How to paint a LANDSCAPE The Winter Landscape Essential tips for painting scenery

Hey guys, Andrew here with a very special video. I'm pleased to announce the release of my brand new landscape painting tutorial called The Winter Landscape, available as a DVD and as a download. This is a really comprehensive seven and a half hour painting demonstration where I share with you a whole range of techniques to help you with landscape painting. But in this short video I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you a few of the clips from the longer tutorial and discuss some detailed painting techniques. Enjoy. During the winter months the ground here gets covered in ice. It makes for a really beautiful scene and something quite unusual, not a subject I've painted before. I really love those cool shadows and despite the ice those highlights are showing up quite warm. This tonal effect given by these extreme weather conditions I thought would make for a really interesting painting. Now this particular landscape I'm going to be working on I'm becoming very familiar with because it's the destination of many walks when I take a break from the studio. Early in the morning the mist hangs in the valley creating a beautiful separation from focal points within this landscape. I start this project off by working from direct observation painting outside or on plain air. It's a cold morning and my light's changing pretty fast so I'm going to get this painting done in about an hour and a half. I work pretty fast when it comes to color mixing and composing the scene. I start with whatever's furthest away and begin to work my way forward. Sometimes I'll add a few darker shadows to indicate the direction of the light before carrying on with the rest of the painting. Working outside is about absorbing all of these atmospheric effects and distilling those ideas onto the canvas. Not only is the lighting shifting dramatically over the process but that mist is slowly disappearing and I really enjoy that lighting effect of this early morning sun peeking over the hills and that softness that that mist provides. I start off very loose and broad with my brushwork and keep my color combinations simple and then on this general loose base I then begin to refine the image adding those final details. Working on plain air allows me to loosen up as a painter and become better with my skills in observation. Taking all of these things that I'm learning from nature directly and getting those elements into the final painting. It's an essential practice for the landscape painter to learn how to work from direct observation. All of these little marks are going to inform that final big painting that I'm going to be completing in the studio and when I'm in the studio I'm going to be reflecting on this experience that I've had out in the field and I believe this will lead to a better painting in the end. I tone a large canvas with burnt sienna, liquid original and pure gum turpentine and then begin to draw my composition directly over the top of this wet surface. I remove some of the paint which lightly stains the canvas underneath creating a tonal effect. This can be known as a grisaille though technically the grisaille painting is using a much darker tone like an umber or black. Traditionally burnt sienna isn't used for this technique but I like calling it grisaille all the same because it makes me feel fancy. This is a great way of establishing our composition and knowing where our darkest darks are going to go as well as our lightest lights. We can get a feel for the atmosphere in the scene as well as the direction of the light angle. It will speed up the painting process overall and give a really nice warm base to lay those colors over the top. I've used Winsor & Newton Liquin here as my medium which means this is going to dry incredibly quickly. I have only one sitting to complete my grisaille. Now in the full version of this tutorial I'm going to be talking a lot about the colors that I'm using and one that I've introduced here that's brand new for me is Williamsburg flake white. This is a really delicate white but extremely toxic so I have to use caution. Flake white is not as opaque as titanium white which means I can approach my tonal dynamic a little more slowly. This is really helpful when it comes to painting skies and I talk all about color mixing in the final tutorial as well showing those exact combinations of how I mixed individual elements within the painting. Now mixing a little bit of sky color here on the palette I'm going to begin to work in the same fashion as I painted that en plein air study working with whatever's furthest away first and bringing those tiers of depth forward. So naturally the furthest element from the viewer is going to be that sky. My combinations here are incredibly simple. I'm using a lot of ultramarine blue and lead white but to get a little bit of a purple tinge to the sky I'm also using some quinacridone magenta and also a touch of burnt umber to desaturate. Now this strategy of working with my most distant elements first and bringing those tiers of depth forward allows me to create more of a three-dimensional aspect within this painting. I try to keep everything in that background relatively desaturated and keep the variation between my lightest lights and my darkest darks to a minimum. Then I can increase this relationship as I bring that painting forward creating more of a three-dimensional feel. The painting is built up slowly methodically and strategically to create that illusion of reality. We want our viewer to feel like they're really there in the landscape. Now this tutorial in its full version is a little bit different than the last ones that I've released. I work in a slightly different manner here building up a bit more detail in that block-in layer. This really helps when it comes to painting that final detail and I'll show you a couple of elements here within this short video. But before we get any detail in this painting at all we need to have our block-in firmly established. This means the lighter lights and the darker darks are going to have to go into their appropriate places and really round out and render the forms of this painting. Then over the top of this loose layer I can then begin to add those details strategically in accordance to the type of materials I'm trying to convey. I'm always holding back in my block-in layer as well so I don't go to the depths of my tonal range. I won't use my darkest darks for instance and I also won't go to the height of the tonal range using my brightest highlights and the same goes for my colors. I try to keep my colors here in the block-in a little bit more muted. I don't go for the height of that saturation either. All of this gets added at the very end so the block-in looks like a very toned down and muted version of the final painting. So instead of painting each individual branch, twig and trunk on this willow tree I focus on the overall form and shape of it and then go back and add those branches later. Composition is of vital importance. I try to employ all sorts of strategies to keep the viewer looking at the painting. A major element within this piece are these sheep in the foreground. They're going to provide so much interest and character and really show off that lighting dynamic as this light pours in from the right hand side. During the block-in I want to get some sort of indication of form and shape of these sheep but no detail. Following the block-in comes modeling. Now this is the part of the process where I get to layer back over the top of everything that I had established previously but now I get to add to the complexity a little bit pushing and pulling some of my tones and even adding a moderate bit of detail. Here I get to accentuate my lighting dynamic like here with this tree line catching that morning sun. I get to lift the tones a little bit more and give the impression that that sunlight is peering through a gap in the clouds and shining on this hillside. I love building up the complexity of the surface and making these minor marks. It's the accumulation of these marks when we step back and view the painting from a distance that really give it the impression that it's hyper-realistic and detailed. Now let's work a little bit more on this tree and as promised I want to show you a couple of techniques here for how I painted this willow tree. Now as you saw I started off very loose, broad and general without block-in and now what I'm doing is just separating the masses a little bit more by adding those dark shadows in there. I'm going to go a little bit darker here with this tree because I know that I'm about to go back over the top with some lighter marks but first we need some dark trunks and branches. I start to establish the structure of the tree here and then once I have some of these darker branches in with a combination of some cools as well as warmer highlights I can then manipulate the three-dimensional form of this tree as it holds its branches out towards the viewer and into the light. It's all about varying the size of the stroke and using the right brush for the job. The more we stick with this technique the more that tree reveals its character and a three-dimensional form. Now I use all sorts of different brushes throughout this tutorial and I'll even show you how I made this little brush here to achieve some of those finer twigs towards the top of the willow tree. Painting in this way is all about establishing a few strategies having them in place so that we have almost ensured success when it comes to painting a landscape. Now let's take a closer look at this pine tree and this is the hero of the composition. I've employed the same strategy here starting off very loose and then working my way up towards more refinement. Now this tree I want to be very detailed indeed almost reminiscent of one of my heroes Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. His paintings were incredibly detailed and gave an enormous sense of reality. I'm working directly over that block-in layer re-establishing the dark tone in some of those shadow areas in the top of the tree. Once I've done this I can then just loosely feather in some of these highlight colors and because I've been building up my texture over these passes that color goes lightly over the top to reveal some of that pine needle character. When the surface is dry working with layering I can then go back and poke little holes in the top of the tree where windows of skies show through. Then I can reveal a little bit more detail once I'm happy with the structure of the pine tree and begin to add some of these finer branches and twigs. Now you would have heard me say before in my videos and I'm going to say it again now always save your tonal best for last and the same goes for color save your color best for last too. This means you get to slowly build up that image strategically and reveal some of those higher color notes as well as those tonal notes for the very end of the process. This reveals towards the end of these stages that three-dimensional form and a sense of reality. I'm always thinking about the combinations of colors that I'm using and the effect that these are going to have together. Notice how I'm applying some warmer greens here with a slightly more earthy tinge to them and this is reacting really nicely with some of those cools that are coming out of those deep shadows. A big part of creating this sense of reality and this illusion is building up that texture slowly and methodically. I'm going to talk a lot about the mediums that I'm using that will help me with this strategy of creating more of a three-dimensional form. We're going to talk in detail about the entire process from start to finish from the first initial marks on the en plein air study to these last little bits of detail that bring the image together. Of all the paintings that I paint in recent years this is one of my favorites. It's a simple scene but there's so much going on. Well I really hope that you've enjoyed this short video. We have so much more to talk about so make sure you check out the full version of this tutorial on my website available as a DVD and a download. In the full presentation we're going to talk about everything from en plein air painting to the underpainting to building up those layers and then finishing it off with some really cool detail techniques. I try to pack in as much as I can into my tutorials holding nothing back so if you want to take your landscape painting to the next level then make sure you check out this full tutorial available now. Hit the link in the description below. If you're a subscriber through my website you're going to get a promo code and a special discount at checkout. Now I really hope you've enjoyed this short video and if you did then make sure you hit that like button for me. If you want to come back for more see more painting videos just like this one make sure you subscribe to this channel. As always you can find me on Instagram and Facebook but also most important subscribe through my website at www.andrewtichler.com. Thanks so much for stopping by I'll see you again soon.