Inspiration for Oil Painting Sunrise

Video Transcript

"For something like a sunrise I strongly recommend you find a photograph or other inspiration in which to paint off of. Unfortunately sunrises are fleeting. It would be very, very difficult for you to go out and paint one, and have it stay the same long enough for you to get your painting done. And you also don't want the added pressure of having to get it done really, really fast before the light fades and changes and you just have a blue sky morning. So photographs for sunrises are fine. Don't think of it, it's not cheating, you're still capturing a moment in time, and you're then representing this on a canvas. Now there are some things that you should know, varying depending on what level of painting you are. If you're kind of more, you know you've been painting a while, you want to really do something challenging. I would really recommend going with some more complicate cloud forms, you can even have some things in the foreground, like here we have utility wires. This is a picture I took off my balcony a couple of years back. You can even have like some shadowed objects like cars. That's if you're kind of like, you really want a challenged, more advanced type of project. Doesn't have to be that complex. You can also go with something like this. Now this photograph is focusing a lot more on the sky, and the colors, and blending. I'm not saying those are easier than creating shadowed objects, but I think they are more intuitive. I mean there's a lot of really brilliant colors, you how they're separating themselves out on the eye here. You also still have some mountains at the bottom which you can even bring out more, extend downwards if you like. It's a nice way to put the earth in there but also not have it be overly complicated. You have to kind of find what works best for you. But I strongly recommend getting a photograph, a picture, something to base your sunrise painting off of before you put the paint on your canvas."