The next step in our tropical seascape painting will be adding the trees.
How to Paint a Tropical Sunset with Acrylic Paints
I’m continuing my series of classic acrylic painting tutorials reimagined as step-by-step painting blogs .
If you’d like to watch the original video that this colorful painting comes from, you can watch it here .
This is a great lesson for beginners or more advanced painters , as it’s pretty straightforward but you have a lot of room to explore and invent.
I live in a pretty cold, northern city right now (Seattle, Washington), but Andrea and I will be moving to Puerto Rico later this year.
My family background is Russian/Ukranian, but I can’t wait to leave behind the cold weather forever and enjoy the sand and surf!
This painting transports me to that magical feeling of a tropical sunset; and on a particularly hard work day, I like to picture myself chilling in the hammock with a good book or my guitar.
Here’s what you’ll need to paint this beautiful acrylic nature painting:
Palette knife (for mixing paints)
Jar of water (to keep brushes wet)
Canvas (size of your choice)
7 Steps to Painting a Tropical Sunset
The first step is just mixing our acrylic paint colors to assemble our palette.
Your colors don’t have to match mine perfectly, but you want a darker blue, a lighter blue, a pink, an orange, and a yellow.
Step Two
Keeping the brush damp, we will use our M1 blending brush to apply our colors to the canvas and make our background .
We won’t be blending the paints yet; we’re just laying them out in order.
Start with orange at the bottom and work your way up so that you’re going light-to-dark. Leave a little white space at the bottom of the canvas for water.
Clean your brush with water and dry it with a paper towel. Now we will blend.
Remember, I always say that when you’re wondering how to blend colors, think of applying makeup to your face: you want to use light swirling motions with the wrist. Work quickly, as the acrylic paints will dry fast.
Easy steps to paint a sunset sky and a tree in acrylic paints
Start your creative journey with:
Creative Exploration: A Six Week Process for Introducing Regular Creativity into your Life – Develop a regular practice of creating, explore mediums and subjects in search of your thing, and experience the joy that creativity brings. Creativity is for EVERYONE! Talent is just a starting point.
Easy steps to paint a sunset sky and a tree in acrylic paints:
Select the colors you want in your background. I used six colors (see the list below). They can be straight from the tube or you can mix them.
Paint each area of color onto your canvas. I used foam brushes for the background.
Next, blend the areas where the colors meet so there is a softer transition from color to color. You may have to add more paint during this step.
Allow the background to dry.
Add the trunk of the tree and then begin adding the branches. Look at a tree. Notice that the branches get thinner as they get further from the trunk, and branches are not straight lines. Using thinner brushes helps with the thinner branches.
Add more branches until you achieve your desired effect.
Colors I used:
- Cadmium Yellow Medium
- mixed orange (yellow mixed with Cadmium Red)
- mixed reddish orange (yellow mixed with Cadmium Red)
- Magenta
- Brilliant Purple
- Deep Violet
I’d love to see your sunset painting!
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