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Beginners Paint-Along 2

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Watercolour Coastal Scene
Materials: Bockingford cold pressed 140lb paper, SAA Artists' Watercolours, round brushes sizes 10 and 8
Colours used: Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red

Jane holds one and two-day watercolour workshops where you can learn more about these techniques.
For details please click here.

This coastal scene is one of the step-by-step paint-along demonstrations I do at my Absolute Beginners workshop.  It uses several different techniques for applying the paint and offers some colour mixing practice.  Do read through ALL these notes before starting on your own painting - it will make things much easier.
Tip:  click on the finished picture at the bottom of the page to open a larger version in a new window.  You can then refer to this easily as you read through the instructions.
If you try out this demonstration, why not show off your painting at www.facebook.com/stoneflowerstudio?
The initial sketch Use masking tape to mark off a small rectangle - this example is 14 x 21 cm.  Don't make it too small to work in but don't give yourself such a big area you can't control it.
Tip: press masking tape onto your skin or clothes to remove most of its tackiness before you stick it on the paper.  This minimises the chances of you tearing the paper when you remove the tape.
Draw a horizon line just over a third of the way up.  From the right hand side add a distant headland along the horizon.  Draw a curved water's edge from the left hand side up towards the right.
Laying a wash and lifting out
Using a clean brush and clean water, dampen (don't soak) the area above the horizon line.  Mix up a puddle of french ultramarine paint.  Using a size 10 brush, lay a wash over the sky area.  Bring it right down over the the distant headland you have drawn in.  Then  lightly lift out your clouds with some bunched up kitchen paper.

NB For detailed instructions for this stage see the demonstration at Beginners Paint-Along 1.

 The sky is washed in
The distant headland is added Mix up some slightly stronger french ultramarine and paint in the headland.  Be careful not to paint on too thickly or heavily.  Remember that something so distant would be quite hazy and pale.
Wet on dry
This means painting (wet) over areas that have already been painted and dried (dry). Let's start with some more of the ultramarine we used on the sky.  Still using your size 10 brush, paint loosely and freely over the sea area below the horizon.  Let a few patches of white paper show through.  Try to leave a very narrow line of white where the sea meets the headland to give the impression of light catching on edge of the water. Now use some cobalt blue and continue to paint loosely so that we will see patches of different layers showing through.  Paint on small patches of colour and then use your brush to move the paint around on the paper, merging and fading with the colours already there.  If some of the previous layers are still a little damp, that is OK, but avoid painting on really wet paint or your colours will run a lot.

For a close up view of this effect see  Beginners Paint-Along 1.
 

 The sea is painted wet on dry
Sand is added to the foreground Colour mixing
Mix up some cadmium yellow with a very small amount of cadmium red and an even tinier spot of cobalt blue.  Notice how you get an orange colour with the red and yellow but the smallest touch of blue tones it down to a duller brownish colour.  Paint the sand in the foreground loosely.  Run a clean damp brush along the edge of the sand by the sea to soften the line.

Tip: if you have a wide range of paints you could use raw sienna here, but it is good to learn how to mix the colour you want from your primaries of red, yellow and blue.
Add a little more red and blue to your sand paint to get a stronger brown.  Cover up the sea with a roughly torn piece of scrap paper. Load your brush with paint and flick the bristles with your finger to spatter the sand.

Tip: even though you have protected the sea area, immediately check for stray spots and blot them up before they dry!

Spattering technique

 The completed sand
Foreground grass is added Correct brush technique Wet on wet
Now mix some cadmium yellow with cobalt blue to get a lovely rich green.  With your size 8 brush, paint in some grasses growing up in the foreground.  Always hold your brush so that the handle points in the direction that you are making a stroke.  In the illustration on the left the strokes are being made upwards.  While the paint is still wet, add some ultramarine to the base of the grass to create darker tones and shadows.

Using your green paint, very lightly brush a little over the headland in the distance.
Finally, use a craft knife to cut out some small sail shapes (triangles) from a piece of paper or acetate.  Lay this stencil on your sea, wet the areas showing through with clean water and press down hard with some kitchen towel to lift out the blue paint (you can rub quite hard).  Remove the stencil, wait until the paper is quite dry again and then touch in little spots of strong ultramarine paint under each sail shape.

Tip: when adding boats, people, trees etc to a scene, odd numbers often look better.  Five yachts are more pleasing than four or six!

Very carefully peel off the masking tape from the borders and your painting is complete.

Click on the image to the right to see a larger version of the finished piece.

© Jane Duke 2009

 The finished painting

 

All images and site content copyright © Jane Duke 2004-2012
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