Paint a West Coast Landscape with me - TUTORIAL

This is a step-by-step tutorial to paint a coastal landscape from a photograph I took in Victoria, BC. A video version of this tutorial is available here!

COLOURS

NOTE: While I used acrylics for this painting, you can just as easily use oils or gouache instead.

You will need four colors for this painting: red, blue, yellow, and white. These are the specific shades I used, but it doesn’t really matter. Just keep in mind your final result will look slightly different!

primary magenta
cadmium yellow light
pthalocyanine blue
titanium white

BRUSHES

Once again, the specific brushes you use don’t really matter, but will result in different brushstroke shapes and therefore a different overall look. The brushes I use are:

Flat brush #8 (“large flat”)
Flat brush #4 (“small flat”)
Round brush #4 (“large round”)
Round brush #2 (“small round”)
Round brush #0 (“liner”)

(OPTIONAL) CANVAS PREP

Paint your whole canvas using your red paint. I like to start with a red canvas for a few reasons, but mostly because it contrasts the blues and greens of the reference landscape and it makes it easier to accurately judge color values (lights vs darks)

BACKGROUND

1. Starting with your large flat brush, mix red and blue to make a cool purple. Paint a horizontal line for the land in the distance.

2. Clean off your brush, then mix a sky color using blue and white. Start at the top of the sky and gradually mix in more white to lighten the mix as you move down closer to the horizon. Add some very light blue for the water and lighten as you move up.

3. Mix a bit of red into your sky color mix to darken it slightly, then add some marks where you want your clouds to go. Gradually darken your cloud color and add some fluff for the shadows on the bottom sides of the clouds.

4. Clean your brush and brighten the highlights of the clouds using pure white. Keep it light and fluffy and don’t stress about making your clouds look perfect! In my experience keeping it SIMPLE is the best strategy for clouds in a landscape👍

5. Also add in some fluffy shapes on the water to mimic the cloud reflections

6. With a clean brush mix a deep green for the distant landmass. Mix blue and yellow until you get a bluer green, then add a little bit of red to cut the brightness (because red and green are complementary)

* switch to size 4 flatbrush (small flat).

7. Lighten HALF of this color with a little bit of white and yellow and add some highlights to the upper parts of the landmass.

8. Darken the other half of the mix with blue and little red. Paint some shadows on the bottom of the landmass and reflect them onto the water.

FOREGROUND

9. Time for the trees! Mix white into blue to get a medium shade of blue. Paint one vertical line for the trunk on the left hand side, from halfway up the sky all the way down to the bottom of the page.

10. Starting at the top of the tree, add a few fluffy marks and gradually and more and more as you work down to build out the tree.

11. Paint another tree in the same way on the opposite side. Add fluffy marks along the bottom to fill out the foliage in the foreground

12. Mix a little bit of yellow into the deep green used for the distant land and add some highlights for trees on land. Continue adding yellow to the mix and gradually brighten the tops of distant trees.

13. Darken parts of the reflection on the water to add some depth

14. Mix a deep blue with blue and a little bit of red. Now that we have the shape of the foreground in, we can darken it all before we brighten the upper layers. Using pure white, fluff up the tops of your clouds a little more if they need it

15. Add some pure white highlights to the closer part of the water. I like to use horizontal strokes to keep the water looking flat.

16. Mix a deep red with red and a little bit of blue. Paint over the tops of trees and tree trunks and add a few patches for shadows in the foreground foliage.

17. Brighten the deep blue mixed for the distant with more blue. Add some fluffy shapes in foreground foliage, painting on TOP of the deep red shadows.

* switch to size 0 round brush

18. Add some highlights of pure yellow to define some trees on the distant landscape

* switch to size 2 round brush

19. Mix green by adding yellow to your deep blue. If it’s too bright, mix in tiny little bits of red until it’s looking right. Use this green on the upper parts of the foreground foliage.

20. Mix a light brown by adding a little bit of white and yellow into your deep red shadow color and paint in some twigs and sticks to the foreground. Brighten the right hand side of each tree trunk.

FINAL DETAILS

21. Use pure yellow to add sunny reflections to the distant water.

22. Use your brown mix again to add a rocky layer to the distant landmass.

23. Lighten the mix again with a little bit of white and add another layer to the upper portion of the rock and reflected on the water below.

24. Clean your brush, get a little bit of pure white and mix in a little bit of brown, use this to add highlights to the rocky layer

* switch back to size 0 round brush 25.

25. Use pure white to add thin lines to highlight the distant water. Paint a line of bright white on the water immediately beneath the landmass.

* switch back to size 2 round brush

26. Brighten the green mix with some yellow, paint another layer to upper parts of the branches of the foreground foliage. Keep your brushstrokes short and fluffy for painting highlights on the tree.

27. Brighten with more yellow and repeat another layer.

* switch back to size 0 round brush

28. Brighten your green mix with more yellow and white. Clean your brush and lighten your brown mix with white. Paint sticks and grasses using thin vertical marks in light green and light brown.

29. Use the same light green to add more highlights to foreground trees.Remember to keep your highlights on the upper portions of the shapes you’re painting to signify sunlight. Try not to get too carried away with your highlights!

All done, thanks for following along! Be sure to tag me @hannahrajuart if you share your painting on social media 🙂