If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.

The term — digital nomad — comes to mind. Much like Jon Krakauer’s words about the unknown, it takes a lot of bravery to jump into watercolor painting. It’s not easy to begin a landscape and the process and result can often be unknown. I will return to this idea of being a nomad in another post. Now, let’s focus on the watercolor painting process.

I have heard often, “watercolor is too hard.” It can be, but with a little guidance, a sound painting can be done. I’ll break it down into these basic steps with some tips in the middle. Then follow up in next weeks post about color theory. If you follow the steps below, you should have a halfway successful painting at the end.

I took a photo of Mammoth lakes, California for this painting. The picture is an original image I took from Juniper Springs Resort. It snowed so much there was a beautiful wonderland scene outside our window when we woke up.

Sketch the rough outlines of shapes

Every painting begins with a skeleton. When I sketched in the shapes for this piece, I remembered that rather than just squares or triangles, these shapes connected through shadows. I usually begin a painting by drawing the outlines of the shadows, or the negative space.

2. Establish a source of light

I begin painting by establishing where the source of light will come from and then paint the background. I establish where my sections of paper will show through and begin blocking in color at the furthest point. This is a traditional way of painting. Typically Dutch painters would paint the background first. You can establish if the background will be cool or warm. Typically the background is a cool color. There are many shapes and it is easy to bounce around a painting instead of focusing on the background first. However, the most successful paintings consider the objects that are immediately surrounding them and work through from corner to corner the blocks of color.

3. Pick your tonal values (warm or cool)

Block in areas of color based on warm and cool. I typically start with cool colors and they layer warm colors over it, but for this pieces I began with the sky. I added warmth to the clouds themselves and kept the sky a cool cerulean blue.

4. Layer

With watercolors you have to layer. I find when I paint with gouache I do not layer as much. The medium is much thicker and there is more pigment laid on the paper. However, some watercolorists do not layer. Holly Exley mentions in one of her Youtube episodes that she does not layer. She lays in blocks of color around each other. For this piece I layered colors.

In order to establish contrast and depth in this piece, I needed to layer sections of the painting.

5. Add detail or ink

In this mountain scene I added ink to develop a deep contrast. I had elements in the foreground that I felt would be more dramatic and represent this story better if they were placed with ink. I also ran out of payne’s grey, one of my favorite colors. I actually hate using black. It’s a very unnatural color and rarely exists in nature. Most objects reflect color and this can be achieved by mixing primary colors.

At this point I have established where I want detail to be added. I use an ink brush and lay in the blocks of trees using a dry brush effect. I love using this technique because it leaves an unpredictable rough, textured appearance.

It’s important to remember painting outdoors is always preferable to a picture. The tonal values and color saturation of an image can be inaccurate in a picture depending on how it is taken. White areas of the picture may need to be adjusted in Photoshop. I always prefer to paint en plein air, or outdoors. However, because we were on a ski trip, I needed to snap a quick photo and paint this at home. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I may add a few more layers to this piece to finish it up.

Revealing My Watercolor Process