Painting a Realistic Sunset in Acrylics

hey guys what's up welcome back today I thought I'd do a sunset painting and I'm gonna do this in acrylic paints I was out the other night took some cool reference I'll have those those reference photos kind of pop up here what I found and just kind of inspired me to paint this so let's just dive right into it I've got acrylic paints I'm a 12 by 16 inch canvas panel let's get started all right now the first thing just ignore here is I've got a sketch underneath which I've decided not to use so I'm gonna paint right over the top of this and just kind of forget what's on here so pretend we've got a nice clean canvas here and of course all the colors and materials the brushes things that I'm gonna be using in this video are listed in the description below so it's check below the video I got everything there along with links on where to find them and the colors I'm using these are acrylic paints of course and just about out of yellow so the colors going to be using our titanium white CAD me or and I'm sorry carbon black quinacridone magenta phthalo blue green shade cad yellow and cad orange and the first thing that i'm gonna do here is think about the major colors in the sky so it's basically going to be think of it as the Sun the immediate area around the Sun and then kind of the shadows high up in the sky so I'm gonna like break it up into three pieces so let's start with kind of the most obvious in my mind is the area around the Sun and I've got some phthalo blue and yellow a touch just a tiny bit of each mix with some white I've got a paper towel and also a couple jars of water off to the side here closer to the Sun we're just going to use yellow and white pretty simple as I move further up towards the shadows I'm actually gonna break this I guess into four parts maybe I'm gonna take some quinacridone magenta by the way you don't have to have quinacridone I think any magenta I really am starting to prefer magenta over red red serves a purpose just like this CAD orange here as well but you know it's just not the best always it can kind of dirty up your colors if you're not careful so for most applications I like to use is some sort of magenta over red a little bit of orange in there I like that color and then we'll go right in to the shadows up above shadows are gonna have black they're gonna have blue they're gonna have a little magenta let's just mix those together can I already tell I'm going to want it more vibrant and darker so a lot more blue and some black let's go ahead and add quite a bit more blue and then a little bit of magenta I still think I want it more saturated and I probably want more of like a violet tone maybe so just more blue and magenta oh and oh well let's just go with another color just really make this simple just kind of lay this all out so you can kind of see the major colors that I'm gonna be using for the most part so say just take some black not really any white I've got some white on the palette knife and that's probably gonna be enough so blue black little magenta which is really going to produce like a Prussian blue I think Prussian blue is it's like phthalo blue black and violet so this is pretty close you're pretty much creating like a dark blue violet so something like that and finally what I should probably do I'm gonna go ahead and take the ruler here just want an idea of what's gonna go on let's get a nice square oh I suppose somewhere around there that's that's good for now let's go ahead and start actually I'm gonna take some glazing medium add that to my palette as well I'm going to start with this flat brush little water a little bit of the medium and I want to think about blocks of color so I'm just gonna kind of start by thinking about the the major shapes of the sky want to sort of shape the sky out what are going to be the kind of the major areas of color and just block them in super simple now with that color on my brush I'm gonna go right into some of this blue tone I'm gonna mix that in and blend it into that color I'm gonna take some of this darker blue mix a little bit of that together but not a lot scrub it in over here okay now I'm gonna wash my brush and dab it off a little bit pick up some of that medium I'm gonna grab this peachy color probably some white also in there just grab some of this yellowish maybe even a little more yellow I just don't want it to be super vibrant so just simple scrub it in block it in kind of fan it into what I did below slightly don't need a lot but somewhat blended into there and just a couple spots I might actually bring this color down lower give the idea of maybe a few these pinkish clouds floating okay so that's pretty simple I'm going to pick up some more magenta so these colors I mixed some of this blue these colors are mixed they're just kind of a starting point for me you know I manipulate them and change them as I go it's just helpful to have some of this laid out already pre-mixed I think I'd like to have like a kind of a nice peachy violet color that might be a bit too dark so something like that perhaps a few areas again I'm looking for the the most prominent looking for the most prominent color in any given area not really into the specifics yet so I just want to block it in with what I think is going to be the most common color for that area for whatever area I'm working on I get a little orange mix it with some of this peachy color I think that colors going to be too dirty so just mix some of that violet into this color here maybe skip the orange I've already got enough orange in the mixture perhaps something more like this take some medium use my fingers kind of blend that together a little bit look how nice that that blends okay don't need to get too crazy with that wash my brush get some of the moisture out pick up some of this darker blue a little bit of medium and perhaps touch a white we're out of phthalo blue a bit more there touch of white and phthalo blue just to kind of increase the poppy nosov it just a little pops out there's a little bit more there and somewhere right here I think this color can live it's gonna be some areas over here I believe a little more white okay now take some of that color I just had mix a little bit more magenta create more vocal violet brighten that up just so I can kind of blend these two together a little bit of white with that color get some of this paint off here a little more white and magenta so again none of this has to remain as is I'm just trying to get it as close as I can it's always good to get it as close as you possibly can kind of the first go-around just makes it perhaps a little bit easier on yourself as you go along try to keep it somewhat smooth okay so yeah that's looking pretty good I'm gonna wash my brush and take some of this dark color add a little bit more phthalo blue to that some medium more blue I'm gonna go right all the way across the top with this and then once I do that I'm going to take some magenta some phthalo blue a little bit of this lighter colored blue I had before and I'm going to brighten that up so we want that to blend into what I already have just like that then what I could do is go ahead and take another flat brush a little bit of medium and I can use this it's a dry brush no color on it just to sort of blend these colors together a little bit more make that sky nice and happy pretty easy take a little violet little medium open that area back up a bit getting kind of rough yeah so good start to that don't need to do a whole lot more right now that's a heck of a lot better than just a plain old white canvas I'm gonna take take this blender brush with a little more medium try to blend this out just right there make it a little more smooth take a little bit of that violet color there we go looking pretty good I'm just gonna leave that as is kind of just move on now okay and I'm gonna take a bit more of this violet color over here and I'm gonna go ahead and just fill in the rest of this off to the right make sure that's covered up one more white blue I could probably go brighter brighter with some more magenta perhaps okay now this right side isn't gonna be too critical right now as a lot of it's gonna be covered up with some clouds but I want to get that base down so now I'm going to move on to let's just kind of cover up the rest of this painting so what I'm going to do down below it's gonna be a pretty dark background I'm gonna take if find an area to mix this and try to use up as much as I can here without waste and pallet area I want to mix some kind of dirty brown color black magenta orange so something like that it's gonna give me a starting point what I like about filling in the entire canvas early jumping around is kind of the same reason why a lot of people choose to tone the canvas first does give you a a little different perspective on things once it's all covered up you most people tend to see the values better but I say most people because sometimes it doesn't always seem to help me I think everybody kind of sees things a little differently so I don't think it's a blanket statement for all artists go ahead and fill in the bottom right there and we're gonna need some type of clouds rolling through here make some white and black together and probably pick up some blue some of this maybe this dark blue-black a little violet so mix them magenta in there so that's fairly close and what I'm gonna do is we're gonna have some clouds living over here and again I'm still just thinking about blocking in I don't want these things everything to be totally finished at this point I want just the general area is the general idea of did these different colors live in here take some magenta use some yellow and a little bit brighter a lot of this I just want like the idea of this being here the clouds might actually be bigger but I kind of want to know where they're gonna be in a general sense so this kind of just is my way of laying it down laying it on there just a little bit to start so I can envision what's going on little more magenta maybe some yellow want this to be pretty vibrant here and perhaps up top I have some clouds living up here mix some white and some orange so we're gonna get somewhat of a more dirty looking brownish color here and pretty quick I'm probably gonna switch to a smaller brush I could probably just go ahead and do that now I'll pull some of this color off this brush here so I'm going to have some clouds living in and around this area here and I'm going to get some more color to that cloud living up here so pretty basic what I'm doing so far so more white and orange see here yeah something like that kind of a dirty peachy color add a little bit of bluish kind of tones that back makes it a little bit more unlike the magenta violet side maybe but desaturate sit and I'm going to have some of these colors living up here so this is a struggle with a painting like this very difficult to get it to a place where you can start to see what you're doing you have to start out with these kind of just these abnormal looking blocks of color and you have to kind of work your way towards what you want it's really hard to explain it's again it's just probably best done just through demonstration okay some clouds over and through here and you know the cool thing about clouds is they can kind of just float around and change as much as you want them to so it doesn't have to be perfect at any point you just got to get that idea down you got to get the pattern down to kind of make things appear to be right so that's kind of what I'm focused on right now just trying to get that pattern down the more magenta magenta and yellow probably move to the round blender brush that I like about at this point wash my brush and let's just go ahead and take some orange and white with a little bit Genta I want it to be somewhat somewhat reddish maybe more like this let's just see if that is gonna work for us so I haven't really I'm just using this like an angular brush add some more magenta into that with some more orange try to saturate that up a bit okay so I'm starting to be able to to picture what's going on here but not entirely yet so what I'd like to do before I get ahead of myself with what's going on up here in the sky is work a little bit down lower kind of get some of these colors that I want around the area of the Sun figured out I want that son to be about hmm maybe about right there yeah let's go ahead and say it's gonna be like right there I might raise the horizon up just a tad so basically what I'm going to start with magenta and yellow and I want to really think about so if that Sun if that Sun is gonna be about right there it's just put a dot so I kind of know where that Suns gonna be I wanna start laying in the idea of some clouds around the Sun we're gonna have a lot of bright orange clouds be a lot of yellow as well take some magenta here mix it with some blue blue white magenta gonna get some of that orange off there so something like that and start the idea of some clouds here darken that up a little bit warm it up with some some of this orange color dark it up a bit more and I'm going to have some more cloud coming in from over here even darker can I continue on with this cloud I'll wash my brush pick up some black add some magenta and yellow kind of create like a warmish gray a little bit of pink in there as well and we're gonna use that color to blend these darker Gray's into the the orange color like so more yellow more magenta white magenta just brighten that up a bit kind of do the same over here to the right blend these colors together kind of use some of that color for low in the sky blend that into some of the darker color that I was mixing up here and as I darken that I'm gonna add some magenta cuz there Elsa starts to look kind of greenish he added magenta red essentially and kind of blend that into this cloud up above here okay so notice I'm just jumping around all kinds of different places here it's what I do with a lot of my work kind of allows me to build things together check myself figure out what I'm doing so mix some white and orange up together a little bit too bright we'll try this right here I'd like it brighter actually if I can't just squeeze enough white paint out of this get it what I want so pretty neutral pretty neutral colors right here but it's allowing me just to kind of blend this out and I'm gonna go back to kind of that dark cloud to the right mix kind of some pinkish orange up a little bit yellow and I'm going to apply that just to the edge of that cloud I'm gonna use that color to sort of blend my way to what I want I'm going to continue with that theme grabbing some more orange and magenta okay and before I go any further I'm gonna get real dirty with my colors here I want to create some nice bright highlights and start to work on some of the highlights so another break here I'm gonna swap out my palate clean everything up new water and we'll return in a minute okay I am back and I think I'm gonna switch to a filbert brush we're gonna try to get a little more controlled in our approach and get some water and medium I've got this the the same colors lined up on the palette and what I'm gonna start with I believe is probably get like some highlights going we're solder sort of building up to those highlights I like to build from dark to light but at some point you know you can kind of go back and forth from the darks to the lights but in general as I'm kind of get going I like this I like this kind of pattern so I'm working my way to the brightest colors still as of yet and I'll start with this yellowish color and I'm gonna take some white and yellow mix those two together so this is even brighter and eventually we're gonna have some highlights right through here might have gone a little bit overboard with that color I'm gonna grab some more yellow touch orange pretty vibrant okay now as I mix this yellow towards some of these darker colors right here if I keep going as I said before it's gonna start to look almost almost greenish because of course we mix yellow and black together if you're familiar with your colors that'll kind of create a green tone so we don't want we don't want green we want more of an orange tone and so you got to go a little bit more on the red side of things to get more of an orange look I'm going to start with this here yeah something like that I think would give us a decent result some media mixed in here I'm going on kind of a backside of that yellow blending it into the darker area I kind of use that color down low here as well it's about the right tone so you can see that right there so I'm talking about still with a little bit green as we transition so I pick up some magenta and probably just go ahead and make mix up some lighter gray here then add the magenta just so it doesn't darken things down too much you see that so as we lighten it up and we add more red basically moving it towards the the red spectrum you can see how it takes that greenish hue right out of there and that looks much more natural as we blend to that darker color I take my finger here wipe off the back edge of that just blend it away a little bit and you can see that is just a nicer transition so a muted pink when you're transitioning to a darker color think about when you're going from yellow to like a dark gray think about a muted pink that's going to give you a good result when you're when you're moving into those darker colors maybe even blue if you're transitioning from like orange to blue that's such a hard trip or injure blue without creating green or like say yellow to blue without creating green well think about pink a muted pink just like this right here add that muted pink and it's just a good transition color now as I'm working on this gonna have some of this color down low in the foreground so I'm just going to go ahead and add that because I know it's going to be kind of bright down on the horizon itself so start that process anyways again it it's about going from area to area to area making little adjustments in each area building it up together which kind of gives you that good solid idea of where you're going where you're heading with this painting okay then take it a step further I'm going to add like some some great some darker color to this because we're gonna have a tree line and that that tree line will kind of hold some of the dark still so we'll just pretend that tree lines gonna live kind of right there and that still just kind of keeps the separation going alright we are looking pretty good right now I think what I can get away is some darker blue I'm gonna switch to my round blender brush what I love so much pick up some white and one thing we didn't get was phthalo blue so I'm gonna pick up some phthalo blue super-bright get some of the moisture off and then I'm pickup this is will have a little bit of yellow in it so we're gonna give us kind of a turquoisey color more of a greenish tone that's gonna be pretty close just brighten that up just that tad little white no maybe we'll see yeah that might be more on the lines of what I'm looking for so I'm going to use this brush light pressure moving it quick blending it out so this is wet over dry and when I want to kind of fan out some of the edges I can just kind of do that with my fingers but it's it's not too important so what you could do is just take some white a little bit of this yellow color kind of gives us that color that's already on there and then you could blend it back the other way so that's kind of how you create a nice smooth blend when you're working wet over dry pick up some of that white color get a little bit in the brush and then blend it backwards so while it's the color laying down while that's still wet you can blend it back kind of using a color that's similar to what's already down here so that's that's looking closer I think I could still get some medium if you think I could still brighten it up so kind of blending it back again adding some of these tones back in want to be careful not to get too green so more white take even more white blending it right back together okay so that's looking for here to get not bad I think take a little more blue try to cover up some of this area up here a little more and kind of see some of that violet pink color underneath just try to block that in real nice fan it up upwards just a little bit I want to kind of bring all that together so taking some of this color and go a little bit high okay it's looking good I'm gonna wash this brush as well as this other filbert that I was using and I'm gonna pick up some white makes just a little bit of color in there kind of a peachy color magenta and orange okay just like what's already on there kind of refine a few things here some of that yellow kind of getting rid of and I'm gonna brighten up some of this a little more medium I'm gonna brighten out some of this blue through here I want it to be just a bit lighter just back and forth letting the brush do the work this is kind of creating just some very light pink clouds floating kind of randomly through this area I don't want to press too terribly hard at this point because I could start lifting off some of that paints not quite dry yet okay I'm gonna take some white over here and I want to mix just some more yellow into what I'm doing so now is the time to really define everything so it's basically I'm using what I already have on the canvas what I've done up to this point now as like a template on where to go with everything and so I kind of cover up some areas like this because I know that there's gonna be a cloud here maybe I don't want it to be that big this area this color that I'm going around with it and covering up some with it starts to blend it all together and that creates kind of a cool look it brings me one step closer to the finished painting you know and then as I get really close to that sunlight it can add more yellow brightening up some areas now I'm really gonna get careful about what I'm doing from here on out taking away that white because at the end of the day the only white that I want is where my orange spots gonna be we'll cover that up I want everything else to be slightly darker than the Sun take some orange here few spots here and there brighten up not bad just kind of thinking about some things here wash that brush pick up some magenta and when you want sort of a more of a brick read you can take just a little bit of black add that to the mix a little more black yellow so using this dirty brown reddish color to start to blend out view those few those clouds up high and probably use the same color to start to shade this cloud here a little bit so this dirty brown is kind of a good color to shade these bright orange pink areas with again doesn't have to be the finished product you can just get me one step closer it and you know I can already see just looking at this as a whole its it's looking good we're on the right track you know the colors are looking good there's just things that you just got to keep going back and working little by little by little at that's such a tedious process you just you cannot ever expect this to go quick or go easy for you okay I know what I would like to lighten up you take a little bit of that pinkish color lighten up a little bit right through there that cloud is a little too dark for me all these things are subject to change okay now when I look at this I'm kind of thinking like what is what is the the one thing in this painting that's you know most off still needs a lot of adjustment one thing I can kind of like just notice right now is I'd like there to be a little more violet maybe up high so I could take some blue so this is the blue we mix from before and just mix together some magenta with that create kind of some violet and you know just like this violet to travel a little higher lift up some of these dark areas way up high so just kind of pulling that out couple things I'm looking at over to the left here is seems a little bit too light especially up high kind of thinking what might need to happen is just create some darker blue this might work here let me just get a little water on my brush some magenta maybe more of like a violet I guess looks like a blue but really a violet a little darker brings the the focus towards the center let's take some phthalo blue a little bit of black magenta mix an even darker blue here yeah see that rich rich color going on it's got a little more life in it than that dark blue I mixed up high so the whole point of this is like it doesn't have to be you know I'm not gonna make this painting absolutely perfect I just I want the colors to be correct more than anything that's kind of what this is it's kind of just like a practice like a color like a practice on color color study trains your your eyes to recognize what color should be where how to go about things a little bit more effective way this is the practice I think that it's so important if you're ever looking to to do something big and extravagant take some white phthalo blue some of this area through here use my finger and I just know it could be brighter as well as maybe just include some more like violet take a little smaller filbert brush here I kind of test that out here a little more white okay yeah I think that'll do and I'm standing up now just kind of leaning back trying to get a bit better view at what I'm really doing here so I'm trying to divide up some of these clouds trying to open them back up a little bit so we can see some of that magenta there behind I get a lot of questions on whether you can do this with oil paints as well and I mean I don't see a lot so especially if if you don't have experience with oils I think it's really confusing on the differences between oils and acrylics I don't think there's much of a difference paint is paint one dries faster one dry slower they handle slightly differently between each other but I mean at the end of the day it's it's paint on a brush but with that being said it the difference is because of the dry time there's a higher risk if you're going about this with oils in like the exact same way if you literally try doing it the same way there would be some sort of risk involved with you know they kind of blend together become muddy I'm laying the way that I'm layering you would want to let the previous layer underneath the oil is really dry so I think the way that I do I think the way that I do the the blocking in portion could be about the the exact same but when you start getting into like what I'm doing now it would be tougher to do with oils the way that I'm going about it you're gonna want to be a lot more careful with how you're blending these colors together I guess the the order what you're doing it you know one way that you could do it is oops one way that you could do it is literally let each layer paint dry go over one so let it dry again let it dry that would take a really long time but I guess I guess it's I guess it's hard to explain when I think about okay if I was gonna do something the exact same way as oil paints what I would do is lay out a under painting blocking in the same way and then I would very very carefully you would it would be a slower process it's kind of the reason I like to work in acrylics would be a slower process as you're working your way across the canvas I'd basically carefully go across the canvas each time much slower and then give it about a day in between and I'd probably have several paintings going at once so that I could keep working so yeah the reason I do like these acrylics for something like this is because I like to work quick it's just what I like about painting makes things more enjoyable it's kind of like instant gratification you can get your way out of all the way to the end of the painting as quickly as you want to as quickly as you can work but I don't know that's the question I get a lot can I do the same with oils I think on a micro basis yes but on a macro could you go about all of this in one day the same way no it would be it'd be tougher I think though a lot of the lot of the things I do can be transferred to oil paints once you get to know anybody and I'm sure if you're listening if you understand oils well you know how to transfer it in your own way so I think all the advice is transferable back and forth between the two mediums it just takes an understanding of each medium before you can really get that transfer done well okay so I'm just trying to mix a dark blue and taking some white sari some water get some dark blue here little more magenta go back to a round blender brush the wrong blender is really good for so many things and I love it but I've just been challenging myself you know the only way I discover new brush is the only way I discovered techniques is by trying different things I could stick with the blender brush for a lot of things a lot a lot of things but I'd like to go back at like you know right now I've been on a real big kick with filbert brushes just because I want to get to know them as best that I can take a little water it's hard to control these blender brushes you got to tap a little water on the canvas on the palette to get a little moisture on the brush too much moisture it's it's easy to load these things with too much moisture that's kind of the big thing about these so it it takes a a good practice a lot of practice to understand how to how to control them okay I'm gonna switch back to my filbert brush some blue and white a little bit of this darker color mix it in and I go back in between these clouds a little bit of magenta go back in between these clouds fix them up a little more how I want so like the good thing so what I went out back to the the oils right now would be a time when I could really finish this with oil paints and do it well without the need of like an additional layer it's like this would be like a really good starting point for oil paints where I could just like right over the top of just about everything and get it exactly how I want it to be but you know for the purpose of learning the purpose of this video I kind of just keep going as long as I can it's another question I get when do I switch to oil paints well when I no longer enjoy the process of acrylics generally okay I'm gonna take just a quick little break kind of think about where I'm gonna go next and be right back all right so just thinking about kind of had a chance to step back and look at this I'd like that larger cloud in the center to come down just a bit so mix up just kind of some orange magenta white little black take some of this color gonna have some clouds over here of a similar color kind of the same color for this cloud so this becomes super tedious at this point like it's so hard to try and figure out and explain what to do at this point so anybody out there that strut like this is super hard don't get it twisted this is not it's not easy for me it's just plain hard and what I've learned to do is kind of control myself take frequent breaks guess just minimize the errors that's one of the biggest things that I can that I can give for advice is try to minimize your errors and you know how do you do that I don't know but I think having that on the back of your mind is at least a step in that direction so as long as you're just kind of conscious conscious about it minimize there's at least be thinking about it how you might be you know maybe just think about the errors that you might think think you're making errors you might think you make and then make a mental note of those and then try to catch yourself when you're about to make one of those errors you know and and it only comes with experience you know you don't know what an error is unless you've made one so that's the other part of it you have to make errors it's the only way you learn only way you get better you have to you have to go through the hardships and that's just kind of goes back to it just comes with experience it's something you learn through trial and error I don't think anybody can escape that one of the bad things I think about art school is that they try to teach that which you know nothing wrong with taking a class whatsoever but and you can teach it and that's fine but you still have to experience it just because somebody's told you about it you know I can tell you all day long how did how to get better at push-ups but you're not going to get better at push-ups unless you actually do push-ups so I can tell you all day long how to make your paintings better your paintings are not actually going to get better unless you actually make paintings and you actually encounter those errors make the mistakes so that's just kind of my view you know you can't avoid the work that's involved is what I'm trying to say you can you can learn and teach and whatever all you want but so I don't know it's another thought how to get better at painting just paint so by showing by example doing videos like this you know just kind of talk it through with you guys I think you know I don't know I think motivation and encouragement and actually trying to do a painting like this that's half the battle if you can get yourself to just go to just try I think that you're much further ahead than 99% of people because most people just don't try they think it's too hard you're they're not good enough so I guess that's what I'd like to encourage you guys to do is yes so just understand that the majority of of what I do is just the fact that I just keep doing it every day I just keep trying I have a lot of failures a lot of micro failures that nobody really ever sees but the fact that I keep coming back is how I keep getting better so I just want to encourage you guys if you want to get better just keep trying it's all you got to do and if you're patient enough and if you pick something to paint around that you're truly passionate about you know you'll eventually find your way it may not be painting in a style like myself but their artwork can take on so many forms everybody's got some sort of talent in our work I mean you know you may want it to be realism but maybe that's not where it lies for you so just recognize that you know you can't paint like everybody but you can discover a way the paint that makes you into my hand mmm in demand and desirable all those things so yeah I don't know that's a little uh some deep conversation there for you guys but really simple when you think about it just keep painting it's all I ever do it's all I think to myself now I just keep going it'll work itself out if I'm having a hard day or having a really hard time in a painting just keep working on it it'll it'll come together eventually if I work long enough on it that's kind of what I've found so that's that's looking pretty good you know I in general a lot of these clouds up through here a pretty rough-looking you know especially this area a lot of just kind of random stuff together when you stand back far away it looks good you know but it's really kind of sloppy that is the stuff that that takes a ton of time and I you know I might that's the kind of thing that I'll speed up the cameras for because it's just so hard to to do it in front of the cameras takes a lot of time to edit but all it really is is me going back and doing the exact same process so everything I've done up until this point I will literally repeat over and over and over again until this starts to look more smooth this is the nature so that's where oils really have an advantage over acrylics you can do something like this with oils much quicker like if I would go in with oils and try to smooth out that area it wouldn't take terribly long not nearly as long as it would with acrylics and that's kind of gets to the that kind of gets to the topic of why I switched oils because at some point I can actually finish the painting more quickly by switching to oil paints and so you know I will cuz that's kind of that's just what I enjoy at some point it becomes more difficult with acrylics and when it becomes more difficult and you know maybe I won't enjoy it as much and if I'm not enjoying it you know how am I gonna do a good painting so at the end of the day it's really what it comes down to am i enjoying what I'm doing and if not would I have a better time switching to oils if that answer is yes then you know I switch to oils and that's kind of why so yeah I don't know some other food for thought for you guys for floating just some white and yellow taking some of that color reshaping some of those highlights so I'll go back and reshape a lot of things a lot of times but that's looking it's looking pretty good at this point I think that I think I could probably get away with some darker blues in the center maybe even more violet so I'm just trying to figure it out right now this is the part the tedious part talking about just going back and forth playing with different things more magenta and water I'll really end up spending a lot of time just right through this area trying to sharpen up these clouds it's confusing these little textures through here they get super confusing you can start to see as I as I break that up how it it starts to look better as a whole you know maybe it's still a little bit sloppy on a micro scale but as a whole things start to to take on a better form little blue mixed into this little more magenta some brighter pinks break up this cloud up here just a tad yeah as a whole it's looking good still just a lot of things in particular that I start to get a little fussy about a couple areas of blue I could kind of reintroduce darken this up take some orange white and yellow a little bit of magenta I'm gonna have some of these air these little highlights of clouds back here I'm gonna have them be brighter so introduce a little of that right now a little more white and magenta carefully adding them I don't want to add too much a little white and orange even white and yellow still a little bit bugged out by some of these clouds here a little bit of black so I'm trying to mix kind of a darker color so I've got a lot of different colors going at once down here and I'm gonna keep using them as I go through this whole area so kind of mixing a lot at once right now I think that I could probably bring in some of these some of this highlight area show you in a second some of this highlight area I think I could just pull it in pull it in this way just like that pick up some of the yellow and orange add some of that pick up some of that deep red orange use it to blend in that back edge mix some gray kind of blend that all together it's not bad so everything's starting to look pretty good for the most part and I think I'm ready to move to area around the Sun clean ups few of these clouds up here just real quick okay looking looking decent there take a quick break and come back we'll wrap up the low area down here okay we're back let's make this last one count now as always when I step back I get to kind of peer out a little bit and I always start to make some different opinions and one of them was I think I could get rid of just some of this right through here just pull this pull this down a little bit and take some blue some magenta make a little violet add some black a little bit of yellow I think parts of this area through here could be lightened up slightly and over to the left over here I think that I can darken that down even more so I'm gonna take some blue and white over here add a touch of yellow add a touch of black okay so apply some of that on it's going on there about the same color but it should because it's acrylics dry a bit darker take a little magenta a little bit of that same blue I'm gonna take some white orange and pink add a couple clouds floating through here and I'm going to mix some of that darker brown color again add that to some of those clouds okay now I think I'm getting there ready to work around the Sun I'm gonna get some medium I'll get some white add a little medium into that white and I'm going to start by brightening up our spot where the Sun is actually going to exist take a little bit of yellow add it in taking out a liner brush right now well a round brush so I'm going to start to add some finer details down low I'm going to take a lot of orange and yellow mix it in probably more yellow and white some orange there I guess and just start breaking up a lot of these areas through here with some finer lines those finer lines are gonna just add some more realism take some more orange and magenta a little bit of white and there's going to be some broken up areas all the way back here but not quite as bright as around that Sun so I'm not worried about the specifics of what these areas look like I want the overall pattern to be right I want it the general idea to be right a little white but the specifics of these areas can be just kind of made up as you go but you can see how that starts to really add add some life to these clouds does much so then as we move further away from the Sun we're gonna get more of that light pink like I was saying before little darker and I think at this point you know I could keep going for as long as I feel like and things in general as I add more detail could start to look a little more realistic slightly better just depends how much I really want to pull out of it you know it's all about keeping yourself happy while you're painting so a lot of times I think many people could just quit right now and be totally satisfied I don't think there's anything wrong with that a little magenta and yellow make more of like an orange use some of that medium keep that paint flowing some fine details here and there no real wrong way to go about it at this point adding some random just trying to mix it up I guess not necessarily random but just making them a little more complex adding some cloud shadows here and there and then as I get real close to that that Sun area what I could do is make it a lot more orange kind of brighter see how brighter that is that's not cadmium orange you know it's just hard to replicate it's hard to mix so I'm gonna go kind of overboard further out it's gonna start to give on that greenish appearance like I was saying sometimes it does but then I can just add some red take some yellow and that yellow is going to transition it to the white a little bit more nicely you can see if I can still find some white hair running low on white add some medium again I think at this point it's hard to just keep beating it and beating it with the acrylics it's hard to get better than this with acrylics at this point oils are really going to be suitable too if you want to take something like this to the next step the next level this is about all the acrylics keno can really do for you little white and magenta gonna create some of that muted pink again a little bit of orange and hopefully transition this orange okay so I might just kind of keep going on this I might work some of the the upper area a little bit more clean up some of this area down through here but in general you know that's that's how I go about painting a sky like this I think the the important thing to understand here is that you know I don't know how long we spent down this couple hours a two hour painting is always gonna look like a two-hour painting you know I don't think you can really do much better in that amount of time it's really hard to I mean I guess it comes down to just speed if you could just paint faster I guess but you know so many brush strokes are gonna give you you know only such a result and you know I think if you were at this point I would be very happy with this if you could get your painting to look close to this I'm gonna keep on working through a little bit of the foreground very simple stuff included at the end here but I think that's just about it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so I worked a little bit more on the sky kind of brightened up some of those Pink's some of the Reds through here and then also I wanted to soften up some of those clouds so I spent a little time just softening up some of this area up here and then I moved down to the area around the Sun one more time and maybe just lift it up some of those yellows and oranges just brightened up the area around the Sun and then finish by just sort of roughing in a little bit of a landscape now I'm gonna keep working on this painting and I'm probably gonna spend a lot more time on it really take it to a place where you know it feels like you're actually there and I'll probably add some sort of subject matter in the foreground some trees I don't know I've got a few ideas but just kind of see how where it goes and how that goes but I want to take this opportunities to sort of challenge you you know if you've been following along and you've got it to a place where you know maybe you're almost right here or you know you feel pretty good about it wherever you're at I'd love to take this opportunities to extend the challenge to you and and you know really encourage you to come with something on your own you know whether it be some buildings in the foreground or some wildlife maybe just some trees silhouetted against that that Sun I you know I think that's where we learn the most and it is just experimenting not really knowing what's gonna happen but just going for it anyway so I want to encourage you in this video to you know if you've got it to this point I you know I think you should really be proud of yourself or if you've got it anywhere close to this you should be more than proud more than happy with this painting and and just how I'm gonna kind of continue on with my own thing I'd love to see what you guys could come up with and you know see what you could could do yourself so I'm challenging you today let me know how it goes take me on instagram send me an email I always love seeing what you guys come up with and I think that's just about it I hope you guys enjoyed remember to check out my free print giveaway like and subscribe if you love this video and I will see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Chuck Black Art

Views: 1,210,651

Keywords: how to paint a sunset, how to paint a sky, how to paint clouds, painting skies, painting clouds, realistic painting, sunset painting, cloud tutorial, sunset tutorial, sky tutorial, step by step, painting, acrylic painting, learn to paint, acrylic painting for beginners, real time painting, how to blend acrylics, how to layer, how to paint light, full tutorial, painting realism, landscape painting

Id: FVt9GEPCIII

Length: 136min 24sec (8184 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019