When I lived in DC, walking down a street during the cherry blossom season was like floating through pink and white clouds. At night, it’s so enchanting to watch the flowers dancing in the moonlight like little fairies.
You will see how easy it is to capture the magic in today’s tutorial on how to paint cherry blossoms on black paper, and create a night landscape of cherry blossoms shimmering in the moon light.
I used this method to paint these two paintings below as well. Once you get the basics, there are so many beautiful paintings you can make! ( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )
Materials and Tools to paint cherry blossoms on black paper:
- Black Cardstock like these
- acrylic paints and paint brushes:
- I like using soft watercolor brushes with a nice pointed tip like these
- , they are great for washes, and for finer details
- a dish to hold water for wetting and rinsing brushes
Step 1 : paint moon
Use a little diluted white paint and paint the first coat of the moon. Just mark where the shape is, don’t worry about getting it perfect. The beauty of acrylic paint is that it’s opaque and dries fast, which means wee can refine everything with more coats of paint.
Step 2: paint cherry blossoms on black paper
Now we start to paint cherry blossoms! Use a smaller brush and white paint, and paint each flower with five petals. Easy enough, right?
Since it’s a cherry tree we are painting, pay attention to the bigger shape formed by this group of flowers. I made a wavy form here, but feel free to improvise!
Related article: Paint beautiful watercolor flowers in less than 30 minutes!
Step 3:
Next, we bring in a golden yellow to the painting. It will give a warm glow to the moon, and make the flower centers pop.
Start at the center of the moon and gradually go outward to let the yellow fade into the first coat of white paint (which should be dry by now ). Add more coats of paint if needed.
Dip the tip of a small brush into thick yellow paint, and make a tiny dot in the center of each flower.
Step 4: paint cherry tree shape
Paint the silhouette of the tree trunk and branches by painting the sky around them with a thin coat of blue mixed with a little black and white. This will tone down the blue so it’s less saturated.
If you are nervous about getting the branches right, use a pencil and lightly draw some guidelines which can be erased later, or covered with paint.
Use the same grayish blue paint to paint the lake with horizontal strokes.
Step 5: paint moonlight reflections on lake
Paint the reflections of the moon on the lake with thin horizontal strokes of yellow and white. Now the painting begins to come alive.
Keep layering the paint a couple of times to make the color glow.
Step 6: paint cherry blossoms and petals falling
Part of the magic is the starry night and the flower petals falling.First we create the stars with the same splattering technique used in this easy and fun fall tree painting here .
By tapping a paint brush on a stick (or end of another brush ) we can create beautiful splatters!
Then we will add some falling blossoms in a few random places. This creates a sense of movement, which completes the dreamlike wonderland.
See? Painting isn’t too hard, right? =)
Now a little gift / craft project- make your own sets flower greeting cards with these free printable cards!
Make your own sets flower greeting cards with free printable cards!
If you love to try more easy painting projects, here are a few to choose from:
Make bubble paint Hydrangeas! No need to paint, really!
Happy painting!
Source: apieceofrainbow.com
