Watercolour of Lenz/Lantsch

This Swiss village has both a German and a Romantsch name. I painted this from a photo taken on a bright summer day in August.

Lenz watercolour 

Watercolour of Son Maria, Lantsch

Son Maria, watercolour

You find this picturesque church in the Swiss village of Lantsch/Lenz in the Grisons. It lies on a hill just outside of the village and made a nice focal point for this mountain landscape.

I was struggling to get the separation of the foreground from the background, as the tones on the reference photo were very close together. I hope I managed to imply some distance by using warmer yellows for the foreground meadows.

Watercolour of Mountain Landscape Step by Step

I thought rather than posting in the finished result, I would show the different stages of this painting. The inspiration is a photo of a view of Zorten (Switzerland)  nestled in a mountain valley.

I usually start with the sky, but decided to lay in the foreground first, keeping the greens on the yellowish side to make them appear closer.

Next, I painted the sky and the distant mountain range. For the mountains, I used cerulean blue mixed with raw sienna, which greys the blue rather than turning it green. After that, I filled in the forested mountain in the middle ground, using cobalt blue mixed with phthalocyanine green and raw sienna.

Finally, I  added more detail to the far mountains, mixing cerulean blue with permanent alizarin crimson. This gives a nice greyish purple.

Mountain views are great to paint, as they make compositions easy, providing lots of zig zag lines.