How to Paint a Watercolour Bluebell Woodland
Immerse yourself in painting a magical bluebell woodland. Learn top tips for using watercolours and how to achieve a sense of depth in your paintings in this step-by-step guide.
An excellent project for watercolour artists looking to advance their skills, explore the way light moves through the scene and capture a wonderful level of detail. You'll master techniques that can then be transferred onto your own landscapes and more.
Project and instructions by Charlotte Baker
You will need
How To Make
You Will Need
* Watercolour Paper
* Watercolour Brushes
* Watercolour Paints & Palette
Mix the colours you will need in the palette for the wash– you will need a yellow, blue and a green. Pre wet the whole paper using a large flat brush, ensuring the paper is wet enough but not pooling with water. Starting at the top of the paper, brush on soft washes of the blue, leaving some areas unpainted as this will softly blend out to create clouds. Then add in yellow and green as you move down the paper. The wet-on-wet method allows the paint to blend seamlessly.
Subjects in the distance are always lighter and to achieve this in watercolours, paint the distant trees in when the paper is still slightly damp, so the painted trees blend out a little. Paint in far distant trees using watered down green paint and a small brush for the trunks. Use a larger brush and add a stippled technique to create some of the leaves of the trees.
Using ultramarine (blue) and the crimson colours, mix them together to create a beautiful bluebell purple colour. Pre wet the area that currently has the green wash on it using a large flat brush. Ensure the paint has fully dried before you pre-wet it again, otherwise the green will mix with the purple. Paint on the purple colour using a dabbing motion, leaving some of the lighter green wash to show through.
Paint in the trees in the mid-ground using a brown that is slightly watered down and a thin brush. Then stipple in some different shades of green for the leaves.
Paint in closest trees darker using a darker brown. Use a tiny bit of water to blend the bottom of the tree trunks into the ground.
Paint in tiny branches in trees using a tiny brush and add in more stippling of leaves using darker greens to create depth in the painting.
Pre-wet the ground in the foreground area and paint in darker bluebells and grass. Things in the foreground are bolder and darker.
Mix a brown colour and using a dry brush, pick up a tiny bit of the paint. Holding the brush flat to the paper, use horizontal brush strokes to create some texture to the path.
Use a tiny brush to paint some tiny grass stands. Then mix a darker purple colour and dab the brush using just the end of the brush to create tiny bluebell flowers in the foreground.
Your watercolour bluebell woodland is now complete!
