Painting a Florida Sunset

On a trip to Florida, I took lots of photos.  Part of the delight of travel is thumbing back through your photos and remembering the fun you had.  You can deepen your travel experiences by painting some of your favorite scenes.

This is the sunrise that inspired my painting.

One way to approach something as complex as this sunset scene is to create an artwork inspired by the photo rather than a photorealistic copy.

I started with an Arches cold press watercolor block, and wet the surface with a mop brush dunked in clear water. 

I loaded my brush with a mixture of  French Ultramarine Blue mixed & Phthalo Blue, and touched it to the wet paper, letting the paints bloom and spread.  This technique is called wet in wet.

I quickly added in Permanent Blue Violet with the blues. Then Permanent Rose.  I touched in Cadmium Yellow mixed with Cadmium Red to create the orange clouds, and Cadmium Yellow for the bright yellow areas near the horizon.  

I used Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre at the bottom of the scene, where the ocean clouds were.

Then I left the first layer to dry completely.

I worked in more layers of French Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue and Permanent Blue Violet up towards the top of the sky, trying to create areas of shadowed clouds behind the brighter, rosier clouds. 

I carefully softened the edges of most of the clouds, preventing the hard lines that come when the paint dries without feathering.

I used Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons to pop a little more contrast into some of the clouds. 

 When you're painting with color compliments right next to each other like the purple and yellow here, you have to be very careful not to let the two colors mix.  They contrast beautifully next to each other, but when they mix together, they create muddy brown.

Neocolor II crayons are opaque, and they move and blend when you touch them with a wet brush.  They gave me more control, and were ideal for my project.

I continued adding more details, more layers, and richer colors,

working my way down to the dark clouds sitting on the ocean (at the bottom of the scene)

A few more details, a few more marks with the Neocolor II watercolor crayons, and it was ready to be signed and dated.

I decided to leave out surface level details like the palm trees.  I wanted the focus to be on the sky itself.

Remember, you are the artist.  You get to pick what you want to paint and how you want to portray it!

I hope you'll look through your photos and find something that calls out to you to be painted or sketched.  

Happy creating!

Copyright Betsy Bangley 2024.  All rights reserved.