Month 8 Tutorial - Beach Dunes

Sarah Burns Studio X Craftamo
Gouache Subscription Box 8

Part 1: Unboxing, Materials & Color Mixing

Supplies

Materials in Box #8:

  • Paper
  • 2 brushes
    • #4 Round
    • #⅜" Dagger
  • 3 colors
    • Burnt Sienna,
    • Naples Yellow,
    • Primary White
I love painting sand dunes, mostly because it’s a great excuse to play with lots of dry brush layers (sand) and fun colors (grasses), and the beach setting invokes peace.

The color combinations here are just a few of many options, but I find it works great for sand dune scenes.

Part 2: Concept Sketch and Shadow Options 

I find it’s really helpful to practice some combinations of sand colors - try some with more yellow or more brown or pink. Add lots of white. More white than you think you might need at first. Usually it dries slightly darker.

For shadows you can experiment with purple vs. blue to see which works best with your sand color. A lot of it comes down to personal preference. I like to exaggerate my shadow colors a bit.


Let’s take a look at some color options for shadows. I photoshopped these shadows to demonstrate how it changes the feel of the scene (note that only the shadow color has changed).

Black:

Blue:

Purple:

You can decide what you like best, and make it even more exaggerated if you like.

Part 3: Demo 


My Final Painting from the Demo:

I hope you enjoyed this! See you next month.

What’s coming in Box #9

For Box 9 we are painting flowers!

Supplies included in Box 8:

  • Paper
  • 2 brushes
    • ¼” Dagger
    • #12 Cat’s Tongue
  • 3 Colors: 
    • Opera,
    • Permanent Yellow,
    • Cadmium Green Pale

Brush Care 

Never leave your brushes in water for too long. After rinsing, dry the hairs as best you can with a towel then let them dry on a flat surface. Leaving them in water for too long can cause the wood of the handle to swell, which can crack the handle coating. If that happens, the brush is still usable, just not as pretty! 

I usually clean mine with brush soap every few uses. You can find brush soap on the Craftamo website or any art store.

Community

Don’t forget to join my Discord chat server! You can share images of your sketches/painting and enjoy a sense of community. Or if you’d like to share your work with me on Instagram, use the hashtag #sarahburnstutor so I can find you.

Additional helpful resources:

Brand new to gouache? As you discover questions about gouache, I hope to answer as many as I can. For now, you can start with this blog post which goes very in-depth about what gouache is.

If you want even more instruction, I often post free tutorials on YouTube. Otherwise my Patreon is a great resource to learn even more. 

Additional suggested materials:

I use lots of different gouaches, papers, sketchbooks, and palettes for different purposes. You don’t need anything extra right now, except maybe paper as you will probably run out of that first. 

Craftamo sells extra paper (same as what is in the boxes) and it’s very affordable. 

Otherwise, I have lots of recommendations. I keep an updated list of all my favorite art supplies here.

How I use my different brushes: video

This video shows all the brush types you will receive over the course of the 12 month subscription. At the end of the video I show how to care for your brushes.