Painting a Mountain Range in Acrylic Paint

This document will lay out how to paint a mountain range. Painting is a hobby many people are interested in and enjoy, especially with the topic of nature. However many do not know where to start from and lack the techniques and tools necessary. With this document, I would like to show how such a skill can be learned by painting a very popular topic, mountain ranges. I can be seen as credible because I have been painting as a hobby for nearly three years. I will be using the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho as inspiration for this procedure, but I will not be following it exactly. You can make your painting as picture-esq. as you desire, but it will not be required. The goal is, through the steps in this tutorial, you can go on and use these skills to paint other mountain ranges. 

1.Set of Acrylic Paint

The brand that will be used for the purpose of this procedure is Artist’s Loft. What will be needed is light, regular, and dark green and blue along with yellow, black, brown, and white. Blue and green are the dominant colors while Yellow, black, brown and white will be used for mixing to get more specific colors

2.Paint Brushes

The brand for most of these is Artist’s Loft with a few other ones from other companies. We will need a few brushes with different sizes and consistencies. They will be labeled 1-7 to indicate when they will be used

3.Canvas

I will be using an Arteza 10”x10” flat canvas. It is a canvas that usually feels good to paint on and there is plenty of space to realize your vision

4.Pallet

This is not entirely necessary for this process, but it is highly recommended. You may use any kind of hard surface to hold your paints, but I will be using the pallet because it keeps all my paints in one spot and mixing the colors is much easier.

5.Easel

This will be used to hold the canvas up as you paint. This particular one is adjustable at two points in the arm which allows for a wide range of flexibility. It also has a clear holder for the canvas that prevents it from falling over.

6. Cup and Paper towel

These essential tools are for washing the brush between colors and drying them out respectfully. They are important because if you don’t wash and dry your brushes in between colors, the consistency of the paint will be more watery, and the color will not be as clear as it should be. 

DISCLAIMER: As you move along, it is highly recommended that you wash out your brush and dry it off when switching paints. 

This can be found on the front page of this manual or you can find an image of the mountain range from the Internet. You can either refer to it from your phone or computer or you can print out a picture if you have access to a color printer. 

Apply dollops of all of your colors onto the pallet and keep the paints close by for appliance. Fill your cup with water and get a few paper towels or napkins. Put the canvas onto the easel. 

You have to draw a rough sketch onto the canvas with an ordinary pencil. It could help you get a better idea of where things will go in the painting and act as a guide. Estimate the proportions of the mountain range and all of the elements on the canvas. Draw the most basic parts of your painting using very light and sketchy lines. 

Paint the lake with regular blue paint with a medium sized brush. Be sure to stroke the brush sideways to create a texture akin to water. Don’t paint beyond the pencil lines you created in the Pre-Paint stage. In any event of painting where you didn’t mean to, use a wet paper towel separate from the one you use to dry your brushes and scrub the spot out. The earlier you act on these mistakes, the better your results will be. This can be applied to all steps moving forward.

Use a thin brush and dark blue paint to paint reflections in the water. Lightly slide your brush across your body of water and wave the brush slightly. If there are large bits of dark blue, patch them up with your regular blue. 

Use a small brush to put into your white paint. VERY lightly tap the section you need to have light reflections. Be sure to scatter them around that area. If you put too much white paint in the desisted area, it's okay. In that case, you would need to take a thin brush and your regular blue paint and move the brush around the white space to make the white spots more sparce.

Take a small portion of your white paint with a thin brush and mix a little bit of yellow in it. Mix the two together and adjust that formula slightly to get a sand color. Then, paint the minimal parts of sand right above the water. If there are spots of blue where the sand should be, erase it by taking a wet paper towel and rubbing the area to remove the paint and then proceeding to paint that area with the sand color.

Take your thin brush and get a little bit of the regular green. Next, paint dozens of green horizontal lines that goes until the hill ends.

Use the same brush from the previous step for the darker green paint. Make similar horizontal lines closer to the water. This serves as a shadow. Then, you have to wash and dry your brush again. Add a small amount of regular green and a small amount of light green to create a mixture. Apply that mixture on top of the base to create a layered forest. 

You will continue the same process of making green horizontal lines for the rest of the hill. You can use the same brush that you have been using and the regular green paint. For some parts such as those in the first image, you will need to use mixtures of the green paint with the lighter and darker greens. Add a little of each and mix them together in two separate spots. At the top, make sure the brush strokes are lighter and feathery at the end, so they look like treetops. 

Use the regular green paint and a thin brush to create a foundation. You start with the same technique with horizontal green lines. Make thin green paint strokes across the right side of the canvas. Next, however, you will layer black and brown lines on top. These will be of a similar consistency to the green ones. Then, you add regular green to the brown and black lines to create the leaves. Make sure that there is variety in the height in the lines, make a few taller than the others. Finally, you use your light green paint and lightly stroke the brush at the bottoms of the trees to make grass. 

Use a thicker brush and apply some regular blue paint. Paint a top border of the canvas. This layer of of sky should be done with thick brushstrokes. Each horizontal movement should cover lots of ground. At the ends of the strokes, they should be more feathery and light. This would leave room for the lighter layers of blue that will be applied soon.

Mix a little regular blue and a little white paint with your medium sized brush to make a lighter blue. Apply this mixture under the regular blue part. Make sure to connect the two colors by painting slightly into the regular blue paint. You also may want to rub the brush against the border of the two colors to allow for a cleaner blend.

Make a new mixture with the same formula as the previous step, but add more white. Apply it in the same fashion as the previous step. Next, you will need to layer all of the blues. Rubbing the boarder between the colors with your brush will blend them together. Leave a small part between the lightest blue and the mountain white. 

The foundation of the mountains will be the darker shadow parts. Put a medium sized brush into the darker green. Paint the darker parts of the mountains by conscientiously painting around the intended areas. DON’T paint the whole mountain range with the darker color, not only will you need the blank space for lighter shades of colors, but also for patches of dirt and exposed rock. These steps are very important and using your reference image as much as possible is the wisest choice.

Use a thicker sized brush to apply a slightly lighter shade of green. For this example, I need a mixture of regular green and a little bit of dark blue. Apply it to parts of the mountains that are designated as needing them. Carefully and lightly paint around those areas.

Look at your reference image to see if there are dirt patches on your mountains. If there aren’t any in your reference image, you may ignore this part of the step. However, for the purposes of this example, I will be using the sand formula from Phase 1 as a foundation for the dirt patches. If you need to replenish your mixture, remember to add a little yellow to your white paint. Roughly go over these areas on your canvas

Use a thinner brush with regular green paint on the remaining sections of the mountain. The methods used to integrate these paints are similar to the other steps. Next, you must blend the edges of the shades together in order to make the transitions between colors more smooth and natural. This is done by rubbing the borders, a similar method used on the sky in Phase 3. 

Wash and dry your brush. Use a thin sized brush. Add white to a dollop of brown paint to create a light brown color. Next, apply it to the sand foundation parts you painted in the last phase. Maneuver the brush in a similar fashion to that step. Roughly and carefully go over those parts in short horizontal strokes. Lastly, patch up the remaining blemishes of sand colored paint with regular green paint.