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This tutorial is all about bringing to life a beautiful and colorful fall barn landscape! Anyone with beginner watercolor skills can create this painting. There are a lot of little steps to this how-to watercolor painting beginners, fall barn, so let’s get started!
Full video time-lapse will be at the bottom of this post.
What Supplies You’ll Need:
Watercolor Paper
Watercolor Paint Brushes
Watercolor Paint
Painter’s Tape
Waterproof ink pen
Two Cups of Water
Paper Towel
If you would like to see all the art supplies I recommend, check out, “My Supply List” page. Click HERE to check it out!
Paint Colors Used:
Burnt Sienna
Burnt Umber
Payne’s Gray
Alizarin Crimson
Cobalt Blue
Burgandy – Alizarin Crimson + Payne’s Gray + Cobalt Blue
Chinese White
All of these colors can be found in this perfect beginner set of watercolor paints. This is the exact set I am using in the video above to create this painting. I highly recommend this product to you if you are looking for a beginner set of paints.
Step 1:
The first and most important is to have a rough sketch of your landscape.
Draw in your horizon line, the main front tree trunk, and the barn outline.
This step is very important because it gives you the foundation you need to know where your color should go as you work toward your finished painting.
Step 2:
Begin by covering the entire top half of the paper in clean water. You will want to keep the top of the barn dry.
Start by painting in the cobalt blue on the top part of the painting. As you work your way down begin tapping in burnt sienna all around the bottom half of the skyline. tip: just tap and leave some white space for more color.
Without rinsing off your brush dip your round brush into the alizarin crimson to random sections around the burnt sienna paint.
Repeat, by not rinsing off your brush and dipping it into the burgundy paint, and begin painting this color around the far left side and on the right side of the barn.
All of these colors will work together to give the trees a beautiful rich look!
Let this layer completely dry before moving on.
You may also be interested in, How to Paint a Fall Scene.
Step 3:
When your sky layer is dry use your large round brush to wet the entire bottom half of your painting. Leave your pumpkins and barn dry.
Start painting in at the skyline using a light wash of Alizarin Crimson. At about halfway down switch without cleaning your brush to the Burnt Sienna paint mixture.
Create a small pathway from the barn to the end of the page using a light wash of Burnt Umber.
The key to this step is making sure the bottom of the page is darker than the skyline area.
Let this step completely dry before moving on.
Step 4:
For this step, we are going to add the dry brush technique to the barn.
Dip your small round brush into a thick (more paint than water), then wipe your brush back and forth on your paper towel to get rid of extra paint. Then scratch the remaining paint downward on the barn. Do the same process again with Payne’s gray paint.
You may want to check out, How to Paint a Pumpkin. In this blog post, I explain in my video specifically how to apply the dry brush technique if you’d like more detail.
Step 5:
We are going to only focus on the trees in this painting. The only color you’ll need is Payne’s Gray paint.
I was not happy with where my barn was at this point so later on, I will explain how I fixed it.
Using a small round brush filled with Payne’s Gray paint begin painting in your main tree trunk. Use the picture below as a guide. The tree should be larger on the bottom than on the top.
Next, use the tip of your brush and very lightly add thin tree silhouettes to the background, and add thin Payne’s gray lines to the horizon line.
Step 6:
This technique is done the best when you have tubed watercolor paint, but it still can be done with pan paint. However, in this tutorial, I will be explaining this step assuming you have a tube set. Here is a link to the tube paints I use and highly recommend.
Okay, let see how this process is done!
Start with squeezing out Burnt Sienna into your paint pallet. You want the paint fresh out of the tube. Next, with a little bit of water on your brush, dip your brush into the Burnt Sienna paint. Then begin tapping in leaves all around the tree areas.
Have fun with this step. There is no right and wrong place as to where to put these leaves.
With the remaining Burnt Sienna paint that is on your brush, apply the dry brush technique to the ground area, except for the pathway.
Repeat this step with White and Alizarin Crimson paint straight out of the tube. Mix these two colors then tap them all around the tree area.
For the pumpkins, dip your round brush back into the thick Burnt Sienna paint and fill in the pumpkins.
Step 7:
Start by creating a large square door to the front of the barn using Payne’s Gray paint.
Water down the Payne’s Gray paint mixture and add lines both vertically and horizontally to the whole barn.
Next, use Burnt Umber to fill in the stem area of the pumpkins.
Step 8:
The last and final step for this painting is to paint the roof of the barn. Use a waterproof ink pen or Payne’s Gray paint and paint in an outline on top of the roof of the barn, and down the sides.
And that’s it! You’re Done!
Full Video Tutorial Time-Lapse!
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You may also like, How to Paint a Pumpkin with Watercolor.
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