In this video, Studio Ghibli’s background painting master Kazuo Oga demonstrates how he paints a misty landscape.

He’s using Nicker poster color (also spelled ‘Knicker’), which comes in jars. He wets both sides of the paper before placing it on the work surface. Then he takes some liquid colors, together with white, out of the jars and places them on a nearby dish. He drops the paint into the wet surface and blends it while it is wet. The result is a soft atmospheric base into which he can place smaller details of branches and leaves.

Note:
• He is standing up when he starts and sits after 15 minutes.
• He gets his large, soft passages in first, and progresses to the details last.
• The paints are arranged in spectral hue order.
• He uses a large Japanese brush with a sharp tip for painting even the tiniest blossoms.
• He paints some branches from the tip down to the trunk, and others from the trunk outward.