, add some cad orange. Okay, and I don't wanna forget about that orange down in the water. So I'm gonna just do my best. We got quite a bit of orange we're gonna have probably up through this area. So I don't wanna forget about that down here as well either. So I'm just scrubbing this on. I'm not really, just kind of sporadic motions. No specific technique here. Just get the paint on. Kind of watch the direction of my brush really. That's kind of the only thing I watch for though. Other than that, I just try to cover, cover ground. It's looking nice though, looking really nice. Got a lot of questions why I don't tone my canvas. And it's something I think about a lot. And I think the reason I don't do that is because I found over the years, I can create sort of a brighter glow when doing something such as like a sunset here. Just helps me. It's kind of the way my mind works. I like to see brights. I think my suggestion for anybody who's confused about that is to really just not listen to other people. You gotta kind of, you gotta try different techniques. That's for sure. At the end of the day, everybody's different. It's kind of like to give specific advice on how you should block in, why you should use certain colors, this or that. I really think that all of our eyes and the way we see color, the way we perceive things coming together is different. And so just be, try to be self-aware is what I would suggest. The way I do it may not work for you. The way somebody else does it, well, I sure can tell you that it doesn't work for me. This is just kind of what I've come up with for myself and it really works. So you gotta just try different things. That's the important thing. Always try different things. Lifetime learner. More importantly, lifetime experimenter. It's really what a good artist should be focused on. Okay, I don't wanna get too much contrast. It's looking pretty good. I think we're probably gonna want some darker colors. I'm just gonna go ahead and just, notice how I'm not really washing my brush. It's just not needed right now. So I got some umber mixed with some blue. This is gonna be a little bit darker. It's gonna end up being a lot darker down here. So I'm just gonna cover that in. Pretty well with this color, even though this is already looking pretty dark compared to the rest. Grab a little more water, mix that in. Okay, I'm gonna take some white, a little bit of blue, get a brighter color going here just to blend that up. Okay, it's looking pretty good. Maybe just add a little bit more blue in between. Let's put some rocks over here. Just kind of get that on there. I can still see all the pencil lines underneath. So kind of washing color over the top. Not too concerned about how everything's going on right now. Just getting it toned, toned and colored. Okay, let's think about these mountains here. I'm gonna darken them down. Kind of makes a gray, like a brownish gray. Blue and umber, along with white, of course. Might even pick up a little bit of cad orange with this. Want it to be a nice warm scene, a lot of warmth. And for this, why not? I'm just gonna cover that in pretty loosely. I'm gonna keep this whole painting fairly loose. Just scrubbing the canvas in, just making sure that I'm covering the areas I wanna cover. Okay, I had some trees here. I just wanna make sure I don't lose my trees. All right, I'm gonna add some blue and orange together. You know what? I wanna go darker. Nice and dark. Umber, blue mixed together, some cad orange. Touch of yellow. Just up and down motions. Just going right across. Just blocking this in, covering it up. Little indicator of these trees I'm talking about up here. All right, I got some great big trees up to the right. I'm just gonna block in the idea, and I'm gonna do that by just scrubbing on these tones of color. Not worried about anything in specific. I just wanna know that they're there. More importantly, I want that canvas to disappear. I wanna color it, cover it all. So there's just no point right now. Just gonna cover it. Looking good. Now I'm gonna take a lot more umber and blue, mix them together, get a darker color, and just kind of get that on down here. All right, so that's nice and dried. We have it blocked in, and now I'm ready to jump in, get a little more detail, try to get these colors a little more accurate, and really just focus on the contrast mostly. Just try to get all those values correct. So my weapons of choice for this portion of the painting are gonna be mainly filbert brushes. So I've got a couple, three filberts. Got kind of a wider one, more narrow, and pretty small right here. And then I've got a couple round blenders brushes just in case I need them. But again, I'm gonna keep this painting a little more loose than some of my other ones in the past. So I'm gonna go ahead and start with this number eight filbert. And the only thing I've changed now as I move on to this next portion is I'm using, I'm gonna be using the Atelier Interactive paints, the white, just the white, actually. Everything else is the same. I like the blending capabilities of this paint. I'm not a huge fan of all of the paints, but I do like using a white base at times. And when I do that, I'm also going to be incorporating some glazing medium with this, just to sort of seal that once it dries. They have a ability to open up later, and I don't want that. I want them to dry and seal. So I'm gonna be using a little glazing medium with this as well. And then I also have added some phthalo blue. I think that's it. I just added some phthalo blue. Okay, so let's just go ahead and start with that with the sky. We're gonna need some white, a little phthalo blue, and probably just gonna add some burnt umber to that, touch of red, magenta, actually. No red on my palette today. A little bit of ultramarine blue. It's a nice color. Okay, so we're looking pretty good there. Now I'm gonna take quite a bit of paint on my brush. This is gonna go on a lot thicker. So I'm not gonna be too concerned with blending the paint in this portion. I'm just gonna kind of get it on there as accurately as I can, and just kind of let the chips fall. Not gonna leave a lot of ridges in the paint, but I'm just gonna worry about the feel of the painting, not necessarily the realism at this point. So this filbert brush kind of makes some nice rounded edges, some sharp, crisp ones if I need it. I'm basically just thinking to myself where I want this blue to exist. I just kind of slap it on there. And once I kind of establish where this color's gonna be, I'm gonna add some white to it. Just start lightening up some of these areas as we get further down in the sky, closer to the sun. We're also gonna add some clouds, of course. But I'm not thinking about the individual clouds at this point. I'm just kind of thinking about where each color's going to exist. I'm just trying to get that on there. I'm actually gonna take a touch of orange with this white, and that's gonna give us a color that's closer to the clouds that we want. Just slightly blending that into the blue, but I'm not super concerned about it. It's pretty rough looking. That's okay. That's just kind of the look I'm after right now as I complete the rest of this painting, just getting it really nice and close. So now, as I move further down into the sky, I'm gonna be just taking some white, some magenta, a little bit of that blue, add it to the mix. Touch of orange. It's a little bit too purpley. Some water and medium just to kind of thin that down. So this has got a little more of that purple look to it. So just kind of swiping my brush across, side to side. Pretty easy. Relaxing. That's most important. Now I'm starting to mix some of these colors together just to start blending them together a little more. Again, not worried about making everything nice and smooth. I'm worried about the composition. I'm worried about the values. It'll look good when we stand back from it, but up close, a little bit sloppy. That's okay. That's just part of the process. So I'm gonna kind of just continue just like this, and as we get lower, just pick up some more white and orange, some of those sun colors. I basically just pick up the exact same colors that are already on the canvas. To get some thicker paint, really cover that canvas up. I can still see some of my pencil lines in there. So this is kind of when those will disappear. But as I keep going, it's gonna get just a little bit better, a little bit better, and then I'll repeat this same process for the water down below. So now that that sky and the water are looking just a little bit closer to what I want, still kind of an ugly phase right now, I'm gonna move to this mid-ground. I'm gonna move to the shoreline, the mountains, and some of these trees. So let's start with the mountains, since they're kind of further back there. I've got a mess going here, but don't mind that. I'm gonna take some umber, some white, some blue, ultramarine blue, kind of a brownish gray that this turns into. And that color is essentially what these mountains are gonna be made up in large. So kind of wanna just scrub in a lot of this color over the top of what I've got going here so far. This just kind of provides the base. I'm just getting things, I've talked a lot about this in the past, I'm just getting things one step closer to the finished result. And that's really what, whenever you're applying a layer of paint, anything at all, any application of paint to a painting such as this, just try and think to yourself, if I can get one step closer, it's a successful application of paint, and however much that is, and whatever form that is, that's really what I always try to think to myself. Kind of helps me, helps me just break it down into more of a simpler way of thinking, a simpler process. Just get one step closer. And I can see that this is probably more the color that I want. It's quite different from what's already on there. So that essentially gets us one step closer. That kind of just eases my mind. Hey, you know what? I'm doing the right thing and I'm moving in the right direction. So if you can do that, I think you can handle the rest. So that's just, I don't know, something I think about. Okay, now I kind of have this color already going. So I'm gonna go ahead and just pick up more blue and umber, and I'm gonna make this darker. And this darker color, yeah, that looks about right, is going to be the reflection in the water. So again, even though I'm working on something different, not working on sky, I'm working on land, the mountains, even though it's different, the process of applying the paint is really the same. It doesn't change. Just think of everything as one big conglomerate of texture. And we're just working on a part of that. So it's just one texture. I don't think, you know, when I, if I'm painting anything, I don't think about whether it's a mountain or whether it's a tree or a part of the sky. I just think about it. It's in some way, shape or form, it's just a texture. And so that's just kind of what I try to achieve. If I can get that texture pretty close, hey, you know what? It's gonna look good. So then from here, I'm just gonna grab more white and add this. I think I can get away with it. Just add white and I'm grabbing some blue as well. And essentially, some water into this mixture. Essentially, this is gonna be the color of what will appear to be rocks. So a little bit lighter, a little bit more gray. I'm gonna add some orange and just lighten this. Warm it up, lighten it up. Essentially, I'm just blocking in the areas where, you know, I think this color might end up appearing. So not focused on specifics, just focused on, well, more controlled textures. Detail without, some of this color's gonna exist. Got some dead trees throughout this area. It's gonna exist kind of right through here as well. Let's get that started. Some umber and blue, some darker color, a little bit of yellow, just to sort of bring that a little more green. So when it comes to the trees, I'm just gonna kind of use the side of this filbert brush. I'm using a different filbert brush, by the way, that other, a little more wide one, but it's kind of the same thing. I'm using the side and dragging that down. I'm giving the indication of trees. I'm not looking for specifics just yet. Just sort of patting that on. And I'm gonna continue just to kind of pat these textures on. Again, not worried about trees, making trees. I'm just worried about making sure that the color of those trees is in the right area. The texture of the trees, that can come later. Creates a cool effect anyway. It almost does it automatically, really, for this. So just kind of the side of the filbert brush, pat it on in a downward motion. And I'll give some trees. All right, so after adding some of these trees and just redefining, reshaping a couple things, I kind of reshaped some of the reflection. This block of land down here. And I'm gonna be adding some rocks and stuff. I don't wanna get too ahead of myself. So after all is said and done, after doing that, it's starting to look pretty good. But it's still lacking a little bit. And where it's lacking is the color. So I've kind of got the value right. I've got the contrast looking good, but I think we need to bring up the intensity a little bit, especially in the sky and in the reflection, because that's kind of really the focus of this painting. So I'm just gonna go ahead and add some more color. I've got a clean palette over here. I'm gonna be switching to this round blender brush. And I've got a smaller one somewhere I may use, but let's just start. Here it is. Let's just start with this larger one. And I've switched back to all Liquitex soft bodies, got the ateliers out of there. I'm gonna start by, just take a little bit of white and some orange. Kind of roll, I don't want a lot on this brush. So there's really not a lot of paint. Kind of blotched, padded off quite a bit of that. I'm gonna start going over some of these same areas that I've already got in place with just some more intense color. And I've got some cadmium red this time. I might be able to pull out a little more intensity with that cad red, very bright color. Add a little bit of white. So it's kind of a pinkish orange. So this brush really helps me create some smooth blends when I need it. So you can see the intensity starting to come up, starting to look a lot more dramatic. I'm gonna darken a couple. I'm gonna switch to the smaller brush actually. Take some blue and umber. Just adding more contrast to a couple of things. Again, this part doesn't have to be very perfect. I'm just kind of keeping it loose. What I do want to do is brighten up some of these highlights. I'm gonna take some white mixed with just a small amount of yellow. I'm gonna look for areas just to brighten up. So by brightening up some of these areas, we're automatically making other parts seem a little bit darker. And when I can recognize areas that need to be brightened, it's always important to go ahead and brighten that because it's gonna change a lot of things and oftentimes for the better. So really look at your light values whenever you're working on something and really ask yourself if they're light enough and if they match what you're trying to achieve. Little highlights up high. And make sure that those are in. It all helps. Okay, so that's really starting to help. It's looking good. I'm just gonna continue with the same process throughout the sky. Just any place that I think that I can lighten, I'm probably gonna go ahead and do so. And then what I'll do is just move to the water and kind of apply the same techniques to the water just to get that water to match up a little bit more. So just increasing the intensity, scrubbing on some extra color. This is almost like glazing because a lot of this we can see through. So it's gonna be sort of transparent but already it's starting to make a big difference. Okay, so that pretty much wraps up what I would consider to be the acrylic portion of this painting. I'm super thrilled with how it's coming together and I think you could stop right now and it would be just a wonderful painting but of course I'm sure many of you know I like to get into those nitty gritty details. I wanna try smoothing the sky out, bringing out just a little more depth, a little more color, some brilliance to it. So I am gonna switch to oil paints and I'll have that portion here at the end after this. But I wanna jump on and just let you guys know that if you have questions, as always, I'm willing to help. So just leave them in the comments below and I'll try to get to as many people as I can. I just wanted to thank you guys also just so much for continuing to support my work and follow my content. It's really coming together good so far. I'll probably have a few more of these longer videos from time to time, more than I have been lately. For those of you that care to know, I've been getting a lot of questions if I'm gonna be doing these longer videos. So yes, expect some more. I kinda would like to get back to some of that, some of the smaller paintings. I'll probably do some smaller color studies. Just a lot easier for me to manage while I'm working in front of the camera and it's just easier for me to share. Probably get to some smaller paintings and share those with you more real time. Yeah, I think that's all I got. So thanks guys again so much for watching. Enjoy the rest of the painting.