For today’s exercise we’ll be painting a simple seascape with a wet into wet sky!
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Required materials:
Here the colors I used for the painting, however, you can use alternatives on your palette:
- Sky: Cobalt blue
- Sea:
Prussian blue
Prussian blue + Lemon yellow(very small touch)
Prussian blue + Paynes gray(small touch) - Beach:
Yellow ochre
Brunt Sienna
You can use raw sienna instead of yellow ochre. Instead of Prussian blue, you can use pthalo blue or indigo(cool dark blue). Just mix them in a little at a time because they can easily overpower the mixture.
Here are the other materials used:
- 300gsm cold pressed paper
- Size 12 round brush and size 2 round brush. You can use different brush size depending on how big your paper is.
Let’s get started…
Drawing the outline
Start by securing your paper to the board with masking tape then place the board at a slight angle.
You can draw a very light pencil outline to show where the horizon is and where the water meets the beach.
For this painting, I wanted to focus on the sky so I placed the horizon just below the middle of the paper.
Here’s what it looked like on watercolor paper:
If you can’t see on watercolor paper, the image below shows how I roughly outlined the painting:
Painting the first wash
Start by wetting the sky area with clean water. You want the paper to be shiny not soaking wet (as discussed in the water to paint ratio chapter in the ebook).
Once the paper is shiny, create a milky mixture of cobalt blue and paint the sky from the top of the paper.
You’re going to negatively paint the clouds by leaving white spaces and painting around the shape of the clouds.
Use circular motions with your brush to get that fluffy texture:
You’ll want to paint smaller clouds and use a lighter mixture as you move toward the horizon, this will give the scene a sense of depth.
Add more blue at the top of the sky to make it slightly darker.
That’s it! That’s how you paint a simple blue sky with watercolors, you can always try painting different brush strokes to create unique effects.
Painting the sea in the distance
Using a creamy mixture of prussian blue and a damp brush gently graze the paper to paint the ocean waves in the distance.
This is known as the dry brush technique. You can test it out on a separate paper to make sure you’re getting rough texture.
Painting the shore
As you move towards the beach, add a very small touch of lemon yellow to prussian blue to get a blue green mixture.
Continue dry brushing until you reach the beach.
Notice how I’ve left spaces between brush strokes:
Add more white spaces on the waves closer to the beach to break them apart:
For the next step, you’ll need to make sure the paper is completely dried then glaze over the waves in the distance with a diluted mixture of prussian blue.
As you reach the beach, add a touch of diluted blue green and glaze a few parts of the waves.
Once the waves are completely dried, wet the beach area with clean water then using the wet on wet technique drop in some yellow ochre.
While the paper is still shiny, drop in a thicker mixture of burnt sienna or burnt umber in the corner of the beach leaving the area where the water meets the land lighter.
You can add a touch of paynes gray to burnt sienna and create a milky mixture then drop some dark dots along the beach for texture:
Yaay you did it! Congratulations for reaching the end of this tutorial. I hope you learned something new and enjoyed yourself.
Keep an eye out for tomorrow’s tutorial.
If your painting didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped then that’s okay.
Remember, I have painted a wet into wet sky thousands of times before I improved and painted something I was actually proud of!
This is where you require patience with yourself when it comes to watercolor painting. Remember, you can always try again tomorrow or practice on an easier subject.
It’s all part of the journey, so don’t be too hard on yourself!