How to Paint a Winter Night Sky
Here's how to paint a winter night sky. This is an easy acrylic painting tutorial that beginner painters can do as well as kids can try to learn how to paint the winter night sky by reading more below in this blog post. You can try and learn how to paint a winter night sky easily.
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How to Paint the Winter Night Sky
If you prefer watching the video how to paint the winter night to sky you can click on that painting tutorial below.
Materials Needed:
1 inch flat brush
Number six round brush
Detail brush that is round
Canvas or canvas board or even watercolour paper
Cup of water
Palette
Cloth rag
Acrylic Paint - cadmium red, mars black, titanium white, cadmium yellow, cobalt blue
Step 1- for How to Paint the Winter Night Sky
Start by mixing some cobalt blue with cadmium, red and titanium white to make a nice light purple. This will be the background colour and the colour of the winter night sky in this painting. Then, using your 1 inch flat brush you can paint 2/3 of the surface. You are painting on whether that is a canvas, canvas board, or watercolour paper. You want to paint 2/3 of the surface because that will be the colour of the sky. You can leave 1/3 of it white for now, because we will be painting snow at the bottom of our painting.
To paint the sky you want to paint a nice even stroke your painting horizontally from side to side on the canvas not vertically up-and-down, just painting side to side. You want to do about 2 coats of this light purple colour to make sure that your painting surface is covered completely. Remember, if you are painting on a canvas, you want to paint the same purple colour of the winter night sky along the edges of the canvas as well to have a nice finished look to your acrylic painting.
When you are painting your sky, you can blend different purples into your sky as well by mixing extra cobalt, blue or extra cadmium red your sky should be lighter the closer it is to the snow so you can mix in some extra titanium white with your purple, you can follow along with the video tutorial by clicking a right here to watch it.
Step 2 - for How to Paint the Winter Night Sky
Next, we are going to paint our snow if you have never painted snow in acrylics before. You are going to want to watch my five tips for painting snow videos. You can click on that right here to watch that now.
To paint our snow we are going to be used a titanium white and mars black. You can add a little bit of a cadmium yellow in hints of the snow but for right now we're just doing a base coat of our snow so just paint the bottom of your canvas. That final third that is not painted the purple sky colour with titanium white you can use your 1 inch flat brush to paint this section done using your around number six brush you can get a little bit of mars black mix that in with your titanium white so that you have a light grey colour you can paint that in a random areas of your snow.
Step 3- Painting the Moon
To make sure this looks like a winter night sky painting we are going to add a moon. You can choose to add a full moon like I have done in my painting tutorial or a different kind of moon. To make my moon colour, I am mixing a titanium white with a small amount of cadmium yellow. You can paint your full moon shaped by painting a circle shape with your round number six brush, or you can use your round detail brush so that you have a nice even moon shape. If you would like a perfect circle shape, you can trace around a circular object with a piece of coloured chalk. You will probably have to do about two coats of the moon color. Make sure you wait for it to dry before painting your second coat.
You can watch my full moon painting tutorial -here for more help!
Step 4- Painting the Tree
You can choose where you would like your trees to be placed what type of trees, and how large you want the trees to be in your winter night sky painting you can also follow along with the painting tutorial by clicking here to watch and see the trees that I have painted and how I painted them and more detail.
Winter trees don't have leaves unless they are pine trees, so keep that in mind. It's good to use your round detail brush so that you can get fine lines of all the twigs and branches on your winter trees.
You can use mars black to paint your winter trees. You can also mix in a bit of titanium white to have some more greys and highlights on your winter trees.
You may choose to position your trees so that some of the branches are coming off of the side of your canvas, canvas board, or watercolour paper. You might even choose to have some branches that overlap your full moon.
There are lots of decisions that you can make with this winter night sky acrylic painting. Please don't feel like you have to copy my painting exactly, you can totally change things and make it your own. That is completely fine. I would love to see your acrylic paintings. You can tag me on Instagram at Jackie Partridge Art
If you want to add trees in the background, remember trees in the background are going to be smaller because they are further away. They are also going to have less detail to them.
Your trees should have highlighted all the branches that are closest to the full moon because the full moon is going to be shining light and making those branches appear lighter and brighter.
You can also add some snow on the branches like I have done with your round of detail brush and some titanium white you can choose to add a little blob of snow where it would be sitting on the branches.
Step 5- Add the Details
Next, you can choose to add other elements into your winter night sky painting like clouds in the sky. You could also do some white paint splatter and add some falling snow. You can choose to add other colours into your snow, like mixing a little bit of purple, a little bit of yellow a little bit of light blue, again it's helpful to watch my five tips for painting snow and acrylics which I have linked right here because you can apply those different tips to your winter night sky painting.
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial on how to paint a winter night sky you can watch the tutorial by clicking here. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel to show your support. Feel free to comment on any videos and let me know any ideas for what you would like to learn how to paint or if you have any questions about acrylic painting just comment on one of my YouTube videos.
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