Watercolor Painting Demonstraton: A Sunset View of the Blue Ridge Mountains in a Narrated Time-Lapse Video Tutorial

Sunset in the Blue Ridge Mountains, A Watercolor Painting Tutorial

This week I recorded a time-lapse video while I created a landscape watercolor painting step-by-step, from beginning to end. During each step of the tutorial/demonstration, I narrated my process to help you learn how to paint better watercolor paintings. The demo covers creating a watercolor sunset glow in a landscape, painting layers of mountain ranges, painting a figure into a landscape, and using shadows to make your painting stand out. 

I set the mood with some relaxing piano music so you can feel soothed while you learn to paint with watercolors, or simply enjoy watching the painting come to life.

To take things a step further, I also included a note at the end of the time-lapse (and at the end of this post) with the names of all of the paints that I used while painting this demo, including brand names and pigment codes. Why do I include brand names and pigment information? Because watercolor pigments often vary among manufacturers. That's not to say one is better than another, but they are different and will look and behave differently. Sometimes brands will sell the same pigment under different names, as well, so I've learned to always know what pigments are in my watercolor paint tubes, and not just the name of the color!

 

This painting is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Colors Used in this Painting

Cobalt Blue – PB 28 – American Journey

Ultramarine Blue – PB 29 – American Journey

Joe's Red – PR 254 – American Journey

Pyrrol Crimson – PR 264 – Daniel Smith

Quinacridone Gold – PO 49 – Daniel Smith

Transparent Red Oxide – PR 101 – Daniel Smith

Sepia – PBk + PBr 7 – American Journey

Four Little Birds- A Commissioned Project

Near the end of last year I painted four little winter bird watercolor paintings that were each 8 x 10 inches. I made giclée reproductions of my little bird paintings and began offering them in a few different sizes.
In the smallest sized giclee, which is 3 ½ x 5 inches, I started framing and selling the four little birds together as a vertical set. The four birds look really nice in the small size, and all grouped together.

Clockwise from top left they are a Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, and Northern Cardinal.

  Then, at an art show last April, I had a customer come in to my booth who wanted the original bird paintings, but he wanted them in the small size and he wanted them framed together like the set of giclées. So he commissioned me to paint four original watercolors, based on my own 8x10-inch paintings, but only 3½ x 5 inches each. Of course, I agreed! And I took photos of the process and will now share them with you..

First I trimmed my watercolor paper to the correct sizes, and then taped them all to my gatorboard. I penciled in the bird shapes and the main branches, then started with loose washes of transparent oxide red (Daniel Smith) and cobalt blue (American Journey) to create the soft background.

 I continued laying in washes of the same colors in the background, and sprinkled some salt into the wet paint here and there to create texture and the appearance of background snowflakes. I chose to do the background in multiple layers to create depth with the overlapping shades. Once I was satisfied with the background washes, I used a fritch scrubber brush to lift out the shapes of the lighter background branches and  foreground snowflakes. I also laid in the first appearance of color on the bodies of the birds and foreground branches.

I continued painting the colors of the birds and foreground branches, using the same technique of layering washes, letting each wash dry in between. (A hairdryer helps to speed this along.)And here you can see the four watercolor paintings completed and signed, but still taped to the gatorboard. Note-at the end I used a white gel pen to add some of the white detail on the cardinal's wing.

Framed and ready to go!

 My husband, John made a lovely frame for the little birds, and double matted them with a black inner mat and a speckled off-white outer mat.
And now these little guys are being shipped to their new home in the state of Maine!


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Today I was on the Good Morning Show!