Painting a Floating Fantasy World | Step-by-Step Acrylic Tutorial

Hi everyone, I'm Joni Young. Welcome to my channel. Today I'm going to be showing you step by step how to paint a fantasy landscape and I'll go through all the colors, the brushes, and the canvas as well as link everything below and have a full list. I'm using Phthalo Blue, Neon Pink, Lamp Black. I'll also be using some Hooker's Green and the final two colors I'll be using are Bright Aqua Green. I'll just be referring to it as Turquoise and then I've also got some Titanium White. I want to remind you guys that you can use any colors you like, any brands, same with brushes and paints. I'm running a little low on my Titanium White so going over to my Liquitex Basics here. But other than the white and the Bright Aqua Green, the colors I'm using are from my set of paints here and I'll also be using my brushes as well. So like I said, I'll have that linked below where you can check those out if you like. And those brushes are a one inch mop brush, a one inch flat brush, three quarter inch filbert, three round, and a two rigger. I have the little cap on here to remind you to use it. It's important when your brushes come with these caps or lids that you use them because it will keep your brush lasting a lot longer and it keeps these long liner brushes nice and straight, prevents them from bending. All right, we're gonna jump in and get started. I'm gonna use a spray bottle to just dampen my canvas. This really helps with the blending process. I'm just gonna spread that water evenly over the canvas, get any bare spots. Okay, the first color I'm gonna take is yellow and I'm gonna add it in the middle here. I'm gonna wash my brush out and come right in with the next color and that's going to be pink. And I'm gonna be adding that kind of in an arch shape right here. Maybe a little bit more generous. I'll add a little bit down here as well and a little bit here. I'm adding the pink obviously where I want there to be pink, but I'm also adding it by the yellow because I'm going to blend those two together to make a soft peachy orange shade. And then up here I'm going to be going over with a little bit of blue. So I'll take that blue right now. I'm going to add that on the top, a little bit down here, some down here as well. So kind of this every corner, all four corners of the canvas. Now I'm going to take a mop brush and I'm going to start with that yellow and pink. Soften, soften, soften. I go around in little circles. Okay and then I'm going to move up here. You want this brush to be dry when you apply this step of the blending. The only moisture you need is the wet paint and the canvas is a little damp as well. Now it gives you this really soft dreamy effect. I'm going to come around the side here. I'm going to add just a little bit more blue here. Start to deepen and darken some of these spots. A little bit of pink. I'm adding little gentle scoops like this now. Stick with these little circles. A light little pull and then back to the scoops here. And this is just going to start to give us those cloud formations. I'm going to take my filbert brush now and I'm going to add a little bit of white and a little bit of yellow. We've got some white and yellow. No water in this brush at all. You want that in that crescent moon shape on that tip of your brush. And I'm just going to start coming in with these half circle shapes. It's going to give us those pretty highlighted clouds. Just kind of dry brushing with the belly of the brush here. I'm going to come in with my flat brush and I'm going to take some of the turquoise and I'm going to start right here just below the middle mark of the canvas. About an inch or so below that. I'm going to add some white and I'm going to pull the two together and I'm going to pull over. They almost look like they could be stairs but this is going to be a flowing river going right down to the bottom. I'm going to take a little bit of blue with that turquoise and make it a little bit darker on this side. I'm going to take a little bit of yellow and turquoise, a little bit of white, this soft shade of green and lighter by adding a little bit more white and yellow to it. I'm going to take a little bit of turquoise in with a touch of white and I'm going to come down here. You can drop a little bit more white and then just wiggle around the base. Have it kind of just disappear up above. Take a little bit of blue, pull that up, a little bit more to the edge here and with a wet brush I'm going to blend this out and add these little half circles just pulling off of this wet paint here and then we're going to come up here with a little bit of blue and turquoise, little circles moving our way right up here, taking a little bit more blue just on the end and add a few little lines. Again they look like they could be steps, a little staircase. We'll come back to that once it dries. Right now I'm going to take a little bit of pink. I'm going to go around the edge here, blending those two together. It's going to give us another color, beautiful shade of purple. I'll use a little bit up here as well just to add to that blue, not to cover all of it up and then a little bit over here as well. Then let's take a little bit of white, mix that in with the pink. I used my filbert brush earlier for these scoops but as you can see a flat brush works just as well if you don't have a filbert brush. A little bit of sunset vibes going on here, little lines and little wiggles. Okay I'm going to take a little bit of white on the tip of my brush. Now there's a bit of turquoise in here, that's fine, that'll look pretty too. You just want to make sure that whatever you're adding right now is lighter than what you're going to be applying it to. So if this works I'm going to come over and add a little bit more of a drop in our waterfalls, a little bit more of that definition there. Okay so wherever we have a dark blue line we're going to add a little bit of white over that. You want the white paint to be on the tip of your brush. Okay let's go over to our filbert brush. I'm going to take some green and a little bit of black and come in here and tap in some land and some flowers, some bushes. I'm going to add a little bit in here as well. We're just kind of blocking in at this point so you don't have to be too too careful. Look at the moss that grows around the edge of the water between those waterfalls, some bushes, maybe there's going to be some flowers in there. Just kind of envision a beautiful place that you'd like to be. It doesn't have to be real, this is all about creating a fantasy world. And then maybe up here we'll have a little floating world. Let's just block that in. We'll just come in with a little shape like this, like a round blobby shape. Maybe we'll have another little one over here. We'll have some floating worlds and maybe another one up here. Maybe this one comes down a little lower. Now I'm going to turn my brush this way and wiggle down some lines like this. Maybe this is just kind of some roots from the bottom of these little lands. And then we can have a few lines going this way as well. We can do the same thing here. Okay, so the lines down are some roots. Maybe we'll add some waterfalls in there. And then the lines that go horizontal are a little pathways. I'll add just a little bit of something down here and then rinse out my brush. Okay, I'm going to take my mop brush, it's dry, and I'm going to go right into some yellow, some turquoise, and some green. And I'll mix those up right about here. And I'm going to add a little highlight, add a little bit of white. So we're just going to add some light to these areas. A few little taps here and there. I've got this one over here. I'm adding tinier taps too because it's smaller. I guess we'll just start with a few simple taps like that. I'm going to pull down a little bit right here. A little wiggle side to side. Okay, now I'm going to take some pink and I'm going to tap in some bright flowers over these bluey areas and slightly over at the pink over here as well. Okay, I'm going to be using a filbert brush now and we're going to come in and add some lighter highlights on our trees. We're going to make these stand out a little bit more. Okay, so we'll take some yellow. There's a little bit of green, turquoise in there, that's fine too. Okay, so I'm just going to tap a little bit. Now what's nice and interesting is that when we take that yellow over top of the pink background, it gives us another color which is really pretty bright orange. I'm going to add a little bit of white, a little bit of turquoise, and we'll come in with another highlight here. Now we're leaving some spots empty because we don't want to have trees everywhere. We also want to have room for things like some flowers, waterfalls. In my fantasy world, there's got to be waterfalls. Now you could use a mop brush for this. We did for the first stage, but these are so small that unless you have a mini mop brush, it may be a little difficult. So I find using a filbert brush this size helpful. I'm just going to run down a little bit like this. It aligns with that light yellow green color. Back to the turquoise, yellow, and let's add a little bit here. I've got another brush that I've decided to use for the waterfalls. So I'm going to be using this dagger striper brush. It's like a flat brush, but sliced diagonally. These are great brushes to have, and if you don't want to go and buy one and you have a few extra flat brushes laying around, go ahead and just take a box cutter or some scissors and slice diagonally in. There you go. Okay, so for our waterfalls, I'm going to take some blue, some turquoise, and a little bit of white. Okay, so we'll start over here and work our way over here because I like to place my pinky to help steady my hand, and if I start here, then I'm going to put my finger in it. So we'll come up here and just pull and drop down a little bit from this side, and then a little bit right there. Now we can take a little bit of white. This will even have a little yellow one in. I've got some yellow right here. That's fine too. Any of these waterfalls are joining up and dropping into these ones. Let's go to this side, wherever you want those waterfalls to be. Remember, it's a fantasy painting, so it doesn't matter. Don't try to make sense of it. If you have an idea, your mind tells you, yep, right there. Don't think twice, just act on it and go with it. We'll have a little, a little bit of a splash here, and we'll have another one with a little bit of white. I'm going to take a little bit of turquoise, a little bit of the glow to these little pools back here. Yeah, let's come in here, add a few more. Again, I'm just listening to my imagination. There's a few similar paintings along these lines. A few similar paintings that I've done with the same idea. I've painted many, many floating worlds, but they're all a little bit different. I'm going to take a little bit of blue here, and these in here a little bit darker, but I always have more ideas to add to them. So when I think about those paintings and want to step back into them and those worlds and those little stories, I find new little twists and turns to make with them and take with them. I'm going to take a little bit more green. I'm just using the corner of my brush here. Okay, we've got some more waterfalls to paint over on this side. There's a little bit more of the turquoise, a few little ones. Okay, I'm just coming in with a little bit of white here against that dark blue at the base of these falls. A little splash. Now I do have a few mini mop brushes. I think I'm going to use these to tap in some flowers over here. I'm going to take some yellow and a little bit of white to help that yellow out. Yellow won't stand out on the darker color because it's transparent, so we need to make it opaque by mixing some of my opaque titanium white. I'm going to add a few areas here with a brighter yellow over top of the green. It'll dry to another shade of green. You'll get kind of a filtering effect where the other color shows through and they make another one. And of course, the yellow over these pink areas is going to give us some peach. Okay, I'm going to take some pink, a little bit of blue, and we'll make a pretty purple shade. Then we'll add some flowers. This will show up better when we add a little bit of white, but this is just the first layer. Now I imagine little cottages in here, little bridges, maybe a little stairs, but the painting is so small that we aren't able to paint all those details in. Unless I had a magnifying glass and a brush with two hairs. I'm just adding this deep purple here and there for some pretty shading, contrast, and flowers. A little sweep. Okay, now I'm going to take a little bit of white. I'm starting to lose the shape of my brush. Sometimes if you go over on a towel you can get it back, but I'm going to just take a little bit of white in here, tap that in. I think we can start coming in with some smaller brushes now. A little round brush, mix up some white, blue, and pink. Add some dabs. You don't need to brighten up every part of these areas. You'll want to have some dark areas too for you know, the shadows, and it just makes it more interesting, the light and dark areas. I'm just scooping up some pink and dabbing it on for some bigger flowers here in the foreground. Okay, with my bigger brush I'm going to add some little tree trunks and branches. I'm going to take some black, maybe a little bit of green that comes together there, and I'm steadying my hand by using my pinky, placing it here on the canvas where you know it's dry and safe. And while just like that, it really takes these little worlds to another level. Add a few little lines down here. Now we can see a little bit more detail just by adding some little branches and tree trunks. You can have your branches go right through these pinky purple flowers. Maybe they're part of the tree. Maybe you've got some lilac trees or just any kind of flowering tree. Get just a little bit more water. I think it's really going to help you place your pinky where you know it's dry on the canvas. It just gives you a little bit more control painting these small details. I just want to fade this area out back here and I'm going to take a little bit more pink, maybe a little bit of white, maybe a little bit of yellow. Let me get rid of that line that we see in the back there. I'm going to add a little bit of crimson red. I didn't mention that color at the beginning because I honestly didn't plan on using it, but I decided that I'm going to. And I'm going to take my dagger brush again and just scoop up some of that red and I'm going to dab some flowers, just some blobs for some flowers here in the foreground. I like the color intensity together. I'm telling you how I'm doing it and why. So it gives you a little bit more of an understanding of why I'm doing it and the process. I just think the colors look pretty together and I'm usually bled by color more often than anything. Just a little bit here as well. It's going to dry a bit darker. Okay, for the next detail I'm going to add, I'm putting my glasses on because I need to focus really closely. I want to add a little railing and a few little steps. So I'm going to use my liner brush for this. I'm just going to take some white and maybe we'll have a little bridge in here. So you just want to paint a little arch shape like this and then another little one above that. And then I like to just add a few little lines for waving. And then I think I'll just add a few little lines here on an angle for a little staircase and a few little steps to give me a swing or a little boat. Waterfalls. I just get lost in painting these. They honestly just make me forget about everything. Maybe just a little bit of black on the tip of my brush and you can add a few birds. I like things in three. So I'm going to just, you know, right there. Okay, I want to add some yellow here and bring out the foreground a bit more color intensity so we can use the yellow to filter over. Add in the last details here. Blue and turquoise. Wiggles in the water and I'll apply a little bit more pink. I'll use my mop brush into that pink and then white to really soften that and tone that. Okay, flat brush. I'm going to wiggle this out so we've got the colors on there. It looks faded and dreamy in the back and soft. I'm going to take some yellow and some turquoise. I like the shade green. The lemon yellow and the turquoise make together. It's really bright, tropical. I love hearing from you guys and reading your comments so I encourage you to comment away down below. Thoughts, ideas, questions. Again, I thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed the process of this. I'll see you guys soon in my next video. Bye!