How to Paint a Palm Tree with Acrylic

When I decided to paint a beach for the first times, I had no clue how to do palm trees! So I went on my favorite place: Internet!

My palm trees used to look like a sad green star with a brown trunk.... It was time to concentrate on details.
I found this really nice tutorial on how to paint palm trees on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N56PwZW895w
The artist really shared openly is tricks on how he does it!

I practiced first on paper and then tried on a few canvas. 
Few important steps I learned for painting palm trees:
 - chose where the light is coming from. (when the light hit the leaf, this is where you will put yellow, white, pale green or any of the lightest color you chose to be). It will be useful on leafs and trunks.
 - The leaf do not have to be perfect! Indeed if you look at palm trees they do not look the same some of them have few leafs, some of them have a leaf broken,... Well do not worry about making a perfect circled shadow.
 - use a small tiny brush to make the leaf.

If you have other technics or tips on how to paint palm trees, please feel free to share in the comment section!

You can see some of my paintings with palm trees on my little gallery:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeachStop

One Love!

Anais

How to Paint a Palm Tree

How to paint Photo Realism

I always look on internet for tips, know how and step by step methods for painting.

The other day I just went across this fantastic post which gives actually really good tips on how to paint Photo Realism!

This artist is sharing some really good info and, the paintings are just breath taking! They do look real just as a photo will!!!

Now that is my new goal, Photo Realism! Hopefully it will look good enough to be at least a painting :p

Here is the link of the tutorial on how to paint realism:

http://www.art-is-fun.com/how-to-paint-photorealism.html

One Love!

Anais

How to paint Photo Realism

Skittles and other Sweet Things!

While waiting for my paintings/new post, here is a picture of (I WISH TO BE) my new painting!
Yep! I want to paint Skittles! What a dream! :p .... A world full of sweetness and strawberries!!!

Actually, more seriously ;p I would like to turn my paintings in photo realism. Which means they should look like a picture from a far instead of a painting. I already did it for a painting with some ice cream ( i will post it later, but you can already find it in my little gallery: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeachStop).
These technics take a lot of time and details but it is such a reward!

I think actually it is in all these details that I can understand why I love painting and numbers! :)

Wish me luck!

One Love!

Anais

Skittles Picture

I will post some more soon!

.... I just have to figure out first how to edit my blog (so it look so pretty you will come back every time!).

And I still have a lot of paintings awaiting to be post!

Tropical Beach Paradise

Here is my biggest painting so far!

It is about all dreams!... I am talking about laying down right now (*like RIGHT NOW) on the beach, along a turquoise, super clear water with powdery sands :) 
Under an umbrella of course :p 
This is all about ocean, lagoon and tropical beach!

To do the clouds up left I use a BIG brush with a lot of water (you don't want to complete hide the sky).

For the horizon, as usual, I used my friend, the masking tape! (my hands aren't that steady :p )

This is a canvas 35" x 25" all protected already!


If you like it, or I will prefer, if you LOVE it...! You can find it on my little gallery:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeachStop
Or directly for the painting:
www.etsy.com/listing/124986608/beach-painting-ocean-painting-modern

One Love!

Anais

Tropical Beach Ocean Painting

Tropical Beach Sunset

To break with all this blue, I went for RED and ORANGE!

There's a really special area on this painting, on the wave, by the beach, where the sun meet the water and make it look like gold....

I invented the coconut trees coz my husband like them weird :s (well at least not perfect and ALL UNIQUE!).

I started by the sky first, then the mountains, the beach and the sea, I added the trees on top and finished by the shadows! 
For the mist over the water, I just used some paint with a lot of water!

This is an original acrylic painting on 30" x 20" canvas!

You can find this tropical beach sunset painting as usual on my little gallery:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BeachStop
 or directly the painting:
www.etsy.com/listing/124985305/beach-sunset-painting-seascape-painting

One Love!

Anais

Tropical Beach Sunset

Tropical Beach Paradise (Boracay)

For my second masterpiece :p (yes, yes!) I decided to go directly for what I love and what I know!

It is actually based on a real beach, a real picture... I know it because it is where I just got married :p ... one of the advantage of living under the tropics ^^

This is the beautiful island of Boracay. This was actually my rea first canvas ( not board canvas)  and as my friends say... it is crazy, the clouds are so believable!!! (well in my world they are believable... made of cotton candy no?!!) 

I decided to make a frame (so the happy future home will not have to frame it!). I helped myself with masking tape (same for the sea).

And this time I had no problem for the turquoise color coz I bought some in my trip to Vietnam :) (Yep some people buy souvenir.... I bought turquoise acrylic paint :p )

For the clouds, I painted it all in white first, then added with a lot water some of the colors matching the sky.

If I had to keep one painting out of all, that would be it!

You can find it on my little gallery:
www.etsy.com/listing/124982107/seascape-painting-tropical-beach

One Love!

Anais

Tropical Paradise