Along with the sea, rocks and cliffs are some of my favourite subjects to paint in watercolour. They may look complicated at first, but once you begin to see them as a collection of simple shapes rather than individual stones, they become much less intimidating.
In my latest video, I share some of the tricks and techniques I use to paint natural-looking rocks with texture, depth and character. I don’t complete the whole painting in this video because I wanted to concentrate solely on the rocks. In my next video, I’ll demonstrate how I paint the water to finish the scene.
Paint One Rock at a Time
You can try to paint an entire rocky area all at once but I find it much easier to paint each rock individually.
Working on one rock at a time allows you to concentrate on its shape, the direction of the light and the subtle colour changes that make it feel solid and three-dimensional plus makes the painting more manageable. Once each rock has been painted, they naturally begin to work together as part of the landscape.
Use the Wet-in-Wet Technique
Each rock in this demonstration was painted using a wet-in-wet approach.
After wetting the shape of the rock with clean water, I dropped in colour and allowed the pigments to flow naturally. This creates beautifully soft effects and gives the impression of weathered stone without having to paint every tiny detail.
The beauty of watercolour lies in allowing the paint to do some of the work for you. Rather than trying to control every brushstroke, embrace the unexpected textures and colour variations that appear as the paint moves across the paper.
You Don’t Need Expensive Paints
A question I’m often asked is whether professional-quality paints are essential.
For this demonstration, I used student-quality watercolours, and they performed perfectly well. Good painting relies far more on understanding tone, colour and technique than on using the most expensive materials.
If you’re just starting your watercolour journey, don’t feel you need to invest in a huge range of professional paints. A limited palette and a good understanding of how colours mix will take you a long way.
A Simple Four-Colour Palette
The entire demonstration was painted using just four colours:
- Burnt Sienna
- Raw Sienna
- Ultramarine Blue
- Light Red
Limiting your palette helps create harmony throughout a painting and encourages you to mix the colours you need rather than relying on dozens of ready-made shades. Mixing your colours is much more economical too.
Mixing Rich, Natural Darks
One of my favourite mixtures for a dark black-like shade is Ultramarine Blue and Light Red. The light red is more of a terracotta and can be very dominant if not controlled properly.
Together they create a wonderfully rich, natural dark that is far more interesting than using black straight from the tube. Depending on the proportions, the mixture can lean towards warm or cool, making it incredibly versatile for painting shadows and crevices.
One of the things I particularly enjoy about this combination is that the pigments sometimes separate slightly as they dry. Rather than producing a flat, uniform colour, they can create beautiful variations and subtle granulation that perfectly mimic the texture of natural stone.
It’s one of those happy characteristics of watercolour that can add so much life to a painting.
Let Watercolour Surprise You
One of the joys of painting in watercolour is that no two washes are ever exactly the same. By working wet into wet, using a limited palette and allowing the pigments to mingle naturally, you can achieve effects that would be difficult to create deliberately with careful brushwork alone.
Sometimes the most successful paintings come from stepping back and allowing the water and pigments to do what they do best.
I hope this mini tutorial encourages you to have a go at painting rocks for yourself. With a few simple techniques, a limited palette and a willingness to let the paint flow, you’ll soon discover that rocks are not only enjoyable to paint but can become one of the most rewarding features in a landscape.
And if you’d like to see how I complete the painting, keep an eye out for my next video, where I’ll be demonstrating how I paint the water surrounding the rocks.