Painting Light Within Darkness - Castle At Night [REAL TIME WATERCOLOR TUTORIAL]

Painting light can proove to be tricky, but in this tutorial we're looking into how light actually appears and what we can observe. This we will capture in watercolors using simple techniques in the form of a castle at night lit by fire.

The inspiration was a reddit post asking "how to paint that?" and here is the answer. Hope this helps them and many of you.
Everyone is welcome to paint along, you only need very basic supplies!

The written step by step tutorial is here: https://lanagoesart.com/blog/2025/Sep...

The frog tutorial is helpful if you struggle with softening edges:
https://lanagoesart.com/blog/2025/Jul...
   • Real Time Watercolor Painting Tutorial: Frog  

If you enjoy real time tutorials in general, you might like this:
   • Watercolor Painting Tutorials  

The tutorial was recorded from a live stream on twitch, but edited into a video cutting empty spaces. The conversations might be not fully there, but every brush stroke is explained.
In case you want to join next tutorial live, you're very welcome.
  / lanagoesart  

Supply list:

watercolor set (I use Schmincke Akademie)
watercolor paper (I use Centenaire)
watercolor brushes of various sizes
pencil and eraser

Feel free to use whatever is available to you!

If you enjoy this channel and its content, you're welcome to tip me over on ko-fi or support the watercolor database on patreon. It's very appreciated. Thank you!

Other social media you might enjoy:

★ Watercolor Database: https://sunandcolors.com/
★ Artist Site: https://lanagoesart.com
★ Twitch:   / lanagoesart  
★ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@LanaArts
★ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lanaarts.bsk...
★ Cara App: https://cara.app/lanagoesart
★ Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.de/lanagoesart
★ Discord:   / discord  
★ Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/lanagoesart
★ Patreon:   / sunandcolors   (insights and updates on the database)

Chapters:

00:29:00 supply list
00:01:29 theory of painting light in watercolors
00:07:34 reference photo
00:08:11 lineart for the sketch
00:24:28 first wash to set the tone
00:33:21 setting up the scene
00:46:51 defining the shapes
00:51:00 deepening the shadows
01:01:22 adding details
01:11:13 fire details and logs
01:16:11 last details to finish the painting

#artist #watercolor #painting