Abstract Tropical Sunset Painting

Our summer has been busy so far and filled with lots of fun adventures.  My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary with a two week trip to Italy, the kids went to the mountains with their grandparents, and we just got home from a   beach trip with our family. My heart is so full, traveling is such a wonderful way to make extraordinary memories with the ones you love.  I can still hear my kids laughter ringing in my ears as I watched them crash through the waves. I can still see the wonder in their eyes as they quietly sat in the sand building sandcastles and I want to bottle up the pure joy as they ran down the beach collecting seashells as the sun set.  While we can’t stay at the beach forever maybe my new Abstract Tropical Sunset Painting will help remind me of those precious moments all summer long!

Now that we are home I wanted to capture those feelings and keep the memories of our great vacation alive.  I recently purchased the new DecoArt Americana Premium acrylic paint from Michaels and decided to use them to create a piece of art that reminds me of our tropical vacation and the memories we made. 

Now, to be completely honest painting scares me a little bit.  I don’t feel like I have any artistic talent, unless you consider drawing stick figures a talent.  But, lately I have been trying to push myself outside of my comfort zone and try new things.  Since these premium paints are similar to the Americana craft paints I already use and love I decided to jump in and try something different with this slightly elevated formula that is specifically designed to help take the intimidation factor out of fine art painting.

These paints are medium-bodied which means awesome coverage and they are easy to mix and blend.  I added a bunch of vibrant colors that reminded me of the beach and sunset to my paint pallet, took a deep breath and started.

I started by just brushing paint on the canvas working from top to bottom and layering colors to create my beach sunset.  Acrylic paint dries quickly, which makes it great for layering.  I just waited a couple of minutes for it to dry and then added new colors and layers directly on top.

To create a softer more subtle look I took a slightly damp paper towel and used that to blend the colors even further, making the vibrant sky disappear into the deep blue sea.

I used a stencil I had to create the rays of the sunshine just off to the left of the canvas.  I brushed the yellow paint over the stencil and then used my damp paper towel to extend the rays and seamlessly blend them into the horizon.  

I took a step back and decided I was pretty impressed with how my first attempt to actually paint something turned out.  I think it’s a pretty good representation of the beautiful sunset we enjoyed while on vacation at the beach.  

I’m going to put this abstract tropical sunset painting on display with some of the seashells my kids collected to remind me of the sweet summer memories our family made.  

How would you use the new DecoArt Americana Premium acrylic paint?  What memories would you capture on canvas?