u/Spare_Persimmon_1123

When I started painting, mountains and forests were my main goal. I live in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, and the mountains still take my breath away. But I haven’t painted one in months (more than just a faint background anyway). My algorithm was feeding me some amazing paintings this morning and inspired me to try again.

I tried a new technique, spraying my paper and dripping the mountain shape into the droplets. I used DS French Ultramarine and DS Burnt Umber for the stone colour, and I love how they mix and granulate and separate. I then used DS Undersea Green to add some small forest texture. I only used my one cheap Temu calligraphy brush, it’s fast becoming my go-to for almost everything.

I still struggle with how to add contrast to the mountain texture, and I need to work on leaving more white areas, but overall I’m happy with this one!

We’ve had a week of rain and grey skies. I’m out at our cabin on the farm again, and the sun was just starting to poke through, so it was perfect for a smoke sky practice. I love the combination of UM Blue and Burnt Sienna, and the granulation. I wanted to experiment with soft and hard edges. I love this little sketchbook, low pressure and I can just focus on one little element.

I do think clouds are hard! I wanted the brightness to shine from behind. I think the small page made it tricky too, and I’m never really sure where to put the shadows, but I’m happy with this one!

I just added DS Undersea Green to my palette, and I’m so happy I did! I think with all the forests and earthy landscapes I like, I will get a lot of use out of it.

To try it for the first time, I went back to a YT tutorial by @artistlyndanorman. I love this colour combination with Indigo and Perylene Violet, and the texture from using a spray bottle. I tried scraping in some rocks which didn’t go so well, but I’m still happy with how it came out. This was a super fast painting, truly 15min. I’ve been doing a lot of these mini forest vignettes lately, so satisfying and relaxing! And such a great way to play with colour, texture, techniques, shapes, brushes, all on an easy level with no pressure.

Spent a couple quiet nights at our cabin on the family farm. It was very rainy with lots of storms passing through. From my comfy chair looking out across the fields, there was this one large tuft of grass in my direct eye line. Yes, it’s a reminder of how far behind basic yard maintenance I am, but I loved its shapes and colours. So I kept it soft and simple. I love this little sketchbook, it really takes the pressure off and I find it very relaxing.

I only keep basic brushes there, and struggled with making fine enough grassy texture. I ended up squeezing the bristles of my round brush flat so it resembled a fan brush. I also wanted to have a dark brown, my burnt umber was still too red. I should have played more with maybe mixing it with some ultramarine blue. And while I don’t think it shows up in the photo very well, I haven’t used UM Blue for a sky recently, and forgot how much I enjoy the granulation. Worked well for the greyish sky.

It’s a quiet day at home and I wanted to practice two different paintings that a loved one requested, light through a forest and a soft mountain with a foreground of pine trees. I also just wanted to practice a different way of doing pine trees in general.

I’m not thrilled with the mountain one, I feel like my colours are just off. I have a pretty limited palette and tried mixing my own greens, but I’m just not getting what I want. I want the foreground foliage to be kind of backlit with sun. I also find the layering in this one tricky. I’ve been doing the sky and the water wet and wet, letting it dry, then going back in doing the foreground, and then after that’s dry wedding the mountain and doing the mountain gray and the tree line. I don’t know, I did one just like this a few months ago and really like it, and I’ve never been able to re-create it.

The light shining through the forest one was fun, again. I just need practising with some of the layering and brush strokes for the branches.

Really enjoying the moody pine trees of the third one. I’m really liking this style and I wanted to practice doing my trees slightly differently. This was mostly Perelyne Green, and I used my number one liner brush which worked great.

I’ve been challenging myself quite a bit lately, and wanted something quick and easy. I did challenge myself to mix my own earthy green and quite like the colour I ended up with. I got to use my home away from home handmade palette and love it.

Painted along to a video on IG by @parastukhodadadi_watercolor .

I picked up a tube of MaiMeriBlu Transparent Yellow a few days ago and love it (my first MMB paint). It makes obviously gorgeous yellows (from quite cool when diluted to quite warm depending on value), but also greens. Most of this painting was done with just Transparent Yellow and Indigo (a touch of Sap Green here and there). And I’m loving the combo of Indigo and Burnt Umber lately too, gorgeous darks that i like for tree trunks and branches in this painting.

I love the light bursting through the forest. I need to practice lifting, making the light beams I feel like I more smeared the paper than nicely lifted the paint. I didn’t like the edge it gave. I used Meeden 100%cotton paper (which I think is the same as Baohong?). But this was nice and simple and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I’ve been watching a bunch of videos from Mind Of Watercolor and love his style. I gave a shot at a spontaneous landscape. It was a lot of fun, I like the pops of colour. Will need to practice a lot with the depth/layers, and I swear I tried to avoid the ‘picket fence’ of trees. I will definitely explore this more! And tips or tricks if you also like this style would be great!

We had a few days out camping in some gorgeous areas of Canada. Started in Jasper National Park that was ravaged by forest fires a couple summers ago. We were camping here last year and the regrowth was amazing, but this year the greens and intense colours of the wildflowers was incredible. It was a wonderful trip and I have a bunch of pictures I will be referencing from!

Just got back from my latest trip, and have really enjoyed incorporating some pairing on all my trips this year.

There was a gorgeous tall tree in my site, with no lower branches but interesting bark. I used a dry brush effect for the foliage of the background trees. I like how it came out, but it feels a little heavy and overworked. The actual tree was much more grey with very cool yellowish lichen. Still it was fun to do.

Then I was going to paint this stump next to my table. It had an interesting shape so I thought I’d practice a quick sketch first to lay it out, and instead just kept going and worked on a drawing instead. I made my own blending stump and while it’s a humble start, it’s really only the third thing I’ve tried to draw? So I’m pretty happy with how it turned out too!

Leaving in a few days for a weeklong trip with my husband, going to some of the most jaw dropping places in the Rockies in Canada and can’t wait for all the painting I’m going to do!!!

Painted along to a video shared by @thearttable25 on IG.

I made another sketchbook using a block of Meeden 300gsm 100% cotton watercolour paper and the paper is much better than the first book I made.

This was a nice quiet painting to do. I used my DIY foliage brush and like the texture it makes. Not sure what kind of trees these are supposed to be, but it doesn’t matter lol! The trunks look suspiciously thin. I’m happy to receive any feedback on how to improve.

A lot of my paintings have the softer background, and then sharp trees in the front, I really like the contrast.

Inspired by a tutorial by This Writing Desk, I gave my new sketchbook a shot. I haven’t used this paper in a long time, and it is 100% cotton but only 200gsm. I definitely noticed how thin it is with doing wet on wet. I used tape to block out the tree trunks, and the paper tore a lot.

I also think it’s funny that of the three brushes I used, one was a diy foliage brush from a super cheap Walmart set, one is a $0.50 calligraphy brush from Temu, and one is my most expensive Kolinsky sable brush.

Overall very happy with how it came out, I absolutely adore painting trees and playing with light!

I really like a sketchbook format for working in at home, I love my paintings are altogether and being able to flip through. And while the sketchbooks I get are pretty good, I prefer my block Baohong paper. Apparently they do make sketchbooks but they’re pretty expensive in comparison to the blocks. So I’ve been playing with some ideas, and tried making my own sketchbook.

I used a pad of paper (10 sheets) that is 100% cotton and is pretty inexpensive ($5), a local home goods store near me carries it sometimes (HomeSense for my other Canadians), but is only 200gsm so I haven’t been reaching for it. I figure if my attempt didn’t work I’d just continue to use it as scrap/practice.

We have an old binding machine at work, and I had a stack of booklets headed for the recycle pile. So I saved the coils, used the machine to punch the holes, and then manually threaded the coil through. I cut the cover sheet off the backboard and used those for the front/back.

I’m actually quite happy with how it turned out! The holes are a bit big, and the coil a bit wide. But it opens nicely and lays flat. It took minutes to put together! Im going to try it this weekend and then maybe take a Baohong block I have and try making another.

My friend took this gorgeous photo of the Northern Lights while we were camping last weekend. This was so much fun to paint, I used my Qor paints which gave such amazing colour.

I do have a question - for the tiny branches I worked between a SBV round 2, an Aqua Elite round 0, and a Neptune script/liner. The 2 and 0 still seemed too chunky, I preferred the liner for those fine strokes and nice branch angles. But the liner was very soft and looking at it my branches are very uniform. Can you get a super fine liner that has a little more control? Can anyone recommend one?

Very happy with this one!

Edited - to add a question after sleeping on it and overthinking throughout the night.

My friend and I were camping a few days ago, and one of her favourite activities is late night walks. I got to bed early and almost never see the dark in the summer. So she took this picture for me, and I had a great time painting it. Just Indigo, Paynes Grey, and just a little bit of white gouache for the stars. I obviously edited it a bit, but I am so happy with how it came out!

I really enjoy trying new and different brushes. One type I haven’t tried yet are quill brushes. I’ve seen a few people using these Meeden ones, are they pretty good? Is there another brand I should check out? Thanks!

I haven’t painted in almost a week, and felt like I forgot it all! Didn’t have a great plan, and some things didn’t work so well (my tree foliage doesn’t show well against the background), but I do love playing with Perylene Violet, it was fun mixing the colours, love bashing a cheap calligraphy brush for interesting foliage texture, and I love working in the Baohong paper. I wish it came in a coil sketchbook!

I went to a paint group at a local coffee shop last night. It was just three of us and we work on our own stuff, but chat about ideas and supplies and share our work, it’s fun! I was struggling with what I wanted to do, and decided on a couple of tree-inspired paintings (my hyper-focus at the moment). The first one was supposed to be more abstract with a spray bottle and really just looks like my other trees, but it was fun and no pressure. The second one was quick and a style I haven’t really tried before. I like the way the trees came out. Great night!