Sunset Clouds Watercolor Painting Process

Hello everyone and welcome! My name is Noelle and I will be sharing a fun and flowy watercolor painting process. I've painted a few pieces like this lately, but I thought it would be helpful to film the process of at least one of the pieces to share with you all. So in these mixes, I'm using a lot of quinacridone gold, but I found later on that I prefer to use Indian yellow instead. Any yellow would work, honestly. I just like to get fancy. The primary red that I used was pyrrole red, and to mix the sky and cloud colors, I mostly use a mix of the red and indanthrone blue with some naples yellow. I will be painting on a watercolor block because it is convenient. There is a spot on one of the edges that allows me to peel off the sheets one by one. To start the actual painting process, I wet the paper down with some clear water and began to apply some bluish paint for the sky. I didn't really know how I wanted to begin this step, but I quickly realized it would be much easier if I propped up the block with a stand so the paint flows around better. I was in a rush before the paper dried too much, so I was not very neat about it. The best part about painting this first sky layer was that I knew I was going to paint over it later, so it didn't need to be perfect. I just wanted a general sky gradient that faded from orange, yellow, and blue. There was one spot on my reference that had some pinkish clouds, which I attempted to add, but unfortunately I did not use enough pigment to make it stand out, so it just looked white. I also needed the sky to be darker, so I painted on more pigment little by little. To speed up the drying time, I whipped out my heat gun. I've had it for a long time, but I've only started using it for my last few pieces, and it saves a lot of time. For the next layer, I carefully wet the entire surface with clear water with my large hockey brush. I like using this brush because it holds a lot of water and it is soft enough to not pick up paint from the first layer. I then moved back in with a dark blue purpley gray color. I'm not getting too picky about where the clouds go as long as they are painted in wispy or puffy cloud-like shapes. With the block sitting at an angle, I am expecting the paint to move around, and because of this, I like to wait for the paper to dry a bit more before I start adding details. When the paper is saturated with water, the paint will go everywhere, but if it dries a bit, there is more control over where the paint goes, and the brush strokes will keep their shape better. For this painting, I applied the paint for the softer clouds in the beginning right after wetting the paper, and I'm painting the puffier, spottier, detailed clouds near the end of the wash when the paper has dried more. I also want to be clear that this multi-layer technique only works with specific paper, like arches, so if it doesn't turn out well for you, you might want to consider your materials. When it got to painting these distant trees, I didn't want to paint each tiny tree with its own brush stroke, so I grabbed my calligraphy brush and utilized the frayed bristles to do the work for me. If I moved too quickly, I flicked paint everywhere, so I needed to be careful. It was a lot faster this way, although I am constantly underestimating the amount of water and pigment this brush can hold, which is a lot, by the way. The trees on this painting are a bit small, but I wanted to focus on the clouds and not make this a tree painting. The purpose of this video was to share the process I follow to create a sunset sky like this one. If you enjoyed this video, consider giving this video a thumbs up or subscribing to my channel. A list of my supplies and links to my shop and socials can be found below. Thank you so much for watching!