Back to Main Site
     

 Mountains Watercolour Pencils

  STAGE BY STAGE

Watercolour pencils are such a lovely medium in their own right, especially good for those all important sketching expeditions and for taking on holiday - instead of taking the easel, paint, brushes. A tin of watercolour pencils, a couple of brushes and a hardback sketch book are far more practical.
Instead of working from photographs, work from your own colour drawings, and for this watercolour pencils have all the beautiful vibrant colours that you are going to need for any landscape. This Daler-Rowney range that I use are particularly strong in colour.
   

Essential Supplies

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

Watercolour Paint
 
Watercolour Pencil x24

Brushes
 
3/4" Wash brush
No.8 Round

 

1

As you can see from my outline drawing, it looks like I've used a normal pencil but in actual fact it’s a colour called cool grey.




This is just for the outline then start to colour in the distant hills using mixtures of coeruleum blue, blue-grey and as I come slightly further forward adding a touch of yellow ochre with blue-grey on top. For the middle distance area in the hills, I stroke in a little bit of viridian hue and for all of this I am literally just colouring in like a kid's drawing.

For the woodland on the big hillside I have drawn scribbly marks of viridian hue and for the patches in between the woodland I have used leaf green stroked with a little bit of yellow ochre here and there and then for the big patch of plantation forest I have used firstly vivid green for the top parts, moving further forward with viridian hue and then finally Hooker's green dark for the base. For the immediate foreground, the scrubby bits of land I have firstly gone in with yellow ochre, then a few touches of Vandyke brown and a few touches of vivid green here and there. For the path, simply stroke over with the side of the pencil using my cool grey. Remember, just like any pencil, the harder you press on the stronger the colour is going to be.  

2

3

Now for these foreground trees, don’t lose the chance you have of capturing some light on these, in other words stroke from the top of the trees where you have the light green down into the dark, because remember you can't paint your light onto your dark.
Now for the sky, if you're not careful you could have hard scratchy edges in your sky by scribbling on. So instead simply stroke the paint off the pencil with a wet brush. For this I am using my ¾" flat Sapphire brush.



4

 

5

 

Firstly coeruleum blue which is a lovely light blue and then for the impression of a few stronger clouds, going in with a touch of indigo, all whilst the initial wash was still wet. Now it's time for the rest of the magic, which is to wet the already drawn areas. For this I'm using my No.8 round brush and very simply just wetting the stuff that I had already drawn.

For the trees on the side of the big hill, rather than just stroking over everywhere as I have in the distance, I am using more of a stippling action, just tapping on with the wet brush.

And again for the foreground scruffy rough ground, I’m using a stippling technique just daubing on merging the colours together, but also leaving some little bits of white paper showing underneath. Now leave this to dry for a few seconds before going in with your shadows.

6

7

Now with a few hints of purple-grey here and there I’m adding a few touches of shadow by taking the paint off the pencil as previously done with the sky. Just a few touches here and there on the sides of the hills and stippling in a few darker areas into the tree lined hillside.


At this stage I am also adding a few lines into the bottom of the foreground trees to indicate a few tree trunks here and there.

Now for a few final strokes using my pen, and there is no specific line and wash going on here it's just any old biro pen, as long as it's not blue. All I am doing with the pen firstly are a few squiggly lines here and there (squiggly lines being a technical term you understand) in the foreground trees. Also a few touches in the trees on the big hillside.
Now a few squiggly bits in the foreground rough stuff.

8

9

And there we go a fairly typical lake land view from the stunning English lakes. This is a place where my friend Brett, who does all my website work, says I should really get out and about  on a mountain bike because he does, but then again he is a mad youth.