How to Paint a Landscape.

I see many landscapes painted by amateurs that just don't come alive. The main problem - lighting. This will give amateur painters and idea how give life to their paintings.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Prepare your palette with all the colours that you are going to use. Don't skimp on any of them, otherwise you will tend to use some colours more sparingly. Use Monet's palette. Eliminate black and earth tones. Squeeze out 2 blues (French Ultramarine and Cobalt Blue), 2 greens (Viridian and Emerald), 2 yellows (Cadmium Yellow Light and Cadmium Yellow), Alizarin Crimson, and Titanium White. Other colours you may want to include are Cerulean Blue, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, and Sap Green.
2. Do your drawing but don't bother with too much detail. You're going to cover it anyway with your under painting. Now, the most important step. Look closely at your subject and divide it into 3 light intensities, dark, medium, and light. To achieve this you should squint your eyes so that you are only seeing shapes of dark or light. Do your under painting initially monochromatic, defining only the 3 light variances. This should be thinned out with turpentine (or whatever thinning medium you are using). When you are finished your under painting, you can begin to build up your layers. They do not necessarily have to be your final choice of colour. For example, your sky will usually be one of your light areas. Don't just reach for your blue hues. Perhaps yellow ochre would be a good choice. The same for grasses. Choose, perhaps, a complementary colour like a dirty red, or a muddier version of your final colour.
3. When you complete your painting, you can layer in cleanly mixed colours over the top of your complementaries (i.e. red grass). Allow some of the under painting to show through, for example your yellowish sky. I like to use multiple brushes, so that if I am adding blues to the sky, the brush only contains blue mixes. I also work my colours on my palette and don't always wipe my brushes clean. Work your palette and discover earthy and natural colours by allowing the paint to blend on the palette.
4. Remember to keep work within your dark, medium and light tones so that you don't lose the wonderful three dimensional feeling that you created in your under painting. Study where the light is hitting various points in your painting and finish off with the highlights.
5. A few extra hints:
   
   Sometimes negative space should be painted on top. For example, the light of the sky showing between the branches of trees will be more brilliant if it is painted after the tree has been painted.
   
   Work from lean to thick, and I would add, from dark to light.
   
   Use complementaries together. Blues and oranges. Reds and greens.
   
   Add colour just for the sake of colour. If your painting has too much green, add dark blues into the grass, and even some orange.
   
   Use all the palette and don't think of skies as blue, or grass as green. Find other colours but keeping the light intensities within the three light ranges you defined at the very beginning.

Tips & Warnings

• Sometimes negative space should be painted on top. For example, the light of the sky showing between the branches of trees will be more brilliant if it is painted after the tree has been painted.
• Work from lean to thick, and I would add, from dark to light.
• Add colour just for the sake of colour. If your painting has too much green, add dark blues into the grass, and even some orange.
• Use complementaries together. Blues and oranges. Reds and greens.