How to Paint a Fantasy Landscape in Acrylic

Hi everybody, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, I'm Joni Young, and I'm going to be showing you step-by-step in acrylics how to paint this fantasy scene today. We're going to be working on a 16 by 20 canvas that's been primed once with acrylic gesso. Once you let that dry, you can go over the canvas and wet it just a little bit to prep the canvas even more so that it takes the paint a lot easier. Today I'm using a large filbert brush for blending and creating all those background brush strokes. You can use any large brush that you feel comfortable with if you don't have this one. I'm going to be using a few neon colors today. I'll list everything below in the description. I'm starting off with neon yellow warm and some neon pink. I'm just going to have fun with the background here, creating lots of swirls and kind of just blending around but not making anything one color. I want to have different tones going on in the sky, so I'll just have fun with that here and have some parts that are going to be a little bit more pink and some that are going to be a little bit warmer yellow and a pale orange. Now I'm going to take both of those colors and just pull them across the bottom back and forth a few times and then I'm going to go into my next color. All right, I've got a couple of blues, phthalo and I've also got light blue permanent. That's the one I've chosen to work with first here. I'm layering over partially on that pink. I'm going to come in from the top corner of the left side and just sort of feather crisscross and pull and sweep and kind of swoop little circles here and there to start building up some more movement and texture and blending to make different colors in the sky. I'll do the same thing around the other side and along the bottom. I'll use that blue and just slide back and forth. Then I'll be coming in after with my phthalo blue and making those areas that I want to be a little bit darker and stand out more just by mixing a little bit of that phthalo blue in there. And if you want it to be really dark, make sure you use more paint and no water at all. I've got a little filbert brush here now just changing up the size so that I have a little bit more control with my phthalo blue and any leftover pink and orange, neon orange or neon yellow warm. I'm going to mix those colors right down here, create sort of a horizon line and then blend it out a little bit. I'll add a little bit up top on the left side. Again, just creating really loose brush strokes. Now I've got a really big blending kind of stipple mop brush. This is one of my new brushes that I am trying out from Amazon and I'm going to use this with a bit of white, no water and just start sweeping around, blending some colors together, some of that paint together to make it look a little bit softer. After adding the white, I'm going to go in and pick up more neon pink, a little bit of white and do the same thing. Circles clockwise, counterclockwise to change it up, traveling around with my brush, not taking it off of the canvas, just bringing it all around. And I really want to make sure that I leave the very center of that yellow area the brightest. That's going to be our source of light where our sun is shining from and we're going to create all the beautiful sunbeams right from there. So I'm not going to go over completely with any of the colors I'm using today. I will be adding a little bit of clouds over part of it, but I don't want to completely cover that up. So make sure you have a little bit of that light, warm yellow showing at all times. So combined with pink, white and blue, I'll be creating some really light violet-y, smoky purple, plum tones that are going to be really pretty in this painting. And you can use any blending brush that you want. If you don't have a large one like this, that's fine. If you have any mop brush or even just a filbert brush, that'll work as well. So I'm going to take that phthalo white and pink and start making darker, sort of a purple color up here. Always layering over what I've got underneath to create more colors. And this is how you can build up that depth in the sky. I'm going to do the same thing down here below on the horizon and then pull and blend across back and forth. It's a little flat brush now. You can use a flat or a filbert. I'm just going to take a little bit of titanium white, a little tiny bit of water on my brush and start adding my sun, making it nice and bright right here. And then from that point, I can make some sun rays and little peaks, soft peaks that have really nice, bright, soft highlight and glow to them just by going around and creating little bubbles, little half circles. You can use a little filbert brush like this, a little flat brush, a round brush or a liner brush. So I'm going to go around and add a few more peaks of highlights and some clouds that stand out a little bit more. And then I'll add some highlights down below where that would be reflecting if this was water down below. So at this point, I'm painting intuitively. I don't have anything in mind of what the finished piece is going to be. I'm just having fun creating as I go along. So at this moment, I wanted to make sure in case it ended up being water that I incorporated all those colors above and reflect them down below. So now with my light neon yellow warm phthalo blue, I can make a beautiful green color. This is almost like a phthalo green, just a little bit warmer, on the warmer side from that yellow, but it's a really pretty color. So I'll apply a few lines there first, and then I'm going to tint with a little bit of white and soften. And now I'm going to come in with just straight phthalo blue and add a little bit of this over top and along the edge. So we have different tones going on. It's not all one color. We've got a bit of that green that we made, and then some darker shadows by adding and applying that phthalo blue. I've got a mop brush here now. This is one of my round makeup mop brushes. I squeezed out a little bit of my lilac paint and acrylic basics. I've got my light permanent blue and some white, and I'm going to come in and really lightly create little circles and dust around, adding another layer of a pretty pastel color over all these other ones. This is just really going to enhance the sky even more. So I'm going carefully over top of some of that yellow, but I'm doing it carefully not to cover it all up. So I can kind of just push and twist my brush to also make some really neat cloud shapes. So you can use the mop brush in a few different ways. You could also use a smaller one. These don't have numbers on them, but you can see it's a pretty good size. If you want to feel like you have a little bit more control, have a smaller little mop brush to use, or just use a little filbert brush. I'm going to add a little bit more of the blue down below, along with that lilac color, but you can change it up and add a little bit more of the purple, excuse me, or a little bit more blue at any time, and even add a little bit of white. Remember, all of these colors are very soft and pretty, and whether you use a little bit more or a little bit less, it's going to look nice no matter what. I'm going to highlight and soften some areas with my filbert brush and a little bit of white paint now. Okay, so I'm ready to start coming in with my first layers of sun rays. I'm choosing a large filbert brush for this, and you can use a flat brush or really any size filbert brush or flat brush that you want. Those are the two that I would recommend. It's going to be a lot harder with a round brush or a fan brush or any other brush, so try to stick with a filbert or flat. So I'm starting from the center where it's the brightest with a bit of water, but mostly paint ratio, and I'm going to pull and flick out in all directions you can do a few of these. You don't have to do all of them. It's completely up to you, and it's very personal how many sun rays you like in a painting. So I just want this painting to feel very warm and welcoming and happy and kind of joyful, so that's why I want to have more sun rays. So I want them going all around and make it look like one big star. Okay, now I'm going to go into my phthalo and my purple again. I'm going to blend those two together and then push and get a good amount on the tip of my brush, and I'm just going to start pushing and tapping, making little half circle shapes, little bubble shapes here, and then I'm going to wash my brush out and go into some neon orange. Remember, I'll have a full list of colors and brushes below in the description of this video. Just click the bottom of the video, above the comment section, and that should pop up for you. I'm going to add a few more sun rays, and then like I said, go right into some neon orange and start adding a little bit more color, working up the set or building up the saturation in the sky. So just a little bit of that neon orange and a little bit of water. My brush will make it really, really easy to just pull and blend that out. Right after adding some more sun rays, I'm going to squeeze out a little bit of black paint, clean brush, phthalo blue, neon orange, a little bit of purple, and a little bit of black. So I want a really dark base that's not just straight black. That's why I'm using all those other colors along with a little tint of or touch of black. We're going to do a simple, really large oval. You can make yours smaller or bigger if you like. It doesn't have to be perfect. Mine's a little lopsided. I'm going to adjust that a bit, but even lopsided, it's still going to look magical, dreamy-like, and just a beautiful overall fantasy type of landscape. So don't worry too much and spend too much time on trying to make the shape perfect, guys. It won't matter, especially when we're going to be coming around with all the foliage and branches and everything else. So I'm just going to smooth this out a little bit more, get the shape that I want, and that I'm overall happy with, and then we'll come in with the next step. I'm using my large filbert brush for this. I would recommend using a filbert brush because it's got the straight ends to it when you need it, but it's got that nice rounded end that will make it easier for painting round shapes. After making my shape a little bit thicker now, I'm going to come in and scumble out the remainder of the paint out of my brush and just sort of push and smush off the outer edge of that oval shape into the background. This is going to build up a nice dark base for the foliage, and if your paint is dry already and you're not able to blend that out of your oval shape, then you're just going to have to get your brush a bit wet and go in for more paint, and you can still achieve the same effect by doing that. I'm going to add a little bit to either side, the left and the right below. I'm going to leave it brighter and brightest in the center, and then later on we will be coming in with our waterfall, of course, and I'm going to come in right now and brighten up the inside here. I wanted this to feel a little bit 3D, and this is a great way to do that by adding a thick highlight here. You can make your highlight tinted, your white tinted with one of those neon colors if you want, or even the blue, as long as it's lighter than the dark blue oval shape itself, and it stands out, then you'll have a nice highlight and shadow and a 3D effect. I've now got my oval mop brush, it's one inch, and I'm going to make a green gold by taking some black and some cadmium yellow. So you can see there I just wanted to kind of show you an example of how you can make it really quick and easy using cadmium yellow cool and a little bit of black. So if you don't have green gold, or you guys are always asking me about that green gold and where to get it, what it's called, you can make it really easily by mixing these colors together. And this is an awesome, awesome brush to use for creating foliage. It's a really nice shape, but you could also use just a round mop brush, any mop brush will work. I love my ovals though for creating the treetops here. The oval shape is nicer and I have a little bit more control. So with those two colors, I'm going to start the first base of all the foliage. I'm going to go around the oval, not making it completely solid, and I'm going to add a little bit for some trees there. For some highlights now, I'm going to not wash my brush off, but I'm going to go right into that cadmium yellow cool and take a little bit of white, blend the two together, and then tap slightly on the foliage. You could start maybe halfway, leaving the underneath darkest color exposed, and then adding it halfway over top and above. So you've got that highlight, the mid-tone, and then that darker original first base of color. I'm going to do this all over and just build up more and more foliage the exact same way using the same colors. This time on the bottom left, I want to change the tone up a little bit and make this darker, deeper, and richer by making a color with phthalo blue, the green gold, and a little bit of black. Not much black because it's very strong and dominant. You don't need a lot of it, especially if you're incorporating some of that phthalo blue. So then I'm going to go around the edge, mainly adding it down to the on the bottom left, and then I'm going to go again with a little bit more of a phthalo blue this time and add a bit of that up on the top left. I'm going to go back into my cadmium yellow, blue, a little bit of black, almost the same color. This time it's a little bit more on the green side, and I'm going to be brave and just come right in here, right over top of that oval, and build up some branches and some foliage. We'll come in later with our tree trunks and our branches. Now I can add some highlights again with my cadmium yellow cool and a little bit of white. I get so excited and it really starts to feel like it's taking on a life of its own and just really starting to pop off the canvas and invite us in. The next thing I'm going to do is switch over to a liner brush. This one happens to be a one inch. I've got burnt sienna, a little bit of black, and my phthalo blue again. I'm going to roll and blend, roll my brush, twist it around to blend all those colors up, get my brush nice and loaded up. No water, just paint. If it's not blending out easily onto the canvas or not flowing well, then you might want to use a little bit more water or some water if you haven't used any. It depends on what kind of paint you're using and the temperature in the room that you're painting in. It all plays a key and a factor in being able to spread that paint around. So what I want to do is you can see with my fingers how I'm holding the brush. I'm twisting around to make it have a lot of character, to give those branches all that character and make them look old. Then I kind of just make them look really crooked by twisting and pulling around with my brush. And then where you want it to be a little bit thicker, you're going to push harder and apply a little bit more pressure onto the canvas with your brush. When you want to have smaller baby little branches, you're going to let off on that pressure and just use the very tip of your brush. And that's when you might need to think about adding a little bit more water on your brush to help that paint flow. So continue around adding more branches and little tree trunks wherever I want. So whenever I want to add a bit of a highlight to these trees, I'm going to use straight burnt sienna. That's going to give it a really nice warm reddish rich highlight to it without having to use any white. And then I'm going to pick up some cadmium yellow, a little bit of white with my little liner brush here, and just make all these little neat scoops for a cool looking pattern and a different type of texture on some of the foliage and bushes down there. Back over to an oval mop brush, a one inch again, I'm going to come in and do my next layer of foliage and highlights. I'm using the same colors for my highlights, my yellow, a little bit of white, a little bit of black maybe. You just want that nice green gold color. You just want to make sure that it stands out from the color and layers of paint underneath. And you can add as much as you want or a little bit less than what I've added here. Remember, if you want it to be a little bit brighter, then just add a tiny bit more white paint. Okay, so after adding a lot more highlights all around and some more bushes, I'm really starting to get a feel for this. And I'm deciding now that I want to add some turquoise along with my blue. And I think I'm going to add some waterfalls. So I'm going to take some turquoise with my phthalo blue, mix the two together using my large filbert brush. And I'm going to start right underneath this foliage bush area here. And then from the other side as well. I don't want to make it solid. I want to have a little bit of that pinky background sky just showing through there a little bit because I think it's really pretty. And then I'm going to add a little bit down below for a little pond or a little lake. I'm going to take off just a little bit right here and make that blend in a little bit better and kind of disappear. So just coming over with a damp brush, gently wiping that off and then wiping the excess off on a towel as I do this. I'm going to blend that out softly and then we're going to come in with just turquoise. I'm going to lightly go over top, make it look really creamy and beautiful. I love all these colors together. I tend to use all these same colors in a lot of my paintings. I'm just really drawn to pretty colors and jewel tones and pastels. So now I'm taking a bit of turquoise, cadmium yellow cool and a little bit of white and I'm going to start adding the highlights and ultimately the little waterfalls. I've got a flat brush that I'm using for this. You could use a filbert brush. I find that my waterfalls look a little bit better and I have a bit more control over them when I use a flat brush. So see how when you do the waterfalls, you don't push too hard. Otherwise, you're going to make it really solid and it won't look like a see-through. It really won't look like a waterfall. You want to be able to see a little bit of the underneath color through there so it looks 3D. I'm sorry if you guys are hearing that noise. I don't know if you can hear this, but just all of a sudden we've got a hailstorm and I don't want to stop this now because I'm kind of on a roll with this voiceover and I want to keep going. So I hope that you guys can't hear that and it's not distracting you. With a clean brush and more neon yellow warm, I'm going to come in and do a layer over top of just around that sun. Saturate this, filter over part of the pink, but I don't want to cover it all up because I really like that pink. Just want to add a little bit of it. Now right away with titanium white and my flat brush, I'm going to add my next layers of sun rays. So pulling and flicking in all directions from the center point out and your sun rays will get a little bit and should get a little bit wider as they get further out. You want them to be pointy from the center and then wider. So I'm going to have one or two that come out towards the foreground here just to change it up and make it look a little bit more dramatic. Change that perspective up a bit. It's time to come in with my second layer for my highlights on my waterfalls. Again, very thin layer. I want to have some white or tinted white. It's up to you on the tip of your brush. You want a little skinny thin line of it and then just go over again and then pull and flick out little lines right underneath the waterfall where it would be a little bit lighter and kind of fuzzy looking. You could add a little bit of a spray if you want. Depends on how much movement you want and what type of waterfall feeling that you want. I want mine to feel a little bit more calm so I'm not going to create a big spray effect and I'm going to build up this area with my sun rays a little bit more and for the rest of the video I'll be adding a little bit more to my sun rays. I'll add a few more branches. When I do this I'm going to be going back to my liner brush and you could also use a round brush. I don't know if I mentioned that but I like to give you guys options because I know all of you watching are not all at the same level and you don't all have the same supplies and if you don't have a specific brush that I happen to be using you might feel a bit lost and like you can't attempt this painting. So what I like to do is remind you guys that you can use basically use whatever you have and try your best to make it work. I never had a lot of brushes or supplies years ago when I first started painting. I just used whatever I could find and I think it made me try harder and develop my skills better because I had to work harder to get better at my technique. So it really doesn't hurt to use a brush that you wouldn't normally or that I'm not using. Just the bottom line is just don't let it stop you. Don't let it prevent you and try your best and just keep going guys and have fun. Try to have fun. So I've got another mop brush here and I'm going to add some more foliage now. A little bit more highlights. I want to add a little bit along the very top here because it just feels like it's missing something and I want it to kind of all come together. So green, gold, yellow, black. Tap, tap, tap to load those colors up. I want to remind you and mention that I'm not getting my mop brush wet beforehand. A lot of the times I will get a brush wet but never nine times out of ten mop brushes and oval mop brushes are dry right into the paint. Because when you get them wet it ruins the shape right away and the whole point of these mop brushes is the shape of them right. They're great for creating that round poofy bush and foliage shape. So if you get it wet it just shrinks up and it's you're not going to be able to do much of anything with it you're just going to be really frustrated. I'm going to add some more shadows for contrast down here at the bottom. You can use a bit of black, phthalo blue, any dark color that you want for that. Now I'm going to add some more highlights and sun rays with a filbert brush, neon yellow warm and some white. And I'm just going to tap along the very top of these bushes to make them look like they're even further away in the distance. This is going to really help us create that perspective and that feeling of near and far. Soften everything in the distance. And a quick way to do that is just by taking a little bit of white and if you want to create that warmth and fighting feeling to your landscapes then tint your white with a warm yellow orange pink. Now back to my liner brush, phthalo blue, burnt sienna. I'm going to twist and roll to load my brush up like I did earlier and continue along with my tree trunks and some little branches here and there. Just to finish this painting up and bring this all together. I hope you guys enjoy watching the rest of this video. If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear them. Leave them down below this video. Don't forget to give it a like if you enjoyed it and of course subscribe for more. Thanks everybody. Happy painting and I'll see you all soon in my next video. Bye.