Tutorial acuarela de una Puerta Torii. Travel sketch tutorial of a Torii Gate step by step.

Hello, this time I will draw a watercolor drawing on the Torii gate from Itsukushima Shrine, near Hiroshima, Japan.

The sanctuary is on the coast, on an island and a few meters from the coast is this wooden door that serves as a ceremonial entrance to the monastery.

This time I will work dry and not wet, because it is a way with lots of gaps and I prefer there to be quite a bit of contrast.

I start with a previous pencil drawing of the whole landscape and then ink on the door.

I'm going to give the whole area of ​​the sky first, which I'm going to try to do with clouds, but I prefer to make the clouds dry so that the stain is a little more marked.

The sky is going to be pale and the clouds in this way stand out enough over that sky and are not lost, which is what would happen if I did it on wet, they would be a little less defined and would be lost.

Having started with a thick brush to go a little faster now use a slightly thinner one giving the details of the areas where the sky joins the door so that there are no unwanted holes.

Now I start to give the whole area of ​​the sea with a thick brush to fill a little more, as it will be an even layer.

I will give a layer the same color as the sky, because the clear part of the sea seen in the background, is a reflection of the sky and therefore it has the same color.

Once the sky and the sea are finished, I will begin to give the bottom of the mountains with a blue color, and a little purple, to make it a little darker.

I'm going to give it with the fine brush because they are already smaller details and you see that I am leaving a white street between the mountain and the sky and the sea.

This is because the sky and the sea are not yet dry.

If I reach the limit of the sky or the sea you can mix the colors, So I am doing it leaving a very fine street of separation between the two areas And then when they are drying, with a finer brush I am still going to outline the details, to make it more detailed and since it will be dry, the water does not run.

If the color of the mountain runs a little over the sea, as it has happened to me here, In that hole on the right with a clean paper, you can dry the whole area, and it will be a little paler.

And then, when it is drier, you already give it a bit of dark blue detail in the mountain and fill in the sea a little if necessary.

Now with the finest brush I fill the entire top of the mountain.

Since it is now dry, the colors do not mix.

Now that the sea is dry, I'm going to give some shadows in the middle from the sea with a blue color with a bit of garnet.

I'm going to do this with a very dry brush, I mean I clean the brush so there are no traces and then I dry it with a paper so that the hairs are very open.

So, instead of doing a single thick stroke, I achieve several finite strokes, like streaks that get the texture that I want to give to this whole area of ​​water.

It is a bit darker area, with shade and I do it this way, with the brush very dry and with little water that texture of stripes is achieved that if not it would be necessary to do them one by one.

I start to fill the door, starting with the roof part, in a light greenish blue.

I start here because I don't want when giving the red part, mix the red part with it.

Now I'm going to start coloring the door red, evenly with bright cadmium red.

I am careful not to get too much into the blue parts of the hats above.

And I'm giving the sticks, all the woods that it has.

And when, while the first wood is still wet, I'm going to give it dark so that it melts and makes this effect at the base of each stick.

Continuing with the next stick, I do the same, when I finish drawing it and it's wet, I'm darkening the bottom.

I go over the roof part a little to intensify the color a little.

And now that the sea is dry, I start to reflect, which will be especially red.

The sticks are reflected, they are duplicated in the water and I am making the water waves a little bit.

So I make separate horizontal stripes in red and then on top of these reflections I put a little black on the dark part of the sticks.

The more space between the stripes and the more irregular they are, the better, always without leaving the verticality.

I start now with all the dark parts, wearing a black a little bluish for all this part of the peaks of the sticks and the part above the roof, and a kind of rectangle with descriptions there.

Once the whole red part of the door is dry, all the part that we have given bright cadmium red color, I'm going to start casting all the shadows that there is quite a lot of shadow on most of the door.

All this I give with a dark garnet.

It is important that there is enough contrast between the initial red and this very dark red so that the shadows are well marked.

When these shades that we give are drying, they will be a little lighter that at the beginning, so surely we will have to give it several layers of shadow so there is enough contrast between the left light part and the shadow part on the right.

And so the door would be finished, where the important thing here is especially the contrast, the background is very pale and the door is a deep red and like very marked lights.

I hope you liked this workshop.

Thanks and see you next time.

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