Painting a sunset with watercolors is a fantastic way to learn and improve your skills.
Sunsets come in a variety of colors so you can let your imagination soar and paint something you will love.
In this post we will learn how to paint a watercolor sunset using videos and written tutorials. All of these tutorials are great for beginners.
Then, we will explore some other ideas once we’ve got the hang of it!
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Watercolor supplies needed
How to paint a watercolor sunset in 7 steps
- Tape down your paper to prevent the paper from bending
- Wet the paper with clean water using your brush
- Take some yellow paint and draw wiggly lines at the bottom of the paper
- While the paint is still wet, draw some orange wiggly lines on top of the yellow
- Take some pink paint and dab wiggly lines in the middle of the paper
- Blend the pink into the yellow/orange
- Take a deep pink and dab it to the top of the paper. Blend it down to the bottom of the page.
Video Tutorials: How to paint a sunset with watercolors
YouTube is a fantastic source of watercolor painting tutorials. Here are a few artists that show you how to paint a watercolor sunset for beginners.
If you prefer to read instead of watching, here are some great step-by-step tutorials with pictures:
Written Tutorials: How to paint a sunset with watercolors

Art by Ro shows you step by step how to paint a watercolor sunset using Prima tropical watercolor paint.

In this tutorial by Ebb and Flow you will learn how to paint a sunset over the water using affordable watercolor paint like the Winsor and Newton Cotman brand.

In this tutorial you will be painting a rainbow colored sunset with trees and a boat on the water.

You'll learn how to paint a beautiful sunset over the water in this step-by-step tutorial from eHow.

In this tutorial you will learn how to paint a sunset that is part blue, part golden light. You will also learn how to paint watercolor tree silhouettes to round off your painting.

This simple watercolor sunset is not only easy to do but is a great way to practice wet into wet painting techniques and learn about drying times too.
Sunset Painting Ideas
If you’ve already painting a few sunsets and you’re just looking for some ideas and inspiration, take a look at these gorgeous ideas below:
I like the hard lines in the sunset. The artist used a wet on dry technique for this painting.
The artist used pink, blue, purple and yellow for this calming sunset scene.

This is a super simple sunset painting idea using pink, orange and yellow with three palm trees in the foreground.
This beautiful watercolor sunset with pastel colors was inspired by Kauai.

This sunset has more subdued colours. This style will look fantastic as wall art in your home.

This painting features a grey, pink, and yellow sunset with stones in the foreground. I love the colours in this one.

I hope you enjoyed these sunset painting ideas and tutorials! Will you be trying any of these? Let me know in the comments.









I love your sunsets. They are all different but beautiful.