Skill Level: Any
Join instructor Pauline S. for a fun watercolor project step by step! You will need:
-Hard work table or board
-Large sheet of paper: watercolor paper if possible
-Watercolor paints
-Painters or Masking Tape
-Paintbrush
-Small sponge
If you don't have everything you need, think outside the box and be creative! Please share pictures of your finished works with us!
1. Tape a piece of watercolor paper to a board. Tear along each side of a long piece of tape for tree on left side of paper. Cut geometric shapes in tape to form rocks at bottom of page.
2. Using a wash brush, wet entire paper, making sure there are no puddles but it is sufficiently saturated. Using blue (I used a cobalt blue) load up your brush and start at the top of the paper, then gradually work your way down to the bottom so there is a gradient from dark to light. Use a paper towel to block out some clouds. Let it air dry, or blow dry with a hairdryer.
3. Mix "alizarin crimson" (red) and "ultra marine blue" to make a light purple. Start at the top of the mountains and go all the way across the page. Add water to your brush and follow the same directions as the sky so it gets lighter as you go down to the bottom of the page. It should be quite light so it looks like it's in the background. As that is drying, use a sponge to put fall leaves on your tree. Start with red, then yellow, and then green. Let some of the colors mix together. Let dry.
4. Pull the tree trunk tape off. Mix burnt sienna (brown) with ultramarine blue to make a grayish color. Darken down the left side of the tree trunk. Use a dry flat brush to make lines and marks in the tree. Don't try to be perfect, trees aren't!
:) Add branches coming off the tree with the same color. I used a script brush but you can use any small, round brush. With a round brush add more yellow and green to those branches, and add some long grass at the bottom of the tree with green paint. Add burnt sienna and yellow ocher together on a sponge to add bushes behind the rocks, then add a little green to it. With red paint, add more grass. If you desire, you can add small branches by the tree in the gray color used for the trunk. Let dry!
5. Take all the tape off the rocks. Rocks are all different colors, so you can use whatever colors you choose. I used burnt sienna and some of the gray from the tree for the darker sides, and yellow ocher for the lighter sides. With a dry brush I added some darker marks with burnt sienna and the gray, and a little bit of red to all the sides of the rocks. Have fun, and don't forget to sign your piece of art! That's the most important part!
We hope you enjoyed doing this project with us virtually! If there is another medium you'd like to see us offer a class in, let us know by emailing info@gallery194.com.