Painting shadows and final details

After painting shadows on the side of the buildings and on the ground, and adding a few other detailed items our watercolor painting will be complete.

I mixed some French Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna and used this to paint the fence line and the awning beside the shed. A small pointed brush is needed for this so I used my number 8 round.

For the shadow color I mixed some French Ultramarine and Permanent Alizarin Crimson leaning the color a little to the blue not the red. This was about a strong tea strength mix.

Using this shadow color I started with the sides of the sheds and painted all the way down from the the fence line to the bottom of the painting. On the ground I used the side of my size 16 round watercolor brush to create some dry brush strokes to add interest to the shadows on the ground.

While the shadow area was still wet I dropped in some cream strength mixes of Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine, leaning towards the brown to indicate rock shapes and grass at the bottom of the fence line. I also added some grass at the bottom of the fence line with a mix of French Ultramarine and Raw Umber.The short tree roots were placed with the French Ultramarine and
Burnt Sienna mix and I used this in other parts of the wet ground area to break up the space into more interesting shapes. While I was just using a French Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna mix I kept changing the ratio of one pigment to the other to add variety. If you mix just one dark color of a single strength and paint all the darks with this your painting can look a bit flat – keep varying the mix, leaning it to the blue and then the brown (just slightly).

I then let this dry completely.

Once the shadow area was dry I placed a few rock shapes under some of the left highlights as well as some tufts of grass for interest. The dry grass was painted with French Ultramarine and Raw Umber using the point of my size 8 round brush flicked upwards. I soften the base of these tufts of grass to properly connect them to the ground. If you don’t do this with the grass it can look disconnect from the landscape.

I finished off my watercolor landscape with some birds in the sky and signing it. I used red as the color for my signature to balance all the greens in the painting.

If you would like to learn more about painting shadows, I have a more details article on this website. Here is the link: Painting Shadows

If you have any qestions regarding this watercolor painting demonstration please let me know through my Contact page.