Medium: Watercolor (Daniel Smith)

🌅 About This Scene

Inspired by Color Cube Card #367 by Sarah Renae Clark, this project focuses on calm yet vibrant mountain landscapes.

We’ll balance grounding neutrals with luminous blues and subtle metallic shifts to create peaceful layers, atmospheric depth, and quiet movement.

This is a wonderful palette for practicing soft edges, value shifts, and letting color do the storytelling.

🎨 Paint Colors Used (Daniel Smith Watercolors)

• Lamp Black - (structure, contrast, and deep grounding)
• Titanium White - (soft highlights and misty atmosphere)
• Indian Yellow - (warm glow and gentle light)
• Hematite Violet Genuine - (rich granulation and earthy shadow tones)
• Quinacridone Sienna - (warm earth balance and mountain depth)
• Duochrome Aquamarine -(subtle shimmer and cool highlights)
• Cerulean Blue Chroma -(clean sky color and airy distance)

This palette blends earth and sky beautifully, creating calm with just enough vibrancy to keep things interesting.

📄 Paper

• Hahnemühle 300 lb Cold Press Watercolor Paper
  Perfect for layered mountain ranges and soft atmospheric effects.

🖌️ Favorite Brushes for This Project

• Princeton Snap (great for confident, expressive strokes)
• Princeton AquaElite (holds water beautifully for smooth blends)

✨ Before You Begin

Prepare your space so you can focus on the color:

• Protect your surface with paper towels or puppy pads (our go-to at the Huntsville Art Café).
• Set up two jars of clean water:
• One for rinsing
• One for final clean dips or keeping brights clean
• Keep your palette open for generous mixing
• Have a towel or cloth ready for lifting highlights
• Take a moment to observe where you want calm vs. contrast in your mountains

🧼 Brush Care: Do’s & Don’ts

✔️ Do

• Rinse brushes thoroughly when switching colors
• Wipe brushes gently in one direction on a towel
• Reshape the tip before laying flat to dry
• Change water often to keep yellows and reds clean

❌ Don’t

• Don’t leave brushes soaking in water
  This bends bristles and can weaken the glue in the ferrule
• Don’t scrub back and forth aggressively
  Treat your brushes like hair—gentle and intentional
• Don’t store brushes upright while wet

Some brushes use natural squirrel hair, while others are Taklon synthetics—both benefit from mindful care.

🛍️ Need Supplies or Want to Upgrade?

You can pick up everything used in this tutorial (and more!) at Huntsville Art Supplies.

✨ Refill kits, brush upgrades, and paper packs available here.

Whether you're painting at home or inside the Art Café, the right tools make magic.

▶️ Ready to Paint?

Choose your video below:

• Full Real-Time Tutorial
• Sped-Up Demonstration

Full Real-Time Tutorial

Sped Up Tutorial

🌟 Continue Your Creative Journey

Loved this project? Come explore more colors, more mediums, and more creative experiences at the Huntsville Art Café!  

Whether you want to try watercolor, gouache, markers, ink, or something totally new, we’ll have everything set up and ready for your next artistic adventure.

🎨 Book your next Art Café Experience here: 

huntsvilleartcafe.com

💛 Bonus:
Any art supplies you purchase during your Art Café session are 10% off
(as long as they aren’t already discounted).

We can’t wait to paint with you again!