For this watercolour painting, you’ll be creating a sunset over the water with some silhouettes in the distance. There are two versions of this lesson— one that’s a great introduction to painting and one that’s a little more advanced. This is the advanced version — check out for the beginner version here.
You’ll need a few more art supplies for this expansion on landscape painting. Watch the video or read below for a step-by-step guide on how to create your own watercolour painting.
Step One: Gather Materials
You’ll need to gather the following materials before you start painting:
- Pencil for sketching
- Particleboard
- Red, yellow, blue, white, and black paint (multiple shades of each primary colour)
- Paintbrushes
- Paint mixing tray
- Tupperware full of water
- Paper towels
- Book of watercolour paper
- Garbage bag or an old bedsheet or tablecloth
- Masking Tape
Step Two: Set Up Workstation
You’ll want to make sure you get your painting station completely set up before you start. You’ll be working continuously once you get started so you can finish your painting before the paint dries.
Cover the table or countertop you’ll be working on with the garbage bag, tablecloth, or bedsheet to protect it from paint. Place two pieces of paper towel nearby, stacked on top of one another, and put your container of water near the paper towels.
Step Three: Sketch
Remove a piece of watercolour paper from your book and tear away the perforated edges. Use your pencil to sketch a horizon line and a silhouette of some objects in the distance — for example, some trees or a shack. Tape your piece of paper down to a piece of particleboard and get ready to paint!
Step Four: Sunset
Squirt some small pools of red, yellow, and blue paint onto your mixing tray. Try using a few different shades of each of these colours! Add some white and black paint to the tray as well.
Wet a large brush and mix together some different shades of red and yellow to make a shade of orange you like for the sunset. Dip your brush in water and paint the top half of your page orange.
Add accents of yellow and red to your sky. You can experiment with different brush techniques like dabbing for texture or using different brush shapes and sizes.
Step Five: Water
Clean your brush and freshen up your water. Put some different shades of blue on your brush, mix them together with some white, and dip your brush in water.
Paint the bottom half of the page with blue. Add some accents of light blue, dark blue, and white to your water. You can experiment with different brush techniques like dabbing for texture. You can also use smaller brushes to add some extra details.
Step Six: Silhouette
Get a small, thin brush and dip it in black paint. Paint lightly over your sketched pencil lines with black.
When you’re finished painting, be sure to clean and dry your brushes right away so that the paint doesn’t dry and stick to them. Clear away the rest of your materials.
Your landscape painting is now complete. Don’t forget to take a picture and share it on social media with #DAREtogether and tag DAREarts so we can see what you’ve created!
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