Simple Watercolor Landscape Tutorial - Flint Hills
Jun 24, 2024Watercolor is difficult, in part, because you have to juggle so many variables at the same time. Timing is tricky, color mixing can be complicated, and creating depth is difficult.
That’s why, in this simple watercolor landscape tutorial, I am going to address all three of these variables as I demonstrate how to paint this watercolor. I hope that following along with this demo will help you to feel more comfortable managing all the complications that can arise as you paint in watercolor.
Keep reading to learn more about how to paint watercolor landscapes!
Learn to Paint this Easy Watercolor Landscape
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The Flint Hills is a really interesting part of Kansas. And I actually stopped and painted this quick little sketch of the vastness of this area. This is the watercolor painting we’re going to study today. So let's go ahead and take a look at how I painted it.
Step-by-step Watercolor Landscape - First Wash
The first thing I do is lay out my drawing. And for this landscape, the drawing is really simple.
As I establish my horizon line, I’m making a choice about whether I want to favor the sky or the ground. In this scene, there are a lot of captivating clouds, so I draw my horizon on the lower third of the paper to give myself room to depict the vast and compelling sky.
After my drawing, I wet down both the back and the front of my paper so that I can paint the sky with the wet-into-wet method. I want to take my time while painting the sky, and wetting down both sides extends the time I have where pigments will mix together on the paper.
This is a key part of watercolor timing - being able to move quickly and not allowing your paper to dry out before you’re ready for it to. And in this case, we’re wetting down both side so we can keep those soft edges in the sky. When painting outside especially, I need all the time I can get because everything dries so much more quickly.
Starting With the Sky
After I wet down my paper, I mix up some light tones for the clouds. First I paint the clouds and then I paint around the clouds with the blue of the sky. This mixture for the clouds is made of Raw Sienna and Lavender, which is a really light wash meant to establish where the clouds are in the sky and to give the clouds a little bit of variation so they aren't the pure white of the paper.
Then I come back in with just a little bit stronger pigment, using some more Lavender (if you don't have Lavender, you can mix together Ultramarine Blue and Rose Madder Permanent to get a similar color). I use this for the shadow parts of the clouds, and I want to drop that in now while my paper is still damp.
Next, I mix up a strong blue pigment to paint around the clouds now, which will make it begin to look like a sky. For this, I load up my brush with Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Blue, and I paint around the clouds.
The thing you want to remember about painting around clouds is that you’re simultaneously defining them. It’s easy to chip away and chip away until you're left with this tiny little sliver of a cloud. So start wider. Make that cloud bigger than you think it might need to be. And then slowly take stuff away.
This is called negative painting - painting around a shape in order to define it.
Notice that as I apply the blue of the sky, I use a deeper, richer blue at the top of the sky, and as I get further down, I switch to more of a Cerulean again (lighter blue).
In nature, if you look up higher in the sky, you’ll notice a deeper, richer blue. The closer you get to the horizon, the blue becomes more hazy and diffused. Another thing that happens as you get closer to the horizon line is there are more clouds. This is why I’ve added more shadow marks at this point in the painting.
Finally, I add a little more strength to the clouds using a little smaller brush and loading it up. Painting the underside and shadows of the clouds is really what gives you that feeling of light hitting the cloud, so this is important to get right.
A Quick Note on Painting Clouds
One important reminder about painting skies is that, in all likelihood, you're not going to be able to copy the sky exactly like it is in your reference photo or in nature. Instead, I focus on creating an impression of the sky.
With watercolor, remember that you’re about 70, 80% in control. There are variables at play - the way the paint is moving on the paper, the conditions while painting outside, the way pigment mixes on the paper - that kind of take on a life of their own.
The more you can grow to accept that you’re not completely in control of everything, the less frustration you’ll experience. Learning to expect surprises on the page can lead to a less stressful painting experience and better decisions as you move forward.
Painting the Flint Hills
Next I begin painting the ground.
First, I load my brush up with some Raw Sienna and Cobalt Turquoise to create a lighter color green for the background. As I near the middle ground of my painting, I want my green to be more saturated, so I add a touch of Cadmium Yellow and more Raw Sienna.
I paint a light value blue for the water in the pond and add a little bit of Burnt Sienna to convey a shoreline around the pond. As I move my way down the paper, I'm continuing to add strength to my mixture.
Sometimes it can be tempting to paint too weak a first wash on your watercolor paper. Instead, I really want to push the value of the first wash. Remember that it will fade a little bit when it dries, but also know that as we get into the middle ground and the foreground, I will increase the value.
In this painting, the foreground is in shadow, so I've darkened it up by adding a little bit of Neutral Tint.
Even in this first wash, we're getting a feeling of light and warmth. I'm thinking about the light from the very beginning of the painting, dropping in some soft darks to add a little bit of variation on the shades of green.
Here’s a look at the first wash of this landscape painting.
At this stage, I'm going to let everything dry and then I'm going to come back in to paint the second wash.
Landscape Scene - Second Wash
Now that my first wash has dried, I begin my second wash.
My goals here are to bring more definition to the scene and to depict the lovely shadows of the clouds on the landscape.
I like the softness at the horizon line, but we do need a little more definition here. So, I mix up some Lavender, Raw Sienna, and Neutral Tint and lay that color in at the horizon. After I apply that mark, I take a damp, clean brush and soften it just a little bit so we keep that lost edge in the distance.
Now, I work from that wet edge and try to paint in a connected way in this second wash.
As I get close to the middle ground, I use more strength and more paint, creating a richer mixture. The shadows define a few of these closer-up hills. And now, with a smaller brush, I add a little more texture and try to find connections between the terrain and the shadows of the clouds on the ground.
Now, with an even stronger wash, I add a shadow in the foreground to really move the viewer's eye into the middle of the painting. Next, I add a little more definition on the shoreline of the pond, and I connect that right into the foreground’s shadow.
A Note About Texture
The thing that drew me to this scene, that inspired me to paint this landscape, is the desire to capture the feeling of distance.
A big part of creating depth distance is using texture wisely.
Texture makes objects or areas in a painting feel closer to the viewer. It brings objects or features forward. So when you want to create a feeling of distance, make things less descriptive in the background and reserve the texture for the middle, ground and foreground.
Final Touches on this Watercolor Landscape
Okay, so this painting didn’t require much more, but if you compare the second wash with the final version of the painting, you’ll notice the little darks and details that I used to complete the scene.
The first thing I did was I scratched in a few little lines for fence posts while the second wash was still damp, just to kind of break up that dark area and add a little bit of interest there. Then I added a few little cows, a fencepost, and some texture around that pond.
Start Painting Better Landscapes Today!
Have you ever been really excited about a landscape painting? You get all set up. You find that right reference that you're excited about, and then it's time to go... but you feel lost.
Maybe you're having a hard time achieving consistency. Some of your paintings turn out, some of your paintings don't turn out. And you're not really sure why.
Well, I have a free resource that I want to offer you that will help with these exact problems: my Five Steps to Plan a Successful Watercolor Painting.
In this free lesson, I walk you through the crucial planning phase of your painting that will help you understand what you're going to paint first, second and third.
Planning is so important, especially in watercolor. This medium is harder to correct. It's so immediate. So having that plan is essential.
After you sign up, I will send you a free PDF that you can have on your phone or computer. Or you can print it out and use a hard copy.
Then you can take a look at these crucial pre-painting steps before you start each painting - landscape or otherwise - to ensure that you're asking yourself the right questions as you get started.
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