Paint a simple landscape, step by step

Now we put everything together. In this lesson you will paint a simple landscape: a sky, distant hills, a field and a few trees. It uses a graded wash, wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry, and it takes about 40 minutes. Do not aim for a masterpiece. Aim to finish, then paint it again tomorrow.

Plan before you paint

Watercolour works from light to dark. You cannot paint white on top of a colour, so you must decide where the lightest parts are before you start. Make a small thumbnail sketch, about the size of a phone, with three values: light, middle and dark. Then draw the main lines lightly on your paper: the horizon, the hill shapes and the positions of the trees.

Step 1: the sky

Tape your paper and tilt the board. Wet the sky area down to the top of the hills. Paint a graded wash of ultramarine from the top, getting weaker as you come down. Near the horizon, drop in a very pale touch of rose so the sky warms as it meets the land.

Leave it to dry fully. This is the most important pause in the whole painting.