Easy Landscape Drawing: A Beginner’s Guide to Watercolor

Do you want to record the memories of your trip but don't know how to start? Or do you want to paint a beautiful scene with atmosphere? I'd like to share some of the things I've learned about painting landscapes with watercolors that might help you.

1. Why is landscape composition important?

It is recommended that when painting landscape watercolors, instead of "copying" what you see in front of you, you shouldSelective rearrangement of screen content。

Layout and composition can make your watercolor picture:

• Better visual focus (clear protagonist)
• Sense of space (front, center and back layers)
• Transformation of effects through media (brushstrokes, color matching changes)

The distribution of more or less paintings will lead to a different look and feel of the picture.

2. Basic elements of landscape composition

Element Name	Description	Exercise Suggestions
Theme Focus	What is the "main character" of this painting? Is it a tree? A building? A figure?	Before you paint, ask yourself: What kind of feeling do you want to paint?
Line of sight position	Determine the viewer's angle of view, whether to look up or down? or flat	Find out where the perspective lines converge on the screen. The line at the level of the convergence point is the line of sight.
Scale	3:7, 5:5, 7:3 are the common allocation ratios.	Use a pencil to lightly draw a composition line on the paper to help organize the blocks.

3. Common Landscape Watercolor Composition Types

Type Name	special feature	Picture Effect
[Horizontal Structure]	Horizontal spreads such as lakes, mountains, and distant cities.	Stable and calm, suitable for expressing the contrast between the sky clouds and the earth.
"Diagonal Composition	The main body is arranged diagonally, often found in mountains, rivers, and clouds.	Dynamic, with the ability to glide from one corner of the screen to the main subject
[Z-type structure	The foreground-middle-foreground-foreground is arranged like a zig-zag.	Visual guides, often found in rural and field scenes.

4. Layout of color blocks and distribution of strengths and weaknesses on the screen.

Level	Description	Color Configuration Suggestion
Main Color Block	e.g. buildings, trees, landmarks	High color or dark, crisp edges
Medium View Block	e.g. grass, water, extended paths	Slightly lower grayscale or color to avoid eye-catching with the main body.
Background color blocks	For example, mountains, sky, fog	Light colors and blurring help pull out a sense of space.

5. How do I color a landscape watercolor?

The following watercolor demonstration explains the process of coloring a landscape watercolor.

Sky and Cloud Painting Tips

• Dry Moisturizer Pairing
  • It is recommended to put the watercolors on the paper in a wet state and let them blend naturally, e.g.: soft variations of cloud effects, or ground color vignettes.
  • Color mixing points: avoid mixing too many colors, it is recommended to start with a simple two to three kinds of pigments to practice.
  • Choose a dominant color for each block, such as a gray-green sky with a gray-blue-green tint.

• Changes in Light and Dark
  • The volume of the clouds comes from the change of light and darkness, the sky gradually becomes lighter from top to bottom, and from deep to light to present a sense of space near and far.
  • When painting clouds, you can start with light colors to create a base, then use darker colors to create volume and thickness.
• Color Temperature
  • Different weather conditions of the sky, through the cold and warm color tone changes, such as sunset using warm orange tones, cloudy or rainy days using cooler blue-gray tones.
  • Warmer colors are placed around the edges of the clouds where the light is brighter, and cooler colors are used in shaded areas to enhance the realism of the image.

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Ground and Proximity Performance

• Perspective
  • The closer the object is to the viewer, the more saturated and clear the colors become, while objects farther away have duller colors and less detail.
  • Lay out grasslands, bushes, buildings, etc. using this principle.
• Layered front, center and back views
  • Darker or heavier colors can be used in the foreground to emphasize the overall sense of space.
  • The mid-ground is kept in medium tones and the back ground is gradually faded to produce a rich depth-of-field effect.

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Lighting and Atmosphere

• light source location
  • Clearly mark or observe the direction of the light source and use it as a basis for establishing shadow direction and color tones.
  • For example, if the light source of the setting sun is low, the picture is warm, and the shadows are bluish-purple in color.
• Atmosphere and Feelings
  • Each image has its own current weather: sunny, bright landscapes use bright, saturated colors; cloudy skies have an overall cooler tone.
  • The use of colors and changes in cloud cover directly affects the feeling of the weather in the picture.

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6. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Possible Troubleshooting Points for Beginners

• Color mixing and water consumption control
  • Commonly encountered problems: the use of pigments too turbid (more than three) or too monotonous, it is recommended to do color mixing exercises before starting to paint landscape watercolor, to control the ratio of water to pigment.
• Paper Moisture Control
  • Improper control of moisture and pigment concentration may result in the color not being able to blend smoothly, or spreading too much and losing control. It is recommended to practice wet-on-wet on the paper (the paper has already been brushed with a layer of pigment, and then stacked with another type of pigment while it is still wet).

7. How to deal with problems encountered in landscape watercolor painting

Problems may be encountered	solution (a math problem)
No sense of space	Try to arrange three layers of "distance view, center view and foreground view" and use the depth and lightness to introduce the sense of spatial layers.
The protagonist is located in the center of the screen, with left and right space symmetrical.	Shift the visual focus to the left and right a bit to give a sense of variety to the center distance of the view.
All the blocks are clearly drawn.	The main body should be clear, the other should be brought into the clear local fuzzy, do not need to draw a lot of details in each area

8. Recommended Landscape Watercolor Painting Exercise

Exercise Topics	operating method
Pencil Sketch Composition Exercise	Sketch 2~3 different compositions with reference to real landscapes or photographs.
Single Color Exercise	Draw a landscape photo with only one color shade and three shades of light (black, gray, and white) (subject/mid-ground/background).
Photo Composition Exercise	Take 3 landscape photos with your cell phone, and call out the ninety-four grid lines, and choose a composition with different proportions.

Suggested sketches to help us sort out the key points we want to show in the picture.

Above is the introduction of the introductory knowledge of painting landscape watercolor, do you also encounter coloring or other difficulties in painting landscapes? Please feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message.Instagram Exchanges.

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