Step-by-Step Watercolor: Blackwater River Sketch

This painting started out as a quick sketch that I did on location along the Blackwater River in West Virginia, but my quick sketches have a way of morphing into something much more detailed when I paint them in the studio, as you’ll see in this step-by-step tutorial.

Ink & watercolor, painted in a 7" x 7" Stillman & Birn Zeta Series sketchbook

It was the final afternoon of my painting getaway at Canaan Valley (see that post here) and I had gone for a short hike with my friends Jane and Elaine to stretch our legs and squeeze in one final sketch before the sun set.  We found a beautiful spot beside the river, quickly set up our stools, and got out our art gear.

After doing a quick pencil block-in, I used a Sailor Fude de Mannen fountain pen with a 55° bent nib (filled with permanent DeAtramentis black ink) to draw the scene.

The drawing process didn’t take too long, and I was excited to get started on the painting, but just as I pulled out my palette, the first drops of a passing rain shower hit my paper. We scrambled to pack up our gear, then hoisted our backpacks and headed for the car. Of course, as soon as we started walking, the sun came out again!

It was getting late, though, and the light was fading fast, so we continued on down the trail – the sketch would have to be finished back in the studio.

A few days later, when I was ready to paint, I was disappointed to see that my reference photo didn’t begin to capture all the color I saw in the scene that day.  Because I was shooting into the sun, most of the landscape blended into nondescript masses of black with no detail. Yuck! This would be challenging. 

I had a better photo that I had taken a little farther downstream, and I was able to enhance it in Photoshop to give me an approximation of the scene I had sketched. At least, I had something to work from! If you’d like to try painting along with the tutorial, I’d recommend using this photo as a reference.

The first step in the painting process was to wet the paper in the area of the sky, mountains, and river. I mixed up a puddle of blue-grey (Ultramarine Blue + Burnt Sienna) and brushed it on with a large round brush, painting around the areas that needed to remain white.

Paint moves like crazy on the slick Stillman and Birn Zeta paper, so I waited to add the warmer yellow tones to the sky and reflections. I didn’t want the yellow and blue to combine wet-in-wet and make a green sky.

After the first wash dried, I lightly spritzed the paper with clean water then added some darker tones to the clouds. (Ultramarine Blue + Payne’s Gray + American Journey Shadow)

Next, on dry paper, I added a fairly light wash of diluted New Gamboge in the areas of the sky where the sun was peeking through. (I exaggerated the color a bit, but the light areas did look a lot warmer in real life than they do in the photo.) After brushing on the paint, I rinsed my brush, blotted it lightly, then dragged the edges of the yellow with the damp brush to blend and soften it where it met the blue.

The warm wash looked too pale after it dried, so I glazed over it with stronger color and filled in some more reflections in the water. The tree trunks got a wash of yellow, too, to give them a sunlit glow.

The most distant mountain was painted with a watery mixture of Ultramarine Blue + Payne’s Gray + a touch of Alizarin Crimson. I wanted it to recede into the distance, so I kept the value light.

The rhododendron in the foreground was painted with a combination of Ultramarine Blue, Sap Green, and Burnt Sienna. 

The next mountain received a wash of the same color but in a darker value.

After the distant mountains had dried, I added a variegated wash to the closer hills in the midground. I wet the paper first, then dropped in Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Sienna (which is brighter than Burnt Sienna) separately, allowing them to combine on the paper.

After the mountains dried, they gave a nice feeling of depth to the picture, moving from the neutral gray wash in the background to the more colorful midground area that suggests the browns, rusts, and grays of the late autumn woods.

I masked out some of the larger branches on the bushes in the right foreground using Pebeo Drawing Gum. This would save me having to tediously paint around them later on.

Moving into the foreground, I painted the midground evergreens using a mix of Viridian Green and Burnt Sienna. Ultramarine Blue was added to the mix for the shaded sides of the trees and Yellow Ochre for the sunlit sides.

The larger evergreens on the left were painted next. I used plenty of dark shadow tones so the lighter tree trunks would stand out, even after the midtones were added to them.

Next I began painting the foreground grasses, brushing on Raw Sienna for the sunlit tops and mixtures of Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Ultramarine Blue for the darker area along the water line.

After the lightest lights and darkest darks were in place, and while they were still wet, I used the tip of my brush to gently move them toward each other, encouraging the colors to blend and create midtones.

The same earth tones were use to paint a variegated wash on the swathe of vegetation running across the center of the picture.

Finally, I filled the remaining grass area with color. Notice how I darkened the lower part of that section so it would contrast with the bright tops of the grasses in front of it. Contrasting values are what separate one shape from another, and separating the layers of grasses here adds a sense of depth and moves the viewer into the picture.

The tree trunks were glazed with a layer of Getz Gray (American Journey brand). I started off with a flat brush, then switched to a round for some of the smaller strokes. 

For the darkest shadows, I added some Shadow (American Journey) and Ultramarine Blue. Smaller branches and twigs were painted with a warm gray mixed from Getz Gray and Raw Sienna. I like how the yellow glows through the gray, suggesting there is light bouncing around and reflecting back onto the trunks.

FYI – Getz Gray and Shadow are proprietary colors from American Journey (Cheap Joe’s). Getz Gray is a great shortcut color that works well for painting stone, gravel, trees, etc. and it doesn’t turn greenish when mixed with yellow. Shadow is one of my favorite colors – you’ll find it in almost every palette I use. I prefer it to some of the other muted violets out there, like Daniel Smith’s Moonglow and Shadow Violet. It’s a cool muted violet color that’s perfect for, you guessed it, shadows!

When I was sitting along the banks of the river, I saw a mix of colors in the foreground grasses, everything from pale tan and yellow to green and deep russet. So, even though the colors don’t show up well in the reference photo, I’m going to indicate them in my sketch.

I wet the grassy area first, then dropped in rich tones of Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, and Burnt Umber, allowing them to combine on the paper. In the darkest part, near the corner of the page, I touched in some Ultramarine Blue.

After the initial wash was dry, I using a ruling pen to mask out individual blades of grass. This would preserve the lighter colors of the base wash when I built up darker values in the next step.

Richer, more concentrated mixtures of rust, ochre, green, and blue were painted on top of the initial layer.

While that was drying, I added some deeper values to the clouds and tackled the reflections in the water. 

I wet the paper slightly where I wanted to paint reflections. (The Stillman and Birn Zeta paper is similar to a hot-press watercolor paper. Color lifts easily from it, so when I want to glaze over an existing layer of paint, I have to use a very light touch.) I wanted a bit of blending, but I didn’t want to flood the area and dilute the paint I was adding.

Using a small flat brush, I painted deep green, blue, and rust strokes to mimic the trees, bushes, and grasses that were being reflected. The colors combined slightly on the wet surface of the paper, giving me the soft edges that I wanted. After the wet-in-wet reflections had dried, more small strokes were added wet-on-dry.

To complete the twiggy bushes on the right, I removed the masking fluid with a rubber cement pickup.

In the photos above and below, you can see the difference between masking on white paper vs. masking over a watercolor wash. Same technique, different results. The branches on the bush are the white of the paper, while the lines that were masked in the foreground grasses now appear light against a dark background, a nice look that was achieved without any tedious negative painting.

The bushes I had masked out were rust-colored in real life, but I decided to paint them with strokes of pale Raw Sienna, so they would stand out against the background vegetation.

With a few touch-ups here and there, the sketch was done!

Or was it?????

I kept debating about adding one more thing to the painting…the sun rays that radiate out from the brightest spot in the sky. I wasn’t sure whether it would improve the picture or ruin it, but I told myself what I tell my students, “Come on, it’s only a piece of paper. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Well, I might prove to myself once again that it’s better to leave well enough alone!

I vacillated about it for awhile, but, in the end, decided to take the plunge and add the rays of sunlight. I’m not one to shrink from taking chances.

It takes courage to be an artist, and painting is nothing more than a series of questions and decisions each step of the way. Which color should I use? How dark should it be? Should I change this or add that? When should I stop? Right or wrong, we all have to live with our choices, and hopefully I learn something from each one.

Okay, back to those radiating rays….

Rather than just lifting the paint freehand to lighten lines of sunlight, I like to use a ruler as a guide. I aligned the ruler with the center of the sun, dragged a damp brush along the edge a few times, then blotted the line with a tissue. The process was repeated for each additional line, always aligning the ruler with the sun center, to make sure the lines all radiated from the same spot. 

Hint: When lifting sun rays, be sure to keep them irregular, and don’t add too many of them, Just a touch will do.

I decided to make one final alteration before I called the painting finished. I added a few warm highlights in the darkest clouds to break up the mass of purple-y blue. I think it was an improvement.

It was easy to lift the blue paint to get back to almost-white paper, then I just brushed on a bit of the New Gamboge that I had used in the rest of the sky and feathered out the edges with a damp brush.

Here’s the finished sketch…finally!

I think adding the light rays to the sky moved the focus to that area and away from the river, but, then again, your eye follows the rays down to the river and moves you into the foreground. So, with or without the rays of light, the viewer ends up in the same place. And the light rays were one of the things that made the scene so memorable to me, so it’s probably a good thing that I included them in this journal sketch.

What do you think? Which version do you prefer – with light rays or without? Should I have left well enough alone? Or was it a good decision to add the light rays? Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings. Let’s discuss!

Leslie Fehling's signature

One last thought…

If I had been able to paint this sketch onsite, it would have turned out very differently. I would have painted faster and looser, with little or no glazing and masking. It would have had much less detail and I wouldn’t have had time to rework the clouds and lift the light rays. Painting it at home, I had to stop to scan each step, jot down notes, and edit photos, so I wasn’t able to get into the flow and lose myself in the process.

I much prefer being on location, painting with abandon, and losing all sense of time. Absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells, and seeing color everywhere, even on a gray fall day like that one at the Blackwater River in Canaan Valley. If you haven’t tried painting outdoors, I urge you to pack a sketch kit and venture outside. I promise, you’ll never forget those plein air experiences.

24 Comments

  • As always,your intense passion for painting is a true gift to us all. Step by step, your words help me to try to recreate a tiny bit of how you make those brushes dance.

    Reply
    • Awww, what a sweet comment, Carol. Thanks for taking the time to wade through this l-o-n-g post.

      Reply
  • Thanks for breaking down the picture into simple steps. It’s overwhelming when you look at the finished project to think I could do something that detailed. But looking at each photo helps keep it in perspective that it’s going to come together if I’m just take the time.
    I like the version with the light coming through the clouds.
    Thank you.

    Reply
    • I can get a little overwhelmed, too, at times when I’m painting, and I often hit a roadblock where I think, “Uh-oh, I don’t think I can save this one!”, but I find that, if I just take it one step at a time, little by little the painting starts to take shape, and usually it all comes together for an acceptable end result. And it’s so gratifying to see the finished piece and know that I created it from nothing!

      Reply
  • I love that you added the sun rays—I think they make this painting really special.

    Reply
    • I appreciate your taking the time to comment, Pat, and for giving me your input.

      Reply
  • Absolutely beautiful! I really like the added light rays, especially since they were there in real time. Thanks for the step by step guide through the painting process!

    Reply
    • It sure takes awhile to write posts like this, but I always enjoy seeing other people’s process. I’m glad to know you enjoyed reading about mine – makes it feel like it’s worth the effort.

      Reply
  • I like the light rays and thanks for the hints on how to do that. I know it takes a long time to do step-outs but they are so helpful, as are your color mixing notes (that’s my biggest nemesis!). What a wonderful, helpful post! Thanks, Leslie!

    Reply
    • You’re welcome, and I appreciate your feedback. Thanks for being a faithful follower and for always taking the time to give me your thoughts.

      Reply
  • This is so beautiful! It really captures the late in the season, late in the day feeling. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Reply
  • Nature painting is one of my favorite subjects and you’ve captured it beautifully. I love how you’ve achieved the suns rays in the sky. And for the tips on how to do that. Because I love how water reflects, repeating something similar in the water would have been awesome if successful but as you pointed out an additional risk. Your instructions as always are extremely detailed and helpful.
    I’m hoping to get more seriously productive after the holidays myself. Speaking of which have a happy and blessed holiday season.

    Reply
    • Glad you enjoyed the step-by-step, Ann. Wishing you and yours happy holidays, too!

      Reply
  • Absolutely beautiful – as always. Your “sketches” are works of art!

    Reply
  • An excellent step by step of how you do your wonderful paintings. Thank you. I like the one with the light rays.

    Reply
  • I love this painting and especially with the light rays. Thank you for taking the time during this busy season for sharing your method of painting this beautiful scene. I would love to try this after the Holidays. You have also encouraged me to try and paint outdoors sometime. Have a blessed Christmas. Thank you for your tutorials!

    Reply
    • You’re welcome, Jeanne, and thanks for being a faithful reader this past year. I appreciate how often you take the time to comment. It helps me feel connected to all of you.

      Reply
  • Stunning. I really enjoyed the step-by-step guidance through a pretty complicated scene. I’d love to see what a sketch done there completely on location would look like. Next year!
    And it’s interesting to me that you used Zeta paper. I’ve been hooked on their Beta, but am challenged to try Zeta next. (And Shadow and Getz Gray – fun!)

    Reply
    • The Zeta paper takes some getting used to and I think it’s probably not the best choice for when I want to do a lot of layering or glazing, like this sketch, as the paint lifts easily on it, but I really like it for quicker, on-the-spot sketching where I’m using more of a once-and-done style of painting.
      And do try Shadow and Getz Gray – they’re handy colors to have on your palette.
      Glad you enjoyed the post!

      Reply
  • I value your step by step tutorials for so many reasons! I appreciate the time and effort you put forth to organize the process in every detail. I find steps ,techniques, and solution’s to a variety of problems or challenges that I seem to face in nearly any study or landscape that I attempt to paint. Thank you so much. You are a gifted and true teacher and I appreciate your help in this watercolor adventure

    Reply
    • Your comment warmed my heart, Linda. It’s so gratifying to know that my efforts are making a difference in people’s lives. Have a wonderful Christmas!

      Reply

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I’m Leslie. A painter, teacher, and lover of all things creative. A sketchbook artist who captures everyday life on the pages of my illustrated journals. I love sharing, connecting, and encouraging people to find their creative voice through sketchbook journaling. Read more about me, my art, and my life HERE.

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