In the autumn, Plitvice Lakes in Croatia transforms into a rainbow of greens, yellows, and oranges. This beautiful location was the inspiration for the reference photo I used for this gouache painting. I will show you how I created this autumn landscape painting with gouache. I’ll walk you through how to paint different types of trees, water reflections and leaf texture. Then, I’ll also cover how to use different painting techniques with gouache and how to mix an assortment of autumn colours.
Gouache Colours and Supplies
I used several unique gouache painting supplies to achieve the range of tones in this painting. My palette included titanium white, spectrum red, burnt umber, yellow ochre, primary yellow, permanent green, ultramarine blue, and ivory black. It is possible to create a similar effect with just primary colours, earth tones like umber and ochre, and ivory black for shadows. I used a flat brush for blocking in colours and a round brush with a fine tip for details.
To keep my paints wet, I used a palette that closes. This is helpful because I sometimes complete a painting in short sessions over multiple days. I also used a palette knife for mixing colours. I find it easier to organise my palette when I mix larger quantities of paint with a knife.
Supplies List
Supplies:
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Sketch the Composition
Before starting, I taped the edges of the paper with masking tape to create a clean border. Then, I lightly sketched the composition with a pencil to broadly know where to place the trees, hill and lake. The horizon line is a little higher than halfway up the composition. Along this line, I drew the distant hilly forest on the left and the closer trees on the right.
To ensure my horizon line was straight, I measured a few different spots along the line with a ruler. The reflections of the hill and trees created a mirrored shape in the lake, so I sketched that in as well.
Paint the Sky
After squeezing the colours into the wells of my palette, I sprayed each colour with a small amount of water. I was careful not to dilute the paint too much, just enough to keep it from drying out. The first colour I mixed was for the sky. The day I visited the lakes was overcast but bright.
For the cloudy sky, I mixed a tiny dot of ivory black with titanium white. This composition did not show much sky, so I did not need a lot of this mix. I painted the light grey colour where I had outlined the sky. After waiting a minute or two for it to dry, I layered some white over the top to create subtle definition in the clouds.
Block in the Hill and Tree Shapes
I approached this painting in layers, working from general to specific. I started with broad shapes, colours, and values, then slowly built up texture and details, letting each layer dry before starting the next. This method allowed me to find the scene within the loose representation of shape and colour. I began by establishing neutral mid-tone colours in the hill, then layered some shadow tones on top to show where the trees were blocking the light.
I mixed a neutral green using permanent green, a little ivory black, a bit of burnt umber, some yellow ochre, and titanium white. The next step was to fill in the outline of the hill with my square brush, which I had loaded with a fair amount of water. Using my round brush, I dotted in small triangle shapes to represent the silhouettes of fir trees on the hill.
Paint the Lake Reflection Shape
Next, I focused on the mid-ground fir trees. I mixed ivory black with a lot of water to create a translucent shadow colour. Using my small square brush and a dry brush technique, I dabbed side to side to create the texture of branches. I then used this same shadow mix, but with less paint and more water, to block in the broad reflection shape of the hill and trees in the water. I used the square brush for this step, as the reflections are more abstract.
How to Mix Autumn Colours
With the initial shapes and shadows established, I was ready to mix my brighter colours. On my palette, I prepared several mixes. For the darker orange tones in the distant trees, I mixed burnt umber, spectrum red, a dab of ivory black, and a dot of yellow ochre. For the brighter orange, I used the same colours but added primary yellow and titanium white.
An earthy yellow-orange was made with yellow ochre and titanium white. For a light yellow, I mixed primary yellow, titanium white, a little yellow ochre, and a dot of my green shadow mix to neutralise it slightly. For my shadow tones, I had my green, black, and umber mix, plus a sap green colour made with green, ivory black, ochre, and primary yellow. Mixing these colours in advance helped maintain harmony in the painting.
Refine Details on the Hill and Trees
Using the sap green mix, I started layering more saturated green tones. The trees appeared in clusters of lighter shades and shadows. I mixed titanium white with a small amount of this green and used a dotting action to create the appearance of light on the leaves. I established a lighter patch at the top of the hill where the light was diffused.
This part of the process involved blocking in base colours with neutral mid-tones, then refining. I added some of the red tone over the green to represent the red autumn trees. Then, I dotted these distant leaf textures with my round brush for precision. I then started building up lighter green tones on the fir trees, using the round brush to detail branches that get progressively smaller higher up the tree.
Paint Foliage Details and Highlights
I continued to refine and iterate, going back and forth between highlights and shadows. I used a watered-down ivory black and green mix to add transparent shadows, which defined the clusters of trees on the hill without being overpowering. This stage was all about altering the colour profiles of the foliage, adding more highlights, more red tones, and then defining them with more shadows.
Then, I moved to the foliage in the foreground bushes and trees on the right. I dotted more saturated green mid-tones and highlights from my palette. For the brightest yellow, I added more primary yellow and titanium white to my light green tone. I used this to add contrast where the light was hitting the plants, using a stippling technique to create the look of leaves.
Paint the Reflection Details
Finally, I created the water reflections. I used all the colours from my palette to paint the mirror image in the water. Water obscures details and darkens colours, so I used my small flat brush to paint the reflections abstractly in thick strokes without overthinking the details. I dabbed on the earthy orange, the darker green, and the brighter yellow-green highlights.
The dark backdrop I painted first helped the subsequent colours appear more harmonious and realistic as it shone through the slightly transparent gouache. I used a dark green colour with a relatively dry brush to create the textured reflections of the treetops. I brushed on brighter colours like oranges and yellows, then painted ripples closer to the viewer with a light grey mix, obscuring the edges of the reflections and completing the scene.