Creative watercolor landscape painting how to paint details. In this video lesson you’ll learn how I deal with details and darks in a creative watercolor landscape painting.
How To Paint Darks And Details In Watercolor Landscape Painting - List of Materials
- Paints
Winsor & Newton Winsor Yellow
Winsor & Newton Permanent Rose
Winsor & Newton Permanent Alizarin Crimson
Winsor & Newton Winsor Blue Green Shade
American Journey Joe’s Green (phthalo) - Brushes
Winsor & Newton One Stroke Sable 1/2″
Winsor & Newton Series 995 Synthetic 1″
Robert Simmons Skyflow Synthetic 2″
Davinci Cosmotop Mix B #24
Rosemary & Co Pure Sable Series 90 #6 - Paper
Bockingford 140lb Cold Press, 15″ x 22″ / 38 x 56 cm
How to Paint Shadows Creatively Watercolor Tutorial - Reference Pictures
How To Paint Darks And Details In Watercolor Landscape Painting - The Lesson
Hello friends and welcome back to my studio! In this final part of our Copenhagen Farm demo we’re going to add details and darks and finish our painting.
Darks are an important part of the composition. They extend the value range of our painting towards the extreme low end. You can notice how important darks are when you compare the tonal strength of the painting at the beginning of this video and at the end. Notice how at first it lacks strength and spark, even though the value range is well established, the painting contains whites, light, light-middle and dark-middle values. And yet the painting still lacks punch. That’s where darks come in. They not only add further definition to our objects but also help push and pull shapes in space. A dark shape next to a lighter shape makes the light shape come forward.
Details are an important part of the composition but detail isn’t mandatory. A painting without any detail will work well as long as the composition was thoughtfully designed. Tonal value and shape quality are paramount. Yet, it’s not advisable to omit detail. Why not? Detail is important because details are shapes. Details are small shapes. Just like we want a full range of values from lightest to darkest, we also want a wide range of sizes, from largest to smallest. I started this painting with very large shapes and worked my way gradually through smaller and smaller ones. A tip on painting details: Don’t focus on one area. Notice how I move around the composition. This helps me bring the level of detail up simultaneously. This leads to a balanced detail distribution.
And that is all for this week’s painting demo! I hope it was fun to watch. If you enjoyed it, please like, comment and subscribe and I will see you in the next one!