Landscape With Afternoon Light Watercolor Painting Lesson

Value Contrast Is The Key To Showing Light

If you only do one lesson – make it this one! This lesson will show you EXACTLY how to improve your paintings by starting with a simplified, abstract value pattern. And then sticking to it!

The ONE thing! That will dramatically improve your watercolor paintings!

There is one thing that will make more of a difference in your paintings than anything else – start with a simplified, abstract value composition that clearly defines large value shapes. It is an easy process but a difficult mental switch that requires you to think differently about what you are doing when you create a painting and to think differently about the subjects of your paintings.

In this lesson, we create a painting using a small value sketch that has been created from the photo of a really ordinary scene. The process of creating a painting while following the value sketch requires mental discipline in starting with the large, simple value shapes.

We go step by step in a very detailed way in this lesson.

What you’ll need

• Brushes – 1 1/2″ Flat, 1″ Flat, 1/4″ Flat, Medium Round, Small Round, and Rigger .
• Colors – Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Daniel Smith Quinacridone Deep Gold, DaVinci Aureolin Mix, Cobalt Blue, Winsor Newton French Ultramarine Blue , Burnt Sienna
• Watercolor paper – preferably Arches 140lb Cold Press cut to about 7″ x 11″ or so