Landscape is where watercolour earns its reputation. No other medium captures the soft edge of a cloud, the granular texture of a stone wall or the luminous wash of a low sun so honestly. The secret is choosing pigments that behave - granulating blues for skies, earths that sediment for rock and soil, and clean greens you mix yourself.
Skies and atmosphere
A sky is watercolour at its most expressive. Use wet-on-wet on rough or cold-pressed paper so the pigment blooms and softens; tilt the board and let gravity pull the wash downward for a natural gradation. Drop in darker pigment at the zenith and let it run toward the horizon for a believable sky gradient.
Granulating blues for skies
- Cerulean Blue (PB35) - granulating and semi-opaque, the classic sky blue; softens and lifts for clouds.
- Ultramarine Blue (PB29) - a granulating warm blue for deeper, richer skies and shadows.
- Cobalt Blue - a clean, moderately granulating mid-blue for clear skies.
Earths and greens for landscape
The iron oxides - Burnt Sienna (PBr7), Raw Sienna, Raw and Burnt Umber - give the warm, granulating earths that no mixed primary can reproduce. For greens, mix your own from a yellow and a blue rather than reaching for a tube green: New Gamboge with Ultramarine gives a luminous, natural green; the same yellow with Phthalo Blue gives a brighter, staining green for fresh foliage.
A landscape palette
Ultramarine, Cerulean, a cool blue, New Gamboge, a warm yellow, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, and a staining green like Viridian covers most landscape needs. The curated Traditional English Landscape Set assembles a working landscape palette.
Techniques for landscape
Paint skies wet-on-wet, foregrounds wet-on-dry for crisp detail, and use dry brush for texture on stone and bark. Let granulating pigments do the work - resist overworking them. Browse the full watercolour range with granulation published for every colour, and read our Best Watercolours guide for where to start.