Pines and flowers (watercolor art)

Hi friends!

Today I've another watercolor spring landscape

I use my own photo as a reference.
I liked these two pine trees, illuminated by the sun.
I decided to change the plot a bit, add dynamics and more details that characterize spring.

Art materials
Today I also used white gouache in my work to show a new drawing technique.

I start work from the background, this is the sky and the earth somewhere near the horizon.
For the sky I mix cobalt blue and ultramarine, and for the earth I add ocher.
I leave the lower right corner partially unpainted, there will be remains of snow

With the same paints, with a thicker composition, I draw trees in the background.
Somewhere I add more blue, somewhere more ocher. Closer to the ground on the trunks I add natural sienna.
I deepen the shadows in the ravine where the snow lies
For the image of a hill where pines grow, I take cadmium yellow, ocher red cadmium orange and the same ultramarine (for the shadow side)

So... To create clouds in the sky, I use this method - I apply drops of pure water to the sky area so that the paint is slightly washed out.
Then I create the shape of the clouds with a clean dry brush.

I make shadows on the clouds with the same mix of cobalt and ultramarine
When the paper dries, quite realistic clouds are obtained.

Now the pines.
They will be slightly tilted, as if from the wind.
It looks very nice and dynamic.
For the image of trunks, I take yellow ocher, red ocher and natural umber.
And for crowns I mix grass green, yellow-green, ocher and cadmium yellow.
Secret: to keep the green from being too saturated, I add a drop of cadmium red to it to achieve a natural green color.

To make the hill beautiful and blooming like spring, I add different tones to its different areas - somewhere pure cadmium, somewhere cadmium with orange, somewhere more red, somewhere brown.
This is a completely intuitive process.
For green areas, I mix cadmium yellow and grass green colors.
Secret: to keep the green from being too saturated, I add a drop of cadmium red to it to achieve a natural green color.
I also add ultramarine to the shady sides of pines and drop shadows from them.
I also add shadows under the trees near the distant forest and near the snow in the ravine

And finally, the most fascinating drawing technique is spraying.
I dip the end of a flat brush in white gouache and lightly tap it against the other brush so that the splatter falls onto the paper.
Important: so that the splashes fall on the area that I need, I cover other parts of the work with pieces of paper.
In the same way, I spray a green watercolor mix on the pine crown area to increase the dynamics of the drawing.
And I add more a flowers another colors on the hill by individual strokes of a round brush

Here is such a windy and bright spring landscape I got today!
Have a creative spring day to all!

Regards