When mindfulness is used while painting in watercolor, you can turn your focus to letting go. Letting go while painting with watercolor is important because, due to the unforgiving nature of the medium, controlling the paint on the paper is quite difficult. If you can ‘let go’ of the so-called mistakes, then your creative process with watercolor painting is more likely to flow naturally, allowing your own unique style of painting to emerge.

There are four main points:

1. Block in a general composition with loose brushwork

2. Capture light and shadow with close attention to the value

3. Use a palette knife for impasto, building texture, and form, and scraping…

The secret to painting clouds in watercolor is all about letting go and being as free as possible with your brushwork. Keeping things simple will take your work much farther.

I've provided the process below to get things started as you will learn these basic steps:

I’ve provided an image of a recent commission to complement my process of creating a sunset landscape below.

Essentially painting a sunset is broken down into these three parts:

The application of a warm undertone to the canvas

Establishing the generally warm and cool sections of the landscape painting

Focusing on detail and more contrast where needed

There is a great, yet little-known painting by Van Gogh, entitled “Rain Painting.” It was painted looking out the window of the psychiatric hospital in Saint Remy-de-Provence where he was admitted for one year.