THREE THINGS TO TRY WITH SUNSETS

SUNRISE, SUNSET

They should be simple, right? 

But then, someone goes and puts clouds into the mix. And maybe some body of water.

I want to talk about three things that might make it simpler. But first, I'm going to show Sterling Edwards method of painting a sunset. Below is a link to his 13 minute video on painting sunsets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8IhOoYNsE4

The main idea is that, when painting a sunset, you need a "buffer zone" to keep the blues and yellows or oranges from creating greens or muddy colors. He makes "puddles" of his colors: yellow, orange, red, violet, and blue. With clean water he wets the paper. Then, starting with the yellow at the horizon line, he paints a strip of yellow. Just above that, a strip of orange, and lets the two colors merge a bit. Then comes the buffer color: red. He paints that red in, then violet, then blue over the violet. All the colors merge, like a sunset, but they don't become muddy. 

Here are a few other things you can do. If you have clouds in the picture that take on a dark cast, you can underpaint those clouds with a bit of neutral tint, davy's gray, or violet. Let them dry.

Then you can paint over that with yellows and oranges to make a very orange sky with darker clouds, like the picture on the top left here. The sun in that picture is pulled out while the paint is wet, using a thirsty round brush. 

On the picture on the right, I first used Gum Arabic to temporarily mask out the sun and some clouds. Gum Arabic can be purchased at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or art supply stores. It is the binder in most traditional watercolor paints, so it is water soluble. You simply paint it on where you want a white, using a regular brush, dry completely, then paint over it. When the painting is dry, you go over that area with a wet brush, and the gum Arabic lifts off, leaving a soft edged white area.

The bottom sunset uses permanent masking fluid to mask out the sun. Use an old brush to apply it. Dry completely, Then paint in your sunset. You do not remove this masking fluid. It leaves a softer shape than regular masking fluid that you remove.

Below I wanted to show how to create a sunset just before it gets really dark outside.

I started with a regular Sterling Edwards method, lifting out the sun with a thirsty brush. To  create clouds, I dropped clean water into paint that was not quite dry, but not shiny wet. It creates some backruns. Then I let it dry.

After drying, I introduced some indanthrene to darken the sky. 

I added a little red and yellow in the reflection and dried it. Then I added some indanthrene in the water. Darkened the horizon line and added some "buildings." The main object was to create a clean underglow of reds and yellows, but make the sky look dark.