Sunset Painting – Bull’s Eye

Here is an explanation on how to paint a sunset in watercolor with little or no drawing.  To sketch this, it only took five lines; the tops of the ridges and the two lines at the base of the hills.  Easy.

You will need to stretch the paper onto gator board or use a watercolor block.  If using a watercolor block, be careful not to touch the edges of the paper with your fingertips when manipulating the watercolor. 

Wet the entire sheet of watercolor paper until it is pretty well soaked with puddles starting to form.  If you live in a humid climate, this will stay wet for quite some time, but in Alaska, the paper dries out quickly.  Needless to say, laying down the paint has to be done quickly as well.

I chose three colors to apply:  New Gamboge, Quinocridone Rose or Permanent Rose and Cobalt Blue were each blended into puddles about the consistency of milk on the palette.  First, apply the yellow in a circular area just right of the center.  Clean off your brush, and apply the rose into a circular area somewhat larger than the yellow, covering part of the yellow, but being careful not to cover all the yellow in the focal point.  After cleaning your brush again, apply the blue over some of the rose and into the edges of the paper.  Be sure to apply enough paint….don’t be bashful!  Watercolors always dry lighter in color than while wet. 

This step is very important!  You should have a lot of paint on the paper, and it will need to be moving around on the surface for the blending process.  If the paint is not moving, squirt water onto the paper to liquefy the paint.  Take the board or block and start to tilt the board up, down, sideways to watch the paint flow together.  Still try to keep the bright yellow area untouched by the other colors.  A squirt of water into the area will push the unwanted color away.  Continue this process until you notice the paint starting to seep into the paper and there are no longer any puddles moving around.  This will take several minutes.  If you run off some of the paint during this process, the painting will become light in color and will lose the vibrancy.  Let the paint dry until the sheen starts to disappear.

The background hill was painted on while the paint was still cool to the touch, and was painted with some rose mixed with blue and applied very thinly.  The second hill and foreground trees were painted with a somewhat thicker mixture.  To get the appearance of low bushes on the middle hill, a wetter brush was applied to the waters edge, pushing the color up from the shoreline. 

Let the painting dry, sign it and you are finished. 

You may want to do several of these backgrounds for future use.  If you need a quick painting for a gift, the painting is more than half finished.  Have fun with this!