painting aoraki / mt cook in watercolour

Watercolour painting of Aoraki / Mt Cook
Watercolour painting of Aoraki / Mt Cook

This month on Patreon is all about painting mountains. The big snowy kind! For our first lesson we take a trip to near my home in New Zealand, and paint our highest peak - Aoraki / Mt Cook. In this scene we zoom in right close up on the mountain and paint it's summit peaks.

We start with a little bit of theory where I explain how to use a very simple tonal value scale and directional strokes to create the illusion of 3-dimensional form. Then we use just 3 colours to paint the scene.

Thanks to Jamie Davies on Unsplash for the reference photo.

Full lesson, reference photo and drawing to trace here.
View a lesson preview on YouTube.

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One of my all-time favourite paintings of a stormy day in a ruined Roman town in Spain.

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