How to Paint a Mountain Scenery | Step by Step Tutorial

Hello dear Steemians! Today I am going to share a detailed tutorial on how to paint a mountain scenery using oil pastels.

Tools and Materials

Buncho oil pastels
A good quality artblock that is durable
Tissue to clean your fingers after smudging
A mechanical pencil with 2B lead (to draw only so choose based on personal preference)

Step by Step Tutorial

This is my basic drawing. Do take note that I drew some of the hilly areas as well so that it will be easier for me to identify those areas when I start painting. It helps me to know where the highlights and shadows of my artwork are going to be. It is just a matter of convenience.

I began my painting with the lightest colour which is white. I wanted my sun to be shining brightly so I painted some white on the top left corner to protect that area. In case I accidentally smudge or paint other colours on it, I can just scrape it off and add more white on top to build the colour up. Then, I added some lemon yellow around the white area and then some primary yellow. I also painted the top right area which refers to the sky and some mountains in royal blue. If you are going to choose the same colours, be careful not to mix the blue and yellow because they are primary colours and will result in green which is a secondary colour. So, in order to still blend the two colours, it is best to add a transition colour which in this case is purple. A transition colour is a merging colour that helps to blend two other colours that you choose not to mix.

This is how it looked after adding transition colours. I added more than one transition colour, one being purple and the others were light purple and naples yellow (a very soft yellowish nude colour). I blended them with my fingers so that it will look soft and slightly misty.

Then, I painted the furthest group of mountains with a yellow ochre (golden looking colour) pastel. I also added some naples yellow so that it won't look flat. Then I lined the mountains with purple to create more distance and at the same time to make them look distinct and not blend in with the background.

I painted the next group of the furthest mountains. I wanted some sun rays to fall on my mountains. Hence, I used a ruler to scrape out the parts where I wanted the bright sun rays to fall on especially the areas with purple. The reason why I scrape and not paint directly on top of the previous colour is because that will end up creating a muddy and dull looking colour. Oil pastel is a medium that can easily make your artwork messy if you layer too many colours especially contrasting ones like purple and yellow. Therefore, it is best to scrape out the previous colour in order to create an illusion of another colour on top of it.

I painted another mountain. Then, I painted some yellow on the scraped parts and a small area of the mountain by pressing it really hard on my paper so that I can get maximum colour intensity and avoid the blue from mixing with the yellow to create green. This may work for small areas but it will be difficult and not look good on larger areas.

I painted the closest group of mountains. I mixed some dark colours with yellow ochre to create some shadowy areas on the mountains. I tried to implement some of the mountain painting techniques of Bob Ross, a very talented famous artist. If you like art, do look him up. There are many painting tutorials done by him on Youtube.

I finished painting the rest of the mountains. Now, half of the artwork is done.

As I usually do, I painted the highlight areas first to protect them. I didn't want a flat ground so I created multiple mini hilly areas.

This is how it turned out after painting the green areas. At first I thought of painting it all green but then I thought that will result in green dominating my painting. So, I changed my mind. I mixed up a few shades of greens like olive, light green and grass green. You can mix the greens but keep in mind to not mix them too much because then it might end up looking too flat and the colours will all add up to form a dull looking shade of green.

In order to avoid green from dominating my entire artwork, I chose to add some flowers. I used pink, light rose, magenta and red. I tapped my paper with the tip of my oil pastels to create the flowers. I used a few shades of pink to create little details of shadows and highlights. These can make or break a painting and often times people ignore them when it comes to small details.

I added some green and dark brown on the rest of the white areas. This is my completed painting. It turned out to be more colourful than I expected it to be. I thought that it will look cool but it ended up looking warm which is my kind of artwork =)

This is my video tutorial with my voiceover. You will be able to watch me paint while listening to my voiceover guide. I hope that you enjoyed reading my post and I will be glad and happy to know if it is helpful. Thank you for reading and have a great day/evening ahead.