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Acrylic Painting Tutorials

Adding Local Color to Masses - Bring Your Landscape to Life

Add simplified local color to your landscape masses. Learn to mix and apply flat colors to each group before adding gradations and details in this fundamental acrylic painting lesson.

Robert Joyner | Garage Studio Artist & Art Educator

Robert Joyner | Garage Studio Artist & Art Educator

— 3 min read
Adding Local Color to Masses to landscape paintings hero image

Time to add color to the landscape painting. But not gradations, not details, not subtle shifts. Flat, simplified color masses. That's it.

This lesson is part of the Acrylic Landscape Painting Fundamentals Course - learn to paint expressive landscapes from scratch.

The Palette

For this lesson, you'll need:

  • Yellow Ochre
  • Cadmium Orange
  • Cadmium Red Light
  • Cadmium Yellow Light
  • Phthalo Blue
  • Alizarin Crimson (optional but helpful)
  • Titanium White

Simple setup. That's all you need.

Acrylic landscape painting study showing simplified flat color masses with no gradations - green trees, light green field, tan path, and neutral sky demonstrating color simplification fundamentals

Start with a Toned Surface (Optional)

I'm toning my drawing with ochre, orange, and white. Just a light wash.

Why? It gives me a warmer base to work from instead of stark white paper.

You don't have to do this. Some artists prefer working on white or a neutral gray. Your call.

Think in Groups, Not Details

Remember your 6-7 groups from Lesson 2? Now you're assigning one simplified color to each group.

Group 1: Dark tree shadows

  • Mix phthalo blue + orange + red = dark green
  • Paint ALL the tree shadows this same color
  • Trunks, cast shadows on path, shadows under canopies = one color

Group 2: Sky

  • Ochre + touch of phthalo + white = light neutral sky
  • Ignore clouds for now (we'll add them later)
  • One flat color across the entire sky

Group 3: Distant trees

  • Phthalo + alizarin crimson = cool violet-green
  • Pushing background trees cooler helps create depth
  • One flat color for that entire hill

Group 4: Ground plane

  • Yellow + ochre + touch of phthalo + white = warm light green
  • Entire foreground field = one simplified hue
  • Don't worry about grass texture yet

Group 5: Lit tree canopies

  • Phthalo + yellow + touch of red = medium green
  • Lighter than shadows, darker than ground
  • Top of all trees = one color

Group 6: Path

  • Crimson + red light + orange + ochre + blue + white = pinkish tan
  • That S-curve winding through = one simplified color

Understanding Color Temperature

Notice I used alizarin crimson (cool red) for the distant trees instead of cadmium red (warm red)?

Here's why: Mixing warm red + blue = muddy gray. Mixing cool red + blue = cleaner violet.

Cool colors recede. Warm colors advance.

Distant trees should be cooler. Foreground should be warmer.

Everything Should Look Flat

Look at the painting above. Super flat. Almost graphic looking.

That's exactly right.

No gradations yet. No subtle shifts. Just big, bold, simplified color masses.

If you start adding details now, you're jumping ahead. Resist that urge.

Making Edits

Halfway through, I realized:

  • The ground was too bright and green (distracting)
  • The horizon line was too high (compressed the space)
  • Some tree trunks were too evenly spaced (predictable)

So I changed them.

That's the beauty of these studies. You can tweak things without wasting hours on a finished painting.

The Reality Check (Again)

Step back. Look at your simplified color masses.

Do the colors relate to each other?
Are the values working?
Is anything too distracting?

Fix it now. Because in the next lesson, we're adding gradations - and you want a solid foundation first.

Course Navigation

Next Lesson: Gradations & Variations - Add depth and atmosphere
Previous Lesson: Light & Shadow Drawing - Define your masses with value

Course Hub: Acrylic Landscape Fundamentals

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