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 Country Walk
 

STAGE BY STAGE

Essential Supplies

The items you will need to complete this scene are as follows:-

Watercolour Paint
 
Burnt Sienna
Yellow Ochre
Ultramarine Blue

Alizarin Crimson
Hooker's Green
Brushes
 
1.5" Wash brush
3/4" Wash brush
No.8 Round
No.3 Rigger
In the first stage after I have done the drawing, I've wet the paper thoroughly in the sky area and in the bottom third dropped in a mixture of alizarin crimson and yellow ochre. Then from the top came down with ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson getting weaker towards the bottom. I then  squeezed out surplus water from my brush and sucked out the clouds (for this I used a 1.5" Dalon synthetic brush). The paper is of course my old friend the Langton 140lb rough surface, I swear by this stuff and use it every day of my life.

 

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Whilst the sky was still fairly damp, using my No.8 Sapphire round brush, I dropped in a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna along the bottom line, to form the distant trees.

For the middle distance trees, still using my No.8 round brush, I firstly put in some yellow ochre, very wet, then dropped ultramarine blue on top of the yellow ochre, effectively making green on the page. Now using my 3/4" Sapphire flat wash brush, I put a few stokes of yellow ochre in the foreground areas as well as the middle distance.



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Still using my 3/4" flat wash brush, I dropped in a mixture of Hooker's green and burnt sienna, very weak, into the middle distance field areas. Whilst this was still slightly damp I put in a touch of ultramarine blue, well watered down into the nearer of the middle distance.

Once the middle distance was almost dry, using my No.8 round brush I put in a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna and formed the distant field lines and a few blobs here and there for bushes.

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Now I applied a mixture of Hooker's green and burnt sienna, slightly darker than before, and started working on the foreground areas, using my 3/4" flat wash brush.
Now for the little bush, using my 3/4" flat wash brush, I put a few strokes of yellow ochre to the right and a mixture of Hooker's green and burnt sienna over to the left. For the path, still using my 3/4" flat wash brush, firstly I stroked over with yellow ochre, picking up the rough surface of the watercolour paper. Once this had dried I used the same technique with ultramarine blue and burnt sienna.

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Now using a much darker mix of Hooker's green and burnt sienna and still my 3/4" flat wash brush, I flicked the brush upwards creating tufts of grass.


Now using a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, and still using my 3/4" flat wash brush, I put some very dark tufts in at the same time scraping some flicks of paint out with my finger nail, creating some light bits of grass here and there.

In the finished picture you will see that I have added some posts disappearing down the bank to add a bit of perspective. And hey presto a very simple but effective open landscape. Don't forget we will be changing the project next month.

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