Beginners Guide to Painting Watercolour Skies

This is the basis of watercolour painting, how to achieve a wet in wet sky wash in less than 5 minutes.

Here I will show you how to paint a winter tree without having to paint in every little branch. You will find examples of this in some of the main lessons.

Here you will learn how to start a wash at the top of a painting and gradually bring it down the paper while adding more colours as you complete the wash.

Once the first wash is dry then add the sea to the bottom section of the painting.

Here you will add a blur of land to the horizon  defining the area between the sky and sea/

We will now add the foreground along with adding some barges with their sails.

Finishing the painting by adding finer detail to the barges and their reflections.

We need a clean wash in here leaving a white area at the bottom to represent the snow line and a distant farm house.

Here we add some clouds and distant hills along with washes into the snow.

Here you will paint in the distant tree line and part of the pathway leading into the distance.

Now you will start adding detail to the farmhouse and the row of trees. Also adding a hedge to the foreground.

This is where you will finish off this painting. The main tree needs more detail and adding shade to the foreground.

This first wash has stronger clouds dropped in while it is still wet.

Here we will make the clouds stronger and add colours to the sea.

At this stage you will paint in the headland and strengthen the sea colours.

We will now add the headland which is Holy Island off the North East coast of England and add some foreground.

Now we will add some resting boats on the water, and add to the land.

Adding detail to the boats including rigging and finishing off.

Here you will create a strong wet in wet sky with dark clouds.

Here you will add another level of cloud to give a feeling of distant skies.

Add local colour to the snow in the foreground and add distant trees.

You will darken the trees and add hedgerows to the foreground.

This is the final detail adding the tree trunks and the distant church tower.

Clean wash letting darker colours flow into lighter washes.

Here you will add another layer of clouds dropping in more cloud just above horizon.

Here we add a headland and start on the water.

At this stage we add sandbanks to the water in the foreground.

Now we add the barges at rest with their sails hanging loosely.

Here you will add detail to barges including reflections.

A strong wash is needed here to establish the night sky.

We now add very strong washes to define the night clouds.

A dark wash is needed here to create the distant castle.

This is the first wash establishing the sky.

Adding whispy clouds to the dry wash.

Adding more details to clouds and washing in the water.

Here we will add the sand to the painting with a dark wet sand on the left.

Now add a wash for the castle and add more to the sand.

Now add shadow to the castle walls and paint in reflections in the water.

Painting in a wet in wet wash across Lake Windermere with the water at the same time.

Painting in the hills and reflections to finish this sunset.