Paint Watercolor Sunset Clouds With Flowers & Get in the Mood for Spring With Me!

In this video, I wanted to paint this painting with you and get in the mood for spring. I'll show you my process and just talk about what I did and my thoughts around painting, and I really hope you enjoy it. All right, so I already applied tape all around my watercolor paper. Here I'm using Watercolor Block by Saunders Waterford, 100% cotton watercolor paper. Now, you don't necessarily have to apply tape if you use a watercolor block because it won't buckle as much, but I really like to have a white frame around my paintings because I feel like it just makes the artwork stand out a lot more. I also applied it in a way that I get more of a wider format to showcase the size of the field. And then I divided my watercolor paper into thirds, so I have two thirds of sky and one third will be the flower field. So this is going to be the horizon, and as you can see in the reference image, everything moves towards this horizon because the vanishing point is right along this horizon. And the vanishing point is where all the lines from this field are meeting. So here I'm just sketching out the dots, so this is the vanishing point, and all these flowers are just moving towards this little dot. And you can see that the closer you get to the horizon, the more narrow the lines are, and the closer it gets to you, the wider the space is between those lines. And in the background, we also have some mountains and a little bit of trees and things like that, so I'm just sketching out very loosely. And for the clouds, I don't need to sketch out anything. You can add some outlines, but it's not very necessary. You can just use a reference image and just apply the paint accordingly. But whatever works best for you. Just make sure that you remove any pencil line before you move on to painting, otherwise it will just look through and you might not like that. All right, so for the colors, I'm going to use a Naples yellow. So this is going to be the glow of the sun. And then I also like to use, for example, cobalt blue light. So this is a very beautiful color for the sky, but I also like to use ultramarine because it's more like a darker color, darker blue and more reddish, compared to cobalt blue light. And then to create purple, I'm going to use carmine red and just mix it with ultramarine or cobalt blue to make a nice purple. And before I start painting, especially when I paint on bigger projects, I like to tilt my watercolor paper a little bit so the water and the paint doesn't spread into all the directions. And you can also move it around and say you want to, for example, to make sure that the paint only goes into a specific direction, for example, downwards or upwards, depending on how you hold your board or watercolor block. So here I'm using watercolor blocks. I can just move it around. But if you use a watercolor board where you tape down your loose sheet of paper, you can also do that. Now, before we start painting, I also like to apply a little bit of water or just like a wash of water to the paper. This will allow us to paint wet into wet. But here you also want to make sure that you only apply enough. So you don't want to create like a pool of water where when you apply paint, everything just moves into all like spreads or just sits there in a puddle. So you always want to make sure you remove any excess moisture and really make sure you apply the water evenly. And now we can start painting. Now, I like to start with the glow here. So I use Naples yellow and dilute it with water. And you can also see on the reference image that the glow is rather on the left side. So left and a little bit of in the center. And the closer you get to the right side, it gets darker. So the sun is pretty much on the left side. But I still want to apply this glow to almost everywhere except the right side where I have this dark purple blue color. And also make sure that you really dilute the paint. Otherwise, it will be too opaque because Naples yellow, it has a little bit of white in it. And it's a little bit opaque. So if you add too much, it will be just making sure that you lose this glow because the more opaque the color is, the less light it gets through. So always make sure you dilute it and not use it too much. And then I just moved on and used more pigment. And I just used this pigment to apply to those areas where I see in my reference image. It has this orangey yellow glow, so on the left side. And I also follow the shape and the movement of the clouds. I just don't, I don't add the clouds just randomly. I really look at, okay, so where is the shape? And I just add the paint there. So I'm starting with the glowy colors. And then I move on to the purple that I mixed with my blue and my carmine red. And just apply it everywhere where I see this color. Again, make sure you look at your reference image and also make sure that you follow the direction. You have clouds that are bigger, closer to the viewer, and the further they go to the horizon, the smaller they get. And then I moved on to applying my blue color. So here I'm using Copa Blue Light. And just place it into those white areas. Make sure that you really control the water on your brush. You don't want to just make it spread out like crazy, so always use a tissue paper, paper towel, and release any excess moisture. And from there, I just went ahead and added even more paint on top. And I just made sure that I always build the painting and work quickly. Now, sometimes your watercolor paper might start drying very quickly. For example, if you live in an area where it's super hot or it's winter and you're heating like crazy, it might happen that your paper dries very quickly. So what you can do before you even start, you can apply water to the back side of your paper and on the front side so it's very soaked in water. Or if, for example, you start painting and you notice, okay, this area is already too dry, like in my case, I had to stop. And then I let everything completely dry. And then I went back and applied water again on top of my dried paint and just started layering the paint again. So here you just want to make sure that you are very gentle. So this is a little bit more advanced, but you really want to make sure that you're gentle when you apply water with your brush. The brush should be also rather smooth and soft, otherwise you just scrape off pigments. And from there, I just went ahead and applied more paint. So for example, I couldn't add the blue paint because everything was just dry. So I just went back and reapplied the blue color and shaped the little clouds. And if I felt like, okay, so I need to lift a little bit off because there was just too much blue compared to my reference image, I just went back and just lifted off some of the paint using my clean, damp brush and just removed some of this paint. And then I just went back and really just worked my way through the clouds. And in painting clouds, I always thought it's very intimidating and I was like, how do those people do this? But I realized it's actually easier than it might look. You just really need to make sure you have good paper that really allows you to have fun, experiment, and work quickly. Maybe if you want to experiment, you want to make sure that the paper doesn't break. So here, for example, I'm using 100% cotton paper and you can see I'm just going back and forth, add a little bit more paint because sometimes you think, oh, you added enough pigment, but then it just dries lighter. So here, I'm just making sure I kinda adjust how I like the painting to look like. But remember, your painting doesn't need to look exactly like your reference image because I feel like sometimes we see this reference image and then we just start painting. We feel like, okay, what color should I use? And okay, so how do I get this green or purple? And okay, so this is where this goes, okay? And we don't really think about what we actually want to say with our painting. We just get caught up in just copying it and then we try so hard to replicate that and then we feel just miserable because it just doesn't look exactly like our reference image. But you're not a scanner that prints the painting or the reference image. You really want to allow yourself to experiment, play, to talk through your painting. Like maybe there's something in the painting that you don't like, you just want to remove, or maybe you like certain colors, maybe you don't, and you want to change something. And you really want to look for that. Like I realize if I look for clues for something that brings me joy, like for example, glowiness, I realize that this Naples yellow adds so much glow and I really love it and I like how soft the clouds look. And this is what brings me joy. In my first painting attempt, I focused more on the field, on the flowers, and I realized, no, I actually want to play around more with the clouds, I want to give them more space. So that's why here I gave them a little bit more space and really focused on adding this glow and adding all these different colors to make the painting look very lively without making it super, super close to my reference image. Like it looks similar because there was not much that I needed to remove or change. I just played around with colors and how I applied the paint but it really was freeing. I feel like sometimes we choose paintings or reference images that we want to paint that are just full of details and you're like, okay, so how do I do this? And you forget that sometimes less is more. I mean, there are super, super realistic watercolor paintings and it's totally like, I admire people who can be super hyper-realistic in their paintings and they're super, super skilled and they're super patient. But for me personally, it brings me joy to look at a painting where I can just imagine, like I can tell my own story, like I can see the painting and dream or look for clues and think about what the artist wanted to say maybe with this painting or how the artist decided to create the painting, not just like super, super realistic and this is what brings me joy and I feel like sometimes we, again, we get caught up in the reference image and we forget that we are the artist. We're here to use the reference image or some idea to inspire our painting and I realized this very, very late. I was also just like trying to copy my reference image and I was just like, why is this not working? And the whole dialogue in your head starts. So yeah, I would suggest that allow yourself to pick some things that you really enjoy in your painting and focus on those and just have fun painting and give yourself some space also. Sometimes when you have this idea in your head and you try so hard to put it into paper and most likely you feel frustrated in the end. So what you can do is just give yourself some space, leave it alone and then when you come back, you will appreciate your painting so much more because most likely you won't remember exactly what idea you had. So you will see your painting in a different light. So make sure you give yourself space and again, don't be so hard on yourself. All right, so here you can see that I'm just going back to the field. I focused first on my clouds and then I went back to the field. Again, I'm using the wet into wet technique and applied the paint, making sure that the colors are lighter around the horizon and the closer they are to the viewer, I made them darker. So here again, I used Carmen Red for the pinkish color, for the red color and then I used Ultramarine to mix it with Carmen Red to make this purple. But again, you can use different reds and blues to make your purple. Maybe you don't even want to make purple. So you can experiment and play around but I also made sure that when I apply the paint, I follow again these lines that I outlined earlier. So you can see this shape and outline and movement towards the horizon. It's not just like random like flat wash or something like that. And from there, I added those darker lines to make sure that you can actually see that is some flowers and there's this shadow in between. I just used the leftover paint, like colors that I had. I didn't use any like brown or black or complementary colors. I just used the colors I had so everything looks similar and has the same vibe. And from there, when I had this base, I went back and sprinkled some Carmen Red, a little bit of blue and a little bit of this Naples Yellow all over the wet paint to create these particles in the air. And I really like it. I feel like this adds so much life to your painting without trying so hard. You just add some splashes and it turns out into this. You can also use salt, for example, it works as well. But currently, I'm just using water, it works really well and you can play around with colors and things like that. And once it was dry, I went back and added some more shadows into the paint. I also made sure that I blend out those lines using some water so it really blends out and it doesn't look like I just painted like a line with hard edges. I made sure that everything's blended out, again, towards the horizon where those lines disappear and becomes like smaller and tinier and fade into the distance. And again, I feel like with 100% cotton paper, I know beginners always think people just say that but you're just a beginner and I don't want to invest in paper like that. I want you to become better. But I can tell you how many people listened to the advice and got some good quality paper. It doesn't have to be the fanciest paper at all but just 100% cotton. Here, for example, is a Saunders Waterford and you can even get a sheet of paper and see how different it feels to just regular wood pulp paper because the paper is really the foundation and you can have the best paints but if your paper is just like printer paper, it can't do anything with it. Like sometimes I see people, they see a tutorial or see something they want to create but they're just not aware that it won't work with the paper they have and this is sometimes very discouraging to people and I don't want this to happen to you so I always encourage you to see really the difference. Here, for example, I just dabbed on the paint to clear the clouds. I didn't try even hard. I just dabbed on the paint and just let the paper do its thing and it dried beautifully. I like it the way it is and you don't even have to try hard. You don't have to fight the paper. The paper works with you. So once the foreground was done, I also moved back to the middle ground where I had a little of those mountains that I just outlined a little bit with a little bit of Indian yellow and Carmen red and a little bit of blue, just very, very like super fady, super, super light because it's in the area of this glow and everything looks like it's very in the distance and covered in this glow so there are no harsh edges, nothing and then I went back and just added a little bit more details with more pigment. Again, I don't want to add any houses, anything, just dots just to show that, okay, there's a little bit, probably some houses, a little bit of trees maybe, but nothing else. I didn't want to overdo it because the whole focus here was the atmosphere, the clouds, the fields, nothing else so I really hope you see that it can be fun and easy if you just let go and just have fun with paintings and if you have good paper. I know you've probably heard this a million times and you feel like, oh my God, they probably are getting paid to say that but no, it's just the truth that good paper can make or break your painting and make you feel miserable with your painting and I don't want this to happen so if you can, please make sure that you invest more in your paper than in anything else because it will be a game changer. It will be like day and light so I really hope you enjoyed it and if painting is your passion and you always wanted to take it more seriously or you're already past the beginner stage and just want to learn more techniques and just have fun painting because you stopped doing it and you want to actually get back to it to relax and unwind after a stressful day, then I invite you to the creative art retreat that starts next week, Beauty in Bloom. With this virtual creative retreat, I want you to get in the mood for spring as you take out your watercolor paints and immerse yourself in four spring-themed scenes. I will show you how to capture light, depth, shadows and how to add details to make your painting look realistic and I'll also walk you through how to use a reference image and translate it into a successful painting without simply copying it. So next week it starts so if you would like to join and want to learn more about it, then check out the link in the description box down below. I really hope you enjoyed this video and found it helpful. Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful day and I will see you in my next video. Bye.