Painting Mountains in Watercolor

Today my friend Rene asked me “how would I paint this photo”. Because she is such a good friend I wanted to send her more than a quick explanation so I decided to make a blog post and create a step by step tutorial for her and for you.

Photo by Triston Dunn on Unsplash

The first step was to pencil in the sun and the top mountain edge. Then I wet the entire top section except the sun shape. I used a combination of colors. Quinn Gold, Transparent Org, Cad Yellow & Pyrrol Red. I painted the area with these colors making sure to negative painted around the sun.

I mixed a light value of a purple color and when the paper was completely dry I painted from the top of the mountains to the bottom of the paper.

When the paper was completely dry I added more paint to the puddle on my palette to create a slightly darker value. Below the previous mountain line I painted a new layer of mountains. I continued layering each mountain range and darkening the value of the paint for each layer. Vary the shape of each mountain ridge to create interest. Make sure you bring the new layer to the bottom edge of the paper.

Add a transparent wash over the sun using a very diluted mix of the sky colors

Finish by painting the last/bottom mountains in the foreground using the darkest value.

The Blue Ridge Mountains at Sunrise Watercolor 5″x11″ by Lorraine Rimmelin 2022

I would prefer if the top edge I painted first had more variety of shape, it’s a little too straight across and I feel it would be much more pleasing to view if it had some highs & lows. You can use deeper colors to set a different mood to your artwork. Adding the sun lead me to choosing brighter colors for this painting. I’m please with my rendition of the photo.

Thanks Rene for asking me to show you how I would paint this image. I tried to find the simplest approach and the easiest way for you to be successful when you paint this. Have fun and be sure to share your results with me.

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Paint With Me

Lorraine

~ by Lorraine Rimmelin on April 11, 2022.