Calm Summer Sunset

Steps I Take.

Below are the steps I take in painting a sunset.🌞
This painting's full process can be found in the 'Sunset at the Beach' course, and the painting is available in my 'daily' shop.

There is never a similar sunset, nor is there a fixed approach, color range, or palette, but there are ways to make painting the sunset a bit easier. It's mostly about getting everything onto the canvas to make a believable light situation in the limited time you have.

To get a painting done in the limited time a sun goes down and sets, it's important that you

-go from simple to complicated Avoiding getting carried away with details in the beginning! (This is where most of my students struggled, so this is a way of focussing that you MUST change to get more out of the moment.) How:

-get big shapes in as fast as possible covering the canvas, And Why: so you can test all relational values

-so you have still time to change the bigger 'blocks' into the right color, color transition and values.

-then, the sun itself, making it the priority of the painting, can you add to it, or create a 'halo' effect,

-adding reflections, fine-tuning the horizon: should it be higher or lower, and define the ocean, does it need more details and lastly,

-sand, often the hardest to create the right value for, adding texture, or color transitions

-and extra details are last, not to get carried away by 'adding adding adding' keep to see the total and only add or take away what the painting 'needs'.

Take steps away, take breaks, take the mirror to keep to be 'analytical' enough in this intuitive process. So you can go home with a painting that is finished on the spot. (Because indoors we will make mistakes more easily, it's better to finish there).

78. SSU10-2023 Seascape Calm Summer Sunset
20x25 cm | 8x10" - Oils/Panel | Roos Schuring 2023
These affordable smaller paintings are placed in my small paintings shop here