Hello everyone, I'm KK from KKDRAW.Today, I'm going to teach you how to paint 'Airy Landscapes'~

Brushes I Use:

1. Thick Brush Set → Paint-Starved Flat Brush / Flat, Speckled Flat Brush / Dry

2. Smudge & Blend

3. Realistic Pencil

My Painting Process:

★ Listen to music → Decide color palette → Draw the main subject → Draw the background → Paint lights and shadows according to light source → Refine details → Complete

══════════════════

Everyone has different painting habits, and the painting order also varies. Personally, when I'm creating this kind of artistic painting, I first listen to music to immerse myself in its world. Then I start painting, drawing along with the music, which sometimes helps me achieve unexpected feelings faster.

Below, I will guide you through the painting process above, layer by layer, to complete a landscape with an 'airy feel' ↓

1. Listen to music (preferably something you like and find relaxing):

《Howl's Moving Castle Violin & Piano repeat 1 hour music》

This one-hour version of 'Howl's Moving Castle' for violin and piano is a song I listened to while painting this piece. The reason I chose it is that it's the animated soundtrack for 'Howl's Moving Castle.' Animated soundtracks are typically designed to quickly immerse the audience in the animation, so the musical arrangement changes rhythm according to various plot points. 'See the scene, hear the music' and 'Hear the music, recall the scene' - as long as these two points are met, it's a suitable song to listen to before painting.

▲Of course, if you have your own favorite and quickly relaxing music, that's even better.

2. Deciding the Color Palette (How to Use Gradients):

Every painting has a dominant color palette. Using a main color palette ensures consistency throughout the entire image and helps you pinpoint the positions of key objects in the scene. See the example below↓

The main color palette for this work consists of these three colors. Each color corresponds to the dominant hue of a different area.

 

Light yellow is the main color tone for the sky↑

Light blue is the main color tone for the mountains↑

Black is the main color tone for the trees↑

══════════════════

For this particular painting of mine, the main color palette consists of the following three tones↓

First, I'll apply a gradient to the background to separate the sky from the ground. For the colors used, I'll primarily use two of the main color tones↓

★ Gradient Drawing Method:

Select light blue, then press 'Alt+Delete' to fill the entire area with light blue↑

Select 'Gradient Tool' → 'Duplicate Sub Tool' → In the 'Tool' icon, select 'Gradient' → Press OK↑

For the duplicated gradient, click and drag the arrow below the gradient downwards → leaving only the left and right colors in the gradient↑

Pick the dark blue from the main color palette → then add dark blue and the transparent color below it to the gradient (to create a transparent gradient)↑

Using the gradient you just modified, click and drag from the bottom left to the top right of the canvas, then release, and you're done~

══════════════════

★Gradient transparency is a very practical feature. By simply replacing the color on the left, you can quickly create large-area color gradients. If you combine this gradient transparency with color blending modes, you can produce softer color lightening or darkening effects, as shown in the image below↓

1. Left side uses 'light blue' + 'Overlay' blending mode (gradient from top right to bottom left)

2. Middle is the original image

3. Right side uses 'dark blue' + 'Multiply' blending mode (gradient from bottom left to top right)

 

 

3. Drawing the Main Subject (Tips for Drawing Dead Trees):

The main subject of this painting is a dead tree in the foreground. The dead tree is slightly tilted because, according to the gradient's angle, the dead tree also needs to be drawn following that gradient angle. Otherwise, the perspective of the foreground and background might feel inconsistent (in short, it's best to draw all objects in this painting according to the gradient's angle).

══════════════════

Brush used for drawing the main tree: Thick Brush Set → Paint-Starved Flat Brush / Flat

When using the 'Paint-Starved Flat Brush / Flat,' remember to turn on the 'Underlying Color Blending' feature. This allows for color mixing while painting.

══════════════════

First, draw the main branches, as shown in the image above. Since there's a joint point between the tree trunk and the branches, when drawing branches, they won't be a straight line; they will grow outwards at a slight angle↑

Pay attention to the joint points of the dead tree. You can draw them more prominently so that they are immediately noticeable as joint points↑

After finishing the main branches, you can start drawing some smaller twigs. Small twigs can extend freely from the main branches, and their extension angles are usually quite large, even up to 90 degrees is fine↑

Finally, the ends of the branches can have some small forks, as shown in the image above. Most forks consist of two lines, and their length can vary, but they should never be drawn too thick, as they are the very ends of the branches↑

As for the leaves, there's no need to draw them too precisely. After all, it's a dead tree, and the leaves are naturally sparse and fragmented. For the color, primarily use light blue so that the leaves are clearly visible↑

4. Drawing the Background (Using the Free Transform Tool):

To convey a sense of a vast landscape, the first step is to ensure that the scene adheres to perspective (the entire scene converges towards a central point). Additionally, the foreground is usually darker, while the background is lighter. By paying attention to these points while painting, you should be able to create a beautiful, expansive scene.

4-1 Mountain and River Painting Method

Brush used for drawing mountains: Thick Brush Set → Paint-Starved Flat Brush / Flat

══════════════════

Beginners might be unfamiliar with accurate perspective, so here's a method to help you.

First, draw an aerial view of the river. We'll be using CLIP STUDIO PAINT's 'Free Transform' feature later to adjust it to the correct perspective, so we need to start by drawing an overhead view of the scene. The overhead view of the river is very simple; just draw a winding shape, as shown below↓

Next, it's time to draw the aerial view of the mountains~ You can refer to real aerial photos. You'll notice that the aerial view of a mountain actually has a very distinct ridge line. This line is mainly conveyed through the mountain's shadows. By painting one side darker and the other side lighter, it's easy to create the feeling of mountains from an aerial view.↓

After clearly drawing the mountain lines, you can see in real images that mountains don't always connect entirely; there are some gaps in between. These gaps represent flat ground, so you can lightly draw some flat areas to add more layers to the overall mountain range↓

Next, you can start using the 'Free Transform' feature to adjust it.

★File → Transform → Free Transform↓

Then, adjust it to fit the perspective. It's okay if parts stick out on both sides; we'll fill them in later. At the very least, we need to use the 'Free Transform' feature first to establish the correct perspective, which will make subsequent drawing more accurate↓

Finally, fill in both sides, and the basic mountains and rivers are drawn. After the clouds are also drawn, we'll do the final refinements together↓

4-2 Cloud Painting Method

Brush used for drawing clouds: Thick Brush Set → Speckled Flat Brush / Dry

══════════════════

From real images, we can see that the lower part of the sky is generally lighter, while the upper part is darker. Therefore, when drawing the cloud outlines later, the background sky color should be painted according to a 'lighter below, darker above' approach↓

Since the clouds in this work are quite large, we choose to define their shape by painting the background sky, which is more convenient and faster than directly drawing the clouds↑

Next, add the highlights of the clouds using a bright purple. Since the light is assumed to be coming from the right, the highlights will be positioned on the upper right side of the overall cloud mass↑

Finally, to add more shape and layering to the shadowed areas of the clouds, we can pick colors from the darker parts and add a few more strokes towards the brighter areas above. Because the 'Speckled Flat Brush / Dry' creates a cloud-like texture when colors are repeatedly layered, you can layer colors multiple times to enhance the cloud's texture↑

5. Painting Lights and Shadows According to the Light Source:

After this step, the position of each object is basically determined. So, the next step is to brighten the highlights and darken the shadows according to the direction of the light, as shown in the image below↓

5-1 Adding Lights and Shadows to the Background

1. Add Highlights:

We can draw more distinct lines to define the outlines of the mountains. As for other parts, since they are in the background, it's fine if the highlights are drawn a bit loosely, as long as they follow the light source's position↓

2. Add Shadows:

The shadow color can be close to the black of the trees, but not too dark. When adding shadows, you can broadly change the previously painted darker colors (bottom right corner). Of course, local darkening can also add more depth to the mountains (left half)↓

5-2 Adding Lights and Shadows to the Foreground

1. Add Highlights:

Compared to the mountains in the background, the highlights on the dead tree should be a bit more detailed. You can draw a very distinct highlight line on the right side of the dead tree. This is because the light is coming from the right, which will create a highlight on the right side of the trunk↓

2. Add Shadows:

The shadows of the dead tree should be drawn using the darkest black in the entire scene. This emphasizes that the dead tree is in the foreground and also enhances its texture. As for the tips of the branches, they should all be replaced with black to make the tips and the trunk appear as one integrated piece↓

6. Refining the Scene:

Finally, I added faint light rays to the background, as if distant light is blocked by clouds, creating individual light shafts↓

Besides the light, I also added some house-like objects next to the river below, though they're not very obvious... haha↓

7. Completion:

Finally, it's done~~

Remember to sign your name after finishing and record the painting time. This not only signifies that the work is yours but also prevents others from modifying your work without permission~

══════════════════

Alright, I hope that after watching this tutorial, everyone can truly understand the process of creating a landscape painting and be able to draw their own landscapes~

I'm KK, and I'll see you in the next tutorial~