Gouache for Beginners; Paint a Vibrant Sunset

1. INTRODUCTION: If you have been grabbing a quiet moment for yourself, a gentle bos in the middle of everything, you are in the right place. Sometimes we all need is a little space to breathe, to slow our mind, and to let our hands move without pressure or noise. Today, we are going to paint a peaceful sunset forest, a glowing sky, a so fading mountains, and still trees that capture the calmness of the evening. This is not just a painting exercise, but a small invitation to slow down and enjoy the process. One gentle brushwork at a time. I'm Anu Baigat, an architect, artist, and a mother from India. For me, painting has always been that safe quid corner of life where I can step away from the rush and reconnect with myself. Through this class, I want to share not just a technique, but that same sense of calmness and comfort that painting has given me. In this class, we will be painting this beautiful sunset forest in gouache, a simple yet stunning composition that captures the calmness of nature. When the sky glows orange and purple and the world feels still, we will start by learning how to build soft gradient skies, blend warm and cool tones, and layer distant hills to create depth. Then we will add trelhus and details that bring the whole painting to life. Even if you are a beginner, don't worry. I will guide you step by step, explaining each brushwork and techniques so you can paint along confidently. By the end of this class, you will have a peaceful forest sunset painting. You can proudly frame your gift. So if you are ready to unwind, pick your brushes and join me in this class. Let's create this glowing sunset landscape together and let the colors remind us to pause and breathe. 2. MATERIALS USED: Hello, everyone. I'm so happy that you have decided to join this class. It truly means a lot. Before we begin, let's take a look at all the materials you will need for this beautiful sunset landscape. Let's start with the paints. As you know, we'll be using gouache for this case. Gauche comes in many forms and brands, so feel free to use you already have. I'll be using He Mia jelly Gauchet which has loudly vibrant colors. For this painting, we will only need six basic colors, red, yellow, blue, green, black and white. Now for the brushes, we will only need three a flat brush. I'm using size toll for painting the sky and blending large areas, a round brush. I'm using number eight for painting the mountains and trees and a detailed brush. I'm using size number one for adding finer details like the branches and birds. You will also need a pencil for sketching rough outlines, a palette for mixing your paints. Next, let's talk about the paper. I'm using a handmade textured paper with a beautiful torn edges. I sourced mine online, and this is 150 GSM thick. You can use any match or textured paper, but make sure it is at least 90 GSM or thicker so that it can handle the layers of gauche well. Keep a cloth or tissue handy to wipe your brushes in between. And we will also need two jars of water, one for washing of the paint, and the second for cleaning the brush well so that you won't soil your lighter colours when using them. I'm using this old board to tape the paper. I'm not going to tape on all edges. I would like the painting to have these torn edges. So, that's it. That's the old material you need for this class. Once you have gathered all the materials, you'll be fully ready to start painting alone. So set up your workplace comfortably, take a deep breath, and let's move on to our next section where we do some practice. 3. LET'S PRACTICE: Hello, friends. Before we begin our main painting, let's do a little practice exercise. I'm doing this in one of my sketchbook, but if you can try using the same paper you'll be using for the final painting. That way, you will get familiar with how the paint reacts to the surface, and it will help you to control your brush strokes better. All right. Let's start by creating a beautiful orange shade. Mix a little yellow and red together on your palette, blend until you get that warm glowing sunset orange. Now, using your flat brush, let's start applying the colour to the paper. Keep your brush moving in one direction only. Smooth horizontal stroke back and forth. This helps create a soft even layer for your sky. Blend gently until you get a smooth, even gradient across the paper. Now let's brighten the middle portion of the sky, add a bit more yellow paint to the central area. This will create those lighter glowing spots in the sky. Once you are happy with that, let's deepen the bottom of the sky with a richer red tone. On your palette, mix some red paint to a workable consistency, not too thick, not too wttery. Then apply to the bottom portion of the sky using the same long horizontal strokes. Now wash your brush, wipe off the excess water, and gently blend the red and orange areas together. Take your time, blend until you see a smooth transition between the two colors. Now, let's bring in some cold tons to balance all the warmth. Add a little blue to the left or red on your palette to create a nice purple shade. Apply this gently to the very bottom of the sky, blending upward into the red area. Use the same technique, horizontal back and forth strokes and soften the transition with your clean, slightly damp brush. Let's add some soft clouds now. Using your flat brush and the same purple colour, paint a few uneven lines across the upper part of the sky. These will be our clouds. Then wash brush, pipe of extra water, and gently blend the edges of the cloud to make them look soft and dreamy. The Perfect. Now that our blending practice is done, let's quickly create a color chart for paints we will be using for this class. We have already mixed orange by combining red and yellow, purple by mixing red and blue. We will also be using a few different shades of purple throughout the painting, lighter ones for the distant mountains and darker ones for the foraph. So keep this color chart handy, it will help you stay consistent and confident with your color mixes. And and and and and Take your black paint and round brush ready. Now let's move on to practicing some trees. Let's start by drawing a straight line for the main trunk of the tree. From the top, I'm adding branches to either side. For each branch, I'm using my round brush to create small spiky leaves with short strokes. Make sure to check your paint consistency. If it's too watery, the strokes will spread and lose their shape. If it is too thick, the paint won't flow smoothly. So find that perfect middle consistency that gives you crisp fine lines. Take your time and complete the whole tree patiently. I call these hand sharing strokes as if your hand is gently trembling while making the tiny leaf strokes. It gives a beautiful natural texture to your tree. Once the tree is done, let's practice some grasses. Take some paint on your round brush and sharpen the brush tip by gently rotating it on the palette. This helps to create those fine narrow strokes. Now starting from the bottom. Put long upward strokes in different directions as if the grasses are growing out from the same road. Let's try making dasses using the detailed brush. The detailed brush gives you even finer lines and works great for long thin glasses. Finally, let's paint some birds. I'm using the detailing brush again for this step to get neat narrow lines. Try drawing birds in different shapes and directions to add variety. And lastly, let's practice mix this beautiful sap tree by mixing green, black and yellow, which we will be using for the ground areas and grasses. And And that's it. With that, let's wind up our practice section. Now that we have warmed up our hands and brushes, let's move on to our class project where we will bring everything together into a beautiful painting. 4. PAINTING THE SKY: Now that we are all warped up, let's begin our main project. We will begin with a light sketch. Nothing too detail. Just a few guiding lines to help us place the main elements. Start by drawing the outlines of the mountains using simple smooth curve lights. I like to begin with the mountain in the child first and then add the distinct ones behind it. Try to vary their shapes and height slightly. This create a nice sense of depth and harmony in the composition. Now, let's add the trees. I'm sketching a few straight lines wherever I want the trees to be placed. Take a moment to look at your composition and decide where newer trees will balance the scene best. I'm going to add three trees of different heights. The one on the left will be the tallest and the main focus. As we move to the right, I'm keeping the tree slightly shorter so that the distant mountains remain visible. The mountains and the foreground, and there are three trees on the foreground. Once our sketch is ready, it's time to prepare the colours. Let's mix a bit of yellow and red to create a warm orange tone for the sky. Using a flat brush, start covering the sky area with the orange shade we made. Keep your brush strokes moving gently in one direction. I'm brushing side to side, keeping the strokes horizontal to achieve a smooth event blend. The I add Next, let's add a touch of red towards the bottom of the sky to bring out that rich sunset glove. If your paint feels too thick or starts to lose consistency, just dip the tip of your brush lightly in water and mix the page that will help the color flow smoothly across the paper. Finally, I'm adding a few light uneven strokes on top of the orange area to create a dramatic and dynamic effect in the sky. These subtle variations in color and texture will help bring your sunset to life and make the sky look more natural and glowing. Now it's time to make your sky even more dramatic and vibrant by adding touches of purple. To achieve that, I'm mixing a bit of blue into reddish orange tone already on my palette. This gives a beautiful transition shape that's perfect for the lower part of the sky. Next, I'm adding a little more blue to create a deeper cooler tone. Then I'll mix in the touch of white. This can soften the color and makes it easier to blend smoothly on paper. Now, take your flat brush and blend the two colors together, moving the brush softly back and forth in horizontal stops. I'm also adding a pinch of red to enhance the area where the sun to be. After blending, wash your brush and then wipe off the excess water using a tissue or cloth. Use this slightly damp brush to go over the area again. This will help blend both colors seamlessly, creating a smooth gradient in the sky. Now let's arts and clouds for extra texture and more. I'm using the same color mix and technique. Apply the paint in soap uneven strokes across the sky like slanting lines where you want the clouds to appear. Once the paint is on the paper, clean your brush again, remove the excess paint and water, and generally blend the edges of the clouds to make them look soft and natural. After that, I'm adding a slightly darker shade on top of some of the area to create contrast and depth in the clouds. When you're happy with the colour transition, move to the other side of the skin and repeat the same process. Uh, Um Uh I have created about three cloud form machines, one on the left and two on the right side. Once you're satisfied with how the sky looks and the balance of the colors, we are ready to move on to the next step of our painting. 5. PAINTING THE MOUNTAINS: Now it's time to paint the distant mountains in our background. For this step, I'm switching to my round brush, which gives better control for painting, smooth mountains, edges, and curved lines. You can see there are several layers of mountains in the distance, and we will paint them one by one to create a nice sense of depth in our painting. All the mountains will be in different shades of blue. So let's start by preparing our first color mix. Take a bit of blue pin and add a bit of red to it. This will give you a soft purple tone. Since the lower part of our sky already has a purplish blue, this mix will help the mountains blend beautifully into the background. Add a drop of water to adjust the consistency. We want the paint to move smoothly on the paper without being too watery. Next, take a small amount of white paint and mix it into the purple shade. This lighter tone will perfect for the mountains that sits further back in the landscape. Go ahead and paint this Bmose mountain using the light purplish shade. After finishing, if you feel the tone looks a bit too bright, you can add a hint of red over it. This will bring the sky and the mountain into the same warm harmony and make the transition more natural. Let's now make a darker shade for the next layer of mountains. I'm still using my roundish, and this time, I'm adding bit more blue to deep at the top. Let's start painting this mountain layer carefully, following the outline we skeched earlier. Once you are filled with this deeper blue, take the lighter shade we used before and gently blend it along the bottom edge of the mountain. This will create a soft misty effect, making it look like the mountains are fading beautifully into the atmosphere. The Okay. Now let's move on to the next layer in front. Here, we will apply an even darker tone because as the mountains come close to us, they appear deeper and more defined. Notice how the distant ones were lighter. That's because they are slightly covered in mist, while the one in front are clearer and stronger in color. Oh, looks like I forgot to darken my mix before applying it. But don't worry if that happens, you too. You can easily fix this by adding a little red into the blue to deepen the tone and create that beautiful rich shape. Just paint over the entire mountain area with this new mix, and then as before, use the lighter tone at the bottom to bring back that misty transition. The now let's move on to the pain. Now, let's move on to paint the hills in the foreground. For this section, I'm using a bright blue colour because the hills that appear closer to us naturally catch more light, especially from the warm glow of the evening sun. This helps create a beautiful contrast between the distant misty mountains and the more vivid hills in the front. I'm gently applying this blue tone across the entire area of the front hill, making sure to keep the breaststrokes smooth or even. Don't worry about being too perfect here. A few uneven textures will actually make it feel more natural. Et's add some small detail to make it came. Using my round brush, I'm lightly adding small spike like strokes upward to create the illusion of tiny trees and foliage rising from the mountain slopes. These little vertical strokes at so much depth and texture. You can vary the heights a bit, some shorter, some taller, to make it look more organic. I'm repeating the same kind of detailing across the top region of the hill just to tie the whole landscape together. With that, our mountains are complete. Now let's move on to painting the foreground landscape in the next part. This part will really bring the whole scene together. 6. ADDING THE FOREGROUND: Our hills are done, Let's shift our focus to the foreground area, the part that is closest to us. To create a rich base color, I'm mixing green, yellow, and just a touch of black. This gives a deep, earthy sublne tone that's perfect for this layer. Starting from the top edge of the down, I'm applying this darker shade first. I'm using the paint in a slight lighter consistency here because we will be adding more layers and details on top of it later. To make the tone even darker and blend with the mountains, I'm adding bits of blue to the top portion of the ground layer. As we move towards the bottom portion of the painting, let's start lightening the tone by adding a bit of yellow to the mix. This gradual transition from dark to light gives a lovely sense of light hitting the grass and makes the whole composition feel balanced. Once you have applied both tones, take a moment to blend them softly. Just enough so that you can see a smooth shift of colors without losing that textured brushe. There is no rush here. Enjoy the process of watching these tones merge and create that peaceful evening feel. Now, let's mix an even darker tone to build the next layer of our ground cover. For this, I'm taking the same green mix we used earlier and adding a bit more black and a touch of blue. This will give us a richer, deeper shade that helps create a sense of shadow and depth in the landscape. Once your color is ready, start applying it on top of the ground area, but not too evenly. I'm placing this darker tone rampantly across the surface, especially around the middle and upper part of the ground. This irregular placement helps make the landscape feel more natural like patches of dense vegetation or shaded areas where the sunlight doesn't reach directly. Use your round brush and lightly dab or stroke in short moment to mimic the texture of grass and bushes. Don't overthink it. Just let your brush move freely. You can even vary the pressure a bit, pressing harder for darker bolder spots and lighter for softer areas. As you step back, you will notice how these darker patches instantly add dimensions to our painting. Oh. Now, for the next step, let's start by adding some lighter shade strokes to bring depth and light to our landscape. Take the same color mix we used earlier and add a bit of yellow to make a lighter toe. Using your round brush, gently add shot scattered strokes in the areas where you want that soft glow. These are spots where the light from the evening sun is gently touching the ground. Now, let's make the shade even lighter. Add a touch of white paint to the color mix, and let's use this tonee to paint small grasses and tiny plants in the foreground. These lighter details really help bring the painting to life, adding variety and a sense of sunlight across the feeling. And And that's it. We are done with the foreground details. Now let's move on to our that is adding trees and birds to our painting. Okay. 7. ADDING THE TREES AND BIRDS: M Now, let's move on to our main elements, the trees. Using the round bridge, paint three straight vertical lines on the spots we marked earlier. These will be the tree tongues. Before that, let's take your black in the palette and mix it well for the right consistency. Now, let's start drawing the trees. Once the trunks are in place, start adding branches to either side. We will do this one by one. Take your time here. Now for the leaves, I'm using what I call shivering strokes. It's a fun little technique. Just show uk strokes as if your hand is gently shivering. These tiny irregular moments help create the natural look of leaves fluttering in the breeze. Continue adding these strokes on both sides of each branch, layering them as you go down towards the bottom of the tree. You'll see how your trees start to look full and rich with texture. Any and you and Repeat the same process for the other two trees, trunks, branches, and those lovely shivering strokes for the leaves. Once done, you will have a beautiful trio of trees that frame your sunset landscape perfectly. Now that we've done with our trees, our painting is already starting. Let's now add small grasses on the ground with same dark black color to add to our painting. Thank you. Now it's time to add the most magical part of our painting the sun. Take a bit of yellow paint on your round brush and let's carefully paint a small circle right between the two trees. This will be our glowing evening sun softly shining through the landscape. Next, load a little more yellow paint on your brush, and using gentle strokes, add a few soft pass or light cloths on either side of the sun. Now let's move on to the final step, adding a few birds in the distance to complete our sunset scene. Take your detailed brush and load it with bit of black or dark paint. Start adding tiny bird shapes one by one over the mountains. Just more simple V shapes, so to suggest the birds flying far away. You don't need to add too many. Just a few scattered ones will make the painting feel more alive and peaceful. And that's it. We have finished our beautiful sunset landscape in gouache. Take a moment to look at your painting, the warm sky, the glowing sun, the layers of mountains, and the little birds all come together so beautifully. Now it's time to clean up your brushes, rinse them in the first jar of water to remove the paint, then dip them into the second jar for the final clean. Gently wipe them dry with a soft cloth, so they are ready for your next painting session. So that's it. Yes, we did it. Thank you so much for painting along with me, and I'll see you in the next section. 8. THANK YOU: Congratulations. You did it. Take a step back and admire your painting. Look at how warm sunset glows across the sky, how the layers of mountains create depth, and how the little trees and birds bring the whole painting to life. We have just created a vibrant sunset landscape in gouache filled with color, light, and emotion. Through this class, you learn how to sketch and compose a balanced landscape, blend colors smoothly to create a dramatic sunset sky, paint distant and foreground mountains with a misty effect, and texture and detail to your ground layers. Bring life to your painting with the trees, sun and birds. Each step you took added something special to the story of this landscape, and I hope you are proud of your work because it truly deserves an appreciation. If this is your first gouache painting, I want to say thank you for trusting the process and painting along with me. Remember, every brushstroke you take builds your confidence and skill as an artist. So keep painting, keep experimenting, and most importantly, enjoy the journey. I would love to see your version of this painting. Please upload your artwork in the project gallery. It's always such a joy to see how everyone arts their unique touch. Thank you so much for joining me in this class. If you enjoyed this lesson, don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare, so you'll be notified about my upcoming classes. I have more gauche and creative painting lessons coming your way soon. Until next time, keep creating, keep exploring and keep painting your world with color.