5-1-2020: Crystal Mother's Day Card

Hello! May has arrived, which means another month of quarantine, but also Mother's Day! Today I am going to share with you a simple crystal and lettering card idea you can make for your mom. I used salmon pinks and different mixtures of it for the crystals and a gray brush pen for the lettering.

Sketch out the crystals very lightly around the edges.

Fill in the crystals in the crystals with light colors. I left a gap between the painting and sketch, but you don't have to.

Add some layering.

And more layering.

Put down a sketch for the lettering.

Add the lettering. I used a gray brush pen for this, but you can use any color or also watercolor.

Add the finishing touches. I used the gray brush pen to highlight the crystals' sketch.

I hope you enjoyed this watercolor card tutorial. Happy Mother's Day and thanks for reading!

4-24-2020: Art Challenges/Stuff To Do When You Don't Know What To Do

Hello! Today I am going to do another art challenges. I have made two other posts like this which you can read here and here.

Find a color palette on a package and make a piece with those colors

You know how on a food package or something like that has those little dots of colors? You can use those as color palettes for your artwork.

Here is the color palette I found on protein snack.

Here is the painting I made. I mixed the greens with the black to make it more earthy. To see the whole painting, click here.

Paint the same subject in different styles

Research a couple different art styles you would like to try out and a subject to draw. This is also great if you don't know which style of art you like best, so you can experiment with them!

Letter a Bible verse with a cool background

This idea is really simple but super fun. Just create a cool background and then write a Bible verse on it. Also, if you don't like doing it in a calligraphy style, there are so many more fonts you can do that aren't as complicated.

Create a color palettes

I really like doing this and I especially like naming the colors that I put together. Then, you can create a piece with those colors.

Thanks for reading!

4-22-2020: Earth Day!

Hello! I really liked how the Google Doodle looked today, so I painted a little scene in sorta the same style as the doodle. I don't usually do art in this style, but I really like how simple it is.

Draw a sketch with a circle behind with different nature items in front. I did a bee, tulip, and tree. (I accidentally painted the bee a little.)

Paint the light layers in. You can make the circle a sun, earth, or moon.

Then add some shading to the nature items. I used gouache for this part.

Then add some shading to the circle. If you made it an earth, you can add green continents, or with a moon gray craters.

Then add some lineart.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Earth Day!

4-21-2020: Yellow Ochre

Color Spotlight

Hello! This is the third Color Spotlight post. This time, we are going to be doing yellow ochre. Yellow ochre is an earth color, but it still has a nice yellow tone to it. If you like to paint sunsets or mix your own skin tones, this color would be great for you.

Tip

Mix yellow ochre with red ochre to make a very lovely muted orange.

How to mix it if you don't have it

  1. A warm yellow (such as cadmium yellow deep) and a small amount of burnt umber or a larger amount of raw umber.
  2. For digital artists: hex #e1972c and rgb 225,151,44

4-16-2020: Digital Art (Autodesk Sketchbook)

Hi! I have recently been doing a lot of digital sketches. I use Autodesk Sketchbook. Even though I don't have a stylus I still can make some pretty good sketches. I think if you don't have a stylus you just have to have a big enough screen (and also zoom in).

Pros and Cons

Pros: It's free; lots of tools (maybe too many); lots of pre-made colors (another sketching app I used you had to use the color picker thingy); different rulers and stencils; paint blends easily, so there isn't any hard edges; infinite layers.

Cons: The eraser erases like a real life one so it erases the part with the most pressure, and lightens the edges; the paint blends easily, so things can become brown/gray quickly; the watercolor is very patchy and unrealistic.

Mirroring

The mirroring is pretty cool. You can use it to make perfect snowflakes and intricate flowers. You can choose two sided mirroring, or multiple (up to sixteen sections). Here are some pictures of the mirroring tool.

Mirroring tool

Flower made with mirroring

Infinite Layers

Having infinite layers is super useful. The first layer is a background layer which you can make a solid color. Then the rest of the layers you can draw on. I like to use a layer on top to make guides when I draw faces, and for testing out drastic changes to my artwork. You can see the layers on the right side.

All layers shown for sketching

Guide layer hidden for final artwork

Stamps(?)

The stamp (I don't know what it's called) stamps down a perfect circle, square, or line. I like to use it to make abstract designs inside a shape.

Pull your finger across to size your shape.

A design made with the square stamp.

Thanks for reading!

4-16-2020: Avocado Toast 🥑🍞

Hello! After I did the avocado tutorial, I decided that I would also do avocado toast. I hope you enjoy this!

Start with the same yellow green as the avocado tutorial.

Add a little bit of darker greens while it's wet.

Let it dry and add more darker greens.

Add a light brown piece of bread around the avocado.

Add a crust.

Blend the crust in.

Thanks for reading!

4-15-2020: Painting Pistachios/Watercolor Tips

Hello! Today I am going to show you some watercolor tips while painting pistachios.

Sketch or no sketch?

This is just left up to you. I prefer to sketch pretty much everything before I paint. A possible guideline to use is the more complicated you think the painting is going to be, the more pencil sketching you should do.

Use many layers

Watercolor is transparent, so you have to work in layers if you want more saturated colors. For floral pieces, I usually only add a couple, but for this little piece, I did quite a bit. Start lighter colors (more water) and build up to darker colors (more paint).

Dry each layer before working on top

As you can see in the photo, all the pigment has slid to edges. This happens when you continue to work on half dry spots. If this happens, just let it dry completely and then paint more layers on top.

<-- This is the final piece.





Thanks for reading!

4-12-2020: Gouache...

Hello! Today I am going to show you my gouache, compare it with watercolors, and give you a couple of tips when working with gouache. I hope you find this helpful!

What is gouache?

Gouache is similar to watercolor in that it is re-wettable, but it has larger pigments and some white pigment to make it opaque. It usually comes in tubes (or in my case jelly cups, but these are not that common), or sometimes dried in pans. There is also acrylic gouache, which is just acrylic paint that has the same look as gouache.

My gouache

This is what the box looks like new (without the lid).

This is one of the little jelly cups of gouache.

This set comes with two whites since you use white up faster.

Here are the swatches of the paint.

Watercolor vs. Gouache

I made two similar paintings with gouache and watercolor. They have different colors in them, but you can still tell that the gouache is a lot flatter and the watercolor is more patchy.

Gouache

Watercolor

-- Gouache Differences --

Dries much faster

Dries flatter

It's opaque

Tips

Don't scrub your paints on. Gouache doesn't soak into the paper like watercolor, so you have to be careful of reactivating the color(s) below.

Make sure you added the right amount of water. Too much water will make reactivate other colors, and too little will be hard to spread. I recommend using a mist bottle to spray your palette occasionally to moisten the paints.

Don't add wetter layers on top of thicker layers. Wetter layers will reactivate the thicker layers on below, so if you want more transparent layers, make sure to put them down first.

Thanks for reading!

4-9-2020: Abstract Phone Backgrounds

Hi! Today I took some phone backdrops. They are really just close-ups on some of my art, but I think they look really cool. To save the photos you can right click on a computer and choose save photo, and on a phone hold down the photo and pick save photo.

This one is of a ship that I painted for school. I made the colors quite thick.

This is just lines tangled together.

I don't know what to say about this one.

This one is from the same house scene.

This one is from a little house scene.

This is a simple ombre.

This one is from a bouquet I painted.

This one is also from the bouquet, and it is my personal favorite.

Thanks for reading!

4-8-2020: Watercolor Shells 🐚

Hello! I am going to show you how to paint watercolor shells.

Start with a shell shape in a light color. I try to choose a color that would be close to be the colors I am going to layer, but I usually end up changing the colors. But if you don't make it that dark, you're fine to make it whatever color you want.

Then choose the pattern of the shell that you want. Here are three different ones you could use, but you could also research some photos of shells.

Then, layer the colors on! You don't need to skimp on layers, I put around 15-20! I put the others that I painted below.

Thanks for reading! 🐚

4-6-2020: Painting an Avocado

Hello! Today I am going to show you how to paint an avocado. It was suggested by Katherine. If you would like to suggest something, click here.

1. Make a yellow green "egg"

3. Blend out the green rim.

5. Add shading to the seed.

2. Add a darker green rim

4. Add a seed.

6. Add your final touches such as a skin and more shading.

Thanks for reading!

4-4-2020: Mr. Printables

Hello! This is the third and final post to the series paper crafts you can do when you are bored. Mr. Printables is a website with free printable toys and other things like that. I did the ice cream ones, but they also have fruits.

If you don't have a color printer, you can color you ice creams and popsicles yourself. I like to use alcohol markers because it creates the smoothest color. But these bleed a lot, so make sure you have a surface underneath such as thick paper or a plastic sheet.

If you have liquid glue on hand, then I suggest you use it. It makes the process a lot easier because it will stick better.

The popsicles have a little black line at the bottom tab, which is for adding the

popsicle stick. I just cut it with a craft knife and then stuck it in. And if your popsicle stick isn't staying, pull it out a little bit and add glue to the spot where the stick touches the paper and let it dry standing on the top and leaning against the wall.

To make a multicolored popsicle, put the all the colors except one of them down on to the plastic sheet. I put the paper template under so that I could know where to draw. Make sure to put the darkest colors on the sheet.

Then, just use the lightest color and go over everything. It will create a cool abstract multicolored pattern. However, if you want to be exact, just color as normal.

Thanks for reading!

4-2-2020: Vote for the next Color Spotlight!

Hello! You can vote for the next Color Spotlight again. This time we are doing an earth tone edition.

4-2-2020: Painting Coronavirus

Hello! Today I am going to show you how to paint coronavirus. My mom requested that I paint this and hang it up (we have a magnet board thingy and I put seasonal paintings on it). I hope you enjoy!

This is the photo that I am going to paint. It was found on cdc.gov.

Start by taping your paper down. To make the back of the virus look blurry, coat your paper with a very thin layer of water. If you put a thick layer of water then the painting is going to be very uneven.

(Left) Make a large gray circle. You most likely won't need to blend. (Right) Add some red dots around while the paper is still wet. Let it dry.

Add texture to the gray circle using different shades of gray. Make the center slightly darker.

(Left) Add texture and more saturation to the red dots. (Right) Add more red dots to the circle.

(Left) Add texture and more saturation to the red dots. (Right) Finally add a background a more red dots.

Thanks for reading!

3-28-2020: Paper Mosaics

Hello! This is the second post for paper crafts you can do when you are bored. You will need: paper, something to color the paper, and glue.

Color your paper. I only did one side, but if you do both sides you can make the pieces fit together better.

Cut it into small geometric shapes.

Glue them onto paper. You can make them touch like a puzzle, or leave a small gap between them.

Thanks for reading!

3-17-2020: Rename!

Hello! Today I decided that I wanted to rename this website from Sunset Arts & Crafts to something new. I have quite a lot of ideas, so you can add input yourself on the names that I am considering. Thanks! (Note: The form is now closed.)

3-17-2020: Making Stickers

Hello! Because of coronavirus, you may be stuck at home and bored. Here is one fun paper craft you can do! I will be continuing this with two other posts coming soon.

There are two ways to make stickers. The first is to use double sided tape and the second is to use glue.

Glue

First draw a small picture and cut around it. I did my signature.

Then coat the back with a small layer of glue. Let it dry.

Once you want to use the sticker, just wet it, let the glue become tacky, and then stick.

Double Sided Tape

Draw a small photo and grab a piece of parchment (baking) paper.

Place pieces of double sided tape until it is big enough to cover the picture.

Use an X-acto or craft knife to cut the tape to the shape of the picture.

When you want to use the sticker, simply peel and stick.

Thanks for reading!