Paint a beautiful Sunset Postcard in Watercolor


It’s a lovely idea to share the view from your house or backyard with your friends or relatives who might not be able to get out and about in this post-covid world. Have you had a sunset outside your home so incredible you just HAD to take a photo? Why not personalise that photo as a unique postcard and share it with your friends and family?

The supplies aren’t even hard to come by. Most art supply shops carry packages of 15 to 20 stiff, postcard-sized, watercolour papers that are pre-printed with address lines. Or it’s hardly difficult to cut your watercolor paper into 6 x 4 inch rectangles and if you want them to arrive unscathed, just pop them in an envelope.

Keep reading to find out how to Paint a beautiful Sunset Postcard in Watercolor.

Sunset Postcard Views

The idea of painting a postcard lends itself to limitless ideas for subjects, but today I decided to opt for a sunset theme.

As always, I kept my colors simple. I opted to use the Qor paints for my red and yellow (Pyrrole Red and Hansa Yellow Light) and to that I added Winsor and Newton Cobalt Blue, Lamp Black, Quinacridone Gold and Winsor Violet. Six colors are enough for most paintings if you pick the right ones.

I used fairly small brushes – a size 2, 5 and 7 round by Drawell, and a no. 3 rigger from ZenArt.

My postcards were by Guardi Artistico and they can be found online, but I would recommend for US customers the ones by Fabriano which are available from suppliers such as Dick Blick Click on this link to visit Dick Blick and buy direct. Strathmore cards are also good, find them here:

How to Paint a beautiful Sunset Postcard in Watercolor

I started by dividing my card into three sections using narrow washi tape. You could also use regular masking tape, but you’d have to cut it into thinner strips to give the correct width of border between the sections on the card. This would be fiddly but is not impossible!

You can use just one photo as inspiration, by choosing different sections for each little painting. Or, you can choose several similarly themed images. Or, three different images linked by a color theme. For this painting I found three sunsets using google and adapted them to fit.

Using quite small brushes I painted the three images in two layers, the under layer and then the details. Watch how I did it exactly on this video here:

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