Background tutorial - forest pasture

Hello and happy monday! Hope you have had an amazing weekend ❤️

Today I want to provide you with a background tutorial, more specific a pasture background.

Hope you find it helpful!

Step 1: Start with blocking in the base colors. Don't mind how messy it looks, the messiness will gradually disappear as you go!
PS: keep in mind to make separate layers for each new thing you put down, to make it easier to work with later. For example the sky in one layer, the trees in the back in one, the grass in the back in one, the grass further to "the camera" in one and so on.

Don't get overwhelmed with how "detailed" or "complicated" the base looks, cause I have only used regular round brushes, both soft and hard, but also the "more detailed pine tree" in my summer brush pack, but nothing else!

Step 2: break it down layer by layer so you don't get overwhelmed by all the stuff going on on the canvas. We're starting with the trees the furthest back. The mountains doesn't need any more attention since they're so far away that you don't need details. Add more depth and color by starting off with a regular round brush on 50% opacity and blend together the colors afterwards.

Step 3: If you want to you can add slightly details with using the "more detailed pine tree" brush over the tree tops, but this is not necessary.

Step 4: move on to the next layer, the trees in front of these again, add more contrast, depth and color. Again, I have only used one brush for these trees, the same as mentioned above. I have used several different colors to create depth.

Step 5: repeat step 4 on the next tree layer.

Step 6: create simple shadows and the grass area furthest back. Don't worry about details here since it's so far away.

Step 7: repeat with the grass on the next layer

Step 8: on this layer you can start adding a bit of details. Here also I have only used grass brushes from my summer pack. I have used several different grass brushes to make it more realistic.
Brushes used: "grass base (or distant grass)", "grass details", "grass" and "clover". Just splatter them randomly around.

Step 9: Repeat step 6, 7 and 8 on the grass layer in the front, but here you add even more details.

Step 10: add some foliage/shrubs in front of the trees in the front, to make a more natural transition from the grass to the trees.
I have used the "tree base", "tree build-up", "thuja bush" and "tree texture" to create the shrubs. I have also added shadow on the bottom and highlights on the tops of the shrubs.

Step 11: I'm horrible at adding details to pine trees, so therefore I have done it very simple with going over the trees with the "pine tree needles" brush with several different colors from the summer pack + shaded and highlighted slightly with the burn and dodge tool, and it kind of works.

Step 12: adding clouds to the sky. Here again I chose to work smarter and not harder and just used my cloud stamps and brushes from the summer pack!

Step 13 (optional): if you're one like me who likes to gradually blur your backgrounds, then you can do this step too. Layer by layer I'm blurring, starting with the sky and mountains with the most blur, and then I blur less and less the further to the front I come. Choose the blur % how you like it, but I started off with 5% furthest back.

And that completes all the steps!

Feel free to ask away if you have any questions!

I have included the final result in the attachments, if you want to use it for your artwork. Feel free to add/change anything you want to make it fit your style!

Hugs from